Arc 6: Chapter 16: Yield
“It’s very simple, Hyperia.”
I moved to stand next to Ostanes, who watched our prisoner with an intent expression. Emma stood near the corner on the other side of the crowfriar, and when she caught my eye I gave her an apologetic look. Doing things this way didn’t sit well with me, and I did regret keeping her ignorant of this part of the plan.
Putting it from my mind for the time, I turned to face the Vyke. “Ostanes has as close to a confession as he needs. You have bound one of the abgrüdai to your service, and that is not only heresy under the God-Queen’s law, but it also breaks the edicts of Orkael.”
“…I see.” Hyperia impressed me by seeming calm, even curious, though she must have known how hopeless her situation was. “And what does that mean, precisely?”
“It means your soul is forfeit.” Ostanes smiled and shrugged. “All the old stories of sinners being dragged down into the flames of Hell, back before this land’s underworld was dug out? This is what those referred to. Those who willfully call the denizens of the Abyss forth and make our job more difficult must be dealt with somehow. Punished.”
He waved a hand, revealing his burnt fingers. He’d changed while he talked. Gone was the handsome western merchant. In his place stood a figure very much like the form Vicar had taken during Emma’s trial before the Choir. A grievously burned man stood next to me, clad in tattered robes in varying shades of gray like an ash-drowned monk. He didn’t wear a hood like Vicar had, only a scarf over a mostly fleshless neck, so the weeping, oily scabs on his bald skull were fully visible. His eyes burned like hot coals in pitted eyes.
The stink of cooked meat and sulfur filled the room.
“I will take you with me when I go from this place,” the monk of Hell rasped through what remained of his teeth. “My masters will mete out your full doom once I bring you before the Tribunal.”
Hyperia was not a demon, or a great magus. She was just a young woman with some occultism who’d been raised by a very bad man. She stared at the face of her death, and there was fear in her eyes.
Penric swore an oath, stepping away from the living corpse who now occupied the room with us. I gave him a hard look, noting that he’d taken his crossbow in both hands. A bolt was loaded, and his face beaded with sweat.
Lisette stared at Ostanes with a less clear emotion. She was a devotee of the Church, a scribe of God who’d dedicated her life to the teachings of the Heir of Heaven. Yet, she’d also seen the ugliest sides of her own faith. She knew, as I did, that there were many complications and half-truths to the beliefs we’d been raised on.