"HEY!" Geraln called to me from inside the pub. "What are you doing? Get in here!"
I was trying to muster the courage to admit to Davod that I'd spent all his money. He sat with Geraln and two other men I'd never seen before.
The pub was lit by red candles set about the tables along with what daylight came through the front door, and the place was mostly empty. A Goloagi girl behind the bar with dark-green locks that tufted up in curls and fell past her shoulders glanced at me and smiled wide as I walked in.
"Caleb!" Davod shouted. "Get over here, man! You got to meet my new friends!"
From the slur, he had to be at least four or five beers in. Geraln had the look of a cat satisfied with his mischief; he picked up a scrap of bread from a brown paper on the table. As for the two new men, the one closest to the door gave me a perfunctory smile.
"I'm Ales." His knee bounced nervously. The other man draped his arm over the back of his chair with ease. "Faren."
Geraln resumed the introduction. "They were called to Carthia just like us."
Ales added, "I thought for sure we'd be headed for Kulun. Where the hell is fucking Carthia?"
I asked. "You don't know anything about the place, either?"
Faren gazed at me droopy-eyed. "I asked around. Apparently of all the conflict zones throughout the Empire, Carthia is the bastard child among them. They said don't go there, that we'd be better off taking our chances with the Invisible Hand. But there's hope!" he raised a finger. "You see, we can escape the Invisible Hand by hiding out in the one place they're too scared to go."
"Where's that?"
"Carthia."
Davod chuckled while Geraln gave off a half-smile.
I couldn't help it. "Well, uh… I bet the girls there are gorgeous."
"Here we go!" Davod lifted his mug to me, took a good drink, and set it back down. Ales nodded and laughed lightly to himself.
Faren smiled and kicked under the table so that an empty chair skidded across the floor towards me. "Sit down, man. Tell us your side of the story."
"What story?"
Ales spoke to that. "Your friends tell us you're some kind of doctor, got yourself a patient and everything."
"I don't know about that…"
Davod slurred out his own explanation, "he's working on that, gods, she's got thee most incredible fucking legs you ever seen!" He turned to Geraln. "Don't get me wrong—Sage is a beauty, but you guys should see… what's her name?"
My eyes went wide. "You can't be serious?"
Geraln answered. "Oasis."
Davod repeated. "Oasis. Gods I'd like to get between that. Thick, meaty thighs push back on you like a spring, man, she is something else entirely! You make any progress on that?"
"Her friend is dying!"
"Sit down, man." Ales said. I did.
Davod slapped my shoulder. "You can't let that go to waste. You got the perfect in on that girl. You screw that up, I will lose all faith in you from now on."
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "It's not…"
"Khello zere, khandsome! Vat can ve get for zhu?" It was the barmaid. She spoke with a thick Goloagi accent, rolling her Rs and contorting some words as to be barely recognizable. She stood beside me, bent over slightly as she wiped the table, and uh… I uh… I mean, I wasn't blind.
"I'm good," I shook my head. "Thank you."
Geraln leaned back in his chair and grinned. "That's Caleb-speak for I'm broke. He'll have a syrup. On me."
The girl dropped her fingers into eight different mugs and picked them all up at once, then stood and smiled wide without moving her emerald-green eyes from mine. "Are zhu man enough to khandal zat?"
Davod smirked. "You gonna love this beer, man, it's hard core. Let me get another too, miss."
"Me too," Ales added. Then Faren.
Geraln finished. "I guess it's my turn, then? Fine. Make that a round, love."
"Got it," she gazed at him before turning and walking back towards the bar, and she had plenty of backside to appreciate. Davod wiped his lips appreciating the same thing; he and I glanced at one another and shared a laugh at that. She turned and looked at each of us, giggled, and walked off.
Faren stretched his arms out and looked at me through droopy eyes. "So tell us about this girl."
"Uh…" I still needed to tell Davod about the money. "Her name is Dune. The three of them had taken the pass from Saen, and she fell. Hard. There was a cut, and she broke a bone. No big deal. You clean the wound and set the bone, maybe twenty, thirty minutes, it's not difficult. You come back every day for a few days—"
Ales interrupted. "Is that the one you're trying to get with?"
"I'm not trying to get with anyone!"
"Nah," Geraln added. "Oasis. Dune is the one with the injury."
"She's going to die," I said.
They all looked at me.
"They didn't take care of it, and it's gotten the foul."
"They tried to take care of it," Geraln clarified. "The first doctor they went to had them waiting all day, then at the end of the day they were told the doctor had left. They went through that shit for two days before trying another—"
"I'm not trying to get with anyone. Look. This is a life-and-death situation; Dune is in really, really bad shape. If I were trying to get with anyone, at the very least I'd wait until the urgent situation is resolved, but until then I can't even think about that. And right now, Dune is going to die. Tonight or tomorrow, likely, the next day if God wants to procrastinate about it. I don't know what else I can do for her."
Faren spoke to that. "It sounds like you need to talk to this Oasis girl and warm her up to reality."
"I spent the money." My heart slammed against my chest as soon as the words left me.
"Huh?"
I turned my face to Davod directly. "The thirty-five kren you gave me. I spent it. On supplies for Dune."
There was silence. Geraln started to chuckle while Davod tilted his head to the side. Then he tilted his head to the other side.
Geraln smirked. "Honestly, Davod, you've known this kid your whole life and you still gave him money!"
Davod glared at him for a moment, then turned back to me. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. I wasn't sure if he was going to say something or if I was supposed to say more. "Uh… I had a few coins, that wasn't enough. Oasis gave me eight kren—that was all she had—and it still wasn't enough. Uh… yeah."
Davod covered his face in his hands.
"It was, uh… maggots to clean the wound, some liuwenia for the fever, Kuluni adder venom that's to help the bone heal…"
"Caleb?" Davod spoke slowly without removing his hands from his face.
"Yeah?"
The barmaid returned with five glass mugs filled with a dark brown beer that had a strong head of foam. She put one before Davod, but he spoke as though she weren't there. "I'm going to forgive you for this. I'm going to let this go. But if I see your fucking face again before tomorrow, I'll bash it in, so help me!"
Geraln spoke. "I think you'd better go."
"Yeah."
I didn't even taste the syrup. I'd had in mind to do as Faren suggested, to try and warm Oasis up to reality, but figured she was still sleeping. Another option was to go to the church and pray about it. At that point, there wasn't anything more I could do for her.
There had to be a church in Ulum, possibly more than one. I imagined a towering monument to God with stained-glass windows like the one in Kyoen, grandiose like the rest of the city.
Of course I had no idea where it would be, but that wouldn't be difficult. Looking west, the city dropped down the valley and disappeared into the hazy blue horizon. To the south and east, the Terbulin mountains wrapped around the city like a mother cradling her baby. To the north were the relatively tame mountains that led one into the rest of Heralia.
At the center of the plaza where I stood was the massive, brown stone sculpture to Falcon with an icy stream of clean water pouring from His beak.
"Excuse me, can you tell me which way is the Daenma church?"
A Herali gentleman about my age dressed in black, pressed wool looked me up and down, up and down, then up and down again. His eyes landed on the sword at my belt. Then he turned and walked off.
I found someone else. "Sorry to bother you, but…"
"Get a job!"
A middle-aged Herali woman with a brown wool overcoat walked past.
"Pardon me, do you know the way to the Daenma church?"
Her eyes went wide and she furrowed her brow. She frowned. "No."
I found a pair of Goloagi girls with perfectly coiffed curly hair. "Sorry ladies, do you know where the Daenma church is?"
They looked at one another and grinned, then spoke in unison. "It's that way."
Except the girl on the left pointed to the east, while the girl on the right pointed west. They looked at one another and giggled.
The girl on the left had lush, dark-green eyebrows to match her hair, wide lips, and a darling figure accentuated perfectly by a shimmering light-green silk dress to match her complexion. Her dark eyes explored my body before settling on my face with her lips cracked open in an expectant grin.
Righty was petite, with a wavy strand of hair dangling down each side of her face. She had a dark-blue silk dress that hugged her figure, along with a white knitted shawl and diamond-tree stone earrings that fell to her shoulders like icicles. She bit her lip, and her eyes danced all over my body many times over.
I had to ask. "You're not from around here, are you?"
Lefty scoffed in feigned offense. "Why would you say that? We could be!"
"I was just…"
"Are you a soldier?" Righty continued to look me up and down, paying close attention to my shoulders, my arms, and my chest.
Lefty ignored the question and pulled a curly lock of hair behind her ear. "Where are you from?"
"Excuse me," a man grabbed my arm.
"Bye!" The girls scuttled off and disappeared into the crowd.
Another man took my other arm. "Come this way."
The men each wore layers of armor—padded leather beneath chain beneath steel plates—and a blue sash with gold embroidery in the shape of Cougar along with lettering that spelled out Turst Barony Constabulary. The man on my left, a stout, burly, scar-faced brawler with a cauliflower ear twisted my arm behind my back and took my sword from its scabbard. The other man was a little younger, fatter, and had a face like he'd eaten something sour. I tripped more than once as they shoved me to a side of the street where small yellow bricks gave way to large gray ones and held me there.
A third man in the same uniform but with graying hair and a permanent scowl approached from the opposite side and barked. "Hold still."
They took my pack, my bow, everything. Brawler shoved his elbow into my neck while Sourface opened my pack and started dumping all my things out onto the street.
The older man slapped more words at me. "Who are you?"
"What's going on?"
Brawler pulled me back, then slammed my back into the wall. My head bounced off the stone, but when I tried to rub it with my hand, he yanked it behind my back and pulled until it hurt.
"I asked you a question."
I froze. I couldn't get my bearings what was going on it came so sudden. Brawler punched me in my gut and spat. "Lieutenant asked you a question, boy!"
I doubled over, trying to catch my breath. "Caleb."
"From where?"
"Gath."
"Gath… Gath…"
Sourface answered without lifting his eyes from my things. "It's in Osenia, about four days north of here."
The Lieutenant smirked. "Falcon country."
I nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Why is a Falcon looking for the Imperial church?"
The question threw me. Why else would I be looking for it? I didn't do anything wrong; I had nothing to hide. "To pray."
Brawler pressed his elbow into my neck and leaned in so close I had to turn away. "Why the fuck is a Falcon going to pray at the Daenma church?"
Sourface pulled my hunting knife from its sheath and showed it to the others. "Nice blade you got here."
The older man peered close into my eyes. "I smell bullshit. Do you guys smell bullshit?"
"I'm not…"
"Why are you carrying that sword?"
I shrugged. "It won't fit in my pack."
Brawler slammed my back against the wall again and dug his fingers into my wrists. "Try again!"
I started to wonder if I'd said something wrong. "I'm just passing through. I'm not looking for any trouble."
Sourface put my armor down and inspected some arrows, tapping the edge of a broadhead with his fingers. "Clearly! Not looking for any trouble at all, this one!"
Brawler smirked down at his friend. "Oh, you see, he's just passing through."
Lieutenant wasn't phased. "Where are your friends?"
I didn't mean to, but my eyes glanced at the pub down the block. I tried to feign that off by looking all around the street.
The man pressing his elbow into my neck pulled me back some and slammed me into the stone wall once more. "You hard of hearing, man?"
I froze. I couldn't think well enough to speak, let alone make a cohesive thought. I didn't know what was about to happen.
"Let's try this again. A Falcon boy from Osenia, armed for a fight, is looking for the Imperial church because he's just passing through. I'll ask you again. Where are your friends?"
"Eh, what's this, now?" The other two looked down as Sourface pulled a small, folded brown paper from my pack. "Well, shit!"
The lieutenant took it and read it. With that, he smiled out of one side of his mouth. His voice shifted, almost as though he spoke with a smile. "Going to Carthia?"
I nodded. My mouth was dry and I couldn't speak.
"What what?" The man with his elbow on my neck chuckled.
"He's a conscript." Sourface began putting my things back.
Brawler released me entirely and looked me over with a grin. "Suppose I'd pray to every god there was, too!"
Brawler and the Lieutenant walked off without another word, while the chubby man stayed a moment to help me pack my things. Then he pointed east, starting with one of the totems that surrounded the plaza. "Goat totem goes to Goat plaza. Real simple. When you get there, go southeast until you find Pedahosa street. Can't miss it."
"Do you know what's in Carthia?"
He shook his head. "Bad shit. Real bad shit; we lost a lot of good men there. Anyway, good luck, man. I hope you can use that bow."
Shattered pieces of my emotions lay on the ground, and I needed a minute. In the distance, white-capped mountains like molars gave way to brown grass and rock, an image framed by towering stone buildings of the city on both sides.
I followed the Goat totem down a street divided in two by large, wooden planters with all manner of herbs that smelled absolutely divine. Basil mixed with lavender mixed with rosemary painted an herbal story as the road dipped down a steep embankment.
A block down, the street bottomed out into a gully with a murmuring creek passing through a concrete pipe beneath the road. Down a nearby alley, someone had painted a message on the walls of a building. Boros, where the fuck is my money?
Opposite that was a crude drawing of cock-and-balls next to another message in the Saeni script.
Climbing out of the gully was so steep that buildings had one door at the road with the other end buried by the street.
I passed a jewelry shop on the right. They had a necklace made of cut diamond-tree stones that grew out from the neck in a triangle shape of smaller stones strung together in a swirl pattern, the center of which was a large stone that had to be at least an A4. It gave off colors that seemed to shift at will, as if the stone itself glowed with the story it told. The handiwork rivaled the best I'd seen back home, and they wanted thirteen-thousand kren for it.
Ryoen's dad used to pay us two kren for a sack full of the things every spring.
Thirteen-thousand. I shook my head and walked along.
Up several more blocks, I passed a screened-in area with several tables outside a shop with a bright-yellow, patterned awning over the main door. People dined on plates that smelled strong of onions sauteed in butter. A Saeni gentleman came outside carrying a wooden board with a cast iron skillet that sizzled and gave off a hefty amount of steam along with the scent of brandy.
Outside another shop was a wooden sign. Gebu'i the Miracle Cure! 38 36 kren.
A few more blocks, and I came to another circle plaza where the street wrapped around a raised garden centered by a column of polished marble with a carved stone monument to Goat at the top. I passed by a young Herali girl searching through a patch of basil. On the next turn, an older Herali gentleman worked at feeling the soil and pulling weeds.
Goat plaza offered three different streets that led southeast. I needed to find someone who knew which way to go, but I was afraid of starting more trouble.
I sought someone who looked like they might not go tell the constable I was asking around, whatever that might have looked like, and found a Saeni woman wearing an apron smeared with a year's worth of stains. She carried a large wicker basket with a lid on it. "Excuse me, but do you know which way is the Daenma church?"
"Yes," she answered in fluent Herali with a sharp accent. "Go down that way," she pointed to the east route that climbed a hill as it trailed slightly to the south. "When you cross over the bridge, turn right, then go up the hill and turn left at the top of the hill. Turn right at the goat farm, go up the hill some more and it's on the right." She smiled and reassured me, "you can't miss it."
I followed her directions through a wide corridor. There wasn't so much glass and fine sculpture in this area; most of the windows were wooden shutters, and the architecture was basic. Several blocks down, I passed a bakery that announced the smell of warm sour bread to all who passed by, and the street rose sharply. In the narrow space between two buildings was a small, open door. A middle-aged Saeni woman wearing a dirtied-up apron and a blue hair cap stepped out and scraped the charred remains of animal bones to the rats, who eagerly gobbled them up.
Further up the hill between two more buildings, an old man lay beneath a tattered blanket that left his crusty feet exposed. Beside his hand, an empty bottle had broken and shattered over the cobblestones while rats scurried about in the corner. Along the adjacent wall, someone had scrawled in white chalk with rough handwriting, Giselya will suck you dry.
I came to the bridge. All along one side of the stonework and facing out over the city below, someone had painted in black using Goloagi, Go home sand-rats!
I crossed over the bridge and headed up the hill. Shattered jars and torn clothes were strewn through the street where one store front had been ripped apart. Doors were missing, torn from broken wooden frames, and numerous windows had trails of soot reaching up the wall above. Every few feet there was a pile of rubble—broken bricks, shattered wood, shards of broken glass, charred remains of some construction. All throughout, Saeni people cleaned up the mess.
Their eyes followed me.
Some of them pointed and whispered as I passed, and after a few blocks, some older boys started to gather.
Another block down, and they were following me. At least five of them, all somewhere between ten and fifteen, and one of them had picked up a broken brick from the street. From his face, he did not look happy to see me, either.
I didn't think. I drew my sword and stepped at him.
Right away, they all scattered. I peered around the neighborhood. On several buildings were messages in sloppy, painted letters in the Saeni script, and in one corner was a trail of dried blood with a handprint on the adjacent wall.
More eyes hated me.
At the top of the hill I turned, and the cobbled stones gave way to a bare dirt road. It dropped down and came to a large fenced-in area where goats had stripped the ground bare leaving piles of tiny black pebbles of manure all about. The sharp livestock stench dominated the air, and I hurried to get away from it. At the end I turned right and followed the road up another hill.
Several small shacks dotted the sides of the road, most of them with paint peeling away to reveal sun-bleached, half-rotted wood beneath. I followed that up the hill and twisted around the corner, to where a large blue building rested ahead on the right. The structure had the four-point triangle of the faith made of wrought-iron and mounted on an overhang that stuck out over a wooden porch.
There were numerous small holes in the wall where the plaster had peeled away to reveal wood construction beneath, many of them bleached by the sun. To the side lay the remnants of a wooden gate that had been smashed to bits, and beside the front door were those symbols, those three large, squarish glyphs I'd seen in the tapestry shop in relatively fresh white paint, that Umeazi script that meant we will never forget.
The front door itself was heavy wood reinforced with riveted iron, and not a hint of life could be discerned beyond the building's face.
I knocked.
I waited. A gust of air came off the mountains bringing the ice with it. I waited, and I shivered. I knocked again, louder.
Eventually, faint footfalls came up from behind the door. The door cracked open, and a figure appeared behind it. It was a middle-aged man with a strip of hair that wrapped around the back of his head with enough curl to tell he was Goloagi. He stood in ornate woven clothes with a giant gut, and held the door mere inches open.
He stared and said nothing.
I initiated the conversation in Goloagi, unsure if he would understand me otherwise. "Good afternoon, sir. Are you open for prayer?"
He blinked several times and scratched his chin. "Who's asking?"
"I am Caleb of Gath. I was passing through, and I would like to pray here, if that's alright?"
He furrowed his eyebrows and the glob of flesh that was his neck stayed put as he turned to look behind him. Then he turned back and looked closely at my hair as it fell straight over my shoulders.
"I'm not from here. I was raised at the church in Gath by Mother Searnie and Father Yewan. Perhaps you've heard of them? It's in Osenia."
"You just said you're from Gath."
"Barony of Gath, County of Osenia. Uh… Duchy of Heralia. Obviously. M-maybe not obviously. I don't know, maybe that's obvious?"
At that, he raised one eyebrow high above the other, sipped from a cup in his hand, and opened the door.
He moved his round self to the side for me to step in. "What's your name?"
"Father Gerson," he replied. "Right this way."
The reception room was spacious, with a torn red rug at the center and several wooden tables along the walls. One hosted stacks of books overtaken by cobwebs, while another hosted large rolls covered in dust beneath an open window. A fat, brown rat disappeared into a corner.
Father Gerson led me down a dark corridor to the right that ended with a heavy wooden door. He opened that, and we came to a courtyard with a covered walkway on both sides, strewn with shattered pieces of wood and broken bricks. At the next building, on the second floor, the black remnant of soot reached up along the wall from an open window.
The door at the other end of the courtyard hung by the lower hinge and was broken off at the top. Father Gerson had to lift it and hold it steady to open the way into the next hallway. All along the walls were dents from where an axe had chopped into the wood, and on the right the friar led me to a tiny room. At one wall was a small glass window with a circular hole in it the size of a potato and cracks trailing into the edges. There was another four-point triangle made of wrought-iron at one wall, and a prayer bench opposite a small rug.
"Sorry we don't have anything more comfortable."
"This is beautiful, thank you."
His chin wobbled as he nodded, and he walked off.
And so I knelt, closed my eyes, and clasped my hands.
Father in Heaven, I am scared. I'm worried about Dune. I'm afraid she won't make it. Without your help she definitely won't. If you have a strain of mercy for her, then perhaps you will see fit to heal her? I've nothing else I can do. I'm also scared of Carthia. Everything I'm told about this place says it's a death trap, and I don't want to go. I know that you will look out for me and guide me in the direction you want me to go in, so that is all I ask. I thank you for bringing me here safely. I thank you for putting kindness in Davod's heart to forgive me. I hope you find me worthy of serving you, Lord. Please take care of Sarina for me. Amen.
After I was done, I went back out into the hallway. There was a ruckus at the end of the hall that sounded like a hammer banging away at some nails. I followed it until Father Gerson was in view, piecing together a wooden gate.
"May I ask," I said, "do you have any plaster? I'd like to fix some of those holes out front if you don't mind."
He looked at me in intense curiosity and put his hammer down.