Book One of the Heretic Chronicles: The Awakening

Chapter Forty Two

Part 1

Thaddeus did not mind the small room they gave him.  He did not have many possessions.  His duty within the White Knights organization was a small one, but an important one.  As a messenger, he spent very little time in his quarters.  His life had become a series of travels.  The higher ups always had him on the road going from one place to another.  The room gave him a sense of safety he never felt while on his journeys.  Outside these four walls, he was the lowest man in the White Knight hierarchy, even the stable boys received more respect and kindness, but within these four walls, he was in charge—a notion he wanted to transcend into the outside world.

A bed to sleep upon, a cabinet for his clothes, a trunk for his personal belongings, and a shelf he constructed from an old barrel for the books he collected from his vast travels made up his room.  Thaddeus read every single book in his collection three times, when he finished the last one, he would start over with the first book, unless he was able to obtain a new one.  Most of his books dealt with the history of Erndor.  One day, Thaddeus hoped to write the history of his own life for others to read about.  Being a messenger for the White Knights brought him many experiences most people never dreamed of.

A knock at his door prevented him from finishing the seventh chapter of The Fall of Lord Von Frenken.  He was in the middle of the most disturbing part.  Lord Von Frenken had just sliced into the virgin to bathe in her blood.  The door opened without being asked as a sergeant entered.

"Thaddeus, the lieutenant needs to see you."  The sergeant was a medium sized man with short black hair and the makings of a mustache on his upper lip that could have been mistaken for dust.

"Thanks, Sarge."

"Immediately."

"Yes, sir."  Thaddeus jumped up and saluted.  He relaxed once the man was gone, and set the book aside.  Lord Von Frenken would have to wait.  Duty called.  He slipped on his surprisingly warm, cloth jacket with the White Knight emblem on each shoulder.  It fit his thin build perfectly, and moved with him like skin.

All day, he had the feeling that something was wrong.  The dining hall was filled with only other messengers and a couple of stable boys for lunch.  There should have been a couple of dozen knights, some of which found hysterics in dumping his food on the floor before he could eat.  Thaddeus asked around, but no one knew anything.  But, that was not uncommon.  The messengers were the last to know about anything.

Thaddeus walked the long, empty corridor to the lieutenant's office.  The bench outside the door looked as lonely as he felt.  For him, isolation was two sided.  It allowed him to do what he loved most: read.  But at the same time, he craved human contact.  Now was one of those moments.  The compound was too empty.  He thought he could hear worms breathing.  The eerie silence was deafening.

He knocked on the door, which consisted of four wooden planks held together with a metal strap.  It was aged and bits of light escaped through the cracks.

"Enter," a voice he recognized said.  It did not sound like the lieutenant, but one of the sergeants.  Droller?

Thaddeus opened the door and entered.  Sergeant Droller was sitting at the lieutenant's desk.  The lieutenant was not considered to be kind.  The man would be pissed.

Droller did not look up.  His face was haggard and his shoulders slumped.

"Sergeant Droller?"

"It's Lieutenant Droller now, Thaddeus."

"Congratulations, sir.  You wanted to see me?"  None of this made sense to him.  What happened to the lieutenant?

Lieutenant Droller looked up from the desk for the first time.  "I have a message I need you to take to the Tower in Cassendor, immediately."