Messenger of Fear Novella #1(7)

Barton’s eyes flicked open. I believe he may have briefly lost consciousness, which could only have been a good thing for him.

He woke screaming in that same ragged, blown-out croak.

Daniel and Messenger and I waited. None of us could help Barton. He was on the cusp between going on with whatever he could now make of his life and being taken away to the Shoals, that mysterious place about which I knew only that the wicked who have been driven mad by their punishment will have a bare possibility of recovering, or else will live out their days in halls echoing with nightmare shouts and mad laughter.

We waited, because we are patient, we who serve the harsh goddess Isthil.

Slowly, slowly, trembling like an old man with palsy, Barton drew his legs beneath him, came to a crawling position on hands and knees, and finally rose, shaking and weeping, to his feet.

“Good,” Daniel said.

I saw relief in Messenger’s eyes, and knew it shone from mine as well. Barton would survive.

Survive, but whether he could yet make something of his life, I was not to learn then.

“Are we done?” I demanded. And without waiting for an answer or permission, I left that place and returned instantly to my abode.

Some person or magical force unseen by me ensures that my abode is cleaned and stocked with food, and that my dirty clothes are washed and returned. That person or force does not stock my shelves with alcohol. I am not a drinker, but at that moment, with the silence echoing my every slight sound, I would have swallowed alcohol or anything else that would have blanked that memory.

But of course those who serve Isthil are never allowed to forget what they have done in Her service.

I stood before the mirror in my bedroom and waited.

I didn’t see it at first, for it formed on my right side, just where my waistband would be, concealed by my hanging arm.

But then I felt the tingle and the heat as the image appeared. I watched as it was outlined as if by an invisible artist. I watched as the shape became clear and as the livid colors filled in the sketched shape.

And at last, there it was: a boy’s face, contorted in terror, as the snake consumed him. The tattoo Isthil gives has an awful advantage over regular tattoos: it moves. Just a little, just barely enough to perceive, but on my flesh that snake’s body did pulse and writhe.

I had dressed myself by the time Messenger came.

I offered him a soda and took one myself.

“Tell me it’s true,” I said after a long silence had passed.

“What is your question?” he asked.

“Tell me it’s true. Tell me that this is necessary. Tell me that we are not just carrying out the sadistic games of a cruel being.” When he said nothing, I went on. “Tell me it’s true and vital and that we are saving existence itself from extinction, Messenger. Even if it’s not true, tell me it is true.”

“It is true,” Messenger said.

The day would come when I would see Isthil myself. The day would come when I knew the truth of it all.

The day would never come when I would forget what I had seen, or forgive myself.

“Now I have a question,” Messenger said, surprising me. “For deliberate, calculated murder, what is the usual penalty?”

That caught me off guard. I frowned. “In some states it’s the death penalty. Otherwise it’s life in prison.”

“Yes,” Messenger said. “Death. And yet Barton Jones lives. Or life in prison. For a teenage boy with no great physical strength, no gang to protect him. Decades in a cage, being beaten, raped, degraded, possibly killed or driven to suicide. If Isthil’s justice is savage, what of human justice?”

I had no answer to that. Had I ever given a thought to those we throw into our medieval prisons? No. And given the choice for myself, would I endure what the Master of the Game and Messenger had inflicted on Barton rather than spend thirty or forty or fifty years in a cage?

Yes. Which still did not entirely put to rest my moral doubts.

I hoped Barton would find a way to move on with his life. He was a cold-blooded killer. He had been a victim, as well, of his teacher’s predation. But that had not been his motive for murder.

He had murdered over homework.

He had murdered out of laziness.

We wield a great and terrible power, we Messengers of Fear and apprentices. That power is not a gift but a curse. And my duty, the unknown years of it that stretched before me, are a punishment for my own terrible deeds.

Messenger left then.

I don’t know how long I stood and just stared blankly at my bare walls. Time has lost much of its meaning for me. Was it an hour? Was it a day?

But like Barton Jones, I now had to find within myself the will to go on. The Shoals could welcome me, too, if I let myself be destroyed by my duty.

I vowed never to let that happen. There was no snake, just as there had been no fire that consumed Derek Grady. All of it was illusion. I knew that. And for all I knew, the Master of the Game was illusion as well.

But terror is terror, whatever the source.

I knew that Lisa Bayless’s terror had been as great, and though she deserved punishment, she had not deserved to die choking in her bathroom. Barton still had a life, however traumatized he was, but Lisa would be dead forever.

For me at that moment, no terror was greater than the knowledge that this wouldn’t be the last of it for me. I was still only an apprentice. In time, all the weight of my despicable obligation would be on my shoulders alone.