Black Cross

by J. P. Ashman

  Fal was sure Severun had to fight to hide a smile, despite the consequences his actions would surely bring him, and Fal believed the wizard’s turn would be next.

  And what do I think of that? I don’t know, is my true answer. Would I see them burn, as is the Samorlian way with arcane mages? No. Would I see them get away with what they have put the city and me through, no matter their reasons and intentions? I genuinely do not know…

  ‘As for you two…’ Barrison, obviously riled by the church’s involvement, now turned on Severun and Orix. ‘What you have both done, or rather what you intended, was no better than the church’s interference in this matter. You planned to take the law into your own hands, becoming magistrate and executioner of my citizens. You obtained and used arcane magic to carry out your so-called experiment, which has caused countless deaths, seemingly ongoing. I cannot believe all the people who have been falling ill and dying in all districts of Wesson were violent criminals, and so I declare your experiment an obvious and absolute failure.’

  Orix wanted to blurt out about the plague. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t mentioned it when given his chance to explain, but he’d been lost in the moment, too engrossed in the telling of the tale. He didn’t dare interrupt the King however, especially with Lord Yewdale glaring at him like a hungry beast, and so he kept his mouth firmly shut, praying to multiple gods for a moment where he would be able to warn them all.

  ‘As much as it pains me, especially since you Lord Severun have been a family friend my entire life, and you Master Orix have done so much for this city with regards to medicine, I find I cannot, for the sake of Altoln and its people, let either of you get away with this madness unscathed.’

  The room became deathly silent again, except for the King’s heavy breathing and voice, as he reluctantly read out the terms he believed were necessary.

  ‘Lord Severun. As the obvious instigator and ringleader for want of a better term, you will be locked in the palace dungeons under battle mage guard until a verdict is determined.

  ‘Master Orix. I understand you played more of a part in this to try and stop it getting out of hand. Well, I’m afraid you failed, master cleric. Do you have anything to say?’

  For a couple of seconds that felt like hours in the oppressive silence of the great hall, Orix couldn’t force a word from his mouth, but finally, he managed, and when he did, the words flowed in a jumbled mess of confusion and panic. ‘Sire, so sorry must warn so bad… so very, very bad stupid fool of a gnome missed it… such danger… the whole city we need help not enough medicine or magic here is there? Not for this no, no not for this, for such—’

  ‘Such what damn you?’ Morton shouted, almost rising from his seat.

  ‘Plague… my lords… it’s the bubonic plague!’

  ‘Oh my,’ Ward gasped, followed by several sharp intakes of breath from not only King Barrison and his advisers, but the halberdiers and crossbowmen too. ‘Sire,’ the magician continued swiftly, ‘if this is true and it certainly seems possible with the amount dead and dying all over the city, you can’t imprison Master Orix. We need him.’

  Barrison rose from his seat and so, mirroring his actions, did his four advisers. ‘Lord Severun, Master Orix, follow us,’ the King said, and without another word, the halberdiers raised their weapons and stood at ease, as did the crossbowmen.

  Severun and Orix looked at each other, to Fal, and then to the back of their King who was striding across the marble floor to the side of the hall where a small, hardly noticeable door had just opened. Severun and Orix followed, swiftly walking, almost running to catch up as the four advisers followed them. Will Morton stopped only to whisper something to one of his knights who'd moved forward, before vanished through the same door as Barrison and the others, which closed with a slam that echoed throughout the hall.

  Fal and his companions looked around at each other as the knight Lord Yewdale had addressed headed over to them. The man’s thick surcoat reached just below his knees, quietening the sheathed sword knocking against his armoured legs as he walked. His bare hand rested lightly on the hilt of his sword, and compared to everyone else in the room, his expression showed nothing of the shock everyone was experiencing. He was accompanied by one of the halberdiers, who was clearly still trying to take in all he'd heard.

  ‘Sergeant Falchion, you and your men are to follow this guard and await further instructions from milord Yewdale.’

  ‘Of course, Sir..?’ Fal raised his eyebrows in anticipation of the man’s name.

  ‘Merrel,’ the knight said.

  Fal smiled sincerely. ‘Thank you, Sir Merrel.’

  Sir Merrel offered a tight smile in return, nodded his head and set off across the great hall towards the remaining halberdiers and crossbowmen being formed up by Lord Yewdale’s other knight.

  ‘This way,’ the halberdier who'd accompanied Sir Merrel said, before heading towards another hidden door, this one on the opposite side to the one the King and his advisers had used.

  With a look of bewilderment from Sav and a sympathetic smile from Errolas, Fal merely shrugged and motioned for them to follow their armed and armoured guide out of the chamber, his mind racing as the sound of barked orders and marching men echoed from the hall they left behind.

  Chapter 16: Condemned

  Smoke, stale ale and sweat marked the aroma of Longoss’ favourite establishment, but that certainly wasn’t what had attracted him there. The warm, flat ale soothed Longoss’ throat and he sighed with satisfaction. He figured it’d been far too long since he’d tasted the ale at his local tavern in Dockside.

  ‘Not seen ye since last night, Longoss,’ the innkeeper said, pouring another jug of ale for a large, heavily tattooed man stood opposite him.

  Longoss just smiled, revealing a row of gold teeth.

  ‘Thought I’d ‘ave seen ye this morning?’ the innkeeper added.

  The poorly dressed Longoss shook his head and finished his jug. He belched before dragging over the newly filled one.

  ‘Hey! That’s mine, ye thievin’ bastard.’

  Longoss held both hands up immediately and turned to face the huge, tattooed man stood next to him.

  ‘No trouble boys, I’m tellin’ ye.’ The innkeeper reached under the counter for a well-used cosh.

  ‘Trouble’s his, Keep, if he don’t give back what ain’t his.’

  The tavern fell quiet and the fiddler in the corner began plucking an ominous tune.

  Longoss didn’t move, just continued to hold up his hands, before showing his gold teeth to the large man stood over him.

  ‘What’s he doing, Keep?’

  ‘Holding his hands up and smiling, what’s it look like? Now take yer bloody ale and throw me yer coin, before I bop ye both for wasting me time.’

  The gold teeth still shone and the hands stayed high as the large man leaned threateningly across Longoss to take the jug.

  Longoss’ eyes moved from the other man’s for the briefest of moments, to take in a particularly unique tattoo on his neck.

  Holding the jug in front of Longoss for a moment longer than everyone in the room thought necessary, the tattooed man eventually, but slowly, slid the jug towards him, back to where it had been filled.

  With Longoss’ hands still held high and more than a few looks of confusion from around the small tavern, some clearly of disappointment, the fiddler stepped up his music again in realisation nothing was about to happen, and the patrons gradually began turning back to their drinks, companions and conversations.

  The large, tattooed man slowly lifted his jug of ale and brought it close to his lips, glancing sideways at the still bared gold teeth and raised hands of Longoss, who, it was only now apparent from the smell, was literally pissing himself where he sat. That in mind, the man laughed directly at Longoss, before quaffing the whole jug in one. He finally took his eyes from the man he considered a loon as he heard him mumble some gibberish about a mark.

  All seven tattooed feet of the ma
n, jug and all, dropped heavily to the floor as a bollock dagger firmly lodged itself between his ribs and up into his heart; the grubby hilt left Longoss’ hand only when the blade followed the body to the floor.

  ‘Go on then, Keep,’ Longoss said, turning back to the bar despite the sudden screech of the fiddler’s bow on string, ‘pour me another ale will ye?’

  ***

  Fal felt as though he and his companions had been sat in the small, cold room for hours. They’d been brought to the windowless room via a passageway leading out of the great hall. Four torches lit the room where Fal, Sav and Errolas sat. There was a long bench curving around the circular room, a room housed deep inside one of the palace drum towers. The large wooden floor boards, sixteen in all – counted by Fal several times, he’d been there so long – had gaps in-between them in places and Fal could make out a faint light source from the floor below. What was down there he had no idea, but the sound of muffled voices accompanied by frequent laughter was apparent, so he guessed it was a guard room or something similar.

  Sav and Errolas had asked Fal about what he’d found out at Tyndurris, about the plague and whether or not he trusted Severun and Orix. He'd explained all, including his thoughts and conclusions that, as far as he could make out, he truly believed both of the mages had good intentions.

  Fal then moved the subject along to the attack on the coach, including the coach being set on fire. He told them the torch had come in through the sky-facing window and set the coach’s curtains on fire as soon as it passed them. He went on to explain how Severun, panicked by the flame, had yelled out something Fal couldn’t understand nor remember. Then, after Fal had tried to scrabble across the coach to throw the lit torch out, a rush of water had erupted from the ground-facing window, up through the opposite window and out of the coach like one of the fountains in Kings Square.

  ‘It’s a wonder you weren’t drowned,’ Sav had said, shaking his head. Fal couldn’t make up his mind which would be worse, burning or drowning. He’d heard sailors claim drowning was quite serene at the end; how they knew he didn’t know, but after what he’d witnessed in his past, he knew burning was the last way he would ever want to die.

  Fire: we gain so much from its existence. We create it on a whim and some play with it like naught but a harmless toy, but it can kill; it can kill horribly and don’t I know it.

  Maybe I should burn, one day, for what I released… and more. Maybe I will, but by the gods there is no worse way to go, not in my eyes. And the fear in Severun’s when the torch came through the window… I saw his soul in that moment and it mirrored my own. By the gods, he doesn’t deserve that, no, no one does, and I don’t care what’s said otherwise, nor by whom… no bastard deserves that.

  Sav had found it strange when Fal mentioned Severun panicking at the sight of the torch. He said he would have thought The Grand Master of the Wizards and Sorcery Guild was made of sterner stuff and Fal was inclined to agree, although he flinched momentarily before saying so.

  ‘He tried to escape back at Tyndurris,’ Fal added a little later.

  ‘Who did? Lord Severun?’ Sav was obviously shocked and leaned towards Fal who was sat on the far side of the room. Errolas, who seemed to have drifted into a meditative sleep since the earlier conversation had stirred, opened his eyes and looked at Fal.

  ‘Yes.’ Fal nodded slowly. ‘When Master Orix said we were to seek an audience with the King, I’d moved to the door to escort them and suddenly… poof!’ Fal waved his hands in an explosive expression.

  ‘What do you mean, poof?’ Sav leaned forward even further.

  ‘Well… he just vanished, right in front of my eyes. There was a cloud of smoke and Master Orix yelled for me to close the door. So I did. I slammed it, which caught an invisible Lord Severun between it and the frame. I grabbed at where I reckoned he was and – poof – he was there again. By then I had him in a hold.’

  Sav’s mouth hung wide open. He’d silently mouthed the words vanished and invisible as Fal had said them, and now he just stared unbelievingly at Fal. Errolas, however, smiled.

  ‘You know what he did, don’t you Errolas?’ Fal was clearly eager to know, as was Sav, who spun on the elf.

  ‘The wizard used what he would call a blinker spell. Not extremely hard for some mages, but it does need concentration before use, otherwise you could end up slipping out of existence.’

  Sav’s mouth, if possible, opened even more as he looked from Errolas to Fal and back.

  ‘He was quiet as he was getting up to leave his desk,’ Fal offered.

  ‘That’s when he was silently preparing the spell then,’ the elf said. ‘A mage, or rather some mages, find they can concentrate on a spot, not too far away mind, and it has to be in view. Then using their stored magic, they can actually move to that spot, swiftly, without anyone seeing them… well, it’s not exactly that fast, it takes the same time as it would to run there. But the magic hides them from sight or sound by fading them out of this dimension, to put it simply…’

  Simply? Sav thought. Fal thought the same.

  ‘…and so it seems like they have travelled a few paces in the blink of an eye, hence it being called a blinker spell, by human mages at least.’

  ‘So that’s why he re-appeared when I slammed the door and grabbed out, because if he hadn’t, he could’ve ended up disappearing forever?’ Fal had worked around mages for a long time, but had rarely had the chance to hear about magic or spells in any great detail, and although a great uncertainty was hanging over the group, Fal wanted to know more.

  ‘Well, not exactly,’ Errolas replied. ‘Once he has concentrated on making the move, the shift of his physical presence in this dimension only lasts until he makes the point he focussed on via the journey he planned. You, however, slammed the door, which must have caught him as his body was already returning to its solid form, and so the door hit him; you grabbed him and then he finally, fully reappeared.’

  Sav had finally closed his mouth, but listened intensely, looking from Errolas to Fal, who looked back at him, then back to Errolas before finally asking a question.

  ‘I understand him even less now,’ Sav said. ‘Because, if you believe Lord Severun meant only good by his experiment, Fal, then why did he try to escape? He doesn’t strike me as the type who scares easily.’

  ‘I think I can answer that as well,’ Errolas said, to the surprise of both.

  ‘How so?’ Fal asked.

  ‘I am not unfamiliar with Altoln history,’ the elf said. ‘In thirty-nine-thirty-nine Landing, the King of—’

  ‘When?’ Sav asked, looking to Fal – who shrugged – and then back to the elf.

  ‘Ah, my apologies, I was using an ancient calendar,’ Errolas said, before asking, ‘Which calendar would you prefer, Altoln’s founding, or the alliance?’

  ‘Alliance,’ Fal said quickly. ‘The Samorlian’s might not recognise it, but we do.’

  Sav agreed.

  Smiling, Errolas continued. ‘In the year four thirty-four Alliance, the King of Altoln, King Barrison’s grandfather I believe, allowed the Samorlian Church to begin an Inquisition throughout Altoln.’

  Both Fal and Sav nodded their heads again, as the Samorlian Inquisitions were well known throughout Wesson.

  ‘That Inquisition, as you know, was aimed by the King and the church at arcane magic users. Unfortunately, some elements of the Samorlian Church seemed to get carried away, for want of a better term, and thousands were killed, many burnt, throughout Altoln.

  ‘During the winter of… four thirty-five, the Wizards and Sorcery Guild protested to the King that the Inquisition should be called off after many of their members had been targeted. The whole kingdom had gone through more than enough. So the guild council approached the King asking him… nay pleading with him, to call off the church; who were very much the King’s puppet masters at the time.

  ‘The King, alas, declined the request, and the two most passionate mages, a wizard and a sorceress, wer
e tried by the Inquisition and burnt at the stake, leaving one child an orphan… his name—’

  ‘Was Severun,’ Fal whispered. He felt his heart drop as the realisation struck him.

  Severun, whatever it is you have caused here, whatever pain and suffering now afflicting this city by your hands, I will always know the pain you have lived through, just as I lived through it myself, and know it has already been enough punishment. Gods only know how I hope you never witnessed their deaths.

  ‘Gods below,’ Sav said slowly. He ran his hands through his hair and leant back against the wall, staring at the torch-lit ceiling.

  ‘That's why I believe he tried to flee and why he panicked when the torch was thrown into the coach,’ Errolas went on. ‘He was forced to watch both of his parents burn to death at the hands of the Samorlian Inquisition…’

  You bastards. You vicious bastards. Fal closed his eyes and clenched his teeth at the thought.

  ‘…and he fears he is going to follow their fate.’ The elf’s eyes showed his compassion, and the room fell silent for a few moments until Sav broke the silence with another question.

  ‘Why wouldn’t he want revenge? I’d want to pay back the church and…’ Sav cocked his head to one side. ‘Wait a minute, four thirty-five? That’d put him in his early sixties then wouldn’t it? I know he’s no young stag, but I thought he was younger by at least a decade or so.’

  Errolas smiled again as he enlightened the two men yet more.

  ‘Severun was in his teens during four thirty-five. As rangers, we are taught about him, because he is probably one of the most powerful wizards in Altoln at the moment. He is seventy four years old.’ Errolas smiled even more as he watched Sav’s mouth fall open yet again, but not before the scout let out a prolonged curse.