In establishments where one can buy a murder as easily as a drink, there were always two areas for the two types of drinkers. The first, area where the bar stood and the fire roared, where tables could be climbed and sung atop, bottles smashed and alcohol spilt, and then there were the back rooms, where men sat at tables by the two or three or four, talking. Others sat alone. It was at one of these tables, in the corner of the dark back room where Jessa and Redmun took their seats.
A young, but not innocent looking girl came up to them, tray of drinks balanced in one hand, the other grabbing her hip in an obvious way. She raised an eyebrow, cocking an eager smile.
“Whatever's your bread-and-butter, we'll have four,” said Redmun, removing coins from his jacket, and slipping them into the woman's apron pocket. As soon as the last clink sounded in her pocket, she turned back, emptied her tray of drinks at a nearby table, and disappeared into the bar room.
Though the raucous from the other room drifted easily through the open door, it did not infect the atmosphere of quiet. In here, the drinking of beer was one of the loudest sounds.
“I feel the need to remind you, Rose will do something, eventually,” Redmun said, relaxing into his seat.
“You don't need to remind me, Redmun,” Jessa said. “I don't see why we shouldn't just beat her over the head and toss her limp body at the man's feet.”
Before Redmun could reply the barmaid came back in, dropped two froth-topped tankards in front of each of them and bustled away. A few moments later they heard a yelp only made when someone pinches your bottom. A man howling in delicate pain followed, its end smothered by laughter.
Redmun drained half of the first tankard, then set it carefully down. It tasted like sewage, but it was strong and cool and that was all that mattered. “If we don't beat her around the head so hard she'd have to drool to communicate, she'd only come back at us fifty times as vicious. When she does try something, I don't know what we can do.”
“What about tying her up?” Jessa asked, her voice muffled by the half-empty tankard around her lips.
Redmun shook his head. “She could melt through steel. Ropes wouldn't do anything.”
Jessa dropped the metal to the table. “Well, I'm not letting her ride me like some pet. She'll behave, or else.” She paused, contemplating. Suddenly her solemn face a grin. “Oh, we cut her arm off!”
“We can't,” Redmun said, smiling at the idea. He trailed off, wondering… Jessa leaned forward over her drinks, tilting her head and waiting to hear him say it. “No,” he said waving her off. “We'd have to carry her about like we did Layla.”
“Just because she'd lose her Evil doesn't mean she'd be useless. How good of a fighter is she?”
“No idea, I've never seen her fight.” After a little thought, he added, “not properly, at least.” Jessa nodded sympathetically at that. “She could be the best dagger-wielder there's ever been, it wouldn't matter. You know there's some things blades can't handle, and Gelstadt's definitely one of them.”
“Mgh!” Jessa swallowed her mouthful, and wiped away the foam. “That reminds me. Did you see, in Lutmouth, the things started slowing?”
Redmun nodded. He'd forgotten about that. “Yeah, I did. Right before I fainted.”
“I think it's from absorbing all that stuff!” Jessa said. Her face was bright, proud like a child. “Get it?”
Redmun squinted at her, trying to fathom what the hell she was on about. “Maybe?”
Jessa scoffed. “Well the melted rocks don't get up and walk, right?” Redmun gave a slow nod. “Well, I think the more you throw not-alive stuff at them, the less alive they become. They're clogged up with rock-goop instead of alive-goop.”
“Alive goop, aye?” Redmun said, smiling. Jessa's face became deadly serious. He smiled more, but spread his hands in apology. It did make sense though. They'd slowed down, and all that had happened was they'd eaten a few pounds of metal. Redmun nodded, storing that note of information away, and picked up his drink once more.
Rooms such as those were eternal fonts of idle talk, especially in the quieter back rooms. Both Redmun and Jessa had become adept at listening to the idle talk of locals, whether for hunting for jobs, or knowing when to get out of town. Redmun and Jessa sipped at their tankards, listening to the voices about them.
“…knickers in a twist, I says, but she's already gone out the door,” said one.
“…lose the house soon, if they don't burn it down in the night,” said another.
Useless squabbles, Redmun's mind told him, and kept listening. But nearly ten minutes, and the rest of their drinks, later, they've heard nothing useful. They couldn't hear all that much anyway, just the three or four tables around them. And as more people trickled in, the other end of the long room began to look more interesting, but they couldn't move. Possessors acting in any way suspicious was likely to turn everyone out.
For a brief moment, both rooms quietened a little, and a conversation from the other side reached their ears.
“…says to go north, into Habrack…”
Both Jessa's and Redmun's eyes flash at each other. When the barmaid came back, freckled face all a-fluster, they ordered four more tankards, and kept listening.
They'd each finished their third tankard of the night before they heard the next interesting thing.
“…urch. They say they've found…”
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“Did you hear 'Church'?” Jessa asked.
“Maybe,” Redmun said, taking another swig of his drink. “Why don't we go find out?”
Jessa nodded. They stood, navigating the tables. Not so easy when your brain is doing a jig inside your skull, but possible. No-one took notice, at least until they passed the door out. By the time they'd approached the table in question grunts and coughs had quietened the entire room. All four men glanced their way, then withdrawing their eyes as soon as they realized that, yes, the Possessors were coming to them. Jessa went around one side, and Redmun the other.
“Evening gentlemen,” he said, leaning on his spear. The drink felt good in his stomach, and even better in his head, like a welcome barrier between him and everything else. He could do this business without worrying about how to deal with Rose, or worrying that the Light-Evil was watching, or all that nonsense that had gone on. The wide-eyed men before him captured all of his attention. He dragged a chair and sat at the table. “Mind if we join you?”
“Not at all,” said the closest one on Redmun's left, coming out as Nar a' all. His bald head shined with the lantern above, but he had a gristly beard down to his sternum to compensate. He was the oldest of the group. And the bravest, apparently. “What can we do for ye, Possessors?” he asked, scratching his beard.
“Nothing,” Redmun said, giving them a smile to calm their nerves. “We just heard some interesting talk coming from this table, and wanted to get in on it. Seems like you fellows know more than we do.”
At Redmun's words, the bald leader shot a rage-filled glare at the two facing him. The younger, scraggly-faced men there suddenly refused to look at anyone.
“I can see you do,” said Redmun.
“We didn't mean nothing by it, Good Possessor, sir,” said the downtrodden one on Jessa's side, not looking up. His words were sullen, but had an unmistakable tinge self-righteousness.
“By what, exactly?” Jessa asked. She leaned into him over the table, forcing him to lean back or collide with her forehead. The man had huge eyes, and hair as short as it could get without being shaved clean. Even with her looks as an impediment, she looked fierce, and the man's eyes widened in response.
“B.. By nothin'!” he said, his voice losing all strength. With his head no-longer lowered, Redmun's eyes snatched at the wooden amulet around his neck, and his friend's. A single-mast ship.
She shot Redmun a meaningful glance. The fabled ghost-boats that carried the sinners of the Far-Lands to the Forsaken Continent. According to the Church of the Far-Gods, at least. Church-Fools, then.
The believer on Jessa's side saw them eyeing his pendant, and pulled himself up straight. “We don't mean nothin' by it!” he said, but he'd regained some of his earlier fire. “We don't mean nothin' by it, but it ain't your business, neither,” he told Jessa. Perhaps the bald man wasn't the bravest, after all.
“We're not here to tell you off for your beliefs,” Jessa said, giving a smile that melted the tongues of those who saw it. “We just want to hear what you were saying. About Habrack?”
The two believers looked at one another, then back at their respective Possessors, and shook their heads. “No, sir,” said the one on Redmun's side. “It's not like that, and we don't-”
“Gods blast it lads,” The bald man roared, slamming his thin, veined arms on the table hard enough to topple drinks. “If you can spout your shit-brained ideas to me and my boy, you can damn well defend them now”
“But sir…”
“Nothin'!” The bald man's face flushed a cherry-red. “Either you tell 'em, or I will, an' I ain't gonna be kind.” The young men, breathing heavily now, looked at each other, looked at their respective Possessors. The one facing Redmun opened his mouth to talk, licked his lips, swallowed, and licked his lips again. Neither spoke.
“We was talkin' 'bout the taxes.” It was the elder man's son, sitting beside him. He was perhaps a boy of thirteen – nothing scraggly marring his cheeks yet – but he was tall in his chair and well built. He had his arms around his chest, his voice held strong. “Old man said we's gonna be run out soon. Not enough money.” He nodded to the two men across from them. “They sat down, started agreeing 'n' all. Then, after a while, they start talking. 'bout the church.”
“And what did you have to say?” Redmun asked his believer. He kept it conversational, juxtaposing the young lad's tone, but had his spear laying atop his crossed legs. The believer eyed it in twitched glances.
When the two of them continued their silence, the young boy continued for them, after a nod from his father. “They just says that we's all supposed to be run out of our homes. We's all meant to be out there, in the wild. Dying.”
“Madness,” the old man growled, though he glanced at Redmun to as though to check he'd been believed.
“Then they says…”
“It ain't nothin'!” said the big-eyed believer on Jessa's side, his lips drawn into a snarl for the young boy.
“Then tell us,” she said in response, looking unhappy now. The believer drew himself tall, pursing his lips with pride. Silence once more.
“Just tell 'em, Jen,” said the boy. “You're just making it worse.” He hugged himself tight, leaning as far away from them all as the wall allowed.
Jessa's fellow spoke first. “It weren't even us. We were just saying what we were told, alright?” Jessa's flat stare gave them no answer. “Our… our priest. He says people who worship the Gods should head north. Says something's happenin'. Says they'll find salvation there, greater than any they'd find even outside the walls.” He licked his lips, glanced around the table, and continued, talking to them all. “People're already leaving. I only thought, since, you know, you fellah's were in the dirt, you'd not mind taking back your dignity.”
The father slammed his fist on the table, face turning bright red. “I have my dignity right intact, have had since I got away from your damned cult!” His fists clenched. “Orth-tet and Sephelia have nothing to do with you. Freedom and Duty have nothing to do with suffering!”
“Peace, friend,” Jessa said, laying a hand on his arm. “You're right, but there's no use getting upset about it.” The man shut his scowling mouth, and all the red ran to his cheeks in a blush.
Redmun nodded a thanks to Jessa, and turned back to his church believer. “Tell me. How does this priest of yours know what's going on in the north, when no-one else does?” Redmun asked the man, memories of Cielaine and her insanity sharp in his dulled mind. His voice sounded brutal even to his own ears.
“That is not for your sort to know,” the big-eyed one told Jessa, showing a lot of teeth as he spoke.
Not quite meeting Redmun's eye, his one muttered, “Nor ours.” The believer on Jessa's side – the big-eyed one the boy had called “Jen” - glared at his friend's words, but only a moment later his cheeks reddened and he looked away.
“So, the Church is keeping secrets from its own,” Redmun said, his voice cold and accusing.
“It's how it must be.”
Redmun stood. The man before him was a wretched waste of human filth, worth less even than himself. The boy's father was right – these idiots and their church had ruined the faith for countless, turned something of comfort to a burden to be borne. How the sick beliefs had ever gotten a hold, Redmun couldn't even guess.
“Who here has a child?” Redmun asked. Even the outer tavern, where songs were meant to be sung, was quiet now. Most nodded. Redmun drew his dagger. Jessa flinched at that, but didn't move to stop him. “The Church has taken your good faith and bastardized it. We all pretend to not know what they want, but here we have two fine specimens. These two want you to burn your children alive. Cut their skin off. Make them suffer like none before, and it'll be your turn after.” He reversed his grip, and showed it to the believer before him. “Go on then,” he said. “Show them how it's done. Show us your faith.”
Redmun slammed the blade down onto the table. The entire room yelped with the shock of it, the two believers leaping to their feat, ready to flee. “Show them how to butcher their own children,” Redmun said, turning. “I'll leave you to it.”