Have you thought of the night?

A question put to Cordelia at a certain time, in lateness, at a certain scene, dark, unprompted (as was that smiling girl’s wont). She had not thought of the night, nor could she recall too clearly the one-sided conversation which followed. Now as she lay upon the unlit ledge, sleep encroaching, she thought of it, of that innocent, unprompted exchange. But she must not sleep. It was night and nearing day. And she must not sleep. She struck her face, eyes pried open and stared.

No, she had not thought of the night. What of it?

You see, Cordelia, some go to sleep at night, and some think the night is the time for sleep, and for a time it is all quiet. Yet in the night not all is at rest, and still life goes on in the dark, unseen and untended for by meticulous thoughts of day. And in the night by this lapsing of reason we appear transformed, taking on now monstrous aspects, now elusive faces of strangers, where the quaint and reasonable facets of day dimmed and forgotten. Yet it needs not be! No shaking off nor taking on, my Celia! If it is as a thing constant, traceable backward as well as forward, the morningstar leaning into the dawn and the dusk into the dark, then there is no changing. An ouroboros - just as how it should be - encircling the world serpentinely without ending or beginning of something new. Then the night is as day but color-shifted, the person one and unchanged, only by a leaf of shadow half-masked. And that is, thus, the only way to be a good baby girl. The smiling girl concluded.

Cordelia did not get it. Was it from somewhere?

A book. Said that girl. A novel.

Does it make better sense with context?

No. It does not.

That was it, Cordelia recalled, struggling for comfort on the narrow ledge as she half dreamed. Things had changed, she felt. And yet the form and outward shape refused to let go in obstinacy, lingering though its time had passed.

The broken doors, the destroyed pews, the vast splinters. Black blood as hell’s surface scattering from the courtyard all the way into the temple, to the dais. The priest’s corpse upon his spreading abyss. The corpse of a knight: leaning on the wall, staring at the altar, staring at her, all armored, dripping from sides, from the arm, from the bowel, from the empty breast. The stench of death. The graveyard would be a cheerier thing for being exposed to the sanitizing night breeze. In this place there reigned only an underground stillness. So ‘twas like an action captured in a painting, the warding arm forever in raising, the blow of terror never landing. Everything’s immobile.

It was not until an hour had elapsed, she estimated, before someone, something, finally pulled the plug from the world’s ears, unleashing terror in a sudden dose of too-much-of-everything. All at once.

Then there were cries from the first witnesses, rousing footsteps.

Cordelia saw all this from her waiting place, and waited. Someone had turned off the sound. Mute figures rushed into the temple, torches converging on the streets, playing pretend an artificial sun. Half the town was in slumber, unaware, or pulling the cover over their heads. The rest were animated. The nuns were running, fainting. Why they had not come earlier, she did not know.

She watched dispassionately. And waited. A serpent in ambush, she tasted the air. She searched among the crowd with the caution of one testing a fire. This went on for a while more. And then what she was waiting for, what she feared, came stinging at last. Even as she recoiled and her mental shield put up, her senses squashed in alarm as one shut down their eyes at a gory accident, it came - a poison of a sight tailored for her poised heart.

Esme entered the temple as one in a dream.

Cordelia played a scene impassionately in her head, a recording of pure imagination and no sound. How in the night the unheard clamor had stirred like an earthquake across the town, stole into closed doors, invaded shut eyes and ears. It had come but as a perfunctory herald, for swifter had been the envoy of familial foreboding, traveling by way of dreams and fancies, had reached the sleepers’ ere earthly cries. And thereupon her bed, even before she rose, the sister had learned beyond nightmares of something bad. Dismissing it was out of the question, she rushed out of the door, following strangers’ noise while still in her nightly garb, without ever a thought for arms or armor. For the furies and valkyries never bear arms but to better acquaint their chosen. For being his sister she had no need of it. For being a sister she had known ere she had seen. Thus she walked into the temple as one in a dream, already seen forward as well as backward, as one rereads a novel, knowing already the twists and tragedy at its end, and still wept for it none-the-less.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Even as all of this played out, Cordelia did not stir. She lay on her side upon the ledge, quite exposed to the growing crowd within the temple. Yet naught could see her, she being a serpent in ambush.

Something mounted in her, arising bubblingly, unbecomingly. She checked it with disgust, knowing it was not right to anger, to excite. She calmed down, and, down the ledge crawled like a serpent with legs not yet taken. Her movements stirred the eyes of some. But as they looked and searched, trying to make out the real and illusions, she was already gone, merging with the curious, angry, affrighted townspeople. She moved stealthily by jostling and cursing, whining and grumbling, even as the rest of the confused. That way, no one noticed her as someone foreign, becalmed beyond feelings and general sentiments. And she made it to Esme.

It was a risky move. Many eyes were on the murdered remains of a knight and the girl weeping for it. Some of whom, mayhap, had been there at the potter street. But it was night and confusion. And who could tell one strange woman from another in a night so fey? Some might - and yet she could not stand the sight of apprehension, could not stand watching camouflaged in her new skin something so sadly human. For she knew better than aught, there is not a worse misery than weeping alone in a crowd.

For the first time ever, she felt Esme’s flesh. It was cold and sweaty. And her own face was cold, dispassionate as she took the girl into her bosom, allowing a much needed hiding place. She patted the heaving back, trying to effect a methodical, mechanical rhythm, but could not. She herself was on the verge of losing control, despite her undersurface stillness, for the sobbing of the girl was transmitting through flesh, her tears pouring hotly into her veins. It aggrieved her so that she seized Esme’s shoulder hard. The girl did not notice. And Cordelia breathed deeply, trying to choke her rushing blood.

“He saved me,” she whispered in the girl’s ear hurriedly, as though fearing the words would not come out should they stay within aught longer. “His last thought was of you. It was with a smile.” She tried to inject some confidence into her voice, still it came out strained and rushed. If the scent of guilt and anxiousness was obvious, Esme did not say a word of it. She did not say anything at all.

Well then, let her cry to her heart’s content, and shed the tears for both of them, where one of two could not afford to spend the moment to grieve. In the while Cordelia glared at the crowd, trying to distance herself. Thrice her attention was commanded, and the scene of the bloody temple was to her eyes layered. On the first, in appearance: two pathetic girls hugging and mourning the catastrophe had landed upon their bread-earner, a gathered crowd, aftermath of a fiendish raid into the holiest place in town. Beneath this: a battle a-purpose, feys and einherjar long planted in the town of a knight having revealed themselves and been defeated, or momentarily thwarted. Most of them must have died or for now crippled by Derrick’s hand, for naught had come after the dying knight and for she who was unguarded.

And yet beneath all this, the most unfathomable layer, the ultimate conflict. Factions opposing the World Serpent had made their move at last. No more biding time, no more being wary of bluffs. A slight miscalculation had been made somewhere when they did not anticipate Derrick’s appearance when singling her out for the kill. But there was little doubt they would try again.

From this moment on, the contest had begun. And on her side, Cordelia had lost her strongest stalwart in Sir Derrick.

The hand she had been dealt was beyond terrible. And she was ill-prepared. There were still so many things in the dark. How did Derrick know to appear just in time at the temple? Was that manticore dead or alive? She knew for a surety the latter had been an einherjar, for she had caught a glimpse of it mid-transformation. Worse, an experienced one, no doubt, with strength enough to slay a veteran knight. This one should remain the greatest threat to prepare for in times to come.

For this reason she glared at the crowd, seeking something even as she looked. She searched for strange eyes, a markable scent. Eyes and the stench of a murderer that might be even then returning to the premise - not for some perverted whim of a killer, but a thing essential to an einherjar: the corpse. And if, even as she, the manticore was a carrion eater strengthened by the consummation of the flesh of its mark, then it should be here, waiting for a chance for the corpse.

Eventually, morning came, and Cordelia found no such creatures. And so she could but guess her foe had been crippled for now. She dared not hope it had perished.

Gently, she withdrew from Esme, and signed the sexton and nearby waiting men over.

“Let us rest,” she told the girl and raised her up. “I will tell you everything later.”

Still the girl did not answer, save for a set, cold expression. This too, was her task in days to come. She must live, not for survival’s sake, but to guard this girl, and bolster her to a state befit the savior of mankind. This, perhaps, was the hardest one.

“Be strong,” she muttered, to Esme as much as to herself.

This was her hand, Cordelia considered.

The Maiden of God, crestfallen, leaning on her shoulder.

Round her wrist stirred the agent of the World Serpent, as much an aid as an enemy.

And the number on the dark tablet even now imprinted upon her mind:

Power Capcity: 8/12

Thus the table was set, the hands dealt, and she to play against all the gods from all the sides.

And later that morning, with his band of men-at-arms, an entourage of rich wagons and snarling hounds; confronted with the calamities occurred in his absence; the Knight-Marquess Kamaric returned to his capital.

He would be the final piece.