A Man Consumed

By Teek (Lanciform)

Vagrant Story

20th Anniversary

魔都まで我々を導いた松野泰己様へ。

To Yasumi Matsuno,

For leading the way to the City of Magic.

Smoke still burned in Guildenstern's lungs. Only minutes after he had received the order from the Cardinal to storm the Duke's manor, a strong breeze had swept the Graylands, and it fanned the flames of their assault as if starved for the chance to touch them. The fire was a necessity, serving to set the Müllenkamp vermin scurrying, and left them shying from the windows into the manor's halls – where they made easy prey for the Knights of the Cross – but it was a wind most fickle, and soon enough, it found him as well: that dark, hideous smoke. Guildenstern felt it collecting in his chest as he put the heretics to the sword, sheathing his every breath in a weight like his commander's mail. By the night's end, his rapier had spilled the blood of half a dozen of Müllenkamp's men, yet it felt the cleanest part of him.

He loathed the feeling, and always had. It felt as though every breath of smoke foreshortened the wick of life, burning more of his time away. Guildenstern tasted it on his lips, and felt its sting upon his eyes. It dared him to yield his strength with each breath, to falter in his step. Even so, Guildenstern betrayed no sign of it to the quartet of his Knights of the Cross whom he now led through the torchlit halls of the Duke's manor. He held his eyes open and clear, willing strength into his chest as he forced his knights to match his pace. The task before them now was far too important, and Romeo Guildenstern had waited far too long to be slowed by the smoke of his own fires.

It would not slow him. It would not deter him. No force in the world could, now.

The Crimson Blades' intelligence on Müllenkamp had informed them there were a number of skilled swordsmen among their ranks, but with the knights' superior numbers and training, the fighting had been settled quickly enough. The manor was effectively theirs within half an hour. Yet the report Guildenstern had expected came to his ears even more swiftly: Sydney was fled, and only a scattering of his crude flock remained to oppose them. That fact, more than the smoke, put Guildenstern in a mood for blood.

He oughtn't have been surprised. Sydney Losstarot was too wily a quarry to be taken unawares. Even so, a part of him had hoped – thirsted, even – for it to end this night, in one swift stroke. But of course, a man like Sydney did not come to leadership without cunning…nor would he ever allow himself to be captured in a back room in Duke Bardorba's estate, like some common felon. Not when he could spread those arms of wicked steel and draw wide the curtains on a far grander stage.

Leá Monde. Guildenstern felt his chest tighten at the thought, as if the smoke clawed at his heart. He set his jaw, and not so much as a whistle of effort passed his nostrils. Very well, Sydney. Lead on, and let us treat in darkness. The readiness is all.

On he marched, the Knights of the Cross at his back, the heavy trod of their sollerets echoing in the Duke's halls until they sounded an army. They came at last to the great, winding stairwell that led down into the front hall of the manor – the first and most vicious of their battlegrounds tonight. The vast double doors at the mouth of the hall were still thrown wide from the Blades' assault, with Müllenkamp's wooden barricades broken and smoldering on the floor beneath them. Yet as he led his men toward it, a strange sight on the floor of the hall caught Guildenstern's eye, and slowed his pace: a single lonely moth, rounding a still-burning piece of what had been the magnificent chandelier gifted to Duke Bardorba by House Nalzarc upon the first anniversary of the end of the Valendian Civil War. But it was not the ruined chandelier that Guildenstern marked. It was the moth. It did not flit and dart about the flames and smoke, as it might at a street lantern. Rather, it circled them – so steadily, so perfectly, that it seemed frozen in orbit.

Guildenstern was uncertain why, but the sight laid purchase upon his mind, as if he had spied the painting of a master artist…or perhaps a sign of Sydney's trail. A trace of magick.

It provided just enough reverie for one of his men's voices to pierce. "Sir – ahead!"

The knight spoke with alarm, but he need not have bothered. Before his men could fully draw their own swords, Guildenstern stilled them with an upraised hand, pausing at the foot of the stairwell – there to regard, with mild interest, the foe that had appeared before them. From the darkness of the courtyard, one more of Müllenkamp's jackals limped forward through the double doors, his jaw clenched and eyes bright with hate. He was tall and black-haired, with the build of a laborer under his singed clothing. He seemed a figure of soot as much as flesh and blood – and blood there was, for flames and holy steel alike had clearly been at him this night. One hand held a notched iron sword, the other his left thigh, where the broken haft of a bowgun bolt protruded.

"Iocus…bastard," he gritted out, with more strength in his voice than any man so grievously wounded should have. "You'll not…follow him…you'll not find him…whilst one of us draws breath!"

Guildenstern heard his knights mutter curses and grasp at their weapons, waiting for his signal to draw. He gave none. He raised his chin slightly, bidding the man forward with a look that may have seemed an invitation. For in truth, Guildenstern had decided this man deserved a moment's attention. Not because he may well have been the last of the cultists alive in the manor, but for the wrought expression on his face. It was as if he was both pained and strengthened by some inner fire. It was the look of a man consumed. Yes, it was that look which Guildenstern truly marked. In this man's face, Guildenstern could see the true miracle which Sydney had wrought. There was more than faith which the prophet of Müllenkamp had placed there, more than loyalty, more than promise, more than even love.

A dream. A true, shining dream.

It was a worthy countenance. Perhaps enough to make a worthy foe, and a worthy end, crossing steel with the Cardinal's chosen in the name of his dream.

A pity Guildenstern could not give him that.

He gazed back at those hateful eyes, if only to hostage his challenger's attention a moment longer. The man raised his sword to an unsteady but disciplined stance, lunging off his good leg for one last charge to the stairwell – but he never made it three paces into the hall. From the shadows behind the manor doors, a slender arm thrust into the fringe of torchlight, a wide dark sleeve billowing gaily 'round its pronated palm. The cultist's coarse boot came to a scraping halt on the carpets, and the rage in his eyes flattened into the last surprise they would ever know. A point of sharp, glittering steel seemed to sprout from his throat. That grim flower found fertile soil. Red blood rose to his lips, overtaking his breath. One of the knights at Guildenstern's back grunted disgust, and another solemn satisfaction, but all of them stood still as night. They knew from whose hand that dagger had flown.

Guildenstern held the cultist's eyes all the while, watching the light of their dream go out. Blood ran, and the iron sword clattered on the floor, and the man tumbled with it. He breathed his last not long after, reaching for but never touching the dagger that had slain him. Then his flesh mottled, and disbursed, as the Dark reclaimed him.

When it was over, Guildenstern lifted his gaze to the shadows of the door. "You waited."

"You tarried." The firelight brought familiar colors to her even more familiar silhouette as she stepped into it. As ever, Samantha was beautiful, a vision of springtime cheer. She did not smile – she never did on nights of bloody battle – but her eyes met Guildenstern's with the soft, rapt attention they reserved solely for him. "So long I was beginning to wonder if our hero had found the villain after all."

"Would I might say so, but this night seems to have been only the prelude..." That spellbound moth, he noticed, had taken its leave amidst the flurry of motion. Guildenstern looked to the Knights of the Cross behind him. "Report to Commander Tieger, and ready the birds for the ride." His men rushed forward to the manor doors, their immediate obedience all the salute Samantha required.

Samantha waited until the clangor of their solleret had faded, but only a second after. Then, when they were alone, she stepped over the fallen sword of the man she'd slain, and stepped again, and again. Then it was Guildenstern who took the next step, halving the distance between them, to welcome Samantha's hands upon his wrists. "It is as we have prepared for, then?" Samantha asked him, with a long, wavering breath. "We make for Leá Monde?"

"At once." He heard the tremor in her voice as she spoke the city's name. He cupped her cheek. "You must not be afraid, my love. We are ready for this. We have long known what we will face there."

"Yes…I fear only for those of our knights who do not." Samantha sighed, allowing herself a moment's respite to lay her cheek upon his palm. Guildenstern smelled her perfume, honeyed and fragrant, and at once the smoke eased its hold on his chest. Then she lifted her face, and her eyes had steel in them again, sharp and focused. "Our carriages await without, and our men have doused the worst of the flames. Assembling them will take no longer than half an hour. Then the VKP can attend to the rest. But…it is over thirty miles to Leá Monde, and the road there is not as it was before the great quake. Even should we leave now, we would be graced to reach the city before the next eventide."

"We have grace with us, and more." Guildenstern almost smiled. True, even ready and assembled, a force the size of theirs would take nearly a full day to make the journey to Leá Monde, let alone to quit these grounds with all speed before the Grand Steward's faithful hounds could arrive to harry them…but for one trained under the hand of Cardinal Batistum, such delays were more easily dispensed with. "Surely you've not forgotten, my love? Sydney makes his own haste. So can we."

Samantha took his meaning, by the excitement which came to her eyes. "Let us not linger, then," she said, parting from his grasp as easily as if she meant only to lead him back to a revel. "For we have much to hasten to. And I do enjoy watching you work."

He huffed a chuckle, almost allowing a riposte as he led Samantha toward the doors…almost. Just two paces over the Duke's fine Ordalian rug, Guildenstern paused, and turned his head abruptly, frowning at the easternmost window of the welcome hall. He thought he spied some motion beyond its shattered pane – outside, upon the very fringe of the manor grounds, where the canopy of the thick Graylands woods would offer the most camouflage even at daybreak. What was that? His eyes narrowed, searching the dark yet unpierced by dawn. Was it only some gathering of shadows, stirred by that fickle wind, or…carriage wheels? If it was a carriage, it was too plain to be one of the Order's, and carefully painted to drink any revealing light. Even with the Duke's coin, none of Müllenkamp's wains could boast that quality, and the Blades had seized them during the attack, besides. So who…?

The motion was gone soon enough, swallowed into the night. Guildenstern set his jaw. It was likely nothing of import. Merely another oddity, no more pressing a matter than that strange moth, entranced by the flame.

So why did he now feel it again - that hand of smoke inside his chest?

"Romeo?" Ever shadowing his thoughts, Samantha returned to his side, and laid her hand on the stiletto at her hip as she followed his gaze. "Is something amiss?"

"Nothing," said Guildenstern. Even that word seemed to spend precious time. There must be no delay. He turned his eyes to Samantha's, both calming and commanding hers with a look. "Come, my love. The night is ended…and as you say, we have much to hasten to. You and I most of all."

Even at dawn, the sun only ever briefly bared its face to the Graylands. Soon its broad disk was lost in the serene blue shade so familiar to these skies, and the clouds. The tendrils of fading smoke rising over the Duke's manor slowly reached into those clouds, thinned by the mist that seemed a constant companion to these lands. There had been a brief squall during the night, bringing a spell of rain upon the fires as the Blades worked to douse them. That left Guildenstern most content. It would do much to conceal the incident from the rest of the city, and slow the VKP's investigation into the night's events. And by the time they had the evidence they sought against the Cardinal…

Well. By then, the Gran Grimoire would be in Guildenstern's hands, and everything in Valendia would change thereafter.

There was noise awaiting Guildenstern outside the courtyard's walls, but that could not be avoided. The steel trampling of the Knights of the Cross mingled with the growls of the mastiffs and the warks of the chocobos. As Samantha had promised him, their forces were assembled and the carriages readied. Even the perimeter of knights they had drawn before the siege - to keep any inquiring eyes away – had rejoined the rest of their ranks. Guildenstern noted more chatter and murmuring than he liked, but thought nothing of it. Not at first.

And his Commanders of the Crimson Blades were all there as well, their silhouettes bright and distinct in the blue light of morning. The brother clerics, Duane and Grissom, tightened the ranks for a swift departure from the Graylands. Duane gave his orders with no more than terse nods and a firm look, one foot tapping with a beat like dripping blood; like his brother, Grissom seldom used, or needed, more than his eyes to steel discipline in the Knights of the Cross. Commanders Neesa and Tieger, by contrast, supplied their commands with motion, arms chopping the air as they ordered the runners ahead to the outskirts of the Graylands, where the company of sellswords Tieger had acquired lay in wait for this contingency.

Upon Guildenstern's arrival, though, the Commanders dispensed with the last of their orders and gathered before him. Soon he was fully apprised of all the night's events and excitement; and quite some excitement had been had, he learned.

"A wyrm?" Samantha kept her voice hushed, but there was only so much she could do to bay the astonishment from her face. "He…he set a wyrm upon us? In the very manor?"

"A wyvern, lass," Tieger said, his greataxe Blackthorn slung over one muscled shoulder as if he meant to swear an oath by it. "Twin wings o' shadow, breath o' flame – such as my own mother sang tales of by the fire, to keep me to my bedtime."

"You missed quite the scuffle, sir," Neesa told Guildenstern, her eyes clear and untouched by any want of sleep. "The beast slew four of our knights and lamed two others who must remain behind, before one of our spearmen – Fermon, I believe he's called – buried a lance in its eye. That slowed the beast, but it might have fought us a while longer, had it not suddenly withdrawn…"

Trained and able as his Knights of the Cross were, they could not have hoped to cow a dragon with steel alone. Guildenstern could think of only one reason the wyvern might have disengaged from the fight. What need had you of the beast, Sydney? What was your real aim tonight…or did something happen here that was outside your aim? He thought again of that mysterious carriage in the woods. "A foretaste of what awaits us in Leá Monde," Guildenstern said. "Most rash of Sydney, to call the wyrm openly. 'Tis not normally possible to summon one 'neath a paling. It proves the power he wields."

"To bring it within a city, where children sleep unawares, heedless of his own leash upon it…" There was heat growing in Samantha's voice, and tension in the fingers she lay upon the stiletto sheathed at her waist. "I knew the man was mad, a slaver of the lost and the broken – but this!"

"To be fair, Lady Samantha, we did startle him," said Grissom, with half a smile. Much like Tieger and Neesa, he seemed not to feel the length or fury of the night. "All these 'seers' among the heretics preach their dooms most boldly, but they never seem to account for the ones where our battering rams meet their front doors. For all his cunning, perhaps Sydney is no different. Perhaps our friend Rosencrantz overestimates the man's vision. Or his nerve."

Here, then, was a window of time for the usual stern word from Duane, who always seemed to have several notched at the ready for his younger brother's cool brashness. Even Tieger and Neesa seemed curious for it, the two battle-hardened commanders eying the cleric carefully. But Duane stood silent. It was only when Guildenstern's eyes fell upon him that Duane's face showed any sign of motion. His lips pursed, and his brow deepened…but in the end, he, alone among the five commanders, felt the night most. "If we must look now to Leá Monde, then we have the fight of our lives ahead of us," Duane said, setting his jaw as he met Guildenstern's gaze. "Let us trust now to the Lord, and make an end of this. I am ready, sir."

For this answer, and the ironic fact of its speaker, Guildenstern favored Duane with an approving nod. "As are we all, brother. This day shall put the proof to it." He brought all the commanders under a last, assessing gaze. "I will speak a brief word before we set out. With me."

Five obedient salutes were his answer. Then they spread, Tieger and Neesa to one side, Duane and Grissom to the other, and with Samantha following at his shoulder, Guildenstern strode forward to meet the assembled Knights of the Cross. All talk ceased. Even the mastiffs and chocobos seemed to sense the import, and the weight of the moment, when Guildenstern at last stood still and tall before the ranks. He lifted his chin, clearing his chest with a breath, and let his voice chase from it even the memory of smoke.

"Losstarot and his heretics are fled to Leá Monde. The Cardinal commands us to pursue, with all the speed that God can grant His servants, and mete justice to them with fire and sword. In the ruins of Leá Monde shall this account at last be settled. We shall hunt them within the city walls, within its dwellings, within its mines and quarries, within its very bowels if need be. Wheresoever the scum of Müllenkamp hide and hatch their heresies, we will root them out. Today, in Leá Monde, these traitors to the faith shall pay the wages of their sin in full." Guildenstern swept their armored ranks with a bristling look. "You are the most elite swords of the Order, anointed in the name of Saint Iocus – he who prayed on his own pyre for strong arms to defend the faith. You are the answer to that prayer! By this day's end, Valendia shall be delivered from Müllenkamp's evil, and the most meager among you shall be counted among the most valiant in our Order's history. You will be swift. You will be strong. And you will be ready."

Scores of fists sounded against scores of armor in one sonorous iron peal. When the reverberation of the salutes had faded, Guildenstern turned to his five keenest Blades. "Commander Tieger, Commander Neesa, you've the rear. Lady Samantha and I shall have the van. Father Duane, Father Grissom, join me in a last blessing for our journey."

That was answered with another terse nod from Duane, and a slightly more knowing – and eager – look from Grissom. "Of course, sir," said the younger man. "For all haste and safety."

The two brothers took their places, so that they formed a straight line with Guildenstern before the assembled troops. With practiced care, Duane and Grissom joined Guildenstern in raising their hands before the Knights of the Cross, making the sign of the Rood in the air. Their lips moved to speak prayers familiar to their knights, prayers to Saint Iocus for courage and safety…but under those prayers, knitted under their very syllables, were other words. Words unheard by the knights before them – and unspoken in all the cities of Valendia, save one.

Said the brothers in unison, Duane with fulminous command and Grissom with silken smoothness: Cursus Temporis, pone nos in vorticem tuum.

And said Guildenstern, with passion so ardent it scorched the words clean: In ridorani tuo, o Cursus Temporis, capiamus.

Bidden, the Dark laid its blessing upon them, and seized the reins of time. To his knights' perception, nothing was amiss…save the idle notice of a few that the dreary blue clouds passing over the Graylands now seemed to linger. The animals sensed what was happening, stiffening at its approach, but helpless to so much as whimper as it took them into its invisible fold. Guildenstern felt the magic move through him – and move as commanded. The thrill was pure. Did Sydney feel the same? Did he feel more, with the power he had? Soon I shall learn, Guildenstern thought, even as he concluded the spell of old. Soon I shall have all eternity to learn.

It was time. The prayers ended, the knights resumed formation, and with a final nod from their leader, the Commanders joined their ranks as ordered. He led Samantha to the armored carriage at the van, whose doors two of the Knights of the Cross held open. Guildenstern took a last breath of the Graylands, if only to etch its feel in his memory. For much would be different when he breathed it next.

When the carriage doors closed, and they were alone, Samantha drew herself toward him on the cushions. They would not yet chance an embrace, but this much she dared: a soft kiss upon his stubbled cheek. "I offer prayer as well," she said, her eyes adoring. "May our Lord watch over you, Romeo."

"And over you, Samantha," said Guildenstern, brushing a touch over her cheek. "As closely as I shall." He lied only for the smile that came to her face. Prayer was Samantha's way, and she loved the practice as the common people did, seeking strength or solace or wisdom. But for Guildenstern…no. To pray was to place not merely his trust in another's hands, but his very ambition – a thing meant for no other hands to realize but his own. And once he'd realized that, he found in place of prayer something that served that ambition. Only that ambition.

Assessment.

He felt the wheels of the carriage turn, beating in the magicked flow of time. For the first time that eve, Guildenstern let out a long, long sigh. For he had spoken truly to Samantha, there amidst the blood and smoke: this was only the end to a prologue long in the telling. Guildenstern had assessed his commanders for this night with the greatest care – each one, both as a lone warrior fit to face the dangers of Leá Monde, and as part of the cast that would see him the final act. They were as well trained in battle and as versed in the arts as could be hoped. Guildenstern had assessed, too, that they would die for him.

What sense, then, praying against his own assessment? The day ahead would be fraught with peril. Mortal peril, and otherwise. The sellswords with whom they would rendezvous en route to the city were fodder, their deaths both likely and unlamented, but Guildenstern had no doubt the Blades would take losses as well. Sydney alone would be the most dangerous foe they had ever faced…but the dark city of Müllenkamp had its own arms against invaders, twenty years waiting.

Many would die. Perhaps even the four formidable commanders in the carriages behind him. Some might not live to see the dawn. Some might not even leave corpses to bury. And others, the most pitiable of all, would.

The Knights of the Cross rode to Leá Monde. Silently, Guildenstern remembered, and paid them, once more, the tribute of assessment.

Duane

Duane had ever been an unsmiling man. Clerics of the Crimson Blades were said to be men and women of pacifistic bent, and most still had some cheer or humor from their times as acolytes. Not so Duane. He seemed born for the priest's frock. Even without its usual furrowed countenance, his face had the imperious look of a ram, touched by the weight of great curled horns, like that fleeced devil in the Zodiac Brave Story. It lent him an air of authority…which Guildenstern suspected he had worked all his life to prove firmer than air. Before he had joined the Order, Duane had been a fiery preacher in his township, known for his austere and vivid sermons – and the gift of his memory, so complete he knew whole verses of scripture solely by heart. But what had caught Guildenstern's eye was the strength of his conviction. When Duane spoke, men listened.

For Duane could do more than preach and recite from memory. He could inspire, and lead. It was for these abilities that Guildenstern had allowed him to learn the deeper mysteries. Duane proved an able student…but ill at ease with what he found in the grimoires. Even now, with all his talent for spellcraft, there was reluctance in him. So that reluctance, too, must be assessed.

"His Holiness shall have the final say on our siege of the Duke's estate, of course, but know the word will come. We will strike swiftly, intending no second stroke, but we must ready one all the same." Guildenstern turned from the dawn-lit window of the sparse briefing room in the Order's barracks, looking to where Duane sat. "If Sydney eludes us, we must pursue. Rather than give battle on the open road, he will likely choose to withdraw to the cult's hideaway…to Leá Monde. If it comes to that, much will change – and many of our brothers will fall in the taking of the city. So it is all the more important that we move in force."

"As you say, sir." Duane stroked his beard as he studied the map of the city of Müllenkamp spread upon the long, oaken table in the center of the room. His other hand brushed thoughtfully at the paean he wore around his neck. "Navigating the catacombs and the sanctum may be an effort, but once we breach the walls, the heretics will be ours. My men will find Sydney. You've my word on it."

Guildenstern watched him. "I have ever taken you at your word, Duane. But this time, I wish to hear some in particular." He paced now across the room, to a bookshelf that stood adjacent to the arching window. There he retrieved the text he had brought with him that morning, turning back to Duane. ""Are you quite prepared for this mission to fall to you, if need be? Not to the blade of one of our knights, but to your own hands? You would take no pride in being the man to face Losstarot – to wrest his secrets for the Cardinal, and end him yourself?"

"The man is damned." The word rang off the walls of the briefing room like the blare of a trumpet. "Whether he dies by your own rapier, Commander, or has his throat opened by one of Commander Tieger's sellswords, a blade can only put the ink to a chapter already determined. His true end will be in the fires of perdition. That is his end, and all Müllenkamp's brood. I pray only that he lives long enough to see the purging of these heresies from our realm, to see the Gran Grimoire reclaimed for the Cardinal, to know that all his years of dark work have been undone in a night…and then, and only then, may he go to God's judgment. But aye, if it must be, if our Saint – if the Lord says it must be, these hands shall see to it."

If the cold rage in Duane's unblinking eyes would not serve, the wrath in his voice would have pinned an audience to their pews. A righteous anger…yet Guildenstern could hear in it a waver, a single tremble. He knew that sound. It was fear. "Your faith is beyond question," said Guildenstern, slowly walking back to the table. "But I remind you, Duane, this is no unlettered heathen whom we face. Sydney has the mind of a poet, and so he has all the poet's cruelties of irony. He knows the fears of the faithful, else he would not have led so many astray. Our oldest nightmares…our oldest demons, he will claim as his muses. And his power is such that they who have an ear, will hear."

The book he laid upon the table before Duane was so old that not even the arts of Iocus could protect it from the march of time. Its soot-black cover bore neither words nor illustrations, yet from the tension that rose in Duane's face, he recognized what it was. He had been trained with such tomes – the "black tomes" held by the Church, scourged of all markings, forbidden to any eyes outside the Order. Guildenstern opened it before Duane. When the book's cover tilted over its spine, it made a sound like flesh parting under the run of a scalpel.

Guildenstern turned the pages, one by one. The language was ancient Kildean, from Müllenkamp's time…and the illustrations upon them had been made not with ink, but sorcery. "Beasts of darkness," said Guildenstern. "Dragons and their spawn, starved to madness for mortal flesh. The half-men and ogres of ancient myth. Spirits of the elements, who know neither faith nor mercy. Kildean liches, their souls bartered to demons. The spirits of the damned set in cold stone or empty armor…and the souls of children, taken by war or disease, cast in the bodies of their own dolls."

Duane's fingers were closed so tightly upon the paean that his glove seemed to whimper protest. Anger – the still, fierce anger of faith mocked by the faithless – rose in his eyes. "Sinner," he seethed the word. "Blasphemer. Witch. He maligns the very dead."

Ardor. Yes, Guildenstern knew what Duane would require for the role he was to play. "Indeed," said Guildenstern, closing the Kildean bestiary, but leaving it there as he returned to the shelves, "and against such witchcraft, the righteous must be armed."

This time, the book which Guildenstern retrieved was slimmer, bound in the ornamented red leather of the Priesthood's hymnals. Duane stared curiously as Guildenstern simply entrusted it to him with both hands. When the cleric opened it, he found the word Demolir writ bold upon the first page. Duane's furrowed brow suddenly smoothed. "A grimoire…?"

"One of the forgotten arts preserved from the time of our Saint," said Guildenstern. "One I myself have studied. A spell of pure force. The Cardinal bids you take it with his personal blessing, and make its strength God's strength. Study it. Master it. Wield it in His name, Duane, to ward our flock 'gainst the evil that awaits them within the city walls."

The hard line of Duane's mouth knew a tremble before he spoke. "I…the Cardinal – His Holiness asks this of me? To employ this against Müllenkamp?"

"From his own lips to my own hearing." Guildenstern reached across the table, laying his sword hand on Duane's shoulder. "Be assured, Duane. Trust in your knights, but Leá Monde will put their courage to the test. You must be the strong right hand of faith, gripping theirs in the dark."

"…All my strength is yours." Duane nodded solemnly to his lord commander, and made the sign of the rood across his chest without the scarcest tremble. "May Saint Iocus guard and prosper us."

"May we all walk in his grace." To the very end. Guildenstern was assured Duane would do well, setting all his ardor on the hunt for Sydney…but in the end, Leá Monde was like to keep that ardor, and the man himself. Yet that possibility served its purpose – perhaps the best purpose for a man like Duane. The cleric was unlikely to ever rise higher on his own merits, but he stood high enough to wear the martyr's shroud with dignity.

He seemed born for that, too.

Grissom

Often was the younger sibling in a family judged beside the elder. Grissom did not make that judgment an easy affair. Though he and Duane had joined the Knights of the Cross together and shared the same passion for ridding Valendia of heretics, Grissom had his differences from his elder brother, even as a youth in their township. He knew the power of a story; where Duane seldom used parables in his sermons, Grissom weaved them into his skillfully. He knew the reach of song; Duane could recite any verse from memory, but Grissom could actually sing those verses, and beautifully. And he knew the strength of a gentle mien; where Duane's reputation had cast him cheerless, Grissom had been the confessor of choice in his community for his patient ear, his handsome smile, and the grace of his pardon. That his talent in staff-fighting and spellcraft made him as deadly an opponent as Tieger or Neesa was qualifying enough, but Guildenstern knew why he'd long held the confidence in Grissom that he had labored to build in Duane.

Duane was a man of conviction; Grissom, of self-possession.

"A more complete tome than the ones I have seen, this. Most vivid." Grissom stood tall at the briefing table, studying the bestiary – one hand cradling the spine of the book, the other gently turning its timeworn pages. "Do we anticipate encountering any of these creatures in particular, sir? I wasn't aware the cult had many practitioners, and summoning does require will and imagination."

"Our contact," said Guildenstern, as speaking Rosencrantz's very name felt as much a chore as speaking with the man himself, "tells us there are some in the cult's ranks who can. There is at least one beside Sydney himself with formidable talent in the art – his second, a swordsman named Hardin. But Sydney is strong enough to draw freely from this 'wellspring', and he has will and imagination enough. The Kildean texts are our best resource, but we do not know all that has been set loose within since the great quake, twenty years past. Or what Müllenkamp herself may have laid to slumber in the city's depths."

Duane would have blanched. Grissom merely nodded, still reading. "A magnificent and wicked city, as the scholar said." He turned another page, meeting the next one with a cool smile of recognition. "Even should we catch Sydney in the Graylands, sir, I would gladly volunteer for the chance to cleanse it."

"Gladly?" Guildenstern raised an eyebrow to the inquiry. "You are eager for the fight of our lives, Grissom."

"More than my brother?" Grissom briefly lifted his eyes. Something was brimming in them. "I am, sir. Duane may have a harsher tongue than I, and he has our late father's sense of unflinching duty before all else…but you know this too, sir – he does flinch. Even in the schoolyard, he was ever wary to join a scuffle." He exhaled through his nose, his gaze falling to the next page of the book of blasphemies. "I did envy that caution, sometimes."

"But never shared it?"

"Never." The word came after a long moment, for now Grissom's fingers had stilled upon a page. Guildenstern could not see which it was, but whatever image in that black tome that Grissom had found, it wrote fascination upon his face. His eyes studied what lay there, even as he spoke. "Sin is the most resourceful foe of all, sir. It will find ways to prosper, and the most prosperous is when the righteous appear weak. Reluctance is weakness…reluctance is unreadiness. And when good stands unready, evil stands unrivaled." The cleric's voice grew softer, colder. "But not whilst I stand. I do not believe it is enough to fight sin, sir. The sinful must know the fight is coming. And they must fear it."

A fine answer, this. Guildenstern wondered what Dark muse had spurred it. "I have marked you, Grissom. You do not read the grimoires with a reluctant eye, or a hand closed upon the rood as your brother does." He lifted his chin slightly, his eyes not yet yielding their inquiry. "Have you never feared to call from those pages? Feared that what comes forth might deem your hands unready for its reins?"

Grissom looked back at his commander, and clapped the Kildean book shut. "I am a Crimson Blade, sir," he said. "There are no hands more ready than ours."

When he said ours, Grissom meant mine. Guildenstern dismissed both his look of inquiry, and Grissom himself, with an approving nod. This one was not as easy to assess as his brother. How would Grissom fare in Leá Monde? An incomplete death awaited the cultists and the sellswords…but what end was written when the Dark touched a man with such a strong sense of self?

Guildenstern mused that the best judge for the question might be Grissom himself.

Tieger

Strength was a necessary quality in a leader, but no knight would follow a man only because he was strong. Tieger was strong, though. Of all the commanders of the Crimson Blades, very few excelled him as a combatant. Already a gifted fighter before his knighthood, Tieger had now become a master with the greataxe, and with Blackthorn in hand, he could comfortably spar up to three partners at once. He was strongman as well as axeman, too: pitted in a contest of arm-wrestling against his iron thews, only one other of the Crimson Blades had ever prevailed, and in the act struck such a friendship as might last to the endtimes. And he was a true commander as well, with an inborn sense of strategy. Tieger had an instinct for warfare, so keen that Guildenstern wondered at times if it was a talent awakened by the Dark, but which he had realized was simply the man's soldierly manner.

Regardless, Guildenstern found him a most valuable ally. The Knights of the Cross never knew more courage on a mission than when Tieger – and his equally fierce partner – headed the vanguard. Yet his unquestionable might and prowess in battle only won Tieger respect. Respect was not the sole accolade he held among the other Knights of the Cross. He was trusted, and admired. He was looked to in hours of need. And when he called one "brother" or "sister", the word never held more meaning.

"Draughts of snowfly wings…" Tieger shook his head, chuckling with wonder at the samples of the potions which Guildenstern had laid upon the briefing table, supplies for the mission ahead. "My mother always swore a touch of these in your morning tea would keep nightmares away. 'Course, I spat 'em out every time when I was a lad – told her the nightmares would taste sweeter! Rest her soul, if she could see me now. Aye, sir, these'll do to cut Müllenkamp to size, and keep the gameboard clear of tricks."

"You can imagine the challenge they are to procure," said Guildenstern. "Neesa tells me many of our knights still think them only holy water. I leave it to you to persuade them otherwise, Tieger. Leá Monde is a less forgiving instructor." He guided Tieger's gaze with his to the black tome that lay beside the snowfly draughts, which Tieger had not touched all through the briefing. "Have you any final concerns of your own? On these blades for hire of yours, perhaps?"

"Ah, on how they'll take to seeing the cold ones?" Tieger crossed his muscled arms, eyes thoughtful as they looked over the Kildean bestiary. Like Duane, he had a brow with the mark of deep thought, but on Tieger's face, that looked assuring. He considered all things carefully, and the Dark no less. "They fight well, they take orders, and they've no lack of nerve. With time so short, 'tis the best as can be expected. When the dead start to rise, some may try to make a run for it. But with Neesa and I about, most will think better of running, I promise you that." He chuckled again, this time with a fond smile of recollection. "Had we more time, I'd bring my old company with us, and we'd ride down every fiend in Leá Monde's streets…but they'd never make it past the wine barrels, hah!"

Guildenstern allowed a thin smile of his own. "I wager they'd run Leá Monde's stores dry by noon."

"We've a wager of our own to fill when this is over, sir! The finest sword in the Academy 'gainst the greatest terror of the aletaps, in a trial by tankard." Tieger grinned challenge. "Won't that make for a fine song?"

Many, Guildenstern knew, were the fears, felicities, and wonders of the mind which the Dark could make real. The ale strong enough to fell a man like Tieger was not among them. "There are some gauntlets even I dare not throw," Guildenstern said, prompting a booming laugh from the doughty axeman. He had no true doubts with Tieger, but there was one genuine curiosity he had, and there was no better time to answer it. "A last question, Tieger. I know you well. In courage you have no second. And if we must give chase to Leá Monde, I count your courage among our greatest strengths. But I have always wondered how it is, with all you have known in your life of battles, that you trust those you fight alongside, even in the very shadow of the Dark."

"You wonder if I trust these sellswords, sir?"

"I wonder how you trust at all. What does trust mean to you, Tieger?"

"Naught 'til it's known trial." Where Tieger had jested with the word only moments before, now it came from the very bottom of his chest with cavernous authority. "Trial changes a man, sir. Trial teaches a man where to look. Ahead of him, and behind him, above and below…aye, and beside him, too. He learns amidst the trials of life who he can trust, and who he can't, and who he hasn't any choice but to trust. Our knights will learn that in Leá Monde – and might even be some of these sellswords take that to heart. Might be some take to fighting for the Rood o'er fighting for coin, eh? 'Twas how I came to us, after all. And what better proving ground for a Crimson Blade?" Tieger gruffly gestured with his chin to the black book, as if calling a partner forward for the day's first spar. "There lie our greatest trials yet. Let's meet them, and prove our trust is truly placed."

"We have no hands more proven than yours," said Guildenstern. "To your preparations, Commander Tieger." They gripped wrists, and Tieger smiled proudly, and there walked from Guildenstern another who trusted himself – but their trusts differed in kind, rather than degree. He was one who believed the bonds forged in battle were unbreakable, the best and the strongest a soul in this world of adversity could hope to find. So was Tieger's trust in himself ever secured by those bonds, as the head of his axe was fixed to its haft of steel.

And watching Tieger go, Guildenstern almost wished he could envy him. But too much in this world was already broken to believe in the unbreakable.

Neesa

Some knights derived more faith from the sword than from scripture. Neesa had come to the Order a most mysterious convert, with an offering of skill that her cordial manner and unscarred features belied. She was swift – even armed with her Nordic warhammer, Neesa was one of the fastest warriors Guildenstern had ever seen, and agile too, a master of acrobatics and evasion. He knew that she had been courted by the VKP when she first arrived in Valendia, and it must surely have been a fraught courtship, for like Tieger, Neesa knew several of their fighting arts. So that she had risen to become one of their fiercest commanders and the most dreaded sparring partner in the Order's salles seemed a matter of course.

For all that, Neesa carried herself before Guildenstern with unquestioning allegiance. She was, he sensed, grateful to him. For granting her knighthood, for recognizing her as a warrior – and for giving her the chance to wield her mace against a familiar foe. For Neesa had come to the Knights of the Cross knowing of the Dark. Her motherland was distant, far beyond the reach of Parliament's palings. There, Neesa had told Guildenstern, they had their own word for the Dark, for which the closest word in Valendian was mist…and from her birth, she had ever been shrouded in it.

Of all his commanders, Neesa's briefing was both the quickest and the most surprising. For while Guildenstern spoke to her of Leá Monde and Müllenkamp, of Sydney's powers and all the devils at his command, Neesa did not once touch the black tome laid upon the table. Her eyes never sought it. She surely knew what it was, yet it no more commanded her attention than the room's amber braziers.

"Again, you must expect the most violent resistance in the Undercity. The Dark's roots are set deep there, and many of the Kildean mages struck their bargains in its sunless ways. The tome before you speaks of what became of them, and the magic they were said to have obtained…" Guildenstern dispensed with subtlety. "You may look within it if you wish, Neesa."

"I understand, sir." Neesa still made no motion to reach for it. Her eyes remained upon his, and blinked only when he did not reply. "Do you wish me to?"

"After all I have told you today, I thought you might be eager for the opportunity." Guildenstern stroked his chin. "You are one of our finest warriors, Neesa. All in our Order know you to be. The art of battle comes naturally to you."

"As it must to all who would survive my homeland." Neesa crossed her arms, the only ones ever to best Tieger's in a contest of strength. "My lack of distress does not surprise you, sir. You may say it. You fear that for all my experience, I am not prepared for what we will face in Leá Monde."

"You have faced much the Dark has to offer, Neesa, but even you have not faced it in full." Guildenstern gestured with an upraised palm to the Kildean text, inviting, inquiring. "'Know thy enemy' – is that not the ancient wisdom? I know there is no foe you look upon with fear, Neesa. Would it still not serve you to look there, and learn the faces of the horrors Sydney will set before us? To ready yourself for battle against the Dark?"

"Is there any page in any book, sir," Neesa asked, looking at him, "that could ready me for battle against you?"

Guildenstern was quiet.

Neesa yielded the stare that followed between them first. She finally looked at the Kildean book, but still did not touch it. "I have looked in the ancient texts, sir," she said, "and the grimoires, and the tomes that speak of an 'other' world beyond our own knowing…and I have also never overcome a foe without the need to adapt. I believe no warrior can. The wolf does not list all his means of violence between two covers, nor does the basilisk, nor the most desperate drunkard in the lowest tavern brawl. All can take the unwary by surprise. That surprise may mean death. 'Tis dangerous to try and predict the course of battle before it is joined. The Dark is no different…and I learned long ago the only way to prevail against it is never to predict it."

"That sounds almost like counsel, Neesa."

She pondered that a moment, and then gave him the half-wry, half-brash smile she normally reserved for Tieger's gruff insights. "So it does. I can only speak honestly, sir, for all my doubts are long fled me. If you would have it as such, then know it is counsel you may rely on."

"I shall rely on it," said Guildenstern, with a measuring look, "as long as I may rely upon you. You carry not only my confidence in this task, but the Cardinal's. Such confidence must be earned continually – through action, as well as reaction."

Neesa took his meaning. She drew herself up, straight as a sword. "You may ever rely on me, sir. To act is what I am made for. And Müllenkamp will rue the learning of it."

This one will keep her oath. For that quality did Guildenstern : he came to the table, and stretched out his arm for her to clasp. Neesa took it firmly, her eyes clear and vigilant. "I have ever thought well of you, Commander Neesa," Guildenstern said. "Make our men as ready as you are. We will have great need of you before this is over."

She left with an emboldened stride. After, Guildenstern sat at the table, and steepled his hands as he studied the Kildean book. As she said, Neesa was as beyond doubt as a blade of Damascus steel, purged of all impurities. She was a warrior born, but in Leá Monde, against all Sydney could bring to bear, she would do more than fight. The Dark changed all it touched, but Neesa would let herself be changed.

When that happened, might she prove herself more terrible than that book of beasts – or be one day counted within its pages?

They were four true Blades. Armed with them alone, any other man might cut a path to his ambitions. But only the fifth – his first, and his fondest – could see Guildenstern to his, and he felt her stirring in her sheath. He had the resolve to draw that blade. Had she the strength to endure his resolve?

This, too, must be assessed.

Samantha

The single road from the Graylands to Leá Monde was twenty years in disrepair, and even quickened by magic, the carriage rumbled as if tossed by waves, but the weight of a long night finally found Samantha all the same. She bayed her fatigue with talk at first, and Guildenstern entertained her, until her voice slowly began to soften. Five miles out from the Duke's manor, Guildenstern felt the brush of her hair over his shoulder becoming more frequent. By the tenth, it had eased into the familiar pressure of her head upon his shoulder.

Not always had sleep come to Samantha without effort. Guildenstern studied the spell-veiled landscape outside, recalling how she had come to the Order – overrun with the thirst of curiosity, clearly unslaked by the Academy's teaching. Even as an acolyte, she'd quickly made a reputation for her studiousness. She had been so eager a learner that she could scarcely keep herself to a bedtime; one of the priesthood's many thick tomes had been her most common blanket in the barracks, to hear Samantha's peers tell it. (They'd called her the Candle, for she burned late into the night.) Knights, of course, must train themselves to sleep. For a young girl with a tireless mind, the practice had been her hardest task. Despite Samantha's skills with the blade, that one failing might have fated her to a future in the priesthood as chronicler or sacristan…had she not found an instructor one day. Another graduate from the Academy – older and quieter, and of far superior rank – but no less restless of mind. She'd reached for a book on sound slumber in the priesthood's library, and her hand touched his.

So Guildenstern let her rest. He'd always liked the sound of her breathing while she slept, soft and steady. It reminded him that Samantha forgot nothing he taught her to do.

Outside, day crawled toward noon. Their magicked carriage found a stone in the old road. Samantha stirred as if pricked, and rose from his shoulder with a surprised breath of air. "What…?"

"I thought to find you a cushion, but feared it might wake you," Guildenstern said, chuckling once. "There is time, if you would rest a while longer."

"How long was I asleep?" She doffed a glove to wipe carefully at her eyes. "You ought to have woken me…"

"It was a wearying night, Samantha. A hard night, and you pushed yourself hardest of all." Guildenstern smoothed a trace of sleepsand from her cheek. "Even a Commander of the Crimson Blades needs her rest between battles."

"You seem to have no need." Samantha said it sourly, but Guildenstern knew the sound of an arrow loosed at its own wielder. Her hands worked at each other in her lap, tightening her glove back under one of her broad sleeves. "Thank you, truly, but…I cannot. So much depends on this day. I'd not have you think I meet it with less than all my strength."

"I think it not." But I will still ask you to prove it to me. Guildenstern turned to her, not fully, but enough to draw her gaze to his. "I have always seen strength in you, Samantha. None here doubts it, I least of all. So doubt yourself no longer."

"Do I seem doubtful?" All trace of sleep fled Samantha's eyes. "Do you have doubts?"

"I put all my doubts to rest long ago," said Guildenstern. "All my fears, too."

"Whereas my fears still stir, is that it?" Samantha asked, sharply enough that she bit at her lip a moment after. Guildenstern neither scowled nor smiled, only awaiting her reply. "Forgive me. I know you think me strong, Romeo, and you have made me stronger. It is only…there are times where I wish…where I wish I could doubt the things I know now. Where I still wish the Dark was only the dark, and nothing more."

"I understand." Guildenstern did believe he meant that. "'The darkness gives tone to the world–'"

"'Rich, and varied'," finished Samantha, smiling at the old verse. A sad smile, but a smile all the same. She gazed out the window, watching the countryside pass them by. "And hasn't the world so much of it already? So much beauty, so many colors. I wish that were enough for all. That no man ever dreamt of using the Dark to stain the world, and twist it, and serve his own ends, as this Sydney does."

"It would surely be a better world." His hand gently covered both of hers. "Is that not our dream, Samantha? One we cannot achieve alone, or apart. Only together. And after today, we shall."

"You make it sound so simple. So close…" Hope touched Samantha's eyes now, as if it crested on the horizon. "Is it truly?"

"You will always have the truth from me," said Guildenstern. "But with truths as well as dreams, some we cannot find alone or apart. I need you, Samantha."

Beneath his palm, her hands pronated, and curled their fingers tightly around his. "Then know I am ready to seek any truth with you," Samantha said, looking up into his face. "In Leá Monde, and anywhere else in this world." Her lips spread in a smile, and the smile teased a smirk. "But when next we seek anything…mind how long you tarry, my love. I'll not always be waiting in the shadows to save you."

Chuckling, Guildenstern cupped her chin with his free hand, leaning in. "But you would wait for me."

They kissed. After, Samantha was refreshed, and the road beneath their wheels smoothed, until the ride seemed more leisure than pursuit. Guildenstern looked beyond the window on Samantha's side, and she followed his gaze, and soon, they saw the ocean. The city was near, and Guildenstern swore he could feel its pull upon him – as surely as he felt Samantha's hand tightening upon his, with all its adoring strength.

The way to Leá Monde lay open. An hour before noon, Guildenstern stood before the stairwell to the abandoned wine cellar which led to the city of Müllenkamp, its outline a dreary shadow across the sea. All his forces were assembled behind him. Scores of knights and sellswords stood ready for the signal, and his five Commanders flanked him, with weapons in hand and clear, focused eyes upon the descent.

Somewhere in there, Sydney awaited…and the Gran Grimoire with him.

Guildenstern now let focus return to him. He filled his lungs with a breath, and rejoiced to find the motion clear of grotesquery. No hand of smoke now plagued him – only fresh ocean air, spiced with brine, spreading strength through his body, limbering him for the fight ahead.

But his assessments were not yet finished. There was one more measure to take. The readiness is all, Guildenstern thought again, before the city and the roiling sea. Am I ready?

Slowly, Guildenstern drew his sword. He raised it in the sunlight, pointing the thin thrusting blade to the dark mouth of the stairwell to the wine cellar. But his eyes fell not on that dark descent, but his own reflection there in the polished basket hilt of his rapier, staring back at him. The passage of thirty years had hardened his jaw and given to it a surly edge, the once-golden hairs of his beard now dark as ash. Yet the eyes that returned his stare held all of their boyhood clarity. In them, he saw it once more: the same flame that had burned in the eyes of that cultist in the Duke's manor. The look of a dream uncaged – of a man consumed by it.

And now Guildenstern asked: did he have the right to make the dream a reality? It was his dream, but could he say that he and he alone had ever dreamed it? Did not the commonalty sense the same sickness festering in the world, the corruption that ruled their lives, and dream of its cleansing? Did they not yearn for some hope of change, hidden beyond history's horizon? Did they not know longing, and could that longing not one day bring them together, to make a better world?

He asked…only to see himself blink back the answer he had known since he was a boy. Longing was not enough. No matter how badly the world might long for a better tomorrow, longing led them only to look for a stronger man to bring it.

For longing was only the dream of the weak. Ambition was the dream of the strong.

Without one man to set himself strongest, the corruption would always set in. And the cleansing of corruption required not the tincture or the poultice, but fire and sword.

Guildenstern stretched out his rapier before the silhouette of Leá Monde, and then slanted the blade toward the mouth of the stairwell. "Forward."

Sword in hand, fire in his eyes, Guildenstern led his Crimson Blades into the Dark.

And so unfolded the story of the dreamer, the man consumed – the Crimson Blade.