(THOB) Chapter 57: Ajal (Patreon)

The next morning, they came for Jazabil, blades drawn as they stood guard. Today Commander Olann was not among them. The soldiers of the King’s guard pulled her by the chain that held her to the wall, dragging her out of the church, Father Kezaril following behind them, scorn marring his face while she spat curses at him in a language Ezril didn’t understand. He didn’t need to understand her words to know, though.

He watched it all from the window of his room. It was surreal knowing she was to be burned at high noon. The woman he had spoken with last night would cease to exist before the sun began its descent from the day’s sky. He watched them go and countless thoughts went through his mind, thoughts he wasn’t stupid enough to give the time of day.

A few hours before noon Ezril left his room, with one destination in mind: the public square. He didn’t take a horse, not like the soldiers and Father Kazaril did. He walked, the hem of his cassock billowing in the wind.

It was a long walk, but the length was important, and the time it took, welcomed. No one spoke to him and he reciprocated. He had grown accustomed to life in the parish now. The absence of fear in the eyes of Mother Nervia and Sister Alanna. He had almost forgotten how people felt about brothers of the seminary. Outside, in the world beyond the church, outside the protection of the sanctuary, everyone regarded him in barely concealed fear. Still, he took his time reaching the square. He needed it. He would have to be prepared for what he would see.

The public square was bustling with people come to see another burn in flames. The crowd stood so great they spilled out of the square, cheering and cursing, countless in their numbers. This is madness, he thought as he stood at the edge of it. He had heard of the burnings, but this was the first he would see.

Jazabil stood on an elevated platform at the center of the square, fastened to a post, dried strips of hay at her feet, dried twigs, sticks and, Ezril was certain, other combustibles. A clerk stood before her addressing the multitude of people, reading from a parchment in his hands. No doubt announcing the reason she was to be burned, not that anyone cared. He was one of the only three people with her on the platform. The clerk, a hooded man holding a torch, and Father Kazaril stood, almost ceremonial.

But Ezril’s focus was on Jazabil. In one night she had grown worse. Her clothes bore cuts that oozed fresh blood, and she was dyed more red than brown from dirt, blood dripping from her mouth like a leaky tap.

As he watched the clerk roll up his parchment he thought he heard someone call his name. He listened for a moment, drowning out the crowd the best he could. Before long he heard it a second time. When he turned his head he saw Sister Alanna shoving her way towards him.

“You came,” she said.

He nodded, turning his eyes back to the platform. Silence was his only words.

“I didn’t think you would.”

He hadn’t wanted to, but after last night, he felt he owed it to Jazabil to see it through to the end. A part of him believed she would call on her god in her final moment. He wanted to hear it, even if he wouldn’t understand it. He wanted to remember the exact words she would use.

“All these people,” Sister Alanna said, appalled, “here just to see a person burned. She may be Tainted, but she’s still human.”

The Tainted are not human that they should be treated as such, Father Kazaril’s words came to Ezril. They are an abomination that should be burned from the surface of Vayla and the eyes of Truth.

He bit down on the thoughts. “… they don’t see her as human,” he said without intent. “At least, some of them do not.”

The hooded man, clearly the executioner, lit the pyre and it kindled to life. Jazabil didn’t squirm. She kept her head down, facing the kindling flames. Ezril knew she wasn’t watching it, and after a while he wondered if she even knew it had been lit.

The crowd cheered louder, demanding a reaction from her. He heard a few voices shouting at her, asking where her god was now. He found all of them appalling.

Slowly, the flames found Jazabil and her face twitched. Now Ezril was certain she was aware of it.

Something drew his attention from the pyre, caught at the edge of sight. A girl. From her height he judged her around his age. She didn’t cheer like the rest of the crowd. She made no move, watching Jazabil burn, her hands trembling. Something about her was familiar.

“Brother Antari, where are you going?” Alanna inquired.

Ezril didn’t take his eyes from the girl, his legs moving, his body guiding him through the crowd. “Stay here, Sister.”

He dared not lose sight of the girl. He pushed through the crowd and, at first, they resisted, shoving against him. But the moment they saw who he was they shoved in the opposite direction, their fear overriding their excitement.

The girl held her hair in a braid that stopped midway down her back. It was a simple black, sullied by brown strands in different places, giving it a brownish hue. Her hand trembled, and as he watched her he noticed it was clenched around an object. He got closer, gentle, not to alert her. When he stood behind her she didn’t notice him.

She held a knife in a tight grip. Her trembling, whether brought on by fear or rage, he couldn’t discern. But he knew her. If he stood before her he would see that she had brown eyes and high cheekbones. It was hard to forget her when he had once spent a day with her and one of his brothers.

Farla.

When he grabbed her wrist, she started, perhaps scared she had been discovered or simply surprised at being touched.

“Whatever has made you bring a knife, I see nothing good coming from it, Farla,” he whispered to her, hoping the use of her name would make her more amiable towards him.

“Brother Antari…”

“Give me the knife,” he pleaded. “Do not do anything stupid.”

“I knew her.” Farla’s hand continued its trembling as she spoke. “She was a kind woman; she would never have done what they say she did. But everyone feared her because she was Tainted. They think it is a choice.” She scoffed. “How little they know.”

“Farla. Give me the knife.” He could take it from her, but he felt it was necessary she released it on her own. “Just let go of it.”

She sniffed back a tear. “Tell me, brother Antari. Why should I?”

Ezril withheld his growing ire. “Because whatever you do with that knife, Farla, it will not be good in the end. There will be no escape. You will be caught. And you will be punished.”

“And why do you care?”

“I do not,” he answered honestly, and her grip tightened around the knife’s hilt. “But if anything happens to you,” he continued, “it will crush Brother Salem. And I care about my brothers more than you would think.”

“Why?” she whispered and he felt her grip wane. The crowd roared louder around them, as if bent on drowning her out. “Why do they have to be such horrible people? Why must she burn? It’s not her fault she was born this way.”

The knife wavered. Ezril felt it and slid it from her grip. It was a simple knife. A dagger, its blade barely six inches.

“I was going to—”

“I think it best if I do not know what you intended,” Ezril interrupted her. “And I think it best if we do not speak of this.”

She looked at him for the first time, her brown eyes red, her cheeks wet with tears. He saw it in her eyes. She did not tremble from fear; it was rage that had held her all this time. It was hate. A sad thing for a person so young.

The irony was not lost to him. He’d know hate at a far younger age than she was. And where did that get you?

“One day you will become like the priest on that pavement,” she said. “And Truth help us all, so will Salem.”

Farla did not look back. Ezril knew she would not. She hadn’t turned to look at him. She had turned to stop looking at Jazabil as she burned.

Ezril didn’t hold her; he would not offer her a consolation he did not have. So he did what he could, he stood, closing her off from the eyes of the world, and let her cry.

Jazabil had been wrong last night. She had not burned with a smile on her face, and she had offered her audience no silence. She had cried. And wailed. And cursed. And towards the end, she had begged. She had pleaded to no one, everyone, and anyone.

And as Ezril walked away from the square that held her charred remains, he wished he could have taken consolation in the thought that she had been pleading to her god too. But he could not, not when he’d understood every word she had said. Not when everyone had understood every word she had said. Her death had been messy and without dignity. Such was to be the fate of all Tainted.

The place was cold when Ezril walked into it. He had climbed three flights of stairs to get to the hallway. Back at the tavern the bar girl had said to find Ajal here. She had been quite helpful, barely a few years older than him. She had also been nice. She had also told him her name, but he had known he would not remember it. And now, he could not.

The hallway was lit by lanterns located between the doors on both sides. His hands were numb, and a cold seeped into his bones. It had nothing to do with the weather, and he suspected he knew what it was.

There is nothing here to fear, he told himself.

Then why do your hands tremble so? the darkness of his mind asked.

He stilled them with each other but they trembled as one instead. “it’s the second door on the right.” The bar girl’s words came to him.

When he knocked, the sound came as a tremor. Even his knock seemed uncertain. You don’t have to do this, he thought. You can do this another day; it does not have to be today... or perhaps, not at all.

When the door opened, a woman stood in front of him. Her hair was blonde, and she would have been beautiful if she wasn’t frowning. She looked up at him and her frown deepened into a scowl. She was perhaps barely passed twenty years. She was also scared, but she would not be afraid of a boy her age, even if he was a brother of the seminary. At least she was determined not to show it.

Or maybe it was his fear he was sensing.

“Is Ajal around?” he asked.

“He had nothing to do with his sister, if that’s why you’re here,” she said almost immediately. “She was an abomination and he kn—”

Barely a few words and he already found her infuriating. “I will speak only to Ajal.”

“I will handle this,” a man said, walking up behind her. “Go and watch the kids, Relni.”

The woman gave the man a skeptical look before leaving, mumbling disagreements under her breath, too low for Ezril to make out anything comprehensive.

“I am sorry for her behavior,” the man apologized. “She’s suspicious of everyone, and she hated my sister. How may I help you, Brother…?”

At seventeen Ezril was as tall as most men, but the man was easily taller than him, a very sharp contrast to Relni. He was possibly near his thirtieth year. His hair, black like Jazabil’s, was kept cut close to his scalp. But the stubbles on his chin spoke of a jaw that had not seen a blade for at least a week. He had Jazabil’s hazel eyes too, but where hers had held defiance, one of momentary fear the period he knew her, the man’s held sorrow. This was without a doubt Ajal.

“Antari,” Ezril answered. “Vi Antari.”

“How may I help you, Brother Antari?”

“I have a message from your sister, Ajal,” he said. “One I promised to deliver.”

Ajal’s face saddened, the sorrow no longer confined to his eyes alone. “We didn’t speak to each other much. We stopped talking when I married Relni.” Even his smile was sad. “She didn’t even get to see her nephew.” His voice cracked. “I grew to hate her for it, but she was too busy talking to the dead to notice, I guess.”

A family is meant to believe in each other… The words swirled in Ezril’s mind and his trembling receded. When he spoke again, his voice was bland and without emotion.

“She asks that you forgive her selfishness, and she will await you beyond the Thresh. But you should not come too soon, for she can wait as long as you need.”

A sob escaped Ajal’s lips as Ezril turned to leave.

“I hated her.” Ajal seemed broken by it, though his words seemed to hold true.

Ezril looked at him one more time. The man seemed small now, he was nothing like his size in the moment.

“For what it’s worth,” Ezril said. “She loved you very dearly.”

Then he left.

After the morning mass Ezril saw himself at the entrance of the church of Ardin, awaiting the arrival of the carriage that was to return him to the seminary. The people that passed paid him no heed, keeping as much distance from him as they could. It was something he’d long grown accustomed to, but he knew he was but a minor part of the reason they stayed away. Wraith comprised the greater part, as it stood beside him watching them pass. Ezril spared theAtle wolf a glance. It was odd that they would fear it even now because expression was something of curiosity, even mild confusion. It looked like a puppy offered a new toy it did not understand.

Father Kazaril had passed the news of the carriage’s arrival when Ezril had returned from his trip to Ajal last night, not bothering to ask him where he had been.

“You were going to leave without saying goodbye?”

Ezril turned to see Alanna walking up to him. Today she wore her blue habit, and her headdress covered her hair, and though she wore a smile on her face, he could see it faltering at the edges.

“I was not going to leave without saying goodbye,” he told her. “I was simply just going to leave. Although I had a feeling you would beat the carriage to me.”

She smiled. “Ever the way with words, Brother Antari.” She stopped beside him, watching the people pass. “We will meet again, will we not?”

Ezril shrugged. “I cannot say for certain that we will.”

“You will still become a priest, am I wrong?”

“Yes.” He knew why she asked. “Yes, I will.”

“And I, a nun.”

She had something to say, and this was not it. He could tell, and he knew she would say it eventually. He had a feeling he didn’t want her to, so he spoke first.

“Sister Alanna—”

“Do you ever wonder what could have been?” she interrupted.

“What could have been?”

“Yes,” she validated. “What could have been if we had met, had I not been a sister of the church and you a brother of the seminary.” There was a wanderlust in her eyes. Ezril could see it, though she wouldn’t look at him.

“Believe me, Sister Alanna, I have wondered a lot of things in my life. Not anymore.” He cast his gaze back to the passers-by. “I have learned that it changes nothing, and makes for a terrible companion.”

Alanna shook herself visibly. When she turned to him, the wanderlust was gone from her eyes, and her smile had returned. “You, Brother Antari, will be a priest. And should you need any assistance, you will call for me.”

Ezril shook his head. “I cannot do that. You will become a healer, and you will offer Truth’s love to his children, and heal their ailments.”

“Yes,” Alanna agreed, “and you are one of Truth’s children. And I am telling you I will come to your aid immediately, should you call on me.”

“I take no precedence over Truth’s children,” he debated. “We are all equal.”

She looked away. “Only in the eyes of Truth.”

Her voice had barely risen above a whisper, so much so that Ezril doubted it had been intended for him.

“I apologize, Sister, but I cannot—”

“Brother Ezril Vi Antari!” she snapped. “You. Will. Call. For. Me. Is that understood?”

He smiled, she remained lively even at odd times. “Yes, sister,” he answered.

She pursed her lips, observing him. “Good,” she said at last, satisfied with whatever she saw. “We will help bring Truth to the realm.”

“Yes…” ... You his love, and I his wrath.

A carriage pulled up in front of them a moment after and Ezril knew it was his. He opened the door, Wraith walked inside, then he tossed his sack behind the wolf. Before he climbed in, he stopped to look upon Alanna one last time.

“You be a good girl, Sister,” he said.

Alanna smiled. “When have I never been?”

Ezril barked a short laugh. “You never are.”

Alanna pouted, a hand on her chest as he sat in the carriage, the door still hanging open. “I will not stand here and have you slander my good name,” she said, holding back a smile. “I will have you know for a fact that I am the best behaved Sister there is.”

Smiling, Ezril shook his head and closed the carriage door. She would talk him and the carriage into staying if he gave her the chance. The carriage lurched to the side, and it started moving. When he looked at her again, she was waving him off as Mother Nervia walked up beside her. The mother had—it seemed—come to see him off, regardless of how late she was.

“Good bye, Ezril!” Sister Alanna shouted, not caring what anyone around thought. It had most certainly shocked Mother Nervia into a very animated startle.

She was a strange sister, Ezril thought. An odd sister, not that he’d met much of her kind.

He would indeed miss her.