Tenebroum PLUS Ch. 138-139 (Patreon)

Ch. 138 - One More Sunrise

Princess Trianna gazed out over her city that morning and despaired. They had survived another night, but it was hard to believe they would survive another as she looked outbuildings and surveyed the damage. 

Like everyone else, she’d heard the terrible battle last most of the night, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to watch. She just lay in bed praying for Siddrim to return to them and save them from this evil. But other than a brief flash of light after midnight, he had not returned to them. 

This is still better than the alternative, she told herself, but she had trouble believing it anymore. 

For a time, after the Templar had come to them, she had seen it as a sign. How could she not? Brother Faerbar was literally filled with light. For the first few weeks, the people of Rahkin had been quite sure that he would save them, and she’d agreed, but that was harder now that there were so many dead that she could see them from her window, along with the huge pyres that had been heaped up just outside the city walls. 

Things only got worse after her two remaining servants helped her dress, and she listened to the battle reports with her mother over a meager breakfast of tea and toast. The bread was stale, but even so, the princess tried to be grateful; they might well be the last people in the whole city who still ate toast. 

He started with the number of dead and wounded. By his count, almost five hundred men had been killed in the defense last night, and a similar amount had been wounded or maimed. He believed that the number of dead among the residents closest to the harbor was almost as high, but it was too soon to say because they were still digging bodies out of the rubble. 

He didn’t say exactly what had wreaked such havoc. He just kept going on about the Templar’s holy light and alchemical constructs and the casualties they caused while avoiding the larger issue. 

Truthfully, she didn’t follow all of what the man said. She was not well versed in alchemy beyond its purported abilities to turn lead into gold. She understood what disastrous meant well enough, and when he started to discuss the thing that had attacked the harbor, that was the word that he used. 

She could see why the Field Marshall had tried so hard to skirt the topic. A rotting sea beast sounded positively hideous. She lost her appetite after that. 

“Is he alive then?” her mother asked about the Templar. 

The Field Marshall had very clearly said that he was, but the way he’d talked about the man afterward, she admitted that she wasn’t completely sure either. 

“The Templar is still breathing, Your Highness,” he nodded, “He is recuperating in the high temple and may yet make a full recovery, but… well, he was swallowed alive by that thing. You have to understand that the man is not himself.”

Princess Trianna wondered what that meant but put it out of her mind for now as she continued to listen quietly while body counts and the extent of the damage were discussed. Apparently, both the main gate and the majority of the piers lay in ruins now, though the man assured his queen that “we have more than enough resources left to evacuate you and your daughter along with other vital members of court should you wish it. You have but to give the order.”

He mentioned that several times. Really, whenever the opportunity arose. It was clear to everyone that he wanted nothing more than a valorous excuse to leave the city. Her mother refused him that, though. 

“I will die where my husband did if it comes to it,” the queen finally snapped. “So why not do what you can and see if we can’t push that off at least a few more weeks, won’t you?”

“Yes, your Majesty!” the man said, taking the hint and snapping a salute before retreating. 

They would all live or die together. That was the message. That was always the message, even if someone didn’t want to hear it. Her mother had explained that thought process to Princess Trianna on more than one occasion, though she was the last person in the world who needed to hear that. 

“Evil, like all things, is finite,” she’d say, “And we must exhaust that evil against our strong walls rather than let it continue to rampage across the defenseless countryside. With the help of the Collegium, we might even succeed.”

The princess was becoming less sure of that every day. She didn’t say that, though. Instead, she smiled and kissed her mother on the cheek. 

The only one who might be able to reassure her was the Templar, but she would wait until later to see him. First, she wanted to climb to the top of the tallest tower to see the truth of the Field Marshall’s words. 

She was disappointed to find out that it was just as bad as he’d described. From her window that morning, she’d been able to see the terrible battle and the damage that had been done to the main gate. They were plugging the gap with rubble and lumber as best they could, but it was clear to her that it would not hold if they were attacked again soon, which she had every reason to believe they would be. 

Even the watchmen that were up here in the cold dawn light seemed to think that they’d all be dead by the end of the week, and they ignored her while she shivered in her cloak. She tried to steel herself against such pessimism, but once she turned to view the harbor, her heart sank.

She was far enough away that she couldn’t smell whatever the rotting monstrosity was over the onshore breeze, but she gagged anyway. The whole area around it was completely destroyed. Not just the building either. Half of the ships in the harbor were sunk. 

She shook her head. That would just make the whole thing worse. The bounty of the sea had been the one thing holding body and soul together, and now she wasn’t even sure if the few fishing vessels that remained could move between all the half-sunk wrecks to reach the harbor mouth. It was an unmitigated disaster. 

Those terrible images didn’t leave her head for the rest of the day. They stayed there, along with the secret guilt that she was the one that had caused this. She tried to tell herself that despite all the death and destruction, she’d still done what was right. 

Seeing the heavily scarred face of the Templar that afternoon didn’t help that, though. Princess Trianna braved the streets with only a handful of guards as she walked to the Grand Temple. All the horses had long since been slaughtered, and though she’d thought that more than a single guard would be overkill, even in times like this, the hungry looks of starving people quickly dismayed her. 

When she reached the building, she left them outside, but the soft glow that the place usually had in his presence was absent. Instead, with the door left open, she could see rats skirting the periphery, looking for scraps to eat. They scurried away as she strode through the door, but to her, they looked so thin they were half starved to death. 

It was a bad sign when even the rats couldn’t find enough to eat, she thought to herself.  

“You’ll need it when they come back tonight,” the older mage said, pushing something into the Templar’s hands even as he tried to refuse it. “You alone have the power to use this frozen—”

The conversation abruptly stopped when they heard the sound of her footsteps. All three of them pivoted to look at her as she walked out of the shadows and into the light, but they relaxed just as quickly once they saw that it was just the slender princess and not some hideous abomination bent on assassinating them. 

“I need none of your mage tricks,” the Templar stated, pushing the strange-looking crystal away. “I’ll not imperil my mortal soul, even on my last day.”

“It will be the last day for all of us soon if we do nothing. Without Karsagan I cannot use this relic as we’d planned, but you wouldn’t even need to craft a binding ring,” the old man said. “Just channel the same power you did last night and…”

The three of them kept talking, but Princess Trianna couldn’t hear them. Not over the terrible need to look at the mutilated holy warrior. Eventually, she just stood there looking quietly at her feet to avoid staring. 

She’d seen him only a few days ago, and the man had borne a few fresh scars, as he always seemed to, but today, he barely looked human. His graying hair had disappeared overnight, and he’d gone bald. In the grand scheme of things, that wasn’t so bad. What was, was that his hands and face, and really all of his exposed skin, was covered with blotchy scaring. 

It was like he was molting. Even in the time she stood there, sneaking peeks, she could see a few more pink patches of fresh skin peek through the crusty scaring to replace the older, damaged skin. To her, it bordered on the demonic. The princess didn’t know what to say, though, so she said nothing at all. 

The three of them never found common ground, at least that she could hear, but it wasn’t until the mages left, saying they would return after dinner, that the Templar finally turned to her. “What can I do for you, my child,” he asked as politely as ever.

“Oh, me? Nothing,” she murmured. “I was worried about you. After the fighting last night, they said you’d been terribly hurt and might not recover, and I just wanted to come and see.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks, princess,” he said with a shrug as he walked over to the stairs that led to the altar and sat down, patting the stairs next to him. 

She appreciated the kindness. In that spot, she wouldn’t have to look at the grotesque he’d become, and she was sure he knew that, too. 

“It’s not?” she asked. “Were you burned badly?”

“Only on my hands,” he said, showing her a balm that had been burned and healed into the shape of a sword’s hilt. 

“Well, then what happened to the rest of… you know.” she inquired, suddenly flustered. 

“Oh, this?" he chuckled to himself as if he'd forgotten how badly burned the rest of his body was. "I had to dive into the belly of a proverbial whale. One pumped full of foul magics and alchemy. I’m not at all surprised that it burned me as badly as it did, but even if I didn’t think it likely I could heal these… disfigurements, I would have done it just the same.”

“Why?” she asked, surprised to find tears running down her cheeks as she turned and looked at him abruptly. “Why do you do so much? Can’t you see it’s killing you?”

“You’ve already proven you’d do anything for the light,” he smiled softly, making his face that much more hideous. “Just know that I’d do the same.”

“You think we can beat them, then?” she asked, willing herself to stare into his eyes and only his eyes. None of the damage could damage the holy light that lingered there. 

“We have to,” he said solemnly, “No matter what sacrifices it takes.” She knelt there and prayed with him after that to a god that both of them knew no longer existed, but somehow, she took comfort from that.

Ch. 139 - A Convoluted Convocation

Jordan rubbed his eyes as the words swam in front of him. Right now, that was merely a figure of speech, given his fatigue, but sometimes, he was certain it was literally true. This was not the first time he studied Sister Annise’s strange book, and each time he did, he had trouble finding a passage or an illustration that he’d studied intently previously. 

It was a ridiculous notion, of course. The first time it had happened, he’d told himself he’d simply gotten the pages confused or that it had gotten lost in the clutter. It was an easy thing to believe, given just how odd the whole thing was, but he no longer believed it. 

The book itself was a four-inch tome that had obviously been pieced together from two or more other books. Sister Annise claimed to have made it by hand and done many of the gildings and illuminations herself before the book had taken her sight, but Jordan could see at least two other hands at work besides the spindly script of the woman.

The whole thing was a study of contrasts, inside and out. The binding of the Book of Ways was a rich chestnut leather that was practically marred by its scribbled title and its ugly, dull, leaden corner protectors. Those clashing aesthetic choices looked almost well-designed in comparison to the pages of the book, though. 

It was obvious to Jordan that this had started out as a Book of Days, which was one of the many holy books that the Siddrimites venerated. It was sort of their religious history book, and though the Collegium disputed many of the points it made about the last few hundred years since Siddrim had supposedly lifted the world out of the dark ages, they agreed on the main points: darkness had once ruled, and many wicked creatures had terrorized civilization before mankind had brought them to heel one at a time.

It was a far cry from that now. Though most of the most prominent embellishments and illustrations were still in place, much of the wording had been pasted over by fragments of madness, and what little remained of the original text had been scribbled over in a different hand, and new notes had been added in, in the margins. 

Lines like, ‘Siddrim commanded the dark waters, and verily they slank into the depths or fled the world entirely to escape his wroth’ were replaced with notes that read, ‘Siddrim didn’t do that! That was Posiphina. Liar! LIAR!’

The pasted-in fragments didn’t seem to concern themselves with either version of the original text. Instead, they were long, rambling observations done in a sloppy hand on seemingly mundane things that were usually accompanied by clumsy illustrations of their own. The way that people walked through a market square and were obviously in cahoots even if they never spoke to each other, the way that turbulent currents flowed through a stream, and numerology significant days that some count chose to spend with his mistresses were all topics that were discussed at some length on this page. 

It didn’t seem to be about any of those patterns in particular, of course, it was more like the nature of the patterns as a whole. Sometimes, if he read for too long, Jordan almost got what the man was after. Those moments of clarity happened just often enough for him to think that the person who wrote this tome might have been a mad genius instead of simply a madman, but on the whole, he was still undecided. 

He honestly had no idea what it was she claimed was offering her guidance in this book. Hell, she could no longer even read it, and if it was truly changing, as he suspected, then there was no way she could memorize it either. 

That didn’t stop her from claiming that he was the shepherd and that he had to escape with his flock while ‘the fires were still burning.’

“Escape?” he’d laughed. “To where? Death lies in every direction! To the north is a city under siege, to the west lies the ruins of Abenend, the south has been abandoned, and to the east lies the sea!”

“Abenend has not fallen,” she answered, shaking her head, “But it will. Our destiny… your flock’s destiny doesn’t lie in that direction, though.”

They’d argued about that for some time. If the Magica Collegium still stood, then it was about the only place he would consider fleeing to, but there was no need to flee anywhere. 

This spring, they’d already started to build a palisade to reinforce the manor, and the herds were finally starting to grow again. Though the men and women under his stewardship did not yet have an easy life, they had enough food every night, which was more than most could say in these trying times. Thanks to Brother Faerbar’s hard work the previous year, the goblins and the bandits had largely been dealt with, but every little bit would help. 

Despite all of those very reasonable positions, though, she insisted, they flee while there is still time. “The fire will not burn forever!” she declared. “You and everything you would preserve must be gone from here when the darkness returns!”

She could never answer his real question, though. Why would he flee from the comfort and safety they’d carved out so diligently over the last year and a half to seek out this hermit if the woman didn’t even know who he was?

It had given him much to think about, but in the end, he could hardly put much stock into what it was she said. The Sister had insisted that he read this book like it might convince him where her ravings hadn’t, but if anything, it just made her less credible. 

At least, that was until he found the children among the tome’s pages. That was a frightening moment. It was something that he would have sworn she’d scrawled when he wasn't looking if he hadn’t had the book since before she’d been allowed a room in the manse to recuperate from the ordeals of travel. 

She’d never had the chance to make such an addition, though, nor could she have known about the children before she’d gotten here, especially not the glowing eyes. Markez had found the phenomena deeply unnerving, but he’d been spreading that fact around since his departure; surely more than a lone crazy woman would have come to investigate, wouldn’t they? He wondered as he stared at the illustration. 

Its strikes were clumsy, but the details were still clear. It showed 18 children smiling in the garden next to the sparing yard. Some of them were so clear he could have named them. Jenna was there, complete with her recent growth spurt, towering over some of the other boys like Toman and Reggie. Even little Leo was there at the front with the serious look he so often wore on his face. 

It was undeniable that his charges were in this strange book, but it had no detectable magic that could explain it. Not that he had many tools to go on there. Neither scrying nor identification was something he’d had much of a chance to learn at the Collegium. That was one of the reasons he’d locked the River Dragon’s manacle away for so long. That piece of work was dripping in foul magic, but once he’d finished making a rubbing of it for further study, he’d buried it in the once hallowed ground of the town cemetery so as not to be tainted by it, or worse, to draw more evil to them. 

He’d spent the last year hoping a more knowledgeable mage might have turned up so he could hand such a burden off to them, but that had never materialized. Now, he had no idea what to do with it. 

That’s the problem with all of this, though, Jordan thought with a sigh, closing the book after carefully noting the page number so that he could talk to Sister Annise about it later. For the time being, he wanted nothing to do with any more insanity, though, so he spent the afternoon doing what he did so often: watching the children spar. 

In the mornings, they were forced to do their lessons so that they could learn their letters and their numbers, but in the afternoons, when learning and chores were both complete, they would engage in tiny mock battles that were the main source of entertainment these days at Sedgim Manor now that Brother Faerbar was no longer around to beat the other men. 

Sometimes, Jordan would launch little pyrotechnic fireworks for the holidays, but that was not a common thing. Even after all this time, his magic unnerved some more than all the glowing eyes combined. 

He wasn’t the only one who wasn’t doing much with his natural gifts, though. Given how peaceful things had been, most of the combat drills had fallen by the wayside since their paladin had left in favor of other, more enjoyable activities. 

Only the children still practiced every day, and they treated it like a war because that was what their master had drilled into them from the earliest ages. They went at each other like professional knights and worked together in tiny formations of three and four as they warred for control of the tiny hill that had been worn down to almost nothing by all the scuffles. 

Each day, the teams changed. They were decided randomly, and they drew lots of black or white stones from a little bag. Mostly, it came down to which side Braedon and, more recently, Jenna were on, though Jordan didn’t expect that gap would last too much longer. Once all of the other children started to hit their growth spurts, things would even out, and skill would matter more than size. 

In the evening, after the white team had pronounced their victory and dinner had been eaten, Jordan returned to the Sister’s room with the Book of Ways under one arm. He found her already waiting for him. Before he could even ask her about the children, she said, “So, you’ve seen them then? You believe me now?”

“I… wait… How could you possibly know such a thing?” Jordan asked in confusion. “What sort of trick is this?”

“Even as you read the book, it reads you, Shepherd,” she smiled cryptically. “That is the way of these things.”

“It… read me?” he asked, certain he’d misheard her.

“Indeed,” she smiled. “You are apparently quite the page-turner.”

“That… makes only slightly less sense than the idea that the book is changing each time I read it,” he sighed. “I need answers, Sister Annise, not more questions.”

“Of course, it changes,” she smiled wider like he’d finally gotten some important point, even though he hadn’t. “No river stays the same from day to day, and the river itself is always changing.”

“But… if that’s so, then how can you know what comes next?” Jordan asked. 

“The river changes but rarely leaves the bounds that were decreed by the Gods,” she nodded. “So things are as they have always been. The bonfire has been lit, but when the flames fail to burn away the night, then the shepherd must leave his flock to the hermit. It is the only way forward.” 

Jordan was glad that she was blind because, for a moment, he could only stare at her in disbelief. The way she spoke to him with such certainty was almost as confusing as the tome that guided her. He took a deep breath and vowed to start the conversation again, but this time, he would keep a tighter grip on its reins.