The Knight Who Sought a Crone
Chapter Nine

“What the fuck did I just see?” I held my outburst as I vomited into the chamber pot inside the room. Rysa seated herself calmly upon the bed she chose as I huddled my face into the stench.

“The true nature of the Magi.”

“Impossible,” I raised myself from the bucket, “Blasphemy. Our purpose as a Knight is to protect the Magi and protect the people from one another - to act as a barrier between corruptions.”

“You get two parties equally corrupt to share a common goal, and they use the intermediary as scapegoats.”

“We’re not a standing army, but we’re being used as one.”

“And with the new king’s intention of conscripting the able men and boys into service, there are bound to be more Knights to partake of the trials.”

“The others in the Council, they’re privy to this I assume?”

“The threat you faced in Seuverat. The Council would instill such fear upon other lands. Other kingdoms will fall to their fear, cowering to their own ends to follow where they see fit.”

“Why? Why did you come with me?” My hands gripped the wooden bucket with the weight I felt to crush it in my anger.

“You had to see this,” Rysa said politely, lifting herself to sit next to me.

“Tell me everything about you. Magick, training, what else have you hid from me?” I turned to her with anger, her eyes told me she was honest as she kept her distance upon the bed.

“My magic training is not bound to any temple, Tedarin,” she lifted her hand and within her palm a rush of water erupted from the crevices of her lines to trickle down the webbing between her fingers and suspending short of her feet.

“Lift your tongue, show me.” She did as asked, lifting the tip of her tongue to touch the roof of her mouth. No mark. No rune branded to it. She used magic without being a Magi. Impossible.

“I don’t understand. Your magick is powerful. You know things before they happen. You’ve connected to my vision.”

“We are the ones that go unnoticed. The ones the Magi wish to silence. Heathens as they call us.”

“How many of you are there?”

“The men of my village could not use magic, only the women. I can’t explain, but only we were unique. A woman made a man jealous once, to which I suspect he went to the Bovariàr’s, proclaimed the women as liars and accusing us of defying the Magi. The Bovariàr’s have always been loyal to the Magi. They saw favor with the Council and in doing so, my village was taken by Knights on order from the Council.”

Politics. A game I never wanted to play, now embroiled in it. For hours, she laid it out to me, showing me her use of magick, how her connection has been stifled until I came along, then proceeding to tell me about Fersyn, the woman who protected their village. I asked why she didn’t stop the Knights, to which only she would know the answer. It was never Rysa’s place to question the old woman, only to revere and respect.

“We’ll make journey to your village in the morning. There’s nothing here, at least where you will be safe. This Fersyn, if she is who I see in my visions, must be central to the greater purpose here in Sarat.”

We left as promised in the morning, locating a clothing shop so Rysa may acquire a new set of clothes more suited for travel and hurried our way through the city. We exited the eastern gates, leading through the main road out through the various towns and villages on the outskirts which supplied the city with its food and other resources. We kept our pace casual so not to alert probable Knights stationed in Sarat as I noticed a change in the armor worn by the guards to carry the double eagle crest of the Bovariàr family. Either the men willingly forfeited their allegiance, or were replaced.

For several days we continued eastward, coming upon a fork in the road north of the village of Telmen, Rysa directed me to take the northern branch to lead towards the port city of Yumphen. In a few days, we would be within the lands of House Bovariàr characterized by expansive meadows filled with farms and several smaller forests interspersed along creek lines. Several bulges in the ground would give rise to a series of low mountains where iron mines were prominent. Sometime in the past, one of the king’s ancestors figured to capitalize on iron and timber. War materials. He made a fortune, rose to prominence in Saratian politics and earned his family a place in the court. Fitting he would try to lead a new dynasty in Sarat with a penchant for war.

I wrapped my left hand around my weapon, tightening around the hardened, gold alloy as a cart made its way towards us upon the road. I spotted keg barrels along the back, a brewer I imagined. Maybe he could sell a pint. We met paths and I stopped the old man for a couple of questions. He answered with a pair of pints one for each of us. Gave it to me free just in the happenstance to keep him company before he continues to Telmen with his brews. I’ve had better, perhaps the froth was too stale or the yeast hadn’t fermented properly, but it warmed into my throat like smooth water. My first beer in many days, I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He informed me of local gossips surrounding the new king and his proclivity to gamble and whore. A war-monger who cheats on his own wife and would use his own people to forfeit his own existence. He admired my taste in women, proclaiming he has a daughter around Rysa’s age and bid us a good day and may Undonus bless us. Cordial. A comforting change given our last outing with alcohol.

We settled to a camp later that evening, as before, I took watch until I could no longer hold my eyes open. Rysa lay in my lap, her arms draped around my trouser legs to use them as a musty pillow. I listened to the distant pawing of verdasniks foraging for their nocturnal foods; indigenous insects said to enhance their pheromones during their mating season. The stench of their pheromones could be smelled by human and beast alike and I only ignored the cries of the female being mounted by her mate in the distance. Wily beasts, warm furs, chewy meat. Pleasant animals.

The crackle of our fire kept others at bay in the open meadows. The long path stretched as far as I could see in the bright moonlight. Clouds shifted across the sky, covering a few patches of stars overhead. I watched as a small streak shot into the nighttime sky only to fade as quickly as it came. I listened to Rysa’s savory breaths, the rising of her chest and backside to her dreams. Not a worry in her world as long as I remained.

I faded into sleep, my eyes bleary. I shut them momentarily, only to startle awake, fighting the action. The fire light blurred the more she breathed. Magick. My eyes closed. I heard her call to me in my dream to lead me into a forest where trees and paths shifted with instantaneous reactions to her movements as she darted through them like a labyrinthine puzzle. I could only follow her voice, narrowly catching a glimpse of her as she left pieces of her clothing behind. I shuffled to gather them only to catch a slight hint of a heel of exposed flesh as she ran from me down another path of trees in the grove.

Rysa slowed, permitting me to approach, I turned and shifted into the open center of her maze of trees and there I dropped to my knees. The sword in my dreams stood on its tip and then I saw the horror more frightening than the enemy in Seuverat. I heard the screams of a pair of small children as a booming voice pronounced his name, destroying the sword before me. A taller man than I approached his destruction, clad in raven armor and heavy cloak burdening down his shoulders. His hair sleeked behind him with a pronouncement to his toned physique fitting tight into his coverings. He appeared calm, calculating even, as the dark banner with an eight-spoked, crimson sunwheel draped behind him. He reached for a sword beside his hip, I found none on me and as he lifted the weapon out of his sheathe I heard my name scream from the steel.

I shifted awake, moving and pawing at the ground to the quiet chirps of morning birds harkening the arrival of the creeping sunlight over the east. I reached to replace my weapon still snug against my chest as the fire died into a slow rising smoke.

“What the fuck was that? What the fuck was that?” I reached for the hilt, twisting and kicking my legs into the grass, crawling away from Rysa as my movements caused her to slowly question the morning arising. I breathed heavy, my eyes widened to her every movement as she lifted to hands and knees, shaking her head within scraggly hair. I reacted to instinct, twisting my hilt to release the cross guards. My teeth clenched, my exhalations tightening to my chest in rapid succession.

She crawled on her knees to me, her oceanic eyes calm as the low tide waves, “Calm yourself.” Her hand reached for mine gripped upon the hilt, I pulled away with the whistle of my sword sliding slowly from its rest a few inches.

“What the fuck did you just do?” I saw nothing but death in her eyes, the red sunwheel encasing her sweet glare as a gasp of blackened ooze puffed from her mouth with every word. Hissing whispers dominated my ears coalescing into a voided shadow circling around me like a snake. The form bound around my hands and torso as it leveraged itself in sentience to shape. A horror of unimaginable pain and death tore into my ears as a pair of crimson triangular eyes shone bright amidst the shadowy sinew.

You have seen the Master. He will come for your kind.

The shadow dissipated as soon as it spoke in a wafting mist of soot particles. I felt soft hands encase me, caressing my head and neck as I lowered my weapon to return to its sheath, the click of the locked guards soothed my head to comfort as I lay it between Rysa’s bosoms.

I avoided sleep the next few days. My legs quivered when I walked and my mouth remained parched. I saw blurs in my vision as I continued to ignore the urge to rest. My muscles ached and my head hurt from the deprivation of sustenance which I chose to delay. I had trained to do this repeatedly, but not longer than a week. I could feel my muscles ache with every movement of the horse, every time I took a swig of our water pouch or anytime I stepped down and tried to walk. I wanted to sleep, but the talking shadow of my vision reminded me sleep was frightening.

Rysa directed us verbally, leading me to steer the horse along the proper paths to the village she was raised. The moon grew dark in its cycle as we continued the following day towards the paths she motioned. We were close, she reminded me with subtle nods when asked. Leaf colors of orange and yellow reminded me the harvest was approaching, the clouds above turned west to east with pushes of winds in the daytime sky. The sunlight had shifted south setting earlier than before, aiming its light to our backs. Air dropped to a cold rush as the clouds above whisked out of view. Leaves rustled, falling to the ground. I felt a chill.

I pulled the horse to stop and hefted my legs over its back, landing on my feet. I gripped the hilt of my blade, something seemed out of place. Another wind rustled the leaves followed by an eerie calm. Rysa stepped down, her leather boots crunching in the grassy road as we continued into the deep woods. I could feel it colder, my cloak clinging to my body as my breath vapors rolled ahead of me. A fog grew in front of me, flushing through the woods like spindly gray ooze filling in the void. I twisted the hilt of my blade.