A Tailor's Son (Valadfar) (5 page)

It was already dark before Reverend Paul Augustus made it
home from Saint Anne’s. The walk from Common Road south of
Celebration Square was too long for his liking and made all the worse
by the chill to the air. The cold got into his bones and set off his
damnable arthritis. That, mixed with the fact he had to battle past the
masses of people that cluttered the streets, put Paul into a foul mood.
His knee ached but he refused to show his weakness and struggled on
without the aid of a cane. They were for old and feeble men and Paul
refused to be either. He thought that the leeches he kept at home
would help, but at that time he still needed to do more experiments to
make them safe first. He was not a man of science but was doing the
best he could to learn the secrets they held. Paul slipped off his collar as
he turned the corner from Common Road into Monks Walk. The
newly paved and constructed Monks Walk had been built with small
basic accommodation to house the rapid influx of monks and priests
from the order that Paul was part of. His home marked the very eastern
edge of Neeskmouth, and few travelled the path that curled back in to
join the city again by the canals. He turned into the last dark alley
before he reached his front door. It was a place where he could finally
relax. Although the small white collar had been keeping Paul’s neck
warm in the cold breeze, he hated people pestering him with ‘Father’
this and ‘Father’ that. He was always glad when he was almost home
where he could remove it. The grace and majesty of the church would
captivate most but Paul Augustus had grown bored of its beauty some
time ago and now he had started to find distain in himself while he
wore the marks of his office. If anyone had asked, he could have
pinpointed the moment his faith had left him. It was during his trip
through the Eastern Empire. He had been a missionary, trying to pass
the word of the saviour to the uneducated of the human provinces, but
shortly after arriving in the Green Stone Isles, his zeal for God had left
him. The memories of the place flooded over Paul, engulfing him in a
past he wished he could forget. Leaning against the wall of his house
Paul Augustus faltered. He forced his mind to focus, and physically
shook the graphic memories from his head. He continued onwards.

‘God damn it.
’ He muttered under his breath with a wheeze.
His stomach churned over almost forcing him to arch forward. Biting
down hard, he swallowed the feeling deep within until it fell into the pit
of his stomach. The images faded from his mind but not completely –
they never left him completely. No man could forget the imagery of the
sacrifices. How could the word of Sacellum be true if the freedom of
man could lead to such vile and violent acts? The whole teaching of the
Brilanka monks was to prevent the debortuary of the demon world
spilling into Valadfar but if men could do such horrible things without
the sway of dark magic, then what meaning had his life had? Breathing
heavily, Paul gazed around the poorly lit alley hoping no one had heard
his outburst. A faint smile slid across his lips when he found he was
alone, just how he liked it. Since returning to Neeskmouth, a year ago,
he had grown to love being alone. With no one around to pester him,
he could give up the act, stop playing the part of the priest, and finally
relax. His clammy hands still shaking, white at the knuckle, Paul hunted
through his black clothing for the familiar coolness of the copper keys
that worked the lock.

The house he stood outside was an absolute contrast to the
grandeur of Saint Anne’s. There was no grand dome above the
doorway, no tower reaching to the very heavens. The windows did not
show-off the colours so rich and vivid that they never left the mind.
There was not one idol to his God illuminating the dark alley. Instead it
was a simply built multi-storey hovel. It was the home supplied by the
church for Paul. It was hidden away behind the huge stone giants that
blocked out the skyline in an alley littered with filth of every kind. Paul
had chosen to have the dull scent of the smog, darkness and cobbles
over the solitude of the Brilanka Isle, because here he could continue
his work unquestioned. There might have been dead animals cluttering
the gutters, and rats the size of small dogs, scurrying around, yet, this
was his favourite place to be. Paul did not own the whole house but
merely one room inside. The others were full of dissidents and drug
addicts.

As Neeskmouth had grown and prospered the common man
had found he had more money to spend, more gold to flash in taverns,
and spend on herbs imported into the city. This had started a plague
that even the wise lord William had not been prepared for and scores of
people had started toppling into decay at the wooden edges of the city.
It gave the Brilanka monks more sway as they through false modesty
gave a home to those that could not home themselves. The main door
slid open on rusted hinges. It was made of rotten wood, and the
corridor behind it was filled with damp. It was more than a little cold
and unwelcoming. Inside doors lined every few feet of wall space. It
was a hostel for the poor and smelled of old stew. It was not much of
an improvement from the smog filled air outside, but it was what Paul
called home. The sound of shouting echoed from some far off room.
No doubt another couple arguing, thought Paul. He heard a thud and
then the quiet murmur of a woman crying.

It seemed the glory days of Neeskmouth were coming to a
close. The brutality of the Iron Giants becoming more prominent as
the native Neeskmouthains numbers dwindled. Paul sealed the outside
world away with the click of the latch and made his way to his own
room. Once inside, Reverend Paul Augustus closed and bolted the
door. One could never be too careful. He slid the second latch into
place. There was a thud on the wall behind him as the drunken husband
stormed out into the corridor before crashing against the wall. Paul
sighed as he dropped his keys onto a small and beaten table close to his
front door and reached for the matches he always kept there. They had
been sold to him by a match-girl from one of the flats upstairs. She was
an orphan now. Her father had been one of the unlucky souls who had
to guard the crater out by Briers Hill. In one of the uncommon
appearances of the shadow demons his life had been taken. The
mother who had been unable to maintain the rent on the family home
had moved into the building shortly after. The very next winter she had
fallen sick with the flu and succumbed to the bitter cold. Paul did what
he could for the girl, bringing her food from the church donations and
buying her matches whenever he had the coin to spare. Although Paul
had seen and done things that would curse a man to an eternity in hell,
he was a good man and he had a good heart, before he was changed by
the coming darkness, desperation can lead even the most righteous
down the wrong paths.

With a sharp flick against the uneven brickwork, the match
illuminated the one small room that Paul called home. Paul savoured
the warmth the match gave off in his hands before limping forward.
Cupping the small flame as he went, he passed the mess of books and
manuscripts that littered the floor. They had cobwebs coating them
and small black pellets that Paul guessed were rat droppings. He had no
idea how long ago it was he had tidied the room, but then it didn’t
matter as no one came to visit him anymore, he had made sure of that.
Stepping over a torn copy of chorus songs, Paul looked for the darker
shadow in the centre of the dull room, one he knew to be his table. On
it was the remaining stub of a candle. He couldn’t be bothered
travelling to the market to get a new one, not now, not while he still had
work to do. People may find out what he was working on and he
couldn’t have that. Paul’s weakened mind was riddled with echoes of
paranoia. He skulked across the lonely room and married the match to
the wick. The glow from the candle was reborn, pushing back the
remaining darkness.

His room was pressed so tightly against the surrounding
buildings there were no windows. All four of the walls were solid brick.
The room was bare apart from a bookshelf against one wall that was
jammed from edge to edge with religious books. It was clear from the
cobwebs they had not moved from their resting places for some time.
Paul knew all the sermons within them off by heart, such lies and
hypocrisy, he now thought, but at one time he had lived for them.
Alone in his room was not a time to dwell on such things though, for
he still had much work to do. A final glance towards the door and Paul
pulled back the only chair and sat at his dining table. The candle in
front of him flickered gently in a draft that crept in from under the
door. The moving light caught the ridges of grime and showed up the
many ring marks in the table’s top, each from the hot tea Paul enjoyed
so much. It was one of the few pleasures left in his life since the
darkness came. The pattern of rings almost made a decorative top of an
otherwise plain piece of furniture. Paul had stolen it from the
monastery before he moved. Stretched from one corner of the room
until it almost touched the table at which Paul sat, was his bed. Unmade
from the night before, the blanket huddled in the corner as if scared of
the intrusion. Paul had made sure it sat close to the fire to keep out the
cold and stop his damn knee from locking during the night, although it
had been many weeks since he dared light it.

The fire brought back the nightmares. In his dreams, he could
hear the screams of the tanned skinned person from the beautiful
Green Stone Isles. Paul had seen a child ripped limb from limb in a
sacrifice while he stayed there. Paul wiped a bead of sweat from the end
of his hooked nose. Those ingrates had such strong magic but their
mystics turned the wisdom to such barbaric acts. None of these acts
had made it into the report that he passed to the bishop. As far as the
church was concerned, the mission had been a success. The village had
renounced their false gods and taken on the word of Sacellum.

Without fear of interruption, Paul Augustus pulled open a
large leather bound book that had not moved from the table in some
weeks. Inside were the notes on his research and documents from the
mission. The pages were yellowed with age and the ink had smudged
from a hand rapidly scribbling words with a blunting quill. On the first
page, a creature taunted him. It was a detailed drawing of a leech.
Around it were notes scribbled with arrows pointing to different parts
of the creature’s anatomy. The bloodstains on the page were a
memento of the dissections Paul had carried out on the creature in The
Dark Gulf. Paul hovered above the page for a while, taking in the
detailed description of the creature and trying hard to see what he had
been missing in his research. After all, he had seen many leeches in
Brilanka having being born in the country and lived there until his
thirtieth birthday, he couldn‘t have not. As a boy, he had found a few
stuck to his leg from swimming in the stagnant pool behind his house,
and every time he had been to a doctor’s he had seen them in jars
around the consulting room. It seemed leeches were used to cure
almost any ailment since magic was banned. However, it was not until
the mission to The Dark Gulf, the sea around the Tropical bounding
and the Greenstone Isles, that Paul saw creatures as large as this. The
holy crusade of the new century was what the bishop had nicknamed it.

A sudden flutter from the candle’s flame caused Paul to
regain his focus and he continued scanning through the pages. His
notes described his time in The Dark Gulf, the villagers he had stayed
with and their way of life. Paul missed the village so much and found
himself almost daily wondering why he had returned to Neeska. The
only reason he had come back was to complete his research but that
was almost finished. The last test subject had been so close to a success
that soon he could return to the village in Chhottaa-Ghar. Paul longed
for the solitude and peace of the isle. It was so remote that most of the
people who lived there had never before seen a white man, and mostly
he longed for his mistresses he had left behind.

When Paul had first arrived in Chhottaa-Ghar, miles of thick
jungle surrounded the village so that it felt separate from the rest of the
world. The villagers did not fear him as he had expected them to, but
with hindsight and knowing the secrets they held within the place, why
would they? No, instead of fearing him, they treated him with a kind of
mild neglect. That which you would show a stray dog found starving in
your street. A few children came and gave Paul scraps of food then
stood around staring as he wolfed them down. It took weeks before
they started to respond to his so-called teachings, but Paul watched
them from his isolated pew and during this time, he started to study
them. As he began to understand their customs he had noticed an air of
fear over the whole village which confused him. It was something he
could not see nor understand, and although his stay was only supposed
to be for a few months, it quickly became a year. This was unauthorised
by the church of course, but he could not leave the people.

He became more and more accepted and soon moved into a
hut with a bereaved woman. During his time talking to the women,
Paul learned that they all seemed to be scared of their devil God. They
did not share the same beliefs as the rest of the Green Stone Isles. Their
teachings mentioned nothing of the Titans but instead fixated on the
changed ones, which had been a shock to the bishop in Paul’s final
report. During the twelve months Paul had stayed in the village, he had
tried hard to learn the secrets of their religion, more obsessed with that
than preaching the word of the Brilanka Bible. It was only after his first
night laying with his landlady that she told him that the Abrus herb,
which each villager hung around their necks, was a ward from their
god. She had also given him a small cluster of the herb to keep with him
as the villagers believed this herb would protect them or grant them
some power over the bestial creature they worshipped. Paul continued
to flick through the book until one word caught his eye from the page.
It was a reference to the villagers’ idol. The false god he was to rid them
of, the Rakta Ishvara as the locals called it. Paul had learned enough of
their language to get by during his time there and had learned that the
bestial god’s name roughly translated to ‘blood god’. The memories of
the day he finally gained access to the temple flashed through his mind
and he dropped the book to the table with a thud. Paul cradled his head
in his arms, the sickness returning to his body once more. Paul had
seen the bodies that littered the temple and had watched the child torn
in two and then fed upon. So scared where the people of this being that
they celebrated as it devoured the child knowing it would bring them
another period of peace.