The mud was warm as it slowly soaked through his trousers. The last heat of summer was fading to the early chill of autumn. Every face was etched with the stark marks of starvation; cheeks hollow and eyes sunken. There was worry and misery in the crease of every brow. The whole town was like getting stung by a million bees; the marks of joy and levity were now the extremely rare moments amid a sea of growing contention. All the while, the feeling was growing. His dread Purpose approached. Ever closer, dying by degrees. It didn’t fill the poor friar with fear, precisely, but rather a sensation closer to burning. The warm light with its yellow and red tinges that pulsed with the dawn grew ever hotter. Closer, maybe. More aware.
“Almighty God,” the friar muttered with his muddy knees and eyes pinched shut, focusing on that brilliance just behind him that he could never quite see. “I feel my Purpose approaching. Please grant me the strength to see yer designs through. Please give me the patience ta understand. Please grant my friends the resilience they need to walk the path you laid out fer em. I done my best to show em. I done all I ken to prepare em for what’s next. Please dun let the hard won truths we found here die in an inkysihun fire.”
He gave a moment’s pause before settling his mind for the wisdom he sought.
“What must I do ta see your will done?” he asked quietly, hands clasped tight enough for his knuckles to show white.
YOU WILL KNOW.
Henri wasn’t sure that when he prayed, the voice that answered him was God’s, but it seemed as close a label for it as any. Whatever it was, so much stronger than he, if not God had to be one of its agents. The voice had always been circumspect, though. Never speaking so directly, so certainly. It had always favored riddles or questions of its own. The final sign that whatever had been destined for him was soon to pass.
The friar sighs and pushes himself to his feet.
********
It took a moment for the graying priest to blink back to reality and see what was before him.
“Beg pardon?” he asks, trying to focus on what was before him.
“What are we to do about the Inquisition?” the hushed tone of Sophie was urgent.
“They won’t be no bother,” he reassured distractedly.
***********
The face of Teller-man was more worn than he had ever seen it, but his eyes were bright and clear. Nearly fevered, the priest notes distantly. The dark haired woman beside him wore a face that was vaguely familiar to him, but he couldn’t be sure.
“My soul is burdened,” the priest thinks he heard Teller-man say. He tries to focus again.
“With what?” he asks, his eyes flitting to the couple’s clasped hands. In his heart, he already knew. The long sleeves of her dress not quite hiding the slight difference between her hand and forearm.
The tale was a gristly one, but the priest wouldn’t let it go. Tellerman wanted to be atoned for the thefts of bodies used to cobble together his bride. He wanted his soul to be cleansed of the mark of leveraging dark and forbidden magics to lure the supposed soul of his wife from the Thicket to occupy the stolen flesh of those he’d sworn to protect. The priest prided himself on being an open minded sort, but this business was foul beyond measure. Of all the months that he had spent praying on the nature of sin, and what was actually bad versus potentially bad, turning to the Triumvirate was always bad. No good could come from such foul magics.
“I can’t give an atonement fer something yer not actually sad a bout,” the priest said finally. The corpse-bride had tried her best to reassure him that she was who she claimed to be, but he had no certainty of it. Even if she was what she claimed, he had no certainty whatsoever that she was alone in that flesh. It felt like trying to wash your dishes with an oily cloth- at best it was moving through the motions and making his soul-crushing pain worse. “Are ya sorry?”
Tellerman was quiet for a moment.
“I am sorry for what was done, but I would do it again,” he said fiercely. The priest nodded sadly and pushed himself to his feet. Something dark was coming, and he wished more than anything to soothe the hurt of his friend. But there were some things that couldn’t be compromised on.
“I wish I could help you, Tellerman. I hope she is who you think she is. I hope that this doesn’t cause you more pain in the end,” he says and turns to go.
**********
The elf moved as if it had no bones whatsoever. It didn’t matter how hard the priest swung his fists, or how many times he chased the irritating creature to a corner. For the life of him, he couldn’t land a single blow against the guy. All he could do was tie up his attention. Time and again he moved bonelessly away. And when he was cornered by Milo or Theo, a brilliant flash of moonlight would manifest between his skin and the small weapons.
The threat of the non-human was beyond measure, and yet it paled in comparison to the thing rousing under the mountain.
*********
The faces of the Inquisition and their prosecutors stared at him balefully. All but one, who seemed almost… sad. The priest blinks slowly and tries to focus on where he was. Convocation. Right.
“I won’t let these people burn,” he said firmly. “If a pyre is ta be built, it starts with me. My flock is safe from that.”
They bristled. All but the sad one who just stared unblinking and sighed. The sad one was the key.
The faces behind the Inquisitors relaxed a bit. Most smiled and seemed a bit relieved. He opened his mouth to speak again.
*************
“I need you not to interfere,” Cadence was saying. Where was he? It was warm and bright as the priest looked around. What was she talking about?
“Is this about the inksishun?” he asked. She just looked at him.
“This will make you real sad, but you need to trust me,” she repeated. The priest stared at her a moment. They were going to burn someone. They wanted him to let them burn someone. He frowned, his stomach flipping and the urge to vomit rather suddenly upon him. And he might, if he’d eaten anything in the last month. Finally, he nods.
“I trust you, Cadence,” he said sadly. And he did.
Hours, days, or weeks later, the Priest’s connection to time was slowly unraveling, she gripped his hand reassuringly as the flames leapt up to eat the flesh of the drunken physiquer. The stench of burning boots, flesh, bones, and offal was like some horrid meal gone wrong. A quiet prayer is offered for the soul of their collective victim, and a second prayer is offered that none were so starved they might crave this poor soul’s flesh.
***********
“I need to atone,” Marinette said. Her eyes were red rimmed as if she’d been crying. The priest blinked and looked around. He was sitting on a porch. Pascal was sitting next to him, and someone might have been behind them, he couldn’t be sure. So the priest gestures to the empty seat behind her.
“I’m listenin’,” he said, trying to focus on this precise moment and listen.
The story that she told was unpleasant. She had gone with the Vecatrians to protect their grove. They’d occupied the bodies of beasts and monsters to drive out the inkisishun troops. She’d tried to prevent them from dying, but her orders had led to the death of several before she was able to clarify her orders and stop the slaughter.
“How many did ya kill?” he asked slowly.
“I’m not sure. Somewhere between five and eight, I think?” she said, the words clearly weighing on her. The priest nods.
A clear moment stretched on before him. Marinette was little more than a child, really. The strain of recent years had aged her more than one might expect, but he’d be shocked if she was much over twenty. Time was having less and less meaning to him. The smooth, shining face of the youth would become strained. Her eyes would harden to glittering gemstones. Her hands, already calloused from working the land, would grow bloody with the work they would ask of her. The soft, sweet heart would grow leathery and resistant to the needs of others. But in her wake, the dread purpose would be tempered. The lessons learned here, so hard fought, so costly, would be safeguarded.
All he had to do was sacrifice all of the special things that made her her.
“I have an atonement fer ya,” he said finally. “But I dun think ya want it. Ya should go ask another priest.”
But she hadn’t left. He’d warned her again. And a third time. And yet, she persisted. Each warning seemed to settle her deeper in the rightness of his decision. A weight that he hadn’t always borne, this sacred duty of caretaking the souls of others. The hopeless trust so many had planted into him, like spears in some boar that refused to die. They cut, each one, cut with a love so pure he could barely stand it.
“Ya took eight souls from the inkisishun,” he said finally. “It falls ta you to replace em.”
A look of confusion crossed her features, “You want me to recruit for the Inquisition?”
“None others ken carry ta water,” he said quietly. “You took the souls, you gotta fill their spots. Their duty is yers now.”
She looked as if he’d struck her. Eyes wide as understanding slowly filtered in. She just nodded, said she understood, and left sadly. That urge to vomit returned. He was becoming distant from his flock. Willing to sacrifice one of the best of them for the good of all of them. This was how darkness started. But at least in this, his soul was settled- this was the most correct path.
*********
The High Inquisitor was staring at him, unblinking. An idle part of the priest’s mind notes that he rarely blinked. Something to unsettle people, no doubt. But Henri had come to grips on the fact that he wasn’t human and such low tactics would be ineffective on him.
“I spent a lot of time praying,” he said. They had been talking about his speech at Convocation. The Inquisitor had said something about having heard other Melandahim sermons, and at least in this, Henri felt like he was living up to his covenant, speaking truth to power. “On the nature of sin.”
The Inquisitor stared at him blankly, but the slightest shift of the man’s shoulders told him that they had come to the thrust of it. The Inquisitor held the lives of his parish in his hand, and now was the moment. This would decide the matter. They would die, or be allowed to live; the priest held his undivided attention.
“See, the things that we have said are sins aren’t always sin,” he began. Were he capable of fear, he would be cowering. This sort of talk would promise him to the fire, he was certain. But his Purpose wasn’t to burn, so he spoke on. “Some of it is, sure, but not all. Maybe not even most. There’s a nuance to it, see? Killing is a sin, but not always. Self-defense. Slavers. In-human things. But we draw a line to make things easier for everyone. We draw a line and say all of this is sinful, and we let the nuance live in the atonement. But we are missin’ the point. See, it’s expedient to say all of this over here is sinful. Like heresy. All sinful. But it ain’t, not even half. What’s sinful is ta abandon yer humanity. Worshiping spirits ain’t sinful, though some might demand sinful stuff. Bein’ a priest for the vecatrians ain’t a sin. I prayed on the worship of spirits, and God told me that it makes spirits more like God, and how could that be a sin? Crones, they abandon what makes em human, that’s sinful. But most of the rest?”
He shrugged, and the Inquisitor frowned a bit. The man was difficult to read, but Henri felt like he’d struck a heavy blow. And realization dawned on the priest- HE KNEW. This High Inquisitor KNEW. This wasn’t a great secret that was being revealed, but more rather, Henri was speaking truths to someone already educated in them, and further realization dawned on the priest. The Church had suppressed these truths. Part of his order was granted this knowledge and they held it in trust until such time as the world was ready to hear it. Finally, he understood.
“How many Charismata are in yer Order?” the priest asked.
“Not many,” the Inquisitor said, sensing the trap.
“Why?” the priest asked.
“It is dangerous for them. When they sin, they can grow dark,” the Inquisitor said.
“So what ya do is sinful,” the priest concluded. It wasn’t a question. The Inquisitor opened his mouth to speak, and Henri raised his hand to stop him. The gesture was absurd; who in their right mind would dare tell an Inquisitor to be quiet while they spoke? But Fire wasn’t His Purpose. “What I want from ya, what I demand, is that ya don’t do what’s expedient. Don’t just look at us and say ‘the rules say ya burn’ and go an light the fires. This place learned something hard ta learn and its a sacred truth. It needs ta be protected. And you know it. I need ya ta live in the nuance. If the whole rest of the Church is allowed to draw hard lines, it must be the purpose of your order specifically to understand the nuance and make rulings on those facts. That’s all I want.”
*********
Suzette had been saying something. The massive skull of the deer had ribbons hanging from its antlers, and the priest blinked in some confusion. They were saying nice things about those that they had had conflict with. What a good idea. He pushed himself to his feet and walked to the skull. He had few regrets, really, having turned away from violence and greed long ago. But one had settled in his gut and had refused to leave.
“I once said that Cole wasn’t a good person,” he said, wrapping a ribbon around an antler. “I was wrong and I’m very sorry. She’s a goodun.”
As he moved to settle back in his chair, Suzette called to him.
“Maybe tell people why she’s a good person?” she asked.
“It’s self evident,” he said, slumping down. Then softer. “Plain as the nose on her face.”
A few days later, still sitting in the tavern, still tying ribbons to the skull, Marinette was standing before him.
“I want you to know, Henri, I’ve never felt farther from God than I do now,” she said softly. The priest sighed and nodded.
“I’m very sorry,” he answered. There wasn’t another answer; this was the first of her sacrifices.
Weeks later, and Lysenna was standing before him. What had she been saying? Something… a question?”
“What?” he asks, confused.
“How could you do this! Send Marinette to the Inquisition?! I’ll never forgive you,” she fumed at him. Exhaustion threatened to sweep over him and the weary start of despair was growing.
“I think ya want to be somewhere else now,” he said. There was nothing else to be done. If she stayed, he would speak, and the fragile unity of the community would be threatened. Now they needed to stand together more than ever they had before. She stormed away, and he hear her swearing at the other end of the tavern and staring daggers at him.
Pascal reached out and patted his leg.
“I was there, and you were right,” he said, and that sweet balm was better than the finest wine.
Months later and yesterday when they stood outside the tavern, preparing to march to their destiny, Tellerman was saying something, and the sadness oozed from him.
“I don’t think I’m very good at atonements. Everyone’s mad at me,” he said and remembered the half-dozen faces, their eyes filled with betrayal, despair and rage. He blinked them away as his vision was consumed with the fiery eyes of the Tellerman, and he was certain he was about to be chastised again. And from one so dear; his heart would surely break.
“You saved us all,” Tellerman said. “That atonement saved us all.”
**********
He was fighting. The elf was moving away bonelessly and casually throwing beams of light at him. The glowing light behind his vision kept away the exhaustion, and the priest leapt out of the light’s path, only to launch himself back at the elf. No amount of swinging could land a blow. But he knew that if he could just consume the elf’s attention with his presence, Theo and Milo could sneak behind. The mighty ax of lil Hughie. Anyone who was an actual fighter could put this beast down. Again and again, he engaged, clashed, and retreated.
“You are too weak. You will fail,” the elf’s voice echoed in his ears.
“Yeah, but they ain’t,” the priest retorted and launched himself into the mouth of some great beast, his sword seeking the unprotected insides of the creature’s throat once more.
***********
The riddles had been complicated and hard for the wary priest to follow. But Tellerman and Sebastion were clever and had spoken soothing words and finally the skull had been unchained and lifted. It spoke, and the priest fell to his knees to pray. He knew what was to come. This was the precipice. All he needed was to be brave.
YOU MUST PLACE YOUR GIFT INTO THE CANON. THEN ANY MAY REMAIN AND FIRE IT UPON HIS BLACK HEART.
The priest would tell none of this. If one was to be sacrificed, it would be him. He was the last one out. That was his Purpose.
He stood, and held out his hand to Isabell.
“Its time,” he said. And Milo was there, touching the barrel and demanding that everyone bless him. Not the weapon, but him. Milo, who had been his brother; the old priest could have kissed him.
The runes flared on weapon, and he felt a fundamental part of himself infuse the metal. The heart was a bloody, beating mess. Nodding to his friends, the priest forced a smile.
“Get em out,” he said to whomever had been close enough to hear. Then he crawled through the gore to the pulsing flesh within. The noise was deafening. The pressure was unreal. It tried desperately to push the air from his lungs, but he didn’t need to breathe. It tried to crush him, but his bones would not break. He sat in the chamber of the mighty muscle and waited. He counted slowly. Enough for his friends to get clear of the blast. Then he lifted the weapon.
The moment he raised it with intent, he felt the sweeping tides of Destiny. He had never felt such a thing. Something so much greater than himself. It was his Purpose HIS PURPOSE HIS PURPOSE HIS PURPOSE.
The world exploded in brilliant light, so loud and searing that nothing could exist in the same space as that flash. And then there was nothing. He sat in blackness. The only point of light for eternity was himself. Black, blankness, forever. For forever. No Lurian. No brilliance to join. Just empty blackness. And a sad, fat old man.
“So. This is it then,” the man said sadly. And in that moment, the priest understood. He had misunderstood. His Purpose hadn’t been to kill the Witch-King. Any could have done that. His Purpose was to save him.
“I would like ta take your atonement, now,” Henri said, renewed vigor filling him.
They spoke. The old man had been bleak with despair. The Conquerer, he claimed, couldn’t have atoned him. He was dead. There could be no forgiveness. But the Priest knew better. And he had reassured the man of the same. The Purpose of the Conquerer had been different from his own. Chiropoler had him. He was not alone in this blackness. Here, in this eternity where time didn’t exist as a concept, he was not alone. And the one that sat before him would not leave until the Witchking knew the love of God once more.
“At least,” the man said as the smallest smile rested on his lips. “At least I’m not hungry anymore.”
“Let us start there, then,” the priest said, smiling.
**********
Eternity has no meaning here. They had spoken of each of his millions of victims. His rage. His disappointment. His greed. His avarice. His pride, that crippling pride. They had been here for longer than Creation had existed. And only for a second. There was no concept of time, and without that concept, nothing could really happen.
In the darkness, demons had come to listen, the only point of light they had seen in eternal darkness. They came and listened. And would flit away bored. But there was nothing here, nothing, except a point of light that whispered to them of the warmth of God. Of the love they could know if they just looked inward.
They spoke, and prayed, and spoke, and prayed. They would dart off in rage, but there was nothing to do here, and the isolation was maddening. Even if the most bitter of them would return and listen simply to have something different, anything different, than this empty blackness.
And there, in that eternal sermon, a voice whispered to Henri. A single voice that caused him to be silent a moment that wasn’t a moment. It had the concept of time, and it grounded the priest in the present which had a present now.
“Please help papa understand the Discord he brings,” the voice said. It was a girl, a child. Far way and in his heart all at once. “Please, Henri, guide him.”
There was confusion. He was… there was worship. Prayers. They would silence and time dissolved and for eternity he would preach. Then the concept of time would exist and someone would be asking for guidance. And he found, once his mind was constrained by worldly concerns, that if he concentrated, he could reach within himself to find the prayers and whisper back. Words of encouragement. Words of love. Words of devotion.
We are stronger together. The Purpose of Humanity is to unite. The voices grew and grew until eternity couldn’t exist alongside them. The black emptiness wasn’t empty at all. He was… at long last, united with his family. With Humanity.
They were saved. They would be forever saved. And the darkness that stretched on was the warmest of places.
