It took about an hour to unload the cart with my deliveries and then reload all the new supplies my parents had ordered into the wagon. Old Gerty was less than pleased with the quantities of goods she was going to have to lug home. Still, I stayed out of her reach and managed to get by without being bit or stepped on; something that I was rather pleased about.
“Well, that’s the last of it” said Bill. “There’s some time before the sun goes down, you want to split some sarsaparilla?”
“How about something a little stronger?...” I asked with an innocent smile… Or what I thought was an innocent smile. Apparent sincerity did not come easily to me.
“How about sarsaparilla?” Said Bill with one eyebrow raised. “Your Ma and Pa would be less than thrilled with you coming home smelling of booze.”
“OK, fine.” I said, cutting my losses. After all, Bill was right, I would not live down coming home drunk.
“You staying too, John?” asked Bill.
“No, still got some work to do down at the shop. I have orders to fill and the wife will be less than thrilled if I spend all day dallying here.”
“Well then, more for us,” said Bill.
“Just make sure you send along all those staves and metal bands for my shop tomorrow.”
And with that, John wandered back towards his shop with a bag of supplies thrown over his shoulder.
“So, about that sarsaparilla” I said.
Bill went and grabbed a couple of bottles and we took seats outside the shop and enjoyed the last rays of the setting sun.
“How do you know so much about inquisitors?” I asked.
“Well son, they used to make the rounds of all the villages and major cities, rounding up heretics, witches and mages and the like. But in the past few years, their patrols have lessened. Outlying towns like ours don’t get much attention anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t rightly know honestly. Could be they’re focusing on other things. Hard to tell with church business. Ours is not to question why in these matters. Leave such concerns to the church.”
“OK, I understand why the church would want to root out heretics and mages and all that. But why go looking for people who aren’t getting up to any trouble? Why do we have to worry about them?”
“Not getting up to any trouble?”
“Yeah, I mean if these witches and mages, or whatever you call them, if they were up to no good, wouldn’t the local sheriffs have arrested them by now? Wouldn’t it be obvious? Why hassle the rest of us who’re just living our lives?”
“Son, when magic is involved, how would ordinary people like us know when someone is up to no good?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you were a mage, a heretic in the eyes of the church, the vilest of scofflaws, would you go around being obvious with your demonic arts?”
“Well, no, seems like that would be a good way to get caught.”
“Exactly. Instead, heretics act subtly. Maybe a farmer says something mean to him or her and that farmer later loses his crop to a blight. Or maybe a shepherd sells him or her a half weight short count of lamb chops and later that shepherd loses a couple of sheep to wolves. Would you be able to tell if magic had anything to do with it? They act subtly to avoid detection, which is why special patrols are needed.”
“Makes sense I guess.”
“And that is also why the inquisitors are given special dispensations to root out people whose powers haven’t fully manifested yet. Because when their powers do develop, they have the potential to cause great damage to society. So they can be arrested, or even killed, before they harm people.”
“If they are so subtle, how do the inquisitors know how to find them?”
“A good question. Some think the inquisitors are granted powers by god to find them. Others that the medallions they wear are designed to detect magic. But I don’t think anyone outside the highest levels of the church knows for sure. After all, that’s not a secret they will likely want getting out eh?”
“You’re probably right. If you know how they catch you, then you know how to avoid it.”
“Exactly son, now you’re using your noodle.”
It was then that I realized that the sun was starting to touch the horizon. I had over stayed and if I didn’t hurry I would be late for dinner. And late for 3 meals in one day would likely set my mom off and earn me a decade of extra chores.
“Thanks for the sarsaparilla Bill, but I really have to get going. If I don’t leave now, I will be late for dinner and mom would have my hide.”
“Yeah, you’re right son. Come to think of it, my old missus is probably looking for me to close up shop and head home too. Have a safe trip home.”
And with that I jumped into the driver’s seat of the wagon and whipped old Gerty into a gallop! Well, I got her walking towards home anyway. That was as close to a dramatic exit as Gerty was capable of.
The trip home was fairly uneventful. The sun was setting and lighting the sky in an orange haze as it fell behind the distant Western mountains. The Eastern grasslands were fairly quiet with just the sound of insects disturbing the peace. As I approached my house with old Gerty, I noticed that my dad was not outside doing the evening chores before dinner, which wasn’t like him. There are things that need doing around the farm which shouldn’t be ignored. That he wasn’t out working struck me as quite odd.
Even so, I knew what needed doing. I drove Gerty and the wagon into the barn, hitched her to one of the posts and went to the house to see if I could round up any help to unload the wagon.
On getting to the house, I was surprised to see that most of the lamps remained unlit. Only the living room lights were shining. Our living room was like a lot of farm houses’ living rooms, it existed for entertaining guests and was rarely used in the daily hubbub. Most of the actual living in the house went on in the kitchen, dining room and bed rooms.
Still, I came in through the side entrance, took off my boots in the mud room, and put on my indoor shoes. Then I walked through the kitchen and the dining room looking for my parents. Oddly enough they were not there. It was not till I walked into the living room that I saw them sitting on the couch like they were entertaining guests.
Upon entering the living room I noticed that both of my parents looked troubled.
“I put Gerty and the wagon in the barn, I was wondering if I could get any help unloading it” I said in an attempt to break the weird silence in the room.
It was then that two other people entered the room from side doors. They were both of medium build, wearing brigandine with swords belted to their wastes. More importantly, they were both holding hand crossbows. I couldn’t help but notice that these were cocked and loaded, as the light glinted ominously off the quarrels’ steel tips.
“Why don’t you take a seat son, we have some questions we would like to ask you and your parents and we don’t like repeating ourselves. So make yourself comfortable,” said the larger of the two men.
“And need we mention slow movements are preferable to fast ones? It’s bad manners to startle a man with a loaded crossbow,” said the smaller one with a crooked smile on his face.
Not knowing what else to do, I took a seat on the chair next to the couch. It was then that a third man entered the room. Unlike the two guards, he was tall and skinny, giving him an oddly stretched appearance. He wore mail instead of brigandine, and had a medallion around his neck that seemed to twinkle too much in the dim lamp light.
“Well, now that we’re all here, shall we begin?” Said the oddly tall man.
“My name is Lucius Ferdinand and I am of the order of inquisitors from Caer Dogmatorum. I realize that you may not be familiar with my order as it has been years since we have made a pilgrimage to your… quaint… part of the Empire.”
I noticed that, as he said quaint, he wrinkled his nose like he smelled something unpleasant. While he was speaking his eyes scanned the room, but kept returning to me. They had
a hard penetrating quality, like he could see right through me and saw an offensive stain on the chair I was sitting on.
“We are here to remedy an unfortunate lapse in the diligent execution of our duties. In the years we have been absent, the local abbot here has gotten fat and lazy and he has not been examining his flock carefully enough. Heresy and vile magic have crept in under his leadership. This is something that we intend to rectify posthaste.”
He punctuated the word “rectify” by cracking his knuckles, and allowed a thin smile to cross his visage at “posthaste”. The man also did not stand still, pacing around the room as he spoke.
“Our job is an ancient one. It is to remove dangerous elements from the earth, to keep the empire safe from the evils of demonic influence. We are like angelic gardeners, sent here to pull the unholy weeds; or like doctors, here to excise diseased flesh.”
At the word weeds he paused and fixed each of us with a menacing stare.
“But look at me, I have waxed on for far too long. Let us get down to business. Reginald, Donald, please aim your crossbows at Mr. and Mrs. Janus’s heads.”
With smiles and sickening smoothness, both of them did.
“Wait, WHAT!?” I said, with no small amount of fear. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? What do you want?”
As I spoke out, the inquisitor looked to his medallion briefly and smiled.
“A question that’s been on our minds as well,” my father said. “We’re just farmers, we’ve been living here for over 20 years. We are loyal parishioners of this great holy empire and active in the local church. Where do you get off threatening us?”
“Loyal parishioners? What a wonderful cover story. Demons in sheep’s clothing more likely. But we shall see the truth of the matter here and now.”
“Why are you even here?” My mother asked. “What are you talking about? You’re not making any sense.”
“What brought me here? My hunt for scum masquerading as part of the great flock of the Empire. But more specifically, magic has been sensed from this area, as recently as mid-day today. We have felt the vile influence of magic in this area, and we are here to find out from whom this emanated.”
“Magic? Are you mad?” Asked my father. “If we had magic, do you think we would have spent our lives toiling on the land? What sort of mage does that?”
“The kind that thinks it’s clever enough to avoid church detection.” The inquisitor responded.
As he spoke this he drew a long sword out from a sheath on his belt that had remained behind him instead of at his side, like the swords of his guards. The sword itself was long and thin, like the owner himself. And while it bore no particular markings, it also had a look of purpose. The few swords I had seen at this point of my life had been the more ornamental style worn by aristocrats and high church officials. This blade seemed more ominously purpose built.
“Oh, you have an interest in blades?” The inquisitor stated as he displayed the blade, noticing that I was staring at it.
“You may not find them so interesting in a moment.” And as quick as a flash the blade was at my mother’s throat.
“OH GOD! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? STOP!” I shouted.
“What am I doing? Rooting out evil. The better question is, what are you doing?” He said with a look at his medallion and a smile.
At that moment, I realized my head was pounding and my skin sweating. I could feel a vicious headache coming on. I fell back into my chair, having been unaware that I had stood up.
“Oh god not now. Not another god damned headache…” I mumbled.
“Headaches eh? Interesting. Anything weird happen when you get headaches? I bet it does… So YOU are the source of the magic boy? How very interesting. Your parents show no signs of it. But then, sometimes these vile impurities lie hidden for generations.”
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?” I yelled at him. My headache was quite strong now.
“What I am saying is your parents must carry some old and dangerous traits that they have passed on to you boy. Traits of demonic magic. Such heretical things have no place in modern Pandanu.”
As he said this, he moved the blade away from my mother’s throat. For a second I had a kernel of hope. Then he pulled his sword back pointed the end at my mother’s chest, looked at me and said:
“You’re next, boy. Better pray for forgiveness in the next world.”
The world suddenly went into a strange slow motion. I saw his shoulders tightened and the sword started moving in a thrust right at my mother’s heart. I realized I was screaming and my father was starting to stand up off the couch. Both guards’ fingers were tightening on the crossbow triggers, and my head was pounding. As the sword began to move, I heard the vicious click of the crossbows’ triggers. The world briefly slowed, and then something inside me snapped. My headache screamed for a second, then the world went black.
Chapter 2.
The sun pierced the veil of my eyelids as I woke up. The first thing that made it through the fog in my brain was that I had a blistering, throbbing headache. If I had known at that time what a hangover felt like, that is the best equivalent to what I was feeling. My head was pounding, my stomach was making some seriously ominous noises and my whole body hurt to move. I could barely sit up to put my head in my hands.
After an interminable amount of time, I finally had the energy to look at my surroundings. I was sitting up in a bed I didn’t recognize. The mattress was soft, softer than my straw mattress at home. Well, except for one sharp point in my leg… Which upon further inspection turned out to be the quill of a feather. I probably would have enjoyed the feeling of the feather mattress had I not been feeling so bad otherwise.
The room was similarly opulent. The bed was a four poster. There were leather chairs in the corners and mahogany end tables. A large armoire, also of mahogany, was off in one corner. But I could barely appreciate any of it because I was feeling so awful. In the circumstances, I did the only things that could work their way through my head. I used the chamber pot, and went back to bed.
The next time I woke up it was to the crashing noises of what turned out to be sheets rustling. From the effect the normally faint noise was having on me, my hangover-like symptoms still hadn’t abated. My response was to huddle down into the sheets and mumble something like “go away” to the noise maker.
“Oh so you are up? FANTASTIC! You know, they didn’t think you would ever wake up.”
“Oh god, not so loud,” I responded to the mystery voice.
“Ok, but I wasn’t yelling,” said what I recognized belatedly as a woman’s voice coming from outside the sheets I was huddled in.
On reflection, the voice wasn’t one that I was familiar with. So, I peeked one eye out of the sheets to see who the source of the voice was. I almost instantly regretted this decision. First, because I didn’t recognize the girl; second, because the sunlight in the room lanced into my eyes with a fierceness that shocked me.
The girl looked to be within a year or two of my age, though whether she was younger or older I couldn’t tell. She was of medium height and slight of build and had blond hair. On further inspection she did seem vaguely familiar…
“Where am I?”
“You’re at my house. Well, my dad’s house. He’s the mayor, in case you didn’t know. Once the hospital patched you up, they sent you here since… Well, I’m not supposed to talk about that. Also, why do you have this sword? Aren’t you just a farm boy? What use do you have for swords?”
“Wait… What?” I said.
“Never mind, you can talk about it when you are feeling better. I’m getting bored, so I am going to go bother Daddy for a while. Later,” she said as she walked out the door.
“Wait… What?” I said, again, lamely. “And what the hell were you talking about… What sword?”
Unfortunately, she left without responding. It was then that my eyes were drawn to the wall next to the armoire. On that wall was a vaguely famili
ar looking sword. It was long, thin, and even sheathed, it had an ominous look of purpose to it.
Then it all came back to me in one awful moment… And my headache came crashing back… And that was the last thing I thought for quite some time.
I was again woken up by incessant rustling. This time though, it wasn’t quite so painful to hear.
“You awake yet?” Said that same female voice.
“You should eat something. You haven’t eaten anything in days. And given what you did to that poor chamber pot, which by the way was decorative, you probably need some food in you.”
Surprisingly, I was quite hungry. I peeked out of the covers long enough to see she was carrying a plate with some soup, bread and cheese on it.
01 - The Price of Talent Page 2
