Yal stepped into Crisens’ office once again. The Lord’s pristine and orderly bookshelves were wrecked. The carpet was stained in red. Nearly every window was broken, leaving it impossible to make a step without the sound of crunching glass.
Even the hallway outside was in much the same state, with toppled statues and scorched walls. The Inquisition’s shadow agents and Castle Choir’s very own guards did well to resist the intruder, but they were much too powerful.
Yal stopped before the body on the carpet. The apprentices had helpfully covered it in a white cloth. That’s one way to eliminate suspects, he quietly chuckled to himself.
“Let it be known that Lord Crisens died a loyal subject to the Throne,” he said aloud, letting himself be heard for the Secretary trailing him to jot down his words.
He left the office soon after, approaching two gray-robed Inquisitors, the principal investigators of this particular case.
“Senior,” they both greeted him.
“Well now, offer up a summary, if you will,” Yal said.
“Of course,” the older investigator started. “Two intruders attacked from the eastern and western sides of the castle one hour before first light. Both insisted on stealth, but the eastern intruder’s presence was exposed in the hall below us.”
The younger investigator shared his notes with the older, who only then continued, “It was at that point that five of the castle’s guards engaged the intruder, but were wiped out. According to our agents’ testimonies, that was when the western intruder decided to reveal their presence. Our senior agent decided to engage the western intruder three-on-one, losing but with no fatalities.”
That one detail piqued Yal’s interest. “What is the nature of their wounds?”
“No wounds either, Inquisitor. They were paralyzed by some kind of binding force.”
Yal nodded. “Continue.”
The investigator looked back down at his notes. “The western and eastern intruders then met here in this hallway, at which point they engaged each other”—
Yal could already see where this was going.
— “They were then followed by the earlier shadow agents and a new contingent of guards. As the guards were not aware of the shadow agents, their sergeant decided to kill or subdue all on-sight. Neither our agents nor the guards could decipher the intruders’ intentions, and so it devolved into a four-way battle.”
He flipped to the next couple of pages. “According to the senior agent’s account, the battle shifted as both our agents and the guards determined that only the eastern intruder was using lethal force. Deeming them the more dangerous adversary, all parties independently prioritized attacking the eastern intruder, resulting in the death or injury of all guards, agents, and the western intruder.”
The investigator looked up at Yal to see if his senior was still interested in the obvious conclusion. Yal nodded.
“The eastern intruder broke through the seal of Lord Crisens’ office. Our autopsy suggests he was tortured before finally being killed.”
Yal raised an eyebrow. The Lord knew something that even the demon didn’t? Fascinating.
“And what of the western intruder?” Yal asked.
“Pronounced dead on-scene, senior,” the investigator replied.
Yal nodded and thanked the man, leaving him to his duties, and leaving the castle, altogether. Of course, the western intruder was well and alive; he just wanted to check if the misinformation had been handled properly. Obscuring the truth from one’s own forces was the fundamental modus operandus of the Inquisition, after all.
***
Towards the edge of Chello, there stood a two-story brown brick building beside a small apple orchard. The caretakers of the land, a family with ten generations of history here, patrolled their ward every so often, looking for sneaking “bugs.”
They loved their trees, and tending to them was all they wanted to do. They were such a big family, however, and the income from just selling the amount of apples they did wasn’t evidently enough to support them all. Many children departed to find jobs in other parts of the city, or even other parts of the country. Those who stayed, however, all took on part-time jobs from the same employer; the family showed their loyalty to their employer, and the employer showed loyalty to them. It had been nine generations since.
Yal stepped off the carriage and onto a dirt road, a brown brick building right in front of him. He saw that the orchard’s caretakers were watching him from afar, but they soon went about their business as he did his own.
He knocked on the door of the old family home, and it was the same woman as ten years ago who opened it. Her hair was grayer, and she used a cane to walk now, just as he did. Even with wrinkles and creases, her expression remained graceful and at peace.
“Ah, Djarren, come in, come in,” she said, gesturing and turning around to walk back inside, prompting him to follow.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
He closed the door behind him. “I have heard about a new guest here,” he said. “I’d like to speak with him.”
“Oh, please, have some tea with me first.” The lady laughed. She moved to the nearby counter, scooping loose leaves from a jar into a teapot. “You’re still such a straight-to-business person, I see.”
“Comes with the work,” he replied. It was a rehearsed reply; they’ve head this exact conversation too many times to count. He sighed. “I’m afraid we will be off-script today, however.”
“Oh?” The lady eyed him with some curiosity. If Djarren was saying it like that, then it must be serious. “Par for the course, par for the course.” She poured hot water into the teapot. It would still take some time to steep. She thought it might be better, after all, for Djarren to get rid of work first so they could have a more relaxing chat afterwards. “Have tea with me before you leave, at least.”
Her small smile was a little painful for him. “I can do that.”
***
The lady pointed him to a guest room on the opposite corner of the house, placed there so no one needed to climb any stairs.
When Yal got there, he found the door to the room plastered in talismans from top to bottom, and when he opened the door, he found the floor, walls, and ceiling covered in talismans as well. There was only a narrow path on the floor, left free of talismans, leading from the door to the side of the bed.
On the bed was someone covered in bandages.
Yal closed the door behind him and hobbled over to the bedside, taking a seat beside the reported western intruder. Just from the figure alone, he couldn’t tell whether they were a man or a woman, or if they even had such a conceptualization in the first place. Their pants, though torn, were made of strange cloth that felt springy to the touch. Their arms, torso, and head were covered in enough bandages to cover nearly all their skin, but not all of it.
Blue skin, he observed. Blue demon.
The supposed enemy of humanity stirred awake. The whites of their eyes were gray, instead. Yal couldn’t imagine what bleakness this demon’s world faced.
Their gaze finally locked onto Yal. For a moment, the people of two worlds just stared at each other, not really knowing what to expect, nor what to say. The blue demon, after all, didn’t know whether they were looking at an enemy or potential ally. The best they could do was feign ignorance of this world’s language.
“I know you can understand me, demon,” Yal said. “What I don’t know is why you oppose the other one, and why you offered the powers of the ###### God to one of our people for, I suppose, ultimately good-willed ends.”
The demon didn’t reply, but Yal expected that. He’d already written the whole monologue in his head, a monologue that would cause the demon to squeak in a sort of double-reverse interrogation.
“I also don’t know why you worked with Lord Crisens”—a bluff; he didn’t even know if they worked together at all—“and why he was so adamant to take his secret to his grave…but, well, I suppose it’s par for the course that the Inquisition is too untrustworthy for such secrets.”
That wasn’t a lie. The Inquisition was an organization so paranoid that it even suspected itself, and so it had turned itself into an intentional web of lies, making it difficult for infiltrators to ascertain the truth. Perhaps Lord Crisens should be given a posthumous award for adhering to that philosophy even after his death.
“I’m sure it has nothing to do with the hero summoning artifact guarded deep inside Castle Choir,” Yal continued. “It does not appear modified from its original functions, and so that makes me curious. Why is it that there’s not one, but two demons running around in my hometown?”
The blue demon remained quiet. Yal had not said anything to gain his trust, and they both knew that. What made the blue demon nervous was that he knew that Yal knew, so what was the Inquisitor thinking just divulging information like that? Certainly, not all of that information could be trustworthy, but much of it lined up with what the blue demon knew.
“So then, Kuveler,” Yal said, surprising the blue demon with the fact that he even knew his name—only then remembering that this was a world which used System’s incredible magic. Funny how System’s humanity looked at demonic magic like it’s the most overpowered thing in the world, when the demons themselves envied the sheer scope and depth of System’s magic. Truly, Appraise was just plain cheating.
Yal continued, “I will be direct. You have little time left to live. There are no yellow demons in this city to help prolong our conversation, and calling one from the next province over will take too long. On the other hand, our interests align.”
At those last words, Kuveler’s eyes darted away, as if he was in adamant disagreement.
Yal didn’t fail to notice this. “It must be obvious,” he said. “Why did you act in defense of the late Lord Crisens? Why did you refuse to use lethal means against my agents? Regardless of where your loyalties truly lay, it is a simple fact that you did not wish to antagonize the residents of ‘this world,’ or did you?”
Kuveler took a deep breath—at least, as deep as his current condition allowed. “It’s clear you’re privy to secrets bigger than your world.”
His voice surprised Yal. It was deeper than his small build would imply. “You’re a man?”
“My first words, and that’s what you ask?” He was rather insulted, frankly speaking.
Yal chuckled. “My own job is nothing but strange, even to me, and I can’t help but be perpetually surprised by everything.” His amusement disappeared. “Then, have you made up your mind?”
“Crisens warned me against trusting the Inquisition.”
“He was correct to do so.”
“You’re contradicting yourself.”
This conversation had been nothing but amusing for Yal. “Only one department of the Inquisition deals with demons, and this department is largely considered a myth. Had you blindly approached any other department, at best, you would be laughed at; at worst, you would have leaked information to Lyrica’s various enemies, including the lessers of your kind.”
It was Kuveler’s turn to be amused. He chuckled, even if it hurt. “In some twisted way, luck is on my side.”
***
[Kuveler’s account withheld pending approval of the Officio Censor. Expected time to release: 5 months.]
***
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To Grand Inquisitor Pin-mun,
I have acquired information that there are hostile demons running around our kingdom: at least one, at most nine. With the current circumstances, dispatching the Royal Detector to Harmony should be our minimum response. I suggest dispatching an additional squad of Scarlet Knights as well.
I have also acquired information that many of these demons possess empathic arts. It would be foolhardy to discount the possibility of their use to spread corruption in Violentum’s ranks, and so I implore the Yellow House to open all its doors to aid in defending against any potential attack on our capital’s moral fiber.
Goddesses above and below watch over us.
— Inquisitor Djarren Yal, Sixth Station of the Fourth Night
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