When the sounds of wheel and scream had faded, Encanis hung panting and shaking from his chains. “I told you to speak no lie, Encanis,” Tehlu said, pitiless.
“My path then!” Encanis shrieked. “I do not regret! If I had my choice again, I would only change how fast I ran. Your people are like cattle my kind feed on! Bite and break you, if you gave me half an hour I would do such things that these wretched gawping peasants would go mad with fear. I would drink their children’s blood and bathe in women’s tears.” He might have said more, but his breath was short as he strained against the chains that held him.
“So,” Tehlu said, and stepped close to the wheel. For a moment it seemed like he would embrace Encanis, but he was merely reaching for the iron spokes of the wheel. Then, straining, Tehlu lifted the wheel above his head. He carried it, arms upstretched, toward the pit, and threw Encanis in.
Through the long hours of night, a dozen evergreens had fed the fire. The flames had died in the early morning, leaving a deep bed of sullen coals that glimmered when the wind brushed them.
The wheel struck flat, with Encanis on top. There was an explosion of spark and ash as it landed and sank inches deep into the hot coals. Encanis was held over the coals by the iron that bound and burned and bit at him.
Though he was held away from the fire itself, the heat was so intense that Encanis’ clothes charred black and began to crumble without bursting into flame. The demon thrashed against his bonds, settling the wheel more firmly into the coals. Encanis screamed, because he knew that even demons can die from fire or iron. And though he was powerful, he was bound and burning. He felt the metal of the wheel grow hot beneath him, blackening the flesh of his arms and legs. Encanis screamed, and even as his skin began to smoke and char, his face was still hidden in a shadow that rose from him like a tongue of darkening flame.
Then Encanis grew silent, and the only sound was the hiss of sweat and blood as they fell from the demon’s straining limbs. For a long moment everything was still. Encanis strained against the chains that held him to the wheel, and it seemed that he would strain until his muscles tore themselves from bone and sinew both.
Then there was a sharp sound like a bell breaking and the demon’s arm jerked free of the wheel. Links of chain, now glowing red from the heat of the fire, flew upward to land smoking at the feet of those who stood above. The only sound was the sudden, wild laughter of Encanis, like breaking glass.
In a moment the demon’s second hand was free, but before he could do more, Tehlu flung himself into the pit and landed with such force that the iron rang with it. Tehlu grabbed the hands of the demon and pressed them back against the wheel.
Encanis screamed in fury and in disbelief, for though he was forced back onto the burning wheel, and though he felt the strength of Tehlu was greater than chains he had broken, he saw Tehlu was burning in the flames.
“Fool!” he wailed. “You will die here with me. Let me go and live. Let me go and I will trouble you no further.” And the wheel did not ring out, for Encanis was truly frightened.
“No,” said Tehlu. “Your punishment is death. You will serve it.”
“Fool! Madling!” Encanis thrashed to no avail. “You are burning in the flames with me, you will die as I do!”
“To ash all things return, so too this flesh will burn. But I am Tehlu. Son of myself. Father of myself. I was before, and I will be after. If I am a sacrifice then it is to myself alone. And if I am needed and called in the proper ways then I will come again to judge and punish.”
So Tehlu held him to the burning wheel, and none of the demon’s threats or screaming moved him the least part of an inch. So it was that Encanis passed from the world, and with him went Tehlu who was Menda. Both of them burned to ash in the pit in Atur. That is why the Tehlin priests wear robes of ashen grey. And that is how we know Tehlu cares for us, and watches us, and keeps us safe from—
Trapis broke off his story as Jaspin began to howl and thrash against his restraints. I slid softly back into unconsciousness as soon as I no longer had the story to hold my attention.
After that, I began to harbor a suspicion that never entirely left me. Was Trapis a Tehlin priest? His robe was tattered and dirty, but it might have been the proper grey long ago. Parts of his story had been awkward and stumbling, but some were stately and grand, as if he had been reciting them from some half-forgotten memory. Of sermons? Of his readings from the Book of the Path?
I never asked. And though I stopped by his basement frequently in the months that followed, I never heard Trapis tell another story again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Shadows Themselves
THROUGH ALL MY TIME in Tarbean, I continued to learn, though most of the lessons were painful and unpleasant.
I learned how to beg. It was a very practical application of acting with a very difficult audience. I did it well, but Waterside money was tight and an empty begging bowl meant a cold, hungry night.
Through dangerous trial and error I discovered the proper way to slit a purse and pick a pocket. I was especially good at the latter. Locks and latches of all kinds soon gave up their secrets to me. My nimble fingers were put to a use my parents or Abenthy never would have guessed.
I learned to run from anyone with an unnaturally white smile. Denner resin slowly bleaches your teeth, so if a sweet-eater lives long enough for their teeth to grow fully white, chances are they have already sold everything they have worth selling. Tarbean is full of dangerous people, but none as dangerous as a sweet-eater filled with the desperate craving for more resin. They will kill you for a pair of pennies.
I learned how to lash together makeshift shoes out of rags. Real shoes became a thing of dreams for me. The first two years it seemed like my feet were always cold, or cut, or both. But by the third year my feet were like old leather and I could run barefoot for hours over the rough stones of the city and not feel it at all.
I learned not to expect help from anyone. In the bad parts of Tarbean a call for help attracts predators like the smell of blood on the wind. I was sleeping on the rooftops, snugged tightly into my secret place where three roofs met. I awoke from a deep sleep to the sound of harsh laughter and pounding feet in the alley below me.
The slapping footsteps stopped and more laughter followed the sound of ripping cloth. Slipping to the edge of the roof, I looked down to the alley below. I saw several large boys, almost men. They were dressed as I was, rags and dirt. There may have been five, maybe six of them. They moved in and out of the shadows like shadows themselves. Their chests heaved from their run and I could hear their breath from the roof above.