Retribution

Answers

The raw emotional state of these men meant that the answers came swiftly. Confessions were muttered through tear-soaked lips, the relief of their being caught all too clear.

I tried not to speculate on the morality of these men. I had seen people do strange things when enough coin could line their pockets. Standards could vanish in the blink of an eye when a group was left to establish its own rules, far removed from the guiding lines of common society. I was not here to judge, not yet, just looking for answers.

And they came soon enough.

Every month for decades, ever since the island had been in operation, children had been killed to please the ancient god Hymound, the ‘King of the Multitudes’. The cult out here was extreme, a faction based on a much older and debased form of the religion, one which thrived with less violent elements on the mainland. Those involved took their faith every bit as seriously as I did with Polla.

The cult was deeply connected to the land, and concerned itself with blood and renewal. Omens were to be found in the passage of birds. The weather was scrutinized for signs and animal entrails were studied assiduously. Entrails offered guidance — and out here human intestines were more reliable. The youngest member of our current cohort of prisoners was a former child labourer, and attributed his position of authority to his dedication to Hymound.

Throughout the painstaking interviews the men spoke with passion. There were outbursts amid the mumbled, often contradictory, pieces of evidence. When pressed on what Hymound offered them, the response was always the same. Immortality. The opportunity to endure.

A special child was burned ceremonially every month in the brass bull. Or, more specifically, they forced children to burn their kin. The chosen one’s ashes rose into the sky to be welcomed by Hymound — it was an honour, the captives claimed, and many children were glad to be relieved of their lives in the mines. As these offerings lived on in the heavens, it was assumed their sacrifice would hasten the discovery of more evum on the island.

Children were taken, over the years, out of the orphanages and brought on ships in the dead of night. Many of the men did not know who was responsible for acquiring or transporting the children — they just arrived — but I could guess who might be involved. It was even said that one of the wealthy donors offered up their own son in an effort to satisfy the gods so that they could be rewarded with their evum much sooner — such was their desperation, such was the difficulty in finding pockets of evum on this island.

The lengths people would go to in order to extend their lives.

I pushed for names. In the heat of the moment, I felt I had no reservations about inflicting any torture upon them — there was no civilization out here, and all my standard rules were irrelevant. However, the threat of Leana’s blade was enough with these dejected men.

The names came forth.

Lydia Marinus. Grendor of the Cape. Bishop Tahn Valin. The Kahn brothers. They had all been part of the scheme. They were all abusing children and using them for material and metaphysical gain. But there were far more names. Presumably the killers could not have known them all and had murdered those they could get to. Other individuals involved in this island’s despicable operation might have tried hard to keep their influence to a minimum. Either way these names would be issued to Sulma Tan and the queen. Their investigation would have to continue into the furthest reaches of their culture.

The operation existed to harvest the mineral known by several names. Evumite. Redstone. Bloodstone. Life-giver. There were local names, too. This, combined with some of the strange word-hybrids in their syntax, indicated that people had been isolated here for so long that their language had evolved. I had no doubt that those in charge of the operation would have gone to any lengths to keep the workers here for ever. It would have been too much of a risk to take them back to the mainland.

Evumite, they claimed, was able to extend life and grant special powers at times; when pressed on what these powers were, they could not say. As they spoke I wondered if such powers had been the reason why the bodies of those murdered on the mainland had stirred in some way — that there was still some strange form of life within them.

The precious mineral was available in incredibly rare quantities, located in isolated pockets buried deep underground. Very little ever made it to the mainland. Everyone who worked here, who was no longer a child, and who had proved themselves during five years of service, was permitted a small lump of evumite as payment for their trouble. A charitable gesture, the captives claimed. The longer those people served, the more evumite they might be given. The man I thought was in his fifties said he was eighty-four years old and had worked here since he was eleven.

Children had been shipped to the island simply to work the mines. They were small enough to fit through the tiny tunnels that formed a vast system underground. Those who made it to adulthood were either disappeared or employed to inflict torture on others. Evumite was so difficult to find that the operation perhaps produced a fistful a year at first, but the more sacrifices that were made, the more successful the mines had become. These offerings to the gods, no matter how shocking, were working according to the needs of the island. The captives before me could not even contemplate that the success might have been purely coincidental.

What happened on Evum was not just the workings of the ancient cult of Hymound, as I had first thought. It was also a self-sustaining business operation organized by some of the wealthiest people in Koton — largely traditionalists and people who secretly worshipped the old gods. Money and donations came to fund it in exchange for evumite, and the chance to live forever. Lydia Marinus had been the backbone of the operation, donating a great deal of mining equipment.

Sulma Tan was shocked as she read the names I had taken down, and confirmed their position high up in Kotonese society. She had no doubt the queen would want them purged. We could only speculate on how many of these stones had made their way throughout Vispasia over the years.

Later I sat slumped against a wall as grasses stirred in the breeze and the evening sun began to fade from the skies. In the distance was the sound of the sea, calming and rhythmic. Leana remained quietly beside me, neither of us wanting to engage in much conversation. For the first time in weeks I felt at peace, though I suspected I was in some state of disbelief, or simply too numb to process what I had seen.

‘We like to think we’re not primitive people, we Kotonese,’ one soldier remarked to me as he passed by, ‘but look at us. We still use human blood for pleasing the gods. We’re still barbarians.’ His crestfallen expression, which was shared by others here, suggested that they felt the burden of the discovery. It had been a betrayal of their own nation, of everything they had stood for. He reached under the neckline of his tunic and produced a Nastran symbol upon a chain. ‘Don’t think bad of us, sir. Not everyone worships Hymound.’

A simple nod, thin-lipped, was all I could muster as he walked away. Contemplating the legality of the matter, I began to pen an urgent missive to the Sun Chamber in Free State, which I would deliver as soon as we were back on the mainland.

Such practices as human sacrifice had been outlawed at the creation of the Vispasian Royal Union, two centuries ago. Indeed, it was written into the constitution of each member nation and, for as long as anyone could remember, only animals could be used in blood offerings on altars across the continent.

Children, though.

Not just humans, but lives terminated before they had the chance to blossom into something great.

As I questioned the men, soldiers continued to round up prisoners from various pockets of the island. I saw them returning with more figures chained in a line, their hands raised above their heads. At first I felt that these could be interrogated in the morning, but something struck me as odd, so I walked over to meet them.

‘Where are the children?’ I demanded of the soldiers. ‘They couldn’t have all been burned.’

‘We’ve not found any, sir,’ one replied. Behind him the line of prisoners was being marched to the side of the building alongside the others. ‘This lot said they’ve all been put down. Burnt.’

‘They’re lying. Go back and find them.’

‘It’s getting dark, sir. An hour of light left at the most.’

‘Go back,’ I repeated. ‘Take torches to light and go back. Search every building on the island. Go underground — that’s where some of them will be. We’re not leaving this island until we have secured their freedom. They’ve suffered long enough. Any survivors will be taken back to the mainland.’

He stared at me blankly.

‘Do it!’

‘Sir.’

Dispiritedly, they reorganized themselves. After hearing me, another eight men volunteered their services and a moment later they all marched off with unlit torches.

Back in our makeshift camp, someone had lit a large fire away from the prisoners. The smell of cooking drifted towards me and I trudged over to the others without much of an appetite.

‘Do you honestly think they will find any of them?’ Sulma Tan asked, rising to greet me.

‘I do not think anything,’ I replied. ‘This is simply the right thing to do. For far too long on this island there has been a shortage of this sentiment.’

Glowing in the light of the fire, her tired, worn gaze met my own. Respectfully, she added, ‘I am not so sure I could be in the Sun Chamber, if this is what you have to deal with all the time.’

‘It isn’t always this bad.’

‘I am horrified,’ she said. ‘The queen will be horrified, too. Everything she has been trying to build in her country has been undermined by the people closest to her. This is not how it was meant to be.’

‘Then the queen needs to choose better friends in future,’ was all I could manage in response.