Family Disunion

— Harrence —

The prisoners were hauled onto their knees and into a rough line. The bulwarks were tied with leather, but Ma'Tocha's hands were shackled in a metal Harrence didn't recognize, heavy, dull gray manacles with a chain between them. She tried to summon her spirit and say a prayer to shape the manacles off of her, but she was met with a backlash of pain. Her hands turned colors: from pink, to red, to almost purple. Finally, she gave in and stopped trying to use spirit.

"Katerina," Ma'Tocha panted, "you've come a long way. In the wrong direction."

"It's Dean Katerina now, and I'm on the right side. The winning side. Oh gosh, how many years has it been? Seven, right? Since you stormed out of the family meeting? You never write, you never visit, you just abandon us. And then you show up, running around Dace, killing my Defenders of Pure Faith. I can find plenty more where they came from, but the paperwork …"

She laughed again, a little too gleefully to be perfectly sane. The woman who had captured them wore a walking dress of expensive monster hide, tanned and worked until the leather was as soft as wool, then extravagantly tooled with intricate designs. Her round, brown face was decorated by subtle yellow ripples — a Korolo family trait that Ma'Tocha apparently lacked. What frightened Harrence, more than the surprise attack or the fact the woman might be mad, was the glow of spirit shining from her. She lacked Ma'Tocha's delicate control but she was just as powerful as the famous disciple.

"What you're doing is monstrous. I thought Enclave had abandoned the Work, but it's so much worse than that, isn't it?"

The Enclave dean dropped her mock concern for spite. "The Work is ensuring Enclave's preeminence for a thousand years. Spirit should be used on the worthy. The lucky recipients must pay us our due. Your rag-tattered pretend church will never understand that. You'll be swept away."

"You always were good at getting paid, Kat. I remember a girl who demanded her allowance on time and then counted the coins to make sure it was all there. You even wrote out receipts. It used to be adorable when you were little. I guess we all should have taken it for a warning."

"There's nothing wrong with the righteous getting their due. You know, I've never burned a family member but I'm looking forward to it."

Dean Katerina rummaged through the collection of confiscated articles heaped on the dead cleric's desk. Ear cuff links, spirit stones, weapons, a small amount of money, and the holy symbol Ma'Tocha normally wore around her neck. "Sticking with the humble wood symbol, I see. So pointless. You can afford a little silver, and a gem or two. Live a little, Auntie.

"Now, these are interesting." Katerina separated the links that had been taken from Ma'Tocha and Dash. "Have you stooped to practicing the ancient arts? What do these do? How do you use them?"

"They're protective devices. But they're bloodbound. You can't activate them."

"Ancient arts and blood magic. You should be ashamed. And these little beauties!" She picked up one of the spirit stones. "No wonder your disciples seem to have so much spirit. You've been cheating! Your little Phillip may be low-born, but no one can deny he's clever. But where are the rest of the fragments?" Only two fragments were in the pile before her, Ma'Tocha's and the last defender's, marked by their distinctive wooden capsules.

"I sent them south already."

"That's a lie," said Katerina dismissively to her soldiers, "she'd never leave them too far out of her sight. They must have a camp nearby. Search the outskirts of the city and find it!" The men saluted her and hastened out, leaving two men to handle the prisoners.

While Katerina had been addressing her men, Ma'Tocha had gone back to testing her restraints. Whatever she was doing was causing her to be punished: her hands were turning purple.

"They're effective, aren't they? The harder you try to get out of them, the more damage they cause. You're going to die in those restraints. If you're good, you'll die a little later. You've had a good run, but age makes way for youth. The student overcomes the master."

"And Enclave," croaked Ma'Tocha through the pain, "it a rotten old thing. It will fall so a true church can rise."

That was when the ghost of Brynn, Harrence's older daughter, attached herself to Katerina. It looked like the girl was riding piggyback, with her head resting on the dean's shoulders, so she could better follow her host's activities. But there was nothing playful or benign about what she was doing there. She was taking spirit, bleeding the Enclave disciple bit by bit.

Not too fast, Harrence willed, or else she'll notice. Yara, Edward, and the two other children (Harrence had never learned their names) were standing around the room or floating in mid-air, watching Brynn gradually gain substance from her sustenance, and slowly turning from wispy and translucent to opaque. How long would Katerina ignore the girl on her back?

"I've always admired that about you, Auntie. You're so indomitable. I'll make a deal with you, since we're family: read Oath of Loyalty and I'll let you and your bulwark live. I'll even let you continue 'the Work', with some new guidelines in place. Someone has to rub shoulders with the destitute and dirt farmers. It sure isn't going to be me."

Ma'Tocha decided for all of them, without asking and without pause. "That oath makes people insane. I'd rather die first. I'd rather we all die first." She had stopped her struggling, and her hands were changing back to their normal color. But it must have been painful, because she kept working her fingers to get her circulation going again.

"If you refuse to turn, then you'll be purified by fire. All of you. You will die in agony, while people cheer for your death. And after all you've done for them, too. Until then," a slim and silver knife appeared in Katerina's hands, "we have to do something about all your lies about Enclave. We can't have you spreading them while you're waiting to die. Hold her!"

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

One of the soldiers in the room grabbed Ma'Tocha by the head. Her body struggled, but her head was held steady.

"By all means, fight all you want. It makes this so much better for me. Last chance: turn or burn?"

All that he had been through recently, the deaths of his girls, traveling with a disciple, being surrounded by ghosts, visiting hamlets wracked with grief, the fighting, the killing, the training, had left its mark on Harrence. The farmer would have cringed fearfully, or worried for Ma'Tocha, but the bulwark knew how tough she was. As long as she didn't die, almost anything could be healed. They could all be mangled to within an inch of their lives, and they could still be put together. They only had to live.

Ma'Tocha, once Katerina's teacher and now her captive, looked the younger woman in the eye. "I should have let you die in Miala."

"Well. You'll have just enough time on your hands to regret it, while you wait for your execution date." She grabbed Ma'Tocha's chin with her empty hand and squeezed with enhanced strength until the jawbone cracked. "Now open up and say 'ah'! One little slice and it'll all be over."

Now, thought Harrence, sending every bit of will he had to the ghostly children. The dean might not notice an attack while in the throes of victory.

Ma'Tocha jerked her head, and the knife slashed Ma'Tocha's mouth wide open to halfway up her cheek. Blood welled up, Katerina's hold strengthened, and the knife went into her mouth again. Katerina's eyes were as keen as her blade, avid witnesses to the woman's helplessness.

"I always hated your twisted moralizing. That finally ends today!"

All the ghosts were on her now, hanging from her limbs, mouths buried in her flesh like leeches.

"What's that?" The silver knife withdrew. Katerina released her victim and turned to look behind her, then turned again, seeking what was constantly behind her. Her empty hand snapped out and slapped Ma'Tocha across the face. "Who else is here? Tell me!"

Ma'Tocha had to spit out a stream of blood to answer, her words slurred by her slashed face. "There's only us. Are you losing it, Kitty Kat?"

"Idiot!" Katerina backhanded the older woman across her bloody cheek. Blood misted onto walls and the ceiling from the impact, and Ma'Tocha spit again. "I'll start killing your followers if you don't answer!"

"Test me with the light if you don't believe me." Ma'Tocha was eerily calm.

Katerina's knife hand wavered, and the blade rang against the floor. Her eyes expanded, white and wide and terrified.

Novice that he was, Harrence didn't sense what had alarmed the dean so much until the deed was done. Her bulwark's enhancements drained away, and Katerina herself didn't shine bright and powerful anymore. At first, he thought it was because the ghosts latched onto her had grown so bright, but no. She was positively dull. Her flesh was pale, and her eyes lost their color.

Katerina tried to speak, but words froze on her lips. White foam flecked with red filled her mouth and nose. She fell and thrashed wildly, arms and legs everywhere, beating everything. Katerina tried to scream, but it was drowned in a gurgle of bloody slobber.

The light came for her — not sunlight or candlelight, and not the light of the spirit, but that final light that only Harrence and his pack of martyred children could see. The Enclave disciple, their architect of persecution and possible madwoman, never went into that light. The children tore at her with vengeful hands, ripped apart the part of her that should endure beyond her flesh, shredded it into non-existence. There was nothing left of her to pass on.

Katerina's body, colorless, limp, legs and arms wide, lay empty on the floor.

"What the hell is that!" The guard who wasn't holding Ma'Tocha drew a short sword and brandished it at the nearest ghost. Three of them had taken on the forms they had when they died: hairless, blackened skin, small fists clenched against their chests, eyes like cooked eggs staring.

"They are your sins," said Harrence. "You helped her burn them alive, and now they want revenge."

The soldier holding Ma'Tocha let her go so he could draw his weapon. But, there were five dead children for the two of them, and the fighter's enhancements had died before Katerina did. "Get back! Get away!"

Harrence allowed himself a smile, just a small one, full of satisfaction. "Swords won't help you now. You can't touch them. But they can eat you. You should run now."

Suddenly, the cadre had the room to themselves.

❖ ❖ ❖

— South of Kashpam —

"The unburnt ones are my girls, Yara and Brynn. The other three were gifted children too. But they left a little after those mercenaries fled. There've been others, but mostly they don't stick around for very long."

"When you say they left … " Ma'Tocha prompted.

"They moved on like people are supposed to. I'm concerned about my girls still being here," he sighed the sigh of parental love and exasperation, "but they never did follow convention very well. Why would they change now?"

They rode south, at a normal pace and with the flow of other travelers heading towards Kashmar. Ma'Tocha and Harrence were in the lead together so they could talk, she in her merchant disguise and Harrence dressed as a Calique. Hushang and the pretend-Calique bulwark kept an eye on their plodding caravan of appalons. Their goal was far past Kashmar, in the desert: Nexus.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I know you wanted to help but, for a long time, I thought I was going crazy. After the thing with Antonio, I didn't know how to explain anything. I still don't know what this is."

"Soul Sight." Ma'Tocha put a term to his talent. "You can see souls. And you have some influence over them too, or they wouldn't stick around and do things for you. Your particular talent is beyond rare. I don't know how to train it, but Phillip says he has ideas. And when Phillip the Younger has ideas, things happen."

After several minutes of silent riding, Harrence suddenly laughed. "They're excited right now. They found a creek with big bugs in it. What is yay big, has a hard shell, ten legs, two big pincers, and long antennas out of its head?"

"Could be river crayfish," smiled the disciple, "you get a lot of them this far south." Another minute later she asked, "They're delicious. Is it on the way?"

Getting free and getting away had been easy once the guards had fled. Katerina had been hiding in a large part of the mansion that she shielded with Sanctuary, along with the bulk of her forces. That's why the cadre didn't know she was there, although the stack of dirty dishes should have been a clue. Once Ma'Tocha knew to look for it she had little trouble finding the barrier, breaking it, and raiding what was inside. They took the documents, money, and their leave before any of the mercenaries returned.

On their way out of town, they rescued the father-daughter pair from jail. It had been ridiculously easy. Marlowe used the dean's stash of official correspondence to create official-looking orders, on Dean Katerina's authority, to release the captives to the bearer of the letter. The condemned prisoners came listlessly along, following their newest captors into the night. Ten minutes out of Kashpam, Ma'Tocha freed them and invited them to Nexus.

"So," ventured Harrence, "we can have crayfish for lunch, then head into a desert in the middle of summer. Then what?"

"The plan is to get these two into training." The disciple looked back at the father/daughter pair, who were pinching each other to prove they weren't dreaming. "There's a place for you too, if you want it. At the very least, Phillip wants to thank you personally for all you've done. And, since we're going into the desert, there will be plenty of new things to see. The Calique are fascinating people, and the desert is beautiful in its own way. I think your girls will like it."

Harrence laughed, "I think they're going to love it."