A Touch of Darkness Read online

  The guard saluted back. “Captain,” he said. His use of the Anglish word sounded strange and stilted. She wondered if he had memorised any other words.

  “At ease,” Magda replied in equally stilted Street Rabian. “May we enter?”

  The guard stepped to the side and waved them on.

  Beyond the door, a set of shallow steps led down into a wide antechamber. An arched doorway led to the right, where two people wearing the dark robes of the priesthood awaited them.

  Magda noted the robes were trimmed in silver to represent the moon of the female, rather than the golden sun of the male priests. She sank to her knees and bowed her head. “Guardians of the Ba’haswa,” she said in High Rabian.

  When she looked up, the two guardians pulled back their hoods. Their wrinkled faces and dark, serious eyes regarded her with an intensity she found uncomfortable.

  One of them spoke to her in a voice cracked with age. She also spoke High Rabian at such speed, Magda could not follow a single word. The guardian seemed to understand her lack and spoke in halting Street Rabian. “Stand up, Magda Stoner, wife of our princess. I am Velhana, and none shall bend the knee to me.”

  The second one also spoke in High Rabian. She paused then and repeated herself in rough, broken Anglish. “I am Araha. Know you the way of the ba’haswa?”

  Magda nodded. “A little.”

  “No matter, we will guide you,” Araha said. “But first you must be cleansed.”

  The two priestesses ushered Magda, Lucinda, and Ascara into the room. “This is the undressing room,” Araha said. “Beyond is cleansing, and then to the place of the ba’haswa.”

  “Strip,” Velhana ordered in Rabian.

  “Strip?” Magda asked in Anglish. She turned and stared at Ascara. In part, she feared she would be inappropriate. Most of all, it masked her own discomfort. Ascara said nothing, but she started to unfasten her uniform. Lucinda, too, started to undress.

  “Come, Magda Stoner, you must remove all clothing,” Araha prompted. “All clothing is polluted by the world without, and such corruption must stay outside. You must understand this.”

  “I understand,” Magda replied. She didn’t move though.

  “Magda Stoner, this is your family here, and there is no need for unease with your own,” Araha said.

  “It’s all right, Magda. I’ve seen it all before,” Lucinda said.

  “Me too,” Ascara added.

  “That doesn’t help,” Magda grumbled.

  Lucinda stepped before her. “Then let me help you, Magda.”

  “I can manage,” Magda replied.

  Ascara patted her shoulder, her face serious, grim, even. “It’s all right to let us in, Magda. It is right, and it is safe when we are together.”

  Magda nodded. There were time issues to this, and if she couldn’t do it with the two who meant most to her, then she would not do it at all. She would need their help and support for every step of this journey.

  She let Lucinda unfasten the buttons of her jacket as she focused on her belt. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Leave all the clothing here and come through to the bathing area,” Araha said in Anglish. “We have prepared all for you and will assist in this, what we call the Vas Ba’haswa’te. This is the little ba’haswa, if you like, the cleansing of those who cleanse.”

  In the bathing area, a shallow circular bath had been filled with steaming water. Lotus flowers and basil leaves floated on the surface, and the minty aroma of hyssop and other herbs rose up in waves.

  “In,” Araha prompted.

  Magda stepped into the steaming bath and sank to her knees.

  “Now, you get in as well,” urged Araha. “But not you.”

  Magda looked up then, to see the two guardians with their hands on Lucinda’s shoulders. They spoke in Rabian and spoke so fast Magda had no idea what they were talking about. Lucinda looked mortified.

  “What’s the matter?” Magda asked.

  “This,” Araha said. She pointed to the marks of Sh’Na’s corruption that covered Lucinda’s arms. Even in the dimmed light, Magda could see the flush of embarrassment on Lucinda’s face. “Polluted,” Araha said. “This needs a healer.”

  “I am not polluted,” Lucinda said.

  “Lucinda is healing, with many herbs to assist,” Magda said.

  Velhana took a clean cloth from a small basket, rolled it into a ball, and dipped the cloth in oils. She spoke in Rabian and Araha lifted Lucinda’s arm to chest height. “Cleaning,” Araha said. Velhana wiped the cloth along Lucinda’s arm with such force, Lucinda winced.

  “Stop that,” Magda ordered.

  The guardian rubbed harder until Lucinda’s blackened arms looked red and raw.

  Velhana looked at the cloth, and the two guardians spoke in Rabian.

  “It is acceptable,” Araha said. “You will cleanse and immerse your arms fully in blessed waters and oils.”

  “As you wish,” Lucinda said. She rubbed her arm where the guardians had gripped her.

  Magda wrapped her arms around Lucinda’s shoulders, and even though they were naked, pulled her into a hug. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Yes. Yes. I’m okay,” Lucinda said. She sounded upset.

  “Are you all right with this?” Magda asked.

  Lucinda nodded. “Yes,” she said.

  Together, the three of them knelt in the hot water, facing towards the centre. Magda noted that both Ascara and Lucinda looked down, as though in respectful supplication. At that moment, pride filled her heart. She too bowed her head and smiled; they would always be there for her.

  “Good,” said Araha in Anglish. “Now we pray for the ba’has’te. We cleanse your soul with prayers, and we cleanse your bodies in water steeped in the holy herbs of purity, basil and hyssop.”

  Prayers followed as the guardians doused the three supplicants in hot, purified water. Over and over, they were washed until the prayers ended.

  “Stand,” said Araha. “Now you are clean and pure.” She handed them each a clean towel, and Velhana stood to the side with three simple white tunics hung over her arm. Araha placed slippers of straw and cotton on the floor before them.

  “All things are blessed and pure. When you are dressed, we have wraps for your hair as well.”

  “Thank you,” Magda said.

  “Should you leave the chamber of the ba’haswa, then you are polluted once more. Your clothing must be discarded and your body cleansed again. Do you understand?” Araha asked.

  “I understand,” Magda replied.

  “What if we need to go to use the water closet?” Lucinda asked.

  Araha nodded. “If you need to fulfil any function of the body, then you must leave the room. You must be purified again when you return. We will be close, ready for such needs.”

  “Thank you,” Magda said.

  Velhana handed them all a pale wooden talisman on a cotton string and inscribed with a spiral design in the centre.

  “Wear this symbol at all times. The wood is blessed by the passing of the sun, and the symbol is the path of the soul from mortal to immortal,” Araha said. Then she steered Magda to the main chamber. She pointed to images and writing on the wall. “A reminder of all necessary things,” Araha said. “Do you read the words of God?”

  “I see the instructions, and I can also read Rabian. I read better than I speak,” Magda said.

  “Good, the process is simple,” Araha answered. Still, she ran through the essential procedures, the sunlight, the cleaning, and what they needed to do.

  “I understand,” Magda said.

  “Good, we go now. Dawn approaches.”

  Magda led the way down the last few steps into the heart of the ba’haswa. The room, almost circular in section, and sunken below the level of the ground, housed a waist-high plinth in the centre upon which lay a covered shroud. She didn’t have to look to know what, or rather who, lay within.

  On the far side of the room, a decorative stone gri
ll marked the location of the window. East facing, the large window opened at ground level to the height of the ceiling. The window, although covered, let in a great deal of fresh air, while the grill helped to maintain privacy. Across the floor, drains covered in decorative ironwork ran the length of the room to allow any water to escape the room. The basket, which almost overflowed with the gifts of purification, sat next to a narrow table well stocked with jars and small baskets.

  Magda read through the illustrated instructions printed on the wall, to see how they compared with the rapid instructions she had been given.

  “What do we do now?” Lucinda asked.

  Magda gestured to the supplies. “We have jars of essential oils and unguents. Some of them are scented, some are not. All of these we use.”

  Lucinda came to her side and lifted lids from several of the pots. “Hmm, angelica, cinnamon, and hyssop,” she said.

  “Yes, you know your herbs,” Magda said.

  “Some,” Lucinda agreed. “And I see a basket full of lavender flowers and lotus.”

  Magda pointed to a pair of golden pot-bellied urns covered in a muslin cloth. They were gold and glowed in the flickering half-light of the lamps. “That is purified water with aloe and hyssop. We’ll use this to wash Olivia.”

  On the table stood two small oil burners, lit, and Magda added two drops of frankincense to both. The aroma of the oil immediately rose into the air. She took a deep breath. “Now we begin,” she said.

  “What do you need?” Ascara asked.

  Magda looked out of the window grills where she could see the sky begin to lighten.

  “The shroud needs to come off so she might welcome the purity of the first rays on her skin.” Magda almost choked on her own words. Images crowded her mind, of Olivia, as she had known her when they were first married. She could almost smile at those memories. Then those memories sank below the images of Olivia as Sh’Na, a dried-out creature, and she lost herself in Olivia the beast and not Olivia her wife.

  “Magda?” someone asked. The voice sounded distant, and she wasn’t listening. Her mind filled with too many images to pay attention to others.

  “Magda?”

  She turned around and took a deep breath. Words failed her. She took another breath. Her chest filled with air and she drew her shoulders back. “I’m all right,” she said.

  “Are you?” Lucinda asked.

  “A part of this whole process is about memory, good and bad.” She held herself still and let her breath out in a long and loud exhalation. “We have to get things done. First then, let us get rid of the shroud and all of the covers.”

  “Is there a place for the old shroud? Something we must do with it?” Lucinda asked.

  Magda shook her head. “If we leave it on the floor, the guardians will take it away to be burned.” She turned to the window, as though she would find inspiration there. “She will be exposed to us. Are you all right with that?”

  Ascara patted Magda on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about us.”

  “You have not done this before though,” Magda said.

  “Doesn’t matter. This is important to you, and we will do everything we can to be here, and to help,” Ascara said.

  Magda gripped the ends of the cotton ties and began to loosen the simple bows. Lucinda and Ascara copied her, and with the three working together, they soon had them all undone. As one, they lifted the cotton shroud and let it slide to the floor.

  Magda couldn’t help herself. She stared at the mummified remains and tears streamed down her face. Olivia.

  Lucinda gripped her hand and squeezed. “It’s not her any more, Magda. Olivia is long gone.”

  “I know,” Magda said.

  “Five years, and you have grieved for most of them,” Lucinda said.

  “Yes,” Magda admitted, but she could feel the tears brewing again. She wasn’t supposed to cry at all. Tears were a sign of weakness, and a captain was not supposed to show weakness of any kind. She had to be strong, to say goodbye. Yet no matter how hard she tried to keep her emotions in check, a single tear trickled over her cheek. And then another followed. She sniffed it all back.

  Lucinda found a piece of clean cotton and wiped Magda’s face. “I can’t imagine your pain right now. Remember we are here. We are one.”

  Magda tried to smile, but she couldn’t offer that kind of reassurance. “We are one,” she said.

  “The sun is coming,” Ascara said.

  Magda looked to the window. Sunlight sparkled through the grill, and narrow shafts of weak sunlight lit the dust motes in the air. She choked back her words.

  “Magda, come and help us lift her. She lies on the shroud and we need to take it away,” Lucinda said.

  Lucinda guided her hands to Olivia’s shoulders. “Lift a little, only a bit.”

  Magda nodded. Yet when her hands touched the cool and dry skin, she almost felt herself crumble. “Forgive me,” she whispered. She slid her fingers under the shoulders and the body, so light and without much substance, and lifted with less effort than she expected. Her eyes locked onto Olivia’s face. She no longer looked like the woman she’d known, and Magda wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse.

  “Good, now lay her flat,” Lucinda said.

  Magda stepped away and looked around the room. The shroud lay on the ground to one side.

  “Are you ready?” Lucinda prompted. “The sun is coming.”

  She shook herself and forced her thoughts to quiet. Dawn wouldn’t wait for her to gather herself. “This is the time for the prayers to greet the dawn. They are written on the wall in High Rabian. I could try and translate to Anglish, but it won’t be perfect.”

  “That will be fine, Magda. It’s the meaning that is important, not the language,” Lucinda said.

  Magda nodded her agreement. “This, then, is the Rite of Ba’Haswaein. The journey of the soul,” Magda said.

  Her voice sounded stronger than she expected. For that, she felt grateful. She would be strong, not weak and weepy. She would not let Olivia or Mogharan down, not again. She stared at the grill, and as sunlight speared through the grill and light touched the very tip of Olivia’s toes, she spoke.

  The prayer, in Rabian, sounded stilted at first, but she persisted no matter how awkward she felt. Once she had read it through, she translated the words to Anglish. “Bless the light of a new day,” she said. “Bless this daughter, and cleanse her as she prepares to enter your arms. Bless her, with life eternal in your mercy. Bless her, for she needs to come home, to you. Bless her,” Magda finished.

  She looked to Lucinda and Ascara. “Bless the light of the new day,” she said.

  Lucinda and Ascara repeated her words. “Bless this daughter,” they chanted together, “and cleanse her as she prepares to enter your arms. Bless her, with life eternal in your mercy. Bless her for she needs to come home, to you. Bless her.”

  Sunlight crept through the grill and filled the shadows with light. They repeated the prayer, just once more until Olivia and the plinth lay bathed in weak yellow light, a promise of the heat to come.

  “Good. Now that we have welcomed the light, we must talk to Olivia so that her soul knows where she lies, and her soul may prepare to be taken from this place, so it will pass on to the next.” Magda looked at Olivia’s face and pushed back a stray wisp of hair.

  “Magda,” Lucinda started, “her soul has been—”

  “I know, I know. You’ve taken her soul already,” Magda answered.

  “Yes,” Lucinda said.

  “Nonetheless, this is the way,” Magda said. She stared at the exposed form of Olivia. “As we talk to her, we clean away the corruption of her body using the blessed water provided.” She ladled liquid from one of the urns into a small bowl and dipped a small wad of cotton into the water. “There will be more water purified as we need it in the coming days.”

  “How many days?” Ascara asked. She copied Magda and gathered her own bowl of water.

  “As long
as it takes,” Magda answered. She began by washing Olivia’s face with such care and tenderness, it was as though she bathed a sick loved one.

  “Forgive me, I should never have left you,” Magda said. “I should have made you go back to Port Ruth no matter how long it delayed the trip. I should have left my post to make sure you went home, safe and sound. The mission was doomed anyway, I should have seen that, but duty overrode all else. I should have said no to you and no to the Order. Only then would I have been able to save you.”

  “Magda, this is not your fault,” Lucinda said.

  She looked up. “Yes. It is. I should have made sure she was sent home safe.”

  “Magda—” Ascara stared.

  Magda shrugged off any other words. “What is done, is done, and we must live with the results of that.” She resumed washing, and spoke in the Rabian of the street; imperfect though her use of the language was, it seemed appropriate. “My love. Let me cleanse away the dirt of life. We cleanse away the corruption of the mortal realms. Every drop of water is for the purity of body and soul.”

  Then she spoke again, in Anglish. “Repeat after me. We cleanse away the dirt of life. We cleanse away the corruption of the mortal realms. Every drop of water is for the purity of body and soul.”

  Nine times they repeated the words, and then Magda stopped.

  “What’s next?” Lucinda prompted.

  “We centre her here. We tell her story,” Magda said.

  “Then tell us about her, Magda. You should tell us her story,” Lucinda said.

  Magda wasn’t sure about that. After all, Lucinda had already taken her soul. Yet at the same time, Olivia might feel some comfort in the hereafter if they had taken good care of her.

  “I met her not long after my father, the fisherman, brought me to Port Ruth for testing,” she started. She smiled at the memory, and over the passing hours, she shared their story in full.

  Magda looked up after several hours of cleansing and talking about Olivia. The daylight through the window had already passed its zenith and they were well through the afternoon.

  “As the sky darkens, we must ready her for the night,” she said.

  Magda made an infusion of oil, aloe, and sweet lotus flowers and poured it into three shallow bowls containing cinnamon sticks. “We rub this into her skin. The sweetness of the flowers will cleanse the skin and draw out the impurities,” Magda said. “We will finish by wrapping her. We use strips of linen, add a layer of holy flowers, and then add more linen strips.”