Chapel Orahamm

I sat at the edge of a midnight black cliff, staring into an abyss that rippled with the blue of magic. Nothingness created a void near me. And we sat there, staring at the stars swimming in the deep.

“You know you can have it all.”

“But I don’t want it, Death.”

“You tasted it. Control.”

“That was not control.” I flicked a pebble to make the blue undulate.

“They answered your call.”

“I was desperate.”

“That you were,” Death’s amusement slid across my shoulder blades.

“And you needed my blood.” I didn’t make it a question.

“Hmm.” Death gave the impression of a shrug.

“Is that how your magic works?”

“Is it?” Death countered. “Or is it how your magic works?”

“Why didn’t you claim those dead back there when they died?”

“They did not come knocking on my door,” Death hedged.

“So, they are ghosts, ghouls, goblins, the undead?” I looked up to find the nothingness staring back.

“Souls tethered to the very last shred of existence. There are those that refuse to meet with me,” Death pondered.

“Even those you come to greet?” I guessed.

“Hmm.” His reply did not give me courage. “There are those with a strong will. A desire. They might see me coming to greet them and run.”

“They have to let go of themselves to finally cross over?” I tossed another stone.

“There are some cut down to splinters who continue holding on to every speck of what they once were. Great generals, proud kings, daughters in the midst of first love. They can remain, if the desire fits them.” Death followed my action and tossed in a stone.

I cast a glance towards the nothingness. “Don’t you have dead folk to be welcoming?”

“You came knocking so suddenly, I figured I should see what was wrong. I will give you a gift so that you do not need to come knocking so soon again.” Death handed me a pebble, no larger than a mustard seed. “Swallow that. And don’t eat others with the intelligence to speak anymore. I might grant you a reprieve from poisons, but it does you no good to keep eating there.” I did as I was told if only because the cliff felt like a dream, and I sensed no cunning or malice from the nothingness.

Rowan had asked me something. He was glaring at me beneath thick lashes. I stared at the thin stew dripping off of my spoon. I looked around, finding we were in some kind of dim tavern. Short candles stood in clay saucers on the tables. The massive iron chandelier above had spiderwebs and nubs of candles too short to light. This inn…when had we gotten here?

“Where are we?” I croaked.

Rowan blinked, eyes going wide. “We’re at Samsar. Been here a couple of hours, Tanwyn. Your eyes aren’t glowing, but they are a very strange shade of purple for Yujin.”

“I was in the mud…” I searched my memories. Nothing. Nothing since the skeletons. Nothing since the cliff and the pebble.

Farrow and Rowan shared a glance. “He’s not alright, Rowan. Those-those creatures, the castle did something to him.”

“What happened since then?” How long had I been sitting with Death?

“Got you away from there. You were acting just fine. We kept moving. Found a new river. Thought to get clean. Lost my good pack. Ended up at a marked waypoint and finally found this place. They had an inn that would take us. No love lost on Karamides and Rugoshi, but you flashed clink and they gave us a room.” Farrow regarded me like one of these events should jog a memory. But those days were gone in favor of the cold quiet of that cliff overlooking the abyss. I had made a deal with Death.

“I’ve made a deal with Death.” I rolled that sentence around in my mouth. Tasted the stone-flavored finality of it.

Farrow dropped his spoon, splattering stew across the table. “By the Face of the Damned.”

Rowan regarded this announcement with wariness. “The shadow in the castle?”

“No.” I shook my head slowly. “No. That shadow. I think it was the conglomeration of souls of the dead there. Death,” I paused, trying to understand why it sounded strange to think it, “came to me and wanted a piece of me. Gave me some kind of understanding of the magic that holds soul to bone.”

“But we were supposed to find a book on how to command the dead. That was part of this prophecy,” Rowan hissed quietly, though no one else was in the dining room.

“Are you sure it was supposed to be a book?”

“Are you sure it was Death you talked to?” He shot back.

“If it’s not Death, then it is a gatekeeper to the realm of the dead, and that is probably as close to Death as any mortal will understand on this plane,” I kept my voice level.

Farrow drew his lips back from his fangs. “Your eyes are glowing again, Tan, and it’s making the hairs stand on my neck.”

The disconnect I felt in watching his reaction should have told me something. Or maybe it was the blue whisps bubbling up from the floor board. I found a Mander, a sprit, scuttling under the floorboard as I relaxed to the vision change. Following those blue whisps, I recognized what it was that had dragged my mind into the present. “How much of the food have we eaten?”

“You downed an entire portion and asked for seconds before we even had a spoon. To be fair, she had a spoon for you, but forgot ours.” Rowan raised an eyebrow.

“Have you eaten any of it?” I pressed.

“Was just about to.”

“Don’t.”

“Excuse me? First hot meal I haven’t prepared in almost two months.” Farrow went to bite into it just to spite me.

“Do you want me to tell you of the bodies under the floor boards?” I stared at the mess barely covered in earth in a crawl space no taller than a prone man.

Rowan set his spoon down. “I’ll see if we can get our clink back, claim you’re sick or something, and go find somewhere to camp out.”

“I have my doubts about them letting us out of here, Rowan.” I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the blue wisps. “And I doubt my lack of memories is because of my conversation with Death.”

“Should we fear the owners, or the dead here, Matchstick?” Rowan softened, patting the sword at his side to check it was still there.

“If you don’t eat the stew, probably the dead.”

“Want to define ‘probably’ there, Tan?” Farrow looked about the floor as if he could catch a glimpse of skeletal hands.

“There are shadows that the Manders haven’t hunted yet.” I watched the low flicker of the candle, realizing the room was not just dark for the lack of lights. “How common are the undead here, Rowan?”

“A frequent plague on farmer and noble alike. We burn bodies so that the bones won’t rise.” Rowan stood and grabbed his pack. We both followed suit and scuttled out of the inn dining room. Farrow and I quickly tacked up Ravur while Rowan pulled Lis out of her stall. Quamire, excited to be let out of Ravur’s stall, situated himself on his saddle pad with a wagging tail. The air outside the stables smelled of the cold that comes before the rain. Angry shouting made it’s way out into the yard. It seemed that the stew was in fact poisoned, and I should be anticipating my own demise in short order for how much I ate. We put the creatures to their paces and left that dark village.

“I think I directed Priscilla to the wrong candidate,” I said as I realized something about those blue wisps of magic. It was better to think on anything else other than the anticipated stomach ache, or muscle spasms, or foaming at the mouth I figured poison would come with.

“What?” Rowan demanded as we rode the animals hard. Dust kicked up from Lis’s claws and coated Farrow and me in fine particulate.

“I’m probably wrong, but I see blue wisps of magic around dead things.”

“And?” He growled, rain hammering down in sheets.

“That Faybar was surrounded with them.”

Rowan glared back at me. “Was she an undead?”

“No. I think she was alive. Do you think the blue wisps could be for those who’ve murdered people? Do undead folk look just like normal folk if they don’t die grizzly deaths?”

“Have you murdered anyone?” he asked. “You see blue wisps around you. That much you’ve said. You thought it was just magic. And yes, fresh undead can look just like the living.”

“Then what does it indicate? I saw them around the bodies. You don’t have them, neither does Farrow.”

“No clue, Matchstick. For now let’s find somewhere to lay low for the evening.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Was looking forward to something other than trail rations,” Farrow groused. “Wasn’t looking forward to being buried under some floorboards, though. So I can’t be too angry.”

“Yeah,” I replied quietly. “If undead are a legitimate problem in your world, why would they bury the dead beneath their house? That would just be asking for trouble.” The tiny pebble and Death’s word’s finally clicked into place with what was under the floorboards. I gagged.

Farrow checked over his shoulder. Then he pulled us off the trail into the dense forest. We ducked beneath several branches and found a wide enough area for Ravur to be comfortable. He drew her leads until she came to a halt. Twisting, he looked me square in the eye. “You gonna be alright?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, but I guess I wasn’t hiding it well for what I had seen. My stomach started churning.

“Death isn’t pretty,” he tried.

“No. The dead aren’t.” I didn’t want to expand on what was under those floorboards. I wanted off of Ravur

“Talk to me.” Rowan slid off Lis and took Ravur’s lead. She pranced sideways when Ravur went to sniff her. He took her by the bridle and gentled her before tying off both leads to a low, thick tree branch. The rain was coming down, but the thick canopy overhead was keeping us moderately dry.

I got myself out of the saddle and off of Ravur. “About what?” I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth and dragged in a deep breath, hoping for my stomach to settle.

“What you saw, Matchstick.”

“Why? We aren’t going back there. Ya’ll don’t have anything similar to detectives I bet.” I needed this conversation to stop.

“Because I get a feeling that death wasn’t something you encountered much in your world,” Rowan called Quamire off of Ravur and pulled my pack and his off her back.

“Uh. No. Not really. Portrayed it on stage a couple of times, but never even saw a funeral, let alone a dead body. Not unless you count road kill.” I tried to chuckle. My chest constricted and I hiccuped. Tears crowded and that uneasy deafness that comes with wretching crept up fast. Saliva coated my mouth.

“Easy, Tan, easy,” Farrow jumped off of Ravur. He grabbed the back of my head and pushed me down to set it between my knees. “Breath. Easy, kit. You’ll be alright.”

That just made it worse. I pushed him off and dashed deeper into the woods. My dinner made it’s presence known in an unholy manner behind a shrub. Bile was bad as a Yujin just as much as when I was human. At least the reflex was similar enough.

Empty, both physically and mentally, I returned and slid down against Ravur’s saddle where Rowan had set it. I leaned back to quietly regard the little fire he was carefully tending. “So, anyway. Made a deal with Death. Swallowed something Death gave me and now poison probably won’t kill me. And the meat in the stew was probably from the bodies under the floorboards if Death’s command ‘never to eat meat from those intelligent enough to speak’ meant what I think it meant now. Farrow, can I ask a big favor and have you dig out one of my chew sticks? Not sure I want to find out if I’m going to puke again until I’ve been able to scrub my teeth.”

He blanched and hopped to faster than I anticipated. He returned with one of the thin twigs that we used as a type of toothbrush. Pulling out a knife from some hidden pocket, Farrow feathered the tip of the twig and handed it to me. “Until you get your brain back in your skull, promise me you won’t go near a knife, Tan.”

I gave him a half hearted salute. Scrubbing with vigor, I appreciated the slightly sweet anise flavor. “I don’t think I ever want to depend on another meal made by someone else in my life.” I spat. “Teach me how to hunt and cook your way.”

Farrow glared at me. “You don’t want that.”

“Don’t think I want to eat bipedal creatures with big curly horns again, either.” I tossed the stick into the woods.

Rowan dropped the lid to the pot he had set into the fire’s coals. “Curly horns?” His glance across firelight promised hell.

I nodded. “At least three. Two were fairly long, and a smaller. It was…not something I want to describe.” I shivered at what was now stuck behind my eyes.

Rowan sneered and tossed another stick into the fire. “Typical.”

“Me?” I asked.

“No. Just how we’re treated.” He rolled his shoulders and pulled his cloak further around his ears. The wet had brought in late autumn chill. He pulled out our water canteen and dumped most of what was left into the pot.

“Rugoshi?” I asked.

“And Karamide.” He looked to Farrow. The redhead shrugged at the look and continued rummaging through our packs.

“The innkeep. Were they Yujin?”

“No. Liffa.”

“Liffa doesn’t get along with Rugoshi and Karamide?” I took my bedroll from Farrow and wrapped it around myself for warmth.

“Territorial disputes. The Tay Liffa; there aren’t many left. Back during my grandfather’s generation, Findou supplied Herenhuis with Rugoshi slaves. Those slaves were garrisoned on the Tay border and massacred the Liffa in the villages when Herenhuis turned Tay into a vassal state. There are still little colonies dotted around Herenhuis and up to the edge of Findou. Quite a lot have pledged loyalty to Herenhuis with hopes that their loyalty will keep another massacre from happening. Some Liffa are now hostile to pretty much everyone else. They don’t recognize Yujin as the ones who led to their people’s deaths, but the Rugoshi. Even though the Rugoshi were slaves forced into it. The Tay Liffa died and it’s not something they can look past. I’ve heard more than once of butchered Rugoshi skeletons being found in Tay as revenge killings.”

“Why did Herenhuis kill off the Liffa?” I leaned further into the saddle. The sky was a roiling chaotic mess of angry clouds. Lightning flitted in and out, lighting up our tiny campsight. Farrow had curled himself into a tiny ball beneath his traveling cloak.

Rowan shrugged. “Herenhuis Yujin have been trying to ‘purify’ their world for a while.”

“Genocide?” I offered. “What are Liffa? Like, do they have curly horns too? Is it because they don’t look like Yujin?”

“No, no, they don’t look like Yujin. They don’t like the description, but they look like green Fan, what with the same scales.”

“That’s like saying Sen and Karamide look the same, Rowan,” Farrow growled.

“Sen and Karamide look nothing alike!” Rowan hissed.

“We both eat meat, a great many have fur, those some are furless. Our ears are similar. Some of our festivals overlap,” Farrow showed his fangs. “Alright, it’s like saying Twilig and Rugoshi look the same because both are herbivors and have things growing out of their heads. That’s why Fan and Liffa find it offensive to say they look the same.”

“And Fan are?” I wanted another one of the chewing sticks that Farrow had gotten me into using for cleaning my teeth. The flavor, or maybe the sense of rubbing at my teeth reminded me of chewing gum. I hadn’t had any since getting my soul swapped.

“Fan and Liffa are scaled, rather than furred or furless. Fan have small horns. Liffa are hornless. But otherwise, they both look incredibly similar save for their red and green differences. There are cultural differences and language differences-”

“Fan are also venomous,” Farrow chimed in from beneath his travel cloak.

“Fan are also venomous,” Rowan repeated to emphasize the point. “Paralytic.” He tapped what would be canines for him, though his were incredibly flat. “It’s part of what made Findou a slaving nation. Letting them get close to you is asking them to put you in The Stables.”

“Stables?” I stuffed my hands into the rough wool of my tunic to get the tips of my fingers to stop feeling numb from the damp cold.

“Biggest slave market in the world.”

“Gross,” I muttered. Rowan cocked his head at me. Farrow peaked out from beneath his cloak, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion. I returned Rowan’s look. “What?”

He shrugged. “Just weird hearing it come from your voice. Wallace was pro-purity.”

I rolled my eyes. “Figures. Why did the king marry your mom and have Priscilla if there’s bad blood about having children with other…races? Species? Not sure I get what the Nine People actually are to each other. They can all have kids, and those kids can reproduce without problem. So it’s not a mule thing.”

A stiff wind barreled through the trees, setting Ravur to snort and huff at the sensation. “Easy, girl. Easy.” He patted her hide until she settled before turning back to me. “He had you already from the late queen. So, there wasn’t much trouble with him enjoying exotic flesh.”

The way he said it, the acidic malice in the undertone sent a chill shiver down my spine. “Racist pigs be racist in any world I guess.” I tugged at my travel cloak. The leather of the saddle was moderately warm at my back, but my butt was cold from the ground damp.

“It’s not just Yujin.” Farrow pulled his hood tighter around his ears.

“How so?” I asked.

“Most of the Nine prefer to keep to themselves, but then there are the groups who intermingle and have children. It’s not uncommon. But it seems like everyone likes to complain about it. Unless it’s with slaves. Then it’s just…expected?” He asked that question of the sky.

I gagged, and barely made it off the saddle and out to a random bush before I heaved bile. I leaned my head against one of the amethyst trees and waited for the sinking sensation to leave my spine. Wiping my mouth on the back of my shirt sleeve, I glanced back at Farrow and Rowan. “So, Rowan. Wanna explain what the deal is with this body vomiting from this topic?”

He leaned back to analyses me. “You didn’t do this in your world?”

“Probably just food poisoning, still. Anyways, lets move off the topic of slaves, yeah? It’s probably the food, but the idea of people being monsters makes me queezy.”

Farrow pulled his hood off. “What was your culture like, to not depend on slaves?”

“Came out of the states. There’s still a shit-ton of racism there, and repression. But slavery was done away with in the late 1800s and Civil Rights hit in the mid-1900s. Not sure those dates would even mean anything to you. But, at a fundamental level, it wasn’t a thing in my generation. Well, not legal anyways. There were always news reports of rings being busted, but those guys always got thrown in jail when they got caught.”

“Jailed for keeping slaves?”

“Yeah. Mainly they were sex slaves. I think I remember a couple reports of people being found in moving vans who were being ported to deal with crops, but mainly it was the sex slave industry that seemed to have continued. And that isn’t protected. Keeping people against their will is jailable from where I come from. It always seemed to be something observed from a great distance and twice-told in the hearing. So, the idea of it being close, at face level for me is giving me the nauseous heebeejeebies.” I shivered. “Is inter – uh…? Inter-people marriage ever approved of?”

“The Queen of Aria married off her daughters to Findou with approval from your- I mean, the King. But marriage is reserved specifically to nobility and the wealthy. It’s not something regular people need to deal with.”

“Findou. Who sees to that country again?” I asked. The distraction in a geopolitical lesson was not masking the shiver taking over entirely.

“Fan. They are in possession of a king and prime minister. The king is more of a figure head than an actual ruler,” Rowal supplied.

“And Tay and this Auria place are nervous of Findou? And why is marriage not for regular folk?”

“The people are scared of a certain group in Findou.” Rowan got up and pulled out flat packs of hard biscuit and our cups. “Water’s almost ready.”

“Military?” I guessed.

Farrow frowned. “No. The slave guild.”

“There’s a guild?” I hissed.

“And they’re very efficient at what they do. Back to marriage. Most people don’t own much. The land is the lord’s. The people work the land and have housing because of it. So, for the regular person, there is no passing down anything. Nobility marries because of possessions needing to be passed down, or to tie land together.” Rowan added a couple of hot stones to the water and set it to boiling. He took our cups and filled them. We set our hard biscuits in to soften.

“And you want to go through this Findou place? With a slaving guild?” I demanded.

“You’re royalty. You look royal. No one will touch you. It’ll be fine. It’ll be faster than going around the hook of Tay and it means we’ll pass through several large cities on the way – which will make for easier stopping points than what we’ve been dealing with already.”

“How the hell do I look royal?” I demanded. Now that I knew Rowan wouldn’t be looked at kindly in Tay, I could almost sympathize with him chancing Findou.

Farrow motioned to his own ears. “The length of your spars. The longer they are, the more likely you are to be related to someone on the throne.”

“Is that a magic thing, or an inbred thing?” I muttered.

“Just your male lineage. Your father has very long spars, and so did the several prior. Even if many people hate the idea of mixed children, there are plenty who have them. If Yujin kids are mixed, their spars end up shorter for it,” Rowan explained.

“And why are your people not liked?” I turned to Farrow.

“Oh, Karamide are sneaky, crafy, and often used as-”

“Farrow!” Rowan hissed at him.

“Spies?” I guess at that line of thought.

Farrow glanced at Rowan then to me, then back to Rowan.

“You are honest to a fault, Sparrow bones,” I chuckled.

“Sparrow bones?” He glanced sidelong at me.

“Mmm.” I bit into the hardtack, which was softening with the hot water. “Flying creature from back home. Small, pretty, fast. My grandfather had one tattooed on his forearm from when he served in the airforce. And if you’re a spy, your gonna need to work on keeping your mouth from wandering off.”

“I’m not a spy. Karamide are just good at being spies. But several of them were caught back during the same skirmishes over the Tay border and it left a bad impression for all of us that we can’t be trusted.”

I deep sighed. The woods had gone dark and cold, but at least the rain was dissipating. “Gods, why couldn’t this world have been one of those types that looks really utopic. Figured if all the religions allowed for same-sex couples, that it’d be more advanced than this.”

Rowan leaned back to frown at his mug. “That one is so core to the People, I can’t imagine why it would be such a phenomena from where you come from.”

“But freedom isn’t a core?”

Rowan stared at me over his cup and the quiet settled in as the rain ended. He looked down at the liquid, unsure how to respond. “I would prefer it be a core. It’s not protected in any holy book I know of.”

“Or any land?”

“None that I know of. Maybe one of the islands. But, none of the mainland protect it as law.” His frown deepened. “Why?” He demanded of no one.

“Add it to our docket of things to change when you become the Demon Lord.” I shrugged and finished off my own tepid hardtack water.

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