Published at 31st of August 2023 9:58 am

Chapter 25

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When they stopped at a fortified village, within the walls of which they were spared the predation of nightly stalkers known to frequent the roads, they were but one amongst three-dozen carriages. It seemed that the dirt highway that carved through the land towards Rooskeld, and the border of Lleman beyond, was so heavily-travelled that whole communities had formed along this crucial pathway simply to take care of the caravaners, who ferried people and foodstuffs and raw materials.

Though offered to accompany the driver to some local tavern and stay the night, Jakob curtly declined, preferring to stay outdoors, where he had escape-routes more easily-accessible, should the Crown had caught his scent. They were yet within the reach of the King, and Rooskeld lay another full day’s travel away, so complacency now would be the ultimate folly.

“…would you…bring me…a caravaner…” asked Guillaume suddenly, after staring into the abyss-black eyes of Sig for hours in silence.

“You wish to expand your web?”

“…yes…”

“Only if you show me how you spread your essence and create new puppets. My contract should prevent it, so I’m curious how you circumvented the clause I wrote.”

“…of course…”

“Heskel,” Jakob started, knowing he did not need to say more. The Wight grunted and left the stow, the whole vehicle lifting from the sudden absence of his enormous mass.

A few minutes later, Jakob looked back at the Daemon, whose puppet was yet again staring at the blank-faced Sig.

“You wished to possess her, but you have not transferred your essence and made her truly yours.”

“…there is an ember…of the Eternal…in so pure an Unliving…”

Jakob inclined his head slightly, trying to comprehend Guillaume’s true meaning.

“…I could never make…such untainted…a vessel…of the Eternal…”

“You believe yourself tainted?”

“…by the formless will…of the Eternal Serpent…I am become…arbiter of undeath…”

“…the Eternal birthed me…but I am no longer…a part of Its essence…”

“…a copy of the Great One is what I remain…”

“…in her is a purity…an ember…a tiny fragment you cannot hold…and it calls me…sings to me…it is indescribable beauty…”

Jakob was unsure whether the Daemon was being truthful, though he certainly seemed to believe his own words. He had many times heard from Grandfather and Raleigh about the melodramatic and self-aggrandising proclivities that Pride Demons possessed, and wondered if that was what the Daemon now expressed. After all, it seemed not only absurd to claim himself born of a Great One, but something bordering on blasphemy. But, Demons were not wont to lie, though they might bend the reality of things, and Daemons were on the whole utterly unknown when compared to their progenitors and the libraries that described Demonkind in microscopic detail. It frightened him that there might be some grain of truth to Guillaume’s words.

“Have you experienced this before? You must have, I simply used a basic rite to reanimate her corpse. There should be nothing unique about her.”

“…once…when last I was summoned…decades past…”

“…I have lived mostly…in the stagnant sludge…of my abode…between the realms of…Pride and Sloth…”

“…though this Mundane Realm shuns me…I prefer it to my abode…here I feel closer to the Eternal…”

“…here I hear the song…and she is but one of Its instruments…”

Though Jakob struggled to fully comprehend what Guillaume meant, the implication seemed to be that, those reanimated through Necromantic rites wherein the visage of the Eternal Serpent was invoked, were like beacons linked to the Supreme Great One whose existence made the magic possible. Jakob had once heard Heskel refer to the eyes of all living things as being the eyes of the Watcher of Worlds, and it seemed perhaps self-evident for that to be the case if the Watcher was the Supreme One whose existence permitted sight to all those born under his gaze.

Likewise, it was said that the Flayed One, betrayal incarnate though she were, was the Great One whose existence allowed for the blood that flowed within the veins of animals. In a way, She was also invoked in Hemolatric rituals, since the Covetous Saint, whose existence was jealousy and envy made manifest, herself owed fealty to the Flayed Lady, from whom the power of the blood flowed.

The carriage shook and took with it Jakob’s existential wonderings, when Heskel plunked a chubby black-haired woman down on the wooden floor of the carriage. The woman was blissfully unconscious, no doubt drugged by the brew they utilised on their subjects to rob them of their faculties.

The Wight grunted, then said, “Show us.”

Without skipping a beat, Guillaume rose from his seat and walked across to the prone figure. She suddenly seemed to awake, as though sensing the Daemon’s burning gaze. She looked up and locked eyes with the red-haired black-eyed Undying, who knelt before her as though about to pray for her sins.

Then something like a thick cord of hair grew from under Guillaume’s index fingernail, squirming as it grew in length, before releasing its connection to his body and falling down on the woman’s face. As it fell it became a tiny droplet of tar that landed on the woman’s cheek, where it broke into a million pieces that quickly found entry into her body through her eyes, the pores of her skin, her nostrils, mouth, ears, and hair follicles. The woman, for her part, was still staring at the black eyes of Guillaume, as though spellbound, having not moved the slightest.

A second or two passed, and then it was over.

The female caravaner rose from the carriage floor, her eyes black and sightless, before she turned around and left through the back, moving around Heskel who had only managed to get one foot on the step before the presentation was over.

“Terrifying,” Jakob remarked.

Heskel grunted apprehensively, and, Jakob was surprised to note, with a hint of dread.

_______________________________________________________________

Guillaume stood just behind him, still as the grave and his usual attendant corpse-doll replaced with one of the cowled sorcerers whom Sirellius himself had witness become enthralled. The clean-up of the Haven plaza was still underway, with two of the abominable creatures slain, three psychotic guards detained, one of the towering centaurs of bone-and-flesh-and-human-faces chained and dragged away for study, and, distressingly, a hulking seven-legged goliath on the run. The latter was being hunted down as it moved south, its current whereabouts estimated to be Market West, though it seemed to be going in a straight path towards the Slums, for reasons Sirellius could only dread to understand.

“…they are like the Elphin…half man…half demon…their helmets hide…their true nature…”

Sirellius supressed a shudder at the Daemon’s words. He felt very out-of-his-element. It seemed things only continued to spiral further-and-further down into the abyss of despair. It reminded him of sixteen years prior, when the Underking had been forced into the deep, expected to rot after agreeing to be exiled there. But even back then, their losses had not been so extreme. Even they had not come to lend their aid back then…

But now they were here, row-upon-row of gleaming silver plate-armour inscribed with the sigils of the Eight Saint, and their Commander, the Archduke of Octland and High Bishop of the Church of the Eight Saint, Octavio. As Octland was a principality of Helmsgarten that shared a border with it to the southeast, Octavio was still beholden to the King, not to mention the Pope of the Church, who resided in the cathedral of Heimdale’s capital, but Sirellius was beneath him. However, as a show of respect, Octavio seemed to defer to him, rather than order him around.

“Sirellius.”

“Yes, milord?”

“Why doth thy present-self cavort with daemon-kin?” he asked in Octef, the language of his faith and nation both.

“It is said that to fight an enemy, one must know it intimately. And Guillaume here acts an advisor. After all, the perpetrator of this defilement of our holy centre of faith is the very same who summoned him.”

“Doth that not him an enemy make?”

“I do not believe so, milord.”

Octavio’s eyes narrowed. They were a piercing-and-glowing white, visible through the double slits that ran diagonal over the front of his strange helmet, in a double-layered V from the nose-ridge to his temples. The armour of the Elite Corps of the Church was form-fitting and rounded in the front, but flared outward in sharp jutting spike in the back, making it akin to silver water frozen as it fell down their bodies. In the exposed joints were a fine and intricate mesh of chainmail, beneath which was soft and expensive pure-white cloth. Their backs were an obvious weak-point, as the armour covered only the front of their bodies, and just chainmail covered them from nape to lower-back, but it was iconic of their credo: “Turn not thy back to the unholy and profane.”

“I see. Now, Sirellius, enlighten me about those who have brought such devastation to our most holy place.”

Sirellius swallowed and then started to explain the events of two decades prior.

_______________________________________________________________

Guillaume looked up from his fixed stare and regarded Jakob, who himself had been letting his thoughts run wild to endure the monotony of the journey.

“…Sirellius has brought…strange ones…to his city…”

“Strange ones?”

“…they are almost…demonic…but human still…”

“How so?”

Heskel was following their exchange intently, seeming to sense trouble.

“…with humans…the natural aura is…fragmented into vices…demonkind are singular…fixed into singular desire…these strange ones are likewise…”

“What desire?”

“…untainted white…purity incarnate…”

“You know them?” Jakob asked his Lifeward.

Heskel nodded gravely. “They are powerful. The Swords of Olemn.”

“Adherents of the Eight Saint?”

“…the Eight is likewise…a Saint of Vice…his adherents yet remain ignorant…to this truth…”

“Does that make his followers demons?”

“…in a way…or so it seems…”

Jakob suddenly wondered if perhaps his decimation of Haven had bought him adversaries worse than the Crown itself, but, it hardly mattered, if he could keep out of their sight until he had called forth Nharlla. None could challenge him then.

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