Hubris - 42. Fireside

Crowe never thought he would be happy to see Roguehaven again, but a glimpse of the settlement but a shout of joy worked its way up the sore passage of his throat. Had he the strength he would have given it voice. Still he allowed himself a small grin. He patted Barghast on the back. “We did it. You did it. We made it.”

Barghast did not reply. His chest heaved breathlessly. For almost two days he'd been at a constant run, charging over the ice as if death was on his tail with Crowe clinging to his back like a monkey. They'd only stopped at the spring outside the ruins to refill the waterskins and when the practitioner insisted he stopped to take a drink. Only when the guards at the posts waved through the gates did it occur to Crowe that the barbarian probably wanted as far away from the frozen tundra as he did. He didn't recognize the faces of Hargreeves or the man and women who had been stationed with him the night before Crowe and Barghast left for the Vaylin Ruins.

Barghast kicked the door open, setting Crowe on his feet. His tongue hung out of his mouth. He looked as if he might collapse at any moment. Crowe nodded at the chairs by the fireplace. He told Barghast to rest while he saw about food and drinks and getting a room for the night. “I'll only be a minute,” the sorcerer assured the barbarian with a scratch between the ears when he started to whine; now that they could communicate more frequently, Barghast was clingier than ever. “Monad willing, we’ll be behind closed doors soon.”

Barghast pressed his ears flat against his head. “Don’t keep me waiting. These people reek…”

Crowe wanted to point out it had been days since either one of them bathed - he doubted neither one of them smelled pleasant either; Barghast’s fur gave off the damp musky smell that reminded Crowe of mold growing in a dark cellar. Instead the herald watched him slink across the room, lowering his head and raising his shoulders against the wary onlookers and whispers of speculation. The sorcerer studied him for another minute. His heart swelled with an eagerness to be alone with the lycan. Every time we are around I feel like my world turns upside down. Only once I am alone with you does it feel like it turns right side up again. The words rang in his chest like a bell. This time he did not turn away from them. This time he did not push them away. He faced them as one might the wind.

With a private smile, Crowe went to the bar where Meese was still carrying out her purgatorial duties of wiping down the counter with a tattered grease-stained rag. Only when she saw him did she stop. Her colorless lips thinned down to a straight line. “You made it back.” The surprise in her voice said she'd expected otherwise. “I lit candles for you and your lycan friend while you were gone. It's not very often when I'm proven wrong. I take it you two will be wanting that room back?”

It took a moment for Crowe to find the words to respond. He had not been expecting such a welcome upon returning from the Mirror Expanse. “I would.” He reached for his coin purse.

Meese waved her rag at him as if she were waving a flag. “Nuh nuh, deary. Judging from the beat up look on your face you've seen more than a thing or two. I say you've earned more than a few nights of rest and food on the house. Monad must have been by your side the whole time you two were out there.”

The herald’s eyes were transfixed on the lycan’s broad back, tracing the scars that marked pale lines and circles through the thicket of his dark gray fur. Every step of the way,” he murmered absently.

Meese assured him she would have everything brought up to him shortly before granting him the key to the suite. “All on the house,” she insisted when he offered to pay for the food at the very least.

The room smelled of wood and smoke. The linens on the bed had been changed and smelled of soap. That night Crowe and Barghast made short work of the small feast Meese brought them. Fragments of chicken bone pinged across the table as Barghast tore into a leg. His amber eyes fastened on Crowe and then down at his plate where a bare chicken leg rested with a bite of bread and gravy. Those golden orbs dropped down to the platter where only a few scraps of meat remained. He pressed his ears flat against his head. Crowe watched him tuck his tail between his legs. He already knew what was coming.

He reached across the able, took his paw before the whining could start. “Don’t,” he said gently. “It's alright. Drink your mead, you'll feel better. Your nerves are most likely from our travels.”

Barghast tipped him a wink. He raised the tankard to his muzzle before downing three-quarters of its contents in a single gulp; the rest sloshed down the front of his chest and tunic. Crowe didn’t realize he was laughing until he stopped, until Barghast stopped to watch him over the burning candlelight - the only light in the room apart from the lycan’s eyes. “Maybe you shouldn't drink it so fast or else you won't be able to make it over to the bed.” He took a moderate sip of mead from his own tankard.

Two tankards of mead and an aether joint later, Crowe stood before the window watching the sky darken to night. Another joint burned in his hand. In his reflection he could see what Meese had meant about having seen a thing or two out in the Mirror Expanse. His face was marked with sores from prolonged exposure to the cold, his flesh and lips cracked like porcelain; ghosts danced in his eyes that no attempt at a smile could decieve. He found himself searching for the lights of Metropolis. Searching for a sign of where he was to go next. You've been on the run for months, you've finally bought yourself a moment's respite. Do not squander this blessing. You might not get a moment's rest for a while. Even with this thought running through his mind, he searched the shadows for an undead corpse with mismatched limbs shambling across the ice.

You saw that wretched thing he called a body get pulled into the belly of the earth. Even if he survived, it would take some effort to climb his way out. He blew out a ring of smoke. What would be, would be. He didn't have the energy to spare it another thought for the rest of the night. I've earned this. We've earned this.

Barghast’s whine interrupted his thoughts. “Can we rest now?”

“Yes,” Crowe murmered. He wondered, quite suddenly, if it would be any warmer South.

He felt the Okanavian draw close until the warmth of his breath brushed against the back of his neck. Could the lycan hear his heart quickening in his chest? He remained facing the window, wondering what his oversized traveling companion would do. But he's become so much more than that to you, hasn't he? Bennett’s voice asked. Crowe hadn't heard that voice in weeks. Even now, after the devotion he has shown you and the short trials you've endured in the short time we've known each other, would you be able to find the words to tell him how you feel?

Barghast reached around him from behind, his paws covering the entirety of Crowe's chest and torso. His nose felt cool against the practitioner's skin. He swiped his tongue across his cheek once, leaning over slightly to look down at him. When he stood to his full height the tips of his ears touched the ceiling. “Can you understand me.”

“Every word.” He stopped, realizing he'd spoken in his own tongue. This switch to Okanavian - thinking in Okanavian - was effortless and in its simplicity impossible to describe. “Yes,” he said in the desert tongue.

“We are both very tired. We have not slept in days.” Barghast pulled locks of Crowe’s hair out of his face, dropping warm kisses on his forehead. “There are dark circles under your eyes. I am tired too. So I will undress you and carry you to bed.”

Crowe tried to bite back a snort and couldn't. “I'm not a child, you know? I am perfectly capable of undressing myself.”

This earned him a whine. The Okanavian’s ears flattened. “I know you are not a child or an invalid. You are a strong and capable warrior.” He pressed his muzzle to Crowe's ear, sliding his paws down the length of the practitioner’s torso as if he were exploring a new discovery. “I like to undress you. And kiss you. And carry you. I'd carry you everywhere with me if I could. We wouldn't need that idiot horse.”

The practitioner laughed. “His name's Mammoth. He's been waiting in the stable this whole time. We'll have to grab him on the way out.” He scratched at the thick coats of fur on Barghast’s broad forearm, earning himself a rumble of pleasure. “Or we can leave him and you can just carry me around everywhere?”

“You don’t weigh much. I can see your ribs through your skin.” The tips of Barghast’s claws pulled at the clasp of the sorcerer’s breeches. Slowly he pulled the breeches down, tugging them gently off Crowe’s legs. Next he lifted the herald’s robes over his head, tossing it carelessly on the floor.

Skin buzzing, heart racing with the need to look up at him, Crowe turned away from the window. Dark blue eyes melded with amber. Barghast leaned forward until their lips were on the brink of collision. His paws closed around Crowe’s rump, giving them a playful squeeze with a satisfied growl while the practitioner worked at the lycan’s tunic. The moment they stood before one another naked, their bodies exposed to the ray of moonlight streaming in through the window, Barghast grabbed his rump and lifted him in the air as if to prove just how light his twin o'rre truly was.

His intent gaze never left the practitioner's as he set him down on the mattress. Though the bed could have easily fit two full grown men with room to spare, Crowe was left with a small wedge just wide enough for his narrow body to rest on. Barghast remedied this by folding his longer body around the herald’s, pulling him into the center of the bed.

Barghast continued to play with his hair. “You are beautiful,” he said. His eyes were now the pale orange of the sun when it first rises in the morning. “Your hair, your eyes, your skin. Such soft glowing skin. I'm always afraid I'm going to leave a bruise on you when I touch you.”

“You are too,” said Crowe, remembering how he'd admired the Okanavian from the bar.

Barghast closed his eyes with a whine. “I am not.”

Crowe sushed him, running his bad hand along the barbarian’s cheek. “You are to me. Never listen to anyone.”

Barghast kissed him long and deep then, hovering over them. His breath tasted of mead. He pressed his body down on the practitioner’s while being careful not to crush him with his full weight. When he pulled back and Crowe opened his mouth to protest, Barghast pressed a finger to his lips. “Sleep now, twin o'rre. When we wake up in the morning we will talk about everything. We will eat together and bathe together. And then…” His voice deepened into a growl so rough the practitioner could only understand what the lycan meant by the hungry look in his eyes. “...I will make you mine.”

                         …

When Crowe awoke from the best sleep he'd had in weeks, Barghast was still snoring. Each time his chest rose to release his breath the practitioner thought of the first night they’d spent in the cave. He remembered how wary he'd been of the Okanavian. How foreign he'd been to him. Now his gaze traveled unabashedly down the length of his companion's body.

He drank in every scar. Every press of vein. Even in sleep Barghast’s body was an illustration of pure strength and vitality. If you took away the parts of Barghast that made him a lycan he would have been a regular man. But he isn't. Bennett's face loomed in front of Crowe’s mind. Any other man would have gotten the right idea and left you by now.

He wanted to reach out and touch. He wanted to press his nose into the lycan’s fur and breathe in the smell of his musk. A musk that made him think of the earth, natural and life-giving. But he couldn’t. Barghast rested on his side, his face angled towards the practitioner. He looked so peaceful. Crowe found himself wondering what Barghast’s childhood had been like? Puphood? Was that the word? Maybe he'll tell me if I ask him when he wakes up. A grin played across his lips.

In the room a set of double doors led out onto a small balcony. The last time they'd been here, Crowe had been far too cold and exhausted to venture onto it, but now he wrapped his robes around himself and shuffled outside for a smoke. He watched the sun rise over the mountains. He breathed in the still, frigid air. After a moment he closed his eyes and pushed himself beyond the physical limitations of his body.

This time astral projecting was effortless. He soared towards the sky. Weightless. Free. This time life as smoke wasn't so bad. Monad guide me. Show me where it is I must go next.

A second later a flash in the sky pulled him South. Like a bullet he streaked past snow-capped mountains and pine trees. He traveled over a thousand miles in seconds over what have been impossible for a horse of Mammoth’s size to traverse. Dark blue sky became a brighter, warmer blue. Brown earth turned to golden sand, briny fresh water to salt. He had yet to see the ocean but now it was spread below him like an aquamarine blanket that stretched beyond the horizon without end.

If he were looking at a map of the South he would know that he was soaring along the banks of the Gaulhill Sea. Crustaceans the size of small headstones scuttled along the beach, stalk like eyes waving about in the ocean breeze. A glance to the east end of the beach showed that these creatures were in the infancy stage of their development. Their mature counterparts gathered around like villagers in the market, keeping an eye on the little ones from a distance while the adults gossiped. Thinking of the reavers, Crowe hoped Barghast and he could skirt around any nasty encounters with these oversized crabs that were larger than the reptilian creatures they'd encountered in the Mirror Expanse. A hundred miles further South was the Eternal City. It hovered over the city of Caemyth , dwarfing it in size.

On its own Caemyth would have been a grand sight enough. Unlike the brooding architecture in the North, everything was bright. Golden towards were surrounded by clusters of smaller buildings with shingles hooves that crowded the narrow cobblestone streets. How many times had Bennett and he excited themselves into a frenzy, talking late into the night about visiting the city and the adventures they would have? Bennett was gone. He'd gone and got himself blown up in the war. Someone new had come along to fill the spot he'd vacated.

On the Northern edge of the city his flight stopped above a tall round building with arched windows. Through an open doorway on the top floor of the building he could see several men standing around a wood table, bent over the map.

A strange form of magnetism pulled his attention towards the man who stood at the head of the table. He was Crowe’s height with shoulder length hair that had once been a golden brown but was now streaked with slivers of silver. His narrow face coupled with the brackets of strain and wiry bristles that bracketed his mouth hinted at a man who had given up his youth in the name of the burden he currently carried. Crowe wondered if this was his future. The man wore a blue coat with gold-edged sleeves. A white diamond was embroidered on the back. Though he had never seen the man before with his own eyes, intuition or something like it told the herald this was Benedict Matthiesen, the Governor of Caemyth and an outlaw in the eyes of Pope Drajen and the Theocracy.

One of Matthiesen's long skinny fingers traces the edges of a circle that had been drawn in red ink near the Eastern edge of the map. Though they were the only ones in the room - as far as they could tell - his voice hardly rose louder than a whisper. “This is it? This is where we think Gyrell and the troops have gone missing?”

“Yes,” the man to his left said with a grimace. His wild mane of white hair and scarred face made Crowe think of a battle-hardened lion; the man could have been Barghast’s human counterpart.

“That’s strange, don't you think?” said the man to Matthiesens’ right. He was shorter than the other two men and his cheeks were as smooth as a baby's bottom. Somehow Crowe his name. Both of their names. Lion Mane's name was Lucijan and the other was Roan. Where this knowledge came from the sorcerer could not say and he wasn't sure if he liked it.

“There’s not supposed to be anything there,” Roan finished.

An implication Crowe was not privy to hovered above their heads; it oozed into the uneasy silence that solidified between the three men.

Benedict steepled his hands together. He glared down at the map as if he could wring answers from it through will alone. “What do we know?”

“On this matter we are completely in the dark,” Lucijan replied gruffly. While his voice was hard as stone, his eyes were not. The look he gave Matthiesen said he hated delivering such news.

Benedict's eyes glinted with a frustration he could no longer contain. He slammed his fist into the table hard enough to make it rattle. When he spoke again his voice was wedged somewhere between a whisper and a growl. “This can't be a coincidence: Loras Gyrell and the refugees disappearing simultaneously with the appearance of this ‘black spot’ and Drajen’s proclamation that he has become Elysia’s vessel.”

“It’s too soon to say,” said the man named Roan. “Whatever the cause is, none of it sits well with my stomach.”

“Nor does it mine,” said Matthiesen. “I want you to send three of our best scouts to this black spot. Maybe they'll find traces of Loras and the refugees. But tell them to be careful and to come back as soon as they find something.”

Lucijan nodded with approval. “Commander Gyrell is an integral part of our military efforts…I don’t mean to sound like a paranoid old man, but like you, Roan, my gut tells me something wrong is afoot. My instincts tell me that the forces of Inferno are involved, not Drajen. How else could fifteen hundred soldiers and seven hundred refugees just disappear into thin air - without a trace?”

Loras Gyrell. Maeve’s face floated before Crowe’s mind. We will meet again. Though it will not be the me you met this evening…The red circle on the map glowed as if it were on fire. The three men didn’t seem to notice. Perhaps it was only something the herald was meant to see

Benedict opened his mouth to speak but before he could utter a word, Crowe’s astral body slammed into his physical one with a rushing crash. He staggered slightly only to feel a familiar paw drop on his shoulder, cementing him to the ground. He looked up into Barghast’s unhappy face. The lycan growled at him. The sound was strangled as if he was trying to hold it back. “Twin o’rre,” he said. “You were spirit-walking.” The statement was accusatory, not a question.

In the herald’s head spirit-walked translated as o’rre mgephugnah. “Aye,” he mumbled. He looked away. He hated the way the Okanavian looked down at him with disapproval. He hated the way guilt curdled in his belly like milk gone bad.

A finger slid under his chin, tilting his head back up. The barbarian’s expression had softened; he’d stopped growling. “Do not fret, my beloved. I am not angry with you. I am not trying to scold you. You are a powerful warrior who knows his mind, not a child. I know that. But I also know that when your soul leaves your body, you are vulnerable. You should have woken me. I would have sat with you and watched over you.”

“You were asleep. I didn’t want to wake you.” He hated the way his voice came out weak and pleading. He felt the same doe-like panic he’d felt as a small boy standing under Petra’s brooding glare. Only Barghast wasn’t brooding and he wasn’t Petras and it still it did not stop Crowe’s heart from racing.

Barghast bent his knees, kneeling before the practitioner as if he were a king. His other paw cradled the back of the sorcerer’s head. He leaned forward until their foreheads were pressed together. All thoughts of Petras and the past and the guilt floated out of Crowe’s mind. “You are all I have in this world,” the Okanavian rumbled. “We must trust each other. We must stay together. This ugly world will do everything it can to tear us apart…We mustn’t let it.”

“Aye,” the practitioner agreed.

Barghast kissed. The kiss was deep and slow and gentle. When he pulled back leaving Crowe flushed and breathless his eyes had returned to their molten gold color. The naked hunger in that look made the practitioner shiver. “I want to take you inside and undress you again, twin o’rre,” he growled. The not inconsiderable bulge straining against his tunic told Crowe he wanted to do a lot more than just undress him; the front of it was raised enough that Crowe could see the bottom curves of his balls. Crowe felt the absurd urge to touch them, to feel their heft in his hand again. They looked…full.

“Later I will undress you.” The Okanavian’s eyes bulged out of his head. His pupils were as large as saucers. His tail thumped excitedly against the railing of the balcony. “And then I will make you mine.”

I’m already yours, Crowe wanted to say. Then he saw the wicked look on the barbarian’s face. His own turned a deeper shade of red. And then I will make you mine could only mean one thing.

“First we eat.” Barghast kissed his hand. “The fat woman brought us food and drink while you were away.”

Crowe laughed, leading the way back into the room. “Her name is Meese and you shouldn’t call her fat - it’s not nice.”

“Not nice. Rude. It’s rude to say something bad about something they can’t help. It’s not much different than when the torchcoats tried to kill you the night we met.”

Barghast stopped and growled at the mention of torchcoats. “Is the fat woman a torchcoat?”

“She is a follower of Monad. She helped us. She gave us this room for free.”

“Why do the torchcoats want to kill us so badly?”

“Because they’re afraid of us. They’re afraid of what we are. They think we are bad.”

“Are we bad? Do you think I’m bad?” Barghast’s ears twitched dubiously.

It was the herald’s turn to give his paw a comforting squeeze. “No, you’re not bad. I’ve seen you do bad things in order to survive. So have. We’ve both killed. We’ve both spilled blood. Do you think I’m bad? Do you think I deserve to be enslaved? Killed?”

“I do not think you’re bad. I think you’re very good. You try to help everyone…even when they don’t deserve it. Like that woman we found outside of this place.”

Crowe thought of the woman who had watched her husband burn alive at the hands of the torchcoats. You should have let the damned torchcoats finish what they started, she’d said. He could still hear the concluding echo of the gun going off. “We did the right thing when we helped her. We would have been just as bad if we didn’t do anything.”

“I don’t understand,” Barghast whined.

The practitioner ran his palm along his forearm. “It’s alright. One day you will. But you’re not bad…and neither am I. Let’s eat.”

Sure enough the tray Meese had brought was covered with dishes: plates topped with eggs, roasted potatoes and vegetables, biscuits, a serving dish of half-melted butter, strawberry preservatives, chocolate cake and a decanter of chilled wine. The practitioner licked his lips. His belly growled audibly. “Looks like she brought us a feast.” He offered Monad a prayer of thanks in the name of Meese; it couldn’t have been an easy task to carry the tray up the stairs after working the bar all morning and all night.

Barghast prowled around the table. He eyed the steaming platters of food; thick strands of drool hung down from his mouth.

“What are you waiting for?” Crowe waved impatiently, reaching for plates. “Go ahead and serve yourself.

Barghast bowed his head. “You first,” he whined. “I will eat after you.”

“For Monad’s sake.” Crowe stabbed at the roasted potatoes and scooped them onto the plate. As he filled the plate with heaping piles of food. “These are potatoes. They're a staple here in the North, especially in the Winter months.” He remembered how in the early days of Petra’s decline in health, they'd survived off of potatoes for several weeks. We probably ate them until we couldn't taste them anymore. This time he had butter; this time they would taste better.

Barghast listened and watched with great interest. He sniffed at the practitioner as he poured mead into the goblets and grabbed eating utensils for himself. When Crowe sat at the opposite end of the table, the Okanavian mimicked his movements, pulling the back and sitting down. The chair groaned beneath his bulk.

“What are these?” Barghast pointed at the silverware. He looked at them with a mixture of caution and wide-eyed wonder.

Crowe speared a bite of potato on his fork. “This is a fork,” he said, switching to the Northern tongue, then back to Okanavian. “You used to pick up things.” He tried to demonstrate, reaching for another bite. It wasn't until his hand started shaking that he’d realized he was using his bad hand. His wrist shook uncontrollably. The bit of the potato fell back on the plate. Crowe cast a nervous glance at Barghast. Still watching him intently, the lycan lowered his head, pressing his ears back. The matter of Fort Erikson hung between them, unspoken, but there all the same. Not just Fort Erikson, but the dead city too. We have a lot to catch up on.

He switched the fork to his left hand. He reached across the table with the other, laying his palm on top of the barbarian’s furry knuckles. The lycan’s ears twitched upright. His tail wagged hopefully. Crowe smiled. “You try. But be careful. I don't know if the silverware is made of real silver or not. It might burn you.”

When Barghast picked up the utensil his skin did not begin to smoke.

“You…” The herald gulped. “You know you don't have to eat the way I do, right? I just eat this way because it's what I'm used to.”

“It’s a part of your culture?”

“Aye. But you can eat however you want to.”

“I want to learn how your people eat,” the Okanavian insisted.

“What about your culture? Your people? Your family?” The questions rushed out of the practitioner’s mouth before he could prevent their passage; these questions had been rattling around inside his head for months, gathering dust and cobwebs.

“Your culture is my culture. Your people are my people. You are my family.”

Barghast growled these words with such finality Crowe did not dare offer a response at first. He didn't know what to make of the guarded look on the Okanavian’s face. When he spoke he ventured cautiously; his response in answer in response to the lycan was maladaptive, born from a lifetime's practice of keeping the tension in the room leveled. “Barghast… I just want you to be happy. I don't want you to feel like you have to hide who you are from me. I want you to know I accept you.” I want you to know I love you froze on his tongue. Somewhere in the back of his mind Bennett flashed him flashed him a knowing wink.

Barghast’s Guarded expression, shifted into a carefree grin he seemed to only reserve for Crowe. He leaned forward in his seat, making the legs creak and wobble. His paw was heavy and warm on top of Crowe’s. “Your words are like honey. You say the sweetest things my beloved. I do not mean to act like an angry pup. I do not want you to think I am angry with you. I want you to know you can trust me. I will never lie to you. I will never betray you as I know others have.” The practitioner’s cheeks burned at this; Barghast watched him so intently he felt as if he was made of glass. Barghast continued, whining slight. “But…it is difficult to talk about home.

The practitioner nodded slowly. At times it was easy to forget Barghast was man as much as he was a beast. Like every man he had things he didn't like to talk about; and like a man he feared what others would think if those things came to light. With one vulnerable admission the lycan had revealed a depth of himself the sorcerer had only suspected could exist. “I understand. It's hard for me to talk about home as well. Every time I have a thought about it I try to duck out of the way.” Deciding it was time to change the subject to lighter table conversation, he held the fork out before him as if it were a grand sword, the tines facing up. He switched to the Northern tongue. “The fork…”

For the next twenty minutes he wrestled with the art of showing Barghast how to hold and use the fork. It wasn't an easy task. The lycan’s paws were as cumbersome as they were large. It didn't help that Barghast became discouraged when he failed to bring the fork to his mouth without spilling food. Crowe had to bite his lip to keep from giggling at the dogged look Barghast would give him. His ears flat, his tail flicking anxiously from side to side, he had the look of a child who fears they are about to be scolded. The bloodthirsty lycan everyone is so afraid of has been outmatched by the indomitable fork.

“Don’t fret over it, Barghast.” He wiggled the three remaining fingers of his bad hand. “It’s hard to learn from a cripple.” He sat in the lycan’s lap, making the Okanavian perk up. He raised the fork to the barbarian’s mouth. “Just try it. You've never had potatoes before, have you? They're good with butter.” If anyone thinks it's impossible to get a lycan to eat out of the palm of your hand look no further.

Barghast halted the practitioner’s hand when he tried to pass him another bite. “Now it's your turn. You must eat as well, twin o'rre. You are much too thin.” He held the fork out to Crowe . “Open,” he growled. His tail rapped against the table hard enough to make the dishes rattle.

Crowe tried not to dispute the absurdity of what was transpiring between them. If someone had asked him if he would one day let a lycan spoon feed him while sitting in his lap, he would have said it sounded like something out of a sensational tale. Now all he could take notice of was how light he felt. It felt good to be alone with the man he had come to depend on and trust - and love once he allowed himself to admit it aloud. For the moment they were not on the run, constantly looking over their shoulders. No torchcoats. No revenants. No necromancers. No reavers or sadistic angels or Black King. Just us. Just the way it should be.

By the time they'd cleared the platters the dining area looked more like the sight of a brawl than a meal of laughter and mead. Crowe found himself reclined back in bed, his naked body sandwiched between Barghast's chest and his arms, half drunk, stoned and awake.

“These are the moments when I am happiest,” Barghast rumbled, pulling the practitioner into his molten gaze. His paw fanned through Crowe's freshly washed hair. Hair that had grown past the edge of his shoulders. “When I wish the world would just stop and leave us be.”

Crowe shifted a little. Each time the lycan exhaled a small draft of wind blew his bangs back from his face. “When is that?”

Barghast kissed him. “When you are naked, in my arms, and I can kiss you.”

“You're absolutely shameless, Barghast.” His heart fluttered excitedly. Somehow he felt like the young boy he'd been when Bennett and he would cavort through the woods, acting out their fantasies. A sensation he'd feared would never grace his heart again. “What will we do when we wake up?”

“Whatever we want, beloved. As long as you are with me I am happy.”

                                                          …

He stood on the platform, facing Elysia’s judgment, her noose around his neck. His robes stuck to him like a second skin, plastered in place by the accursed blood rain. It was wrong. All wrong. He would never get the chance to say goodbye to the lycan. This and the helpless despair he felt were all he could think of when the platform beneath his feet dropped out from under him. Elysia’s noose tight around his throat. Cutting into his air. Cutting into his flesh.

He pulled at the noose. He struggled and kicked as he had never struggled and kicked before. I don’t want to die. I want to live…

And then someone was screaming. Screaming in terror. Screaming in defiance. The person who screamed he realized was himself. A high-pitched sound that made the tendons in his neck stand out. A voice somewhere outside of him called his name, but he was lost. The same speaker reached for him. Crowe shrunk back like a frightened animal. He was frightened. “Get the fuck away from me!” he snarled.

The gloom of his nightmares was replaced by a flair of blinding white light. The world around him shook and rattled, threatening to come apart. A tidal wave of wind passed through the room, knocking framed portraits off the wall. Somewhere glass shattered. I'm doing this, he thought. I'm making this happen. And he couldn’t stop it. He could not douse out the flames that spread through him like a growing wildfire.

A familiar tall shadow loomed out of the light. Crowe did the only thing he could think of to do and fell towards it. Strong arms closed around him. Barghast pinned him to his chest, paw on the back of his head, muzzle at his ear. “Twin o'rre, you must stop this. The whole place will go…”

“I'm trying. I don't know how…” A sob shattered inside Crowe's throat.

“You are safe.” Barghast held him so tightly, they could have been the same body. The same person. We are alone, my beloved. “Just you and me the way it should be.”

The words spilled out of the practitioner like a flood of black water. “At Fort Erikson they were going to hang me. They did. The rope was cutting into me and the world was going black and all I could think about was never seeing you again. And that man from the inn…”

“No more thinking about it now. You must stop it!” The lycan’s voice drove into him like a fist. He tried to turn away from it, but the Okanavian wouldn't let him. He rose from the floor like a canyon, surrounding Crowe. Folding around him until he had no choice but to submit.

The floor dropped beneath his feet. Just when he thought he would fall with it, the herald was lifted and pressed once more against the living wall that was Barghast. The hold was absolute. There was no escaping this creature who kept pulling him away from the brink of self destruction. Now he was draped across a bed of muscle and fur. The lycan’s paws slid over his body, stroking him.

“I am so sorry my beloved. I am sorry that happened to you. I am sorry I was not with you. I know you are frightened. I know you feel afraid. Do not hide from me. Come to me…”

“I don't know how.” He couldn’t move. His limbs felt impossibly heavy. The world had no top and no bottom. There was only the face of the wolf above him. He crawled towards it because there was nowhere else to go.

“Do not fret. I will help you.”

The world shifted again. He was laid on the bed, his head sinking into the pillow. The lycan hovered above him so that Barghast was all the practitioner could see from all directions.

“When they took you away from me I felt such despair. Such fear. Such fury. It felt as if the bottom had dropped out of my stomach. I had to get you back. There is nothing that could keep you away from me. There is no throat I will not rip out to keep you safe. I balk at the thought because I know this will happen again. Again and again until we reach the end of our pilgrimage. They will take you away from me and I will go on the endless prowl until you are mine again…”

Crowe crawled towards the voice. It shook the ground beneath him. It held him up when nothing else would.

“Be here with me,” the voice pleaded. “Don’t think about the darkness. I am here. I won’t let it touch you…”

A warm arm enclosing him, lifting him again. Soft fur pressing against his skin. Keeping him warm ™. Shielding him. Anchoring him. Above him a grinning mouth, a single white tooth poking up from the pink lining of a lip. Twin suns burned in the Void, burning with love if he’d ever seen it. Love so intense, so total it frightened him. Crowe crawled towards those lights. Climbing. Crawling. Calling. It all amounted to the same thing.

Whatever it took to reach the top.

“Crowe, we are entwined you and I. That's what it means to be a twin o’rre. From the moment I can remember first wanting something I've searched for you. And now that I've found you what kind of fool would I be to let you slip away?”

“I don't understand.” His voice sounded distant and echoey to his own ears.

“One day - very soon - I will explain,” the deeper voice assured him. Its owner brushed his hair back from his face. “For right now I am so happy that you can understand me. There has been so much I've been wanting to say to you for so very long and now that I can, I don't even know where to begin.”

Crowe reached up, searching through the dark. He didn’t have to search long before Barghast took his hand and guided it to his face. “I know what you mean,” the practitioner whispered. “But then we’ve never needed words to understand each other, have we? You’ve always shown me.”

Those fiery orbs hanging in the Void loomed closer. Barghast’s chest settled on top of him so that the practitioner was sandwiched between the bed and his broad torso. All he could move were his arms and his head. The lycan had entwined his legs with his own. Crowe suspected he would not be getting up for the rest of the night. Powerful hips spread his legs until he was folded in whatever position the Okanavian deemed satisfactory, their hips conjoined. The lycan’s words echoed in his head. We are entwined, you and I. Wasn’t that one of the things Maeve had said in Vaylin before they parted? Before the earth swallowed the dead city whole?

Before the herald could think more on it, Barghast spoke again, his voice somewhere between a whimper and a growl. “I ache for you, twin o’rre. I want you like I’ve never wanted anything else.”

Something hot and spongy and hard pressed against the practitioner’s backside. A musky, meaty smell wafted up from the dark. Barghast was panting now, his tail thumping against the mattress. This time he did not pull away nor did he hesitate. “I want you, too,” he said thickly. His skin was hot and he could feel all the blood in his body flowing down to a single focal point.

Barghast could feel it as well, pressing against his furry belly. A keen gleam entered the lycan’s eyes. “As much as I want to be inside you…want it so bad I can’t stand it…you are so small and I am so large. I could hurt you without meaning to.”

Crowe messaged the fur of his arm. He could feel Barghast leaking against him, the fluid hot and syrupy against his flesh. “I trust you with my life. I know you’d never hurt me.” He tried to pull the barbarian’s head down to his but it was impossible. Barghast’s skull was like a big unmovable rock.

He didn’t need to try hard. Barghast’s lips, like his body, dwarfed his entirely, warm and velvety, his eagerness pushing Crowe’s skull back into the cradle of his paw. He rocked against him, grinding the tipped head of his cock against the sorcerer’s ass. The friction made the herald gasp with pleasure. After weeks of being on the run and keeping his feelings for the Okanavian at bay he felt he would burst. I’m going to burst, he tried to say but his mouth was filled with the lycan’s tongue.

He pulled back, gasping. “I’m going to…I can’t…”

It was all he managed to say before a long, smooth tongue trailed a straight line from the cleft of his chin down to his groin. The lycan lapped at his pulsating erection before sucking it into his mouth. Crowe moaned, unable to move unless Barghast decided to let him. As such the barbarian had his own priorities and was preoccupied. Even in the thick darkness that filled the room it was impossible not to notice just how much bigger the Okanavian was than the practitioner. Everywhere he touched he could feel solid muscle bulging and rippling beneath the fur.

The sound of the bed’s legs scraping against the floor reminded him of the many times he’d seen the lycan kill. Rabbits, deer, necromancers, and torchcoats. He’d seen him rip out throats with his teeth; he’d seen him shrug aside walls until they crumpled to dust. He knew if he wanted to Barghast could just as easily kill him. All he would have to do is let the rest of his weight fall on top of me and he could snuff me out like a candle. (But he knew Barghast wouldn’t, the fact written in his flesh. In his soul.)

The thought burst through him like fire. Now there truly was no holding back. He shouted the Okanavian’s name and then his back arched off the bed. Or tried to. The barbarian had him pinned to the mattress the way a boulder pins soil to the earth. All he could do was shudder and stare stupidly as Barghast lapped at the head of his leaking cock. Crowe wanted to kick with his feet, his toes curled so tight it hurt. “Monad, help me,” he wept, his cheeks wet with tears of ecstasy. “Help me, help me, help me.” He could barely hear himself over the growls of relish Barghast made as if what he had to give was the sweetest nectar.

Once the practitioner was empty to the point of aching, Barghast raised his head. “Twin o’rre, you are delicious.”

Crowe laughed, drunk from the release. “Does this mean I’m your next meal?”

This time it was the barbarian’s turn to chuckle. The deep gravelly sound sent a thrill of pleasure down the sorcerers spine to his tingling toes. “No, I think I’ll keep your right here where you are. Beneath me where you can’t get away. And I will hold you and kiss you and make you scream with pleasure. It is time, twin o’rre. It is time to make you mine.”

Before Crowe could ask what he meant by “make you mine”, Barghast rose onto his knees, lifting the practitioner's lower body by the legs while his head, shoulders, and upper half of his back still rested on the bed. “I can hear your heart racing,” Barghast rumbled. His breath caressed the back of the practitioner’s backside. “It sounds just like those…what do you call them, the little creatures with the pointed ears?...you always catch them in your snares.”

“Rabbits,” the herald replied breathlessly. “They’re called rabbits.”

“That’s what your heart sounds like. A rabbit. The way they scamper off when they’re startled. You need not be afraid of me, twin o’rre. I won’t hurt you. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

Crowe couldn’t reach for him, so he pressed his foot against the barbarians solid chest. “I know you won’t. I trust you. And I would never do anything to hurt you. You know that, right?”

He saw the outline of the Okanavian’s head bob up and down. “Yes. You saved me from the torchcoats. You made them pay for what you did to me.”

At these words the sorcerer thought of the man from the inn in Boar’s Head. Barghast had made him pay. And Charoum. He didn’t want to think about things…not now when it felt like he was floating and carefree for a change, not when he was around the only man who made him feel safe, so he pushed the thought away. “Don’t stop, Barghast. Please…” What he didn’t say but thought was, I don’t want to think about dark things. Right now I just want to be with you.

Barghast didn’t need any further encouragement. When his tongue entered Crowe, smoothe and hot as heated butter, the practitioner cried out before he could stop himself. His spine arched towards the ceiling and his eyes clenched shut. His toes curled as tight as they would go. Barghast’s cold nose brushed against the sensitive flesh between his thighs, making his skin break out in gooseflesh. Each nose he made - each grunt, whimper, cry, each whisper of his name - seemed to only spur the Okanavian on. Just when it seemed like he couldn’t go any deeper…surely not…he did. Slicking his insides. Preparing him for the moment of collision.

He wasn’t sure how long this went on. Time became as fluid and malleable as water, the seconds, minutes (hours?) ticking by without definition. When Barghast did pull, back Crowe’s body sagged deeper into the bed. He felt like a wrung out dish rag. But he knew the lycan wasn’t done with him. Probably wouldn’t be done with him for a while. He thought of all the lingering glances they’d exchanged, touching, the moments of horror and pain and pleasure and affection they’d shared with each other. All building up to an inevitable climax. All building up to…this.

Barghast lowered his legs and hips back onto the bed. He leaned forward, spreading Crowe’s thighs apart with his broad, muscled hips, his weight making the bed sag, but not crushing the smaller body beneath him. I won’t hurt you, he’d said, I would never do anything to hurt you, and Crowe truly did believe him. The fact was written in his flesh. In his soul. Our souls. We are twin o’rre. Twin souls. Two sides of the same coin.

Barghast kissed him tenderly, smoothing his hair from his head, grinding the head of his cock against the practitioner once more. The bed creaked with each rock and forth motion. Somewhere in the back of his overstimulated mind, Crowe wondered if this was what it was like to be on a ship at sea. Maybe one day we’ll find out while on our pilgrimage. All the while the lycan leaked against him, teasing him open, folded around Crowe in a way that should have been physically impossible for someone of his height and weight, but was not due to what he was. Barghast pulled away, panting. Strings of saliva sluiced down the herald’s slickened belly. “Are you ready, my sweet? Are you ready for me to be inside you?”

Crowe trembled with excitement not fear. “Yes. Yes. I’m ready.”

He wasn’t the only one who trembled. Barghast’s body quaked around him, making the darkness in the room vibrate. Another gasp escaped the practitioner when the first inch of hardened flesh pushed into him, spreading him open like he’d never been opened before. His fingers snarled in the tangles of sweaty blankets, bunching them up in his hand. The nerves in his body were on fire. Fireworks exploded behind his eyes. Deeper and deeper Barghast pushed into him, kissing him, reminding Crowe to tell him to stop when he needed a moment to catch his breath. When Crowe did - when he could remember to - Barghast stopped, stroking his body, kissing his forehead, the soft flesh of his eyelids, his mouth, his neck. Only when the herald begged him to continue in a high, keening voice did he resume his ministrations.

By the time Barghast’s balls pressed against his ass, he was full. Full of Barghast. Full and heavy. Though he could not see it, he knew if he were to look down at his belly he would see a bulge dimpling his skin slightly. He could feel the heaviness in the lycan’s balls and knew it wouldn’t be long.

A meaty slapping sound filled the musky-smelling darkness of the room. The headboard creaked, scraping against the wall. There was something else trying to push its way into him. A muscle or an organ, harder than a rock, harder even than Barghast’s cock. His knot. He’s going to push it into me. And then we really will be inextricably bound.

“Twin o’rre,” Barghast groaned. “I cannot hold back any longer.”

He gave one final push and there was an audible popping sound. Heavy and full. So pleasantly full. Then Barghast raised his head and howled. A high animalistic sound that made Crowe’s teeth rattle and his nerves sing. He could feel the Okanavian’s cock twitching inside him, pumping his seed deep into his body. It seemed to go on forever - certainly longer than Bennett could ever manage during those rendezvous in the cave, when he’d fooled himself into believing his childhood best friend truly loved him - and when it tapered off, he was the anchor, not Barghast.

For the longest time neither one of them said anything, short-winded from their exertions. Crowe must have fallen asleep for a short time because when awareness returned to him, he was sitting in the lycan’s lap facing the wall at the end of the bed, his back resting against Barghast’s muscled belly. His belly still felt full. He went to stand up, only to feel something pull slightly at his innards.

“You will not be able to get up for a time,” the barbarian informed him. There was a playful edge to his voice. Pride. “My knot is still inside you. We must wait for it to shrink before I can pull it out.”

“When?”

“It could be a few hours. It could take all night…” Barghast kissed his cheek. “Either way, you 0are mine until then and I am not letting you go.”

Crowe tried to think of a response - something equally teasing - and couldn’t. All the tension had drained from his body like oil from a canter with a hole at the bottom. All he could manage in the end was a small murmuring sound.

“You are tired, my beloved. We both are. Close your eyes. You will sleep well tonight.”

The sorcerer needed no further coaxing. He closed his eyes and drifted into a dreamless sleep.

                                    …

When Barghast opened his eyes, his twin orre was gone. He jolted out of bed with a whimper, his heart racing. Already he could feel his blood start to boil, pumping quickly through the veins, igniting his bloodlust. The torchcoats had come and taken him away again.

He remembered what happened the last time he lost control over himself and the trouble it had caused. The thought was enough to stall the impulse to go on the endless prowl. “Crowe?” he whined.

“I'm out here.”

His voice sounded from the balcony. Barghast felt the tension leave his body in a single exhale of relief. Of course he's on the balcony smoking a joint. That's where I found him the previous morning and it did not wake your thirst for blood.

It was the confession Crowe had made about what had happened at the fort that had seeped into his mind like a poison unbeknownst to him. He'd been holding onto that for weeks and months and I had no idea. Of course I couldn't. We couldn't understand each other then. What else has he been holding onto that I'm not aware of in my ignorance?

He found Crowe standing on the balcony with an aether joint. He turned with a small tentative smile. “Good morning.”

“I was scared. You were gone when I got up,” the lycan confessed reluctantly. He pushed his ears back, watching the practitioner dubiously. He probably thinks I'm a foolish pup who can't be alone…and he would be right. The thought made his blood skitter in his veins, made him want to cower back inside the room. What if Crowe grew tired of him? What if he left him?

The herald smiled and when he did there was no tension in it; it was a warm sweet smile that made Barghast’s heart melt and fall in love all over again. A stray ray of pale new morning light hit his eyes, making them sparkle. Brushstrokes of cosmic pink and orange streaked the sky at his back. “I wouldn't leave without waking and telling you first. I couldn't stay in bed any longer.

“Are you hurt?” Barghast took a hasty step forward then hesitated. “Was I too rough with you last night? I…”

Crowe crossed the balcony to him, the half finished joint dangling from his mouth. His fingers skimmed a path through Barghast’s chest fur, putting the lycan's renewed worries to rest. “You didn't hurt me. I promise. What we shared together last night meant the world to me, meant more than you could know. So don't fret. I'm just jittery.”

The Okanavian blinked. That was a word he'd never heard before; sometimes the sorcerer said the most befuddling things and he seemed to switch between Barghast's language and his own without thinking about it. “Jittery?”

“Anxious. Restless. Nervous. I know we're trying to rest, but…”

The barbarian’s tail began to wag. “It's not who you are…”

There was that sweet grin again, but there was a cautious glint in his eyes that was tucked away as quickly as it appeared. Barghast only spotted it because he knew to look for it. “I don't think either of us are.” The herald shivered, pulling his robes tighter around himself. A crack appeared between his dark eyebrows, his veneer of calm beginning to slip.

I may not be able to read your mind, Barghast thought, but all those months we spent unable to talk I watched you. I studied your face. The way your eyes darken and your mouth puckers and body shrinks as if you want to hide when you want to hide. He wanted to say these words, but he didn't. Better to show through action. Better to be patient and take his time plundering the treasure standing before him. Still…

Barghast hugged him. He wanted to pick him up and carry him into the room but the practitioner had already lit another joint. “Something bothers you. I can tell. I may not know anything about your old life, but I know you down to the marrow in this one. Tell me what perplexes you, my beloved.”

Crowe blew out a cloud of sweet smelling smoke that made the air dance and pop with crystals. “I've just been thinking a lot. About some of the things Maeve - the woman with the silver eyes said - and some of what you said.” Now the sorcerer raised his eyes to look up at the lycan and this time there was no caution in his face, only trust. “How we're inextricably connected. How this…” He waved his three-fingered hand at the white expanse beyond the balcony. “...nightmare keeps repeating. I keep thinking about my predecessor.”

Crowe shivered again and that dark look entered his eyes again. A bitter smile touched his lips. “He's been dead for almost four months now and yet…he's still here. And I keep feeling as if I'm at the center of a game where everyone knows the rules but me. Petras knew the rules and he never told me. Yet he failed. If he hadn't you and I wouldn't be here.”

His face became drawn. Haunted. It was a look Barghast had seen many times in those quiet moments when the practitioner sunk beneath the surface of the black water that only existed inside his mind. “What if I fail? What if all this is just one big lie, the world, you and me, all of it?”

“You mustn’t think of these things,” Barghast told him as gently as he could. “Such thoughts only open a doorway to doubt. When we find ourselves beginning to doubt we must believe in ourselves…and each other. No matter the challenges we face. Do you understand?”

The practitioner nodded. That sweet, almost dreamy smile was back. “You are my anchor, you know that? I would be lost without you.”

Barghast pressed his forehead to the sorcerer's. “You are my compass. My heart. Without you my chest would be an open wound.” He ushered him back towards the room. “Let’s go inside before you catch your death.”

                                                                        …

Charoum stood at the top of the balcony beneath a sky streaked with smoky gray clouds. His face, once as smooth and pale as unspoiled milk, was set in a permanent rictus of resentment. A diagonal scar split his face, starting at his brow, ending just above his lip; the black eye patch he wore covered part of it. He watched Monad's people shuffle along the center of the circle. Chains snaked between their ankles and wrists, scraping along the filthy cobblestones.

A hundred of Elysia’s children stood at every corner of the square; the Mother of Creation’s torch gleamed at their back. Their faces were stony, their posture rigid. Despite the air of solemnity they displayed, Charoum could sense their fear. They exuded the spicy smell of fear that made the Seraphim’s heart - Seraphim did indeed have hearts - race with excitement. Yes, he thought, watching the dead parade stop before the platform. You are right to be afraid. Lest you rest until every one of Monad’s people is dead.

At the moment they were harmless. The drug that had been produced at The Black Diamond bound their abilities. While effective, the drug was only a temporary solution. Soon it would wear off and then it wouldn’t matter how many guards there were. A dozen sorcerers alone could turn a thousand of the Good Mother’s children to dust in the blink of an eye.

The words of the cleric reading their last rites floated over the flags flapping in the wind. Carrion birds wheeled over the condemned in anticipation of their next meal. The Inquisitor paid no attention to the cleric’s words that were meant to offer vilification and salvation in the same recitation of passages from the sheath of parchment in his hands. Not once in his immortal life had he bent the knee in the name of Elysia except to appease the Pope and make it appear that he was a loyal agent of the Good Mother’s will. Behind closed doors and behind his remaining eye he was his own agent. A man who used his guise as the Mother of Creation’s servant to meet his own ends: the eradication of Monad’s people.

Every last one of them.

The first of the condemned was freed from his restraints. Two guards stood in front of him, two stood behind him. The man was old. A wild mane of white hair blew in the wind, revealing a face hollowed by age and starvation. Bright blue eyes stared at the guards in front of him with silent defiance. The flicker of a smile appeared on Charoum’s lip, though he was not aware of it. I enjoy it when they hang the defiant ones. They always struggle the most…even though they know it’s futile. They can’t help it. They kick until the lights behind their eyes go out.

Once the cleric gave the closing nod that he was finished for the time being, one of the guards behind the old man’s back gave him a shove with the back of his rifle. The man staggered forward, stubbing one of his toes against the cracked edge of a cobblestone. With the aerial sight of a bird and the nose of a bloodhound, it was impossible not to notice the bead of blood that swelled from the wound or the coppery smell of blood that bloomed through the air like the sweetest pollen. The Inquisitor closed his eyes. His eyes closed. His nostrils flared. His puckered lips softened into a look of pure rapture - the closest thing to arousal a creature like Caroum could experience. Both hands were clenched until the knuckles turned white. The fact that he identified as a “he” was a matter of preference.

The man looked like he might tilt over like a tower crumbling under its own weight. Before he could fall to the cobblestones he straightened. Knobby bones and ropy muscle shifted beneath flesh stretched so thin the Inquisitor could see right through him. Up the steps he staggered, the four torchcoats closing around him like a box. They escorted him up the steps where Elysia’s noose awaited. Apart from the sputtering sobs of one of the prisoners, the square was as silent as the Void.

The hangman dropped the noose over the man’s ratty tangle of hair. He tightened it with black leather gloves. The aged practitioner who had witnessed the passing of centuries lifted his chin, closing his eyes. His lips fluttered with whispered offerings to the False Creator. When the hangman tightened a bit more for good measure he continued unabated. Charoum watched intently. A fascinated glimmer danced in his silver cat eyes. A large stone was set on top of his arthritic feet.

It was then that the old man raised his eyes to the Inquisitor. The Seraphim’s leer returned to its default state as a grimace. It was not fear he saw in those eyes - eyes that made him feel like glass. Eyes that made him feel small and young. A feeling he hadn’t experienced since the final days of the Second Iteration when he had stood before his creator like a chastened child. No, it was not fear he saw in those eyes, only acceptance. And…triumph? “I do not fear death; I do not fear the Whore of Creation’s torch. I will return to the home to which my soul was always bound. I will walk the white halls of the Eternal City. I will know splendor.” You think you’ve won, but you haven’t, those eyes taunted.

Down below one of the prisoners a woman with ratty dark hair raised her filthy fists to the clouds, her eyes fixed on something. “Yes! The Eternal City awaits us even now. Look…” She pointed at the sky with a singly bloody finger; all the fingernails on that hand had been completely removed. “The Theocracy lies to us. Monad does not sleep within his prison in the Void. He lives in the city still, watching over us. Beckoning us…” It was not tears of pain or fear or anger or regret that cut pale lines down her filthy, bruised cheeks, but tears of awe. Tears of triumph. Same as the old man’s. Such tears of joy, such an absence of fear in the face of certain death could be infectious as was evidenced by the prisoners. They raised their hands, cheering, laughing, crying. They were all pointing at the sky, seeing something the torchcoats could not see. Charoum searched the horizon in all directions. He saw nothing. Of course you can´t see the Eternal City, a cold voice whispered in the back of the Inquisitor´s mind. When the False Creator exiled you to live out the remaining days of your everlasting life with the dogs and the worms, he exiled you from Metropolis´ holy streets.

Before he knew he was doing it, Charoum climbed down the wood plank steps to the landing. “What are you waiting for?” he snapped at the hangman, glaring. “Hang him! Hang him for Elysia´s sake!”

The old man shouted one last praise to Monad, this one perhaps the most damning of all. “The herald rises! His light grows ever brighter! Soon it will eclipse all shadow and he will free us from the Whore of Creation’s tyranny…”

The square door beneath the practitioner´s feet fell open with a wooden clatter. He fell through it. At the exact same moment the rope around his throat snapped taut, the rock tethered to his ankles pulled at him. An audible crunching sound filled the square. The man´s eyes widened. His jaw clacked open and closed, open and closed, open and closed. His body spasmed, the chains rattling around him. When the Inquisitor blinked it was not the old man he saw dangling from the noose, but the herald. Crowe. The herald who should not yet be active yet was, looking up at him accusingly.

The Inquisitor had hoped the death of their martyr would instill fear in Monad’s people, but they did not falter. If anything the man’s death only spurred them on. They may not have access to their mana, but that did not mean they were entirely powerless. They sang to the man whose final seconds in the material universe were quickly running out like sand filling the bottom of a cosmic hourglass. They wept. They laughed. They held hands. They rejoiced.

The spell Monad´s people cast was working on the torchcoats, too, though to different affect. Faces both young and old turned to him, eyes flashing, cheeks draining of color, rifles aimed at the prisoners. Three of four guards - even with his superior eyesight, he could not count the mass growing in the center of the square. The sounds of wood and fist slamming into bone galvanized Charoum. He clenched his hands into fists hard enough to bend steel like elastic - if he’d been holding steel. His one remaining eye had narrowed down to a slit. His teeth were bared in a feral grin. How had things spiraled out of control so quickly. Control. I need to gain control of the situation.

He was screaming now, his voice trumpeting the screams and shouts below. “Line them up against the wall! Do it! They cannot stop you…they are powerless against you. The Mother of Creation protects you from the lies and corruption of the False Creator…”

Elysia’s children pushed back like a wave bullying over a ship. They shoved and slapped and punched and kicked, marshaling Monad’s people against the northern wall until they stood or cowered like rabbits cornered by a pack of slobbering wolves. The Inquisitor dismounted the steps. His wings twitched with a heady mixture of agitation, uneasiness and excitement. He made sure to place himself at the center of the square, making sure to distance himself from the firing squad. While the bullets would not kill him, getting shot was still an unpleasant experience. His good eye twitched at the memory of cold steel slicing into his flesh.

“Kill them!” he shouted then, unaware of how his voice cracked and wavered. “Kill them all! Do not stop until every last one of them is dead…”

Two dozen rifles went off at once. Fire bloomed from the black eyes of the torchcoats weapons. Charoum did not hear the blasts of the rifles. He could only hear the pounding of his own heart - the Seraphim indeed did have hearts. Wreaths of black smoke and red mist blanketed the square. Charoum froze, his mouth slightly agape. His wings twitched. Human silhouettes flitted through the smoke, there one second and gone the next.

When the smoke did at last clear he grinned at the macabre tableau before him. Monad’s people, who had sang praises to the False Creator, stomping their feet and sobbing for their savor, laid in a pile of tangle bloody limbs. The feeling of satisfaction spreading through him did not last long. It was not pain or terror he saw on their blood splattered faces. His eyes shot to the corpse hanging from the noose and saw the same look of peace and triumph on the wrinkled, bruised face. He trembled. His tongue roved at the top of his gums, pondering the metallic taste in his mouth. After a moment he recognized it for what it was: fear. Raw, primal fear.

He couldn’t say how long he stood there before someone cleared their throat. His head snapped around in the direction of the steward at his side. The steward was young (a maggot who would not turn into an adult fly for another few years), ith a few fine whiskers coloring his lip. His olive skin turned a pale shade of green at the look on the Inquisitor’s face. The Inquisitor smiled. A smile that was wolfish and toothy. The steward’s legs trembled visibly. “Yes?” Charoum asked courteously. His eyes were anything but courteous.

The steward gulped before hiding his quivering lips behind a mask made of steel; the mask was almost convincing. “Your Lordship, Master Drajen wishes to speak with you in his chambers.” He faltered as if he wanted to say more but didn’t dare.

“And has his condition improved?”

“Sadly not. As of today it’s been three weeks. This is the longest spell yet. Each one keeps getting longer and longer in duration and severity. The last one lasted seventeen days, the one before that fourteen.”

The Inquisitor bared his teeth in a predatory snarl. “I know how long they’ve lasted. I will go now.”

He turned away from the maggot, the heels of his boots slapping heavily against the bloody cobblestones. He pretended not to hear when the steward let out a sigh of relief.

`Less than a quarter of an hour later, the Inquisitor found himself standing in a dark sleeping chamber that smelled of another man’s sweat, his madness. Dark drapes had been pulled over the windows to block out the last dregs of the day’s fleeting light. Candles danced atop expansive table tops, splashing the casts of two distorted shadows against the wall. One shadow paced madly back and forth, scratching at the back of its head in agitation.

Charoum watched the Pope make his laps from one side of the room to the other with a dull expression. It was something he’d seen many times over the millenia. Hundreds of popes, their faces blending together until they could have been a single face. The Pope muttered to himself, snatching glances over his arthritic shoulders as if he feared someone else watched him though the only person Charoum could see was himself. That doesn’t mean something isn’t in here in the room with us. He found himself searching the murky corners even though he knew it was fruitless. The power to discern the drifters who visited the material universe from beyond had been stripped from him when the False Creator passed down his judgment. The Pope wore not but a pair of filthy briefs stained yellow from where he’d soiled himself some hours ago. The guards standing vigil outside his room reported he’d been violent when the servants came to clean him up in the adjoining chamber, throwing whatever he get his hands on at them: books, a heavy wood paper weight, and crystal glasses; at the present moment he showed no signs he was aware of the Inquisitor’s presence.

The Inquisitor waited patiently. He could be very patient when he wanted to be.

Suddenly Drajen stopped with a gasp. He raised a shuddering hand to his gaping mouth as if trying to muffle a scream. His eyes were wide and glassy in the candlelight. “The herald’s out there,” he hissed. “The False Creator’s puppet. I can feel him at my back, breathing down my neck. His flame grows stronger. He should not be here. Not yet. It is too soon…”

The Inquisitor’s head snapped up. The first keen glint of interest made his remaining eye glow like moonlight. The Pope shrank away as if it were something that could do him harm. Then awareness entered his eyes. Cunning. Recognition. “Charoum,” he gasped. He staggered forward, reaching for the Inquisitor with flailing liver-spotted hands.

The Inquisitor, a magician adept at changing masks for whatever purpose he needed to serve him, affected an expression of wide-eyed concern. He caught the old man before he could collapse to the ground. For a moment they crouched together on the floor. The magician with a thousand faces managed to keep the disgust at the nose curling wash of Drajen’s stench from showing on his countenance. “Voice of Elysia, it is a miracle you have returned. You have been gone for many days.”

Drajen’s throat worked as if it was difficult to speak. Dark eyes yellowed with jaundice bulged from their sockets. His breath smelled of wine and spoiled meat. “Never before as Elysia spoken to me like this before. Even now her voice rings in my head, full of panic. She has transported me to another time. I’ve seen what happens…Already the world - this world - spirals towards annihilation. We may not be able to see the obvious signs, but they will appear soon enough. Charoum, you are Elysia’s torch - the flame that cauterizes the infection that is the False Creator’s people. I am just Elysia’s mouth. You must save us. You must find the herald and you must not stop until you’ve parted his head from his shoulders. And then you must bring it back to me so that I may mount it on my wall…assuming the flames of Inferno doesn’t take me first. Do this for me, I beg of you! You must!”

Charoum hid his inner grin of triumph behind the mask of a devoted servant. He did not voice his suspicion that the voice of another did indeed whisper in his ear, but he did not think it was Elysia. Helping the Pope to his feet, he stooped into a low bow. “I will do as you say O Holy One. And only once I have the herald’s head in my possession will I return.”