Cole

Am I a bad person?

The question had been plaguing Cole every step of his lonely walk to Ramuf. Even once he was within the familiar limits of the traveler camps outside the walls Cole still felt alone in the world.

Am I a bad person?

The question was terrifying in its simplicity. Cole used to think of morality in clear terms. Morality is objective. When you die, your soul is judged based on the actions it chose. That meant there was a divine measure for whether you were a good person. When he died, would the Undying Court understand why Cole participated in the destruction of Gorn’s tribe?

Maybe they would. There are no lizards on the Undying Court. That thought didn’t make Cole feel any better.

Am I a bad person?

He was so absorbed in the question that his senses were dulled to the point he didn’t notice the bartender approaching him until she had already pierced his nose with a cactus needle. The surprise caused Cole to fall off his stool and spill the mug he was nursing.

“What was that for?” He demanded of the bartender.

The white haired nome looked at him like he was nothing to her. “I asked three times for your pay.”

Her voice was nasally due to her deviated nose. Cole sheepishly fished a silver from his pocket, part of his dwindling reserve from what the Order paid him.

The Order. He swore he would seek them and tell them about Outpost Onx. He dreaded seeing Rodd and Zam again after his encounter with Gorn. That’s why he had sought The Mephit’s Thirst. A stiff drink —and the drinks were stiff— would calm his nerves. So far he had drained four stiff drinks. His limbs felt light, but his chest still felt heavy.

A pitched laugh caught his ear. This early in the day the tavern was sparse. The only occupied table belonged to a collection of humans being entertained by a rotund duende. The humans wore purple robes and flashed faux golden rings. Cole thought he had seen them working in the market once. The duende he did not recognize, but his bright attire made Cole immediately think of a bard. He was drawing laughter out of the other two with his jokes.

“—During my days on the road we would encounter ruffians like that, but none wasted more time than when we met Phyrn.” The duende spoke in the gaps of his own laughter. Cole’s ears twitched at the word “phyrn.”

“It’s easy to confuse them with wild saurians, you know. Not just because they look the same but because both will approach you in the same slow manner. As if they think you don’t see them. They never attacked, but they’d always come right up to us to beg. Phyrn skipped the blessing of the common tongue. They have to learn it second hand, and still they mangle all the words. There was this one group that came to us who were led by a...well, I think it was a male, but it’s hard to tell with them. He called himself Dwik.”

The name alone made the humans laugh. The duende pitched his voice and spoke in an exaggerated accent. Perhaps it was meant to replicate a phyrn’s voice, but Gorn hadn’t sounded like this.

“‘Dwik’s people want food. What can Dwik do for you? Can Dwik make you happy for food?’ I swear on my gleeman’s book, those were his words.”

More laughter from the humans. Cole looked to the door. He could leave now and stop listening to this.

“I told ‘Dwik’ there was nothing we wanted. He pressed the issue ‘Dwik’s tribe good at making people happy. Carry bags. Make safe.’ The shedder was trying to sell me a packaged deal! I nodded my head —like this— that was the signal to my first guard. He drew his sword as warning. If the Phyrn were slow to approach, they were fast to leave! Sprinted from my caravan like the ground had become fire.”

Cole’s legs still felt light, but his feet landed hard. He had to micromanage his gait so he wouldn’t collide with any furniture as he made a straight line for the storyteller.

“The best part was what the shedder said as he ran: ‘Dwik sorry! Dwik sorry!’” The duende hopped off the chair and ran in a serpentine path. He screamed the phyrn’s words in a ludicrous voice. It was loud and obnoxious, but it made his audience burst out laughing. When the duende returned he found a stone-faced Cole at his table.

“Finally decided to come join? You looked rather sad at the bar by yourself. Take a seat. My name is Hernán.” The duende extended his hand. Cole didn’t take it. He was still internally deciding if he wanted to do this.

“Hello Hernán. Could you stop what you’re doing?”

Hernán thought this an amusing request. He didn’t quite know how to respond. He looked to the humans in purple robes, as if one of them had put Cole up to this. “What is it I’m doing that needs to stop?”

“The story. The voice. Phyrn sound nothing like that. They’re not...they’re not stupid. They just don’t know our language” Cole stuttered. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say, just that he had to say it.

Hernán puckered his lips. Standing on a chair, he was only a dozen centimeters from matching Cole’s height. “Hmhm! Young master, I am a storyteller. I admit it is easy to miss my tome, but you should understand that when I tell a story of comedy I must exaggerate.”

Hernán puffed his mustache out, as if his explanation made him the smartest man in Ramuf. Cole’s expression was unchanged. Hernán and the two humans faltered their smiles just slightly.

“A sour apple, eh?” Hernán continued, “that’s your attitude —and you’re welcome to it— I don’t see why you should feel so concerned about me embellishing an encounter with a lowly phyrn. In my experience the Phyrn are phyrn-nomenally lacking in intellect and culture. Everyone knows this. Why, I must have at least three more stories about phyrn foolishness. If you need further proof, there are also dozens more contained within my boo-”

Hernán was interrupted by Cole punching him hard enough to send him to the floor. The clatter of Hernán and his chair toppling jogged Cole out of what drunken, rage filled haze he had been in. Cole hadn’t planned on punching Hernán, but he was driven to it the more he spoke.

The two humans in purple robes stood. Both were older and hardier than Cole. “What sort of sick person assaults a storyteller?” Demanded the one on the left.

“Me, I guess.” Cole numbly answered. He had a feeling like he was standing outside of himself. Passive to his own actions.

The two men attacked Cole. They didn’t use weapons, but when Cole fought back one picked up one of the ceramic mugs and crushed it against his face. Cole had never been in a fight like this before. He had seen bar brawls, but never been an active participant. This was sending him back to being a rowdy child scrapping with peers in dirt clearings. He tried to channel a mental image of Azeroth to replicate his movements, but he was dizzy, inexperienced, and fighting two men at once. Three, once Hernán picked himself off the floor and joined the fight.

“That is enough!”

Cole’s right eye was swollen, but he could still recognized the shape of Rodd Shawa in the doorway. Rodd was dressed in his full Order regalia. Behind Rodd was a contingent of Order enforcers, some Cole recognized, others seemed to be recent recruits.

“Unhand that boy.” Rodd demanded. He was speaking to one of the humans holding a tight grip on Cole’s arms.

“I’m old enough to be given alcohol, I’m not a boy…” Cole grumbled.

Rodd approached slowly. “No. You clearly aren’t. I’m shocked to see you engaging in behaviors as undesirable as barroom brawling. It’s barely even noon!”

The two humans and Hernán backed away from the swordsman. Cole tapped his cheeks a few times to confirm he was bleeding. It was hard to look Rodd in the eye. “Sorry you had to see me like this. I have- can we speak in private?”

Rodd tugged on his curly hair. He signaled to his cohorts to speak to Hernán’s group. Next, he went to the bar owner and passed her two golden coins. The bar owner kept her mouth tight and back rigid, but accepted the coins. Cole stood there like a dumb cow. A child caught misbehaving.

Rodd took Cole by the shoulder and led him to the smoky streets outside. “I have other matters to tend to, but you seem in desperate need of council. Fortune favored you enough that I heard your fight from the alley. Drink this”

Cole was handed a finger-sized vial with a red mixture in it. Cole drank the contents and felt his aches leave him. His swelling even reduced to a point where he could see clearly with both eyes.

“Thank you. For that. The potion and the rescue.” Cole stumbled over his words. Rodd was unamused. Cole noticed the broach Rodd wore. The same broach Zam had worn. “Where is Zam?”

“He has been called to Spiral City to lend his strength to Ghetsis. An Emperor’s Clash has been called. The would-be Kings of the Confederacy are gathering to show who commands the strongest forces. If Ghetsis is victorious it will be an incredible victory for the Order. He who sits on the Cracked Throne also sits at the Council of Sovereigns.”

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Cole nodded along. He didn’t require further explanation on the Clash or the Council of Sovereigns. The alley widened into a residential area. People idled in doorways or sat in rocking chairs while conversing. A pair of human children wrestled in the dirt. Some people gave praise to Rodd and the Order as they passed. Rodd smiled, waving to them. Some he even addressed by name. Cole noticed some retreated indoors when they saw Rodd approach. Two duende ceased their game of cards to avoid the Order seeing them. Rodd had not noticed. His attention stayed it the people praising him.

“It is good to see people smiling,” he commented. “So much tension has been pulled from the Eldest Cleric’s death. The diablan responsible must be found before the wound they inflicted on this city can begin to heal.”

“The Eldest Cleric?” Cole asked. He hadn’t heard of anything like this.

Rodd folded his lips in a somber expression. “So you have been away. I had guessed as much by your party’s absence near the walls. Yes...the Eldest Cleric of the Vulture Mother was murdered. Eyewitnesses say it was a red-tinged diablan, and we have reports from the night prior that a transient diablan was wandering the streets with a drawn weapon and acting in a stupor. Suspicions are high that he turned infernal. The Order has taken command of Ramuf’s internal affairs to seek out this killer.”

They passed close to the market. The rumble of so many voices made it hard for Cole to think. He had to tell Rodd about Outpost Onx, but he also had to tell him about Gorn. Rather than either of those pressing matters, the first thing he said was: “Do you agree with everything the Order does? Do you ever wonder if it...ever takes part in evil actions?”

Rodd had to stop walking so he could properly think about that. “That is a question often asked by our detractors. I am not sure why. I would not have pledged my blade if I did not think the Order righteous. There is zealotry among our ranks, and perhaps a few who relish the action over the purpose —if you understand that saying— but the Order aligns itself with the greater good. It is impossible for an organization like that to be ‘evil’.”

“How can you be so sure?” Cole could barely conceal the tremble in his voice.

Rodd sighed and gestured to all of Cole. “This is what day-drinking brings: Anxiety. Once I earned my pearl sword I swore off drink. What has made you so anxious? You have my confidance.”

Cole clenched his teeth hard. He had to say something, even if it wasn’t the direct truth. “I...I recently learned that something I had done, something I thought was the right thing to do, irreparably hurt a stranger. How I can live with myself knowing that someone’s life has been made worse because I wanted to be a hero?”

It was difficult for Cole to control his tone as he spoke. Every vowel seemed to shake in his speech.

Rodd’s expression was soft. He waited until Cole had calmed before responding. “The fact that you ask yourself that is a sign you are still a good person at heart. You cannot change what you have done, only amend it. Do you know why we are called the Order of Suffering?”

Cole admitted he didn’t. He hadn’t given the name much thought. History was full of orders and organizations that had curious names with no purpose other than it sounded good in the moment of founding.

“Our symbol is a cut palm. It is a symbol based in Athshin folklore, or so I’m told. It used to be believed that the blood of a pure heart, bled from the palm and given willingly, could cure a diablan.”

“Cure a diablan of what?”

“Of being a diablan.” Rodd shrugged.

They reached the center of the city, where the Ramuf keep was. The keep was designed like the center of a figure eight, with the main market kept in the large west courtyard. The east courtyard, which Cole had never been to, was smaller and secured tighter. The walls of the courtyard were almost as tall as the walls of the city itself. The courtyard was blocked from public access by a wooden gate. Cole noticed that the soldiers on watch in this courtyard wore the colors of the Order, rather than the rust orange and smoke black of the Ramuf standard.

Rodd was allowed in without question, as was Cole. The courtyard was arranged with a series of impromptu fences. It was a corral within a corral. Huddled en masse within the center was the entirety of Ramuf’s diablan population. They were dressed in whatever clothes they had been captured in. Some were dirty, or bearing scars and bruises. They were not bound in any way save for the hawk-like scowl of the fifteen guards on duty.

It was the kind of scene that caused someone unprepared for it to stand slack-jawed and squinting. These diablans weren’t prisoners in the traditional sense. They weren’t queued for questioning. It seemed that this was arranged purely to sequester and observe them under duress.

Rodd gripped his shoulder tightly. “You do not need to say that this is a rough sight. This was constructed on Zam’s orders shortly after we found the body of the Eldest Cleric. We know that the culprit was a diablan and Ramuf’s population of diablans numbers slightly over two dozen.”

He nodded to the corral. “Eventually, we will get a confession, or one will reveal their madness. Safer for the decent folk that they are kept like this.”

“What if the killer has left Ramuf?” Cole asked. Some of the diablans were looking back with spiteful glares.

“We have posted bounties for diablans in coordination with our chapters in other cities. That alone has brought in five more suspects.” Rodd walked further into the compound, backtracking only when he noticed Cole was still rooted in front of the gate. “This is the only solution. We have always known that Diablans are a danger to the civilizations of Divines. They were made by the Master of Infernals. I wish to trust all beings that walk Domhanda, but I will not give ferry to a scorpion. If we let them walk freely, let this act of evil go unpunished, it will only embolden the dangerous ones.”

“Like the diablans that killed Daniel?” Cole’s words felt sharp in his mouth. He questioned if he really had sobered up.

Rodd’s nostrils flared. His shoulders locked in tension. The brown eyes that had looked fondly at Cole flashed quiet offense. “Yes. Daniel was murdered by diablans in much the same way the Eldest Cleric was. A similar incident happened in Finis, the assassination of King Fernnal the Seeker. He was murdered by minotaur radicals. The Order of Suffering was just a collection of veterans in those days, but Ghetsis recognized that the solution was to sequester the Minotaurs until the culprits were found, much the same way we do to the diablans here. Much like the Diablans, the Order was told that modern Minotaurs weren’t demons like their ancestors. If true, then they should have cooperated until the guilty party was found and punished. They didn’t. They broke from their cells and wracked Finis with their terror. Ghetsis raised the banner of the Order and rallied Finis into ousting that menace.”

Rodd’s eyes softened when he looked back to the captured diablans. “We seek peace. If they seek it as well, then they’ll cooperate. I did not join the Order to endanger lives.”

“But what if you’re wrong?” Cole demanded. He couldn’t keep calm in the face of what he was seeing, what he was hearing. “What if it wasn’t a diablan? What if it wasn’t any of them? How much damage has been done?”

Rodd sighed enough air to move clouds. “That is the foundation of the Order’s philosophy. We accept we may be wrong and take the mark on our souls. We take the pain of cutting our palms in the hope our bleeding will be worth it. It is like you asked me before: can a person be good even when they harm others? I believe the answer is yes, so long as they bear the consequences.”

Rodd’s face was brittle. He was not enjoying this debate anymore than Cole. Cole balled his hands and looked only to the speckled dirt at his feet. “Is the Order a necessary evil?”

He didn’t wait for response. He was gone from the Keep courtyard. He didn’t know if Rodd would pursue him, but just to be sure he dipped into the market crowds. Cole felt it was the right place to be. He wanted to buy all the supplies he needed to reach Spiral City. He wanted to be gone from Ramuf and the man he once respected.

He wanted to spend what was left of the sixty silver he had made from the Order. Having it in his wallet was too much of a reminder. He still had to buy an atlatl. Questioning the tents that sold weapons lead him to a tired looking coatlmade who sold traditional weapons. The coatlmade perked up at Cole’s interest in his selection of hand-carved atlatls. He explained that atlatl were the earliest weapon coatlmade used. Back when they were human slaves under the Teotl, a weapon that was easy to make and simple to use was key to the earliest ambushes that sparked the rebellions. Cole wished he could have talked to the man more about history, but he had a personal deadline to meet.

When next he entered the market he was shadowed by a massive frame. It took Cole a moment to recognize the bald human as Melv, the mason Azeroth had fought for twenty silver. Melv’s expression was like he had just eaten a fistful of raw onions and a generous slice of lemon.

“Where’s the cado?” Melv sneered. Perhaps he meant to look intimidating, but he mostly looked like a colicky baby.

“The what?” Cole was distracted by the burn mark on Melv’s left shoulder.

Melv jabbed a thick finger into Cole’s chest. “The orc! I know you two work together. The Order wants him for aiding an infernal diablan.”

“I don’t know.” Cole marched away from Melv. He didn’t have time for this. It had just become noon and already he felt like he had been awake for three days.

Melv caught up to him in a shady alley. He roughly spun Cole to face him. “You may have missed it, but I’m with the Order now. There was a big recruitment drive after the Eldest Cleric was killed. I know your orc is friends with the diablan that did it. They both have a lot to answer for.”

Melv’s breath was saturated with foul spices. Cole winced the longer he had to stand this close to the man.

“Are you sure your not just mad that Azeroth caved in your cajones?” Cole asked.

Melv’s eyes narrowed. His grip on Cole’s shoulder grew tighter. “The orc knocked me on my back, he didn’t-”

For the second time today, Cole used violence to cut someone off. He rocketed his knee skyward, crushing Melv’s unarmored groin. The effect was immediate. Melv’s knees buckled and his eyes watered. He squealed a curse at Cole.

“Sorry, I was thinking of me.” Cole shrugged.

Cole continued down the alley, his new atlatl and darts bouncing with the haste of his step. He quickened his pace further when he heard Melv start shouting for the arrest of “A mixed-blood knife-ear.”

Cole could move faster than Melv’s words. He set aside any other destination to head straight for the stables. He would use the last of his silver to buy a horse to take him to Spiral City. He didn’t know how much a horse would cost, so he aimed for the dingiest looking stable. He arrived flushed and huffing. The stable master informed him her last horse had just been bought.

The buyer of said horse was at the end of the stall. Cole went to him, bag of coins extended for an immediate offer. Cole’s legs stiffened when he recognized the cactus flower tattoo on their neck. It was one of the guards from Outpost Onx, the one Cole let escape. The man recognized Cole in turn. Flanked by horses, the two men waited for the either to attack the other.

“I don’t want a fight…” Cole raised the bag of silver. “I just want your horse.”

The tattooed man was gripping the reigns of a white Athshin Andalusian. He chewed on one of his long thumbnails. “You could have killed me yesterday. I suppose I owe you my life.”

“I suppose.” Cole replied in caution. He was keeping his attention to the front of the stable. Any moment Melv, or worse, could march in here.

“And, I suppose, a horse is worth that…” the tattooed man continued.

In a way, this was the first piece of good news Cole had heard today. He still wanted to be rid of the Order’s silver so he paid the man regardless of his reasoning for giving him the Andalusian. Cole fit his new atlatl into the horse’s saddlebags along with the other supplies he had bought in the market. The idiot Melv had interrupted him before he had a chance to get enough food. Perhaps he would have to practice his new weapon hunting wild hare. Thankfully, his waterskin was still full from refilling in the public well.

Spiral City was two weeks or more from Ramuf. More time Cole would be alone with nothing but his thoughts. When he had started today with Rerume he had looked forward to such a prospect, but now...now he didn’t trust his own judgment. The thought of being alone frightened him.