by Colin Taber
By all the gods, Schoperde, help me!
Pedro stood by the side of the bed trying to help, but with no idea of what to do.
All the while, I kept fighting the urge to slip back into the celestial, driven by my hunger.
It whispered; if I fed, the sickness would finally be cured!
Moment by moment, like a tug-of-war, I crossed a threshold, one that’d soon see me lose myself to a crazed feeding: An orgy of death.
I’d denied the hunger for too long, and now it came to overwhelm me. It was the ultimate moment of horror, as I realised I was going to lose the battle, and so very soon.
I’d run out of tricks and distractions.
I needed to feed!
The first soul I sensed about me was Pedro’s, though I could also feel others close by; my innocent babe’s, Baruna’s, Kurt’s, Maria’s and our parents’. With my will so close to failing, I slurred, “Leave me, just get away while you can!”
“Juvela?”
“Go!”
“What ails you?”
“Just leave before it’s too late!”
“Too late?”
I screamed, “Leave!”
He finally relented, his firm steps carrying away his hurt.
I lay there, aching in the dark. I could feel so many souls about me.
I could take any or all of them, in one terrible moment.
Perhaps it would be a kindness; to give them Oblivion.
More than any, I could taste the innocent soul of my unborn son.
How could that be a kindness, denying him his chance at life?
The pain came stronger now. It saw me twist and moan.
This was too much!
I had to do something to sate it, yet somehow still not give in.
How could I? Was there a way to live with it, yet not be enslaved?
A deep voice hissed from the dark, chilling the air, “You are filth, how could you have given in to such a thing?”
I slurred my words as I replied, tossing and turning in cramping pain. I tried to concentrate on that voice, to use it as a way to forget the temptation of my own son’s soul. “I did what I had to do to save my people, but I remain true!”
“You are a parasite feeding off the living.”
“I’ve only ever taken the slaves of Death and those seeking to do harm to the cause of Life!”
“You are doomed!”
And then a chill swamped me, numbing me to everything – including my hunger.
Chapter 8
-
A Time of Judgement
-
Sef came to in the dark, again with Anton tending his wounds. He moaned at the pain that plagued him, something that stirred his friend to words. “Be careful, you’ve grave injuries.”
Sef hissed, “Yes, I can feel them.”
Anton’s voice broke, “By all rights, you should be dead – but I’m glad you’re not. I think I’ve spent a whole day holding your worst wound closed while praying for Juvela to seal it.”
“You prayed to Juvela?”
“Yes, and she answered, for you’re again whole.”
“Saved again by Juvela’s grace. I think they’re testing the strength of her healing blessings, they wonder at her strength.”
“Yes. They’re getting harder on us, so much so that I’m no longer sure that they need us alive.”
It was an important observation. If they no longer had any worth, then death would come quickly; their masters would plan for it.
Sef cleared his throat. “I think I’ve had my divine trial. There was nothing to it but farce. I don’t think I’ll be revisiting it. In that respect, I suppose they’ve finished with me.”
Anton answered after a thoughtful pause, “And me, they’ve already asked for what information they wanted about the Black Fleet, they did it much earlier. My last beating was just to torment me.”
“Then it means we’re running out of time.”
“Or, already have.”
-
Sef awoke to the dark and sounds of Anton mumbling in his sleep, then came the sharp clunk of the lock working, and the groan of the door opening as amber light spilled in.
Anton woke beside him.
The stomp of boots sounded, ringing out on stone. Whoever came, came in a group, and with bright glowing lamps.
Sef and Anton rose unsteadily to their feet.
In the next moment, Seig appeared with others, them holding their lamps high. The light was bright, seeing both Anton and Sef shield their eyes with their hands.
Seig feigned surprise. “What’s this, both alive!”
Nothing but silence came from the other men.
Seig shook his head. “We’ll see about that: Bring them!”
They’d been left for so many days in the dark that their eyes couldn’t deal comfortably with the light. Both of them shied away from it. As they cowered, their cell was opened and they were dragged out.
Sef could see Anton in fits and starts, but it hurt too much to try and look. It was only when he stumbled in his blindness, causing his hands to leave the task of covering his eyes as he sought balance or something to grab, that he glimpsed his friend. Anton was just ahead, also blindly stumbling.
They were pushed up steps, sometimes pulled, always prodded, hit and kicked. Their road was hard, one of pain and blows. With each stumble they heard laughter, but it was only each other that they listened out for.
They were brothers in this, in this taking of them together into interrogation, torture or perhaps to their deaths. They walked the road as cellmates and friends, as brothers in suffering, even if it was to end in their executions.
Anton gave a sudden cry.
Sef uncovered his eyes, trying to focus, but the light about him made it hard for him to see: It was too bright. All he knew for certain was that they were back on the roof under the midday sun. “Anton!”
A moan answered, one overpowered by a sharp gasp.
“Anton, speak to me!”
Laughter sounded.
After a pause, a hissed answer came, “Sef, I’m here!”
Another voice laughed. “What a strange brotherhood, an inquisitor and the failed guardian of Schoperde’s bitch!”
Anton gasped. “Our Lady of Hope!”
Silence then found them, only broken by Anton and Sef as they were shoved to stand together on the gravel of the roof.
Seig finally spoke, “What did you say?”
Anton took another gasping breath before answering, “Juvela Liberigo is no bitch, wench or whore. She’s our only hope,” and then he added, “for all of us!”
Another moment of silence came, one that saw Sef come to terms with Anton as the former inquisitor honoured his confessed truth. But the quiet died as quickly as it had come, and it was Seig’s voice that ended it, “Inquisitor, are you a heretic now?”
“I acknowledge her.”
“You what?”
“I acknowledge her as the only way for all of us to live. She’s our future, and if we don’t embrace her, then it’ll be Oblivion for all of us.”
Seig answered, “Such nonsense, try converting this!”
Sef could barely see through watering eyes, but heard Seig growl as he pulled his fist back and then swung with a grunt of satisfaction as his knuckles found Anton’s jaw.
Anton’s head snapped back, yet somehow he remained on his feet. Slowly, the former inquisitor then began to slump forward, something Seig waited for before pulling him over and kicking him hard in the chest. Something cracked.
The sundering of bones, of ribs...
Anton moaned on his knees, gasping as he struggled to breathe. Something was broken inside of him, something more than bones.
So this would be it, of blood bubbling to fill punctured lungs...
Sef warned, “Anton, don’t goad them!” The big Flet was then shoved from behind, falling forward to land on his knees. He didn’t care; it was his friend he feared for. He whispered, “Anton?�
�
“Sef, I’m sorry...”
He turned back to face him. “Stay with me.”
Anton’s voice gurgled from where he knelt, his face pale and marked by bloodied lips, “My friend...”
A new silence fell, only to be broken by the gruff voice of Seig. “This is all so touching. Bring them back over here!”
They were grabbed, dragged, and then dumped together.
Men circled them, their steps solid as they scuffed the gravel of the roof. Occasionally, one of them would come in and land a well-aimed kick with heavy boots. At times the kicks gave way to barrages of blows landed by eager fists.
Between the blows, Anton called out, “Behold!”
While the air grew chill...
“The moon! Sef, see it?”
...and time itself began to slow.
“Sef, look at it, the moon above!”
But it was midday...
...yet, as Sef looked up, he beheld the night sky and a moon full and huge.
Sef rolled over to lay on his back, his body aching, with the taste of blood in his mouth. Up above, there it was; the orb as it always had been, fat and blue, all of it marked by faint shapes of brown and green, and over it a covering lacework of white swirls.
Our moon, our sister, our partner in the dance of the skies deep.
Anton continued, “Do you see it? It’s losing life!”
At first Sef didn’t, but then his eyes came to share the vision.
A vision of Death’s blooming...
That orb above, the moon so calm in its blues, greens and whites, hung there in peace, and all the while it bathed them in its silver-blue light. It shared its radiance across all on the roof, for it held no grudges, this ageless thing of beauty.
Yet, their foes seemed frozen in time and blind to it.
Sef’s eyes were drawn to its full face, where a land of green and tan spread by a wide blue bay. In but a moment, pinpricks of light flared, fiery gold and burning orange, but then faded to a deep hellish red. They ran in a ring, one that was but a dimple on the face of the moon. As the initial fury died, dark plumes flooded from them like an infection spreading from a corrupt wound.
Sef and Anton watched those dark stains rush across the face of the moon to cover the land and sea. The filth just kept leaking from those wounds, dark grey and highlighted by reds and blacks. Soon, that blue and white orb, always such a beautiful mystery, had succumbed to macabre shadow.
Sef gasped. “A world gone, a whole world! What madness is this?”
Anton answered, “It’s but a taste of what’s to come!”
Fire and smoke, ruin and death!
Tears came to Sef’s eyes, while Anton cried out, “It’s the end of everything, for so little remains to stand strong!”
And they both knew that on that other world a great city had fallen, one of incredible power at the heart of a vast empire on the verge of being renewed. There, in their shared vision, love had died, turning to dust, and hope had crumbled, turning in its last moment into something vile and crude.
Anton’s voice rose, no longer an inquisitor, but a seer, “Bear witness! That’s also our world’s coming doom! Death prevails, but even his divine children will fall, for they’re not wholly his. He’ll let them lie with his spurned wife to die and rot. He’ll turn on them!
“Amidst that smoke and fire, as the skies darken and cool, he’ll birth a new brood. He’ll raise his own empire, populated by lifeless spawn that will tear the world’s carcass apart, and with them he’ll build a dominion of carrion!”
Sef could see it; grey seas haunted by ice, grinding along shores of stone where nothing would grow. Trees stood there, dead under soot-stained skies, with their boughs reaching up like skeletal arms, rising from a wasted soil of dust and debris, as the wind wailed on. He cried out, “Juvela, save us!”
Anton added his voice, “Lady of Hope, rouse Life anew!”
And then the night sky faded back into winter’s midday, as the normal flow of time returned. With the change, their moment of respite ended, seeing them both suffer under a renewed storm of blows from fist and boot.
Anton moaned, the sound wet and horrid, while Sef’s own groans grew hoarse.
Sef rolled into a ball, trying to protect his head, heart and guts. He found himself looking across the gravel to Anton, at a similar scene to the rage and hate he endured.
Anton was being savaged, the blows from fists outnumbered by the swift and heavy kiss of boots.
A guard attacking Anton from the far side gave him a solid series of kicks, so tough that Anton, who’d also curled into a ball, was flipped over to face Sef.
They looked into each others’ eyes, all through a haze of pain. More blows came, them so hard that moment-by-moment the two of them were knocked closer together.
They remained conscious and alive, despite the onslaught.
But only just...
And they both wondered; how much more could they take?
Anton was now so close to Sef that he could reach out for him, so he did. Sef did likewise. And there they were, both approaching their limits, with bloodied hands outstretched, fingers reaching for each other, and then to brush and finally grip.
A burden shared.
The blows ceased.
Silence came, but it took Sef a while to realise.
That brief peace was then broken as Seig declared, “I can’t believe what I see and hear! I can’t believe the bond forged between you two!”
Sef and Anton could only gasp and bleed together in answer.
“You’re like blood brothers, brought together through the fire of combat, having fought side by side – yet it isn’t the case. Not only are you close, but you’ve been totally taken by Schoperde’s whore, despite the fact that Life is dead and all your hopes are wasted!
“I wonder; what do you dream will become of you, other than dust and bone? You’re in denial, and utterly drunk on this nonsense you hold so dear. It’s nothing but a false hope!”
Anton whispered, blood bubbling through broken lips, “She’s a god, and more true and deserving than any I’ve served or seen.”
“It’s truth undeniable,” Sef added with a wheeze.
Seig looked down at them, surprised afresh. “What’s wrong with you two, can’t you see that the war is over? You’ve not got a hope!”
Sef said, “There’s no hope for any of us without Schoperde.”
Seig barked, “She’s dead, even Juvela knows it!”
“So be it,” Sef answered, coming to terms with this most terrible truth. “Then Juvela will do what she’s already done for mortals, she’ll find a way to bring her back. She’ll resurrect her!”
“Resurrect a god, one of the two original forces of all the worlds ever to be? It can’t be done, you speak of the impossible!”
“Nothing is impossible!” Anton hissed.
“This is profane! It’d take all of Juvela’s power, potential, and her very being. Such a thing would kill her!”
Though Sef wished to keep quiet, he spoke what came into his mind, “Then she’ll die, and if she doesn’t the rest of us will!” And how bitter those words tasted for they reeked of truth.
Seig glared down at the two bloodied men, both lying broken upon the gravel of the roof. There they were, brothers in pain, suffering and defiance – and still refusing to yield.
“Sef, know that Juvela’s wood of rosetrees has been lopped, the ground salted, with its timber to be used in torture and the building of pyres.
“Anton, know that the Inquisition has been recalled from Lucera and sent to take Ossard with a full third of its holy knights. Reports say that the Sankto Glavos have been given St Baimio’s Des Furio. The legendary sword, long thought lost, has been returned to them by the mages of the Cabal, for the cabalists have chosen to betray us.
“Despite the bulk of their force making its way north up the long vale of the Sidian, because they dare not risk the open sea, they’ll still fail. We alr
eady know of their numbers and plan, and have laid a trap to waste them. That, in itself, frees us up to prepare for the next stage of our grand ritual.”
“What’s that?” Sef asked, as blood dribbled from his lips.
“A ritual to seal all of those before it. It’ll guarantee our future, one that’ll see us made lords over all of this mortal realm.”
Anton hissed, “The Gate?”
“Not yet, but soon enough.”
“You’ll still fail; the forces of Lae Wair-Rae will come if the Inquisition doesn’t defeat you.”
Seig stepped up and kicked him in the head, grunting with satisfaction. He then spat at the Inquisitor. “We’ll destroy what comes against us, starting with your robed brethren. We’ll waste their ranks!”
Anton couldn’t answer, only gasp for air as fresh blood ran from his nose and lips.
Seig thundered on, “They’ll be as cold ash compared to the heat of our fury and not have the strength to stand!”
Sef said, “The Inquisition’s nothing compared to the might of Lae Wair-Rae. How’ll you stand against them, the nation that plans dominion over all the world? They’ll drop a blow so stunning that you’ll never see it coming.”
Seig looked down at Sef, his sober expression showing he thought the Lae Velsanan challenge the greater of the two. “We’ll deal with them when the time comes.”
But Sef persisted, “You know what they’re like. They ran our people into the sea during Def Turtung. Those who could get onto a boat had a chance, but the rest were pushed in, forced by arrow and sword, left to die bleeding in the surf or choking on brine. How can you defeat such a foe, one that can be so single-minded?”
“We’re also single-minded and have our own secrets – some of which are tailor-made for their doom. In the end, we’ll stand alone.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of it,” said Sef.
Seig wore a grim smile. “In any case, you’ve other things to focus on, such as your plight in front of Kave. You can’t abandon your service to him or simply turn away. Juvela can’t save you in this.”
“My service was given under false pretences; he was suppose to save my family, village, and the people I loved!”
“He did!”
“Only to turn his back on them!”
