It was proving to be a difficult night for First Paladin Pierro Pendraken. While he was ostensibly the head of security and responsible for maintaining the air of orderly righteousness that exemplified Cathedral Primus, everyone knew it was one of those jobs that basically did itself. So long as the populace was sufficiently terrified of the just and fitting punishments doled out by the Church, and as long as the nightwatchmen stayed sober, there was never anything to worry about. The peasant rebellions and internal power struggles that were such a large part of the Church’s early history were all but forgotten now. The Cardinal had put an end to such nonsense.

And so when a string of strange reports started coming to Pierro throughout the night with concerning regularity, he at first assumed the guards had simply misplaced their virtue and cracked open a cask of sacramental wine or medicinal whiskey. But the reports kept coming, and they all bore some disturbing similarities.

“Yessir, a ghost sir!”

Pierro smoothed his long, white moustache as he regarded the man before him. “A ghost, you say? Surely not here? In the House of the One? Not here, where all sins are forgiven and our Great God takes all wayward souls into his arms? It stands to reason that there could not, in fact, be any ghosts here. Not unless the Scriptures were, Lord forgive me for even suggesting it, not undeniably true and precise accounts of the Word and Will of the One? You’re not suggesting the prophets were not infallible, no?”

It was clear the guard was struggling to find an appropriate response to the barrage of what may or may not be rhetorical questions, let alone wrap his head around the final triple negative. He eventually opted for the tried and true, “As you say, sir. Praise be to the One, sir. Definitely not a ghost, sir.”

But the reports kept coming. Keys floating about, doors opening and closing by themselves, guard dogs barking at empty air. No, not a ghost, thought Pierro. This was something worse. Dogs didn’t care about ghosts. Dogs cared about people. And there was someone here, in this blessed, sanctified House of the One, daring to use magic right beneath the Lord’s nose. A truly unspeakable crime that, and one that would look very, very bad if it went unpunished on his watch.

“Chamberlain!”

An elderly man emerged from a side room, holding a gilded helmet adorned with sweeping silver wings in one hand and a microhamster polishing cloth in the other. He still moved with vigour despite his advanced age, and his eyes were bright and curious, betraying no hint that he was in any way ready for his soul to be entrusted to the One’s keeping.

“My Lord?”

The paladin rose from the single-person pew he used for an office chair and strode across the room to take the helmet. “Fetch my sword and send for the kennel master. Tell her to bring Hardy, Sturdy and one of the little ones. We’re going on a fox hunt.”

“At this time of night, sir?”

“Not a literal fox hunt, Sebastian! I was being…how do you say…”

“A liar, sir?”

“No! Melodramatic! I’m just trying to spice things up a bit, man!” Pierro gave the old man one of his most disapproving looks, which was usually enough to send a full-grown man to his knees begging for the One’s forgiveness. The chamberlain merely nodded.

“Very good sir. What shall I tell Lady Kalila, then?”

“Tell her…dammit, man, the moment’s gone. Just tell her to bring the dogs, and quickly.”

Sebastian slipped away to fulfil his orders, moving faster than any man over the age of twenty had a right to. He was undeniably efficient, though Pierro thought the old man would do well to lose some of that sass. It just wasn't dignified, and the one thing that drove Pierro Pendraken was his insatiable thirst for dignity. Some might call it pride or arrogance, but he knew better. Of course he knew better, because he was better. He had earned his airs of superiority, unlike the Sebastians of the world who had power only because they moved in the orbit of people like the First Paladin. People of conviction. People of action.

He put his helmet on and waited, noting that Sebastian had left without fetching his sword. He could see it on the other side of the room, gleaming impressively atop the mantlepiece in its specially made cradle, but he’d be damned if he was going to fetch it himself. He was sure the chamberlain had forgotten it on purpose just to annoy him. The old man absolutely wouldn’t have correctly gauged the urgency of the situation and prioritised the message for the kennel master. Lesser men like him had no sense for these things. No, Sebastian was just trying to undermine him in his own small, petty ways. Disgraceful behaviour from a man who had been given so much by the Church.

He eventually returned, followed by a short, dark haired woman in a leather vest who was, in turn, being followed by a trio of dogs. Two of them were probably big enough for her to ride, long jowls flapping about as they sniffed the air, while the smaller one could fit in a basket. It looked up at him, and Pierro couldn’t help but admire its fine moustache. He knelt down for a closer look, a difficult feat in full plate armour.

“Ahh! A well-groomed young fellow indeed!” He reached out a gauntleted hand, and the small dog gave it a cursory lick. “What breed is he?”

“She is a Schnauzer, milord. Miniature Schnauzer, technically.”

“She? Are you sure? What about the moustache?”

“Quite sure, milord. They all have moustaches.”

Pierro withdrew his hand and frowned at the little animal. “No no no, that won’t do. You’ll have to shave it off.”

“Over my dead body, milord.”

He pushed himself to his feet and looked down at the woman. She didn’t flinch. Why was everyone so damned obstinate today? He was about to admonish her when his chamber door flung open and the guard captain rushed in.

“First Paladin! Sir! There’s a g…”

Pierro held a hand up, silencing the man. “A ghost, yes, I know.” He kept his eyes fixed on Lady Kalila, who he was sure hadn’t yet blinked once. “Lady, we will discuss these…shnoozers…later, and their unseemly proclivities. For now, I need the boys to help me catch a ghost.”

Sebastian sidled up to him and held out a velvet cushion upon which rested Luxcaelum, the Light of Heaven, Slayer of Sin and Annihilator of Apostasy. He gripped the golden hilt and raised the blade high in the air. “Evil forces walk the Halls of the Holy this night! Great God, guide my hand! Hardy! Sturdy! With me!” The paladin charged out of the room with the two big dogs barking at his heels. The guard captain chased after them, furiously blowing his alarm whistle.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Kalila watched them disappear down the hall. “I’d better go after them. Can I leave Ava with you, Seb?”

“Of course, my dear.” He reached down to scratch the little dog between the ears. “May I take the liberty of waxing the little lady’s moustache while she’s here? I’m sure it would infuriate Master Pendraken.”

“Please do, Seb. Please do.”

* * *

If it weren’t for the single visit with Cyril that she’d managed to wrangle from that lecherous lump of a subdeacon, Louisa was quite certain she never would made it past the outer sanctum let alone found the dungeon. For all their preaching about the solidarity of humanity, they sure did have a lot of ways to keep people out of the Cathedral. It wasn’t just the locked doors and false walls. The deeper you went into the vast structure, the more secret passwords and special handshakes you needed to cross from one section to another.

It had taken her nearly two hours just to make it past the laymen guards and their dogs in the outer gardens, then through the servants’ quarters where all the domestic help lived. Her primary tactic was simply to quaff an invisibility potion and just slip in behind them wherever possible. There was one poor maid tied up in a storeroom, having been relieved of her uniform and her dignity, but she was largely unharmed and someone would surely find her before she starved to death.

It didn’t take nearly as long to weave through the novice wing. The whole place smelled far too much like teenage boys to believe there was anything sanctimonious going on here. Steal a key, slip through a door, distract a few boys with the maid’s stolen underwear. Easy, no real challenge, although the incident with the flying chamber pot had one of the novices trying to convince his classmates there was a ghost in the dorm.

Eventually she found herself in a brightly lit foyer between the primary barracks of the Militaris Ordo and the quarters of the middle-management clerics. This was the threshold to the inner sanctum where things started getting tricky. Dozens of identical doors lead in every direction. She remembered being led through one of them during her visit, down a hall that took her straight to the prison section, but everything looked so similar she just couldn’t remember which one. There were also a lot of armed men lounging about, sitting at tables either eating, playing cards or simply chatting. To make things even more difficult, she noticed the faint wisp of her shadow against the floor as the invisibility potion started wearing off.

Keenly aware that the potion stash was getting low and the night wearing on, Louisa decided it was time to take a bigger risk. Lifting a candle from an ornate holder, she kept as close to the walls as she could and crept towards a scribe sitting in a corner. He’d amassed a sizable pile of what looked like copies of warrants or proscriptions notices, which, as a book lover, helped to assuage any guilt she may have felt over what she was about to do.

She was barely a foot away when he suddenly turned around, alerted by either her shadow or the floating flame, maybe both. Whatever. She dropped the candle into the stack of paper and saw the man’s eye widen in horror. He fell out of his chair in a desperate attempt to catch it, drawing every gaze in the room as his table flipped over and he hit the floor.

A ripple of laughter spread through the foyer. “You falling asleep on the job again, Renault? You know we need those notices by morn…”

The scrolls ignited altogether with a great whoosh, the flames accelerated by the ill-considered use of the ink of the Pyrocephalus Majora, otherwise known as the Greater Flame Squid, as a writing medium. The corner of a low-hanging tapestry ignited, the fire spreading quickly across the grand, woven images of saints and paladins. Men rushed forward to beat at the flames and drag poor, smouldering Renault to safety.

Amidst the chaos, Louisa ran from door to door, flinging them open one after another in search of the corridor in her memory, all whilst trying to dodge the confusion of panicked bodies as the room filled with smoke. Finally, the eight or ninth door opened to something she recognised, an austere corridor devoid of decoration, with a heavy iron gate at the far end.

She slammed the door shut just as the invisibility wore off, and her head swam as she tried to readjust to the sight of her own body. It made her feel heavy and very, very vulnerable.

“Bout time, luv. I’ll take a baked potato and a coffee with cream, cheers.”

Louisa turned around slowly. In her haste she’d not noticed the rotund little man sitting on a stool by the gate.

“Make that two baked potatoes actually, luv. And don’t spare the cheese.”

She took a deep breath and started marching towards him, too close to her goal now to waste any more time with deception. Time to just get shit done. There was a spear leaning against the wall next to him, but he was old enough and fat enough that she was sure she could take him down if the need arose.

He looked her up and down as she approached. “Ahh…no potatoes tonight?”

“No.” She stopped in front of him and reached for the spear.

“Careful, luv, that thing is pretty sharp.”

“I hope so.” She tested the weapon’s weight, gripping it in both hands and thrusting it into the empty air. Yes, this was adequate. “Open the gate.”

“Umm…” He was watching the spear tip as she waved it around some more. “Might I ask why you need to…”

“Cardinal’s orders. Open the gate.”

The combined threat of the spear and the Cardinal’s displeasure was enough to convince the man, and he fumbled with his keys until he found the right one and unlocked the gate. Apparently two potatoes and a cup of coffee per night were not enough to buy a man’s loyalty, let alone risk his life to stop a homicidal maid from getting into the prison.

She held her hand out. “Keys.” He handed them over without a word. “Which ones open the cells?”

“They’re numbered, luv, same as the cells. Be careful down there, though, there’s dangerous…” She glared at him and his voice trailed off, perhaps finally realising that the real danger was looking right at him.

“Close the gate behind me. Let no one else through, and tell no one you saw me. Cardinal’s orders.”

He stepped aside to let her pass, bowing as deeply as his belly would allow and making the Sign of the One. “Ma’am, yes ma’am.”

Louisa descended the stair as she heard the gate close behind her. Maybe she hadn’t needed the potions at all? These people were so afraid of their own leaders that no one dared ask too many questions if you just acted like you owned them. She pulled a torch from the wall as she continued further down, through two more locked, unguarded gates, and into the prison proper.

It was dark, deathly silent, and stank of death and piss. Her torchlight revealed dozens of gaunt, miserable faces staring out of their tiny cells, staring blanky at her as she walked the corridors, trying to retrace her steps to her husband’s cell.

“Cyril!” she hissed as loudly as she dared. Unfamiliar faces looked back at her as she went from door to door. “Cyril! Where are you?”

A ghostly white hand, barely more than skin and bone, reached out from a nearby cell and pointed further down the corridor. Louisa held up her torch to get a better look at the poor wretch inside, and said, “Cyril Silverton, where is he?” The ghastly face grinned and he pointed again down the corridor.

She hurried off in the direction indicated, raising her voice and calling, “Cyril! Where is Cyril Silverton?” More hands stretched out, guiding her through the darkness until at last she came to a cell she vaguely recognised. A body lay face down on the floor, not moving. “Cyril! Are you in there?” The fear had been rising with every step through this damnable place, and she’d done her best to suppress it but now the reality of the silence hit her like a hammer. “Cyril! It’s me! Cyril! Wake up!”

She looked for the cell number above the door, tried to match it to one of the keys on the ring, but her hands were shaking just as her heart was breaking. A terrible sob wrenched itself out of her chest as she dropped the keyring and the torch, reaching into her pack and feeling around for the oval shape of one of the witch’s potions. She ripped the cork out and sucked down the thick, bitter liquid. Heat flowed through her body, concentrating in her arms and legs until it felt like they were on fire.

Heedless now of how much noise she was making, she began ripping iron bars clean out of their stone moorings until she could squeeze through. Louisa reached down, flipped the body over, dragged it into the flickering torchlight, and screamed.