Dark Immolation

by Christopher Husberg

  “Where’d you learn all this about tents, anyway?” Cavil asked.

  What he knew of wilderness survival, staying dry and warm in harsh conditions, came naturally to him, as did a host of other things. Knot could only assume the knowledge came from one of the sifts—one of the souls—within him, but there was no way he could explain that to Cavil.

  “My father. A man needs to learn how to live on his own, my da always said. So what spurred your relocation, anyway? If you don’t mind me askin’?” If that idiot Dannel was involved, Knot wasn’t above talking some sense into him.

  Cavil shook his head. “Some insane old woman has been preaching by the pond,” he said. “She claims tiellans are descended from the Nine Daemons.”

  Knot scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Try telling the other humans that. They don’t want us around anymore. Want to segregate the camp.”

  Knot was dumbfounded. “I’ll talk to someone,” he said after a moment. “Life shouldn’t be this way round here.”

  Cavil shrugged. “Don’t matter now. Not all the humans seem to have taken this woman’s word for truth, mind you. Some of them are sympathetic to us. Most of ’em are indifferent, I’d say. But the ones against us are the most vocal.”

  “Ain’t right,” Knot said. He’d definitely talk to Jane and Cinzia about this old woman, whoever she was.

  A flurry of motion caught Knot’s attention on the road nearby. Atop the hill, Ocrestia was riding towards them. The tiellans had managed to secure one horse among all of them, and Ocrestia had taken it on her supply run into town.

  But she wasn’t alone. A group of five men rode with her.

  “What is it?” Ader asked.

  Cavil swore, and ran towards Ocrestia, picking up speed as he went.

  “Cavil, wait!” Knot said, but the man did not look back. Knot frowned, and then looked to Ader. “Get help, boy. These men may not be friendly. Go.” Giving the boy something to do was better than simply ordering him away. Knot grabbed his staff, and went after Cavil.

  Two men rode along either side of Ocrestia, while three rode behind. It almost looked as if Ocrestia was being escorted back to the camp, but Knot knew enough to see the difference. She was hunched forward in her saddle, shying away from the men. They were heckling her.

  Cavil had almost reached Ocrestia as Knot continued towards them, more cautiously. He could hear Cavil shouting, and some of the humans riding alongside Ocrestia laughed, pointing at the tiellan. Knot gripped his staff loosely, conscious of it and the dagger at his side as he approached. When he was within hearing distance, he stopped in the middle of the road, watching.

  “This your husband, then?” One of the men riding beside Ocrestia pointed at Cavil with an axe.

  “Looks more like her father,” one of the others chortled. “Come spend a night with me, you’ll see what a real man’s like.” The other men laughed.

  “Are you all right?” Cavil asked his wife, ignoring the men. He took the reins of her horse.

  Ocrestia, in tears but doing her best to hide it, nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Just want to get home.”

  “And where is that, exactly?” one of the other men said.

  “It surely can’t be here,” another man said. “Tiellans don’t live in such fancy houses. Not unless they’re serving in them.”

  “Runaways, then. Trying to escape the only life they deserve.”

  Knot nodded towards the camp as Ocrestia and Cavil reached him. “Go on. I’ll be along shortly.” They moved silently past him.

  The men, all five of them, slowed. “And who is this?” one of them asked, the one with the axe. He was a tall man, certainly taller than Knot, with pale hair and even paler skin.

  The other men circled Knot, their horses stamping their feet.

  “A human,” one of them responded, behind Knot now.

  “What’re you doing here with a bunch of elves?” the pale one asked, eyeing Knot. The man held his axe loosely—it was a wood axe certainly not meant for battle, but it could still do damage.

  “Ain’t no business of yours,” Knot said, returning the man’s gaze.

  The pale man laughed. “Maybe not,” he said. “But I don’t care. Tell us what you’re doing here. What’s the commotion at the Harmoth estate?”

  Knot gripped his staff, saying nothing.

  The pale man frowned. “What’s your name, friend? No need for there to be animosity between us. I’m sure we’re very much alike, you and I.”

  “Name’s Knot,” Knot said. “And you and I ain’t got nothin’ in common.”

  The pale man frowned. “Name’s not what?” he asked.

  “No, Mik, I think he said his name’s Knot,” one of the other men said.

  Mik snorted, looking down at Knot. “Your name is Knot?”

  Knot laughed.

  “What’re you laughing at?” Mik asked, frowning. He held the axe out in front of him.

  Knot’s muscles tensed and relaxed. This was what his body’d been itching for. The other men were armed, but with weapons of occasion, not profession. Bludgeons, wood axes, a long dagger or two. A staff.

  “I’m laughing at you,” Knot said. “This Sfaera is full of idiots.”

  And, just like that, the pale man’s face turned red, and with a grunt he swung his axe down at Knot.

  Knot leaned his body to the side, neatly avoiding the strike, and thrust his staff upwards into Mik’s chest. The familiar calmness of the fight overtook him.

  Knot’s blow knocked Mik to the road in a cloud of dust, and for a moment the others stared in silence. Knot sensed their surprise, knew the expression on their faces. They had not expected their de facto leader to end up in a pile of dirt on the road today.

  Knot walked over to Mik. He reached down, pulling the sleeve back from the man’s wrist. Sure enough, on the underside of Mik’s wrist was a cross-and-crescent tattoo.

  The sign of the Kamites—those who wanted a return to tiellan slavery.

  Knot cursed. The other men were still staring, dumbfounded. Knot didn’t hesitate. He slipped his hands to the edge of his staff and swung it around him with all his might. It connected with the nearest man’s skull with a crack, and the man toppled from his horse. A twinge of shame ran through Knot. Knot didn’t think he’d killed the man, but the blow, combined with the fall to the ground, might’ve been enough.

  But the shame fled as quickly as it came. What these men had been doing to Ocrestia wasn’t right. How many people had treated Winter that way? The tattoo on Mik’s wrist was all the condemnation Knot needed.

  The remaining three finally sprang into action. Knot rolled out of the way of a charging horse. The rider steered the steed around using only his legs, while he wielded a long pitchfork in both hands. One of the other men had dismounted, reaching down to help his leader. Rather than take his chances with the pitchfork-wielding horseman, Knot charged at Mik and the man who’d dismounted.

  In his mind, Knot saw only Winter, and what these men would do to her, what they would say to her. With that thought, Knot felt his control slipping. He gave no quarter, no time for the men he approached to prepare. They were merchants, perhaps one of them a farmer. They weren’t soldiers, but Knot didn’t care.

  Knot kneed the first man, doubling him over, and then threw him forcefully into the dirt. Knot then kicked the man in the face enough times for him to stop moving. Mik, stumbling to his feet, met Knot’s boot and collapsed into the dust once more.

  Hoofbeats behind him. Knot rolled as the man with the pitchfork rode past. The other man left on his horse was not moving; he sat in his saddle, staring, at Knot and at his three companions bleeding on the ground.

  The pitchfork-wielding horseman spun his mount around once more, then he hesitated.

  “Let’s get out of here,” the other thug said, moving his horse tentatively towards his companion. “This isn’t worth it.”

  Knot wiped at his eyes, but the red in his vision was not from
blood. “Go,” he growled. If they didn’t leave now, he wasn’t sure he could stop himself. As much as he wanted to defend the tiellans, if he killed any of these men and one of them lived to spread the word, things would only get worse.

  The man with the pitchfork locked eyes with Knot for a moment longer, then slowly nodded. The two men bent to help their fallen comrades up. Knot watched as they remounted and rode back toward Tinska.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder and spun around, grabbing the person by the wrist, twisting their arm behind them.

  Ocrestia’s cry brought Knot back.

  He let go immediately, staring wide-eyed at Ocrestia doubled over before him. Cavil rushed to her, and Knot recognized the rage in Cavil’s eyes. It was the same he’d felt himself, not moments ago.

  “What in Canta’s name is wrong with you?” Cavil asked, his eyes daggers as he held Ocrestia close to him. “She was about to thank you.”

  Ocrestia wouldn’t look at him, her face buried in Cavil’s shoulder. Knot didn’t know what to say.

  “You could’ve broken her arm,” Cavil said. “After what those men had just done to her, this is your reaction?”

  Ocrestia looked up at Knot. “It’s all right, Cavil,” she said. “He saved me.” But she stayed in her husband’s arms.

  13

  CINZIA SAT ON ONE of the large armchairs in the library, the Nine Scriptures open wide on her lap, in the segment of the L-shaped room that was furthest from the door. If someone walked in on them, they could hide the Codex before it was seen. Jane sat at the desk, a stack of papers before her, quill in hand.

  Jane had her visions, yes, but Cinzia had this. The Nine Scriptures, open before her. Cinzia did not speak Old Khalic—she was not sure anyone did, in this age—but she could read the words of the Nine Scriptures nonetheless. Jane had called her a seer. Cinzia did not know anything about that. When she looked at them objectively and with a close eye, the words engraved on the metal pages were nonsense to her; but when she sat back and looked at the page as a whole, she could read what was written. The words sometimes blurred on the page, or at least they did in her vision, shifting back and forth between the original Old Khalic and what Cinzia read them as now, which was Rodenese. But all Cinzia had to do was close her eyes for a moment, take a deep breath, and open them again, and the words were legible before her.

  There were some oddities; strange symbols dotted the pages of the book, symbols that were illegible despite Cinzia’s ability to read everything else. Neither sister had been able to guess as to what they could be. So they had kept translating, hoping that at some point the meaning would be revealed.

  The pages of the Nine Scriptures were an equal wonder. How they could be formed of a metal that could be minted so thinly, and yet be so durable, Cinzia did not know. And the dark metal shimmered every so often with a slight red color, catching the light in a strange way.

  “Shall we go on?” Jane asked, rubbing her hands.

  “Yes,” Cinzia said. “Let’s continue.”

  The book of Cinzia had begun with a brief liturgy to Canta’s divinity, but then tackled headlong the very topic Cinzia and Jane had been talking about the previous night: the organization of Canta’s religion. Was it coincidence that they stumbled upon this section when they did? That as soon as they had decided it was their duty to reform Canta’s religion, they were led to a book that discussed that very subject?

  The book had begun by delineating the structure of the Canta’s religion. Canta, of course, was its eternal head, and She spoke directly to Her chosen servant on earth—deemed the Prophetess. Beneath the Prophetess were to be ordained nine disciples, just like the Nine Disciples that walked the earth with Canta Herself, who had written the Nine Scriptures.

  That much already seemed far simpler than the structure of the Denomination. The Essera was the highest-ranking official; beneath her was a group of three—the Triunity, and the highest council of the Denomination—equal to one another in power and authority: the Oracle, the Holy Examiner, and the First Priestess. While the Essera oversaw each individual member of the Triunity, the Triunity combined was equal to the power and authority of the Essera herself. And, in turn, each member of the Triunity oversaw one of the three branches of the Denomination: the Mind of Revelation, the Arm of Inquisition, and the Sect of Priesthood.

  Things did not get any less complicated beyond that. Answerable to the Triunity was the High Camarilla, the second-highest governing counsel of the Denomination, consisting of three diviners, three Holy Crucibles, and three high priestesses, again each representing their respective branch of the Denomination. The High Camarilla, when combined, was equal in power and authority to the Triunity.

  From there, each branch forked in its respective responsibilities. The Sect of Priesthood was by far the largest of the three, and was responsible for running the logistics of the Denomination: performing ordinances for members, the upkeep of chapels, cathedrals, and Canta’s Fane, and serving the various congregations. The Sect of Priesthood was governed by nine high priestesses—the number nine, it was easy to see, had been preserved in the Cantic Denomination—including the First Priestess and the three high priestesses on the High Camarilla, each of whom in turn oversaw up to nine matrons each. Each matron oversaw up to nine priestesses—Cinzia’s own office within the Denomination—and each priestess oversaw up to nine disciples.

  Strange that the “disciple” designation—the lowest rank in the Cantic Denomination of today’s world—had actually been the highest rank during Canta’s time.

  The Mind of Revelation consisted of eighteen Diviners, including the Oracle and the three Diviners on the High Camarilla. Other than various disciples who helped the Diviners, there were no other dedicated servants in the Mind of Revelation. Their responsibility was to keep track of the records of the Denomination and to prepare it for the future.

  There were twenty-seven Holy Crucibles in the Arm of Inquisition, and, like the Mind of Revelation, otherwise had no dedicated servants other than a few disciples to carry out the grunt work. The responsibility of the Arm of Inquisition was to keep Cantic doctrine pure by enforcing correct teachings within the Denomination, and eliminating incorrect teachings outside of it. Nayome, the Holy Crucible who had traveled to Navone to charge Jane and the rest of Cinzia’s family with heresy, had been fulfilling her duty as part of the Arm of Inquisition. The Arm of Inquisition, with its white flame sigil behind the Trinacrya, was feared far and wide, and for good reason.

  And the Denomination’s bureaucracy did not stop there; there were Goddessguards and the Sons of Canta, there were appointments to the minor council in Parliament, and much more besides.

  Suffice it to say, the organization of Canta’s religion was nowhere near as complicated as the Denomination.

  “‘Disciples after Canta’s Order of Priesthood,’” Cinzia dictated, the strange symbols swirling into words before her,

  have the right to officiate in their own stature, under the direction of the Prophetess, in administering to all followers of Canta. The Nine Disciples embody the basis of Canta’s teachings and doctrine; they keep pure the doctrine, and thus keep pure all followers of Canta. Theirs is the responsibility that kings and rulers could never have, nor want, for they sacrifice all for the people they serve, and for the Goddess they represent.

  These Nine Disciples are called to be a light unto Canta’s people, acting as servants of the Prophetess and thus servants of Canta Herself, in aiding, helping, teaching, healing, and defending the people.

  But behold, the people of Canta will grow, even so much that the Nine Disciples will no longer be able to sustain them. And thus others must be called: priestesses, prelates, seers, and sibyls. These are called and sustained to aid the Nine Disciples in their work, aiding the people of Canta.

  “Cinzia? Are you all right?”

  Cinzia looked up at Jane. “It is so different,” she whispered.

  “To the Denomination? It is, isn’t it?�
�� Jane stood and walked over to Cinzia. “Perhaps we should take a break. We have been translating all day. It is nearly suppertime.”

  “Yes. Perhaps we should.”

  “Come. Let’s go see what everyone else is up to.”

  Cinzia allowed Jane to take her hand and help her to rise. The Codex slid from her lap into the seat of the chair.

  “Do you know what this means?” Cinzia asked. “Priestesses, prelates, seers, and sibyls. We have a lot of work to do, Jane.”

  Jane smiled. “We do, don’t we?”

  * * *

  “These are so good,” Cinzia said, taking another of the sticky rolls from the large pan. The rolls were baked to perfection, flaky and golden and smothered in a layer of sweet icing that clung to Cinzia’s fingers.

  Gorman cleared his throat. He was clearly not very pleased with the way the food was being served. The two pans of sweet rolls were sitting on the table, unadorned. There were no plates or silverware to be seen. Gorman and a few other servants stood by. Cinzia had said they could go about some other business if they liked, but Gorman had insisted they stay, in case they were needed.

  “Oh, calm yourself, Gorman,” Cinzia said. “Just because we did not want to bother with all the pomp and circumstance of a formal meal does not mean that you must cough over my shoulder every few moments.”

  “Of course, Miss Cinzia,” Gorman said stiffly.

  Cinzia rolled her eyes. She would see that man smile one day. What good was life without an occasional smile?

  The rest of her family understood as much. Her parents were laughing, heads leaned in close to one another. Even Eward, who had been far too serious in Navone, was smiling with the rest of them, especially when Soffrena, Lana and Wina began telling jokes.