Arc 2: Chapter 23: Debate For a Soul

Arc 2: Chapter 23: Debate For a Soul

For a long moment, the Crowfriar and I glared at one another. Emma, having no patience for the dramatics, broke the silence.

“So what now?” She glanced between us, brow furrowed in a mix of concern and frustration.

That was a very good question. I hadn’t ever done anything like this before. I’d made my pronouncement, invoked the rite, and I knew I’d done something. The aura I’d used with the invocation had carried those words far, and I suspected someone, or something, would hear it.

But would anyone answer? And how long would it take?

“Patience,” Vicar murmured. “They will call us to them soon.”

“Who?” Emma frowned, casting her eyes around at the snowy fields, finding only white silence there. “I don’t—”

A wind stirred. It kicked up eddies of snow, which picked up speed, until a whirl of white swirled around the tree. I threw up one hand to shield my eyes as the wind-caught snow buffeted me, sending spikes of bitter cold through my skin. I lost sight of everything — Emma, the Crowfriar, Jon Orley, the fields of Venturmoor, and the village.

It ended soon enough, and we stood… elsewhere. Snow still clung to everything, but it shone brighter, harsher, clinging like gleaming crystal to high juts of ice-encrusted stone. Ten pillars of frozen rock, bent inward like crooked fingers, formed a ring around a wide slab of smooth, moon-tinted marble. I stood at the center of that slab.

On the high pillars stood a collection of ominous figures. Some were gnarled and bent, others tall and fair as lords, some resembling nothing human at all. I knew them for what they were immediately — Onsolain.

Iron Wheels of Hell, there were five of them, filling half the high pillars. A full Hand. Just what had I done?

The constellations looked different, the position of the moons, both greater and lesser, altered. I didn’t know where we were exactly, but the landscape beyond the ring looked desolate, primeval. Somewhere in the deep south, I guessed, in the frozen isles beyond the coasts. The Sea of Ends. I could hear waves lapping against a shore, ice crackling in the tides, supporting my guess. The air had a razor edge to it.

Emma, Vicar, and the Malison Oak that bound Jon Orley had been caught up in the transmigration. They stood in the same positions they had back in Venturmoor, though the tree now dug its roots into solid marble. How that trick had worked, I couldn’t guess. I had other things to worry about then, anyway.

“What’s going on?” Emma asked, stepping close to me, her hand on her sword’s hilt. “Where are we?” She looked on the verge of panic as she stared at the inhuman figures arrayed above us. “Who… what are they?”

“Members of the Choir of Onsolem,” I told her quietly. “Keep steady. You’re going to be alright.”

Vicar snorted. “Oh, that’s rich. You toss her into the lion’s den, then tell her to be at peace?”

“Shut up,” I told him. He only shrugged and smiled beneath his hood.

“We bid you welcome, Headsman of Seydis.” This came from one of the fairer demigods on the pillars, possibly the fairest. I recognized her. She looked an exact twin to Nath, though her eyes shone with starlight rather than empty darkness, and her black tresses undulated smoothly, like liquid shadow, more gently than Nath’s serpentine mane. She wore a cloak woven of gleaming transparent silk, and beneath it a dress green as an aurora. Pale, breathtakingly beautiful, she spread her shining hands out to show her empty palms.

I lowered my head. “Lady Eanor.”

Nath’s gentler sister graced me with a kind smile, of the sort some men might hunt dragons to see only once. “This is strange for you, dear Alken. You do not normally value such attention.”

“I don’t,” I said honestly. “But circumstances compelled me, my lady.”

“Did they, now?” One of the other immortals interjected. She took the shape of an ancient crone, warty nose and all, with a frame hunched beneath an elaborate shawl heavy with braids and bells. Branches covered in living growth protruded from her clothes, making her look half a tree. Her eyes seemed fashioned of green glass, with narrow lines of gold for the pupils. “You have called for intervention in the matter of a single mortal soul, bringing two of the world’s Powers at odds with one another. Do you have any idea the stakes with which you gamble, boy?”

Keeping my tone respectful and my head lowered I said, “it might be just one soul, Mother Urddha, but the precedent it would set to let the Infernal Realm have her isn’t one I’m prepared to let pass unchallenged.”

The Saint of Witches lifted a single craggy brow. “Well, you are a knower of names, aren’t you?” The bells lining her layered garments sang as she shifted, three-toed feet like a bird’s clutching at the rock for support. She pointed a clawed finger at me. “Presumptuous of you, executioner, to think you have the right to challenge. Your job is to carry out sentences, not give the judge more work.”

I risked lifting my eyes to the immortal. “I had already been set on the case of Emma Carreon by the Choir’s order. I acted to see the task through as I saw best.”

I felt Emma’s eyes on me, knew they must be wide with shock at these words. She said nothing, but I felt her gaze practically burning into the back of my skull.

The Great Witch sniffed, then spat something foul into the ice, where it sizzled like acid. “Mortals. So impetuous. Especially men.”

“Peace,” Eanor said in a soothing voice. “Alken Hewer acts for our benefit in this, and by the council of his own heart. I will not fault him for that.”

“You wouldn’t,” Mother Urrdha grumbled, scowling down at me from her perch. “You adore warriors, you gentle-hearted strumpet. You’ve broken near as many of them as that lively twin of yours. Where is Nath, anyway? This is her show, I’m led to believe.”

“She has not yet been welcome back to the fold,” an impossibly deep, hollow voice rumbled. “It is not clear whether her efforts at reconciliation are genuine, or if this is more of her mischief.”

My eyes were drawn to the largest of the assembled demigods. Upon the largest of the pillars — chosen no doubt to support his mass — hunched a powerfully built figure with a form far closer to beast than man. Though he stood on two legs, they were back-bent and ended in iron-shod hooves, and white fur showed where armor did not conceal. I could not quite see the face beneath the elaborate helm, but got the impression of an enormous mouth full of sharp teeth.

I felt a shudder of dread, and wonder, as I recognized him. I’d never seen Kaharn, Lord of the Hinterlands, in the flesh, but I knew his aspect.

There were two others. A winged seraph, the classic angel, crouched with a rune-headed spear in one of four hands. Their body seemed fashioned from crystalline silver, naked save for levitating strips of cloth, the form beneath androgynous. The last looked like a kynedeer and direwolf conjoined, each creature represented by a different head. It curled placidly on its seat, both sets of eyes watchful, two serpentine tales wrapped about the pillar in a helix.

“My sister will make her appearance when and how she will,” Eanor said. “Or she will not. That is her nature. For now, we should address the matter at hand.” She beckoned me, and I stepped forward. After a moment’s pause she said, “why have you invoked this Rite of Doom, Headsman?”

Steadying myself, I addressed the whole collection of Onsolain. “I wish to determine the fate of the lady Emma of House Carreon.”

That name had a reaction. The seraph tilted its silver head to one side, and the two-headed beast leaned forward with both snouts, its four ears perking up.

Kaharn growled, the sound making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “House Carreon… that is a cursed name. When did Nath become involved with that clan of malcontents?”

Eanor sighed. “I should have known. She kept hinting at… well, it is of no matter. Continue, Headsman.”

I didn’t feel too confident about the reaction I’d gotten so far, but I had no choice but to see this through. I felt Emma’s presence at my back, worried, confused. I wouldn’t let her down.

Vicar chuckled quietly, amused by the whole display.

“I am aware that House Carreon has committed many crimes in the past,” I said. “Against their fellow mortals, against the land and its powers, but Lady Emma is not party to those deeds, not of her own will. She was born tied to a dark history, but she is innocent of any wrongdoing her ancestors might have perpetrated. Representatives from a foreign realm, acting on behalf of the Iron Tribunal of Orkael, hound her for that past. I wish to dispute their involvement, and see them barred from further interference. Further, I wish to absolve Emma Carreon of her family’s crimes.”

“Ah.” Looking bored, Mother Urddha propped her chin on one boney fist. “You seem to misunderstand the purpose of this ritual, boy. This is a Circle of Doom, and we shall grant this child of shrikes judgment before this night is done. This is not a place for absolution, this ground upon which you stand.”

Those words made me colder even than the freezing air. “She has done nothing to earn all these curses.”

“That is moot,” Urddha stated flatly. “They are her inheritance. House Carreon are the worst of all Recusants. They were destroyed, their works undone, their blood subdued. We aided the stalwart warriors who took vengeance on the shrikes, for that war was holy.”

“She is a child!” I snarled. “That war is done.”

“And yet it may begin again, in a heartbeat.”

Though their lips did not move, I knew this voice came from the seraph. With skin that glowed silver and eyes perpetually closed as though in saintly sleep, they held their ornate spear close. The sad voice seemed to have been born with the wind, from far away.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, exasperated.

“It is a lesson all mortal nobles learn well,” Urddha said. “Any child may one day become a tyrant. Any dynasty may fall to an indulgent decision. Do you think it an accident that Bloody Nath, Fallen Angel of the Briar, courted this child and kept her existence secret from us? She is a mighty tool, one the Recusant nations could rally behind.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“She is a person. She can make her own decisions.”

“And you would take responsibility for those?” Kaharn rumbled. “That is not your purpose, executioner. You gave yourself to us in penance. We shall decide.”

“That,” Vicar interrupted, stepping forward without so much as a hint of fear, “is not true, my lord.”

All eyes went to the crowfriar, including my own. For his part, Vicar didn’t look so much as a little nervous beneath the gaze of all those immortal eyes. Under his monkish robes and shadowed cowl, he stood calm and dispassionate, a charcoal statue.

“You have not been given leave to speak, Ironbound.” Kaharn’s anger showed in the flash of teeth beneath the beaked visor of his silver helm, in the wolfish growl that rippled through his words.

“I am not your servant,” Vicar said in a reasonable tone. “I am a representative from an equal power, and my actions are sanctioned by the Tribunal.”

“Are they now?” I drawled. Turning back to the godhand, I took a step forward to be in center stage again. “It was my understanding that the Riven Order bars him from the subcontinent.”

“The Riven Order is broken.”

Those words hit me like a hammer blow. Turning to face Vicar I said, “the fuck are you saying? That edict came from the Heir of Heaven, and She hasn’t been around to null any laws in more than half a millennium.”

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been cussing in front of angels and demigods, but as I’ve said before — my social skills had degraded in ten years of war and murder.

“I take it you aren’t actually familiar with this law?” Vicar waited, then nodded at my silence. “I have read it thoroughly. So long as the faithful peoples of Urn keep the Heir of Onsolem in their hearts, and deny the devils of Orkael from their shores, no infernal spirit or agent thereof may walk in Her realm. However, if we are invited in by the rulers of those same mortal nations who are vassal to the God-Queen, then we shall walk among the flock freely once more.”

He paused, then added in a sardonic tone, “in truth, I am shocked it took so many centuries for this to happen. Men have such short memories, and are so easily swayed. You should see Edaea — we practically own it.” He folded his hands into his sleeves.

I wheeled on Eanor. “What is he talking about?”

The Shining Lady sighed. “What he says is… true, I am afraid. We are barred from making direct decisions as to the governance of mortal realms. When the Riven Order was made, all the great lords of Urn agreed to abide by it. The crowfriars were barred from this land, allowed only to walk freely in the wider continent. However, should the nations of Urn open their doors to the monks of Hell, then they may return, and lay claim to any soul willingly given. That is their right, and always has been.”

The crowfriars had been allowed back in by the Accord? The Accord of Urn, the alliance of kingdoms, city-states, and other interests forged to maintain order in the subcontinent after the Fall, wasn’t a perfect system by any means. Even still, I couldn’t imagine any of the lords partying to fiendish influence, not after the evil that’d been unleashed in the East only a decade back. Some of that evil still walked free.

Then again, perhaps I held them to too high a standard. Wars, famine, mistrust, poverty, Church dogma turning to iron-handed violence in response to widespread chaos… just judging by Vicar, who’d taken the guise of honorable Ser Kross, I suspected the crowfriars were very good at taking advantage of people, of making their influence seem a positive thing.

Human memories are short, as Vicar had said. In five centuries, it wasn’t hard to believe that we’d forgotten just how clever, and insidious, the denizens of the Infernal Realm could be.

“The point,” Mother Urddha said impatiently, “is that the devil monks have the right to ply their ugly work in our neck of the woods, whether any of us like it or not.” She turned her attention on the crowfriar, and her voice became low and dangerous. “Even still, you are very presumptuous to speak so freely here, little shadow.”

“Shadow, am I?” A twisted smile spread across Vicar’s face. “Quite full of yourself, aren’t you?” His eyes ran across the figures arrayed on the pillars above. “Most of you were but pagan godlings before you bent the knee to your Golden Queen. Now they call you Onsolain.” He snorted in contempt. “How many of you have even seen The First Realm, felt the Light of Heaven first hand? I have seen the original Choir…” He sneered. “You do not compare.”

A heavy, dangerous silence followed those words. In the midst of it, a dark thought came to me. Had the Onsolain tasked me with executing Emery Planter, the Earl of Strekke, because he’d practiced blasphemous necromancy, or because they wanted to stop a rival supernatural nation from gaining a foothold with the land’s nobility?

Was all of this just some political spat between immortals? Had anything changed from when I’d done the same work for mortal lords, save for scale and consequence?

“This is all beside the point,” I said, turning my attention back to the matter at hand and away from paranoid thoughts. “My quarrel with Vicar stands. Emma Carreon doesn’t belong to Hell.”

“That is debatable,” Vicar shot back. “After all, her entire bloodline was promised to us, from the one who made that pact until the dynasty’s end.”

I closed my eyes, disgusted but not surprised. “Astraea. She consigned Jon Orley’s soul to Hell… she couldn’t have done that without your realm’s cooperation, could she?”

“Even so,” Vicar confirmed. “She promised House Carreon’s loyalty and service to Orkael for all time. We could not lay claim to those dead already residing in your land’s subterranean crypts, but we do have the right of divine law to dispute ownership of the rest.”

He pointed a scabbed, heavily burn-scarred finger at Emma, who’d been silent and still up to that point, likely overwhelmed by all the immortal politics. “Her own great-grandmother promised her to us.”

“You can’t take what some insane sorceress said a century ago and use it to do whatever you want,” I snapped at him. “You need Emma’s consent to claim her soul. That’s how you devils work, isn’t it? You damn us with our own choices? You can’t make them for us.”

“That would be true for an untethered commoner,” Vicar agreed. “But the rites and traditions Urnic nobles hold so dear to them are also their bane in this. The House is promised to us, not the individual, and your own laws damn her.” A wry smile touched his lips at his choice of words.

I grit my teeth in frustration. I’d thought I would be dealing with Jon Orley. He and I were both soldiers — I could understand him, debate with him. Vicar was a lawyer. He could cite laws a thousand years old, and exploit loopholes or quote precedents which would make my head spin just to try to understand the first thing about.

I’d met his type back when I’d served in Rosanna’s court, in the form of magistrates and scheming courtiers. I’d hated them, mainly because they’d made me feel slow-witted, not to mention powerless.

I felt the first hint of real fear then, that this might not go the way I’d hoped.

Desperate, I wheeled on the gathered Onsolain. “You can’t let this pass,” I implored them. “You let it, and within a century the devils will own Urn as much as they do Edaea.” I focused my attention on Eanor, who’d been quiet through most of the debate, her fair features troubled. “More than that, it’s not right.”

Eanor opened her berry lips to speak, but paused, at a loss. She glanced at Mother Urddha. The Great Hag scowled, looking no less pleased than me with the situation. “Right and fair hold no weight in this, Alken Hewer. The devil speaks truth. The Houses of Urn — especially the High Houses — maintain their power, their right to rule, by binding themselves to the land and its people through ancient pact. When one who rules such an edifice makes a vow to the Realms Immortal, it is binding. If we refuse Orkael this soul, it will have dire consequences.”

“It could mean war,” Vicar said in an almost sing-song voice. “We would win.”

Eanor fixed her shining face on the crowfriar, her uncertainty vanishing. I felt a shudder pass through the world, an invisible ripple of will. In a way, Gentle Eanor’s anger held more terror in it than Kaharn’s bestial wrath, or Urddha’s spite.

“Do not overstep yourself, dog.” The Star-Made Lady, who’d once been the Heir’s confidant, her first handmaiden, fixed the crowfriar with eyes like twin silver blades. “You are only a mouthpiece for that creature riding you.”

To my surprise, Vicar didn’t have any witty or sardonic comeback. He glared at Eanor, but his lips sealed shut.

“I have seen Onsolem,” Eanor said in a quiet, terrible voice. “My sister and I were both there when the Cambion’s armies attacked. We came to this land alongside our lady, with all the Abyss on our heels. Do not presume to lecture me, you burnt wretch. I do not remember seeing any Orkaelin legion come to our aid.”

I felt the onset of a headache forming. I’d known Orkael and Heavensreach were estranged, but I hadn’t expected this situation to turn into a pissing match between immortals. Part of me felt ill, seeing these mighty beings quote mythical events and toss around old dirt like any squabbling group of courtiers. Further, I didn’t feel any closer to getting Emma out of her bind.

What did I do? What could I do? What loophole could I exploit, what precedent could I quote? I wracked my brain, but with a dull sense of hopelessness realized I just didn’t know enough, hadn’t researched enough. I was no wizard like Lias, no loremaster, no diplomat.

I’d said I would fight if I had to, but that had been a fool’s boast. Any one of the beings here could dismantle me with a word.

Shaking off his momentary unease, Vicar once more adopted his aloof sense of superiority. Adjusting his frayed sleeves before folding his hands into them again, he returned his attention to the whole of the godhand. “All else aside, I believe it’s clear that my presence here in Urn is perfectly lawful, as is my realm’s claim over the child. Are we all in agreement on this?”

“No,” I said without hesitation.

But the Onsolain remained silent.

“Lady Eanor…” I looked up at the only being there I could consider an ally. “She is one of yours.”

Eanor met my eyes a moment, then let her gaze fall. The dullness I felt in my chest grew into a leaden weight.

“Eanor is the Saint of Love,” Urddha said, not unkindly. “And Emma Carreon owes her life to a betrayal of love most foul. I am sorry, Hewer, but the bloodline is forsaken.”

Losing hold of my temper fully I spat, “you would support this, wouldn’t you, Urddha Curseweaver?”

But my anger broke on that craggy visage without so much as a mark. “I did not weave this one, child.”

“Then I trust our business is done?” Vicar asked in a chipper tone. “When Emma Carreon passes, her soul will belong to Orkael. In the meantime, Jon Orley shall continue to wage his own lawful war against his betrayers.”

In that moment, perhaps from my own intuition or some Alder-borne insight, I realized just how insidious this plot truly was.

“Orley’s war…” I wheeled on Vicar. “You don’t want just one disenfranchised soul, do you? At Strekke, your people were trying to help the Planters form a new dominion. Powerful figures, desperate and isolated, who are in your debt.”

Vicar shrugged and adjusted his sleeves. “Your point?”

I clenched my jaw, my brain still catching up with the thing I knew in my gut. That was why the crowfriars wouldn’t just let Orley kill Emma and have done with it. By making her life a battlefield, forcing her to desperation, she would have to seek allies, tools. Her reliance on House Hunting, her future as a leader of that clan, her existent willingness to dabble with dark powers and deal with dark beings…

They didn’t want to destroy House Carreon. They wanted to force its resurrection.

Was Nath cooperating with the devils as well? If so, why would she send me to help resolve the situation? Was she competing with Orkael for Emma’s allegiance?

I couldn’t even guess at the Briar Angel’s motives. I did know one thing, however; the Infernal Powers were attempting to plant roots in Urn, and they were willing to torment isolated souls, start small wars, even infiltrate the clergy to do it.

And the Onsolain were too bound by old pacts or too afraid to do anything about it.

“You’re sick,” I told him flatly. “You, your whole organization. This entire thing is evil.”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Vicar scorched me with a withering gaze. “You think this evil? You, who have faced the degradations of the Abgrûdai?” He stepped back and swept an arm toward the tree. “We make no choices for anyone — we only create circumstances, but every action, every thought? That belongs to you. Jon Orley is a mortal soul, damned and marred yes, but still with free choice. He can choose not to wage this war. He can choose not to torment the progeny of his betrayer. Why don’t you ask him, and see what he says to that? I assure you, this vengeance is very personal to him.”

He pointed to the Malison Oak. Through the whole of this, Orley had not said a word.

I turned to the bound Scorchknight. “Jon, she’s your blood.”

The iron head lifted, and for the first time a voice emerged from within, without any magic to carry it into my mind. I could barely hear it, and it had nothing human in it, each word a tortured effort. “I… will… not… forgive. I will… give them endless war. Endless… hate. All Carreons… are… accursed.”

“Then it is clear to me what must be done.”

I turned, slowly, to face Emma. She, too, had been silent through this entire farce. Now she stepped forward, pale and cold in the winter air, yet with her hawkish features set in grim determination. She was afraid, I could tell that much, but she lifted her chin and faced all those gathered immortals without flinching.

“I must no longer be Carreon,” she said.

I blinked, nonplussed. No one else in the circle said anything, either. For a long moment, we just heard the sound of wind over wasteland seas, and the grinding of distant ice.

Emma met my confused gaze, shrugged with one shoulder, and gave me a wistful smile. “Thank you for all of that,” she said. “I’ve never had anyone care so much… but this is something I need to do for myself. Choose for myself.”

She faced the devils and the angels and said, “I renounce my name. I renounce House Carreon. Let it be dissolved.”