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  The boy nodded.

  “And you think that you will like this kind of work?” Jaron frowned.

  The boy nodded. Whatever he had seen out in the desert, this was not going to be worse.

  “Then I guess that I should call you something other than boy. Vekal. It means ‘the silent one’ in the old language. Vekal Morson.”

  The boy nodded, turning back to his stew without saying a word.

  6

  Vekal backed away from the body of Jaron, horrified, and fled down the steps of the Tower. Jaron had not been a gentle woman—it was hard to live this life, and to hear all of the dirty little secrets of all of the people of the city, and still have a gentle heart. The life of a Sin Eater seemed to breed callousness, but Jaron had been kind in her way. Vekal had turned to her when the secrets that he had held were too many and too painful, and she had counseled him on what to do next.

  She was like the closest thing to a mother I’ve ever had…

  “Now we both know that isn’t true, don’t we?” said the voice of flies in the back of Vekal’s head.

  “What? What do you mean?” he asked out loud, as a trio of drunken Menaali soldiers fell out of another of the open doors to spill wine and scrolls on the floor. They saw him, stopped, and frowned, and Vekal could see the thoughts cross their addled minds: was this the one that they weren’t supposed to kill? Or the one that they were?

  “Well, you are quite recognizable, with all of your scars,” sniggered the buzzing voice of the demon inside of him.

  “Shut up!” Vekal hissed, even though he knew that the creature lodged in his soul was speaking the truth. The scars of Vekal’s childhood in the desert, by luck or by curse, had never healed fully. They grew as his body did, forming white criss-crossed streaks all across his face, his arms, and the ruinous forms of his feet. They had stopped hurting many years ago, and he would have had as much movement in his body as anyone else did, were it not for the beating that he had sustained and the arrow wound in the middle of his back. At least they bound it for me. Vekal winced.

  “You what, worm?” said the nearest soldier, squinting and swaying on his feet. “What did you say to me?”

  “No, I didn’t say anything, it wasn’t you…” Vekal started to say, before his lips suddenly growled, morphed, and a new voice came out of his face. “You are a fat fool whose best days are behind him. Better to lie down and die now, so that you can’t ruin your next life anymore!” said the buzzing demon with Vekal’s lips.

  No! The Sin Eater tried to shake his head, but the damage was already done. The soldier snarled, stepping forward into the cramped corridor and widening his stance into a classic fighting pose, one hand drawing a long, curved dagger, as his friends leered and started to draw their own weapons.

  Vekal felt a pulse of something flood through his limbs, like the hottest and strongest of coffee from the souk markets at the edge of the city. His heart was thumping in his chest like a charging horse, his body felt light and suddenly without pain, and a feeling of anger was welling up through his spine and chest.

  “Kill. Kill. KILL!” The demon’s voice and his own intermingled as the demon lent him energy, power, and purpose. Everything was so simple now. Vekal laughed at how ridiculously slow the bigger Menaali soldier was, and how he was relying on his dagger to provide most of the threat for him. A feeling not like rage, or anger, but like joy flooded through his body as he went forward towards the blade, but then at the last possible moment stamped out with a foot, connecting with the soldier’s own kneecap. It crunched horribly, and the man howled in pain, slashing wildly.

  But Vekal, moving faster than his wounded current state should allow, caught the forearm and wrestled the dagger from the crippled soldier, before elbowing him in the face, and sending him sprawling into the soldier behind him.

  The Sin Eater couldn’t be sure just what was happening to him—whether he was in control of his body or whether the demon was. Together they were forming an unholy, terrible union of will, training, and unnatural speed and strength. The demon was feeding off of Vekal’s knowledge of the place, knowing that these corridors were too small for anything more than a grappling brawl, and too narrow for a weapon to swing.

  But the soldiers didn’t know that, and the third one spent valuable seconds trying to free his battle axe.

  Vekal clambered over the tangle of the wounded to land the dagger into the man’s head and through his skull, felling him without the man even swinging a single blow. That left just the entangled, and the crippled.

  “KILL! KILL!” The demon was raging in him, but the dagger wouldn’t free itself from the dead soldier’s forehead. So he turned to the entangled soldier, now hopping up free, Vekal’s bare hands reaching for his throat and eyes.

  When Vekal and the demon were done, he blinked to find his forearms covered in blood, with sweat and bile and spit running down his shirt. There were three dead Menaali soldiers lying around him, and they looked as though they had been butchered.

  “What have I done?” he said, horrified.

  “What did you do?” the demon hissed with cruel laughter. “You should thank me, Sin Eater! I saved us both from death. Maybe you should be asking yourself why you helped that girl, betraying your own people.”

  “And freeing you in the process, don’t forget,” Vekal thought to add, wiping his arms and then giving up. It was too much blood. Instead he took the least-ruined cloak of all of the Menaali and draped it over his form. With any luck, maybe a passing stranger would mistake him for a particularly young or drunk soldier.

  “Free? You call this free?” The demon laughed. “Stuck with a whelp of a Sin Eater, desperate to do good in the world and help people on their way to heaven. Ha! Spare me your idiocies, please. At least you have some weapons training, and some skills, but I should have been in the father. Think what I could have done with an army!”

  “Enough. Well, we’re both going to the next life if we don’t find a way out of here…” Vekal was saying, as he stooped to pick up one of the axes and a pouch of Menaali coins, and ran down the corridor.

  ***

  He knew the Tower, better than any of those still alive here, but it was still disorienting, and still difficult. The soldiers were everywhere, and twice he had to slump against the doorways, pretending to be drunk or passed out. If the bodies had been discovered, or if the War Chief had called for his capture and return, no sound reached his ears.

  “Dal Grehb will just be happy he has his beloved daughter back, I’m sure.” The demon sighed melodramatically. “It’s a weakness, you know. Family.”

  “No, it’s not. You have no idea what you are talking about, fiend,” Vekal muttered, popping his head from behind a wall to see the gaggle of guards drunken and laughing over more bodies of his fellows in the canteen.

  “Of course I do. Do you not think that the Undying have family? I had shade-brothers and sisters who grew beside me in the long night, spectral family that nurtured me and ate of the same hopes and dreams together. That is why I came here, human. A family only wants to hold you back, just as the bodies of your family are holding you back from what must be done!”

  “And what is that, imp?” Vekal breathed.

  “You must burn the tower down, of course! Revenge yourself against those who attacked your home! Kill all of your enemies at once!” the demon whispered in his ear, but the boy who had been silent for so long, and now the man who was trained in the arts of silence, only smiled but said nothing.

  “Well? Where are the wine cellars? The barrels of pitch? How can we barricade the doors?” The demon was seething.

  “You have either been a long time without practice at enticing people to do evil, spirit, or else you had not thought of who you are in. I am a Sin Eater. I am used to hearing people’s most terrible thoughts. Of course I am not going to burn the Tower down. There is an innocent child in here—the one that you occupied!”

  “Pfagh! Coward!” the demon said, disgus
ted, as Vekal chose the other direction to run in, towards the water cellars and the irrigation channels that ran under the city, and to the desert beyond.

  7

  Vekal trudged in the darkness, knowing that his feet should ache and yet unable to feel them. The light guttered and flared, as the lantern that he had stolen from the storehouse faded to a bare, glowing ember.

  He was walking in a tunnel about twice the size of him, with both arms outstretched. Two small pavements of smooth rock were cut along the sides, with a deeper channel in the middle, filled with clean and clear water. These irrigation channels were as ancient as the city of Tir itself, older perhaps, and not even the Tower recorded who had first made them. They ran far underneath the desert sands, stretching out to ancient aquifers that kept the desiccated city alive through the long droughts. Vekal hadn’t chosen which one to walk down, so much as his feet had. Away from the sight of the destruction, away from the slaughter of his brothers and sisters at the Tower.

  At least I haven’t had want of fresh water, Vekal thought to no one in particular, only to find that he was answered by a burst of buzzing inside his own head.

  “Pfagh! No, we’ll only starve to death instead. What great fortune!” It was the creature inside of him. The demon from Marria, the daughter of Dal Grehb, the Menaali War Chief.

  For a time, Vekal had thought that perhaps the demon had been a trick of the mind, an illusion that had overcome him, distraught with grief and the arrow hole in his back. His hopes had been well and truly dashed on this journey however, as the demon made it obvious that it was not about to go away.

  “We can survive many days with water alone,” Vekal croaked, feeling tired. He eyed the guttering lantern warily. He had no oil left, and no idea what he was going to do if it finally went out.

  “I do not mean to merely survive, my little imp-chaser,” the demon scoffed. “We must get to the surface. Find others! There must be other refugees fleeing the city as well.”

  “No, djinn. We are still too close. The Sand Seas stretch for many, many leagues and we can be spotted easily.” Vekal admonished himself, taking another step and wondering why he couldn’t feel his legs. Perhaps my body is finally dying… he thought, with an odd glimmer of something akin to hope.

  “Oh no, you don’t, mortal!” A jolt of something like lightening flared behind his eyes.

  “By the Halls of Annwn, why did you do that?” Vekal shook his head, leaning against the smooth wall of the irrigation tunnel. The lantern light guttered and flickered beside him, causing the tunnel to disappear into inky blackness and then reappear every few seconds.

  “I’ll not have my only body dying out here in the middle of nowhere, with no hope of transmission. Gah! I’ll be dragged back to the Halls of Hell! And if you think that I am going back there, then you are vastly mistaken.”

  Vekal thought that perhaps it didn’t sound too bad after all, as he slumped, exhausted and almost at his wits’ end against the tunnel wall. All things die. Distantly, he felt one of his feet slip into the cool water of the channel.

  His thoughts were groggy and confused, and the light was fading and going out all around him. Instead of fighting the tide of unconsciousness however, Vekal Morson accepted it with open arms. As a Sin Eater, he knew that he was but a spirit destined for the halls of Annwn and Iliya, and this life was but a small trifle…

  “I said, no! You ungrateful sack of bones.” The demon’s voice, buzzing again painfully behind his eyes, forced him to gasp with pain. “Do you think that you’re just going to float off up to the heavens to see your bird-brained gods if you die with me inside of you? No! You only do that if your soul is sinless, and believe me, Sin Eater, I have done a whole lot of sinning in my life. I’ll be so heavy that you’ll sink like a stone, straight to hell with me!”

  Vekal felt true terror clutch at his heart then. He had lived a good life. He had done everything that had been asked of him. Was he going to be consigned to hell just because of an accident?

  “Yes! How do you think that any of us began? You think that we were always this way?” the spirit said.

  “What?” Vekal’s curiosity overtook his need to sleep. “You mean that you are not created out of the darkness?”

  “Of course, we were all once humans such as yourself, carried down to hell by circumstance and accident, and there, through the long forgotten millennia, we changed and grew cruel, becoming the spirits that we are, but enough, meat-bag. I have said too much already. Know this, if you carry me out of here, then you will be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams!”

  “Lies.” Vekal groaned, and opened his eyes, to see the last flicker of the lantern flame spurt and spit. “Everyone knows you hellish spirits lie.”

  He felt an uncomfortable feeling, like the inside of his head squeezing outwards, until the Sin Eater realized that the thing inside of him was chuckling. “Perhaps. But either way, your death will not solve anything for either of us. I can block your mind to some of the pain, but you must find the will.”

  Vekal needed no greater encouragement than the idea that he was to be damned eternally if he died with this thing riding his mind like a monkey, and slowly, gradually, with limbs that felt like warm rubber, he got up to his feet again. It was true, the spirit had taken away all of his pain. In fact, he didn’t feel much of anything anymore, which was itself a blessing, considering the hole in his back where the Menaali arrow had hit.

  He was aware of the pain in his body secondhand, like a far-off noise or as a knock on a door. The red burning sensation in his legs he didn’t have to listen to at all. Neither the empty growls of a stomach three days without food, nor the ugly sickened purple feeling in the center of his back. He could choose to ignore it all should he wish. The young man took a step forward, and another, on legs that did not seem like his own.

  “Well then, fiend. What should I call you? You must at least have a name,” Vekal murmured through a numbed mouth.

  “You may call me Ikrit,” the creature inside said.

  “Ikrit…” Vekal rolled the unfamiliar sounding word in his mouth. Everyone knew that the knowing of a spirit’s true name gave one power over it, and this name did not sound like any that Vekal had ever heard of before. Maybe it was the sort of name that a devil might have. “Begone from me, Ikrit. I command thee in the name of Annwn,” Vekal managed to croak.

  He felt nothing. No scream of anguish, no whirring of flies or buzzing leaving his body. And no pain, either. Somewhere inside, the creature started to chuckle again, and then to laugh.

  “Huh! You think that I would tell you my true name? Ikrit means ‘little beast’ in our tongue, you fool. You should have spent longer at your scrolls, human.” The chuckling continued, and Vekal felt a wave of despair roll over him. He felt so lost that he almost didn’t notice the way that the water at his side was moving, rippling.

  On cheeks that felt like clay, there was a new sensation—one that he didn’t register in his numbed state until it got stronger.

  Wind.

  The wind was light but steady, and as it gusted towards him again, the fragile lantern-light in his hand was extinguished, and he, or they, to be more precise, were plunged into darkness.

  8

  Vekal swore. And this time it wasn’t only because of the lack of light. It was because of the strange off-light that was overlaying his eyes.

  The tunnel ahead did not appear pitch black, nor did it appear warm white or yellow with lantern light. Instead, it was the color of moonlight, but faintly glowing as well. A spectral blue light that overlaid everything, making the walls look unreal. If Vekal concentrated, he could even see a faint mist rising off the walls. The strangest sight of all, however, was the underground river beside him, which appeared silvery-white, and flowing.

  “What has happened? Have I died now? Is this hell?” Vekal gasped.

  “Of course not, fool! This is the ab-light, the spectral realms that all spirits can see. Were you not trapped in your me
at-body, you too would see as this. I can give you this sight for a little while, but even now your broken body is fighting to reject my gifts!”

  As well it should, the Sin Eater thought a little piously—although he was glad for the sight as well. He walked forward on his unfeeling legs, towards the direction from where the wind was coming. If he concentrated, he almost thought that he could see the wind itself, like the heat waves from the hot desert sands far above.

  “We shall follow this wind until…” Vekal started saying, but no sooner had he begun when he heard something on the wind. A sound like chittering insects. Voices.

  “Ghouls!” Vekal gasped, reaching for the axe that was still at his side, and wondering if his numbed state would allow him to fight as fast as he would like to.

  With a hissing sigh like the clicking of a thousand pebbles, the Ghoul-men and Ghoul-women came, like a tide rolling down the tunnel towards the Sin Eater. They were humanoid, in the fact that they had two arms, two legs, and a head, but that was where the similarities ended. Their skin wasn’t really skin at all, but rather a collection of soft, insectoid plates overlapping each other at irregular intervals. They wore rags and garments stolen from the many hapless victims that they dragged from the desert tops, but they had no idea of which garment fitted or was appropriate. The first one to crawl along the tunnel towards Vekal was wearing a short dress-robe, the likes of which might fit a merchant’s daughter or a traveling minstrel.

  They had no fingers that Vekal could see, but rather multi-jointed claws in which they clutched crude weapons like broken swords or the jawbones of strange prehistoric creatures they had unearthed from the desert sands.

  Still, even these things were not the strangest features of the desert Ghouls. Their heads wore not a scrap of hair, but instead were plates of black chitin, like a scarab beetle. From their mouths erupted the four pincer-like mouth parts from which their strange chitterings came, and in the place of eyes they had two eye stalks, constantly twitching and flaring. Behind them, stub-like tails no longer than a hand emerged like the end of a snake, moving and swaying unnervingly.