Chapter 38 - A Clash of Morals
Adam ignored the nightmarish surroundings as best he could. Although he, Emily, and Oliver were still bombarded with the sounds and smells of the battle between the Thuraum’s servants and the Thalers, they seemed relatively safe behind formations of rocks. Positioned a fair distance behind the battle lines of the Thalers, they weighed their options in questioning one of them.
Emily pointed at an elevation that reeked of high command. Protected by a palisade, both Thalers and giants with richly embroidered garments and tall headdresses observed the battle from afar. Many wore complex, painted masks and carried staves with elaborate woodcarvings. Amongst them were many banners covered in green glowing hieroglyphics, which displayed glowing altering symbols.
Although the Thalers present there would undoubtedly know a lot about the Realm, there was no way to tell whether they’d be hostile. Many of the other Thalers seemed rather preoccupied with beating up the disturbing offspring of Caine’s mental issues. So, Adam, Emily, and Oliver set their hopes on the Thalers who ran back and forth from their high command, carrying scrolls and supplies.
Adam, Emily, and Oliver waited for the right opportunity. A group of messengers ran by, but one of them lagged behind as he’d hit his foot on a rock. The skinny male Thaler ran with a scroll in his hand, sweat beading on his blue, sloped forehead. There was a brave but failed attempt for a beard on his mostly bare chin.
Emily raised her head from behind the rocks and gave her most charming smile. “Hey! Over here!” she whispered, waving her hand. “Could you please help me?”
The Thaler’s face paled and his eyes went wide as if he’d seen the Ancestor himself. His hand darted towards the sheaved dagger on his hip, and his mouth opened as he looked at his mates. Right before he could scream, Adam’s big, chafed hand came from behind and covered his mouth tight as a vice. Ironglass shackles that Oliver conjured bound the Thaler’s hands together in the blink of an eye. Adam lifted the Thaler from the ground and moved him behind the rocks. The Thaler’s mates had no idea and ran on.
“Told you he wouldn’t cooperate and be hostile,” Oliver whispered dryly while the three of them brought the Thaler a safe distance from the battle.
“Yeah, yeah,” Adam breathed, lifting the Thaler effortlessly over his shoulder. “Three silver knots for you when we get out of here.”
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“I’m so sorry about this by the way,” Emily said. She sat before the Thaler who was bound to one of the stalagmites. Adam and Oliver sat on the lookout to check if the other Thalers or the monsters noticed them, but were ready to step in if needed. “I’m just confused as other Thalers have been so kind to me.”
The Thaler gave a barking laugh. “That was before we discovered you’re with these madmen.” He glared at Emily, his voice shivered with anger. “You have no idea how disappointed Lord Caine is about you. How betrayed He feels.”
Oliver’s face reddened a bit, but Adam shook his head and waved his hand in a calming gesture.
Emily closed her eyes for a moment, exhaled, and smiled at the Thaler again. “We’re just lost in here. Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if the three of us can get out and back to Gotterburg? Maybe you could—”
“Oh, cut this hypocritical nonsense!” The Thaler spat, baring his teeth. His yellow eyes, which seemed exactly like Caine’s, narrowed in rage. “We know what you did! The three of you entered the memory of Eulenschloss and dared to adjust Lord Caine’s memories!”
“No, we didn’t!” Oliver said with an angry frown.
Oh shit, the book!
The Thaler laughed. “How stupid do you think we are? We are one with the Realm! We’re not sure yet what exactly you’ve changed in the library, but that’s a matter of time. Just like the moment we’ll capture you.” He gave a dark grin. “You think you’re tough, huh? With the three of you? You are nothing compared to the endless amounts of Corrupted spawned by the Thurauma or the hordes of Roots. Yet Lord Caine sent all those armed battalions to look for you. You messed up, bad enough that the Lord Himself got involved.” He glared at the three of them. “You want to get something out of me, eh? I’ll give you this.” The Thaler spat in front of Oliver’s feet. “Surrender. For every inch of harm you do, His wrath will be greater.”
Oliver rose with a furious expression.
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“Oliver, calm down!” Emily hissed, shaking her fists in frustration. “By Aves, this won’t help!”
Oliver quickly formed a whip of Ironglass shackles. “You will answer our questions!”
Adam looked at the whip. In the back of his mind, vague, forgotten memories resurfaced of dungeons. Echoes came to him of a lashing pain across his back and questions, lots of questions. Damn, that must be from the interrogations after Ziecherhein, the nerve of those people! Adam suppressed a shiver and looked back at Oliver. “Stop,” he said, his voice cold as the grave. He folded his arms over each other and blocked Oliver’s path.
The two of them locked eyes. Adam held his head high, looking deathly calm at his old friend. A blue vein appeared on Oliver’s red forehead as he stared furiously at Adam, but he did stop.
A deafening battle cry sounded in the distance, reminding Adam of how Louis had yelled at his own wife. Adam and Oliver quickly glanced in the direction it came from, before locking eyes again and speaking softly.
“I thought you wanted information from these people?” Oliver hissed.
“Not like that,” Adam said, looking at Oliver’s whip. “I won’t lower myself to that level.”
“Oh, how noble you are,” Oliver answered, his condescending voice absolutely drenched in sarcasm. “I expected you to know better after the War of the Prophet! Those ideals are nice to have in peacetime, true! But now, the fate of our entire country is in danger, and every bit of information we find now can potentially change the outcome of the war. If Caine reaches his goals, and the Penduli swarm the houses of innocent people, how will you explain to the stacks of corpses that the well-being of one enemy was more important?”
Adam frowned. So now we see your new face, forged in the war. Sad. He nodded to the whip in Oliver’s hand. “You’ll torture the man with that,” Adam said coldly. “So, you go around torturing people whenever you think it’s fitting, whenever you judge someone to suffer? While your anger is clearly clouding your judgement? How does that make you better than Caine, huh? Besides, we’re supposed to be a team in here, and this is quite a decision you make for the lot of us.”
Emily stepped in between the two of them, raising her voice. “Stop it, both of you! Seriously!”
Oliver glanced at Emily. He opened his mouth for a response before he closed it and glared back at Adam. “That’s rich. Someone who consciously practices the damned Forbidden Arts, even though he sees all the disturbing monsters associated with it, is lecturing me on morals. Did the Crimson Urges tell you to do that? Or do you still have a shred of your own will left?”
Adam laughed humourlessly and raised an eyebrow. “ ‘Disturbing,’ you say? Speaking as a man who spreads Aves’s values of ‘love, peace, and compassion for the fellow man’ with a damned whip, I sure wonder what you think is ‘disturbing.’ ”
The two of them stared at each other, none budged. The Thaler in the back laughed loudly.
“Oh, conflicting morals! I’m so moved!” He said between his wheezing laughter. “You talk as if torture would work on someone who isn’t human! I don’t care about my life, you idiots, Caine is whom I live for. And if I serve him better by becoming One with the Realm again, I gladly will!”
The Thaler grinned as he rolled his eyes back. In seconds, his skin paled until it was almost white. He sighed calmly before his body crumbled to dust. A green sprite emerged from his chest and tried to fly away, but Adam reflexively caught it in mid-air. As soon as he touched it, the sprite transformed into a fist-sized object of stone-like material. It had the shape of the fossilized shells of ancient ammonites, in a green so dark it almost seemed black. In the middle of the spiralling shape was an empty notch.
Huh, that’s interesting. Adam quickly put the ammonite into his gourd pouch. “We have all the info we could get, so let’s sneak out of here before the Thalers spot us.”
Oliver dissipated his whip. He walked up to Adam and exhaled. Some of the tension seemed to leave his shoulders and neck, although his face didn’t lose its red hue. “I think I understand your opinion, Adam. Wanting to take the moral high road and all, I get it. But sometimes, choosing to miss opportunities in war can have disastrous consequences, you know that. The bitter reality leaves no room for naivety. Sometimes you need to do what no one likes to, but it is for the better, it causes much less suffering in the grand scheme of things.”
Adam clenched the ammonite in his hand while he looked at his friend. All kinds of answers flashed through his mind, like that the world doesn’t get any better if you defeat monsters, but become one yourself in the process.
An ominous unearthly screech sounded in the distance, further in the cavernous chamber. It was followed by unearthly howls of pain among the Thalers in the melee.
“Let’s agree to disagree for now,” Adam said. “We can talk later.”
“Yes, please! And it’s high time to get out of here!” Emily said with relief in her voice, moving quickly. “Before we find another reason to delay our visit to Ziecherhein, eh?” She looked around and winked conspiratorially at Adam.
Adam got a bit red in the face. He closed his eyes and snickered. Damn, 1-0 for Emily.
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The three of them darted as fast as possible past the disturbing set of tunnels that they came from. They went back in the direction of the Eulenschloss Node, from where they could travel to the Ziecherhein Node.
Emily stiffly paced in front, clearly eager to leave the troubled memories of her family behind her. Not too keen to reach their new destination, Adam walked at the back. Visiting Ziecherhein, or whatever Caine remembered of it, meant coming face to face with a past he much preferred to forget. Guilty thoughts ran through his head, of detours and other routes by which they could prevent going there entirely. He cursed his own cowardice. Of all the memories Caine had to delete, why didn’t he pick those ones? Adam sighed. No, I won’t help anyone by running away. He clenched his jaw and stiffly paced on. Only way to go is forwards.