Death After Death PLUS 373-375

Ch. 373 - Put Through His Paces

For four more days, Simon was treated to some version of these events. He was healed and bled, he was fed and drugged, but always, he was questioned and spied on. The focus of the questions changed each time, but they were always waiting for him whenever he woke up. He told them as little as possible when his head was clouded. He eventually admitted that his name was Enis and that he wanted to be a warrior to help people, but he kept the details to a minimum, and at least until his fever broke, no one pushed too far on that front. 

That made Simon grateful for the wretched shape he was in, but his body bounced back rapidly now that he was no longer sleeping in a field each night. Finally, on the fifth day, he woke to find a face he couldn’t put a name to, but he was sure he’d seen in a previous life. The squire who’d been feigning injury in the next bed, and the nurse who had been tending to him, were both gone, leaving him alone with the newcomer, though Simon only noted that after a few seconds. 

The man was older, with gray hair, and he mostly seemed to look through Simon. “I… Hello?” Simon asked, acting unnerved. “Who are you?”

“I’m the one who wants to see why one of our brothers took an interest in you,” the man said after a long delay. “You’ve got a strange aura about you, and—”

“You aren't the first one to mention that,” Simon started, relieved at how much easier it was to think and speak now that he wasn’t drinking tainted potions. “I—”

“That’s something for someone else to sort out,” he snapped, cutting off Simon’s explanation before he could finish. “I’m just here to see if you can fight. You did the Uns… You did us a great service bringing back our brother’s corpse, but still, we have no place in our ranks for a man who can’t fight, and before discussions about your fate go any further, we… I need to see what we’re working with.”

“My fate?” Simon asked, but the man ignored him. He was already on his feet and walking toward the door.

When Simon was intentionally slow to rise, he said, “Well, are you coming?”

That forced Simon to move faster to catch up. Despite feeling worlds better, he was unsteady on his feet, though that was as much from spending nearly a week lying around as from any lingering sickness, and the worst of his wounds ached only a little as he moved. 

If I were my doctor, I’d rule out fighting for at least another week, he told himself as he followed the man out into the yard, but he didn’t complain. This was some other kind of stress test. He just hadn’t figured it out yet. 

Out in the yard, he was struck by a wave of nostalgia. Though he’d only rarely visited the infirmary, he’d walked through this place for years, and even though those days wouldn’t be for about a decade if his math was right, it was little changed. There in the distance was the blacksmith, and beyond him were the two chimneys that led to the hidden foundries in the basement. Over to his right was the stables with a few men lazing around chatting, and so far to the right that it was practically behind him was the small convent where the Silent Sisters dwelled. 

Looking around wildly wouldn’t have been at all out of place for the act he was trying to put on, but even so, it was his natural instinct, and he had trouble mastering it by the time they reached the small practice yard near the blacksmith. No one offered Simon his own armor or weapon. Instead, he picked up an arming jacket and some leathers that were only a little big for him and started getting dressed.

When he was done with that, he picked up a wooden sword that was about right and a round shield only a little smaller than the one he was used to, but the man who had brought him here shook his head. “Put that one back,” he chastised Simon. “We aren’t here to see how well you hide behind a shield. I want to see you fight.”

Simon thought about protesting. That was what a squire who was used to fighting a certain way would probably do, but it felt too cowardly for him. He’d spent a week pussyfooting around, and he was sick of it. So instead of griping, he put back the shield and the sword, then picked up a two-handed variant that was a foot longer. It was heavier, but it would give Simon some extra reach, and it earned him a smile from the gray-haired knight, even if it was gone so quickly that he wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined it. 

After that, there were no other words. The man simply picked up his own wooden sword and squared off against Simon, waiting for an attack. Simon didn’t leave him waiting for long. Instead, he strode forward and swung twice. Both were feints, and as much to make him look hesitant as to get a feel for the heft and balance of the weapon.

He bided his time for those first few half-hearted exchanges, waiting for the look of disappointment. Then, he lashed out, striking as hard and as fast as his battered body would allow, butting his opponent on his back foot immediately. 

Simon’s efforts weren’t enough to win the match in a single go. Maybe they would have been if he’d chosen a weapon he was more familiar with, but that was half the reason he’d ultimately chosen the two-handed blade; he wanted to appear inexperienced, and his opponent was all too eager to take advantage of that inexperience. 

Less than a minute after the fight started, it ended with Simon getting jabbed hard enough in the ribs that it was clear the death blow had landed. “Again,” his opponent called out before Simon had a chance to catch his breath. 

This knight was clearly more talented than Sir Derinholt had been, but Simon expected that of those who were here. When he was healthy, he’d be faster and probably stronger than him. Right now, though, it was closer to an even match. 

Their second round didn’t last much longer than their first. Simon didn’t win it either, but he was apparently doing enough to draw a crowd. 

“The strength of youth,” his opponent answered dismissively, using his wooden sword to stretch his arms, like he was just getting warmed up. “If that’s all you can do, even injured, I’m not sure what to say. I don’t even see how you caught Sir Derinholt’s eye, but you certainly wouldn’t have caught mine.”

That annoyed Simon. What are they expecting here exactly? He wondered. What’s the right play?

He’d been trying to hide the real him enough that trying to go all out on the knight opposing him felt wrong, but at the same time, he felt like underperformance was quickly becoming a dangerous game. Up until now, he’d ignored his sight because of his fever, but now that most of that infirmity had passed, he used it to study his opponent, and he did not like what he saw. 

The man might be putting up a front that was something like disdainful impartiality, but beyond that, Simon could see swirls of contempt and disappointment along with other negative emotions. He still wasn’t focused enough to get a perfect read, but he was sure that he’d have to show this guy something, or it wouldn’t end well for him. Whatever the Unspoken were after, they weren’t going to accept injury or inexperience as an excuse. 

“Maybe I’ll try a different weapon,” he answered uncertainly as he walked back over to the weapons rack and pretended to take a minute selecting a more appropriate weapon. As he did so, though, he was breathing slowly and trying to find focus. 

This isn’t a life or death fight, he reminded himself. There’s no reason to fuel blows with rage when you could use stillness to your advantage. 

Those were fine words, but even focusing, stillness was hard to come by in this situation. Uncertainty fought him, and lingering sickness tainted it. However, Simon did what he could, and when he turned to face the knight once more, he was focused enough to see a look of appreciation on the man’s face as Simon walked toward him. 

This time, when they crossed blades, it was completely different. Before, the strikes had been quick and haphazard, but that hadn’t been enough, and while it felt strange to be fighting without a shield, this was still better. What Simon lost in reach, he gained in speed, and more than that, in clarity. 

Simon’s sight wasn’t so clear in that moment that the knight’s aura betrayed him completely, but it provided him just enough warnings to react to. A twitch here, followed by a spike there, and every exchange only intensified that interaction. 

Still, it wasn’t enough. He must see something like this, too, Simon said to himself, wondering if there was a way to suppress his own aura. Now was the wrong time to try it, of course, but it was worth thinking about in the future. 

What he focused on instead were the little things. If he couldn’t out-predict where his opponent could strike next, he could strive for superior positioning. So, slowly, their fight intensified, becoming a dance. Wood rang against wood with dull, flat noises, whether Simon blocked strikes high on his blade, or low on the hilt. It was different enough to be distracting, but there was no denying that he was acquitting himself better than he had before. 

Both took minor blows, but nothing that either of the men would claim as a victory. One rough slash reopened a wound on Simon’s left arm, making him drip blood on the ground, but he ignored it, even after his opponent asked, “Would you like a break to, you know—”

Caught up in the moment, Simon almost answered, “I’m lifetimes past pain,” but fortunately, he choked on them instead. They were wrong for the moment, but that didn’t make them less true. The injury was less than nothing, and instead of backing off, he pressed forward. 

That colored his opponent’s aura with the gold of appreciation, and maybe admiration, but Simon didn’t care about that either right now. A moment ago, it would have been a good sign. Now he only cared about winning.

He might have won, too, had he not pushed his still-weak body too far. One moment, he had the knight on the ropes, forcing him to backpedal furiously as he pushed past the exhaustion, and the next, he was falling as the leg that housed his worst infection suddenly gave out and went out from underneath him, bringing him to the ground. 

There are worse outcomes, he sighed internally. He’d put on a good show. That was what had mattered. 

Simon only lay on the flat of his back for a few seconds before a hand was extended to help him up. “That was… intense,” the knight said as he lifted Simon to his feet. “Tell me, where did you learn to fight like that?”

“You should see me with a shield,” Simon answered before retreating to his standby. “I learned a lot from Sir Derinholt.”

The knight looked at him appraisingly a bit longer. Simon could see that his aura had changed to show much more positive colors after that performance. However, since the man was being so guarded, he hazarded another statement. “Does that mean I passed, uhm… whatever this is?” he asked. 

“We don’t take a lot of squires as old as you,” his opponent said as he helped him to his feet. “We don’t take many people as old as you, really.”

Simon didn’t have to fake being crestfallen. For a moment, he worried he was going to have to start over, but as a child, and try all of this again. It was doable, of course, but it would take years to set up. Even as he started to work through the contingencies, though, the knight continued. “As a knight, though, well, we’ve taken worse than you before. You seem alright, Enis.”

“So I can join the order then?” he asked after a moment of delay, careful not to use the name. 

The knight shrugged. “That… is beyond my ability to decide. All I can do is give my recommendation, which you will have. After that… well, you already know where the Broken Tower is, and who we are more or less, so the Grandmaster’s options are rather limited.”

You mean if they don’t let me join, they’ll kill me, Simon answered to himself. He wasn’t so foolish as to say any of that out loud. Instead, he merely let himself be escorted to grab something to eat after he’d stripped out of his borrowed armor. 

The knight he’d been fighting introduced himself as Sir Graython. He wasn’t the only one who escorted Simon, either. Some of the other men who had been watching joined them. 

The small group celebrated with dinner and more than a little drinking. The conversation that night was less of a debrief or an interrogation that Simon had been used to up until now, but he was sure that he was still being tested. This time, it was almost for his personality. Jokes were exchanged, insults were given and received, and a good time was had by all. 

By the time all of them finished the rich stew he’d been served, a glass of wine was put into his hand. That wine turned out to be drugged. He could taste that from the first sip, but he said nothing. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen at this point. The worst they’ll do is kill me, he said to himself as he continued to toast and enjoy dinner. 

Less than an hour later, he passed out. He couldn’t remember quite where exactly. He was reasonably certain he hadn’t crashed out in the mess hall, and seemed to recall being taken to a room to sleep it off, but he couldn’t be sure. 

What he could be sure of was that he woke up somewhere else. As he stirred, he realized he was in a dungeon, or something like it, at least according to his nose. He was hit with the smells of urine and damp stone even before he opened his eyes, and when he did, he thought he was bound by manacles because he heard them move.

He wasn’t bound, though; it was the other shape in the dim room who was chained. They started moving almost as soon as he awoke. “We have a visitor,” she hissed. “The first one in a long time. Tell me, what is it you’ve done for them to send you down here to me?”

Ch. 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—”

“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. 

Ch. 375 - A Lifetime Vow

Simon’s first question when the door was closed behind him and he was being escorted out of the dungeon was, “Who was that woman?”

He was ignored the first time he asked it, but when he followed up with, “I didn’t really understand half of her questions,” the knight walking with him finally responded. 

“Nor should you,” he answered curtly. “You’d be better off forgetting half of what you heard. She is… an anomaly. We keep her to find the truth in matters that don’t justify simply burning the offender.”

“Burning? Like at the stake?” Simon asked, feigning panic. Burning alive wasn’t on his death wishlist, but he’d died in worse ways. “I can assure you I—”

“You did fine,” he said dismissively. “If there’d been a problem, she would have told us.”

Simon wasn’t so sure about that, but didn’t say anything. Instead, he switched topics and said, “So if I passed, will I be allowed to join the brotherhood now?”

“You will be allowed to take the test,” the man confirmed. “That is as much of an honor as any man deserves.”

Simon knew it would be pointless to ask the man about those tests, but still, he did so anyway and let himself get rebuffed. It would have been strange for a recruit not to show excitement at that moment. 

Before any testing was done, though, he was allowed to bathe and change. It was the middle of the night, only a few hours after he’d finished drinking, so he wasn’t particularly hungry, or even tired, but there was a strange ceremonial aspect to all of this. He was given an outfit that consisted of a white tunic, gloves, and breaches. He was even given a sword, though he noticed that it was dull as he belted it on. 

After that, he was taken to a small chapel near one wall of the defunct castle, where he was led in a prayer that involved several saints he only vaguely remembered. The metaphors and symbolism of the prayer were florid, though, and left no doubt what this was about. Wings of white, purifying light, and the sanctity of silence were all words that were repeated ad nauseam before he was finally told to draw his sword as the priest explained Simon’s task. 

“You are to stand vigil at this shrine for a day and a night,” the man explained. It was simple enough, and Simon nodded at that, even if he didn’t understand the man’s final words until long after he’d been left alone. 

“You are to do this with a pure mind and a pure body,” the priest cautioned him. “Do not allow yourself to be dirtied by the world. Rise above it.”

Simon thought that was a metaphor for the first two minutes. It was only then that he noticed that the room's darkness was more than just shadows. A thick dusting of soot had been put on every surface of the room. It was on the floor, the altar, the walls, and the pillars. Everywhere that one might lean to sit or rest was covered in the stuff. 

“So that’s what he meant about being dirtied by the world,” Simon nodded. It made for a decent test, he supposed. Anyone lazy enough to take a nap, hoping no one would find out, would betray themselves when they stepped out into the light. Fortunately, it was one that was easy enough to pass, too. All he had to do was stand there and wait. 

Simon was used to such hardships and spent the time reflecting on Cassandra specifically and the Whitecloaks in general. Despite all of his time here, there were so many secrets. It really wasn’t a simple situation. 

He wasn’t about to complain, though. He was making headway, and another test or two more after this, and he was confident he’d wear the white.

While he yawned a few times, Simon had zero problems with this test, and at sunrise the following day, the doors were opened again, and he was given a big speech about how he’d been reborn. This was delivered by the same priest after a cursory inspection of his outfit that didn’t bear a single trace of soot. 

From there, he was rushed off to do battle with another knight. This was done with steel blades that had been dulled, but the fight wasn’t nearly as challenging as the one he’d engaged in the other day. In fact, the ceremonial nature of the thing made him fairly sure that he was supposed to win. 

After that was a more mysterious test, though it was undermined by the rushed nature of all of this. While the affair had started as a solemn and strange ritual like the Feast for Beggars he’d attended so long ago, it seemed that at some point the decision had been made, and they were rushing him from event to event like they were checking boxes on some kind of list. 

At least the test was still clever, though, in its way. He was led to a different dungeon, where he found three occupied cells. “Choose the worst among them, and pronounce their sentence,” was the only explanation given, but even without the sight, he suspected he would have passed. 

Two of the men were too clean and clean-cut to be prisoners. They were obviously knights who’d changed into something less comfortable. The third man, though, was a real criminal. His soul wasn’t exactly black. It was more of a dark gray, and Simon didn’t have to look too deeply to see that there was no blood on his hands. Theft seemed to be the more likely crime. 

He pretended to study all three for a minute, and then two, so he wouldn’t make things too obvious. Then, he fingered the dark-souled man and stated his assumptions. “I don’t believe he’s deserving of death,” he decided finally. “Perhaps the removal of one or both hands, depending on how much he’d—”

“You must decide that yourself,” the knight escorting him interrupted. “You will not always have a senior brother with you in the wild places, and you will have to mete out such punishments alone, without your judgment and sight to guide you.”

“One hand then,” Simon answered, repressing the urge to be flippant. “His right. That will be a good reminder for him to do right.”

Simon expected that all of this was an act anyway, so it didn’t really matter, but when the man paled and begged for mercy, it suddenly took on a new tone. While he wasn’t sure he’d change his mind even if the criminal had argued for leniency, he was never given a chance, and Simon was taken away before the condemned man could whine about it. 

"No, please!" the man called as the door closed behind Simon. "I'll make amends. I'll..."

Would they really let me pass judgment on a man almost at random? He wondered as they left. What if I’d seen a touch of darkness and simply declared he should die?

He wasn’t sure. After those three tests, he expected something to do with magic, like he’d had to deal with the first time, but that never came. I guess they don’t want to have brothers accidentally lose their sight by casting a spell, he reasoned. They were kept as hermetically sealed from magical knowledge as possible. That had been his whole job the last time he was here. To censor spells and filter the knowledge that would be given to them. In that sense, silent archivists were much more disposable than witch-hunting fanatics. 

Instead, he was made to pray again and kiss an altar as if that would reveal if there was evil in his heart. He was given admonishments and told that if he wished to leave, there was still time. 

That much, at least, was a lie. He could see it in the aura of the knight who told him. To have second thoughts at this point in the process would be cut down. Again, Simon couldn’t shake the feeling that all of this was meant to be done over the course of days, or even with other candidates at certain steps, but things rushed on regardless of how he felt about them. 

Once all of that was done, he was taken to the grand hall where he was required to swear an oath of eternal loyalty to the Unspoken. That was when he was finally brought before the Grandmaster and a few other familiar faces he couldn’t name in the inner temple.

While the events leading up to this moment had been a bit underwhelming, the venue itself still inspired some awe. 

It was as clean as the first chapel had been grimy, and it was illuminated throughout with hundreds of candles. While it wasn’t exactly ornate, there was some gold on display, making the place feel powerful, even if he knew that any magic here was well hidden. 

If I ever make my own religion, I’ll have to remember to hide magic in plain sight, too, he told himself as he appreciated the moment. 

“Have you come here, of your own volition, to speak the words and be bound by them?” the Grandmaster asked in solemn tones.

“I have,” Simon agreed. Though he thought it was a little ironic to speak about anything that should be unspoken, he refrained from taking the oath. 

Though he didn’t like the idea of swearing eternal anything, given how broad his concept of eternity was, Simon saw no reason not to mouth the words. There were no words of power in the oath, and the document that he swore upon had no runes that he could see. It was just a leather-covered holy book.

“I, Enis of Anderwen, do swear to purge the evils of this world without becoming stained by them. I will strike down the wicked and purge their hellish machinations with fire. I will serve the people, but never speak a word of our holy mission, lest I doom my soul to the same fires as those we struggle against. 

I will continue this fight and wear the white until my dying day, or until the world finally knows peace. So help me.”

Besides, on some level, he planned on keeping that oath, at least most of it. He did plan to purge evil wherever he found it. That he would use magic instead of purging it completely struck him as a distinction without difference. As for not telling anyone, well, he’d gotten very good at keeping secrets over the course of his many lives. What was one more?

By the time Simon was done with all of that, the sun was high in the sky. He wasn’t tired, though; he was excited, and as he was led around the castle by a young squire and given the full tour, he listened to everything the young man said, even though he already knew most of it. 

The young man showed him where his small room was, as well as the library, the forges, the chapels, and the mess hall. He neglected to show Simon where the Black Library or the secret forges that made the blessed weapons were, but Simon didn’t hold that against him. He almost certainly didn’t know about them either. 

I’ve finally done it, with my tongue intact, even, he thought to himself. He might be one of the lowest people in the organization, but he didn’t care. Others could fight over pecking order; he had other concerns. 

The young man also introduced him to several important people, like the bursar, who handled payments to the knights, and the quartermaster, who was responsible for outfitting whatever expeditions the order put out. Simon was very respectful to them both; it would have been foolish not to, considering how much power they had. 

He wasn’t looking forward to getting paid or outfitted, though. He wasn’t even looking forward to going warlock hunting. He was looking forward to spending some quality time in their library, devouring every scrap of knowledge the Unspoken had on hunting witches, monsters, and whatever else they had in their archives.