The people of Inillo scattered through the streets of Beroli like ants in their nest. Thousands of eyes watched them from behind half-shut blinds and around dark corners as they rushed into their homes, gathered their most necessary possessions, and fled the city. The rumor had spread through the city days earlier, and so had the insults: witch, devilspawn, heretic. But they waited. They kept quiet, shutting themselves in and preparing for the night when the plague-bringing diabolists would be cut down.

And yet, instead of being clapped in irons and dragged into the square, they were at liberty. They swarmed over fair Beroli like vermin. The city longed to step out from behind the dark corner and strike down the invader, to reach out through the window and dip their fingers in the sinners’ blood. The city would have exploded into violence… if not for that deadly presence on the rooftops. It followed the heretics like a terrifying familiar in the sky, and filled the good citizens of Beroli with unutterable terror.

The Lord Vicar spoke true. These heretics were protected from on high by the prince of darkness. So the city waited sleepless for the fourfold dawn that would wipe away their sin from its fair streets.

⚜ ⚜ ⚜

The villagers departed Beroli by full darkness of night. The guards manning the south gate stepped aside with horror when they saw Cato carrying a bleeding, broken monk by the neck, and for all their curses and spittle they did not take the risk of following the villagers down the road.

Only once the villagers, all three thousand, had cleared the walls did Cato allow himself to stop and think.

Remiro and Andrea lay in the palanquin recovering from their injuries. Cato stabilized them and started the process, but even with Remiro’s robust constitution it would take him many days to get back on his feet. Father Andrea might take weeks. Cato could fix them in less than an hour, but he couldn’t spare even that little time.

Between the assault on Girolamo and his imprisonment, then the attack on the chapel, it was clear that the powers of Beroli wanted them gone. But instead of chasing them out, they had tried to capture Cato and his strongest supporters. The entire city was filled with a cloud of fear and hostility. Only by spreading his aura as widely as possible could he intimidate the populace and keep them from attacking the villagers as they gathered their things.

Only by holding a man of the cloth hostage could he guarantee their safe exit.

Dimly and far away, Cato was horrified at the violence he had enacted at the chapel. The guards were dead, the monk was comatose, and their captain must have escaped with terrible injuries. He was horrified at how easy it had been, especially with the power that voice had granted him earlier that same day. It had been his choice to invoke that being at that time, but it was too much of a coincidence. Had it known what was going to happen? Was it able to block out Remiro and Andrea’s pain? Or was Cato just learning to ignore it?

After the captain knocked him to the ground, he was acting almost on instinct. He manipulated the lightning with an ease and dexterity that he couldn’t imagine replicating afterwards. He had even been able to resist and counter the monk’s attack on his soul… how did he even know that’s what it was?

Like with the Book of Zevon, the truth felt like it was on the tip of his tongue, but it fluttered away just as he was getting close to it.

“My lord, look!”

A tall and broad-chested man blocked the road toward Anthusa. He had his arms crossed and stood in the center of the road, illuminated in the half-moonlight, flanked on both sides by thick woods.

And a forbidding, overwhelming presence flowed out of him that stopped the villagers in their tracks.

Cato felt a powerful chill in his bones, like he hadn’t felt since pulling himself out of the river. Still, he mustered all the willpower he could and stood tall with his hand firmly around the monk’s neck.

“Step off the road! Unless you want this monk’s blood on your hands.”

The man on the road smiled.

A tingle in his spine. All his hairs standing on end.

Cato bolted to the side just as a lance of searing fire fell on his position. It erupted into an oppressive, choking blast of heat that licked at Cato’s limbs.

That was something he was familiar with. Second degree burns at least, and from this distance. It burned hot enough to cook right through him if he got hit.

Then the pain doubled, tripled. Dozens of villagers behind him screamed as they scrambled away from the fire. It was all Cato could do to stay standing.

The stranger stood on the road just as he had before, his eyes fixed again on Cato. No, those eyes had never left him.

Cato wasn’t sure if his own threat to kill the monk was a bluff, but if it was, it had been quite thoroughly called.

The stranger tore a heavy branch off a tree and stripped the leaves from it. They burned to cinders in his hand, rose in the air, and screamed toward Cato. Though none of them made contact, even getting close to each one felt like his skin was getting seared with a hot iron.

Not like this.

Cato gave himself over to that voice, to that instinctive violence that had lain just beneath his skin since he crawled out of a freezing river, and summoned the lightning. It tore out of his body and arced toward the stranger like a terrible flood, but the crackling power forked and struck the ground to either side of him. The grass and shrubs combusted and the earth melted into glass, but he was completely unharmed.

“Die, monster!”

It was Girolamo. Little Girolamo, who had just barely recovered from his injuries earlier that same day. He rushed toward the man threatening his lord brandishing a stout cane and brought it down on his head with all the fury of his short life. Fearless Girolamo.

It didn’t reach his target. A hard, backhanded slap struck him across the face and sent his body flying into the trees, where it lay motionless.

Cato felt the burning in his face, and the excruciating pain of his neck snapping, and then… nothing. He felt nothing more from Girolamo’s body. Where once there had been a vague awareness of him, one which he could barely feel except when it communicated its suffering, there was now a vast, undeniable void, a hole in reality where a person ought to be.

And some part of him had the rotten gall to feel happy. “Look!” it said, “you’re still alive. It hurts, but you don’t need to keep them alive!”

That voice was relieved. As if it couldn’t feel the terrible, gaping hole where Girolamo had once been. As if it didn’t even care he had died.

“Hey, asshole!”

But now was note the time to mourn.

“It’s us you want, right?”

He had to protect the rest, no matter what.

“Then come get me!”

Cato leapt into the woods, the monk’s body still in hand. The lightning lent his feet incredible impulses of speed, until he was running over the forest, barely brushing the treetops. He was relieved when he sensed the stranger’s own steps following him.

He was rather less relieved to sense that they were catching up, and fast.

Heavy lances of fire rained down and fell among the trees, each turning a patch of forest into a blazing inferno within seconds. Cato leapt to and fro unpredictably, and none of them struck him. In fact, none of them even got close.

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Cato realized too late that none of them were meant to hit him. In just a few moments the flames spread for miles around. There was only one escape route… and the stranger waited there patiently.

Cato let the monk’s body fall to the earth below. Whatever his orders, this man clearly wasn’t too torn up about letting the monk die. With his abilities, he could hunt down the villagers and kill them all whenever he wished. Right now, Cato was his priority.

The lightning rose up again. More. Even more. Cato was now conscious that this energy flowed out of some ethereal reservoir, one which before had been so full as to feel inexhaustible. But now he could feel both its vast size and its limits. The lightning suffused his body, saturated it, until he was certain that no more could possibly fit inside his frame.

More!

Cato felt his veins turn to flame and his eyes into burning torches. His hair was a mass of thunderbolts and his flesh was purest energy.

This was going to kill him. But he was gambling that it would kill this stranger first. The stranger grinned in the firelight and pulled all the flame surrounding him into a vast wave. There was no more sophistication in their battle, just a final contest of power and rage that threatened to consume them both.

⚜ ⚜ ⚜

From her sanctuary in the ruined castle, she felt two points of power rising nearby. Fire and lightning. Purely destructive. Undisciplined. Not threats. But useful.

From inside the dark chamber she reached out to the sky above and wove a ribbon of moonlight. She cast it out toward the destructive powers about to clash, and bound them both. At her command the rising energies dissipated harmlessly, and the two men fell to the earth without consciousness.

⚜ ⚜ ⚜

Cato awoke to the most frightful sight of his short life.

He was trussed up by hand and foot like an animal, and though his bonds seemed nothing more than thin strands of ivy, they felt stronger than steel chains. In front of him, in the crumbling shell of a stone fortress, men and women danced ecstatically around a bonfire, clad in the rough and still-bloody hides of goats and fawns, with crowns of ivy on their heads and on the tops of the oaken staves that they held in their right hands while they held drums and tambourines in their left.

The strange man on the road and the monk were similarly bound on either side of him. The latter was still totally unconscious, but the stranger was well awake and noticed him stir immediately.

“Can you move?”

The voice was deep and authoritative, even calm.

“Not much.”

He got a grunt in response. Silence reigned between them, even as the wild clamor of dancers and drummers and mad pipers filled the air, raising Cato’s hackles with their strange melody.

“Who are these people?” Cato ventured.

“Fucked if I know.”

“What are they going to do to us?”

“What do I look like, a damn prophet?”

Cato felt very strongly that he deserved better answers from someone who had been trying to incinerate him just a few… minutes? Hours? How long had he been out? The stars and moon above were hazy and indistinct, as if he was drunk.

Were the villagers still safe? With Girolamo dead and many injured, could they still continue down the road to Anthusa?

He needed to get out of there fast, never mind what these druid psychos in the woods wanted with him. He reached out for the power, the vast storm which burned through him. But it wasn’t there.

Rather it was, but something reached out and stopped him. It was gentle, like a parent’s hand on a child’s head. And like the hand of a parent, its will was absolute and inflexible. That last comparison came to mind immediately, though it was certainly not a part of Cato’s own experience with his parents.

“I appreciate the effort, but if I can’t manage it you’re not going to either.”

Cato really wanted to strangle this arrogant prick. Killing Girolamo was one thing, but looking down on him so casually was… was nowhere near as bad as murder! Dear god, what kind of psychopath was it whose thoughts and habits he’d inherited?

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to make a proper introduction instead of just trying to kill me?”

The stranger chuckled.

“Benicio Cecchini, goldsmith, at your service. Your lordship.”

“Are you one of the Lord Vicar’s stooges too?”

“Phaero is an old friend. He did me a favor, I’m doing him a favor.”

“Murdering innocent people is just a favor?” Was Cato going to reach Anthusa and find out that everyone in the city was a bloodthirsty maniac?

“Come now, it’s a fair turn. You killed a half dozen good men who were doing their duty, and then you took a monk hostage. A quick death for you and your people would be a mercy compared to what the Lord Vicar had in store for you.”

“They attacked our chapel unprovoked!”

“And you fought back, which is exactly what he wanted. Nobody was going to look askance at any punishment he gave you after that.”

“So I was just supposed to take the beating lying down and let him do whatever he wanted with my people? What kind of justice is that?”

Cato already knew. It was the logical consequence of how he already knew this world worked. He was responsible for those villagers, but right now there was nobody responsible for him. No higher power to appeal to, nobody to put the fear of God in the Lord Vicar. A dead baron’s bastard son and his villagers could submit to the first person who demanded it or get stepped on, but they couldn’t walk around independently and expect to be respected. Not unless Cato’s own power demanded it.

Benicio laughed.

“Justice? My boy, don’t try to act high and mighty with me. I’m far from one to judge, but making a pact with a demon, even just to spare your people from the plague, isn’t something the Lord Vicar could overlook. Now, he’s no saint either, believe me, but he’s no diabolist. You don’t have the upper hand here.”

There wasn’t much point in arguing that, even if he was wrong.

“Tell me, Benicio, how are you so goddamn calm right now? For all we know these maniacs are getting ready to cut us open.”

“I figure you’re right about that. But still,” he lay back his head, as if completely relaxed, “it’s not my time to die just yet.”

He spoke with such total confidence that Cato was almost taken in.

“What, you know when you’re going to die?”

Benicio flashed a little grin, and leaned in like he was telling Cato a fun secret.

“I once held the Oracle of Karchary hostage. While soldiers were swarming outside the cave, I told the prophet that unless he could tell me, for sure, that I wasn’t going to die that day, I was going to gut everyone in the room.”

“... and?”

“The oracle said I would live until a fifth sun burned in the sky. I don’t see any suns right now, let alone a fifth one, so I’m not dead just yet.”

Cato was fully fed up arguing with crazy people.

“Of course, that doesn’t say anything about you or the monk. You’re probably done for. Think about heaven and say your prayers, boy, you’re going to need them after the stunts you pulled tonight.”

The music changed, taking on a slower, sinister rhythm. As if following an inaudible command, the revelers uncoiled from their ring around the fire and danced toward the three captives. Their clothes were stripped off and their bodies examined like…

Like lambs and bulls to sacrifice

…once again, a comparison totally alien to Cato’s experience leapt out.

“My lady! My lady! His soul is destroyed! This piglet is blemished! Unfit for the flame!”

“Then let him be slaughtered! And let us enjoy him! A suitable fruit for such sinners as we!”

This the revelers thundered out as they lifted the monk onto their shoulders and brought him toward the bonfire. He was only beginning to stir then, and screamed pitifully as he realized his situation.

Cato and Benicio watched helplessly as the revelers sang and danced in their bloody skins. They brought forth depp and wide bowls filled with grain and pure water, and each one washed their hands and took a fistful of the grain. Then they lowered the trussed-up monk’s face into the bowl of water. There he remained until, running out of air, he struggled and strained to move his head. The revelers cheered and raised him, nearly drowned, out from the bowl.

It was a nod. Cato was sure of it. They had forced him to nod in assent, as justification for whatever they would do to him afterward.

Even as he was still panting, their chief, a woman wearing a headdress fashioned from stag horns attached to the severed head of a mountain lion, roughly tore a handful of hair from his head and threw it into the fire. More cheers erupted. The drumming took on a frenzied tone. Each reveler in turn pelted the naked, screaming monk with handfuls of grain, until the very last, their chief, came upon him from behind with a great, heavy stone in hand.

She struck him in the head, and blood scattered all around. Cato was certain that blow had enough power behind it to shatter steel.

The revelers screamed a deep, wide, moaning scream, somewhere between a cry of horror and the cries of a woman in labor, that filled Cato’s heart with a primal terror. Even Benicio, still convinced of his fated survival, was pale and drenched in sweat.

The chief’s assistants lifted the monk, mercifully unconscious once more, and the chief reached into the bowl of grain until it was all the way up to the elbow, and quick as a flash drew out a gleaming knife that cut a half-moon across the monk’s throat. His blood fell into a well-placed bowl in a gushing stream, and when it was done, the revelers fell upon his body. His limbs and torso were ripped apart first; the former they threw to the ground, their swarming hands flensing the flesh from his bones with precision and fanatic enthusiasm, and the latter they threw to the air, which those revelers too far to touch the body flew after with a whooping chase, contesting with one another for possession of even a knucklebone and bathing themselves in the gore. Cato was almost glad when the last scrap of meat—for brother Julius’ remains were no more than meat, now—was finally down the gullet of the last reveler.

They danced more around the fire, and one by one ran off toward the river, splashing and squealing like playful children, before each returned, clean and pure, eager to do it all again.

Cato went into their grasp frozen, meek as a little lamb, with Benicio’s pale and apologetic gaze seeing him off.