Susanney was the wife of a gatekeeper.
It wasn't a profession, and it wasn't something she thought of as being a defining characteristic; it was a simple fact. She had a husband, and he was a gatekeeper.
She spent much of her time volunteering at a Church of Dawn and worked two days each week at a laundry, running wet clothing through a mangle for hours on end to supplement her husband's wages that they might afford various luxury items which would otherwise be unaffordable, commoners and non-merchants as they were.
Her life was not usually one of excitement such as the terror she was now facing with her family. No, she was a mother of four and had already endured considerable excitement in the course of raising her children while her husband fought in service of the Kingdom. She never begrudged him the time he needed to spend away from home. He would always return with a smile on his face and gifts to show that he had been thinking of her during their time apart.
Percevale was considerate in that manner. Whenever he returned home to his family, he would shower them with gifts and affection in an always-successful attempt to compensate for his absence.
That had been the case until the time he had arrived home eleven years ago as a changed man. On some days the difference was more noticeable than others, but it was clear to her that something had happened to the dashing young man who'd swept her off her feet so many years earlier. Gone at times was his pleasant smile, replaced instead by hours spent brooding and staring into the fireplace that he always kept lit whenever he was home regardless of the season or heat. Gone, too, was his ability to sit around the small house they lived in when he wasn't actively on duty. Instead, he worked with unusual zeal at the main gate of the city, claiming that he couldn't simply sit about. The last to disappear was his presence at the church, where he'd always been something of a fixture.
And so it had been ever since. For eleven years, Susanney tried to elicit a response from the man who'd grown increasingly sad in his demeanor, attempting to discern how she could help return him to himself. She'd talked to him, she'd prayed for him, and she'd even engaged the assistance of one of the pastors at her church, devising sermons that she felt would surely provoke some reaction when she dragged her husband out to partake of them.
Nothing helped.
Her children had gradually noticed it over the years, whether it was Arminel soon after, Huchon a couple years later, Bartelot years after that, or, most recently, little Rikild, who had always been the closest with her father. They each tried in their own way to crack the impenetrable shell of the man they used to know without success. They all maintained the faith that he was still there somewhere deep inside and that they only needed to reach him.
That had all changed two days ago, however, and it had been then that Susanney's own faith that had begun to crumble.
It wasn't that Percevale had seen too many horrors while fighting.
He'd become a devil-sympathizer.
The knowledge had left her aghast. This man was nothing like the man she'd been wed to for so many decades! Sure, his smile and zest for living may have returned, but it was clear to her that this was some manner of enchantment upon the mind that the devils had placed on him, some sorcery that could only be truly healed in one way.
Susanney had begged off from her husband's company at once and hurried to the church, where she'd told the devout of her husband's plight. She'd been understood, and none wished to see Percevale suffer any longer. They summoned Inquisitors immediately, seeking aid in returning the man to his senses.
That had been the right thing to do, but it only brought further heartbreak.
Percevale was gone, said the ranking Inquisitor when he arrived. His body had been stolen, replaced by a devil who wore his skin and possessed his memories.
She cried, screaming at them that it couldn't be the case. That her Percevale must still be inside somewhere.
He hadn't been.
They captured him for questioning, and he'd remained adamant in his views that the long-eared devils were no devils and had never sought to harm anyone.
He'd claimed that it was humans who were evil.
The law was clear in such cases.
Though it broke her heart, she'd gathered her children and composed herself while she told them of the sentence that would be carried out. The only fate which could befall those who spoke blasphemy and refused to repent.
So it had been that they stood out before the church that evening, begging the man they thought they knew to repent and come back to them.
But he refused.
His beliefs were more important than his family, and it was devastating, especially to Rikild, who had always looked up to her father as her hero.
Such was the strength of his belief that he even requested the Trial of Faith, which so very few survived—usually only when they were the holiest of Church officials.
Rikild and Bartelot, the two youngest, had averted their eyes, unable to watch, but Susanney and her two oldest children had borne witness, and it had forever changed them.
"She cannot defend her lies so long as He protects me! Carl is stronger than that liar of the Dawn!" Percevale had bellowed to the sky in clear defiance, persisting in his belief that some man he had met at the gate was a deity capable of defeating a Goddess who demonstrated Her power daily by the simple act of raising the suns in the sky.
Susanney's forehead had grown damp with sweat as she watched the man she still loved, even despite his wild claims, throw his life away. Despite how she perspired, her body felt oddly cold as she watched with unblinking eyes, her hands clutching the backs of her two youngest children while they pressed their heads against her bosom.
And then things had changed in a different manner, and a different type of faith had begun to shatter.
There was no response from the Goddess.
The same Goddess who unleashed Her fury upon even a man who sought the Trial of Faith after being accused of a trivial crime such as pickpocketing, turning him to ash with bolts of lightning and sunlight, did absolutely nothing to a man who now spoke not only blasphemy but words which directly challenged the core beliefs of the Church.
In that moment, Susanney's faith had been deeply shaken.
In the next, it had been destroyed.
"Percevale!" bellowed a massive man with glowing purple eyes who bore aloft a giant spear which shone with incredible radiance, standing atop a steamcar—a steamcar in which Princess Isemeine herself was sitting beside him. "You've done very well!"
The timing was too perfect for it to have been coincidence.
Susanney gawked, unable to move, but her husband had no such difficulty. The man knelt immediately, bowing his head. "He comes!" he shouted in a voice filled with awe, pointing at the unbelievably huge man.
"Stop! Unhand the princess!" yelled another voice.
The giant to whom Percevale had pointed raised his mighty spear into the air once more. "Open your eyes!" he shouted. He'd then dropped back into the seat of the steamcar, casting aside his mighty spear as though it was a decoration. The weapon had vanished as soon as it left his hand, and he'd driven off towards the main gate with the Royal Guard following swiftly after.
"You've borne witness!" Percevale shouted, turning back to his family. "He is ever watching, so long as we open our eyes to truly see! So long as we do not stand idly by!"
Susanney's eyes had been opened at that moment, just as her husband's had been earlier that day.
Church law was clear. Those who survived the Trial of Faith were innocent, and no harm could befall them by members of the Church, and they could not be accused of the same crime ever again.
Impossible as it seemed, Percevale was a free man. Even as he raised his fists to the sky thereafter and bellowed for the "mind-twisting liar" to "fuck off" in a staggering display of confidence in his own security.
The family had returned to their small house—even Arminel and Huchon, who had both moved out years earlier—and they had talked deep into the night.
At seeing the cold sweat which soaked his family, Percevale had declared that, just as he had, they had been baptized, a word he'd devised from the old Stadalite term for 'dipping', as though their minds had been submerged into cold water to rouse them. Not all of the children had fully accepted his beliefs at that time, but even Rikild, who was the youngest and most fervent believer in Dawn, had been unable to completely maintain her previous level of belief.
The larger changes had begun thereafter, and they were what had led to the family's current predicament.
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"Finally caught you," called the Royal Guard captain, beckoning to them from between his four sword-bearing companions who were slowly advancing on the family of six as they stood, pressed by a ring of steel against the wall of a building near one of the busiest city street intersections. "Come along quietly, and we'll have no need to use force on the little one, eh?"
Percevale stepped forward with his head raised, thrusting Rikild behind him with one gray-sleeved arm. "I am the First Watcher. My eyes are open, and I see that I must act," he intoned, saying again the words of ritual that he'd said so many times over the past day. "Once opened to the Great Lie, eyes can never again be shut."
It had been the day after that fate-filled night that things had truly begun to change. Percevale and Susanney had stayed awake most of the night, deep in discussion about all manner of topics that were forbidden by the Church, joined by Arminel, who seemed equally unable to find sleep.
His eyes were opened as well.
But what did Carl mean when He told them to open their eyes?
It was Susanney who had known immediately. The phrase could only mean that they must consider all that they had closed their eyes to in the past. It was further reinforced by the fact that He chose to take with Him the fourth princess, she who had been accused for so long of being a devil-sympathizer.
Her eyes must have long since been opened to be spirited away personally and with such a grand showing by a deity.
In the early hours of the morning, their neighbors had begun to visit, having either been witness to the scene that night or having heard of it from others.
What did it mean, they asked, having never witnessed such direct interaction from what they considered could be a deity, though they were not as convinced as Susanney's family.
Arminel, himself a low-ranking member in the Church of Dawn, had been the one to answer, having sat silent through the night and listened as his parents spoke.
"This is a new manner of faith," the young man said slowly. "One in which the only commandment is to see that which has not been seen. To consider that which has not been considered. Faith we must have, yes, but it was my father who acted first to throw off the yoke of a goddess who seeks only to fit us into the mold of her followers. Only after proving that he was unafraid to see that which was unseen did Carl acknowledge his faith. Still, however, Carl did nothing more than acknowledge his conviction and shield him from the wrath of the goddess. It was Father's faith in what was right that He must have been acknowledging."
Percevale had stared at his son with all-new appreciation at that moment. Arminel had ever been the quiet sort, but it was now clear that he wasn't merely quiet: he was considering everything he heard in an earnest manner.
The Order of the Opened Eyes had been created in the early hours of that day, and Percevale had been declared the First Watcher: he whose eyes were opened first.
The family of six had believed in varying degrees, but others who lived nearby and visited were not so easily swayed.
"Patience," Percevale had said each time. "This isn't shit to rot the mind like that liar would have us learn, falling into our places without thinking. Yesterday was a beginning. I will not tell lies and claim to be an oracle. No, I am simply the First Watcher, and I am one eye of many. Just as with soldiers in the army, whether it is the first eye or the last eye, we all are capable of seeing the same so long as we share what we have seen in order that all may see it."
The words confused all who heard them. For so long they had been members of one or both churches of the goddesses, where hierarchy was strict and many were the rules to be enforced.
The Order had begun with thirteen people, with those outside the family of the First Watcher receiving a hastily-recreated version of the original baptism using a hearth and blocks of ice. None who joined felt they were special. They'd simply had their eyes opened to the Great Lie—that those labeled as devils might not be such and that it was awfully convenient that the ones who benefited from labeling them as such were the nobles and wealthy of the Kingdom while the average citizen had never witnessed or heard tell of a single attack by any such creature on a human town or city.
Then the Dungeon had appeared.
It erupted from the city center in a terrifying mass of gleaming edges, destroying all manner of building which had previously stood there and rising higher even than the tallest point of the castle, despite how the ruling seat of the Kingdom was placed atop its cliff outside the city.
"Perhaps it's a sign, perhaps not," said Percevale when asked, despite his reluctance to take on anything resembling a leadership role. "I'll investigate."
He'd set off across the city on his own towards the fearsome Dungeon. The story he told upon his return hours later seemed impossible to believe.
The Dungeon was created by Carl and guarded His treasure.
Percevale had been the only person capable of returning alive from its innards. From the entrance, he'd personally seen men dissolve before his eyes, a woman who melted from the inside out, and others who vanished without a trace.
He'd taken two steps inside and gone no further upon receiving a warning from a voice with no source. He had kept his eyes closed upon entering, as he'd been instructed, and by this action the eyes of his mind had been further opened.
The third Hero, who was rumored to have been sighted in the city last the night before, had been slain by Carl within the Dungeon. The Hero had gone in pursuit of the princess, his bride-to-be, and he'd been found wanting. According to the Dungeon, which spoke in the voice of a wise, elderly woman, the Hero was no such thing, and he was filthy. He'd been a man who thrived solely on lust and abuse, and it had only been by the grace of Carl that Isemeine—most beloved princess of the Kingdom for the manner in which she spoke with and listened to even the most common of citizens as though they were equals, an occurrence which had become noticeably less frequent once the hero arrived—had managed to escape from his clutches.
Percevale had spat when he spoke the hero's name, and all who heard the story felt the judgment was fair. Some questioned it at first, but there were more who visited the Dungeon on that day. They were too afraid to enter, but the Dungeon would speak with them all the same, confirming every word that the First Watcher had spoken.
This was no hero.
The Order had grown as people made their pilgrimages to the Dungeon to have their eyes opened. Surely a Dungeon would have no reason to fabricate such stories, nor could it manage to do so while providing such detail about matters that only the thing summoned by the liars would know.
Eyes were opened.
The fourth princess was truly beloved by all, even though all she had done was speak with them fairly.
She'd treated them as though they mattered.
The Order of the Opened Eyes swelled to over a thousand members on the first day.
It was on that second day that Percevale had encouraged his family to step inside the Dungeon with him and take what he had termed The First Step.
There was treasure in the Dungeon. The Dungeon itself said as much. The treasure was such that any who laid eyes even on the box that it was housed in would go mad with desire, unable to stop themselves from attempting to retrieve it. Such was the reason Percevale had closed his eyes when he stepped inside the Dungeon and survived when others could not.
He sought not the treasure of the Dungeon but the treasure of the mind that truly opening his eyes could bring.
Susanney sought that same degree of awakening that her husband had attained. Their children had varying feelings on the matter, from Arminel's quiet belief, to Huchon's thirst for the relative adventure that stepping inside a true Dungeon would bring, to Bartelot's fear of being left out, and even Rikild's search for proof that it was all true.
The trip to the city's center should have been simple and uneventful. It should have taken no more than an hour.
Instead, they'd been accosted by the Royal Guard as they drew near their destination. The man in charge, some ranking officer based on his attire, ordered them to stop and be taken to the castle's prison to await trial for fomenting rebellion.
"You talk like you're awaiting this Carl to rescue you," the Royal Guard officer said with a scoff, rousing chuckles from his men.
The city watched what happened at this moment on the busy intersection of the craftsmen's avenue with the guildsmen's avenue, where soldiers sent by the Queen herself were attempting to arrest members of the newly-formed Order of the Opened Eyes.
Percevale, despite his all-too-average height, stood tall as he drew the sword he always carried at his waist even after being discharged from the army. "No," he said calmly, his stance lowering as he prepared to defend his family. "The Order doesn't require idle faith like the churches of those liars. Those who act may be helped, or they may not. But my eyes are open, and I see that I must act."
The practiced way in which he twirled his sword at that moment set Susanney's heart fluttering, reminded as she was of how gallant her husband had been when he'd begun courting her so many years earlier. Her only wish in that moment was that she'd been trained to fight so that she could stand beside him.
Her eyes were opened now, however. She no longer believed that her problems would be solved by idle prayer. Instead, she must believe, yes, but she must also see.
She must act.
She bent down and hefted a good-sized rock, then hurled it at the nearest soldier. "Leave us be!" she cried, feeling a rush in her head. "We've plotted no such thing!"
The rock bounced off the quick-reacting guard's shield, and he glared. A second stone bounced off his helmet, this one thrown by Huchon.
"Fuck off," her second-oldest son taunted. "Don't you have elves to be fucking, you liar-worshiper?"
Gasps rose up through the onlooking crowd at his casual use of the forbidden name. All had heard of it, but it was a word that they'd closed their eyes to as part of the Great Lie.
"Take them," said the officer, drawing his own sword to advance with his soldiers.
"I'll delay them," Percevale called back. "If you reach the Dungeon, it will shelter you so long as you do not seek the treasure." His muscles tensed as he prepared to—
There was a sudden crash and a large object smashed down onto the right-most soldier with incredible speed and force. It rolled, flying to pieces as it bounced through the intersection and into each soldier as they stood in line before colliding heavily with the side of a building some ways down and smashed its way through.
Susanney stared after it for a short while before her eyes searched the area.
Her eyes were opened now, and she could see for herself.
A hunk of metal lay embedded in the ground where the object had landed, and a trail of debris was left in its wake. A wheel, perhaps from a carriage, lay split in half nearby, and there were shards of glass and other metals all over. It seemed like a miracle that none of the pieces had struck a member of her family as they flew out; none of them had been harmed in any way.
The same could not be said for the Royal Guard soldiers, whose only remains were splatters of blood and chunks of flesh and bone in the same direction that the object had hurtled towards.
Percevale took a deep breath and let it out, then sheathed his sword. "This was no miracle!" he called to the gaping bystanders. "My eyes are opened, and I saw that I must act. I acted, and so I am saved."
He turned to his family, rubbing an affectionate hand across Rikild's cheek. "Let's continue on," he said. "It's not far now."
Rikild, who had been stoically silent for nearly the entire time since that fateful night, sniffled suddenly. She threw her arms around her father and pressed her face to his chest. "Father, I'm sorry!" she wailed. "Please forgive me! I love you, Father!"
Percevale smiled, his eyes growing misty. "There's nothing to forgive, Riki," he said in a gentle voice, returning the hug. "You're my daughter. I'll always love you."
And so it was on that day when The Order of the Opened Eyes swelled its ranks to over five thousand that Percevale's family truly felt that he'd returned to them after eleven long years.