Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial-Chapter 18Arc 7: : Faith of a Crowfriar

“Of course, it is a great honor to host an esteemed member of the Emperor’s court.” The Mayor of Tol’s pleasant smile was just a bit too stiff to convince me he believed his own words. “I only wish we had been notified of your arrival in advance, so that we could properly greet a person of your standing.”

“It was not His Grace’s wish that my presence here cause a disturbance, if it could be avoided.”

I refused a servant offering me wine. We were guesting in the parlor of Castle Tol, which was not so much a true castle as a fortified manor set on one of the town’s meandering corners. Delphine sat on one of the couches, sipping at a local vintage, while Vicar admired an oil painting on one wall. Besides the mayor we were also in the presence of Tol’s garrison commander, a knight clad from neck to foot in white steel. The only other two in the room were the furtive servant with the wine and a well dressed man who I took to be a clerk. Ormur, Delphine's pet weasel, sniffed around on the table despite the anxious looks of the servant.

The Mayor fussed with his sleeves. He was a tall man with long, elegant limbs and a wide midsection that spoke of a sedentary life. He would be an elected official, a wealthy merchant or distant relative to one of the local Houses, a civilian tasked with daily matters. The knight represented Osheim’s king. He would defer to the mayor, but did not answer to him.

The Mayor coughed delicately. “Well, if His Reverent Majesty the Emperor is eager to know of our progress, then who are we to refuse him?”

He laughed and glanced at the knight, almost as though hoping the other man would give him an answer to that question. Clearing his throat he gestured at the commander. “May I have the honor of introducing Ser Cyril of House Stour, who leads Tol’s guard by the grace of our king.”

I recognized the name. “The Stork of Osheim? You’re King Kale’s nephew.”

The elegant knight dipped his head into a bow. Ser Cyril was a man in his late twenties, with golden-brown hair pulled back into a tail and an ear shriveled by old burns. “It is an honor to be recognized by the Headsman of Seydis. Your deeds in Garihelm are known to my kinsfolk, as are your efforts during our holy war against the Recusants.”

“You think that was a holy war?” I asked. It had seemed anything but to me.

The young man’s eyes widened in earnestness. “Of course! The rebels sought to overturn the very foundations of law and tradition that we abide by. The authority of the High Houses and the wisdom of the Church are gifts from God, and it is not for mere mortals to dispense with them. Those are sacred, for She gave them to us. Every clan that did not rally behind Markham Forger was and is apostate, for he is the sword and the shield of our faith.”

The man’s eyes hardened, an edge creeping into his soft voice as he touched the golden rune worked into his left pauldron. “If a struggle for our very way of life against heretics is not holy, then I do not know what is. It is good that you repented of the Alder Table’s sins and seek repentance in service, Lord Hewer. I know what they say of you, but my uncle and mother were both at the Bridge of Bells. They remember you, and know you to be no devil.”

I remembered the Bridge of Bells. After the Ardent Bough had failed to retake Kingsmeet from the demons and woed things infesting it, we’d retreated to the crossing and held its township for seven days against Rhan Harrower’s regulars. Two terrible battles back to back, so many hundreds dead.

I took the opportunity to change the subject. “These are my companions.” I gestured to Delphine and Vicar. “The lady is a scribe of some skill, and Geoffrey is a monk and my confessor.”

All true, in a way. Ser Cyril’s eyes turned to Vicar with interest. “A monk? From what order?”

Vicar replied smoothly. “I have studied with the Monasticastia, my lord, but I consider myself a worldly student.”

“You traveled all the way from Garihelm with only a priest and a scrivener?” The Mayor asked, failing to hide his skepticism.

I met his gaze levelly. “I have little need of guards.”

He shifted and coughed. “Of course. So how can my city be of service to the Emperor, my lord?”

“By continuing as you have been,” I told him. “I am largely here as an observer. Rooms for me and my companions would not be remiss, though be assured we intend to move on very soon.”

I risked a furtive glance at Vicar, who nodded. Just as soon as he got something useful from Lias’s mirror, in fact.

The Mayor breathed a sigh of relief. Again I noted the clerk waiting near the door. He didn’t seem to share the Mayor’s nervousness. He looked bored. And familiar.

A crowfriar in disguise? I wondered. No, I don’t sense it from him, and Vicar would have warned me. He was a brown haired man in his late thirties, his garments fine if more plain than a noble’s. Not a servant, as I’d first thought.

“Fervor for the initiative to reclaim the Blessed Country is great,” Ser Cyril said. “Hundreds pass through Tol every month, and even winter has barely stemmed the flow. I have seen knights from the Linden and sentinel clans from the Fences, even heard rumors that the Dales and the steadings of Alheid have stirred at the call. Come spring, we will have a mighty host. If you tell the Emperor anything, tell him that my uncle is proud to oversee this endeavor.”

“Your uncle’s dedication is to be commended,” I said. “But remember that Markham Forger is High Captain in times of Crusade, and only he can unleash the Aureate on our enemies. I will also remind you that his wife is the only monarch in Urn who can muster southern troops, as was the agreement they made when they united the realms. The Empress will be returning to Karles in the spring, and passing through Osheim during her procession. I can assure you, she will not be pleased to see her vassals’ banners in your family’s lands.”

Cyril’s face reddened with chagrin. “Of course! I did not mean—”

I smiled to take the admonishment out of my words. “It’s fine, young man. I know what you meant, and your zeal does you credit.”

Still, better to remind House Stour of their intended role as I understood it before the sight of eager legions clamoring for battle got to their head. While I wasn’t actually here to play Markham’s eyes and ears, I did represent him, and Rosanna, and I did take that position seriously. Even if it wasn’t my real task, I could be their voice where I felt it necessary.

“And that brings me to a question,” I added. The Mayor looked even more nervous after I’d chastised his liege lord’s kin. “I’ve heard of some trouble with the Seydii. They’ve moved into Kingsmeet?”

Cyril Stour's expression darkened. “Indeed. Information is scarce, but this cannot have been a coincidence. We were intended to begin efforts to retake the city in the spring… contingent on the Emperor’s order, of course.” He gave me a nod. “Information is scarce, but so far as we can tell the elves are battling the damned things who’ve haunted Kingsmeet since the war.”

I frowned. “That seems a good thing to me. What’s the trouble?”

Cyril’s frown deepened. “Kingsmeet is ours. It belongs to humankind, and it is obvious what is occurring. The faeries lost the refuge they held by the grace of the Heir. They cannot retake Elfgrave, so they seek to settle an easier target. They’re trying to beat us to the prize.”

“The Seydii elves have always been our allies,” Delphine said. When Cyril glanced at her, she coughed and added, “My lord. Could it not be that they are simply preparing the way for you?”

Cyril shrugged, his expression turning dispassionate. “Forgive me, doctor, but I know well the habits of dryads and goblins. For countless generations they have preyed on us, playing their fey tricks and weaving their fickle curses. The Archon and his knights restrained them, and the generous gifts of the God-Queen distracted them. Now that those things are lost, they have returned to their more wild ways.”

He waved a gauntleted hand. “Gone feral, one could say. We have seen signs of it for years. The elves have gone mad. I have heard the sermons of Cardinal Perseus. He reminds us that we were warned of this in scripture — Keep watch upon the Old Children, for their natures are fey. Should the blessed light of She Who Bears The Gifts fade in Her long labors in lands afar, then be wary of the wolves and of the hares, for while the memories of Men are brief, elvenkind still dream of a darkness long forgotten by their mortal kith.”

“Canoness Honorine.” An edge crept into Delphine’s voice. “She was one of the founders of the Cenocastia. Her teachings are part of why the order maintained a presence in Seydis for centuries.”

“If only her warnings were better heeded,” Cyril said.

The Mayor cleared his throat again, drawing the room’s attention back to him. “It is late, and I am certain our guests are tired from their long journey.” He gave Cyril a pointed look, and the knight nodded. “Rooms and baths are prepared for the three of you. I must return to my estate, but this manor is at your disposal.”

“I also have duties to attend,” Cyril added. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Lord Hewer.”

“Just Ser, lad. My lordship is only a formality.”

“…Of course.”

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The mayor, knight, and the other two attendants left the parlor then. I turned to my two companions. More precisely, I turned to face Vicar and Delphine followed my gaze.

“The mirror is secure?” I asked.

Vicar nodded. “Already ensconced in my room. Delphine helped me remove it from the frame, and the rest was shadows and whispers. The servants believe it belongs here, though keeping the spirits inside quiet was trying. It was delivered while you were setting up this meeting. I am surprised they hosted you so warmly, Headsman.”

Now Delphine had guessed on her own who I was and I'd revealed myself to the local powers, Vicar had ceased being vague about it. I ignored the mocking edge in the devil's tone. “All they know about me are rumors, and that I’ve become the Emperor’s hand over the last year. They wouldn’t dare refuse me… that doesn’t mean they welcome me.”

“That zealot seemed to welcome you,” Delphine muttered darkly. “Are we certain it’s a good idea to keep demon-infested mirrors and disguised devils in his presence? No offense, Renuart.”

“None taken,” Vicar said smoothly. “Though if you are so concerned, dear, perhaps we should keep snide comments and theological debate to ourselves for the time being?”

Delphine flushed and glanced away. “So what’s our next move?” She asked, changing the subject.

“We try to get something useful out of the mirror,” I said. “And then we move on. The Inquisition won’t bother us inside the fort of King Kale’s own nephew, not with the Presider gone, and the Credo needs time to regroup.”

I looked to Vicar for confirmation. He nodded. “Calling forth aid from Orkael is very difficult without the Zoscian. They will have to improvise a temporary conduit, and there are rituals required.”

Delphine’s lips quirked into a curious frown and she leaned forward. Ormur chittered at her, vainly seeking his mistress's attention and settling for chewing on a string come loose from her bun. “What rituals?”

“Sacrifice.” Vicar smiled thinly. “A member of the order will submit to having their flesh peeled and their bones stretched in reflection of our Lord. I imagine that’s what they intended for me. Now…” He shrugged. “They will most likely draw lots.”

“Oh.” Delphine looked sickened, but mastered herself and dropped the line of questioning.

“What kind of resistance can we anticipate?” I asked, pacing as I took in this new information. My cloak twitched around my ankles, like an angry cat flicking its tail. It hadn’t liked being abandoned, even temporarily.

“It is hard to say,” Vicar said in a cautious tone. “I can only speculate.”

I wheeled on him. “Bullshit. You’ve been keeping things from me. Don’t think I’ve forgotten what Krile said about the crowfriars guessing what Lias is up to. Start talking. We’ll begin with this ritual. What aid can the Credo bring out of Hell?”

Vicar sighed and settled into a seat, his demeanor that of a man who knew he was in for a grilling. “As I said, it is difficult to anticipate. We do not control the resources we are allotted.”

“Oh?” Delphine dove back into the conversation as her scholarly curiosity took hold. “I admit, I am interested in this topic. There is so little information about how the Credo Ferrum functions, only centuries of rumor and scant fact. Information you crowfriars no doubt spread yourselves, as it pleases you.”

Vicar nodded in acknowledgement. “I will not deny it.”

When he continued to stonewall, a frustrated growl bubbled up in my throat. “Damn it, Vicar! We’re in this together. Your fellows mean to capture you and literally skin you alive. I am your only chance at some kind of escape from that fate. Start helping me.”

“Have I not been helping you, Headsman?” He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“You dragged me into this. I would have been involved already, true, and I can admit you’re the reason I didn’t jump into the pond blind.” I let out a breath in an effort to calm my nerves. “We don’t trust one another, I get it, but I need to at least know what I’m up against.”

“I’m not sure he can speak of it,” Delphine said as she narrowed her eyes at the devil. “Is that so, Renuart? Are you forbidden from telling us the secrets of Hell?”

Vicar remained quiet a long minute, so long that I let out a frustrated huff and turned to the door, believing he wouldn’t answer. Then, in a soft voice, he started to speak.

“There are things I cannot tell you. I cannot divulge the details of Orkael’s rites. I cannot give you the true names of the Ninety-Nine Dukes, nor those of the Marquis’s, nor can I breathe a word of the machinations of the Princes and Princesses of Hell. The Iron Tribunal still has a grip on me, my friends, and I chose to wear those chains of my own free will.”

He held up a finger. “But part of my role as a mendicant of Orkael is educational. I can speak of generalities. I can… proselytize. I can speak of our God. So heed me, mortals, and I shall tell you of Zos.”

“Zos is mighty. A true god, one of the very few left, but not such a one as you might find familiar or comforting. It does not grant benediction. It does not offer forgiveness. It does not promise salvation.”

“The Great Sheol, what you mortals call Hell, is like a single great machine. An engine, which shifts and acts based on the code inscribed into Zos’s flesh. All the legions of Orkael, all the wild fiends and damned spirits who inhabit its hinterlands, all the teeming hordes of the Abyss… all are subject to Zos’s tireless will.”

As Vicar spoke, the room seemed to grow colder. Though wan winter sunlight shone through the window, it seemed dimmer all the sudden. Delphine shivered and hugged herself.

And as he’d hinted, Vicar did speak these words like a prayer. The drooping sleeves of his dark woolen garments rose like ragged wings as he lifted them in odd, sweeping gestures. My spiritual senses detected a shift of energies. It was subtle, not quite a spellcant and definitely not an Art, but there was power in these words.

“For every slave,” Vicar continued, “every crowfriar, every warrior… indeed, even every angel who works to carry out Hell’s will, there is one unspoken truth. We all serve Zos, not the other way around. When Its law decrees, we act. As It demands, the very winds of Inferno blow. When Zos decides, the glaciers of Hell shift.”

He leaned forward. The shadow on the wall behind him had grown larger, more crooked. “There is a catch to this perfect machine. Zos is great and mighty, but Its domain is vast and requires unbelievable resources to control. But Zos is also efficient. It only dispatches the resources required to fill a particular task. Whether this means releasing a pack of hellhounds to capture a single stray warlock trying to escape their contract, or commanding a pit lord to rise from his throne and take up his sword in order to claim the wings of a rebel angel. The effort always matches the need, and the need is inscribed into the Zoscian. It is part of Zos, a fragment still connected to the whole.”

Delphine was thinking furiously, tapping her fingers on the couch’s arm. “So this entity decides how many crowfriars are needed to subvert a region’s population, for example, and then Orkael opens its gates just long enough for that resource to be dispensed?”

Vicar nodded. “Or how many Scorchknights are needed to lay waste to a faithless king’s dominion. There is room for interpretation. My order’s task is largely a logistical one. We observe, and then we report, and then we continue to monitor our territories as the allotted resources are put into play. If what is given does not prove enough, then we petition again, and then we wait. Zos does not always answer our prayers.”

Here he paused, his hand upheld as though caught in a half finished thought. “And Zos lacks an ego of Its own. It is our God’s great weakness. The engines of Hell can be bent to one’s need. It is a weapon. It is power. The denizens of Hell can do little with this power, for our code of conduct was written into the very flesh of Inferno’s heart. A mortal, however, who is bound by nothing and no one but his own ambition, who manages to learn the language of Zos?”

“Lias could decide what sin is,” I said aloud, realizing the implication. “He could decide what Zos believes is evil and what is good. He can write the… code? Is that the word? That determines not only who belongs in an infernal gaol, but how many devils Hell will send to see it done.”

“Not quite,” Vicar said. “What is written on the Volumen determines the need, and Zos decides how much effort is spent to fulfill it. The effort always matches the need. Declare a humble farmer a sinner, and a single hellhound might be dispatched to claim his soul. For a mighty duke, perhaps a Scorchknight reinforced by a pack of fetterfiends.”

He met my eye. “What about a king? Or a demigod?”

I folded my arms. “He wouldn’t do that.”

Would he?

“What?” Delphine asked. “What are you saying? That Master Hexer plans to turn Hell’s power against a monarch? Who? All the Recusants are defeated. The Vykes were the last, and I hear they’ve surrendered.”

“Think bigger,” Vicar crooned. “Lias is Magi. They do not lack for arrogance.”

He wouldn’t. It would be madness. Hell on the earth, burning skies and nightmares unleashed.

The effort always matches the need.

“Lias Hexer believes that humanity has been chained by its gods,” Vicar said. “That they do not permit you to decide your own fates, your own destinies. He has a power that was respected even by Onsolem during the height of its power, and which has hardly been diminished in this last millennium of ruin. He is ambitious and willing to take harsh and decisive action, if he believes it will benefit future generations.”

He stared at me for a long moment. “Am I wrong?”

I remembered our conversations in Garihelm. I remembered a hundred more from across the years. He’d grown angrier as he’d become older and gained in knowledge. He had been willing to consort with the Devils of Hell and defy the Angels of Heaven.

Yet, if the beings who rule this land would keep us trapped in this tired dream, if I must burn it to wake us up… Well, cauterizing a limb is sometimes necessary to prevent rot.

He’d practically already told me what he intended.

“The Choir.” I let out a small, tired laugh. “He wants to pit Orkael against them. Imprison them, just like the demons are imprisoned.”

Delphine frowned deeply. “Can he do that?”

“He can use the Zoscian to convince the will that controls the Great Sheol that this version of the Choir has broken divine law.” Vicar moved to the window, keeping to the shadows as he peered out over the snowy town. “It will not be simple. He must inscribe the names of every spirit within the concilium, make an argument that Zos will accept in the proper terminology… this will not be a case of petitioning for a pack of fetterfiends. For a change on this scale, he will have to embed his volumen into the greater construct, which means having access to the main body.”

“He…” I shook my head. “Wouldn’t he have to go to Hell for that?”

Vicar threw me a sinister smile. “The Magi are known to walk the planes. Indeed he will. He has the key… all he requires is the proper door.”

The devil began to march towards the room’s exit. “That is what he was interrogating the mirror for. Those Abgrüdai wretches know where he’s gone, and I will make them tell me.”

He left without another word. Delphine sat back in her seat, looking exhausted and concerned and frightened all at once.

“This all sounds so big,” she said. “Devils and gods and angels… does Master Hexer really mean to start a war between Orkael and the Choir? The Choir isn’t in Heaven, they’re here, which means…”

“Hell coming here,” I said, finishing the doctor’s thought. “Lias is ambitious and angry, but he’s not insane… I hope he’s not insane. We’ll find him and make him explain all of this. Perhaps Vicar is wrong.”

“He was your friend,” Delphine said. “What do you think?”

I shook my head. “Lias has been a stranger to me for many years now. I don’t know what to think. They say the rites the Magi undergo to wield their power makes them insane. I’ve only met a few, and besides Li they were all… unnerving.”

I remembered William Dee and Reynard. Dee had been a cackling maniac, and Reynard a monster who burned in my spiritual senses as darkly as any demon. Had Lias been taken by his magic?

And would that be better? Would it make it easier to do what I’d been ordered?

“For now, it’s getting late. Let’s get some rest, and maybe by morning Vicar will have found out something useful from that damned mirror.”

This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢