by Regina Watts
But, were it possible to spread Weltyr’s faith without the superficial structures of Church or cult, such esoteric truths would resemble those very witchcrafts the Order sought to stamp out. Independent soothsaying and magical prayers were not just considered a danger to oneself when engaged outside of the Church. They were in fact regarded as a greater threat to society. They were gateways to radical thought and to certain alienation from the only divine truth.
And there was I, walking the dark streets of Skythorn with my heathen durrow beloved, about to end my engagement to the Order.
I had grown certain of it. The notion had turned itself over and over in my mind, transforming from a possibility to an inevitability. I would not back down from the duel, so the consequences would be great one way or another. No matter how I arranged the events in my mind, I could not see Zweiding accepting me into the Order. Not with the duel; and not with Valeria.
She who was foremost among my beloved companions bore the Scepter with me through the city streets. I felt too unclean to touch it then. My acceptance of what was about to happen to me made me somehow forget those parts of my sacred experience wherein my worthiness was assured.
However, no matter how I tried to rationalize the teaching of the Church with what had been told to me, I could not help but fear that I did the wrong thing. Was I mad, or simply stupid? At the gates of the Temple, while Valeria marveled about her from beneath the edges of her hood, I paused before the threshold to say a prayer. The guards at either side of the gate looked respectfully away, paying no mind to myself or my companion.
What did I pray before entering the site of the duel?
That Weltyr might send me a sign—a true sign that it had indeed been he who visited me. That I was right to follow these declarations coming to me from outside the jurisdiction of the Church.
Then, with Valeria at my right hand, I entered the Temple gates for the last time.
The halls were quiet with reverence for a new day, though monks and priests and soldiers of all stations already moved about. Fresh incense sweetened the air and soft prayers filled my heart with longing. This was the home of my childhood, Weltyr, where I first learned to love you! Was I really meant to leave all this behind?
But I chided myself as we mounted the same staircase Elishta-bet and I had taken to the Rectory Hall. My attachment to the Church was nothing more than that—attachment. Attachment to youth, to nostalgia. It was a longing for the innocent days of my childhood and all the things I once took with absolute ease.
Yet the heart of the man who is visited by God—truly, absolutely, indisputably visited, not pretending he has been visited or merely under the impression by supernatural or hallucinatory forces that he has been visited—is filled with the certainty that he has experienced the truth. One who is so intimate with truth knows that there is no room for attachment to anything mortal in the world…even Weltyr’s own organization.
Perhaps this was why I felt a new confidence, a relationship with the past as I had never before experienced, while showing Valeria the halls and paintings and fantastical architecture of my childhood home. A few days before, when I had met Elishta-bet there, I had still felt like a small boy compared to the grandeur of the hallowed tower. Now I experienced a bold new sense of power as I knocked upon Father Fortisto’s door and turned the knob at his bright, “Come in!”
“Father,” I said, my heart glad to see him. He gasped and hurried up from his seat, crossing around the desk before the door was even fully opened.
“Rorke! Oh, what a frightful morning—I’ve prayed for days that the duel will go well for you.”
“That makes two of us!” With a dark laugh, I embraced the old man, then released him in a gesture toward Valeria. “And this is Valeria, my dearest companion. I wanted you to meet her before the duel. It’s she who helped me escape the Nightlands more than any other. Without her safe harbor, I might have spent far longer.”
His eyes widening with understanding, Fortisto looked sharply into her face. “A durrow!”
“And a companion sent to me by Weltyr if ever I have known one,” I assured him, stepping into the office as he hurried us in and shut the door behind. “Valeria, this is Father Fortisto—a very good man and by far the kindest priest in the Temple.”
Amazed to see one of the legendary subterranean elves, Fortisto smiled with the genuine warmth of a loving parent meeting a future daughter-in-law—and a loving priest, meeting a future convert to the sacred paths of Weltyr.
“How wonderful to make your acquaintance, my dear,” he told her, gently patting the back of her hand while shaking it with the other. Still not entirely used to the form of greeting, Valeria smiled somewhat weakly and allowed him to manipulate her as he would. “Weltyr bless you for helping our Rorke back aboveground…but I really must admit, if I was worried before, I’m terrified now. Surely you don’t want to be here and risk—”
“She insisted,” I assured him with a wave of my hand. “I dare not patronize her…where she’s from, Valeria is a queen of sorts.”
While I winked at Valeria’s ghostly smirk, Fortisto’s gasp glittered with amazement. “My goodness! Is that so! Well! You do me honor with your presence, Majesty. Have you come aboveground to learn of Weltyr’s ways?”
“That does rather seem to be the way things are working out,” Valeria admitted with a light laugh, free to push back her hood now that we were in the shut office. For the first time since Adonisius, I witnessed a man who could set eye upon her without lust. Only instant, godly affection.
Fortisto drew out a chair for her and she sat while continuing, “However, I have lost something most precious to me—something that has brought me to the surface as a consequence. Rorke told me you might be able to help me find it.”
“Is that so! Well”—the old man laughed slightly and settled into his seat—“I may be able to lend a bit of advice, but even with the Scepter we could only deliver a general idea of where it was…namely, the Nightlands. It took Rorke quite some time of running about, I’m led to believe, before he got an idea of where in the Nightlands it might be…and Weltyr knows, we didn’t predict its theft by his companions.”
Fortisto shook his head sadly while leaning back in his seat, but then peered over at me with sudden remembrance. “Ah—how did your search for that one pan out?”
“Far better than I could have hoped,” I said, gesturing to the desk. “Valeria?”
At my indication, Valeria opened the fabric of her cloak (a gift from the good people of Soot before we left town) and revealed the silken bundle in her arms. Fortisto’s face changed as she rested the package, easily four feet in length, upon his desk.
His eyes widened and his body rocked forward in his seat.
“Go on,” I said, “open it. You’ve been kindest to me of all men here—you deserve to see it before anyone else. Certainly before Zweiding.”
Fortisto’s faint laugh soon faded. He lowered a hand upon the knot tying the wrapping shut. Hesitation stayed him before he pulled the cord, fright passing through his face as it had through mine that very morning.
Then, with a light tug, he drew the covering back. We both inhaled to gaze upon it; even Valeria exuded a great deference. In the dim light of Fortisto’s office, the Scepter’s many colorful gems shone like a litany of eyes. Its gold gleamed with the same beauty as the sun rising steadily over Skythorn.
Fortisto pressed his fingers to his lips, eyes filling with tears, and looked as if he considered touching it. After a few seconds, unable to stand his own desire, he draped the silk over the Scepter again with a shake of his head.
“Wonderful,” he told me. “Simply wonderful. Oh! Rorke—”
Suddenly exhibiting the energy of a man half his age, Fortisto darted around the desk to kiss my cheeks and embrace me as a son.
“Well done, Rorke,” he cried, patting my back. “The Church has been missing this relic for so long! Good show, my boy, how proud I am.”
&nb
sp; “I owe the success entirely to Weltyr,” I told him truthfully. “And I see the wisdom in sending young men out on such tasks, for the simple pursuit of this object has brought me closer to Weltyr than I have ever been before.”
“How wonderful.” Voice somewhat hushed, Foritsto released me and pressed his hands to his heart. “Ah! I can’t describe how pleased I am! Yes, Rorke—and what timing! Perhaps with this they’ll overlook your duel with Zweiding.”
“Unhappy with me as I expected him to be, is he?”
Looking grim to have broached the subject, Fortisto returned to his seat and reluctantly confessed, “I have it on good authority that he intended to cancel your application to the Order outright…but, for having returned the Scepter, surely you’ll be rewarded rather than disciplined.”
I wasn’t so sure—and, with Valeria to consider, I couldn’t imagine being welcomed into the Order and joining those who lived in the Temple. Still, I smiled on. “That is certainly the hope…though, I confess I am still frightened that my relationship with the Order will be forever altered.”
Looking empathetic, Fortisto reached across the desk to pat my hand. “All things will organize themselves as Weltyr will have them.”
“I know that to be true,” I assured him, nodding. “But, however that is, if you might be able to offer us advice concerning the whereabouts of Valeria’s ring, we would appreciate the information while we are still welcome here.”
“Well, for divination such as this there are two means. There are those questions whose answers we know deep down within our mortal frames, and those questions whose answers may only come by the grace of things outside of ourselves. We must exhaust the questions of the former before consulting the methods of the latter. When you last saw the ring, where was it?”
I leaned forward. “A spirit-thief absconded with it. We watched the creature steal off through a portal—someplace aboveground.”
Before mentioning the man who had looked like me, I stopped myself. The dreams of that hateful, pulsing hivemind and the keeper who also bore my voice—were these occurring in the same location as the one we had seen through the portal?
Avoiding the subject of either the dream or the doppelgänger for now, I suggested, “Is it possible that the spirit-thief intended to bring the ring to its originating colony? Its hivemind?”
Looking intrigued by this, Fortisto nodded. “It is, indeed. But what would they want with any ring of yours, Madame?”
“It is no ring of mine,” answered Valeria, “but of Roserpine’s.”
The kindly priest’s eyes grew wide. “The Ring of Roserpine—is that true, the very one?” While Valeria nodded, Fortisto laughed in astonishment and teasingly told me, “Well! A good thing we’ll be taking the Scepter back…goodness, with the Ring and the Scepter both, you might start getting ideas.”
“So where is the hivemind of the spirit-thieves is said to dwell, Father?”
Fortisto shook his head. “No one knows the exact location, though the dwarves of Rhineland are so especially vigilant about spirit-thieves that I think most of us can agree their primary nest is somewhere on the Old Continent.”
“Then the dwarves may know where the nest might be?”
“They might! They might, indeed. It certainly would be a worthy path of inquiry…but, of course, dwarves do not look particularly kindly among humans coming to their land. I’m not sure they’d tell you anything if you asked.”
I nodded, rising from my seat. “Well, that certainly seems like a place to start. Oh, Father! Talking through such matters with you always orders my mind—I hope I’ll have the liberty to visit you after today.”
“Fate is certain to none but Weltyr…and even he must read its threads, it’s said. The Omniscience of God must be allocated in such a means when the Lord takes on a knowable personage; otherwise, that personage could not maintain integrity. And the divine, knowing so much more than we, permits us to maintain our own integrity; to be the very creatures producing the threads.”
Thinking of Valeria’s spiders, I smiled.
After some discussion, it was agreed that Father Fortisto would come with us to the site of the duel. He would advocate for the accomplishment represented by the Scepter and argue that it at the very least merited a loaner sword from the Order to fulfill the conditions of my arrangement with Zweiding. When invited to carry the relic, he recoiled from it as I had. Valeria, therefore, pulled her hood over her face and bore it along the halls of the Temple on behalf of both of us. Orange dawn spilled through the windows, screaming across the floor and crawling up the wall as we made our way out to the training grounds on the far side of the gardens.
The gardens of the Temple were lavish, fit with orchards and edible plants such that in times of a siege the holy site could withstand an assault even if the city had fallen around it. Shimmering bluebirds chirped among the branches and dew glistened on the lips of every flower. Valeria cried with delight to step outside and see the offerings of its colors, its vines. It was almost a good thing that she was forced to keep her hood up to disguise her species; otherwise she might have left it down long enough to blind herself while looking at all the aboveground plants.
The murmur of the growing crowd was audible before we even saw the training grounds beyond the final row of hedges. On the dirt field I counted at least twenty of my fellows, a smattering of trainees, and, of course, Zweiding in his gleaming armor.
Elishta-bet, I noticed as we passed through the hedges, was nowhere to be seen.
Zweiding regarded me coldly but almost respectfully, his armor gleaming platinum in the soft light draping over the face of the city. “Someone said they saw you riding from town. I was concerned you fled our duel when you came to your senses, but that didn’t seem like you.”
This faint praise wrapped in insults had been so common during my childhood that I barely noticed it. “Weltyr’s call drew me on an errand in his name.”
“Bold of you to claim you still work in the name of Weltyr when you would defy the ancient structure of his Church and defend the doings of witchcraft! Perhaps you wish Elishta-bet for your own wife, or perhaps your motivations are even more sinister; either way, you can hardly pretend you are acting in sync with the will of the Lord.”
While the crowd shuffled to the sides of the mannequin-lined arena, Fortisto stepped up on my behalf. “It is my belief that he was, in fact, called to Weltyr’s business, Zweiding.”
The cocky sneer twitched from the face of my opponent. “You of all men would know,” the Commander allotted without irony, “but how could you be so sure?”
“Because he has brought proof,” said Fortisto, gesturing toward me while looking over his shoulder at Valeria. I extended my hand for the relic she placed in my grasp.
And it felt wrong.
I had accepted the object into my hand without looking away from Zweiding. Now, I stared sharply down at it.
The wrapped Scepter of Weltyr had seemingly grown in length and breadth alike. Indeed, its very shape had changed beneath the cloth that cloaked it.
Silent, all the blood draining from my face amid a mixture of confusion and sudden understanding, I plucked free the knots of the shroud.
Zweiding, having waited for Fortisto to continue, now looked between me and the parcel I untied with trembling hands. “And what proof is that?”
I could not answer him.
EXIGENCE
THE SILK FELL tumbled to the dirt at my feet before it was caught by the wind. Off it billowed, dancing into the sky while Valeria and Fortisto both softly gasped.
A golden sword glittered in my hand, its blade formed of a steel so flawless that it glowed nearly white in the rising light of the sun.
With both hands, I hefted the blade high before me and turned it this way and that. The steel hummed as if severing particles of the very oxygen we breathed—as if tearing at the fabric of reality. Mouth open in astonishment, I supported the blade with one hand to observe the pommel
and grip with the other. The great blade’s hilt was as studded with glittering gems as had been the Scepter in Fortisto’s office.
The priest was as shocked as I. All three of us stood, wide-eyed and open-mouthed as we studied the transfigured object in my hands. Unable to appreciate the stupendous meaning of the spectacle, Zweiding rested an impatient hand upon the pommel of his own blade.
He repeated his question in a tone all the more terse. “What proof has assured you this fool works in the name of Weltyr, Fortisto?”
Naturally unwilling to tear his eyes from the beautiful blade, Fortisto at least recovered his senses enough to answer the question.
“His victory, Zweiding,” said the priest softly, finally lifting his gaze to the Commander of the Order. “His victory will be proof that he works in Weltyr’s name.”
Inhaling sharply, I lifted the flat of the blade and pressed its cool metal to my forehead. My eyes shut, lips moving in prayer. A breeze flowed through my body and spirit, this divine breath washing down from my skull through each one of my limbs.
The promise had been fulfilled. I had received my sign, and my sword.
I had received the manifestation of a greater oath than any I had ever before sworn.
“Let us begin,” I urged, lowering the blade and staring down Zweiding. “The sooner we do, the sooner this duel be but an ugly memory.”
“For one of us,” agreed the Commander, eyes following Valeria as she and Fortisto found a place to stand near the hedges that flanked the field’s entrance.
While I stood across from Zweiding and listened to the terms of the duel rattled off to us by a secretary of the Order to whom such responsibilities were allotted, I was amazed to find myself calmer than perhaps I had ever been. Much as I had begun to view my divorce from the order as an inevitability, awareness of my future victory came upon me with the same crystalline cognition. To say I felt confident in my ability to best Zweiding would have been incorrect. Rather, I felt that the victory had been ordained—that it said nothing of my own personal skill, and everything of the grace of the god who had chosen me.