Ensharia had not known the Saviour for long, she realised. Under two weeks in fact. She’d learned much about him in that time, however. And come to doubt much of what she initially assumed. He was callous, unpredictable, oddly cruel, at times, all of which seemed at odds with his ends of halting the Dark Lord. His mind, though, had been every bit the force described in her people’s stories, and he’d demonstrated the fact rather handily to her in how he convinced the Arcane Council to allow an outsider as Fall’s executioner.
It had been like watching a man work clay, moulding the magi with words instead of touch, but wielding no less skill than an expert sculptor. They had bent to his suggestions, absorbed his ideas, twisted and worked his implications until each one seemed certain they had coined the ideas themselves. The entire conversation had lasted ten minutes or less, and by its end, all present were dancing to the Saviour’s tune.
She had agreed herself, of course. And Ensharia was smart enough to know that she’d almost certainly been manipulated just as seamlessly and completely. She was no genius, nor was she a schemer or politician. If the esteemed councilmen of Magira hadn’t noticed themselves being subtly shifted along the currents of Silenos’ consultancy, then she’d never have had a chance at all.
The day moved by, and Ensharia found herself getting a lot of looks from the inhabitants of Magira. She had not, of course, been permitted to actually stay in the university, rather she’d had quarters prepared for her a short walk away. A short walk provided one could clear fifty feet per stride, at least. She kept to herself for the most part, building her courage, and resisting the urge to reinforce it with some wine. That was an increasingly difficult battle, these days. Every city taken by the Dark Lord was another whisper at the back of her mind to indulge, and her Saviour had only made things worse in that respect.
Her Saviour.
A fortnight had been too little time to become used to calling him by his title. It was a thing of folklore and mythology, made real only recently. And barely made real, at that. Silenos was brilliant, knowledgeable, and certainly powerful in all the ways he’d been imagined. But more and more, she’d seen him fall short of the heroic standards laid out by his preceding prophecies and promises.
She was going to kill a man she knew to be innocent on his command. It was for the greater good, Ensharia knew, but even that was not without direction. Her doing so was merely to give a distraction while her Saviour reanimated a man’s corpse, enslaving it permanently to his will using magics so unnatural her order had been formed in part to battle them.
Compromise, sacrifice, pragmatism. It seemed to her that no three attributes ever mixed to so reliably create a moral degradation than those. But she’d have been lying to claim it was that that had her skin crawling.
He threatened to obliterate that man, just for doing his job.
Would the Saviour have acted upon his threats and left that guard a corpse, had she not been so fast with their letter? She didn’t know, couldn’t know, and found herself hollowed out by the lack of knowledge. There seemed no point in asking him, he’d either lie or be truthful, and it was beyond her to know which was which.
Ensharia eyed the wine again. It was strong stuff, Magira tended to make all of their indulgences strong, and she felt it drawing her towards it for one long, irresistible moment. Then she got to her feet and headed for the door.
She was a Paladin, and a Paladin was never without something to do. There were more productive, holy and decent things to spend her energy on than self pity. Ensharia headed back for the university.
Despite being recognised and known by now, she found her trip inside one of innumerable stares and sneers. Ensharia seemed only to take three paces in the average time between the barbed words thrown at her, insults, propositions, even just observations made of her body. Many were content to simply tell her she was a whore.
It had come to her attention that women were allowed within Magira, the particulars of magus Walriq’s death attested to that much, there were simply few conditions in which it was permitted. The most common, apparently, was as a means of sexual release for its magi.
Ensharia passed a few on her way, all of them pretty, all dressed up like dolls. Their faces were calm, collected, dutiful where they weren’t feigning lust and love for the eyes of a man. She’d seen such expressions before, and felt a familiar stab of admiration for the strength needed to wear them in such conditions. Then her focus was broken as she came to the first of many iron doors separating Fall from his captors.
She was granted passage, the way people bearing royal seals tended to be, and had the entire walk down Fall’s corridor to steel her nerves and master her wits. She was soon before him, eying the man through behind the bars of his cell, fascinated by the sight.
Fear had eaten even more of him, she saw. His face more lined, his body held tighter in the clutches of its fearful trembling.
“What are you doing here?” He asked, an edge to his voice, a touch of panic to his eyes. “Here to give me my last fuck before the end? Because I don’t think I’m in the mood right now.”
Stolen novel; please report.
Ensharia was too mature a person to actually consider leaving for that, but it still took a notch out of her patience and compassion. She forced herself to calm for a moment before replying.
“I’m a Paladin of the Order of Erogran.” She told him, coolly. “And, as such, I feel it is my duty to comfort you in your final hours.”
He blinked.
“I just said I wasn’t in the mood-”
“Spiritually you idiot.” Ensharia snapped. “I can-” She hesitated, spending another moment to control her temper, then continued. “I can pray with you, if you would like, or I can take confession of your sins. I can…Advise you on making peace with yourself, or, if you would prefer, I can simply…Be here. As company, until the end arrives.”
Fall stared at her, not seeming to quite comprehend what she’d said at first. Moments passed, and his face shifted towards shock, then…Anger. She saw him begin to speak, a jagged, foul retort boiling up from his throat. But it died before reaching his lips. His face relaxed again, falling slack, eyes wide, helpless, staring. Then a tear began to slide down his cheek.
“Why would you do this for me?” He asked, voice already an unsteady croak, as was so common for the voices of those who cried without being used to it.
Years, she’d been a Paladin. And in that time Ensharia had done her work for hundreds. Delivering children, comforting orphans, fighting until her body digested itself from exhaustion and her urine was red with blood. But none of it was ever as hard as comforting the dying.
Must you die for the greater good? Would our Saviour tell me if you didn’t need to?
She swallowed her doubt, and forced a show of confidence.
“Because I am a Paladin, and you are a dying man. I would not have your last moments in this world be any more cruel and painful than they need to be.
Fall broke down fully into tears, at that, and she resisted the urge to violate security protocol by reaching out to take his hand through the bars. Once he had recovered, they began her work.
It was dark when the guards came, looking surprised to find Ensharia with the prisoner, but clearly not caring enough to question it much.
“Time’s up.” One of them grunted, a towering man made of slabbed musculature and scarred skin. His face was cold and cruel in all the ways a good soldier’s was. Ensharia nodded, standing as Fall was seized by one last trembling.
“Thank you.” He whispered, and she only nodded, not wanting to speak, not wanting to accept his gratitude. It felt wrong to do so, with what she was planning, perverse. Ensharia took her leave quickly and without meeting any of the men’s eyes.
Magi had a sense of grandiosity in everything they did. Silenos had correctly predicted this, extrapolating the fact from the casters of his own world. Ensharia had seen it in the Saviour himself, too, by his choice of flowing, crimson robes and gem-crusted lining.
She saw it more overtly now, standing in the centre of their execution hall. A gallery lined one half of the great, hemispherical building, seats made of smooth marble and filled with scores of magisters. Most with faces lined in middle-age, some clearly well into the last decades of their lives, and a precious few bearing the talent to have earned their robes while youth still left their skin smooth and taut.
It had surprised her to find that most magi did not employ illusory magics to appear younger than they were, but Fall had explained it during their time together. It wasn’t uncommon that a magus would do so, however such spellwork was considered the height of ill manners within a gathering of other magi.
To her, that seemed an absurdity in such circumstances. They’d all gathered like vultures before a condemned man’s death, mostly for the sheer novelty of seeing it happen in as humiliating a way as any of them could consider. How could such creatures care about something like manners? How could they care about anything at all?
Ensharia closed her eyes against the leering sights of the magi, whispering a prayer to herself as she stepped out into the room’s centre. A great chandelier hung high over it, illuminating a dias below in constant, sterile light spewed forth by a dozen glowing crystals. It was upon this dias that Fall resided. His head was down, face pale, arms bound behind his back in thick, runic chains that linked themselves to a fixture in the floor. Ensharia could feel the binding spells at work, where they’d been woven into the metal. Powerful stuff, able to keep even a magus of Fall’s calibre from drawing on his power. That was good, she decided. It would allow her to end everything in a single stroke.
Fall caught her approach quickly, eyes wide, questioning.
“You.” He gasped. “They said it’d be a woman, but…Fuck, I should’ve guessed. So that’s why you stayed with me?”
It was a struggle to keep her face from cracking apart and letting the emotion swell up from below, but Ensharia forced herself to manage it. This time, out of any, she would not betray herself.
“I stayed with you because it was the right thing to do.” She replied, hoping that he heard the honesty in her words. “And I’ll be the one to carry out your sentence for the same reason.”
“Because my dying is right?” He hissed, hatred bleeding from him like ichor from a lanced heart. It was intense enough that even Ensharia found herself taking a backstep on reflex. Give her an undead any day, a demon, a vampire, a lich king, even. Give her any abomination at all over the eyes of a dying man.
“Because it will lead to what is right.” She replied, quietly, but found herself uncertain. She saw Fall’s face twist from the corner of her vision, but in thought now, rather than rage. His voice rang out again, quieter.
“This is a diversion?” He guessed, and she looked up sharply. Just in time to see the triumph on his face as he realised his guess had been right.
“I see, but then that means I don’t actually need to die, right?” The magus pressed. “How many more minutes do you buy by killing me? Not as many as you have already with the ceremony, right? Is my life worth so little that you’d spend it on that tiny measure of extra time?”
He was doing the most dangerous thing a person could: making sense.
A few extra minutes, not any stretch of time at all, really. Usually. But in battle, in a situation of death and danger, it could be all the time in the world. How much would she have done to win a few extra minutes during the siege? How many lives had been ended in those last few minutes before the Saviour killed the enemy’s general?
“I’m sorry.” She replied, quietly, and watched Fall’s face melt into horror, hate and impotent rage as she hefted the axe high overhead. It was a simple thing, not a weapon she’d have ever carried into battle, but it was enough to do its work this night. With a Paladin’s strength behind it, and the fragile tissues of a magus without magic, she could be sure it would do its work.