Charity

Ashset wondered how much more punishment Heaven had planned for him.

It had tried him with the favors. When he made that promise, he not had expected Yuya and Almali to call in favors like a rescue from crucifixion and a betrothal. Well, Yuya hadn’t asked, and Almali had offered much smaller favors he could do instead. But given their situations, what choice did he have? Still, neither was anywhere near proportionate to what he had gotten– a simple charcoal drawing of a girl in a frilly outfit.

Granted, it and the references it had been drawn from had impacted his thinking in a way more valuable than the papyrus or the display of artistic skill themselves. This character, from some narrative whose format and premise he still didn’t understand despite Yuya’s best efforts, had evoked a strange kind of affection from him. It wasn’t even that strong a feeling, in the grand scheme of all the life-changing feelings that had ever come over him, but it was the right kind of feeling for the new season of life he was entering, one he was only just now enough of a mature man to feel. Something in the creature there depicted, even if the object she held was allegedly some kind of potent weapon, demanded protection. The doe eyes, the slight frame, the delicate costume… it made him understand the sharp way his father had reacted at times, when he or his sister or his mother had done something stupid that put them in the way of bodily harm. From there, the sentiment had cascaded, bringing out dissatisfaction already in his heart with being nothing but a farmhand living day to day, squandering what meager surplus he was paid. The image of the family man, sacrificing for his progeny, passed in his mind from a tired, perhaps even maliciously woven cliche, becoming the highest of all aspirations.

Whether Yuya had guessed the movements of Ashset’s heart or not, Ashset supposed he might have guessed the bride-price he had extracted was because Almali had asked him to marry her. That wasn’t quite the case. Almali, by her age, would have been married off already under Jalabartan customs, but for certain eccentricities that had led her and her father to agree instead for her to pledge herself to the Temple as a consecrated virgin. That kept her in her parents’ home, but gave her a small stipend for her services educating the youth of the town in matters of religion. Neither this nor the sale of her art amounted to much, but together they were wholly adequate for her needs.

Also in that house was her younger sister, of eleven years. Now, that had not always been an age where a girl’s parents would be tolerated trying to push her into a marriage, but even someone as young as Ashset had noticed life in general trending for the worse in Jalabarta over the last few years. Taxes rose, shortages of finished goods happened more and more often, and each harvest was just a little more disappointing than the last. Despite hopes for this year, food prices were not about to go down. People were getting desperate, and under desperation, some harvested fruits before they were fully ripe. Swords and scythes were sold dull, the time and effort of sharpening passed on as an additional cost to the buyer. And girls not nearly ready to be wives or mothers were used to get a bar or two out of any man who could pay.

Almali knew that her meagre income wouldn’t be enough to keep her household afloat, if the harvest wasn’t good. And she predicted, accurately, that this year would be every bit as mediocre as the last. So her father was looking for a man to take her sister. Yuya hadn’t been the only one to hear Ashset condemn the sort of man who sought out families in such circumstances; this talk, and perhaps a few vague statements alluding to his newly-awakened protective drive, had led Almali to ask him to make an offer. She trusted he would draw out the betrothal, and the gap between the wedding ceremony and the consummation, until her sister was a much more reasonable age for such things.

Well, selling Yuya to pay the bride-price had seemed like the obvious play. It was still a massive net gain for Yuya over dying on a cross, and it was the only way Ashset could have kept Almali’s sister out of a living nightmare. But it seemed the gods did not agree. Simply accomplishing the two impossible tasks set before him was not enough. Even a small betrayal of trust to do so wasn’t going to be forgiven without chastisement.

Heaven had delivered him into the hands of Uzdel the tax-collector, who with quiet threats had dragged him back out to the outpost where he had left Yuya. To Ashset’s relief, the outlander was nowhere to be seen. Then they caught wind that Yuya had ridden off with the Cainites, just before they had arrived. That put a knot in Ashset’s stomach. Slippery bastard’s too good for an honest day’s work, eh? Maybe I should have let him die, if he was going to run off with marauders. But, when he reflected further as Uzdel retuned south in defeat, he couldn’t blame Yuya too much. Maybe, under his circumstances, Ashset too would pledge himself to destroying Jalabartan civilization.

Now, another chastisement was playing out for him. He and Uzdel had come to a crossroads, with the walls of Ak-Toum just visible far to the east. One left turn, and he would be home. Instead, Uzdel turned right.

“Where are we going?”

Uzdel stopped, looking back expectantly. “To the capital, of course. Without the Penitent himself, I need an eyewitness who has interacted with the man. You will not convince most of the skeptics, of course, but you can gain me enough support to organize a properly-funded investigation.”

“I still do not understand what a Penitent is, and I cannot claim to care. Convince your Temple scholars yourself.” He turned and ran for Ak-Toum. Uzdel muttered something he couldn’t make out, then he felt hands seize his elbow and wrench his arm back. How had a guard caught up to him, in that armor?

As he was jerked around and dragged, however, he saw Uzdel’s guards still standing where they had. He was being pulled by… not quite nothing. Strange eddying currents of air scooped dust from the ground, and he could ever so faintly make out the lines of a face, and a pair of arms pulling him. With one last jerk from the wind-man, he was cast at Uzdel’s feet.

“Do not run from me again.” The tax-collector reached into a sling-bag, and produced a stylus like what would be used on a tablet of wax or clay. “We will pick up a carriage in the provincial capital, before going on to the royal capital. I cannot have you stealing a horse and riding off in the night.” He grabbed Ashset’s hair, tilted his head back, and started pressing the stylus into his cheek, muttering nonsense all the while. Each impression and stroke of the bronze utensil burned like the thing had come out of a fire. “The brand will fade when the spell does. You will return to your life unharmed, but only when I say you may.”

Brand? Spell? What is he doing?

When the Antediluvian ideograph was finished, Uzdel held a hand above Ashset’s face. A flame– no, not just that, but a small semi-human figure made of fire– dropped from his palm, and disappeared as it contacted Ashset’s cheek.

“I do not wish to harm you, young man.” Uzdel stared down at him imperiously. “But that djinni does. My seal will protect you, so long as you do not stray far from me, or make of yourself a liability. Do you understand?”

Ashset bowed his head. Well, he had already paid Almali’s father. The rest could certainly wait, until the Giver of Charity was done carrying out Heaven’s sentence.