Your Listener stands on the lip of a slatted ledge, her pulpit a platform once used to stack boxes of salted fish. Her flock are slaves. Her cathedral an emptied out storehouse, a looted warehouse, and it is
packed to the rafters. It's fine, there's plenty of room.
The army took everything here.
Every sack of dry grain, every cut of smoked meat, every cask of fruit or crate of foodstuff is gone. The building stripped bare, leaving only the hollow interior, the gutted husk: a place absent its purpose, barren and bleak in its own way. The floor is a single slab of cool grey stone, a poured foundation. Lashed-together ladders lean on wooden walls, rising to the upper levels and shadowed timbers arch high overhead. Lanterns flicker on the narrow gantries, the landings that ringing the central open space. Yellow-orange tongues of flame that paint the temple in a bonfire glow. The lower levels saturated in twisting, red-tinged light; the rafters lost in darkness, just the suggestion of exposed structure and the underside of layered thatch. The air here is heavy, still. Thick with the smell of unwashed bodies and burning oil.
There's at least a hundred people here; the church has no decoration but the crowd is a mosaic all its own. Flesh done in gradients of fur and feather and scale. Monsters twisted into human shapes. You've heard that in the West, the Realm devises complex systems and citizen-tiers for their subjugated populations; dividing and segmenting and segregating, a scaffolding of relative positions and absolute favor. Martial race or menial? Celestial in affinity or corrupt in aspect? Capable of higher reasoning and mature thought or restricted, hobbled by one's primitive instincts? Lookshy holds you in no such regard: you are the weak, you are the cowardly and the craven. You are all alike in your unworthiness, all equal as you kneel in the dirt.
If who you were mattered at all, you'd be a Citizen now wouldn't you?
Even so, there are stories and you know some of them.
There, in the shoulder-to-shoulder press, rising above the rest: the spotted leopards, the grassland lions, the thick-furred tigers. Beastmen stripped to the waist or clad in overlarge jackets, bodies dappled in spots or stripes or uniform tawny-gold. Abhor them, they came from Outside in the armies of the raksha and the City broke them upon its walls. Their bondage is their atonement, chaos and Wyld things made to serve the designs of enlightened women and disciplined men. You know that they must clip their pelts short and cut their claws to the quick, paring them back to the soft beds.
the overseer was a fat woman, a jovial woman, her body thick with muscle from years of service on the front lines, blurred by years more of good eating.
you remember the way her tiger-skin belt strained to contain her waist.
"I could always use another," she used to say as she slapped her stomach, laughing at her own joke.
There, against the walls, on the edges, in knots of their own kind: the river-serpents. Their frames long and lean; too many slitted black eyes glittering in saurian faces. Frilled hoods climbing up their shoulders, anchoring into their scaled scalps. Scorn them, they were born from the filth of the Yanaze and stood against the founding Gentes, siding with the tyrants of Deheleshen against what was good and right. Against the course of history, the future path. Black mud clings to their bodies, wetland greenery sprouting from lanky limbs. The blessings of a God. It means nothing.
he sat on the bench, arms resting on his thighs. towering over you, sighing as he pressed a cool cloth to the back of his neck.
you asked what happened to his teeth, your small hands reaching up to touch your own canines.
they were pulled when he was born, he said, to take his venom and make him "safe".
And there, lining the highest levels, hunched over and peering down at the assembled mass: the ossifrage, the bone-eaters. Black wings and heavy, hooked beaks. The yellow-white feathers of their chests and necks and scalps stained rust red. Hate them, when the City found their tribe they knew them to be degenerate corpse-eaters, ghost-worshippers. Vultures feasting upon the bones of citizens; they were scourged with fire and salt as all wicked things must be. One turns and you see her face has been half shattered, pink tissue welling up between the cracked keratin.
at night, when you two were done, he'd wrap his useless wings around you and hold you kindly. what happened to him wasn't your fault. more than anything he wanted to fly.
he was smiling, you think, when he looked back at you.
he was smiling, you think, when he went over the cliff. useless wings outstretched.
Stories are just ghosts, pieces of the past that haunt you; dogging your footsteps. An echo where there was no sound, a murmur where there was no conversation. You know that in their academies they teach the children of Lookshy the history of your own ancestors. They say that you were born from uncivilized barbarians and stupid brutes, that your forefathers and mothers were feeble and feckless and their very blood seethed with impurities. That slavery was a kindness, a taming of beasts.
You're all just beasts to them, in the end.
Snippets of discussion float through the air, you have some time before the sermon starts. You tug Jason's arm, tipping your head towards a small throng around a river-serpent. He starts a little, rubbing his neck sheepishly. Just past his ear you see a serious faced young woman scowling at nothing. Her hair the color of ash and cold, crumbling coals; a padded vest baring deeply tanned, deeply muscled arms. Her focus shifts and she catches your eyes; holds them for a moment, just a moment, a second of connection in the churn and then it's gone and so is she.
A shudder works its way down your spine as you slip into discussion, the dull roar of the crowd fading away. Shake yourself like a dog shedding water, you're jumping at nothing. All you're doing is attending a service, all you're doing is being a faithful Immaculate, a dutiful son. Repeat it to yourself until it sounds almost true.
"-alt, sacks of the stuff," The river-serpent is talking and her voice is a hissing, lyrical rasp. She passes a palm over the ridges that crown her spade-shaped skull, thickened scales jutting out over half a dozen eyesockets, a nervous gesture. "And he's been hanging prayer strips from his tent."
"But he's not an exorcist?" Someone asks, you and Jason get a few glances before the circle obligingly shifts and makes room. The river-serpent shakes her head, a side-to-side sway. "So why?"
"Xauma, you idiot," someone else mutters.
"But they don't have necro-"
"They have oaths," she says softly, "I-I heard him talking about it. He said the Wolf-King made deals with things under the earth, in the ground, that they gave him an army. Pledged him the dead and the still-living. That it was the only way he could march against the City. Lookshy burned Xauma a long time ago, but he said it used to be almost as big. A million people. Maybe more."
A million people, gone in an instant. Can you imagine? You can't can you? Your brain can't envision it, can't grasp a hold of what it must be like; a pyre in the village square except the pile of bodies stretches out through the fields, crushing the stalks and heaping up against the distant walls. A bonfire for the dead except the flames ripple out in great crackling waves, scorching the soil beneath your feet, vast curtains of black smoke rising to choke out the sun.
A million people. Can you imagine what they became? Down there in the dark, shackled by their sins, soaking in their own spiritual corruption. You shudder again.
"(You were in the camp, how much salt do they even have?)" The question barely audible but she catches it still, you see her flinch and glance away.
"Not enough," she says. "Don't think they even have enough for themselves. More was supposed to arrive today from the South, but Xauma's hunting the convoys. They have raptors serving them, white-winged creatures that fly by night."
Run your tongue over your teeth, feel Jason's attention on the exchange. Silently listening, saying nothing but his expression intent beneath the semi-affected curiosity. You remember the airship as it passed you on the march heret; that massive arrow-headed wonder of industry and sorcerous skill. Its sheer span swallowing you all up in the shade, an entire fort clinging to the underside. You remember it as it limped back across the sky, the ugly gouges that scored its underside shiny, the missing compartments wrenched free from the whole, the torn and half-lamed escort.
No wonder they're scared.
Jason starts to say something, to ask a question of his own, only to be cut off by the sound of stamping. A walking stick slamming against a solid surface, cutting through the din, the chatter. Conversation dwindles and dies in an instant, the quiet rustling of cloth and sandaled feet as every face turns towards the far side of the storehouse; to Listener Karatzas, your minister. In her hand she holds a single worn tome; its backing the brown of rich, fertile earth and its pages creamy white. Unconcerned, unperturbed, by the reverent hush, the almost apprehensive stillness, she scans the upper levels, her eyes dropping to the ground floor and the congregation that spills out the doors. Her gaze passes over you, you think, but all you can see from where you stand is a collection of impressions, mapped over your own recollections: the wisps of iron grey hair that frame her face, the hood and the broad brimmed hat, those teeth that shine, gleaming in her mouth; the reflected sparks of a dozen lanterns.
And then she begins. And her voice is thunder and fire and the landslide as it cascades down the stony slopes, grinding and roaring over the mountain slopes.
"They say you are the meek! And to ensure this they have seen you abused, mutilated and shamed. To ensure this they send soldiers amongst you to slaughter and maim and keep you shackled by fear. But I am not afraid, for I have faith! In the Dragons! In the world that they have made! In
you! And I stand before you tonight to tell you that your masters
lie. Even the most impious soldier would say that I am holy, sacred in a way a helot is not and can never be. Something like a citizen in my own right," She spreads her arms as if to embrace you all and you? You're squeezing Jason's fingers all but bloodless, the tears returned, you're rocking up on your tip-toes as if you can be that much closer to her. That much nearer.
"But they are wrong," she says, "for you are my sisters and my brothers and my brethren in faith if not in blood. And that it is not
you who should be afraid."
You don't cheer, you can't, you can barely bring yourself to raise your voice. But as she begins to read from the Text, to recount the story of Pasiap and the Pilgrim and the Tyrant Humbled, you see the same expression on everyone's face and feel it mirrored on your own: joy, raw and radiant and awed.
Who is it who offers first? Who asks and who reciprocates? Do you even know? Does it even matter?
There's no real privacy in the helot quarter but the two of you still find a space, a little alley between the buildings where the shadows cluster thick. It's cramped but it's cool and the wind is softer here, people walk past now and then but none cut through, none disturb you. You kiss him and he buries his face in the crook of your neck, the joint between shoulder and throat. His arms wrapped around you, his hands slipping lower. Your own exploring him, feeling the hard planes of muscle and the starker spars of bone. Stroking the heavy brawn of his breast, fingers gliding across the tanned skin; lacing together beneath his tunic, across his back. Savoring the way you make him shiver despite himself. Blonde hair hangs half over his eyes, he doesn't quite look at you.
"Do you enjoy me?" Jason murmurs.
"I think you're beautiful," you say. He laughs, a hitching, hiccuping noise in the sharp bark and holds you tighter. He steps in closer, all but pinning you against the wall. It goes fast after that, a steady degeneration. Preparing you and asking if you're alright and then kinder concerns giving way to harsh gasps and barely stifled moans. He's gentler with you than he really needs to be; like he's worried you'll break or shatter in your grip. You take him with your back braced against the side of the building, your legs around his waist. The two of you more than half naked, nearly nude but for open jackets and hiked up shirts.
His face buried beneath your jaw, your nails digging into the dense muscle, both your breathing coming in ragged pants as you finish. He makes no mood to clean up, to get decent, just standing there chest to chest. Letting it last as long as he can.
"(It'll be alright)," he says, repeating it like a mantra as the two of you cling to each other. The rest of the world dead and gone. "(It'll be alright, I'll make it alright)."
In the morning you wake to see a hundred carrion crows circling the town of Ivory Bones, watching, waiting, as a new brace of "battle-standards" are raised, the old ones, the rotting carcasses finally cut down. The next day they slash everyone's rations, working you all double-pace. Working you until your arms are trembling, shaking, and the haft of your pick is stained scarlet, smudged in crimson. Only some of it yours. The day after you and the others watch as a column of armored cataphracts spills out of the gates of the town, pouring through the narrow paths through the earth-works. Quilted red cloth over bronze-washed scale. Their chargers draped in barding, faded gold segments rippling with every step. They burn like the setting sun. Hundreds of pounds of armored strength, veteran soldiers. Packs of mounted scouts, skirmishers in chain at the front. They return that evening, bloodied and battered and badly diminished in number. And all throughout Listener Karatzas walks among the slaves and speaks to so many of you, she says she will hold another service to welcome calendar's end, to huddle together against the encroaching dark. All throughout the week Jason stands beside you, watching you; you take comfort in each other when you can, you're there for each other still when you can't. You hold him in the night as he mumbles, caught in the grip of his own nightmares. You don't judge him, you understand.
Calibration is coming and it won't spare any of you. Calibration is coming and with it an answer to the question that's been plaguing you. Calibration is coming, tonight the Unconquered Sun will set and he will not rise.
It is dusk. It is starting.
You and Jason kneel alongside the others, the hundreds, the
thousands close enough that there's barely any room to sink down lower. You do it anyway, every helot genuflecting before the horizon, sinking down to prostrate themselves in the dust alongside every guard in the camp. A Listener -not her, not yours- begins to sign a hymn. The mournful melody drifting out over the marshaled soldiers and slaves. The sky above burns like molten copper, the shadow of the Silver Chair interposed upon face of a divine inferno. A black disk carving Sol Invictus into a blazing crescent. One by one the Maidens flicker and flare to life around them. Yellow and blue and red and green and violent, a coronet of color; a pentacle framing the Sun and Moon as together they start to sink below the rim of the world.
The song ends, you press your forehead to the stone and make to rise along with the rest only for Jason to catch your arm. You freeze, hesitant and unsure, studying him with concern.
"Is everything-"
"Don't," he says, his voice thick and hoarse. He won't look up at you, he's just staring off, into the middle distance, at the impaling spears; at the raven worrying at the ruins of a woman's face. Ripping gory strips from glistening bone. "Don't go to her sermon tonight. Listener Karatzas. Don't, just stay by me."
You...smile, awkwardly, uncertainly, not quite understanding. Not quite comprehending. But you can feel the pressure in his grip, feel the tension, feel the strain as he makes claws out of his hands.
"Jason if you're worried we can-"
"
It's not that," he hisses, rounding on you and you can see, now that his eyes are glassy, bloodshot, the skin around them slightly swollen and puffy. All around you the helots are milling about, the edges of the crowd dissolving and fraying as people filter away. Nobody pays attention to you to,w nobody has the energy to care. "Xauma is coming
now Alexius, they'll be here in a few hours, less maybe. Sidonia's ordered the army to liquidate the slaves. You were right. You were fucking
right."
The smile slowly, slowly slips from your face. Every feeling ebbs away, empties you out. Somewhere, far from you, you feel the panic start. A rolling wave building and building, rising to catastrophic heights.
"Oh," you say.
But...Jason has a plan, right? Jason has a way out and even if it's not fully fleshed you're smart enough and you're clever and you can take a lot of punishment. You'll improvise. The two of you can make it through.
Still. These might be the last meaningful words you get to say to him.
[ ] Tell him you love him. You don't...know if you do, really, you don't know what love feels like. But he makes you feel something like whole, something like wanted, and you want to make him feel the same way too.
[ ] Tell him that it'll be alright. That he's done the best he can but you're just helots, and if you survive it'll be luck as much as skill and if you die it...won't matter as much to you. Because you'll be together.
[ ] Tell him thank you. He was there for you that first night, he's been there for you in the days since. You don't know what you are to each other exactly but he is your friend. And you would die for for your friends.
[ ] Tell him you're scared. You've never been especially courageous, you've never wanted to stand out of the crowd. But he gave you the confidence to go to Listener Karatzas's sermon. And so you'll be brave.
