Kill Six Billion Demons: “Het and the Rakshasa”

This is a text story that appears in four parts below the comic, on the four last pages of White Chain's meeting with 6 Juggernaut Star.

“I.

In the days when the King’s Road was scarred with the tramping of soldier’s boots and littered with the detritus they left behind, there was Het, who was a watchman. Het was very tall and straight, and she had arms like sinewy boughs. She was very good with a staff but very poor with a straight sword, which drew her constant disapproving looks from the Sergeant, since the staff was a peasant’s weapon, and not befitting a proper executioner of the Old Law.

The Sergeant’s name was Ramys, but that is neither here nor there, for he was a proper Sergeant. He was very calm, and very handsome, and he had a flawless Watchman’s Eye – that’s why he was promoted. Het pined for him piteously but in vain, for it was astounding how completely dry he was of anything that could possibly resemble love. He took his morning tea bitter, he sat rod-straight, and his nails were exceptionally clean. He was an excellent policeman.

Het and the Sergeant traveled together with a third person, who was very uninteresting. He was the Centurion, and he was a blunt instrument that had been hammered into the shape of a person. He had a neck the size of a tree trunk, and about as knotted. He loved his sword, and the shape of his sword, and most of all, he loved to use it. He was masterful at killing with the sword, which made him an exceptionally poor swordsman.

So it was that Het, the Sergeant, and the Centurion were summoned to kill a demon, for that was the job of watchmen in those days. The demon was a Rakshasa, which was a special kind that crawled down a person’s throat or nostrils when he was sleeping and filled him up with bile. Since it wore a person about it like a skin, it was exceptionally hard to find and root out. It fed on blood, stole milk, and abhorred the sound of lying. This was known to Het, who was studious, and the Sergeant, who was very intelligent, but not the Centurion, who cared only about swords.

The Road was on fire with war most of those days, so their travel was exceptionally slow, and the Sergeant kept them to the back paths. It was no place for men of the Law, for the Law had abandoned heaven. So it was a full six turns before Het, the Sergeant, and the Centurion reached their destination.

When they arrived, they saw at once that the Rakshasa had been exceptionally cunning. For this was a land of mires and muck, a low, sulfurous land where people eked out their living in filth. So covered head to toe were they that everyone looked almost exactly alike. Passing her gaze from person to person, Het could scarcely tell the young from the old, the man from the woman, or anyone at all, and she shivered, for she was exceptionally clean, as all watchmen were. Watchmen were men of class and stature in those days. They wore shiny boots and spotless uniforms with gleaming buttons.

They were met by the lord of that place, who lived in a palace built on a promontory rising out of the muck (the only promontory around, in fact). The lord was exceptionally beautiful, and had perfect nails, just like the Sergeant. He was borne aloft by four servants who sweated and heaved his palanquin far above the filth below, even though they themselves were often buried up to the waste. It was necessary, in those days.

The lord expounded to them at length about the trouble he was in. “Oh please,” he said, fanning himself with great consternation, “Do something about this filthy Rakshasa! Why, just the other day, it broke into the palace and left a terrible mess. A flock of my prized doves were all torn apart, and its muddy footprints were everywhere!”

“You’ve not to worry,” said the Sergeant, with the utmost confidence, “I rarely fail in my quest to root out evil. We’ll smash your Rakshasa within the week, in the name of the Old Law and the fourth name of God.” Het could attest to the Sergeant’s efficiency, and gave her firm affirmation.

The Sergeant, indeed, seemed to have a terrifyingly strong sense for evil, a pre-natural ability to sniff out even the tiniest bit of it’s stench clinging to a person. This was his Watchman’s Eye. It was a fine instrument of justice, and a great source of admiration for Het, who still thought herself a rough-spun peasant girl in braids. In fact, she was a head taller than the Sergeant, and twice as brawny, but that’s a tale for later. For now, she saw the Sergeant’s perfect fingernails, and his handsome mustaches, and his dramatic brow, and felt a strong swell of pride and longing.

The lord was very happy. He promised to give them proper accommodations at his high palace and a bath everyday to clean them from the muck of the land and keep them in proper watchmen shape, as long as they returned by the time the gates closed.

And so it was that Het, and the Sergeant, and the Centurion set about the land on the first day, looking for the Rakshasa.”

I believe that the "kings' road," refers to the worn paths across the void desert between universe-gates and throne-gates.

The rakshasa is a demon from Indian folklore that's attributed with a long list of characteristics, many of them contradictory, in various regional folktales. The best known version of them is probably the one in the Ramayana, which portrays them as being a lot like Japanese oni; semi-humanoid, organized and militant, powerfully magical, mostly but not entirely assholes. The more solitary, possession-focused version of the rakshasa being described in "Het and the Rakshasa" story is probably from a more obscure set of Indian myths.

Also, rakshasas are the first entities to be described in the comic or its supplemental prose as "demons." Are these what our heroine will have to kill six billion of? Not sure, just something that seemed worth pointing out.

Next part.

“II.​

The land was very foreign to Het and she held her stave tightly to her as they wandered about the mires that passed for streets in that place. People slept on the street, or with animals, to her great shock. The buildings were low and hunched, and covered in the muck of the earth, and in that respect, they were just like the people. Here and there she could peer into their smoky interiors and see a woman bent and crooked over a fire, a man picking through junk, a youth carrying a lashed and heavy bundle over her back. But that was about as much as Het could tell apart, for the muck that covered them made them all look alike. Their eyes were white and hungry and Het shivered as she passed the listless clusters of them lining the street.

The day passed and the sergeant asked many fine questions, as his perfect fingernails tapped the polished hilt of his straight sword. Het and the Centurion followed him to and fro, from dwelling to dwelling. The Sergeant would knock, and bend his handsome head just a little inside. He would step once, twice, great policeman’s strides, and in his polite way, inquire about the terrible happenings in the community. Het was very impressed, for the dwellers were sullen and hard to read with their faces covered in muck. They spoke very little and Het was sure they were hiding some dark secret away.

The Sergeant, however, was nonplussed. “I am piecing together little by little the location of our monster,” he said to Het and the Centurion. His back was very straight, and he was utterly confident. Het saw that his Watchman’s Eye was working very well indeed, and longed to know its secrets.
The day grew very late and Het was very anxious to get back to the Palace and her bath, for the eyes of the populace followed their party like hungry beads, and the muck had piled up around her shiny boots. But as they drew up in front of the last low and sloping dwelling, the Sergeant gave them a knowing look. As he knocked, there was a tremendous noise as a man stumbled out of a side alley in a dead run. The sergeant gave out a cry, and before Het could even ready her stave, the Centurion had closed thirty paces and struck the man down with a single horrifying blow.

The Centurion was extremely happy, but Het was not, for as she drew closer, she saw among the man’s scattered entrails there was scarcely a demon to be found. In his outstretched hand was a purse of silver coins. “He shouldn’t have run,” said the Sergeant sadly, and wiped his brow, “A common thief, no more.” Het felt repulsed and regretful, for the punishment for thievery was not death. But then the Sergeant noted the hour, and Het thought of the palace and her bath, and they returned at speed.

The Sergeant’s confidence was hardly dented at all. “The poor sap was just a criminal, not a demon as I suspected! The information was very poor, but I’ll keep at it,” he said. “The people of this land are sullen and poorly spoken, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve our protection!” The lord of the land agreed. They had a pheasant dinner and a fine bath, and slept well. Het, however, could scarcely sleep and spent her night staring out at the muck below.

In the morning came tales of dead livestock and stolen milk. This made the Sergeant more resolute, and gave Het hope as they set about the town. The Centurion followed along eagerly. He had cleaned his sword.

This time, a strange familiarity came over Het. Having seen the town and its inhabitants before, passing through a second time her curiosity got the better of her. As they passed through the bent and filthy streets, she peered once again into their cramped interiors. Here again was the woman bent over a fire. But Het saw that the fire was a kind of kiln or oven, and the woman had a long stick she was stoking it with. Here again, was the man bent over junk, but here and there Het saw glimmers. And here again, was the youth bent low by her heavy load, but Het saw all of a sudden that her load was a cloth of interesting texture.

The Sergeant once again passed from dwelling to dwelling, relentless. “I am very sure this time,” said the Sergeant, “For these leads have the stench of evil about them. Where dwelleth evil, dwelleth demons, don’t you think?”

Once again, as the hour was growing late, the Sergeant’s inquiries drew them close to a dwelling by a choked and polluted river. And as soon as the Sergeant rapped on the door, a woman scrambled out the window and dove into the river. Once again, the Sergeant cried out, and once again, the Centurion sprang eagerly forth. He leapt into the water and speared the woman through the belly like a fish. She spent a long time dying as the Centurion cleaned his sword.

She didn’t have a Rakshasa inside her, just the rotted teeth of a long time Glass addict. The Sergeant wiped his brow. “She shouldn’t have run,” he said, his eyes sad. Het was despondent, for the punishment for using Glass was not death. She was glad that they were rooting out evil in this land, no matter how small, but it still weighed heavily on her as they trudged through the mud back to the palace and their bath.

The Lord was very happy with their progress, even if they hadn’t caught the Rakshasa, and Het lost no confidence in the Sergeant’s Watchman’s Eye, for it had indeed detected evil, even though the dwellers of that land were uncooperative. But a bath could not clear her mind, nor could clean clothes. Once again, she spent her night staring at the muck below. And this time, a strange impulse struck her. She donned her uniform, put on her shiny boots, and clambered out the window.”

ACAB. Next part.

“III.​

Resolute that she could find some new information for the Sergeant (and perhaps impress him), Het struggled down the muddy slope into the land below. And when she arrived there, she saw a strange and terrifying sight indeed.

In the square there was a great gathering of the dwellers of that land. A long and warped table had been laid out, and all the dwellers were all gathered around a terrible fire, which threw ghastly light upon their dark and white-eyed faces. Het saw there the fire-stoking woman, and the junk-sifting man, and the bundle-bearing youth. The entire gathering was giving forth an unearthly wail, their hands outstretched in claw like shapes, their faces upturned and monstrous. A great lightning bolt of fear struck Het about the heart and she fled at once back to the palace.

In the morning, she told the Sergeant of what she had seen, and he congratulated her for her find, and promised to redouble his investigation given the new evidence of wrongdoing. So it was that even though Het’s boots and uniform were already muddy from the night before, that morning she set out warm with pride and her chin thrust in the air, the Centurion ahead of her with his sword hand flexing.

Het’s discovery seemed to invigorate the Sergeant. He set about questioning the dwellers at twice the speed he had before, and very shortly they had a suspect, who the Centurion cut down with incredible speed before they could even ask him a question. He did not have a Rakshasa inside him, but, in fact, turned out to be simply a bad debtor. So it was with the next person the Centurion slaughtered, a woman who turned out to be a forger of the king’s coin. “We’ll have a very busy day,” said the Sergeant, cleaning his perfect fingernails.

Het was roiling with frustration and guilt. How could they have been so misled? Petty criminals were not what they had come for. Surely the dwellers of this land had some awful secret they were hiding away, especially given the dark gathering Het had stumbled on the night before. Perhaps there was an entire clan of Rakshasa, scheming away at their demise. The mud-daubed faces of the hunched and twisted people around Het looked more similar than ever. They seemed to be laughing at her.

With great intent, Het excused herself from the Sergeant and Centurion, and rushed to the hut of the fire-stoking woman, knocking her door open with the butt of her stave. “You there!” said Het accusingly, “What are you doing?”

“I am making bread,” said the astonished woman, “For this land is harsh and scarce, but it gives to us all the same. It’s what we have.” Het was suspicious and took three fine steps into the room, in the way she’d seen the Sergeant step. But the woman showed her the oven, and the way it was stoked, and the thin and flimsy looking bread that she was baking there. And since Het could find no fault with baking bread, she left and ran to the dwelling of the junk-sifting man.

“You there!” she said as she reached his dwelling. She gripped her stave tightly, for she feared trouble. “What is your business?” The junk-sifter turned to her, astonished. “I am preparing amulets, made by the townspeople,” he said. “For this land is harsh and bleak, but its people are resourceful.” Het took two great steps inside the dwelling and saw that he was telling the truth. The amulets weren’t terribly well made, but they had a certain crude beauty to them that was undeniable. Growing increasingly uneasy, Het took up her stave and fled to find the bundle-bearing youth.

It took her very little time, for Het was in a great hurry. A terrible suspicion that she was being deceived had taken hold of her, and she began to walk square shouldered and narrow-eyed, like the Centurion. Her hand even hovered around her sword handle, but never touched it, for she was terrible with the sword.

She accosted the youth, who turned to her wide eyed. “You there!” barked Het, and she took a single step and grasped the youth’s shoulder. “What are you scheming? I know there’s something your people are hiding from me!” The youth gaped at Het and said, “Please! I’m carrying the burial cloths! For this land is harsh and its rulers cruel, but it’s people are resilient.” It was then that Het realized she was crushing the youth’s shoulder and let go. The trembling youth unfurled the cloth, and explained how the cloth was dyed and folded. Het saw it’s intricate pattern, but still her suspicions were not quenched. She shoved the terrified youth aside and ran in a panic to where the Sergeant and the Centurion were executing a root seller who was selling their produce over-price.

“A terrible shame,” said the Sergeant, and wiped his brow.

As Het approached him, she told him of her suspicions. “ A conspiracy is boiling here!” she said, breathless. “I am certain now the dwellers of this land are hiding the Rakshasa!”

“I thought as much,” said the Sergeant, “Which is why I have stepped up our investigations once again.” The Centurion said nothing, but only cleaned the viscera off his sword in well-practiced motions. He had butchered seven dwellers that day and was exceptionally happy for it.

Het told the Sergeant of her plan. She would stay behind and follow the dwellers to their night-time gathering, and get to the heart of the matter. Part of her daring plan, to be certain, was a desperate final bid to win the Sergeant’s affection. But the large part of it was a deathly fear that the demons of this awful, muck-ridden land would surely get the better of them and they would be ripped apart.

“If you stay behind,” said the Sergeant, matter-of-factly, “You shan’t get in the palace in time. You will miss your bath and you’ll be terribly filthy. I would think you’d have to sleep outside.” He looked pointedly at Het’s boots and uniform, doubly soiled with both the filth of that day and of her exploits the night before. Het’s heart sunk, but she was resolute.

So it was that the Sergeant and the Centurion abandoned Het and returned to the palace. Het found a thin and dead tree and huddled under it, filled with fear and trepidation, and even touched her sword handle at some points. The bleak sun grew low in the sky and darkness swept across the land. Het crawled forth from her hiding place, trudging through the muck, until she saw the light of the great fire start up again in the distance. Her heart jumped as she grew closer, as once again she saw the dark forms of the dwellers gather together and lay out their table. But fear had made her feet unsteady, and all of a sudden she slipped and tumbled through the muck until she lay battered in the street, in plain view of the gathering.

Het struggled to her feet, and gathered her staff close to her, and prepared to die. But the white eyes of the dwellers held looks of sadness and compassion, not of hate. “Come closer, stranger,” they said, gathering her in and soothing her. And Het realized that she herself was so covered with filth at this point that she looked no different from anyone else standing around that great fire. Dazed, she was pulled into the gathering, and given water. And there, Het saw the fire-stoking woman. She was laying bread out upon the table, in roughly woven baskets.

Her mind racing, Het looked around, and found the junk-sifting man, and she saw him laying amulets upon the eyes of someone lying on the ground. The person was so still at first, that Het thought they were acting, but then Het saw the bundle-bearing youth wrap them in a burial cloth and realized it was one of the dwellers that the Sergeant and the Centurion had slaughtered earlier that day. That she had slaughtered. And she looked to the fire and saw the bodies burning there, and the wailing started, and there Het began to cry.

After Het had finished weeping, it was as though the tears had cleared her eyes of something dark and terrible. The people, who had looked so alike in their covering of dirt and their rough clothing now stood out stark as day. Here was a kindly woman with a lined face pulled tight in grief for her lost son. Here was a young and sun-worn man beating his chest for his dead sister. They were simple faces, dirty and weather-beaten, but in that moment, sublimely beautiful.

After the fire and its grim contents had burned down to coals, they sat around the great table and ate the thin bread that had been laid out there. As each person bit into it, they bowed their heads and loudly praised its fine taste. Het didn’t touch it at first, but was urged on by the mourners. To her surprise, the bread was bitter and dry. “How can you praise this bread when the taste is so poor?” said Het, astonished. The dwellers looked at her strangely and said, “This land heaps pain and indignity upon us. We are small people, so we must be grateful for the small things. Otherwise, what do we have?”

Het was sickened by her own blindness. “In truth,” she said, “I am a watchman come to town to hunt for the Rakshasa.”

“We know,” said the dwellers. “The Rakshasa has plagued us for some time. It steals what little livelihood we have and inflicts pain and malice upon us. At first, our funerals were only for those that it took in the night. Now we must work twice as hard to mourn those the Law takes as well. We resent it, but what can we do? It is the way of things.”

Het thought of the Sergeant and his perfect fingernails, and felt a sudden and strong revulsion. “It is not the way of things,” she said. An idea struck her then, as pure and clear as a bolt of lightning.

“Do all attend these gatherings?” she asked the dwellers. “No,” said the dwellers, “there are some who stay silent in their grief, or resent our mourning.” Het thought a moment, then planted her staff and stood up. “I will find this Rakshasa for you,” she said, speaking to those assembled. “Are there dead that are not yet burned?” The dwellers showed her that there were, and Het bade them delay their final rites. There was a great clamor among the dwellers, but Het planted her staff again, and they listened, partly in fear, and partly in awe.

“The Sergeant will start his investigation again tomorrow,” said Het in a voice she didn’t knew she had yet. “You will burn your dead when the sun is high, instead of at night, and you will bid all the town come to the funeral. Those that are not at the gathering will surely be in danger, for the Sergeant has promised me he will step up his investigation. You will bake the bread, and make the amulets, and prepare the burial cloth, just as normal, and in turn, I will reveal to you a secret way to draw out and kill the Rakshasa.”

The dwellers were in turmoil at Het’s suggestion, for it was a grave breach of custom. But the Rakshasa had plagued them for a long time, and the suggestion of relief from its scourge was just enough to motivate them. They set about finishing their funeral rites, and preparing for the next day. Het, for her part, trudged in the cold and dark back to the palace. But, as promised, the palace gates were closed to her. She slept in the mud and awoke cold and wet, but full of purpose.
”

This part did a really good job of showing the paranoia and trigger-happiness that being in this sort of police culture seems to breed. Importantly, it does that while still making it obvious that Het could have broken out of that insanity much sooner if she'd been a little more compassionate and/or critically minded.

Of course, the story also evokes a lot of colonial imagery rather than simply police ones. The investigators are from offworld, being hosted by a corrupt local dictator who answers to their demiurge boss and cares much more about pleasing them than doing anything for his own people. This could be a story about American special forces hunting terrorists in any third world client state. The ease with which modern-style police in their own cities and foreign occupiers in conquered territory can both fit the same allegory is telling. With a side of the "well meaning charitable organization trying to help the locals without bothering to learn anything at all about the local culture and ending up fucking it up" dynamic as well.

Anyway, now the finale.

“IV.​

When the Sergeant and Centurion strode through the palace gates that morning clean and shiny, they reacted with a start when Het rose to greet them, for she was so covered in mud that she appeared just like the dwellers. But the Sergeant recognized her stave and questioned her at once about her inexcusable appearance.

“Delay your investigation” pleaded Het, “For we have treated these people with nothing but brutality and cruelty! Out of your love for the Law, please let the Centurion sheathe his sword today!” The Sergeant denied her of course, for there was not one ounce of anything resembling love in his whole body. As he denied her, Het found her longing for the Sergeant slip out of her like a cold liquid, and she felt deeply saddened, for it confirmed what she had known all along. But it was an expected loss, and resolution quickly filled its place.

The Sergeant immediately began his investigation, rapping on doors and even windows with his perfect fingernails The buttons of his uniform suddenly seemed too bright and sharp to Het, and the glint from them hurt her eyes. She heard the sweaty palm of the Centurion rubbing over his sword hilt.
But true to their word, the dwellers had gathered absolutely everyone to the central square for the delayed funeral rites, and there was nary a soul to be found in any of the humble and stooped dwellings of that land. For once, Het saw the Sergeant taken aback. “Well this is awfully strange,” he said to Het with a cold look in his eye, and the Centurion fumed. It was then that the funereal wailing started, and following its sound and the smoke from the fire, the group made their way to the central square.

“Stop this nonsense!” said the Sergeant in his very reasonable policeman’s voice as they strode amongst the gathered masses, but nobody listened. They were filled with grief and resentment at having to delay their funeral rites, and many of them threw spurious glances at Het as they wailed. “Hold a moment,” said Het, and they held as the bread was laid out. “A little longer,” said Het as the amulets were laid on the eyes of the dead. “Just a little longer,” said Het, as the cloth was wrapped around the bodies. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that the Centurion’s expert sword arm was bulging with unreleased tension, and the cords of his neck were thick and red. But at the moment Het was sure he would spring forth, foaming at the mouth, the funeral was over, and the breaking of the bread began. It was then that Het jumped into action.

“May I have some bread?” she asked the fire-stoking woman, and was handed a thin and meager piece. She swallowed it down as the Sergeant watched, cold and irate, and then pulled herself up to her full height and planted her staff. In fact, Het was very tall, and her arms were corded like boughs, and her staff was so heavy that a rough man of the fields who worked a plough all day would scarcely be able to lift it. Even though she knew none of these things, everyone else recognized them very quickly, and so it grew very quiet indeed when she stood up.

“This bread is the finest I’ve had in my three years of service,” she proclaimed, loudly and precisely. “Why, I’d deign to say it’s better than the bread my grandmother baked.” The assembled dwellers nodded in approval, even though they knew the bread was bitter and dry. The land may have been cold and harsh, but they were gracious for what they had. “How is your bread, auntie?” Het asked the fire-stoking woman. The woman caught the glint in Het’s eye, and all of a sudden a wave of understanding and excitement passed around the gathered dwellers. “I’d deign to say it’s the best bread I’ve baked yet,” said the woman at the top of her voice, “The best bread in a century!” There was a loud chorus of approval, and other voices joined in.

“The best bread on this side of the Wheel!”

“See how sweet and fresh it is!”

“They should serve it in the capital!”

More and more voices joined in until it was a cacophony of praise. Ridiculous, overfed, hyperbolic lies tumbled back and forth through the air, and Het stood at the center of it all, with her eye bright and sharp, and both hands on her quarterstaff. She was beginning to lose hope, when there was suddenly a shrill and piercing scream.

The scream came from an old and shriveled woman, who was bent double over the great table, and bile was pouring from her mouth and nose. For, as they all remembered then, the Rakshasa could not stand the sound of lies, and it crawled right out of the woman’s mouth and writhed in a black and suppurating mass on the table. “Enough!” It shrieked, but Het scarcely gave it pause before she dashed forth and smashed its skull into five hundred pieces with a mighty blow of her quarterstaff. The blow was so powerful it split the table clean in two and send echoes all the way up to the palace where it shattered the lord’s prized crystal chandelier with the mere sound of its violence.

A great cheer went up and the broken body of the Rakshasa was beaten and bludgeoned by the furious crowd and dragged into the muck where it was later eaten by dogs. The old woman was brought immediately to the dwelling of a healer where she recovered through the healer’s strong skill in herbal cleansing and lived another decade, demon free.

But it wasn’t over for Het, by far. If anything, she gripped her quarterstaff even tighter, for while the crowd had been filling the air with lies, she had noticed something bizarre that filled her up to the brim with dread. The Sergeant had been trembling and quaking the entire time, just like the old woman, and his handsome face was lined with pain.

And Het turned to him in fear and said, “You too, have a Rakshasa inside of you.”

“Of course,” choked the Sergeant, “It takes a demon to find a demon, didn’t you know? That’s why they made me a Sergeant.”

“You don’t have a Watchman’s Eye at all,” said Het, choking back tears, “You just know whether someone is lying or not.”

“Yes,” said the convulsing Sergeant, bile pouring from his nose and ruining his perfect mustache. “I am very good at catching liars and criminals. If you want to fraternize with the filthy, that is your business. I, however, am a perfect policeman.” Het had to admit, he was right. He was a very good policeman, with very clean fingernails. But he was a very poor person.

“Liars and criminals are not the same,” said Het, and struck the Sergeant a mighty blow across the chest. At that, the Centurion, who had been waiting to kill someone all morning, sprung forth with a lustful, sputtering cry and drew his sword. But although he far outmatched Het at skill with the sword, he was a very poor swordsman. He got a few good cuts in on Het, which she bore for the rest of her life, but she was filled with the terrible fires of Will, and he was not. The moment she got a good blow on his over-swollen sword hand, it was over. He whined like a dog as Het gave him a thorough beating.

“Kill me,” he begged, broken and bleeding, and cried piteously. It was the only thing he ever said to Het.

Het looked him over in pity, unbuckled her sword belt, and then threw it in the muck, for it was a killing weapon, unlike the stave. In this respect, Het was a very good swordswoman. She left the Centurion weeping and bade the dwellers teach him a more useful skill than killing. It was said he became a middling carpenter, but that’s a story for another time.

Het turned back to the Sergeant. He had coughed his Rakshasa out into the dirt, and it was dragging itself feebly away from a ring of furious dwellers, who were harassing it with sticks and stones. The sight of it disgusted Het, for it was a greatly fattened and pampered thing. She bashed its brains out with very little thought and hurled its body into a sucking mire. When she returned, the Sergeant was bent over, quivering and cold. Without the demon inside of him, he was a small man, thin and sickly looking. Het was suddenly aware how much taller she was than him.

“You fool,” babbled the Sergeant, “What will I do now? How will I make my living? How will I afford the money to keep my boots shined and my nails clean?” Het looked at him, all clean-pressed and sharp, his eyes feverish and hateful, and over to the funeral pyre, which was burnt nearly to ashes, and the sorrowful gazes of the dwellers who bent there. Truly, she thought, she would waste very little time on this small and cruel man, so she walked away.

“Thank you for slaying the Rakshasa,” said the dwellers, and went back to their harsh existence. They were gracious for it, nonetheless. Het shed her uniform and her boots and spent the last of her pay buying a good traveling cloak, a set of rough-spun clothing, and iron-nailed boots.

“Where will you go?” asked the fire-stoking woman. “To the Road, of course,” said Het, for that was the nature of things. Het abhorred violence. But there were Rakshasas about, and worse. Indeed, though her stave was used for cracking skulls very rarely, the skulls it cracked were very famous indeed. You may have heard of a few, and perhaps also how she came to be the doorkeeper of YISUN’s speaking house, and how she met Prim again on the road some time later. But those are stories for another time.

Before she left, Het offered her old clothing to the dwellers, who declined. “Your boots are very impractical for walking in the mud,” they said, and Het had to agree. If you had to wash all the stains out every night, stains ceased to have meaning.

It didn’t stop Het from taking a bath later, however. Some habits die hard.”

This last section is where the story surprised me. I was expecting the Sergeant and/or the Centurion to be a rakshasa, with the local lord possibly being another. I suspected that the original "rakshasa" was actually going to be a legend concocted by the peasants to cover up their thefts of the tinpot dictator's bounty, and that Het would end up helping with their deception. There having actually been a rakshasa lurking among the peasants is a really important double-twist, though, and it makes the parable much more illustrative.

Sometimes, there really is a monster out there that the state needs to stomp on. Even in a perfectly healthy society, where everyone isn't covered in muck and thus hard to identify, a demon can set up shop. But compared to the suffering inflicted by these people's colonizers and policers, the damage done by the demon was almost negligible. A psychopath in plainclothes is never going to be as dangerous as a psychopath with a badge. The story also gave a perfect formula for catching a rakshasa to begin with (test them with lies) from the beginning, which the investigators ignored in favor of a more violent and less effective approach. The problem was twofold. One is that using actually effective anti-rakshasa strategies would eliminate the need for the watchmen being there, and the dictator wanted them there so he could impress their demiurge masters with his compliance and hospitality. The other is that actually making a good faith effort to catch predators isn't going to be allowed by the predators who are already part of the system.

If they REALLY wanted to protect people from rakshasas, they would have tried to educate the peasants about rakshasa weaknesses. Once the allergy to lies was known by all, the locals could have handled the problem without any need for the watchmen's personal intervention. Then, if the locals failed, they could invite the watchmen in and assist them in hunting the beast.

Anyway, in terms of relevance for the comic, the most obvious reading is that White Chain is Het, Juggernaut Star is the Centurion, and Metatron is the Sergeant. White Chain's human-ness parallels Het's peasant background, and being the lowest of the three characters in power and status also makes her parallel Het the rookie. Het's crush on the Sergeant doesn't quite line up with any feelings White Chain has expressed about Metatron, but she seems to hold the prime angels in general in high regard and to have been shocked by the revelation that one is leading the Thorn Knights. Juggernaut Star definitely seems to be a follower who just likes to smash stuff and enjoys having a boss who lets him do so.

...actually, 2 Michael might actually be a better parallel for the Sergeant. He's White Chain's respected supervisor. And, much like the Sergeant's approach was just a more superficially genteel version of the bloodthirsty Centurion's, Michael's "moderate alternative" to the Thorn Knights doesn't really differ in its hatred of humans and delusions of angelic superiority. Yeah, that works much better. The bad cop, the "good" cop, and their actually well intentioned underling who eventually joins the people they're supposed to be policing.

For the story to really hold true, it will have to turn out that there's something the angels could have done to stop the demiurgi all along, but that they chose not to do for fear of it forcing them to give up some of their own power or abandon their illusions of superiority.

Rakshasas are demons. Maybe "demon" is a category that can include individual humans, devils, and angels. The angels not being technically killable isn't an issue; the watchmen survived the removal of the demons that possessed or empowered them, after all. Maybe the angel leadership just needs some sense beaten into them and some authority beaten out of them to count as demons slain.