Cardinal Spyridon III: The Eyes Upon Him

The Twenty-Forth Day of the Third Moon, 874 AD.

Athio, Aegan Hills, Western Dathan.

Meeting with Hawk always felt like a chore, or at the very least it had felt that way as of late. The man clearly hadn't been sleeping well, likely due to the encroaching springtime which would start the civil war in earnest, but why did that mean the man had to be so prickly and take his annoyance out on Spyridon in every conversation they had?

Perhaps the man's worries were not completely unfounded, for Spyridon had a few secrets of his own that he yet kept, but the two of them were still on the same side and fighting the same war against the same new tyrants; they should have been trying to work together, not constantly arguing against each other!

"And the remnants of the Aegan Watch?"

The man's voice broke him from his thoughts, and Spyridon was silent for a few moments as he reminded himself about what they had been talking about.

"Ah, the watch, yes. They're well trained and well equipped, and know the streets and defences of Aegos like the back of their hands. They'll be an excellent asset for us in the battles to come."

Hawk stared at him for a moment.

"You seem absent-minded, Cardinal. Is there something distracting you? Something on your mind, perhaps?"

Spyridon shook his head slowly, not quite understanding where Hawk was going with this line of questioning.

"No, I do not think so. I remain as committed to our cause as I ever have."

"Do you? That is good to know, although..."

The man's voice trailed off, and he stared seemingly at nothing for around half a minute. It was only when Spyridon made to speak, to break that silence, that he did raise his voice again.

"Why is it," Hawk started, his tone suddenly very dangerous, "that I hear you've been rooting around in the libraries for banned books? Now don't get me wrong, I know that Saint Khidon's order would be of quite some help in the days to come, but if you can't give me a very good reason why you've been reading from texts that even Sin did not dare read then may Saint fucking Lycaon himself save you from what I'll have done to you."

Spyridon swallowed. Hard.

"This revolution is for the expression of the right to worship as one chooses."

"Not," the man responded through gritted teeth, "to the extent of this- this madness. I tolerated Sin's worship of Khidon, for I loved him almost like a son. His beliefs were his own, and I respect them. Saint Khidon's work, I respect. But to expect me to turn the other cheek when I know you've been reading Oashen's Grimoire? The twin texts of Nartashe 'the Mad'? Even the Book of Amerys? What were you thinking!"

Spyridon felt a rush of anger, of indignation, at the man's accusations. He would not sit here and take this from someone who claimed to love Sin as a son and yet was unwilling to admit that Sin would gleefully have read these texts had he been given the chance.

"And what if I have?" He spoke with a snarl, lips curling and eyes glaring with a level of spite he had seldom felt before. "What if I did read those books? What, you'd have me killed? You'd signal for your guards to come here, take me into custody? Tell them. Ask them to do it. Now.

"But you won't. You won't, because you're just as fucking aware as I am that we're partners here. You're just as aware as I am that what happens to one of us happens to both of us. You can't win this coming war without me, Hawk.

"All I have done is read the texts that the representative of the Monastic Order of Saint Khidon told me to read. Nothing more."

Hawk, though seemingly rather surprised at his outburst, quickly rallied himself. There was a glint in the man's eye, mistrust leavened with anger.

"You know as well as I do that those texts are not for reading, boy! I am more lax than most when it comes to what people should be allowed to read, how they should be allowed to worship, but this is too far. You're defending texts that venerate tyrants as though they were Saints themselves! As though they were gods!"

"I'm not defending them!" He shouted back. "I'm a theologian! It's my job to understand the faith! Sin knew far better than I that you can't understand something properly if you only look at the parts you agree with; I need to read these texts. I have to. The people they speak of are monsters, and those who wrote of them were surely mad. That does not matter.

"I have already gleaned insights from the Book of Saint Khidon, insights that may yet prove themselves to be useful to us in the days to come. I do not believe that these texts hold similar insights, and yet what if they do? What if an answer we need, a question we didn't know we needed to answer, a foe as of yet unrevealed to us, are made known through the pages of these maddening scripts?

"I'm not scared of the unknown anymore, Hawk. I'm not a boy cowering in fear at the prospect of the cells beneath Saint Mikah's. I'm a man who is to lead others to war in the name of a friend who he had to watch die, and I am not going to be bullied and frightened by you because I READ A FUCKING BOOK!"

Saints, he had watched Sin die. It haunted him even now, though he wasn't sure he'd ever verbalised such a thing. He was sure Hawk knew that it haunted him, though he doubted the man cared. Hawk had only cared for Sin, and Sin was gone now.

But by what right did Hawk judge him for continuing Sin's work? Was it Hawk who watched Sin choke and sputter on poison? Was it Hawk who had fretted every day in the capital as to what Sin would do to get them both in trouble next? Was it Hawk who had watched Sin's face, that visage once coveted by so many and known to be so handsome, be smeared and crushed across a metre of ground?

No. He did not have to live with that image engraved into his mind, behind his eyelids. Spyridon did.

He would not be browbeaten by this man. Not anymore.

There was silence again for a few moments, save only Spyridon's heavy breaths as he calmed himself. Then, strangely enough, Hawk began to laugh.

It was not a loud laugh, nor even particularly mirthful, but it was not mocking or quiet either. It was a strange sound to hear from so serious and unhappy a man.

"Angels, you really are turning into him. Piece by piece, he's coming back to lead us.

"I don't like what you're doing, Cardinal. But I will not stop you. Just remember that this path was your choice, and do not dare to drag me down it alongside you.

"If you want to cavort with dangerous mystics then fine. I need you to know that you are still very, very uninformed as to the structures and beliefs of the Khidonean Doctrine. Even within so esoteric a faith such as that of Saint Khidon's, there exist internal differences. Sin stayed true with the more worldly legalist doctrines, for those are the beliefs that align most closely with the beliefs of the mainstream faith.

"You cavort with the mystical sects, if unknowingly. You engage in scriptures and talk to those whose beliefs are all but completely removed from the church, and all but maintain the iconography of the church as a façade.

"Be very careful, Cardinal. You still don't know what it is that you're reading about in the slightest."

He stared with an expression of thinly-concealed anger at Hawk. He knew the man must have meant something by that what he said, but he couldn't understand a word of it. That seems to be a relatively common occurrence at the moment, he thought with a more than slightly annoyed mind.

"Of course I don't," he responded, "for despite the number of people surrounding me who seem to know exactly what it is all of your cryptic messaging means, you and the Order of Saint Khidon that is, I know little of what it means.

"Your messages are seemingly designed to be cryptic, and I know little of the doubtless centuries of meaning behind such words.

"But I am learning. I am continuing to learn, and endeavour to learn more. That is why I read those texts, Hawk. Amerys was a monster, of that I will offer no refute. He was truly evil. That does not mean that nothing can be learned from his most ancient of reigns. He was evil, and indeed even beyond measure was it so, but we can learn what not to do if nothing else from his reign."

Hawk was silent another few moments, then sighed deeply.

"Well, I suppose you cannot be argued with there. The boy was insane, and if not then he was mad. Well, from what we know anyway.

"Regardless, I do not condone your readings. I suppose, if you're anything like Sin, then my non-condoning will not matter. Whether or not you are actually like Sin I have yet to truly discern, and yet you display his traits more openly with each passing day."

He stared at the man, more than a little confused.

"How do you mean?"

"Well, you're thinking more aggressively for one."

"Aggressive?" He argued. "I am not aggressive. We fight this war defensively, to defend others, not aggressively!"

Hawk held up his hands in a sign of peace.

"I did not mean that form of aggression. I mean less... filtered. Less controlled. You're saying and acting with less meticulous forethought and with more emotion than before. Still, I suppose I can't argue with that too much; Sin left a mark on more than a few people, after all.

"I still don't trust you. I spoke with too much emotion before, threatening you and all, but I think I understand you a little better than before.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"Sin would likely have acted as you would have, yes. I would have tried to stop him too, if he yet lived of course."

Spyridon sighed deeply, forcing the residue of his anger deep down inside him. Hawk was antagonistic and prickly, but meant well. Well, sort of anyway. He had the sort of dynamic that would no well have worked wonderfully with Sin, but less so with someone as high-strung and sensitive as Spyridon himself was. That did not mean that he was easy to get along with, by any means.

"I'm sure you would have, and we both know you would have failed in such an endeavour. Sin could not be stopped when he had set his mind on something, as we both well know. If we are quite done with this squabble over theology, could we please return to the just as important business of ensuring that we are ready for war?"

Hawk pressed a hand to the bridge of his nose for a while, and was silent for a little while before nodding.

"Yes, yes, we should. We shall. The men are drilled as much as they can be, their weaponry and armour maintained or otherwise made ready for combat, and spring is about to break.

"Indeed, I have heard that spring has already arrived in the west, carried in on warm air from the sea. Spring will arrive here soon, and then our forces will march. We stay to the roads, for the spring rains combined with marching feet will churn fields into mud, and aim to seize Aegos before the Imperator gets there. I would not be surprised if he has already repaired the bridges across the river Daedala over the course of winter, and if he has then he will have the advantage of time over us.

"We are outnumbered, possess few defensible positions, lack the extensive armouries of the capital, lack the coin to purchase weapons from abroad, and lack the local mercenary talent needed to bolster our ranks with sellswords.

"I lack the exact numbers of our forces at the moment, but I know that we are sorely outnumbered by the forces of Admeta and only nearly equal to those of the Imperator. We will need to strike fast whilst the element of surprise is still there if we want to succeed in our endeavours."

"I am aware of this, Hawk. We will fight, and we will die. That is to be our lot here. Either that, or we fight and we win. We have no choice in this matter."

The man stared at him a little longer, then waved his hand almost dismissively.

"Pah, I'm not afraid of death. See to the men, Cardinal. We march in a sennight."

Spyridon nodded and rose to his feet. War would soon be upon them, unless they could bring it to their enemies first.

----------------------------------------

"You know," he started, walking into his chambers only to find that same Sister from the Order of Saint Khidon sat in the chair opposite his desk, "my colleague found out about those texts you bid me read. He was frightfully unhappy, and I'm pretty sure he threatened to kill me at one point."

The woman tilted her head consolingly, though if the gesture was sincere or mocking he wasn't sure.

"The order suspected he may act as such at some point. We thank him for his work in seeing to the wellbeing of our mutual friend, Friend of Sin, but there are those who believe his care for the late Father may impede his judgement and decision-making even now. He has embarked upon the journey that lies beyond the veil of life, and to mourn him now is folly. He is where he needs to be, where he is supposed to be, and that will be consolation enough for the order."

Spyridon nodded, but said nothing. No matter the beliefs of Sin and the woman sat opposite, he was still no Khidonean. The scriptures were fascinating, and perhaps there were some merits to be gleaned through their beliefs, but he would prefer to do far more research on this topic before tying himself to their beliefs.

After all, if the words of Hawk were anything to go by then he still understood almost nothing about the true breadth and depth of the beliefs held by the Khidoneans.

The Sister, realising he would not respond to such a statement, merely nodded and moved on.

"Ah, my apologies. Sometimes I forget that your beliefs do not yet align with my own. With those of the order."

The use of the word 'yet' in that sentence did make him a little uncomfortable, what with this faith's holy text apparently containing references to future happenings, but he pushed those thoughts aside for now. There were too many other things to consider.

"You read those texts, you said?"

He nodded. It had taken him a fair few sleepless nights, but he'd read through ten separate texts and documents containing information that, had he possessed even a fragment of one of them growing up, would certainly have seen him burned.

"I have. They were interesting, by and large, if not disconcerting. I had forgotten that there was a forth Book of the Lamb, in truth. Disturbing imagery, all of it."

The sister smiled a little wider.

"Ah, the forbidden pages of Anawroth's followers. The Old-Church did not like the forth of Anawroth's holy texts, what with it's statement that the other Angels left Anawroth bleeding and broken, abandoned to fate. They did not like the fact that the text stated that there was to be a war in the heavens when Anawroth finally reawakened.

"And so the forth Book of the Lamb was burned where it was found, and the other three kept. They contained no such 'blasphemies', and so were kept."

"And do you believe that book?" He found himself asking. "Do you believe that he really is out there, somewhere?"

Her smile turned false, something in her eyes dimmed, and she hunched for a moment as if injured. Then she was back to normal, and Spyridon had to wonder if his lack of sleep had simply been him seeing things.

"There is always a mite of truth in such legends and myths, Friend of Sin. Whether I believe he yet lives or not is irrelevant.

"The more important question is what do you think, Friend of Sin? What do you think of those texts you have read that the church has deemed to be forbidden?"

He thought for a moment, working his mind and mulling over what he had read. The people within those texts were vile, more than vile, and almost all of them spoke of times when common practices had been far different than they were now.

For all the evils in the modern world, Spyridon was very glad that he had been born now and not then.

"I think that the texts were interesting, if nothing else. I still find their arguments lacking from a theological perspective, but at the same time I cannot fault some of their reasonings for reaching such conclusions. Nor can I fault some of their criticism of some of the church's practices and structures, for that matter. There are, as you said, mites of truth in each of those texts."

"And what," she replied, "did you think of the Book of Amerys? What did you think of the boy who thought he was a god?"

His lip curled even at the recollection of such an abhorrent tale of misdeeds and woes. Spyridon severely hoped that the things he had read about in that book were lies and hyperbole spread by the church, perhaps in an attempt to discredit so ancient a people, but if they were true then he knew that the boy had deserved far greater than the death he had been granted.

"He was monstrous. Moreso even than the creatures that served him. He was vile and choleric, arbitrary and maddened.

"He was a murderer and a tyrant. I would not think on him any more than absolutely necessary, and not at all if I had the option. He was a monster."

The woman nodded at him.

"Yes he was. Yes he was indeed. And yet I would still as you to tell me this, Friend of Sin; tell me, what could we stand to learn from the boy who thought he was a god? What could we learn from Amerys?"

'Nothing', his first instinct was to spit such words out, but he stopped just short of letting such an opinion be known. Such an answer, though intended to mean the denial of so cruel a tyrant's accomplishments, was untrue. There was always something to learn from the misdeeds of others.

"We learn that cruelty will not prevail eternally. We learn that to play god is to invite death unending to our homes. Most of all, we learn of what men are capable of achieving when they have shorn their mortality and are worshipped as divine."

"Did you know it was one of his exiled cousins that taught us of the heart?"

He blinked a few times, almost frozen in place at that little revelation. Had these mysterious ramblings and whispers about the 'heart' really been going on for so long? Long enough to predate the church by... well, by many thousands of years at least.

That was a revelation indeed, but he could find no words to respond. In the end, he said the only words that felt right to say in response to something like that.

"The heart beats, still?"

The phrase came out more like a question than he had intended, but the Sister did not seem to mind. If anything, she seemed all the happier for it. She was silent for a moment, before a proud grin came across her face. Not proud as in self-aggrandising, but more like the pride of a mother watching her children grow and learn.

So long as he did not meet her eyes, that was.

Something in her eyes changed at those words, calculating and deadly in a way Spyridon did not understand. She was proud of him, yes, but he got the sense that the crimson-robed Sister was also feeling something akin to sorrowful with her thoughts of him.

Her smile was warm, and yet so desperately cold.

"The heart beats, still. By the First Saint, how it beats. It beats endlessly, in defiance of those around them. It beats endlessly, in defiance of the tyrants that fear its power. It beats endlessly, in defiance of...

"Well, it would not do to repeat such misdeeds, would it?"

He didn't know how to respond, not really. There was something deeper in that phrase, in the heart that beats, but despite his continued readings he was still no closer to realising its meaning.

He'd seen one or two more references to a heart within the sections of the Book of Saint Khidon he'd so far read, but his brief skims through the other books hadn't yielded any sort of mentioning of the heart in an esoteric capacity.

Perhaps if he were to go through those texts more fully and mark down each and every mention of a heart in any context he might find a pattern?

Ah, he was getting off track. He looked back up at the Sister, finding her still smiling intently at him with cold eyes.

"I will not pretend to understand all of your mysteries yet, Sister, but I am trying. I hope you understand. For one such as myself, raised all his life to reject... to reject all of this-"

He gestured at the small pile of books and scrolls on the table before continuing.

"- to then try and turn himself about so soundly is difficult. That does not even go into the difficulties of balancing such an endeavour against my pre-existing duties; we are still preparing for a war, Sister."

The woman held out her arms in a gesture of supplication.

"Peace, Friend of Sin. I meant no ill-will. The Order understands that these things take time, but you need fear not. The most mystical amongst our ranks would prefer you dedicate yourself entirely to this, for every day spent on this issue now will be worth a week's work in a decade's time, but our eldest understand the need to balance these things.

"The heart will beat endlessly a little longer yet. You have time, Father. You have enough time. When the endless beats of the hearts cease, you will know that the sands have run out. At that moment, you will have run out of time.

"But that will not be for many years yet. Continue with your studies Cardinal, but the Order will take no offense should you deem matters of warfare to be of greater value at this moment in time.

"Should Athio fall, so too will the last of those who can renew the bonds beneath Aegos. The Order will fight tooth and nail to ensure that this war ends in your favour, but you must redouble your efforts in the aftermath. Time is of the essence, Friend of Sin."

He swallowed thickly and nodded, despite not understanding. How could a heart beat endlessly if it was destined to stop beating at some point?

"And if the heart should stop 'endlessly beating' only after I have discovered the truth? Discovered what I must do?"

She smiled at him, and that smile said a thousand things at once. It cheered "we will prevail", it cried "I'm sorry", it comforted him in the gentle voice of his mother with an "I forgive you".

I forgive you.

I'm sorry.

"Then the bonds will be renewed, and the heart will beat endlessly. The heart beats, still, friend of Sin. You must first determine where it beats; only then can our work begin anew."

The heart. The heart. Where was the heart? That was surely the first question he needed answered. If he could find the location of the heart, then he could see to unravelling its mysteries in person. Where was the heart?

Where? That was obvious of course; it was in the Aegan hills somewhere. Aegos, he was sure of it.

Where? That was impossible, of course; Aegos was the largest city in Dathan. Aegos was a city that had been torn down and rebuilt a dozen times. Aegos was a city built atop a city built atop ruins.

It could be in a church somewhere, or cathedral. It could be in the cells beneath Saint Mikah's upon the bones of one of the temples that had come before it, or those beneath the Senate. It could be located somewhere under the ruins that lay beneath the districts beyond the inner walls of the city, where Kliranhen once stood.

It was impossible to know.

It was obvious, and yet impossible. He wanted to scream at the frustrating simplicity of it.

But he did not, of course. Such a display would have been better suited to his beloved friend Sin than Spyridon himself. Better to keep a lid on such things and allow cooler heads to prevail, so as to enable him to think over the issue more clearly.

"Thank you for your time, Sister. I thank your order for their input as well, study-wise I mean.

"I must ask for some time alone now, however. There is much work to be done."