A Prayer of Dusk and Fury

by D Elias Jenkins

  "You old bastard, I never would have thought it."

  The Witchfinder dropped into a lunge and threw the mace at the old man. Gumm drunkenly lurched to one side and the black steel spikes embedded themselves into the door with a thud. Gumm shuffled around to look at the vibrating mace and then turned to Kobold with a frown. He took a sip of wine.

  "Do you think I spent a lifetime avoiding Manticores spines, to get caught by some nails driven into a piece of wood?"

  Kobold's supreme confidence took a dip, but it was more confusion that Alfred could see in the Witchfinder's face. Old Gumm drained the wineskin, holding it above his mouth for the final few drops, and then threw it aside. He fixed his bleary eyed gaze on Kobold. The Witchfinder's rage overcame him and he lurched across the table, studded gauntlets swinging wild.

  Gumm dodged the flurry of blows, stepped aside and picked up his little hardwood pipe. He held it by the bowl and jabbed the stem of it under Kobold’s armpit. The Witchfinder grimaced and hunched over. Gumm jabbed the pipe into the nerves of his unprotected collarbone. Finally Gumm poked the pipe into his good eye. Causing a scream of pain and sent Kobold lurching backwards clutching his face.

  The two old men stood facing each other, breathing hard. Kobold spoke through bloodied teeth.

  "You think pain will stop me? I have breakfasted on pain since I was eight years old. The map of the lash covers my back. All your lives are forfeit. You think there aren’t ways to get a message out of this place? I have the Magus within me too, old man. The Blackguard will burn this place to the ground."

  Old Gumm stared at him with bloodshot eyes. He studied the Witchfinder from beneath his bushy brows. Finally he caught his breath and spoke.

  "The hospitality of Ironghast is no longer offered to you. You need to leave."

  Kobold shook his head and looked at the ragged old man like he was insane.

  "You are a mad old drunk, Gumm. Your lives are forfeit I said!"

  Gumm looked at him and then stood to his full height.

  "Yes."

  With a speed that astounded Alfred and caught Kobold off guard, Gumm strode forward and grabbed the man by the throat with one hand. Pushing him back with a force Alfred would never have believed possible. Before Kobold could register his predicament, the old cleric had launched him up and shoved him up on the window ledge. Kobold's eyes were wild as he looked over his shoulder at the drop below. His fingernails scraped at the stone. He rasped through his constricted throat.

  "You can't...kill...what's coming..."

  Gumm nodded.

  "Not on my own."

  Gumm pushed and Kobold the Witchfinder vanished screaming into the cold night.

  Alfred sat up breathing hard. Old Gumm shuffled over to a stack of huge tomes and sat down. He seemed exhausted as he took out his tobacco pouch and filled his pipe. It was as if he had forgotten the young acolyte was there. When the pain began to ease in his guts, Alfred coughed and spoke up.

  "Um...Brother Gumm...Sir? Are you hurt...?"

  He looked up, his bloodshot eyes regarding Alfred as if for the first time. Alfred got to his feet and leaned against the wall for support. He looked at the overturned table and scattered books all around him. His gaze fell upon the open window.

  "Gumm, you killed him."

  Gumm glanced up from beneath bushy brows and nodded.

  "I hope so, because I’m too old to go down hundreds of steps to finish him off."

  Alfred walked over to Old Gumm, clutching his stomach. Then the obvious hit him.

  "It's you. You're the Paladin. The Knight of the Blaze. You're the one who has been watching over me!"

  Gumm glanced askance at Alfred and then stood, dusting himself off.

  "Knight of the Blaze. I'm not sure of you could even describe it as an order anymore, considering I'm the only one left."

  Alfred thought back to the armoured knight that had saved him.

  "That night at the brecanstane. You killed all those wendigo, like they were nothing. It was you."

  Gumm turned around with sigh. He had sobered up a little and didn't seem to be enjoying it.

  “I'm just an old man, and just as drunk and tired as I look. It's the light of the Lord of Illumination that flows through me, grants me a little strength from time to time, to do his work. But whatever light the lord gave me is fading fast. My job now is to get you and the others like you ready for where you are going.”

  Alfred supported himself against a bookcase, still trying to catch his breath.

  "You have been watching me, protecting me all along. Why not just reveal yourself?"

  Gumm started to tidy up the books that had scattered and put them back in their proper place. He seemed again like the bent old man Alfred had seen wandering about the monastery, mumbling to himself.

  "I had to watch you, see what you were made of."

  Alfred righted a fallen chair and sat down.

  "Kobold would have murdered me in a fight. You must be disappointed? I cannot do what I just watched you do.”

  Gumm smiled.

  “I threw a one-eyed Witchfinder out a window. Not exactly a battle to write songs about.”

  Alfred looked across to the open window.

  “You finished that whole skin of wine and he still couldn’t touch you. I barely managed to swing at him.”

  Gum grunted as he tidied.

  "Angall will give you the strength of arm that you need. It’s your heart I needed to see the truth of. You're the sort that would sacrifice his own life to protect a defenceless horse. Or would not abandon a dying old priest to the monsters that would eat him. I saw you pick up that blunted sword and fight the Wendigo to protect your master Phillip. God can give your strength of arm, boy, but he can't give you strength in your heart of you don't have it. It's a strong heart that has mercy and compassion, a full heart that will stand up for what he cares about. You have that. Angall will take care of the rest."

  Alfred stopped and studied the old man.

  "Gumm..."

  The old monk shook his head.

  "It's Invar Ironbound. Squire of Ulric Godwine, Knight of the Blaze. And I’d be as dead as the rest of my order if my master hadn’t sent me here as a boy. He only gave me one purpose in life. To protect rare and lost things, and help bring them here for refuge. So…welcome."

  Alfred looked at the old man and tried to imagine the life he had lived here so far from the world.

  "You’re a paladin. A real paladin. It’s incredible.”

  “Yes. Another thing almost extinct.”

  Alfred was afraid to voice what he had seen earlier, but if there was anyone he could ask it was a paladin.

  “There’s a book. In a locked room down that passage. It is protected by a cloak of light. Can you read it?”

  Invar looked up and narrowed his bloodshot eyes.

  “No. Can you?”

  Alfred swallowed and glanced back towards the passage.

  “Perhaps. And if I can?”

  Invar blew out a big sigh.

  “Then I don’t much like the look of your future, Alfred. The legend goes that what is contained in that book can defeat the Green King, and things like him. Don’t think there’s been anyone living for hundreds of years that could decipher it. I see why Kobold was so keen to kill you.”

  Invar stood, his knees cracking, and he stretched out his back. He grimaced at the pain and then stood tall by the open window. Alfred thought he caught a glimpse of the man he might have been in his prime. Invar placed a gnarled hand on Alfred's shoulder.

  "Others like you will be arriving soon. If I can help keep you all stay in one piece through this, I will, with my last few heartbeats, such as they are."

  Warmth radiated through Alfred from the contact, and could sense strength within the old man.

  "Thank you Invar. I will do my best to temper a vain, shallow soul into something that glitters better. I will strive to be worthy of your protection."

  Invar walked ove
r to the window and took in a deep breath of night air. The stars were bright above the dust cloud that permeated the Bleaks.

  “Alfred, there are things far more unworthy and monstrous than you that it's been by duty to safeguard, much as it grates on me to do so."

  Alfred thought back to his arrival in Ironghast.

  "When I first woke up in the infirmary, you were by my bedside watching over me. There were two young monks brought in, torn and in pain. They were ranting, talking of the beast in these walls. I was so afraid in that moment I was ready to run back out into the Bleaks. Do you know what they were referring to?"

  Invar waved a big hand.

  "Yes, I'm afraid I do. But it's not something you should concern yourself with. Not yet."

  Alfred stood and walked across to the arched window, letting the cold breeze wash over his bloodied face.

  "I think the time of secrets is passed, Invar."

  Invar Ironbound turned and approached Alfred. His face was set hard.

  "Come then, Alfred of Durn. Let me show you what sort of things lie beneath us in the dark."

  9

  Oligan stood at the iron doors that opened on the balcony but he could not step outside.

  The moonlight spilled down on the marble veranda and he felt too exposed beneath the gods to reveal himself.

  The mask he wore weighed heavier than ever, a cold tomb enclosing his face. He pulled his breath in short ragged bursts and he feared that he might suffocate. He looked out over the city, and it was silent. The curfew was in effect and the only living things were bats flitting about the domes and towers. The sea in the bay was almost black apart from a long silver streak of moonlight on the water. As he struggled for breath, the familiar panic rose within Oligan clawed at the leather straps of his mask.

  His good hand managed to undo the first buckle but the burned fingers of his other hand fumbled and cramped like useless claws. He cursed within the mask and the muffled echo danced around the high temple. With a roar he unclasped the bindings and in a rage he threw the elaborate metal face to the floor.

  Oligan threw his head back and took a desperate gulp of night air. He leaned against the doors that led outside and allowed his body to sag. If a crown bore heavy as his father had once told him, try wearing this cursed thing, Oligan thought.

  The cool breeze cooled the inflamed scars on his face, the light penetrating the milky shadows of his blind eye.

  Oligan had been blessed with long life. Through small monthly doses of the essence within the reliquary. It was just enough to stave off the poison that still burned within his veins. Decades of half-life where he could watch his family stare out of their glass coffins with unseeing eyes.

  There was no cure to the Manticore venom in his blood. It was the most virulent poison in the world. When Oligan had been stung, he should have died within moments. He remembered little of the days thereafter, only a blinding pain he had never imagined could exist. There was no respite from it, every nerve in his body and brain was dissolving and yet never died to numbness. He thought that it would drive him insane and soon lost track of all space and time. Oligan was floating in a crimson sea of acid, thrashing and gurgling as he swallowed. Into this ocean of agony rowed a thin figure in a boat who offered his hand. Oligan did not hesitate to take it.

  When the king came back from his delirium, he was in the high temple where he now stood. Merrick Clay had been standing above his sick bed. Along with a handful of black clad disciples of the silent brotherhood of vicissitude. The priest Merrick Clay had given him a concoction to drink that turned Oligan's stomach. It was like the juice from rotten meat. Yet over the weeks, it brought him back from the brink, healing his body and mind.

  Clay had explained to the king that even the magical matter of the Sorrow could not cure the poison. He convinced the king that something so virulent could not be permitted to exist within the world. And persuaded him that the total annihilation of the Manticores was the only solution to keep mankind safe.

  Once the proud ancient beasts were dealt with, Clay whispered the names of many other Old Races to the king. Some Oligan never even knew still existed. They hid in mountain retreats. Deep within forests and in subterranean cave systems, or even beneath the waves.

  Clay planted the seed of fear in Oligan. That if the venom of a Manticore could hold such power to kill a king or a god, what other secret powers might the Old Races harbour? Might they one day realise their combined potency and rise up against him? To create a kingdom of beasts and abominations?

  When his family fell to the mysterious plague, Merrick and his advisors convinced the king that the only possible explanation was some hidden sorcery. It was a magical attack, a conjured pestilence and only one of the Old Races or a human warlock could be to blame. If only Oligan had acted sooner and driven these beasts out, perhaps they would have been saved.

  More guilt, more self-loathing, and yet even more lust for power. And still the strong instinct to survive at all costs. Oligan was a survivor, and so must his family be. Oligan fell into deeper and deeper paranoia and fear. Seeing enemies around every corner.

  By the time it came to execute the orders, King Oligan was convinced that it was all his idea. The ancient races that were born with some variation of the Magus Heart presented a clear and present threat to the monarchy. And to all mankind.

  Oligan leaned on the doors to the balcony and they ground shut.

  Once again he was in the stifling humidity and gloom of the High Temple. The braziers burned and the motes of ash drifted in the surrounding darkness like dead snow. Oligan was as lonely as a being could ever be.

  He conversed with almost no one apart from Merrick Clay. And Clay had sailed south to the port of Dashai with a contingent of his toughest hatchetmen. He had heard rumour of a young girl. One with the rare and strange blessing from the god Angall, that Merrick seemed to fear so much.

  Angall's Whisper.

  The king had no doubt that his chief Witchfinder would hunt down his quarry and bring the poor girl back to the tower. There, deep beneath the throne room she would endure his torments as he experimented on her. Trying to decipher the riddle of her magic. Then when the time came she would have her magic ripped out and fed to the Green King. Merrick believed that a blessing as rare as Angall's Whisper would awaken the god.

  The loneliness pained Oligan as he wandered in the vast hall of the high temple. The terrible longing and emptiness exhausted him. On a whim he decided that he would visit his family. He found his tired, slippered feet taking him winding through the gloomy pillars to the dark alcove where the doors sat.

  He lit a torch from a brazier as he passed and set it into the wall outside the alcove. Oligan stood there and his heart sank. He knew that Merrick Clay would never leave the tower with the doors to the inner sanctum still open. Oligan never went in alone. He always needed his Witchfinder's magic in order to pry open the thaumaturgically sealed doors.

  A rush of rage filled Oligan. He was a king who had to ask permission from his servant to access the room where his own family slept.

  Oligan slammed a fist against the cold slabs of stone, but the doors did not budge an inch. How much power had he relinquished over the years to this dark insidious brotherhood that had wormed its way into his life and court?

  Oligan drew back his fist, tears in his eyes, and prepared to hammer upon the stone doors again. Knowing that his flesh was no match for the magic that sealed them.

  He groaned in his misery and then his eyes opened in surprise as his fist hit nothing but humid air. The king opened his eyes and stood there for a moment in confusion.

  He had not heard the old stone doors grate, but there he was in the doorway with them open wide. A fine mist of steam drifted out the doorway and washed over him. Carrying with it the stench of the Sorrow. The inner sanctum within was thick with steam, its deep green heart glowing ahead in the gloom. Oligan looked behind him into the high temple, as if waiting to be stopped.


  He was alone.

  I'm not alone , he thought, I am the King, and I go where I please in my own palace.

  Oligan stepped inside and breathed in the humid air as the steam began to clear. The low vibration hummed from the reliquary emanating through his flesh in waves like the snoring of a monstrous beast.

  Oligan spoke out loud like a fool, stuttering over his words.

  "I have come to see my family. And to thank you for your continued care of them."

  The vast glass egg did not respond. The green meat-flecked fog rolled within. The slowiron lattice surrounding it reverberated with a low hum of power.

  Oligan swallowed and stepped around the reliquary, bowing as he moved. He came to the curtained alcove where his family slept, and turned to it.

  He swept back the curtain. And stared.

  The broken glass capsules stared back at him like cracked eggs. The viscous green amniotic fluid that had filled them spilled out over the floor in a bubbling slime. Oligan tried to speak but no words came. He reached out and touched a corner of the ragged glass, running his finger down it in confusion. He drew his hand back as the glass cut into his fingertips. Like a fool he stood staring at the dripping blood, shaking his head.

  From behind him a voice, familiar yet not.

  “Oligan, my Prince.”

  The king spun around and stood looking at his family in amazement. Cassandra and his two daughters were standing dripping on the flagstones. They were naked and shivering but their faces did not acknowledge the cold. His wife reached a hand out to him and smiled.

  Her skin was a dappled grey colour, with fine blue thread veins webbed across every inch. Her once blond hair hung a lank dust colour over her cheeks, and her once proud breasts sagged like empty purses.

  Standing next to her, his little girls stood still with their arms at their sides. Their skin was the same blotched unnatural colour as their mother's and they offered him blank, benign smiles.

  Oligan reached out a shaking hand and then drew it back, afraid of being wrong.