Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 66. The Aftermath of the Khatan.
After going through the double door, Laien and the others immediately entered a single large hall without passing through a corridor of any kind. Their view, however, was obstructed by a dark-olive curtain which was hung across the whole space from one wall to another. The curtain was cut in two places, one of which was to the right while the other one to the left, creating two spots through which one could pass if he pushed the material to the sides.
“Teacher, could you?” Reian requested, the anger he was suppressing resounding clearly in his voice. He had a fire-element affinity like Jasmine on top of his wind-element affinity, but he was just a martial master and not a dual practitioner. He would have trouble controlling his Qi precisely enough to only burn the curtains and not the whole wooden building. Without the control of a spiritual master, the flames would be simply too potent for a structure of this kind not to catch on fire.
Jasmine nodded, murmured a few words of a spell and released a few thin tongues of fire from the fingers of her right hand. The tongues licked the curtain a few times and burned it down without damaging the rest of the building, revealing two areas that were separated by yet another curtain. The area to the right was empty, while the one to the left was filled with eight bearded men, around two dozen Jiran-clad women and two teenage girls without any cloth covering them. One of the girls looked to be around sixteen years old and was gagged and tied up to a column, while the other girl who looked to be around twelve was on the floor, just three meters away from the younger girl.
The appearance of the older girl was already bad enough with all the bruises on her face and all over her body, but what was truly frightening was what this girl was apparently being made to look at. The younger girl was being held by four women, two of them keeping her legs spread and two pressing down on her shoulders and chest with their knees while holding her hands in place. The fifth woman was kneeling between the girl’s legs with a short, bloodied knife in her hand. As for the girl herself, she appeared not to be resisting anymore. She laid there with tears flowing from her eyes, and with blood flowing from her groin area in ample amounts. It looked like she had a part of flesh cut out from her genitalia, what made for a frightening and gruesome sight.
“Those people are crazy…” Laien and Yin clenched their fists. Was this kind of madness going on around those whole lands? And if it was so bad now, then how bad had it been here during the Bloody Dusk? The hundred million deaths which Flora had mentioned… it suddenly became much more real to them compared to the first time they had heard about it. Even for them, it was scary to imagine that many people had been killed in such a short period of time.
“Big sister!” Johan cried out in his heart as he looked at the tied up girl. He knew that he shouldn’t, but he was glad that it wasn’t his sister there on the floor. He knew the girl that was lying there though, so he couldn’t help but feel all the more guilty.
“…” Arslan looked at the scene in silence, his gaze only half-present. He had already had an inkling yesterday, but he was beginning to understand why everyone in Makarash wasn’t fond of travelers and merchants from the rest of Arkaria. He had always assumed they simply didn’t like each other and had never thought about it too deeply, but now it all made sense. Those looks adults had on their faces when they spoke of those of the other three Grand Yimarates… was the same look on his own face right now?
“You know what,” Jasmine said with her hands trembling from intense anger. “Maybe laying waste to this whole village isn’t such a bad idea after all…” she added ominously. She had spent the past few centuries in Makarash, so she hadn’t had any chances to witness a Khatan in the process. However, now that she did see it once again she started growing inclined to agree some members of the White Guard and of the regular army who called for a slaughter all the other sects of Malazans in Arkaria and Eulene. They might all be fellow Malazans in name, but to her and to many others, those outside of Makarash seemed more like beasts than people.
“Who are you people?” the woman kneeling between the legs of the twelve years old girl asked loudly and with a clear hint of exasperation in her voice. She quite obviously wasn’t too pleased about some outsiders disrupting the Khatan. “Leave right now unless you want to bring Rala’s wrath upon yourselves. If you really need to talk, wait outside for me to finish with this girl,” she stated uncompromisingly, trusting that whoever those people were they would at least have enough sense not to disrupt a sacred ritual any further.
“There’ won’t be a need for that,” Jasmine snorted with contempt and took out a blood-red spear from her interspatial ring. It would be hard for her to kill all those people with magic, but on the bright side killing them by physical means would be a lot more satisfying.
Reian nodded slightly and raised his sword. Laien and Yin also armed themselves, intending to put an end to those crazy people.
“You, what do you…” the woman asked in disbelief. Were those people all infidels? Did they not understand that the will of the God couldn’t be defied?
Laien sighed a little. With his current degree of control and strength, he could easily kill all those people with a mass of ice spikes. However, he could tell how angry his companions were so instead of ending everything in one move like he had done outside, he simply created a few dozen spikes and sent them at the five women around the twelve years old girl.
The five women attempted to dodge or to defend themselves with their hands, but they were skewered altogether. Three of them died instantly with their hearts, brains or spinal cords pierced, while the other two held on for a split-second longer until the spikes etched in their bodies began spreading the cold and freezing them from the inside. The five of them died without much blood being spilled as they turned into yet another few ice statues.
The quick and merciless attack caught the adults completely off-guard. Until now, it had always been them doing the killing, but now that the roles were reversed none of their usual courage and contempt remained. None of them thought about fighting as they all got up to their feet and attempted to run, but Reian and Jasmine didn’t waste the opportunity. They had been a little worried about those two girls being taken a hostage, but now that this possibility was eliminated they stepped forward and attacked, cutting down the men and women without showing any mercy.
Laien shook his head, experiencing a rather complicated feeling at the moment. He withdrew his spear, then glanced at Yin who similarly put his twin swords back. Yin smiled at him and shrugged his shoulders a little, answering the question he was yet to voice. As it seemed, they were both angry… but rather than reacting like Reian and Jasmine, they were beginning to think it was all a bit meaningless. Yes, it was a good thing to help someone and that made them happy… but they both yearned for more. They knew that helping people they could see with their own eyes was the extent of their current ability, but they wanted to be able to do more. If they only were stronger, then they could have changed everything so easily…! They really wanted to get a lot stronger soon.
“Kasha, take care of that girl,” Sirius said calmly and put his hand on Kasha’s shoulder, who flinched as a result. She blinked a few times in quick succession and looked at him blankly. “Take care of the girl,” he repeated gently. Kasha was very talented, but she was somewhat of a sheltered child, what in part was his responsibility. She might have had healed a large number of wounded people before, but it was the first time she was seeing something like Khatan with her own eyes. As a woman, she likely found the sight to be pretty hard to cope with.
“Uh… yeah. I’m sorry,” Kasha mumbled awkwardly. Reian and Jasmine finished killing the men and women before Sirius spoke to her, so she had no excuse for being lost in thoughts. To make up for the lost time, she ran ahead and hurriedly crouched beside the twelve years old girl. She then chanted a spell and created some water, with which she engulfed the girl’s groin and began healing it.
“In the meanwhile…” Sirius approached the gaggled and tied-up girl. He murmured a few words of a spell and engulfed the girl’s body in a layer of water, instantly cutting all the ropes and taking the piece of cloth out of her mouth. Taking care not to restrict her breathing, he began healing her at a rapid pace. “She’s been beaten up really bad. It wouldn’t be life-threatening, but she has many broken bones… there are also signs of old fractures that have knitted at a wrong angle. If she was left like that, she would have had serious trouble with moving in twenty or thirty years,” he mused, all the while breaking the ill-knitted bones and putting them back together with his water-element magic. It was a hard process and not every spiritual master could manage it, but he was an expert and he could do it relatively effortlessly, of what he was greatly proud.
After about thirty seconds, he was already done. He withdrew the water and stepped back, making space for the eight-year-old who had been standing to the side and looking at the two of them impatiently for the past while.
“Big sis!” Johan jumped on the short-haired sixteen years old girl and hugged her over the neck very tightly. He had been holding all his emotions in because he wanted to help her, but now that she was safe he failed to keep up the strong act any longer. He broke into tears and started trembling, all the stress, fear and anxiety he had been suppressing erupting inside him all at once. Unlike Laien, Yin or Arslan, he was just a normal child; it was already incredibly impressive that he had managed to keep going without experiencing a mental breakdown for so long.
“Sarah? Johan?” A few girls peeked out from behind another curtain. The three of them appeared to be very sacred, but when they saw all the bloody corpses on the floor they did something no normal children would do in a similar situation; they smiled happily and breathed with relief. They had no idea who those people were or where did they come from, but they were ready to become servants or slaves if that was what they needed to get out of this village and out of this country. As long as they wouldn’t need to suffer anymore, they would be happy.
“Johan, who are those people?” The sixteen years old girl who was apparently called Sarah asked the same question her friends were wondering about. Were it not for the very clear sensation of pain she had been feeling until a moment ago, she would have been inclined to believe she had fainted and was dreaming. However, as unbelievable as it all was, she was sure that it was all real.
“Johan?” Sarah asked again as she gently stroked Johan’s head. Her little brother didn’t seem to be calming down though, so she could only turn her eyes to those people around her. That blond man and brown-haired woman were really strong, while the other two were actually esteemed healers. But… was she imagining things, or was this black-haired boy the one who used ice magic in the beginning? If so, then he was absolutely the strongest kid she had ever heard about.
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“Your little brother asked us to help you,” Laien explained without dwelling upon the details. “If you want a proper explanation, there is none,” he added with a chuckle and revealed a wry smile. They were idiots who came here to rescue people they knew nothing about just because a kid asked them for help; what could there possibly be to explain?
While Yin smiled and while the others were bewildered by Laien’s attitude, Sirius looked at the three girls in the back of the hall and asked. “I suspect those who are after the Khatan are there? How many?” he asked, focusing on tending to the wounded as he always did.
The girls were a bit startled by the sudden question, but one of them answered soon afterward. “About forty boys and fifty girls.”
“Nearly a hundred, huh,” Sirius frowned slightly. If it was only the effects of Khatan that required healing then he and Kasha would be enough, but if those girls were also hurt all over like those two then helping them in one go would be impossible. They would probably need to leave the more superficial wounds for later while focusing on the worst ones, but it couldn’t be helped.
“I will help too,” Laien offered, guessing what Sirius was concerned about. With his own reservoir of energy he needed around thirty percent to bring an adolescent child back from the brink of death; he suspected he would need more if he was healing an older teenager or an adult, but if he was to simply manage wounds like of that girl’s then he could easily handle healing forty of them or so.
“Well… I won’t refuse,” Sirius agreed and thus startled Kasha quite badly. She wondered, why was this stubborn old man was agreeing to have a child to help with the healing? Was this really the same old man who would tell some spiritual masters to screw off if he deemed their skill to be subpar? When did he come to have such a high opinion of this boy?
Sirius sighed a little when he saw Kasha looking at him with wide eyes. This girl was talented, but she was way too inexperienced. How come she didn’t pay attention in the Grand Palace? It was this child who had completely healed a few of the most hurt boys there and little to be said, the boy had done a perfect job; he had confirmed it with his aura as they were leaving the Grand Palace, so there was no mistake. Although he was one to be harsh of those who wasted their talents, he would naturally approve of children who were both talented and skilled in the actual process of healing.
“If that’s all right,” Arslan spoke up, having just calmed down his thoughts. “I want to see everyone too. I hope they won’t mind,” he requested, directing his words both to his companions and to the present youths of this village. He saw that Reian and Jasmine revealed some worry at this request of his, but since neither of them said anything he assumed they were agreeing with letting him do as he liked. He knew that Laien and Yin wouldn’t oppose, so all that was left was getting the permission from those girls and boys… could Sarah speak for them all?
“Uuh,” one of the three girls standing by the curtain tried to speak up, but the words got stuck in her throat when everyone looked at her. Only when Jasmine smiled at her and encouraged her to speak did she manage to force the words out. “If you heal them, I don’t think they will mind at all… please, help them… just… I don’t know if you want to look,” she said timidly, directing her last words to Arslan. Out of those who came here to help, this boy was the youngest… she was worried how he would react if he saw what was behind that curtain, though maybe she worried needlessly considering that he was looking at all the corpses here and seemed to be fine.
“I don’t want to.” Arslan shook his head. Who in the world would like looking at sad, painful things? “But I need to,” he said with a sigh. If he wanted to one day succeed his father, then he needed to learn more about the world and not just from the books or someone’s stories, but through his own experience. After seeing how he didn’t know how to react when Johan came to ask them for help he understood this one point more clearly than ever before.
“Fine. Let’s hurry up,” Sirius nodded in approval and headed to the back of the hall. Kasha followed him immediately and so did Laien. One step later, Arslan and Yin joined them. As for Reian and Jasmine, the two of them stayed behind; if they saw what was behind that curtain, they would have probably been unable to hold themselves back from laying waste to the rest of this village. Or, at the very least they would find it very hard to resist the urge. Instead, they could use this time to have a talk with Johan’s sister and ask each other some questions.
The three girls stepped aside when the two adults and three boys passed by them. They felt like they should go back there to offer their friends emotional support, but they couldn’t bring themselves to do so. Rather than that, they approached the half-conscious friend of theirs who had been healed by that woman with short hair and attempted to somehow cheer her up.
After Sirius passed through the opening in the curtain he didn’t stop and kept walking at the same pace. Laien did the same thing, so Kasha who ended up slipping in after them dared to think it maybe wasn’t as bad as she thought… but when she saw the fifty or so girls lying on the floor in random spots, most of them motionless and with pale dead faces, she froze so abruptly that Arslan ended up bumping into her back.
“I thought the teachers were being overly dramatic when telling us about the Khatan…” Kasha thought helplessly, her throat convulsing uncontrollably. “Now that I see it, I think they were still downplaying it…” she added silently, her gaze wandering between the fully exposed, mutilated genitalia of the dozens of girls in this place. They had stopped the process halfway-through for that one girl, but those here… she couldn’t look at it. The sight was a lot more terrifying than any drawings she had seen in the books she had been studying from.
When Arslan and Yin entered a few seconds later, Kasha turned to the side and bent in half. She let out a sound like she was barfing, but she kept her mouth shut tightly. Sirius would never forgive her if she vomited after seeing a patient; he would certainly tell her to get the hell out, and she would be in a complete agreement with him. It would be disgraceful if a healer couldn’t handle the sigh of wounds he was supposed to be helping with.
Yin let out a quiet sigh when he saw all the girls here. However, instead of letting the emotions overcome him, he walked to the right and sliced the curtain there with a thread of lightning. When the material fell down, the bunch of forty boys. The group was comparatively in a better state than the girls as most of them looked up at him the moment the portion of the curtain fell, but the pain they were feeling certainly wasn’t small. As a boy, Yin actually was more repulsed by this scene than by the flesh-wounds girls had since what he was seeing was much more relatable.
“Kasha, go tend to the boys,” Sirius said while crouching beside one of the girls. “You should be able to handle that much, right?” he asked with both disappointment and understanding mixed in his voice. As much as he empathized with Kasha’s feelings, if she kept wasting time just to try and not to barf, then she could as well leave and find something more productive to do.
Kasha wanted to protest, the words of her teacher having seriously hurt her pride, but the moment she tried to open her mouth the contents of her stomach rose up dangerously. She couldn’t help but look at Arslan, who was looking at what she couldn’t bear with unnatural calmness… and with a coldness which until now had never been present in his eyes. A five years old child was doing better than her… ‘a genius’ she had thought of herself…! What a ridiculous pile of bullcrap!
In the end, she grit her teeth and headed to the second area in the back to heal the boys. She still felt pretty bad when looking at the parts of their manhood which had been cut off, but she could at least keep her clam. She consoled herself that the next time she wouldn’t overreact anymore and concentrated on the task at hand; the boys’ wounds weren’t as large, so she could heal them fairly quickly and without using as much spiritual energy. If she hurried, then she would have a chance to make up for her failure and help Sirius and Laien tend to the last few girls.
The moment they had passed through the curtain, both Laien and Sirius used their aura to gauge the degree of wounds of the girls. As they expected, they weren’t hurt only in the groin areas. However, no matter how hard the two of them worked they would fall short of healing all the wounds of those girls, so they opted for tending to the most painful and pressing injuries.
Time passed quickly and about twenty minutes later, they were just about done. Regrettably, the vast majority of the girls remained in the dazed states even after they were healed. Still, those who maintained the clarity of mind expressed their tanks and helped their friends put on some proper clothes. Although none of them cared about their nudity in this situation, it was still better not to have them wander around half-naked.
On the other hand, the boys were much more vocal in expressing their thanks to Kasha. Those who had their lower areas fixed dressed up on their own, making use of the clothes that had been stripped off them before the Khatan began. Of course, the youngest of the boys, those between the age of four and seven or eight, were still in no state to hold a conversation, but they too without fail said ‘thank you’ to Kasha.
The honest gratitude of her patients appeared to have had a very beneficial effect on Kasha’s own mental state. Towards the end she even began smiling a little and comforting the oldest of the youths, whom she had left for the last. Ironically, due to this change in her behavior, those older boys would end up blushing and quickly squirming away after being healed due to embarrassment.
Two minutes later, Kasha was done with the boys. She returned to the area where the girls were and this time managed to keep her cool. She held back from smiling when Sirius glanced at her, then gestured at one of the girls that was still waiting to be healed. Without wasting breath for unnecessary words, she returned to her job. Finally, the heavy feeling that was pressing down on her stomach and throat disappeared; she no longer was angry with herself and instead, felt happy about having grown a little bit as a person and as a healer.
“He really is experienced,” Laien mused while standing and waiting for Sirius to finish tending to the last girl that required immediate treatment. “I’ve been working non-stop, but I healed only fifteen of them while he took care of forty in the same period of time. Well, thanks to that I’ve still got half of my Qi and spiritual energy left,” he thought somewhat contentedly. Still, having that much strength left was a little beyond his original expectations; did the Aspect of Compassion have a strong beneficial effect on all healing-related processes? It needed to be that since he didn’t sense that big of a change in his offensive capabilities after this fourth Aspect’s essence fused with the other three.
“Huuu…” Sirius let out a long breath when he finished dealing with the last girl. He had not only healed more than twice as many girls than Laien, but he had also been picking those who needed the most extensive treatment and had many different wounds all over their bodies. As a result, he was a bit sweaty and certainly, was really tired. He had used up more than eighty percent of his spiritual energy too; to be honest, he was a bit flabbergasted that Laien healed fifteen of those girls was still looked to be pretty much okay. Yet, by this point, he could only shake his head and accept it as a fact. If nothing unexpected happened, this little boy would surpass him as a healer in a decade or so.
“That being said, little master is amazing too,” Sirius allowed himself to reveal a smile. Arslan had not only stayed here the whole time, he even went to the side where the boys were and had looked at the process of healing a few times. It was obvious he was straining himself to do so, but it was a good thing for the little master to have a strong stomach and firm mentality. He would never follow a clueless leader who knew nothing about life from the ground-up, so he was happy to see that Mustafa’s son was proving to be similar to his father.
“If you are done here, come over,” Jasmine said and burned down the curtain. “The youngsters have a request for us…” she mentioned vaguely and without saying anything else, returned to the group which gathered around Reian and Sarah.
Laien raised his eyebrows. His curiosity was definitely piqued so he walked over to the group with Yin and Arslan who joined him along the way. The group of two dozen of the oldest youngsters all turned their eyes to look at them as they approached. Judging by their attitude and the expressions they had on their faces, it looked like Jasmine or Reian must have told them that whatever request they had, it would be the ‘three little masters’ who decided if they wanted to go along with it or not.
“I won’t beat around the bush,” Sarah stepped in front of her peers and faced the three of them directly. “Your group is very strong, overwhelmingly so. You already killed the elites Ikarians had in our village, so we would like to ask you to follow through,” she explained briefly, then closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath. When she looked at them again, there was nothing but hatred and stern conviction shining in her black pupils.
“We would like to ask you to kill all Ikarians and Malazan converts from our village,” she declared, momentarily leaving the hall in an absolute silence.