by J. Gibson
Elves were rare in the Imperial City. They could not risk anyone recognizing her. Matrian decree had deemed her a terrorist leader, attached infamy to her already-known name. Per the wording from the proclamation of the Church’s Vicar, Breiman Umbra, Aitrix was a dangerous, heretical apostate. She seemed to take pleasure in that designation.
They discontinued communication as they progressed by the guards of the front passage. Athenne tried to appear nonchalant, as though she belonged. It did not require such effort. Only a person who knew they were up to suspect doings would worry about seeming suspicious.
Uldyr broke the silence some yards inside. “We’ve blundered,” he whispered. “Black Pass is west, before Outmore Loch. Bhathric and Eclih need to leave, if the man’s still there.”
Eclih rotated toward Bhathric and she nodded. They diverged from the party. Athenne redirected in kind. She must travel with them to retrieve the lunar tears she needed.
I have to keep my focus.
A palpable anxiety hung over their group.
Aitrix eyed them sideways, her expression unamused.
“Remember,” Bhathric explained to Athenne in a muted voice, “keep your distance while we take care of the priest. Once you have the beads, head for the Priory.”
Athenne repeated a notion to herself, to motivate and stave off the fear: I shall be brave. I must not dither. They will not infringe upon our natural prerogative, endowed by our god. We cannot be refused or denied. They have no authority. She thought it with such intensity that her lips mouthed the words. They have no right.
“I understand.” She sighed through her nose.
A drizzle fell. Houses succumbed to fields and forest and became scarcer. The thoroughfare phased from stone to a lesser mixture of rock and dirt. They came upon a sign, its letters faded by weather and the sun, which marked a road as Black Pass. Athenne grew more anxious the further they went. The place felt foreign and familiar, for she had been there, but not there, exactly. Their surroundings were different, but the few residences and the ground, flowing under the hooves of their horses like water beneath a boat, were the same. From the back of the line, she could not see Bhathric’s reaction, but assumed that she recalled it too.
Patches of grass and cloves bordered their sides, interspersed with lit lamps, shrubs, tall trees whose leaves had fallen and withered long ago, and abandoned handcarts, new and old.
To one shoulder of the path stood a great oak. She stared at it as they passed. It had probably been there for hundreds of ages, its roots dug deep into the soil like sinking fingers, its branches swaying with the wind. For a moment, Athenne imagined herself hanged from that tree, members of the city gazing upon her, drawn to the spectacle. Such a space would become a symbol for what could happen to those who deviated from accepted belief; heretics, infidels, apostates. She may soon become one of a few martyrs for the causes of religious and civil liberty, and a reminder of the strong arm of the Church.
Athenne recalled a calm winter’s day when she was six-yeared. That morning, she had stood at the cusp of a field behind her home, in her woolen mittens, breeches, coat, and hat, woven by her mother. To her child’s eyes, the field rolled out vast, boundless. A simple beauty and delicacy accompanied it. It was her first memory of spending a day in the snow. She had played until her nose and cheeks turned pink.
A joy and sadness attended that recollection; a love of the moment, of the glowing flood of white as the sunlight that shone through the clouds reflected off the icy landscape. She could have been anything and anyone, almost anywhere. Instead, she had chosen to fill her heart and mind with someone else’s justice, aims, and reckoning, until she had emptied of herself and been replaced with them.
Athenne’s world mother, if she lived this day, would not know her. She would be a stranger to the young woman who rode to observe the murder of a man she’d never met. Her mother would be unfamiliar to the daughter who had forsaken all her lessons and guidance for the needs of a fanatic and her pursuits. If their eyes had tangled, her mother would not know who looked back at her, as Athenne no longer knew.
She felt well outside of herself, a passenger in her skin. Is this happening? Would she awake at any moment, a child again, or in Orilon, or on the road with Uldyr before they had arrived at that cursed church, when she could have turned and run? Live your choices, her mother had always said. That was her common refrain, and one at which Athenne had sometimes rolled her eyes and snorted in her youth.
Next, she recalled one of their nights at camp and rest, as she had gazed through the fire watching Bhathric and Eclih sleep. A sea of stars had hung overheard with the bright line of the three rings. Leaves floated against this dark ocean, dried, gnarled, apt to fall. A cluster of airships had glided with the silence of creeping insects overhead, cloth sails billowing in the wind as aetherlight propelled their wooden hulls and decks. Their windows fluttered a hazy orange, signifying others within. This had made Athenne’s longing greater. She had pretended for a moment that she drifted up there, safe above the treetops, sipping sweet drinks and dining and laughing.
These musings embarrassed her. More of the same. More fear, doubt, weakness, self-pity. Disgusting. She never relucted regarding the Saints or their mission until her time to act arose. When others imperiled their lives, she had her concerns, but never so much as in her moments of risk. You are committed. You live and die with them. If they have lost their way, so have you.
Step by step, trot by trot, a distant figure faded into view, near a single home across from a wooded cluster of trees and bushes. They drew off to the shadowed edge of the road, into the brush, creeping, stalking, watching. It was the man from the vision, the priest. Healthier in the flesh, he stood motionless as he had when they saw him in the temple, mouth agape a sliver, eyes fixed on the house across the way, the home where he had attacked the woman.
She and Bhathric exchanged a look. Bhathric turned to Eclih, shaking her head to signify that they had discovered the proper individual. The truth of it swam heavy in the rainy air.
Has he come for her again?
Bhathric gestured for Athenne to move into the tree line, so they could take him down without him seeing them first. She did so, and pulled her horse with her.
Bhathric and Eclih did not hesitate. When they collapsed on him, the man did not pivot to look. His first reaction, a jolt and groan, as Eclih drove a knife into his back. Bhathric came swiftly at the other side of him and ran a blade into his neck. With an arm wrapped around the priest’s throat, they dragged him from the damp road into the trees. By the time they lay him at Athenne’s feet, he was dead.
She stared at his face, his almost grey hair and beard. Another monster who preyed on women. A gladness they had found him, that Vekshia had selected him to show, expanded inside her. Deprived of this target, they would have had to find someone else, without due consideration for justice.
“How will you dispose of him?” she asked Bhathric and Eclih.
Eclih removed the lunar tears from the priest’s arm and gave them to Athenne. “We’ll head deeper into the forest and burn him when the shower quits, scatter the ashes. Won’t take long.”
Athenne tucked the beads in the lining of her robes. “Won’t the smoke draw attention?”
“We’ve aetherlight for a clear burn.” Bhathric removed a glass container from the satchel on her horse, wrapped in animal hide. She withdrew a leather carrying bag and tossed it to Athenne. Inside were the black powder bombs enhanced with aetherlight that the Saints, Aitrix in chief, had made. Enough to destroy the ward, and more. “You’re to line these around the source ward. When you’re done, you’ll have roughly five minutes to escape the building before Aitrix detonates them. The explosion may cause a partial collapse.” Bhathric embraced her, and Athenne reciprocated with her free hand.
With the bombs tucked into Shah’s satchel, she proceeded back toward the Priory, the burst faltering to a mist. If anyone stopped and searched her, it would be the
end. She would have no means of explaining why she possessed these items.
Upon reentering the city walls, to the exclusion of the paladins near the front entrance and the occasional citizen and patrolling officer, the neighborhoods were empty. In the distance, she heard a commotion.
Though she needed to shy away from interaction, Athenne felt compelled to ask a man walking by about the disturbance. “Excuse me, Mysr,” she said.
He stopped and faced her halfway. “Hm?”
“I am not common to the city, could you tell me what’s over there?” She pointed toward the noise. It sounded as though someone gave a speech.
He squinted in the direction she had indicated. “Mhm.” He rubbed his shaggy beard, a mix of brown, grey, blonde, and red. “The Vicar hanged two Mythos reapers this morning. Couple of women. Hundreds showed at first. Now half the city’s there.”
“What was their crime?”
The man’s scarred brow furrowed. “They was Mythos reapers.”
“Ah, of course.” She needed to discontinue this conversation. “Thank you kindly.”
“Mhm,” he replied as he turned and strolled away.
This settled one concern for her. The Church would permit no dissent or deviation. If they caught her, if they captured any of the Saints, they would execute them. The Church considered the Saints a radical faction in a similar vein to Mythos. If two women hanged for no more than their affiliation, as the man had implied, what would happen to a group of declared terrorists plotting to obliterate the source ward and a segment of one of the most sacred buildings in the world? Fortune would shine if the inquisitors did not flay, tear, and whip them in the streets.
Distress rising like a boiling spring, she continued forth. If she retreated or delayed, she might risk the apprehension of all of them without meeting their primary objective. Total failure and death would be the worst outcome. She did not wish to perish for nothing. Enough, you coward.
The compass Aitrix had bestowed as her guide, a grand edifice at last blurred into perspective; a towering structure of white stone with soaring arches and flying buttresses, as described. She breathed deep and exhaled.
This is my time.
CHAPTER XVIII: BEYOND
Amun
“Did you see his assailants?” asked Mallum.
The Ennead had convened for Amun, excluding Archbishops Umbra, Sangrey, and Delacroix, who were at the square. Braziers burned in the chamber, for the light of the day waned. A morass of emotions swirled.
Amun squeezed the cuffs of her sleeves anxiously. “Two hooded riders. Brown and grey cloaks. I did not witness their faces, Your Reverency.”
“Retaliation from the fools of Mythos, perhaps.” Archbishop Morena Hart weaved a strand of dyed magenta hair between her fingers. “He ought not’ve been so far from the Priory on a day such as this.” Her sky-blue eyes affixed on Amun. “Neither should’ve you.” She spoke as though rebuking the sea for wetting her.
Amun set her gaze to the floor.
“It matters not. ‘Tis done.” Archbishop Crane’s tone sounded flat rather than scolding. “The task at hand is to decide how we wish to address the incident.”
“We must send word,” Mallum said. “The reapers move upon us. Inform Grand Provost Aenor of these incidents, have her triple the inquisitors’ presence in the city. We need them patrolling the streets, and we require a squad sent to Black Pass to survey the area.” She addressed Amun directly. “Sister.”
“Your Reverency?”
“Remain within the Priory, until the city is safe. We’re soon to recall the rest of the first-degrees.”
“As you will, Your Reverency. May I go?”
“You may,” said Mallum. “Rest.”
With a bow, Amun exited. The hall beyond the chamber stretched long and solemn, lit by lanterns, glimmering against black marble. Pillars from the floor to the ceiling bordered the passage, the stone between engraved. She walked to the end of the hall and turned, continuing to a point where no one would see her around yet another corner. With her back against the wall, she slid to the floor.
Her eyes held shut, she strove to rationalize what had transpired. She exhaled with deliberate force and drew in again. Sighing relieved the pressure in her chest, weighing on her heart. The truth lingered beyond her. How many minutes had passed, she did not know, though her back and rear ached. She did not care.
“This is all so—ridiculous,” she whispered to no one.
Too begrieved to rest, the sordid fate of Garron had affected her. Her red eyes blinked through tears. She sniffled and wiped them away. Visions of that ghastly scene filled her head. He did not deserve to die that way, alone. She despised this place, these tragedies, this war, if it were such. Whatever it was, she detested it. She wanted it to end. No more blood, no more death, no more tears, sorrow, and pain.
Had Garron found peace? He deserved rest after what he had endured from the Vale of Erlan to the Priory, including the creature that had tormented him, the one he had called the Beast.
Soon, the Ennead would dispatch more soldiers, for the last had not returned. Their attention divided between the underlands and opportunistic murder within the city. Mythos or not, even the reapers, as deluded as they were, would suffer if the Undeath took hold of the territory north of the Black Canal.
They must know that.
If the Empire fell and the spreading death continued, or even if it stopped at Aros, there would be chaos throughout Imios. The continent would fall into a state of war again, until one nation claimed the region and vanquished whatever resided there. Or perhaps the Undeath would swallow them all.
“Aye, ‘tis a nuisance,” Amun heard someone say from around the corner. She froze. I ought to move, make myself known. But she did not. She listened.
“What of Forgebrand?” The second voice sounded like it belonged to Archbishop Crane.
The first voice spoke again, louder. “They’ve yet to thwart them.” Archbishop Hart.
“Perhaps they are more resourceful than we anticipated, these Saints.” The derision with which the second voice spoke the last word seemed uncharacteristic of Archbishop Crane, but Amun’s thoughts went elsewhere.
Forgebrand?
“The Vicar is unhappy with their performance.”
Turning down another hall before her own, the two continued. Their words trailed off. She could no longer hear them. Minutes later, Archbishop Delacroix rounded the bend in the opposite direction.
Amun stood. “Archbishop.”
Archbishop Delacroix stopped promptly and looked back. “Sister Halleck.”
“May I have a word?”
The Archbishop eyed her with a curious expression. “I have little time, but I suppose so.” She pivoted and carried on down the hall. “This way.”
Delacroix had gone into her private chamber, and Amun had followed, peering into the shadowy room, illuminated by less than half a dozen candles.
“You may enter.”
Amun stepped inside, closed the door, and leaned back against the smooth slab of wood. She recognized that she must be direct. Who can I trust? Garron had been her closest confidant. Before him, she had kept but a small assortment of friendly acquaintances. None so dear. She swallowed. “I overheard Archbishops Crane and Hart in the hall.” Her fingers laced, bending at the knuckles.
The corner of the Archbishop’s mouth curled up. “What did Archbishops Crane and Hart have to say?”
“They said—” She bit her tongue. No, I must. “They seemed to imply that the Church, the Vicar in specific, hired the Forgebrand Company to deal with people calling themselves the Saints.” It took all she could muster to maintain eye contact. Archbishop Delacroix’s expression did not change. “I find it difficult to fathom that the Church would rely on the aid of daggerhands.”
Delacroix raised a silver goblet from the table at her side, embellished with floral patterns, carved with a thin-tipped tool by a skilled hand. She brought the cup to her painted re
d lips, sipped from its contents, and returned it to its place. Moving from her seat, she made her way toward the window across the room.
Amun longed to melt through the door and flee.
“Aye,” she answered, after what had seemed like an hour of unbearable pressure. Every syllable that followed carried a tangible certainty. “We have relied upon them for ages.”
“Archbishop, how could we?” Amun’s face grew hot. “How can we call ourselves righteous and true to the Word of the All-Mother if we consort with these kinds? They are killers.”
“Hiring mercenaries to carry out activities deemed unseemly for the paladins, or a waste of their time, is a noble alternative. I have entertained your inquiries, but I must remind you: this is not your place.”
“With respect, Archbishop, we’ve hanged two women in the square for the simple act of affiliating themselves with Mythos.” Amun would not back down, panic rattling in her stomach. “If that is not an unseemly deed—”
“Sister Halleck,” Delacroix interrupted, “affiliation with Mythos is a direct rejection of Gohheia. All that She is, all that She represents. Us. The Saints that you referred to are the Saints of Aetheria, led by the great niece of the Archmage Besogos, Aitrix Kravae. They are a different matter.”
The Saints of Aetheria. Amun had not made the connection through the shorthand. The Vicar had declared them a terrorist faction not long ago. “We’ve hired Forgebrand to kill them?”
The Archbishop’s eyes lowered. “The Saints of Aetheria are responsible for the death of Father Latimer. They have plotted in opposition to us for some time. We captured two of their agents on their way back from the Black Pass, returning from murdering Garron. The slaying which you witnessed.”
A sensation swept through her. Grief, shock, sorrow. Amun’s bottom lip shivered and her ears rumbled with the tension in her jaw. “You mean—” Her words dropped off.
