Slumrat Rising

The sin eater looked at the scores of rings, chains, and earrings scattered across his desk, spilling onto the floor. Each worn and rubbed, the maker mark and serial numbers carefully removed by Truth’s patient effort, waiting for the service to start. They all looked like they had been dug up, some possibly cut off the fingers of their late owners. The sin eater gingerly lifted a plain silvery band. It was heavier than it looked. Frozen quicksilver, banded with platinum. He had a similar ring.

“I am… moved by your piety,” the priest said, looking a bit sick. “I took the precaution of releasing all the sin upon me and refusing any other appointments today once I learned of your… reservation.”

“For the best.”

“Just what manner of thing are you? I have read of some unquiet dead similar to you, and you don’t quite feel like a demon, but-”

“I’m not quite one thing or the other?”

“Yes.”

“Not really your problem, though.”

“It is. It is exactly my problem. What am I for, if not to ease the burden of all God’s children and lead them back to their father?”

“No idea. That is the question for everyone, isn’t it?”

“That’s nice.”

There was a pause.

“You wouldn’t happen to be interested in finding out what those answers are, by any chance?”

“No, not right now. Places to go, things to do. Also, based on the service I just saw, I don’t think I would agree with your answers. “Even if you die sick, in pain, believing yourself abandoned by friend and God alike, it’s all part of God’s plan, and the smart thing to do is obediently go along with it. Make sure you tithe generously as you go. God needs his vig.” Can’t say I agree with the moral there.”

“That wasn’t the point at all!” James slapped his hand on the table, looking furiously at the hole in the air surrounded by sin. “The point was that prosperity will come to the faithful. That obedience to God will always result in blessings. Just not the blessings you might want right this minute. That the timing of the blessings is not a merely mortal question- they are all part of God’s plan for the world. Are you going to help or harm that plan, Johnny? That’s the point.”

“But we know God’s plan. He will leave us to die. He will let the world cleanse itself of humanity, and when the planet has been wiped clean, he will start again. After all, it’s what we chose. We didn’t have to make the world this way. We didn’t have to be part of systems we didn’t understand or fail to take alternatives we didn’t know existed. We could have starved or froze or chosen to die. Really, this is all our fault, not his.”

“All arguments that the Church has failed, not God. And I will admit the Church has failed. We didn’t save the planet in time.”

“Saved from a fate as inevitable as a stone falling to the floor, without outside intervention.”

“Our fault, not God’s. And hope is never lost. Not now, not at the moment of death. Not in the time after death. The righteous will kneel before the Throne and enjoy eternal blessings. Those who fail to welcome God shall have what they wished for as well.”

“Because the ignorant, those you have failed, have freely chosen Hell. We are talking around in circles here, priest, and you have a job to do. It’s what you are for, apparently.”

The sin eater snorted. “Did you think I would run? I’m no hypocrite, ghost. I accept the burdens God places upon me. I am prepared to take them for the blessings they are.” James stepped around his desk. “I would ask you to kneel, but I don’t think you would.”

“My knees are stiff. I seem to have the same problem in my neck and back. Just won’t bend right.”

“And yet, every relic and talisman I possess swear you aren’t a demon. Well, kneeling or not.” James gathered himself. Truth could feel cosmic energy gathering around the sin eater, moving in ways he had never really seen before. It was magic, just not the sort he knew.

“By the grace of the Father of Mercy, the Most High, by the intercession of Praeger, the Saints and the Doctors of the Faith and the offices of the Holy Mother Church, I accept your profession of faith. Be embraced by God, and be healed.” The sin eater reached out and embraced the fire.

Truth could feel something slipping away. Something he couldn’t quite put words around. It felt like he could suddenly breathe again. He hadn’t realized he was choking. James screamed and collapsed.

Truth jumped back a step. The once fit-looking priest was covered in blood. Rotting holes had eaten through him in places. The holes were still appearing, getting wider. His ears fell off, his fingers slipped off his hands and onto the floor, one knuckle at a time.

It seemed that, whatever the jewelry was worth, Truth had given the priest too much sin. The priest truly was no hypocrite. Even now, he didn’t call for help. He just thrashed on the ground of his soundproof office and screamed until his vocal cords rotted away.

Truth looked up and sighed. The purification must have worked. He didn’t take any pleasure in what he was seeing. If anything, he was a bit nauseous. He was carrying all that? Bleugh. James had done him a real solid, if not for free.

“Well. I guess you can chalk this up as another miracle of God’s grace.” Truth murmured. “I don’t really know how to use this spell right, and if you live through this, it will definitely be a miracle, so… you know. Have faith.”

Truth looked over. Sin definitionally wasn’t “right,” right? Even if it was defined differently by lots and lots of people. And humans, as a rule, shouldn’t have holes of burning corruption running and spreading through them. So… let’s fix this.

The spell form for Cup and Knife spun out and surrounded the priest. It seemed to hate the sin as much as the sin eater did. Truth felt his cosmic energy drop hard. The corrosion stopped, but he had the sense of holding back the tide with his hands. The corruption had to go somewhere. Truth grinned savagely, wrestling with the spell. He knew exactly where the sin should go.

A bare minute later, the sin eater was out of danger. Not healed, but ordinary magic could carry him the rest of the way. Presumably, given his job, he would have potions and things handy. Probably still a lot of sin to clear up, too. Regardless, Truth wasn’t going to spend any more of his cosmic energy here- he was almost tapped out. Almost.

Truth leaned over and whispered in James’ ear. “You want to know what I am? I’m one of Starbrite’s bastards, finally come home. And I didn’t come home alone.” He let Incisive do its work. James was too out of it to notice the spell. “Why do I refuse to absolve God of blame? Because the God of this world is Starbrite, and if he is a false God, you have done NOTHING to tear him down. The Church is complicit in worshiping a false god. And if I am wrong? If your God truly is great and good, prove it. Tear down that liar’s throne!”

He opened the door and walked out. He found one of the deacons hard at work, counting the day’s take.

“Was that screaming you just heard? It seemed to come from Father James’ office. But you shouldn’t hear anything through the soundproofing. Is something wrong? You had better check.”

Truth smiled as he walked away. He could imagine the confusion on the deacon's face. He would find the injured sin eater on the floor, the penitent gone, and the fine wooden desk covered in reeking muck.

____________________________________________

Truth walked out of Saint Florians in an odd, contemplative sort of mood. He had been embraced twice today- once by a Ghūl, or the illusion of a Ghūl, and once by a Praegerite sin eater. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. Both felt accepting. Liberating, in a way. He could vividly see the flesh rotting off James. Were the Ghūl beings so soaked in sin they turned out like walking corpses? Truth doubted it. The Ghūl, horrible as they were, seemed to have no conception of “evil” that he could see. Intelligent, yes, but their lives were devoted exclusively to single-minded worship of their God.

He silently laughed. The Ghūl were incapable of sin because they were incapable of acting contrary to the will of God. Nobody anywhere agreed with the details of that life of faith, but almost everyone would agree that living life according to God’s will was what a person should do. The Ghūl, nightmare creatures of torment, were innocent. Not a soul would believe him if he told them.

“Thrush, as a sin professional, how would you rate my current sin load?”

“I wouldn’t, master.”

The little imp casually preened its feathers. Thrush had strongly requested being left outside the church wards, which struck Truth as fair enough.

“Self-preservation?”

“More that it doesn’t work that way, from my perspective. I don’t decide what souls are worthy of the care of Hell, I merely do my best to serve. So far as I know, it is not a question of either quantity or quality.”

“Salvation through faith alone? The intercession of Praeger and the Mother Church?”

“Your servant is lacking, Dread one. I can only say that you appear to be mentally less burdened by your choices. Do you remember my analogy of the coral growing over a gem?”

“Yes.”

“You appear to have had some crude diver with a hammer knock off a chunk of that natural beauty.”

“Still Hell worthy?”

“All are worthy in Hell, Master. It is the nature of the place to make prince and pauper alike in dignity.”

Truth grinned at that. Air demons. Thrush was ok for an imp, but goddamn if he didn’t want to go murder the Hell out of some air demons just for fun. It sounds like James didn’t get all the sin off. He would still be somewhat visible to those with James’ strange blessing. It would have to be considered a tolerable risk. Or at least a risk he would have to tolerate.

“All this does lead to a fairly obvious question- what is sin? Why can some see it, but most cannot? What is it about “sin” that sticks to souls even through death? Is virtue the opposite of sin? Is it also sticky?” Truth wondered.

“Above my paygrade, Master. To use an analogy you are familiar with.” Thrush hopped around, digging for insects in the dirt.

“Which leads to the question of “What is Virtue?” and from there defining good and evil, and figuring out why they exist.” Truth smirked, then mentally added. “I should ask Merkovah about that. He loves our little chats.”

He looked down the boring, ordinary street, past the ordinary shops and ordinary hairdressers, watching the ordinary street lights converting cosmic rays into sharp light. In a year or so, this scene would become mythical. Something leathery storytellers would describe to disbelieving children around campfires.

He had done everything he wanted or needed to do in Buran. He wasn’t looking forward to the trip north, but it was time to go. He had a researcher to murder, fear to spread, and chaos to sow. He started jogging down the street, scarf around his neck, sword in his soul, and duffle of clothes and books on his back. Just another Jeon kid. The logical consequence of a billion bad decisions made for “it seemed like a good idea at the time” reasons. A rat on its hind legs, looking up and wondering just what was up there, outside the walls of what it knew.

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