Hubris - 60. Fire and Brimstone

The other side of the bed was empty; it was the first sign that something was wrong.

“Barghast?” he croaked. He lifted his head off the pillow, alarm bells going off in his skull. He pressed the palm of his hand to the empty half of the bed; the mattress felt cold. The second sign that something was wrong. Where did he go? He never leaves until I'm awake.

It wasn't just the bed that felt cold and empty, but the whole room. He called the Okanavian's name again, but the Okanavian did not need his call. Crowe let out a sigh. “You're being ridiculous,” he said to himself. “He probably just went into town to grab something for breakfast. He’ll come back; he always does.”

A minute passed by. Ten minutes. A half an hour. Every time he heard voices, his heart would speed up two beats and he would sit up, listening for the door. At last he could no longer keep the mocking voices in his head at bay; it was time to get out of bed. He didn't have the motivation to get dressed, so he cinched the blanket around his narrow hips. He climbed down the stairs. Everything was in its place. Nothing had been moved around or changed. The ashes in the fireplace were cold.

“Herald! Herald!” The door flew open, slamming into the wall with a crash. Rake bursted in wild-eyed and sweaty. He stopped when he saw Crowe standing in the middle of the sitting room area. He squinted at the practitioner as if he were a strange species of insect he’d never seen before. “What are you just standing there with a blanket around your nasty parts?”

It took the sorcerer a moment to find the courage to answer. He was afraid of giving power to his fear by giving voice to it; he was every bit as afraid of being a fool. “I came downstairs to see what Barghast was doing.” His voice did not come out with the smoothe confidence he’d hoped for.

Rake didn't notice. “Never mind that now, damn it! We have a much bigger problem! More torchcoats are coming!”

For the moment all thoughts of Barghast flooded out of Crowe's mind. “Is it Drajen? We were told he was weeks away!”

“I guess we were lied to. Get dressed for Inferno's sake!”

A feeling of unreality plagued the practitioner as he tugged his robes on. It couldn't be possible this was happening again when they'd only fought an army of torchcoats only the night before. A disturbing thought came to him: Time does not exist in this place. We are outside of it, in a world of our own. This is by the Architect’s design. What could be weeks or months out there could seem like days in here. He sucked in a breath. He didn't have time to thumb through theories. He grabbed his rod. He halted. His heart stopped in his chest; his blood went cold. Barghast's rifle was gone. He took his rifle. He wouldn't take his rifle unless he felt like he needed to defend himself. Did he go hunting?

Rake screamed his name, jarring him from his thoughts.

They dashed out the door. Already the villagers were in a frenzy, reinforcing their homes for the battle. Fires burned hot. Steel banged against steel. Nails were being driven into wood. Crowe glimpsed a man showing a young boy how to load a pistol; the pistol looked monstrous in the boy's young, pudgy hands. The sight made the sorcerer think of his own tumultuous childhood under his mentor’s care. He tore his eyes away, searching every direction for Barghast. What if the lycan encountered torchcoats? He knew the lycan was a capable warrior as well as a capable survivor…You can't think about that right now. There are bigger problems afoot.

By the time Crowe and Rake reached the stables, the practitioner felt as if his lungs would burst. The horses were anxious, pacing back and forth in their stalls. Crowe half hoped to find Mammoth already out of his stall - having heard the news, Barghast could have grabbed the shire horse, and was heading back to the house to grab the sorcerer - but the brief stirring of hope in his heart when Mammoth poked his head over the stall door expectantly.

His legs shook uncontrollably as he mounted the horse. He dropped the reins with white knuckles. Rake waited impatiently for him outside on a brown-and-white mare. A horn blew close by; its wail sent jolts up Crowe's spine. Barrels of oil were rolled out by ox-pulled carts. Fresh trenches had been dug, fresh barricades built in the center of town. An almost excited charge rolled through the air. He did not sense the fear buzzing in the back of his mind. They’d positioned themselves behind the barricades or wherever they could take cover. They'd spilt blood only the night before; having experienced the taste of bloodshed and the thrill of victory they believed they were invincible.

This is wrong, Crowe thought. They believe that we are invincible, that our cause is just, but we have already lost so many people. To think that we are capable of standing up to the might of Drajen is hubris.

He swallowed, pulling to a halt between Commander Gyrell and Rake. His throat felt as dry and scratchy as the desert - or what he imagined the desert to be like. The realization hit him that he didn't have his canteen hit him. Barghast always makes sure the water canteens are full; he’s always reminding me to bring one with me.

He craned his neck around, looking in every direction, and still his lycan was nowhere in sight. Gyrell glared at him. “It took you long enough to get here!” she snapped. Her cheeks are flushed. “Where is your canteen?”

“I left it at home,” he muttered helplessly. He looked away, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

“It should be attached to your belt!”

“Rake came in so fast. He said more torchcoats were coming and I panicked…” He sounded like a fool, making excuses. He was a fool making excuses. And Barghast…Where is he…? He repeated the thought aloud.

“It is not up to me to keep track of the beast!” the commander snorted.

“He is not a beast!” the practitioner snapped back. “He is one of us!”

“Really?” Gyrell's brows arched up. “Then why was he snooping around the church last night? Why did he shatter one of my windows and slaughter two of my guards?”

“What?” The herald’s eyes widened. He could not believe what he was hearing.

Something wicked glinted in the Commander's green eyes. “Unless you sent him to spy on me…” Her voice sounded harsh and accusatory. Her gauntleted hand rested on the hilt of her sword. Crowe and Rake gawked at her.

“I-I d-didn’t,” he sputtered. His mind spun. He tried to conjure the events of the previous night but all he could summon was a blur. A sliver of memory occurred to him; it was enough to fill his belly with dread. He swallowed the taste of metal. I don't trust her, he’d told Barghast. And he’d awoken to find Barghast's rifle missing. He never would have left without asking me…he wouldn't have taken his rifle unless…

“What did you do to him?”

“You will find out soon enough…” When she opened her eyes they burned white with the channeling of mana.

Before Crowe could make sense of what she’d said, someone shouted, “Look! Smoke! They’re burning down the forest!”

Sure enough spirals of smoke rose above the trees. A drugged feeling of unreality washed over Crowe. None of this is right. None of this is happening. Slowly his eyes fell from the sky back down to the commander. He dropped his rod with clammy fingers that had turned white as bone. Her words roared in his head, an invading force of their own: You will find out soon enough.

He didn't come home last night. He went snooping through the church to find a way to defeat her and she killed him for it…“No,” he heard himself say, unable, unwilling to believe the truth. “You didn't…”

She smiled at him and when he blinked it was not Loras he saw sitting atop her horse but the Mother in her bone jewelry and her bone mask.

As the first line of torchcoats broke through the trees on horseback, Crowe dug the spurs of his boots in Mammoth’s side. He turned the horse around three-hundred-and-sixty degrees. The first rounds of gunfire exploded behind him. Elysia's fury slammed into the barricades around him; they sparked against the shield of mana he'd summoned around himself. They tore into the buildings, shattering windows and slicing through villagers caught in the crossfire. Red petals of blood bloomed in the air, soaking his robes, his face. He galloped in the direction of the church, knowing it was the only place he would find the truth…just as he knew what he would do when he found it.

When they reached the church he leapt off Mammoth without giving the shire horse a second glance. He clambered up the steps. His rod slipped from his fingers. He did not stop to pick it up. He kicked the doors open. The sound of battle was a constant companion that followed his heels. Your people are fighting for you. Dying for you. Instead of fighting them you run off to find your lycan lover.

He ignored the mocking voice in his head. The windows imploded behind him. He could hear the thunder of horse hooves outside the church. Flashes of mana shown against the back of the pews. The air smelled of gunpowder and sulfur. Only one thought existed in his mind: I just have to find Barghast and I’ll wake up. When I do we’ll be back together again.

He pushed himself up the steps. Around and around he went until he paused at the shattered window. The window Barghast had broken into while snooping through the church. Snooping because of me. Down below he had a perfect view of Caldreath. Mana flashed through the air, slamming into the ground, into torchcoats. The Theocracy returned fire with cannons that ripped the sidings off buildings. Each report made the floor tremble beneath his feet. It's all coming undone. Soon this nightmare will come to an end one way or another. He felt a slight stirring of relief in his belly. Maybe, just maybe…

Outside Gyrell’s apartment he sensed the same uneasy rush of cold air. The door opened without resistance. The darkness inside beckoned him in like a deceptive friend. He tiptoed inside. Somewhere outside the church, an explosion made the windows rattle, but now that he was inside the Commander's domain the reality of the war seemed so very far away. A foreign concept. He called for Jalif and Kara in a shaking voice. Being puppets of the Mother would they stop him from discovering the truth?

No one answered.

For the first time since entering the church he allowed himself a full breath. It was then that he noticed an all too familiar smell: the smell of copper, the smell of blood. The black wave of unreality washed back over him. He looked down at the floor. Half-dried droplets of blood drained the wood. He crept past the kitchen table, down the hallway, following the trail of blood to its source. He felt an almost eerie sense of calm. He peeked into Kara’s room. The ghost girl was not inside, playing with her toys or singing songs. As far as he could tell he was very much alone.

The hallway was longer than he remembered. The blood trail led to the door at the end of the corridor; the door was half ajar. Another slash of blood marked the door just below the knob. He felt gooseflesh rise along his arms and the back of his neck. He didn’t know it but his mouth gaped open in a silent scream. Slowly he pushed the door open, making an unconscious effort not to touch the blood. Here the smell of copper was the strongest.

Sunlight streamed through windows that had yet to be shattered. He looked past the neat and orderly desk. What he saw behind it made his body turn as rigid as a board.

The thing chained to the ceiling, arms raised above its head, ankles shackled. Blood ran down the neatly skinned lengths of its arms. He looked into the empty, staring sockets, its teeth bared in a permanent snarl. Patches of dark gray fur clung to the exposed skeleton here and there. The puddles of blood at its feet were the thickest. It was when he saw the puddle that reality struck the practitioner like a blow to the stomach. He stooped over and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the floor. Grief unlike anything he’d before slammed into his heart like a bolt shot from a crossbow. He sank to the floor while the world came apart around him. His world shrunk down to the dead thing fixed to the ceiling.

Crowe didn’t remember crawling across the floor. When awareness returned to him he knelt in the puddle of dry blood, his arms slung around the legs of the skeleton. His face was sticky with half-dried tears. Somewhere he heard the sound of shattering glass and a loud boom; the walls of the church trembled. Motes of dust rained down on him from the ceiling. Very close by a war was happening - people were dying - and yet as far as he was concerned it was happening worlds away.

He wasn’t sure how long he remained like this when he realized he was no longer alone. He turned, still kneeling, to face the Mother. She looked down at him through the sockets of the skull she wore atop her head. The skull of a lycan. He saw disappointment in her eyes. Sorrow. Love.

“You killed him,” he said. “Why?”

“Because he was seeking a way to exploit me,” the Mother said. “He snuck into my sanctum. And to remove a distraction from your path. You are ignorant and weak. Your youth is your weakness. I need you to be more like your predecessor. What better way to harden you than to take the thing you love most and rebuild you from shattered bone.”

“He tried to warn me. He told me not to trust this place and I didn’t listen. I became bewitched by this place. Like everyone in this town I fell under your spell.” He gulped back a sob. His voice quivered with grief and stinging betrayal. “He was all I had left…He was the only thing I loved in this world and you took him,” Crowe croaked in a cracking voice. He’d clamped his eyes shut, wishing he could will this nightmare away - knowing that it was all too real. Deep inside him an ember sparked in the darkness of his despair.

“You have lost everything before. You will lose everything over and over again until you absorb what you need to learn. It’s for the good of the Iteration.”

“Fuck the Iteration.” Rage burned inside him like a wildfire spreading through a field. When he looked up at her his eyes were beacons of white fury. “It can all fall down around my ears for all I care. My tenure as herald is done. “I’ll leave it for the next herald…” He staggered to his feet. “As for you, foul bitch…I’m going to put this town and everyone in it where they belong: in the ground…”

He waved his hand and her form came apart in a burst of black smoke. His fury smashed through the wall, exposing the room to sunlight. Through the hole he’d opened in the ceiling, he could see the village below. Torchcoats galloped through the streets on horseback. All he could see was a sea of silver torches. He didn’t know it, but his teeth were bared in a feral grin. Good, he thought. This won’t take long.

Loras waited for him in the chapel.

She glared at him. Her eyes burned with the same white fire as his own. She gripped her sword in hand.

“I gave you a home! I gave you a life! I taught you everything I know!” she spat. “And this is how you repay me…You are a fool!”

“I may be the fool but you’re the slave.”

A muscle twitched in her face. “What?”

“I said you’re a slave.” Through his fury he felt an icy calmness. Soon it would all be over for the both of them. The Theocracy would win the roar. His people would live the rest of their days as slaves. But at least the nightmare will be over. Maybe I’ll find splendor in the Eternal City. Maybe my soul will be cast into the Void. But the Void is a vast place. Who knows what is out there? Maybe I’ll find Barghast again and when can be together the way we never could in life. The part of him tucked deep beneath the fury clung to this small hope.

Her jaw clenched. “I am no slave!” she shrieked. Her face contorted with fury. She charged at him, sword raised above her head. Crowe stood facing her, his face as impassive as stone. Her blade bore on him, burning with Monad’s fire. A second before her sword could part his head from his shoulders he vanished in the blink of an eye. A second later he materialized a foot above the balcony. Before he could register what had happened, he plummeted towards the pews below. At the last second he grabbed for the balcony desperately. His fingernails dug into the wood. He heard Loras curse below, her voice a throaty growl of pure contempt. He should have been terrified of her. Instead he laughed in glee. She'd always presented herself as a woman of complete composure, but underneath it there existed a frightened animal. Frightened animals live in us all, don't they, Loras? And yours is starting to show its antlers. It was wonderful not to feel afraid. How could one feel afraid when you had nothing left to lose?

Crowe swung a leg up. Somehow he managed to hook his leg around the balcony and pull himself up onto the second floor of the chapel. How did I do that? I’ve never teleported like that before. Lately he’d been doing a lot of things he hadn’t known how to do lately.

He looked down at Loras who was running up the stairs towards him, her boots thudding rapidly on the wood floor. “You are a slave,” he said, channeling his emotion into his rod. “And like the most well-trained of slaves you deny it. I’m the part where your dream turns into a nightmare, this much I promise you!” He unleashed all his fury at her. A tidal wave of kinetic energy exploded from him. Several pews flew towards Loras. Before they could crush her, she lifted her sword in front of her like a shield. A sphere of mana flickered into being around her in time to meet the impact of Crowe’s attack.

Crowe pulled his revolver from the folds of his robes with his good hand; he kept it tucked out of sight. “You are trapped in a loop of your own making. Now I’m going to set you free.”

He strolled up to her as casually as he might a friend in the market. He drew back the hammer. He shot her in the hand. He’d expected the shot to go wide - Barghast was always teasing me about being a terrible shot - but the bullet took off Gyrell's thumb, index, and middle finger of the hand holding the sword. He watched them spiral away in a spray of blood. His blood thrummed hotly in his ears. Time moved at a snail’s pace. The sword dropped to the floor. He kicked it out of the way before she could stoop to pick it up.

You did teach me everything I needed to know, he thought. You taught me not to fight fair.

He shot her a second time. A third. One shot sparked off the chest plate of her armor. Another tore into the meat of her arm. Each time the kickback of the revolver sent reverberations up his arm. She straightened up with a grunt only for him to slam the revolver into the side of her face with all his strength.

A fourth shot. A fifth. One last shot left.

She knelt on the ground, one knee planted on the rubble-strewn ground, the other leg braced to lift her into a standing position. He pressed the muzzle of the revolver against the flesh between her eyebrows.

“Go ahead, shoot me.” She spat a phlegmy wad of blood onto his boot. “It won't change anything - it won't change the fact that your lycan lover is dead.”

He tossed the revolver aside; he didn’t need it anymore. All the fight had drained out of him. “I’m not going to put a bullet in your head, Gyrell. I don’t need to.” He lifted his hands, revolving a three-hundred-and-sixty degree turn back to her. “Does any of this look familiar to you? Your beloved town is coming down around your ears. Elysia’s come to punish us.”

“The Mother will save us.” Gyrell’s shoulders shook. He realized she was sobbing. “She wouldn’t let us win the war.”

“She’s already let it all happen once.”

“No, she wouldn’t. Not after everything that I’ve done for her…”

The wall behind them fell away with a groan, crumbling to rubble. Grenades rolled over the debris, spraying out clouds of green glass. Crowe breathed it in, accepting his powerlessness. Surrendering to it. A dozen silver-backed torchcoats surrounded the two practitioners, bearing rifles on them. The herald fell to his knees, hands raised in supplication.

He felt the butt of a rifle slam into the back of his head. Stars burst across his vision. Pain exploded somewhere in the back of his skull. The world tilting and then eventually crashing to a stop, the pain quickly became a distant thing. Something jostled and struggled outside his field of vision. He remembered Gyrell. Still fighting. It’s futile, he would have told her. Give in. It feels good. Stop fighting.

I can’t do this anymore.

I’m done.

                                                                                …

He stood beneath a bright sky darkened by smoke. His arms and legs had been shackled to the person in front of him - Rake - and the person behind him - Gyrell. What remained of Caldreath’s villagers had been rounded up and bound together like animals. Their shoulders were slumped in defeat, their heads lowered. Except for Crowe’s. He’d accepted his fate.

Soon it will all be over. Soon the fire will engulf me and the pain will come to an end.

Someone wept. It could have been Rake. Or Gyrell. He didn’t care. He didn’t have the energy to see who it was. The enemy was everywhere, surrounding them from all sides. There was no avenue for escape. They’d been drugged so they could not use mana. He scanned the faces before him. One was indistinguishable from another. He did not find sympathy or remorse or mercy, only judgment or repudiation. All of it was familiar to him.

From the moment I was born, I was an outcast. Why would I be treated any differently in death? A bitter chuckle rose up in his throat; he had to bite his tongue to keep it at bay.

To his left someone shouted. A second later the thud of a gauntleted fist connecting with a human jaw. The victim fell forward. Crowe felt the chain pull at him hard - pull at them all - the steel around his wrists and ankles digging into the flesh sharply. He tried to dig his heels into the ground but it was no use. He saw Rake go down and he, too, went down, scraping his knee on stone hard enough to draw blood. Half the line had gone down and were now staggering sluggishly to their feet.

“Get moving!” the torchcoat at the front of the line snarled. Crowe heard the elastic snap of a whip and then the chain tugged at him again, pulling him forward. The line was moving now and he had no choice but to move with it.

“Monad help me,” Rake muttered. His voice sounded unusually high. The tough man Crowe had encountered in the village of Timberford had been stripped away.

The practitioner couldn’t help but let out a bitter laugh.

“Don’t just laugh at me. Do something, herald!” the man snapped back at him.

“What would you have me do, Rake?”

“Summon the Eternal City! Summon angels for Monad’s sake! Do something more than just laugh at me…”

“No talking!” The shadowy outline of a fist was the only warning Crowe had before he felt his head rock to the side with the force of the blow. He felt the world tilt once more. The impact of hitting the ground knocked the wind from his lungs. Darkness was close at hand.

Good, he thought. Take me. Pull the curtains closed once and for all.

No such luck. His shackles pulled at him relentlessly, interrupting his final descent into the darkness. He heard Gyrell calling his name. She bent over him. Her silver hair had come loose from its bindings and hung around her like a shroud. A stream of blood ran from a small gash above her right eyebrow, running into her eye. Hazily Crowe wondered if he’d been the one to mark her face or if a torchcoat had. Her fingers tugged at his wrists. She did not have the strength to pull him up. He felt heavy as stone. And still the chains pulled at him, pulling him through dirt and ash.

The toe of a boot slammed into his side. Another burst of pain, this one bright enough to bring tears to his eyes. “On your feet, maggot!” a voice roared. He couldn’t tell if the voice was male or female. Again, he did not care. Strong hands grabbed his under arms before pulling him upright. He was lifted briefly before being set down on his feet hard.

The soldiers were out for blood, their shouts an animalistic plea to dish out punishment. Some of them stepped forward, fists clenched to strike, only to hesitate like a dog straining at the leash; others did not restrain themselves. Rocks and pieces of brick flew through the air. One struck Rake in the back between the shoulderblades and sent him staggering forward. He would have gone down had Crowe not grabbed him by his knobby shoulders and pull him back upright. Another struck the practitioner below the nose, tearing his lips open. Blood gushed down his throat, warm and thick and tasting of blood. The pain was a cruel reminder that this was not just a dream.

It's really happening. I won't just wake up on the coast of the Gaulhill Sea, he thought, picturing the blue-green water in his mind. When they tie me to the stake, the oil they pour over me will be real oil. The fire that burns the flesh from my bones will be real fire…and Barghast is really dead.

The angry thrashing crowd of torchcoats stretched back as far as the eye could see. Silver torch flags flapped under smoke-ringed clouds. No hint of Drajen’s appearance could be cleaned from this vantage point. Rake had never actually told him it was Drajen and it didn't matter. Enough torchcoats had breached the purgatorial forests surrounding Caldreath to win this battle. Or maybe the Mother is punishing us…punishing me because I failed her rest. Failed fulfilling my duty as herald. And for that we all pay the price.

At some point Gyrell's armor had been cut off her, leaving her with the spare garments she wore underneath. Fresh blood trailed down the side of her face and a dark bruise was forming from where someone had struck her. One breast was exposed for all to see. She looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Stop this!” she hissed at him. “I beg of you! Why are you letting this happen?”

Up ahead the stakes where they would experience their final moments of pain appeared. Rake began to weep like a child when he saw them; Crowe felt relief. Soon he would be able to sleep. Everything he’d loved or cared about had already been stripped from him. “I’m not letting this happen,” he said in the same casual if not cracked voice he might have used to talk about the weather. “You are. This nightmare - this prison - in which you find yourself trapped in, in which you’ve trapped us all in, is of your own making.”

“No,” Gyrell crooned; her shoulders shook visibly, the composure she’d hidden behind stripped away. “This is not my doing…”

A hand shoved Crowe forward. “Get moving, practitioner! It's time to burn…”

They'd reached the stakes. Death was only a few moments away. Crowe's arms were yanked over his head with such force he felt one of them pop out of socket. Fireworks of pain burst behind his eyes. He grunted, but did not scream, would not give the torchcoats the satisfaction of hearing him scream. He was not afraid. If anything he felt free. He glanced at Rake. The man had been shackled to his own stake. The man sobbed helplessly; strings of snot from his nose. Were it not for the chains keeping him upright he would have fallen to his knees.

“It will be okay,” Crowe told him. “Soon all of this will be over…”

If Rake heard him he showed no signs. What did it matter? His words were hollow. Of course none of this was okay. Abovehead carrion birds wheeled above the unfortunate souls below. A man dressed in the silver torch vestments of a cleric stood at the front of the torchcoat procession; his voice was deep and conveyed doom and salvation in the same breath. They think by burning us they will set our souls free from Monad's tyrant grip, the practitioner thought. He didn't listen to the words because he didn't need to; he’d already heard them before.

“You bastards!” Loras screamed, her voice shrill with animal rage and fear. “This is not happening! This cannot be happening…THE MOTHER IS WITH US!”

A torchcoat stepped forward and dealt her a blow to the stomach that doubled her over. Crowe snickered, conflicted, ashamed and concerned and joyous to see her in pain all at once. How many blows does she have to endure before she accepts this is not a dream?

After a moment Loras straightened. Her dress was torn in several places. Her face was bruised and bloodied. “Why won’t the Mother help us?” she gasped.

“Because all this has happened before,” the practitioner answered as a torchcoat lit the first pyre with a torch and the first screams made the birds take flight. “It will keep happening until we pass her test.”

The Bitch of Caldreath looked at him wearily. “What test?”

The sorcerer raised his eyes towards the sky; he inhaled the smell of burning wood and flesh. I wish I knew. Maybe I’ll find out in another life.

To Crowe’s right Rake babbled incoherently. “M-Monad, help me…May I find splendor in the Eternal City…” His prayers turned to high-pitched screams as the flames crawled up his legs, quickly devouring him. He screamed Crowe’s name but the practitioner could not quit cackling long enough to answer.

By the time the practitioner began to burn his mind was gone. He prayed to Monad, looking up at the sky where the Eternal City nestled above the clouds. He was not afraid. He was not afraid because he knew it was not the end. The thing about loops is they repeat, and there is always a chance to makes things right again…

When the pain became to bear he screamed. He threw his head back against the stakes and knew this was what it felt like to burn in Inferno.