She had argued with him, complaining how awful it looked, and then howled that it wasn't fair, because he didn't have to wear one – nor did mother, so why should she? But still he would not be swayed. Your mother follows my example, he had explained. The order of Mann does not allow me to wear such a thing. It would be seen as a weakness, and he waited on her bed until her tears had run their course.
Look after it, he had cautioned her. It is bonded to you now – and if it perishes then so shall you.
She had been petrified at that thought of being linked so inseparably to this ugly thing. With ill grace she agreed to wear it always, though always she had tried to hide it beneath her clothing. That had made her father angry, claiming it was no deterrent if she kept it hidden from sight.
But would such a talisman stop these priests from Q'os? Rianna wondered now, as the seal pumped in her hand like a living thing. A seal was a seal, was it not? Surely even these priests of Mann would be made to pay for her death like anyone else?
It was a chance at life, she realized, and she felt wretchedly guilty as she thought this.
But then, what if she tore the thing off and let it fall unnoticed to the deck? The seal did not have to actually be worn to be aware of her death; it was connected to her now, no matter how far away it found itself. What if she hid it from sight, and just let them have their way with her? What if she had the strength to do such a thing as that? If they took her life, a vendetta might be declared. Revenge for her loved ones would surely be exacted on these animals.
Rianna moaned aloud, doubting she would have the courage for such a sacrifice.
Suddenly the choices before her were almost worse than the hopelessness she had faced before. Rianna was frozen with indecision, and on the verge of losing her mind.
But then they came for her.
*
'Quiet!' the masked Acolyte shouted, dragging her on her back to the far end of the deck.
'Wait!' she cried out. 'I'm protected, you see?'
But the Acolyte could not see, for it was too dark and he was too fevered with the rising excitement in the air. He threw her to the planking alongside one of the large braziers, and she saw a glint of steel as a knife came out.
The man ran it along her back, cutting her dress open from neck to waist. He pinned her struggling to the deck with a knee pressed painfully between her shoulder blades. Another Acolyte approached, bearing something in a clear-glass jar. He bent down to her face, showing her that it held some kind of worm: a fat and sickly-white atrocity wriggling for release from its glass prison.
'Wait!' she tried again, as the Acolyte tilted the jar and pressed its open end against her bare spine.
She cursed her father then, cursed him with all the passion she had left in her, for ever getting his family involved with these people, this obscene religion. What had he been thinking of? What crimes such as this had he himself committed in the name of Mann?
Rianna screamed: the pain was beyond bearing. But what was worse, much worse, was the sensation of the worm burying its way into her flesh.
The Acolytes released their pressure, and Rianna tried to fling herself upright, her hands scrabbling at the open wound in her back. A finger worked its way into it, seeking out the intruder.
Then something unexpected happened: all strength in her limbs deserted her. She collapsed back on to the deck, beside the three other slaves already lying there, panting helplessly, only the whites of their eyes showing. Rianna found herself unable to move or speak. All she could do was watch what happened next.
More slaves were fetched forward, and a worm was given to each one in turn. Soon, a dozen of them lay sprawled and paralysed on the deck. An atmosphere of panic increased with the slowly rising tempo of the single drum. The two priests watched the gathering number of victims with lustful excitement in their eyes. They exchanged words with each other as they stroked their own bodies, and occasionally inhaled deeply from a steaming bowl of some kind of liquid narcotic, the fine-linked golden chains of their facial piercings dangling just above its surface.
It began with the killing of a single slave, an elderly man with cataracts in his eyes; the priest woman, naked, her empty, sagging breasts swinging low as she bent over and took a knife to him.
Immediately, the atmosphere intensified to a higher pitch. It was as though the priestess had pierced more than a mere physical barrier by the work of her knife, but breached an abstract one too: a skin of the world that stretched over all life, shielding normal eyes from an outer reality devoid of humanity, boundless and alien. The dying man's squeals pierced the night air. The paralysed slaves saw the fate in store for them, as he lay on the deck quivering and gurgling his last breath, bubbles of blood forming on his lips. This slaying, though, was purely the opening act.
The old woman turned and spoke to the younger priest, Kirkus, who stood trembling and staring at the knife in her bloody hands. The priestess snapped her gaze towards a young girl to Rianna's left, pinning her with a glare. 'Up,' said the old woman, with a flick of her head.
Suddenly the girl was able to move. She clambered to her feet – then without warning, she sprinted for the rail.
'Stop!' snapped the old witch. The girl collapsed to her knees, her legs suddenly gone from under her.
'Now, you try,' the old priestess instructed her grandson.
Kirkus fixed his attention on a fat man still clad in the bloodstained apron of a butcher. 'Come here!' he commanded.
The butcher grunted as he sat upright. He looked to the far rail, then to Kirkus before he rose unsteadily to his feet. Growling deep in his throat, he suddenly leapt at the young priest, moving fast despite the bulk of him. 'Stop!' commanded Kirkus, but the man already had a grasp around his neck as his legs collapsed, and he dragged Kirkus down with him.
'Focus, you idiot,' chided the old woman by his side.
Kirkus choked and struggled harder to break free.
'Cease,' snapped the priestess.
The fat butcher released his grip and fell to his knees, palms pressed against the deck, roaring his defiance at the planking in front of his nose.
'I suspect this one was once a soldier,' observed the old woman.
'I know,' replied Kirkus with irritation, massaging his bruised neck. 'He has a tattoo there, on his upper arm.'
'Ah,' she observed. 'A Nathalese marine.'
She stepped lightly behind the old veteran. She fixed her claws against the sides of his head, yanking it back so that he straightened up on to his knees. 'Your eyes,' she suggested into his ear. 'Pluck out your eyes.'
The man spat words of outrage. Still, his hands lifted involuntarily from his sides and rose towards his face. They trembled under an inner struggle of will, but he could not stop them as his fingers curled deep into the sockets of his eyes, and wrenched.
He made a rasping sound but, incredibly, did not scream as his eyeballs popped out like small boiled eggs from their sockets, and fell dangling against his cheeks.
'More like a fat pig for the slaughter,' she said, letting him drop back to the deck.
Kirkus indulged in another loud inhalation from the bowl of narcotics. The old woman moved to his side, stroked his stomach.
Rianna watched with eyes wide. Inside her head she was screaming.
'Do as you please,' said the witch to the young man, her voice husky. 'Tonight you must shed all qualms of conscience still lingering within you.'
The young priest hesitated. He studied the slaves arrayed upon the deck, then turned away again to draw in another breath from the steaming bowl.
'Work yourself up to it,' the old crone suggested. 'We have all night. As I said, do as you please.'