36. The Pilgrims


    It took about five minutes of following a lantern-wielding child across the Badlands for Zacarias Borges-Juventus to straighten himself and adopt his usual demeanor. Presently, he sidled up to the more grown-up of the two Rakshasas and spoke in his usual Manesferan polish like nothing had happened.


    “Serac, a word?”


    “Hm? Are you sure you want to be using your outside voice, Zacko? Aren’t you afraid the ghosts will hear you?”


    Serac kept her eyes forward and amused herself by imagining Zacko’s sallow face turning redder than her skin.


    “Yeah, about that,” Zacko said, reverting to his inside voice, whether intentionally or not. “I shouldn’t even have to say this, but I’m gonna say it anyway, just so we’re clear. You… you’re cool, right?”


    “Cool? I dunno, Zacko, we’re still in the middle of Naraka, and things do tend to get pretty hot here. In more ways than one.”


    “OK, ha ha, good joke, well done. I mean, like, you’ll keep this one on the DL, yeah?”


    “The DL?” Serac parroted. Not to be mean, but because she genuinely didn’t know what that meant.


    “Yeah. The Down Low. Like, you won’t tell another soul about my… ahem. It’s for your benefit, too, you know? You don’t want rumors spreading about certain weaknesses our enemies could exploit.”


    “Oh? You mean weaknesses like your failure to perform when your partner needed you to step up?”


    “… I’d call you out on your phrasing, Serac, but I know you just don’t know any better. Sure, label it how you want. Just… don’t advertise it, please. For example, to this kid we’re following for gods know what reason.”


    “You mean Dashi? Why wouldn’t we follow him? He’s an absolute angel!”


    The Rakshasa boy, who’d introduced himself as Dashi, looked over his shoulder at the sound of his name. He smiled his smile, and Serac’s heart melted anew. What a perfect gentleman, unlike someone I know.


    “Once again, Serac, you’re too trusting,” someone Serac knew said, further lowering his voice. “We just got ambushed by a gang of ghosts in the middle of nowhere, then this kid just conveniently shows up with his convenient lantern and convenient healing magic? Oh, and he’s just conveniently going to lead us somewhere that’s safe for us to stretch our legs and pop down a Waystation?”


    “I don’t see why you’re complaining,” Serac said with a shrug. “Everything you listed sounds really, uh, convenient. Why look a gift horse in the mouth?”


    “All I’m saying is keep your wits about you. You should know by now that not everything in the afterlife is what it appears at first glance.”


    Serac rolled her eyes, not bothering to hide it from Zacko. His words of caution only reminded her of another soul who’d warned her about trusting strangers too easily. What is it with men and being convinced that they’re the only ones worth trusting?


    After Zacko had expressed his desire to keep his failure to perform strictly between Wayfaring partners, he fell into one of his contemplative silences. Which was just as well, as Serac was profoundly weary from the latest hectic leg of her journey. She only wanted to concentrate on following her guide and staying within the effective radius of his dust-repellent lantern.


    Such was her single-minded focus on Dashi and his pale-blue light that, when the scenery did change, she reacted with outsized surprise and alarm.


    “Gyah!”


    She yelped, halting in her tracks and pointing REVOLVER and its six remaining bullets at the new figure that just joined the travelers in the light, unannounced. But she soon saw that the newcomer wasn’t alive—or at least it wasn’t moving.


    The figure had the approximate frame and features of an adult Rakshasa. Yet the entirety of its body—including its clothes and even its claws and horns—was white. Bone white, if a Manusya’s strange understanding of anatomy were to be taken as fact.


    “Do not be alarmed, Wayfarer,” Dashi said mildly, smiling his smile. “This is but one of many, many ‘Bone Husks’ you’ll come across out here in the Badlands. It bears no ill will toward travelers passing by, and even if it did, whatever soul once occupied it has long passed on.”


    “Once occupied?” Serac repeated, her gun still held aloft and her heart beating loud enough for her to hear it. “You mean this thing used to be alive?”


    Even as she demanded an explanation, she saw the truth of Dashi’s words, written plainly upon the statue’s face. A face frozen in horror and despair—a soul’s final desperate moments encased and immortalized in Bone.


    The realization hit her then. The fate she’d avoided thanks to a child’s dust-repellent lantern. This. This Bone Husk was what would’ve happened to her and Zacko, had their [Ossify] gauges filled up.


    “Yes,” Dashi said, now with just the hint of sadness. “It’s the harsh reality of the afterlife out here in the Badlands. But… I like to think that this is for the best. That these souls, whomever they’d been in their previous existence, have moved on to serve a higher purpose.”


    Something about the way Dashi said this unsettled Serac in a way she hadn’t expected. For at least a Ksana, she was overcome by an illusion, in which she saw the beautiful, wise, and kind child as something a little more multi-faceted and a lot older. The illusion lasted for only a Ksana, however, and the Wayfarer continued to follow her young guide, drawn to his lantern and his smile as a moth to a flame.


    As the travelers went on, more and more Husks appeared on their path. They were all Rakshasas, all frozen in their moments of death… and all seeming to be headed in the same direction.


    Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    Serac noticed this only after spotting five or six more of the statues. The way their bodies twisted and their arms reached for something in the air. They were all on their way to the same place—the same place to which Dashi guided the Wayfarers now—before the road to get there became their final resting place.


    Gradually, the presence of Bone Husks grew just as dense as the dust clouds that whipped about beyond the safety of the lantern’s light. Serac and Zacko were forced to weave their way through the tight spaces in between the statues, watching and copying Dashi’s practiced movements.


    Then, suddenly, just as Serac thought the Husks were too many and that there was no space left for her to squeeze through, the trio came upon open space.


    It was the inside of a cavern, the floor of which was a continuation of the Badlands’ crests and troughs. Yet the whole, enormous space was walled on all sides by rugged rocks, cutting it off from the dust-storm entirely. A natural barrier against the elements, one that didn’t need a magical lantern to maintain.


    Dashi turned off his lantern nearly as soon as he was indoors, throwing the Wayfarers behind him into near-total darkness. Yet, it didn’t take long for Serac to readjust to the dim lighting, one that was provided by the faint, pale-gray glow that emanated from the rocks themselves.


    And as Serac saw and understood the exact nature of the cavern she’d just crawled into, she found herself stifling another yelp of surprise and alarm.


    Because she saw that the walls here weren’t made of rocks. No, every inch was filled in by compacted Bone Husks—by Rakshasas who’d gathered here in numbers and chosen this ‘artificial’ cavern as their final resting place.


    For a moment, Serac stood in place and gazed upon the frozen faces that illuminated themselves with their own faint glow. Unlike their fellows who’d fallen short out in the Badlands, these statues were pictures of calm, contentment, and camaraderie. Arm in arm, united in purpose, and safe in the knowledge that they’d made good on their pilgrimage.


    And this had been a pilgrimage. Serac understood that too, as she turned her gaze inward and saw that the cavern had prior occupants. Tens, perhaps even hundreds of them, in fact.


    Children.


    Skinny. Tall. Sullen. Round-eyed. Boys. Girls. Rakshasa children of all shapes, sizes, and demeanors—alive and moving—filled the troughs and lined the crests inside the cavern, unified in their youth and guileless curiosity as they stared up at the adult intruders in their midst.


    Zacko let out one of his low whistles, this one tinged with a sort of audible hesitation, like he’d just stumbled into a place where he wasn’t welcome.


    Serac, on the other hand, found herself drawn to the group of children as much as she’d been to Dashi, their presumed ringleader. The sight of so many young and innocent eyes fixing upon her person woke in her a hitherto unknown emotion—one that tugged at her heartstrings and hastened their pulsation.


    These children didn’t belong here. Didn’t belong in hell. What possible sin could they atone for? What manner of injustice and callous disregard for basic Rakshasa decency could’ve condemned these innocent souls to Kalpas of penitence and suffering?


    She’d get them out if it was the last thing she did. Take them with her to the higher realms if she had to. She knew this with the same conviction that had once driven all these pilgrims to gather in numbers and build walls using their own Husks—all so the young and innocent among them had a place to shelter from the ravages of hell.


    “Do not fret on behalf of the children, Wayfarer.”


    Serac turned to the voice, startled out of her self-righteous reveries. It was Dashi, whose smile shone as brightly as ever, even in the cavern’s dim glow.


    “These children make do with what they’ve been given,” the boy continued, “and they’re all under the protection of the Bone Lord, who watches over the Badlands with his all-seeing eye. That’s far more than can be said for the lost souls who yet wander beyond the Sanctuary’s walls.”


    Serac smiled back at Dashi, though rather uncertainly at that. Something about the way Dashi spoke—they instead of we—called forth that same illusion that had visited her earlier. But just like last time, the moment of hesitation was brief.


    “Tell me more about this Bone Lord,” she found herself asking, even though—strangely enough—she didn’t feel particularly curious about the answer. “He sounds like someone I should get to know pretty well, if I’m to finish my business in Naraka.”


    “All in due time.” Dashi smiled his smile. “For now, however, might I suggest that you lay down your wings and rest a while? Within the boundaries of the Sanctuary, all are safe from dust, ghosts, and all manner of ill-intentioned beings. And I’m sure that’s just the kind of place you’ve been looking for.”


    Serac couldn’t rightly argue with that. She watched on a while in fond silence as Dashi strolled further into the cavern to join his fellows. She then cast her gaze about for an ideal spot for a Waystation.


    “Serac, a word?” Zacko had sidled up to her again, his expression visibly tense.


    “Hm?” she gave a distracted response, attention still turned elsewhere.


    “Are you sure this is where you want to set up camp?”


    “Hm? Why wouldn’t I be sure?”


    “I mean… doesn’t this place give you the absolute creeps?”


    Serac frowned at this, and met Zacko’s eyes for the first time.


    “I know you don’t think much of us Rakshasas, Manusya man,” she snapped, a little more sharply than she might’ve intended. “But I for one think what these pilgrims did for the children is beautiful. And I’d be honored to mark my journey’s progress with the place of their sacrifice.”


    Zacko frowned back at her, evidently not following the thread of the conversation.


    “Pilgrims? Sacrifice? What… what are you even talking about? Serac, are you… okay? Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’ve been acting a little strange ever since we ran into that lantern kid.”


    “That lantern kid saved us from certain [Ossification]. Also, his name is Dashi,” Serac shot back, now just as sharply as she’d intended. “Maybe I am a little too trusting, but if you ask me, you’re a little too far up your own ass. Good thing there’s a third soul we can ask for a tie-break. Trippy? What do you reckon? This here good enough for a Waystation?”


    “… I believe, right now, your needs for shelter and reconstitution trump all other considerations. My suggestion would be to install the Waystation here, then continue to exercise caution as appropriate.”


    “See?” Serac said to Zacko, a little mean-spiritedly, knowing full well the Manusya couldn’t hear Trippy’s argument. “The vote’s two to one, and you lost. We will set up camp here, and you’re welcome to use it too… if you don’t find us Rakshasas too creepy to be around.”


    Even as Serac sat down upon a patch of flat ground near the cavern’s entrance, she knew she’d gone too far—especially with that last bit. She wasn’t in the mood to apologize, however, and she instead concentrated on the next task at hand: a meditative exercise to summon the lotus flower Pathsight had granted her.


    The lotus emerged in short order, joining its white glow to that of the Bone Husks all around. And as Serac gave herself to a much-needed reconstitution, the first thing she noticed was the ‘designation’ attached to the location of her newest progress marker:


    [The Huskbound Sanctuary]