Death After Death

Chapter 374 - Judged

Simon sensed madness in the woman’s words. It radiated more powerfully than the sense of danger he was getting from this place. He was somewhere in the catacombs beneath the ruined castle that was the Broken Tower. That wasn’t surprising. He’d spent years down here, though he’d never been in this room or seen this woman before.

As his eyes adjusted, he could see that she wasn’t even the hag he expected based on her voice. She was younger than that, though the details weren’t entirely clear in the shadowy room. “W-who, who are you?” he asked in a quavering voice that wasn’t entirely an act.

“I’m the one who sees the truth of things,” she answered with a widening smile. “But we aren’t here to talk about me. We’re here to talk about you… Tell me, who are you, and why do you want to join the Order of the Unspoken?”

Simon had expected that this meeting would take place with the Grandmaster, or maybe one of the other senior officials. To be meeting with an enigma like this instead was off-putting, and for a moment, he feared she was some demonic figure. A quick look at her aura instantly confirmed that wasn’t the case, at least, but somehow she seemed to notice that.

“Ah, so you can see,” she whispered, “Deeply too, but not as deeply as me…”

That last word was said as a lilting tease, which was almost as off-putting as the idea that she could see him looking at her. How does she manage that feat, he wondered. It took Simon only a moment to answer that. She can see my own aura stir, which means she can see as deeply as I can. No, deeper. She can see individual thoughts practically, and I couldn’t do that, not for mundane conversation.

“You are a clever one, aren’t you?” she asked, watching him. “You learn quickly. Quicker than most of the men that come down here anyway.”

“Most of the men?” Simon asked, “Does that mean… is this a part of the initiation to join the Brotherhood?”

“For some,” she agreed. “Edge cases, mostly. I only see the ones they aren’t sure about. That’s why you’re here, so you can tell me all your secrets, and I can tell them whether you’re tainted by witchcraft or other infernal arts.”

“I’ve never dabbled in demonic arts or been touched by magic in my whole life,” Simon declared, choosing his words with care. That was all true, but only if you counted this particular life.

“Is that so?” she asked skeptically. “Tell me that you’ve never spoken a word of power or used blood magic to—”

As she spoke, someone from outside the door yelled, “If he can see the truth of the world, then he’s never done any of that.” It was a man’s voice, and it was obviously impatient. “I want to know about his strange swirling aura, not any of that. We don’t think he’s a warlock or a familiar.”

There was silence then, but the room was dark enough that he couldn’t read his questioner's face; all he could see were the angry colors of annoyance flicker across her aura. “Fine,” she said finally. “You heard the man. Tell us what you know, if you know anything. Why is your aura so misbehaved?”

“I… I’m not sure,” Simon tried.

“But that’s not entirely true, is it?” she countered. “You don’t know much, but you know something. Tell us.”

“I know that it has something to do with fate,” Simon ventured, trying not to give away anything important, which was hard when he was in a room with a human polygraph. At least, he hoped she was human. “And that Sir Makrenson commented on it. He seemed to care about it a lot more than Sir Derinholt did. He seemed to think it was drawing me toward my fate. But I’m not entirely sure. You have to believe me.”

Most of that was true, but there were some lies in there, too. He didn’t know what Sir Makrenson said about his aura, because Sir Derinholt had offered him no details. He couldn’t tell her the truth, though, which was that it had something to do with there being half a dozen copies of himself running around the world at the same time, and that such activity seemed to be interacting with Helades reality knot in some way.

She can’t read my mind anyway, he reminded himself. She can only see how I feel and try to tease out the truth from what I say.

She sat quietly for a few seconds, drilling holes into him with her dark eyes. “Tell me what you know about the Unspoken,” she said finally.

“I… not very much,” Simon started. “I—”

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“Liar,” she answered, swiftly interrupting him. “Try again.”

“I know what everyone knows, and a little more,” he admitted. “Sir Derinholt said—”

“You know more than that,” she said, quieter this time as she leaned forward almost to the limit of her chains. “I can tell. I just can’t tell exactly what. Tell me, do you know about the vows or the words of power?”

“Cassandra, those are not details to be shared,” the male voice shouted from behind the bars of the door.

“What does it matter?” she asked. “If he fails this interview, you’ll kill him anyway. You could tell him everything and it would do him no good.”

Kill him anyway. Simon swallowed at that, but said nothing as she continued.

“Do you know about the Black Library or the Whisperers?” She asked. “Do… oh, you do, don’t you…” This seemed to intrigue her, and she strained forward against her chains. “Tell me, what do you know about the Sisters of Silence?”

“I—” Simon was at a loss for words. She might not be able to read his mind, but she could read his reactions. He felt like a five-year-old trying to lie to his parents. “I’ve heard some from Sir Derinholt, when he was in his cups. He wasn’t supposed to tell me things, but he did sometimes when he was drinking.”

That was a lie she expected her to call him out on immediately, but she said nothing. She probably wants the answer to her question too bad to interrupt me, he decided quickly.

If her sight was this strong, that meant she’d never spoken a word of power before, so she wasn’t a Silent Sister in a real sense. It probably also meant she’d never killed anyone before. What did that tell him about this mystery woman? How could he leverage that?

“He told me they were brave women who helped to subdue the men and women… I mean, witches and warlocks that used magic so that—” he started.

“False,” she declared, “but not a lie, exactly, but well... Please continue…”

“I… I’m not sure what you want me to say here,” Simon said honestly.

“I want you to vomit all of the words and facts you know from your mouth until there’s nothing left,” she said in a slightly crazed voice. “I want to read your entrails verbally and determine if you are fit for service or for slaughter.”

“All I want to do is serve,” he agreed. Trying to change the topic. “I just want to—”

“Tell me about my sisters,” she spat, silence lingering between each word. “Everything else can wait.”

Not the sisters, he realized, ‘my sisters.’ That was an interesting slip. She had never spoken a word of nullification, not if she could see this deeply into his soul. He didn’t say the obvious, though. Instead, he answered, “I… They are a vital part of the brotherhood, aren’t they? They are another tool to hunt the wicked and bring them to justice.”

Those words weren’t what she wanted to hear. Simon knew that much. What she heard didn’t matter, though. It was what he thought about what he said that counted, and he had no doubt that she saw the disgust and conflict blossoming across his soul with every word. The last thing he wanted was to watch women waste years of their life muttering the same word over and over again just because the Whitecloaks considered them to be expendable.

That seemed to mollify her somewhat, and he could hear her voice soften. “If sent on a mission to collect another prospect would you bring her to the cause, even if she refused?” his interrogator asked.

“Of course,” Simon agreed deceitfully. “I would do whatever I had to in the cause of good.” That last part was true at least, but not in the way that anyone who belonged to the Unspoken meant it. He was here to learn and to leave. Maybe he would sabotage the order or destroy it in the process, but those were side projects.

“And if one of them tried to escape, would you let them?” she asked.

“Never,” he said, trying to sound as earnest as possible, even though it was completely the opposite of true. Still, they weren’t speaking in truths now. The truth was that if he had the chance, he’d set them all free and kill the men who treated them so callously. The only thing that gave him any pause in that regard was how poorly some of the clanholds had held up after his last purge.

She said nothing to that lie, but he could see happiness flickering across her aura. She knew he was lying, but he could see she was going to let him get away with it because it served her own agenda.

“He’s a good man, if a bit strange,” she said finally, though not to him.

“And his aura?” the man in the hall asked. “You barely asked him about—”

“Because he doesn’t know. He’s more the puppet of fate than the master of it,” she agreed, “It's unusual but not unprecedented. Saint Demarco and Sir Astellia had similar afflictions if the scriptures are to be believed.”

“The scriptures are always to be believed,” the man countered.

“Then he is favored by fate and chosen to do great things,” she agreed, although this time Simon detected a note of dissatisfaction in her voice. “You should let him join. He has a powerful gift, and wants nothing more than to strike down evil, don’t you… Enis.”

Simon nodded at that, certain this woman had seen right through him. She knew he was lying about any number of things, but for reasons that were entirely her own, she’d chosen not to share them. That puzzled Simon, but before he could reflect on that further, the door to the dark room opened, spilling firelight from beyond.

That light blinded him for a moment, but even so, it allowed him the first real look at the woman with whom he’d been speaking. She was younger than him, in her early twenties, probably. It was hard to speak any more definitively than that, because she was all skin and bones, and her hair was shot through with white in places.

As he took that, she flashed him a toothy yellow smile, but before he could ask her anything, the man standing in the doorway called his name. So, Simon stood and left, not daring to offer a backward glance.