Alisiyad Chapter 29 ~ The Ritual of Osvira (Part 2)

“Don’t listen to him,” Russ gritted his teeth together as Fortya slipped one small, trembling hand into his.  “I won’t let them do anything to you.”  He realized how absurd that sounded; what good could he do, blind as a bat?  And even though he couldn’t see, he could hear what was happening to Alisiya.  If he couldn’t stop that, how could he stop them from doing whatever they wanted to the little girl, and to him?

You could.  You’re just not.

“I need to sit down,” he muttered, and bent down unsteadily.  Fortya seemed to understand what he wanted, even if she couldn’t understand his words, and she helped him lower himself to the thin space of solid roof beneath them.  His conscience pricked him again, You could undo the rope from around her wrists, at least.  You could crawl back to the roof if you wanted to.  But you won’t.

“Fortya,” he said the little girl’s name, trying to avert her attention from whatever she could see, “um, I haven’t told you my name, have I?  I’m Russ.”  He paused.  Alisiya was screaming curses that could probably be heard all over the city, but there was pain and fear in her screams for all her anger.

“Russ,” he pointed to his chest.

“Russ,” Fortya replied cooperatively.  Then she said something in Adayzjian that could mean anything, anything at all, from “I’m scared” to “Don’t worry, this happens all the time around here.”  Or maybe, “Do something, you useless sod.”

If it was Liseli over there, you’d find a way to stop them.

“Do you . . . do you know any, um, songs?  Do you like to sing?” he asked.  “Fortya?”  She was silent, and he reached out blindly to put a hand on her shoulder.  He could tell by the way she was turned that she was looking over her shoulder at the roof.  “Fortya, don’t look at them.  Look at me,” he tugged at her shoulder.  He felt her turn, and he shook his head, putting one hand over his eyes.  “Don’t look.  You don’t wanna see that kind of thing.”

Fortya was a silent, but he could sense that she was still turned toward him.  He didn’t realize what she was doing for a moment, but then she poked him between the eyes, and he flinched away.  “Yes, yes, I’m blind, I can’t see a fucking thing,” he said irritably, then felt guilty about swearing in front of a little kid.  What the hell, she can’t understand a thing you say, except maybe her name.

Ricalli would give him his sight back eventually.  He kept telling himself that, it helped stop him from panicking and hyperventilating.  Fortya started to sing then, and he sat in shock, wondering if somehow she really did know what he had asked her.

She sang in a high pitched, reedy young voice, what sounded like a simply lilting nursery rhyme.  Her voice seemed distant and unflappable, as if she had blocked everything else out completely.  She still held his hand, and with her other hand she patted him gently on the arm.  He wondered if this was something her sister had done for her, sing her a song and hold her hand when darkness was all around them.

He couldn’t feel too badly for Alisiya.  He had to admit it to himself.  He was horrified at the brutality of the Ricallyn, at their sadistic rituals and customs.  He was disgusted that they’d do what they were doing to any woman or girl.  But he sat still, stranded on the jutting roof, and listened to Fortya’s singing, and reminded himself that Alisiya had tried to kill him more than once, had killed Eliasha and Currun and countless others, and threatened to kill Liseli — all just to get here, to this world, this dark stinking world where Ricalli was god and king.

He’d warned her.  Her father had warned her.  But she hadn’t listened, and now she was paying.  There were too many of them, and Ricalli was too powerful.  Russ could make a few token efforts to spare her, but what good would it do, after all?

In a way he was almost glad Ricalli had blinded him out here.  All you need is an excuse to do nothing, is that it?  Yeah that’s it.  Fuck off if you don’t like it.  There’s Fortya to think about.  What’ll happen to her if I go getting myself killed for Alisiya?  She’s done nothing to no one.

Things had quieted down.  Alisiya was no longer screaming; in fact it was almost dead silent now except for Fortya, singing softly in her childish voice.  He squeezed her hand, to tell her how good and brave she was being.  He wanted to puke.

Eventually, the shadow passed from his eyes, like it had been a dark cloud lodged in his brain that was dissipating in the breeze.  He looked around; it was still nightlike, but he could see with the clarity of the Ricallyn again.  Fortya had gone silent, and as they both looked to the roof, they saw that the circle of women had unchained, and the Ricallyn were mingling again.  How women, of all people, could just stand there and let one of their own be abused like that was beyond Russ, but the Ricallyn women didn’t look the least bit disgusted by what their male counterparts had done.

Alisiya was being untied from the post.  She had her clothes back on, but they were too torn to really cover her very well.  Her skin was covered in freshly flowering bruises, they had given her a solid beating, and Russ thought for a moment that he really was going to puke.  He stood up, weary of crouching perilously on the narrow space, and made his way slowly back to the roof.  Now, maybe, since the ritual was over Ricalli would tire of tormenting Alisiya . . . and turn his attention back to Russ.  It wasn’t a fun thought.

As soon as she was freed, Alisiya hung her head, her long thick hair hiding her face, and held her clothes together with her hands.  Ricalli stood by, arms across his chest.  Not a hair was out of place and he wasn’t breathing hard; Russ wondered if he’d even taken part in the “ritual,” when it had been himself Alisiya had offered her body to.  It didn’t look like it.  Maybe he just liked to watch.

Russ stopped a few yards away from the altar, Fortya hovering behind him.  He did feel very sorry for Alisiya, then; she looked so pitiful and beaten down hunched on the altar without a shred of dignity or power left to her.  Whatever she’d done up to that point hardly seemed to matter, and he felt guilty again that he hadn’t stopped them.

“I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly.  “I couldn’t—”

“Don’t pity me!” Alisiya’s head snapped up and she glared at him; eyes white with anger.  She wrinkled her nose as if she could smell waves of pity coming off him.  “Don’t you dare pity me now.  I don’t care what you think.”

Russ just stared at her swollen face.  She was bleeding from the mouth and had dark rings around her eyes.  He couldn’t stop himself from feeling sorry, even if that humiliated her more.  Shaking his head, he looked away.

He eyed Ricalli warily.  If the man — god, whatever he was — could blind him and haul him around like sack of potatoes he had little hope of getting away.  He had to talk Ricalli into letting them go — fat chance of that.  But there had to some way.  There had always been a way to survive up till now.

Suddenly, a man to Russ’s left fell down, gasping as if he was being choked.  Russ gave him a strange look and edged away as the man started to retch on the roof.  Then another man was seized with the same attack, and fell choking to the stones.  Ricalli uncrossed his arms and looked around as more priests fell.  Fortya inched closer to Russ, covering her mouth.

“What is this?” Ricalli’s tone wavered on the edge of discomposure.  Half a dozen men had fallen, one after the other, and the one who had fallen first was face down, motionless.

Alisiya began to laugh.  It was a bitter, insane laugh.  She fixed a swollen eye on Ricalli and hissed, “This wasn’t in your plan?”

Ricalli looked around at his fallen priests, annoyance spreading over his face.  All the men who had fallen wore the black robes that Russ had guessed signified a higher order.  The only men standing were the gray robed priests.  He reached to cover Fortya’s eyes; she didn’t need to see the twisted horror of the dying men’s faces.

“Stop this, instantly, or you will die,” Ricalli ordered.  But Alisiya shook her head, grim satisfaction in her eyes as another priest stopped writhing.  Ricalli strode up to her and slapped her across the face, snapping her head to the side.  But that didn’t stop his high priests from dying.

“I told you not to hurt her,” Russ couldn’t help but observe.

Ricalli spun around.  “You told me her father would set his big bad dogs on us, not that she could kill my priests without so much as touching them!”

Russ stepped back.  Should have kept your mouth shut, genius.  “Well they touched her,” he muttered.

Alisiya laughed.  “My magic isn’t limited to my homeworld, it’s in me,” she thumped one fistful of tattered clothing to her chest.  “The ones who touched me are dying, if anyone else touches me they will die the same way.”

“Is that so.”  Ricalli reached down and lifted her up roughly by the arm.  Her legs gave out and he dragged her across the roof.  Russ turned to stop him, but Fortya screeched something and dug her fingers into his arm.  He shook her free, but in the time it took, Ricalli had made it halfway down the point.

“You claimed to be the Goddess of Air and Sky,” Ricalli said mockingly, as his last high priest stopped choking and fell into a puddle of his own bile.  “If that is so, command the air to carry you away to safety.  Fly, Alisiya, fly!”

With one strong arm he swept her over the edge of the roof, and flung her into the air.  She disappeared from view.

Ricalli stood for a moment, looking down, his long black hair dangling toward the ground below.  Then he straightened and flung it over his shoulder, turning to return to the roof.  He swept his gaze over the dead Ricallyn and sneered.  “Clean up these bodies.  You,” he pointed to one gray robed priest, and then five others, “take their black robes and put them on, you will be my new high priests.  And you,” he signaled to another, “you will be the seventh, find Ozun’s robe and put it on.”

The man said something, and Ricalli barked impatiently, “Well sew it, then.”

He turned to Russ.  “Otherworlders,” he spat, “I should have known you would have some tricks up your sleeves.  Tell me, will you start killing people or can I trust you enough not to kill you right now, as well?”

“If I could kill people like Alisiya did, you’d all be fucking dead right now,” Russ said evenly.  He was still finding it hard to believe that Alisiya was dead.  But he didn’t dare get close to the edge of the roof to look over and see.  No one could survive a fall like that.

“I believe you’ve already killed one of my priests.”

“With a knife.”

Ricalli looked him up and down, then said, “Keys are dangerous people to have around.  You can’t lock them up or tie them down.  But that’s a risk I’m willing to take, because I have great use for you; your kind are hard to find and even harder to catch.  What will it take to keep you happy?”

Russ looked at him in revulsion.  Did he really think Russ would bargain with him after the way he’d twisted his promise to Alisiya?

“Don’t stare like a halfwit,” Ricalli said shortly.  “I have no patience for your moral repugnance.  The impostor served you up for death, I fail to see why you waste your concern and outrage on her.  Tell me what it will take to keep me from having to kill you.”

“Let me go,” Russ stated the obvious.

“Ha.  I have plans for you.  Not terrible ones, don’t panic.  But I cannot discuss them here.”  He jerked his head towards the Ricallyn, who were tending to their dead high priests by stripping off their robes.  “What will it take for you to come inside of your own will and hear my demands?”

Russ sighed, realizing how tired and beat out he was.  Alisiya was dead, his life was hanging by a thread, he wasn’t in a mood to play mind games with Ricalli.

“Alright.  I want you to let that little girl go, along with her older sister, who’s in the dungeon right now.  Let them both go, unharmed, alive, with some food.  And I’m hungry too.”  It was a wonder he had any appetite left, but then again, he was literally starving.  He wasn’t eager for the taste of food, but he knew he’d be passing out from hunger sooner or later.

Ricalli was silent for a moment, as if waiting for more.  Russ shrugged.  What else was there to ask for, besides to be let go?  That was all he really wanted.

“Very well,” Ricalli said brusquely.  He turned and relayed the orders for releasing the girls to the guards.  One of them asked a question, and he answered, “Leave her for the dogs.”