View Full Version : The Fall
Ora Sten arrived at a small, ill-used warehouse on the far northern edge of Tirel’s shipping district, and stepped out of his carriage while he adjusted the short sword strapped to his hip. A man emerged from the warehouse and approached him with a smile and an extended hand, and they clasped forearms.
“Olvar Segersall, I presume,” Sten said.
“Indeed sir,” Olvar replied. “Welcome to Tirel! I’ll be honest sir, you’re a bit more distinguished than I imagined from your letters.”
“Ah,” Sten said with a chuckle. “You mean 'old.' And letters were never my strong suit, it’s true. Anyway, don’t let appearances fool you, I’m quite spry.”
“I have no doubt,” Olvar said with a wide smile. “I meant no offense, I just…well. Let’s step inside, eh? We’ve done enough hinting around with the written word, it’s time to have it out. No prying eyes or ears here.”
Ora nodded and held his hand out – lead the way – and Segersall turned and walked into the warehouse, half-turning to speak over his shoulder as he went. “I trust the trek wasn’t too strenuous,” he said. “You arrived very quickly.”
“The weather was with us, and as I said, I don’t feel as old as I look.”
“That is good,” Olvar said, and it sounded like he meant it. “I guess I just imagined there were protocols in place for someone like you. You know, that you’d have to request leave, wait for it to go up the chain, so to speak.”
Ora chuckled again. “I’m no inquisitor, Mister Segersall. My Brotherhood is friendly with the Church, to be sure, but we don’t answer to them. Different faiths, different leaders, different rules. I operate with a fair degree of autonomy, thankfully, as your letters made the situation seem rather…well, sensitive.”
“That is a relief,” Olvar said. They were inside the warehouse now, and Ora could see that it had been converted to a wizard’s makeshift workshop. Tall boards had been raised to create partitions and rooms, and the men walked between them as they talked. “As I’m sure you gathered from my letters, I’m not sure the Church would smile on what I’ve been doing here, though I assure you I’ve taken the greatest care and I have the best of intentions. My experiments strike some as being somewhat alarming, however.”
“Believe me when I say that I would know if your intentions were dark, sir,” Ora said. “Please speak freely. You have nothing to fear from me.”
“Of course,” Olvar said. “Where to begin? Well. As I told you, I’m something of a wizard, though I’ve been operating outside the Church’s purview for some time, for reasons that will become obvious. Like I said, my theories and my proposals were met with a fair bit of alarm, for reasons I fully understand. You see, my mentor was one of the foremost experts on the concept of liquid time. Are you aware of the phenomenon?”
“Somewhat,” Ora said unsurely. “Something about how time flows nonlinearly on Althanas. That a man could be in two places at once.”
“Indeed,” Olvar said. “More precisely, a man could be perceived to be in two places at once, though of course there’s no chance of meeting yourself, at least due to the phenomenon we’re discussing here. It isn’t time travel per se, merely a physical inconsistency in the way time flows from one region to the next. If it is Tuesday in Tirel and Knife’s Edge is only seventy leagues away, then it should be Tuesday in Knife’s Edge as well, at least at the same time. However, the time spent traveling between the two cities is never uniform. If you leave Tirel on a Tuesday and you perceive two days passing on the road, then it should be late Thursday night when you arrive, yes? But it never works that way. Sometimes you arrive on Friday, sometimes you arrive on Wednesday, no matter how many sunsets you saw. Do you follow me so far?”
“No,” Ora admitted.
Olvar laughed. “Well, I don’t blame you. Time is a subject sticky enough; never you mind anomalies within time. I shared my master’s interest in liquid time, but not to such an obsessive degree. You see, I formulated a theory, and if I’m right, it may have dire consequences for our world.”
“Say on, and I will do my best to follow.”
“Well, my area of study is not as complex as my mentor’s. I postulated that liquid time is not just limited to Althanas, but also to regions and realms related to it. Well, let’s be specific, eh? My theory was that Haidia also experiences liquid time, but that time passes there differently than it does here, especially now that the portals have been sealed.”
“Go on,” Ora said cautiously.
“I believed that time was passing much slower for us here than it was there. That is to say, the people of Haidia – if you want to call them people – would experience months for every day we experienced here. Do you follow the implication?”
“I think so,” Sten said. “They would recover from the Demon Wars faster than we would. They would repopulate swiftly, make faster advances in warfare and technology. They’d be prepared for a second war before we would. You said you believed that, though…did something change your mind?”
“Yes,” Olvar said. “Well, no. I said believed because I wasn’t sure then. I am now.”
Ora paused, raising his eyebrows as he stopped walking. Sten slowed, and then stopped, taking a steadying breath before he turned around. He nodded. “Now you see why I had to be careful,” he said. “Why the Church would be concerned. I don’t blame them…let me assure you, I took every precaution…”
“Mr. Segersall,” Ora said slowly, “what exactly did you do?”
Olvar took a moment to gather his thoughts, to word his response precisely.
“I hypothesized a way to slow down Haidia’s advancement, to bring the span of time between our realms in line, but it was…dangerous. I realize now how foolish I was, and how lucky I am – how lucky we all are.”
“Olvar…”
“No, don’t be alarmed. Everything is fine now, thank the gods,” Olvar sighed. “You see, my plan was to open up miniscule tears between this world and theirs – nothing large enough to be noticed, sensed, or even seen. The idea would be to link our realms harmlessly for brief moments at regular intervals, preventing Haidia from getting too far ahead of us in the time stream.”
“Portals?” Ora breathed. “Portals to Haidia?”
“Tiny portals, sir. Not even large enough for air to slip through. At least, that’s how it was supposed to go. Breathe sir, I haven’t finished the story, and I’ll ask you to keep your hand off your sword until I’ve finished it. You’re going to like the next part even less.”
Olvar took a steadying breath, and took a step away from Ora Sten.
“When I had enough evidence, I knew I had to do something, with or without the Church’s sanction. So I came here, and perfected my art. Most of what I did was ward-work and safeguarding. I opened portals to Haidia, yes, but I had tools in place so that if I lost control, this entire area would collapse into a void, and then detonate spectacularly, and then anti-magic runes and dehlar shielding would sanitize all magic from the atmosphere. No portal could be sustained. I was doing this to protect the world.”
“What happened?”
“Something unexpected,” Olvar said. “Something that shouldn’t have been possible. As I said, the portals were so small…”
“But?”
“But the last one expanded for a fraction of a second, and something came through.”
“Then why are we still standing here?” Ora said, his voice low and dangerous. “Why haven’t your safeguards wiped this area from the city?”
“Because it wasn’t a demon, sir,” Olvar said. “It was a man. And he asked for you by name.”
Just by writing these words, I may be undermining everything I’ve set out to do, and make moot every black sacrifice I’ve made. I can’t help it. Martyrdom is harder than it looks, at least when you have time to premeditate it.
Martyrdom.
That’s the crux of what I’ve done. I harbor no illusions, reader. I call it martyrdom, knowing that you will call it something different, and who can blame you? Without these words, the world will only know that I’ve done evil and never know the why. And for this act to be martyrdom, these words can never be read or known. The easy answer must be the only answer.
To do a godly thing, I must be ungodly in the eyes of everyone.
There’s nothing, excepting maybe fire, that I’ve ever feared more.
~
Ora Sten entered the room cautiously, mouth set at a grim line and his hand set on the hilt of his blade. A man sat on the end of the room opposite the door with his back to Sten, facing a mirror, but the old paladin could not see his reflection. Supposedly, this man had been to Haidia and back.
Sten sized him up.
He was a big man, dressed in rags, with broad shoulders and dense muscle. His skin clearly favored swarthiness, but he had been out of the sun for a long while, and now his pallor suggested illness and a thin layer of soot that might never wash out. His limbs were exposed, and so too were a network of scars about his shoulders and forearms, the latter suggesting experience with a blade. He was a fighter, and a strong one. His hair was very long – well beyond shoulder length – and black, and full, but so straight that it did not tangle or knot much despite being relatively uncared for.
Sten was sure he had never met this person before in his life and yet…and yet there was something familiar in his movements, something distantly recognizable.
“Do I know you, sir?”
The man chuckled and dropped his chin, and then half-turned so that Ora could see a bit of his face in the candlelight, framed by his hair. Now he could see that the man was shaving an impressive beard off.
“I certainly hope so,” the man said. “You helped raise me, for fuck’s sake.”
Ora narrowed his eyes and stepped to the side, letting his hand drop off his sword. The man finished a swipe of the razor and wiped it off on a towel, raising the twin embers in his eye sockets to look up at the older paladin.
“Marcus,” Ora said breathlessly. “Marcus Book.”
“Back from the dead,” Marcus said with a grin, but it was stillborn on his lips.
“You can imagine my shock when he came through looking like a wild man,” Olvar said. “Well, I’m sure you can imagine my shock at something coming through at all, thinking I was about to have to commit suicide to keep the world safe. And instead of a demon, there’s a wild-eyed bearded man standing there, ranting.”
“I wasn’t ranting,” Marcus said.
The three of them were sitting around a table. Olvar and Ora nursed small drinks, but Marcus consumed nothing. His hair was framing his face, creating dark shadows on his cheeks and making his eyes glint. Ora hadn’t seen him with hair since he was a boy, owing to the Brother’s habit of shaving their heads bare, and so seeing him thus was jarring. At least the beard was gone.
“Well, it sounded like ranting to me,” Olvar said. “Anyway, when I got him calmed down he told me who he was, and I immediately set about sending letters to the people he spoke of. I was afraid for him, thinking it possible that hundreds of years had passed since the events he spoke of, due to the temporal discrepancy between Haidia and Althanas.”
“Not hundreds thank the Light,” Ora said. “It’s been about sixteen months since Ivan’s folly in Knife’s Edge (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?24455-Epiphanies). We thought you dead, Marcus.”
“I know,” Marcus said. “I don’t blame you. I almost can’t believe it myself.”
“What happened? Is Ivan…?”
Marcus shook his head. “I’m sure Anya told the Brotherhood what happened before I went through the portal. I carried Ivan with me, because he could no longer contain the Light and he was about to become a living bomb. Once we were on the other side, the demons started massing, and Ivan and I tried to hold them off until…I don’t even know when, or if there was a plan. I can’t remember. We just fought as long as we could, and then the Light won out and Ivan blew up and killed damn near everything. I was tossed around and pretty beat up, so when I woke up again I had no idea where I was or how to get back. I only found out later that the portal was gone and there was nowhere to get back to, but I figured that was for the best. Nothing else could get through, either.”
“Poor Ivan,” Ora sighed. “How long were you there? I mean, how much time passed for you?”
Marcus shrugged. “A year, at least. Maybe two. Felt like a lot longer. There’s something like day and night down there, but nothing like we have up here. Even if they were similar and measurable, they tended to run into one another. I’m just gauging based on when I slept and for how long, but you can’t sleep well and live long in Haidia, so it’s hard to say.”
“But you survived,” Olvar said sympathetically.
“Somehow,” Marcus agreed. “Being a paladin down there is like…no, it’s literal. You are the only light in existence, and everybody can see that light and desperately wants to put it out. You learn to run far enough to hide, and hide long enough to rest, and then you do it over. And you figure out some of the politics. They’re not unified down there; every major devil is playing against the others in a giant war, with every side vying for the largest, strongest army. They’re just waiting until there’s a mutual enemy they can team up against, though, and a lot of the time that was me. Every so often you can get one devil or another to turn on his friends just long enough for you to get forgotten, but you can’t depend on a devil for long.”
“How did you end up here?” Ora said.
“I’m not sure. Mitra, I guess. I started hearing his voice a little stronger, for a few minutes every few days, so I went toward it. Eventually I found where the voice was strongest, and I reached out to it – tried to pull as much of the Light to me as I could. Next thing I know, I’m here.”
"Mitra? You mean the Light?" Ora said, confounded.
"We'll talk about it later," Marcus said.
“Your link to your god must have pulled you through,” Olvar surmised. “It must be incredibly powerful to have stretched the boundaries of my portal, though, and certainly without tripping my wards. But then, I never accounted for a paladin. How could I foresee that?”
“You couldn’t,” Marcus said. “Thank the gods for your experiments, though. That said, you should probably stop them. If anybody found out that you’ve figured out how to get to Haidia…”
“Yes,” Olvar said with a sigh. “Well, you showing up gave me quite a shock. I think even if not for the obvious failure of my wards, you gave me enough of a shock to keep me from attempting anything like this again for awhile, if ever. I don’t know if any man can do this safely, despite the obvious benefits.”
“Perhaps you should partner with the Brotherhood,” Sten said. “We would certainly welcome your research, and perhaps with the help of our scribes you can perfect your methods.”
“Perhaps,” Olvar said. He didn’t sound convinced.
Marcus put a stop to any attempt at convincing him when he changed the subject. “Where is Anya?”
“Gone on a personal project some months ago,” Sten said. “She was inconsolable for awhile after losing both you and Ivan. At first we thought she was concerned about the portal remaining open in the cathedral, because she spent a great deal of time in the vault, but it became more and more clear that she was looking for a way to get you back, or find you. I’m not sure. Anyway, they eventually ordered her to return and take some time to herself. Toward the end of it she began talking about Alexander Farkus a lot, and then she was gone.”
“Farkus,” Marcus said, raising his eyebrows.
“Yes, a scribe I think?”
“He was,” Marcus said. “I remember him. He went with us to Farshire years ago (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?20573-The-Price-of-Peace). It was my first field assignment. Ora, I’m afraid I have to ask you for another favor.”
“Oh?”
“Yes,” Marcus said. “I need you to take me back to Farshire. Immediately."
The easy answer is that I did it for power. I did it because I don’t care who I hurt. I did it because I want to live forever, and I don’t care what price I have to pay to achieve that immortality. I did it because I begrudged the lives of everyone who ever loved me. I saw the pleasure and wealth and peace of those around me, and decided I would take it from them whether I was worthy of it or not. I took the easy way out.
I knowingly let hate consume me, or I descended into madness.
The truth is, perhaps, more terrifying.
You tell me.
Does it make it worse, knowing I’m doing this with a clear mind? That I’ve searched the dark corners, boldly, and I’ve come away with my objectivity and my sanity intact? I know evil exists and I know it’s to be fought. I know my duty. I know it better than ever now, but it isn’t as simple as doing as I’m told.
I didn’t do this for me, and this wasn’t an accidental fall into insanity. It was a choice. I did it for you, and for all the lives I’m about to destroy.
Do I sound insane yet?
~
They took the carriage north and east, switching out the horses with decreasing frequency as they trekked farther out from civilized Salvar. Marcus was largely silent and unmoving. He ate and slept little, and exercised obsessively when they took the opportunity to stop or rest. For the most part, Ora presumed that Marcus was depending on the Light more than ever to sustain him. At times, the man and the element seemed to be in communion, and Marcus had grown closer to it and away from the mortal plane.
Once, Ora asked why Marcus didn’t cut his hair, as was expected of a paladin. The templar just stared at him, confounded, as if he did not recognize his comrade.
“Do you recognize the road?” Ora asked another time.
“No,” Marcus said. “It was years ago, though, and nothing looks the same. If I’m honest, Ora, I don’t think anything will look the same to me anymore.”
“Because of Haidia?”
But Marcus didn’t answer.
Farshire was once a jewel in the distant wilderness, a beacon of civilization in one of the harshest lands on Althanas. But they had paid for their finery and safety with the blood of their neighbors and the health of the land, and they made that deal with a demon. Marcus, Anya, and Farkus had come to investigate the suffering inflicted upon the countryside. Before Marcus and Anya found the demon, Farkus disappeared, and when the demon was put to death the deal was broken and the paladins were chased out of town.
Now Farshire was paying for its transgressions.
The brickwork streets, once offering the smoothest surface for carriages, were so torn, uneven, and hole-ridden that they were now barely passable on foot. Marble statues were cracked and ruined and leaning precariously. Once, beauteous vines adorned every wall, but now their naked roots choked the life out of every building, and the buzzing of flies was ubiquitous. The window frames were empty and rotted, and the delicate curtains swayed in a half-dead breeze, tattered and brown.
The villagers were much the same. There were maybe ten teeth left in Farshire, all told. The horses were gone, eaten years ago along with the dogs, but their bones littered the gutters still. Only the rats remained, wet and greasy, huge and aggressive, roaming the alleys in swarms and gnawing on drunks’ noses as they lay insensible. There were a few cats, earless and mean, but they stuck to the roofs out of fear and ate only carrion they could steal.
Buzzards circled overhead against the overcast sky, day in and day out. Ora heard that they stole children.
Marcus’ face showed no emotion as they walked the ruined streets. He took it all in silently.
“You couldn’t have known,” Ora whispered to him, but he said nothing.
From memory or, more likely, by sheer luck, he led them to the town square. The villagers avoided them in the streets, but now a small crowd was forming at the alley entrances. Their heads were bowed, but they were tense, and there was a sneer on every face. Ora eyed them cautiously, but Marcus didn’t seem to be aware of them.
In the middle of the square, they’d collected a massive pile of wood, which had been burnt. Above it were five posts, leaning drunkenly over the charred pile. Ora could not comprehend the purpose of this at first, his brow furrowed in confusion until Marcus let out a shivery sigh. Ora followed his gaze, and gasped.
There was a body tied to the top of one of the poles.
Marcus lowered his head, and Ora hesitated before stepping forward. As he approached, he felt his heart flutter, and his guts tie themselves into knots. The body was not charred, having been kept well above the flames, but the skin was one tremendous, split scab, red and cracked. Ora reached out and gripped the hilt of his blade to still the shaking of his hands, and tears stung his eyes.
It was hard to tell at first, but now he could see the subtle curve of breast and hip, and of sinewy arms and strong shoulders. Her hair was burnt away, but she hadn’t had much to start. Paladins shave their heads, after all.
“You sons of bitches,” Ora said, his voice wavering. “You sons of bitches, you burnt her. Not Anya…not Anya.”
“Didn’t burn her,” one of the villagers shouted. “Just cooked the witch ‘til she stopped screaming.”
Others laughed and jeered, but when Ora drew his sword they shrank away and hushed. They were numerous but small, so malnourished and wretched that they couldn’t even trust in their superior number. Seized by wrath, Ora began to charge them, but Marcus laid his hand upon the older paladin’s forearm.
“You can’t,” Book said evenly. “That’s not what we do. Come on.”
He crossed the square, and Ora followed, letting his shoulders droop. He couldn’t raise his chin. Gently, so gently, and with a steady hand, Marcus lowered the post and untied his mentor’s body from it. Through the scars and the burns, Ora could see the shape of Anya’s cheeks and jaw, her full lips now made of dead skin all the way through, cracked and raw.
Her corpse was small in Book’s arms, so small that it seemed impossible that it was once the woman they’d known.
By now you’ve heard the words of Ivan the Lost. That evil is organized, that it’s a conspiracy arrayed against the world of light. The truth is that Marcus Book was right, and Ivan was wrong. It’s not a conspiracy.
It’s chaos. It’s ignorance and hate, and it resides in the hearts of all men.
Only that can explain how Anya Shea came to the village of Farshire as a friend, with sympathy in her heart for men who’d made so many mistakes, eager to help them out of the hole they dug for themselves, and for that they burnt her alive, and lived to laugh about it.
The truth is that the darkness isn’t organized or ordered. Not yet.
Not yet.
~
They bought a coffin from the village, and put Anya’s body inside it, and then stored it on the carriage. Ora didn’t want to pay for it, or use any goods produced in that cursed village, but Marcus did it anyway. The older paladin eyed him that night as they sat on the village outskirts around a campfire. Marcus did not weep, or rage. He only sighed, and stared into the flames. When Ora woke the next day, he hadn’t moved – he just watched the smoke rise from the ashes.
“What now?” Ora said.
“I need to go back into the village,” Marcus said. “She came here to find Alexander’s body. I’m going to finish that, and then we’ll be done here. They should be buried in Knife’s Edge, with our Brothers.”
“They wouldn’t give his body to Anya, why would they give it to us?”
“They don’t have a choice,” Marcus said.
“How? How did they even…?”
“She didn’t fight them,” Marcus said. “She just let them do it. She forgave them for what they were about to do to her, before they did it.”
“I won’t,” Ora said. “They must be punished. They must suffer for this. If they try to burn us, I will kill them.”
“No,” Marcus said sharply, lifting his head. His eyes blazed in the early morning gloom. “That’s not our way, Ora, and it’s not what Anya would want. If they attack us, we’ll defend ourselves, but they have no chance of overpowering us. Fight them off, but don’t kill anyone. We’re here to do our duty, and to uphold the Light, and that’s what we’ll do. That’s what we must do, Ora.”
“You’re right,” Sten said softly, after a time. “Of course you’re right, Marcus. Thank you. But they must be punished for this. They must. There must be justice.”
“Justice,” Marcus said thoughtfully. “I don’t think there will be justice.”
“There must,” Ora muttered, without conviction. “They can’t just walk away from this. Not after what they’ve done, we can’t just walk away without any sort of reckoning…”
“I never said there wouldn’t be a reckoning,” Marcus said, staring at the smoke. “It’s just that no Brother will bring it.”
The prospect of finding the corpse of a man murdered in secret half a decade past was daunting enough, but Ora Sten could not imagine how such a thing could be accomplished in Farshire. It seemed to him that there was a strong chance that whoever had done the black deed was long since dead, or had fled the town sometime during its slow collapse. Or had suffered some blacker fate still – it was possible, if not likely.
Still, he followed Marcus dutifully, with his hand on the hilt of his sword, and he watched the dark corners and the alleyways. Marcus was unarmed, but walked purposefully and calmly – either self-assured or oblivious, Ora couldn’t tell. The longer he spent with the man, the more he saw the changes the exile to Haidia wrought in him, and he began to worry that the templar was broken.
Their search seemed random, and after a few hours Ora said so, and Marcus nodded. “It is, in a way,” Marcus said. “I’ll know where to start when I see it. Trust me, Brother.”
Sten glanced at the younger, larger man, and didn’t know what to say. Ultimately he said nothing, but hunched his shoulders and kept an eye out.
“There,” Book said just before noon, and he pointed. At first Ora’s heart sank, for now he was sure he’d been following a madman. He was pointing at a building indistinguishable from the others surrounding it. Like every other structure in Farshire, it was brown and grey and dilapidated and half-collapsed, and certainly uninhabitable by civilized men.
“I don’t think there’s anyone in there, Marcus,” Ora said unsurely. “What’s different about this building?”
“It’s this building,” Book said confidently. “They’re in there.”
“Who’s in there?”
“I’m not sure yet, but they’re in charge, as much as anyone is here now.”
“How do you figure that?” Ora said.
“For one, the door is solid, locked, and reinforced, and it’s been repaired recently. The windows are boarded, and there’s smoke coming from the chimney. They don’t have neighbors, and people rarely come and go as far as I can tell. All those luxuries in a place like this? Somebody’s in there, and he’s got clout,” Marcus said.
Ora considered it, and found himself surprised that he couldn’t poke holes in the templar’s logic. At that point it felt less likely that Marcus was making sense and more likely that the lunacy was contagious. Without firm ground to stand on, Sten shrugged. “How do we get in?”
“I don’t feel the need to fuck around,” Marcus said, sounding fifty years older than he was. “It’s got a front door, let’s use it.”
Not yet.
Ivan’s stance was incomplete, a solid premise resting on a cracked foundation, and even as he made a move to damn us all, I sympathized with him and I forgave him almost instantly. We stand so devoutly in the light, clinging determinedly to the idea that there is black and there is white and we must push from the right side. We’re not designed for a world of grey – we can’t conceive of it, can’t process the overwhelming complexity. Grey is a balance, and balance is delicate and precarious and untrustworthy.
So I began to see that it wasn’t enough to brighten the Light, because the dark just melts into the corners and the status quo remains, a series of battles of attrition, varying shades of grey.
That’s why I’m doing this. That’s why I’m making this sacrifice – not just my own life, my own soul, but those of so many to come.
The only way to push us into the light is from the dark.
For that to happen, there must be a darkness that doesn’t melt where the light strikes it – a shadow that does not pale.
To save myself I have destroyed myself.
And to save Althanas?
~
The door was reinforced, but that didn’t matter much. Marcus went through shoulder-first with so much force that the wood dissolved into splinters around him, and it did nothing to slow him down. There was a sentry on the other side, an emaciated man with a sword. The sentry got to his feet, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, and never formed a thought complete enough to lift his sword. Marcus threw a punch, and the sentry went down with a broken neck, and never knew what hit him.
A second man came screaming around a corner brandishing a blade, but Marcus caught his arm at the wrist and began to physically dismantle him with a series of deft, brutal movements. First he broke the man’s wrist with a squeeze, and then snapped his elbow by pushing it up the wrong direction. Next he shoved his boot into the side of the man’s knee, shattering it so completely that the knee dropped to the floor. Finally, Marcus grabbed the poor bastard by the side of the head and pushed it into the nearest wall so hard it cracked like an egg and left a smear of blood.
The second man hadn’t had time to as much as scream.
There were two other sentries, but they saw what Marcus did to the first two and ran away. Ora went to chase them, but Marcus detained him and led him deeper into the building instead.
They found other sentries, but those men learned as quickly as their fellows and ran and hid rather than fight. They found women and children cowering in dark corners, and they found barrels of beer, and bushels of something that might pass as food. And in the end, they found a fat man underneath a desk, and the paladins shared a glance before Marcus hauled him out and tossed him into the center of the room. They didn’t need to hurt him – he was already blubbering, begging – but Ora stepped on his right hand until he heard fingers snapping anyway.
In time, the fat man gained just enough composure to speak, and Marcus began to ask him questions while Ora examined the room. Records were kept here, paperwork and tallies, and an ugly picture began to come together. Food was a sort of currency in Farshire now, and the haves traded it with the have-nots for baser commodities: young girls and booze and weapons used to make someone else a have-not.
Sten tried to show Marcus his findings, but the larger knight seemed unconcerned.
“You’re not in charge here,” Book was saying now, glancing over a ledger before handing it back to Ora. “You’ve convinced yourself that you are, but you’re not. You fulfill a purpose assigned to you. In a way, you keep Farshire in a slow burn, just enough to sustain life. Maybe you even think you’re doing these people a service. I don’t really care. We both know the truth. You do what you’re told.”
“Yes, that’s it,” the fat man said, suddenly bright-eyed. “I just do what I’m told, I do.”
“Good,” Marcus said. “Now you’re going to tell me who is in charge. You’re going to tell me who tells you what to do, and you’re going to tell me where I can find them.”
The fat man blinked six times in rapid succession, tongue-tied, and then finally spat out a name.
“No,” Marcus said calmly. “If you lie to me again, I’m going to break your other hand, and I’m going to do it very slowly, one finger at a time.”
Ora had absolutely no doubt in his mind that Marcus was telling the truth.
“She’ll kill me,” the fat man whispered.
“Later, maybe,” Marcus said. “If you lie to me, I’ll kill you now and you’ll still tell me her name.”
“Stygia,” the fat man whimpered.
“That’s good,” Marcus said. “Now you’re going to tell me where she is.”
“I can’t.”
“I am very patient,” Book said, “but if you don’t use your next breath to tell me where she is, I’m going to break your index finger.”
“North and west,” the fat man said, “in the ruins.”
“What ruins?”
“It was a fort? A very old fort, it’s just ruins now, she lives there with her cult, we send her people when she tells us to, and sometimes she brings us food and tells us who to give it to, and what the price will be. It’s north and west, across the river north and west. Please, it’s north and west, I can show you, please.”
“I know you can,” Marcus said. “And you’re going to. Get me a map, Ora.”
Sten found a map, and handed it over, and he shifted uncomfortably. “What about the scribe?”
Marcus seemed surprised, and then he tried to hide it.
“Do you remember me from before Farshire fell? Before things got bad?”
“Of course,” the fat man said. “They said you did this to us. We all remember you, and the woman…”
“And the other man,” Marcus said. “He was here with us. I want his body back.”
“I don’t know anything about that…”
“You’re going to find out. Somebody here knows. Somebody remembers. I want my friend back, wherever you people put him.”
Ora Sten glanced at Marcus out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t doubt that the templar wanted the body of Alexander Farkus found, but he knew it wasn’t the reason Marcus came here. He was looking for something else first, and it seemed that whoever Stygia was, she had it.
In the end, the word went out that the corpse of Alexander Farkus was worth three bushels of corn and a barrel of rum. Less than an hour later, the first group of villagers produced a desiccated corpse, but Marcus knew immediately that it wasn’t the scribe. Another two hours passed, bringing six more false corpses, until the seventh was produced, and Marcus went grim and quiet and paid without a word.
They bought a second coffin with another bushel of corn.
“You can take them home,” Marcus told Ora Sten. “I have one more thing to do. I’ll catch up to you in a couple of days.”
“Whoever or whatever Stygia is, you can’t go into her lair alone,” Sten argued. “I don’t know what’s happening here Marcus, but we already lost you once. I’m not leaving you behind just to have to come back later and barter for your body.”
“I’m going alone,” Book said.
“Let me give you a ride, at least.”
Marcus said no, but Ora persisted until he stopped saying no, and then he turned the carriage north and west.
“I think we’ve been tricked,” Ora Sten said.
The carriage was perched at the apex of a hill overlooking a narrow valley of rocks and brown-grey grass. A chain of jagged mountains loomed over the valley like sentinels in the backdrop, grey and hazy. Even the sun seemed to be dying here, pale and small and gradually losing the strength required to stay in the sky. It seemed to have chosen a place beyond the mountains in distant Berevar for its grave, and Ora figured that was appropriate.
Marcus’ eyes were not in the distance, but instead scanning the valley. After a moment he pointed and said, “There.”
Ora looked out where he was directed, and after a short search found a series of crumbling stones standing in a haphazard half-circle. Maybe it had been a fort, centuries ago, but now it was overgrown with moss and stained with gallons of bird shit. It couldn’t have defended against the wind or the rain, much less an invading force. He did note that it seemed to be facing south, not north, and he wondered what people of Salvar had a war in which the foe didn’t march from Berevar.
“I don’t see how anyone could live out here,” Ora said.
“Stygia doesn’t live,” Marcus said.
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
“Come on,” Marcus said. “Let’s investigate.”
Ora shook his head, fairly well fed up with his newly-enigmatic companion, and guided the carriage down the hill and into the valley, and then across the field toward the ruined fort. The way became a little too rough after a time, and they agreed to walk the rest through the high grass.
As they came closer to the fort, they began discovering grave markers carved in stout stones, littered at random throughout the field and hidden within the brittle grass. They were clearly memorials advertising the virtues of some forgotten warriors, written in a language related to Salvic but too distant a cousin for either of the paladins to read.
“This place was built during the last Demon War,” Ora said. “That’s the word for ‘demon’ or Denebriel is my mother. I think that’s a number. So-and-so killed however many demons, see?”
Marcus nodded. “Seems right,” he said. “Wonder if the fort survived the war and then was abandoned, or if it was taken before the end. Somebody found the time to make all these graves.”
They passed between two towering stone pillars, both leaning alarmingly toward the south, and it became clear that they had once formed the solid corners of a wall. There had once been a taller wooden wall on the outside, long since collapsed and rotted away, and a shorter stone wall behind it, which in turn had crumbled and fallen into ruin. Now within the fort proper, however, the paladins saw that the structure was not entirely gone. Within the walls would have been a number of compact wooden buildings – armories, bunkhouses, storage spaces, bath houses, and so on – but the true center was a small stone keep, stout enough that its roof would not have risen above the walls. Though the keep was now a stone-smoothed, overgrown mound, it still stood, and had a large and relatively new wooden door with fresh, oiled hinges and metal reinforcements along the edge and across the center.
“So this is where she lives,” Marcus said.
“Who? Stygia?”
Marcus nodded.
“Who the hell is she?”
“A vampire,” Marcus said. “She’s old and powerful. I think she’s got some sort of vested interest in Farshire, and might be behind everything that’s happened to them. I mean, the good stuff anyway.”
“I don’t know if I’d say it was ‘good stuff,’ since it depended on the rest of the land suffering. How do you know about her?”
“We were lovers,” Marcus said.
Ora stared at him blankly.
“Anya didn’t tell the Brotherhood? I told Ivan and Anya before I went to Haidia. I guess it makes sense, she thought I was dead and didn’t want to disparage my name. And Ivan wouldn’t have had the chance to tell anyone. I guess you know now. You should tell the Grandmasters when you get back to Knife’s Edge.”
“Yes, well, that strikes me as an important detail,” Ora hissed.
“I thought you knew,” Marcus said with a shrug.
“I hadn’t heard the name until today, and you damn well know it. Is there anything else I ought to know? Are we here so you can get a quick fuck? What would possess you to sleep with a walking corpse, Marcus?”
“Don’t be vulgar, Ora,” Marcus said. “I think you’d be a little more sympathetic if you saw her. Anyway, no, this isn’t a social call. Duty brought me here.”
Ora shifted uncomfortably, peering about with his hand on the hilt of his sword. The sun was just peeking out from behind the mountains now, and the shadows were stretching long. “We should wait until sunup. I have absolutely no interest in going into a vampire’s den at night.”
“I’m thinking you’re right,” Marcus said. “You should stay out here until dawn. I’m going to go in now, before the sun sets. We parted as friends; I think she’ll let me get close to her, so getting in to do what I need to do should be easy. She’ll have minions though, servants, and there’s no way to know how many.”
Ora turned to face his Brother, and tightened his grip on the sword hilt until his knuckles turned white. “Now you listen to me, boy,” he growled. “I don’t know what the hell happened to you down there, but there’s something wrong with you and I don’t know that I can trust you. You speak in half-truths when you speak at all, you let your hair grow wild like a peasant, and you’ve been trying to slip away from me since I found you. And I only found you because you asked for me. And now you…you tell me you’ve fucked a demon, and now you want me to stand around all night while you go visit with her, and you expect me not to see what’s going on? You’re lost, Marcus, you’re obviously lost, and I’m not going to let this…”
“Enough,” Marcus said. “I haven’t been trying to slip away from you, you old fool, I’ve been trying to protect you. I’m trying to make things right here, and every time I come to Farshire one of my friends dies. I lost my mentor,” the templar paused, his voice wavering. “There are things I’m not ready to face, Ora, things I can’t talk about with you or anyone. After Haidia, this seems like half a dream and I’d expect to wake up with a demon’s hands around my throat if it weren’t such a gods-damned nightmare.”
“You don’t have to do this now, Marcus.”
“No, I do,” Book said. “This is something that needed to happen ages ago, and it has to be me. It always had to be me, because of what I am and what my background allowed me to understand.”
“That’s exactly the bullshit I’m talking about,” Ora roared. “What does that even mean? What the fuck are you trying to do here, boy?”
“My duty,” Marcus said. “I don’t expect you to understand yet, Ora, but I promise, you will. This is all going to make sense when it’s over, and all that will matter is that you do your duty, that you be the prodigal. I hoped Anya could do it, but she’s gone, so it has to be you. At the end of this, you’re going to need to embody the Light so completely that the man you are now will almost cease to exist.”
“You keep talking like that,” Ora said. “That I have to do this or that. That I have to tell the Grandmasters you’re a heretic and a sexual deviant, that I have to wait until dawn, that I have to bring Anya and Alexander home. What the hell are you going to be doing? Fucking a talking corpse?”
“Not the whole time, obviously,” Marcus said.
“I’m fucking serious, boy!”
Marcus put one hand heavily on Ora’s shoulder, and the failing light made his eyes like burning embers in his eye sockets. “For all that we’ve been together, and all that we’ve experienced, and for the man I once was, I only ask you one fucking thing, Ora Sten. Trust me one last time, tonight. Listen to me one last time. Let me do what I came here to do, and then, when you see the full picture, do your duty. I’m going in there now, and I’m going to kill Stygia. When the sun rises, come in after me and kill anyone that gets in your way. That’s all I ask.”
Ora stared at those sparks, loving and fearing his comrade in equal measure, and a looming sense of loss and powerlessness pressed down on his shoulders. There was nothing he could do.
“Please don’t make me go home alone, Marcus,” Ora said.
Marcus smiled, and his eyes were sympathetic. “That isn’t the hardest thing you’re going to have to do, Ora.”
It was the longest night in Ora’s memory.
He sat in the dark with his back to one of the carriage’s wheels, listening to the horses chew and the wind whispering in the grass. His sword was drawn and rested across his knees, and though he was cold he dare not start a fire. If Marcus betrayed him he didn’t want to be found, and even if he did not, Stygia’s people would surely search the area when the templar arrived alone and unarmed.
Sten dozed off many times, but some scratching or susurrus always quickly awakened him, and his nerves began to fray. Some small part of him, against all logic, feared that he’d been right and the sun had, in fact, fallen dead in Berevar. He wondered if it would strike the ground cold, or if it would burn out slowly, and if its incredible heat would warm all the ice and snow and end the world in a titanic tidal wave of boiling meltwater.
And then, so slowly he thought it a hallucination, the sky began to brighten. It was a deep, barely-blue black when his nerves allowed him perhaps forty five minutes of fitful sleep, and then he woke to the first rays of the sun sweeping out over the valley. The morning was cold and damp, but welcome.
The paladin crawled to his feet carefully, and stretched the kinks out of his limbs and from his back and neck. He relieved himself against the carriage wheel where he’d rested the night, as if to tell the spot what he thought of it, and then he started back toward the fort.
He tried to remember everything he knew about vampires. They were relatively rare, at least outside of Haidia, and seemed to come in countless varieties and breeds, only related by their love of the night and the thirst for blood. He wondered if Stygia was the only one of her kind here, or if she’d made others like her. The fat man in Farshire had mentioned that she had a cult here, holed up in the fort. How many people could fit inside the keep?
The door was closed. The evening before, Marcus sent Ora away before he entered the keep, worrying that there might be guards directly within and that they might see or somehow sense Ora if he weren’t far away, so the older paladin hadn’t seen his companion go in. He wondered what he would do if the door was locked – it was obviously sturdy, and he wasn’t sure if he could batter it down.
In the end, he worried over nothing. The door was unlocked and opened easily and silently on its oiled hinges, and it wasn’t even dark inside – the walls had holes in them, and long shafts of sunlight pierced the gloom, alive with dust motes and pollen.
The keep was, like the rest of the fort, a ruin, hollow and ancient and long-since reclaimed by nature. In time the paladin found a dark corner that dropped into the stone floor – a larder once, perhaps – and he descended into it, and into the vampire’s lair. Someone, either the vampire herself or her lackeys, had carved a warren of tunnels into the cold earth and lined them with stone undoubtedly taken from what was once the inner wall.
Ora stalked in the darkness, needing no light because his eyes burned with Mitra’s fire. He came across a cloaked figure eventually, a thin woman fairly consumed by the billowing robe she wore. She was propped up against the wall of the tunnel, and for a moment Ora thought she was dead. He crouched down and lifted her hood, and was startled to find her staring up at him.
“Gone,” the woman whispered, “she’s gone. The mistress is gone. She’s gone.”
“What happened here?” Ora whispered.
“The bright man came, and the mistress invited him in. They barred the door. The mistress was so happy, so happy, but now she’s gone.”
“Gone where? Did the bright man go with her?”
“If the gods are good,” she said in a fierce whisper. “She’s gone away, all gone, and left me undone and alone. Go away.”
The woman would say nothing more, except that her mistress was gone, so Ora left her behind and descended farther into the tunnels. He found burnt out torches and more cultists, and those that weren’t catatonic were weeping or shivering or muttering to themselves. All said the same thing: the mistress was gone, and they were alone, and now they were waiting for death.
“Marcus!” Ora shouted into the dark, and his voice echoed back to him and only silence followed, so he delved deeper.
Eventually he came upon a door unlike any other, and he knew he’d arrived. The first clue was the cultists gathered around the door, every one of them wailing and gnashing their teeth, and their scalps were bloody where they’d torn out their own hair. When they saw him, these cultists attacked like madmen. Through their tears and their anguish, though, they were no threat whatsoever. When Ora killed them, he did so out of mercy.
The second clue was the nature of the door itself – somehow, it had been built from bone. The edges were femurs and finger bones, and dozens if not hundreds of bleached human skulls made up the surface. Ora hesitated before he touched such an unholy thing, but he had no choice. Marcus was in there.
Some iniquitous magic had held the door sealed, but that magic was fading now, seeping into the air and flaking away like dead skin. Ora burned what remained, and then the door literally began to crumble into dust. He kicked and shoved at the skulls until the door fully fell apart, and then he ducked into the room beyond, coughing.
He stood staring at the scene that waited him beyond for what seemed an eternity, and he did not know what to do.
“I know this is hard, Brother Sten,” one of the Grandmasters said, “but you must go on. We must know what you saw. What happened next?”
Ora’s shoulders drooped, and he sighed, lowering his head and gathering his thoughts.
“The room was lit with candles, hundreds of them, but they were burned low and beginning to putter out, one by one. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, even so, because it was so much brighter in there than it had been in the tunnels. It was the vampire’s lair, surely. There was a bed, a full library of evil tomes and knickknacks. The floor was earth but the walls and ceiling were solid stone and in good construction, I assume to keep the sun out.”
“Was Stygia there? What of Marcus?”
“They…” Ora sighed, shifting.
“Speak, Ora Sten. We know now of Marcus Book’s transgressions and it all pains us equally. We do not judge him, but we must know what transpired. Leave no detail out, Brother. This is important.”
“They were both there, yes, and all my fears were confirmed. They were naked and the bed had been used,” Ora said, hastily adding, “but I don’t know if it’s as it seems or not. I wasn’t there, and as you know…you know what happened, I don’t know what to say.”
“Slow down Ora. Just describe what you saw when you entered the room, and then go from there.”
“Very well,” Ora said, shaking his head. He gathered his thoughts. “There was blood everywhere, mostly dry by that time. That was the first thing I saw. It stood out so red, compared to everything else. That’s…I saw her body second. Stygia, I mean. She was very white, at least where she wasn’t covered in blood. As I said, she was naked, and her body was on the bed.”
“Her body?”
“Yes, you see, she’d been…well,” Ora paused, “the body had been…damaged. She’d been cut open from throat to navel, and her ribs all broken outward. There was so much blood. At first I feared she’d been a victim of the vampire, rather than the monster herself, but her face was…she had died screaming, and no mortal woman has teeth or eyes or skin like that. And she was dissolving, slowly turning into dust before my eyes.”
“So Marcus completed his mission,” one of the Grandmasters said. “He killed the demon.”
“Forgive me Grandmaster,” Ora said, “but I don’t believe so. I don’t see how it could have been possible. I found him next to the bed, and he’d…gods, a moment, please.”
“Take your time, Brother Sten, but we must hear it all.”
“Whatever had been done to Stygia had also been done to Marcus. He was cut all down his chest so that his ribs were exposed. I thought he was dead, how could anyone survive that? But when I found him his eyes turned to look at me, and his lips moved, and I realized he was still alive even though I could see his heart sitting black and still behind his ribs. There was so much blood. I tried to heal him, but I…he must have been too far gone. The wound closed and the scar faded, but the light in his eyes slowly went out as I watched, and his heart would not beat again. I watched him die. And the rest is as I told you. I built him a coffin and brought him back to Knife’s Edge on the carriage, with Anya and Scribe Farkus.”
The Grandmasters murmured amongst themselves for a moment, and then after a pause one of them spoke in sympathetic tones.
“You must think carefully, Brother Sten,” he said. “I know it’s painful, but you must take your mind back to that den and remember every detail carefully. Was Marcus’ neck bloodied? Was there a knife? Are you certain the vampire had been murdered? Are you certain there wasn’t a third person that could have been in that room with them, someone that could have murdered both of them?”
“No,” Ora said immediately. “Aside from the wound to the chest, Marcus was whole and unblemished by the vampire’s bite. The door had been sealed. If a third person killed them both, he was a powerful magician, somehow capable of bypassing an ancient vampire’s protections. No, I think the answer is…simpler. I can only imagine two possibilities, based on what I saw there.”
“What are these possibilities?”
“Either Marcus murdered Stygia, or she killed herself. Their wounds were the same, and were caused by the same ritual knife. There is no doubt that Marcus seduced her or was seduced, I do not know, but after the act, Marcus could have cut out Stygia’s heart in her moment of distraction. It’s possible that she yet retained her might for a few moments before she expired, and vengefully attempted to cut out our brother’s heart. It’s more probable that Marcus attempted to kill her, but she overpowered him and killed him, and the grief of being betrayed caused her to cut out her own heart.”
“You believe she loved him that much? We are skeptical, Brother Sten, what would drive you to this conclusion over the idea that she killed him before she expired?”
“It has troubled me ever since,” Ora said, shaking his head. “Marcus’ heart was within his chest when he died, I saw it with my own eyes. I’ll never forget it. But the vampire…her heart wasn’t in her chest. It was gone, and she expired in the bed without a sign of struggle. It just doesn’t add up.”
One of the Grandmasters sighed, and leaned forward, clasping his hands before him as he did. “Ora, this council does not know what to make of your testimony, and we cannot agree on what happened in that unholy chamber. Some of us wonder if the woman did not kill herself in her grief as you say, but most of us cannot imagine it. Some of us believe that Marcus was victorious, but we cannot conceive of why you were unable to heal even such a grievous wound. You should know that there are some among us that wonder if you did not kill both the vampire and your Brother in a rage, and now you seek to reduce the damage done to his good name.”
“Grandmasters…”
“Hear me, Brother,” the Grandmaster said, holding one palm out. “The truth is, we don’t know what to think, and it seems to me that you don’t know what to think either, and so we’ve come to accept that we may never know what happened in that room. I pray that if these fears are true, and you did see fit to execute Marcus for his sins, that you will see fit to confess it to us so we may know the whole truth. If not, then we must remember Marcus as the troubled hero he was, and pray that such a remembrance is accurate as we lay him to rest.”
“Please believe me,” Ora said, “I committed no crime against Marcus, and aside from the sins I have related to you, I see no reason not to remember him as a troubled hero. He went to Haidia for us. He retrieved Anya and Alexander Farkus, and however it happened, he brought an end to Stygia. I believe he did his duty, and he should be remembered for being dutiful despite his flaws.”
“Very well. This inquiry is complete. Let us put this dark story behind us, and bury our dead, and let us remember them for their good deeds, and forget their transgressions.”
“And,” another Grandmaster said, “let us pray that this dark story is truly over.”
To save Althanas I must attempt to destroy it, and trust in those I betray to stop me.
I haven’t taken on this duty lightly. I have forsworn the Light forever, in a very literal sense. I have forsworn everything forever, except eternity itself, and the darkness I’ve carried with me all along. I would only do this knowing it must be done, and that I have been chosen to do it. If that makes me mad, then I have been all along, and I am no less fated.
Now I am a monster, and I feel the urge to do monstrous things. I will give into these urges immediately. I will cloak myself in the abyss. I hope that my intentions, and the seminal thoughts and dreams that led me to this horrible course of action, will guide me even as I lose myself. I hope I was not wrong. I hope my faith in the power of good is not unfounded.
I will attempt to burn the earth and blot out the sun. I hope I fail, but if I succeed, I hope the rest of you die righteously and proudly, standing together, unified, loving one another and free from the fear of death.
I hope I did the right thing.
The quill paused on the page, leaving a red-black blot on the page that steadily grew outward. The fledgling lifted the quill from the paper, and for a long time watched the blood-ink seep into the paper, marveling. His new eyes glinted in the dark shadows, and he sat still – so still.
Stygia’s heart quivered in his chest, just once, sending the grave-keeper’s blood churning in his veins, and he let his eyes drift closed in bliss. It was strange not to breathe.
After a time – he did not know how long, it could have been hours, or seconds, or days – he opened his eyes again and read the page over. He pushed the quill into the pad of his finger for a fresh gout of blood, and then he began to sign his name at the bottom.
He started with an M, but stopped and thought better of it. That man, who had himself been a dead man walking, was now doubly dead. Surely he could not have written these words. The fledgling monster thought on this, and was amused. He was his own father, and his mother’s heart resided in his chest. They’d both given their lives for him and yet they lingered, his father in the mind and his mother in the soul, guiding him.
Never before had this creature, who was once a man, felt so right. He had no doubts, or fears. He was on the right path, chosen, fated, purposed.
There had once been a boy who had died, and in dying gave birth to his father-self. That boy’s name was discarded during the rebirth, but now, in a way, the boy had returned in death. The monster signed the boy’s name at the bottom of the page, turning the M into an H – Hollen Shestov – and felt himself smile, just a little. He set the paper inside his sarcophagus-turned-womb, and then effortlessly pushed the lid closed. He turned to the other two sarcophagi and read the names etched into the stone. Anya Shea and Alexander Farkus.
“It’s time,” Marcus Book said.
Revenant
08-28-12, 05:30 PM
Condensed Rubric requested with some light commentary.
Plot (21) – This was a very enjoyable read and I found myself very engaged. Remember that visual descriptions are only one portion of it, a well placed auditory or scent descriptor would have really pulled this completely together. The placement of your journal entries could have been chosen better, as they seemed to pop up right in the middle of action parts rather than acting as bridges between scenes where they might have been better placed.
Character (25) – Your characters are fantastic and all seem to have a very distinct personality. I was very drawn into the way that you indicated how Marcus had been changed by his ordeal. Ora’s dialogue with Marcus after the incident came off a little exaggerated, but I could certainly feel how ruffled he was.
Prose (25) – Honestly, I thought that H was going to turn out to be Ora, especially given Marcus’ direction to him to become a beacon of light. It was a delight to see that I was wrong and I very much enjoyed seeing Marcus’ transformation. The part of the story where Ora was waiting for sunrise was very engaging and your use of language really enhanced the whole scene.
Wildcard (8) – I really enjoyed this story just as much as I’ve enjoyed the previous parts of this story and I look forward to being able to judge whatever comes next for you.
Total: 79
Amen receives 2182 exp and 269 gp.
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