Knights Apocalyptica

Chapter 154: Holy Secrets

The red priests keep their secrets.

This is known more than any by the nobility, and while we all acknowledge the power of the Goddess, and her hand in shaping our fate, it is through the priesthood that her message of faith is heard in the Kingdom. Why, then, are the secrets of the inner church so closely kept? And why is it that any attempts to breach their information hold are always met with failure?

No matter the character of the spy we may send into their midst when they get to the stage of the ritual, they return to us changed. They repent and refuse to provide any more information against the Church.

Their silver eyes show fear.

Why?

-Princess Sarah Crisimus, Report Of The Repeated Failures Of Church Informants, (223, 3rd Era.)

Erec found a quiet part of the slums to sit; children ran around without shoes, and silent lookers only gave them the barest of a glance. After seeing his axe, most of them went on their way. The Council said that their Armor made them stand out, but it turned out the expertly crafted weapons also served the same purpose, though they didn’t out their origins. A lot of folks used guns, the few that didn’t have other makeshift weaponry: clubs with spikes, tire irons, and one person who had a dangerous piece of sheet metal rigged with electrics.

But finely smithed weapons? A rarity.

People in the Kingdom may proclaim swords as the ultimate weapon, but there was something to an axe that dissuaded anyone from bothering the guy lugging it around.

The girl drank her bottle next to Erec, taking in every drop while rocking in place. He’d wanted a better life for her after being freed from Seven-Snakes, and this wasn’t it. But, as he sat and thought, to her it might be.

“Are you getting along fine here? I can get you more chips if you need them,” Erec offered.

“No. Booze.” She tapped the side of the bottle, muttering happily to herself, then pointed towards Vega. “…He’s in there, anyway.”

“Him?”

“Snakes.” The girl nodded to herself, staring at the rising blue barrier. “But he’s not in there long. Snakes slither, squirm, and squeeze.”

“They’re tracking him down. He escaped custody, but the Council is looking.”

“Council works with him,” she said. “One of them. Bandages.”

Erec tensed his shoulders and tried to suppress the sudden stab of annoyance. It wasn’t a surprise, but that piece of knowledge alone was more than well enough worth the venture out here. Yet that bit of valuable information wasn’t what he was looking for; still, Boldwick would be thrilled, since there was a single council member that could be tied to that name. How actionable that information was, he didn’t know, couldn’t know, and frankly, didn’t care. But it was useful.

Seven-Snakes and all those that worked with him could rot in a shallow grave.

“With what you told me, I can get you into the city; I’m sure of it if you have that kind of information.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Vega drinks you up. To the last drop,” then she laughed, and then finished the rest of the bottle and holding the now empty thing upside down—a single amber drop hit the ground; then the bottle followed it, breaking as it hit a rock in the dirt. “Wanna stay away from Snakes.”

“Why’d he take you into the library, anyway? Were you—“ he didn’t know how to phrase it, he didn’t imagine Seven-Snakes was kind at all to her, given how he saw that bastard treat her.

She shivered in place, going quiet.

Her hand touched his—tracing it up to his wrist; the hair on the back of his neck stood as he felt her icy fingers, felt that tug on part of his mind. It wasn’t like before, when she tried to use her Talent without warning, it was as if she was asking. Trying to get permission.

Erec fought down the swell of panic and tried to get rid of the image of the Stag that flared in his head. That instinct of an animal fighting for its life—why?

“What are you trying to do?”

“Show.”

Erec grit his teeth; then closed his eyes. Deep within, he felt the heat of the silver fire, always present and burning. It wasn’t flaring, not without Fury aflame, but it was there. If he wanted it, all he had to do was reach for it. He knew that.

“Show if you must,” He said before he might change his mind.

He felt her chilly hand clamp his wrist, felt the fingernails digging in. A connection between them, as his mind floated away.

— - ☢ - — - ☼ - — - ☢ - —

“That two-bit whore,” Seven-Snakes snarled, a hand darting out and smashing Erec’s face.

He scrambled away, his whole body shaking beneath him, so weak, his mind filled with little thoughts aside from getting numb. Being able to forget again where he was, who was dragging him around. Snakes.

Erec looked at his thin hand—at the black hair hanging down his face.

Not mine. The intrusive thought cut through the noise, with a startling reality. He was looking through eyes that weren’t his. Through the girl’s eyes.

Snakes paced away, taking the gun off his belt—above them the night sky was high in the air, a few thugs at the gathered fire. The latest ones Seven-Snakes collected. He was good at that, getting dumb idiots with nothing to lose to follow him. Because he knew where the best spots were. Where to look to find the things buried deep. The problem that came with that was it took a lot of money to keep the muscle happy and to dig up the buried things.

They said he had a gift for it, that he spoke to the dirt, and it told him its secrets.

That was a plain lie.

“Fucks off and leaves me looking—her and that fucking freak. ‘We’ll contact you when you find the tool to reach Her,’ as if I care about that bitch of a Goddess. I just want off this cursed fucking rock.” he kicked the ground, and swore, his face getting redder by the second. He whipped the revolver out and pointed it at the girl—the one who Erec was seeing out of.

“Show me the map again,” He demanded, shaking the revolver. “Show me where we look next.”

The girl scrambled across the ground, reaching out and touching his wrist. They did this often, as she could force the memory through; the one the woman told them to commit to memory, that couldn’t be put on paper where silver eyes might see.

Pathways, different gates that might lead to her. And, by that logic, let one stab a knife right through her heart.

As her hand touched Seven-Snake’s wrist, Erec felt his mind yanked along once more for the ride.

The sight bled away, twisting and morphing. Not dissimilar at all to going along through a Rift; but as the world twisted, Erec felt his own grasp on his return, he knew he could pull at the silver fire through this connection, free himself from her memories. But he wouldn’t, not until he could understand what this was.

When his vision cleared, it was the last thing he expected to see.

His mother; a longsword strapped to her back, her hair lopped off into a short red-bob; an LED illuminating a narrow room in the depths of the earth; steel walls all around as she traced out a map on a table. Seven-Snakes was leaning next to her, staring at the map with a deep frown on his face.

“These are the possibilities,” a voice radiated out of the corner—the girl looked over to see a figure, cloaked heavily, and concealed. The freak, Snakes called him. “He will be the route through which one is unearthed, it is likely,”

“So you say,” Erec’s mother said, her eyes hardened as she stared at the map. “And we cannot go with?” Erec’s head spun, but he couldn’t react. As much as he wanted to force the words out of his throat to ask her what the hell this was, it wasn’t his throat. Nothing but a ghost in a memory.

“We must go home. Too long on this planet will draw too much attention.”

“Yeah, back to your fucking paradise,” Seven-Snakes seethed as he traced the map. With a frown, he walked over, grabbing them—the girl—by her hair, and Erec felt Seven-Snakes hateful fingers wrapping tight around her head as Seven-Snakes shoved her face to look at it. “Lock this away, girl. In that steel trap of yours. My little map.”

There were several places circled; one in Worth, one on the West Coast, one on the East—one to the North, two in the center of the map, and one in the ocean—an old world map of the United States, in good condition. Seven. A magic number.

“Let her go.” Erec’s mother called, a hand going to her sword, her voice harsh.

“Quiet, woman. My deal is with the freak. You’re his face, but you’re not needed anymore. Not after we met and made our deal.”

“More than his face,” Erec’s mother said, her eyes flaring red; heat radiated off her. “Don’t forget yourself.”

“Fine, fucker,” Seven-Snakes waved her and let the poor girl away. She scrambled away, not daring to look away from Snakes as she retreated to her corner. A lance of fear ran through her since she knew Seven-Snakes wouldn’t forget this. Would make her pay.

Erec’s mother dropped the grip on her sword, and stepped forward, folding up the map and tucking it away. “I don’t like you,” she said. Her voice dripping with disdain, and far more steeled over than anything he remembered from as a child.

How long ago was this? His mother was aged, and not pleasantly so. As if she’d been run through fight after fight; he even saw a scar on her cheek, but it was her eyes.

They were that of a killer.

“Tough shit. I don’t like a lot of people. But if your freak says that I’m your chance, then you gotta take it, isn’t that right, prophet?”

“The tides of fate don’t care for personalities,” the heavily cloaked figure replied, wrapping their arms around themselves. “Our business is done then. He will chase these leads down, for he knows his heaven awaits as a reward after the ordeal. Come, Isolde.”

His mother turned on the orders of a stranger, walking away and leaving Seven-Snakes alone with the girl. He shot her a sneer, anger coloring his face. As he often got since meeting those two. After he’d been shown what he could have and didn’t.

He always wanted.

The last thing in the vision was the girl looking down at her shaking hands, anywhere but at the approaching Snake.

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