ARC 8: CHAPTER 14: PUPPET

For a long moment, the monk sat there with his eyes rolled up into his head, his jaw hanging slack, his muscles motionless. He didn’t even breathe. Flies crawled on him.

Then, without shifting from that position or even looking directly at me, he spoke. His voice remained the same, but the cadence changed, the manner and style of speech becoming a noble’s calculated inflections. It wasn’t the dead man speaking to me anymore.

“Bloody Al, in the flesh,” Evangeline Ark said. “I never got the chance for a proper audience with you in the Emperor’s city.”

The beginnings of a shiver crawled up my spine. Hearing someone’s vocal cords singing another’s tune was among the most unnatural things I’d ever heard, and that said a lot.

Adopting a pleasant voice I said, “It’s an honor to be recognized by the Lady of the Dawntowers.”

A sepulchral gust of air escaped the dead man’s lips as the creature riding him hissed out a laugh. “Don’t play humble to me, Headsman, as if your name does not eclipse mine! I was put out that I did not get the chance to spar with your charming alter ego during the tournament.”

“I think you would have found Ser Sayne a dull opponent,” I told the noblewoman. She’d seen me in the Hyacinth Knight’s armor when she’d killed Randal Brightling, so I saw no reason to deny the briefly lived identity.

“Oh, I doubt that! I saw your duel with Siriks Sontae.” The dead monk’s head tilted to one side. “But let us not indulge in nostalgia. You are trespassing in my lands, Ser Hewer. Explain yourself.”

“Ark lands are a ways from here,” I reminded her.

“I am Queen of the Bannerlands now,” Evangeline said. “My coronation occurred over winter.”

I didn’t bother hiding my skepticism. “Really? I wonder why news of such an event hasn’t spread? Did you not consider inviting dignitaries from the Accord to bear witness?”

The corpse-puppet let out a bark of laughter. “Ones who would arrive with a contingent of Storm Knights to drag me back to Markham Forger in chains, perhaps? No, I find grand ceremonies rather droll. Twas’ a small affair, attended only by my fellow bannerfolk. All the Houses of my country recognize my ascent to the Herald’s Throne, Ser Hewer.”

I schooled my expression. If true, then that was a problem. The Accord had no authority, officially speaking, over who any individual realm chose as their ruler. Once, no king could claim true right to rule without the sanction of both the Clericon College and the Archon, but the former was disunited thanks to the Priory and the latter dead.

So the question was whether the noble clans in the Banner actually did recognize Evangeline as their queen. I doubted it, or at least I doubted they’d done so willingly and without more than a few murders. She was dead, and belonged to the dead. By all laws mortal and immortal, she had no right to anything save a deep tomb. She’d murdered one of her own countrymen in cold blood, a grave crime atop the rest.

That was what I wanted to think. Only, we lived in a new and uncertain time. In order to avoid war with Talsyn, the Emperor chose to officially recognize its ghoul prince as the new king of that country. It set a precedent, one Evangeline could use if she decided to sue for peace. The Accord did not interfere with the matters of individual realms unless they called for intervention. If the bannerlanders were too scared of their undead monarch to do so, then officially I had no business here.

What did Evangeline already know? What did she want? How close was the real Evangeline? Did she control this shell from far away, from her keep at the Dawntowers perhaps? Or did she lurk somewhere nearby, waiting?

And most importantly, why was she here? I needed more information.

“What did these poor monks do to deserve the wrath of House Ark?” I asked.

Evangeline turned her regard to the bowls of rotting meat. “Is the fact they serve a false god not reason enough to despise them? They write their histories, study their secrets, and recite their prayers day by day, and does She hear them? Does She care? Their faith certainly didn’t save them from me…”

“She fights for us in Heaven,” Lisette said quietly. “It is the labor of humanity to maintain this garden in Her name. It is the clergy’s burden to ensure we do not forget Her.”

“Did you have to bring a nun to this meeting?” Evangeline asked in a scornful voice.

“So you killed them because they offended you?” I asked before the dialogue could get off track. “I did not realize you’d fully gone Recusant, Lady Ark.” ꞦÅ𝐍Ɵ𝖇Ëṥ

The corpse waved a dismissive hand, agitating the flies crawling on it. “I did not rule my House during the war, or things might have been different… Or perhaps not. Markham Forger has been useful, but his empire will die with him. There is no one else the Houses will follow, and if someone else tries what he did when he’s gone then there will be another war. If the Gorelion doesn’t kill us all first!”

The corpse let out another manic laugh. A trickle of blood poured out of the edge of its mouth.

“That is more likely to happen if we do his job for him and kill eachother

.” An edge of earnestness entered my voice. “Evangeline, you were a champion of the Accord! What happened to you that last day of the tournament, it was a tragedy, but it didn’t have to play out this way. Being undead doesn’t place you on the side of evil all on its own, it doesn’t make you a—”

“A monster?” Evangeline asked sharply, then laughed again. “It’s an age of monsters, Headsman! You and me, we are two of a kind, and we thrive in this wilderness! When the Lion shreds apart the remnants of the old order, then there shall be a savage time... And as for your cleric’s notion that we are meant to tend the garden, then I have only this to say; I would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.”

“You won’t rule,” Lisette said. “You’ll just be another slave, Evangeline, another creature in the Adversary’s hordes.”

“She’s right,” I said. “I’ve seen what the strength you’re hoping for looks like, Evangeline, and I’ve never met a demon that didn’t hate itself just as much as it hates everything else.”

The dead monk sneered, its first real display of emotion. Perhaps its mistress’s vitriol was strong enough in that moment to peek through. “Real strength lies in the sword, in tooth and claw, in the fear that festers in the rabbit’s heart on a cold winter night and the hunger that gnaws in the wolf’s belly. I’ve known this ever since I was a girl and put a dagger through my brother’s eye. Now his bones are food for ghouls, and our father’s seat belongs to me. Self hatred, self denial, regret… what use have I for these? They are the excuses of the coward.”

Evangeline leaned forward and lowered her stolen voice into a conspiratorial murmur. “That is how you beat the Vykes, after all. You took advantage of their attachment to one another, that sickly-sweet love. Well done there, Hewer.”

She’s insane, I realized. I’d suspected it ever since that moment she’d murdered her rival inside the Fulgurkeep, but part of me hoped that had been the euphoria of her transformation, that perhaps I might be able to appeal to the knight who’d fought for glory in Markham’s tournament. I’d been able to reach Eilidh, after all.

But this wasn’t Eilidh. Being a vampire, or any other kind of curse-burdened being, didn’t make you a monster all on its own. I’d learned that from Catrin, from Eilidh and her friends in the Backroad Inn. Even from Emma, who was still influenced by the whispers of her ancestors through her blood.

It was a sickness, an imprint of the world’s evils, but not an imperative.

But this thing across the table from me was evil. Fangs didn’t make it so. A monster had probably lurked inside Evangeline Ark for a long time. A familiar monster. It lived in Rosanna too, and in Emma, created by the brutality seeded into Urnic aristocracy.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

But my queen and my squire struggled against that heritage, worked to rise above it. Evangeline embraced it.

She regarded me over the table’s surface with what seemed a thoughtful expression. It was difficult to tell, with the way the dead man’s face didn’t quite emote so much as it twitched and grimaced. I sensed Evangeline didn’t have perfect control over it.

“But our conversation has strayed,” the vampire said lightly. “Where were we? Oh, yes. You are trespassing on my lands and interrogating my subjects."

I decided to take a risk. A small lie, one that might help me earn a truth or two. “I’m hunting the Briar King.”

The puppet’s ghoulish eyes widened slightly. “Oh?”

“Not on Forger’s orders. You know the rumors about me, that I kill on behalf of a higher power.” I lowered my voice and stared directly into the corpse’s white eyes. “You were there that day in the Emperor’s court. You saw them.”

“The angels…” Evangeline made her stolen body nod. “I thought it was a trick, some play by Forger. Such things can be accomplished with phantasm. But they weren’t a mage’s conjuration, were they?”

“No,” I said. “They were not.”

“And they want the Briar King dead,” Evangeline guessed. “Interesting.”

“He was here, in this monastery.” In a flash of insight I added, “You’re hunting him too, aren’t you? That’s why you were here, why these monks are dead. You heard the rumors he’s roaming around your territory and you want to know what he’s doing.”

Why did she kill the monks? I thought. Why was she looking through this one, waiting for someone to come asking about the Briar King? She didn’t think he’d come back here, did she?

Something wasn’t adding up. Looking at the situation as it presented itself, Evangeline had beaten me here, killed the monks, then hid behind her thrall and waited for… What? For me? For someone to show up, at least.

There could only be two reasons — either she wanted to catch anyone searching for the Briar King, who she must know about, or this was a trap for Rysanthe. Or maybe a trap for anyone trying to follow Rysanthe’s footsteps. Which begged the question of whether she knew about Rysanthe, perhaps even had something to do with her disappearance.

I could imagine several scenarios. Evangeline heard before Maerlys that the Briar King was at large in the Bannerlands, investigated, then killed the monks and kept a watch on the monastery through her puppet. Rysanthe’s visit might have also happened before Evangeline’s, in which case the vampire queen could have just noticed the frequency of odd visitors to this rural cloister, drawing her attention.

If the former, then she would have ambushed Rysanthe and might be responsible for her disappearance. If the latter, then did she know about the previous Doombearer at all? Were either the Briar King or the Grim Reaper still even in this country?

Rysanthe might have also eluded the ambush. I couldn’t know for sure, but the fact Evangeline watched this place personally made me suspicious. She clearly expected someone to arrive. I recalled what the monk said earlier; Did he send you? Do you know how long you’ve kept her waiting?

Something was going on here. It stank of conspiracy. The kernel of an idea began to form in my mind.

Not a trap. A meeting. The Vampire Queen planned to meet someone here, and it wasn’t me.

She must have seen the dawning realization on my face despite my attempt to hide it. The monk’s sallow features, crawling with flies, twitched into a grin.

“Too late,” Evangeline said. “They are already here.”

They.

She’d been stalling us. Of course, I'd known that. I wanted answers, so I'd played along, but I also hadn’t just been sitting there waiting for her to make the first move either.

I'd been giving Lisette time to work her magic.

“Now,” I said without taking my eyes off the monk.

The dead man launched himself over the table. It happened with shocking speed, the change from corpse-stillness to motion so sudden it made me flinch, even though I’d been expecting it.

But Lisette didn't flinch. Her fingers flexed, wires of gleaming gold strung between them in a complex pattern. That same pattern burst into the air in front of us, magnified to thirty times the size.

I expected it to tie the creature up -- that's what she usually did -- but instead he struck the pattern and it burst in a blinding gilt flash. The wight flew back from the barrier, screeching in pain.

She had new tricks.

I shot to my feet, placed my left hand under the table's edge, and flipped the whole thing right on top of the undead monk. The whole table, a slab of solid oak ten feet long, must have weighed enough to require several men to move it. But my strength wasn't wholly mortal, and it rolled over the creature and pinned him with a thunderous crash, displacing more stools and nearly knocking another of the refectory’s tables over. Lisette's Art snapped, its purpose done, limp cords of golden light drifting through the air as the phantasm started to fade.

I drew my axe in a plume of cold and miasma. The reforged weapon shone black, the metal so dark it seemed to glow within the room’s dim light. Striding forward, I slammed my sabaton down onto the overturned table to keep the possessed monk trapped just as he tried to wriggle out from under it.

“They’ll die,” Evangeline sang through him. “Fife will be your grave, Alken Hewer! Your angels and your false kings are not welcome here anymore!”

I brought Faen Orgis down and ended the dead man’s misery. The wight’s skull split with a wet coughing noise, like it'd been only half solid. Coagulated blood started oozing out as the twitching body fell limp.

I waited a moment, concentrating, but sensed no foul presence inside the monk. Evangeline had left. I stared at dead meat. Ripping the blade out, I turned to Lisette.

"We need to warn the others," I said.

“They already know,” she said. Her hands wove more lines of spun gold as she spoke, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Penric is telling me they’re making their way to us."

Her eyes widened. "They're fighting."

"Penric told you?" I asked in confusion.

She hesitated, but when she saw my expression harden she replied with obvious reluctance. "I can sense things through him, or more accurately through my sutures. I can also communicate with him a bit, but it’s not perfect, not really like speaking.”

I stared at her until she broke the gaze. “They need our help," she said. "Whatever’s happening out there, it’s pushing him hard.”

She could communicate with Penric through her threads? How? Her ability was versatile, but mostly a healing magic she'd expanded through improvisation and training. Communicating through them seemed like an enormous jump in the scope of her technique.

No time for it now. We'd talk about it later. “Let’s go then.”

I started to turn, but froze as the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

“What is it—”

I cut Lisette off with a sharp gesture. “We’re not alone.”

The sconces burning on the walls, stinking of oil, flickered and dimmed as the wind from something moving impossibly fast disturbed them. Again I heard that sound from earlier, of something large with many legs crawling under the tables.

Lisette heard it too. Her voice was hushed as she drew close to me. “What is it? A demon?”

I let my left hand slide down my axe’s handle to rest near the end. Something crawled overhead, in the rafters.

“Not a demon.” The feeling from my magic felt similar, but there wasn’t a response from my scars. Shyora’s mark didn’t sense a rival.

One of the tables rattled as something struck it. A stool banged against the refectory’s far wall as it was thrown. Trying to shake us, I thought.

“I think it’s what killed the monks,” I said. “Stay out of my range.”

Lisette started as she realized how close she’d drifted to me. She stepped back, giving me more room to swing.

In that same moment, the hidden thing attacked. It wasn’t like the wight’s sudden lunge, not some explosive motion directly at my face. It came on quietly, swiftly, like a hunting centipede undulating towards its prey. It made an exaggerated S through the tables, crawling beneath them, difficult to track.

I’d faced a lot of horrible, loud, sharp things over the years. After a while, some gibbering thing hurling itself at you and screaming its head off stopped being so effective. It became a reflex to respond, to kill, the motions second nature.

But the thing in the refectory, it came quiet, preceded only by the scraping, shuffling sound its many limbs made over stone tiles and wooden furniture. It rattled too, a muffled noise that set my teeth on edge.

It came over the table I’d upturned. It was a centipede — one with human limbs and a human face. No, not human. The telltale stiffness of its alabaster features gave it away, that uncanny quality of the false. Ceramic skin, joints at shoulders, elbow, and wrist. It had seven torsos joined together, each one sporting its own pair of articulated limbs and intricately detailed hands. A doll’s head stared at me from the front, blank-faced, painted eyes unblinking and closing fast.

It had beautiful hair. Such a strange thing to notice, but it was black and gleaming, trailing over its many-bodied form like a cloak, making its motions even more confusing.

I swung. It dodged me, changing the trajectory of its advance at the last possible instant. My axe split the table in half with a thunderous feedback of splintering wood. But the doll face wasn’t beneath me anymore, but to my right. I turned—

A second head, attached to another torso on the centipede’s opposite end, flipped up to my left. It had half of the table in four of its hands, and with inhuman strength it slammed the block into me. The shock of impact tore sense away for a moment, sent me stumbling to one side.

The centipede skittered in a spiral around me as I grasped for balance, trapping me inside a cage of clacking hands and blurring motion. It had no legs, just used seven pairs of arms used to crawl. There were faces painted on each segment of its body, abstracted, like the patterns on a moth’s wings. Some smiled, some wept, forming a blurry carousel of exaggerated emotion.

It’s a marion, I realized. An animated doll, given a simulacrum of life by a mixture of alchemy and necromancy, a profane thing. A weapon.

Strong.

That wasn’t the worst of it. Similar noises were starting to echo through the monastery.

There was more than one.

[https://i.imgur.com/0YoaopX.jpeg]