Death After Death

Simon continued to study for several weeks while his armor was cleaned and repaired, and new clothes suitable for a Whitecloak had been sewn for him. While the Unspoken were not dandies as a rule, and a number of knights could be seen throughout the courtyard on any given day whose outfits had seen better days, everyone agreed that there was a difference between a few old bloodstains and being soaked in demonic ichor, and Simon had no intentions of disagreeing with them.

Even when that was done and he was dressed properly once more, he noticed that he still didn’t have a white cloak to go with everything else. When he asked about that, he was told he’d receive one when he was ready, which was less than helpful. Fortunately, on his next mission abroad to purge some reported goblins, the knight he’d been paired up with explained the facts of life to him while they sat around a campfire on the way to the small foothill community they were visiting.

“It’s like this,” Sir Feldrik explained. “For most people, you spend years as a squire… Unlike you, I was one for nearly a decade after Sir DeVolten found me at the age of ten.”

“Yeah, I get that I’m the exception that proves that particular rule,” Simon answered, hoping this wasn’t going to be a sore spot, but the man just waved it away.

“Even after they decide you’re ready, though. Even after they test you and make you speak the words and swear the oaths, you still don’t get to wear the white in public where you represent the order, so to speak, until you’ve proven yourself.”

“Killing a demon doesn’t prove anything?” Simon asked skeptically, tossing the stick he was fidgeting with in their small fire.

“No matter how triumphant the victory, it’s still just one victory,” Sir Feldrik answered with a laugh. From the strange voice he used, it was apparent he was imitating someone. “Sorry, that’s something my master used to tell me. To the order, one victory doesn’t matter. They want to see a trend. If everything goes smoothly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they send you off on three missions together with someone more senior like me, and then one on your own. That’s how it usually works out, though you’re kind of a special case, so it’s hard to say.”

It was good advice, and though it didn’t help them reinforce the herding village of Dafrey, or smoke the goblins out of their holes once the people were no longer in jeopardy, it put Simon’s heart at ease and gave him a goal to work toward. He still didn’t like being treated so differently, but at least now he understood why.

I just hope I don’t have to do this all over again, he thought. Being a kid for a bit was fun, but not that fun.

It was an oversight that he hadn’t thought of it, honestly. Though, to be fair, the Unspoken were much more secretive than the Magi had been up north. There, it was very clear that they only recruited young kids with a certain talent. The Unspoken, well, people knew of them enough to respect and fear them, but who they really were and what they were up to besides witchhunting didn’t get talked about very much.

After the orcs, he was dispatched again after another few months of study to face off against a wight. At least, that was what the orders were. Unlike the previous orders, there was no actual undead to be found. There was only a local fortune teller who was trying to extort money from a local viscount, and the bodies he left in his wake when the people who caught on to his song and dance had to be eliminated.

As thrilling as the two-week chase for the man was before Simon and the other Whitecloaks caught up to him and brought him to justice, he was disappointed by how it turned out. Simon didn’t mind watching the man hang, of course; even if he wasn’t a practitioner of witchcraft, he was still a murderer.

Simon just really wanted to see another form of undeath besides zombies. The books he’d spent the last season had gone over them in great detail and categorized them into any number of types. It wasn’t just ghosts or zombies either. If something lingered as a specific place, it was usually a ghost, haunt, or ghast. If it followed a person around, it might be a ghost, but a nemesis, poltergeist, or shade was more likely.

While he’d actually seen ghosts on one of the early levels, that didn’t exactly indicate they were common. After all, I’ve seen vampires on exactly one of the levels too, and they aren’t crawling out of the woodwork, he reminded himself as he rubbed his eyes. This book doesn’t even mention them.

Much like the Fae that the books and his fellow knights mentioned, Simon had no idea how many of these categories were simply fanciful stories, and how many of them were real hazards to be fought and overcome. Still, he memorized everything he could by day in the library and documented the most important bits by night in the mirror, creating a concise list of ghosts and their weaknesses to add to his growing collection of lore.

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He was learning a lot about monsters, and while some of it was suspect, most of it was interesting. What he wasn’t learning, though, was anything that would specifically protect his soul from witchcraft, particularly soul damage. That was the point of this life, and the reason he was here instead of venturing deeper into the Pit.

It annoyed him, but not enough to quit. Be patient, he told himself at least once a week. Even if I don’t learn what I came here for, I’m still learning a great deal about the Unspoken, and sooner or later, I’ll definitely have to face them and probably even end them.

It was just as true for the witch hunters as it was for the Magi, though neither were urgent. He’d recently learned from a knight who had gone north years before that one of their pyramids had collapsed. No one but Simon understood the significance of that, and he wasn’t about to share, but it was still interesting.

It was almost as interesting as how poorly they understood the desert mages. Simon could be smug about that, but it wasn’t as if he really understood the Unspoken much better. He knew that there was a Grandmaster. Below him were the Masters, who seemed to be in charge of various regions. He still hadn’t even met all of them. There were also various lieutenants, like the Chief Archivist and the Mother of Silence, whom he’d seen in passing, and the Chief Artificer, whom he hadn’t seen since his previous life.

Not all of those had even been named, either. The Unspoken didn’t have an organization chart or a handbook to explain all of this. Instead, they only told you what you needed to know, when you needed to know it. At first, he’d thought that this behavior was nothing more than petty pissing contests and territorial disputes. Only later did he realize it was a security strategy. It was just a bad one.

In the archives, at least, there was a reason to keep people from reading too much dangerous knowledge, he thought, unwilling to agree that cloak and dagger was the best way to run an organization of any seriousness.

Still, Simon didn’t complain. He did what he was told and played the dutiful soldier as he wondered if three missions were enough to send him off on his own.

Someone must have heard his silent prayer, because a few days later, some Master decided it was time, and Sir Kulthen came to him while he was reading a treatise on ensuring adequate supplies in a long-running campaign and handed down a mission just for him. “You are to leave the Broken Tower by sunset tomorrow and travel the lands helping however you can,” the knight explained.

“That’s pretty open-ended,” Simon answered. “Is there somewhere specific you want me to do that at?”

The older knight shook his head. “You may go where you want, do what you want. Just know that your actions will be judged accordingly upon your return.”

“Do I at least get to know how long this little adventure should last?” he asked, already trying to decide if he wanted to go north or south for monster hunting.

Which area can I do some good without doing much damage to the timeline? He asked himself. He was in level zero, so doing something of any importance almost anywhere ran the risk of unlocking something. Perhaps I can go purge Castle Gravenstone’s evil now that it no longer matters, or fight in the badlands around Crowvar without causing too much trouble.

If Simon had a mirror and some privacy, he would have spent the next ten hours just reflecting on the right answer to this question. He had neither, though. So, as soon as Sir Kulthen started talking again, he made a mental note and set the thought aside.

“You may come back when you fulfill two criteria,” the man agreed. “Not before. The first is that you must stay away for at least a year and a day.”

Simon nodded. That was a bit longer than he’d been expecting, given that the missions up until now had been measured in weeks, but if they wanted to see what he could do, well, he’d show them. Before he came up with an appropriate answer, though, the knight gave the second criterion.

“Finally, you must find a worthy squire at that time, and bring him back with you,” Sir Kulthen explained. “You will be judged on the boy’s fitness as much as on the deeds, so make sure you choose well.”

“You want me to just… pick someone?” Simon asked. It took a lot to surprise him these days, but this had caught him completely by surprise. Fight monsters and save lives for a year? That was no problem, but to randomly adopt a child to assist him for the next decade? That bordered on capricious and seemed a bit extreme.

“Well, there are rules to these things. They should be of good character and see into people’s souls, of course. Ideally, they should be an orphan, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…” Sir Kulthen sighed. “I forgot you haven’t been a squire yourself. Normally, this part doesn’t require explanation. Seek out another knight or two before you go and ask them. They will explain it to you.”

Simon obeyed and did just that once their conversation was over, but if anything, the answers he got made him more wary, not less. Most of what Sir Feldrik said made sense. Questing, as he called it, wasn’t just a rite of passage, it was what most knights spent their lives doing. The first time was a little different, in that Simon had to find a squire that would accompany him on future adventures. He had to choose someone smart, brave, and special that would be a credit to the Unspoken.

“Orphans make the best Unspoken,” the knight explained. “Especially if you save them yourself. There’s a certain bond there that can’t be replicated.”

All of that Simon understood and even agreed with; however, the final thing that the knight added, almost as an afterthought, made Simon doubt the entire enterprise. “Remember, if the Masters don’t approve of your choice, it’s not just a black mark on your record. They’ll likely kill the child and send you out to repeat the process. So think twice.”