CHAPTER 7: FINALE!
IN THEIR BEDS WE LAY OUR NEEDLES
The bard seemed intent on continuing his sombre ballad, but the clientele began to boo and a wooden spoon sailed over his head. With a theatrical flourish he changed to a happy diddy, directing an exaggerated scowl at his audience. That got a laugh from the intoxicated crowd. Pog laughed also, but not having his body laugh with him quickly put a damper on his mirth.
‘Come on Polimathras, haven't you finished placing your upside down trinkets around the town? Can’t you just let me enjoy myself for a moment?’
‘Not yet Pog, an agent of the Order will be joining us soon. I will need to be ready when he does.’
‘Order this, Order that, pah! I say you just made it all up so you could take my body. That’s why you keep those memories hidden, so I can’t prove it.’
Polimathras considered opening the memories of his training with the Order. He was not concerned about Pog learning Order secrets, but he was worried about Pog finding the memories of psychological strength training. It was the primary advantage Polimathras had to keep control of their situation.
‘I don't want to open those memories to you, Pog, but I can help you understand more about what we are doing. First you must know about the Great Enemy. The enemy of all life whose birth will bring about the destruction of the world. The Great Enemy’s genesis is nine thousand years in the future, but it is as inevitable as the rising sun. You must have seen him, working with that Relic for so long.’
‘Where all the timelines end? Yes yes I saw it. Pog replied. ‘The priests demanded constant reports about it, but clenched their buttocks whenever I gave them. So is it a.. person then? I thought maybe everything just blew up. And how can something so far away be inevitable on every timeline?’ Asked Pog, fascinated at the chance to see some context for the secret forces that had shaped his life.
‘We do not know. Neither, I hope, does the church. We know only that his birth will destroy all life, and that he has but one desire; to be born sooner.’ Polimathras went silent for a moment of consideration. Pog waited patiently, feeling that his former self was hesitating at the point of no return.
‘The Order has toiled for a thousand years to delay this apocalypse, but the Church has been working far longer to serve the enemies' will. We know that the enemy’s advent was, once, more than a hundred thousand years in the future. The Church was the first to discover him, due to that Relic. They made a pact with him millenia ago, not long after the founding of the Empire. They would act as his agents in the present, working to bring about his birth sooner. In exchange he will resurrect them after the apocalypse, granting them immortality and limitless pleasures. They worked to do his will in secret for thousands of years, bringing his genesis closer and closer to the present. The Order was founded when the Church finally lost control of their secret, when their betrayal of all humanity was discovered. Now we war against the Church. We rout their influence from the halls of the powerful, from the hearts of the people, we turn their riches to ash and we salt their fields, in any comforts they seek we will lay our needles.’ Polimathras had never had the opportunity to speak so openly, not even with other agents of the Order. Laying his heart bear felt cathartic but oddly exhausting.
Pog was quiet, granting a solemnity to the moment.
‘Why did you keep the secret?’ He asked at last. ‘Why doesn't everyone know this?’ Asked Pog.
‘Because very few of the common people would make the choice to defy him. A choice between paradise and torment is an easy one for most. The Church may one day release it, but for now they seem more interested in keeping their paradise to themselves than enlisting the aid of the unwashed masses.’
‘But how do they know? How did they make this… pact? Is it even possible to communicate over time like that?’
“The same way they found him, the predictive power of the Relic. Looking back in time from his perch in the future, the enemy has perfect records of the past. He knew exactly which priests were in the room when he was discovered. In his omnipotence he resurrected those exact priests, knowing that the predictive power of their Relic would show this happening. The priests used the Fate Lines to analyse the moments after the apocalypse, and found themselves. They personally would be resurrected. From there the timelines varied. One a paradise of immortal joy, another… incomprehensible horrors. The message was clear, serve and obey.” Polimathras took another sip of mead, at Pog’s mental prodding, before continuing.
‘We do not know the details, but we understand that they developed a coded language of sorts, using the Fate Lines that the Relic could predict and the enemy could control from his seat in the future. This is also how it is known that he will keep his promises, since the act of fulfilling those promises in his time is what allows the Relic to predict them, and thus show them to the priests.’
‘And what of you? If you are opposing him, opposing the church. Does he know about that too?’ Pog asked.
‘Yes. His records of the past are perfect. He knows that we oppose him, and our fate is to be resurrected also, and suffer an eternity of dark horrors.’
‘Then why do it? If he is inevitable…’
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Polimathras’s knuckles went white as his fingers screwed tightly around the flagon handle.
‘Hope! We must hope. It is possible that there is an unforeseen way in which our world is not destroyed. Some set of conditions we have not yet discovered may save us. It is not as naive as it sounds. The Great Enemy lives forever, as far as we can see. The fact that he strives so hard to be born sooner implies that there may be a way for us to defeat him, and he seeks to narrow the window we have to discover it. If he was truly inevitable, why would he try so hard?’
‘Well.. I can think of a few reasons. Perhaps he’
‘Yes there are several possibilities.’ Polimathras interjected. ‘But we chose to have hope. If there is a chance to save… everything, we will take it, whatever the cost and however slim the chances. That is the choice that every member of the Order makes.’
They had been so wrapped up in their outwardly silent conversion that they had not noticed someone new enter the tavern. He stood at the bar ordering a drink now, a heavy cloak in Morgan colours obscuring most of his body. One arm hung out, a palm with fingers angled downwards.
‘That is him.’ Thought Polimathras, making a similar gesture with his hand. The man had been scanning the room and immediately noticed it, casually walking over after a moment of pretending to enjoy his drink. The man’s Aura had a curated feel. It was natural, but deliberate and oddly harmonious, like a perfectly tended garden with every leaf in its place. The Morgan’s were a house of warriors primarily, and were famous even in the south for their exquisite Aura training.
He sat opposite to Polimathras, pulled his hood deeper to hide his lips from the rest of the room then said:
“In service.”
“In service,” Polimathras replied gravely, positioning himself so that he faced away from the room. He drank the rest of his mead and placed the flagon on the man’s side of the table, inside was the stolen memory crystal he had imprinted with information from the Holiest Relic.
“Try it, it's good.”
The man took a sip from the empty flagon, then stared at them quietly for an extended moment. When he placed it down there was nothing inside. Then he spoke;
“Polimathras. I never expected to see you again. You have been dark for.. How long? Fifteen years? I hope whatever you have been doing has been worth it, we could have used your help.”
“Umbras, it is good to see you well, and yes, fifteen years. The Order had me infiltrate the Holiest Relic. As for being worth it… that is yet to be seen. That Memory Crystal is the culmination of my efforts. Bring that to a Member of the Table as soon as you can. The matter is time sensitive.”
“Silence be damned! The Holiest Relic?! And you succeeded in this? You always were the brightest star among us, but I would have thought that task impossible.”
“I have not succeeded yet. It only gave us a hint of something greater. Fate is converging here in the North and time is short. I need information. Is your position in House Morgan secure enough to serve in that regard?” asked Polimathras.
“Yes, I have access to the entire Morgan intelligence system, and I can serve without compromising that. What do you need to know?”
“Has there been any recent news about a new Relic or recently uncovered Ruins nearby?” Umbras paused for a second before answering.
“Yes there has. A Slaver named Caleb has set up camp in a Ruin to the south and is using his slaves to excavate it. They have scavenged some trinkets and empty power crystals that have been seen in the market here.”
“What kind of Slaver?”
Umbras blinked rapidly, a sign Polimathras assumed meant he was activating some kind of memory power.
“He has been operating at a distance from any settlements nearby, clearly keeping a low profile. They have been taking slaves from the local barbarian population. None of the clan leaders have complained yet, so he is being careful about that also.”
“Is that all you have? I was told House Morgan keeps detailed profiles of every merchant operating in the North.”
“We do. The records tell an unremarkable tale. He spent his youth in various mercenary bands, building enough wealth to move into the merchant class. There are signs that his trail has been obscured, which is suspicious in its own right. Give me a moment, I will try to correlate it with other records. Maybe there are some connections.”
Umbras went silent, closing his eyes. Polimathras could see his eyes flickering and vibrating beneath their lids.
“There is something that could be relevant. A record of a Malefic Ritual. The record has been stripped to protect the practitioners, but it remains otherwise intact.”
Polimathras tensed up. Not obviously enough for Umbras to notice, but Pog immediately began digging though his memories looking for any reference to Malefic Rituals. Polimathras blocked him, sure that having those memories brought up now would cause a reaction he couldn't keep out of his Aura. Pog was outraged at being kept in the dark again, but Polimathras ignored him.
“It was the last recorded instance of a Malefic Ritual here in the north.” Umbras continued, unaware or uncaring about the tension in Polimathras’s Aura.
“A young boy was used. Just a street rat, but the locals noticed him missing and went looking. They found the Altar before the ritual could be completed. As you can imagine, the locals became murderous when they saw the kinds of tools used in a Malefic Ritual. Only a few practitioners escaped, the rest were hung up over the city gates to get picked apart by crows.
The boy lived, somehow resisting Affliction, but he disappeared not long after. A note on the record presumes that the remaining Ritualists killed the boy to keep their identities hidden, but the dates and the boy’s age align perfectly with another record. A mercenary band, hired for the Gothii War, took in a child. That child later became our Slaver. It could be unrelated, but that’s all the info I have. I sense hidden hands in the records, there may be larger powers at work.”
“No doubt there is,” Polimathras replied ruefully.
“I do not know if the Slaver is important but I will go south and find this ruin. There is something unknown there, whether opportunity or a disaster I do not know. I will send word when I can, but for now, stay vigilant.” Said Polimathras, standing to leave.