Chapter #9The Penitent by: imaj   “American,” you squeak. Between the weighty pressure of Lurga pushing down on you, exhaustion and your surprise at the man’s sudden appearance you find it hard to speak. “I’m American,” you say, using English for the first time since you arrived in the country. You have to concentrate to use your native accent.
The man in the doorway doesn’t move at all. “Let’s say you aren’t full of shit,” he says, switching to English himself. “Doesn’t matter a damn if you’re with the Flame.” He raises his gun and points it at you. “And you look like a local to me.”
“I’m not,” you say, still struggling to speak. “I came to investigate them.”
The man lowers his gun. “I believe you,” he replies quietly. “I… I believe you.” The sense of pressure abruptly evaporates and you pull yourself off the man’s truck and stand upright. “You’d better come inside.”
*****
You scribble the last few notes on the piece of paper the man gave you. He’d introduced himself as Kal Krammer as soon as you and the imam had entered his shack. He’d even sat patiently as you’d asked him what must have seemed like a series of outlandish nonsense questions. You aren’t as good at this as say Joe or Kali are, but you’ve got the answer you were looking for now.
“Well,” asks the imam. “Lurga?”
You nod. “Lurga,” you reply. “And Sulva too.” The imam frowns.
Kal frowns too. His face is harsh and lined with age. Living in the desert like this has aged him prematurely. “So what are you saying,” he asks, rubbing at rough grey stubble with one hand. “I’m one of these, what, Stellae? I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous.”
“You use Lurga’s power on us when we arrived,” says the imam evenly. “You must have known what you were doing.”
There is an awkward silence. “Just what I’ve always done,” Kal tells you.
“I think you should tell us what you’ve always done,” the imam states.
Kal stares at the dirt floor of the shack and shifts uncomfortably in the loose brown robe he wears. “I am, or was, an interrogator,” he says quietly. He looks up and stares directly at you. “No, that’s not honest. I was a torturer.” Kal falls silent. You open your mouth to reply, but Imam el-Bayoumi motions you to remain silent.
“It was after the last war here,” continues Kal. “We’d won, but all that meant was we had new enemies to fight: Ones that didn’t wear a uniform.” He sighs unhappily. “And that meant we need people to root them out.”
You listen as Kal unfolds his tale. He was a soldier back then, part of the US Army. Kal had been part of a group of interrogators stationed in a base close to where you are now. Their job had been to search for signs of the nascent insurgency amongst the local population. They were not gentle about it.
The imam’s face is grave as he listens to Kal describes the methods he used: Physical and psychological, brutal and unforgiving. Every member of Kal’s team slowly became more and more monstrous in their pursuit of a half imagined foe, and Kal was the most proficient of him. As he describes what he did in detail, it’s clear that even back then he was drawing on Lurga to aid him in his interrogation.
“Why then,” says the imam weightily. “Are you still here?”
Kal says nothing, his eyes sinking to the floor. “No one does penitence like a Lurga,” you mutter quietly.
“What I did wasn’t right,” admits Kal without looking up. “I owe these people something.”
“You been living in this shack, what, a decade,” you ask.
“Close to,” he admits.
“And you have not repaid your debt in that time,” asks the imam.
“What do you want me to do,” asks Kal looking up, anger written across his face. “Go up to someone and tell them I tortured their brothers? Their uncles? Their sons? Some of the people we interrogated died in those camps. I don’t think I’d get the chance to any more anyway,” he adds bitterly.
You and the imam share a look. “Go on,” he says evenly.
“The Flame of Purity” explains Kal. “You can see it in the eyes of the converts. The lights are on but no one is home anymore. Someday I think they’re going to send a dozen men up here, drag me out of the shack and force me to convert.”
“Force you,” you ask.
“I’ve seen it,” explains Kal. “The leader, Hakim al-Muqanna. He came to Amarah a month ago. A bunch of cultists rounded up the townsfolk, took them all inside and old school building. When they came back out…” He shakes his head. “They all had that empty look in their eyes. I’d have said it was almost like magic, if I didn’t care about how stupid that sounded.” He smiles ruefully. “I guess I know better now. I hightailed it out of there as fast as my legs would carry me. Been scared to go back since.”
“This Hakim al-Muqanna,” interrupts the imam. “Is he the one they call the seventh veil?”
Kal nods. “I’ve heard them say as much, why?”
The imam’s eyes twinkle. “ Do you still want to repay your debt to these people?”
“More than anything,” says Kal sadly.
“Then come with us tomorrow,” states the imam boldly. “We will return to Amarah. We have discovered that this seventh veil will be present. I believe that we can break his hold over these people and free them.”
Kal just sits open mouthed, staring at the imam. There’s a light in his eyes though, one that wasn’t there before. “I could… We could…” You look at the imam too. You’d like to know exactly what he is thinking. Kal might well be a potential Stellae, but you can’t just ask throw him straight into a task as difficult as the one ahead of you.
“Yes,” replies the imam. “You have it within you to be one of the Stellae, and your training as a soldier would be useful to us tomorrow.” Well that’s a good enough reason you suppose, though you’d prefer a full Malacandra with you. “What do you say?”
You know what Kal’s answer will be before he even speaks.
*****
Kal’s truck is a much more comfortable ride than the little van was. Even so, you are squeezed between the imam and Kal in the middle. The sun is just starting to crawl over the horizon as you drive into Amarah. The roads are all but empty, but Kal still drives slowly and cautiously. You don’t blame him.
“We need to work out where the seventh veil is going to be,” you say as Kal turns a corner.
“One of the townspeople should be able to tell us,” replies the imam.
“Because that worked so well last time,” you find yourself snapping without thinking about it
“Oh,” murmurs the imam quietly. “What would you suggest?”
You shrug. “I could take someone’s memories,” you reply
“I don’t want to hurt anyone if we can avoid it,” interrupts Kal.
“It doesn’t hurt them,” you explain. “In fact I can knock them out for hours. They’ll be safer that way.”
Kal doesn’t answer you though. In fact, the truck rolls slowly to a halt. When you look at him, you see that he is staring dead ahead through the windshield. You follow his gaze to see what has distracted him so.
It’s another mob of cultists, this one thankfully much smaller than the one that chased you out of Amarah last night. There are only a dozen or so people, but they are in a poor state: Dirty clothes hang loosely from them. A couple of the men have removed their shirts entirely and you can see a network of self inflicted scars on their torsos. A few of them carry makeshift weapons, though one has a rifle.
That’s not what has caught Kal’s attention though. Behind the mob, tied to two of those poles are two young women, barely older than girls really. It takes a few moments to realise that you recognise them. It’s the two blondes you passed by at the airport. What in the stars are they doing here?
“What are they going to do,” asks Kal.
The mob hasn’t seen you yet. “Burn them,” replies the imam tersely as one of the crowd lifts up a plastic canister. It’ll be full of gasoline, you think.
“Are we just going to let them do that,” asks Kal.
You’d thought about that. It would serve as a distraction, giving you a chance to overpower several of the mob before they even noticed your presence. Besides, it’s going to be hard enough to find the cultist’s leader without having to worry about two innocents to protect as well. Not for the first time you find yourself wishing you’d brought a Malacandra like Frank along for this mission.
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