by V. C. Willis
“Tell me, Bishop.” Red Wine’s voice seethed with rage. “Why have you never spoken a word of this?”
“She said not a word until she found a way.” He motioned to me. “He is back among the living. I am freed from protecting this place.” Turning to John, he marveled, “To imagine my pupil would be here and bring me the answer to my prayers. You are worthy of being a Saint, Father John.”
John looked away, shoulders tensing. “I wouldn’t declare that so easily, Bishop Montgomery.”
“So, Frank knew,” hissed Red Wine. “They knew and swore secrecy, but why?” Letting me go, she gripped Bishop Montgomery’s arm. “Come with me, monk. We have much to discuss.”
“John, the books!” The monk called out, “Give Prince Ashton the books.”
John rose to his feet. “You mean the ones I took three days of lashes for finding?”
I thought those scars were from sword practice. Have we both kept secrets?
“Forgive me, Father, please. Both of you, forgive this tortured old man…”
Red Wine shoved him through the door.
John and I looked to one another, inhaling and holding it until we released our breath together. I followed him as we traveled through storerooms, a small kitchen and fire, rooms void of personal effects and occupants until at last we climbed another stairwell. This one put us in a cathedral-sized room with no outside lights or windows to be found. Large chandeliers hung throughout, reflecting the light of the blazing braziers of oil under them. It was warm and stifling, unlike the chill in the catacombs and sewers. All around us were shelves of books lined floor to ceiling, ladders scattered about, and bookshelves protruding out like fingers. Tables with ink and parchment lined the center, only disrupted by the occasional glass case or brazier, and went on farther than I could even make out.
“Takes one’s breath away, doesn’t it?” John grabbed me by the wrist and tugged me along as I gawked at the ornamental work of bones, wood, and books of old. “I thought you’d love to see this place. It puts your library to shame, but I didn’t want to tell you that.”
“John, what was it that you found to get lashes for?” The place held so many artifacts of faith, some behind glass, some books with chains and locks, while others lay abandoned on tables where someone had left them after study.
“You will see.” He didn’t look back at me once, pacing through the pillars of tomes at a steady rate. “I told you. It was here that I knew I could find answers, but I needed your help to get to them.”
What the hell happened to you, Ashton? How are we all so connected to the last place you were ever seen alive?
Chapter 28
Saint Raphael de’Traibon-Thompson
By the time John brought us to a stop, we had left the books behind us. A door hidden behind a swinging bookshelf led us to a spiraling stairwell. There we stood in a tiny square room with a white marble sarcophagus as if we had left the dust of books and catacombs behind and entered a mausoleum worthy of a king. Stunning lions and statuesque champions fighting one another lined the outer edge of the center piece. The room was lit with candles all around, and something tinged the air here, making the hairs on my arms stand on end. Blood and … is this what magic smells like? Sulfur and metallic to the point of tasting it on inhale?
John walked up to the sarcophagus and glared down at the name chiseled into its lid. Black stains filled the imperfect cracks and crannies of the lid. Ashton’s blood. I inhaled deeply, and chills rolled over me. It damn near smells like my own and a lot like Red Wine’s. The smell of a Traibon born daemon, but this name etched into it.
“Saint Raphael de’Traibon-Thompson.” The words came out of my mouth strange. “I’ve never heard of this saint.” A shiver shook my shoulders, and my mouth ran dry.
“Neither had I until I volunteered in the catacombs.” He motioned to the candles. “There’s magic here. No one comes to light these. They stay lit, and the wax never drips. Bishop Montgomery made the mistake in not noticing I was on the ground reaching for a fallen book when I saw him sneak into here. And naturally, I had to see this place for myself.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this place?” Part of me was angry. Always keeping me in the dark, and so many secrets, I can’t fathom what else he keeps from me.
“It was one of those things I’d have to show you to believe.” He ran a hand over the name. “Don’t you find it strange it’s both our last names on this coffin? How could I even make something such as this believable in a world void of magic?”
“We’re going to have to either corner my father about this or go to the one person who knew Ashton the best.” I squatted, marveling over the scene of champions fighting in marble.
“Didn’t Red Wine know him?” John traced each letter of Thompson with his finger.
“Not exactly.” Squinting, I realized all the figures had fangs and only one didn’t have a braid yet carried a claymore. Ashton. “Frank the Immortal. They know. They must know. Maybe like the monk, seeing me might jolt their memory.”
“But that’s clear on the other side of Grandmere,” snorted John. “Winter’s Perch. I read that the snow and ice never cease there nor in the Preveran Mountains.”
“What choice do we have?” I stood again, daring to come closer. “So, these books … where are they?”
“Ah.” He flicked his eyebrows and rammed a shoulder into the lid, scooting it a few inches. “In here,” he grunted.
I patted his shoulder, signaling for him to move. Bracing myself, I shoved, and the lid slid. The scraping of it filled the air until it revealed blue silken cloth lining the inside with splotches of black stains and the stale scent of blood wafting up. And I thought I bled out on the battlefield, but this is … so much. Inside, books lay scattered and piled. Scanning from one end to the next, I realized there were no signs of an actual body ever being laid to rest inside the sarcophagus. Reaching in, I began glancing at the titles or opening blank covers to discover journals regarding dark rituals, daemons, the Old Continent, and…
“I know this handwriting,” I muttered, wide eyed as I flipped to the beginning of the book. “This is … this is my father’s writing, but centuries old.”
John leaned over, peeking. “But why is his diary in a dead Saint’s coffin?”
“I don’t know.” Shaking my head, I began gathering the books up. “We’ll start with these and see what we find.”
“Agreed. We’ll keep them in here.” He emptied my arms, reprimanding me, “But let’s keep the lid on it for now.”
Looking back to the sarcophagus, I reached over and pulled the lid back in place. The muscles in my arms stung to pull on the weight of it, but it was best for it to remain safe. By the time we settled on a table in a far corner, we could hear Red Wine and Bishop Montgomery whispering to one another. They came around the last bookshelf, finding John hunched over a book next to a few stacks while I had leaned against a shelf, idling flipping pages as I scanned them with morbid fascination.
“Did you find everything you were looking for, Prince Ashton?” Bishop Montgomery smiled, a great weight had lifted from him both emotionally and physically.
“I suppose I have.” I flipped through my father’s journal, passing entries filled with chores of farming and discussions with Lord Traibon over the disputes among other nobility. This is around the time they made champions mandatory for winning land and more. “There’s much here I didn’t realize came from my father.” I flipped the book around, and Red Wine marched over to retrieve it. “How much do I not know, Red Wine?”
“I swear, King Traibon is a foolish man. He’s got tighter lips than any assassin I’ve ever known, spies included.” She flipped through the journal until she found something that piqued her interest. “Ha. Here, this is where the discussion of you having to join in the Champion Wars.”
Arching a brow, I mused, “I
wasn’t looking for an action-adventure story.” Glancing at it, I saw the retelling seemed to be my father’s self-reflections of assuming the role for the sake of both families. The nobles being Traibon, the daemons being Thompson? “Ah, John.” I broke him from his own book and flashed the page. “Here, it seems Traibon was the nobility line Raphael came from and here,” I slid my finger to the adjacent page, “Thompson was my father’s actual last name. At some point we swapped, so that means…” Pulling the claymore out of its sheath, I twisted it to face Red Wine and the Bishop. “This family seal, the one Lord Knight Paul Thompson has on all his armor and weapons, it’s the same as the Traibon-Thompson seal from long ago, isn’t it? The same one in the tomb.”
“Not quite, but eerily similar to the one my father had on his weapons, yes,” Red Wine confessed, plucking up another book and glancing over the pages. “There’s so much of our forgotten history here. Why hide such vital resources here of all places?”
“And books on dark magic too.” John flipped around the book he had been engrossed in reading and flashed it to everyone. “Look at the diagrams. All of these seem to call for blood and tying souls to other people and even objects. This one seems like the notes of an acolyte trying to figure out how to recreate something he noted at the start.” John flipped through the pages until he found a sketch of a peculiar sword. “This weapon houses many souls. Only one of its kind.”
Crossing her arms, Red Wine tapped her fingers a moment, staring at it. “I’ve seen this sword. I know it well, in fact.”
“You have?” Bishop Montgomery seemed amazed of all the otherworldly items seeming to manifest themselves. “But isn’t that written in the Old Tongue?”
“It is.” Red Wine glared at John, her words articulating each syllable of the strange language. “Skaz mir, kwie vast vy chilis fu elate au Spatrom Lazyke?”
“I read … a lot.” John closed the book and leaned back in his chair, sucking on his cheek. “It’s interesting to hear it spoken, the Old Tongue, but when you have three years of being confined to a bone-covered library, you find a way to read the impossible.” He pointed to a few shelves, snorting. “You can find many books in here that make an attempt at teaching it. I didn’t bother to learn to speak it, but I can write, read, and translate loosely.”
Sighing, Red Wine relaxed. “I didn’t realize the Church invested in such works.”
“Oh, they once had a thirst for that. At another moment, we were hunting certain tomes down, and they are found chained here.” The Bishop stroked his beard, huffing out a breath. “Come, let me cook you all a meal. You may bring the books to your quarters.”
“What? Really?” John seemed excited about the news.
Bishop Montgomery turned, chuckling, “I suppose you are no longer my pupil. You were always a clever one, Father John, but perhaps more so than I had initially realized.”
We watched as the old monk left us behind, and I turned my attention to Red Wine. “Did you get your answers?”
“Some.” She pulled up a chair and took off her mask, rubbing her eyes in frustration. “He hasn’t gotten word out because the Church is on lockdown under Bishop Marquis’ order by decree of King Regius.”
“Shit.” John glanced over to me, explaining, “It means no one can come in and out of the cathedral without written permission from the bishop in charge of the lockdown. In short, Marquis. Granted, no one travels down this way without explicit orders to study or locate old information, but in the three or so years I spent here…” he searched his thoughts and announced, “maybe half a dozen, if that. Most of the foot traffic was to supply the kitchen or deliver messages to Montgomery.”
“We’re going to have to see how much Princess Sonja, the Royal Guard, and a few Guild members can do to open communications again in the city and undo this mess.” Red Wine looked up, her eyes bouncing over the books and library. “I hate books.”
“Leave the books to us.” I smirked, beginning to flip through the journal some more. “John and I will research what we can from what was hidden. Until then, how are you feeling? Weren’t you searching for what had happened to Ashton once he chased Fallen Arbor to the Church?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore.” She inhaled deeply and huffed the air out in frustration. “Frank knew, but threw a tantrum when I asked. I would think I had the right to know or at least, let me help. The problem is, I don’t think Frank is finding any answers in Winter’s Perch so…” Pausing, her lips twisted. “I think he died here.”
“I think so too,” I whispered, meeting her eyes. “His blood is thick on that sarcophagus. It matches the monk’s story. What I’m curious about is what happened with the weapon they made from his essence. Do you think Frank has it?”
“No. Frank’s not that kind of fighter.” She stood, putting a hand on her hip. “In fact, now I regret not doing some grave robbing. Perhaps there was something special behind those old bones, but then again, half a dozen nobles were buried with weapons down there in that maze.”
“She’s right. There’s a ton down there, the easiest in the alcoves. Though, hiding a weapon among many would be smart if they needed to keep it safe until a solution was found. If one even existed.” John closed a book and stood, grabbing up the stack. “Let’s eat and rest, shall we?”
We followed John slowly and steadily back through the length of the library. Red Wine stared at her mask, her feisty demeanor lost in the wake of discovering Ashton was no more. John didn’t even glance back, but my eyes burned into him. Secrets. He had come here to help me, but instead became so educated that he surpassed me in knowledge stretching outside of Grandmere to the point he could reply to a language I hadn’t known existed. I wonder…
“John.” He stopped and turned.
“Yes?” Arching a brow, he looked tired.
“12-knots,” I replied.
He squinted, thinking hard for a moment before answering, “A Count.”
Smiling, I corrected, “Lord Knight.”
“Dammit.” His face turned red, and he started marching away, faster than he had before.
“How could someone mess that up?” marveled Red Wine.
“I spent a year trying to help him learn the knots, and he still can’t remember his grandfather was a Lord Knight.” Some relief washed over me. “But yet, here all alone for all those years, he absorbed all he could in hopes of saving me from Falco and Grandmere from the Madness.”
“Huh.” She blinked. “What a peculiar duo you two make.”
I suppose he’s still the same John that left me behind all those years ago. Perhaps I shouldn’t fret about the things he does and doesn’t know and instead enjoy the idea he will always find some way to surprise me when I least expect it.
Chapter 29
Losing Patience
Red Wine had left by the time I woke from my rest. John dove the hardest into books written in the Old Tongue, often reading excerpts out loud to share with me on occasion. Overall, the collection had been a strange mixture of journals from my very own family, a few from the Saint himself, and the strange assortment of Dark Magic research bearing no name and always written in the foreign language. On occasion, we would get hints of how they would achieve making a soul weapon. These excerpts often involved lots of blood spilling, and there seemed to be conflicting information. One journal seemed to suggest that it was possible to attach a soul to a created weapon while another insisted that the body itself evolved into the weapon. Some of the notes even seemed frustrated at the idea that the individual must choose to be one and could not be forced into it or it created a weaker cursed variant. A few times, we found rambling side notes insisting it would be easier to acquire a blade from the Ogre clan but … only sketches and case studies from afar would follow shortly after.
As for the journals, it was strange to read first-hand what my own father’s life was like before his title
of king. Teamed with Saint Raphael’s own, it captured the political pressure that would eventually buckle and create the Grandmere we all knew best. Civil unrest had stewed far longer and in a deeper way than I’d realized in my own studies of our history growing up. The lords used champions to resolve disputes until they turned against the daemon. We had been equals who protected their households from harm’s way. As the friction grew among the original founding Houses of Grandmere, daemons were being enslaved.
Lord Raphael was the last to be forced into this method of resolving disputes of all kinds, including land claims, in order to hold their ground. The strange idea was his silence in addressing what my father did record: Ashton becoming the household champion instead of him. I flipped open both books, watching as the Lord took months before coming back to write: I may have protected what is ours, but at what cost? If I had known what these sins would have cost, I would have forced another path or perhaps claimed the throne to govern the fools who put this travesty into motion. But again, I would have lost what I cherished most down that path too.
