Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial

I’ve done many stupid things in my life. Attempting to break into the largest edifice of the Aureate Faith in the world in order to free one of the Inquisition’s prisoners might have gone a bit beyond the pale.

“Why am I doing this?” I muttered to myself, sinking back into the cover of an alley as a group of Forger knights rode past. The street before me widened into a large avenue, mostly lined in temples and governmental buildings. There were relatively few people here besides priests, officials, and other wealthier sorts.

The Bell Ward, they called this part of the city. The Clericon College held court here. Ever since King Markham Forger of Reynwell had been named Emperor of Urn, the priests had centered their power here in his city. It was almost a city unto itself, full of clerks, monks, temple knights and other holy sorts.

Which meant blending with the crowds would be a less viable tactic to move about unseen. At least in Vinhithe, I’d been able to use the crowded layout of the city and a public execution to help mask my presence.

Why was I doing this? The smart play would be to reconnect with Lias, coordinate, come up with another plan or pursue another lead. He might even be able to use his resources to find out if this changeling elder were still alive.

Maybe because Lias had lied to me. Or, perhaps not lied, but withheld important information. He hadn’t told me he’d been using the changeling community in the city for his spy network, letting me walk into a hostile situation blind. He hadn’t told me the Priorguard had raided the slums.

He hadn’t changed at all since we were young.

And perhaps I was doing this because I couldn’t get the image of that sobbing woman in the tunnel out of my head.

Is this for your mission, or because you feel bad? Keep your head clear, Hewer.

Either way, I wouldn’t drag Emma into this madness. I’d spent the better part of a decade operating alone, anyroad.

A bell tolled high above, drawing me from my thoughts. More followed, the sound drowning out even the grumbling storm high above. More bells across the city answered, and in the far distance I heard the sound of a great gate groaning open.

More visitors for the summit. My eyes fixed on the centerpiece of that great chorus. The cathedral was a mountainous thing, a testament to two centuries of Reynish engineering. Eight spires rose to pierce the sky, all of them the spikes of a crown, the cap the grand dome of the College Basilica. Carved saints guarded each crenellation on each wall, and gargoyles lurked among the parapets, dormant now with the sun still high. Satellite structures of garnished wood and white stone spread from the central bastion in a labyrinthian sprawl housing hundreds of cleric-scribes, monks, officials, and guards.

A veritable fortress. Luckily, it wasn’t my target. I took a minute to admire it, then turned my eyes elsewhere.

I didn’t head for that citadel of the faith. I suspected my quarry wouldn’t be within, either lost in the cathedral itself or confined in the dungeons beneath it. Instead I headed for a smaller, older structure tucked into the southern face of the Bell Ward. More weathered, with a less baroque design, the church was almost lost amid the grand collection of structures of varying styles and periods around it.

It would have made a grand sight in most any other place. A single high bell tower jutted up from the central structure, the holy auremark engraved on the tower’s west in repudiation of the Old Realms. My eyes, however, fixed on the great stained glass window dominating the building’s face — a stylized rose fashioned of every shade of red men could work into glass.

Many of the temples, churches, monasteries, and great cathedrals of the city had armed guards, either ordained knights or city guard loaned to the clergy. I saw no guards haunting the courtyard in front of this church. I passed by an aged fountain in the likeness of the Heir’s handmaidens. I could still make out the spot where one figure had been removed from the set.

A very old church indeed.

As I approached the front doors, a shadow detached itself from a pillar near the doors and padded down the steps to greet me. He was a monk in the golden-brown robes of any country preoster, his cloth homespun, his once squared face softened by long years.

He searched me with dark, clear eyes, and I knew he didn’t miss the outline of armor beneath my cloak, the telltale bulge my axe made at my belt. A former soldier, I thought, or just a man who’d led a hard life. Even still his smile was warm.

“Welcome, brother. Can I be of assistance to you?”

I felt certain I was in the right place. Few other places of worship in all the realms would hold anyone at the door.

“This is Rose Malin?” I asked.

“What gave it away?” The monk asked, grinning. “Aye, that it is.”

I caught glimpses of movement behind several trees and statuary in the corner of my vision. Watching eyes. This place was more well guarded than it looked.

“A man with an iron mark about his neck told me to visit this place if…” I searched my memory for the priorguard’s words. “Prior Diana’s words rang true in my ears.”

The subtle edge of caution in the man’s face melted away, and his smile grew more genuine. “Ah! You must be one of Garm’s lions.”

“He did use that word, I think.” I returned his smile, though mine came less easy. It had been most of ten years since anyone knew my face, and Urn is a large land. Even still, I felt a bead of sweat mix with the rain-mist on my temple.

“I’m Brother Caslin. Think of me as a caretaker for this house. If you’d follow me?”

He led me into the church then, talking freely about how I was the tenth to visit that week, and how each visitor now wore the Trident. He mentioned the names of priests I didn’t know as if they were the titles of great lords, and of bases the organization had claimed across the northern realms.

“We’ve already managed to gain the support of five cardinals,” he said, as we passed through Rose Malin’s entry hall. He nodded to a black-robed priorguard sitting watch near the door, looking half awake. I was mildly surprised to see she didn’t wear her veil. “That’s a fourth of the College behind us, brother. Between that and the fact the Presider is on King Forger’s own council, we’re expecting some of our proposed reforms to go through during the next Synod and… I’m boring you.”

I blinked. We stood before an inner set of doors at the end of the entry corridor. “I’m afraid I don’t have much of a head for politics, Brother Caslin. Forgive me.”

Brother Caslin chuckled. “It’s no matter, no matter. I didn’t catch your name?”

“…Alken.” I wasn’t the only one in the subcontinent, no need to complicate things with a pseudonym.

“Alken of?” The monk pressed. When I didn’t answer quickly, his smile turned more knowing. “Well, it’s no matter. Once you take the black, your past is of no interest to us. Some among our ranks are ex soldiers, even convicted criminals.”

He nodded back the way we’d come, to the woman who’d been on watch. “That was Helga. She used to work for a crime ring that bred and sold unsanctioned chimera. She handled the beasts, until one got free in her home town and killed a little girl. She was waiting to be hanged when we found her.”

He watched me a moment as I took that in, then continued. “It’s a common enough sort of story among us, son. We bear torches to Urn’s future, and who better to hold them than those who’ve walked in the shadows? These are dark days, very dark, and people could use more light.”

I hid the frown that shadowed the corner of my lips. His words came very close to the adage of the Alder Table.

“Point is,” Brother Caslin said softly, “whoever you are, whatever you’ve done… it doesn’t matter.”

I’d never heard anything more untrue in my life. Even still I nodded and said, “Good.”

“This way,” he said, gesturing toward the doors.

We entered the nave. Walls of red stone rose around me, supported by pillars carved in bass reliefs. Like in many Urnic churches, the carvings worked into the architecture told the story of the Faith, of the great exodus from Edaea and the founding of the realms. The images radiated out from the mosaic floor in a chaotic tableau, a whirlpool of legends and events centuries gone, terminating in a single great scene on the far wall where stone gave way to stained glass.

There, above the sanctuary, the Throne of Onsolem lay empty. The grasping claws and hungering mouths of demons converged upon it. Above the cracked throne rose the Heir, Her golden hand upraised to clasp a hunting spear, the Hordes of Ruin flinching from Her.

That single image, unlike all the others, was not history, not legend. The reclamation of Heaven was a prophecy, a terminus not only of the art in that room but of the purpose of the Church — to await the promised day when God would return to the shores of our world and lead our dead to paradise.

Seven centuries gone now since She had departed to wage that war. How long would we wait? Another seven centuries? A thousand?

All my battles were here, anyway.

“Humbling, isn’t it?” I caught Brother Caslin’s smile out of the corner of my eye. “They say our God appeared before the lords of the west on the very day they would have bent the knee to the Cambion. There is always a sunrise after the darkest part of the night, isn’t there?”

“…I suppose you’re right,” I said, tearing my eyes from the image. I heard muted thunder rumble up above — the storm had softened for a handful of hours, but it seemed to be stoking itself again.

“I was a scholar before all this, you know.” Brother Caslin’s voice turned musing. “The College had me studying holy texts, for restoration at first, but they promoted me later on after I submitted certain theories… ah, listen to me ramble. My age, I suppose. Have you ever studied our Faith, Alken?”

“My father was a clerk,” I said. “He taught me to read, and my mother was devout, but… no, I can’t say I’m any sort of scholar.”

“You do seem more the mercenary,” the monk said, without judgment. “Even still, the history of our faith is one of conflict. Heaven itself was lost to the Adversary, and our God forced to flee to this land… and yet still, She has soldiers to fight for Her. Even still, there is hope. There is comfort in that, even in dark days.”

He clapped me on the shoulder. “I am glad to have you with us. Garm and the Knight-Confessor will be pleased to have more fighting men they don’t need to train up.”

“What’s next?” I asked the monk. “Some ceremony, or test?”

In truth, all I needed was a chance to find out where they might be keeping prisoners. A few cants, an auratically enhanced suggestion in the ear of the right guard, and then I could slip away in the night. This place didn’t seem a fortress, judging by the drowsing guard by the front door.

And why would it need to be? The Inquisition was no army of crusaders, not yet anyway.

“There will be time for that,” Brother Caslin said. “I’m afraid you’ve chosen a… fraught time, to come to our fair city. Have you heard the rumors of late? The violence in the walls?”

I nodded. “I’ve heard there have been some deaths. Seems a bad time for it, with the Accord gathering here.”

“Indeed.” The monk sighed and murmured a prayer under his breath. “It was all the Presider could do to convince His Majesty to restrict access in and out of the city, lest this butcher slip away with the crowds. He was also the one who gained the support needed to quell the monsters in the lower city — the local guard had let them get out of hand since the war, and we’ve enough wolves outside the walls without worrying about beasts crawling up from below.”

Brother Caslin cast his eyes down. “Odd. I spent all those years with my nose buried in a book studying my faith, and only recently have I realized just how much sin boils right beneath our feet.”

“The Presider must be a powerful man, to have King Forger’s ear.” I hid my clenched fist beneath my cloak, remembering the terrorized changelings I’d met in the slums.

Strange. There’d been a time I’d have thought nothing of this sort of talk. As a boy, slaying monsters and delving into dank places for bloody adventure had seemed a fine thing. Sometimes, I hated that the Table had given me such clear vision. It hadn’t made the real monsters any easier to see.

Brother Caslin nodded. “He is a great man, Presider Oraise. Without him, I sometimes fear we’d be lost. But that’s politics, and you’ve already said you’ve little head for them.”

“Just here to do my part,” I agreed. “Light a torch of my own.”

“Wait here,” Brother Caslin said. “Pray a while. There will be tests. I will fetch the Knight-Confessor — he handles all new recruits. He may be in meditation, but it shouldn’t take long.”

He scurried off then, leaving me alone in the empty nave. I walked among the pews — the church was made in a newer style, a rectangular room with the sanctuary toward the back on a raised dais, rather than the circular design still popular in more rural parts of the realms. The stained glass above the altar and on the building’s front did strange things to the light, dramatizing parts of the room in ruby-tinted hues while leaving others in shadow.

Perhaps I should pray, I thought. It had been a while, and I’d been raised faithful. I couldn’t remember when I’d stopped.

I decided against it. Excommunicate as I was, I already transgressed stepping on holy ground without being ordered to by the clergy. I might catch fire.

And I had other business. When I’d swept out of the tunnel following my talk with Karog, I’d half been ready to ghost into Rose Malin or Myrr Arthor itself and stage an escape for this wise man from the slums.

Foolish. No one with the Inquisition would know my face. I had anonymity. Better to play things cautious, use Rose Malin’s open doors to my advantage.

Chances are this isn’t their only base in the city, I thought darkly. They could be holding the elder somewhere else. Perhaps even beneath the College, like Joy thought.

No use stumbling around like a thief and risking getting caught, if I could find out where the captive was from Brother Caslin and his company. The Priorguard sought to recruit, and that in itself gave me my opportunity. Even besides my more direct mission, I was tired of being the last to know things. The Aureate Inquisition and the Priory of the Arda had become these ominous shadows in my mind — now I had the chance to learn about them from the inside, stop being so out of the loop.

That had been part of the reason I’d taken Lias’s offer in the first place. I’d spent too long separated from the civilization I sought to protect, too long teetering on the edge of apathy.

Still, I needed a firmer plan.

Echoing steps drew me from my thoughts as someone entered the nave. Not Brother Caslin — he’d been wearing soft slippers which had whispered across the tile. These were solid metal, each step a firm note in the air. I caught the telltale of shifting armor as well, the hiss of a long cape. The Knight Confessor, I assumed.

“Strange,” a calm voice said from behind me, male, with a deep tenor. “That we’d meet in a place like this. Have you come to give confession again, Alken?”

All the blood went out of me. I reacted purely on instinct, spinning, throwing back my cloak and freeing my axe to draw from its iron ring. I had it in my hand in a moment, and—

The room filled with the soft sound of great wings unfurling, and the temperature sharply dropped. The aureflame I’d started to summon flickered and died on Faen Orgis’s edge, along with much of the light in the church.

No, the light didn’t die. It condensed, folding in to wreath the man who stood between me and the doors. He wore a pale gray cape long enough to brush the mosaic, and beneath it he’d clad himself in fine steel. He had the echo of a handsome face, lined and gaunt, with prominent sideburns and a sharp widow’s peak of dark hair lightly touched with frost.

I knew him, and what rode him, and was wise enough to be afraid.

Illuminated in the ruby light of Rose Malin, wearing a wistful smile as though we were long lost friends reunited, stood Ser Renuart Kross.