Death After Death

When the day in question finally arrived, the main hall was filled with white cloaks. Simon wasn’t wearing one, of course. He and the other archivists and craftsmen were wearing their typical dark robes. The place was completely full, and he had to sit near the back, but then he hadn’t expected any less.

Every member of the secret order who wasn’t off on a mission in some faraway location returned to the Broken Tower for this ceremony. While this was not the first time that Simon had attended this feast, thankfully, it would be the last.

Traditionally, it was the place for the senior leadership of the order to crow about their successes and lay out their plans for the future. This year, though, it was going to be nothing more than a burial for everyone involved. He was going to bury them all in the unmarked grave that was their own secret base, and with any luck, no one would ever try to dig up all the secrets that were hidden there.

Simon was in no hurry for that, though. He’d been here for decades. He could wait a little longer. He listened to the speeches and enjoyed the food. He even got a little drunk, if only because he knew the next part was going to hurt. Then, once his plate was clean and the decanter nearest to him was empty, he rose and walked toward the central dias.

Guards were stationed at the high table, as they always were. They looked at him with interest but not concern. Why should they be concerned? He was a feeble man who had lost his youth and gone gray. The archivists were not typically heard at these events for obvious reasons.

Simon made no attempt to hide what he’d made anyway; that would have aroused suspicion. Instead, he held up his final gift to the order like he intended to present it to the Grandmaster or the Abbott. Unfortunately for them, he did neither. Instead, he activated it, unleashing the magic intrinsic to his design and filling the room with fire and shouts of alarm.

Those shouts turned to screams almost immediately, but not before he’d lit the tapestries that hid his demolition charges on fire. That single act would have been enough to decapitate the Unspoken, but after all this time, Simon wanted more than that. He wanted to annihilate them.

He was glad that he’d gone to such lengths, too, because even as he crumpled to the ground in agony, he saw the Grandmaster stand and draw his sword. The man had barely been scratched by Simon’s firebomb, and worse, as Simon lay there burning, he saw the man speak a word of healing and became almost instantly whole.

I fucking knew it, Simon thought, holding on to that tiny observation despite the terrible pain.