Tristian sighed. Sitting in judgment of Lemair's criminal element was never pleasant, but some cases gave him the urge to strike his head against the nearest wall. "Back again, Arbal?"
Arbal looked down. He was slim and clean-shaven, the sort of man ones eyes would pass right over. It had made him an ideal petty thief, pickpocket and fence of stolen goods. He never took much at any one time, but over the last year he had taken in enough gold to make the bandits on the frontier jealous. "I'm sorry, your worship. I don't enjoy being a thief. I don't! But ever since the Stag Lord burnt down my farm, well things are hard."
"And the plot of land the crown arranged for you to rent?"
He shifted from foot to foot. "Well, farming's harder than it looks. I've got to get back in practice, you know. And a man gets used certain things."
Tristian pinched his nose and looked Arbal up and down. Nyrissa might have severed his connection to Sarenrae and cost him his wings, but he had retained an uncanny ability to read people's hearts. Arbal wasn't like so many of the miscreants he faced in battle who would be happy to say anything in an attempt to save their necks. Disgust and shame clung to him like a well-worn cloak. And yet, Tristian saw no intention to actually stop stealing. "Your actions have caused great harm to the people. I order you to be taken and flogged. Three strokes instead of the usual five."
The color drained from Arbal's face. "F—flogged? I thought you priests of Sarenrae were all about mercy?"
"The Healing Light doesn't turn away anyone who seeks redemption. But you must actually seek it and not just feel bad about what you're doing. I hope the pain helps you reevaluate your choices." He nodded to the guards. "Take him away and see that there's a priest available for his healing. Your purpose isn't permanent damage."
The rest of the day was mercifully routine but long and Tristian didn't so much fall asleep as collapse into bed. He would sleep and then visit Arbal and make sure he wasn't gravely injured and try to—
"Are you tired, my skylark? You've gained great responsibility since we last spoke."
Tristian went cold. He stood in the ruins of the keep Nyrissa always used when they needed to speak in the waking world. The air smelled of earth and trees, but wrong somehow, as if nature was afflicted by some terrible rot. Nyrissa looked as she always did, beautiful but with eyes as cold as the frost. He had hoped that after he had led Munira to the Kingdom of the Cleansed that Nyrissa would be content with the portals he had set up long ago. Obviously not. He bowed his head. There was nothing to do but get it over with. "What do you want?"
"No pleasantries? Very well." Her voice lost the false sweetness. "A dark power is rising beyond the edges of the barony. Even now, the citizens of Varnhold have vanished without a trace. Don't look at me like that. It wasn't my doing. No, what intrigues me is why the people decided to leave. There is one artifact with the power to summon so many people: the Oculus of Abaddon. I want you to retrieve it for me."
"What?" Tristian forgot his fear. The Oculus of Abaddon had been created by Charon, Horseman of Death, eons ago as a gift for a servant-king. Anyone willing to rip out their eye and replace it with the gem was granted great powers of divination and the ability to summon every intelligent being for miles around as long as they intended some horrible fate to befall the victims. It was the purest and most powerful manifestation of daemons' desire to destroy all life. "Have you gone mad? Or is your depravity so great that you would resort to the foulest evil to fill your Apology?" He was shouting, but didn't care.
"I will make use of whatever I need to achieve my goals. But set your mind at ease. I have no wish to repeat what was done to Varnhold. I merely wish to use its divination powers. I...lost something."
"What could be so important that you'd consort with daemons to get it?" Tristian took a deep breath and forced himself to calm. Sarenrae had become divine by fighting against a god who wanted to destroy the world. He had to at least try to steer Nyrissa away from this path. "See reason, I beg you. The Oculus has an intelligence of its own. Whatever you think you'll gain will turn to ashes if you use it."
"Everything I have is already ashes," Nyrissa murmured. She raised her head, and her tinkling laugh echoed through the keep even as her lips twisted into a cruel smile. "Is the skylark concerned for my soul? How charming. I will have the Oculus. You and your baroness will help me retrieve it." Her voice dropped, low and deadly. "Or I'll take more than your wings. Are you so eager to taste mortality?"
His throat closed. Death. It was such a final, cold thing. He didn't know how mortals endured the certainty that they would end. And if Nyrissa had the power to sever his connection to Sarenrae, then she could ensure that he would not return to his goddess in death. Once more he would be compelled to serve as an agent of darkness. "I will do as you command."
"Good. Come here when you have it." She snapped her fingers. "Wake now and don't fail me."
Tristian's eyes flew open. His body felt even heavier than it usually did when Nyrissa visited him in dreams. Why had he investigated that strange presence all those years ago? He had brought only death since entering Nyrissa's service, and now he would do even worse. A true cleric of Sarenrae would destroy an artifact of such foul darkness. And yet to do so would be the end of him. He felt torn in two.
He made his way to the throne room to find Munira holding a letter and looking more sickly than usual. "Something has happened in Varnhold. We have to investigate."
If only he were stronger. If only…
Vordakai's tomb was worse than Tristian had imagined. Evil itself seemed to press down on him as they wandered the moldering halls. Every step was an effort as what was left of the deva in him screamed at the wrongness of this place. His companions were hardly better, even the tieflings. Kaessi, mercifully in one of her kinder moods, stared down at the oozy film covering the floor. "Even the water here is corrupt. I thought I had seen the limits of darkness, but I was wrong. What kind of being is this Vordakai? Even devils usually have some purpose."
"He's a tyrant. The worst kind. " Munira hunched slightly. She hadn't seemed right since they had entered the Valley of the Dead. The ashen pallor of her skin was deeper, the sores more pronounced. Her voice was quiet. "This sort who will destroy lives for spite alone. Not everyday evil like the Stag Lord or Hargulka that you could pity. This has to be ripped out root and branch."
She tried a door, and they found themselves in a small, circular room. The malevolent aura stole his breath. On the wall were paintings that depicted what he already knew: Vordakai receiving the Oculus from Charon and replacing his eye with it. Using it to bind his empire with chains of horror. Munira gripped the wall. "The Oculus of Abaddon," she whispered. "I suspected it was the source of his power, but I had hoped that I was wrong."
"You know of it?"
"I do." Her smile was a terrible thing, almost as bad as Nyrissa's. "You might say that it's a family interest. I feel the thing calling to me, like a voice that I can't shut out. Telling me to destroy as much life as I can. It doesn't care who."
"Well, don't do that!" Linzi's eyes were wide as she looked between Munira and Kaessi. "Is that normal for you guys? Because you're, well..."
"Because we have evil blood in our veins?" Kaessi finished for her. "It can be, when we're near artifacts of great evil. Especially those connected to our fiendish forebearer. But the choice to act on the feeling always remains."
"It just had to be daemonic." Munira straightened with difficulty. "The choice does always remain. And my choice is what it's always been: life and health for everyone. Do you hear me, Vordakai? Life! I'll take the Oculus and neither you nor anyone else will use it to harm anyone ever again. "
Such resolve. Tristian wished again that he were somewhere else, that he had never heard Nyrissa's name. He was a deva, a soldier created by Sarenrae herself, and this tiefling was more committed to the fight against evil than he was. "You're going to try to destroy it? The Oculus is more powerful than anything we've ever faced."
"I know. Believe me, I know. I want to be safely back in Tuskdale under the covers. But if we don't fight evil then who will? I claim the land. I claim its pain. I claim its death if need be. Let's go."
But she grabbed his arm as the others filed out. Tristian looked at her in surprise. She rarely touched him and in fact communicated with him through messages whenever possible. An instinctive revulsion to the angelic being he used it be. Her expression was serious, almost pleading. "I need you to promise me something, Tristian."
Hair stood up on the back of his neck. "Yes, your grace?"
"Now isn't the time for such formality. You may be right. I may not be able to face Vordakai. I don't know what trying to destroy an artifact from Abaddon will do to me. Nothing good." Her nails dug into his arm hard enough to make him gasp. "But you aren't connected to Charon. Promise me that you'll defeat Vordakai and destroy this evil."
No. No No. Sarenrae must truly hate him to punish him so. "I'm not as strong as you think I am. I wouldn't fare any better against Vordakai or the Oculus than you."
"Of course you're strong. You always see the best in people, always gives them a second chance if there's the slightest hope for them. I would have had Arbal thrashed the first time he started thieving again."
"You know about that?" Hysteria tore through his gut. He had almost forgotten the petty criminal. What had Tristian said to him? He had to seek redemption instead of merely feel guilty. In retrospect, perhaps the flogging had been too harsh. "I merely acted as a just magistrate. And I did end in punishing him."
"It's hard to be just. And yet, you are. You're the only one I can trust to look evil in the face and smash it to pieces."
"Thank you for your trust in me." What else could he say?
He felt no better as they trudged ever closer to Vordakai's chambers. Every room brought forth evidence of some new depravity or some new monstrosity to face. Depravity and monstrosity only possible because of the artifact that Nyrissa expected him to bring to her. She must enjoy making him blaspheme Sarenrae.
His hand found the scimitar at his side as his gaze landed on Kaessi picking her way down the hall. Always a choice, even for those such as her. He could choose to act as a true priest of Sarenrae, destroy the Oculus, and face whatever punishment Nyrissa would devise. Forego any chance of returning to the Upper Planes. For those who would not remember his name with honor once his treason was discovered.
It was too much to ask of any man or deva. Surely there had to be some lesser kindness he could perform to prove his remorse and set things right for the blood he had shed?
Why should there be? The thought was a gentle but insistent whisper. Many of Sarenrae's servants have given their lives to slay or seal those who seek destruction. If you're truly sorry, then repent and take your punishment as atonement. Be what you have preached.
It was so much easier to give a sermon than to live it. His conscience was right about one thing. He knew that a true priest of Sarenrae would suffer anything rather than let an artifact of such evil fall into Nyrissa's hands. He just didn't know where he could find the strength to do itg when he had already failed so many times. Perhaps Munira would take the choice from him by doing the right thing as she had so many times before.
The great doors opened and they stood before Vordakai. He and his raven seemed to swallow what little light remained. All lights except one. The Oculus of Abaddon gleamed where the cyclops' eye should have been, the flames of perdition given solid form.
The raven cawed. "She has come, great Vordakai."
"Has she?" The voice was a deep rattle. Vordakai looked at the orb in his hands. Tendrils of light swirled and eddied like hands beating on glass. "I kept Maegar's soul because I imagined he would be a useful servant but you, you will be much better."
"Trapping souls? Your reign ends now." Munira unstoppered a vial and drank. Her skin scaled over and already clawlike hands grew and sharpened as spikes sprouted from her body. It was a transformation that had sent more than one villain running for his life.
The undead were not so easily cowed. Vordakai raised a hand and Munira froze where she was. "Do you imagine that you can defy me? My power was given to me by Charon himself. Fall, scion of his servant, and know your true master."
"I defy you, Vordakai." Tristian's voice sounded loud in his ears, with a hint of his old power. He knew the curse to break his enemy. Vordakai had staked so much power on his dreaded name and on the Oculus that they were chinks in his armor. "By the power of the Dawnflower, I defy you. No more shall your evil plague these lands. I claim your power. I claim your eye. Remain in the grave never to rise!"
Tristian charged forward and seized the Oculus with both hands as Vordakai let out a howl of pain and rage. The gem was burning hot and Tristian cast it to the ground almost by instinct. Munira still didn't move and the others were too busy rushing the weakened cyclops to pay him heed. The choice would be his alone. Pick up the Oculus and bring it to Nyrissa or crush it under his heel. Slave or champion. Life or death.
One must seek redemption. He was already severed from Sarenrae. But if he turned his back on her by choice there was truly no hope for him. "Sarenrae, guide me into your light. I will face my punishment." He stomped his foot. The room filled with light so bright that he could see nothing else and his eyes were filled with fire that sent him to his knees.
In this pain, find atonement. And in atonement find the path back to my side.
No, it couldn't be. Nyrissa had broken the connection with Sarenrae. Tristian had—
Is a nymph more powerful than a goddess? Pride blinded you, so blindness you shall suffer. Go now. Your labors have only just begun.
Tears fell down Tristian's face. One must seek redemption, but that only meant that redemption could be found.