‘This is not the reception I was expecting,’ he told the woman.
‘We are not yet at the house. Come.’ She urged him onwards.
Uneasy, but unable to pin down his suspicions, he followed, warily. The path led to a wide valley, cultivated with fields. Workers, perhaps the more healthy of the isle’s inhabitants, could be seen hoeing and scraping the stony soil. Beyond rose a structure of dressed bluish native stone – the Temple of Poliel, goddess of pestilence and illness.
The woman calmly walked on and Heboric was beginning to suspect that he had fallen in with one of the priestesses of the house. ‘I will be welcome?’ he asked. ‘I do not wish to trespass.’
‘All visitors to this isle are welcome. You may make your petition before the altar.’
He bowed to the woman. ‘Thank you. You have some authority here, I take it?’
The woman paused as if surprised. Her liquid brown eyes regarded him with humour. ‘Some.’ She urged him on with the hand that was no more than a stump.
The entry to the Temple of Poliel possessed no door; it stood as an open archway of stone. Shabby ragged figures lined each wall, every one of them hardly more than bundles of sticks. Outstretched arms ending in bone or rotting pus-filmed flesh beseeched Heboric. He could not help but cringe from them as he and his escort passed up the hall between.
Another, inner archway opened on to a broad central courtyard paved in stone. Across its expanse rose the central sanctum, tall and domed, the dwelling of Poliel herself. The woman paused in the archway, gesturing ahead. ‘Here the children of Poliel once congregated, having sworn pilgrimage to her presence. Now it stands empty, awaiting the devoted.’
Sighing, she turned to continue on and Heboric followed. ‘Passage to the isle is difficult,’ he suggested.
‘No more so now than before.’
Again, a third entranceway stood as an open undoored arch. A pillared hall, thick with hanging layers of incense, lay before them. Here, at least, sat a crowd of worshippers. And within the enclosed space, despite the cloying scented incense, the rank stink of rotting flesh and voided fluids was enough to make Heboric pause and determinedly force down the rising gorge of his stomach.
The woman at his side, however, walked forward without pause. She stepped over huddled shapes, either dead or near to it; Heboric could not tell as he followed her. They approached the altar and its shape both fascinated and repelled him, for it was carved in a human form, slightly larger than life, reclining, yet contorted in agony – presumably the agony of a deathly illness.
He turned to ask what next of the presumed priestess, but she walked on, climbed the dais, settled herself languidly upon the starvation-hollowed stomach of the humanoid altar, set chin on stump, and silently regarded him. Amusement now played openly upon her large brown eyes.
Quite chagrined, Heboric fell to one knee, then, thinking better of that, went even further to lie flat upon his stomach, offering full obeisance despite the sticky layer of dried blood and other bodily evacuations upon the stones.
‘And what,’ asked the goddess, ‘can Poliel do for Heboric, chosen of Fener?’
He slowly rose, but kept his gaze downcast. ‘O goddess, I believe I have been quite frank. You know what I wish.’
‘Indeed you have been quite frank. And so too shall I be. You are correct in surmising that this most recent affliction shares no origins with me.’
‘Then … who? If I may ask.’
‘Another.’
‘Another,’ he repeated. ‘I … see. Why? I mean, who would dare?’
‘Why? A demonstration, no doubt.’
‘A demonstration. I see. To what end – if I dare ask.’
‘To what end? Why, power, of course.’
‘Power. And your answer to this?’
‘I am … considering.’
A wave of dizziness took Heboric then, and he pressed a hand to his brow, finding it hot and sweaty. He suddenly felt quite poorly. ‘Apologies, m’lady,’ he stammered, ‘but I feel … unwell.’
The goddess eased out of the throne and came down to him. ‘You have been too long in my presence.’ She brushed one rotted remnant of a hand across his forehead and pain lanced him there. He weaved upon his feet, hardly able to stand.
‘You have been marked for a great fate, Heboric,’ she murmured. ‘And I admit I was curious to meet you. The next step in that fate may be found in Li Heng. Try to remember that, Heboric. Heng. For if you recall anything else of this audience, you will dismiss it as a fever dream.
‘Now,’ she breathed, ‘you must go.’ She touched the tip of one diseased finger to his forehead and an explosion of agony blasted him into darkness.
He awoke lying in the wash of waves. He pushed himself up on one arm and promptly vomited up the thin contents of his knotted stomach. Groaning and wiping his mouth, he peered about, groggy.
He was on the mainland shore of the shallow crossing to the Isle of the Blessed. He must have passed out when some sort of sickness took him. He pressed a hand to his fever-hot brow. What a fool he’d been, thinking of attempting that pestilential isle! Who knew what contagion or disease surrounded it? Obviously, something of its fetid air had already infected him before he’d even managed the crossing.
A timely lesson, he decided. His arrogance may yet be the undoing of him.
The hermit ascetics in the hills south of Li Heng – that was where he should go. They had dedicated their lives to religious study. If he were to find any answers, it would be there – not here on this island of the wretched. Merely being ill didn’t make you holy!
He strove to rise to his feet, paused, then clutched his stomach as his bowels exploded in a hot wet gush. He sank back into the frigid water, whimpering.
* * *
Orjin Samarr was at his usual post on the south catwalk peering gloomily over the pointed logs of the fire-treated palisade wall when a messenger came scrambling up the ladder, followed by his escort, Terath.
The squat hill-man touched his brow, bowing his head. ‘M’lord, forward scouts have them sighted. Their van is entering the pass.’
Orjin rubbed his unshaven cheeks. ‘About bloody time.’ He squinted up to the high slopes. ‘Four days? Who in Hood’s name is in charge over there?’ He nodded to the messenger. ‘That’s captain, by the way. My regards to Prevost Jeral. Remember – the baggage train! Hit the train.’
The hill-man touched his brow once more. ‘Yes, captain, m’lord,’ then he scrambled off.
Orjin eyed Terath dubiously. ‘What are they up to?’
The Untan duellist drew off her helmet and ran a hand through her brush-cut sweaty hair. Orjin thought her very handsome but for her habitual expression of sour disapproval of everything before her. ‘Taking their time,’ she judged.
‘Damned foolish decision.’
‘In your view,’ she answered; she was second in command, officer-trained, and saw it as her duty to test her commander’s views. ‘They think these forces beaten already. Why rush?’
He shrugged. ‘Gives the enemy time to organize.’
‘You don’t understand, Orjin. They don’t consider the Purge military a real threat.’
He regarded the south once more. ‘Well,’ he mused, ‘I’m not of Purge.’
‘That’s for sure. You’re from some rotten little fishing village, right?’
‘I wouldn’t even call it a village.’ He gestured her to her post. ‘Looks like a dusk attack. Get everyone ready.’
The Untan duellist saluted smartly, hand to chest. ‘Aye aye.’ Watching her go, Orjin wondered once again what might have taken her from Unta; clearly she missed the city, her friends and family. Her silences and obvious discomfort when talk among Orjin’s troop came to love interests – who was currently chasing or pining for whom – made him suspect that an unhappy romance was involved in her quitting the city.
It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a bad love affair had driven someone to run away and join the military, mercenary company or not.