CHAPTER 80

Katarina blinked herself awake. That had been more than a month ago. For the first time in a long time she was in a bed, her bed. Wide and soft, the sheets clean and smooth, the heavy blankets warm. The bed was too wide though, too empty, too vacant, as empty and lonely as her own heart.

Her ears had stopped bleeding; that was a relief. They still rang, though, a faint, high and thin whine that seemed endless. The priestesses had told her it would pass, but it seemed to Katarina that it had settled in for good.

She was supposed to be asleep, she was supposed to be resting, recovering her strength. What strength was there to recover? How could she rest? Her heart seemed ripped in two, and it seemed nothing could ever mend it back together again.

Had the tears come? She couldn’t tell anymore. She wanted to cry her heart out. She couldn’t remember if she had. Her throat was raw and sore. Her eyes hurt, her arms hurt, her ears hurt, her legs felt weak and wobbly, there was an overwhelming sense of exhaustion, both physical and mental. She was supposed to be asleep, but she couldn’t. She was supposed to be resting, but she couldn’t. She’d lost everything, just at the point when she was beginning to think-

Her Master was dead. She’d only known him for a couple of weeks, and yet he’d filled some necessary, needed part of her she hadn’t been aware of until he’d practically dropped himself into her life.

-This body is a putrid sack; a prison of flesh and bone filled with execrable filth. The thought bolted across Katarina’s mind and a horrible feeling of revulsion and disgust suddenly had her scrambling for the chamber pot, where she emptied the contents of her stomach, heaved over and over again until there was nothing left, and still she heaved.

She sat on the edge of the bed, toes lightly brushing the carpet.

At the unprecedented age of six, her sister had been taken from her. Alsabet Pavlenko was an unsanctioned mage. Dimly remembered memories of a childhood long gone and nearly forgotten recalled a tightly-knit bond between the two of them. Kat couldn’t bear to be apart from Alse. Or was it the other way ‘round? It’d been too long, and they had been children, besides.

Only a few months later, and the Cardinals from the Church had come to the Pavlenko household again, this time for Katarina. "This one has a resistance to magic. She must be brought into the church to help us against the threat of the Witch."

However, Katarina was much too young to be taught how to be a Witch Hunter. She’d only been six years old, after all. So she’d been sent to the Schola Progenium, an orphanage. Why hadn’t they simply waited until she was old enough? No answers, there.

The orphanage was a warzone. Even under the beacon of civilization, even under the light of the Goddess, the law of the jungle lived truer than any word spoken: Only the strong survive. So she became strong.

At eleven Katarina had been introduced to a somewhat timid but compassionate girl; Frederika Edelweiss, a noble girl from a faraway land brought to the capital city of Darnell to learn the ways of the Anglish Empire. Over the period of a week, Katarina had to protect the petite girl against the older boys, and a number of bodies were sent to the crematorium. To Frederika, Katarina was impervious, immaculate, immortal and indestructible. Frederika trusted Katarina implicitly. If Katarina told Frederika that they would have toasted clouds for dessert, she would unfailingly believe that they would feast on toasted clouds.

Frederika chose to learn the path of the Priestess, of healing through medicine and prayer, and finally, Katarina was allowed to begin the courses of Witch Hunter training.

"Investigation. The knowledge of magic and its counters. Combat. Survival." The words husked themselves out of Katarina’s throat, still tender, sore, and swollen from her tears and sobbing.

At sixteen, Katarina had been sent into the woods for a month to live or die by her own strength. She hadn’t even been able to tell Frederika goodbye, it had happened so quickly.

There, she’d met the man she would call Master, an aged and wizened Witch Hunter Lord Donald Christensen, the so-called "Wolf of Alastor". He’d been mortally wounded by a giant bear, and it took all of the skill she’d picked up from Frederika, her prayers and her faith to keep him alive.

She kept him alive. The thought weighed heavily in her heart, like a stone. How she had prayed! She’d begged -begged- the Goddess to keep him alive.

He lived long enough to teach her what it really meant to be a Witch Hunter: Unswerving faith and unshakable will.

He’d been tracking a Witch, a foul mage who could cause his foes heart to explode in his chest. Archibald Heartsbane. Her master caught him, imprisoned the witch in the field of magical interference that radiated out from his body, and ordered her to shoot.

There was no other choice. She killed the Witch, but the bullet that passed through the heretic’s body had powered through, shattering bone, tearing and rupturing the flesh, and exiting out the other side of his body- directly into the body of her Master.

She’d rescued him, kept him alive, was apprenticed to him, was taught by him, loved him... and then she’d killed him.

Unnoticed, tears ran from her eyes.

She’d returned from her month in the woods. Almost half her class hadn’t. They’d died from exposure, malnutrition, rockfalls, prey to predators, monsters, mutants.

"And then-" she croaked, but couldn’t continue.

Devon. Instructor, teacher, guide. She trusted him, and he’d betrayed her. Cunningly hiding his powers to warp and twist the minds of those around him. With the death of her master tearing her heart asunder, the betrayal of her instructor had finished her. Her boot on her chest, his pleas for mercy, tears pooling in his eyes and streaming down his face as he begged for clemency. It was too late for that. She’d taken the vow, it was carved into the bones of her soul by the Church, by the Empire, by her late master: Thou shalt not suffer the Witch to live.

She’d blown out her eardrums, pulling the trigger in the tiny room of his office. The .50 caliber musket ball had made a thunderous explosion and an impressively disgusting mess of her former instructor.

But he lived on, tormenting her in her nightmares.

Katarina opened her eyes in the pale light of the new dawn. How could she go on? At least I have Frederika she’d thought. She would cling to her in the same way the girl had clung to her, for support, for comfort, for love and security.

But when she’d returned to their room, Frederika had already returned to her own country. Suddenly her room was too big, too empty, too desolate. Her bed was cold and foreign. She was alone.

Her mind ran in small circles. She didn’t want to be a Witch Hunter anymore. She couldn’t do it. Her ambition had cost too much. She couldn’t quit; the price of her success was too high.

She slid out of bed soundlessly and opened the curtains. How many times had Frederika done the same, chiding Katarina out of bed? She eyed her forearms in the morning light; the last gift her Master had bequeathed to her in some ritual she barely understood. Her arms were wrapped in tattoos of twining vines and lily blossoms. Almost hidden in the vines and leaves and flowers were small symbols; marks of power in the language beyond time, the Goddess’ own divine Words of Creation.

They were a two-edged sword: they were supposed to strengthen, bless, and protect her. On the other hand, it hurt to look at them, and to try and pronounce them could result in a gristly doom none dared speak of.

There was a short, businesslike knock on the door to her outer apartments, followed by the sound of the door being opened.

Katarina immediately moved from the window, yanking her sword from her scabbard and her gun from her holster. She’d barely laid the long barrel of her gun across the crook of her arm and settled her feet when her bedroom door opened and the High Inquisitrix Herself stepped into the room.

If she was surprised to see Katarina up, gun out, sword at the ready, she gave no visible clue. Instead, she eyed the young Witch Hunter with narrowed eyes.

"You might want to put on some clothes." She remarked dryly.

"You might explain why you’re here." Katarina replied tersely. Inwardly she was proud of herself. No fear, only determination.

"I’m the head of the Inquisition, Witch Hunter." She reminded Katarina unnecessarily. "I go where I want and do what I like. Now get dressed. That’s an order."

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An icicle of anger spiked Katarina’s heart. "I answer to the Golden Lady and no one else." She replied, but the High Inquisitrix merely folded her arms and tapped her foot impatiently.

Katarina took a step backwards and leaned her sword against a chair. How many times had Frederika and herself curled up in that chair together, chatting about some book or lesson or philosophy or whatever?

Did it even matter anymore?

"It’d be awfully hilarious to see you try and get dressed while keeping a gun trained on me, Witch Hunter." Alayne observed, an amused smile flickering on her face.

"You think I shouldn’t be suspicious?" Katarina replied, gun trained on the other woman as she opened the armoire with her clothes inside one-handed. "Witch Hunters are trained by four people, one of which revealed himself to be a Witch and a traitor." Katarina replied flatly.

High Lady Inquisitrix Alayne unfolded her arms and stood up straight, eyes flashing sparks.

"That... You can rest assured the Torchbearers will be doing everything in their power to root out any traces of his influence left behind." She spat, voice tight with fury. "Now get dressed. You have appointments to keep, even if I have to drag you to them."

Katarina slowly lowered her gun and set it to the side, within arms’ reach. She pulled her clothes out of the closet and dressed quickly.

"First, you’re going to the Fortress of the Torchbearers for a second-degree Interrogation of the Soul." Alayne announced. "We need to know everything we can get out of that head of yours about him. What he was like, his habits, any detail that might let us more effectively root out any co-conspirators."

"Second, you need to visit the College of Firearms. That gun doesn’t belong to you."

Katarina paused in the middle of doing up her hair in the usual braid. "Lord Christensen- My Master- gave me that gun." She snarled, and Alayne merely raised her hands. "It’s not yours until the bond is passed to you." She reminded the Witch Hunter gently. "So don’t shoot the messenger."

"And?" Katarina urged, buckling her sword belt around her hips, followed by her gunbelt. After a moment of consideration, she sheathed her saber and pistol.

"Passable, I suppose." The woman remarked at Katarina’s appearance. Her shirt was oversized, tailored for a man. Katarina shrugged into a leather training vest and negotiated the hooks and loops so that it pit comfortably.

"Better." The older woman remarked, and moved as if to spit, but choked it back.

"And...?" Katarina added, cranking her hand in an impatient hurry-up gesture.

"You’ve got a short disposition before the Grand Cardinal. You don’t have to worry about that. She’ll look over the information we get out of you from the Invocation of the Soul and maybe ask how you’re feeling. Perhaps you should shoot her, if it pleases you. Finally, I have a small present for you."

Katarina’s eyes snapped to the other woman's face. "A gift?"

She nodded. She’d leaned back against one of the bed’s posts again and had resumed tapping her foot.

"You’ve heard of the Dire Wolf Program, I’m sure." Katarina blinked and shook her head in confusion.

"Peh. Least kept secret in the Witch Hunter community." The other woman barked. "New Witch Hunters are paired with a Dire Wolf pup. It’s called "imprinting". You’ll feed and care for it and teach it to hunt... and perhaps more importantly, to behave."

"You’re giving me an animal to raise?" Katarina replied skeptically, swinging her master’s old leather duster over her shoulders like a cape and clapping his hat on her head.

Alayne gestured to the door behind her.

"You should know this already. The Witch Hunter life expectancy is about two years. That’s alone, given a horse, a gun, and sent out into the world and told to hunt and kill the Witch. You should know the reality of that. Out of the fifty-two that was sent out into the wilderness just to survive in the woods for a month, only twenty-eight came back alive, and realistically more like twenty-seven." She paused. "But what if they weren’t alone? What if they had an intelligent companion to back their play? Hunt, guard, track, defend, attack... kill."

"So ... a pet." Katarina replied warily and gestured to the door.

"Not a pet. A partner." the other woman urged. "You’ll have to raise it for a while. Hand-feed it. Sing to it. Make sure it doesn’t crap on the carpet. But when it’s grown- no, even less, even half-grown, you’ll find how damnably useful they are."

She paused, eyeing the young Witch Hunter. "I’m going to have to learn to stop treating you like a Witch Hunter neophyte and start treating you like the Witch Hunter you are." After a moment of consideration she straightened again.

"Your things. His things." She paused. "Get them out. The table in your sitting room will do."

Katarina’s eyes narrowed at that. "What about them? They’re mine."

The High Inquisitrix shook her head once; left, right. "Some of them are yours by right of inheritance, Witch Hunter," She paused, "But his family will need more than his ashes to lay him to rest." Her voice softened. "You understand, right?"

Katarina nodded slowly.

"Good. Bring them- all of them- into the sitting room, and we shall see what we shall see."

Lady Alayne was brisk, businesslike, and thorough, sifting through her master’s belongings with dispassionate professionalism. A double handful of magical trinkets and baubles went into one pile for disposal. "His family can’t inherit these, and you’re much too green a Witch Hunter to use them safely. Likely they would be safer kept under lock and key, or destroyed." She murmured. She lifted a skillet and chortled. "A cookpan enchanted to clean itself. Pragmatic. You can keep that." A handful of brass bearings, nearly the caliber of her gun, enchanted with a light spell. "Useful for dark places. Scatter them about and you’ll have no fear of caves." She picked up his- her saber.

"By right of inheritance, his weapons should be your weapons..." She trailed off, "but I think this should be given to his family." She looked at the Witch Hunter. "Your call."

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Alyane stood on a small podium, the railing gold, polished and burnished until it seemed almost liquid. In front and above her was the tribunal bench; it stretched seemingly for miles to either side of her.

A trial? She’d stood in the Petitioner’s Stand many times over the course of her long life, reporting discovered secrets and hidden dangers to the High Court; the organization of Lady Cardinals that made up the executive body of the entirety of the Anglish Empire. The Bench of the High Court was not as intimidating as this, however. The actual bench itself was heavy, ponderous black marble, threaded in gold. This was no simple courtroom, this was some ominous portent.

The Golden Lady’s sacred metal was gold; her colors trifold: white, green, oxblood red, with the trifold meaning of healing and teaching white, fertility, spring, and new life for green, and the red of blood shed in the defense and sheltering of Her peoples.

There was another color, however. Just as the Golden Lady, the Goddess of Spring, the Teacher, the Protector, the Defender stood arrayed in white, green, and red for those that lived and loved and thrived in Her light, so too did She present a color for those who turned away from Her. The black of the Void, the Terror of the Long Night unabated. To be in the Petitioner’s Stand of the Tribunal of the Golden Lady; sheathed in marble as black as pitch, the pressure weighed on the chest like a sack of stones. Each breath was a labor.

Directly in front of her, a golden disc with a lily impressed into it; the lily was also metal, but forged from an unfamiliar milky white metal. Above and below the Seal was line after line of faded script. It had been carved into the marble, but dust and cobwebs filled and obscured them, making them illegible.

Dust? Cobwebs? She blinked; this court in her dream was filled with the dust of abandoned ages. She glanced down; the railing on the Petitioner’s stand had somehow faded in its brilliance, festooned in dust and cobwebs.

An old woman now occupied the Bench, ancient beyond belief. Her skin swarmed with spots, stretched parchment-tight over skeletal angles. Her eyes were closed in sleep, her face runneled with immeasurable age. She wore some hood, or shawl, fingers laced together, hands clasped before her.

"What is this place?" Alayne asked, and the old woman did not stir.

"What is this place, who are you?" She demanded. If she could cross the intervening space between her and the Bench she might be able to wake the old crone and get some answers- her thoughts cut off.

There was no intervening space. Just the stark, unrelieved black of the Void. To take one step from the Petitioner’s Stand would rend her soul from her body and cast it shrieking into the abyss.

Shock and horror froze her heart in her chest, turned her veins to ice and locked tight the breath in her lungs. Eventually, she realized, someone would find her. A servant, perhaps. Her body might be alive, but empty, unresponsive, or perhaps dead already, unable to continue living without the soul to define it and give it purpose.

"Long and long has it been before someone stood before Me like this." the crone observed quietly, sadly. "My door has always been open, the lantern lit, yet so few come."

Uncountable questions bubbled to Alayne’s lips, but the first made no sense, even as she asked it without thinking: "How long has it been?"

The old woman’s fingers twitched; her head shifted slightly in surprise. Alayne had trained herself all her life to observe the tiniest details.

"How long?" The woman asked and a tremulous, querulous voice. The crone seemed to wonder in thought. "Thirty years?" the woman made some small movement, a shrug that seemed to reflect incomprehension. A heartbeat or a millennium; neither could be understood by this creature.

"She came to me, and I warned her." The woman scoffed bitterly. "And what did she do? Went and got fat. Rich." the old woman invested the last with scorn and disgust. Her next words chilled the marrow in Alayne’s bones. "And how is it you find yourself here? A mere collection of coincidence and happenstance." She opened her eyes and looked at Alayne, and if she was frozen with fear before, she was now petrified.

The Goddess of the Dawn, in the guise of an old woman eyed the High Lady Inquisitor, called the Inquisitrix by some, called the High Lady Caine by others, with eyes that looked upon the infinite.

"But you are here. Even if you tripped and fell and somehow stumbled your way here, you would still be here- accident or intent- it makes no difference." The Goddess’ eyes narrowed. "I shall abide by the Agreement, as shall you."

Suddenly, Alayne’s breath cut off.

"You were about to ask a question. A trivial question. A stupid question. That is not why you are here; I reject your question." The Goddess stated flatly, eyes burning with brilliant flame boiling in eternity.

"You don’t even know how you came here." The Goddess paused. "If you can find your way back to me, I will honor the Agreement. If not, consider this your consolation prize and wallow in the indignity of your ignorance. Now listen, and remember: "If they do not hear my words, they will not be prepared for my helps. I will provide many helps, but my words are needed to reveal these. If they do not listen, they will not have my helps and very few will survive the times of Divine Justice."

The Goddess sat back, a small smile on her face. "There. Puzzle on that, when you wake-"

Alayne bolted upright in bed, clutching her sheets to her chest. Her whole body was soaked with sweat, her sheets were soggy and torn in places from her frenzied grasping.

"Shit." She whispered.