The Price of Faith (40 page)

“I wish I knew. It was entrusted to me by an Inquisitor who's instructions were somewhere between vague and non-existent.”

“Hmmm,” Anders grunted.

“Hmmm,” Thanquil agreed. “And I was really hoping for some sort of helpful insight from you.”

“Well you know what they say, Arbiter. A problem shared is somebody else's problem.”

Thanquil let the awkward silence stretch out into eternity. Staring at Anders until the drunk decided the short bit of darkness between them was not nearly enough.

“Well I'll let you get back to touching your evil sword,” Anders said stepping backwards. “Just a few days to Absolution though, Arbiter. Hope you're ready for... whatever it is you're planning.”

Thanquil watched Anders walk away until the man disappeared into the darkness. The truth was he had no idea what to do when he reached Absolution. He just knew he had to deal with Kessick so he could finally continue his search for Jezzet.

Jezzet's eyes flicked open and she reached for a sword that wasn't there. It was an ingrained reflex she knew she would never rid herself of and one she did not want to rid herself of. It had, in fact, saved her life on more than one occasion.
Also very useful to give voracious Arbiters a scare.

She saw bars and her heart gave the beat equivalent of a sigh.
Why does everyone feel the need to lock me up? I haven't committed any crimes in at least... a few weeks.
Gaol cells had become a regular occurrence in her life, she seemed to find herself inspecting a new one every six months or so though in truth one tended to look much like another and none were the most luxurious of accommodations.

Her left wrist ached like she'd been stabbed and if anyone knew what being stabbed felt like it was Jez. Thanquil had once tried counting her scars but the Arbiter had never been known for his patience and had soon given up, finding other ways to occupy himself and her instead. She rubbed at her wrist idly and froze.

There was a scar on the inside of her left wrist. It was an old scar.
It's your oldest scar, Jez. Your very first wound.
But today it felt different, the skin was raised, puckered and angry to the touch. It almost felt as though the scar was new, a couple of weeks by the feel of it. Jez rubbed at it some more and gave it a closer inspection. The flesh of the scar was knitted but it was new. Either she had been unconscious for a few weeks or there was something unnatural at play.

The charm!

Jez poked at her wrist, wincing at the pain and feeling through the flesh. It was her first scar because Yuri had wanted to make certain he could use her body without the consequences. He had had a charm sewn into her flesh to ward against pregnancy.

The flood of relief that coursed through Jez when her probing fingers touched against the tiny wooden charm came out as a wild giggle that echoed in her small cell and she collapsed back onto the straw that coated the floor.

She noticed a small rat sat by a tiny hole in the wall. The little creature was sat on its hind legs watching her with plenty of nervous nose twitching. She smiled at it. The rat ran away.

Can't say it feels good to know the bastard has been poking around inside my body but at least he didn't take the charm.
Now Jez thought about it the idea that she had been cut open made her feel more than a little violated. She didn't even remember falling asleep. One moment she had been happily gulping down a cup of water and then...
Drugged, Jez. Bastards drugged you. At least they finally got around to taking off the chains though. No matter how bad things get there's always something to be thankful for.
That had been one of Catherine's favourite sayings and it was safe to say the bitch had known full well just how bad things could get.

Stretching, and giving her wrist a further good rubbing, Jez rolled onto her feet and took a damned close look at her bars.
Sturdy set of rusted irons.
She gave them a good shaking all the same, hoping but not believing that one might shake free and provide her with the freedom she needed to go in search of her captor and give his throat the slitting of a lifetime.

The bars didn't budge an inch so Jez gave the rest of her cell a similarly close inspection. From what she had already gleamed the gaol was one of the few stone buildings in the entire town. Built like most wilds shit-holes, Absolution was cobbled together from whatever the original residence could scavenge, steal or barter. There were a good few buildings with more than one story but Jez wouldn't bet her life on the stairs being what most sane people would consider safe. Most of the buildings sported only the one floor and most of those sported only one or two rooms. Absolution was built for folk who lived hard and were not opposed to leaving when that living got too hard. Jez wondered how many of those original inhabitants were still living here now but with demons inside of them.

Jez heard the door to the gaol swing open.
If they've come to cut me open again kill the first one through the bars, Jez.
She waited, every muscle relaxed but ready to spring into action at the slightest command.

Nolan walked into view, a broad sword on his hip and a vacant expression on his face. His leather armour was torn and bloody but he didn't appear to be wounded.

“Nolan,” Jez said rushing forward and gripping the bars. “What happened to Rose?”

The big soldier stared at her blankly. Kessick walked into view. He stopped just short of the bars, just short of being within nose breaking distance.

“He can understand you but he hasn't learned to form our words yet,” Kessick said in a monotone voice. “It can be disorientating at first but they learn eventually.”

Jez took an involuntary step back from the bars, readying herself for a fight. “What do you mean?”

Kessick looked confused for a moment. “You fought Arbiter Kosh, you know what he was. Yes, you do.”

“A demon?” Jez asked.

“Yes. Arbiter Darkheart told you about them? Yes, he explained it all to you didn't he. Only two of your group were compatible. This one was one of them.”

“What about Rose?”

“The woman. Drake's sacrifice. She didn't realise he sent her here to die. She was not compatible.”

“You killed her?”

Kessick shook his head. “Drake wants her dead, that alone is reason enough for me to want her alive. I sent her on her way. She might get back to her city though I think you know a woman alone in this place can experience many tragedies. Yes, you do. Still, I suspect that one will survive.”

“What about me?” Jez asked. “Are you going to put a demon in me?” She looked down at her wrist. “Have you done it already?”

“No,” Kessick ground out with a single shake of his head. “There is not a bit of potential in you Jezzet Vel'urn. Perhaps that is why Arbiter Darkheart finds you so fascinating.”

In her head Jez let out a sigh of relief, the idea of sharing her body with a demon was not entirely pleasing, after all, she had seen one and they looked far from pleasant bed fellows. “I choose to believe it's because he loves me.”

“What you choose to believe and the truth are two very different things. I will show you.” Kessick motioned to the cell door and Nolan pulled out a key, fitted it to the lock, turned it and a moment later the bars swung open. Jez walked calmly, cautiously forward until she was at the doorway, then she sprang.

She passed Nolan before he could react and swung a fist at Kessick followed by another. The ex-Arbiter turned both strikes aside as though Jez were nothing but a slow, weak child. She felt a large hand grip her neck from behind and then she was flying backwards through the air to crash onto the floor of her cell, rolling in the straw and flowing back onto her feet with nothing but a new bruise to show for her efforts.

The door to the cell did not close but Nolan moved in to block her way, standing as still as stone, his deeply wrinkled face a blank slate.

“You had to try, I understand,” said Kessick, his hands in his coat pockets in such a way that reminded Jez of Thanquil. “Please do not try again. It would be unwise. Now come.”

Jez walked cautiously to the cell door and waited for Nolan to move, the big man took his time but eventually stepped aside. Jezzet followed Kessick out of the gaol and onto the main thoroughfare of Absolution bathed in the soft, waning light of a wilds late afternoon. There was a breezy chill in the air and Jez knew what that meant.
Storm's coming.
Though the lack of clouds claimed otherwise.

The streets were busy with folk going about their business but that business was definitely not what most folk would consider normal. Men, women and children dressed in rags or armour, fine silk clothing or aprons, shifts or robes, some were even about naked with all their bodies on display, they were busy in the central square of Absolution building siege engines or smithing weapons or mixing ingredients into what looked suspiciously like Thanquil's black powder, the same substance he used to fire that deadly little pistol of his. Here were peasants and nobility, warriors and beggars, children and the elderly and all were gearing up for a war.

“Intending on using those?” Jez nodded towards the war machines.

Kessick turned back and glanced at her then continued walking. “The wilds will not submit without a fight and it must submit to me.”

“You'll need more than a few hundred people in your army if you want to take the wilds.”

“Who said anything about people?”

Jezzet spat into the dusty street.

“I want to explain myself to you, Jezzet,” Kessick said his voice approaching what some might consider earnest.

“Why?”

“Because I want you to convince Arbiter Darkheart to join me.”

She snorted. “I ain't ever really had much of a say with him when it comes to the killing of heretics.”

“Then you will have to be persuasive,” Kessick's voice ground her nerves to dust. “First I must give you a history lesson Jezzet Vel'urn.”

Jez groaned and noticed two more of Kessick's demon-possessed troops, a young woman with hair the colour of dying embers and a grizzled veteran with only one arm, had joined them. She felt more than a little prisoner even out of her cell.
Seems you've been a prisoner a lot of late, Jez. Might be time to break for freedom soon.

“Thousands of years ago the world was ruled by the Drurr,” Kessick started his lesson heedless of Jezzet's reluctance to come anywhere close to caring. “They spread all the way from the wilds to Sarth to the Five Kingdoms and to the Dragon Empire though none had such names at the time. Humanity was weak, powerless against the magics the Drurr wielded. Little more than animals the humans were used as slaves and cattle.

“We were not freed from the Drurr by your Gods or even by Volmar, as many would have you believe. We were freed by the Dread Lords.”

“Who?”

Kessick looked back at Jez, giving her a long, pointed stare. “There were seven of them, I'm afraid I do not know their specifics, such details are long lost. They learned the secrets of magic, dark magic. The type of power people these days do not even know exists. They wielded sorcery and necromancy and they went to war with the Drurr for the sake of their people.”

“They won then,” Jez said pointing out the obvious.

“They lost.”

“Oh... didn't see that one coming.”

“This was before they became known as the Dread Lords. They threw an army at the Drurr and backed it with apocalyptic magics and they lost. Their army was slaughtered to a man but they escaped unharmed.

“Years later they returned to the homeland of the Drurr, to the land south of the Five Kingdoms.”

“You mean the Land of the Dead?”

“Yes. They returned with the knowledge of immortality. Once hidden inside their enemy's capital city they completed the ritual to turn themselves into liches, necromancers that have cast off their mortal shells and become the very thing they seek to control; the dead. But the Dread Lords did not bind their essence to an object, they all bound their essence to the land itself. They created the Land of the Dead and over night they won a war their enemy did not even know they were fighting.

“Legions of the dead rose from their graves and slaughtered the Drurr, men, women and children and every one that died rose and continued the slaughter. A plague of death swept the Drurr homeland and left living death behind it.

“Then the Dread Lords reached the limit of their power, as strong as they were their influence could reach only so far. It stopped south of the land now known as the Five Kingdoms. But the Dread Lords were not satisfied. Power corrupts and they were corrupted to the souls. They began to marshal their forces, if their power could not stretch beyond the Land of the Dead then their monsters could.

“Then came Volmar. A beacon of light in the darkest of times. A living God sent from on high to save us from the very weapon that had saved us from the Drurr. Volmar rallied the burgeoning kingdoms of man to his banner and taught those he could how to use his magic.

“Volmar took the fight to the Dread Lords and he won. Then he created the Inquisition to hunt down the remaining Drurr, to purify the remaining users of dark magic and to protect the world in his stead when the Dread Lords returned and he knew they would.”

“Fascinating,” Jez said rolling her eyes.

Kessick span around and the back of his hand connected with Jez's face. She found herself on her hands and knees in the dust, spitting blood wandering how she got there.
Bastard is so fast. That and he hits like a bear.
Jez rolled her tongue around her mouth and felt one of her teeth move. She'd never lost a tooth before, not since the little ones she had as a child anyway, but it looked like she might lost this one. She spat out another mouthful of blood. Her lip was well and truly split and she reckoned it would be swelling and leaving a colourful bruise any time soon.

Might be best not to piss him off again, Jez.
With that thought in mind she pushed herself to her feet, swaying only slightly as the world gave a little wobble.