The Price of Faith

by Rob J. Hayes

  Another patch of darkness roared into life easily three times as large as the first. The second, larger demon snarled at the first, opening its mouth wide to show the piercing white light within framed by row upon row of jagged black teeth. The first demon shrieked and turned away, fading into the night in a moment.

  The second demon, its face almost three times as big as Thanquil, turned towards the Arbiter and regarded him with its eyes of pure fire.

  Thanquil grinned, air escaping from his mouth in an almost hysterical laugh. He had certainly never seen anything like that before.

  The demon’s face moved closer to Thanquil and he again heard the rattling of chains. “Arbiter Darkheart…”

  Thanquil came awake instantly and became instantly aware of the sharp pain in his back and general ache in his entire body. Sleeping on a bunch of felled tree trunks as they were carted towards their destination was apparently a very painful idea but at least he’d snatched a few hours sleep, though with his current trend of dreams he was starting to wish he hadn’t.

  The reason for his waking was clear; the cart had stopped. Thanquil rolled off of his makeshift bed and onto his feet, struggling to stand from the stiffness. He had apparently ended up sleeping with the sharp stump of a decapitated branch poking into his back just above his kidney and he had the agonising pain to prove it.

  With a weary sigh borne from weeks of sleep deprivation Thanquil shouldered his pack and walked to the back of the cart, leaping to the ground just as the driver rounded to the side of the big wooden log hauler.

  The man’s eyes went wide and he stumbled back a step as Thanquil’s feet hit the ground. Evidently he had not realised there was a slumbering Arbiter in the back of his cart. Even through a long drooping moustache and with his face shadowed by the wide-rimmed hat Thanquil could see instant anger on the man’s face. He opened his mouth, clearly about to admonish the stowaway before his eyes fell on Thanquil’s coat. The cart driver’s mouth snapped shut and he bowed his head quickly.

  Thanquil smiled and nodded at the man before turning and striding away around the side of the cart. That was when he saw the walls of Larkos looming up in front of him and the great gate standing as firm and impenetrable as ever.

  He had been at least two days travel from the free city when he stowed away on the cart even if the driver had pushed his animals and forgone the customary stops. For having had two days rest Thanquil certainly didn’t feel rested though it would explain the dry, carpeted taste in his mouth and the rumbling pit that had once been his stomach.

  The cart was sat in a queue leading up to the great gate as the guards checked each cargo and taxed entry to the free city. If he stayed in his current place in the queue it would be hours before he gained entrance but Thanquil had no intention of staying in his current place. Arbiters may not have any official authority in the free cities but that didn’t mean he couldn’t abuse people’s innate fear of witch hunters to skip a few hours of boredom and the sooner he was inside the walls of Larkos the sooner he could start looking for Jezzet.

  Thanquil approached the great gate to the side of the queuing folk. It was an act that earned him baleful stares a plenty and even a few quietly spoken insults but he ignored them. He passed carts loaded with goods, food stuffs, weapons, buildings supplies, canvas, metals. Some were even guarded by armed, paid caravan-working mercenaries. He saw peddlers standing alone with only the goods in their packs and the rare goods stashed away close to their persons. Thanquil felt his hand shake a little as he witnessed cutpurses and snatch crews working the queue. He knew if he chose to walk with the queue instead of beside it he’d find all sorts of useless junk in his pockets by the time he reached the gate. His habit of stealing useless things from people who needed them least was a strange compulsion that he had never managed to shake and, if he was true to himself, did not want to.

  He saw a thief, a child no more than six years old whose gender was indeterminable, creep up behind a distracted journeyman busy arguing with another of his peers over the unusual waiting time. The child lifted the journeyman’s purse, cut the strings in a fluid and practised motion before rushing off into the crowd. A part of him longed to join in as he once had but he was too old and too big for such work these days and he had a different calling. He always had. Thanquil’s calling was to hunt and judge heretics, not steal purses for a living. It was a calling that was altogether far better paid.

  As he approached the gate three Scarred Men broke off from inspecting an ore cart and approached, their individual features hidden behind their metal masks.

  “Arbiter,” said the middle of the three, holding up a hand to halt Thanquil.

  Thanquil looked at each of the three Scarred Men in turn, attempting to memorise the only visible parts of their faces; their eyes.

  The Scarred Men were currently one of the richest and without a doubt the most brutal of the thirteen organisations that governed Larkos. They were founded by the Scarred Man when the city was built and all that was known about that founder was that he was horrifically scarred. If the organisation itself had any more about its founder’s history they were not in the habit of sharing it with outsiders.

  The way Thanquil heard it said only their leader, the current Scarred Man, was allowed to be seen in public without his mask and that was because each time a new leader was chosen they were required to deliberately scar their own face to match that of the founders. Each of its members wore a metal mask in the visage of that founder as well so the effect it produced was that all the Scarred Men looked the same apart from the metal that their masks were made from. There appeared to be some sort of ranking system with the more precious the metal the higher up the chain of command the person was but Thanquil did not know it and did not care to find out. What he did know was that the Scarred Men were a brutally vicious organisation who practised eye-for-an-eye punishment and brooked no crime on their streets. They were also currently in charge of the great gate district of Larkos and that made them both rich and powerful.

  Thanquil stared down the Scarred Man in the middle; his mask appeared to be made of black iron. “This is where you tell me you don’t like witch hunters,” Thanquil said in the most condescending tone he could manage. He had been through that conversation his last time in Lakors and it had bored him then as it threatened to do now. It seemed the current Scarred Man had an issue with the Inquisition, as did many people in the known world and the current most notable of those was the Dragon Empress.

  “There’s a man wants to see you,” the middle man said from behind his mask his tone completely unreadable.

  “I’m afraid I don’t do requests so if you’ll just step out of my way I have to get to the harbour district which will put me firmly out of your way and someone else’s problem. I believe the Clerics are currently in control of the harbour.”

  Three sets of cold, dead eyes stared back at him from three cold, dead masks.

  “So there’s a man wants to see me.”

  “Yes, Arbiter.”

  “Lead the way.”

  The three Scarred Men escorted Thanquil through the great gate and into the immediate main square. They led him further into the centre of the square and then, as one, they melted away into the crowd. Just ahead of him Thanquil saw the common folk of Larkos, usually going about their daily business, parting like a river parts before a rock. With sinking certainty he realised it was the same way they parted around him, the same way all people parted around Arbiters, their natural fear of the Inquisition forcing them to avoid all those associated with its judgement.

  As Thanquil approached he saw a tall figure wearing a common brown jerkin and matching trousers and a coat much like his own but dyed in bleach bone white. His first reaction was much the same as that of the common folk; part, walk around, hope the Inquisitor wouldn’t notice him, but it was already too late for that. Unnerving yellow eyes, the colour of desert sand had already locked onto him.

  He stopped in front of t
he Inquisitor and had to force himself to meet the man’s gaze. “Hello Inquisitor Vance. You know at this rate of promotion you’ll be the God Emperor in only a few months.”

  Inquisitor Hironous Vance ignored the jab. “Arbiter Darkheart. It’s been some time. I believe you were being tried for heresy last time I saw you.”

  Thanquil almost laughed but he managed to stop himself. “I remember.”

  “And I believe it was my suggestion that saved your life.”

  “I remember.”

  “We should go somewhere we can talk more privately.”

  Thanquil sucked at his teeth as loudly as possible. “You know I’d love to but I have somewhere to be.”

  “Not a request, Arbiter. Follow me.”

  Inquisitor Vance turned and walked away. Thanquil followed meekly. He had no choice.

  The Dusty Tome was a dirty inn inside of one of the resident districts and it had a distinct thiefy feel about it not least of all because it was deserted. The name at least suited Thanquil’s current companion; Hironous Vance had always struck his as a bookish sort; the most dangerous librarian one was ever likely to meet.

  The Inquisitor wiped a layer of dust from a table and waved away the bar man before sitting down on a rickety chair. Thanquil pulled another chair from the side wall and sat down opposite.

  “This feels a lot more like a safe house than an inn,” Thanquil commented.

  “It is,” said Vance. “It’s owned by a friend. We’re safe to talk.”

  “Wonderful…” Thanquil started.

  Inquisitor Vance unattached something from his belt and laid it across the table. It was long, between two and three feet, and covered in thin strips of paper, the same type of paper Arbiters used to make most charms. There was something else about the package though, something he couldn’t quite place. Thanquil felt his eyes drawn to it and old aches and pains he thought gone flare to life.

  “Must be nice to have friends,” he heard himself say. “All mine are either dead or… missing.”

  “Your companion, the Blademaster?” Vance asked.

  “Jezzet Vel’urn. She’s missing. Missing with Drake Morrass. That’s where I’m going. To find her. To find them.” The package on the table was distracting him. Thanquil thought he heard someone whisper his name but decided it was his imagination.

  “Missing with Drake Morrass,” Inquisitor Vance repeated. “I’m sorry.”

  Thanquil had experienced many comfortable silences in his life; with Jezzet, with Arbiter Kosh who turned out to be a heretic, even with the Black Thorn; a murderous sell-sword renowned for using his murderous skills to murder Arbiters. The silence that descended between him and Inquisitor Vance was anything but comfortable. Eventually he could take it no more.

  “Why are you here, Inquisitor?”

  “Officially I’m here to see the Queen of Blades. I have a previous relationship with her from my time stationed here as an Arbiter and the council wanted me to talk to her.”

  Thanquil snorted and tore his eyes from the package on the table to look at the Inquisitor. “We treat with Drurr these days? I thought the standing orders were to, you know, kill them all.”

  The Inquisitor scratched at his chin. Thanquil couldn’t help but notice he had an extremely symmetrical face with long brown hair that framed his cheek bones and drew attention to his unnerving yellow eyes.

  “The Queen of Blades is granted special dispensation on account of the Inquisition being loathe to start a war it likely can’t win.”

  “Oh.” Thanquil had to admit it was somewhat refreshing for an Inquisitor to speak so candidly.

  “My true reason for coming to Larkos, however, was to find you and to give you this,” he waved a hand at the package on the table. Thanquil refused to look down, refused to ask what it was.

  “Whatever it is, Vance, I can’t do it. I have to find Jezzet. I have to find Drake and beat the truth out of him.”

  “That can wait.”

  “It damn well can not wait.”

  “Kessick is alive.”

  Thanquil opened his mouth to argue further but nothing came out. Arbiter Kessick had been Inquisitor Heron’s heretical right hand and with Arbiter Kosh the three of them had planned to implant demons into the Arbiters and Inquisitors of the Inquisition. The three of them had planned to destroy the Inquisition from within. Thanquil had uncovered the plot and he had killed Heron himself. Jezzet had killed Kosh and Thanquil had sent the Black Thorn to kill Kessick. He had presumed the Black Thorn succeeded and fled back to the wilds in case the Inquisition tried to judge him but if Kessick was alive that likely meant Thorn was dead. One less friend Thanquil had left in the world.

  “So the council wants to send me to finish the job I started. The job they almost killed me for doing.”

  Vance’s face remained an impassive, still mask. “Not exactly. The council have chosen not to act until they have more information. It is a stratagem that will likely prove fatal to the entire Inquisition if it is allowed persist.”

  Thanquil laughed.

  “The Inquisitors are afraid, Arbiter Darkheart. All of them, even my father. Heron duped them all into believing her lie and now they’re too busy watching each other to pay attention to the outside world. Kessick is attempting to complete his late master’s work and the council choose not to believe it. They are choosing to do nothing.”

  “But not you?” Thanquil asked.

  “Not us,” Inquisitor Vance clarified. “I am not alone in this, Arbiter. My concerns are shared by the God Emperor.”

  “So why doesn’t he go and deal with Kessick? Why don’t you go? I have a Blademaster to find and a pirate to judge. Just between you and me, I have a feeling I’m going to find him very, very guilty.”

  Still Vance’s face remained a mask of serenity. “The emperor cannot go, Arbiter, it would undermine the Inquisition’s authority…”

  “I’ve heard that tune before.”

  “And I cannot go. I have already more than overstepped my bounds by taking this,” he said and waved at the item on the table. Thanquil resolutely ignored it despite the overwhelming urge to touch the thing, to undress it.

  “Whereas I can act with impunity?” He snorted. “And if you are correct and Kessick is alive and is continuing to raise an army of demon-possessed super people, what should I do against them?”

  “That is why I brought you this. You know what it is?”

  Thanquil nodded. He knew exactly what it was. He had felt it the moment Vance had placed it on the table. He had felt his wounds ache where it had cut him and he had heard its voice in his head. “It’s Myorzo. Heron’s sword and the prison Volmar forged to house the first demon he summoned from the void. Something tells me the council would not agree with you entrusting this thing to me. It corrupted an Inquisitor, what makes you think I’ll…”

  “The God Emperor has bound it in dampening runes that should shield you from the majority of its influence. Even so I would not unwrap it until the time is right and try not to let others see it.”

  “And I’m expected to do what with it?”

  “Hopefully nothing,” Vance said, his composure breaking for an instant and his face looking weary. “But if there is no other way… Volmar used this sword to bind them all. With it you can break the chains.”

  Thanquil didn’t even bother trying to hide his shock. “All the chains? At once? By Volmar, Vance, you’re talking about freeing the demons from their service.”

  The Inquisitor nodded. “Yes.”

  “We wouldn’t be able to control them. I… Not to mention the council would not exactly look favourably on me if I severed the Inquisitions only way to communicate over distance.” Thanquil looked down at the wrapped sword and heard a faint whisper in his head. He ignored it.

  Vance was staring at him in silence, his witch’s eyes seeming to burn into his very soul. “Call it a last resort, Arbiter Darkheart. The God-Emperor and I agree, if there is no other choice…”
r />   Thanquil let out a hysterical laugh. To be handed so much power and given the choice over whether to use it… It was not a decision he would wish on anyone, least of all himself. He ran a hand through his greasy hair and remembered to breathe. “Where is he? Kessick?”

  “The wilds. I’m not certain where exactly but my sources tell me he has a new contact supplying him with bodies to possess.”

  “Well he would need one.” Kessick’s previous supplier, Gregor H’ost, Thanquil had murdered after a brutal interrogation relying on intense, physical pain rather than the compulsion. He buried his head in his hands. “I’ll leave right away.”

  “Thank you, Arbiter.”

  Thanquil sighed. “I asked you once before to look into my future with those eyes of yours, Vance. I reckon I could really use some of that future-telling right now whether it’s heretical or not.”

  There was a long silence. “I see nothing.”

  Thanquil looked up into Inquisitor Vance’s eyes. “You said the same thing last time. You sure it isn’t broken? Maybe a couple of head shots would shake it loose.”

  Vance shook his head. “It isn’t broken, Arbiter. I see nothing because there is nothing there to see. You do not have a future.”

  “I… um… right… only… uh… what?”

  “It is as if fate has simply forgotten you, Arbiter Darkheart. I do not know why or how but you have no future. I look at you and see nothing.

  “It is why I first suggested the God-Emperor send you to find H’ost and root out the heresy within the Inquisition.”

  Thanquil remembered meeting Vance for the first time, back when he was still an Arbiter and only a day before the God-Emperor had summoned him to a private meeting.

  “It puts you in a unique position, Arbiter. The position to fight Kessick and the forces he hopes to bring to bear against us.”

  “It does?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” Thanquil could think of nothing else to say. Shocked, he decided, would be the right word for his current state. It wasn’t every day that he found out he had no future. He looked down at the sword on the table and could have sworn it was mocking him somehow.