We return to the road and the afternoon is uneventful. The extended rest leaves my feet still sore but improved. The cooked meal has my belly pleasantly full. As the sun begins to drop and dusk settles in, we find a campsite that is near to the road so Rakatha and Gala can find us.
I direct my owl to act as a lookout and it alternates between perching nearby and flying in circuits. When a dark figure approaches the camp at the tail end of supper, I had been alerted long before. I already know that it is Rakatha, but I don’t bother telling Vong or Voella’Tien—they’ll find out soon enough. There is no second figure, so all his effort seems to have been for naught. What a fool’s errand.
Vong and Voella’Tien are as startled as they can be when the large man steps into the firelight with all the subtlety of a stampede. He’s glistening with sweat from head to boot, which I am able to view unobstructed by virtue of him having removed his trousers and tying them around his waist. He looks tired and dirty and…is that blood on his hands?
I look closer in the ruddy light of the fire, its orange glow making it difficult to tell the color of the dark substance smeared on the fighter’s hands. It could be mud or blood or grease or anything similarly viscous and dark.
Out of breath and still steaming from his run, he drops to his knees by the fire and shakes his head, “Gala…murdered…”
Vong perks up and reaches for his sword defensively, as though her killers might still be in the vicinity and Rakatha has been running for his life. My owl has seen no pursuers so I am more relaxed.
“What!? Murdered! How?” Vong sounds more outraged than he should for a waste of life like Gala.
As if in explanation, Rakatha unties his trousers from his waist and reaches into its folds, finally producing a gnome-sized severed hand.
What? Why does he have a hand?
He holds it out to Vong, “I took her hand.”
Voella’Tien shrinks back in horror and scoots behind Vong. Vong postures protectively and grips his sword in one hand while making a calming gesture with his other.
“Whoa, there. What did you do to Gala?” Vong asks darkly.
Oh, they think Rakatha killed her? Hmm, I suppose anything is possible but the concept hadn’t occurred to me. Rakatha, for all his brutishness, does not strike me of the sort. When a man has killed another, there is a look. Something in the eyes that even the innocent can see. The whole lot of us in this party have it, except Voella’Tien. It isn’t sinister; there is a war going on, after all. But when someone has murdered, there’s a darkness that pervades him that can not be easily seen, except by those who share it. I do not see that darkness in Rakatha.
Rakatha repeats, “I took her hand.”
That isn’t helping your case, Rakatha, I think as I watch the scene unfold. I wonder if they will fight.
Vong rises to his feet and steps around the fire, “Rak, did you kill Gala?”
“What?! No!” he looks shocked and sits back and crosses his legs. “I brought it for reviving magics. I found her dead in a ditch.”
Voella’Tien and I lock eyes briefly at the mention of reviving magic. Yes, it is possible to bring someone back from the dead—something that is anathema to my beliefs, though they don’t know that—but it is not something done trivially. There are different types of resurrection: one can bring back only the spirit but it needs a new body, one can animate the body but there is no soul which makes it little more than a meat puppet, and one can—through great expenditure of divine energy and worldly components—bring back both. The spell that might benefit most from a piece of flesh from the deceased would be the one that needs a new body for the soul; the flesh providing a weak tether to the soul that once housed it.
Even if I knew the spell, there are so many reasons I wouldn’t cast it. First, it is a sacrilege to my God. Second, I cannot afford the components. Third, there is no new body to host the soul. And last but not least, Gala is not worth bringing back. No, her death is an escape. Perhaps whichever god captured her soul will put it to better use in their realm than in the realm of the living.
“You cut off her hand so that we could bring her back to life?” Vong asks, noticeably relaxing.
Rakatha nods and holds the hand out to him.
Vong doesn’t appear interested in taking it. “Did you report the murder?”
“No, had to catch up. Didn’t want questions and a long delay.”
Well at least he thought it through.
“How did you get past the gate guards with it?”
“I put it in my pants.”
Vong really doesn’t want to take it now, though Rakatha continues to hold the dismembered body part outstretched.
“So you found a body, cut off its hand, hid it in your pants, and left town immediately?”
“Yes, but I left the knife so it’s not leading back to me.”
“But you have a hand…”
Once again, Vong shows that he is able to think things through. Yes, it will appear incredibly suspicious once they begin to piece things together and collect eye-witness reports. Someone is bound to have seen him and, even if he did not kill her, will place him at the scene. That he has a trophy from the victim will not belay any suspicion, even with the story about resurrection. Yes, Rakatha will soon be a suspect in the murder of Gala Lightfinger, and even his brief association with the party will bring everyone under scrutiny.
The thought of being questioned or detained does not interest me in the slightest. I put in a considerable amount of effort to not attract trouble while I lived in Nodkis and would hate to have my reputation—as dubious as it is—be tarnished by the inane acts of this barbarian. I should kill him in his sleep and bury him deep.
The Wordbearer Chronicles is a dark fantasy web series with new passages on Tuesdays.
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