Honor to the Good Boy (Part 4 of 4)
Back in the cellar, Aysa and Emre watched while Yavari studied Mehdi. He squinted down into the ice chest for over a minute before turning to Emre. “Would you turn off the light, please?”
“It’s going to be pitch-black in here, Captain,” Emre warned.
“I know.” Yavari fished a hand into the portmanteau bag he’d brought from his office.
Emre clicked the cord for the lightbulb, and darkness swallowed the cellar. Aysa heard Yavari rustling through the bag. Before they’d left his office, he’d gone through his safe and removed a set of platinum prayer beads, a knotted steel cord, and a vial holding a sliver of some prophet’s femur. Silence fell once he’d extracted everything from the bag.
Emre whispered in Aysa’s ear. “Major … what’s he doing?”
Aysa weighed how much she could explain. Useful though Emre was, he didn’t yet need to know about gods brawling in the streets. She murmured, “Yavari thinks he’s been touched by the gods. If he’s convinced the Mehdi was also touched by the gods, he can …” She hesitated. “Well, he won’t help, but he won’t get in our way.”
“You two could at least try to keep your voices down,” Yavari griped.
Aysa barked out a laugh. Emre bleated, “Sorry, Captain!”
Minutes ticked past in darkness. At last, Aysa heard Yavari slipping the relics back into his bag. “All right, Private. You can turn the light back on,” he said.
Emre clicked the cord. Aysa blinked in the sudden illumination. Yavari’s contemplative expression told her what she needed to know before he opened his mouth.
“Mehdi was blessed,” Yavari reported. “He was also directly touched by both the Shepherd and one of her vassals. Who, I can't clearly say, but Amāstrī is a safe assumption.”
“Does this mean I have permission to tell the people he was martyred?” Aysa asked.
Yavari gave her a severe look. “When’s the last time you went to temple on Ruztala?”
Aysa rolled her eyes. “Too long for your liking, I take it.”
“Yes. The only people who should bandy words like ‘martyrdom’ are those who live according to the Shepherd’s will. You need to at least show up to temple every weekend.”
“It’s the weekend tomorrow,” Aysa reminded him.
Yavari looked down to secure the clasp on his bag. “I know. I make it to temple every weekend.” When he met her gaze again, he said, “Why don’t you focus on finding the cleric who blessed Mehdi? I’m sure she’d want to be informed.”
Aysa grinned. Turning to Emre, she said, “I believe it’s time you introduce me to Budaqov. We have a cleric to track down.”
* * * * *
Yavari was a stodgy grump, but he came through when it mattered.
Two days later, a procession of Shepherd worshippers invaded the Ead enclave. This wasn’t remarkable by itself. Ead enclaves were the only place in the Empire with legalized gambling and opium dens, and thus, they were no stranger to foreign clerics preaching at anyone trying to walk down the Şans Yolu. What caught the Ead chieftains off guard was that the procession completely avoided that central thoroughfare and its many dens of iniquity. They instead marched upon the enclave’s Inquisition chapterhouse.
Aysa was inside when they arrived, making a copy of Ekmekçi’s report. The first she was aware of this procession was a voice shouting through a bullhorn.
“We implore the Inquisition to release the remains of Mehdi, martyr for both the Empire and the yazatas, to us! Do not surrender his remains for desecration! Ban aftakhar shehid!”
“Ban aftakahar shehid!” a multitude shouted. “Honor to the martyr!”
Aysa slipped out of the records room and into an office with a view of the street. One story below her, nearly forty people had gathered. Most were pilgrims wearing red chadors, red turbans, or some other sanguine garment. They bore a palanquin containing a crude effigy of a hyena. A half-dozen clerics with maroon robes under their chadors led the procession. The one holding the bullhorn looked like the cleric whom Aysa had shared a casual conversation with two evenings past.
“What in the Archon’s name?” an inquisitor sputtered, joining Aysa at the window. Like most inquisitors within the enclave chapter, he was a member of the Ead. His lip curled as he stared down at the hyena effigy.
“Looks like your people aren’t the only ones who saw that hyena,” Aysa commented.
“What do they hope to accomplish with such a display? They can’t seriously think we’ll give in to mob rule.”
Aysa shook her head and turned away from the window. “I guess some people never learn.”
Afterwards, Aysa heard that the Ead chieftains hadn’t appreciated the bullhorn. Fifteen large men with clubs were sent to enforce the local noise ordinances. The procession was driven out of the enclave within two hours.
Aysa wasn’t worried. Once the faithful made noise, it wouldn’t take long for others to chime in.
* * * * *
The dominoes fell in beautiful succession from there.
The next day, four days after Bardasht Arvah, the procession returned with triple the numbers. They also had company. Nearly twenty young activists, all wearing black to mark their allegiance to the Archonite movement, made their way to the Şans Yolu. Some of these activists handed out pamphlets. Others chose a more assertive route.
“The smuggling of human beings violates Article Seven of the Imperial Code!” one Archonite was heard shouting. “Those who treat human beings like animals are no better than animals themselves! What backwards people you are, that a hyena fights for civilization while you wallow in barbaric self-indulgence! The Archon would –”
The pedestrians didn’t get to hear what the Empire’s founder would say on the matter. The hotheaded youth tried to take his oratory into one of the gambling houses. A bouncer promptly pummeled him into the ground.
On the fifth day after Bardasht Arvah, the Ead chieftains demanded the Security Corps keep the procession and the Archonites out. The Security Corps did their duty. Each pilgrim and activist – there were almost double again that day – was searched for contraband before being allowed to enter or exit the enclave.
Frustrated, the Ead chieftains set up their own checkpoints on the sixth day. No one tried to cross. The pilgrims and Archonites milled outside the enclave’s gates, blocking access entirely. The pilgrims sang hymns. The Archonites altered between intellectual speeches and hurling slurs at the enclave enforcers.
The enclaves lodged a complaint with the Security Corps. The captain of one of the checkpoint squads offered a curt reply. “We are only here to keep contraband – and hyenas – from moving in or out. Now none can. Our duty is done.”
Nine days after Bardasht Arvah, the gambling house nabobs collectively put their feet down. The heart of the enclave economy couldn’t beat if blood wasn’t pumping into it. The chieftains were summoned to a council, where the patriarch of the Uzun family demanded an end to the insanity.
On the tenth day, the chieftains gave the Inquisition permission to send Mehdi home.
* * * * *
Aysa and Yavari watched from a third-story balcony as Mehdi’s body was borne out from behind the walls of the enclave.
He was too far gone for public display, of course. Refrigeration could only do so much to keep the hyena’s remains presentable. Instead, he’d been stored within a coffin of lacquered black wood, fit for a head of state, with a life-sized plaster replica of him sitting atop it.
Mehdi’s former squad had been allowed into the enclave to collect the coffin. They wore formal uniforms, orange kaftans that hung to their knees, despite the early autumn warmth. Aysa quickly identified Sergeant Budaqov at the front right corner of the coffin. The man’s face was stony as he marched along. A massive crowd in red and black swept along in the squad’s wake as the squad bore Mehdi back to their garrison.
“Quite the sight, isn’t it?” Aysa remarked, glancing at Yavari.
His eyes were solemn as he stared down at the coffin, toying with the platinum prayer beads. “Quite.”
“Why so grim, then?”
“We may have set a dangerous precedent.”
Aysa scowled. “Why? Because people will get ideas about being able to influence the Inquisition? It will be forgotten within the year. At most, they’ll remember the Ead chieftains were the ones who broke, while we did what we would always have done without the chieftains getting in the way.”
“I mean in getting people to venerate an animal as a saint. It’s something the daevas could exploit.” His jaw tightened. “And I didn’t expect the Archonites to get involved.”
Of course he hadn’t. Aysa had known he wouldn’t approve of her leaking Ekmekçi’s report to one of the local Archonite lodges. Rather than admit to her part in their involvement, she pointed out, “You yourself confirmed Mehdi served the Shepherd. Would you have preferred his body be desecrated?”
“I’m not saying it wasn’t the right thing to do. I’m just worried about the cost.” Yavari sighed.
“Life’s too short to worry about what-ifs, Yavari. Enjoy the happy ending. Everything worked out for the best.” Aysa patted his back. “You’re far too sour. Eat the gaz I bought you. That will sweeten you up.”
“I pray you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right. Gaz is delicious. It’s a sin against Kimian culture that you won’t eat it.”
Yavari shuffled his feet, slowly turning away from the procession. “I’m a quarter Habarzelan, you know. We have our own …” He froze, staring at something across the street.
Aysa had seen that expression on him before. The world around her slowed as combat reflexes kicked in. She awkwardly fumbled her revolver from her holster, inwardly cursing her right arm for needing another few days in the cast. “Where?” she growled.
“There.” Yavari pointed at an alleyway just ahead of the procession.
A hyena the size of a truck lay at the alley’s mouth, gnawing upon a sausage the size of a prize-winning hog. His fur was golden now, and he glowed as if bathed in midday sunlight, but his torn-off ear was distinctive. A small, white star shone in the place of his missing eye, while his intact eye was also gold.
Yavari murmured a prayer.
Aysa checked the crowd. No one else had noticed the glowing apparition of Mehdi. When she looked back at him, the last of the sausage was disappearing between his jars. He licked his chops before looking directly at her.
“Should I be worried that he’s looking at me?” Aysa asked.
Yavari broke off his prayer long enough to ask, “Are you among the damned?”
“Not that I’m aware.” She holstered the revolver.
The procession drew level with Mehdi. His nose twitched, and his gaze dropped from Aysa to Budaqov. He began panting. Before Aysa’s eyes, he faded away. She smelled a pungent aroma – incense mixed with hyena musk – and felt the rasp of a tongue across her face.
Then Mehdi was gone.
“You owe me one, Martyr,” Aysa murmured to the empty air.
Yavari tucked his prayer beads into his pocket. “I suppose you’re right,” he declared.
“I always am.” She glanced at him. “What, specifically, am I right about this time?”
He headed inside, calling over his shoulder, “I suppose I’ll give the gaz a try.”