42

The farmhouse looked like it had suffered through a fire. The back wall was blackened, and part of the ceiling was caved in, but the kitchen area seemed mostly untouched. A small but sturdy wood table and four roughly made chairs provided just enough space for them to sit. Erik was already seated at the table, gazing down at his hands as they fiddled with a knife much like the one Lyra wore on her belt. Milo pulled out a chair for her before going around to the opposite side, and Luke took the seat to her right.

It felt like an oddly official meeting, like she was about to take part in a job interview or something. Luke bent over to take a burlap sack off the floor. Setting it on the table, he untied the top, revealing fist-sized, disc-shaped pieces of hard bread. He offered one to her.

“Are you hungry? This stuff is like lembas bread, you know, from Lord of the Rings. It’s a lot better than it looks. It’s made with honey from —“

“Luke,” Erik said sharply. "Sei still. Wir sind nicht hier, um Brot zu essen. Frag sie, was sie über den Krieg weiß."

“Um, I am hungry, actually," Lyra said. She hadn't eaten dinner; she had spent too much time napping, then by the time she got their note, she hadn’t had any time left to dally. He handed her one of the pieces of bread and she took it with a muttered thanks while Erik glowered at them. Luke cleared his throat.

"Right, so, I'm supposed to ask what you know about the war that's happening across the sea. I don't know if you've heard about it yet. It's between the Northern Kingdom and Attso-Tun which is this weird, religious country way west of here.”

"I've heard it mentioned, but I don't know anything about it," she admitted after breaking off a piece of the bread and tasting it. It was surprisingly sweet and flavorful, almost more like a shortbread than anything. "What does that have to do with why we're here?"

He translated for her, then translated again for Milo, who said, "Everything and nothing. None of us know why we were chosen specifically, but we’ve spoken to people who have been here longer than us, and they’ve figured some things out. First, there are a lot more of us than you might think. Less than five-hundred, but probably not by much. As far as we can tell, we’re all priests and priestesses. The majority of them, probably ninety-percent or so, were brought to the western continent, somewhere around Attso-Tun though we haven’t been able to narrow it down further than that. No one the king has sent there has ever returned. The rest of us are scattered around the globe. We think prayers for help at the right time interfered with the Great God bringing us directly to Attso-Tun. Think of it like throwing a frisbee. A gust of wind can throw it off course, no matter how strong the person throwing it is.”

She thought of Nira telling her she prayed for someone to bring her uncle out of his depression and frowned. Was it possible the girl was really responsible for her appearing in Kyokami, even if she wasn’t the reason Lyra had been brought to this world in the first place?

"Someone needed your help in the village where you appeared, didn't they?" Milo said with Luke translating. "That's true for all of us. Sometimes we were able to help. Sometimes…" He glanced at Luke, who avoided his gaze. "We failed. But always, when one of us arrives somewhere other than Attso-Tun, it’s because someone in need prayed to a god for help. Because of this, we believe none of us were actually meant to show up anywhere other than Attso-Tun. We’re the diaspora, the ones who were lucky enough to be scattered to the winds.”

"You think whatever is happening in Attso-Tun is bad?” Lyra asked, trying to take everything in. “And what does this have to do with the war?”

"I'm getting to that," Milo said. "As to whether it’s bad… you’ll have to come to your own conclusion, but someone there is kidnapping people from Earth, people who have no idea what’s going on or what they’re getting into, and none of the spies we’ve sent have ever returned. Attso-Tun is made to sound like a utopia, but there’s something rotten there. I, for one, am glad I was brought to the Northern Kingdom instead of there.”

"You said you talked to people who have been here even longer than you have? Who? How long have they been here? Is there no way to get home?"

After Luke translated, Erik was the one who responded. "A way to get home? Maybe, depending on how much blood you're willing to spill and what atrocities you're willing to commit. Some of the others I've spoken with have asked gods — powerful gods, larger than anything they have in this shithole town — about it, but the energy requirements to send someone to another world are immense." He held her gaze. "And for the Great God to have brought over hundreds of people, with no sign of stopping? The sands of Attso-Tun must be bathed in blood and tears. What would you do to get home, Lyra? How many people would you kill? Have you learned yet that children’s souls are worth more than an adult’s? Well, our souls are too, I suppose. It’s not about age, but rather how much contact you’ve had with the gods. Each time you pray to them, each act of worship you perform, they claim a sliver of your soul, so someone with a pure soul is rare. How many souls would you feed to a god to get back to Earth?”

It wasn't a rhetorical question. He seemed like he was actually asking her, like he was waiting for a response. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and fiddled with the bread. She was still hungry, but this conversation was turning her stomach and she couldn't bring herself to eat it.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she said quietly. “There has to be another way.”

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Erik sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Erzähl ihr von König Nicholas. Sag ihr, was wir tun. Lass ihr die Wahl."

Luke sighed and raised a hand to rub at his face. Lyra saw something on one of the leather cuffy he wore around his wrists glint in the flickering light of three different lanterns; a metal ring like the kind dog collars had on them. Now that she was looking for it, she saw a similar ring attached to the cuff on his other wrist. For the first time, a sense that something was wrong here uncoiled in her gut.

Was he traveling with them willingly? She remembered how hunched in on himself he’d seemed at The Northern Path that morning, as if he was reluctant to translate for them. He seemed better now, or at least not so reticent anymore. If anything, he seemed nervous. He kept tapping his foot rapidly on the floor, and now that she was looking, she saw a pale sheen of sweat on his face.

Before she could ask what was wrong — hopefully in a way that didn’t alert the others that she had seen the metal rings on his wrist cuffs — he started speaking and what he said derailed her train of thought completely.

“You asked why the war was important. The king of the Northern Kingdom is human, not a god-king like most other countries have here. His name is Nicholas Smith. He’s from Earth.”

Lyra stared at him. “He’s from Earth, and he became the ruler of an entire kingdom? How long has he been here?”

“Nearly twenty years. It was the early 2000s on Earth when he was taken. He was twenty-five years old at the time; he’s in his forties now. He spent the last two decades fighting for people, fighting to help this world shake off the yokes of the gods and reach new heights using the inherent ingenuity and persistence of Man.”

The last sentence sounded like propaganda, but she was still shocked. Even with twenty years or, hell, fifty years, she didn’t think she would have a chance of taking over an entire country — not that she would want to. “How? I don’t understand how that’s even possible.”

She tried not to think about what the fact that he had been here for twenty years meant for her. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to go home. Someone who had the drive and desire to take over a country might have seen this as an opportunity instead of a nightmare.

“Hard work, drive, and a good understanding of how gods work.” Luke paused, seeming to think about what he was going to say next. “Are you familiar with the concept of tulpas, back on Earth?”

Erik grunted, cutting him off. "Kommen Sie auf den Punkt. Sagen Sie ihr, worauf wir hinarbeiten und lassen Sie ihr eine Wahl, bevor Sie etwas anderes sagen."

Lyra tried to figure out what Erik was saying. Technically, it should be getting easier and easier for her to understand German, thanks to Towr’s blessing. But for the blessing to take effect, she had to know the meaning of a word first, and it had been so long since she had spoken German with any regularity. She thought Erik was telling Luke to get to the point and say something before he continued on the topic of tulpas — which, frankly, she had no idea that those were — but she couldn't work out the details and Luke spoke again before she could continue picking through Erik's sentence.

"I'm just trying to explain things to her," he muttered. "But fine. You've only been here a few weeks, haven't you? Have you learned about sin yet?"

"A little. I know it's a sin to sacrifice someone to a god or to hurt someone with holy blood, which possibly includes cats, since they can see gods."

A smile twitched at the corner of Luke's lips. "Yeah, they really do love cats here, don't they? And it’s not just in the Helioclades, it’s everywhere.”

“Luke.” Erik gave him a sharp look, and Luke sighed. Lyra got the feeling that he was stalling.

"Just tell me," she said. "I can handle it."

"That's not what I'm worried about," he muttered. "But fine. So you know about sin, or at least the gist of it. Sin is something the Great God punishes you for. Other gods might or might not; as far as we can tell, that's completely up to them. They don't seem to have any rules about how they treat people whose souls bear a sin, whether it's great or minor. Most of them reject people with great sins on their souls, though. Sins are the same everywhere around the world, regardless of culture or local laws. From what we know, it's a crime everywhere to commit a sin, but it's not a sin to commit most crimes." He paused. "So, in other words, if you steal your neighbor's dog, you may be fined or imprisoned by local law enforcement. However, the gods won't care – unless the person you stole from was devoted to a particular god. In that case, that specific god might care. Is this making sense?"

"I think so?" she said. "Sins are always a crime, but crimes aren't always sins. It's like squares and rectangles.

"Right," he said. "And it's a sin to harm a priest or priestess in any way. Do you understand what I’m getting at? You haven't been here for long, and no offense intended, but this place is the ass end of nowhere, so, you might not have had a chance to really realize what that means yet."

"It means no one's going to hurt us as long as we wear the right tunics, right?"

Erik sighed, sounding utterly done with her. Before Luke could expand on what he was saying, Milo nudged him and leaned forward, speaking so Luke could translate for him.

"It means that, sure," he said. "But it also means no one's going to put their hands on you, no matter what you do. You could walk out that door right now, head back to Ersgath, and start murdering people left and right, and as long as you didn't kill another priestess or priest, no one would do anything to stop you. At worst, you might get cursed by a god if you hurt someone they liked. That's it. Don't you get it? Laws don't apply to people like us, because it's a sin for anyone to harm us. If someone comes to arrest you and you fight back, bam, they have a permanent, indelible mark on their soul that means the Great God will rip them apart on the next God’s Day. Even the minor gods almost always take our side, because they need us. We can do anything we want, and while people from Earth, people like you or I, might have moral hang-ups about taking advantage of that, the priests and priestesses who grew up here don’t have those same hesitations. It’s literally their god-given right to trample over everyone else. I could take my sword and kill someone’s child, or assault a woman, and I wouldn’t have to face a single consequence. It’s only a sin to hurt the clergy. No one, not even most of the gods, cares what happens to normal people. Can’t you see how fucked up that is?”

He was right; everything he was saying made sense. She had only just begun to realize how enormous the gap between the two castes was here, but this was the first time it truly sank in for her.

She looked back at all of her interactions with normal people in a new light. She had thought it was respect that made them treat her like royalty, but really, it was fear. If Milo was right and the clergy could really do anything they wanted, as long as they avoided the few acts that were considered sins, then no wonder everyone had been so eager to keep her happy. No wonder Kel had been so suspicious of her at the beginning. If she turned out to be some sort of monster, then no one would be able to stop her unless they were willing to put a mark on their soul and make peace with dying on the next God's Day.