Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial-Chapter 22Arc 8: : Stain of a Soul

The next day, the crumbled remnants of an old lodge stood where the inn had been. The real thing was gone now, faded into the Wending Roads with the dawn so we were left beneath stark daylight, the dark dream the Keeper wove returned to its endless night.

We tended our mounts, checked our gear, and Olliard chatted with his apprentice next to their cart. My group gathered around me as the morning brightened into what would be the first properly warm day of the year.

It did not comfort me. Spring was war season.

“What’s the plan, boss?” Penric asked. The archer reclined next to a tree, using it as shade from the rising sun.

I folded my arms and said, “We’re going to help Olliard kill some vampires.”

Penric lifted his gray eyebrows, thought about it, then shrugged. “I’ll fletch some more arrows, then.”

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to get involved in this?” Lisette asked me. “Evangeline might not be so brazen again. If she’s retreated back to her castle…”

“It can’t be coincidence that all of this is happening here, now.” I met all their gazes. “Evangeline Ark, Hasur’s supporters, the Briar King on the move, and Rysanthe going missing in this country… it all has to be connected. This is our best trail, and we need to follow it.”

“I still don’t understand why Lillian and Ildeban revealed themselves last night,” Lisette said. “Wouldn’t it have made more sense to remain out of sight, keep the element of surprise?”

I’d thought over that same thing, even discussed the matter with Casimir. We’d both come to the same conclusion.

“They weren’t just there to intimidate me,” I said. “They wanted revenge on the Keeper for snubbing them two years ago. By goading us into a confrontation, it could have destroyed his inn by ruining its threshold… We didn’t bite, but that doesn’t mean they gave up. I think that was coordinated with Evangeline, but that’s just a guess. They’re working together.”

“Not a particularly trusting alliance,” Emma noted. “She was ready to wage war at Fife.”

“Agreed,” I said. “Whatever’s going on, it’s got more pieces than we can put together right now. We’ll join forces with the vampire hunters and see what we see.”

I’d been trying to destroy the Council of Cael for two years now. If it was possible to complete my mission and accomplish that, then I wouldn’t pass up the chance. Besides, Ildeban had been at Tol, appeared the same night as the Gatebreaker. That also couldn’t be coincidence. A dark will was at work behind all of this, and if I could follow it to its source…

Penric didn’t seem interested in arguing, and Hendry only frowned thoughtfully. Lisette just nodded and said, “It’s a sound plan.”

“You don’t mind working with the doctor again?” I asked her. “I recall you saying the two of you left on bad terms.”

She didn’t look excited about the prospect, to her credit, but the cleric only adjusted her sleeves and shook her head. “I’ll be fine. It’s what we need, right?”

Emma stared off into the distance, refraining from offering her own opinion. I hesitated a moment, reached a decision, and addressed her.

“Emma, I’ve been thinking about your suggestion.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Which one? I have so many.”

She’d returned to caustic humor, but I knew the encounter with Lillian Rue was troubling her. Keeping my expression impassive I said, “I think talking to the Briar is a good idea.”

“It bloody well isn’t!” Penric snapped, looking horrified.

“The one factor in all of this that I can’t pin is the Briar King,” I told the group. “It’s possible Rysanthe might have run afoul of the Recusants here in the Bannerlands, and if they caught her alone and by surprise then it might explain why she’s missing. Lillian is a necromancer and Evangeline is an apostate undead, so either of them could see the Doomsman of Draubard as their enemy… but the Briar’s involvement confuses me. Why was their champion at that church? Was he what drew all these other groups there? Did he pit all these other factions against Rysanthe to throw her off his trail?”

I could imagine a number of circumstances that made sense, but I couldn’t act on simple guesswork. “There’s a story here, and I’m missing pages.”

Emma frowned in thought. “And you believe His Majesty’s hidden masters might have your answers?”

“It’s worth trying,” I said. “But dangerous as hell, and more than that… I can’t contact them myself. The Briar Angel has approached me before, but only at her will, and she’s more a patron to the briarfae than a mistress anyway. I want to talk to the elves directly, see what they can tell us.”

“You want me to call Qoth,” Emma said in realization.

I nodded. “He is one of their lords.”

Qoth was Emma’s familiar, a Briar faerie who’d assisted us in the past. After being wounded during a battle against a demon in Garihelm, he’d returned to his secret halls to recover and Emma hadn’t summoned him again to my knowledge.

“He might be able to tell us something,” I said aloud. “And if not him, he can put us in contact with his kinsfolk.”

“He could,” Emma said uncertainly. “But he hasn’t answered my calls since we battled that chorn in Garihelm’s sewers. I have tried to call him back.”

“What about your godmother?” I asked. “Could you call Nath?”

“Wait!” Hendry stepped forward, looking panicked. “She got away from all that occultism, didn’t she?”

“It’s just some rituals,” Emma told the young knight with dry patience. “I still remember how to do them.”

“It’s blasphemous!” Hendry wheeled on her. “Em, we can figure something else out. You don’t need to—”

“What?” She asked. “Corrupt myself? Hendry, I am of the blood of House Carreon. I was born of corruption. This is just a bit of witchcraft, and it won’t be the first time.”

Lisette shifted uncomfortably, and Penric adjusted his cap and glanced away. They hadn’t known who Emma actually was until the previous night. A lot of people knew now, the secret we’d been trying to keep a secret no longer. That would have consequences. I sensed one was rearing its head now.

“Yeah…” Penric scratched at his stubbly chin. “About that… Your family were Recusant aristos, kid? Should I have been calling you milady all this time?”

“Do it,” Emma said darkly, “and I’ll have those metal eyes of yours. What you heard last night changes nothing.”

She looked between the old archer and Lisette, who still wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Is this a problem? Do you think I’m going to suddenly turn traitor on all of you, join with that red hag?”

Hendry started to speak, but I put a hand on his shoulder and he paused, tossing me a nervous glance. I just shook my head. This conversation needed to happen. Hendry already knew who Emma was, but to Lisette and Penric her identity was a fresh revelation. It was up to them to find their balance with it.

“It’s not a problem for me, kid.” Penric shook his head and shrugged one shoulder. “Just a surprise, is all. The Carreons, I mean… We’ve all heard the stories.”

They were to the west what Hasur was to the east. Had Emma’s parents not been hounded from their home by the hellborne revenant of Jon Orley, their allies scattered and their fortunes ruined by decades bending under that curse, the Great War of Urn would have gone very differently.

Emma was born to be a dark queen. I sympathized with Penric for being whiplashed by the knowledge that my acerbic squire had such a bloody lineage.

“And you, Lis?” Emma looked to our group’s cleric. “Does this offend your image of me? Can you, a holy scribe, stoop to walking alongside such a damned soul as mine?” Her voice became fey. “Or shall you try to redeem me? Will you seek to turn my predilections away from evil, whether it is my will or not? Of course, that is your—”

Emma was cut off when Lisette stepped forward suddenly and pulled the other girl into a tight embrace. Her white-and-gold cloth wrapped around my squire’s black-and-red, drowning it almost. To my shock, I realized Lisette shook with suppressed tears.

“I’m so sorry, Em.” Lisette sniffed and buried her face in Emma’s shoulder, though the ridges of sharp metal there couldn’t have been comfortable. “What an awful thing to carry. Why didn’t you tell us?”

Lisette was slightly taller than Emma, and hugged her with such force that my squire struggled for a moment to speak. “Because it’s… not important.”

“Not important?!” Lisette pulled back, holding Emma at arm’s length. “You’ve had to live in hiding all this time, under a false name even!”

“Not false!” Emma coughed and shifted back a step, causing Lisette to let her go. She seemed uncomfortable with the way this conversation had turned, not sure what to do with herself. She kept shifting and finally settled for folding her arms against the prospect of another hug. “I am descended from House Carreon and House Orley. Both names are equally mine, and I chose the one I felt more suiting. It is really no great matter, anyway. Both families are dead and gone, and everyone is far too obsessed with the past.”

She looked around at the group and made her voice firmer. “That Lillian person is nothing and no one to me. She might see her dead lady in my face, but I am not Astraea Carreon. I am Emma Orley, squire to Ser Alken Hewer, and one day I shall be a great knight. Does anyone dispute this?”

“Not me,” Hendry said firmly.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Seems just right,” Penric agreed.

Lisette sniffled again and grasped Emma by her arms, which caused the other girl to stiffen. The cleric steadied herself and said, “We’re here for you, alright? All of us.”

Was that red on my apprentice’s cheeks? If so, she hid it quickly by turning her face so a lock of dark hair curtained the telltale blush away. After a moment’s pause, she reclaimed her dignity and spoke with her usual aristocratic drawl.

“We’re wasting time.” Then to me she said, “I’ll do it. I will contact the Briar Elves.”

“I have heard from my patron,” Olliard told me a few minutes later.

I frowned at the man. “Sorry? Did I miss something?”

We stood in the middle of a country road, a pilgrim trail barely wide enough for the doctor’s cart and hog-headed chimera. There was nothing but hills and trees around us for miles.

In answer, the hunter pulled out a small object. It looked like a whistle carved in the shape of a bird’s head, its beak open to reveal some kind of crystal inside. The shard was green, perfectly cut save that it was perforated with small holes.

“An alchemical device from the continent,” Olliard explained. “Its twin is the in hands of my contact with the nobility. Speaking into one causes the words to emanate from the other. It has limitations… speak too many words or raise your voice above a whisper, and the device will break. Incredibly expensive to make.”

He lifted it up to his ear as though to demonstrate. “My contact and I have been exchanging short messages.”

“I see…” While I hadn’t made a deal of it, I felt a similar trepidation to Hendry in regard to alchemical works. I knew much of that knowledge came from the Old Magi and from the Zosite, the dark angels who ruled Hell. I’d seen the work of alchemical weapons more than once, the horrors they could birth. I did not trust any of it.

“I have something,” the doctor continued. “The illustrious Queen of the Bannerlands is set to hold an event soon. A grand ball, if you can believe.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Carreweir, the capital of the Bannerlands. It’s to be the first function of such a scale since House Ark took command of the kingdom, a celebration of Queen Evangeline’s ascendancy. All the land’s nobility are expected to attend.”

“Right…” I rubbed at my chin in thought. “She took the throne without much fanfare, right? I imagine she’s using this to cement her authority and make the thing official.

Olliard nodded. “Whoever doesn’t show at the ball will make it clear they don’t support her rule, which will give her an excuse to send vampires to their manors to make examples, and anyone who does show will be made to bend the knee publicly.”

“Smart move,” I said. “Pretty standard practice for changes in regime, though a grand ball is fairly dramatic. The Bannerlands is a poor country.”

“It wasn’t always,” Olliard reminded me. “Once, it was the gateway to Urn, the richest and strongest of all the realms. Evangeline may be trying to evoke that legacy. I’m going to Carreweir. It may be my best chance at killing her.”

“It’s suicide, Olliard.” I hardened my voice and laid a hand on the side of the cart. “There will be hundreds of people there, hundreds of armed people. Not to mention that Evangeline will definitely have vampires amongst her guard, and be able to see and act through any of them just like at Fife.”

“True,” the doctor agreed as he moved to the back of the cart and started rifling through his packs. “But my allies will also be there. It will be public, in a large town with many angry lords and ladies who just survived their bloodiest winter since the last war. If Evangeline remains in her castle at the Dawntowers, then she will be untouchable. At Carreweir, I may have a chance.”

He finished prepping his cart and walked around to the bench, staring at me from an arm’s length. A small man, bent with age and thin, with his eyes made owlish by those lenses and his hair thinning out, he did not look like a dangerous slayer of monsters. Yet his voice was steady, his gaze clear of either conceit or uncertainty.

“People are dying, Alken. I have dedicated my life to saving others, and there came a time that I realized stitching wounds and mixing medicines did nothing but abate symptoms. Evangeline and her like are a disease, a sickness of the land, and if I am to heal it then I must rip out the cancer at its root. If Evangeline dies, then all her get will be weaker. If she lives, then we shall see a kingdom of the dead rise to plague us.”

He climbed onto the wagon’s bench. Brume let out a grunt of eagerness as she felt her master’s hands tighten her reins. The doctor’s apprentice, Carus, appeared at the back of the cart and climbed in amongst the luggage.

“Will you help me?” Olliard asked, taller than me then as I stood beneath his cart. “I’ve been doing this a long time, but I’ll admit to having never slain a queen before. It could get messy!”

I considered a while, the doctor waiting patiently for my answer.

“When we parted ways at Caelfall,” I said at last, “you said we would be enemies the next time we met.”

Olliard’s eyes narrowed. “I did… I have thought much on that encounter since. Honestly, Alken, I do not know if you are foe or friend. I look and I see a shadow on you, and I think perhaps you are a monster in truth… but Lisette seems to have faith in you, and she is wiser than me in some ways.”

It was the best I could ask for. “My group is too conspicuous,” I said at last. “And I have another lead I’m chasing. Head on to the city. We’ll meet you there.”

The doctor nodded. “When you arrive at the city, seek House Brightling. They are my patrons. The ball is in ten days. Do not dally!”

With that, he snapped the reins and Brume began to pound her way down the road. The puppeteer boy, Carus, stared at me from the back of the cart until the dust clouds obscured him from view.

Before what came next, I needed to be ready. While the others helped Emma prepare, I sat at our small camp and cleaned all my gear thoroughly.

I’d washed at the inn, but now I took time to strip out of my armor, go over every single plate of blackened steel and every link of my elven chainmail. I washed my red cloak at a small stream and hung it out to dry in the sun, did some light maintenance on my crossbow, and carefully went over my axe with a carving knife. Since Caim reforged the weapon, I’d gained more control over its shapeshifting properties, but the old habit soothed me, settled my thoughts and calmed my nerves.

For some time, the sound of the blade shaving away at oak filled the camp and I thought about nothing.

Vicar lay folded up on my packs nearby, his boneless visage flat and quiet. I spoke to him without pausing my work. “I should thank you.”

No response at first, long enough I thought maybe he would ignore me. Then, in little more than a whisper the remnants of my old enemy said, “For what?”

“Back at Fife, you helped me. I might have not made it out of that without you, and it cost you to do it, right? So thanks.”

The devil said nothing, and I kept shaving the axe. The fresh-budded leaves rustled in a light wind. Birds chirped in the canopy, unbothered by the lost souls who sheltered beneath.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” I said conversationally as I lifted my weapon up to a beam of sunlight to inspect my handiwork. “Vicar… That’s a title, isn’t it? Some old priest rank.”

“You are correct,” Vicar said quietly.

“Right…” I took my knife up again to clear some lingering imperfection on the oaken branch. “It just struck me that you’re not really part of the Credo anymore, seeing that you’re avoiding them and sticking with me, so the title doesn’t seem to apply anymore. So I’ve been wondering what I should call you. Renuart Kross was just a stolen identity too, right? So…”

I gestured casually to the hellhound with my knife. “What’s your name?”

Was that discomfort in the shift of black fur, a hesitance in its stillness? The response came after another long pause, and the devil's voice held an edge of wariness. “Why do you ask?”

“Why?” I shrugged. “Everyone has a name, don’t they?”

“Let me rephrase. Why do you care, Alken Hewer?”

Why? The question caught me off guard. It was only then that the crimson points of burning light indicating the pelt’s awareness glinted into existence. They fixed on me, those dull points of angry fire.

“You seem to misunderstand this relationship between you and I, Alder Knight, so let me enlighten you; I am your servant. Your slave. Your tool. I am bound to you, this remnant of me. I agreed to this pact out of self preservation, nothing more. My loyalty was not won from mutual respect or common enemy, but by the words you carved into the underside of this stripped hide.”

“So let me make this perfectly clear to you; I do not need your thanks, because your gratitude has no bearing on my actions. I am pacted to your service, now until your death as per our agreement. And when I die, this refuse of me shall pass to another, and I shall advise and serve them, and so on and so on, through the centuries… But it won’t matter. Eventually — tomorrow, perhaps, or a millennia from now — the Zosite will find me again and reclaim me. I will return to Hell, and there I will suffer for my failures and my apostasy. They will peel me to my atoms, remake me, and do it over and over again… Until one day, in some future eon when I cannot even recall why I suffer such torment, they will restitch my flesh and put me back to service.”

“Don’t you see?” The devil asked, his hellfire eyes flaring. “I am Vicar. The title is me and I am the title. Whatever name I might have had once, it is nothing to me now. I have given all of myself to my purpose, and now in abandoning that purpose I have become less than nothing, a stain of a soul… but I can still be ofservice. To you, for now, and tomorrow for another. That is what I am. So do not thank me, paladin, and do not try to forge some misguided bond with me. Your words are not worth the air required to form them, and they will not compel me to give you my true name. That, of everything, I keep for myself.”

The birds still sang in the trees, and the wind still stirred, but I felt colder as silence settled over our camp. Finally I said, “I wasn’t trying to trick you into giving me your true name.”

“And yet you sought it, didn’t you?” The devil asked.

Had I? Perhaps not consciously, but… “But you weren’t always this, were you? You aren’t Zosite.”

The devil’s burning eyes were beginning to dim. The effort of his speech seemed to have wearied him. Or was that the powers he’d used the previous night? He sounded half awake as he responded. “I was mortal, once. Too long ago to matter.”

“You don’t have to act like my slave,” I said at last. “That isn’t what I wanted from this.”

“You hate me, paladin. Don’t deny it. You agreed to this alliance because it benefited you.”

And because I pitied you. But I didn’t say it aloud, doubted he’d want to hear it.

“I don’t hate you, Vicar.” I placed my axe down and leaned forward. “I resent the things you’ve done and the creatures you served, but I’ve sold enough of my soul to know how that might have come about.”

“If you feel such a rapport with me, Hewer, then why have you not told your apprentice about my presence?”

I went still, and the devil murmured out his malicious laugh. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that! I’m the very one who tried to claim her soul for the Iron Tribunal… Do you think she’ll resent you for this? Try to claim her revenge on me?”

He was right. I’d been afraid to tell Emma, unsure how she’d take it. Vicar had caused us both so much grief in the past. Did I feel guilt at the choice to spare him?

“And it’s not just my presence you’ve neglected to reveal to your beloved comrades.” Vicar’s voice turned more stern. “You have not slept much since the faerie castle.”

I knew what he implied. Vicar let the message sink in anyway before he continued.

“The succubus is a danger to more than just your dreams. You should warn the others and take measures in case she comes for you. She will try to hurt you through them.”

He was right about that, too. I’d been avoiding the problem, distracted by everything else.

“A while now since Baille Os,” I said quietly. “I thought she would do something by now.”

“Me as well,” Vicar said. “I can guard your dreams, but not your companions as well. Heed me, master, and take precautions.”

“Do not call me that,” I spat. “I’m not—”

“What? A warlock? You carved our pact into my very flesh using Orkaelin runes. You are a warlock, a necromancer, and worse. Even now you are allowing your ward to call upon the darkest of all the Sidhe. You are Damnus, a True Knight corrupted by darkness. Why deny it?”

He wanted me to be angry, to return us to our former hostile dynamic and make me regret trying to show him kindness. It almost worked.

Perhaps it was sheer stubbornness that made me refuse to regret it. Perhaps it was conceit, an unwillingness to believe that I was what he said, or that he was what he believed himself to be.

No one and none of us are just one thing. We are a collection of choices and consequences, and no matter how dark our paths get, we never stop being able to choose, to define ourselves.

“Well. Thanks anyway, Vic, for helping me out these past weeks.”

The pelt let out a rippling growl. “Do not make a mockery of my title. I am not your friend.”

I started putting my armor back on, ignoring his irritation. “You’ll be on guard for this next part?”

Vicar settled, though his voice retained a surly edge. “Of course. The Briar is not a force to be trifled with.”

“I don’t plan to trifle with them.” I stood and propped my axe on one shoulder. “I just have a few questions I’d like them to answer.”