Darkness Rising (Ancient Vestiges Book 1)

by Brenden Gardner

  Johnathan knew that if the Voice had only stood firm on such matters long ago, it may not have come to this.

  “I thank you for your blessing,” he replied, bowing low. “Yet that is not why I petitioned for this audience. There comes a time when a knight knows he is outmatched. Akin to the good counsel, I am near the end of my years, and whether it is Prince Adreyu, Lord Commander Rafael, or even the Corsair, I would ask another to command in my stead.”

  “Is this not a concern for the knight-captains?” Counsel El asked, leaning forward on his cane. “We have trusted your wisdom before, undoubtedly we will do so again.”

  What was it that Ser Jacob said to me, ere he left? “Pray to Mother God that this threat is no more than wayward beasts. If it is aught else, we will be left with a terrible choice. I will be sorry if you have to make it.”

  I am sorry to make it, old friend. “We have, Counsel, and here I must petition the Voice to act against the will of the Faith. If, if they had not butchered Ser Jacob, even he would tell you the necessity what I ask.” Johnathan paused, hesitant. “All the worthy were excommunicated in this chamber three years ago. We must bring one of them back.”

  The shouting resumed, and the cries of heresy were deafening. The Voice raised her hand, but the assembled were voracious, raining down their disgust. First Scholar Anastasia was silent and still in her seat, shaking her head despondently.

  Forgive me.

  Johnathan turned and gave the signal. Ser Tomas and Ser Gerod threw themselves at the Faith Templar at the doors, knocking the knights down, putting them at sword point. Johnathan felt his friend’s head against his boot, eyes looking up despondently—not of fear but sorrow—but much like what the knight-commander had shown when they last spoke.

  What do you see, old friend? Do you lament the choice I had to make?

  “This is not what I would wish!” Johnathan shouted, cutting through the noise, and pointed to the Faith Templar upon the floor. “Yet if this is the only path to peace, to life, then I shall take it. Elin Durand must be anointed once again, and returned to command against the foes on our shores!”

  Counsel Rachel lunged forward, gripping upper rail, wroth. “You who would bear steel against the Voice’s own guard?! No magisters attend us here, but you know the cost of your actions, Lord Protector.” She looked to Ser Tomas and Ser Gerod. “Whatever madness he has convinced you of, sers, abandon it, and beg forgiveness before the Voice of Mother God.”

  Neither of the knights flinched, nor looked from the Faith Templar who lay upon the floor. Johnathan knew them to be loyal. They always would be loyal, unlike the men and women in the chamber. “They believe as I do.”

  “It is madness, rank madness,” she screeched. “The Voice speaks for Mother God, and it is Her will that you spit upon. Elin Durand shall remain in the forest, with our eyes upon him.”

  “I suppose,” Johnathan retorted, “that Mother God would return to us once more to bury our charred remains? To speak words of sorrow and regret? To take up Her sword against our foes? Is that more fitting to the Faith? Is that the deepest wish of Her will?”

  “How dare you!” a priestess screamed.

  “Traitor! He was close to the Sinner, I always said so,” a scholar proclaimed. “He should have meted out a like fate as the others who shared in his sin. Oust him!”

  “I would rather be dead and buried,” Father Dominic declared, rising from his seat. “Than be saved by Sariel’s own servants.”

  “You will not speak that name in this chamber,” the Voice declared, glaring down at the priest. “Lest you no longer wish to be within it. As for the rest, you will remain silent until I call for it. Am I understood?”

  The priests first, followed by the stewards, and then the scholars, sat in their seats and bowed their heads in obeisance. Johnathan wanted this. The Voice, in front of all the orders of the Faith, declaring their salvation or damnation.

  To decide the fate of the Faith, and the man Lutessa once loved.

  “Very good,” the Voice intoned. “I would now ask you, Ser Johnathan, what is one man against the Sentinels of Umbrage?”

  “What was one man against Trecht, three years past?”

  “The Faith defeated Trecht,” Counsel El declared quickly, before a glare from the Voice silenced him.

  Johnathan stood there, watching the old priest slink back into his chair. Though the counsel angered him, none in the assembly were much different. “You were not there, nor were any of you. What did any of you understand about him, and what we had to do? You judged him, that is what you did. But none of you were there, none of you understood what it was like. You did not feel as he felt. You did not see as he saw. You do not know what I know!”

  “What is that you know, Ser Johnathan?” the Voice asked. “What is it that we missed upon our judgment?”

  “Ser Elin Durand. He had strength, courage, and resolve. He learned the mind of the enemy. It was he who drew our battle plans. It was he who took to the front lines. It was his sword that lead our knights to victory. He is not a mere man. Not to those who fought and died. You may sit here in the safety of the White Walls—walls that we defend with our lives—and mock him. But those who fought. They do not. They long for his sword, and for his company.

  “Call those knights. Those archers. The pike. The horse riders. Call them all, let them sit as you do. Then this chamber would earn its hallowed name.”

  Returned to her throne, the Voice looked back knowingly, eyes wroth. Johnathan did not know if a word moved the Voice, but if e’er the cathedral was a bastion of salvation, it could not fall on deaf ears.

  “You petition this chamber vainly,” the Voice declared amidst shuffled robes, but none spoke. “He is in the Northlands, likely dead in the fires.”

  “No,” Elin declared, removing his helm. “I stand before you.”

  “What treachery is this?” Counsel Rachel screamed.

  Johnathan ignored the question, stood aside, and watched as Elin bent over, picking up Ser Jacob’s by the hair, and put it back in the burlap sack. “See that our friend is interred,” he said, handing Johnathan the sack. “We will find his body ere long, and see him returned to the earth.”

  Johnathan nodded. My life is in your hands once again, my friend.

  “High Priestess Lutessa. Long has it been since I walked these halls. Little has changed.”

  “Why are you here?” the Voice demanded, her poise shaking.

  “I have not forgotten my vows.”

  “If you have come to jest and mock at my expense,” the Voice demanded. “I will have you beheaded by knights that remain loyal, as we should have done years ago.”

  “I do not jest. I look around and see all the same faces. The same men and women who sought my death, the same ones who, with sword in hand, would spill my blood in their own hallowed halls.

  “This faith has so much judgment, scorn, revulsion and disgust. I am a heretic to the eyes of every man and woman in this chamber, and seemingly I deserve that fate. Yet I am a knight. I swore a vow. You may have stripped me of cloak and rank, but I am ever still a knight. As a knight, I will stand where I once did before, and drive them out. Not for you, High Priestess, nor for anyone in this chamber.”

  Johnathan hoped that would be enough. The admission of guilt, the declaration of heresy, it must be enough.

  This is not worth all our deaths.

  “If I were to consider that wish, I would spit in the face of our laws, of Mother God Herself,” the Voice said. “You were punished for the highest heresies in this chamber. You knew the price that your return would wrought, as would others.” She glared at Johnathan, and he stared back defiantly, hoping and praying that she would see sense. “You are but four knights. My own Faith Templar awaits outside these doors. They will open, and what will you do then? Spill blood in these hallowed halls? I would end your life, Elin Durand, as others once demanded I do.”

  Johnathan sighed. He did not think it could be wor
se.

  Then a mailed fist suddenly knocked upon the oaken doors. “Unlatch the doors!” Ser Harbert commanded from the other side.

  That is it, now. Johnathan nodded to Ser Gerod and Ser Tomas, who sheathed their own swords, and the Faith Templar fumbled up and unbarred the door.

  Ser Harbert looked to his own knights. “Your place is to stand guard, not be held at sword’s edge upon the floor. Return to the barracks, both of you. I will attend here. Ser Elin is no threat to the Voice.”

  The chamber was quiet, and the Blessed Three looked down, eyes wide, stunned and shocked. Counsel Rachel was incredulous from her seat above, the Voice was still as water, unmoved, unaffected.

  The Faith Templar withdrawn, Ser Harbert strode to Elin’s side, and embraced him like a long-missed brother. “Ser. It has been long.”

  “Ser Harbert,” Elin responded in kind, as if naught was amiss.

  Help unlooked for, Johnathan thought, pleased.

  “High Priestess Lutessa,” Ser Harbert began, looking to the Crystal Throne. “I admitted Ser Elin to this chamber, knowing full well who he was, though not of his intent. I am prepared to accept the cost of such an act, but first I must implore that you heed the words that I was brought.”

  “What do you speak of, ser?” the Voice asked coldly.

  “There was a rider from Zelen. Sent by Magistrate Keifen. The seal is unbroken.”

  We teeter once again.

  “Read the words, Ser Harbert,” the Voice commanded.

  Ser Harbert broke the seal, unfurled the missive, and read aloud. “’By decree of Imperator Argath Diomedes of the Isilian Imperium, we have come for what was stolen from us a century ago. We await at the fields north of the Sister Cities. Delay, and south shall burn, as the Northlands have.’ It is signed by Lord Commander Rafael Azail.”

  “Counsel El,” the Voice remarked diffidently. “Do these words suffice?”

  The counsel squirmed in his seat, closed his eyes and said. “They do.”

  “Ser Johnathan, I wish to be very clear to you, and all who sit in this chamber. If any heresies should come from this, I will burn you like the witches of old. Do you understand?”

  You will be too dead to worry, if it comes to that. “I do.”

  “Then this knight of sin is yours to do as you will. Drive the Isilians out.”

  The chamber was eerily quiet. No priest, steward, or scholar spoke a word. Still, the Voice stared down icily at Ser Elin.

  You will never truly know what stands before you, Lutessa.

  Chapter Nine

  Soul of the Faithful

  Lutessa spent the morning in her solar.

  Stacks of parchments piled on top of her desk, and curled up missives were propped between small statuettes. She wrote to the magistrates in the cities, towns, and villages south of Talin, urging them to hide the faithful.

  She wished the missives were her only concern. There were many audiences in the days before. None that she wanted to see.

  Lord Gareth had arrived first, mere hours after the ill-fated audience with Ser Johnathan. The stewards were concerned with the recourse, though made no demands of the Voice. Lutessa pressed the steward for his own thoughts. He was reluctant and practical, insisting that matters of warfare should remain in the Lord Protector’s hands. Lutessa dismissed the steward, imploring him to calm his order’s fears.

  If I had but support of one of the orders, it would be a blessing.

  First Scholar Anastasia visited the day after the audience, at the hour just past dawn. “You see, High Priestess,” Anastasia said softly. “We do not forget our history, as you know well from your time in our order. They do not forget our founding, and Justine the Indomitable wielding the sword that shone and dazzled Light. Perhaps more myth than truth, but something was there. Nor do they forget Gabriel and his disciples, the impunity of the imperium in those days, cast back by men and women of faith. They see the path you have chosen as that of Darkness.”

  Lutessa sighed after the first scholar had left. The histories were lined with men and women embracing the Light of Mother God, to cast down the enemies of Holy Dalia. There was no Light in Ser Elin’s eyes.

  Then there were priests and priestesses, aged and wizened whom Lutessa saw in turn, and a couple audacious young savants who showed much promise. She allowed them to speak their mind to a point. None supported her decision.

  Then the self-styled Blessed Three begged an audience.

  Fathers Dominic, Augustus, and Buchannan were much alike, distinguished only by their receding hair lines. Garbed in fine, stylized white and silver robes, they had asked, no, demanded a Holy Tribunal. Lutessa denied the rite, but she knew that they would not stop until they cast her down.

  These affairs worried her, though not the threats—the holy magisters would not convene on such matters whilst the imperium were on their shores—but that once the war was over, even if the fallen knight should keep his word, internal struggles would leave the Faith vulnerable to the black sails of the islands, or the Trechtians.

  It really did not matter which. There is a path that avoids it, but I do not want to traverse it lest I must.

  Lutessa sighed once more, slumping in the tall-backed oaken chair. Counsel Rachel Du’vron put a gloved hand on her shoulder, and squeezed it. Lutessa turned to her friend, tears welling. “We were left with a choice none of us should have made. Now that we have made it, we may have doomed us.”

  Rachel was still smiling, a mirth that she rarely showed outside of these confidences. “We have done what we could. Your leniency towards Ser Elin was not out of love, but necessity. A necessity that all the faithful will see, however discontent they appear.”

  Lutessa kept her romance with the knight secret. Rachel ushered the knight to and fro, giving Lutessa fleeting moments that she never imagined. It was ultimately brief and momentary. The passion was of lust and secrecy.

  “Is that what I do now, necessity?” Lutessa asked. “There is a wrongness to it.”

  Rachel removed her hand, no longer smiling. “I compelled you to execute him. You did not have to be there. I would have done the deed myself. Yet you chose to push him as far away as you could, while keeping him close at hand.”

  “I remember. I oft wondered if I had erred, and if unity were possible if I but recalled the commandment.”

  “You would not sit upon the Crystal Throne if you did. Counsel El and Father Dominic would not have suffered another day of your reign. Now they bow and scrape before you.”

  “For now,” Lutessa admitted. The Holy Tribunal would be Counsel El Lucourt’s prerogative—Father Dominic no more than a messenger. For years, the counsel had supported her endlessly, but if that changed, the priesthood could bring her low. “If Dominic did not lie, I will be cut off from Mother God for the rest of my days.”

  “Old men,” Rachel scoffed, leaning against the wall. “Our knights return on the heels of victory, the imperium burnt by holy fire, and they would supplant you? They can huff and puff all they want, but the people will not stand by it.”

  That much I hope is true. “Counsel El will be here soon, and Ser Johnathan after him,” Lutessa looked despondently at Rachel. “Did we err in that affair?”

  “You must put your love aside, Lu. It must be done.”

  Three knocks rattled upon the door, and Ser Mattias poked his bald head into the solar. “Counsel El Lucourt, here for an audience, High Priestess.”

  “Send him in.”

  Lutessa watched the counsel saunter in, his worn cane click clacking on the stone floor. His white and silver robes shimmered, and pristine white gloves covered his stretched, veiny skin. His eyes were worn and tired, and the thin strands of his white hair were brushed to the side. The door closed, and he took a seat in front of the desk, leaning forward. “This is rank madness, Lutessa.”

  She felt hope dissipate in an instant. The counsel would not support her decision, and the priesthood would be bound to the counsel of faith.
>
  What is it that Ser Johnathan said? ‘Three years we have bickered and fought.’ I had three years to mend these wounds. Now more will perish by my ineptitude.

  She collected herself, matched the old priest’s eyes, and spoke as the Voice. “Even in here, you know the rites.”

  The counsel guffawed. “As you know our holy laws? Ser Johnathan sinned before the clergy, and you do worse than pardon him: you brazenly support Sariel’s servants! By your vows to Mother God you should punish heretics, not reward them. Condemn Ser Elin on the morrow, and all who aided in this plot. It is not too late to do right by Mother God!”

  “You would utter His name in here?” Rachel asked sternly. “You speak of rites and know less yourself.”

  “I shall invoke His name when I see His servants among the pure and just. If only Lutessa had—”

  “The Voice or High Priestess,” Lutessa reprimanded, annoyed. “I will sit here and bear your impiety only so far. You will show respect.”

  Counsel El fidgeted in his chair, lightly blushing, but the coldness in his eyes remained. “High Priestess, will you not avert this foolishness?”

  Lutessa breathed deep before answering. “I will not.”

  “A storm is coming,” he declared. “Its like we have not seen before, nor will we again. Mother God will protect us, not the cretins who serve the Void.”

  “Enough, Counsel El!” Rachel near shouted, slamming down on the desk. She is too protective by far, though she does what she must. Lutessa just sat and glared at the priest.

  “As you wish,” Counsel El declared, slowly standing up. The click clack of his cane echoed on the stone floor. His hand on the door, he turned and said, “I would die in righteousness than live in sin. It is a thought that many in the Faith have, not just I.”

  With the door closing behind the priest, Lutessa felt the room darken, though the sun was still high, the hour not long past noon. She looked over to her friend, alarmed and distraught.