Caritas

The Bishop led me back into Rajj.

Up stairways and inclines, patterns of tilework previously so enthralling blurred to peripheral smudges, around a hot, unyielding basilisk’s stare upon the Bishop’s back.

What machination against me is that fulgent oh-so-anointed cortex concocting? To bring me into the city was no concession of victory by him—for if he would throw Hejat to dogs, desolation on the plateau would well service that—but a strategic relocation onto his home court.

The breezy wake of his footsteps carried the word ‘legality’. If I am a plaintiff, he wishes before God to test me.

Frustrating—and not wholly insensible. A discomfited shiver rattled down the scaly black hide of my conscience, because, it wasn’t as though the Bishop was an incompetent enemy. Or rather, even much an enemy at all...?

Bells chimed sweetly on the staff on his back. Gentle flecks of fire licked around him as ever.

My lip wibbled.

My lungs constricted.

And my mind wafted, only an inch.

“—Hmk,” I gasped. Gushing in from every corridor of the city, as though the brick itself had brightened to silver, from every direction this pristine light belted me. Colours exploded—scents and sensations, and flavours oozing on my tongue, caught here a touch of citrus, mingled with sharp licorice, to the hearty meat of a date, and a sweetness like apricot... these are approximations. We had entered the threshold proximal to the populated residential and market boulevards; ‘proximal’ in this case to denote, ‘the range within which souls become perceptible,’ which had, relative to last week, grown rather large.

And viciously sensitive. The blare of the signals blotted me blind; what had been pinpricks lodged meekly within ribcages now glared as their own boisterous suns, that emitted flavours, and savours, advertisements much as damsels boldly presenting their bridal gowns, that often swelled larger than the silhouettes of the humans in which they resided, and more than that, more than any of that...

Four days of patience had made this city a smorgasbord of delectable sin. In following the Bishop I floated through a corridor of suited waiters, each presenting silver platters of tantalising hors d’ouvers. Ooh a grudge, and there’s a lingering regret, and that’s a lie to save face—And yet no! No, I was very determined, not a single one of these flashy peccadilloes would woo me.

Because, in the sky over the city, there was... a planet.

Of so many crimson colours. Heat radiated by it. It was this land’s King.

And it was, huge.

And when I looked at it, all I wanted, was to fall to my knees, and bawl in gratitude.

That I was allowed to have that. If I kept on staring I, really would break down in joyful sobs. I’d have to scream, HALLELUJAH. When something is so beautiful, even if it’s all you adore, you can’t look at it directly. The whole thing is too much. Even the sun, you don’t compliment it in lugubrious screeds, for its own form, but can extol the glory, of how it warms creatures below it to thrive, and lights every other good thing into view.

So I had to think about myself a little, how I, how I’d meet it, for such an, important encounter but—faster than lightning saw, I knew how I’d rush to it, and hug it, and take it with me forever.

I lowered my gaze. My cheeks had warmed bashful. Oh... life was so wonderful, I couldn’t believe it!

I hadn’t even eaten yet, but by dreamy immersion in the romantic atmosphere, and by the saccharine variety of the ambient flavours, I already had entered Paradise.

My breath was hitching quicker. I covered my mouth, rather pointlessly. Dimly I thought to constrain my focus, back to the Bishop—but why? Ideas diverted faster than unbridled donkeys into the hillside.

Oh, the Bishop! It’s agonising that he walks so slow. But no, it’s not him, I’m just really excited! And it’s fun to be really excited! And I’m gonna—I should bolt ahead of him, then turn around, to hassle him, just to show that I’m really excited! I chuckled in my throat. That sounded enjoyable. (Why did I hate that—enjoyable?)

I tilted my head.

(So moronic by this hunger you can’t even see he won’t give you Hejat.)

Mm? But we’re going towards him.

...I think you’re just dumb! Don’t slander nice people! Ahah! Woo!

The jumble of impulse and feeling and thought—it’s unassailable to all sense. That idiot grin I detested so much ripped itself onto me, and a lightened heart, sopping with dew and with nectar, twirled upward in ribcage with such a gaiety that trammelled the whole body to follow.

A hook snagged my leg that yanked me off-kilter. I flinched; I recoiled. Pleasant dream-clouds dispersed into the city’s hard stone, and the battering glare of harsh lights. Beyond layers of buildings, a second behemoth crackled—its face flat and round as a plate, with a jagged mane of hideous electric blue forks. A crouched monster was staring at me. That colleague. This wasn’t the one I wanted to take.

A suction-like pull emanated from it nonetheless. Panic speared that soft cardiac lump; my feet scrabbled on the lip of a funnel, but the resistance, even at the outskirts of the circumference, already slobbered on my ankles like quicksand. I froze.

I reached out and grabbed the hem of the Bishop’s sunshroud.

He turned. “Are you well?”

Uhhh, NO!! But... “Sorry. It’s getting harder to think.”

He nodded. “We’ll proceed.”

“Alright,” I breathed.

And I followed without issue. As in Yeshimar, the diversion of interest transposed me from the field long enough to escape it (I scowled over my shoulder at the defeated foe; a completely unassuming stretch of path)—moreover, for all the stimulation and all the lures glowing everywhere all over the city, and the thousand vectors pawing me with fragrant enticements, around the Bishop alone remained a consistent air of just normalcy.

Like a bubble in the sea, or a break in a sandstorm, around the flecks of his fires and the chime of his bells, simply nothing. It was a stability only appreciable, or even particularly noticeable, when everything else roiled chaos. And even then, it didn’t boast for predominance.

I rubbed the cuff of my sleeve, on my wrist. (Incredible—still not enough for a cloak).

The effect probably came from his anointings.

“Um, Madjea,” I said, pinching his shroud again. (He swivelled around in mild surprise).

“I-I was just, thinking...” I began. “May, maybe, it would be better if...” Every syllable shrank further a decibel. “Could... I just stay with you?”

And it was spoken. Heat flushed again to my cheeks—for my averted gaze, the shy grin on my lips felt quite pleasant. (So pleasant I questioned if I was being malicious). A considerable silence followed.

“Well, Mephi,” he answered with a good-natured laugh, “that is an exceptional prospect. Of course. There are open rooms in my house, and what are they for if not guests?” he nodded. “But you understand that you would be subject to the ascetics I practice myself,” he tested.

“That’s—great I kind of, don’t, know if, I can do that but, uh, I’m not saying I’d expect to be some kind of saint, or, that you’re expecting that either—”

“I am,” he said. “Let’s not curry confusion.”

My tongue twisted in my mouth. “—but it’s the point of trying, right. Wow, I’m sorry, that confidence throws me.” I settled absently upon a fence-railing.

“My confidence is in Czjeir,” he said. His head tilted slightly. “You asked a providential sort of question. Such rarely escape consequence.”

As if beckoning a songbird from a tree, he gestured for me to come down.

The street then dimmed very cold very suddenly. A temperate air profuse through my chest to that moment puckered into spent ash; plants sagged dead in the dust without root, and skies blanched a seething milk-grey. The essence of hatred has never to me been the screaming, the scams, and the assaults, for those all betray demand for control, that is, desire for the other thing’s presence, though as an egoistic prop or a ravaged chew toy. The real elixir, the tincture I’ve known—pure hatred is desiring nothing. None of your thoughts, none of your skills, none of your wealth, none of your praise, not your presence, not your looks, not your smell, not that horrible field of static around your skin cloying to rape me ‘oh yes! I agree!’, and certainly not your so-called ‘sympathies’ for a concern that is not even there. When there’s nothing that you offer I want, then what is the point of you? That is, what is the point of you around me? You present me with nothing. You would provided me more peace if you didn’t exist. Not if you died, if you didn’t exist. You can go on doing all the things you do, you may even inadvertently benefit me by it, but please do it on the other side of the glass, please never cross it to me. Then we don’t exist; and I can die, that is perfect.

A thousand times—I’ve thought it all a thousand times.

Self-authored oblivion, a thousand times. And here it went again. Now I hated the Bishop.

Pressure of boiling Hades held in a glare upon him for an instant before buckling under its own stupidity. My body slumped against the supporting beam of the fence.

For no reason! As though a reason would make it all better.

“Are you well, Mephi,” he asked.

What do I say to that? I have nothing TO say! I’m not going to answer—I HATE YOU!

God, that’s such irrational nonsense. No, what had happened here? As zen as it would be to cogitate on the matter, a strap straining heat across my lungs made whatever contention had rankled me difficult to precisely dissect.

And what... do I say now? Because I have to respond to show basic regard. ‘I’m sorry, I hate you?’. Um, ‘it’s not personal, I do it to everyone, but I’m just being mean now?’. ‘I might’ve just tried to trap you, and it bothers me you didn’t fall for it?’ Was that it? I don’t even know, I thought the impulse had felt genuine. In a, ‘illiterate child spells his name correctly for the first time’ endearing kind of way. But if I genuinely wanted tutorship under the Bishop, the most inoffensive obedience of, hopping off a fence, should not have been a contentious issue.

I still hadn’t complied. I teetered on the beam much as a clown on a tightrope, and though real lightheadedness lifted my skull convincingly dizzy, even this was likely production, to myself first and then to any witnesses, that I might avoid cementing the miniscule commitment of deciding whether to defiantly sit up or compliantly stand down.

Over the tiniest crossroads, I flatlined. This is so atrocious, how haven’t I killed myself yet?

A certain lapse of memory let that thought flit through my brain uncontested. My cheeks flushed hot and my eyes rolled upward a laugh—in my own cortex, at least; it never translates out very well.

“Ease now... let’s ease you down,” the Bishop’s voice murmured. Preoccupied in my thoughts, I’d forgotten him too—and balked inside my own skin, as a coyote whining curled in a corner, at the sight of his palm closing quick to my chest. First panic: he’s going to touch me; instantly resignation: okay, he’s going to touch me; then foresight bracing for disaster: I’ll bite his neck out.

On the skin of any human being, there’s this certain electrical circuit. It’s so small, it’s almost impalpable; it’s easier to hear the squeak of a mouse under the floorboards, but anyone can attest that it’s there. Now, I’m not sure if I’m overtuned or just average-tuned and crazy, but it’s likely the current of the nervous system, and whatever else passes through the surface cells, which is in extension, the physical current of a thought, and the heart, spilling out. A static field rises from it like a psychic coating. The effect is auric, but it isn’t ‘the aura’. Being electrical, and so being polemically charged, once these fields connect, even before the clashing of flesh, they mingle. Ions pull ions toward each other, and merge two elements into one compound; it seeks the equalisation of two frequencies, by the destruction of the original note. It has always seemed, obscene, to me. I have always—seriously—detested that sensation, a lot.

When the tingle of his proximity should have violated me, and all my flesh prickled up as a phalanx with spirit curled under shields and spearpoints raised above, what came instead was a streak of warm pink-hued fire that melted through the guard. Like myths, my heroes evaporated. The brilliant singing phoenix named Caritas played on the wing, and in the wake of its gorgeous, twisting tail, it dragged like a kite a whole summer behind it, that in the desolate field my dead weeds melted to reveal luscious springing herb, the ash trembled apart into arable meadow, and the sky burst blue as a topaz. Pleasant warmth renewed my chest as a faded hearth fire crackling alive with new coal, magnified even more precious by the burn of staved cold.

It was that anointing. That stupid, blessed anointing, it kills and resuscitates in the same breath—he probably doesn’t even know how potent it is.

My anxiety had melted so I melted into the hold. It was the first time I could remember ever enjoying contact so close, except from my father. Tears welled, and I cried, by the automatic rush of released tension, and by recognition of how gnarled I had become, to preemptively malign obvious mercies.

The Bishop stumbled, unprepared for the limp weight. Unable to adjust his grip quickly enough, my body slopped out of his hand, onto the ground onto my knees.

(Only my knees—which betrayed calculation, control.)

I gnawed my lip with head bowed aside.

(So I wasn’t a drifting invertebrate; if I wanted to stand, I well could. No, the grace of a goat is its agility at controlling its fall, and even this weakness was delicate chess, because if I analysed the truth of my own actions, and deduced my own motives—)

This heat was Czjeir. The Bishop’s fires were a fleck of Czjeir, and a lot of me whined to submit myself under them, as much as a purring cat basks under the comfort of a palm, that same gentleness, upon my own back—I wanted that from Madjea. To adopt him not as a serious guru but as the keeper of a housepet, to be thrown food and cuddles for the bare minimum of ‘being around’, and ‘choosing’ him to deign with the ‘honour’ of supplying substance to a black hole. Oh, I’d ‘try’. Of course I’d strive a great production towards virtue. But it wouldn’t go anywhere. Because it was a trap; if he treated me like a leashed animal, I would resent him, but if he treated me as anything else, I wouldn’t accept it.

Why not? I know it’s my own dysfunction speaking. I know I can even kill it recurrently enough to make myself shut up. I don’t know what he sees when he looks on this smooth stone, but it’s something overwhelmingly, intimidatingly splendid.

I don’t need to trust in my own image. Why not trust in his?

(—honestly in my heart of hearts I didn’t want to obey Madjea. I appreciated his compassion. I truly thought his was the grace of a saint. But I just didn’t think... that I deserved mending? No, actually. It was more...)

The Bishop squatted down to inspect me at eye level.

“Just—just uh thinking, sorry,” I said. “I’ve realised, I’m really evil.”

“Well, that is rather the predicate. Come up?”

“Uh,” I stammered. “Mm, mm, I kind of, want to rescind...”

The Bishop waited patiently. Reassuring warmth filled the space.

“...that, it’s kind of bold, to backtrack on a providential statement, but I guess I’m, angling for accountable tallies wherever I can find them, ahah, but that is, um, beside the—the point is, um...”

I’d rather go see Hejat. And on your impeccable prospects, give up. The idea of the words blazed on my tongue ready. They wanted to spring forth, carved into God’s grimoire, the book of reality, and so stand consequential against me forever; in fifty years (if I made fifty years), I would have to question, ‘yes, I still stand by that’, or ‘no, I regret that, and I’m sorry I ever unhinged my mouth to let that thought influence anything—I actually wish the person who uttered that was gone.’ Then if I could not also say, ‘but fortunately they are gone. I don’t say such things in such circumstances anymore; you can test me. Present it to me again, I’d do different,’ well, the regret would be a lie, and its real face would be self-pity.

But at the fading murdered light of whatever Madjea’s impeccable ‘could-have-been’ Saint Mephi was, through my chest did flush guilt (and laughter). It would be nice to be a saint. I’m self-righteous, you know, those ideas thrill me, and the derision stings because it hits. Can you betray something though that doesn’t exist? Or am I also the world’s best abortionist?

“But you really think you can beat me,” I muttered.

“I can hold you to consequence of whatever you pledge. That, and give you certain grounds to act in the city,” he stood now smiling. “And some dietary experiments, this is all I offer. The rest is devotion to the more enlightened flagellation; before Czjeir, beating yourself.”

“Hahhm. Nnno—no I mean, I meant about Hejat. I wasn’t exactly clear, you know but, I’m guessing you think you can put me in front of him, and actually win. That is, for any result to come that isn’t, uh, what I’d call, ‘the obvious one’. And that’s not faith in me, is it? No, right? So I don’t know what—exactly—is bolstering you towards that, because it wouldn’t be anything providential coming from me, this would have to be coming from you. I mean, assuming that was your goal.”

His air cooled slightly at this topic. Ah, he thinks he could lose, diagnosed as quickly and automatically as a pit viper smalls the rushing heart of a mouse. “If you would not submit in those circumstances, there are none in which you would. Yes, I have been inspired towards this.”

“Which says though, you don’t know how it ends.”

“Indeed. This was withheld.” He frowned mildly. “Your intuition is admittedly eerie. But I will say that Czjeir knows also how I will resist your curse, on the principle. My hope is in that care.”

I see.

He held a sober silence while I lapsed into thought. Then interrupted his own peace, “I think your own proposition an incredible mercy, nigh if not in fact miraculous. If it entices you, I strongly invite you to indulge it.” His gaze lowered with a minute nod. “Because I’m speaking in your interests, as well.”

Because then he wins.

He spoke so genuinely that my whole body relaxed in belief, at least of his motives.

How do you know my own interests? It’s because he doesn’t want me eating flesh. That’s all he’s really saying—‘all’ he’s really saying, as if that’s not the externalisation of the biggest issue with me that there is to confront; in fact, quite literally the locus of my whole being. I don’t know if he can smooth that, but if he can, that is indeed miraculous.

It favours me if we go to Hejat. It favours him if we stop here and, go home (bound to him, that’s inevitably what I’d have to call it). Let’s amplify these principles to their extreme and set them as distinct hypotheses.

If we go to Hejat: I win. If we stop now: he wins.

The question: Mephi, do you want to ‘win’?

Haha. No. Not ever. Do you think anyone could wind up like me if one of their interests was ‘winning’? Unless they were so outrageously conceited, they adored to brag, ‘I win at losing’! Which would be an utterly pointless reason to pursue anything, on any dimension? Let’s then discard this question, if I even ask it, it favours Madjea. (Look at me, fighting so viciously).

The question: What would Czjeir want me to do?

Unfortunately I’m several anointings away from any neural linkage to Czjeir. But I do have deduction and I do have Madjea, so let’s examine how the evidence points...

Situation One: Czjeir told Bishop Madjea to take me to Hejat because He loves me and is stiffing the Bishop—haha! God, I so wish this.

Situation Two: Czjeir told Bishop Madjea to take me to Hejat because He wants him and I to brawl, and whoever regales Him best in the moment, He’ll side with—but this implies we both have legitimate grounds over Hejat, when it should be clear-cut; I damn him or Shien does. Or is there seriously any chance that man isn’t going to Hell?

Situation Three: Czjeir told Bishop Madjea to take me to Hejat because He knew I’d try to back out, and is allowing me grounds to fail—that is, I am supposed to submit to Madjea here, and pursuing Hejat is a condemnation for which I’ll be punished later. Though how much do I care about that? I’m not sure.

Situation Four: Czjeir told Bishop Madjea to take me to Hejat because He’s actually just siding with Madjea, and trouncing me at the moment where I feel most justified is the only way to drill obeisance into my thick skull. But then why not let Madjea know? Moreover, this already happened, kinda, and apparently I’m daring to be too dull to get it.

In sum the constellation of these hypotheticals slanted towards pursuing Hejat. Of course it did. I proposed them.

But then, Established Premise One: Czjeir doesn’t like it when I’m inhuman.

He kind of, really likes humans.

I looked down at myself, on my knees, on the brick. That was a human body. In the same clothes I died in. When stripped down to my basis, a very human body.

And panic swelled. I’d been screaming ‘I’m not this,’ and ‘don’t treat me like this,’ and ‘I can’t be this’, but what is this, Mephi? Why is this what it goes back to? There’s a rather obvious answer. Do you think Czjeir is rubbing it in?

Maybe you’re not incompatible, but you prefer otherwise because at your root you are evil.

My tongue flashed over the tips of my teeth, shaved tastebuds anxiously on the razors. You know what? The Bishop’s concerned for my well-being—specifically put, for my humanity, this thing I’m pining so hard now to throw away. So I got a taste of deific ecstasy. I got a flash of conducting some supernatural terror, albeit as a dramatic menace. And to speak of myself, of the rife discord itself, I can also say that it isn’t worth it.

I lugged myself to my feet. The Bishop’s gaze levelled up with the motion.

He exhaled a held breath, “very good. Now?”

“I know it’s a good idea,” I said.

He winced.

“I actually—like what I can imagine. A lot,” I murmured. Glancing aside, I saw my own hand, the curved nails, white fingers. Nausea swept like a tide; in my head, my eyeballs floated dizzy. Why was I turning him down?

“Friend in trials, listen. What do you imagine?”

“Um.” At that my mind blanked. “Um, uh, something like...” but nothing came.

“Do you truly imagine nothing at all?”

“No,” I whispered.

“Then this word is confounding. I see. And I will ask now—what is the manner of ordinance that Czjeir put onto you?”

My hand drifted onto my chest, over my heart.

“Um, kill everything. No, uh, uhm, k-kill everything... ah. The uh, I have to be nice.”

“That is not a godly instinct,” he reiterated.

“But maybe it is. I’m a bit like a god. You really don’t think so? I guess you got me too easily. Hmhm.” I span forward past him, that amid brickwork and barrels, his mildly perturbed face passed in my periphery. “Maybe I’m like, just a part of this world now. You have rain sleet and hail and Mephi killing sinners. That would be—wow, that’s pretty wonderful. Stop pushing the tides back, Madjea! Ahah.”

“I am sure you were part of this world ever since you were born in it.”

“I guess. Wow, you make it—so hard for me to just do my job.” I frowned, chin up, fist on hip, running my thumb nail over the pad of my forefinger.

The Bishop overtook me smoothly in my pause. We had reached a junction, a silent square amid the backs of the buildings in which was planted a wiry plum tree. Branches swayed with the landing of a turtle-dove. Dappled light and shadows played over Madjea’s face in the breeze.

He then sighed.

“You believe there is a purpose in killing that man.”

“...Well, there has to be, right?” I muttered.

“For is that not the distinction, to call this drive not simply passion, or subsistence, but regimented as a holy profession? You imply there is communal benefit to it.”

“Okay—look, this is all, putting aside whether you even could mollify the uh, the uh, the pain with anything else. Though I guess there’s already a part of me that, does actually, think that you’re right, or hope that you’re right. But this is speaking, all that aside, anyway—um, yes he would’ve known how I was going to turn out. He can, foresee my inclinations. And it’s—I’m not going to say, the stupid thing about, stopping more victims because, I know you and the palatines can do that too though, actually not as proficiently because you didn’t, you just didn’t know until I...”

I rolled my neck, a dark grin flitting on my face.

“I mean, that’s pretty hilarious. It was, decades, you know. Longer than you’ve... than either me or you has been alive. So I don’t blame you specifically, but it’s been festering under your nose.”

The Bishop’s jaw clenched. “I confess this, yes. To say little, I am not pleased about it.” He again sighed. Leaves bobbed in the wind. “But if it is innate in you to detect this, I’d rather know the signs to more swiftly discover such. That would be good aid.”

“...You’re relying a lot, on a chain of command for this, kind of thing. It’s ultimately, you can only know if someone, already near to that person suspects it, then reports it despite vague evidence, so there’s, this kind of prerequisite, if you’re going to catch it, to not have much faith in people.” My tongue pasted to the roof of my mouth. “Which, isn’t great in itself. But um... I don’t know, these criminals, they’re not really... subtle. M-m-maybe some are, I’m still, rather new to this—but, to speak broadly of the habits of witches, and, their cronies... ah, they don’t shut up, actually. So it’s really, listening, and letting them talk, and taking what they profess as frivolous, seriously.” I smirked. “Since they’re all cowards.”

The Bishop fell silent, considering this.

“Sorry, I know that’s not helpful, in practical terms. It’s, it’s certainly not proactive—hah! I just figure you didn’t want me to tell you that I can see them. Maybe pray to Czjeir about it, put into your rotation how to discern...” I frowned at the realisation that I was holding up each forefinger.

“The sick from the health,” the Bishop said in recognition.

I crossed my hands to my elbows and looked aside. “Well, that principle, onto the actions of persons—but onto then persons themselves. Right? L-listen, if it’s not the innate quality of a person, that is, their predispositions towards certain acts, then it’s the fulfilment of those acts in real practice that, would dictate where they are.”

“Indeed. This is true,” said the Bishop.

“Then, then, my point is, one who is very deeply into ah... rebellion, they stink. They’re—you’d call them infirm, but it’s really like...” I tilted my head to and fro, for the words. “...putrefying, into this living, not-living, sludge...”

“And this is not the rot, you assert.”

“Shien deemed humanity already corrupt before he instated that. What do you think he meant? Though its affliction could be spite, regardless,” I muttered.

“His abjuration concerned our disaffection towards Czjeir,” said the Bishop. “We had grown very distant, and ungodly in those times. The customs of one of the Heresies, indeed, would not stand uncontested today.” He paused. “I am wary to give you much ground, but your arcanum is sound.”

“Mmh. So these, so these, putrefying ones, you want to heal them and—that’s fine, whatever. But it’s one like Hejat that’s... that is—can’t you see he’s already dead!?”

The Bishop opened his mouth, but from mine toppled interjection in screeds: “And walking around on this earth still only for the purpose of massacring others? To drag others with him, a living plague? He’s like, he’s like, a gangrenous limb, or a dead tree branch, after the winter. That has gone, far past any remedy and is now this, black rotten lump at the end of a hand—and, and the body overall can still move, and, the shape of the limb is still there, but it is, totally fetid... this reeking wet corpse in your, in your city...” My mouth started weeping. I gulped. “Mmh—and I make this sound, so stupidly unconvincing but—you’d, understand if you knew.”

Saliva drooled viscous beads down my throat. I swallowed hard.

The Bishop watched, sharp-gazed, in judicious silence.

“So you’d say, it’s only Czjeir, who can choose when and at what state to snip, a soul for Shien,” I panted. My fist clenched on my breast with fire prickling up inside, and sweat pooling down my neck. “But this one has failed. You are not,” I hissed, “meddling with that.”

The Bishop nodded to himself. “Here is my contention with all you have accused,” he began, with such blistering calm, “I admit a truthfulness in these words. There is nothing you have said I can find as, in essence, inaccurate. What I cannot find yet is the necessity of your intervention. If he is for Shien, he is for Shien. If he will not remedy, he will not remedy. If he is living dead of spirit, then he will be dead of body also in little time, for this is not a difficult ghoul, but a transient man. He is known to my palatines and will face lifelong binding as writ in Czeresh. Nothing I present, if you are correct, should change the trajectory of this soul. You sound fearful of the possibility I could.”

“Okay—but why would you want to!?” I snapped. “Fine, principles, whatever, but at what point are you just being stupid? He just needs to die—fine, I’m hungry, okay!? I want to rip him up. And I am not scared either, I am—despising, because I got to see exactly what he did, everything, and he is scum on Czjeir’s earth!”

“I will give him the same I give anyone,” he shrugged. “That is my preference, for my own sake, and if that is foolish, so be it. I do not want to become one who misjudges hastily, in other cases, because I have presumed to have sight I do not.”

“Okay, but I have that! So listen to me!”

“No, friend. Because you are not my god,” he said very plainly. “You are a bound, semi-subjected spirit infested with violent lusts. I am not interested to encourage yours simply for the sake of punishing his. I am offering mercy.”

“I know,” I whined. “But I just, don’t care.”

The Bishop pursed his lip. A breeze blew that tinkled his staff’s bells, the sound as delicate on the wind as petals.