The child saw the streets of Sintorino aflame.
He hadn't felt the warmth of the fire, nor seen its light, but he could see, for the goddess showed him. Her gift, Her blessing, Her warning… All of it was for nought. The child, then, cursed the visions, for they had doomed his voice never to be believed.
The first bell had tolled, and trails of smoke already painted the skies above Dilmun.
A jaded Alba thought not so fondly of home, worried about the whereabouts of his parents.
Arse dampened by the melting snow, he sat on the roof of his wooden shack, as it let him better see what happened below. He has had no vision since he left the estate—and they weren't necessary anymore. From the tall peaks of Aethercrust, the war made an entertaining show for the entire continent to watch.
The Republic of Dilmun was, in crude terms, fucked.
Now, even before his fellow soldiers had left him behind to revolt alone, or his parents had him leave House Prudenzio for the disgrace he became, everybody knew how fucked the republic was. The Golden Book had been closed to the people, leaving only the nobility to take part in the machinations of politics, and even small houses like Alba's couldn't play (or pay, more precisely) into the corrupt system.
Through his visions, the goddess had tried time and time again to warn House Prudenzio, and he felt Her touch in his dreams. His parents never listened. His friends mocked him. But he didn't care. Reaching the goddess became his calling. Perhaps it was to come back home triumphant, flaunting an "I told you so" flag on his divine chariot, or, in some megalomaniac ambition to restore House Prudenzio and take the failing republic on his shoulders as Duke…
He sighed.
It didn't matter. He would speak to the gods, at least once, if only for his sanity.
Alba jumped off the shack's roof and onto the snowy ground with a soft poumf.
The monks of Little Argiscio had very little time to eat their meal after the first bell had tolled. He rapidly made his way to the canteen.
"Thank you," he said as the dutiful nun poured his cup. He would need a potent dose of gratitude not to find their water so bitter. He bowed his head and took a sip in front of her. She smiled as he did so and bowed her head back.
A dance of hypocrisy, as they both knew how human and maraj tastes differed.
He went from one table to the other, throwing a fistful of dried fish and bread crusts into his jar before he closed its lid. Taking a corner of the room for himself, he sat down on the cold floor and enjoyed a terribly meagre feast for a man his size. A disgrace for his noble blood, yet, destitute as he now was, he had no grounds for complaint.
In the water's reflection, he could have sworn his blonde hair had gotten darker as he became thinner, and even the green of his eyes seemed to have lost a bit of its glow (the massive bags hanging under said eyes certainly didn't help).
In the idle times between breakfast and prayers, strange thoughts occupied Alba's head. Today, he wondered why and how the maraj grew hair. Not only did they already have scales, better fitted for their natural aquatic environment, but the hair could theoretically get inside their neck or side gills, hindering their breathing under water. This evolutionary perk made very little sense, but a fellow monk once told him that "No sense makes sense" without further elaborating.
That's how the maraj approached the world.
They didn't seek to make sense of it, only to explain it. It's also probably how their knowledge-focused faith came to be.
When the second bell tolled, Alba's teeth were still struggling against the last piece of dry fish in his jar, its skin crumbling like that of crunchy, rolled caramel wafers, but without the sweet taste. How he missed House Prudenzios' gourmet courses.
Unlike his eager peers, Alba stood last and took his time on the path to Lire's temple. Head-priest Horatio wouldn't even expect him to attend after their last argument, one-sided as it was.
The scattered shacks of Little Argiscio sank under the weather, their dirty brown doors and windows barely visible beneath a thick white veil. The temple of Lire looked like the only building the convent bothered to keep clear of the incessant snow.
Alba and the other monks huddled inside the small temple, spreading in a multi-layered circle around a stone statue bearing the likeness of the goddess. It depicted a petite girl with long wavy hair and draconic scales under her eyes. She wore the same conventical robes they all did—minus the modifications made to accommodate maraj biology—and, in the cup of her hand, she held onto a big, round crystal.
All knelt before the Lady of Purification, throwing pinches of salt at her bare feet. After their ceremonious display, head-priest Horatio rose, giving a quick surprised glance at Alba before he began his sermon, walking around the statue.
The "scholarly" part of maraj culture always came second to Lire's teachings, as they were its foundation. The reverent monks kept their eyes closed during Horatio's recitations, repeating wishes and prayers along the way. Alba didn't. He thought the lectures' main purpose to be impressing the novices and newcomers to the convent and so didn't bother with ceremony.
As an appreciable bonus, however, one's knee became quite resistant to pain simply by attending those lengthy lectures, lasting for hours on end, and culminating with a lament of dying cults.
"Finally, let us pay our last tributes, today, to those of Morna," Horatio said, hands clasped behind his back.
As the head-priest, he led the convent with a unique charm. With a tall and square frame, his thick brown beard—a colour that married itself perfectly coupled with the Maraj's aquamarine skin—and a set of long eyebrows trailing after him like catfish whiskers as he walked, he instantly distinguished himself from his often beardless peers.
"Their people fought against the harshness of the cold, ran and hid constantly, forsaking light, forsaking hope," he continued.
He also often improvised himself a showman. This time, he produced an ethereal scale as he spoke, forging it from thin-air with his brilliant mana, and let it slam with a loud thump on the ground. The praying monks then opened their eyes, watching the scale slowly tip to the left.
"As their fate, and faith, hung in the balance, the Mornites [1]delivered for their eventual successors a two-pronged warning: 'Ask, and you shall receive'… Yet fear consumed every aspects of their lives, bringing the malevolence of Morna upon them, not as a blessing this time, but as a curse. She became a nightmare of their own making."
The swinging, unbalanced scale tipped to the right, making it stable again. Horatio pointed a finger at his creation.
"This, is your calling, my friends. With knowledge comes power, one we can use to tip the scales for the livings. Let us never forget it. We keep the knowledge, we keep the faiths, so that we keep the balance. For Lire, our Lady of Purification, and Her hallowed Argiscio."
"For Lire, and Her hallowed Argiscio." The monks repeated in unison.
Some monks departed right away, while some (mostly the newcomers) stayed to shake their head-priest's webbed hands. The crowd thinned until none but Alba remained. Most monks spent their time in silence and duty, a silence particularly heavy when he was around. Horatio, though, really liked to talk, perhaps too much.
"Personally, I found the Mornites' fate quite fascinating," Horatio said after clearing his throat. "What did you think?"
"Does it matter what I think?" Alba replied, "no matter the faith, it starts and ends with the same old story. Mortals searching for a spiritual band-aid, living short, inconsequential lives, then hoping to get rewarded because they kissed a tree or some other bullshit."
Horatio nodded in acknowledgement as if those were the thoughtful insights of a fellow scholar. Even if their opinion and tone completely differed, the maraj priest acted more of a gentleman about it than Alba ever could.
"Morna, so far, is the first god to make the smallest amount of sense in its behaviour, and it is to our detriment. But still, I am yet to find true meaning behind any of these written words and records."
"But what else is there, child?" Horatio intoned, scratching the edges of his beard. "There comes a time when we, mortal as we are, must acknowledge our place in the universe. We're of very little consequence to this world, as you suggested. What rights do you, or any of us, have to demand audience with the divine?"
"What if we just want to? Need to? Doesn't Lire calls us not to be swayed by our emotions, or even our faith? I guess it takes a red-blooded man to demystify your goddess' words and hold her to her own standards."
Horatio laughed, and he only laughed when he argued. That's how you knew he dearly loved to.
"But isn't your query all about emotion? You do not want simply for meaning, you want for power. Yes, you, child, are still obsessed with soulbinding."
Alba clicked his tongue as the head-priest re-ignited their argument from last week. But of course, he was obsessed with soulbinding, as every mortal should be.
Why did they have to live meaningless, mind-numbing lives if there was more to the world?
Plus, danger lurked for his people in the near future, as foreshadowed by his childhood dreams. If the gods, just as they did when he was but little, called, he had to answer; he had to find a way… He was obsessed, but he somehow felt offended that Horatio couldn't see past it, and understand the logic in his approach.
"It is no obsession, Father!" He snapped. "But if the gods are truly out there, trying to convey to us an important message, shouldn't we inquire? Shouldn't we—"
"For a young land-dweller, you're stubborn as a sea dragon." Horatio interrupted as he walked to his desk and sat. He scribbled on his sheet as he continued. "But it is all right, child. You still have many years ahead of you, and the importance of faith will one day strike you with all of its wisdom. Lire has brought you here for a reason, I reckon. She'll guide you on your path to absolute knowledge when the time is right."
Alba scoffed at Horatio's self-satisfied smile and stormed out of the temple without further words. You don't care because Lire never appeared to greet any of you, he thought.
Outside, the trail of smoke coming from Eredelsol, on the mainland of Dilmun, had disappeared for now. Alba walked to his shack, his feet cold against the snowy path. Before he had another boring day of religious readings, he liked to contemplate the maraj handymen at work.
Fools…
From birth, the marajs came to be with the strength to carry logs of hardwood twice their size on their backs, and with such an affinity to magic that even the arcane-less man he was could feel the wind shift from afar as they forged shovels to plough through the snow.
They used their tremendous power for mining, lumber, or other menial tasks any old plebeian could do. If he had even a sliver of their power, their longevity, their everything, he would be someone by now; not a lone soul rotting away and chasing ghosts in a monastery. The maraj were powerful but somehow inoffensive creatures, and it pissed him off.
Then, on his front door, a most unwelcomed surprise pissed him off further. It wore a white hooded conventical robe cut at the sides and revealing a set of rib-gills.
"You know, I wonder why Father likes to hear you ramble so much," Cartha said with her arms crossed, and leaning with a foot against the door. Her pose looked awkward as ever; her caudal fin was stuck behind her back, tangling a few blonde locks when it twitched. Plus, she must have stood there, posing, for a long time as he took the long way home. "You both always sound the same too. It's so boring."
"I take it someone's been eavesdropping," Alba said. He pushed the door and watched a surprised Cartha almost fall on her back. "I'm not in the mood to take your shit today. Scram." And with that, he slammed the door shut behind him. Of course, Cartha had already slipped inside. Alba sat on his bed, watching her sniff around in his shack, turning over tomes and papers.
"Fucking hell, Cartha, what do you want?"
She turned back and smiled. "Finally you ask!" she said. "Well, I've come to say that Father is probably right, again. And—"
"Great," he interrupted, "I agree. Now, shove it."
"…AND that I'm always here to help, you know, with the soulbinding. It just so happens that I have another lead. Very promising, you can trust me." He couldn't.
Over the years, none of her "promising leads" had been more than smoke blown up his backside.
Yet it was true that, even if it pained him to admit it, beneath her tendency to play him for a fool, she seemed every bit as interested in soulbinding as he was. She was also beautiful and, weak-minded as Alba was, he found himself begrudgingly following her whimsical fantasies and illuminations, often to uncomfortable ends.
They both knew that scholars all over the world had started contemplating—albeit with heavy scepticism—the forbidden art of soulbinding as a real phenomenon. And from his first year in the monastery, she had decided to "help".
On that first year, she had him inhale Argentan mushroom spores, supposed to have you converse with the divine spirit of Lire, then, in later years, she had him put his feet on scorching embers to gain audience with Ne-Ro-Ku, the God of the forge.
Her tricks had only ever managed to bind him either to pain or to the hard mattress of his bed. He eyed her with a frown full of doubt.
"Hey, don't look at me like that! Listen, even if we were to fail again, I can at least… promise you a good time on this one."
"I think we have a very different understanding of what a 'good time' is."
"Nah, I know what you like by now." She winked, sparking no reaction but a blank stare from him. " Anyway, are you up for it?"
"Wha-? Of course not. Up for what? I don't even know whatever it is you want from me."
"Hmm…" Her eyes trailed off of him and onto the sword he had sheathed in a corner, near the window. "What I can say is that I'll need me that sword, then all you have to do is stay there and wait. I'll bring you back the goods in no time, promised."
Alba had said too much already. He barely had the strength to fight her endless advances any longer, so he simply gestured toward the sword, much to Cartha's enjoyment. She was beaming; anything to get her out.
"I don't even care what you're planning to do, just… Bring me back the sword afterwards, alright?"
By the time he had finished his sentence, she was already halfway out of the shack with the sheathed blade in hand.
"Don't you worry, friend." Friend, she said.
Not only were they not friends, a friend would at least care to know his name.
"Look for me as soon as the moon settles in. I'll be at your door, or your window, who knows. Ciao!"
She then disappeared with his father's only gift, but, oh well, what good was a sword you were never going to use anyway?
To no one's surprise, she was late.
The sun had now dipped under the horizon, while the moon gave him just enough light to read the last line of his tome.
As expected, today's reading wasn't particularly thrilling, and reinforced the sad reality that Cartha was his only hope of ever finding out anything about soulbinding.
She later came in through the window, way past Alba's bedtime, and woke him with a heavy thud on his bedside table. He turned in his bed and saw a bloodied Cartha, panting, and with her hand resting on a long, thin bottle of wine wrapped in soft cloth.
The label underneath the cloth read: "Defrutum".
A half-asleep Alba asked the girl where she had been, and while shrugging off the question, she whispered, "You can thank me later," before vaulting over the window with a grunt.
Well, he thought, this time around, it isn't too hard to understand what to do with the artifact.
The bottle's cork came out easily. The religious nut-jobs from whom Cartha had bought the artifact must have tampered with it, as is frequent in cultist circles.
"Defrutum" didn't ring any bells in Alba's extensive knowledge of religions, and after the mushroom incident, he became wary of inhaling anything Cartha had brought him.
He took a tentative sip, wincing in anticipation of the worst and…nothing.
Not a good nothing, mind you. Not falling limp on his bed from the vintage relieved him, but he also didn't feel any divine presence.
He took another sip, and another, trying to remember the delirious feeling stuck in his chest during his childhood dreams and visions. All he felt there was a much-welcomed warmth. She hadn't lied, this time. The fruity, sugary-sweet beverage was a good time amidst the bitter river water they had every day at the convent.
Only after having indulged in more than half the bottle did he start tasting a touch of metal in his mouth.
His mind numbed faster than it had a right to, even intoxicated. The delirious feeling came; even after all these years, he wouldn't mistake it for any other feeling. Alongside it came something new: cold. Stiffness, too. He held onto his chest and tried to rise, only to fall on his knees.
"Poison," a voice spoke in his mind. "I'm afraid your friend has poisoned you." That voice—
"You... You came back," Alba spoke through gritted teeth, his voice hoarse. "I knew... you'd come back."
The voice didn't answer. He had heard it before, of course. It influenced plenty of his choices as a teen.
And now that he thought about it, each of these choices led him further into his demise.
As he lay in his bed, heart beating louder and slower with each painful second, he tried crying out for help but to no avail.
"Come…back…" he then whispered to the goddess, before darkness came.
[1] Those worshipping the goddess "Morna", also known now as "The Reaper".