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Countdown to Catastrophe
Posted: 14 Feb 2006 11:21 PM |
“Red sky at night,
Sailor’s delight;
Red sky at morning,
Sailor’s warning.”
- Port Royale sailor’s rhyme
By the time the first day had passed, he knew exactly what he had gotten into.
The first step of his Inquisitor training was his “re-education’. It was, to put it bluntly, a farce. There was no other word for it. Nevertheless, he endured it stoically, listening silently for the most part, and agreeing mechanically with everything that was said. Between Vidus and the Inquisitors, they managed to tear apart every value he held dear and utterly butcher the Midoran belief.
The worst of it was that Midoran approved. Of that, he was certain. Day in and day out, the blessing of the Just Hand upon the White Bishop and the Righteous Swords was glaringly obvious. His mighty presence practically radiated from every inch of the city, and every instance of Justification was met with a ripple of warm approval that made Jerec’s blood run cold. There was no doubt in his mind that it was truly Midoran. It was not something he could explain, and he doubted anyone but a Midoran worshipper would understand.
Eleven years ago, he’d had his mind possessed by a hostile force and been left to fend for himself. During the entire ordeal he’d been completely alone: every prayer to Midoran had gone unheard and unanswered. At the time he’d wondered what he’d done wrong.
Now he had to wonder if that had just been the training run.
The second step was a series of endurance tests conducted in the prison beneath the law courts. To put it plainly, it was a mild form of continuous torture over a series of five days. At this stage, it wasn’t so bad. Just standard stress tests, really—being blindfolded, tied up, subjected to loud noises and mild pain, dehydrated and deprived of food, then asked questions to see if he’d give a non-standard response. Jerec had been careful not to let on that the tests were laughable, and appear more stressed than he actually was. He’d spent the past seven years in the field, leading rescue parties to places like Maldovia and Naruth’s volcano. Frankly, this was nothing compared to what he had to put up with day to day. He also knew that it was just the first stage. There would be worse tests later.
Later never came.
On the fifth day, one of the Inquisitors came into his cell looking agitated. Or rather, what passed off as agitated for an Inquisitor.
“Get up,” she said curtly. “Something’s come up. You’re going to Paws.”
~*~
There had been a massacre in Paws. The first wave of priests had already been sent over. He spent the rest of that day going around Midor and gathering the rest. It came as a shock to find out just how few priests Midor actually had left. He hadn’t seen any of them in the Temple, nor around the city. Now that he was going around to all the various chapels, he could see that the priesthood was about as well off as the Paladin Order.
How had they kept this a secret?
Before he’d answered the White Bishop’s summons, he had noticed a drop-off in his correspondence with his peers. One by one, they’d stopped writing back. None of the official news from Midor about the glorious reformation of the White City had been affirmed by letters from his fellow priests. Nor had he seen anyone else undergoing Inquisitor training during the past week. It had just been him.
They did not attach a supervisor to him, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. Still... whatever he was going to do, it had to be now. It had to be in Paws.
~*~
Inexorably, the gears of the machine of destiny turned.
~*~
He heard the wet slap of feet running across the rain-drenched grass long before the voice called out to him. He had to wonder how anyone could have seen him. On a good day, the Mirghul forest trail was so dark that one could hardly see past the end of one’s nose. That, coupled with the fact that he’d been travelling under the protective cloak of his father’s shade, should have meant that no one should have seen him travelling through these parts, let alone been able to identify him from a distance.
“Wait! Wait, Mister Sirac!”
With a sigh, Sirac Gerardson turned, the cloak of shadow dropping away from him as he faded into sight.
She was either a Halfling or a Gnome, judging from her height. The black and green leather armour she wore looked Mirghulian in design, and her bare arms bore the black and blue tattoos that he’d come to associate with the Mirghul Rangers. He’d never even known of their existence until recently; but with Midor’s rescue patrols gone, someone had had to step into the gap, and that had been the Rangers. He’d seen them once or twice around these woods; how any of them could have known who he was when he barely knew them was a mystery in a growing list of mysteries that had only just started up a mere ten seconds ago.
“How can I help ye, lass?” he asked politely, trying to peer into her face. Her oversized hood shadowed her eyes.
“I have to... I need to ask... I didn’t know who else to ask,” she stammered, gesticulating wildly. Peripherally, he noted that her nails were painted an unusual iridescent pink that glowed in the dark. “I need your help. I need someone’s help and you’re it.”
“Do ye have a name?” he prompted gently.
“Oh!” He heard rather than saw her blush. He’d spent enough time with Solitaire to know that the emotion actually came with a sound associated with it. “Oh, I’m Pippidi.”
“What can I do for ye, Pippidi?”
She took a deep breath. “In ten days’ time I need your airship over the Isle of Midoran. I need you to be ready to get everyone out of there. Or as many people as you can.” She hesitated, then added, pleadingly, “Please. It’s important.”
Sirac frowned in suspicion.
“I can’t explain. I can’t say what’s happening. I shouldn’t even be here but I couldn’t stay away,” she went on nervously. “I couldn’t... how could I? I’ve tried and I’ve always come back. Every time. There’s always one last thing to do. One last game to finish.”
“I can’t promise ye that I can do that, lass,” he told her, stepping forward. “Perhaps we can head elsewhere so ye can tell me what’s going on?”
“No! No, there’s no time and you can’t know, you mustn’t know... well, actually, you can know and it’s allowed that you do and...” She gave a frustrated sigh and looked up, the hood falling away from her face. “I can’t tell you. I just, I just need it done.”
And Sirac found himself staring into her eyes.
They were odd eyes, coloured like opals, flecked with ever-shifting rainbow colours and looking for all the world like a pair of multicoloured kaleidoscopes set into her small face. That, by itself, would have been strange enough.
But it was the soul beneath those eyes that froze him to the spot and made him feel as if the world was a rug, and that rug had just been pulled out from beneath his feet.
Sirac had seen his fair share of magic in his time. Powerful people, powerful monsters, and oh yes, god-like beings throwing around their weight with no regard whatsoever for the consequences to the little people. To be honest, magic neither impressed nor intrigued him. It had a utilitarian function, and that was it. That was all it was to him.
But there was magic and then there was magic. The sort of magic that children possess before they become jaded and disenchanted. The sort of magic that inspires artists to lovingly create grand masterpieces. The sort of magic that inspires poets. He looked into those eyes and saw grave wisdom tempered by squirming curiousity, a million lifetimes’ worth of exquisite sorrow and unbearable joy, great strength and yet heart-breaking vulnerability, a wealth of knowledge so deep that even the greatest scholars that he knew barely scratched the surface of what he saw reflected in those eyes.
And there was power there: sheer, wild power, unfiltered, untamed, unlimited. This was no Gnome. This was not even a mortal. This was someone who could, if she so chose, disintegrate Midor in the blink of an eye, turn the Kobai into a winter land and the Winter Lands into a desert, flatten the Divider Chain with a flick of her finger, change the entire world and turn it inside-out and upside-down in five seconds flat and not even break a sweat.
And she was asking for his help.
The absurdity of it made him want to laugh. She was asking for his help.
But he didn’t laugh.
“Ye can count on us being there, lass,” he promised softly, and he meant it.
She flashed a grateful smile, her eyes brimming with tears. “Thank you!” she chirped.
Pippidi dashed forward and hugged him briefly around the waist, then scampered off quickly into the darkness, leaving Sirac standing alone and dumbfounded. He had no idea what had just transpired here. He was shivering in a way that had nothing to do with being drenched by the cold rain. He had just had his world turned on its head in the space of five minutes and it felt good.
And he found he could contain it no longer. For the first time in what seemed an eternity, Sirac Gerardson laughed.
~*~
Dinner had been terrible. In fact, it was the worst dinner Willom had ever had. Bad enough that he had to endure Sir Percival’s attempts at small talk, all the while knowing that in the next room over, Iris was alone with the White Bishop. To make matters worse, the unnamed Inquisitor who had been tailing him for weeks had suddenly appeared and started questioning him on all manner of topics.
He’d lost it. He hadn’t known what to say. He’d blundered his way through every question she’d asked and she had not been impressed at all. But when she asked about the museum, he had found a strength that he hadn’t known he’d had. He had denied seeing the makeshift museum in Maldovia. He had not revealed what he’d seen. He had not spoken about Grace. He had lied and she had known, but at least he had not betrayed the Aristi.
All of that, however, was cold comfort to him when she spoke her next words.
“I'm sure one of our new Inquisitors will want to speak with you about all you know.” There was a glimmer in the Inquisitor’s eye as she spoke to Willom. “When he returns from Paws you will report to the Law Courts.”
She did not add that it would be a full-fledged interrogation. That was implicit.
“Until then, you are, as ever... guests of the White Bishop in Midor,” she continued silkily. “Although I cannot guarantee your safety outside our fair city’s walls.”
It was a veiled threat if he’d ever heard one.
“No one really can, can they?” Willom replied, fully aware that his breathing had become erratic and that he was shaking all over.
“I will see you in the Law Courts in four days, then.”
The Inquisitor stepped into the shadow of a nearby pillar and vanished.
And Willom, who had never been a religious man, found himself silently praying to whatever god—whatever force of good—was out there for a miracle.
~*~
The other priests feared him.
It was not something he could do terribly much about, nor did he wish to. If anything, he was relying upon their reactions to gauge which ones he had to approach. By the end of his first day in Paws, Jerec had singled out the ones he knew he had to isolate. On his second day there, he took them to the woods with him to start work on raising corpses.
This would either kill him or it wouldn’t. It would either work or it wouldn’t. He had either selected correctly or he hadn’t.
It was crunch time.
He could not use arcane or divine means in this. He could only trust in intuition and judgement. It was daunting and more than a little terrifying to have to rely solely upon such mundane methods. To trust that he’d selected the right ones. To trust that they would follow him in this. To trust that he had chosen the right way to go about this. No guarantees, no safety net, just a great deal of unfounded faith in basic human nature.
Outside the gates of Paws, after he’d done as much of a visual scan as he could, Jerec told them bluntly, “You need to get away from here.”
As expected, that threw most of them off. Suspicious and confused glances were exchanged in silence. There was defiance there as well, mingled with lingering loyalty. They had a duty here in Paws, and a continuing duty to Midor. They knew they were doomed to die eventually, but they would hang on for as long as they had to.
“I don’t mean right away,” he continued. “When they recall you to Midor after you are done here in Paws, they will send you back in small groups. I’ve quietly put the nine of you in charge of each group.
“Standard procedure dictates that Midor will withdraw the Righteous Swords first. This means that when they start sending in the wagons to shuttle you out, the Swords will be mostly gone, and you will have a minimal escort that you can overpower before you reach Midor. This will permit you to escape. I know people in Mirghul who you can go to. Tell them Jerec Duvados sent you and I’m sure they will agree to harbour you.”
The suspicion was still there, but for the most part, the group looked stunned. He let the mask drop. He let them see his uncertainty and fear. He let them know he was still human, like them.
“I am aware,” he said softly, hearing the quaver in his voice, “that I am asking you to risk your lives for no apparent reason. I am aware that I am asking you to commit treason.”
For a moment he let the word hang ominously between them.
“I am also aware that you are not content with the current situation in Midor,” he said quietly. “You want to do something to change it but you can’t. You want to remain loyal to your city and to your god, and yet it compromises everything you have been taught and everything that you believe. All the virtues you strove to uphold have become worthless. All the ideals you defended are being torn down. All that is good about Midor is being burned away.”
He looked each of them in the eye one by one, feeling a small flicker of pride towards them as none of them looked away.
“That does not mean those virtues never existed,” he continued, letting an edge of icy anger creep into his voice. “It does not mean that all the good that we as a people have done over the past thousand years is meaningless. I have had the chance to speak to the White Bishop over the past few days. I am aware of the speeches he has given. I agree that we have grown complacent in our faith, and I agree that the time has come for the Midoran faith to evolve into something new.”
Jerec paused. He was skating on the edge of blasphemy here, and now was not the time to go over the edge and question Midoran himself. Not yet, at any rate.
“What it evolves into is entirely reliant,” he said softly, “upon you.”
There was a whole lot more that he could have said, but he had to be careful which way he pushed them, and how much. No, that was enough for now. The rest could come later. Let them think on it. Let them come to their own conclusions and decide.
“If you think this is some sort of trick, you are more than welcome to report this conversation to the real Inquisitor in Paws,” he said quietly. “I entrust you with my life and with the future of Midor. Know that you are the last remnants of its spirit and its soul. You are its last hope. If you die, then the soul of Midor is truly dead and will never be again.”
He paused and looked past the semi-circle of priests; there was a civilian headed their way, no doubt looking to get into Paws to inquire about a relative. Time to wrap this up and get back to work.
And although he was aware that he’d barely given them anything to work with, although he was aware that he was in red and they were in white, although he was aware that they did not know him or anything about him, he said two completely absurd words in the impossible hope that maybe, just maybe, there was more to the Midoran belief than blind faith in a god who had proven that he cared nothing for those who worshipped him. That something far more basic and human connected them, and it was something that could be tapped and appealed to.
“Trust me.” |
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Two-Faced Trickery
Posted: 16 Feb 2006 01:01 PM |
It was a day just exactly like any other day. Willom Wilde got up, washed, dressed, ate breakfast, and stepped out of the Unicorn Inn to face a gloriously sunny and unclouded morning.
He wondered who controlled the weather. Never a brooding storm with lots of ominous thunder and lightning around when you really needed one. He made a mental note to put in a complaint to Vilyave. Yes, it was probably all her fault. Now, that Midoran fellow, he was the way to go. Always looking after the needs of his people, always giving his followers exactly what they wanted.
He walked with manic cheer down the chequerboard streets, waving at the well-dressed fellow who was always hanging around the half-complete University.
“Good day!” the man said.
“Yes, a fine day it is!” Willom replied, grinning goofily. “A perfectly brilliant day to die gruesomely and painfully, don’t you think? It’s the most terrifyingly perfect day in existence!”
The other fellow looked at him as if he’d gone mad. He wondered if he had. He wondered if he’d finally cracked.
It didn’t matter. He didn’t care. Without Iris, nothing mattered.
He continued on his way to the Law Courts, whistling merrily with his hands in his pockets, the tune a perfect accompaniment to the percussion of his heavily-pounding heart.
~*~
Jerec had hoped that he would remain with the Paws detachment right up until the last day, but fate had other plans. Within a matter of days a summons came, demanding that he return immediately to the Law Courts.
This was it then. It was out of his hands.
The summons came with a report attached. Notes on a man named Willom Wilde. A few accompanying notes on his companion, Iris Tammarack. He read them carefully all the way to Midor.
Read them very carefully indeed.
~*~
The guard led him past a door that clearly stated that no member of the public was permitted past that point. Two Enforcers stood flanking the door. Beyond them was a narrow corridor lined with holding cells.
Willom swallowed.
At the end of the corridor was an Inquisitor behind a desk. She summoned another Enforcer, who led him down the stairs into the prison proper.
It stank down here. Prisons always stank. Not that he’d been to many, thankfully. Why didn’t anyone build nice bright happy prisons full of potpourri and flowers? It was very dark. And very damp. Despair and gloom permeated the atmosphere. He found himself idly writing a poem in his head about the sheer, soul-crushing weight of hopelessness that the place induced.
The Enforcer pointed to a small table against the wall, dimly illuminated by a guttering torch. It had two chairs. Willom sat in the one with its back to the stairs.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited some more...
~*~
In the week and a half that Jerec had spent in the prisons doing Inquisitor training, he’d noted a sort of emptiness to the place that was a marked contrast to the remainder of Midor. It was like being completely alone and abandoned all over again, deprived of Midoran’s presence as he had been eleven years ago. Down there, the Just Hand’s light did not seem to shine... or if it did, it shone only dimly.
It was time to test that theory.
An Inquisitor materialised beside him and fell into step as he swept into the Law Courts. He was not surprised. He’d already seen the telltale warping of air and shadow tailing him from the main city gates.
“I expect to see results, Duvados,” she said, her voice a thinly veiled sneer.
He turned, flashing a predatory grin that required no pretence on his part.
“You’ll have them,” he promised.
~*~
Half an hour passed in dreadful silence. Then another ten minutes on top of that. By the time an hour had rolled over, Willom was shaking so badly in his chair that he half-expected to cause a minor earthquake any minute now. It was a very good thing indeed that he was sitting down, because he had a feeling that if he’d been standing, he’d be a spineless puddle of jelly by now.
Not that there was anything wrong with being a puddle of jelly. Oh no. No, no no. That would be preferable to this. Why, if he were an ooze, he could quietly slink across the filthy stone floor and slip into a drain and escape.
...And leave Iris alone to her fate.
That thought stopped his insides from squirming for one agonising moment. It was, instead, replaced by a deep and stabbing pain. Iris! Poor Iris. He should never have dragged her into this. If they killed him, perhaps he could come back as an Undead Revenant and rescue her. Yes, that was a sound plan. An ingenious plan, even. The best plan he’d come up with all day!
When the door to the prison level finally slammed open, Willom started and banged his knees against the low table. Two sets of purposeful footsteps marched crisply across the stone floor. Willom kept his gaze fixed on the table in front of him. Someone had carved three marvellously reassuring words into the wood: “KILL ME NOW”.
He saw the telltale crimson of Inquisitor armour out of the corner of his eye. One of them remained hovering behind him and to his left, barely within range of his peripheral vision. The other circled around to the other side of the table.
With an effort, Willom forced himself to look up.
He had known that the Inquisitor would be a man, but he’d half-expected him to be like the other Inquisitors he’d seen: whiplash-lean, wiry, graceful. He couldn’t have been further off the mark. The man had the hardened look of a veteran about him, possessing the sort of athletic build and weathered features that only years of harsh experience in the field could provide. Where the other Inquisitors had cold impassive eyes and smooth faces like masks, he had an expressive face and intensely deep blue eyes that hid nothing: pain endured, horrors faced, fears vanquished and nightmares lived.
Frankly, he made the other Inquisitors look like petty sadistic children with a penchant for torture.
“G-g-guh...” Willom greeted him intelligently.
The man held up a hand to silence him. Willom obediently clamped his mouth shut.
Even more time passed in relative silence as the Inquisitor opened up a portfolio he’d been carrying beneath his arm and set its contents out into neat piles on the table. Pages of notes precisely placed. Bound and rolled-up scrolls. A book. Part of Willom wanted to snap at the man to hurry up and get on with the torturing already. Another part of him was thinking that this was a good thing—a very good thing indeed. Maybe he would take so long setting up that the inevitable interrogation would never happen.
If only he were so lucky.
The man finally finished and took the seat opposite Willom. He did not introduce himself.
“You are here as a matter of principle,” he said without preamble. “Understand, I’ve read the reports and I don’t believe you have anything to say that will be of use. But you did lie repeatedly to an Inquisitor within Midoran’s very temple. No instance of law-breaking can be tolerated in this city. All infractions must be dealt with swiftly and decisively. This is the city of Midor, and Midoran justice prevails here.”
Willom opened his mouth to reply. Something like a feeble whine came out.
The man carefully unfurled one of the scrolls before him. Willom took one look at it and froze.
He was by no means an expert in arcanology, but he recognised enough of the symbols to know a domination spell when he saw one. This was it, then. He was truly doomed. He would have his brain turned to jelly and all his secrets ripped out of him. There would be so little left of his already-shattered mind that he wouldn’t be worthy to be Illithid fodder.
Willom was dimly aware of the other man uttering a series of inhuman syllables. He was aware of a very odd sensation, as if his mind had suddenly become disconnected, leaving him as a spectator outside his own body. He was looking into the other man’s eyes but he could not look away. He had a terrible itch on his nose that he wanted to scratch, but his hands wouldn’t move.
“State your name for the record.”
An echo came within his mind, repeating the command.
State your name for the record.
“Willom Wilde,” he heard himself say.
The man wrote a note in his book.
“State your profession,” came the next command, echoed by the voice in his head.
“Playwright and actor.”
There was a derisive snort behind and to the left of Willom: the other Inquisitor, who he’d quite forgotten was still there.
“Quit playing games, Duvados,” she snapped. “He’s probably faking. Once you get to the real questions, he’ll just lie and pretend your tricks are working.”
Duvados turned that dangerous gaze of his away from Willom to look over at the other Inquisitor. And all of a sudden, a piece clicked into place. This entire interrogation wasn’t to test Willom at all; it was a test for Duvados.
The revelation hardly made him feel warm and fuzzy inside. He wondered whether he should have added “experienced torture victim” to that list of professions. Between Jessup, Grunge, Percival, Vidus and now Duvados, he was building up quite the resumé in that field.
For several long heartbeats, Duvados just sat there staring down the other Inquisitor. Then he turned back to Willom, pulling a dagger out from somewhere and placing it on the table.
“Put your left hand flat on the table,” came both commands, vocal and mental.
Mounting panic became full-blown terror as Willom watched himself obey.
“You will pick up the dagger in your right hand.”
Get out of my head! he screamed. He wanted to scream. But he couldn’t. Not without permission.
“You will cut off your index finger. You will do this slowly, without screaming or reacting.”
It was with a terrible sinking feeling that Willom watched himself pick up the dagger and perform the grisly task in uncomplaining silence. Slowly. Painfully. Digging in little by little, carving the blade ever deeper and watching the blood pool.
Absurdly, he found himself thinking of the trout. The sacred trout and its truth untrue.
The only part of you that dies, it had told him, is the part that you don’t need any more.
A chopping sound as steel hit wood, the finger finally severed. Duvados turned to look behind Willom again, raising his eyebrows.
“Unless you have actually had practical experience controlling people’s minds and having your own invaded,” he told the other Inquisitor softly, “I suggest you don’t tell me how to do my job.”
Willom very badly wanted permission to turn around and see the other Inquisitor’s face. He could practically feel her glowering stare burning holes into the back of his skull.
Another terrible and unbearable silence followed as Duvados tidied up. Willom had to wonder whether this was all part of his method. He hated silences. He was a bard. He thrived on activity and interaction. Forcing him to keep still and quiet when his mind was a maelstrom of panicked emotion was about the worst form of torture anyone could have devised.
Well... almost the worst. Poor Iris.
When he had finished making everything neat and orderly again, Duvados laced his fingers together atop the book he was writing in.
“You were asked if you had seen a museum in Maldovia,” he said in that dangerously mild voice of his.
There was something very familiar about the way he cut straight to the point without bothering with extraneous details. Perhaps it was just a shared Midoran trait.
“You repeatedly said you had not,” he went on. Then he paused. “As it was clear to the Inquisitor who questioned you that you were lying, I will not cross-examine you on that. The integrity of the Righteous Swords is absolute. I possess a thorough report of the contents of that museum from Sanner. Clearly, it exists.”
He could have sworn that he heard his heart drop to the floor and land with a heavy and squishy thud.
“You will tell me the reason why you went to Maldovia.”
The Black Hand sent you.
“The Black Hand sent me,” Willom heard himself say.
You were not lying outright.
“I wasn’t lying outright,” he went on. What the blazes was going on here?
You did see a museum.
“I did see a museum...” He couldn’t stop the words from coming. Stunned, he just repeated what was fed to him. “Or rather, the sign said it was a museum.”
Duvados raised his eyebrows in polite surprise.
“What was it really?”
“It was a front for a weapons cache,” he heard himself say. “They have dealings with the vampires, who hide their wares in plain sight and call it a museum.”
Duvados picked up his quill and began to neatly pen in Willom’s answers.
“The Black Hand have many operatives,” he said matter-of-factly. “Why did they send you instead?”
“I don’t think I was supposed to survive. I think I was the payment. Fodder for the vampires.”
Was this part of the interrogation or was something else going on here? Willom knew he would never have been able to lie so blatantly and so coolly under pressure.
“Payment for what?” Duvados prompted.
“Something to use against Midor and Midoran,” Willom parroted. “I don’t know the exact details. An Aristi secret buried in Maldovia—”
“That’s enough.”
If Willom could have jumped, he would have. The voice came from right beside Duvados, cracking like a whip. A third, unseen Inquisitor that he hadn’t even known was there.
Duvados didn’t even so much as blink.
“You will cease this line of questioning immediately, Duvados,” the voice continued on coldly. “There will be no further investigation of Mister Wilde.” A pause. “You will leave the record of this conversation here. It is not to leave this prison.”
Duvados closed the book and left it on the edge of the table. “Yes, ma’am.”
He turned his attention to Willom, eyeing him silently for a moment. And as Willom listened to words in that silence that wasn’t truly silent, he felt the first tentative sparks of hope flicker inside him.
He was being given a plan. A plan to get out of here, alive, with Iris. Well, it was either that or it was a trap, but he was doomed anyway. Might as well be doomed together with Iris. That was better than being doomed alone in a smelly dungeon.
“You will report to the infirmary and ask for Father Teluvion,” Duvados said after an almost imperceptible beat. “He is currently the only expert in regeneration still in Midor. If you feel the urge to report anything that has transpired here, rest assured that it will be accompanied with an overwhelming urge to rip out your own tongue with your bare hands.”
It was, of course, a lie. He’d put no such geas on Willom. Nevertheless, he was certain that his stomach had just fallen to the floor with a sickening squish, landing right next to his heart.
Duvados turned his attention back to his papers.
“You are dismissed,” he said.
~*~
It took a supreme effort of will to pack everything away into the portfolio again without his hands shaking. It took an even greater amount of concentration to force his breathing to remain calm and ordered. As for the hammering of his heart, that was something he could not do anything about, so he just did his best to ignore it.
For all intents and purposes, it looked like he’d gotten away with it.
The book with the transcript of the interrogation stayed on the table. Jerec made no move to pick it up. Everything else, though, he carefully and neatly put away.
Including Willom’s severed finger.
After all, if worst came to worst—if another, more ruthless Inquisitor took up this assignment and Willom did not survive—it was necessary that there was enough of him left to attempt to raise him.
In the meantime, it looked like he’d managed to push all the right buttons and ask all the right questions. The Aristi lie had been a calculated gamble, predicated on Midor’s past reactions to all things Aristi. Jerec had been counting on it to end the interrogation at exactly the right moment, and it had. Far faster and far more effectively than he could have hoped.
He just hoped that there wasn’t going to be a follow-up any time soon. It was only intended to buy time. Hopefully, it would buy enough time.
But there would be no way of knowing if it had until too late. |
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Trust gives ye wings...
Posted: 17 Feb 2006 04:57 AM |
Sirac stood in the new home of the Fire Knives, shifting uncomfortably, his face pale but determined. He was in Lord Tagreth’s plush, luxurious chambers; a place he had spent many an hour talking, planning, and sharing numerous fine bottles of brandy. But he was anything but relaxed and at home on this occasion….
“Have you lost what little wits remained to you? You would risk our most prized possession, and the lives of our allies, on this fool’s errand?” Tagreth was red faced with anger, a vein throbbing in his forehead as he stared with utter incredulity at his second in command.
“My lord…” Sirac considered his words carefully, responding calmly and yet with utter conviction clear in his tone “…I know this must seem mad to ye, but I beg that you trust me. If you had met this…being, you wouldst know as I do that this -must- be done.”
“We swore that the travesty the Midorans have become wouldst not go unopposed, and that risks wouldst need to be taken…this is the first true step on that path. Please, just trust me.” A note of pleading entered the young man’s voice as he met his lord’s gaze without flinching.
“Trust you?” the leader of the fire knives uttered a short, almost mocking laugh “Was it not you that told me, but a few days ago, that Fr’iel would likely be seeking to harm you, and that you would need to be careful.”
“Is -this- what you meant by careful…how do you know this isn’t all some plot of that creature…or some other enemy to the knives?” Tagreth’s tone was a mixture of concern and anger.
Sirac pictured the lass he had met on the Mirghul trail. Remembered her eyes, those eyes that would forever haunt him, and yet somehow offered him comfort, reassurance that he was not quite as alone as he had always believed. He remembered, and his immediate response to his Lord’s concern that she could be some device of Fr’iel’s was to laugh. Sincere, genuine, unrestrained laughter…something that felt so good to the young man who had been forced to grow up so swiftly, taken on so much responsibility, and become burdened with so many fears and worries. And so he met his lord’s question with first a broad grin, and then genuine, heartfelt laughter.
However, he swiftly saw that his lord, whilst slightly amused by the unexpected response, would not remain so for long. Lord Tagreth was not a man that would accept being mocked by anyone, even Sirac.
“I am not enchanted, nor deceived, nor stricken mad my Lord. I tell ye now, with all that I am, I harbour no doubts. None at all. I must do this, and if ye trust me at all, I beg ye to support me in this. I know what is at stake, I swear to ye that I will take no unnecessary risk, and proceed with every caution, but we must prepare, and when the time comes, we must act!” Sirac had never spoken to his Lord with such conviction, such clear demand and passion, and he saw that his words had struck home.
Lord Tagreth sat, and with a sigh simply stated “I am getting too old for this. Get out, but bring my ship, and…my friend, back home, safe and sound.”
Sirac simply nodded once in return, knowing his gratitude for the trust was written clearly on his face. He turned and strode from the room, he had much to do.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following days passed swiftly. He traveled to Brandibuck, and secured copious amounts of healing supplies from the apothecary there. He brought rope and blankets, in large quantities, from the general store. And then, most importantly, he sought out the Lady Solitaire.
Explained what he needed. And she swiftly agreed. Much of what was to be done would be illusion magic, that most whimsical art of magic that Solitaire had never mastered, never had the time for. But she had colleagues that could be trusted.
The Goldenwing. A vessel unlike any other. A magnificent ship, that could sail the roughest ocean with grace beyond compare. Crewed by golden feathered Kenku, who soared through the air, flew amongst the rigging and cried their delight at the life they had chosen with amazing regularity. Never had a crew been so attuned to a ship. Its every need met, its every nuance known, its every creak and groan of timber sang a message to the attentive ears of the Kenku. And the bond between them and the ship transcended the physical, there was magic at play in every inch of the ship, and it was this magic that granted the vessel its most extraordinary ability. For the Goldenwing sailed the skies as often as the oceans. And it was this amazing ship, and her stalwart crew that were to be risked on no more than the strength of Sirac’s word.
And so he had done all he could to protect them all. But the most significant preparations lay in the hands of others.
Lady Solitaire worked day and night, warding the hull from every type of cataclysm she could imagine. Weaving runes and sigils into the sails; enchanting the ropes that Sirac had brought to create ladders that would lower and raise of their own accord; using all her arts to protect and nurture this ship through whatever trials would await. For to sail the skies above the very isle of Midoran…truly even to her it seemed an act of lunacy. But she had known Sirac all her life, and trusted him, knew that this was something he had to do, and that was all she needed to know.
Alongside her, a colleague from Kaazim worked just as devotedly. Though he had been well reimbursed for his efforts. A gnome, and master of the most intricate of illusions, his invocations cloaked the ship and its crew in layered arcane deceptions. Simple invisibility being the first protection, but then ever more clever illusions lay beneath, to turn aside or fool the gaze of any who sought harm to the ship or its crew.
And so, after nearly a week of such preparations, they were ready. The time had almost come. And the Goldenwing sailed, to meet whatever fate awaited her and her crew… |
'The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.' - Richard Bach, Illusions. |
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Lockdown
Posted: 17 Feb 2006 07:40 AM |
He wasn’t there to see the fire. Perhaps that was just as well. The interrogation of Willom Wilde had, thus far, been the only thing he’d had to do that pushed the limits of his morality. If he’d been ordered to physically burn Paladins, he would have snapped and that would have been the end of his ruse.
No, three hours before that fateful speech, Jerec was on a ship commanded by Captain Ruddy, heading towards the Isle of Midoran.
It would be the last time he would ever see the Academy.
~*~
He did not pretend to understand his orders. He did not question them. He just obeyed.
~*~
The Academy stood emptier than it had ever been. Recent events had cut down the amount of applicants. Nevertheless, there were still half a thousand men and women there. Half a thousand lives, going about their business as usual, oblivious to the fate that awaited them.
~*~
They were simple orders, really, carried out over the next four days. Evacuate the Righteous Swords without anyone noticing. Put the Academy into lockdown without anyone noticing. Quietly send away all boats and ships without anyone noticing.
And wait.
~*~
No ships came in, no ships went out. It would only be afterwards that he would find out what had happened in Midor the day he left. For the next four days, the Isle of Midoran had a rather convenient communications blackout.
~*~
He had thought there would be time.
Time to drop hints on what he was doing. Time for the right people to notice what he was doing.
But Midoran efficiency was working against him.
Time was the one thing he didn’t have.
~*~
And wait, wait for what?
~*~
From the shore, from the tower, from the ramparts, you could see the distant city of Midor.
It was an increasingly glowing spot of pure and dazzling white light. |
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White sky in the morning...
Posted: 17 Feb 2006 08:30 AM |
The journey began uneventfully. They sailed above the cloud cover, the warmth of the sun welcome, even though it struggled to pierce the gloom aboard the ship. None knew what they sailed towards, beyond certain peril, and morale was not high.
The Kenku had sworn to stand with the Fire Knives, come what may. They were kindred spirits, taking joy in life wherever it could be found, so long as it did not come at significant cost to others undeserving of such. But nonetheless, the occasional dark glance was cast Sirac’s way. They had taken some convincing, but his heartfelt pleading and conviction had swayed them to his cause. There were debts they owed, to the Fire Knives, and to Sirac specifically. Those debts were about to be repaid, in full, even if neither Sirac nor the Kenku had made any mention of such.
And so they came in sight of the isle as dawn broke. Ten days exactly since Sirac had met Pippidi. The view was breathtaking as they emerged from the cover of the clouds. There, in the far distance off to the west, sprawled the white city. It looked so pristine, so perfect, so beautiful…so deceiving. And nestled at its heart, the radiant temple, where Midoran himself was reputed to reside. The temple cast its own light, its radiance seeking to rival the dawn, a play of light and shimmering brilliance cascading across the sky, originating from the sun rising into the heavens, and from the temple upon the ground.
Sirac tore his gaze away from the city, and turned to the east, to gaze upon the isle of Midoran. There lay the academy. A place of learning and relative peace, even in these more militant times for Midor. Age long home to the paladins, the sanctuary in which those who had served Midoran most faithfully through the centuries had traditionally taken the first steps along their chosen path. All seemed quiet, the Goldenwing kept her distance, all eyes scanning the isle for sign of why there presence had been so needed. And there was nothing.
Nothing, until one of the sharp eyed Kenku called out from the rigging “The ships, they are all leaving.”
Sirac looked to the harbour of the isle, and saw it was indeed so, every ship docked there had raised anchor, and was heading back to Midor. A slight shudder came to him unbidden, and his heart began to race, even though there seemed little cause for this reaction. And yet still, he could feel a cold sweat forming on his brow, and it felt as though all his hair was standing on end, as though pure lighting was coursing through his veins. And he could see similarly stricken looks on the avian faces of his allies. All could feel a tremendous upsurge of pure…power.
Instinctively, Sirac looked back once more, back to the actual city of Midor. And now there could be no doubt. The temple was glowing, brilliant white energy coruscating out in every direction, it was too painful to look at directly, even from their great distance. And a low humming was filling the air all around them. Rays of light were now streaming forth from Midor, cascading in a pseudo-rainbow of pure white light that was breathtaking in its magnificence, light that struck the very center of the isle…the academy…the home of the Paladinic Order.
And that was how it began…the following hours were filled with such terror and heartache he would never be able to understand how it could have started with such a beautiful spectacle.
As the light seemed to gently caress the heart of the Academy, there followed an explosion of cataclysmic proportions. Buildings seemed to fold in on themselves, and huge rifts seemed to instantly spread across the island, as though the isle were made of glass and was now in the process of being shattered, torn apart by energy beyond anything the crew of the Goldenwing had ever imagined.
It took a seeming age for the horrific sights to be accompanied by sounds, such terrible, anguished sounds. Explosions, buildings collapsing, the very earth of the island being rent and torn; and in seeming harmony to these terrible sounds came the screams. Screams of those without hope, those awakened to a calamity beyond their conception. Screams of pain and anguish, of betrayal and abject terror, screams of the dying and the damned. For such was how those on the isle must have felt, the end of the world had come, or so it seemed.
The initial shock of the explosion caused the ship to be flung up and back, away from the carnage, perhaps mercifully the crew were forced to turn all their attention to remaining airborne. And so they rode out the first terrible waves of power cascading outwards like ripples from the epicenter of the disaster. Once the ship had steadied, they took in the scene of devastation below. The isle was rent almost in two, the academy slowly sinking into a gaping chasm that looked ready to swallow it whole. Streaming out of the academy, through holes torn in its walls, came a pitiful flow of survivors. Many leaned on comrades, or were carried unconscious from the wreckage, their pitiful cries to Midoran to save them were answered, but answered in a way they had never imagined.
Brilliant light once more filled the skies, narrowly missing the Goldenwing as she now flew at pace for the isle. The light hit the island once more, this time its rays spread far and wide, and everywhere it struck, huge explosions occurred. Dirt, debris and bodies flew into the air, as torrents of purest power pummeled the length and breadth of the isle. When the barrage ended, the aftershocks continued without end, seismic shifts deep below the earth cracked the surface, and the isle itself began to sink.
Where there had been hundreds of survivors, now only a hand-full remained. Scattered across the isle. But at least the supernatural assault had seemingly ended, the harm wrought sufficient to ensure the fate of any that still clung to life. The isle was doomed, and so seemingly were any left upon its surface. Fires of pure, white light were rapidly spreading, burning anything…earth, stone, flesh…as though they were the driest of tinder. And the isle itself was sinking, splitting apart and slowly collapsing into the hungry embrace of the ocean.
And it was upon this scene of carnage that the Goldenwing appeared. To the perplexed and amazed survivors it seemed that rope ladders appeared out of thin air, and unseen people called from above for them to ascend. The flapping of wings and soft feathered hands surrounded one group of survivors after another, gently bearing the wounded and unconscious aloft whilst those still able climbed for their lives. This process repeated again and again, as in groups of twos and threes survivors were taken to safety.
But the white fires spread faster than the crew of the Goldenwing could work. The flames seemed possessed of an almost sentient desire to scour the entire island clean. Already no sign remained at all of the academy, and the survivors were being herded by the flames into a group on the far western shore, their pitiful cries for help growing weaker as the silent, deadly pale flames drew ever nearer. By now all the lone survivors had been taken up into the ship, and so the Goldenwing raced, raced the flames one last time to reach the last surviving group, numbering more than twenty souls.
Sirac’s eyes noted a familiar form, familiar for the manner of the uniform, if nothing else. Blood red. One of Midoran’s true faithful, and although his words could not be heard from so far away, the fact that all eyes of the last survivors were upon him told Sirac all he needed to know. Undoubtedly, he was gloating at the fate awaiting these poor people, gloating on behalf of his foul god.
As the Goldenwing soared above the flames, and closed on this group, Sirac drew a deep breath, and jumped onto the railing, precariously balanced over the long drop below. Some of the braver Kenku had already begun their descent, Sirac winced as he saw the white fire had now entirely encircled these last survivors. And the descending Kenku were unlikely to be a match for one of these self-professed Righteous Swords. And so Sirac took a deep breath, and jumped.
He fell through the air, his body relaxed no matter how his heart pounded, his eyes fixed on his chosen landing spot…a grassy hillock close behind the red garbed Sword. He hit the land hard, a fall of near a hundred feet knocking the breath from his body as he rolled and tumbled to absorb as much of the impact as possible, his roll bringing him ever closer to the seemingly doomed group of would-be escapees. He regained control of his tumbling descent and with all the grace he could muster came to his feet in one smooth movement, hands already reaching for his blades, knowing he was still cloaked in invisibility, and none would see his unusual arrival.
He could never answer what made him choose not to slay the man in red. He could have done so easily, had trained all his life to strike with swift and deadly precision on foes unaware of his presence. But as so often was the case with him, instinct led his actions more than rational thought, and so it was with the hilts of his blades he struck, a flurry of controlled yet devastating blows into the nape of the man’s neck. And the Sword crumpled, comatose, upon the ground. Sirac’s invisibility dissipated with the attack, and so he stood, hooded, weapons drawn, before the startled group.
“Climb you fools, climb like your lives depended on it, because they surely do!” He almost screamed these words, startling the Midoran’s from their shock and terror, causing them to note the rope ladders that had fallen into their midst.
And so they began to climb. The descending Kenku arrived with considerably more control than Sirac had managed, and bore aloft some of those too wounded to make the climb. But as they took to the skies, the flames closed in to mere feet away from those that remained. More Kenku tried to fly to their aid, but were driven back by the flames that now danced high all around them, one brave avian so desperate to reach Sirac that it came too close, and flames leapt high, consuming it instantly in a matter of seconds.
Sirac’s heart fell, even though he was moments away from sharing the same fate, that Kenku had been a friend, Jarakael, someone he cared greatly for. His eyes filled with tears, as he met the hopeless gaze of those remaining on the ground, those he had failed to save. He had given his all…and he knew that this all consuming, divine fire was something he would not be returning from. He was going to be breaking his word to Lord Tagreth after all…
The rope ladders withdrew, bearing those who had begun to climb aloft out of reach of the flames. And his friends, the Kenku, watched him from the Goldenwing…sorrow clear in their gazes, as the fires drew in all around. Sirac noted these last details, and offered his customary nonchalant wave, farewell. Time seemed to slow, to still all around him, how ironic that his final moments should come seeking to save Midoran paladins, people who most of his life would have loved nothing more than to arrest him. Yet as he looked at them now, the group of ten or so men and women that met their shared fate with dignity, he could recognise that these were people of good heart. Differing beliefs maybe, but good heart nonetheless. With the obvious exception of the unconscious inquisitor garbed in red, Sirac wondered absently whether the fire would even touch that one. Should he slay him now…no, Sirac did not want his last act to be the taking of another life.
The flames drew in, with a defiant yell disavowing Midoran, one of the remaining paladins drew his sword and jumped into the flames, determined to die as he had lived, with honour and courage. And the flames consumed him. Greedily. Utterly. Not so much as a single speck of ash remained.
Now was the time, those that remained could retreat no further. And so they huddled close, not a single prayer to Midoran escaped their lips, for that much at least Sirac was grateful. As he held a young acolyte close, a girl barely entering her teens, his thoughts turned to another diminutive lass. Pippidi. With eyes, such amazing eyes, and a soul that delighted in the same things Sirac always had. Life, fun, adventure, risk-taking, compassion, all the things that he had devoted his life to. But she was so much more than Sirac, an ocean compared to the raindrop his own life represented.
And so then his thoughts turned to the Lady Solitaire, who for all her study, all her serious demeanour, beneath it all had shared a love for the same things as made life worthwhile for Sirac. And had accompanied him on so many wild journeys, terrified yet exultant, always there to save him when he was not busy saving her. A sad smile came to his lips, as he considered the grief she would feel on losing him.
For the first time in a very long time, the first time since he knelt in a forest grove and prayed over the bodies of his dead parents as a child, Sirac offered a prayer up. A prayer that was heartfelt, and devout, a prayer to a mysterious lass with eyes that sparkled with such joy in life, such capacity for sheer…fun. He prayed to her, as he could never have prayed to any other God.
“Look after her when I am gone, make sure she remembers how to smile again…”
And Sirac closed his eyes… |
'The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.' - Richard Bach, Illusions. |
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Destiny's Puppeteer
Posted: 18 Feb 2006 10:01 PM |
Pippidi was very good at hiding. She’d had lifetimes of experience, after all.
The day the invisible, warded airship set out, she was nowhere to be found. No one came looking for her. The Mirghul Rangers were accustomed to her chimerical flights of fancy and had long since learned not to worry about her when she vanished for extended periods of time.
Or rather... they thought they were accustomed to it.
She was an illusion. She was a figment. Reality bubbled and churned in her vicinity. It moved to make room for what had not been there before. Manufactured memories. Manufactured history. A virtual existence she had woven around herself. This life, this form, was but a guise. Two months ago, Pippidi Zasvadioc had not existed as an entity. Now she did. Now she existed as if she had always existed for the past two hundred and eighteen years.
An alias, a fake identity. And who was this soul underneath? What was this entity that Sirac had seen, when the mask dropped and the facade crumbled? This creature so young and yet so old. So powerful and yet so unwilling to use that power.
The world was about to find out.
~*~
The last of the ships to leave was Captain Ruddy’s. All the Swords were long gone from the isle by the end of the third day, leaving Jerec alone on the fourth. He’d seen to finalising the lockdown and doing a final inspection of the Academy.
And then he’d come to a decision.
It didn’t take a whole deal of false blustering to get Ruddy to leave without him. A single stern command and the man was gone with the last of the ships.
He counted to thirty in his head, then turned and headed back into the Academy. Whatever was coming, he would be here for it, come hell or high water.
~*~
Mortals were astounding creatures: so noble, so ingenious. Leave them to their own devices and they would find ways to shock you and amaze you.
The brevity of their lives made them precious. Like cacti that bloom in rare desert rain, only to fade swiftly once the rains have passed. Like sunsets that only come once a day, each sunset unique unto itself, a brief display of splendour that is loved and admired because it is doomed to die.
It would have been an easy thing to stop it. It would have been an easy thing to stop Midoran, so long ago. A year ago, two years ago, a thousand years ago, two thousand years ago.
So very easy...
But their battles had to be their own. Their victories and defeats had to be their own.
In the darkness of Sable Lake, perched upon a stone bridge over the chill black waters, the one known as Pippidi wept.
~*~
He had never pretended to be anything other than Human. For all his wits and guile, Jerec knew that there were times when he made mistakes. Some minor, some devastating.
There had been no explosives planted, no sigils or glyphs placed.
There had been no mobilisation from the docks of Midor’s naval forces.
There had been no hint, none whatsoever, of what was to come.
His actions were based on reasonably probable outcomes. The fleet was amassing, perhaps. They were starving them out, perhaps. The Mystics and priests were preparing a massive remote assault, perhaps. He thought there would be time. Time to warn the others. Time to activate the isle’s defences from the Tower of Midoran. Time to undo what he’d done, time to prepare.
He had not counted on Midoran himself.
Twenty-two minutes after Ruddy had set sail, a mere fifteen paces into the main courtyard of the Academy, the shockwave hit.
~*~
And she watched.
~*~
In the years to come, Jerec would never be able to recall those moments clearly. He would look back and only remember the most beautiful and terrifying white light he had ever seen, transforming everything into a blaze of pure white fire.
~*~
She watched in that way that her kind watched, but without their detached aloofness. Living every moment. Hearing, seeing, feeling every bit of it, as if she was there, as if she was every life that had just been extinguished, as if she’d suddenly died five hundred times in the space of a handful of heartbeats.
Here it came, now. The last of them, waiting to die. A lonely and heartfelt prayer that broke her heart to hear it. She heard but she would not answer. They would die alone.
And still she watched.
~*~
“Look after her when I am gone, make sure she remembers how to smile again…”
~*~
And then she could watch no longer.
~*~
Reality crackled. Possibilities twisted. A moment splintered into a thousand thousand possible moments. The die was cast and the outcome...
The outcome could still be changed.
~*~
And she decided that enough was enough. There had been enough death over the past two years. There had been more than enough death over the past hour. And what would she say, what would she say to the lady that Sirac had just pleaded her to look after, how would she explain that she could have acted and she hadn’t? They would never even have been there if she hadn’t sent them. She owed them.
She owed them.
When she opened her eyes, they were multicoloured fire.
Look, now, past the thin surface of the world. Trace the infinite complex possibilities of the future, see how reality holds and is held together. The tapestry of destiny. Potentialities so varied and so many that no mortal mind could even begin to comprehend them, could even begin to track each thread as it split into a thousand thousand threads, each branching off into infinity. Chaos, pure chaos, enough to drive any mind mad. Any mind except her own. This sight was second nature to her. This ability to see so many things at once, to understand how each was interlinked to each.
And this... this was power.
To see but not to intrude. To have the discipline to hold back. To know so much and hold it in even though you feel like a dam ready to burst, even though you have felt this way for an innumerable age, before time was even counted, before time had even been invented. To be ever on the verge of unlimited power, to feel its irresistible tug, to be tempted to use it spectacularly and wantonly, to want to flaunt it to the world...
...And never do so.
To reach out to tap, to touch, to deliver the barest of nudges to an infinitesimal pinprick of probability and change reality oh-so-subtly. To change the world and leave no trace. No fingerprint to mark your work.
Ever so softly, she knocked on destiny’s door.
There was a chance, the barest million-to-one chance, the slimmest probability, that the fire would die down and run out of energy before it had consumed the isle completely. A chance that, by a complete and utter freak accident, sheer blind luck would prevail and a single sliver would remain untouched, undevoured.
Ah, but luck was not blind. Luck had eyes the colour of splintered rainbows: bright, alert, transcending time and distance...
A slight warping of reality. So subtle as to be imperceptible. This was all a game to her, a deadly serious game, and she played with loaded dice and marked cards. A clever nudge, a sly poke, and unlikely probability became solid reality. Midoran played by the rules, but she had no such limitations imposed upon her.
She was the ultimate servant of The Trickster.
And she cheated.
~*~
And the fire never touched them. It petered out before it could, leaving Sirac and the stranded survivors on a lone sliver of land, adrift in a sea of death.
When he opened his eyes, he saw a rope ladder before him, apparently dangling down from thin air. A light rain had started to fall.
And beyond it, spanning the horizon, so faint that it might not have been there at all, arched the most magnificent rainbow he had ever seen. |
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Divine Fire: An Addendum
Posted: 19 Feb 2006 01:34 AM |
*Officially there were no survivors of the divine fire that wiped out the Isle of Midoran; all perished so thoroughly, so utterly, that not even their ashes remained*
*A select few Fire Knives know that out of the half a thousand people that were on the island, their invisible and warded airship managed to rescue twenty-nine*
*Numbered amongst those secretly rescued are High Captain Perriand Goodman; and, surprisingly, a Righteous Sword Inquisitor named Father Jerec Duvados*
*There were no other survivors*
*The rest of the world is completely unaware of the rescue attempt* |
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Biding Time
Posted: 24 Feb 2006 06:19 AM |
It was the nicest prison he’d ever been in.
Lavishly decorated, what little furniture was scattered about the plush room looked decidedly antique and vaguely Aristi in design. It had no windows, but it did have a great many lamps set into the walls, only one of which had been lit.
That was their first mistake, or so Jerec had thought. A close inspection had revealed an electrical trap attached to the lamp that he simply didn’t have the equipment on hand to disable. Further inspection of the room revealed that his captors had made good use of the time he’d spent unconscious to rig virtually every square inch of it to prevent his escape. A makeshift prison it may be, but these people knew what they were doing, and had quickly and effectively set up an insecure room into as secure a holding cell as he’d ever seen. Whoever they were, they were not to be underestimated.
Although, truth be told, it was more like a house arrest than imprisonment. There had been the obligatory questioning, of course. And they had put him into civilian clothes: that had been a smart move on their part considering that Inquisitor armour was a weapon unto itself, with enough inbuilt features to make a Gnome sit up and take notice. But for the most part, they had left him alone and warily treated him as a guest. Jerec had the distinct impression that they had no clue what to do with him.
On the third day since they’d revived him, five days—by his calculations—since the destruction of the Isle of Midoran, he inadvertently learned part of the reason why.
“I’m told that you managed to disable the lockdown you had placed upon the Academy’s exits and worked with High Captain Goodman to evacuate adepts and staff.”
The displacement spell upon his hooded would-be interrogator made it difficult to make out the other man’s features. Well, that and the numerous other enchantments layered upon him; the man looked like he was expecting to take on Count Valinor himself. It was amusing that these people thought so highly of his abilities. Here he was, unarmed and powerless, a mere mortal alone and held captive in a room that would probably blow up in his face if he tried to set foot outside it, being treated as if he were as dangerous as a dragon or demi-god.
It was really rather funny.
“That’s correct,” he told his mysterious interviewer.
“The other survivors say that you were trying to help them escape,” the other man went on.
“How many of them are there?” Jerec asked, leaning forward with a concerned frown. This was the first he’d heard of other survivors.
A flicker of surprise, the nuance almost lost, buried as it was beneath the layers of enchantment that blurred the other’s features.
“Twenty-eight,” was the whispered response.
Jerec stared in mingled shock and horror, feeling his heart drop. Twenty-eight others. Twenty-nine total out of half a thousand. A slaughter following so quickly on the heels of the Paws massacre, executed not by bloodthirsty enemies of Midor, but by Midoran himself. The one who those half a thousand men and women had worshipped and adored, and had dedicated their lives and souls to. The one who was supposed to be the paragon of all that was good and just in this world.
If he’d had any lingering doubt about the New Order and Midoran, it was burnt away in that instant. Incinerated as surely as if it had been cast into the divine fire that had annihilated the Academy.
In a voice so soft that he had to strain to hear himself speak, Jerec said, “I’d like to speak to them, please.”
The man opened his mouth to protest. One look at the expression on Jerec’s face changed his mind.
“I’ll see what I can arrange,” he promised instead.
~*~
But he did not come back.
Jerec could only assume that the request had not gone down well, because they stopped questioning him for some time after that. |
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Speed of Light
Posted: 10 Mar 2006 11:35 PM |
It was a point of pride that, despite everything life had ever flung at him, he still struggled to cope with new challenges and unexpected developments. It simply was not in his nature to become either jaded or blasé as a result of his experience: no amount of experience could make life any easier to deal with. Yet somehow, he endured.
How, exactly, was a mystery even to him.
But now he was out of time. Events were moving at the speed of light. Barely a day after the miraculously and suspiciously uneventful expedition to Maldovia to rescue Lillian, the news had reached him that the priests from Paws were on the move.
And he had nothing to tell them. No concrete reason to justify why he’d just incited them to commit treason, no follow-up to the promise he’d made, no new faith to replace what they’d lost. It was final year at the Academy all over again, only this time Claude was dead and Lillian refused to speak to him, and this was no test: this was the real thing.
Thirteen years ago, he would have failed for sure without them. Now it looked like he might still fail.
But that was an eventuality he absolutely could not permit. That day at Sable Lake, he’d been speaking to himself as much as to Byron when he’d demanded nothing less than perfection. There was no room for error now.
Somehow, he had to pull a miracle out of thin air. Without help from any god.
~*~
She’d spent most of the second day seething, shutting herself into the room they’d assigned her to upstairs. The manor was a shambles; that, she could put up with. The years she’d spent out in the Wastelands with the Midoran Army had stripped her of whatever need for luxury she might once have had. Which had been practically nonexistent to begin with.
But the company was worse. She didn’t get a single moment of peace. There was always someone fussing over her, and a neverending chorus line of various clerics and mages that kept insisting on running tests on her. Apparently they’d gotten away from Maldovia too easily. The tests were a necessity she could accept. The way they clucked over her like brooding mother hens was not.
When the tests had finally stopped and Byron had come to visit, Lillian had practically jumped at the chance to get away from this horrid place as fast as possible. Unfortunately, he’d changed his mind. After a barely civilised argument, he had decided that they would both remain to see how events developed and determine Jerec’s true intent.
As if there was any question of that. Byron had steadfastly refused to believe her when she had told him that this had to be an elaborate operation on Midor’s part, led by a man who’d already been proven to be an Inquisitor, and an effective one at that. Let him find out the hard way, then, when the trap was sprung and Jerec stabbed them in the back. She’d done her bit to warn him; if he refused to listen to reason, there wasn’t much she could do other than stick to her opinion and prepare for the worst.
And so it was that she found herself here, shut into one of the gloomy upstairs bedrooms, listening to the sounds of people shuffling around in the corridor outside. The second day was when they had arrived; the third, as near as she could tell, was dedicated to logistics. On the fourth day, the new arrivals spent a long time downstairs, and Grace had come into her room and demanded to know why she hadn’t come out to eat for two days. She was a lot like Davinia; it was the only thing that saved her from having to endure Lillian’s usually acerbic personality.
On the fifth day, the manor was quiet.
It was too good to last.
“Father Duvados told Vorg to tell me to tell you that Willom and Iris are here to speak with you,” Grace informed her.
That particular encounter was a disaster: more people needlessly fretting over her; this time, civilians who barely knew her. If it had been the vampiress’ intention to humiliate and torment her, she could not have chosen a better way. Despite the fact that Lillian had already been checked and cleared for duty five days ago, everyone insisted on coddling her and Byron had steadfastly refused to let her return to work.
In Midor, in the old days, that would never have happened. If a warrior was fit to return to work, then they returned to work. There was none of this disgraceful pampering and worrying. She had to wonder if Brigadier Ravenheart had ever had to put up with this when she’d been younger.
Probably not. At Lillian’s age, she’d been one of the Captains of the infamous Kraken fleet, back in the days when they’d been savage pirates terrorising the seas of Vives—long before they’d gone legitimate and long before smaller fry like the Silver Runners and Dire Sharks had set up shop.
She extracted herself from the conversation with Willom and Iris with as much haste as dignity would permit, seething over the lack of proper rules of conduct in the world in general and in non-Midorans specifically. They all wondered why she shut them out and pushed them away: Byron, Blanche, Willom, everyone. It was to spare them from her growing and venomous hatred towards them, which seemed to worsen with every encounter.
They were soft and trusting and child-like. For a group that claimed to be open-minded and accepting, they had shown nothing but the deepest disdain for the tenets she still secretly held sacred. For all that they claimed to respect all goodly customs, they’d done nothing but try to force their own customs and ways upon her, in their every word and gesture and action. They weren’t even aware that they were doing it and she couldn’t point out their hypocrisy to them without going into a furious tirade. So she had simply stopped trying months ago.
In short, they just weren’t Midorans.
Automatically she headed upstairs to return to her room, occasionally swiping the odd cobweb away and sidestepping the broken furniture that still lay scattered about. As she crested the stairs, the sound of low and angry voices drifted towards her from the darkened corridor, and she paused.
“...don’t think it’s as bad as all that, Lance,” came a female voice uncertainly. “We’d be trapped in Midor right now if we hadn’t followed his advice.”
“Midor would be preferable to this!” snarled a male voice.
“Oh, would it?” came a third voice, an older male by the sounds of it. “Priests and paladins are no longer allowed to leave the White City. Those who do are instantly declared traitors. Tell me: how long do you think it would have been before the priests followed the fate of the paladins?”
“They wouldn’t dare—” breathed the first.
“Wouldn’t they?” the female snapped. “Nearly the entire Paladin Order has been slaughtered. Midoran annihilated the Academy and everyone in it. It can only escalate from here, Lance! We would never have been safe in Midor.”
“Nor are we any safer here!” the one named Lance shot back. “Have things gotten better since we arrived here, Corinne? Did it occur to you that this could be a ruse, that he might actually be an Inquisitor? Where are the other priests? We only have his word that he sent them out to the northern lands to gather other Midorans and to put Midor off our trail. What if he’s lying? What if this was all a test to determine who still remains loyal to Vidus? For all we know, those we culled could have been raised by now, to take their place at his side! We might be doing nothing more than sitting around and waiting to die.”
There was a sound like a loud slap.
“Well, I would rather take my chances here,” hissed Corinne.
“And what is there for us here?” Lance demanded, unfazed. “Against the will of our god—”
“Who has proven dishonourable and cruel,” she interrupted.
Lillian didn’t hear the rest. The sound of heavy footsteps and chattering voices coming up the stairs caught her attention. Byron and Grace, from the sounds of it; as far as she knew, no one else here wore heavy armour. There were three ways out of the landing: back down the stairs; out into the corridor where the priests were arguing; or out onto the balcony.
The southern door was stuck. The northern door was jammed, but she managed to get it open without too much noise. Slipping outside, she turned and shut the door behind her—
“I see you haven’t lost the knack for turning up at the right place at the right time, Villanova.”
~*~
She must have stood there in shock for at least ten seconds, one hand still on the door handle as if preparing to flee at the slightest provocation. It was unsettling to see her caught off-guard so easily. The Lillian he remembered had been far more stoic.
“Are the lynch mob still out there or is it safe to come out of hiding?” Jerec prompted.
“If you’re talking about the priests in the corridor, they are still there,” she replied, narrowing her eyes.
“Pity. I need to head back inside and finish off this speech.” Deliberately, he turned and leaned on the balcony railing, looking out over the dark forest of Mirghul. “Well, seeing that you’ve gone and saved me the trouble of tracking you down, I suppose I may as well tell you the good news. You’ll be leaving today with Grace, to wherever it is you people go and hide away. I don’t see any point in keeping you here. You’re poison, Villanova.”
“Conveniently leaving Sir Byron alone with you and the other priests,” she bit out acidly. When had she learned to speak like that? “I don’t think so.”
“I don’t see anything convenient about it.”
“No?” she countered. “You accidentally run into one of Aristi’s leaders and a high-ranking staff member one day and establish good relations. Shortly after that, you return to Midor and officially don the uniform of an Inquisitor. Although who knows how long you’ve actually been one? Two days after that, the White Bishop publishes his intent to extend the Justification of Midor to all Vives. Now you have a platoon of priests who claim to have fled from Midor, under your orders. And who would suspect or stop them? It’s not as if there’s been a shortage of Midoran refugees lately. They could infiltrate most of the major towns, ports and cities easily; the locals would even be keen to help them out and accept them. The Aristi, certainly, would be very keen to take them in and aid them.” She moved into range of his peripheral vision. “You might have fooled everyone else, but I don’t buy it, Jerec.”
He turned his head and stared at her for several moments, then abruptly laughed. She reacted as if he’d just slapped her in the face.
“I’m glad the Righteous Swords never got to recruit you,” he told her, grinning. “Vives wouldn’t stand a chance if High Captain Uvanle had you on his staff. If Midor actually had a plan as devious as that, there’s little the rest of us will be able to do to defend against it. In fact, if they had a plan like that, I’d say they deserve to win.”
The grin faded and he turned back to the forest again. “You could go on believing your version of things, if you like. It does sound like the more plausible explanation. It certainly makes far more sense than my version, and it’s easier to believe.”
“And what, pray tell, would your version of events be?” she asked warily.
“That I am trying to single-handedly save the Midoran race and the Midoran way from extinction,” Jerec replied. “That I am trying to define our belief without Midoran at the core, without losing what made it sacred to us.”
He looked askance at her. “Have you seen the priests, Lillian? Have you even bothered to check in on them? They’re only across the corridor from where you’re staying. Most of them are twice my age, and yet they still made the journey here, based on the recommendation of an unknown priest and Inquisitor who’s not even of a respectable age yet. They’re certainly aware that I am not one of them; I don’t possess one of the old and noble Midoran names, and you and I both know how important that is. They have nothing: only whatever they could take with them from Paws, and that’s barely enough to survive the week. They could die ignobly from something as simple as a spider bite. The refugees from the Academy are only a little better off, and when they arrive here in three days, then it will only get worse for all of us.”
He’d half-expected her to continue to stare unforgivingly and obdurately. Instead, she had the decency to go slightly pink and look away.
Good. Then she wasn’t quite dead yet.
“They’re your people, Lillian,” he finished quietly. “Don’t you care?”
He saw her jaw clench, her teeth visibly grinding together. “Why should I believe you?”
“Logically, you shouldn’t,” Jerec told her. “In fact, it’s better that you don’t. It’s how I tell the Midorans apart from the non-Midorans. A Midoran will scrutinise everything thoroughly first. Everyone else seems to put blind trust and blind faith in anything that sounds good without checking thoroughly whether they ought to or not.”
She folded her arms defensively around herself, staring down at the balcony floor in silence.
“You don’t have to make a decision now. You don’t have to make one at all. Just consider it, Lillian. And consider whether you could live with yourself if you turn out to be wrong.” He stepped away from the railing and headed towards the door. “At any rate, I suppose I should be going. I still need to figure out what I’m going to say to my congregation.”
He had the door open a sliver when she spoke.
“There isn’t anything you can say to them. Not with the angle you’re trying to approach it from. Everything we tried before Byron started his aggressive Aristi revival campaign failed.”
He turned his head to face her. “Unfortunately, I don’t have a comprehensive list of everything you’ve tried,” he pointed out.
“You will.” She turned and dropped her arms to her sides, chin tilting up slightly in a familiar signature gesture of resolute defiance. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?” he asked, bemused.
“Inside to write your speech.” Lillian stepped past him into the manor’s interior, turning to throw an impatient glance over her shoulder. “Well, don’t just stand there, Jerec. We don’t have all day.” |
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Machinations
Posted: 11 Mar 2006 10:02 PM |
The sermon took nearly the entire rest of the week to write, and Jerec wished now that he’d had more practice preaching instead of gallivanting around the countryside running rescue missions up and down South Vives. By the end of it all, he’d half-expected his informal Conclave—composed of the nine priests from Paws, plus Fathers Seyon and Teluvion—to mutiny over how hard he worked them all. To his surprise, the work had the exact opposite effect.
In retrospect he should have known, judging from his experience with Lillian. Midorans weren’t happy unless you acted like a tyrant, dictated to them, and worked them hard. As long as they trusted that you were doing it for their own good, as long as you got things done, as long as you let them enough freedom to do things their own way but within set boundaries, they were happy.
To an extent, he had to agree with that attitude. When you needed things done then you appointed a leader who would actually make decisions, and make them quickly and wisely. At this stage, they couldn’t afford to sit down and talk things through, arguing endlessly until they came to a decision. If they ever reached a stage when they weren’t worrying about nothing more immediate than their own survival, fine; they’d discuss and argue to their heart’s content when they had the luxury to. But for now, they trusted him to hand the rules to them, and trusted him enough to live by those rules.
In a way that was more terrifying than their suspicion and doubt had been.
~*~
The night before the speech, he slept badly. He dreamt of a radiant and beautiful white fire that disintegrated everything it touched. Walls crumbled, metal bubbled, flesh burned. A destruction so absolute that it left nothing behind—not even the immaterial and immortal souls of the dead. |
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First Light
Posted: 11 Mar 2006 11:26 PM |
Jerec had been watching the crowd drift in for the past hour, moving silently through the white mist and dark shadows of Sable Lake. Most of them were already there by the time he arrived, and when dawn finally struggled through the dense canopy of Mirghul to shed a feeble light over the cliffs and obsidian waters of Sable Lake, he estimated that there were over a hundred present.
Through the mist, he saw Fabius and Pippidi standing beside the stone bridge over Sable Lake, their fingers tracing patterns of light in the air, their muted voices muttering arcane words. Two sparks of light flared in the mist-enshrouded darkness. Then, all around the lake, the candles held by all the crowd came to life.
And it was time.
He would never remember stepping out from the shadow of the tree he’d been waiting under, nor the slow walk to the bridge. It was something of a terror-filled blank in his memory. The strain of the past month weighed heavily on him, and seeing the crowd standing for the first time, gathered and waiting solely because of him, did nothing to calm his nerves.
When he reached the middle of the bridge he stopped and did a slow scan of the crowd, stalling for time. If Midoran had any mercy at all, he could spare Jerec a lot of anxiety by smiting him dead in front all these people. The moment passed; he finished his scan of the crowd and turned to the two mages, nodding. Fabius and Pippidi cast a spell at him in unison; he felt a slight tingle, and then... nothing.
He’d know in a moment if it had worked.
“There is a universal instinct among us all,” he said, speaking as loudly and clearly as the muffled atmosphere would allow, “when it grows dark, to bring light into the darkness.”
His voice rang, magically amplified, through the mist, mellifluous and without a hint of the nervousness he was feeling.
“A simple reason brings us here. Today, we are here to remember that.”
The mist hid their faces and forms from him, but he had the impression that he had their attention.
“We are here to remember those who do not stand here amongst us. To give them the honour that is their due. And to live up to the example they set for us to follow, that they might not have died in vain.” He paused as he saw priests around the lake moving about in preparation for what was to come. “As they have not been given proper funeral rites, we will conduct those first. For only once the past is properly put to rest can we turn our attention to the future.”
They had unofficially been dubbed the psychopomp team: twelve priests, organised and led by Father Lindeville in this one simple and yet significant task that they now had to perform. Jerec fell silent and saw heads turn towards the twelve priests, stationed evenly around the perimeter of the lake, as they stepped closer to the water’s edge and withdrew armfuls of blood-red flowers from the baskets that they carried.
“We do not have their ashes, but these will suffice.” Once more, he motioned to the two mages.
There was another round of simultaneous chanting from the two Gnomes; then immediately the wind picked up, kicking up dead leaves and bending the branches of gnarled and ancient trees, which creaked in complaint. The candle flames, being magical, did not die in the sudden gust.
As one, the twelve priests flung the flowers out over the lake. The wind gleefully picked them up and sent them soaring, whirling and dancing over the lake and over the crowd. It was far more dramatic than a proper funeral would have been, which would have used the ashes of the dead instead of the vivid scarlet poppies. The flowers were a violent splash of turbulent red colour against the sombre black and white colouring of Sable Lake. The mist muffled any sound the crowd might have made, but he thought he heard a collective gasp at the spectacle.
He paused to let them watch, wondering what they were thinking as they raised their heads to marvel at the merry airborne dance. He wondered if they remembered how to pray, and felt pity for those who had forgotten. His own thoughts and prayers were on the priests who had suddenly and mysteriously stopped writing to him over the past two years; on friends who should have been standing here with him; on ordinary people who had suddenly and quietly vanished without a trace; on unwitting visitors who had entered Midor expecting a holy city of justice, and had found nothing there but cruelty and death.
On half a thousand men and women who had committed no wrong, who had wanted nothing more out of life than to dutifully serve Midoran, and had been murdered for it by the god they sought to serve.
As the cloud of poppies rose over the cliffs and out of sight, Jerec finally addressed the crowd again: “Let us observe a moment’s silence as the dead finally depart.”
It was the longest moment he could ever recall, a minute stretching to eternity where everything sounded loud in the silence. The still black waters rippling. The wind dying down to a whispering breeze again. The secret murmurs of ancient trees as they creaked and sighed. The sound of his heart thundering in his ears.
He stirred after the minute had passed, lifting his hands high and intoning, “As the body meets wind, so does the soul take flight.”
The conclusion to a funeral rite that had not been used in six hundred years. Trust Lillian to know something so obscure and insist on using it.
Lowering his arms, he turned his attention back to the crowd again. “Some of you have come here because you were promised a new faith to restore that which you have lost. Some of you are here because you are friends. Some have come out of mere curiousity.”
And now it came. The easy part was over.
“I do not know if you will walk away from here with what you sought. I can only offer this:” he looked around the crowd again, trying to pick out their faces from the mist, “the belief that we are not alone.
“We saw the souls of the departed leave us. With them, we also mourn the loss of the old Midor. All things are doomed to pass, yet all things also are fated to be born.”
He took a deep breath and continued on, with more strength than before.
“We have seen the birth of the New Order. Which is not new at all, but rather, a revival of old ways long relinquished. We have heard and seen the vision of Vidus Khain, who is the unquestionable Voice of Midoran.”
The crowd stirred, now. When he had shown his first draft of this to Lillian, she’d promptly torn it to pieces and re-written it from scratch. Up until this morning, he hadn’t been sure that this next part would be necessary. Her version had struck him as unnecessarily harsh.
Now, seeing the uneasy reaction of the crowd, he saw there was no other way. There could be no more doubt. They had to be completely severed from Midoran and the New Order.
Jerec’s voice rose in volume and power, tinged with intense anger. “It is a vision of blood.”
Peripherally, he was aware that Fabius and Pippidi had begun to prepare their next set of spells.
“It is a vision of power.”
He was walking a fine line here and he knew it. They could not become a mob. This could not become a riot. He had to be careful about which way he pushed, how much to push them.
“Behold the vision of Midoran. Look upon the events of the past two years.” His voice thundered in the stillness, accusing and harsh. “And don’t you dare look away.”
Ghostly images hovered over the black waters of Sable Lake, illusions forming out of thin air and taking solid form. In quick succession, the nightmare atrocities of the past two years, uncensored, uncovered, flashed before the crowd’s eyes in vivid and unforgiving detail.
The fire that demolished a significant portion of the White City...
The arrival of the Righteous Swords...
The slaughter of the Paladins in the streets...
Houses and shops standing empty, individuals and sometimes entire households mysteriously vanishing in the night...
Churches standing empty where once there were worshippers and priests...
The Battle of the Plains and manifestation of Midoran...
The Purge, a return to ancient and barbaric traditions long abandoned...
The burning of all things Elven after the massacre of Paws...
The violent disbanding of the Paladin Order...
...And in a final and spectacular conclusion that made half the crowd jump in shock and terror... the destruction of the Academy, as seen from ground zero. As he had seen it, as he had re-lived it, as he had described it in minute and exquisite detail to the two illusionists, spending hours on end perfecting it until it was almost as real and terrifying as the actual event had been.
Almost.
He spoke into the shocked silence, his voice seething with anger.
“I challenge you to look upon the events of the past two years and still claim that Midoran is the source of all that is just and good in the world.”
His look, this time, as he surveyed the crowd was one of challenge and defiance. One by one, the half-seen faces in the mist turned away.
“If there is any doubt left in you at all, then consider what you have seen,” Jerec said coldly. “All of it is real. As seen by real people. Some of whom stand here amongst you.”
A pause, then he added pointedly, “Many do not. Because they are dead.”
He let the silence hang. Partially for the message to sink in, partially to cool down and regain his composure. He was thankful for the mist, and for the distance between him and the crowd. From where they stood, they could not see him shaking.
“Many of you already knew this,” he finally continued in what he hoped sounded like a calm voice. “That is not why you came here. You came to ask... what is there left to believe?”
Pointedly, he looked around again, at the candles shining through the darkness and the mist, reflected off the black waters of Sable Lake.
“We have seen displays of power,” he said. “Many of us have grown dismayed at the loss of our power. For those of us who had it, it is impossible to deny that it came from Midoran. We know this with a certainty that no non-Midoran could ever know.”
More than half the crowd was composed of old priests and priestesses; he saw their slow nods of assent.
“But power does not equate to divinity. Nor does divinity equate power.” And there it was: the first step away from this preconception of theirs that the only thing that a god could give was power, that the only manifest sign was power. “This was our folly: to believe that the two were inextricably linked.”
“We are ordinary people now; does that mean we should abandon our virtue?” he asked. “Did our power define us before? We were known for our wisdom, our justice, our courage. Shall we abandon these virtues now, after a thousand years of upholding them? Did Midoran grant us these? Yet he has displayed none of them.”
This was the part he’d feared the most, and he’d had long and barely civilised arguments with the Conclave over it. This morning, they’d still been of a divided opinion on the matter.
“You come here asking for an entire new faith. I cannot give you that now. Not in one day,” he admitted. “The virtues we had, the identity we built, took a thousand years to build. And only two to fall.”
“Do I think there is a god? One god out there who is the source of all that is light, one being who represents all that is divine? Someone who guides us and watches over us?” He paused, and then answered, “Yes.”
If the crowd hadn’t been recovering from the aftershock of the spectacle, he suspected that they would have been rumbling with dissent at what he said next.
“Look down and see god reflected in the light you bear within you.” He waited for the heads to turn downwards and see the flickers of flame in the black waters, then continued, “To heal with a touch; to raise the dead; to ward against the elements... these were not the gifts that were granted to us. They are powers. There is a difference.”
And now the question he knew had been plaguing them all, in the face of their god abandoning them while other gods who they’d always believed to be false continued to shunt power to their followers.
“What can you achieve, then,” he asked, “as mere powerless mortals, when you have others to compete with who are more powerful?”
Jerec paused slightly to give them time to think on it.
“You can live. You can shine. You can believe. And in doing so, you inspire others to as well.” His voice went quiet, audible only because of the magic that projected it out over the crowd. “If that is not enough, then I don't know what is.”
He motioned to the two mages again. All the candles went out.
“Decide,” he told them firmly. “Live in this darkness or bring your own light into it.”
Jerec cast one last lingering look around the crowd, then turned and strode away, vanishing into the mists and into the darkness.
~*~
Melodic voices on the wind. So faint as to be imperceptible, singing in a language so old that even time had forgotten it.
::{It is an unexpected development. Even we could not have foreseen it.}::
::{He raises an excellent point. The time has come to decide.}::
::{ Brothers... sisters... I sense disaster. He is not ready.}::
::{Then he will have to become ready.}:: |
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Ambriel
Posted: 16 Mar 2006 05:42 PM |
It was a shakier start than he would have liked. Oh, the sermon itself went well; that had never been his primary concern. Like a lecture, a sermon was a one-way form of communication. It did not require participation or input on the audience’s part. No, it was the inevitable aftermath that turned Jerec’s day upside-down.
He had intended to spend the day charting out a plan of attack with his staff, so that they could figure out where to go from here and keep up the momentum. After numerous interruptions, he abandoned that idea, delegating what tasks he could and letting his staff get on with their work without him while he held the crowd at bay.
Eight days ago, his biggest fear had been that the crowd would lynch him. Now he wished they had. By the time midnight rolled around, he’d had about thirty different people tell him fifty different versions of what he’d said that morning—none of which matched anything he’d actually said in the sermon—offering about ninety different bits of advice on how he had to run this operation. Over the course of that long day he went from reasonably hopeful to slightly uncertain and finally to wondering what the blazes he’d said wrong. He had not thought it was a hard concept to grasp. He had thought the message and philosophy had been very clear.
Obviously not.
He propped his elbows on the desk and cradled his head in his hands, wondering if Vidus Khain ever had to put up with this. If he heard one more condescending remark aimed at him about being too young and too inexperienced to be leading the Midoran people without the wise counsel of elder priests...
There was a knock at the open study door.
“Father Duvados? I have the arcane specifications from Fabius and Pippidi.”
“Just put them on the desk, Lillian,” he told her.
She placed a scroll near his elbow. “Was there anything else?”
Jerec sighed and straightened, gesturing to the nearby stool. Might as well get this over with. “Yes, now that you mention it. Have a seat, Villanova.”
She sat and folded her hands in her lap. Obedient to a fault.
“Tomorrow I need you to finalise the new Code once and for all,” he told her. “Do whatever you have to do, but make sure it gets finished. I am granting you the authority to have the next to last say on it, which is only fair since you wrote most of it.”
“It was already finished this morning, Father,” she pointed out, not for the first time that day.
“So you’ve told me.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “The reason I’m giving you another day to look over it is that Grace and Byron will be leaving the morning after tomorrow. You’ll be returning with them to take your place with the Aristi, so I need you to be very sure that you don’t want to make any further changes to the Code before I publicise it.”
For a moment, the words simply didn’t register. Then her eyes widened in shock and unvoiced protest.
He’d been dreading this moment all day, but it had to be done. It needed to be said.
“I’m not keeping you here, Villanova,” he went on quietly. “I already told you that. Byron did make the offer, and I’ve had a week to think about it, but in the end I turned him down. For one thing, you’ve sworn to serve them... foolishly, in my opinion, as you had little idea what they stood for when you did, and disagreed with their ethos when you finally found out, to the point where it’s made you completely miserable to be honour-bound to something you can never believe in and have begun to hate as a result.”
He hesitated, then ploughed on before he lost his nerve. “Secondly, and more significantly, you aren’t performing anywhere near the standard I’ve come to expect from you. Certainly nowhere near the standard I require to continue to keep you on as one of the leaders of this movement. I’ve no qualms with you being a follower; that’s your choice to make. But I’m not simply going to hand you a role as a leader, especially one of the highest-ranking ones, even if this is—” he gestured to the papers neatly laid out on his desk, “—essentially your own invention. If you want it, it’s a privilege you’ll have to earn like everyone else. It’s not enough just to help with the planning and do nothing else. What I need now is leaders who will work together as a cohesive team and set a good example. At the moment, Lillian, you can’t do either. I said that you were poison and I meant it. The last thing I need is to have to worry about you causing dissension and disenchantment amongst what’s left of my people.”
She blinked rapidly, fighting back tears, and swallowed. “I understand, Father,” she whispered. “Will that be all?”
Jerec stared, not quite believing what he was seeing. “That’s all I officially had to say, yes.”
Lillian stood and gave a wordless half-bow, then stepped over to the door. He continued to stare, feeling as if he’d just gone through Inquisitor re-education all over again. The entire situation was farcical; for Lillian—who had always been a living representation of the Midoran way, who had always been strong and indomitable—to just submit like that...
“That’s it?” he asked incredulously.
It probably wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever said, but it had been a long day and he was exhausted and she had just used up what little patience he had left. Lillian stopped and turned her head, frowning.
“You’re just going to walk away from that without a fight? Not even an argument in defence of your honour?” He heard the irrational edge of anger in his voice, but was too tired to rein it in. Besides, this had been a long time coming.
“You’ve already made your decision, Father,” she turned fully now, narrowing her eyes. “You’ve also justified it exceedingly well.”
“Yes, I did,” he snapped. “I told you that you weren’t good enough and you decided to take it as an excuse to keep on being that way. The Lillian I knew would have risen to the challenge to improve herself.”
Her jaw clenched and she shot him a cold look. “The Lillian you knew is dead,” she hissed.
“Oh no, I know dead when I see it.” He stood and countered the look with a frosty glare of his own. “Shall we compare experiences, Villanova? Will you claim that you know more about life and death, healing and hurt, than I do? Last I checked, those were the domains of priests, and only one person in this room fits that job description. I’m fairly certain my opinion and experience overrides yours when it comes to judging these things.”
He could see her visibly grinding her teeth, but her glare had lost all its force. To her credit, at least, she did not look away.
“The Lillian I knew,” he said softly, making no effort to hide the disdain in his voice, “is hiding. I have to admit, I find that disappointing. You’re the last person I would have expected to become a coward, Lillian Carol Villanova.”
By all rights, it should have worked. Lillian should have verbally torn him to shreds for using her patrician name that way. Instead she stared with that look of hatred and venom that she had somehow learned over the past year, unable to speak. Like everything else he’d done today, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough.
He looked away, sickened. That was it, then. His day was officially a complete failure. Sighing, he dropped back into the chair, propping his forehead up in the palm of his hand, exhausted. The worst of it was that it wasn’t the end; every day would be like this from now on.
When Jerec looked up again, she had already gone. More proof, if ever he’d needed it, that the current state of Midor was nothing less than a complete shambles. She should not have walked out that door with anything less than utter victory in hand.
The anger and disappointment had faded, leaving behind only a dull and throbbing headache that was probably from a combination of too little sleep and too much stress. Turning his attention back to the papers laid neatly across his desk, he unfurled the scroll she had left behind, squinting as he read by the dim light of a dying candle. There was still work to be done here.
~*~
He hadn’t intended to sleep at his desk. He hadn’t intended to sleep at all.
Jerec woke with a start, a half-remembered nightmare exploding into fragments of white light against the inside of his eyelids. For a moment, it seemed that the light was an imprint of a memory; but as the fog of sleep gradually lifted, it became clear that it wasn’t. The light was real. And it was moving outside the study’s bay windows.
He froze, terror suddenly jolting him to full wakefulness as he watched it flicker and grow, rapidly coming closer. A half-formed thought suddenly exploded into full-blown realisation. They’d been found. In the time it would take to sound the alarm and evacuate everyone, they’d be dead.
The second thought, following closely on the heels of the first, was far simpler and far more urgent:
Move.
There was a gong in the entrance hallway, past the pitch-black corridor, past the foyer infested with truly gigantic spiders, beyond a door that was securely locked and bolted and would take a full fifteen seconds to open if he even made it that far. It might buy time. It might wake enough of them to allow some to escape.
He never made it past the first corridor.
A dazzling blur of white passed straight through the wall as if it wasn’t there, turning and gliding straight towards him with an eerie semblance of sentience. He backed up quickly, running straight into the study door he’d carelessly left open and nearly tripping over the hem of his robes.
It was a formless, shapeless thing, obliterating all shadow in its immediate vicinity. His eyes were still swimming, trying to adjust to the strobing light, but he could have sworn that he saw a humanoid shape within that blazing mass, with colossal avian wings sprouting from its back.
The blur of light paused before him, so close that he could have reached out and touched it.
“Well? What are you waiting for?” he asked quietly. His voice sounded loud in the stillness. “I’m not afraid to die.”
It was a lie. He could hear the rush of his blood, the thundering of his heart, in his ears. But if it bought time... if even one person inexplicably woke up and got away...
There was a soft, faint sound: the strains of a barely audible and melancholy melody.
::{It is a sad day when the light is feared more than the darkness. To what decline the world has come, that a holy man should stare into the light and see only death.}::
The words were as quiet as a whisper in a sandstorm. They were not words so much as concepts and meanings trying to express themselves, struggling just to live.
Now that his eyes had more or less adjusted, he could see that he hadn’t been imagining things. There was a flickering winged form within that glowing mass of light, fragile and ethereal. As if a breath or a harsh word could shatter it.
An angelus. Not one of the lesser Celestials, and not even one of the more powerful ones that appeared on rare occasions when the world was in dire straits. A true angelus, so far above these that they may as well be dumb insects compared to it, so abstracted from reality that it could only appear as a hazy illusion or dream, unable to ever be fully understood by mortal and even immortal minds.
The voice sang on.
::{We have watched your people suffer. We have heard the prayers they offered in vain. If inaction is our sin, yet it is less than the one our direct intervention would cause. The world cannot support our presence; our very existence would break it. This is why we must act through mortals. Yet we cannot initiate. We can only respond.}::
“I didn’t ask for help.” He spoke softly, but in comparison with that feeble voice, it sounded incredibly loud.
::{Words mean little to us. Our language is older and follows different rules. To pray is not to bargain. Action may be prayer. Thought may be prayer. If we have not acted, it is not because we have not heard. Sacrifice. Courage. Perseverance. They speak to us in ways no spoken request can. To these we answer, but not to anything less.}::
Jerec shook his head. “I don’t know what you want,” he sighed. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, he was in danger of falling asleep on his feet. Irrationally, he wondered if anyone else whom angels had ever appeared to had ever been in danger of woefully embarrassing themselves. “Honestly, I haven’t asked for anything. I wouldn’t know what to ask for in the first place, and it would feel too much like trying to cheat. I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing, but I’m very tired and I don’t know what to do with you and I’d like nothing more than to go back to sleep now after the heart attack you nearly gave me.”
The angel took a long step forward, so that the brilliant white light filled Jerec’s field of vision.
::{There are things you must see. Things you must know. Disaster looms and you must prepare. You have shown yourself fit for the burden you are about to take on.}::
He cringed and looked away. After how badly today had gone, he would have voted that he wasn’t fit to run this operation at all.
The angel extended a wispy hand.
::{Let us go.}::
Jerec stared at it without moving, an old adage flashing through his mind. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
They had thought Midoran to be benevolent too.
He looked at that pale and glowing white hand and saw water fizzle and steam, marble and stone crumble, bodies disintegrate to ash.
The fingers of that ethereal hand curled ever-so-slightly.
::{Please.}::
Against his better judgement, he put his hand into the angel’s, and allowed himself to be led through the wall into the pre-dawn twilight.
~*~
It was something of a long walk. Once they were outside the manor walls, the angel let him walk under his own power, which was a difficult thing to manage half-awake and exhausted. But he was a Midoran. If for no other reason than professional pride, he would manage it without complaint.
The angel did most of the talking, if you could call it that. His name was Ambriel, and half of what he sang was so abstract and so far beyond Jerec’s comprehension that not even his imagination could fill in the gaps. Or maybe he was just tired.
There was an indeterminate feeling in the air. Destiny was a coiled cat, waiting to pounce.
At the edge of the dark forest, where a ragged line of trees marked the start of the Great Plains, Ambriel paused, his colossal wingspan and the dense foliage blocking the plains from view.
::{You sent the souls of the dead to us and we have ensured that they rest in their final resting places of honour. To you, we have sent back the vessels on which they rode.}::
He furled his wings and stepped gracefully aside.
The northern plains were a rippling sea of red.
From hill to hill and horizon to horizon, scarlet poppies sprawled beneath the shade of cherry trees, which shed their pink blossoms like blood-stained tears. And off to the side of the road, as hazy and indeterminate as the angel, was...
He didn’t know what it was.
Dreamstuff, perhaps. Raw memory and thought in undistilled form. Years and years and years of research into the mystery and workings of the mind and the nature of reality itself, and it still could not prepare him for... that. There were no words to accurately describe it. Potential unfulfilled, spring-loaded destiny waiting for the trigger pull that would send it rocketing. Something that did not exist but was waiting to exist. And yet it did exist and had always existed, would always exist. Something that wanted to be known, believed, defined, seen and yet had never had anyone observe it, study it, question it, shape it.
He approached the anomaly, gaping in wonder. Up close, it was even more of a bewildering tangle of reality as-yet-unformed.
The sun peered over the eastern horizon, shining directly into his face as dawn arrived. He winced at its burning heat. Unreality shifted sympathetically in response. Waiting to be shaped, waiting to be defined...
::{All journeys begin with a single first step.}::
Light pierced the veils of reality and unreality, eddies of future possibility swirling in the crisp morning air and mingling with the falling cherry blossoms.
::{And now the door opens. And now the road unfolds.}::
Shape. Texture. Colour. Filling in a space with hazy reality where none had previously existed.
::{And now we begin.}:: |
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That Which Remains
Posted: 18 Mar 2006 02:41 PM |
It all nearly came apart at the seams the next day.
Jerec’s absence was felt from the very start: he’d always been the first awake and last asleep. It was hard to tell time accurately in the gloomy manor; but at some fairly early point in the morning, the Conclave had nearly lost their heads and panicked. When Lillian walked in on them, they were about ready to tear each other to pieces, and Vandemar had relapsed into his old suspicious self again. When she walked out of the staff room two hours later, they’d made her de facto leader and were eating out of her hand.
It wasn’t because they were incompetent. It wasn’t even that she was an effective leader. It was just that they were desperate for some semblance of law and order in the mess this situation had become. Lillian, with her authoritarian nature, represented the most logical choice.
She sent Vorg out with Father Marshall and a handful of the more level-headed priests in search of Jerec, taking the rest of the people’s minds off their worries by putting them to work. The manor was still far from being habitable, and with their large numbers and their limited resources, it would remain so for a while. Their survival was still hanging by a thread here; the smallest thing could kill them and the world would never miss them.
And so it was that the rest of the day passed without so much as a hitch.
And the next morning, to the dismay of the Conclave, she told them she was returning to the Aristi.
~*~
The ballroom was cavernous, made all the more so by the lack of light and the lack of people. It was still early in the morning, and most of the household was upstairs and sleeping. Grace was one of them.
Byron was not.
“You could stay,” he offered. “There is a lot of good you can do here, Lillian, and your people need you more than we do. Tonan and Charinne are doing a good job of holding the fort at Haven. I’m sure they could do so indefinitely if need be.”
“Don’t be absurd; I’ve been told I’m not wanted here and that I shall return with you today,” Lillian replied obdurately. But there had been a pause before she did so, and for all that she was trying to maintain a stoic attitude, Byron could see that she was torn.
Small wonder. This was, essentially, her own creation and it seemed that at some point she’d been asked to leave. The Conclave would not have asked it of her, so it was obvious who had.
“Lillian, Jerec isn’t infallible,” Byron argued. “I think he’s made the wrong decision in sending you away. Besides,” he added with a wry smile, “he isn’t in charge at the moment. The Conclave is, and I’m sure they’ll let you stay.”
She did not return the smile. “That is irrelevant, sir. The decision has been made and I will abide by it. Furthermore, I have duties and responsibilities to the Aristi I cannot neglect. My priorities lie there.”
Her priorities were all wrong. But she’d gone and boxed herself in to as foolproof a cage as Byron had ever seen, iron-clad and inflexible. For all that she argued that she was beyond all hope, she still had the fiercest sense of honour that he’d ever seen, even for a Midoran.
She had sworn an oath to the rebellion, for no other reason than that her conscience had short-circuited her logic. They had automatically and perhaps wrongly transferred that to the Aristi, assuming that because she had never abandoned them, she would easily accept their beliefs. From that point on it had all gone horribly wrong. He could remember her as she was before that: she’d been civil, not this bitter and angry creature that she had somehow been warped her into. She’d been guarded and wary, but within reason: not paranoid and jumping at shadows, not turning against people she should have trusted and doing her best to tear them apart because she thought it was for their own good.
But for all that it had been a trying nine months, the oath still held and she would not abandon it, nor ever seek to. If it got her killed to serve a cause she didn’t believe in, if it got her captured or tortured or maimed, if it made her miserable and ruined her life, that was the sacrifice she was prepared to make. It was not blind devotion that tied her to them. She knew full well what she was doing.
The choice was there, at it had always been there, to walk away. Most people he knew decided only once and thought it over and done with. Lillian, with her penchant for routine and her need for constant evaluation, no doubt made the decision on a daily or hourly basis.
But now, another choice finally existed, and she was being held from it for all the wrong reasons. There were times when duty and law conflicted with doing the right thing. Byron had always believed that the two should be synonymous. Any law which prevented one from doing the right thing was an unjust law.
And he knew what it was he had to do.
“Then I release you from your service to the Aristi,” Byron said quietly. “Your obligations have been met in full. We can survive without you, Lillian. Your people can’t.”
He didn’t know what he’d been expecting. The stricken look of betrayal she shot him certainly wasn’t it.
Midorans. He would never understand them.
“What’s wrong, Lillian?” Byron asked.
“I still cannot remain here, sir.” Her face had gone pale. “All you have done is ensured that I have nowhere to go.”
Byron stood and began to pace, unable to keep his frustration contained any longer. “By the Light, you are impossible!” he snapped. “Every time someone tries to help you, you turn against them and make them feel bad. You do good things and expect to be punished for it; and if no one will punish you, then you do it yourself. You are your own worst enemy, Lillian!”
He stopped and turned to glare at her. She did not flinch.
“I don’t know what to do with you. I don’t know how to fix you.” He leaned his hands against the back of a nearby chair. “You tell me, Lillian. What needs to be done to set you right? I am out of ideas and out of patience.”
She shook her head. “There isn’t—”
“Don’t tell me there isn’t a way! If you met someone like yourself, what would you do, Lillian? Because there are about ninety people under this roof who are like you and you are the key to them getting their act together. You’ve seen this situation from the other side for longer than they have. It’s time for you to be the example for them to follow.”
She leaned back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling. For several long minutes, there was only silence.
“I’ve been told I cannot stay in the capacity of a leader. I could still remain here, as a follower, although that would last for all of five seconds before the Conclave hands the reins over to me again,” she said quietly. “I could make it happen in a legitimate way. If Father Duvados comes back to find me in charge, he cannot do anything about it. I could ensure that it happens because I am the one best suited, not because I am the default and only option.”
He started to say something, but she hadn’t finished yet.
“There are those who may take that as a sign that I am fickle in my loyalty. It is not. It is an extension of the duties I had with the Aristi. The infrastructure of the Aristi needs to be changed. We have begun to build an alliance, united by the need to do good. The alliance needs to be separated from the religion. This is the only way you can achieve your goal; at the moment, whether you know it or not, you are forcing the religion down people’s throats in order to be part of the alliance. The two are separate and must remain so. A more neutral and common ground needs to be found.”
Byron stared, amazed and aghast. How long had she sat on this idea without telling anyone? She could have spared them all a lot of grief if only she had spoken up.
“You have an expert in your ranks you have not been using. Phillippe Jongras. He has spent decades in the diplomatic corps. He’d be the logical choice to lead the alliance. You need to disband the Council and re-form it, not with Aristi representatives, but with representatives from all the various allies that you have gathered. Yourself and Lady Blanche representing Aristi; Richard is already stationed at the Seven Sisters, so he could represent them; we have Faloman in Brandibuck; Coruva has already offered the aid of the Halls of Bregodim, if required; then the Sunbringers and Rangers, perhaps, with Iris acting as representative; Grace representing what tenuous resources we have in Maldovia; Salt Sower, to represent either mages or the mage towers themselves; if you insist on seeking the help of the Fire Knives, then turn them into a legitimate organisation, and have Conn as their liaison; a coalition of artists and scholars led by Willom, for the discovery of knowledge and its accurate and sensible distribution will be paramount.”
She turned her attention from the ceiling to look directly at him.
“When Father Duvados returns, he may assume leadership of the former Midorans again. You will then have me as your Midoran representative.”
Byron pulled the chair he’d been leaning against out from the table and sat heavily.
“Neither of our groups will survive working alone,” she finished bluntly. “A network of allies and resources is necessary for our continued existence, but that network cannot be governed by the Aristi religion or you will alienate some of your potential allies. Nor would it be solely for the benefit of the Aristi or the displaced Midorans. It would be something that exists to support the efforts of all involved.”
“You sound like you’ve been planning this for months,” Byron said accusingly.
Lillian shrugged. “It’s not like I’ve had much else to do.”
“Then I would hate to see what you are like when you are busy,” he replied wryly. “It is a good idea, Lillian. It sounds like you have everything you need to implement it already on hand. If this is your vision—”
“I’m not sure it is.”
She stared at the table with a troubled frown; and in a flash of insight, Byron understood.
“There are sixty priests here, Lillian,” he told her. “Have you asked any of them for an opinion?”
Lillian shot him a withering glare. “I’m not in the habit of routinely seeking advice from strangers whose opinions I neither value nor trust, sir. Especially in relation to something as important as this.”
“And is that all you are waiting for to initiate this? Confirmation that it is sent by what you believe to be God?” Byron shook his head. “Perhaps I misunderstood yesterday’s sermon, but it seems to me that you believe that God doesn’t act in overt ways. God doesn’t manifest himself and say, ‘Do this for me. God’s will be done!’ He gives the occasional quiet push, in such a way that you are never certain that he was there at all. And then he lets you do whatever you will.”
He paused, then added, “In fact, it was not that long ago that the Midoran faith was like that. There has always been room for mystery and doubt there, whereas other religions have always had it easy. The existence and nature of their gods has always been obvious.”
“I’m still not convinced they’re gods.”
“That’s beside the point.” Byron leaned forward against the table. “The point is that the decision is solely yours. You have been handed everything you need. What you do with it is up to you, not anyone else.”
He stood. “Grace and I will be leaving in half an hour. Stay, go, do what you like... I won’t have you using the rules as an excuse to stop thinking for yourself any more. Your life is your own.”
He’d gone three steps when she spoke up. “I need to speak to Sir Phillippe Jongras.”
Byron turned. She had that look on her face that told him that all the gears were turning in her head, scheming complex machinations.
“Sir Perriand Goodman and Lord-Bishop Kruvious Seyon as well,” she added.
“Do I get to find out why?” Byron asked dryly.
“No, sir.”
He tilted his head to the side, considering. It wasn’t as if they were doing much anyway, and she knew it. And if she really was going to do what he thought she was going to do...
“Very well,” he agreed. “I’ll send them over.” |
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Awakenings
Posted: 28 Mar 2006 10:19 PM |
He came out of the trance in stages, like someone who has gone deep-sea diving and must return to the surface before their arcane spells wear off, balancing speed with the need to rise slowly and safely. The dizziness came first. It was followed by a sick and empty feeling in the pit of his stomach that told him in no uncertain terms that the best thing he could do at the moment was to collapse. Then came the pain and numbness as seven days’ worth of kneeling in the one spot caught up with him in a single instant. The cold, wet rain came last, shredding whatever remnants of the trance remained, each icy drop of water like a razor falling from the sky at high velocity.
Jerec gasped and fell forward, his hands reflexively shooting out before him to stop himself from meeting the ground face-first. A kaleidoscope of half-remembered visions blossomed and faded, dissolving into the quiet backdrop of memory as reality seized him in its iron grip and wrenched him out of the dream. He hung onto consciousness through sheer effort of will, his arms trembling from the effort of supporting his weight off the ground, fighting down the urge to be violently sick.
He sensed rather than saw a small crowd of people suddenly gather around him, their animated voices worried and incomprehensible. A familiar voice snapped at them to back off and give him room; hurriedly, the crowd complied. He saw the hem of a floral dress move into view and stop before him—probably a healer, judging by the healer’s stave they carried. A second person knelt beside him, throwing a heavy cloak over his shoulders.
“We need to get him to Faloman,” said the voice at his side, professional and brisk. “Khadros, Father Marshall—split up and see if you can find Kusin. He should be passing this way soon. Take the others with you.”
The group obeyed with alacrity, dispersing as quickly as it had appeared. Abandoning all dignity, Jerec sank to the ground and curled up on his side. The ground was wet and he shivered uncontrollably, coughing into his hand in a way that didn’t sound at all healthy. He saw the healer drop into a crouch, her hand glowing gold and blue as she held it near his face and began her ministrations.
Two voices conversed over the top of him at rapid-fire speed.
“Diagnosis?”
“Ordinarily I’d recommend giving him two or three weeks to recover, but he seems to have a remarkably regenerative metabolism. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was up and about in a day or two.”
“He’s a Midoran. He would have been up and about in that time regardless.”
“Perhaps.” The healer’s voice paused to murmur a chant, and he shuddered involuntarily as a tingle ran through him. The rain continued to fall on him, but he could no longer feel its coldness.
He’d always hated magical methods of healing; they had the unpleasant tendency to cause long-term havoc by messing with natural healing cycles.
“No doubt about it,” the healer’s voice continued thoughtfully. “Something’s boosting his recovery rate.”
“The same thing that kept him alive in the trance?”
“Hard to say, at this stage; but yes, that would be my opinion.”
Jerec shut his eyes against the white spots flickering across his vision, only half-following the conversation. Somewhere in that time he must have slipped into unconsciousness; when he next awoke, he found himself lying on his back in a cool, dark place that had the feel of a cave to it. A constant hissing roar filled the air, which smelled faintly of damp and flowering spring and medicinal herbs.
It took several moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness and for the scene to resolve itself. He was lying on a field stretcher inside a naturally hollowed-out chamber behind a waterfall, which was the source of the background roar. It had the look of a military healer’s outpost, interspersed with hanging dried plants, collapsible mobile furniture, basic alchemical apparatus, and sundry odds and ends that only a qualified healer would know how to use. The entire scene was dimly lit by candles of various shapes and sizes scattered haphazardly about, and what little natural light managed to filter through the curtain formed by the waterfall. Beyond the falls, as near as he could tell, was a lush and overgrown garden in full bloom, impossibly vivid in the early morning sunlight and reminiscent of a fairy dell.
He would later learn that the place was called Faloman’s Retreat. For the moment, it astounded him that he had never seen the place before in all the long years he’d spent traversing these parts.
The healer from earlier on was puttering around at a table against the far wall, her back turned to him as she deftly mixed alchemical solutions together. Sitting in a chair beside him, with the posture of a brooding mother hen, was Lillian.
He took in the purple and red and silver garment, the ceremonially coloured white hair and the crown of laurel with a sense of foreboding, knowing full well what it meant. The motion of his head turning must have caught her eye. She turned to look back at him, her expression inscrutable.
“You’ve taken over, I see.” He made no effort to keep the disapproval from his voice.
“A temporary measure only, Father.” She tucked a nonexistent strand of hair behind her ear, even though none had come loose from the severe braid she wore it in. “I’ll be stepping down and handing back to you ceremonially as soon as it’s viable to do so.”
Jerec pushed himself up into a sitting position, narrowing his eyes. “You’ll be stepping behind the scenes where you can pull the strings as soon as it’s convenient, you mean,” he corrected. “Well, it isn’t going to work. I won’t be your puppet, Villanova.”
“You don’t even know what’s happened,” she protested.
“No, but I think it’s fairly obvious.” His eyes flicked up and down, looking over her appearance again. After all those long discussions at the Academy that they’d had on the topic of the patrician era, it was impossible for him not to recognise the colours, the symbols, the signs. “You invoked the emergency clause. You spoke the twenty-seven holy names. You threw the weight of your name around as if it still meant something, even though the tradition’s long dead and names no longer hold the power that they once did. You then proceeded to compel those present to obey you unconditionally. Tell me, Villanova, have you delivered an ultimatum to Midor yet? Have you demanded that the Church rescind its authority and put it in the hands of the patricians, as it was in the days before the Church came to power?”
Her face flushed a deep and angry pink. “I would never—I can’t believe you’d think I’d—” She let out an exasperated sigh and looked away, flustered.
There was a long and cold and awful silence, filled only by the sound of the rushing falls and the quiet clink of glass as the healer continued her work, apparently oblivious.
“For someone who professes faith, Father,” Lillian said at last, her voice quiet, “you seem to have a distinct lack of it when it comes to the people on your side.”
Abruptly she stood, placing a scroll beside him.
“I suggest you read that and get your facts straight before you make any further accusations,” she continued, her voice cool and professional again. “It is a record of the address I gave to your people in your absence. If you doubt its veracity, you may confirm it with anyone who was present.”
“I will.” His own voice was unrelenting.
She turned to regard him with a look he couldn’t read, then inclined her head. “Then I shall leave you to it. Good day, Father.”
~*~
The flowering poppy fields of The Great Plains had been dubbed the Fields of the Dead in the week they had sprung into existence. It was a riotous scene of dazzling reds and pinks and greens beneath the glare of the noontime sun, the poppy blooms rippling in the wind like an ocean of blood, the cherry blossoms twirling violently as they were tossed about by unseen eddies.
Amidst it all, standing still and tall like a bastion of order in a world of chaos, stood a cenotaph: a ghostly and elusive construct of not-stone, adorned by not-vines, it existed and yet did not exist. And apparently, he’d created it.
Only, Jerec could remember doing no such thing.
He could only remember being a place, elsewhere, elsewhen. A white place full of doors, a book that had the fate of the world bound between its pages, and a judge who spoke in riddles. He had opened a door and stepped outside; and that’s when he had awoken.
“It’s missing something,” Jerec said as he stepped over to Lillian’s side. She stood before the monument in stony silence. “I’m not entirely convinced I made it. They said you’d be here. I think I owe you an apology.”
He stopped before he rambled on any further. It wasn’t at all the coherent and eloquent speech he’d had planned.
“You’re forgiven,” she said, her tone matching her expression. There was the barest of pauses as she switched over to her typical businesslike mode. “I’ve arranged for the changeover to happen in a few weeks. Too many sudden developments will cause confusion, and you need your people to be focused at this stage. At the moment I’ve got them on a program of learning by doing, but I don’t know how long that can last—”
“Lillian, stop it,” Jerec interrupted, exasperated. “I didn’t come here to be deflected by a progress report.”
She looked at him blankly.
“Have you listened to yourself lately?” he persisted. “You’re nothing but reports and statistics. Every time someone tries to snap you out of it, you put on a show of getting angry; if that doesn’t drive them away then you storm off. Well, it’s a very effective automated defence system you’ve got set up, and I’m sure it works on everyone else, but you’re going to have to try harder against me. I don’t intend to leave you in peace until I figure out what’s wrong with you and set it right again. In case you’ve forgotten, it’s actually my job as a priest to do so.”
The glare she shot him was reflexive, with no real force behind it. It held for a grand total of five seconds before she relented, her face settling into the elusive expression from earlier on. He recognised it now that he knew what to look for. It was the hollow look of one who is utterly lost, beyond all hope and beyond all despair and beyond all caring. He’d seen it all too often on terminally ill patients.
Wrapping her arms around her waist, she turned away. “I don’t know what to do, Jerec,” she confessed. “I do all these things and they no longer hold meaning. Each day has become nothing more than a set of tasks to be completed, a checklist to be ticked off item by item. Organise these people. Evaluate that security issue. Write this speech. Resurrect this dead religion or salvage that dying one.”
“And yet you said—”
“I know what I said to the people.” Her eyes flashed. “And I know what I wrote for you to say in your address. I came up with it three months ago, when I spent some time off trying to work on the problem you now find yourself faced with. It’s a very nice fiction, perfect for deluding a people desperate to hold on to some semblance of God, but I find that I’ve grown too old and too weary for airy poetical nonsense.”
The bitter laugh she gave was a mockery of its silvery and melodic former self.
“And so, in addition to being an apostate heretic, I am also a deceiver and a hypocrite. For what I have done, and for the false hope I have offered to our dead and noble race, there can be no forgiveness. There is only a special place in Hell reserved with my name on it, and the list of crimes listed beneath that name grows longer and more impressive the more I try to erase it.”
Jerec looked up at the curling green vines that hung from the cenotaph, keeping his own expression carefully neutral. He did not know who this doppelganger was who wore Lillian’s face: she looked like her and sounded like her, but did not have her soul.
And yet somewhere in there, some part of her had still been alive enough to pull out the essential core of the Midoran way and produce a new belief from it. Some part of her had already blazed the trail and found the next logical step in the evolution of their faith, and had already lit the path for them to see.
“Well, I don’t disagree,” he said quietly. “You seem determined to hasten your descent, and what few steps you’ve taken towards absolution are superficial at best. Even if you succeed in pulling a miracle out of thin air and restoring Midor within your lifetime, it will be a hollow victory.”
“I don’t intend to remain leader forever,” Lillian pointed out. “I’m only a stopgap measure.”
He looked askance at her. “And what if I decide I don’t want to be leader either?”
She froze. “You wouldn’t just leave.”
“Wouldn’t I?” Jerec countered. “But you’re running things so well, and I think it could do you some good to take on some real responsibility. Besides, people are inconsistent, unreliable and impermanent. I could die tomorrow. Or I could decide tomorrow that I’d like nothing more than to lead an ordinary life and leave all this behind. I’m not indispensable to this movement; I can leave at any time I like and no one will be the wiser.”
The cynical smile he gave her was an eerie mirror of her own, and he saw her recoil at the sight of it. “I suppose the real question is, how many of us do you intend to drag down with you? You are no longer an individual, operating alone. You are a leader; you represent your people and they in turn will emulate whatever example you set. Words will not impress them: they are Midorans, not simple and idealistic Aristi who are easily influenced and won over. They will see right through you if you lie, and yet they will still follow you, even if it damns them. Because you have earned their trust. Because they believe in you, even if you don’t.”
It was not hard to summon the necessary bitterness and despair to change his expression into a reflection of hers. Jerec took a step towards her, looking her straight in the eye.
“Is this what you want your people to be, Lillian?” he asked softly.
She took a deep breath and slowly shook her head. Judging by the look on her face, the weight of the responsibility that she had so casually taken on had finally dawned on her.
“No,” Lillian said quietly, “it isn’t.”
She lowered her gaze. “You see now why I must inevitably step down and hand them over to you. I have no faith left in me.”
“Well, that’s the easy and obvious solution, but I don’t remember agreeing to it. I’m fairly certain you need my consent for it to work.”
“It’s the only solution, Jerec,” she argued wearily.
“No. There’s another one.” He waited until she looked up at him before continuing on. “I could teach you to believe again.”
A myriad of emotions flitted across her face, running the full gamut from disbelief to hope to suspicion to trust. For a long and heart-stopping moment, it looked like she would actually agree.
Strange how life had come full circle. He could remember being in this exact position eighteen years ago, but their roles had been reversed then. Everything he believed, she had taught him.
But the jaded smile returned and she looked away. “It’s too late for me to believe. You seek the impossible.”
It was, he decided, the opening he’d been waiting for. If this didn’t work, then nothing would.
“In my experience,” Jerec said, “nothing is impossible with faith.”
Reaching over, he tilted her chin up to look at the cenotaph. “Look up, Lillian.”
At first there was nothing. Only the faint and usual shimmer of sunlight passing through the ghostly structure. Then it happened: from the vines growing along the cenotaph’s four pillars, blood-red flowers exploded into bloom.
They sprouted at accelerated speed: drooping, shaped like tassels, their quickened growth made it appear as if they’d burst from the vines and bled, only to freeze like blood stains running down the pillars. Their very existence defied reality; no such flower existed anywhere but in myth.
The unfading, immortal and imaginary amaranth.
He hadn’t been sure if it would work, but it was as dramatic and attention-grabbing a demonstration as he could have hoped for. The stunned look on her face was all the proof he needed that he’d finally gotten through to her.
“It took,” he said, “four hundred years for the patricians to be satisfied that Midor would prosper without their rule. When the Church finally took over from them and came into power, the Paladin Order was its equal, and was not subservient to it. The Midoran religion has never been simple. It has never been one-dimensional as other beliefs are. There is a duality to it that lends it a second dimension, and a depth to it that adds a third. The early Church understood this, and then forgot as little as a hundred years ago when Malyson drove a wedge between the Church and the Order that irrevocably made the Paladins inferior to the Priests.”
None of this was news to her. Everything he had never wanted to know about military history, he had learned from Lillian and Claude’s endless debates on the topic.
“If this is going to work, we need to preserve the dichotomy that existed between the Order and the Church,” Jerec continued. “It needs two leaders that function as one unit, opposing yet concordant. It won’t work with just one leader in charge, Lillian. You can’t balance a scale if you only have one weight.”
He followed her gaze, watching the vivid red tassels of the newborn amaranth swaying in the breeze. “Nor will it work if the weights are unequal. I have no intention of lowering my standards and coming down to your level. If you’re serious about making this work, you’re going to have to raise your own standards to meet mine.”
She wavered. “And what if I can’t?”
“Then I will help you,” he said simply. “Lillian, I’ve known you for eighteen years. I think I know what you are and aren’t capable of. I’m not asking you to do anything you can’t already do.”
Jerec held his hand out to her. “Two weeks ago, I presented a choice. The choice still stands: live in this darkness or bring your own light into it. What’s it going to be, Lillian?”
She stared at his hand, and it was clear that she’d once again reached an impasse that she simply could not progress beyond. To accept required an act of faith. To accept was to make a promise that, once made, could not be unmade. To accept was to invite the possibility of betrayal and failure and loss.
Far better not to believe at all. Far better not to commit to promises you might inadvertently break, to shield yourself by never opening yourself up to the possibility of suffering.
Far better to live a safe and easy life as a coward.
Slowly, the maelstrom of warring emotions subsided, her expression settling into one of steely resolution. When she looked up at him, it was not with the eyes of a broken and jaded stranger, but with the eyes of the Lillian he remembered: the proud and fiercely blazing eyes of a paladin.
Stepping forward, she put her hand into his. |
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Battletide
Posted: 31 Mar 2006 10:33 PM |
It would have been a lie to say that things went smoothly after that. It would also have been a lie to say that everything drastically improved.
Every Midoran priest is, by necessity, a politician.
If Lillian had presented a threat, if Jerec had decided that the movement was better off without her, he could just as easily have chosen to drive her away instead. The bottom line, when you got right down to it, was a singular cold fact: it was advantageous that she remain. It was also necessary that she be controlled.
It was said that Port Royale was a city of perplexing duality. Those who made such claims had never known Midor. The Paladin Order had been Midor’s shining face, its mask of virtue. This was not to say that Midor had not been virtuous and just: it had been.
But behind the scenes where no one ever looked there were soldiers who had never wielded a sword and had never tread foot on a battlefield, fighting a secret war. A cut-throat world of politics existed, out of sight and out of mind, that no Midoran priest could wholly escape. For Midoran priests were not merely healers. They were leaders. They were the government. Those who occupied a high enough rank were even automatically considered nobility.
For thirteen years, Jerec had managed to steer clear of the worst of the vicious politics of the Church by leading a completely undistinguished career. It wasn’t that he was inept at it; rather, he despised it, and despised more the fact that he had a natural flair for it. No one knew his name. No one remembered him. Midor was an inwards-focused city; anything that happened outside its walls was of little or no concern to it. Missionaries were not worthy of attention, as Vidus Khain had discovered in his early career. Field medics were held in even lower esteem: missionaries, at least, could claim some small measure of glory in that they preached the word of Midoran to the ignorant and unfaithful who lived in the darkness outside the White City’s holy walls. Field medics were considered to be little better than non-Midoran physicians, unofficially thought of by most to be a substandard sort of priest, and by a handful not to be priests at all.
And he’d spent seven years as one. Voluntarily. Turning down various offers to return to Midor and even one offer to accept training as a Divine Champion.
Which meant that even if Midor heard about this deviant group of theirs, Midor would consider them beneath its notice. That, too, was to his advantage. So long as they were considered insignificant, they could operate freely.
Because whatever the rest of the world might like to think, however they might wish to compare the exiled Midorans to the simplistic and pacifist Aristi, they were as different as wolves and sheep. Midor’s soul was old and stern, where the Aristi were buoyantly idealistic to the point of being naive. The Aristi dreamt of the pampered civilisation that had once been theirs; a true Midoran did not care to be safe and despised being coddled: they had more in common with the ascetic Asashi or the pragmatic Mirghulians than the spoiled Aristi.
He had not been lying when he had given his initial speech to the priests in Paws. Midorans had become complacent. Midorans wallowed in luxury. Midorans did not want for anything, and that was a danger all its own, for the pre-Vidus Midor had been coming dangerously close to following in the footsteps of the doomed city of Aristi. Only under adverse conditions could Midorans truly thrive.
So while the world looked on upon the state of Midor with bewildered horror, those who were true Midorans looked on with sick understanding. And knew that Midor had already been doomed, for if the New Order had not come along, then something else would have. Due to a number of factors over the past decades, and even centuries—the Malyson fiasco, the anti-patrician campaign, and recently the alarming number of corrupt high-ranking priests—the people had come to value their safety and wealth and convenient lives more than was healthy. The New Order permitted those who submitted to its rule to enjoy those petty luxuries. Midor had been doomed long before now. Its people had become as soft as the Aristi.
Jerec wasn’t sure whether to be amused or alarmed that this new movement of theirs had turned into something of an underground cult. He had assumed that all that Lillian had done in the week that she’d been in charge was to prepare and deliver her speech and find something for sixty to ninety ex-Midorans to do to keep themselves busy.
He’d assumed wrong.
The leaders of the Aristi had focused on hiding themselves from Midor, on building up their military strength and organising themselves into a force to be reckoned with, on trying to establish a favourable reputation for the Aristi and disproving what the world thought it knew about that long-lost city. Though their edicts had baffled her and their orders had gone against what she’d been taught, she had faithfully obeyed them. It was small wonder, then, that she’d become so torn.
Jerec’s first and only priority had been far easier for her to understand: remind the people how to pray.
No political public relations. No complex military stratagems, no moves to try and do something as ridiculous as raise an army that had no real reason to exist, nothing to defend, nothing to fight for, no mission statement. No cloak-and-dagger espionage, no dealings with unsavoury factions.
And listening to the plan she’d drawn up and already begun to put into motion, even he had to grudgingly admit that she did indeed know what she was doing.
“How many of these sites were you planning on setting up?” he asked.
“I didn’t have a number in mind; I imagine they’ll naturally spring up as required. I’ve officially founded two, one near Buckshire and one near Asashi. There isn’t any reason, either, for us to attempt to have the sort of infrastructure that the Novus Aristi are trying to set up—for the moment, it will be like what the Asashi had before the monastery was founded, or what the Midorans had before they came to Aristi. Nor is there any reason for us all to congregate in the one place any more, or to attempt to be all-knowing and all-controlling when it comes to the actions of our people. They go their own way now. It’s not like they need to be told what to do; they’re old enough to figure it out for themselves.”
“Well, so much for being in charge,” he said wryly. “That means there’s no need for either of us. It’s an organisation without a head; just autonomous, loosely interconnected groups scattered everywhere that nevertheless think and act as one.”
“Basically,” Lillian agreed matter-of-factly. “Still, someone needs to be ultimately responsible.”
She narrowed her eyes. “All this isn’t enough, though. We’re going to have to expand or all our efforts will be in vain. I find myself in need of executors.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“There are at least sixty paladins still unaccounted for since the Battle of the Plains. Many more fled Midor when the Order was disbanded; still others may still be wandering the countryside as Errants.” She raised an eyebrow. “The Aristi have been recruiting from their ranks, but haven’t actively sought them out. Not yet. We have a headstart.”
So it had come to this. Out of sight of the public eye, they’d both agreed on one thing: for the crimes Midor had committed against the dignity and sanctity of life, there could be no forgiveness until justice had been dispensed. The holy laws of honour demanded that they do everything within their scope to bring the corrupt New Order to its knees or die trying. Not in a thousand years, not in a hundred years, but within their lifetime.
The Paladin Order was dead. The world would never know its like again and it was a poorer place for it.
Neither of them intended to bring life back into the Order’s corpse, to resurrect it as some monstrous Undead replica of itself. Nevertheless, it was not enough to merely set up places of worship and scatter the priests around the world as missionaries and present sermons. Midor had always been militant. Midor had always been known for its swiftness to action.
“Isn’t it too soon?” Jerec asked.
She shook her head. “It may already be too late. Months and months too late.
“Now it’s a race.”
~*~
The rest of their plans were a secret even to most of the Conclave. Jerec still didn’t know most of them well enough to gauge whether they could be trusted.
It was the irony of ironies that Lillian focused on the religious and ceremonial side of things while he worked on their battle plans. They could not tackle Midor head-on; strength for strength, they were outmatched. Nor could their hand be seen to be the one behind the machinations he now devised. Midor, and indeed the world, must continue to believe them to be innocuous.
For all intents and purposes, they had to remain wolves in sheep’s clothing. |
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Pieces of an Unbroken Puzzle
Posted: 08 Apr 2006 06:18 AM |
It took him weeks to sift through the visions and pen the details, and even then, Jerec wasn’t sure he’d gotten even that right. He kept half-expecting to hear that elusive voice and see the glowing form of the angelus again. He could not have known that he would never receive another visitation.
If it had been real at all. He was still debating about that. He hadn’t told anyone for fear of sounding mad and foolish, especially this soon after that purple badger debacle.
In the end, he managed to reduce that barrage of images into a single, slightly incoherent passage.
And this was the reason behind their furtive plans and activities. This was what they so urgently sought.
“I don’t know what it is and what it means,” Jerec told Lillian frankly. “I need you to come up with a shortlist of people you can trust to begin looking for more clues on this. I want them to swear that they will not breathe a word of it to anyone. I feel that we have unseen allies and unseen enemies, and that this is a warning or a clue that has been left deliberately vague so that those unseen enemies do not suspect we have been tipped off.”
Thankfully, she asked no questions. If she thought the clues vague and ridiculous, she kept that opinion to herself, as he had not directly asked for it.
“Yes, Father.”
He dismissed her after a perfunctory blessing. And had the strangest feeling that the sands of time in some unseen hourglass were running out.
~*~
A wall we cannot go through.
Which is in some ways where we began.
Except that memory, in leading us back, has turned us about.
It has drawn us through room after room towards a past body,
An experience of the world that cannot be entered,
Only to confront us with a future body that can.
Memory is deeper than we are and has longer views.
When it pricked and set us on, it was the future it had in mind,
And the door our fingertips were seeking was not there
Because we were looking in the wrong place;
It was not that door we were meant to go through.
The door was in us.
Our actual body is the wall our fingertips come to.
We have only to dare one last little blaze of magic to pass through. |
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Black Deeds
Posted: 12 Apr 2006 01:15 AM |
The meeting shook him more than he cared to show. He had to resist the urge to descend into paranoia. When Jerec had received that note two days ago, he had little imagined that it would lead to a face-to-face chat with one of the most notorious crimelords in Vives.
He did not like how it had gone at all. For some incomprehensible reason, Jessup seemed intent on winning him over. Despite all his attempts to pass himself off as placid and insignificant, Jerec knew without a doubt that the Half-Orc would not forget him. Someone would be keeping tabs on him just as surely as Nico had just been assigned to keep an eye on the mad mage Frobozz.
As much as he had wanted to vanish from public awareness, it seemed that the most productive thing to do now was to ensure that he remained visible and active. Striving to maintain a low profile would only attract more attention, not less.
He was silent all the way back to their makeshift base of operations. His mind had already centred on a decision, and no matter how hard he tried, he found that he could not talk himself out of it.
Jerec waited until they were secure inside the war room, which suddenly seemed to him to be full of shadows that watched with unseen eyes and listened with hidden ears. He half-expected Lillian to start complaining about what a waste of time that meeting had been, and how needlessly reckless he was, but she seemed to have picked up on his mood and remained mercifully silent.
She pulled the ceremonial white mask off her face and it was clear from her expression that she knew exactly what he was going to say.
All too soon, it was time to go to war. A cold and intelligent and invisible war of cloak and dagger, rather than sword and shield.
And may the Unknown God have mercy on him for what he was about to do.
“Commence Operation: Nightshade,” he whispered. |
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Dissolution
Posted: 17 Apr 2006 11:36 PM |
The shadows crept inexorably over the forest floor, the day-time sounds of trilling birds and small animals rustling in the underbrush giving way to the far more sinister sounds of night. Or perhaps it was just the obscuring darkness that made it appear that way. An alien raptor screeched a hunting call in the gathering dusk. Unseen predators, large and yet preternaturally quiet, moved half-seen beneath the cover of the tall grass and dense foliage and black shadows.
It was just one more wild place amongst many where the former Midorans had made camp. Scattered to the four winds, their numbers desperately few and their movements nomadic by necessity, impermanent and small bivouacs such as this were typical of the exiled Midoran faction, which still had no name even though it had quickly developed a strong and solid identity.
Stern, austere and gritty, they’d adapted surprisingly quickly to their new situation, thanks in part to the backgrounds of their leaders: Jerec’s seven years of experience as a field medic, and Lillian’s five years on the harsh frontier lands as an enlisted soldier in the Midoran Army, proved invaluable in the current circumstance. But mostly it was the people’s own doing: they were Midorans, proud and obstinate and indomitable. They were also old and stoic and pragmatic: too old for caprice and fickleness, too stoic for angst and too pragmatic to be fed starry-eyed dreams.
In short, they had precisely the leaders they deserved.
Not that Jerec felt like a particularly good leader at the moment. He hadn’t expected to deal with Jessup again so soon, and the meeting with Willom—and subsequent talk with Jessup a few days ago—had left him feeling uneasy and more than a little revolted. It had gone badly. Jerec was sure of it. He’d been far too overt. All he could do now was pray that Willom and Iris had made it safely to whatever sanctuary Lillian had arranged, and hope they had the sense to lie low until he could figure out a way to gauge just how badly he’d failed and find a way to fix it.
Too, over the past week, a few latecomers had trickled in to inquire about his movement. He found himself looking into every face and wondering if they were a spy. A spy for Midor. A spy for the Black Hand. A spy for any number of wicked people who were intent on capitalising on their situation and making life harder for them for any number of malicious reasons. As if they hadn’t already been through enough. As if life wasn’t bad enough without outside scrutiny and interference, hatred and indifference, deceit and manipulation.
It was exhausting to go through the entire pitch over and over again, day after day, to answer pointed questions about Midoran and sneering questions about faith and his disappointing lack of it. He had half a mind to just dump all his responsibilities on Lillian and leave, but conscience and honour forbade it. Especially now that Nightshade was in the works.
His gaze drifted over to the campfire at that last thought, accompanied by the sinking feeling that always seemed to be associated with it. Clustered around the light, half a dozen hooded men and women conversed wordlessly in a language of gestures that he and Lillian had devised. The fire would be put out before twilight sank into full darkness: the light travelled too far even in these dense woods, and they could not afford to give away their position. Strict light and sound discipline had to be maintained in accordance with set field procedures. This was the life that was now theirs.
It was the life he’d led for nearly a decade, and it didn’t bother him in the least. But it was one thing to live this way out of choice, and another to have it brutally forced upon a group of people unjustly. Drastic measures such as the New Order and Nightshade were merely symptoms of what Midor had become over the centuries: Lillian, with her pedantic and unnaturally detailed knowledge of Midoran history, had pointed out that this was not two years’ worth of corruption.
It was six hundred years’ worth.
And it could not be undone.
As a priest, Jerec knew that with a certainty. A Midoran priest was not simply concerned with the physical and spiritual wellbeing of individuals. A Midoran priest had to be aware of the status of Midor as a whole. After all, a priest’s duties did not stop merely at healing: they extended to governance. Priests had to have their fingers on the pulse of the nation.
And Midor was as good as dead.
Afflicted by the terminal and incurable illness of a corrupt nation and a poisoned people, there was little to do except fight the corruption. It would not save the city that had once been a beacon of virtue and justice. There was no possibility of that. But it would forestall its inevitable death.
And maybe, just maybe, something better would be born from out of this tragic debacle.
He had no choice but to believe in that feeble hope. It was all he had left. |
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