Oathbreaker ch 9.36 - Transposition (Patreon)

“Presenting Ser Zifar of House Ludriq, Knight-Regent of Harkres!”

The protector of Harkres joined the party with a retinue of his own commissars and lieutenants, none armored but all in uniform. A statement in itself, that. The enigmatic warlord was a stark looking man in his early fifties, with closely shorn hair going to gray and the dark complexion of a northerner.

He had the most striking dark gray eyes. I recall thinking there’s a storm in that man.

And I knew him for what he was in a moment as he came through the gate and lifted his head. The ensuing rush of excitement I felt from my position at the back of the crowd had a tinge of both satisfaction and resignation.

We were committed. However things fell from here, the weeks and months of careful plotting and risks now behind me, I’d be able to do little more than ride the chaos.

None of the others at the gala seemed to sense the inhuman nature of the high captain of the Falcon Guard. He drew mixed reactions as he moved through the party, with some offering nods of respect and others barely disguised hostility. When Zifar Ludriq passed by the Count of the Mounds, the two exchanged brief acknowledgement like opposing contenders on opposite sides of a tourney field.

A shame I’d not managed to get access to Ansek Destrey before this night. He would have been a fine ally, and I knew his faction resented the Knight-Regent’s influence. It would be interesting to see what he did next.

Tarik found me some minutes after the Knight-Regent appeared. His hand immediately grabbed my elbow, just a bit too firmly.

“Did you see him?” He asked, like an excited boy.

“I did,” I said and put my hand over his. “Shouldn’t you be introducing yourself? You’re one of the guests of honor, Ser Tarik.”

The newly minted knight blinked, as though he hadn’t even considered this fact. “I wanted to find you.”

I nodded, biting back my frustration. “Let’s go see your commander.”

We had to wait a quarter of an hour, as it turned out. The Knight-Regent, though he had enemies, was a powerful man and many at the gala sought his attention. Tarik met up with his fellow, Atosa, who’d brought his own mother as his guest in the custom of his home country. By the time we did manage to catch Ser Zifar’s attention, a brilliant starry night had drawn itself across the sky. The dead moon rose ascendant, baleful gray and cracked like a wounded egg, and across the whole of the city history began to shift.

One wouldn’t know it, looking at that gathering. The wealthy idled and gossiped, the guards watched with professional disinterest, and Ser Tarik presented me to the Knight-Regent of Harkres.

“Charmed,” the man said and kissed the back of my hand with cold lips. He didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow at my appearance, which I’d deliberately groomed to make my status as an exotic western foreigner obvious. I felt Tarik squirm beneath his neat uniform at the physical contact between me and the other man, but we both ignored him.

“I’ve heard so much about you, lord.” I kept my head down but looked at the Knight-Regent through my eyelashes. “Harkres is blessed to have such a captain to lead its armies.”

The man’s thin lips twitched without actually sketching a smile. “I am no lord, miss. The commander of the Falcon Guard claims no lands or titles beyond the one.”

I’d known that, but made myself look impressed regardless. “Forgive me, ser. I have much to learn.”

His gray eyes narrowed, and in my mind a voice said, So you are the one Darras has been so out of sorts over. I suppose you’re here to make me an offer?

In the flesh, I let myself smile as we continued to trade idle words, while in the secrecy of our minds I said, You are very forward. Did you sense me, or did you just assume the harlot from Ravoroi everyone’s been gossiping about must also be the villain of this piece?

Someone in the circle of hangers-on made a joke, and Zarif threw his head back to laugh without taking his eyes off me. Your beauty is sharp enough to cut, and your boy is ready to take me to the ground and put my eyes out with his thumbs. I can smell his hate. He also twitches like a well-trained dog every time you so much as move your fingers or take a deep breath.

Very perceptive, I also let out a small laugh, covering the motion with my hand. You are a vampire.

And you are a demon, that sonorous voice in my head rejoined. What do you want? An alliance? You have my attention.

In an instant when Tarik had his attention elsewhere, I licked my lips — letting the Knight-Regent see — and considered my next thoughts carefully. I want many things… I want to know what your interest in this city is. I’d like to know what’s happening inside that cathedral, and what you’ve all done with the little godling who was here before.

IwantyoutofillthefountaininthisyardwiththebloodofallthesefoolswhileIbatheinitIwanttoreachintoyourribsandseeifyourheartiscoldanddeadlikeminewillyoulikehowitfeelswillyouletmeIwant—

Whoops. That wasn’t supposed to slip through.

Zarif merely arched an eyebrow. That is quite the list of… demands, lady. Are you friend or foe? I admit, I’ve struggled to read your actions thus far. You obviously like to meddle.

I am no one’s friend, I told him, clamping down on the chaos of my mind. But I can be kind to those who please me. I suppose my question to you, Knight-Regent, is whether you are mercenary in all of this or one of Samaoth’s dupes.

You know the demon’s name. The vampire’s mind became more guarded.

Samaoth-Burns-In-Silver is an old friend. I suspect that your friends might have them in their thrall. If so, then I fear we might be enemies after all…

In truth, I had no idea whether Samaoth was the master of this conspiracy or bound in service to a pack of mortal warlocks. It was little more than a hunch, something based on the way they’d acted and my own personal knowledge of the old demon.

I am no minion to Curate Darras, Zarif thought back with tangible distaste. Bradivara may not know it, but I have defended this country for a very long time.

Ah. Some things were suddenly more clear. Do the mice play now that the falcon is away?

The warlord’s eyes flashed. I am no mouse.

In the privacy of my own inner mind, I thought, I think I know who this is. I might have bitten off more than I can chew.

Another projected thought from the vampire broke through my reverie. Did Reynard send you?

The sudden question threw me off rhythm. Who?

Before our dialogue could progress, there was a sudden commotion near the gates. Many heads began to turn, including my own. It was hard to see at first, as there were close to three hundred people on the manor grounds by then, and guards were rushing in.

I caught sight of Bak and Luck abandoning their posts to move towards the gate. The woman guard grabbed one of her comrades and held him back, said something to him. I took a sip of wine and thought, Here we go.

There was a brief flash of violence in the crowd — I smelled the blood — followed by shouts of alarm, and then a man broke through the press of bodies. He was tall and strong, with black-gray hair and eyes like fervent lanterns of determination. He wore the black robes of a Bradivaran curate, but the talisman in his hand was the gilded rune of the God-Queen.

He held that symbol aloft in a heavy fist, and many gasped at the auratic glow burning from the metal. His voice also had metal in it, molten iron and brass.

“Clap thy eyes, hellspawn!” Geoff’s voice boomed through the night like low thunder. “I know what you are! Your hold on this city ends tonight.”

I rolled my eyes. Next to me, Zarif Ludriq merely lifted his chin.

“I do not know you,” the Knight-Regent said in a calm voice.

Murmurs rippled through the watching crowd. Were it not for the fact that we had allies among the guard, the exorcist would have been subdued already. As it were, a standoff had formed in the middle of the lawn.

I tried to catch Geoff’s attention, hoping to give him some kind of warning — the Knight-Regent was more dangerous than we’d assumed — but the cleric’s attention remained fixed. I gave up and turned to whisper into Tarik’s ear.

“Allow no one to interfere.”

His eyes glazed. “No one must interfere.”

Zarif, whose hearing was better than mine while I remained in human form, turned his head slightly in my direction. “What have you done?”

I replied in a whisper as I slipped into the crowd. “I do hope you enjoy the night’s entertainment, Regent.”

Even as I shifted out of view, Ansek Destrey stepped forward with a look of indignation on his broad face. “What is the meaning of this?! The Curia has gone too far!”

“I do not serve the Curia, my lord.” Geoff spoke in a respectful tone without taking his gaze off the Knight-Regent. “I am Geoff of Ukkerholn, and I am an ordained exorcist of the Aureate Church. I was invited to this city by your peer, the lady Auriya Akbarrasin, who this creature and its co-conspirators murdered!”

Consternation rippled through the onlookers as I ghosted through them, already beginning to let my human mask unravel. There were suddenly more guards around the parameter of the party, and interspersed with them were those recruited by Atosa, Persay, and allies of the dead alccra. They would keep the city garrison from interfering for a time, but this was largely up to Geoff.

Part of me wanted to stay and watch the performance — I can tell you now that a continent’s worth of playwrights and theaters reenact it to this day. It had all the hallmarks of good drama. But it was merely a distraction, a way to keep the Knight-Regent busy so that he could not interfere in what had already begun to play out across the capital of Bradivara.

Even as the eastern exorcist began to lay his accusations against the protector of Harkres, watchtowers and strategic points were commandeered by dissenters in the garrison. Armories were captured and gates opened. Alccrs, the feudal lords of Bradivara, brought their retinues in from the countryside under the cover of darkness. The Knight-Regent’s own citadel, already infiltrated and compromised, would fall within the hour to Alccra Auriya’s own brother.

I could do little to influence any of that. My gaze went to the shadow of bell towers on a high hill at the center of the city. No one noticed me, even as I lifted my hands and beckoned my two shadows to attend me. The scadu came from the bushes and statuary where the manor lights did not reach, fusing to my own so it stretched wider and grew more monstrous in shape.

Concentrating my will, I reached out to the cathedral and found the keyhole I’d smuggled into it — a single mind, and a tongue marked by my own rune.

Now, I thought. Call me.

Within that profaned temple on the hill, mortal lips parted and a scarred tongue uttered my name.

I answered.

I emerged from a pool of blood.

It began as a circle of runes. They were in Nekhrean, not Kandaric, mainly because I didn’t want to deliberately destroy my pawn’s mind and they served just as well. It had taken many weeks feeding the correct formulae into his thoughts to make sure the circle was made correctly.

It was. I rose up from the center, drenched in red, with my fingertips laid over the hollow of my neck like a vampire levitating from its grave. There came the usual brief period of disorientation, the discomfort of hundreds of invisible needles of pressure from the binding circle pressing in like the spikes of an iron maiden.

I opened my eyes to find myself in what looked like a cellar, perhaps some old subbasement storage room beneath the cathedral. It wasn’t small, but even with most of the moldering crates and barrels of rotten hay pushed to the walls it was more cramped and unclean than strictly safe for a summoning. I’d risen from a perfect circle of crimson ectoplasm, its circumference marking the outer edge of the invisible barrier.

There was light, and an open door, and several men in clerical robes threatening a very frightened warlock. Hamet glanced back, and when he saw me, his eyes went huge.

One of the priests cursed in Bradivaran, and another whimpered. Hamet had his back to me, and stood so close that I could have reached out and grabbed him were it not for the unseen barrier of energies enclosing the summoning circle. The circle was really quite small, and my wings pressed against its outer edges. I’d appeared in my natural shape, membranous wings and venomous serpent exposed.

I sighed at the dress I’d worn at the party, ruined now by ectoplasm. “You cut it close, Hamet.”

The cowardly priest’s face gaped at the sight of my bloodsoaked visage, but his attention returned to the others when the closest of the strangers, a thin man in his sixties with kindly features, lifted a placating hand.

“Listen to me, Ham.” The man’s voice shook. “You don’t have to do this. There’s still time to turn back. Just step away from the circle, there’s a lad.”

Even with his back to me, Hamet’s doubt practically screamed through the room. His heart thumped fast in his chest, his skin beaded with sweat, and he was breathing hard.

“I didn’t want this,” the young priest said.

“I know.” The old one forced a smile. “I know, Ham. We want to help you, that’s all. Step away, lad. Step away from that and let us help.”

Hamet was sobbing. “It’s too late! This is all a nightmare. This place… I didn’t do this!”

“Do as the curate says, heretic!” One of the other priests barked. Hamet jumped, and the older man winced.

“Curate Darras, I presume?” I smiled at the old man. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

He ignored me, his attention remaining fixed firmly on Hamet. His hand remained extended. His wizened eyes held a silent plea. I watched the younger man twitch and start to raise his own hand.

“They will kill you,” I said to Hamet. “They will make it slow.”

“Shut it out,” Curate Darras told the young priest. “It only has as much power over you as you allow it, brother.”

“Like the power you’ve given your demon?” I asked him.

“SHUT UP!” Hamet bellowed. We all fell silent, and in that hush I heard movement reverberating through the stone. The cathedral had come awake like a kicked beehive. The coup happening out in the city had been noticed.

The old man was successfully swaying my summoner. Bother. Well, I’d not expected to count on him past this point anyway, which was why I’d taught him the formula for transposition with a slight flaw.

I reached out to the edge of the barrier and slashed at it with the sharp nail on my forefinger. A cut appeared, little more than a crack in a windowpane, but it was enough for the scadu to slip through. Darras’s eyes went wide, and he started to shout a warning.

Too late. The two shadow-demons squeezed through the break in the circle and started killing. The old man tried to bring up a silver feather, his holy talisman, and I felt power gather around him.

Not demonic power. I stared in shock for a moment.

But only a moment. At a command, the scadu focused their bloodlust on him and one cut his hamstrings like a wolf snapping at a stag. The other went for his belly as he fell.

The sudden flash of violence caused Hamet to stumble back, and the back of his foot scraped the edge of the barrier and broke it. I shoved him out of the way unceremoniously and went forward myself. My tail lashed out, its fangs sinking into the meat of one man’s throat and pumping enough venom into his system that he would have been dead in minutes even without two deep puncture marks in his jugular. I killed the third with fire, spitting a curse in Anathema Kandaric that caused him to immolate on the spot.

The fourth, who’d stood closest to the door, tried to run. The scadu caught up to him before he’d cleared half the stairway and dragged him back screaming.

While my pets feasted, I turned to find Hamet lying in a pile of broken, rotted crates. He cringed back, but I grabbed him by the collar of his Curia robes and hauled him up so we were face to face. He whimpered.

“You told me Curate Darras was the one who ordered you to lead that exorcist to his death. Was that him?” I held the cowering priest with one hand, and used my other to point at the old man on the cellar floor. His guts were spilled out in a pile wider than he was tall, and his bulging eyes were crimson from burst blood vessels.

Hamet tried to free himself from my grip. “Y-you killed him!”

“Was that Darras?”

“YES!” Hamet sobbed.

I considered the problem while the scadudemons feasted on the last priest. That old man had just wielded angelic aura. It hadn’t been Samaoth’s fire, which could look like divine flame at a glance, but the real thing. His faith had been real, and tangible.

It made me uneasy. It made me think I’d missed something.

“Where is the archcurate?” I asked. “The Falcon’s oracle?”

I had to threaten him with the serpent to get him talking again. “H-he’s always in the inner sanctum!” Hamet cried. “He hardly ever comes out. That’s where he communes with…”

I narrowed my eyes. “With what? With Samaoth?”

I’d pushed him too far. The young priest started to hyperventilate. I could see the faint scars on his tongue where I’d marked him all those weeks ago.

I sighed and thought, It’s what Harmodian would ask me to do.

I leaned forward and pressed my mouth to the priest’s. He let out a small, weak sound, something halfway between a squeak and a grunt. It was quickly followed by a low moan as my poison got into him, then a squeal as I bit.

The kiss was brief. I got his tongue in between my teeth and removed the rune I’d carved onto it, which also killed the parasite. He struggled, but it was done quickly and the new wound would heal. Once I let him go, Hamet slumped on the ground and held his hands to his bleeding mouth while I wiped my own with the back of a hand.

“I’d stay down here until morning,” I told him. “Things are going to get a bit messy upstairs.”

He was in no state to reply. The scadudemons returned to me as I listened to distant sounds echo from up above. They both resembled me by then, being winged, feminine shapes made of nearly solid black smoke. One pressed against my back and wrapped its arms around my neck while the other knelt like a maiden priestess in an ancient temple, demurely waiting for orders.

Part of the coup that’d been so long in the planning involved storming the cathedral. It was the next logical thing after securing the gates to allow the alccrs into the city and entrapping the Knight-Regent. I guessed all the noise above to be from a retinue of Bradivaran knights and Falconguard banging on the front door.

Darras was dead. The other curates, and Samaoth, would be distracted by the coup. There would be no better time.

“It’s time to bring Didikas here,” I told my shadows. They, who were mirrors of my own feelings, sighed in relief.