98. The Demon in the Details
Chapter 98
The Demon in the Details
26 th Day of the Blood Moon
The High Tower, Berona – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
Rain hammered down, echoing in the courtyard at the foot of the High Tower, drumming off Garramon’s cloak.
They had returned to the city early that morning and provided a report to Fane. But the man had seemed more curious about Eltoar and Helios’s whereabouts than the losses sustained in the fighting. Even the death of the two Dragonguard had seemed of little surprise to him. Garramon had gone to speak to his friend in private later, but he’d found the chambers empty.
Mages, apprentices, acolytes, and initiates of all affinities ran about the yard like headless chickens, trying desperately not to get saturated in the rain. Garramon walked slowly, the rain cold against his face and hands. When he had things to think on, Garramon enjoyed walking in the rain. The constant slap of rain on his hood was like the crackling of a fire in his mind. It calmed him, allowed his thoughts to drift.
At any other time, the battle at the Firnin Mountains would have been the thing that plagued him. He would have revisited it in his mind again and again, trying to understand, trying to learn, trying to see what might have been done differently. But it was not the battle that plagued his thoughts, it was Rist.
The young man had barely said a word since the battle. Seeing his friend, learning the truth, had broken him a little. And Trusil’s death had affected him deeply. Rist might have been a quiet young man, may have seemed cold or distant to some, but Garramon knew different. Rist cared deeply for everyone and everything around him. He was a kind soul. The moment Garramon had handed over Trusil’s reins to Rist, he had seen how much the young man would love that horse.
Drawing his hood back, Garramon stepped from the rain and through the doorway set into the wall that ringed the yard. He walked along the austere corridors until he found the staircase he was looking for and descended. The Craftsmages that ran the print houses – the Exucendi –preferred to keep their workshops below ground to avoid unnecessary distractions.
The stairs dropped some forty feet into the ground, the interwoven corridors carved with the Spark. Slow-burning oil lanterns sat in alcoves evenly spaced along the smooth stone walls, while iron-grated vents provided air flow. The network of tunnels and chambers beneath the Circle was far more intricate than the dungeons kept by the Inquisition, but Garramon could have walked them in his sleep. The elves had always been fond of subterranean systems and had worked them beneath nearly every major city under elven rule.
His steps echoed in the empty corridor as he walked, only a handful of young acolytes and porters crossing his path.
Garramon stepped through the corridor on his left and out into the antechamber that led to the Exucendi house of Berona. He pushed open the gilded door on the other side of the chamber and stepped into a cavernous hall ornamented with tapestries and banners woven from the finest Narvonan silk. Everything was gold. The doorhandles, the sconces, the banding on the tables – everything. And what precious little wasn’t gold was rubies or sapphires or emeralds. The print houses of the Exucendi may as well have been royal houses themselves with the amount of coin that flowed through their coffers. Like-for-like perfect recreations of entire books, journals, manuscripts, and whatever else was needed were a rare and costly thing. And Fane kept the Beronan Exucendi well cared for. The preservation – and curation – of history was of great import.
He nodded at the porters who occupied the main hall and to the guards posted at every door. In six centuries, Garramon had not known of a single instance when anyone had been stupid enough to attempt a robbery of the Beronan Exucendi, but they retained a solid guard nonetheless.
“Exarch Kalinim.” The guard posted outside Exucendi Adama’s workshop inclined his head to Garramon, opening the door before him.
The workshop was as meticulous and organised as Rist’s chambers, everything neatly placed where it would best suit its function. The entire right wall was an enormous bookcase that stretched some thirty feet long and fifteen feet high, blending into the vaulted ceiling above through arches of worked gold. The left side of the room was divided into two sections. One was dominated by open cabinets with large glass vessels of various inks and solutions and what seemed to be an endless supply of top-quality archival paper, the kind always used when important books were copied and bound. The other section contained a vast array of trinkets that Garramon was sure had absolutely nothing to do with books whatsoever. But Adama was known as a bit of a collector.
“They say that’s the sword of Harken Holdark himself.” Adama emerged from another door on the far side of the chamber, pushing his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose. He stared up at an enormous greatsword with a bear head pommel. “I had to trade two kidneys for that.”
Garramon raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you need those?”
“They weren’t mine.” Adama stared at the sword for a moment longer, then raised a finger. “I have two pages left to transfer, and your books will be ready. Come, come. My apologies, I have been a bit distracted of late.”
The Exucendi walked Garramon over to a bench that was just as meticulously arranged as the rest of the workshop. Inks, tools, books, and various binding materials were all organised in specific sections. The man stood beside a well-worn leather chair, two books laid out on the bench before him. He slid an enormous glass vessel of ink across the smooth stone bench and removed the lid.
“It will only be a moment,” Adama said, once more pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “As with most crafts, what you’re paying for is the time it took to perfect the skill, not simply the time it takes to perform the task.”
The Spark flowed from the man in a gentle ripple, threads of Air, Water, Fire, Earth, and Spirit whirling about his hand, each as thin as a strand of a spider’s webbing. He wove the threads of Air, Water, and Earth into the vessel of ink and pulled a sheet of rippling dark liquid into the air, thinning it out so it looked like an almost solid pane of black glass. At the same time, the man wove threads of Spirit into the first book and onto the blank page of the second.
“What do threads of Spirit do?” Garramon whispered, looking over Adama’s shoulder.
“They help my mind focus on what my eyes cannot see. The words, the inflections of the original penstrokes, the character and art in the craft. The near-imperceptible characteristics that make something unique. Now please, quiet.”
The man created a triangle of Spirit between the two books and the ink. As he lowered the sheet of floating ink onto the second page, it thinned and pulled apart, creating hundreds of shapes: letters and punctuation marks. He pressed the ink onto the blank pages, weaving the threads of each element through them until they were set.
After a moment, the threads evaporated, and Adama closed both books. He set the newly inked book to the side, then pulled a second from a chest beneath the bench, laying them both in front of Garramon.
“A strange request,” Adama said as he ran his fingers over the deep red leather atop the book closest to him. “ A History of Magii , by Gandal Frendor, and Druids, a Magic Lost, by Duran Linold. There are not many who would pay my rates for books in such wide circulation.”
“There are not many Exucendi who still hand bind and dye their own leather from Khergani goathide. Your work is worth the coin, Adama.”
“I am pleased you think so, Exarch Kalinim. You put great care into these. Someone special?”
Garramon nodded. “My son.”
The door creaked open on the other side of the room, and Garramon was surprised to see Brother Pirnil stepping into the workshop. The man looked like a ghost of himself, pale as bone, eyes sunken, clothes stained and torn. He bit at his lip as he walked, a persistent tremor in his hands.
Pirnil didn’t even seem to notice Garramon. “Adama,” he snapped. “Where is my commission?”
“I have it here, Lector Pirnil.” Adama gave Garramon a look that let him know Brother Pirnil was not a particularly welcome client. The Exucendi bent down to another chest beneath the bench.
“If every detail is not perfect this time, I swear I will have you strung up by order of the emperor. Do you understand, Adama? Perfect . The illustrations could have been copied by a child. I was told you were the best the Exucendi had to offer, but I am yet to be impressed.” Pirnil moved so he stood beside Garramon, still not seeming to notice Garramon even stood in the room.
“So you’ve told me, Lector.” The man emerged with two thick black leather books, not dissimilar to the one Garramon had seen Fane with. “Here they are,” he said, handing the books to Pirnil. “And my sincere apologies for the wait. It has been a busy period.”
“Your apologies are not needed,” Pirnil snapped, pulling the books close to his chest. “You will not be paid for tardiness and sloppy craftsmanship. You can consider this book a tribute to ensure the emperor allows you to keep your fingers. When I call again, Brother Adama, I will expect better.”
Pirnil turned and strode from the room, muttering to himself as he did.
Garramon raised an eyebrow at Adama.
“He has a seal from the emperor himself. Waves the damn thing around like a sword.” Adama handed the newly bound and inked books to Garramon. “He came to two of my colleagues first. They have subsequently vanished. I would like not to join them.”
When Adama made to offer the original copies, Garramon waved a hand. “Would you keep them for me? Just for a few nights.”
Adama agreed, and Garramon left the workshop as swiftly as he could without making a scene. He followed Brother Pirnil from the Exucendi antechamber and out into the tunnels beyond.
Pirnil was so absorbed in his own thoughts, Garramon didn’t even have to pretend not to be following him. The man took turn after turn, ascending and descending staircase after staircase to a point that even Garramon wasn’t quite sure where he was going. Eventually the man stopped at a thick iron door. Pirnil pulled a key from his pocket with his free hand, balancing the two thick books in the other. He unlocked the door and slipped through.
Garramon flitted across the stone and jammed his boot in the door before it closed.
The chamber within was enormous. The air clung to Garramon’s throat, thick with the pungent smell of death and char and burning. He pinched his nostrils as he stepped into the windowless room. Stout candles sat all about, lodged into piles of melted wax, providing the barest touch of warmth.
Wooden benches lined the walls on either side of the room, each fitted with straps and buckles and occupied by bodies in various stages of mutilation, flies swarming about them. The sight on its own would have turned Garramon’s stomach, but combined with the putrid stench, he had no choice but to swallow the vomit that flowed into his mouth.
“What in The Saviour’s name is this place?” He stepped further into the dark, desolate chamber, his hand over his mouth.
Pirnil was perched over a desk at the far end of the room. He scribbled furiously into a journal while Garramon approached the body closest to the door. It was an older man. His hair was brittle and white, while his frame still held a notable amount of lean muscle. The flesh on his arms and legs had turned black, and his fingerbones had broken the skin, snapped and twisted at odd angles. Rough-carved runes marked a large portion of his body. The runes looked like those Pirnil had inscribed into the candidates who had volunteered to become hosts for the Chosen. But if that were true, why was Brother Pirnil still carrying out his work… and why did he have Fane’s seal?
What have you done, old friend?
Garramon lifted his gaze to Brother Pirnil, who still hadn’t even noticed Garramon had entered the room.
A noise drew Garramon’s attention to the cot at Brother Pirnil’s left. He approached to find a young man strapped to the table with a rag stuffed in his mouth. Judging by the loll of his head and his drooped eyelids, he had consumed enough Altweid Blood to dull a horse.
Garramon drew a sharp breath and rolled his shoulders back. “Brother Pirnil,” he called, imbuing his voice with the same sense of authority he had wielded as the Arbiter all those years ago. “The emperor demands a report.”
“What?” Pirnil twisted to look at Garramon, his eyes wide. “Garramon Kalinim? What are you doing here? You’re not supposed?—”
“Do you truly believe you have the power to question me, Drakus? The Arbiter is above questions from the likes of you.” He moved closer to Pirnil, looking down at the notes the man was scribbling. “The emperor has sent me to procure an update from you, seeing as you are behind schedule. I would advise not wasting my time.”
The man stared back at Garramon for a moment, clearly trying to decide what his wisest course of action was. But Garramon knew a thing or two about men like Pirnil. All cruel men were cowards at heart. A fear of their own pain led them to inflict it on others.
“I… I am… I am ready as he asked. The journals have been copied, and I am almost certain I have the runeset he has asked for, but I?—”
“But what? Do you question the emperor?”
“No, no…” The man’s hands trembled, but not from fear. Garramon knew the signs of excess Essence consumption. It was like a drug. The pale skin, the dark eyes, the short temper, and the constant state of panic and paranoia. He had seen it a thousand times over, particularly around the time of The Fall and the years after. Fane had made sure to curb such usages since. But clearly Pirnil was an exception. “No,” Pirnil muttered again. “I don’t. I am simply trying to say the runeset he asked for is not optimal. There is a weakness in it. I cannot understand why?—”
“You do not need to understand why, Drakus. Have you made your concerns clear in your notes?” Garramon nodded towards the man’s scribblings.
“Yes, I have shown quite clearly that there is a stronger runeset and outlined my reasoning.” He raised a finger in the air, seeming to entirely forget that Garramon shouldn’t be there at all. “One more specimen.” Pirnil glanced towards the semi-conscious young man strapped to the bench nearest him. “The same relative height and age as the candidate. I will inscribe the optimal runeset and make detailed notes. I believe that the emperor will see the error of his ways.” He immediately looked to Garramon. “Not… not the error, but simply the miscalculation.”
“Those are the same thing, Pirnil.”
Pirnil moved across the room and opened a large chest sat atop an old wooden desk. The red glow of Essence shone over Pirnil’s face as he opened the lid and removed a pulsing gemstone. “You can inform him that I will bring the report myself within the hour. We will be ready to move to the Sea of Stone as soon as the Heart is found. Please, step out of the way.”
Pirnil pushed past Garramon and squeezed the young man’s cheeks, moving his head left and right, inspecting him.
“Why has he taken so much Altweid Blood?”
“It makes them easier to handle. Now let me return to my work, and I will provide the report myself.”
“I thought all hosts must volunteer for the?—”
“Not in this case!” the man roared, a sudden rage blazing through him. The whites of his eyes had taken a reddish hue. “Now get out!”
Pirnil turned back to the young man, humming to himself as though Garramon had already left. The man had completely lost his mind.
Essence pulsed from Pirnil as he tapped into the gemstone in his hand.
Garramon looked down at the young man strapped to the chair and grabbed Pirnil’s arm.
The man rounded on him, raging. “What do you?—”
Garramon grabbed Pirnil by the throat and slammed him against the wall, the gemstone dropping from the man’s grasp. He wrapped his fingers tighter around Pirnil’s throat. Garramon already knew the answer to the question he was about to ask, but he needed to ask it. “Who is the candidate?”
“Your apprentice,” Pirnil choked. “That little southern wretch.” Even with Garramon’s hand wrapped around his throat, Pirnil’s lips twisted into a grin. “Fane thinks he is perfect. But I know he doesn’t have the strength to accept The Saviour into his body. I will watch fondly as he is ripped apart from the inside out, and Fane will finally understand that he himself is the only true candidate. You will see, Garramon.”
“You will see nothing. Not ever again.” Garramon wove threads of Air and Fire about himself, then lashed them across Brother Pirnil, a hundred at a time. The man screamed and thrashed, but Garramon held him in place. “How does it feel, Drakus, to have your cruelty inflicted upon you?”
Garramon ripped and burned the flesh from Pirnil’s body, searing through his tattered robes. “Scars over time can build a man, Drakus. But you don’t have time. I will not let you come for my family again.”
“I didn’t,” Pirnil screamed. “I never! Agh!”
“For every scar you gave Rist, I will give you a hundred. For every drop of pain you have inflicted on these poor souls, I will give you a thousand. This ends here.”
“But the emperor… The Saviour! We are so close!”
“I can’t believe you’re the one I’m saying this to.” The acrid smell of fresh-burnt flesh slithered into Garramon’s nostrils as he held Pirnil against the wall, thousands of cuts lacing the man’s body. “But it has taken me four hundred years to realise that I cannot place the will of a god above the lives of the flesh and blood, living people that I love. No… not that I cannot, but that I will not. Burn in the void, Drakus Pirnil. It is all you have ever deserved.”
Garramon pulled threads of each elemental strand, weaving them into his fist until a shimmering blue níthral formed in his hand. He drove the blade into Pirnil’s chest, watching as the light went out in the man’s eyes.
He released his níthral and let Pirnil’s body drop, then unbuckled the straps that held the young man in place and pulled the rag from his mouth. “Can you stand?”
Barely a grunt escaped his lips.
Garramon moved over to Pirnil’s bench and grabbed the black leatherbound book he had been scribbling in, along with the one he had just had copied. With all four books stacked in one hand, Garramon hauled the young man upright and carried him from the chamber.
All broken things started with tiny cracks. Some grew quickly, with little time to fix them. Others happened slowly and were never noticed until it was too late.
There were two broken things in the library that night: Rist and his understanding of the world.
Rist sat in a small nook on the top floor of the truly enormous Beronan Library, a curtain drawn. The Circle had its own library, but he’d wanted to be alone. Splayed out on the table before him was every letter he had ever received from his parents. He had spent hours going over them. Calen’s words echoed in his mind.
“Rist, your mam and dad are alive. They’re safe. They tortured them, Rist, but I broke them free.”
Those words had sounded again and again and again. Even when Rist slept. They gnawed at him from the inside out. What had Calen meant?
Rist dropped his elbows to the table and clasped the back of his head.
Calen was the Draleid. Calen was the one who had burned Kingspass, the one who had incited the rebellion. How was that even possible? Nothing made sense. Nothing.
Pieces were missing. How could he solve a puzzle with the pieces missing? He needed to speak to Garramon. There were things the man hadn’t told him, and he knew it. He’d always known it, but he simply hadn’t realised quite how large those things were. He knew if he asked Garramon a straight question, the man would answer him. He would.
Where are my parents? Have you lied to me?
The curtain slid open, and Rist found himself staring up at Fane Mortem. Every fibre of his body told him to grab the letters and hide them, but it was too late.
“You and I are alike in so many ways, Rist.” The emperor dropped himself into the armchair on the other side of the table as though he were Rist’s oldest friend in the world. “The library was always where I went when I sought peace… or answers.” He glanced down at the letters on the table. He smiled. “I wish I had parents as dedicated as yours to send so many letters. Mine sent me off to The Order when I was barely old enough to read. There was coin, you see, as reimbursement. I didn’t see them again until I was… oh, perhaps in my twenty-sixth year? Cherish them, Rist. A mother and father like that are worth holding on to.”
“Emperor Mortem…” Rist tried his hardest not to stare down at the letters. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“I’m not staying long. A little birdie told me you were here, and I just wanted to check in. I saw Garramon after his return from the battle, but not you. Azrim reported to me that you showed a great deal of strength in dealing with the Draleid. Perhaps it is time we see if you are fit to join the ranks of the Arcarians. What do you think?”
“Already? Now? Tonight?”
Fane stared at him a moment, tilting his head to the side, then smiled. “No, not tonight. But I believe we are very close.” Fane leaned across the table. “You have the power within you, Rist. I felt it from the first day I met you. You have the power to change the world, just like I did, just like Garramon. I will guide you.”
The curtain moved once again, and this time a Praetorian in ruby red plate stood in the nook’s opening. He bowed to Fane. “Emperor, Helios has returned. Commander Daethana has sent a message.”
“Good.” Fane looked from the Praetorian to Rist. “It appears, Rist, that our stars are aligning. I will find you in the morning. There is much to talk about.”
As Fane stood, Rist couldn’t help but ask the question. “Do you find there is power in a name, Emperor Mortem?”
Fane looked at Rist with a raised eyebrow.
“I only ask because you used mine four times.”
The man stared back at Rist for what felt like an eternity before giving a half-laugh and pulling the curtain closed behind him as he left.
Rist sat up straight, his heart thumping. Calen’s words replayed in his mind once more. “Your mam and dad are alive…”
“Mam and Dad,” Rist whispered. He flicked through the letters in his mind, falling all the way back to the first.
‘We hope they are treating you all right up there. A mage? Your father had to read that part of your letter to me four times before I stopped calling him a liar.’
“Father…” Rist whispered. His mam rarely used the word ‘father’, only when she was mad at Lasch or Rist. The thought had come to him when Fane had said that ‘a mother and father like that are worth holding on to’.
His mam had signed off the letter with ‘All our love, Mam and Dad’. But then she’d used the word ‘father’… It was a small thing. Possibly nothing at all. But… it niggled at him.
He found the letter amongst those scattered across the table. Then something else struck him, and he lined up all the pages next to each other. In his mind he placed letters atop one another. ‘A’s and ‘P’s and ‘F’s from each letter.
His heart stopped and every hair on his body pricked.
“She never wrote these…”
Rist’s throat suddenly felt dry as sand. How had he never seen it before? The writing was almost identical to his mam’s, but as close as it was, each letter was just slightly different to the last. The inflections and subtle sweeps of the ‘W’s and ‘R’s… everything. The more letters he layered over the other in his mind, the deeper the chill set into his heart.
These letters had not been written by his mam, but by someone who had spent a long time learning to imitate Elia Havel’s hand. Within a single letter, it was completely unnoticeable. But when set side by side and atop one another, the minute mistakes were obvious in their differences. Each attempt was near perfect but a failure in a different way.
Rist’s hands began to tremble, and his breaths grew short. “No, no, no… I…”
He inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself, then exhaled slowly. He should have seen it, but he had been too distracted.
A part of him wanted to go to Garramon, to confront the man, to find one last shred of hope that he was just seeing something, that he was delusional.
But he didn’t need to. Rist knew he was right. In his bones he knew. But one thing he didn’t know was if Garramon knew.
Rist settled himself as best he could, folded each of the letters neatly, and placed them into his satchel before sprinting from the library.