I felt dirty and ashamed. I was sick in ways that went far beyond a queasy stomach. What I had witnessed had been an atrocity. The fact that Barton Jones was a murderer, that justice demanded punishment for him, or even that this worst of fears was the product of his own imagination did nothing to lessen my own sense of the savagery of this punishment.
Was this truly the price Isthil demanded? Then She was a savage, barbaric creature.
And yet I served Her. As did Messenger.
Daniel was with us; Daniel, that deceptively average young man in the jeans and hoodie.
“Barton Jones,” Messenger said, “your punishment is completed. The balance that you disturbed with your wicked deed has been righted. You are free to go.”
Had I had within me any remaining vestige of humor, I might have laughed. Free to go. He would never be free of this memory, and neither would I.
But was he so destroyed that he had permanently lost his mind? Would he find within himself the strength to go on?
Daniel was watching Messenger, as he does, knowing that Messenger himself has been pushed as far and perhaps further than any feeling creature could endure.
Messenger removed the black hood and stuffed it into his pocket. His face shone with perspiration. He was breathing hard, as was I, almost as if it were we two who had endured Barton’s agony of body and mind.
“Rise if you are able,” Daniel said to Barton.
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 goddes
s 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.