Part VIII. Nighttyr (cont.)
To be fair, you never actually joined the Inquisition in the first place, remarked Arathron rather snidely. Unless the rules differ on Eral, you cannot quit what you have not taken up.
“Feh, in the grand scope of life, what's a meager eight hours,” retorted the Inferi, not caring who thought him odd for talking to himself alone in a vault. “You've hardly said a word since we left the keep. Are you sure you're all right?”
The revenant considered his answer for a moment. Some of the things I have seen thus far in this world disgust me, in truth.
“I knew seeing how the Enkiri live on Eral would upset you.” His fingers tripped the hidden latches on the box and he lifted the lid to find the reason why none of the strongboxes had locks upon them. On the underside of the black wood was etched a silver outline of the two-headed wolf of Antenox; anyone other than an Inferi would never have been able to lift the lid.
The fate of the ash-in-born is foremost among them, indeed. Remind me to ask after the archivist for any histories he may have on the matter. I desire to know how this came to pass.
“Will do,” nodded Drystan, setting the lid inside and looking down at what was contained within.
Coord had lived a spartan life, that much was certain. A baker's dozen of assorted-sized buckles bearing the two-headed wolf all in manner of conditions and states of repair were the most expensive things within, but that was only because they had been forged in pure silver. There were a few personal journals, simple stacks of paper bound up in leather ties, that contained what looked like notes on various Pandemonium demons she had come across during her travels indicating the simplest methods of dispatching them. Littered about with a random-seeming abacus and measuring stick were several dozen different types of teeth contained with glass vials that looked to have been pulled from the demons she had examined and noted in detail, as well as a Circle of Junan that had been snapped in two and a carved wooden bird that Drystan vaguely recalled were popular dream talismans among pagans who still worshiped multiple gods.
Nothing within was as carefully cared for as the single thick leather-bound tome that took up half the bottom of the box. Flipping through the thick pages he saw it contained a full and detailed history of Samalyn's family tree and a short personal history of the man himself. The well over three-quarters of the remaining book was dedicated entirely to describing the art of shield fighting. It was meticulously detailed, complete with labeled diagrams of the various fighting stances, ways to calculate the precise weight, length and width of a shield appropriate for one's own size and arm length, as well as a wealth of notes by Coord herself pointing out the practical way versus the artful way to fight and defend with what amounted to a wide and flat hammer with a pointy end.
He settled down cross-legged on the floor and then removed the large book from the box. Seeing what was hidden beneath it and the note left thereupon made him laugh so uncontrollably that he fell backwards and lay staring up at the vault ceiling giggling for some time before gaining control of himself again. Even the recently melancholy Arathron was laughing hard enough to bring tears to Drystan's eyes.
Once he sat back up he withdrew the sword and laid it across his lap, marveling at the blunt note left stitched into the leather protecting the blade:
When nothing else works stab the demon in something vital and hang on for your bloody life.
Drystan withdrew the sword from its scabbard and found it was of a positively antique design that had fallen out of use almost a century ago. A little under three feet long, double-edged with a straight angled tip a third of the blade length, and capped off by a simple hilt of hatched ivory. Despite its age it was as immaculately cared for as Samalyn's treatise on shield fighting. The edges were keenly sharpened and it had been oiled regularly even though it was likely never used in practice. There was no stamp to identify the swordmaker, but ivory hilts were only common in two places on Eral: the Knights of the Ordained Father in Harenholl, and the trackless jungles at the far northeastern edge of the Oribian.
Thinking back on it he withdrew the sword Coord had given him in the City from the sheath at his back. He had never really looked at it since that day, preoccupying himself with whatever was in front of him so he could avoid thinking about what had happened. The way Coord had vanished into the well so silently haunted him, and it wasn't just because he had been raised to believe that suicide was an unforgivable sin. What came at the end of an Inferi's life? Just how long would it be before he and Arathron became overwhelmed by whatever had ultimately caused Coord and Samalyn to take their own lives? Would they too live for over a hundred years hunting fiends from Pandemonium, watching as the people they came to care for grew old and died along the way?
Neither of them had an answer, and Arathron had been thinking long and hard on it when he wasn't brooding over the fate of the Enkiri on Eral. Drystan had never been the type to dwell on questions like those, but now that he was faced with the reality of what he had done, it was staring to weigh on him.
Who in their right mind wanted to live forever?
He turned the sword over a few times, wondering if there was some secret message upon it as had been upon the other sword's scabbard. There was nothing of the sort, however; it was just a decoration piece, forged with no edge and a blunt tip, far heavier than was practical for a blade of its size. Aside from the equidistant cross of the Nighttyr crest embedded in a repeating pattern down he spine of the blade, there was nothing magical or world-changing about it. Anyone unaware of the events that had lead to it being in his hands would dismiss it as ceremonial scrap metal.
“Why would a pair of warriors so damn practical hand me a sword I can't even use?”
“To remind you of who you are, fool.”
Tilting his head back he saw Sacha leaning against the door frame of the vault. She had smartly doffed her damp traveling garb and donned dry trousers and a warm sheepskin overcoat, something that had not even crossed Drystan or Arathron's minds when they arrived at the keep.
A sad look came over her face as she continued speaking. “The Taskmaster told me you just grinned and followed along with her when she called you a fatherless son of a bitch at the tavern.”
“I did, yes.”
“She and Samalyn hated it when people used that term flippantly; if you translate it into the language of the City it means one which is unwanted. They used it to refer to those who willingly became Thralls.” Sacha smiled slightly and nodded towards the sword in his hand. “She gave that to you to remind you that you're not some unwanted burden who was dropped off at the steps of a Rectory. Your family was betrayed in a truly epic fashion, and by a lot more people than just Weist. But out of everything they had that they could have protected, that they could have used to save themselves, they saved you. Just you.”
She dropped a folded set of dry woolen clothing in the doorway and headed back across the library. “That's her way of telling you that you're not allowed to call yourself a bastard anymore. And that you should look up your mother's half of the family while you're here. If there's an afterlife for we Inferi, Coord and Samalyn are going to find you when you get there and beat your resurrected head in with a big shield of wrath if you don't make an effort.”
Drystan turned back to the strongbox and looked down at the swords in his lap. One was practically useless, the other simply practical. He knew what he was going to do, and it made him grin and shake his head.
“Think I'm sentimental, old man?”
You will cease calling me 'old man' until you hit fifty, retorted Arathron. But 'tis very fitting. You should indeed do it.
Placing the large book back in the strongbox and replacing the lid, he got to his feet and grabbed the clothes Sacha had left for him. Tucking both swords into his belt he decided he was long overdue for a warm bath and probably a shave; with a smirk he realized that his little life-changing adventure had been the longest period he had gone through in his life where he had never looked at himself in a mirror.
But after that, he was going to find out more about his half-horse lord self. And if he was lucky, somewhere in his mother's family tree there was a weaponsmith that wouldn't think him too daft for wishing to carry a blunted trophy sword into battle when he asked them to craft a sheath for it.
YOU ARE READING
The Great Pandemonium: Nobilitas Obligat
Fantasy“Care to find out why you're a fatherless son of a bitch?” That was the question posed to Drystan the night before he was to again swear his undying loyalty to the Church of Junan and join the ranks of the Inquisition, tasked with investigating, hun...
