(THOB) Chapter 154: Beguile You (Patreon)

Urden came awake screaming and gasping. His cassock was soaked in sweat and a terror grasped at his heart as he cried into arms that held him with so much untainted love. But somethings were greater than others and he knew that no love or hate or indifference could triumph over the terror that held him.

“What’s wrong, father?” a voice asked.

He knew who owned it and yet couldn’t register it. Twelve lifetimes he had lived. Twice old age had found him and he had succumbed to the touch of Tarr. But ten times he’d been diseased by the hands of Rin in wars to protect the oppressed children of Vayla from other children of hers who would seek to oppress them. Never in any of those lives and rebirths had he felt the hands of such terror again.

Now he looked up into the concerned brown eyes of Dinma and wept louder. He did not seek Ezril’s forgiveness, neither did he need it. What would befall the boy was inevitable, he had hoped he was wrong at the time he had found him but now he knew how pointless it had been to hope. Ezril would face the incarnate when the time came and as it had been over a millennium ago, Vayla would bear witness to their contact.

Dinma, however, would be an unwilling casualty to this war. It would have been better for her to have died at the hands of her people than to witness what was to come. Over the centuries the incarnate had come to be known by many names, and though Ezril would face a being he would know as Arnesh. To Urden the man would always be the Incarnate. The being would always be fear.

“What is wrong, Father?”

Urden’s gaze refocused on Dinma, and when he spoke, his words came out dry. “I am so sorry, daughter.”

For all their years together, he had never called her daughter. And as he spoke, he didn’t seek her forgiveness because he knew he did not deserve it. “I have condemned you to a fate that I would not wish even upon my greatest enemies. And yet, I have condemned you to it.”

“I forgive you, father,” Dinma assured him, stroking his grey hair with practiced ease. Almost as a mother would a child, and it only made Urden cry all the more. Twelve times he had lived, suffering the curse of being born Hallowed. Being born to a world without a mother and never once knowing a mother’s touch.

“You cannot forgive me,” he sobbed. “You do not know the fate you are doomed to, and so you cannot forgive me.”

“What is wrong, Father?” Dinma pressed, worry painting her voice. “What is happening?”

He looked up at her through broken eyes, and when he spoke, it was with words he’d wished in all his lifetimes he would never have to speak. When he spoke, it was with words that broke his spirit.

“Truth is coming.”

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Prince Mardin's POV.... A few days ago...

Red wine twirled within a transparent cup made of glass and fashioned for the simple and unnecessary sake of aesthetics. By Truth, Mardin never could understand the desire to be pleasing to the eye. Perhaps it was because all his life he had been nothing but pleasing to the eye, perhaps it was not. He dropped the cup without taking a sip.

He would only taste of the wine when the night was over and the morning greeted him with the light of the sun. Normally this wasn’t the case: not in his manor.

But tonight he would wait out the moon. Tonight, his manor would be tainted in blood. The Venin guild was under attack and they would think it his doing. Although he wanted nothing but to wipe them from the face of Vayla, the method being employed was not his style. It was bloody, and sloppy, and if his information network was accurate, it was rather quite crispy. He almost smiled.

Almost.

As funny as it may seem, when whatever was left of the guild came for him, they wouldn’t listen to reason. They would be unable to see the logic that would prove he had no hand in their destruction, because he would rather have watched all of them burn in the fires of shadows so their heretic souls would not taint anything. Alas, they would come and there would be bloodshed. And as he had done for the last eight nights, he left his glass of wine rested on the table to be tasted at the rise of morning, because when they attacked, it would be done under the cover of darkness.

He could have requested help from his father, or even convinced the seminary of the need to protect him, considering it was one of theirs that was causing all this raucous, if he were to believe the rumors. But he couldn’t. They would want to know why the guild would target him during their demise. Then some fool would begin an investigation and he would have to take care of him or her. Then there would be another who would investigate in secret, and if one soul not privy to his activities were to find signs of his dealings with the guild in the past before he betrayed them and began burning their people, it would spell a great problem.

So here in his manor, under the protection of at least fifty members of the Venin guild who’d had the good sense to work for him when he’d turned his back on the guild, he would wait out the attack, and here he would continue to end all who come after him until the guild was either done with or succumbed into hiding.

Why here and not in the comfort and security of the palace? It was simple, because here they could come for him. In the palace, they couldn’t, which meant they would have to resort to smarter techniques, means that called for espionage, means that would reveal him for the secrets that he is. So he would stay here and end them.

The sounds began somewhere after midnight. Suffice it to say, he knew when the first man lost his life. He also knew when the assassin stepped foot into the house. Blood spilled through the living room and up the stairs until blood spilled against his doors. When the creak of his well-oiled hinges echoed through the room, he found himself mentally chiding the carpenter whom he had demanded on various occasions to find the true cause of the annoying sound whenever the door moved despite the tremor in his hands.

When the cloaked figure walked into the room Mardin seized the tremor with nothing but his force of will.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” he greeted his assassin cheerfully. “Please, have a seat.”

The hooded figure took the seat opposite him separated only by The wooden table upon which sat his glass of wine.

“I would offer you a cup,” he continued as if addressing an old friend. “But alas, there is but one cup, and I have already laid claim to its contents. So tell me, what are you to be paid, and how much more would you need to turn away from the particular endeavor and perhaps deliver a message from the prince.”

The man retained his silence, no doubt watching from the shadows of his hood. There was truly nothing to hide. The living room was a simple one unlike the one in the floor below them. Simple chairs of velvet and tables and stools of varnished wood. In the corner was a bar the likes of which even the lords of Heldrag would complement. A fire place built into the wall to his right intended to provide heat against cold nights and not for the light it presented illuminated nothing. And like every other space of the house the room was illuminated by the warm glow from the glass bulbs gotten from Heldrag whose glow was said to come from a combustion of gases, whatever that meant. Although, after this ordeal was over he would take the time to invite one of their inventors for the sole purpose of teaching him the skills of the trade. Of course, for a fee.

When the man had walked into the room Mardin had noted no visible weapons on his person. Perhaps he had lost it during his foray getting here. Chances were he’d lost it and deemed it unnecessary. The kingdom knew between him and his younger brother, he was the only one who’d paid no heed to the path of violence. But that did not mean he was helpless.

“It would seem that money would not appease you,” he said to the man’s silence. “You must either be very loyal, or they are paying you so much money you are too short sighted to consider the possibility of more. That said, since only one of us will leave this room, let me regale you with a secret.” The man gave a mild shrug, almost imperceptible.

“You see, I was born more special than most,” Mardin continued. “Not Hallowed, mind you. And I wouldn’t go as far as to call myself Tainted, for what I can do is nothing like what the vile creatures display.” Reflexively he reached for the glass of wine as he was so often prone to whenever he narrated a tale to a guest, but remembering it was intended for the morning he stopped himself and rested his back to the chair.

“What I can do is more refined,” he continued, not sure if the man was even listening. “When I look upon a man I can tell the nature of his existence; what makes him unique. I can tell a Hallowed simply by sight, as well as a Tainted. Normal men simply show me what they are good at and lesser men beguile me with what they could be good at. Mind you, I do not mean some random thing that any person can do. No, I mean the things that make them stand out from others. However, you, my dear assassin, are one of the few men who are not special. When I look at you, you fail to entertain me with anything.” Here he laughed simply because he couldn’t help himself. He had been holding it ever since the man stepped in and he had seen nothing. Not even a sign that he would be best suited to the menial task of pounding a nail into a piece of wood. “How is a man with not specialty supposed to kill me, the prince of Alduins? The man whose specialty is to rule. But seeing as I am a ruler and you will not leave this room alive unless in my service. I will grant you my audience. Perhaps you will reconsider my earlier offer.”

He waited a while, and after a time, knowing the man’s silence simply a tact to build up a dramatic suspense, he waited some more.

When the man spoke it was as if he had used his time to consider the option of speaking or maintaining his silence.

“Your highness,” he began, respectful. It was as good a start as most went. Men in his position would usually think themselves above their station and disregard all forms of respect, thinking themselves above it. “May I start with a tale of my own. A story to beguile you with.”

Prince Mardin waved him on.

“You may.”