Soul Jar: A Jubal Van Zandt Novel Page 12

  As soon as I stepped outside, I was blasted with cold and wet. An icy gale had rolled in off the water, spitting acid sleet and salty freezing rain.

  Luckily the car I’d ordered was waiting at the curb. Warm, wrackrath smoke-scented air billowed out into the night as we climbed into the backseat. A NO SMOKING sign was plastered across the opaque partition, next to the speaker.

  I hit the button. “The old salt plant.”

  The speaker crackled. “You got it.”

  The driver swung us out into the blur of speeding traffic, setting a pace that didn’t seem to account for the slick conditions and limited visibility. I buckled up.

  SEVENTEEN:

  Carina

  Yisu listened to Miyo with a combination of overwhelming distrust and the faintest glimmer of unwilling hope.

  Excitement coursed through Carina’s iron stomach. This was the precipice, the delicate moment. If she pushed just right, Yisu would become Miyo’s ally. If she pushed wrong, Yisu would close herself off to Miyo forever and maybe never trust another human.

  But before Yisu could respond or Carina could push, the distant sawing of waterbike motors cut through the darkness.

  Yisu jumped, her aquamarine eyes wide and bright in the moonlight.

  It was too soon for the men to return. Miyo knew this because she had been sending the men of her tribe off and receiving them back since the day she was taken into the priestesshood. Carina knew this because she’d spent the better part of her early knighthood repelling skinner raids from converted and not-quite-converted-but-Guild-allied pagan villages along the eastern front. Raids generally took place in the smallest hours before dawn. The raiding party swooped through, surprising the sleeping village and dragging off as many able bodies as they could, along with any food or desirable supplies.

  Carina was surprised.

  Miyo was surprised.

  Yisu was not surprised. Carina could read it in the fractional drawing down of the corners of her mouth, the dilation of her pupils. It wasn’t shock on Yisu’s face, it was fear. The instinct to shout, “I didn’t do anything, I swear!” when in fact the whole thing had been her doing.

  The Blood of Envishtu. Yisu’s twist ingredient that had surprised the apothecary. The apothecary thought she was a genius, god-blessed. She could’ve been mixing potions unsupervised for years, building the apothecary’s trust. She could’ve added anything to the Blood while the old woman wasn’t looking.

  Here Yisu sat alone, outside in the middle of the night. She’d been waiting for the fallout.

  It was on the tip of Miyo’s tongue to ask Yisu what she’d done, but Carina held Miyo back. Yisu’s guard had been thrown up again. Any inquiry now would be seen as an accusation by the tribe’s high priestess, not as a question from a friend.

  Hurry, Miyo! You must receive the raiding party! It’s your job!

  Objective: Get to the raiding party.

  Miyo pushed herself to her feet, took a few steps back, then ran and jumped to the pole. She landed safely on the next porch, then crossed to the next pole. Behind her, she could hear the soft footfalls of another teenage girl. The girl with the aquamarine eyes.

  Poling was harder in the dark. Some poles seemed farther away, others seemed closer. But Carina had gone on high alert, and she made the adjustments as needed. She went just fast enough that Yisu had to work to keep up, and just slow enough that Miyo wouldn’t fall into the water and find herself returned to some heartbreakingly distant checkpoint where the game had last autosaved.

  By the time she and Yisu reached the other side of the village, the rest of the women were awake, coming out onto their porches with cranklights, and poling across the village to get to their men.

  Below, men shouted to the women for help and light. A few heavy male bodies sloshed through the swamp water, supporting a limp form between them.

  Carina did a quick count of waterbikes. Thirty-one had gone out, each one with a raider on top. Twenty-nine waterbikes had returned, carrying thirty men.

  The apothecary was called for. Slaves were sent to repair and put away the waterbikes. A basket was sent down to lift up the injured men. Women without tasks to complete searched the raiding party hopefully and fearfully for the faces of their loved ones.

  “Where is she?” a deep voice bellowed. “Where is my daughter? Miyo!”

  Your father is looking for you, Miyo!

  Objective: Ask Unan what happened on the raid.

  A blade of fear sliced through Miyo’s heart. Was her father hurt?

  “Father?” she yelled. “I’m here, Father! Where are you?”

  “Envishtu-cursed darkness, give me that!” Below, Unan pointed a cranklight at the treetop houses. Its beam stopped on Miyo’s face. “Miyo!”

  Carina grabbed the closest pole before another woman could and slid to the bottom with a splash.

  “Father, what—” She had barely turned around before Unan, Miyo’s barrel-chested father, grabbed her by the shoulders, his huge hands covering her collarbones.

  For a split second, Carina felt that sense of vertigo, of worlds overlapping. Nick’s wide, strong hands nearly swallowed her shoulders whenever he grabbed her like that. It made her feel small—not in the late-bloomer way that had always driven her to prove that she was as valuable as knights twice and three times her size, but small in the way that made her insides buzz with warmth, made her want to curl up inside Nick’s chest and sleep on his beating heart.

  “They were ready for us, Miyo!” Unan shouted to be heard over the chaos splashing through the swamp all around them. “They heard us coming or they saw us, one, because they fought. They killed Lial. Qun may be dying even now. We haven’t had a raid this disastrous in years! We must know what happened!”

  Miyo opened her mouth, but someone shouted before she could speak—one of the younger men standing by while his friends lifted the injured Qun into the basket.

  “She must have anointed us wrong! Envishtu is angry!”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Unan snapped. “My daughter has been anointing us since before you could ride out, Pozu! Now steady Qun before he drops!”

  Your Appearance and Conduct deflected Pozu’s suspicion!

  Bonus: +5 Charisma for 24 in-game hours! Friendly and Neutral parties worship you!

  “It was the apothecary’s apprentice!” a woman yelled, pointing her bladed fingers at Yisu. Cranklight beams swung up and flooded the porch Yisu was standing on with light. “I overheard the apothecary saying she mixed it different this time!”

  Yisu shook her head and started to back away. “N-no, just to make you all stronger, and give you better night vision, not to—”

  “She admits it!” another man yelled. “The apprentice admits she mixed the Blood different! She ruined the raid!”

  They’re right, Miyo! Yisu is a traitor to Envishtu! Curse her! Denounce her!

  Objective: Tell the tribe how Yisu hates the sight of blood, how she thinks the slaves should be free, tell them she’s the reason one good man died and many more were injured.

  Objective2: Sacrifice Yisu to Envishtu before he curses the entirety of Tsunami Tsity because of her!

  But she had come so far with Yisu in such a short amount of time. If Miyo denounced Yisu now, there would be no finding out what she’d done, no opening up Miyo’s heart to someone besides herself, no closure, only a sudden, violent end.

  “Wait!” Miyo shouted. She shook off her father’s hands and climbed onto her flaying platform. “Who among you stands on equal footing with the mighty Envishtu? None! Who among you is wise like Envishtu? None! There’s a simple way to tell if the apprentice is the cause of this disaster. I will ask our mighty god and he will give us blessed judgment.”

  Good call, Miyo! Pass the buck to Envishtu!

  Objective: Hold Yisu’s hand to the Holy Fire of Envishtu to determine her guilt or innocence.

  This placated the tribe, but terrified Yisu. Any suspicion of doubt that Carina had been harbo
ring about Yisu’s deceit evaporated. The girl was guilty. She’d done something to the Blood of Envishtu intentionally.

  Miyo led the way to the village center. Without looking back to see if they were bringing Yisu, Miyo climbed up the bamboo pole to the temple porch. The leather walls flapped and blew in the wind like a beast shaking its prey by the throat. Before the doorway, the Fire of Envishtu had been stoked to a blaze and was now holding back the night.

  The elderly apothecary had finally caught up to the mob and was shouting, “This is madness! Tonight’s failure was a judgment of Envishtu upon you all for your disbelief! For your whoring with the gods of dry land and the gods of the slaves! Yisu had nothing to do with it!”

  But the tribesmen and women shouted the apothecary down, clinking their finger blades at her elderly nonsense.

  Miyo took her place before Envishtu’s Cauldron. The heat from the flames made the bare skin of her face, arms, and legs feel as if they were burning under a fiery sun, but she stood unflinching, the earthly interpreter of their god’s will. She didn’t look to the left or right at the swarm of eager faces, but straight through the fire at the women dragging Yisu to her side.

  Yisu’s aquamarine eyes showed the whites all around now, and she dug her bare heels into the wooden planks of the porch. She wouldn’t look away from the flames.

  “Mighty Envishtu,” Miyo intoned over the din, raising her hands to their distant god. Sparks flew upward, nearly brushing her finger blades, then whirled and disappeared into the night. “We bring you the hand of your servant! Speak to us through her flesh so that we may know your judgment and carry it out!”

  Miyo grabbed Yisu’s wrist and tried to shove her hand into the fire, but Carina’s last two unbladed fingers weren’t any match for Yisu’s terrified struggles. Carina wanted to hiss at Yisu to stop struggling and get it over with, that this pain was the only thing that would save her from a horrible death, but she couldn’t without giving Miyo away and blowing this rescue.

  Without any hesitation that might betray pity, Carina clamped down with her bladed fingers. The blades cut into Yisu’s soft flesh, grabbing traction. She shoved Yisu’s hand into the fire.

  Flesh crackled. Yisu screamed and thrashed. The sight of the girl’s struggles beat at the backs of Carina’s eyes and deep in her throat, but she kept Miyo’s expression stony.

  After several seconds had passed, Miyo pulled Yisu’s hand back out. It had turned a dark red-brown, was smoking and oozing in several places, and two of her fingers were stuck together.

  Yisu collapsed, weeping on the temple porch. Miyo had to bend over to keep hold of Yisu’s arm. The rest of the tribe had gone silent, not daring to breathe until Envishtu’s judgment was pronounced.

  Superimposed memories of Miyo’s priestess training kicked in and interpreted the shapes of the blisters as they rose on Yisu’s hand. That was the Ripple of Death on her palm, bubbling from the center out, a blatant sign that Yisu’s actions had caused the death and injuries tonight. The Spark of Weakness smoldered on the back of her thumb. Envishtu’s Curse was a blackened spot in the web of flesh sticking her bladeless ring and pinkie fingers together, meaning her faithlessness would spread from person to person if she wasn’t stopped. And of course, the Cleansing Fire encircled her wrist, which meant that Envishtu wanted Yisu burned alive.

  The charred hand shook as Miyo read the signs. It was all there in the fluid-filled blisters growing on Yisu’s skin—guilty, contagious, condemned to burn and serve Envishtu as his slave forever.

  “Envishtu is not displeased with his servant,” Miyo said. Her stomach shook, afraid of what Envishtu would do to her for lying about his will, but Carina tensed the muscles of her abdomen and raised Miyo’s voice so the whole tribe could hear. “This hand belongs to the intellect he has blessed. Our mighty god does not bestow his blessings on heretics or traitors. It is not her but you Envishtu is displeased with!”

  Miyo paused for a full second, waiting for Envishtu to strike her down. When he didn’t, she continued, her voice stronger than before.

  “Yes, all of you. Your greed, your choosing of the best skins for yourselves before you even ride out. How many of you women ask your men to find a certain color to complete your clothing as if Envishtu does not send you everything you need? How many of you men intentionally break the skin of the best slaves so it won’t be flawless and worthy of the tithe? How many nights will you ride out for more and more flesh while you gift our god in his cold and ancient home with less and less of the spoils? Who gives us the weak to consume? Who?!” Miyo was roaring now, her confidence bolstered by her god’s lack of immediate retribution. She glared around the fire, meeting every eye that had crowded onto the temple porch. “Who?!”

  The men and women of Tsunami Tsity stared at her in dawning horror. Some held their faces in their hands. A few burst into tears. They knew what she said was true, and they felt it in their hearts.

  “I will beg our mighty god to remove your greed before it destroys us all,” Miyo said, “but he must see that you know who you are, that you regret what you’ve done. Fall on your knees and cry out to Envishtu!”

  As one, every man and woman in the tribe dropped to their knees on the temple porch and raised their hands to the black, starless heavens. They howled to their distant and mighty god, confessing their sins, begging his forgiveness.

  Power coursed through Miyo’s veins. She had forced her people to look at their own iniquity and repent of it. She had done it, not Envishtu.

  Carina felt Miyo’s reckless intoxication and wondered whether Miyo’s god dealt with pride similarly to the way Carina’s God dealt with it.

  The scars on her real-life face flared up, billions of nanoticks and their sharp little feet touching and walking and crawling across the hypersensitive nerve endings.

  You know everything, don’t you? her mother said softly, picking four-year-old Carina up out of the medical crib. Even at such a young age, Carina could sense the care her mother was taking not to jostle the poly-alloy implant the doctors had put in or disturb the bandages wrapped around her tiny ruined face. You knew exactly what that green liquid was because you’re a big girl and you’ve had lime drink before and you think you know everything, even better than me or Daddy, who told you never to ever touch anything marked with that symbol.

  Sir Siobhan Xiao, the Deathwight, least-loved, most-misunderstood knight among her peers, eased herself into the gliding rocker in the corner of the Hospitaler wing room and rested Carina on her chest. The implant pressed painfully against Carina’s backbone, but Carina didn’t move for fear her mother would put her back in the crib. A soft kiss crinkled Carina’s hair—what little hadn’t burned away while she lay in the pool of the acid she had vomited back up, waiting for her parents to find her.

  Lucifer knew better than anyone else, too, Carina, her mother said, and look what happened to him.

  EIGHTEEN:

  Jubal

  The first dogfight I ever attended was when I was five. My father didn’t tell me where we were going or what we would see there, only gave me the details of our job, but I gathered we would be watching a pair of dogs fight each other. What I saw instead—between listening to my father charm the count and countess into letting us share their private cageside box and lifting the heavily jeweled heirloom bracelet from my target—was two overchemmed, metal-studded men ripping each other to shreds until one of them finally died. At the sound of the victor from the first fight being announced, I was supposed to make myself vomit so my father could excuse the two of us from the rest of the evening. When the time came to puke, I didn’t need to bite into the chotring seed I’d brought to get my stomach juices flowing.

  I’ve been to a few fights since, always for business purposes, but nothing can overshadow my memory of that first one. I can still see the lights glinting off the bloody corrugated metal embedded in the winner’s fists and the loser struggling to lunge at the winner but tripping over the ropes of intestin
es hanging from his gaping stomach.

  I wished I could’ve seen how Carina would react to the carnage. Seeing her meathead fiancé barf would have to be reward enough for now.

  According to legend, dogfighting began when an old widow discovered a feral child digging through her trash with a pack of painted wolves. She supposedly trapped the kid and tried to civilize him, but when he fought and killed one of her dogs for its food, she realized there was more money to be made on a savage than a good kid. Whether that was true or not was anybody’s guess. No one could produce evidence of those first fights—dog vs. kid—but the sport had caught on and spread like fire in a tenement building. Nowadays, the fights were all man vs. man, with entire classes of trainers, outfitters, breeders, and carcass disposal professionals sponging off of the industry.

  As it turned out, Nickie and I didn’t have to show our betting tickets at the door. The crush to get in was too heavy for the cashiers to have time to be suspicious. Nick and I paid our admission, then fought our way through the flood to the seating area.

  From the outside, the old salt plant hadn’t looked like much more than a tumbledown relic of a megafactory barely holding itself together. Inside put the lie to the outside. Concession stalls were set up all down the entrance hall, labeled “Grub Row” by the banner stretched from wall to wall. In the corridors, crude painted signs pointed the way to restrooms, concessions, seating, and the dog cages.

  At the center of the building lay a huge arena lined with dozens of rows of tiered seating surrounding the heavy-duty black cage at the center of the room. Ultra-def screens had been hung from the ceiling so the patrons in the upper level wouldn’t miss a drop of the bloodshed.

  The bottom level was crammed full of people who’d probably been camped out since the end of last night’s fights, so I led Nick upstairs. I could’ve gotten us a private box in the splash zone right next to the cage if I’d really wanted to, but if I had, we wouldn’t be able to watch the upper level for Nickie’s vocor without drawing attention to ourselves.