Free Husk: A Maresman Tale by D.P. Prior Page B

Oh, they’d been as upright as folk could get in the morality-choked hovels of Malfen, but their care of him hadn’t come easy. How could it, when they’d not sired kids of their own, and by all accounts never wanted to?
    Jeb lowered himself into a barrel chair, and the man closed his book, placing his hand over the title on the black leather cover. The action drew Jeb’s gaze and elicited a different kind of smile from beneath the cowl: gentle, patient, “all in good time.”
    “Marlec,” the man said, with a diffident shrug. “And you are Jebediah Skayne, Maresman, hunter of husks and all things nasty that creep over the mountains from Qlippoth.”
    “Word gets around,” Jeb said, playing it casual. Boss knew his name, but other than that, he couldn’t recall giving it to anyone else, not even Maisie. Town like Portis, if Boss or one of his goons let it slip, the name of the visiting Maresman was probably common knowledge by now. Either that, or one of the scumbags in the bar he’d thought familiar felt the same way, and had a better memory than he did. “Marlec, you say? We met before?”
    “I regret not,” Marlec said. “And I feel somewhat abashed that mine is the advantage.”
    The hood came down to reveal a thin, angular face with tawny eyes that sparkled with some secret joke while betraying a deadly seriousness. Combined, the effect was one of fervor, of the kind of zealotry Jeb had come to expect from this kind; for there was a good deal you could tell from the manner of a man’s clothes, not to mention his shaven head.
    “I’m guessing you’re a Wayist,” Jeb said.
    “You guess right.”
    “Funny that. I was just thinking about your lot.” It struck him as mighty coincidental he should’ve compared the stygian to a dismembered Wayist, and now, here he was confronted with one, albeit one with all his body parts intact. Time and again he’d had a thought or image pop into his head just before it manifested in real life. If only it were consistent, he might find a use for it. Foresight like that could save a man’s skin a hundred times over.
    “From New Jerusalem?” Everyone knew the sect had started there, or rather, rekindled itself following the senate lifting the ban on religion after the Technocrat’s demise.
    “In a roundabout sort of way,” Marlec said. “The community I hail from is, and shall remain, a well-kept secret.” He was eyeing Jeb all the time, his smile tinged with a hint of sadness or regret.
    “What was it they used to call you Wayists? Fish?”
    Marlec raised his eyebrows in quiet amusement. He pulled his book across the table and steepled his fingers on top of it. “That was before my arrival. During the time of terror. All in the past now.” He caught the eye of a serving wench and beckoned her over. “Will you allow me?” he asked Jeb.
    Marlec ordered eggs, ham, toasted bread, and coffee, checking each was to Jeb’s liking with a wide-eyed nod. He handed the wench his water jug and asked for a refill.
    “I’m not proselytizing,” Marlec said, taking the opportunity to slip his book into a satchel hanging from the back of his chair.
    He looked at Jeb apologetically, as if he assumed the word would be lost on him, which it would have, if it wasn’t bandied around so much in relation to the Wayists. Since they’d increased in numbers these past few years, there were a lot of folk who’d heard of proselytizing, and if you heard a word enough, sooner or later you came to know its meaning.
    “I mean, it is not my intention to convert you.”
    “Shrewd of you,” Jeb said. “Don’t think my nature would take to it.” Marlec would know what he was talking about. What he’d gathered, the Wayists had another term for husks, one they’d drawn from their scriptures. That’d make Jeb a half-demon to their way of thinking.
    “That’s not what I’m saying,” Marlec said. “You being part husk is not an issue.”
    “Demon,” Jeb corrected. “Let’s