by J. Gibson
“Aye,” he responded finally, in an effort to correct himself.
“Might I enter?”
Hauling his legs over the side of his bed, his hairy-knuckled toes splayed and groped for the polished stone ground. His movement had slowed since the months prior, before the attack. He felt more aged too. Perhaps the stress had withered him. He had to be careful. The cuts and bruises across his forearms had turned purple, near black. Another marker of his development.
Each day, he sat like this in small instances, reflecting on what he had become. He beheld himself in the water of his washbasin. How eldered he grew presented plainly. His face wilted. The color of distressed leather overtook his skin, rough and rugged, lined and wrinkled. The hairs from the top of his head to his neck greyed to white. These ordeals had cut up the vestiges of his youth in a most horrid fashion.
When he passed away, what would remain of him, beyond the stain he left on others? Those he served as guardian in the Vale of Erlan had perished. The last person upon whom he had inflicted himself, in his final sight of her, had been a writhing mass of blood, tears, and terror on her floor.
Delacroix worried sensibly, and she knew so little.
Another knock came at the door.
“Aye,” he said, lost for a moment in an undeserved self-pity.
Archbishop Delacroix entered. “I am glad to see you well.” She offered a pleasant half-smile, her account of his wellbeing a generosity, in itself. Yet he knew that she meant it. He heard the lingering tone of concern underlying her words.
His head dipped in reply.
“May I?” She signaled toward his lonesome chair.
He shook his head once more.
She walked to the chair, grabbed it by its back, and positioned it a few feet from his bedside. Sitting down across from him, as she had each visit, she crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap, ever formal, even in welcoming company. Her eyes moved over him, studying, as if to acknowledge the truth of his current state. He supposed she had not seen him since before his uninvited parting.
“To imagine you, lying upon the ground in the cold dark, feeling the awful torments exacted on you—to think of it as the wish of this thing to harm you, as you worked so well to recover.” Her jaw knotted at the sides as she clenched her teeth. “We underestimated our foe. That was my error.”
Garron stared off into the distance.
She had wanted to keep him safe, but the Ennead, including Delacroix, had not regarded the events of the Vale with due seriousness. “There are many kinds of evil,” he said, almost in reflex. “Evil that lurks and preys, steals away the innocent—evil that devours flesh and kills. Then there are evils that torment the mind. They have neither kindness nor want beyond their ends. They walk among us, unseen.” He swallowed. “These are the ones that frighten me most.” His insides, already crawling with unease, contracted with dejection. “I fear the longer I am tortured, the nearer I come to being evil myself.”
“Garron—”
“You do not understand!” The ire rose. “I was flung beyond this city by no more than the creature’s touch! It came unhindered through your wards!”
Aramanth did not react to his outburst. “What did you feel?”
“Forgive me, Archbishop.” A long pause trailed. “Terrified, beyond myself, but drawn. Nay, further than that. The Beast had taken hold of me, gripped my very mind.”
“What does she wish of you?”
“It calls me. It calls my spirit for its own.”
“Garron,” her tone bordered on reproachful, “you have been a servant of the Church for decades—"
“I know not whether I have the will to endure.”
“If this Beast, as you call it, has elected to assail you, then it assails the Church. You must not surrender. Do you recognize the important of this moment, of your struggle? You must endure.”
“If I cannot?”
“To capitulate would be to forsake your duty to the Mother.”
“Duty?” he replied, the word dripping with a red indignation. “Most of my life, I have labored in Her service. I have bled with Her daughters. I have sacrificed with Her sons.” His voice trembled. “In Her service, I have met the wrath of a god. I have endured against this creature a suffering as no woman or man before.” His quaking speech had erupted into another yell. “What have I to show? Speak it!” His sitting had turned to standing. As the rage climaxed and subsided, he became crestfallen. Returning to his place at the edge of his bed, he averted his gaze. He could not meet the Archbishop’s eyes, which never shied throughout his tirade.
“Father.” Archbishop Delacroix reverted to his formal title. “I have respected you, so I ask that you respect me. I understand that you have borne a great hardship, that you are not well. Nevertheless, I must insist that you conduct yourself with cordiality and reserve, otherwise I shall discontinue this meeting.” Each word she uttered carried a stern refusal to engage in fruitless bickering, or to worsen his troubled anger with reciprocation.
He made himself remember to whom he spoke.
Aramanth Delacroix.
Archbishop of the Ennead.
One of the finest minds in the world.
She represented more than a superior or colleague. A friendship had developed between them. She did not treat him with cold civility or callous indifference. In the face of his ingratitude and misguided anger, resentment, alienation, she recognized that the pain and brutalities and terrors he had witnessed and felt gave birth to these, and she knew but a sliver of the sum. Intent, she had listened to him at length, to the many fine details of gruesome scenes, the intricacies of anguish upon anguish, which in their aftershock he could do no more than imply with quavering lip and tear-welled eyes. Aramanth had provided him solace without hesitation, with an innate indulgence. He committed yet another terrible act in neglecting to treat her with such consideration in kind.
“What are you feeling now?” she asked.
“The ache is real. My suffering is real. This creature, the Beast, is real.” Still in a state of imbalance, he recalled the events of the Vale, and the night before, the struggle with the woman, the look in her eye. Fear, pain, dying. So far, he had treated her as a nameless, nondescript object by which to measure his torment and grief. Yet she is a person in the world. He needed to find a way to remedy his actions against her. It happened. Her hurt existed as truly as his, not merely in his delirious mind. She matters as much as you—her complexity, depth, strength, agony. He must remember to carry her with him so long as he lived.
“So these are, Garron.” The succor came to Aramanth with ease, his transgressions already dismissed. Her trustworthiness carried little doubt. He need only gaze into her eyes to know.
“Whatever this being is,” she continued, “we ought not underrate it further. It plagues you for its own whims. If this entity possesses the strength to penetrate the magics of the Priory, then we shall ward your mind itself. There shall be no tinkering in that head of yours. If every member of the Ennead must lend their power to this spell, so be it. As you are a guardian of the All-Mother’s flock and a priest of the Church, so too are you Her son. None may bring harm to Her children.”
Garron’s chin shook. “By Her grace, Archbishop.”
“In the meantime, as we prepare, I’ll send someone to keep you company.” She rose and turned toward the door. “I must be off to attend to other matters, regrettably.”
“Someone?” he asked.
“I’ll let her introduce herself.” The corner of her mouth turned up. “Lie and rest, if you like.”
“Aye.” He lay back, tired, his eyelids heavy.
“It shan’t be long,” she added. “We’ll return for you this day.”
She left.
The door shut behind her with a decisive thump.
As he lay, he cleared his mind and pushed away frightful memories and contemplations. He calmed himself, forced an internal serenity. The erratic pulsing of his heartbeats slow
ed and caught a rhythm. He thought of nothing, relaxing against the cool but warming surface of his mattress. A light sleep befell him for a time, yet he remained aware of his surroundings. Then a knock came upon his door, unanticipated this soon.
Already? He wanted to rise, cross the room, and unbar his door, but he remained comatose. His fingers and toes tingled. The prickle crept up his limbs until it met at his center and crawled into his head like reaching tendrils. His eyes would not open. He felt as though he were falling in place, or sinking. His attention concentrated on the banging at the door, as if time stood still around him save that ceaseless thudding. It grew louder as he kept frozen. The door rattled and groaned, until the pounding raised so loud it shook his back, jaw, and teeth.
A silence fell like lightning.
Chatter arose without.
His door burst open, clattering against the stone wall. Suited inquisitors filled his room. “Garron Latimer,” a woman said, her voice booming. “You are hereby charged with the murder of—” The words became inaudible.
Sitting up, his uncovered eyes strained against the light. He could not hear the name.
Hands wrapped beneath his arms, dragging him from his bed.
“Murder?” he murmured, struggling against gauntlet-clad fingers. “I’ve—I’ve killed no one.” He had come into waking and found himself walking, or rather, two paladins pulled him to his feet, the pair who had returned him to the Priory that night at the river. “Where is Archbishop Delacroix? I have killed no one.”
“She awaits you in the Ennead’s chamber,” the inquisitor to his right said. “She called the trial herself.”
“There must be some mistake. I’ve killed no one!”
Within minutes, they had entered the Ennead’s council space, to the well before them. A dim, foreboding greyness hued the room. Seven of the nine sat at the end of the chamber behind their elegant table, expressionless atop their elevated dais. He looked down to find that he wore heavy iron shackles upon his wrists and ankles, and prisoner’s clothing upon his body, though he did not recall anyone constraining or stripping and redressing him.
“Look ahead. Do not to communicate unless spoken to,” ordered an inquisitor.
On the wall behind the panel hung a painting of Breiman Umbra, his gaze as cold and piercing as in the flesh. Garron did not remember having seen that portrait in the past.
Archbishop Sangrey reordered papers in her hands, glancing up, eyes anchored on him. “Father Garron Latimer.” The monotony of her words carried greater authority than he had heard in any voice. “You are charged in violation of Matrian Law with the felonious killing of—” Again, he failed to perceive the name. He strained to hear it, the words muffled to him, as though he listened through a damp filter.
Another pitch swelled, a dense ringing in his head.
“Of whom?” he asked, out of breath. Dripping with sweat, his body weakened, as if his strength escaped with the moisture through his skin. He swayed on his feet.
“Your sentence is to be death by hanging,” Sangrey finished.
The inquisitors seized him at the shoulders and elbows. His lips parted to scream, to object, but no sound escaped. A black bag slipped over his head, depriving him of sight.
“Archbishop Delacroix.” He found his voice. “Aramanth—” They muzzled him. Tears escaped from his eyes as the inquisitors jerked him backward. The flesh of his lips had merged, rendering him unable to speak.
“You must pay for what you did,” he heard Aramanth proclaim. An apathy underpinned her words. No gentleness, no concern, only contempt.
The floor disappeared beneath him, and with it, his weight. A whining, whirring sonority manifested, enough to burst the drums of one’s ears, if he had any. His body had vanished again. The sound, muted and piercing in unity. He spasmed and spiraled in darkness, a formless mass. The noise came from inside him, in front of and over him, accompanied by a woman’s voice, rising in volume through the morass of competing disharmonies. Its tone held a tender urgency. Help me! He was as a blind mute. Help me!
“Father!”
The quaking grew with volume of the voice.
“Father, wake up!”
He heard screaming. A man’s. A familiar timbre. He sat up, trembling. Light made his eyes squint. A young deacon stood at his side. He found himself in his room, on his bed, soaked through his robes with sweat.
“You were having a terror.” Her hand moved from his shoulder.
His heart hammered. He brushed back dripping locks of grey, white, and black hair with his fingers. The deacon placed a cup of some dark, misting drink on his night table.
“Tea, Father, whenever you like.”
She sat on the chair where Aramanth had resided not long ago, or what he assumed had not been long ago. The sun shone through his window from outside, so he had not slept much, unless the next day had come.
“How long did I rest?”
“Not long. A duration enough to have a terror, unfortunately.”
He brought the cup to his lips, sniffed of it, swirling the contents in their container for a moment before taking a sip. The heat of it spread through his mouth, traveled down his throat, and warmed his chest and stomach. He imbibed again, at length this time, washing the taste of sleep from his tongue. The strong tea refreshed him, and alleviated his thirst. When he finished the drink, he sat it aside.
“Thank you,” he said.
The deacon smiled.
“What is your name?”
“Sister Amun Halleck,” she answered.
He recognized her, the Ennead’s Scribe Officiate.
At his deposition, she had taken the record.
“You are the Scribe Officiate?”
“An alternate to Sister Viessa Birieth, who is at present ill.” Her head turned, revealing her profile. She had about her a scarce handsomeness, appearing to be of her early twenties. Lean of countenance, she had a pointed chin and nose beneath hair the color of oiled bronze, tied back, fading into the shadow of the grey hood of her robes. Her eyes were even and almond-shaped. As her face rotated back toward him, gaze level to his, her irises shone a reddish-orange.
“Fair folk?” he asked. It was apparent, for the elves alone had eyes that color. He was half-awake and not rearmed in full of his cognitive functions.
She gave a light laugh. “Indeed, Father, half.”
“If I may inquire.” He diverted the conversation from his silly question. “For what purpose has Archbishop Delacroix sent you? I assume ‘twas she.”
“‘Twas, Father—”
“Call me Garron,” he interjected, waving a hand. It made little difference for the time. So long as he had to remain in the Priory, he could not perform his obligations.
“—Garron.” She adjusted. “She requested I keep you company until such time as the Ennead has prepared your warding spell.” A pause. “I suppose you’ve a tendency for melting into the air.”
He chuckled. It had been a while since he had laughed. “Aye.” He could not find reason to disapprove and invited the visit. Perhaps her presence would aid in keeping him safe. If not, someone would be there to observe if he vanished against his will. “What’s your specialty, if you don’t mind my asking?” She had beads at her wrist, with one charm attached, a small silver sphere with a ring around the middle, the issue of a first-degree deacon. Not as green as seekers and students, but past her starting year.
“The art of materialism with a concentration in healing spells,” she replied. “I hope to find station in a hall of the dying beyond the Priory when I reach my third rank.” She referred to the final tier of deacon, third-degree. First-degree deacons practiced their specialty in a supervised setting, and often worked under the archbishops and bishops. Second-degree deacons supervised first-degree deacons and labored part-time beyond the Priory. Third-degree deacons oversaw any of those below them and tended to take full-time employ outside the Priory, in halls of the dying as healers, or in other locations wherein th
eir specialties might be of value. For every degree, the deacons received another silver charm, ending at three.
“Magnanimous work,” he said. “Though, grim.”
Halls of the dying were no place for the weak of stomach or faint of heart. There, healers would tend to the sickest, sufferers of diseases which consumed their bodies, malignancies, and other terrible illnesses. Many were beyond saving, and the rest could only have their ailments and disorders managed.
“Verily, but I feel it as my calling.”
“Have you been to a house?” he asked.
“I would like to.”
“We may be given leave when the warding spell is done. Would you enjoy a visit then?”
“‘Twould be sound learning.” Her eyes flitted to the door and back to him. She eased closer, her head tilted down a touch. “I’d like to confide in you, if we might share in confidence?”
A streak of fear tore through him in a flash.
Not again.
He imagined her as the Beast in disguise.
His heart skipped a beat.
She appeared to observe his visceral reaction and leaned away. “I wanted to ask, between us,” she went on, still at a whisper. “Do you believe the restrictions on the Aether provided the opportunity for this—these events? Do you think the weakening of common magics has allowed the underkinds to bring about their power?”
He had considered it. Yet in this place, and particularly if magic warded his room, they could not discuss such notions in the open. “Sister,” he replied in near silence, “you mustn’t speak of such.” He gestured toward the door. “Such ideas could be met with ill-regard.” Even so, it was a possibility worth considering. If it had been the case, it was further conceivable that the Church was blind to its own harms and the potentialities it had unleashed.
“Whence do you hail?” He had detected an accent in her enunciations, foreign to Imperials. He knew the answer, but wanted to let her tell him herself.