Oathbreaker: A Dark Fantasy Web Serial-Chapter 7Arc : : The Cupbearer

The angel had six arms and three faces.

The front facing one looked mostly human and young, a youth no older than fourteen, but to either side of it, facing outward, were two other faces. The left looked to be a venerable old man, the right a woman nearing her middle years. Its form was androgynous, with long and flowing hair the color of a stormy sky and toned limbs. It had only one leg, mostly hidden behind garments of spun mist and fractal light. The body beneath was alabaster perfection, white and translucent, carved by an immortal hand into an image of cold, serene beauty.

The spirit floated level with the tops of the trees, its four shining wings poised and still so they seemed more like accessories than the mechanisms of its levitation. Two of the angel’s hands held objects. One balanced a golden cup that spewed misting fumes. The other gripped a long pole with a blade at the end shaped like a crescent moon, some kind of staff or glaive. Both objects blazed with phantasm, as did the halo floating above the spirit’s head.

The halberd was forged from a black metal that gave off an odd sheen. Hithlenic bronze, just like my axe, with sacred gold worked into the alloy.

“Headsman.”The seraph’s voice was a physical shiver in the air, warm and chilling at once. “You should not be here.”

I did my best to hide my shock at the Onsolain’s unexpected appearance. He was a member of the Choir. I’d immediately considered that this might be another Zosite, one of the infernal spirits like the one that’d protected Kross once, but I’d seen this being’s image before, inscribed into religious art and named in sermon.

“Lord Chamael.” Taking a breath to calm myself, I bowed my head to the holy spirit.

The young face at the front of the Onsolain’s uncanny head shifted slightly. His eyes remained closed, and his lips barely moved when he spoke. “Blood still dries upon your blade, Headsman. Explain yourself.”

He had a kindly voice. It reminded me of Eanor — tinged with sadness and compassion at once. Yet, I couldn’t shake the atmosphere of danger I felt. Why was he here?

The Penitents didn’t move — they seemed to be waiting for something. Orders? For me to do something?

“You lead these?” I asked after a minute, indicating the soldiers.

Chamael’s head, which had remained lifted since his appearance, finally tilted down to regard me. The eyes on the front face remained closed, but I saw the hair on one side of his head shift. The aged face there was whispering, its lips moving subtly as though advising the youthful visage. Its eyes were open, revealing black pits that reminded me of Nath.

The seraph didn’t answer my question. “You were inside that malcathe sanctuary… you fought these sufferers and killed their brothers. You defended the devils’ advocate.”

He sounded confused.

“I was taking my ease and preparing for my next task from the Choir,” I said cautiously, not liking where this conversation was going or what the seraph’s presence here implied. “They attacked the inn. I defended myself.”

“The inn… yes. That place, it is a refuge for the misbegotten and the damned, for those who lurk in the shadows of our light and hide from us as they feed on the faithful.” The boyish face frowned deeply. “Why would you feel at ease in such a place?”

His confusion seemed genuine, like any boy struggling to understand the idiosyncrasies of his elders. I had to remind myself that this was a being older than the world. I kept my tone respectful while explaining.

“This is part of my role, my lord. As the Headsman, I often have to consort with darker elements to conduct my duties.”

It frustrated me to explain this, while the seraph led this band of murderers bearing armaments crafted with the tools of Hell. Did the angel see the irony, as I did? Or had I misread?

The Onsolain lapsed into silence. I tried to collect myself and peel through the ramifications of his presence. Chamael was a middle ranked member of the Choir, though in truth I didn’t know much about him. He had many names, but all his brethren did. He was called Sanctus Chamael, Cupbearer of God, Burdened Caleb, and the Saint of Blood.

A spirit of devotion, duty, mercy, and benevolent castigation. He’d been present when I swore my vow to the Choir after the war, but I’d only encountered him that one other time and hadn’t heard him speak then.

“The crowfriar still lives,” Chamael said. “You defended him.”

“I defended the inhabitants of the inn,” I reasoned. “They were caught in the crossfire, and I didn’t know who these Penitents were at the time.”

The seraph seemed to become even more still. “You know who they are.”

I sensed I’d made a mistake. “My presence here was a sad coincidence, my lord. If there’s some other operation I’m unaware of…”

“You said you have a mission,” the angel interrupted. “What mission?”

That gave me pause. Why wouldn’t he know already? “I don’t know the details yet,” I hedged. “I was simply given a destination by the Herald.”

As we spoke my mind raced. A member of the Choir was leading a contingent of conscripted criminals to kill or capture Vicar. Those same conscripts were, so far as I could tell, attached to the Priory. The Priory had been signed over to the Iron Tribunal, the governing body of Hell. ṛ𝒶₦ŐʙΕꞨ

It didn’t make sense. What was I missing? What had happened these past months? The Choir had tried to prevent their counterpart from taking command of the Priory, something I’d partly failed to accomplish thanks to Lias’s intervention. He’d been the one to sign that damned contract in the end…

Did he have something to do with this?

The extra mouths on the sides of Chamael’s head were whispering again. I heard a strange sound in the air, almost like the seraph was sighing with that disembodied voice.

“You are withholding. Answer me, Headsman. What did the thief’s shade say to you?”

Almost I answered. The only thing that gave me pause was how quickly I opened my mouth to speak the location Donnelly had provided. The woman’s face on the right side of the angel’s head was whispering, the words barely audible. I felt an odd sense of vertigo.

There’d been compulsion in those words. The seraph had just tried to force me to answer.

“What is all of this about, Lord Chamael?” I asked, stalling for time. “Why are you working with the Priory?”

Chamael’s voice hardened a touch. “Answer the question, Headsman. I command you.”

I felt the command. It lanced through my mind like a scalpel blade and tugged like a barbed hook. I winced and felt my vision reel, but managed to focus through the seraph’s will. “If you haven’t been told already…” I breathed deep. “Then I’m not sure it’s a good idea to answer that.”

As I spoke, my eyes went to the shining halo above his head. It formed a sort of rune, and I sensed its power like a warm ray of sun on my face, distinct compared to the winter cold. That’s the anchor, I realized. It was a phantasm, a spell preventing the Backroad from shifting itself into the ethereal realm.

But what did I do about it? Convention told me to comply with the angel. We were on the same side, only…

The Penitents labored breathing filled the air, muffled by their iron masks. I could smell the stink of them even in the freezing cold.

Chamael’s hovering form seemed to freeze, becoming like a still image. His youthful face never changed, but I felt the tension in the air spike drastically. His lips parted, almost an expression of surprise or realization. It was my only warning.

“I see. We were warned, but some believed your repentance to be genuine. A shame.”

“What?” I asked.

No sooner had I asked the question than the aged face on the left side of the angel’s head opened its mouth and spoke aloud.

“Where is it?”

The words branded themselves into my thoughts, and something within me reacted with a violent immediacy. The warmth within me, that presence that’d been with me so long I’d long since reconciled it as a part of myself, surged up. Blazing, burning, blinding. It crawled through my skin, my veins, my bones. It scorched my throat, spilled out of my eyes, echoed in my sudden, involunatry cry of pain.

Hot. It was too hot. I felt like my flesh was about to boil away, leaving me as a screaming skeleton. I’d collapsed into the snow before I even realized what was happening, but even the frozen water I lay in didn’t help. I tried to reach out — for help? For mercy? And in that inferno of agony I caught a glimpse of my own hand. It crawled with pale golden flames. They blistered my flesh beneath my armor.

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“Speak.”

“By mine authority and your oaths I command you.”

It was the fire. The Alder Table’s fire. Tuvon’s fire. The angel was trying to compel it to obey. Only… it resisted. I resisted.

“What is this?”

The angel’s voice became strained with horror.

“What have you done?”

The pain was too much. I felt like I was being torn apart. Something within me longed to obey, and its inability to caused great distress. We didn’t know the answer. We didn’t know what the immortal wanted. If only we knew, we would give it gladly.

Another part felt so much rage. How dare he? After all we’d given, all we’d suffered? Centuries and centuries of suffering, for what?

A third part felt joy. Finally. Finally we saw it, felt it, knew it. The veil stripped away at last.

It was too much. I pushed back against both the influence without and within. It was a leviathan effort, a sensation like being quartered, but I focused on myself, on my own thoughts, my own self.

It was hard. I struggled to find myself. I’d become so used to this other part of my being, which had become as familiar as my own skin, my own breath. And yet, it was consuming me.

In that moment I felt a new pain. It blazed into my awareness in a flash. Four lines of heat like iron brands in my flesh, like freshly riven wounds on the left side of my face.

Strangely, the rest of me felt suddenly cold as though I’d been doused in freezing water. The Alder’s fire ebbed, leaving me on my hands and knees in the snow, cloaked in smoke and a distinct burnt smell. The snow beneath me was starting to melt. Steam billowed around my kneeling form.

Above me, something attacked the angel.

I only caught a brief glimpse of it. One moment Chamael hovered there, imperious, wings outstretched as he exerted his will over me, then something huge and fast as thought struck him from the side.

They vanished into the trees. Branches snapped in a series of thunderous, echoing cracks that reverberated throughout the forest. I lost sight of them. I barely even registered what had just happened at first, with the lingering effects of the compulsion and the pain still embedded into my skull. My hand drifted toward the scars over my left eye. They were bleeding.

Sudden movement made me flinch. On instinct I fell back, just as a steel javelin buried itself in the snow where my head had been an instant before.

The Penitents. They were attacking me.

Good. Once my mind cleared, the surging feeling of anger that’d begun in the moment the angel tried to compel me remained. It wasn’t the burning heat of battle fury or blind rage, but something colder, more focused. The pain in my left eye helped.

Pushing my confusion and discomfort into the back of my mind, I lunged forward from a kneeling position and swung my axe in the same motion. I caught the nearest Penitent off guard. Ignoring his cleaver, which clanged harmlessly off my armor, my axe split his helmet down its center seam. Blood spurted out of the narrow openings in his helm, some of it spraying me.

The dead convict collapsed into the snow while I turned just in time to parry the mace of another soldier. The impact set my arms to shaking and made Faen Orgis’s oak handle creak ominously.

Strong. Not just that, but they did not conserve their strength. Every blow held a maniac fury behind it.

And yet…

Before Garihelm, I’d spent years wandering the lands half in a fugue. I’d barely cared if I lived or died, and I’d not taken care of myself. My magic kept me strong, kept me healthy, but that could only go so far. The endless fighting and danger helped hone my skills, true, but I’d eaten badly, slept worse. Now, though?

I’d spent a year in the capital. I’d had more than just myself to worry about, more people to fail, so I’d started taking stock of my own well being. Not all my preparations for the next battle were done in the seclusion of my study.

And Myrice Gorgon had not been my squire’s only sparring partner.

The muscles beneath my armor were dense as they’d ever been, my arms bulked by months of hard training and steady meals. Even after the struggle back at the inn, I felt fresh and steady. Had the weapon in my hand ever felt so light?

"Come on then!” I snarled.

The condemned closed in. More of them had those barbed javelins. One slammed into my backplate, throwing me off balance. A blade nearly took my ear and put a new groove along my pauldron.

The masked faces of the Penitents, visages of saintly calm, did not reflect in the glints of their fevered eyes. Some had been blinded and wore sightless helms. How they fought so ably, I didn’t know.

With a shout, I took my axe in both hands and poured power into it. The handle of living oak, already soaked in blood, suddenly broke, stretched, bucked in my hands with such force I nearly lost my grip on it. It grew to the length of a halberd. I swung it overhead, whipping it about in a whirlwind motion that sent a blast of wind and auratic fire in all directions.

A top layer of snow instantly melted in a ring around me, kicking up a cascade of steam. It blocked the pack of killers from my view, gave me cover.

Gave them cover. A heavy broadsword clove through the cloud. I reflexively blocked it, lifting my lengthened axe like a quarterstaff.

The sword split the oaken handle in half. I stumbled, momentarily stunned. One of the Penitents stood right in front of me, already bringing their sword back to drive it forward. This one had a crow faced visor with a long beak perforated with holes, the dome of the helm decorated with a spike. I could see dried blood on their armor where it had bled through the gaps, like the suit was cutting them.

He froze suddenly, started to twitch as though he were suffering from seizure. Baring my teeth, I snapped forward in a swing but he moved with that uncanny dexterity they all seemed to possess, cringing away from me. The others did too, all seeming to suffer from the same simultaneous fit.

A light blazed in the distant woods. It was cold, and made everything seem darker. I felt the magic in me react, and I recognized the sensation. I’d felt it before, when the whole of Urn had been steeped in war.

A Saint Immortal had been wounded. In that moment, an Angel of Onsolem felt pain.

The light rose above the forest, blazing like an arctic star, then shot off as a comet into the distance. It moved with impossible speed, soon fading into a distant pinprick before being swallowed by the clouds. Thunder rumbled far off.

The Penitents stretched and contorted. I could hear their muffled gasps and moans. Even as they suffered from whatever this was, they retreated from me into the night.

I did not chase them. I stood there, breathing hard, axe half raised in expectation of some trick. I stood there for a long time, and only when I felt certain that they’d gone did my heart stop racing and my mind start to form a coherent thought.

A member of the Choir was working with the Priory. In addition, not all of the Onsolain were aware I’d been given a new task. He’d tried to force the truth out of me. He’d used my own magic to do it when I’d resisted his first attempt.

My tension eased, but my anger did not.

Snow crunched. I felt a cold shiver along my spine and spun. A form limped out of the night. I summoned fire on my axe and held it up to illuminate whoever approached.

Saska looked terrible, worse than she had after the explosion back at the inn. Her pretty dress was in ruins, her black hair a chaotic mop hanging down around her skinny shoulders. She’d taken more injuries, and her form seemed… somehow less than solid, like a mirage. I had to blink several times to focus on it.

Glamour. She was covering herself in illusion even as she walked towards me, but I caught sight of something before the human appearance reasserted itself. I only saw it as flickering shadows cast by the small woman over the trees from my own fire, but it had too many limbs, too many eyes, and was very large.

“Alken,” Saska breathed as she stepped into the radius of my light, wincing at it. “Could you dim that a bit? It is… very bright.”

I imagined it was. “You’re no malcathe,” I said. “You’re no elf or changeling either.”

Saska must have sensed my demeanor, because she stopped walking. Her left arm was shredded, but even as I watched it seemed to be healing. The snow steamed and hissed wherever her blood landed on it.

“There aren’t many things that can harm one of the celestial spirits,” I said quietly. “Their own kind can do it, but you’re no angel.”

Saska’s smile looked thin and cool in the shadows. “No.”

“And not one of the native spirits either.”

Impatience crept into her voice. “Keep running down your options, ser knight, you shall reach the truth you already know soon enough.”

I felt surrounded by enemies and misdirections. An angel had just tried to take my mind and will away from me, and I’d been saved by…

Everything felt backwards. I needed to understand.

“The Keeper was once a crowfriar.” I spoke half to myself as I worked out the implications. “An agent of Hell, either a damned soul or one of the infernal spirits originally. He freed himself, made some kind of deal and hid away in this land where his kin weren’t welcome. He wasn’t happy about his former brothers snooping around. When I originally told him, it seemed to set him off. I’ve always thought he was just trying to misdirect me, but now I think he was afraid.”

Saska took another step forward and lowered her voice. “You have had a shock today. Your soul is in turmoil. I can see you are in distress, full of confusion, but you must calm yourself, Alken. I am not your enemy. Neither is Falstaff.”

“You’re both fugitives, aren’t you? But the Credo doesn’t know, or they might suspect but have no way to do anything about it yet. They’ve been trying to provoke the Keeper into making a mistake.”

Dis Myrddin. I remembered him snooping around the inn back in the city. I’d believed he was conspiring with Falstaff at the time.

“Not provoke him…” I took a step back. “Provoke you.”

Saska took a deep, calming breath. She’d fully regained her human appearance, and whatever I’d glimpsed before was gone. Her black eyes looked distracted, and she seemed tired and hurt. I sensed nothing. Then again, I hadn’t sensed anything twelve years ago, either. My magic wasn’t infallible. There were beings who could hide from it.

The body was human. Stolen, probably. The real Saska hid inside. It explained why I’d sensed nothing, and why that grenade had been able to hurt her.

“I am not your enemy,” Saska repeated. “But if your oaths compel you to seek this fight… then you will find it easy to smite me down. This land is not easy to dwell in, and it took nearly all my strength to drive that seraph away.”

“What are you?” I thought I knew the answer, but didn’t feel entirely sure.

Saska didn’t answer for a while. Her gaze went distant, reflective. “This world is very old, and it is but a piece of something even older. You mortals always seek to simplify the whole of it. Angels and devils, gods and demons, good and evil. But some of us have no interest in the war for Creation. We simply wish to live. To exist.”

She looked at me, and her eyes seemed to pull. They met mine, and were wide and dark as a starless sky, just as bottomless. “So what shall you do, paladin? Choose. I am too old and tired to plead.”

The hate I felt was an old one, and well earned. And yet… she’d dwelt here for centuries. She’d saved my life.

“Is Falstaff your prisoner?” I asked.

Saska surprised me by laughing. “Ah ha ha! I was his, once. Now…” She shrugged. “There are no words for what we are. Two exiles living in a land that abhors us, seeking company in others who shy from the light. You can sympathize, no? You and dear Catrin had a similar rapport.”

I turned my back on her, swallowing my unease. “We need to get back. Chamael might return with reinforcements.”

“He tried to kill you,” Saska said at my back. “I attacked him just as he gave those creatures the order.”

Or did they attack me to defend him? Saska might be lying. Her kind were very good at lying.

It was something I would have to investigate on my own. First, I needed to talk to the devil who’d started this mess.