‘What did I do to deserve this?’
Asper had asked that question before, of the same God, on her first night in the temple. She had knelt before his image, carved in stone instead of silver, far from the loving embrace of her father and mother, far from the place she had once called home. She had knelt, alone, and asked the God she was supposed to worship.
‘Why?’
And Talanas had sent Taire.
‘Because,’ the young girl who was always smiling had spoken from the back of the chapel, ‘someone has to.’
And Taire had knelt beside her, before the God that seemed, in that instant, better than any parent. Talanas was loving, cared for all things, sacrificed Himself so that humans might know what death was, what sickness was, and how to avert them. Talanas cared for His priests as much as He did His followers, and in the instant Taire had smiled at her, Asper knew that Talanas cared for them both, as well.
‘Has to what?’ she had asked the girl then.
‘Has to do it,’ Taire had replied.
‘Do what?’
‘That’s why we’re here,’ the girl had replied, reaching out to tap the brown-haired girl on the nose before they both broke down into laughter.
‘I don’t deserve this,’ Asper whispered, broken upon the forest floor. ‘I didn’t do anything to deserve this.’ She raised her left arm, stared at it as it grinned beneath its pinkness, knowing it would be unleashed again. ‘You gave this to me.’
She rose to her knees, thrust her left hand at the pendant as though it were proof.
‘You did. It isn’t what I wanted. I. . I wanted to help people.’ She felt her tears sink into her mouth as she clenched her teeth. ‘I want to help people.’
‘To serve mankind,’ Taire had said as they flipped through the pages of the book. ‘To mend the bones, to heal the wound, to cure the illness.’
‘What for?’ Asper had asked.
‘You’re weird, you know that?’ Taire had stuck out her tongue. ‘Who else is going to do it?’
‘Talanas?’
‘You don’t pay attention during hymn, do you? Humanity was given a choice: free will or bliss. We chose free will and so it’s up to us to take care of ourselves. Or rather, it’s up to us, His faithful, to take care of everyone else.’
‘Why would anyone not choose bliss?’
‘Huh?’
‘I would forsake free will in a heartbeat if it meant I didn’t have to feel pain any more, if I didn’t have to cry any more.’
‘Well, stupid, you’d be a slave, then.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘What’s wrong. .’ Taire had sputtered, looking incredulous. ‘What would be the point of life if you never knew pain? How would you even know you were alive?’
Asper had felt pain. Asper had felt Taire’s pain, that night in the dormitories. Asper had felt it as her friend begged and she could do nothing about it. Asper had felt it for the years after, as she had grown up, told herself it was an accident, told herself that she needed to atone for it by following Talanas.
‘Well, I have followed you,’ she whispered to the pendant. ‘And you’ve led me to nothing. I. . I always wondered if I was doing good, being amongst these heathens. Never once did I suspect I was doing wrong.’ Her tears washed away the blood on the silver. ‘Never, you hear me?
‘But what am I supposed to do with this?’ She grabbed her arm, its sleeve long since destroyed. ‘What good can come from this? From leaving nothing to bury? From robbing someone of everything? What good?’
The pendant said nothing.
‘Answer me,’ she whispered.
The wind shifted. The pendant shrugged.
‘Answer me!’
She turned her arm, levelled its fingers at her throat.
‘If you’re there, if you’re listening, you’ll tell me why I shouldn’t just turn this on myself and end it all.’ She shook her arm. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll do the one good thing I can with this arm.’
A tear of salt leaked past its beak. The pendant yawned. She looked around furtively, found a hefty brown stone. She pulled it up, raised it above her head, fingers trembling as she aimed it over the pendant.
‘This,’ she said, shaking the rock. ‘This is real. This rock is real. Are you?’ she snarled at the pendant. ‘Are you? If you are, you’ll tell me why I shouldn’t just destroy you. If you aren’t, you end with this pendant. All you are is silver … just a chunk of metal.’ She growled. ‘A chunk of metal with three breaths. One.’
The pendant did not do anything.
‘Two.’
The pendant stared at her through hollow eyes.
‘Three!’
The rock fell, rolled along the earth to bump against the trunk of a tree that loomed over a brown-haired girl, crumpled before a mossy altar, clenching her left arm with tears streaming down her face as a chunk of metal looked upon her with pity.
Thirty-Three
‘So,’ Denaos spoke loudly to be heard over the sound of hammering, ‘why the sudden interest in the fairer sex?’
Lenk paused and looked up from his duty of nailing wood over their wrecked boat’s wound, casting his companion a curious stare.
‘Sudden?’ he asked.
‘Oh, apologies.’ The rogue laughed, holding up a hand. ‘I didn’t mean to suggest you liked raisins in your curry, if you catch my meaning.’
‘I. . really don’t.’
‘Well, I just meant you happened to be all duty and grimness and agonising about bloodshed up until this point.’ Denaos took a swig from a waterskin as he leaned on the vessel’s railing. ‘You know, like Gariath.’
‘Does. . Gariath like raisins in his curry?’
‘I have no idea if he even eats curry.’ Denaos scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘I suppose he’d probably like it hot, though.’
‘Yeah, probably.’ Lenk furrowed his brow. ‘Wait, what does that mean?’
‘Let’s forget it. Anyway, I’m thrilled to advise you on the subject, but why choose now, in the prime of your imminent death, to start worrying about women?’
‘Not “women”, exactly, but “woman”.’
‘A noble endeavour,’ Denaos replied, taking another swig.
‘Kataria.’
There was a choked sputter as Denaos dropped the skin and put his hands on his knees, hacking out the droplets of water. Lenk frowned, picking up another half-log and placing it upon the companion vessel’s hole.
‘Is it that shocking?’ the young man asked, plucking up a nail.
‘Shocking? It’s immoral, man.’ The rogue gestured wildly off to some direction in which the aforementioned female might be. ‘She’s a shict! A bloodthirsty, leather-clad savage! She views humanity,’ he paused to nudge Lenk, ‘of which you are a part, I should add, as a disease! You know she threatened to kill me back in Irontide?’
‘Yeah, she told me.’ Lenk began to pound the nail.
‘And?’
‘And what?’ He glanced up and shrugged. ‘She didn’t actually kill you, so what’s the harm?’
‘Point taken,’ the rogue said, nodding glumly. ‘Still, that’s the sort of thing you’re lusting after here, my friend. Say the Gods get riotously drunk and favour your union, say you’re wed. What happens when you leave the jam out overnight or don’t wear the pants she’s laid out for you? Do you really want to risk her making a necklace out of your sack and stones every time she’s in a mood?’