Then he felt dreadfully sick. If there had been an F-rank eleven, he thought he would have been forced into it. Instead, he was physically ripping and about to burst from the inside as too much power flooded in. The raider’s muscle pulled so tightly on his bones that they tore along his arms and legs.
An F-rank body simply couldn’t hold that much, and the imbalance was shredding him. Looking for any sort of outlet, he pushed his Essence on to the waiting, pulling void and completed the connection fully. Excess Essence drained off as his eyes and ears suffered profuse bleeding, already long past risk of severe internal damage from Essence overdose.
Then… then came the part he had not been ready for. He both felt and saw the completion of the energy flow in who he was connected to, and the literal sun that exploded with resplendence overloaded his numbed senses. This wasn’t a pathetic old man at all! He’d been tricked!
In a panic, the smile vanished from Alphas’ face. He forcibly tried to sever the connection, but it was to no avail. Alphas felt nauseous as a full rank of cultivation was ripped out from his Center with all the gentleness of a log being struck with lightning. A second rank of cultivation quickly followed, dropping him to F-rank eight. Something worse was afoot. Alphas realized that what the right-hand connection was pushing into him wasn’t Essence anymore.
It was… heavy. Dense. Bad. It felt like Essence at first. Once the bubble broke inside of his system from the pull, he learned otherwise. The ripping twist of force drained his Essence out of his left-handed connection, while a sick, vomitous stream of corruption bombarded his Center from the right.
Being hit straight on by siege weaponry would have hurt less than the agony which quickly built. Endless streams stifled, drowned, burned, and whirled inside of Alphas as he dropped to F-rank three. His Center space was aggressively being replaced by torrential maelstroms of corruption that didn’t get along, destroying the man from the inside out. Channels that needed Essence to sustain themselves were clogged by the corruption, and with a pained final sputter… *Hurk*!
Alphas felt his very spiral being rent from his Center as it fully filled with a bloating force that was going to drive him insane. Only when the last of his Essence had been pulled from his left hand did the connection break, preventing any of the corruption from cycling back into the old man’s system. Alphas convulsed on the cot. He shook, trembled, and turned a violet red as his eyes spotted bloodshot and thick foam slid from the sides of his mouth.
A few moments later, Alphas was dead. The noises had cowed the remaining raiders. A few of them wet themselves from the absolute horror they’d just heard from the strongest among them. Artorian quietly took stock of the result, having watched the full process in as much detail as he could. His voice had the pitch of an epiphany.
“Ah. I understand now. This is what a small fraction of my corruption does to someone else? I too would wonder how I’m not dead. I suppose I can stop getting annoyed when I am asked.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Hadurin let out the heaviest sigh once he sat himself down in the confined cloister meeting room. His satchels rattled, and some vials clinked about in a leather pouch. He wasn’t one to wait on protocol and pressed forwards on the table from wrist to elbow. “Did ya have teh kill ‘em all, Artorian?”
A grumble went around the table as Head Clerics Tarrean and Nefellum compared notes, still far too busy for this annoying little spot of news. The Keepers were sitting opposed to each other, faces indifferently filled with an air of ‘I’m not talking to you’.
Marud and Hadurin also sat on opposite sides of the table, but unlike the other four, they had turned their seats and their attention so they could listen to whatever nonsense the old man had pulled this time. Yvessa and Tibbins leaned against the back wall with their arms crossed, silently whispering bets to each other on the outcome of the not-quite-roundtable talk.
Ordinarily, this would be called a debriefing, but Artorian didn’t get the benefit of such procedure since he had technically been operating under the instructions of the Head Healer, whose buns were now over hot coals. What interested the old man was the Head Healer’s name listed on the vellum in front of Hadurin. It made his mind work as the cogs of recollection turned. How… interesting. Hadurin was lying about his last name? He’d have pressed the topic if he didn’t feel dead tired right now.
Hadurin Fellhammer didn’t care about that, his voice gruff as usual. “Wasn’t a very good thing to do.”
Artorian slumped back in his seat, hands folded in his lap, his eyes locked on to an empty spot of the table with half-lidded effort. “Wasn’t it, my friend?”
The table made a dusty thump as Hadurin dropped his fist on it. Everyone simply held on to their particular stack of papers without so much as an additional glance. They knew what the dwarf-raised human was like.
“No! T’was not! We got one chatty one! When we came in to check on the rest, it was a broken neck party that everyone was invited to!”
“I suppose it’s true that I didn’t need to kill them. I could have simply prevented them from harming anyone ever again.” Artorian pressed his thumbs together. Fellhammer threw his hands up at the oblique statement. “Then I thought about it some more… and realized I was being delusional. I couldn’t have stopped a thing.”
Hadurin felt his general mood alter from admonishment to confusion. It showed in his tone as his arms dropped. “Wha…?”
Artorian released his hands from one another and held up his thumb, counting with his fingers. “Good and evil are words that get thrown around a lot. Yet, when it comes up… someone tends to twist the meanings and rules so it will fit the outcome they’d like. Something can be both good or evil with a simple change of perspective. A persuasive enough person can convince you of such. That’s my warning to you, my friend. So, rather than argue with you on your beliefs, I’m going to lay out what I was thinking. Then you give me your opinion. Fair?”
Fellhammer squeezed his lips together and crossed his arms in defiance, but the grumble that left him was one of assent.
“I believe there’s a difference between willful evil, uncaring evil, and evil that came about because you had no other choice. A lesser evil, if you will. Now, I’m not going to bother getting into if it’s a ‘bad thing’ to kill someone. I know the Church wants to keep their image intact, but those Initiates were awful bloody, and the raiders captured were maybe a fraction of the ones who died in the field.”
A few people in the room didn’t know what the word fraction meant, but they just followed along best they could. “I gave a clear directive to all of the raiders. Something simple. I set a requirement, and I set an outcome that let them avoid it.”
Hadurin crassly interrupted him, “You were breakin’ necks.”
Artorian tiredly exhaled. “Crude and unkind, yes. Also, effective. It got the point across in a snap.”
Tibbins and Yvessa groaned, and a small pouch from the both of them was tossed to Marud, who caught them with a glimmering smile. Artorian ignored the gamblers and continued, “The report from the Keepers told us more about what the survivor spilled and confirmed that children are specifically taken at a young age. The reason of it being ‘easy to make them think a certain way’ is what bothered me. Once someone has a worldview and way of doing things, it can be impossible to break from that pattern. So, I hold that most people either can’t or, if they could, don’t. I’ve heard plenty a sob-story from a young woman on how they wished their partner would stop certain behaviors, was told he did, and then… clearly didn’t. Raiders are no different.”
Artorian took a drink of water, as he had their uncomfortable attention. “The survivor, the boy. He was the last category, doing evil because he had no other choice. You could tell from his voice, his willingness to cooperate, to let me know that he was in that mess against his will. Doing what you’re told isn’t good enough!”
He paused to collect himself, and several people swallowed hard. “I ha
ve the years, the experience, to tell the difference between tears and acting. He isn’t a bad lad, just had everything working against him. Given a chance, his pattern can change. Even a small section of the report from the Keeper is enough proof for me to believe he wants to, badly. That’s the kind of drive that allows a person to become someone new.”
The old man paused, but there were no questions. “Uncaring evil is the same as apathy. These people simply don’t care. There’s no reasoning with them, as nothing you say could possibly have an impact on the actions they’ve chosen to take. If they’re a raider, that’s it. You will get nothing out of them, and you can’t turn them around. The same is true in anyone. If you don’t care, you won’t do.”
“Willful evil is in people who are easier to blame. They are excellent scapegoats, as you can tag the wanted poster on them. They enjoy making the lives of others miserable and put effort into it. To the abyss with those people. A trip to the gallows for every last one of them! I don’t care what position, social status, or power they might hold!”
Artorian raised his hand and snapped his fingers twice to make a point. “I ended people who would do nothing other than commit acts which would eventually harm or kill people, as they committed willful or uncaring evil. Does it make me an evil person to put my foot forwards and sweep the broom to clean the dirt off my floor? Is it justified, or does that not matter? People make laws about don’t do this and don’t do that. In the Fringe… that boils down to social understandings with one another. Nothing is written in that fashion; we just know the rules we’ve agreed to follow with one another. Writing it down is needed when you have to lord it over someone to enforce your rule.”
“To my firm distaste, it is the people at the top who tend to then make additional rules to protect themselves or their interests, rules their subjects can’t prevent them from creating and enforcing. The Fringe is clear on what to do with someone unwilling to be of a benefit to the community as a whole. They are named Poison.”
Hadurin grumbled, “I can already take a strong guess as to what happens to ‘em.”
Yvessa was given a small pouch by Tibbins, who was sour-faced having to let some of his prized herbs go. Artorian shrugged. “My point is that I understand that rules have their place, and it’s better to do good. However, I’m too old to base my decisions on rules that are questionable at best. So, I’ve firmly decided to only act on the decisions where I believe I will not regret the outcome. I make the choices I am willing to live with. Even if the outcome isn’t what I thought it was going to be—my choices, my actions, my life—lived out the only way it matters.”
The Head Clerics had stopped their page ruffling, now paying attention. Marud knocked his knuckles a few times on the table for attention, his baritone cutting in. “That’s one strong personality hidden in that fragile shell of yours. I’m going to cut this short because the situation isn’t as bad as it looks. The report says that Hadurin listed ‘At your discretion’.”
The large vice-commander tapped a pointed finger at the document in question. “The information we needed, we have. By all accounts, your personal views are not being called into question. The task you were requested to do was fulfilled. Your viewpoint gives context on why we have a tent full of dead raiders that needs sanctifying before we throw them on the bonfire, but I’m not interested in the philosophical debate here.”
Marud then changed his face to a scowl directed at Fellhammer. “If you had been here on time to hear the full report, you would have known that. The guard came to tell us you were pacing in your tent muttering to yourself about how the old man got you in trouble. We have the information. So. What trouble?”
Marud’s sharp look warmed up to his trademark smile. Celestial were his teeth white. Hadurin felt a weight drop from his shoulders. The Head Healer slumped deeper into his seat than even Artorian. The healer rubbed his face and took a sharp breath, getting a hold of himself.
“Right then! I’ll catch up later. Where are we?” Joining the meeting, he reached out his stubby fingers, and Irene leaned over to hand him a freshly scribed copy of the agenda and notes for the day. Fellhammer frowned as he looked at the next item. “The old lady is awake? There was another one?”
An unscrupulous look swept across Artorian’s face. He sat back upright in his chair to pay attention.
“Please tell meh it’s not another one like ye. What’s this one got in her Center. Squares? All the squares come together to make circles or something?” The Head Clerics looked at one another in confusion. Squares? That was the moment Hadurin realized that these superiors didn’t know. They didn’t know Artorian was cultivating, or they would have gotten the joke about the circles. Everyone else, except for the expedition Keeper and the Head Clerics, had a thin smile on their lips. Just like that, everyone knew who else was in on it… and the silent pact to keep it hidden from the others was reinforced—if only to see how long they could.
Lots of secret betting pools were riding on it, after all. Artorian waved off that item as a footnote. “I’ll take care of her. I know what she’s like. Can she walk?”
Yvessa cleared her throat, and eyes turned to look at her expectantly. “She’s a… how to put this… a screamer. If she’s not passed out, she’s breaking down and blurting out nonsense, but there are a lot of words in there that sound like ‘raiders’ or something to do with raiders. A familiar face may help settle her. Yes, she’s able to be on her feet.”
Her voice turned lemon-sour. “I preferred when she was catatonic. Her main reaction to anything is to grab something and beat me with it. Endlessly.”
A chuckle went around the room, but Yvessa remained stoic and unamused. Her face was covered in some marks that could now easily be recognized as stick-shaped bruises rather than training injuries. Tibbins looked her over, and Yvessa didn’t spare him a glance to acknowledge it even as the cook began speaking, “So… how did she get a stick?”
With the eyes of the Head Clerics on her, she couldn’t afford not to respond. Yvessa bit her lip with irritation. “I thought that it would be easier for her to calm down and have a walk if she had a walking stick. So, I got her one. I didn’t know she was going to turn into a beast straight from the abyss! That woman is crazy! The wanton yelling that I'm a ‘worthless child’ isn’t improving my mood either. If she was like this before her mental shock, I believe I would have followed Keeper Irene’s example of conflict resolution.”
Irene’s pleasure was palpable as she got a mention. The Keeper’s eyes flashed to meet Keeper Kendra’s, whose butt she whooped on a nearly bi-weekly basis. The beatdowns had become so one-sided that betting had completely ended. Artorian rose from his chair without the usual *humpf*, his hand making a motion to Yvessa. She happily pushed off the wall and sunk an arm under his shoulder to help him up. Had to keep the image up in front of the Head Clerics.
“I am proving a distraction to this meeting and will excuse myself to go deal with that inconvenient old toad. Yvessa, could you be a dear and help me do a proper bow so I may excuse myself?”
Tarrean just waved his hand left to right with wild and impatient dismissal. “No need, Artorian. You’re pardoned.”
“With all the various connotations that brings.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Yvessa ‘assisted’ the hunched Artorian with his dramatic show. He had even pressed a hand to the small of his back on the way out. Certain Church members at the table bit back laughter. Once outside, Artorian gave Yvessa a conspiratorial pat on her hand. “I’ll be alright to go alone, my dear. If she sees you again, she might start swinging.”
Yvessa’s face fouled like she’d smelled a fresh carcass. The caretaker didn’t say anything; instead, she just turned around so he couldn’t see her violent cringe as the muscles in her neck went taut. Artorian just kept on moving. His caretaker had the right of it. He heard the tent flap open and flop to a close as she returned inside. The thought of Switch and what that greedy bat had done st
ill plagued him.
He was trapped in his mind until his fingers brushed against the rough wooden door of one of the exterior cloister buildings. One he had avoided for over two years out of sheer, blatant discomfort that he wouldn’t tell a soul about. This matter was personal. The door creaked open, and Artorian stepped in to find a bare room filled with only the most basic essentials. Switch woke up as a chair was moved, announcing that someone had sat down.
She croaked, “Get out.”
When the chair didn’t make the sound of pressure being relieved from it, she bothered putting in the effort to turn her face… only to feel like she died of shock as dread beat through what was left of her heart. Artorian swallowed, attempting to get his words out, his face mired in a deep, contemplative frown. He looked at the floor with his hands pressed together. He still couldn’t bear to look at her as he repressed the roiling emotions. “Why did you do it, Switchy?”
The woman crawled away from the specter. “What. No! You’re not real! You can’t be real. You should be…”
Artorian felt his anger boil over as he jumped to his feet, grasped the chair by its back, and threw it against the wall. The thoughtless motion was performed with enough power to shatter it on impact like she’d done to a cup all those years ago. “Dead?”
It had all occurred in the span of a moment. Switch cowered in the far corner of her bed, back pressed to the wall as her lower jaw shook and her teeth chattered. “E-elder, please.”
The malice had died in her tone, fear replacing it. Artorian found himself incapable of feeling pity. Considering it a moment, he didn’t know if he was capable of pity anymore. Instead, all he felt was a calm sea frothing with endless anger. “I don’t go by that title anymore. There are no remaining Elders of the village Salt. I use it for convenience or for some clever gain. Otherwise, that word merely chafes.”
Axiom Page 26
