Blackspire Tower

When the sun had risen, casting a dim glow on the horizon, Liel buried Torres’s body underneath the snow. She couldn’t break the frozen soil, but she thought she might at least hide his corpse so that it wouldn’t be allowed to rise once found by Horror.

Before that, she had taken his eyes, placing them in a satchel she had also taken from his corpse. A servant of Leter shouldn’t mind such theft, although, due to recent revelations, that might not have been the case. But he was dead. He could still serve a purpose for the sake of the mission. Liel thought he might have liked that.

The corpses of the Hooded Vassals had disappeared alongside the Horror, having been corrupted and becoming Irregularities. Maybe this wasn’t something they minded too much either.

Torres’s blood still remained on her hands. Before she moved to wash it away with snow, she smeared it with her palm along the side of her face, obscuring her rune. She couldn’t just change her face as Morrigan had, although it would be a great convenience to have such a power.

“So, I am alone once more…” She whispered softly, glancing at the road ahead. Past the encampment used by the Hooded Vassals was a long dirt road that stretched into the distance veiled in fog, likely used often by carts that would drive the snow clear away.

To where it led, Liel had her suspicions. Ciaphas had spoken of a village that surrounded the ‘tower’ he supposedly lived in. If it was the case that there was really a village in Hel where people lived, she wondered how it would seem. Was it a place of torment, somewhere where people were forced to work lest they be forcibly corrupted? Ciaphas had said that there were people who didn’t necessarily follow the False Lord, but could a General of that Deity be believed readily?

She just had to see it for herself.

In any case, this might be where he chose to retreat. He might be able to lose Laisson amidst the crowds of people that he had spoken of.

After searching the encampment for remnants of rations, of which she found few left behind, she started down the road towards the supposed village of the General. When the sun had finally risen, casting a dim veil of light over the landscape, she was finally able to properly take in the sight of Hel coldest quadrant, Faust.

Mountainscapes stretched out on either side of her, and although they stretched almost as high as the clouds, there were still even larger stone walls behind each of the stretches of mountains. The corridors of the labyrinth that spanned as large as the world of Hel was truly massive. Had anyone ever sought to climb these walls, she wondered? It must be far easier to travel along the top of the walls than through the treacherous landscape below.

The cold wind still persisted, and although her cloak and furs had been soaked with blood, she retained her warmth, pulling it up closer to her cheeks.

At midday, she reached the village. Her fingers had all but frozen, her cheeks and nose a bright-red colour. Steam was the first to signal her arrival, wafts of smoke from chimneys cascading through the bright-blue sky. The snowfall ceased, blankets of white giving way to fields of grass that had already begun to thaw. While the air remained cold, it was like an entirely new season had opened its way to her.

The town surrounding the Blackspire tower was rich with life, as Ciaphas had once spoken of. In pastures where the frost had already begun to melt, sheep and cattle grazed, led by shepherds with simple wooden staffs, who would sit in silence and play their whistles for their charges. Through the dirt streets mottled with straw-thatched buildings, children happily ran with no care for the inconsiderate nature of life, free of worry, and their mothers watched with loving gazes as they hung up clothes on wires outside their homes. Father toiled beside them, cutting wood for the fire or tanning hides so that their wives might work with them.

‘This is the territory of the False Lord’s General? Is this land of Horror really this peaceful? It’s just like I first perceived Estelle…’

For a moment, her heart relaxed, and she felt entirely out of place.

Liel reached a hand down to the ground, procuring a handful of soil before smearing it on the side of her face, intermingling with the blood and presenting her as if she were just a traveler who had not washed in days. She thought that might be a more acceptable appearance than a bloodstained warrior in such a village.

In the center of the town, a large spiraling black tower seemed to pierce the sky, enshrouded by tufts of cotton clouds. This was certainly the tower where she would find Ciaphas.

Hooded Vassals like she had seen before were seen wandering through the streets, keeping close watch on the horizon, but they seemed to pay Liel no mind as if she didn’t stick out at all. She quickly walked past them, careful not to draw their attention as she approached the Blackspire tower in the center of the village.

Soon, she came to a large rowed village center, where dozens of carts and stalls had been set up so that the villagers might trade and barter. Traders waltzed around the street, hawking and drawing the attention of others towards their wares. Many times, Liel was approached, eyes focusing on the blade at her side as if eager to procure it, but she politely denied their advances and continued.

She thought if she would stop that she might be drawn in, and subsequently forget about the mission ahead. She had come to kill a man, and thought it pertinent to ignore the peaceful lives of those around her. If she viewed them any longer, she would curse her own stroke of fate that had led her to that very moment, and would break down where she stood, unable to take another step.

After a short while, she reached the base of the tower, where she was finally greeted with something she had expected from the very start. A large amorphous figure of pitch-black liquid guarded the gateway at the base of the tower, disallowing her entry. It was Horror, with a dozen red-beaded eyes that flitted in every direction as it kept lookout. She walked up cautiously, standing before the beast, but despite her previous experiences with such creatures, it didn’t show much interest or aggravation towards her.

Was this really how Horror should act?

Liel glanced up at the writhing Horror before her. Despite its petrifying aura and its disgusting apparel, it seemed almost… insignificant. If she could bear to move her hand towards her blade while looking at the Revenant, Laisson, then was this creature really all that terrifying?

She reached towards the satchel at her waist, procuring the set of eyes she had taken from Torres’s corpse. As soon as the scent of these rotting pupils wafted through the air, the Horror took keen interest in Liel.

The creature lunged forward, wrapping itself around Liel’s hand. A slimy, warm sensation twisted and pulsated against her hand, feeling the eyes disappear from her grasp as if absorbed into nothingness. It retracted soon after, looking straight down at Liel with its dotted red eyes, as if dissatisfied.

Despite having already eaten Torres’s eyes, the monstrous pitch-black blob extended a shaky limb, a small pointer finger emerging to point straight at Liel’s left eye. She trembled as she realised what it was asking. It wasn’t Torres’s eyes that the creature desired.

What was this show of intelligence? Was it a primal instinct and desire to hunger, or was it genuinely asking for a trade? If she gave the creature her eye, would it finally allow her to pass?

‘No, I should have really used that opportunity when giving it Torres’s eyes to run straight past it… now that opportunity has been wasted. Should I go retrieve the eyes of one of the townspeople…? But even if they exist under the dominion of the False Lord, aren’t these people really just people…?’

Liel reached two fingers up to her eyelid, grimacing. ‘If I really wanted to get past, I should create the opportunity myself… to complete the mission… at all costs…’

She dug her fingers underneath her eyeball, wincing as she did so. It was a pain unparalleled, feeling as if it would burst inside of its socket. But she persisted, and soon, with the bit of force necessary to sever the nerve, blood began to spill from the empty socket, coating her cheek and intermingling with the soil. In her open palm, she held her eye, formerly her left, and presented it to the creature.

“Eat it, bastard… I’ll come back for you later…” She grimaced. Her remaining eye had filled with a fury, partly of a sense of loss but also that she had wasted her first opportunity and had to resort to such measures. If only she had been a lesser person, she could have killed one of the townspeople and retained all of herself…

The Horror reached out with its spindly finger and pierced the eyeball with its claw, drawing it towards its slowly-opening maw before devouring it in a single swift gulp.

She prepared to sprint past the creature, but to her surprise, it started to move aside. This terrifying act was not pleasant, rather shocking. This monster she had thought mindless had really just enacted a deal with her…

‘Were we wrong? Does Horror really contain a semblance of intelligence? It’s long been suspected that the False Lord has some mind of his own, rather than the mindlessness that is portrayed. He plans too well in his attacks for him to be wholly lacking a mind. If this is the case, then Horror, which shares his will, should retain some of this skill…’

Nevertheless, Liel continued past the beast towards the staircase that spiraled up the length of the Blackspire tower. She wiped the blood and dirt away from her cheek, her rune shimmering in order to calm her turmoiling emotions. After a lengthy climb, she reached the entrance to the top floor of the tower. If Ciaphas wasn’t here, then it would have been for nothing.

But if he was…

Liel grasped at the hilt of her blade as she pushed open the wooden door, its iron hinges creaking as she was bathed in warmth. At the edge of the room, a fireplace crackled and danced, a figure sat in an armchair beside it. He slowly turned his head to look towards the door and smiled.

“Ciaphas.” Liel tersely greeted him as she entered the room, glancing at him with her remaining eye.

“I didn’t know whether to expect you or to grieve your loss.” Ciaphas smiled warmly as he swiveled the chair to face her. “Welcome to Lonlond, Ms. Astalette.”

“Is that the name of this place? I was pleasantly surprised to see it. I didn’t think that such a place could exist in Hel…”

“Then you’ve only seen the warzones, I’m sure. In truth, Hel is as much a world as all others. Habitable, gentle, loving. No one would look at a battlefield and think the entire country to be that way, it is only because of the teachings of the Seminary that Hel is thought to be a monstrous place. Some regions, surely, but nonetheless a good place.”

He leaned his head on his hand, gesturing to the seat beside him as he continued. “Did you decide last night? That you couldn’t bear to abandon your teachings?”

Liel sat down in the seat across from Ciaphas, her expression still and calm. “There were some things I said that were definitely the truth…”

“Such as?”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to find peace if I continue to be a Crusader. But I also don’t think I can live peacefully if I live idly. I will feel guilty of my inaction…”

“So, you remain unconvinced. You should listen to what I have to say, and decide for yourself once and for all.”

“I betrayed your trust, but you would still offer me another chance?”

“I betrayed the trust of my comrades, and they gave me no second chance. I have the sense to be a better person in this regard. So, would you care to hear my story?”

Liel nodded her head.

“I have the time…”