37: Of Demons And Ashborn

Vir reeled as he walked deeper into the dark hold packed with sweat and slaves. Some slept. Others wept. And others still eyed him with predatory gazes. Both men and women were present. All dressed in soiled rags.

The only sounds in the hold were soft groans, the shuffling of shackles, and the creaking of the old wooden hull against the sea. Awfully quiet for a room packed with prisoners.

How did they end up here? Vir wondered. He’d heard of slaves, of course, but this was his first time seeing them. Some countries had outlawed slavery, but Hiranya obviously wasn’t one of them.

He didn’t even want to guess what fate lay in store for these poor souls.

Vir stayed as far as possible from the cells as he could manage, but the narrow corridor that ran between them did little for his peace of mind.

Arms reached out and tugged his clothing, but emaciated as they were, they simply didn’t have the strength to do much to him. He swatted their arms and broke free of their hold.

Why am I even here? He asked himself. He should’ve turned back the moment he saw this room. But he didn’t. There was something… something about the room that called out to him.

And when he turned his Magic Candle upon the faces of the slaves, he immediately understood what.

Every slave here shared one trait in common—they all had red skin.

“D-Demons!” He whispered under his breath, stumbling back. A demon slave reached through the bars and yanked his shirt, pulling Vir off his feet. His head hit the jail cell, but not with enough force to cause any actual damage.

Vir broke out of his stupor and whipped around, freeing himself, and coming face to face with the red-skinned demon man who’d pulled him. Also, this demon had a pair of horns. Horns!

“Give us food!” The tall, gaunt figure said, extending an open hand out.

“S-stay back, demon!” Vir cried, nursing the welt on his forehead.

The man growled, showing his teeth. Vir sized him up. Apart from his red skin, the man—and everyone else—looked awfully human. Both the men and the women all had black hair. Some had red eyes, others were black, but all were devoid of life.

Their bodies were emaciated beyond belief. Vir had never seen someone so far gone before, not even in the depths of the famine when food was scarce. He wondered how they would survive this journey.

“Please! I’m begging you. I don’t deserve this. My wife does not deserve this,” he said, gesturing down to a demon woman in a fetal position on the floor. She was either sleeping, or unconscious. “If you can spare anything, it could save her life. Nuts, fruit, anything! Please!”

“I—I don’t have…” Vir stopped, realizing he did have food on him. A whole rucksack’s load, in fact. He dropped his pack and fished out a small sack of nuts.

“Discreetly!” The man hissed, looking at the others. Vir immediately realized the problem.

He’d had never seen a shark, but everyone knew of them. Of how they swarmed at the smallest drop of blood. The prisoners here might fight to the death over his bag of nuts. And it wasn’t like he’d picked the most needy prisoner to help… It’d been a random decision, spurred by fear and guilt.

Why am I even helping these people? For all he knew, they’d committed some horrible crime to be locked up like this. But somewhere in his head, he knew. He knew that couldn’t possibly be the case. These people didn’t look like hardened criminals. They looked… like scared, average people.

All eyes watched as Vir slipped the bag to the demon, who immediately hid it under the rag he wore. If the others cared, they said nothing. Vir had misjudged them—they simply lacked the energy to fight over it.

“May Yuma bless you, friend,” the demon whispered.

“What are you?” Vir asked, staring into his eyes. “You’re a demon, right? What crimes did you commit?”

The man nodded, looking at Vir appraisingly. “The crime of existing,” he spat. “Same as everyone else here. You don’t understand the—”

He stopped and stared.

“Wh—” Vir began, but the demon interrupted, pointing a finger to Vir’s forehead.

“Your skin. It is gray, isn’t it?”

Badrak’s Balls, the makeup’s come off again, Vir thought. Vir immediately fussed with his hair, ruffling it to cover up the top of his forehead.

The demon nodded. “They won’t notice now. I see, so you’re like us.”

A chill flowed from Vir’s neck down his arms to his fingertips. “W-what do you mean? I’m not a demon. I’m… I’m normal.”

The demon shook his head, then nodded, as if he’d had some revelation. “Of course. I know not how you ended up on this ship, but you’ve done me a service, so allow me to give you some advice. Never let them find you, boy. Your makeup—ensure they never realize who, or what, you are. Don’t end up like us. It… it will cost you everything,” he said, his eyes falling to his wife lying on the floor.

“I—” An idea occurred to Vir. “Do you know anything about a four-armed giant? With red skin, just like yours.”

“Four arms? No, I’m sorry. I don’t—”

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Vir’s neck whipped to the left. The stairwell glowed with the steady light of a Magic Lamp.

Someone was coming down the stairs, and he didn’t need to see the enormous man’s face to know who. The fat man barely fit into the narrow passage, and Vir couldn’t believe the ladder hadn’t collapsed under his weight.

“Tragic, iddn’t it?” Bakura said, effectively sealing the exit with his enormous body. In his right hand, he held a lantern, and in his left, a sack. Hardly anything that could be used for combat, but Vir didn’t let down his guard.

Vir’s right hand hovered over his shirt, ready to pull it up and draw his katar at a moment’s notice. He’d expended his chakrams and chakris, but he doubted the big man was much of a fighter. In this confined space, Vir held the advantage with his slight frame.

Of course, even if he did somehow beat the man, he was on a ship. It wasn’t like he could escape together with Maiya.

No, fighting would be a bad idea. Bakura still thought he was an aristocrat. He’d used that.

“I didn’t take you for a slaver,” Vir said, putting on an air of confidence. He only hoped the man wouldn’t see his shaking legs in the dimly lit room.

Several slaves—the ones who had any energy left—jumped up at the sight of Bakura, reaching their hands out, begging for food.

Vir expected the man to swat them aside, but instead, he reached into his bag and began handing out squat, circular things. Dried rice cakes. Vir recognized them immediately—they were a staple back in the village.

“Boy, Imma businessman. And der ain’t no trade as profitable as the slave trade.”

Rage welled up inside Vir. “This is inhumane. How could you treat these people like this?”

“People?” Bakura said, raising an eyebrow. “They ain’t people, boy. Ye ever seen people with skin as red as the sunset? Dese be demons, boy. Demons!”

“Demons are real?” He asked. A idea struck him. “Aren’t they just Ashborn?”

He didn’t believe that himself, but figured it was a good way to probe for information without drawing attention to himself.

“Real as rain, boy. As fer Ashborn, dunno much ‘bout ‘em. Ne’er met one, me’self.”

Well, it was worth a try, Vir thought. “Even if they are demons, they seem like regular people to me,” he said. “Yet you treat them worse than livestock!”

Bakura looked at Vir like he’d gone crazy, and Vir could swear he saw fear in the man’s eyes. “Boy, yer a ‘risto. Ye know full well what de scriptures say ‘bout demons, eh? Ye trying to call down Adinat’s Wrath upon us, boy? Demons ‘re evil! Simple’s dat.”

Vir said nothing. He knew full well how the scriptures ostracized demons and Ashborn. Though Apramor tweaked his sermons out of consideration for Vir, there was no way to hide it. Demons were ‘evil’. Ashborn were outcasts.

He thought back to the red skinned four-armed giant. There was little doubt in his mind now that the giant who’d handed his infant self to Rudvik was a demon.

But that only raised more questions than it answered. What even were Ashborn? And how were they related to demons? Vir’s fingers subconsciously grazed the white symbol on his chest, hidden under his shirt.

None of these demons had tattoos like him. Their skin was red, while his was pale. The only thing they shared in common was their eye color—red so deep that it seemed to glow.

Bakura went around giving cakes to the starving slaves, who accepted the food as if it came from Adinat himself. Vir saw no hatred in their eyes… Only emptiness. It was tragic. This was no way for anyone to live.

“I can see ye have a clean soul, boy,” Bakura said, approaching Vir. “If it makes ya feel any better, most o’ dese slaves were either tortured or bound for execution. Ye could say I extended their lives by sellin’ em off ta de Pagan Order.”

Vir gestured to the cages. “How can you call this life? Death is better than this.”

“Ye, well, Pagan Order’ll prob grant them that, anyway. Ne’er seen anyone hate on demons more ‘n their ilk. Or who knows? Mebbe they be sentenced to labor? Mebbe dey’ll get ta live.”

Fat chance of that, Vir thought as he squeezed past Bakura, sidling up against a jail cell to switch places with him. It was obvious Bakura meant him no harm, but Vir wasn’t going to linger down here any longer. The claustrophobic surroundings, the squalor, and the slaves had all left him short of breath.

“I’ll be taking my leave now,” Vir said, making eye contact with the jailed demon he’d talked to. The man nodded slightly in return.

Grinding his teeth, Vir climbed up the steep stairs. There was absolutely nothing he could do for these people—he was utterly powerless.

That thought rested on his shoulders with the weight of a mountain as he returned to Maiya, who’d obviously thrown up at some point. He felt like he wanted to do the same, but for different reasons entirely.

“Where’ve you been?” His friend asked, her face pale and sickly.

Vir took a deep breath, then filled her in on his findings, leaving her even paler than before.

“Are we in danger?” She asked.

He shook his head. “Don’t think so. Thought Bakura would kill me for discovering his operation, but he didn’t seem bothered by it. I think… I think this is normal, Maiya. Trading slaves.”

“That’s… that’s really sad, if it is, Vir.”

He nodded. “Say, Maiya?”

“Yeah, Vir?” His friend replied, taking deep breaths to quell her nausea.

“Is the Pagan Order really that bad? Do they really slaughter demons like everyone says they do?”

“I… I want to say no, Vir. I really do. But everything I’ve heard about them is bad. None of the demons they kidnap are ever seen again. They’re religious zealots who think it’s their holy mission to exterminate demons. They’re so extreme about it, they’re not even allowed in most countries. I haven’t heard a single good thing about them. Riyan says they live like barbarians in the Voidlands. He says that without prana, their level of advancement is centuries behind.”

Vir could only ball his fists and stare off into the darkness of night. He had thought that with Riyan, he’d found the key to power. He thought that by training diligently, he’d grow strong enough to protect those he cared about. And that he wouldn’t have to witness tragedies unfold before his very eyes, utterly incapable of averting them.

What will it take? He thought. What will it take to access power like that?

He knew the answer. He had always known.

Prana. The black affinity -coursing within his body was the key to unlocking great power, he was sure of it.

Until now, he’d been cautious, poking around the edges of the mysteries of his body. But it was high time he understood how it worked. Vir sat down on the deck, crossed his legs, and began to meditate.