God Rising: The Cult of Ainz
Written by: AtheistBasementDragon
Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots
Chapter 204: Hard Blows
...Kami Miyako...Dungeon...
"So, what else can you tell me?" The interrogator asked anxiously as he rubbed his hands together with anticipation.
Malach sighed, "Look, I didn't know her for that long. I only met Moira in the few weeks before we both volunteered for that suicide mission. We talked, we ate, we drank, I learned things about her. But... I wasn't a lover or anything, we were just friends. She gave birth to a son, moved around a lot after she survived the invasion, then ended up in Carne where she volunteered for the army. I never met her boy."
"But surely she told you much about him, every parent boasts of their child!" He said enthusiastically.
Malach rubbed his forehead, "Goan, well she described him as a grave, serious child. Not very emotional, but crazy strong and very smart, considering his youth. He's probably still there, probably with her, since I managed to get her out by taking her place and coming here. Look, I've told you everything, you now know I don't know anything about the Sorcerer King because I was never with him. Your wife was. I don't know more about her or your child than I've already told you."
The dim flickering of the candle on the cheap, rough, wooden table between them cast both their faces into dancing shadows. The chains on Malach's wrists were no longer as tight, thanks to the ever thinning body he had for himself.
"You're going to ask for something, aren't you?" Moira's former husband asked with a narrow look.
"No, I'm going to offer something, in exchange for letting me walk out of here." Malach replied, to which the interrogator responded by sitting back in his chair.
"Go on. I'm listening." He folded his arms in front of his chest and stared at his prisoner.
"Give me something to write with and write on, I'll write a letter for you, telling Moira that you let me go, that because of you, I walked out of here alive. I doubt she'll forgive you for abandoning her, but she might at least let you see your son if she knows you spared the one who saved her life." Malach suggested thoughtfully. "Then just let me walk out, and you can tell people I died under torture, or just make up some phony piece of information, or just tell people I died during an escape attempt, whatever."
Moira's former husband reached into his pouch for both as fast as he could move his hands and an hour later, Malach found himself walking out into Kami Miyako. As he looked around at the soul crushing poverty, watched two men people fighting over a scrap of leather, while a third man chewed on such a scrap and a fourth lay not far away, doubled over groaning and clutching at his stomach, he wondered to himself, 'Should I have stayed down in the dungeon... might have been safer down there? No help for it, now to find somewhere safe to stow away for a few a bit.' He rubbed his wrists, and began to tramp through the snow, in search of shelter he was not sure existed, and safety he knew was only a dream.
...Kami Miyako...Home of the late Kasa...
Dominic entered the empty home without being seen, easy enough to do as he moved through shadows and rooftops, and when he reached her house, he listened and looked around, laying flat on the roof. The streets were not busy, a few passers by, but nobody looked up. He grinned. Nobody ever looked up. He punched hard atop the rooftop, it cracked, he punched again, he felt the break below. Strike after slow strike, he created a single hole large enough to slip through, and down into the house he went.
Wasting not a second of time, he rushed in and began to gather what he needed, sheets, clothing, burnable materials, and a heavy blanket. "I will not be stopped. Not by you, Yvon. You think you've won? You think you've got the edge? That I'm hunted like a wounded animal? No. No I'm not. I'm a wolf that has moved deeper into the cave, that's all, come in, deeper, where the source of all howling winds waits for you, and let me tear out your throat." Dominic was muttering with wild, frantic energy as he gathered the materials, and then, lighting the pile of burnables on fire, he let the smoke rise up through the hole that had been his entrance.
It was slow at first, taking almost a full minute, but when it was going in earnest, [Control Wind] He uttered, and with his hand outstretched, he shifted the air around the flame to keep it from spreading, and with his other hand, controlled the direction of the smoke beyond. "Yes, just a little while, a few hours, they'll see, they'll find me." Dominic said to the empty house, pushing down hard against his towering rage as he thought more and more about Yvon's betrayal.
As he pushed down his rage with the greatest difficulty, he pushed up the smoke with the greatest ease. To the rest of the city it was just one of 'many' places burning what they could for warmth. But to the Agante, the unnatural shifts, however slight, would be seen and known. Then they would gather. 'Then, I will make it all right again.' Dominic thought with glee as he finished and extinguished the flame by taking the air away from it, killing it as if it hadn't been there in the first place, leaving only the ashes and half charred remnants of what had once been beautiful fineries behind as he went downstairs to wait for his 'children' to answer his call.
He did not have to wait for long.
...Kami Miyako...Capital Building...
Yvon sat at the head of the long table. For a moment, he saw them all there, his former friends, his former allies. He saw the ghost of the bored Zesshi, leaning in the place she used to, and Raymond standing up and with his hand raised and finger thrust out defiantly at Dominic and angry at something. The matronly Berenice with her eyes flashing with passion and at some point Ginedine had made with cold calculation, only to find the even tempered Maximillian answering in balance... then ephemeral as any dream, the moment was gone and the bustle was a silent and empty chamber. 'It's come to this... I don't know how, but it has. I never knew they'd come to ends like that but... such is the way of things.' He thought to himself, and then he was not alone.
Various functionaries entered the room with heads bowed, mostly they were uniformed soldiers, but among them a few competent priests of a mind similar to his own. One and all they bowed and seated themselves when he waved a hand quietly in front of himself, encompassing the many chairs.
"So, how goes the harvest?" He asked with a very thin smile on his face. "How many long eared sheep were in the warehouses?"
A wire thin man stood and, with hands pressed down on the surface of the table as if to support himself, which may have been the point, he answered dumbfoundedly, "Ah, Cardinal... Great Defender... there were none."
"Well, we were bound to be a few sh-" he stopped in mid-sentence, his brow furrowed and he went from a relaxed tone to an icy one as fast as snow fell to earth in a snowstorm. "Did you say 'none'?" He asked with quiet disbelief.
"Yes, Sir. None. The warehouses are completely empty." He answered, and as if to mock the promise of food, outside the building they could hear Yvon's supporters shouting 'No more Dominic, no more Hunger!' urging others to hunt for the remaining supporters of the Cardinal of Wind.
"I see." Yvon folded his arms in front of his chest and looked down at the table as he lost himself in thought, trying to tune out the words echoing outside the building. 'I smell evil's taint in this. A mysterious monster seizes the work camps and those slaves are dead or gone, and my coin is set on 'gone'. Now the ones held captive within this very city for their owners are gone as well? No. Well, there is only one way to keep my promise.' He pondered for a few minutes as his 'staff' waited breathlessly and no doubt 'hungrily' in anticipation.
"Issue an order, immediately, send it out to every crier in the city, all of them, that every single owner of every single slave, is to present their property for harvesting to feed the army and the people for the duration of the siege. No great house will be spared, as I have given up my property to give strength to the Slane Theocracy, so must all others." Yvon said with finality.
"And... what of those who refuse?" A waif of a man whose name Yvon could not recall, asked in a nasal voice.
"Refuse?" Yvon fixed a sinister glare on him. "If anyone refuses, they're a traitor and will be executed accordingly. We will not put animals before people, we will harvest the beasts and feed the people. Dominic was too soft, that is why the gods cursed us with these defeats. To warn us of our sinfulness. We will make all this right again, as our holy duty commands." He clasped his hands together as if in prayer and bowed his head in deep reverence to the deities that chose him to have that special place of leadership over the last truly devout human kingdom.
The assembly of the faithful in subservience to Yvon bowed their heads and intoned after him as Yvon spoke, "We, the righteous, shall not keep company with the unrighteous. We, the chosen of the gods, will join with them in heaven, and praise their judgement over the beasts who dare defy their holy writ."
"So it will be, in all the world, as in the realm of the divine." Yvon finished, and peace engulfed the room. Within hours of the righteous prayer, the order flew from one end of the city to another, that through treachery, likely from Dominic himself, if not the tricks of the Demon of the West, or her dark master, the food Yvon had promised had been stolen en masse.
Yet before even anger or dread could capture a single heart, Yvon provided an answer.
"What is this?" Lady Chatelain asked, as the missive was handed to her by the thin, callow faced messenger.
"Orders, for you and every elf owner in th'city." He said in a raspy voice, "From the new Great Defender, long may he speak for the gods, Cardinal Yvon."
He bowed his head in reverence to his treasured leader, and moved on to the next house as the slender auburn haired Lady Chatelain moved away from the door and her servant closed it behind her.
She froze in midstep on her polished floor, her eyes scanned it again and again, "My lady?" Her elven servant asked hesitantly, and was about to ask again, before she fainted dead away and collapsed to the floor.
"My lady!" He shouted, and dove beside the young woman and shook her desperately.
He listened for her breathing, and saw the rise and fall of her chest, and relaxed for a moment, then reached with shaking fingers for the document that had caused such distress, and took it in hand. He held it under his eyes, and paled as he read the order.
"What is this?" Lord Curgas asked with a furrowed brow as the elven servant handed him the rolled up document.
His impeccably dressed slave approached with the same regal demeanor that Curgas had known since boyhood, back straight, one arm behind his back, he bowed forward slightly with the paper extended in his free hand.
"From the Cardinal, Lord Curgas." The elven male said evenly.
Curgas frowned deeply, "That can't be good." He said and took the document, he unfurled it and let his eyes roam over the words. He looked it over several times, then looked up at his slave, then down at the death sentence in his hand.
Up and down up and down up and down his eyes went from slave to document and document to slave. "My lord? Are you in distress?" The slave said with genuine concern in his voice.
"Sevel... how long have you served my house?" Lord Curgas asked with a soft voice the elven butler had not heard in a century of life among the men of the hard lord's home.
"One hundred and ten years." Sevel said without hesitation.
"Tell me... do you love me, in spite of... everything?" Lord Curgas asked, his voice unflinching as his eyes, and Sevel's eyes opened with surprise.
"My Lord... why would you ask... that?" Sevel's sudden show of expression revealed the depth of his dismay at the question.
"Please, answer, it is important." Lord Curgas replied.
Sevel went down to his knees in front of where Lord Curgas sat, and laid his hands on the lord's lap. "I tell you the truth, when I say that I do."
"Even though you're... living in the way that you do, as a slave? How? How is it that you love me, when it was my great grandfather who deprived you of the chance in your home country of a wife and children of your own?"
Sevel's golden eyes welled up with tears. His hands, always firm and steady, trembled where they sat on Curgas's legs. "My Lord, I won't say it was always so, but... it is so. It is so because, despite everything, I got to all but raise your grandfather, your father, his brothers, you, and your sisters. I gave to all of you, the love I would have given the children I might have had. I put the teachings that would have gone to children of my own if I'd had them, into the children I got to rear within this house. This is not the life I dreamt of when I was a boy and conscripted into the Elf King's army. But I have made it a good one, and yes, I love you, as if you were my own son."
Lord Curgas wadded the paper up and cast it into the nearby flames that glowed near his seat. "Do you remember how to fight, still?" Lord Curgas asked gravely.
"Well enough to teach you all over again, my young Lord." Sevel answered with a wry smile grazing his dignified and chiseled face.
"Good, because I think today I'll have to prove that you did not give us all that you did for nothing, go and open up the armory of the estate, gather all my guards outside, I will explain everything when the entire household is gathered."
"As my Lord wills." Sevel said with a hint of anxiety beneath his calm demeanor, he turned his look to the fire where the paper was consumed, and the fear within his breast only grew.
...Kami Miyako...Raymond's home...
Nua woke up Raymond with a violent shaking. His eyes flew open, years of training made him immediately combat ready, "Raymond, something's wrong!" She said urgently as he sat up.
"Wrong?" He asked with dread.
Nua handed him the rolled up paper. "This came from Yvon while you were asleep, and... now, I can hear... violence, there's violence out there in the city, I can't tell who, but there is a lot of it."
He took the paper and unrolled it. He then crumpled it up and threw it into the corner basket with contempt, he spat at it for good measure, the liquid dripping slowly down into its crooked and broken folds. "Fuck. That." He said with uncharacteristic crudity.
"Raymond?" Nua asked hesitantly. For a moment her mind flew back to the death of Kasa, and the purchase of one more night beneath his stairs and in his house.
Raymond cupped her cheeks, "It's time for you to get out of here. All of you."
The lids of her eyes opened wider, "What?! Why?!" She demanded fearfully and angrily both at once.
"Because of what you just gave me, and what that violence means. Remember what I said in Wenmark? I'd wager this order went out all over the city. Yvon is doing just as I predicted, he's ordering every wealthy household to turn over their elven slaves for processing. He's going to solve the elf problem once and for all, and feed the population, all at the same stroke." Raymond replied gravely.
"All that noise, fighting your sensitive ears have picked up, is going to be at least part of the wealthy houses rioting against him... humans and elves, fighting on the same side in Kami Miyako, how bizarre things have gotten. But I'm not going to risk you, the children, or any of the others I've sheltered here, coming to harm. It is time for you to go." He reached over and pulled on a rope, a few minutes later, Solution entered, all smiles as she made her way gracefully into the room.
"They're having a great time out there. How I wish I could join them." She said with truthful enthusiasm.
"Can you hear anything specific?" Raymond asked optimistically.
"Dominic's name is coming up a lot, it looks like they're rallying behind him as a symbol, even if his location isn't known yet. Elves, fighting 'for' Dominic, my sisters will never believe me." Solution giggled sweetly. "Now what did you want from me, Raymond?" She asked as she did an exaggerated curtsey as only the finest of maids could.
"I need a few things done, and done quickly." He said rapidly, "I need you to ask the Sorcerer King to evacuate my house, including Nua. Drag her out of here if she refuses." Nua looked up, appalled, but he carried on without looking at her, "Then have Boabdil and Enlaith, as well as his remaining loyal soldiers, go out into the riot zones and start to contact the resistance cells, get them to start moving into the artisan district during the chaos, when nobody will notice. Have them promise their various owners that the artisan district is safe, and keep it so. Then send a servant to Yvon, telling him to prepare a feast, I've taken Dominic's head, and want to present it to him. Hurry, we don't have a lot of time."
Nua stood up and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I. Am. Not. Leaving."
"But you are, going. Enlaith has to stay, she's a contact point for the resistance, Boabdil has to stay, he's got his soldiers and his own contacts, but the rest of you, you don't." Raymond folded his arms in front of his chest and stood in front of her, he towered over the lithe slender elf and looked down at her firmly.
"Yes. I do." Nua looked up at Raymond with a hard eyed look of defiance not seen since she'd thrown herself at his feet and told him to get his 'game' over with and struck him. "I have to stay because I have to make sure you get out of all this 'alive'. I don't know the Zesshi girl you've mentioned, I don't know what she'll do to you, but if she's an angry one, someone will have to talk her down, and if she's anything like me, she won't be inclined to listen to any humans." Nua snorted in contemptuous defiance.
Raymond groaned with frustration, "Solution, go ahead and get started with the rest, Nua can leave 'last'."
The maid demon went to carry out his wishes with an amused smile as Nua began to berate him before the door even closed as she exited, "...even think about sending me away now, you're insane..."
Solution laughed at the little elf's gesticulating histrionic grousing as Raymond tried, and continued to fail, to calm her down and get her to understand.
Rounding up the house, even a house that large, was easy. The main hall had a red rope, which when pulled, rang every bell in every room. Elves, half elves, and humans, slowly made their way into the main hall, their footsteps at first few and distant, grew numerous and louder, a virtual army of what were seemingly the servants of one of the great leaders of the Theocracy.
The assembly was, in her eyes, fairly ragtag, compared to her home. 'Still,' Solution thought, 'he's giving Lord Ainz a lot of new servants, even if they don't measure up to the best of us.' When the sound of distant footsteps was gone, as all those who worked there had gathered, Solution returned to Raymond's quarters and knocked on the door.
"They're ready. Want to say goodbye?" She asked him with a teasing smile as she poked her head in and saw that Nua was still ranting.
"Yes please, thank you." He replied, and the diminutive elf girl went quiet at last. "Come with me." Raymond said softly, prompting Nua to fall into step at his left hand as he went out the door, to the stairs, and all the way to the main hall.
Before him were a sea of faces, the human ones he'd known for decades, some since his youth, the younger ones, children he'd only known since Zesshi's departure. He smiled at them all, his lip quivered against his will as he tried to speak several times, and failed.
He felt Nua's hand on the small of his back as the quiet ruled the room.
"I..." He finally began. "I have a lot to say, I thought I did, anyway. But now we get to the moment and I find I don't know how. Whoever heard of a Cardinal with nothing to say?" He smiled weakly at the feeble joke, and got a few wan smiles in return. He carried on, folding his hands behind his back and standing straight.
"For those of you... so many, wronged by my people... including myself for as long as it was. I have no right to beg forgiveness, but I do so shamelessly anyway. I am... truly sorry, for my role in everything. For those of you, my human servants who have followed me into this dangerous course, I am forever grateful. You laid down your lives for me, and for however much longer I live beyond this day, I will remember it. You are proof that not all, even in this city, are lost." Raymond's voice trailed off as he briefly choked up when he caught the fearful glances of the half elf children who were barely old enough to understand that things were about to change again.
"In a moment, the magic of His Majesty will open a gate, you'll pass through it, and you will be free, you will be safe, and nobody will ever have the right to hurt you again. In a few days, this city will fall, and I will be a criminal, likely the last living ruler of the Slane Theocracy, and so its many wrongs, for at least the last fifteen years, will be on my head. I cannot run, and have no plans to. So let me say at last, good luck, and good lives, to all of you. When I'm gone, my will stipulates the sale of all that I have, to be distributed to each of you by name. Even with so many, if the art and other goods survive, along with the sale of this estate, none of you will have to work very hard for the remainder of your lives, whether you're a human, or a young elf." He suppressed a smile as he felt Nua's hand on his back fold into a fist as she grabbed the cloth of his garment.
The whorling black [Gate] opened as he predicted, and Solution stood next to it and, half seriously, half mockingly, held a curtsy beside it as the house was almost entirely emptied. Many an elf paused for a final word, a handshake, an embrace. Many a human servant begged him to survive. It took the better part of two full hours as a result.
Finally, Nua, Solution, and Raymond were alone. "Boabdil and Enlaith, they went out already?" Raymond asked, more or less rhetorically.
"I sent them out as soon as they answered the bell, them and those with them. With his wife safe, I'm curious what that very unfortunate General will do." Solution answered with her usual sadistic grin.
Raymond looked at the gate, and then at Nua. "What?" She asked sharply. "I told you, I'm not leaving."
"Solution, would you be so kind as to toss her through there?" Raymond asked with resignation.
The maid demon looked from one to the other, Nua's plaintive face made her position clear.
Raymond was bewildered, several times he tried to raise his hands, to bring himself to reach out, grab her, and throw her bodily through the gate himself. Yet each time his hands came up, he found he couldn't move them more than halfway through the gesture. 'After so many human hands have put themselves on her against her wishes... I can't do it, I can't bring myself to do that, even to protect her. Damn it all!' He thought with frustration.
Solution put her hands on her hips, and cancelled the gate. "I don't work for you, Raymond. Besides, you don't have to worry about her, I'll watch out for both of you, at least until after My Lord keeps his promise. If it helps, you probably won't be executed, so relax. Everything will be fine."
Nua sighed with relief when the gate was gone. In the great emptiness of the residence, the sigh seemed to echo all the more.
"Now then, all we can do is wait and see, and... for now, we'll relocate to the artisan district, and abandon this place. We've got a lot of work to do, and not much time to do it." Raymond remarked as he opened the door, and allowed Nua and Solution to pass through it before him.
He exited the enormous residence, the sound of fighting in the distance was growing louder, fires were springing up as riots spread. He listened for a moment as the snow fell gently into the chaotic city, almost thick enough to hide the smoke of burning buildings. Almost.
He turned around to the door, put his key into the lock, and turned it, shutting up the house against entry. 'Probably a futile effort. But it can't hurt.'
Nua and Solution had walked a few feet from the door and were waiting patiently for him to join them, he did, his every step weighing on him like cheap, heavy armor. When he was away, he turned and looked back at his house one more time, and then looked down at the key which still rested in his clenched hand. His fingers opened, and he looked at the little silver object again.
"Nua..." He said softly, his eyes clouding over so that he had to squeeze them tightly shut, and yet despite his momentary self inflicted blindness, he kept turning his head from one to the other as if he could still see them all.
She watched his gaze pass from the key, to the house, to herself, and back around again. "Yes?" She asked hesitantly.
The memory of his eye injury months before came back to him in an instant, her careful and skillful treatment of the injury, the building of her faith in him. He reached out and took her hand, then turning her palm up, he pressed the little silver key into it, then gently closed her fingers around it. "When it's all over, distribute everything to everyone, but this is yours. Do whatever you want with it. Burn it down, sell it, anything. I don't think I'll be coming back here again, I don't need it anymore. It's yours now."
"Raymond, that's your home..." Nua said with awe.
He shook his head. "Even if I survive, even if I'm not imprisoned after the war, I'll never come back here, I can't. I don't know what I'll do, but all I want is to not be here ever again. Too many memories, too much unhappiness. Besides, you're owed about a hundred and forty years of back wages, this should just about cover it." He smiled weakly down at her, and let his hands fall away at his side.
"Alright, let's go, I wasn't kidding before, we really do have a lot to do, and that snow isn't going to get any lighter anytime soon, nor the city, any more peaceful." He emphasized and began to stamp through the slowly deepening snow, as somewhere in the city, the sound of a building being broken to the point of collapse, echoed all the way to where they stood.