Farlander

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Cull The night lay brooding in its own heat.

At the centre of the Lake of Birds, the imperial barge rocked gently, far from the distant lights of the towns that glittered around its shoreline. A jangle of music could be heard from those towns across the still water, and shouts and laughter, and the barking of dogs.

On the barge itself the only sound was the whispering of the slaves and the steady, heartbeat rhythm of a single drum. The atmosphere was unreal, heavy. The Nathalese slaves could sense it, huddling terrified together in their cages at the near end of the barge. They knew at last why they had been abducted so roughly from their everyday lives along the Toin. Tonight was to be their last night of captivity.

Above the rank stench of the slaves themselves, the air was pungent with musky incense wafting from the prow of the vessel, where the two priests, naked, stood, attended by their personal servants. Their bare flesh shone in the glow of several burning braziers, glistening with the oil that had been lavishly applied by their attendants. Two of the Nathalese slaves already lay prone at that end of the barge. A third had finally stopped screaming, and even now was crumpling to the deck, whether alive or dead they could not tell.

An Acolyte motioned quickly for another slave to be dragged forward. Most of the Nathalese captives protested, cowering at the rear of the cage as the guards kicked their way through to snatch one of them with rough hands. This time they seized a middle-aged woman, whose fine silk dress was stained and torn from her long captivity. She did not resist. She did not even appear to be aware of them. By her side, a young red-haired woman cried out and clung to her companion's arm.

An Acolyte kicked the younger woman aside so that she shrank back, whimpering. Before they pulled the older woman out of the cage, they tore the expensive jewellery from her neck and cast it at her feet, where it sparkled next to the length of chain shackled around her ankles. The other slaves watched with varying degrees of empathy, though primarily with relief that they too had not been chosen. Shame hung heavy within the cage: they could barely meet each other's eyes.

But the woman was not as helpless as she had first appeared. As the Acolytes began to lead her away, she stumbled and broke free from their grasp, making a sudden shuffling sprint for the rail at the near side of the barge. One of the Acolytes tried to restrain her, but a fraction too late. She pitched over the side, crashing into the water with a terrific splash, then vanished instantly as she was pulled down to her death by the shackles fixed around her ankles.

The red-headed girl whimpered as she watched her mother disappear over the rail. It was a pitiful, animal sound that came from Rianna's throat, but it was all the emotion she had left in her.

She failed even to notice as her quaking hands tugged fistfuls of hair from her bleeding scalp. Her mind had detached itself from the physical, though it was still capable of thought, in a way. It was thinking: now my mother is dead, and my father is dead, my dear beloved Marth is dead, and I am dead, and everything everything everything is dead.

'Oh Ers!' she cried out in her head, seized by the sudden image of her mother struggling for breath down there in the freezing black depths of the lake. Oh mother, oh dear mother…

To stop thinking of that awful thing, she began to crack her skull against the bars of the cage, over and over again. A woman by her side tried to offer comfort by wrapping her arm around the girl's shoulders. Making soothing sounds, she squeezed tighter and tighter, as though to stop both of them from rattling apart with fear.

Do the same with yourself, some residual part of Rianna's mind spoke to her. Throw yourself into the water as soon as they release you.

No, said another voice, you don't deserve such a clean death. They're all dead because of you… because you caught that young priest's eye with your look of defiance, and made him want you.

'Mother,' she croaked aloud, and everything cracked loose inside of her. She needed to get away from this nightmare. She needed to wake up from it all, and flee back to the world she knew as her own.

In a way her wish was granted her. She passed out, and descended into a sweet blackness.

*

When she came to, apparently not much later, she was still huddled against the bars amid her fellow prisoners. Rianna choked as the horror returned to her. She tried to breathe, spluttering for air.

She might have broken then, lost her mind entirely, had she not noticed how her hand was clutching something slung around her neck.

Without thinking, she used her other hand to pry open her bone-white fingers, gazing down at the object in her grip. The seal, she realized, staring dumbfounded, an item all but overlooked until now. It was the seal her father had bought for her on her sixteenth birthday, worrying as always over the safety of his family.

Rianna had been appalled when her father had first forced her to wear it. The thing was just as hideous to look at as it was to touch. She had been even more horrified to awaken that first night to find it breathing and alive against her chest.

But her father was adamant. I am High Priest of this city, my daughter, he had reminded her. Many would like to see me dead, and if they cannot get to me personally, they may still get to my family. You must wear this always, if only for your own protection.

She had argued with him, complaining how awful it looked, and then howled that it wasn't fair, because he didn't have to wear one – nor did mother, so why should she? But still he would not be swayed. Your mother follows my example, he had explained. The order of Mann does not allow me to wear such a thing. It would be seen as a weakness, and he waited on her bed until her tears had run their course.

Look after it, he had cautioned her. It is bonded to you now – and if it perishes then so shall you.

She had been petrified at that thought of being linked so inseparably to this ugly thing. With ill grace she agreed to wear it always, though always she had tried to hide it beneath her clothing. That had made her father angry, claiming it was no deterrent if she kept it hidden from sight.

But would such a talisman stop these priests from Q'os? Rianna wondered now, as the seal pumped in her hand like a living thing. A seal was a seal, was it not? Surely even these priests of Mann would be made to pay for her death like anyone else?

It was a chance at life, she realized, and she felt wretchedly guilty as she thought this.

But then, what if she tore the thing off and let it fall unnoticed to the deck? The seal did not have to actually be worn to be aware of her death; it was connected to her now, no matter how far away it found itself. What if she hid it from sight, and just let them have their way with her? What if she had the strength to do such a thing as that? If they took her life, a vendetta might be declared. Revenge for her loved ones would surely be exacted on these animals.

Rianna moaned aloud, doubting she would have the courage for such a sacrifice.

Suddenly the choices before her were almost worse than the hopelessness she had faced before. Rianna was frozen with indecision, and on the verge of losing her mind.

But then they came for her.

*

'Quiet!' the masked Acolyte shouted, dragging her on her back to the far end of the deck.

'Wait!' she cried out. 'I'm protected, you see?'

But the Acolyte could not see, for it was too dark and he was too fevered with the rising excitement in the air. He threw her to the planking alongside one of the large braziers, and she saw a glint of steel as a knife came out.

The man ran it along her back, cutting her dress open from neck to waist. He pinned her struggling to the deck with a knee pressed painfully between her shoulder blades. Another Acolyte approached, bearing something in a clear-glass jar. He bent down to her face, showing her that it held some kind of worm: a fat and sickly-white atrocity wriggling for release from its glass prison.

'Wait!' she tried again, as the Acolyte tilted the jar and pressed its open end against her bare spine.

She cursed her father then, cursed him with all the passion she had left in her, for ever getting his family involved with these people, this obscene religion. What had he been thinking of? What crimes such as this had he himself committed in the name of Mann?

Rianna screamed: the pain was beyond bearing. But what was worse, much worse, was the sensation of the worm burying its way into her flesh.

The Acolytes released their pressure, and Rianna tried to fling herself upright, her hands scrabbling at the open wound in her back. A finger worked its way into it, seeking out the intruder.

Then something unexpected happened: all strength in her limbs deserted her. She collapsed back on to the deck, beside the three other slaves already lying there, panting helplessly, only the whites of their eyes showing. Rianna found herself unable to move or speak. All she could do was watch what happened next.

More slaves were fetched forward, and a worm was given to each one in turn. Soon, a dozen of them lay sprawled and paralysed on the deck. An atmosphere of panic increased with the slowly rising tempo of the single drum. The two priests watched the gathering number of victims with lustful excitement in their eyes. They exchanged words with each other as they stroked their own bodies, and occasionally inhaled deeply from a steaming bowl of some kind of liquid narcotic, the fine-linked golden chains of their facial piercings dangling just above its surface.

It began with the killing of a single slave, an elderly man with cataracts in his eyes; the priest woman, naked, her empty, sagging breasts swinging low as she bent over and took a knife to him.

Immediately, the atmosphere intensified to a higher pitch. It was as though the priestess had pierced more than a mere physical barrier by the work of her knife, but breached an abstract one too: a skin of the world that stretched over all life, shielding normal eyes from an outer reality devoid of humanity, boundless and alien. The dying man's squeals pierced the night air. The paralysed slaves saw the fate in store for them, as he lay on the deck quivering and gurgling his last breath, bubbles of blood forming on his lips. This slaying, though, was purely the opening act.

The old woman turned and spoke to the younger priest, Kirkus, who stood trembling and staring at the knife in her bloody hands. The priestess snapped her gaze towards a young girl to Rianna's left, pinning her with a glare. 'Up,' said the old woman, with a flick of her head.

Suddenly the girl was able to move. She clambered to her feet – then without warning, she sprinted for the rail.

'Stop!' snapped the old witch. The girl collapsed to her knees, her legs suddenly gone from under her.

'Now, you try,' the old priestess instructed her grandson.

Kirkus fixed his attention on a fat man still clad in the bloodstained apron of a butcher. 'Come here!' he commanded.

The butcher grunted as he sat upright. He looked to the far rail, then to Kirkus before he rose unsteadily to his feet. Growling deep in his throat, he suddenly leapt at the young priest, moving fast despite the bulk of him. 'Stop!' commanded Kirkus, but the man already had a grasp around his neck as his legs collapsed, and he dragged Kirkus down with him.

'Focus, you idiot,' chided the old woman by his side.

Kirkus choked and struggled harder to break free.

'Cease,' snapped the priestess.

The fat butcher released his grip and fell to his knees, palms pressed against the deck, roaring his defiance at the planking in front of his nose.

'I suspect this one was once a soldier,' observed the old woman.

'I know,' replied Kirkus with irritation, massaging his bruised neck. 'He has a tattoo there, on his upper arm.'

'Ah,' she observed. 'A Nathalese marine.'

She stepped lightly behind the old veteran. She fixed her claws against the sides of his head, yanking it back so that he straightened up on to his knees. 'Your eyes,' she suggested into his ear. 'Pluck out your eyes.'

The man spat words of outrage. Still, his hands lifted involuntarily from his sides and rose towards his face. They trembled under an inner struggle of will, but he could not stop them as his fingers curled deep into the sockets of his eyes, and wrenched.

He made a rasping sound but, incredibly, did not scream as his eyeballs popped out like small boiled eggs from their sockets, and fell dangling against his cheeks.

'More like a fat pig for the slaughter,' she said, letting him drop back to the deck.

Kirkus indulged in another loud inhalation from the bowl of narcotics. The old woman moved to his side, stroked his stomach.

Rianna watched with eyes wide. Inside her head she was screaming.

'Do as you please,' said the witch to the young man, her voice husky. 'Tonight you must shed all qualms of conscience still lingering within you.'

The young priest hesitated. He studied the slaves arrayed upon the deck, then turned away again to draw in another breath from the steaming bowl.

'Work yourself up to it,' the old crone suggested. 'We have all night. As I said, do as you please.'

His eyes fell on Rianna, and she tried to look away. But her body was not hers any longer: her eyes would not close for more than a blink.

He passed the bowl to the priestess, then stepped towards Rianna. No sound would come from her throat.

Eager hands ripped away the remnants of her dress. His face was a mask as he stared at the rise and fall of her white breasts, at her nipples stiffened by fear. The seal still rested between her breasts, pulsating as it always did. He fixed his gaze on it, puzzled at first, and then a cool understanding followed.

He bared his teeth, and snapped them at her. At first, she thought he was trying to bite her, but instead he ripped the seal away with an angry jerk. He spat it into the flames of the brazier.

'The flesh is strong,' breathed the young priest foully upon her face.

But by then, Rianna was already dying.