Chapter 188: The Madman Bilden
Grawvor stumbled out of the Random Door. The Pope's strike hadn't landed directly, but it had thoroughly scrambled his destination, leaving him disoriented for a moment.
Fortunate, at least, that he hadn't been cast adrift in some spatial storm — though the distance he'd crossed had been staggering all the same, the pressure of that crossing tearing internal bleeding through his body before he was finally flung back into ordinary space. He coughed, a mouthful of blood coming up with it, drew a breath, and a flicker of light steadied the damage.
His sudden appearance froze both the beastmen and the goblins in place at once, an eerie stillness settling over the scene. He studied them — the beastmen, dark-skinned, faces painted in harsh white patterns; and the goblins, standing barely two cubits tall, smaller and frailer than they'd been in the empire's own age, filthy, as though they'd never once bathed since birth, a heavy stench clinging to them.
Was this really what remained of the once-mighty goblin race? A wave of bleak sorrow washed through him, restlessness rising alongside it. He turned his eyes on the beastmen, swept a hand out, and Meteor Fire Rain crashed down from above. The beastmen barely had time to register the countless fireballs falling before chaos broke out, bodies scattering in every direction as explosions tore limbs from bodies in the open.
The goblins dropped to their knees at once. "Great god, you've finally returned!"
"What great god?" He froze.
"Barsa, our god of goblins, who rode the great sun in a far expedition across the sea of stars — we always knew he would return one day. Our great god has come back, save us!" one goblin, apparently a priest, said, prostrated on the ground.
"What?" Grawvor stood dumbstruck. Ten thousand years ago, goblins had never had a god of their own at all. Goblins had believed in science, not divinity — they'd never believed in gods in any real sense, had even launched the God-Creation Project themselves. How could they possibly be worshipping a deity now?
Clearly, he'd need to stay here a while to understand what had happened. With humanity still hunting him, he decided he might as well hide out here for a time.
Elsewhere, Evan let out a muffled grunt, having caught some of the backlash from the clash. Hearing Xiaoshuang's worried voice, he shook his head. "I'm fine. Got a real taste today of what a demigod can do. Where are we, exactly?"
"We're somewhere in the hills around Eton — we made it out, though. That was terrifying, Wang. You didn't listen to me, and look what it got you," Xiaoshuang said, thoroughly pleased with herself.
"The Taijing mountain range, then. Good — let's push deeper into the mountains. That should make us much harder to find," Evan said.
Then his expression shifted abruptly. He felt a faint, formless ripple sweep across him, and his whole body went rigid with alarm. Before Xiaoshuang could say anything, he grabbed hold of her and teleported again. The instant he vanished, a beam of milky holy light crashed down where he'd stood, leaving a deep crater in its place.
Within the Apostolic Palace at Eton, Pope Clement VIII spoke, expressionless. "Nicholas Andrew slipped past my strike. He's already beyond my sensing range now — and to think he dared enter the holy city itself, stealing the glory of the Dark Angel Hadir in the process. William Agass. You have served Hadir your whole life. Take men and hunt Andrew down."
"Yes, Your Holiness. Since he has stolen the glory of the Archangel Hadir, your will is my life's purpose. I will do everything in my power to capture him, judge him, and see him burned at the stake," Agass said, bowing slightly.
Clement nodded. "Not merely everything in your power. You will succeed. The Lord will see to it."
"May the Lord's will be done." Agass crossed himself.
Agass left the chamber. A cardinal, second only to the Pope in rank, he turned to an attendant standing nearby the moment he stepped outside. "Go to the underground prison beneath the Cathedral of Saint John. I wish to see the madman Thomas Bilden."
The attendant broke into an obsequious smile at once. "Honored voice of Hadir in this world, great and radiant Cardinal, you wish to see the madman Bilden? I'll arrange it at once."
"No need. I'll go to the prison myself. Simply inform them I'm coming," Agass said, calm and yet carrying an unmistakable authority.
At the Cathedral of Saint John, its administrator greeted him with proper deference, though a flicker of contempt crossed his eyes for just an instant. Agass caught it, his own face giving nothing away, though a cold thought crossed his mind — was the man drawing some connection to the Andrew case? Everyone knew Agass never let a slight go unanswered, whatever authority the man held here.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
They descended into the dungeon beneath Saint John's, home to a number of condemned heretics across seven levels underground, each one heavily guarded. The warden was an unassuming man, though something bone-chillingly cold clung to him — standing near him felt like standing before some devil straight out of Hell itself. He unlocked the iron gate. The prison beyond stretched deep and terrible, each cell's walls several feet thick, built entirely of corundum stone, etched densely with holy sigils, holding those condemned for their very thoughts. To be sent into Saint John's dungeon was, in every practical sense, to vanish from the world entirely.
The prisoners inside had long since gone numb, staring blankly at the sound of footsteps, none of the usual hysteria one might expect of an ordinary jail. Walking those long corridors felt like walking through a place of absolute death.
Gate after gate opened in turn. By the sixth level, magic lamps along the corridor walls cast a dim, steady glow. The warden walked ahead, seeming almost like an emissary from Hell itself — though the chill radiating from him seemed lost entirely on Agass, who followed at an unhurried pace, a faint smile on his face. The attendant beside him had gone pale as death; had Agass not been there, he'd have bolted the instant he'd arrived.
The warden opened a door — a third of a cubit thick, forged entirely from cold-water steel, an alloy prized for its unmatched hardness and its resistance to any magical intrusion, a superb material for containing dangerous power.
The warden's hoarse voice rang out. "Madman Bilden. Cardinal Agass has come to see you."
"Heh heh. He's come to see me. Let's see what he can't manage on his own, that he needs to come find me," a voice answered — indescribably sinister.
"Bilden, you're not wrong. It was I who saved your life, back when you raved against the divine in the holy city itself. Now you have a chance — a chance at freedom. The Inquisition won't trouble you further either. What do you say?" Agass said, his tone entirely ordinary, studying the shackled figure before him. The man's features were even, well-formed, though years down here had left his hair grown wild and shaggy, giving him the look of a feral thing.
"Tell me what this chance is," he said, his speech perfectly measured, nothing at all like a madman. But his file told a different story — not merely a madman, but a monster in every sense. In a single night, he'd once flayed the skin from several men who'd crossed him, eaten their hearts and livers raw, and violated and murdered their entire families down to the last child, sparing no one.
The reason the Inquisition hadn't executed him outright, keeping him instead in Saint John's underground prison, was that those he'd crossed had themselves been branded heretics. Agass had recognized in him a savage dog of real, formidable power, and had kept him alive against the possibility of some future use. As for his atrocities — so long as he never turned against the Creator himself, surely the Creator would forgive it all eventually. Whether Bilden ended up in hell after death was the Creator's own concern, not his.
"A lich. Nicholas Andrew. Kill him, and you win your freedom. You can take a new name and live in the light of day from here on," Agass said, laying out the terms.
"Good. Been a long while since I killed anyone. Nicholas Andrew — give me the details, and let me out. I need a bath. And where's my weapon?" Bilden said with a cold laugh, his eyes sweeping to the attendant standing beside Agass, mouth opening, tongue sliding out to lick his lips.
The attendant's face went white as chalk, his mouth flooding with the taste of copper. He nearly lost his mind on the spot, only now understanding that the madman Bilden was the very same serial killer from years past — he'd assumed the man dead, and now here he was, alive, about to be set free. Was killing a single lich really worth releasing a monster like this back into the world?
Agass gave the attendant a cold glance, and the man shuddered visibly, realizing only now that the truly powerful seemed to hold no limits at all. He lowered his head at once — nothing more than a lowly attendant, whatever ambitions he might have carried, well aware of his own place.
"Enough. Come with me now," Agass said. The warden's expression never changed as he unlocked the shackles at Bilden's wrists and ankles. Bilden shot the warden a cold look; the warden returned it with equal coldness, not a flicker of feeling in his eyes, as though looking at a corpse already.
Evan had already teleported clear, Xiaoshuang still uncertain what had happened. After two consecutive jumps, they'd put considerable distance between themselves and Holy Eton. He finally let out a breath, mentally marking that place a five-star hazard from now on.
"Let go of my hand. What's happening?" Xiaoshuang struggled against his grip.
Evan released her, and she spread her wings and flew up. "Hmph. You'd better explain yourself, or we're not done here." She landed on a tree branch, hands on her hips, glaring.
"Should be safe now. I never expected the Pope — a demigod, no less — to be quite this fierce. Nearly left my life back there. I wonder how Grawvor's faring."
"Why'd you grab me like that, like your pants were on fire? What happened?"
"Didn't you feel it? The Pope struck at us from the sky. I had to bolt immediately — utterly ruthless. That's exactly what a demigod's power looks like. Should be all right now — lucky I moved fast, or I'd have been left behind for good," Evan said, still shaken thinking back on it.
"Fine, I'll let it go, then. Is that really the whole story?" Xiaoshuang still looked doubtful.
Evan said, exasperated, "Believe what you like. Let's get moving — the farther from Eton, the safer we are."
Evan couldn't wait to get back to Hollingburton, where at least some measure of safety awaited. Norse truly was a fine place, he thought — the Druids and the other heretics here had never seemed more endearing.
Xiaoshuang hesitated a moment, then flew down from the branch to settle on his left shoulder. Evan quickened his pace, his figure vanishing into the towering mountain range.
The madman Bilden, having learned Evan's approximate location from Agass, set off toward the Taijing mountain range as well.