The Quickening Gift

By Andrew Hunter

The Songreaver is gone.

The north burns as the red god rises from his slumber, seeking vengeance on the servants of the death goddess. Far to the south, the city of vampires plunges into chaos as Marla desperately tries to save what she can of the society Garrett has destroyed.

Trapped between the forces of ancient gods and dragons, Garrett’s friends struggle to survive the cataclysm that threatens to engulf their world.

And Garrett finally gets a chance to learn just how all those zombies he animated felt.

Join us now for the final chapter in The Songreaver’s Tale!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrew Hunter
• Release date: Mar 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005163686

Andrew Hunter

Andrew Hunter is a freelance curator, artist, writer, and educator. Hunter was previously the Frederik S. Eaton Curator of Canadian Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario, where he produced major exhibitions and publications including Every Now Then: Reframing Nationhood, In the Ward: Lawren Harris, Toronto & the Idea of North, and Colville. Born in Hamilton and a graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design, Hunter has held curatorial positions across Canada, including at the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Hamilton. He has taught at the Ontario College of Art and Design University and the University of Waterloo and lectured on curatorial practice across Canada, the United States, England, China, and Croatia. He is a member of the advisory board for the Institute for the Study of Canadian Slavery at NSCAD.

Book preview

Chapter One

Maleastron

Emperor Jacobius woke up afraid again.

Dawn’s light lanced through the slender gap between the curtains making the tiny particles that swirled in the air dance like cinders from a bonfire. The smoky haze that choked the Holy City crept in, even here, in the only room in the citadel where Jacobius could ever be alone.

He had never felt as alone as he did now.

The boy dragged his blanket up over his head. He pulled a fresh pillow from the far side of the bed and buried his face in it, breathing in the fresh scent of cool red linen.

His mother had not visited him since the night before Taversmas. That was over a month ago. He had revisited their last conversation, over and over again until his head ached, but he did so again now.

Had he said something to offend her?

She had promised him that the end was near, the Great Judgement of Fire that the prophesies foretold, but she had also promised him that she would be with him when the time came, that her face would be the last thing that he saw.

She had promised to return soon, but she had not.

He could still remember the smile on his mother’s face and the love in her colorless eyes as she faded away, that last night before Taversmas. She had not seemed angry, not with him.

Perhaps God had some other duty for his mother’s ghost that kept her away so long?

Jacobius’s stomach twisted with shame, the only thing stronger than his fear. Was he not already neglecting his own duty to God?

The young emperor slipped free of his blanket, shuddering as the cold air bit through his nightshirt. His legs trembled as he stood up, the rough weave of the carpet digging into the soft soles of his feet.

He hugged himself against the cold as he stumbled, stiff-leggedly, toward the sardonyx altar at the far end of his bedchamber. He touched his forehead in honor of his grandfather’s hammer that lay atop the polished stone slab, and then knelt to honor his God Malleatus of Chadir.

Jacobius hardly felt the bristly horsehair of the prayer mat through the callouses on his knees, but he felt the sting in his cheek as he slapped himself to focus his attention.

"Blood of the Conqueror waken to my call! Jacobius prayed, Master of the Chosen, hear my praise!"

He continued to pray, his lips moving to words branded upon his tongue by years of repetition, but his mind drifted again to those dark thoughts that haunted his dreams.

Would he have to face the end alone?

Your Holiness? a thin voice called out.

Jacobius looked up to see Bishop Carrel standing in the doorway. The high collar of the man’s crimson robe framed the plump cheeks of his good-natured face, and wisps of snowy hair wreathed the pink dome of his glossy forehead, now wrinkled with concern.

Yes, Your Excellency? Jacobius greeted him, grateful to have been caught at prayer and not still abed.

Forgive my interruption, Bishop Carrel sighed, "but we have something of a… situation."

A sick dread wrung Jacobius’s heart. Was the end upon them? Was he to face the fire of judgement now, without his mother at his side?

Carrel saw the fear in the young emperor’s eyes and hastened to reassure him with a smile.

Things are well in hand, Your Holiness, Carrel promised, The Guard stands ready.

What is it? Jacobius demanded, rising to his feet again, more puzzled now than afraid. The Guard was called to deal with earthly things, not matters of prophecy.

The dragon, Your Holiness, Bishop Carrel whispered, his pink lips trembling around the words.

Jacobius’s eyes fell to the black-stained hammer atop the red altar, and he gave a self-mocking snort of derision. He couldn’t even lift the thing, let alone swing it.

The Guard stands ready, Carrel repeated.

"The greatest sin is fear," Jacobius whispered to himself.

*******

The dragon circled the city again, enjoying the delicious sensation of his wings slicing through the air like a knife. The thin membrane of living flame that stretched between his fleshless wing bones crackled in the icy wind, and he sucked in another rattling breath, reveling in the glory of being alive again.

Well, not quite alive.

Soon, Kadreaan, soon, Graelle assured him, patting the dragon on the spine with a gauntleted hand. The dragon rider insisted on calling him by Kadreaan’s name, which annoyed the dragon. That wasn’t his name anymore. Certainly, it had been that once, when flesh and scales still covered his bones, but not now, not since he had died and been born anew.

The problem was that he couldn’t exactly remember his new name. It flitted, just beyond the grasp of his thoughts, as though he could speak it at any moment, if he could just stop trying to think of what it was.

Flames crackled between the dragon’s ribs, flaring orange-hot as he bellowed out an angry roar.

Easy now! Graelle called from where he sat astride the dragon’s back, in the hollow between the wing joints.

Warning bells rang out across Maleastron, the largest city ever built by the hands of men. White parapets crowned the green hills of the great island in the center of a placid lake that stretched off toward the hazy horizon in every direction. The walls gleamed, pale as bone in the cold light of a winter’s dawn.

The dragon tried to focus his eyes, to pick out faces among the throngs of red-clad people moving through the streets of the white city, but his vision swam before him, as though he glimpsed the world through bottle glass. He tried to rub his eyes with the back of his wrist, but he only wobbled in flight as he flexed a bony foretalon in the general direction of his dragon skull head.

The dragon shrieked in frustration.

Steady! Graelle called out.

Red flames crackled as the dragon beat his bony wings, gaining altitude again. He turned to begin another slow pass around the city, wondering how long they intended to wait. There were enemies down there! The dragon could smell their hatred and their fear. He wouldn’t have to see their faces clearly to kill them.

There! the dragon rider cried, and the dragon looked instinctively toward the great citadel in the center of the city, his eyes guided by the strange bond that he shared with the fire-scarred Chadirian astride his back.

Now he saw with absolute clarity the ranks of red-armored guardsmen marching across the broad courtyard on the western side of the citadel.

The dragon’s jaws parted in anticipation of a diving attack, directly into the massed ranks of soldiers, but he gave a disappointed growl when he saw them disperse, spreading themselves out across the plaza and gardens below.

Mind the turrets! Graelle cautioned, and the dragon’s gaze lifted to the war machines mounted atop the towers surrounding the courtyard.

These gave him pause, though he doubted that the steel-headed spears loaded into those great crossbows could ever bring him down. They might instead harm the man astride his back, and no harm must ever come to Graelle.

Then Graelle sighed in relief, and the dragon looked to see what had caused it.

A slender figure, dressed in a crimson coat and surrounded by red-robed old men, emerged from the side of the citadel and strode toward the center of the plaza. Each of the red guards spread throughout the courtyard fell to one knee as the man neared them, then rose back into their fighting stances as he passed them by.

The Emperor, Graelle’s ragged voice explained.

The emperor looked no thicker than a sapling. The dragon could snap him in half with a flick of his tail, and then they could be on their way again.

No, Kadreaan! Graelle snapped, sensing the dragon’s intention, We do not hurt him, no matter what happens!

The dragon snarled in confusion.

We will both die before we allow any harm to befall our emperor! the dragon rider shouted, Do you understand?

The dragon gave a rattling sigh, mentally shifting the slender human in the red jacket into the don’t kill category, next to Graelle.

The emperor came to the center of the courtyard at last and stood, looking up at the great bone dragon and its rider, and the dragon saw for the first time that the emperor was only a boy, hardly into his teens, by the look of him.

Still, the dragon sensed no fear in the look of wonder on the young man’s face.

Down, Kadreaan, Graelle commanded, Gently!

The dragon folded his wings and dropped from the sky, aiming for a mostly clear section of plaza, not too far from where the young emperor stood, waiting.

Quartz tiles splintered into powdery shards beneath the dragon’s bony talons as he crashed to the ground, scattering several of the red guardsmen who had been standing a little too close. One of the men howled in pain as the tip of the dragon’s tail lashed across his midsection and sent him flying with a satisfying crunch of chainmail links and cracked ribs.

"Kadreaan!" Graelle snarled, silencing the dragon’s rattling laughter.

Hold! the emperor commanded the guardsmen who had already begun to surge forward, their warhammers and shields raised high.

The dragon savored the looks of dismay on the grim faces beneath the guardsmen’s helmets.

Graelle had already slipped from the dragon’s back and placed himself between his dragon and the twiggish young leader of Chadir. The last dragon rider pulled the helm from his flame-wreathed head and dropped to his knees on the rubble-strewn tiles.

Your Holiness! Graelle cried out in his rasping voice, We have returned to your service.

Skyhammer Graelle, the emperor greeted him, his boyish voice betraying only a hint of uncertainty, we are pleased to see you alive.

This is not the Skyhammer, Your Holiness! a lean-faced bishop with bushy white eyebrows shouted, This is some abomination, vomited up by the maggot-folk in mockery of the man who gave his life for the glory of the empire!

The dragon’s bleak roar knocked many of them flat and staggered the rest to their knees.

"Stop!" Graelle shouted as he leapt to his feet and swung his burning fist, lashing a whip of living flame across the dragon’s bony cheek.

The dragon flinched, scowling silently in response, more stung by his brother’s rebuke than the blow.

Graelle gave him an exasperated look as the cherry-red glow of the dragon rider’s molten armor faded back to sooty darkness once more.

"Foul magic!" the bushy-browed bishop croaked as he pushed himself to his feet once again. More than a few of the staggered priests now sported tear-streaked cheeks and haunted expressions.

"What was that? the young emperor gasped as he straightened from a trembling crouch, Why did I feel so… sad just then?"

Kadreaan’s voice, Your Holiness, Graelle explained, Since his fall, only grief remains in it.

"Abominations!" the bushy-browed bishop snarled, jabbing an accusing finger toward the skeletal dragon and its ever-burning master.

Yes! Graelle shouted, We fell in battle with the maggot-folk, and you see clearly what becomes of the worm-mother’s prey!

Let us end your misery, brother, spoke a huge man in red plate armor, the captain of the guard, the dragon guessed. Only one eye remained to gaze sadly from the scarred face beneath the man’s helmet. He hefted a huge, red-enameled warhammer in both hands like an offering of salvation.

Our lives are not ours to give, Meadan, Graelle answered the guardsman, God has chosen us both as his messengers.

Then it is true? the young emperor gasped, He is going to return?

Your Holiness! the bushy-browed bishop protested, We cannot allow ourselves to be tempted by such heresy!

"Heresy? Graelle shouted, spattering the ground with flecks of molten spittle, You would speak of heresy, Bishop Stanhel? You who sent my legions to die and then left their deaths unavenged?"

How dare you… the bishop gawked.

"How dare you? Graelle raged, the flame that filled the socket where his left eye had been flaring as he leveled a finger at the red robed priest, How dare you crawl into your bed at night while children of Chadir must sleep beneath the green banner of the mother worm?"

Captain Meadan, arrest this man, the bishop shouted, and slay his unholy beast!

The dragon gave the bishop a look almost as incredulous as the one on Captain Meadan’s face.

No! the emperor commanded, I will hear what he has to say!

The flames surrounding Graelle’s body flickered and faded to a shimmering heat as his temper cooled, and he sank to one knee before his emperor.

Your Holiness, the dragon rider sighed, the day of judgement is at hand. The time has come to forge this broken world anew.

Shattered slates crumbled to dust beneath the dragon’s feet as he flexed his claws in anticipation of the battles to come.

Chapter Two

Thrinaar

Marla watched as another duskbloom petal wilted and dropped from the wreath atop the stone sarcophagus on the slab before her. Red silk draped the walls of the private parlor, deep inside the Arkadi spire. A thin layer of frost blurred the outline of her reflection in the dark mirror of polished onyx that formed the casket’s lid.

It seemed too big, Marla thought. The casket looked like something you would find in the tomb of some storybook king, the sort of thing you needed decades to grow into.

They shouldn’t put a boy inside a thing like that.

You’re doing it again, Marla, Alyss whispered at her side.

Marla’s eyes had lost focus, somewhere within her frosted shadow.

Marla?

Marla turned her head to look at the girl standing beside her.

Alyss wrinkled her nose in a scowl. Her dark braids hung down over the shoulders of her rather somber gray jacket. Her matching blouse and skirt contrasted sharply with the crimson sash that she wore draped across her chest.

Three nights had passed since the vampires of Thrinaar had laid Samhaed’s body to rest in a grand tomb, far beneath the city, but none dared remove their mourning colors, so long as the Queen of Dragons went clad in red.

Only a few of them knew for whom she truly mourned.

I guess we shouldn’t accept any more flowers, Alyss sighed, nodding toward the casket.

Marla looked at the duskbloom wreath again and saw only a ring of mushy ruin where the flowers had been a moment before.

They were beautiful, Marla whispered.

There are quite a few other gifts to look at, Alyss said hopefully.

What? Marla said, finally surfacing from a sea of dark thoughts.

All of the houses have sent gifts, Alyss said, "Well, all but the First House, that is. No one’s heard from them since… the incident."

Marla squinted at the vampire girl, trying to remember what she should be feeling right now.

We’re going to have to check on them eventually, Alyss noted.

Marla looked down at the blood-red sleeve of her own jacket. How long was she going to mourn the dead?

She reached out to touch the casket one last time, and streaks of melted frost ran like teardrops from where her palm pressed against the polished stone.

She turned and walked from the room into the fresh, cold air of the outer corridor.

Alyss closed the door to the parlor behind them.

Marla? she said.

What? Marla answered.

The city is dying, Marla.

Marla looked up and down the corridor to assure herself that the walls still shone with the warm radiance of dragonsong. The alabaster stone, glimpsed between the rich tapestries and wood panels of Arkadi House, pulsed with a faint, golden glow. The walls of Thrinaar had awakened to Marla’s voice and driven back the darkness that had swallowed up the city when the last captive fae had fled, taking their light with them.

There’s no more blood, Marla, Alyss said, and Marla could see the truth of it in the girl’s graying complexion and sunken eyes. The shafts to the upper city are still sealed, and the air’s starting to go bad. People are fighting in the markets… You have to do something.

Marla furrowed her brow, trying to remember her plan. Had there even been a plan before? She was the Queen of Dragons. She should know how to fix this, if she could just sort it all out in her head.

The distant screams of broken songs now swelled to a nightmarish crescendo in the hollow halls of Marla’s mind.

Marla! Alyss shouted.

"What?" Marla snapped back.

You need to deal with this, right now! Alyss said.

Leave her alone, Claude called out, and Marla turned to see him approaching from the direction of the stairwell. The young vampire’s dark hair hung, lank and lusterless across the shoulders of his black riding jacket. His crimson eyes flared with anger in the sunken hollows of their sockets. Marla’s heart ached to see him this way.

She has to do something! the desperation in Alyss’s voice verged on panic.

Hasn’t she done enough? Claude sighed, Can’t you see what’s happened to her… what this has cost her?

Alyss bared her fangs in desperation, her hands outstretched and pleading.

Marla shut her eyes and bowed her head. She heard Alyss shudder as the icy chill of Marla’s sadness filled the hallway.

This is killing you, Marla, Claude whispered, You can’t stay here.

Are you just going to leave us to die then? Alyss sobbed.

Marla drew in a sharp breath and exhaled it again in a bleak, No.

She opened her eyes to see her friends both standing before her and watching with hopeless expressions on their faces.

Do you trust me? Marla asked them both.

With our lives, Claude answered without hesitation.

Alyss looked at them both and then nodded.

Marla stripped off her jacket and cast it aside. She stared down at the thin scum of frost that coated the scarlet cloth of the discarded garment, and she set her jaw in a frown of determination.

The time for mourning was over.

What are you doing? Alyss asked, watching in dismay as Marla ripped open the sleeves of her gray blouse, baring the flesh of her slender wrists.

Marla lifted her arms toward the two companions who had accompanied her to the other side of the world and back in search of the answer that Marla now, at last, understood.

Drink, Marla said, her wrists laid bare in offering to the famished vampires.

"No!" Claude gasped.

Alyss’s face twisted in horror, and she shook her head in disbelief.

It’s the only way, Marla said, Our people can’t survive… not without changing.

"Changing? Alyss cried, Do you even know what that will do to us?"

No… I don’t, Marla admitted.

Alyss and Claude looked at one another for a long moment.

I’ll do it, Claude said at last.

He stepped close and took Marla’s hand gently between his own. His eyes lifted to hers as he placed a soft kiss upon her wrist.

Marla nodded.

Claude bowed his head and pressed his teeth against Marla’s skin. He hesitated a moment more as he worked up his courage, and then he bit.

The pain fluttered against Marla’s wrist like a moth with its wings ablaze, and Claude choked and gasped as her blood poured into his mouth. It sputtered from between his chapped lips and her broken skin like liquid flame, spilling down his sleeves to fall in steaming droplets upon the frosted carpet.

Claude moaned a gurgling protest, but Marla seized his arm with her free hand and begged him not to stop with a single, pleading look.

Claude’s eyes bulged in agony as he pressed his lips tightly against her burning skin and swallowed a mouthful of golden fire.

Marla caught him as his legs buckled beneath him, and he fell to his knees.

Then she watched as the rich crimson hue faded slowly, forever, from his pain-haunted eyes.

I’m sorry, she whispered as the bronze warmth of her draconic power darkened the ghostly pallor of the boy’s skin.

Claude’s breath exploded in an incoherent sob as he sank to the floor with rivulets of molten light streaming from his lips.

Alyss fell to her knees beside him, her arm around his shoulders as he convulsed and coughed, spattering the Arkadi girl’s clothes with bloody radiance.

Marla looked on in helpless anguish, a tongue of golden flame burning away the torn sleeve of her blouse.

Claude’s back arched, his legs stretched out across the carpet, his hands frozen into claws across his chest. Then he slumped, motionless, in Alyss’s arms.

Alyss looked up at Marla in despair.

Then Claude gasped again, his eyes wide as a newborn drake’s.

Claude? Alyss said, drawing back a little from the blazing golden hue of his eyes.

I’m all right! Claude panted, his radiant gaze flicking from the vampire at his side to the Queen of Dragons that looked down at him from above.

Did it… hurt? Alyss asked.

Claude nodded fiercely and then added, Quite a bit… but not now… not now. I feel… different now… better.

Alyss looked up at Marla, bewildered beyond words.

It has to be this way, Alyss, Marla said.

Alyss touched her own cheek, her eyes falling as she considered the choice that lay before her, if choice it could be called.

But, even if we did, Alyss protested, You don’t have enough blood for everybody in the city!

The flames of Marla’s blood flickered out as her hair fell across her downcast eyes.

Yes… Yes, I do, Marla said.

Chapter Three

Wythr

The man they called Catscratch glanced over his shoulder one last time and then turned down the shadowy path behind the grim edifice of the Mariners’ Chapel. Haven waited a moment before motioning Benjari to follow her.

The air stank of brine, this close to the sea, but at least the cold kept the other smells in check. The wharfs had always been Haven’s least favorite section of the city, but, in wintertime, they did have a certain, decrepit charm.

Benjari scoffed at the depiction of a seal-headed goddess carved into one of the pillars supporting the gray walls of the old church.

She seems to have lost her clothes, poor thing, the Chadirian inquisitor grumbled as they hurried past the near-obscene icon of the Queen Beneath the Waves.

Harder to swim in clothes, Haven mused, risking a glance around the corner of the wall to catch a glimpse of Catscratch as he hustled down the lane between a twenty-foot-high stone wall and the back side of the church.

Yes, I’m sure that’s why, Benjari replied coolly, tugging the collar of her new tunic tight around her throat. The Chadirian woman looked as drab as any Gloaran, dressed in her gray cloak and matching garments. Lacking the crimson regality of her inquisitor’s robes, she looked almost approachable… friendly even… almost.

Come on, Haven said, losing sight of Catscratch as he slipped between a gap in the stones.

Wait! Benjari hissed, grasping a handful of Haven’s cloak.

Haven flattened herself against the church wall, her breath catching in fear as a dark shape blasted past, just above the rooftops.

"God protect us!" Benjari whispered.

I didn’t hear it coming, Haven admitted.

Nor I, Benjari said, "I felt it."

Haven gave her a curious look.

It’s gone now, Benjari assured her, but Haven still looked skyward again to assure herself there were no more dragons. The beasts had yet to make their true intentions known, but they patrolled the skies of the conquered city with unsettling regularity.

Haven hurried down the alley toward the gap in the wall where their quarry had disappeared, and the Chadirian woman followed close on her heel.

What are these names? Benjari whispered.

What? Haven said, noticing then the direction of Benjari’s gaze. Oh, she said, lifting her chin toward the graven runes that marked every surface of the damp, black stone wall to their left, Those are the sea dead… lost sailors who never came home.

What battle claimed so many? Benjari asked.

"Battle? Haven said, More likely storms and reefs drowned most of them."

And they still bothered to record their names? Benjari asked.

Haven rolled her eyes and said no more. She wasn’t in the mood for another pointless debate with the religious zealot at her side. She’d soon be dealing with enough zealots as it was, unless she’d let her little scare with the dragon shake her loose of her quarry.

Fortunately, that was not to prove the case.

Well, that was easy enough, Benjari snorted as they reached the gap in the wall to find a crude sun symbol scratched into the wooden lintel of a tunnel access door.

Yeah, Haven agreed, suddenly wishing that she’d brought a ghoul or two with her. The skinny inquisitor would be more liability than asset in a close-quarters fight.

Shall we? Benjari said with a grin, her fingers on the handle of the door, obviously eager to go charging in after their target.

Have you ever done something like this before? Haven asked.

Hundreds of times! Benjari beamed.

Alone?

Well, no, the inquisitor admitted, I usually have between six and ten men under my command… sometimes up to a dozen or more, if it is a particularly large nest of heretics.

"Well, you’ve just got me, Haven fumed, so let’s try to be at least a little sneaky!"

By all means, Benjari sighed, pulling her hand away from the door and giving Haven an after you gesture, "show me exactly how one sneaks through a door."

Well, normally, I’d look for a window, but… Haven sighed, not relishing the thought of chasing a bunch of crazy arsonists through the sewers. Let’s just hope that, if they do hear us, they decide that killing us will be easier than running for it, she concluded.

The fools! Benjari chuckled sarcastically.

Speaking of which, Haven added, you might want to stand to one side of the door when I open it, in case they’re waiting for us.

Benjari gave her a smirk as she flattened herself against the wall to the right of the tunnel access door.

Haven planted her boot firmly against the doorframe and grasped the handle in both hands. She leaned back, putting what weight she possessed into pulling the door open, expecting its hinges to be as rusty as any of the other hundreds of access doors around the city.

To her surprise, the door swung open easily, and nearly silently, on well-oiled hinges. Haven stumbled backward a step and mentally reassessed the competence of the men she now hunted.

Benjari, however, proved rasher than expected, immediately poking her head around the frame to peer into the darkness beyond the open door.

No one there, the inquisitor announced before Haven could pull her back again.

Let me go first! Haven hissed.

Benjari rolled her eyes.

Haven stepped into the doorway, doubtlessly framing her body against the gray light of day for the benefit of any lurking archer within. After a moment passed, without the sound of a bowstring from the darkness, she relaxed her guard and took a step inside.

The hollow silence of the underground closed around her as Haven descended the broad stone steps below. The eternal dampness and tang of rot, so common to the tunnels beneath Wythr’s streets, seemed not so pungent here. She even though she caught the scent of something, not unpleasant, lingering in the air, a faint whiff of incense perhaps.

Sage, Benjari noted, the nostrils of her beaklike nose flaring in the dim light as she followed Haven down into the tunnel.

Haven brought her fingers to her lips, and Benjari nodded, saying no more.

Dim, red light shimmered across the tunnel walls as Haven slipped the tiny bottle lamp from her pocket. The rust-colored Chadirian glass quelled much of the eerie green radiance of the magical essence contained within, but it was enough to see by without blinding her in the darkness. In any case, she doubted the human woman at her heel could make it very far in the darkness beneath the city without a bit of light.

She found the trap, just before they reached the first intersection of three tunnels, about ten yards in.

Haven chuckled silently to herself as she ran her finger across the tripwire that spanned the tunnel at just above ankle height. Leaning across, she saw nothing more dangerous attached to the wire than a cluster of goat bells and bits of metal scrap. It meant the enemy kept a watch, though not a particularly alert one, somewhere in the darkness ahead.

Benjari followed Haven’s lead, lifting the hem of her cloak as she side-stepped over the wire trap.

Haven crouched low on the other side, wary of secondary traps and straining her eyes to make out footprints in the grime that coated the tunnel floor.

A child could have followed the trail.

Two intersections later, Haven tucked her lamp back into her pocket, sighting a dim glow from the mouth of an archway ahead.

Of course, he was captured! a man’s voice growled from the chamber beyond.

He wasn’t lying to me! the man called Catscratch answered. Haven knew his voice well enough by now to hear the frustration in it.

"Then he didn’t know that he was captured," the strange voice concluded.

I don’t understand, Catscratch admitted.

The worm cult wields powerful magic, brother, the leader said, The thoughts of men can be twisted and turned, broken and reshaped by the evil those sorceresses possess.

Haven felt the tension building up in Benjari’s body as the cultists gave credit for the inquisitor’s hard work to the priestesses of Mauravant.

"Fine!" Haven mouthed to the woman in the dim light. She gestured toward the door, giving Benjari permission for another one of her grand entrances.

Benjari flashed a vicious grin of gratitude as she straightened her cloak and strode boldly forward into the light.

It was no power of the maggot-folk that has rooted you out, my countrymen, the war priestess spoke, but the might of Malleatus himself!

Haven heard Catscratch’s shortsword clearing its scabbard as she rounded the corner herself, but she was already crouched in defense of the foolhardy young inquisitor before the cultist’s blade could lift to strike.

"Hold!" shouted a man dressed in a pale gray robe in the center of the low-ceilinged chamber beyond. A silver amulet, graven with a rising sun symbol, hung around his neck by a thin cord that could doubtlessly be tucked inside his collar at a moment’s notice. The archaic longsword at his belt would not be so easily concealed.

A half dozen men and two women, dressed in ash-stained garb stood with weapons at the ready all around the room. Haven had little doubt that she could probably take them all, if it came to it, but still, she was grateful that they all seemed content to await the orders of the Silver Sun monk who served as their leader.

I am Alva Benjari, Servant of the Holy Flame, the inquisitor announced, "and I am the one who questioned your man."

Haven watched the lightning play of emotions in the gray monk’s eyes, surprise, relief, fear, and then barely-concealed anger. The rest of the eyes in the room never made it past fear.

What authority does the Inquisition have to interfere with our mission here? the monk demanded. Haven saw now that what she had taken for an elderly gray hue to the man’s short-cropped hair was simply its natural silvery blonde coloration, and the lines that creased his brow were probably owed more to hard living than advanced age. The slightly bulky fit of his robe and the faint rustle when he took a step forward to jab an accusing finger at Benjari hinted at a concealed mail shirt. If he did choose to draw his sword, he might prove to be the greatest challenge.

My authority comes from God Himself, brother, Benjari stated, or have you forgotten Whom you serve?

Several of the cultists dropped their weapons to the floor or on the old wooden table strewn with maps between them and the intruders, and those that hesitated to disarm themselves cast even more fearful glances toward their gray-robed leader.

We serve the same Holy Flame as you, Inquisitor! the monk fumed, Look into my heart, if you doubt my faith! His jaw tensed as he clenched his teeth in thinly-veiled rage.

Benjari regarded the man coldly for a long moment, and then her face twisted in a cruel smile. No need for that! Benjari chuckled, giving a dismissive little wave of her hand, "I’ve learned enough about your little operation here to have no lingering doubts about the loyalty of you… or your companions. She turned her steely gaze then upon the other cultists in the room, and those few that still brandished weapons quickly lowered them.

Why are you here then? the monk demanded.

Benjari raised one hook-like eyebrow. My own reasons, she said, but that does not mean that our purposes may not overlap, in some manner as yet to be discovered.

The gray monk narrowed his eyes.

My companion and I have walked a long way this morning, in search of you, Benjari said, Perhaps you might be so good as to offer us both a seat?

How do we know she is who she says she is? Catscratch spoke up, the parallel scars that gave him his moniker wrinkled across his cheek as he eyed Benjari warily. His hand still lingered on the pommel of his freshly-sheathed sword.

All trace of mirth drained from Benjari’s face as she turned to face the scar-faced henchman.

How do we know this isn’t some trick of the worm cult? Catscratch snarled.

What secrets do you keep hidden in the shadows of your heart, brother? Benjari demanded.

"I’m the one doin’ the askin’, sister!" Catscratch countered.

Secrets cannot hide from the light of God’s Holy Flame! Benjari pronounced.

"Then why don’t you illuminate us all on what an Inquisitor would be doin’ so far from home?" Catscratch said.

Illumination, you require? Benjari scoffed, Then, so be it!

The inquisitor strode forward, catching the man’s left hand as he raised it to stop her. Before he could react, she had interlaced the fingers of her own right hand between the gloved fingers of his left. She spun him around like a drunken dance partner, guiding him toward the map table and the flickering oil lamp atop it.

What are you doing? Catscratch yelled as the inquisitor reached out with her free hand and lifted the etched glass covering from atop the lamp, revealing the naked flame beneath.

Let His Holy Flame burn away the shadows of heresy! Benjari prayed as she dragged the scar-faced man to the table’s edge.

Catscratch tried to pull away, but his strength seemed to have failed him, and he could only look on in horror as Benjari thrust both their hands, intertwined, into the dancing flame of the lamp.

Benjari’s face glowed with a transcendent bliss as wisps of gray smoke curled up from the leather of Catscratch’s singed glove.

Are you crazy? Catscratch yowled, his arm still frozen in the grip of