Chapter II.
Out of a shaggy heap of dried moss and lifeless cave florae the acolyte witch Farnese did conjure an admirable bonfire, which bathed the mucoid walls of the chasm in silhouettes warped and twitching in rabic dance. Guts loped about the dewy purlieu like some upright cervine sentinel, stonecarved head wheeling about to inspect the entirety of the den twice over. Their prior investigation had divulged a lurid revelation – the veiled being whom Guts had summarily annihilated belonged to a lost order of druids, stationed there at the command of much higher powers. Schierke had once warned Farnese of these renegade mages in a dream. No doubt such interference in the spiritual order of things had earned them some measure of divine retribution amidst the higher worlds above, but Farnese found no dire incentive to fret even in that hypogeal womb far beneath the skin of the earth. Not as she could draw strength from the Black Swordsman so close at hand.
"Guts, you're going to miss the fire!" the acolyte witch chirruped to her companion in singsong declaration. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him slow to a halt. "Don't make me feed it your cloak!"
"And how would that be proper of a lady like yourself?" he rumbled, appearing before her in a darkening flash. Her chinlength hair fanned about in a tiny draught born of his rapid approach. His speed was an enigma truly remarkable – he moved without equal amongst the dismal genera of their mortal realm. Once, many years before, she had found their mutual comrade Isidoro's incessant sycophancy most bothersome.
Now…she understood it completely.
She exhaled as would one in a carriage diverted at the last moment from an oncoming cliff. "Guts!" Her hand clutched at the alabaster plinth of her throat. "You can't just do that!"
The titan chuckled, settling onto a paltry pad of lichen beside her. Placing his boots on a compact boulder, he set to cleaning them with a greased pad he produced from a satchel on his oblate python of a swordsman's belt. His work was unhurried, the consummate art of a warrior postbattle. When he finished, he shifted to polish his dependable iron prosthesis with a smear of oil from a middling vial. Farnese appraised him thoughtfully.
"Have I got something else missing from my face?" said Guts after some time, lasering her with his peculiar singular regard. Farnese smiled, all reserve momentarily abandoned. She toyed absently with a strip of pulpified wood that had unraveled from her stave during the skirmish with the druid.
"How did you find me?" Farnese rendered her inquiry in churchtone. "I wasn't aware anyone else knew of this place."
The titan grunted noncommittal. "Difficult question. The whole of it doesn't make much sense to me as it is. Not sure I could put an answer to words."
His companion aimed her witch's stick at the blaze, willing the flames from diminishment. Auburn the bonfire enlarged to wash the pair of travelers in an intense heat. "Try me. I don't think I'll make it far as a mage if I don't keep an open mind."
Guts leaned back, disrobed shoulders undulating like sinuous mesas beset by earthquake. "It happened after we were forced back over the sea from Elfhelm." He paused a second, eye examining the amorphous ceiling somewhere overhead. "I'm sorry I took off. I knew we had a job to do, but I just couldn't handle losing Casca twice. I didn't know where to go, so I walked back to Godo's stead. It was empty. Rickert had taken leave for Falconia by then. The cottage brought nothing but nightmares. But an odd feeling made me think I'd find peace in the old soldier's cemetery. For three days – silence. And then there was a voice. Whether it was in my own skull or fell from the heavens, I still don't know."
"Schierke?" ventured Farnese.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "It belonged to a man. I have yet to figure out the identity of its owner."
"What did it say?"
"Command, more like. It directed me eastward, talking of a cave surrounded by some godawful gulch. It promised me I would find the remedy to my despair if I would go to that hole in the ground. I didn't have any better options, so I started moving. Took me a few days to find the spot. When I finally reached this pit, I had already begun to doubt the voice's prophecy. Then…I saw you."
Farnese offered a rickety smile. "How disappointing."
Grinning himself, Guts shrugged. "Were it anyone else, it may have been."
The acolyte witch cocked her cordate head. "I think I've heard all I needed to hear."
At Guts's raised brow, she stood and retreated from the fire, making her way toward the loamy dais where the shattered corpse of the prelate druid reanimated a million times over in the ghostly theater of firelight. Her comrade watched her with curious bemusement, solitary eye widening when she paused before a wraithlike obelisk which emerged suddenly from the shadow as if out of the very thin air. Farnese twirled her staff before it, casting petals of blue beamwire pinwheels in elaborate patterns until the monument quaked and dispensed from some hidden compartment a breathtaking artifact into her arms.
A pearlescent titanium prosthesis, gleaming supernatural like the deathwear of apotheosis.
"Farnese…" he murmured in arrested bewilderment as she returned to him bearing the prismatic tactile instrument.
There was an almost meditative serenity about her movements as she released the artifact's clasp and met his eye unflinching. "Remove the predecessor."
When he failed to act in a timely fashion, she took a placid stride toward him. "You know you can trust me, Guts."
The titan looked away for a spell and then nodded. With tarried fingers, he unfastened the hasps of his obsidian falsearm until it came loose from the elbow.
"You know," he said as he laid the detached device on the ground. "This isn't the first time you've deprived me of this arm."
Farnese faltered. Horrific echoes of an inquisitorial session filtered through her brain. Her stramineous head tilted in shame, but she continued to hold the titanium gift aloft. For the smallest moment, she considered the possibility of error.
A shiver gripped her as she felt his mammoth bearpaw rest gentle as a dove on her shoulder. Surprise spurred her head toward him.
"A bad joke, Farnese," he assured. "The past is far behind us. Besides, you were acting on far nobler intentions than many. Misguided as it might have been, I cannot fault you for trying to usher in a perfect kingdom."
"I'm sorry, Guts," whispered Farnese, weeping inanimate.
"There is nothing to forgive," said Guts, bestowing a soothing press to her shoulder. "Now – I believe you have something for me?"
She struggled with an acute aspiration and nodded sharply. Tears ceased their trickling as she steadied her form and proceeded to secure the lustrous prosthesis to the vacant socket at the crook of his arm. It took with a triumphal sibilation. She stepped back at once to allow Guts to orient himself to the novel extremity, entire torso aflutter.
In that burnished duskswollen grotto the titanium prosthesis shone like the hand of some timeless Seraphim searing into the world of man with the unfathomable gloryfire of Paradise. Guts the Black Colossus weaved it about the air, an ephemeral trail of starlight glittering in the wake of his motions. Along the forearm and digital gauntlet rippled gold runes in prescient array, calculating schematics of flawless ministrations for their master that surpassed effortlessly the highest capabilities of humankind. It seemed to glide about at times as if of its own paramount volition, the Godlimb she had uncovered in the deep.
"Guts," came Farnese's rhapsodic appeal. "The Blade."
An almost atavistic snarl twisted his rigid countenance as he gripped the hilt of his vast weapon with the titanium fist and withdrew it from its backborne scabbard with a whistle like the peal of a celestial bell. Seamless he marshaled the ironslab sword with transcendental orchestration, maneuvering its elongate mass in vaporous configurations beyond the calculus of all mortal facilities. It was as if he had molted into some facsimile of a jurassic archangel, a fallen scion of Eden. Farnese felt her own familiarity with cosmic mysteries deepen as she observed by the fire, ascending in witchform power. Together, they discerned a myriad of arcane truths.
Long did the tyranny of awe persist even after he returned the blade to its holster. Farnese had dropped to her knees, encumbered with the piquant yoke of elucidation. Guts crossed their provisional camp to take her into his arms as would a shepherd prepare to ferry a wayward sheep back to pasture. She fell swiftly into slumber. Gathering her possessions, the titan marched the lissome acolyte witch through the long concourse of subterrane and out of the cave, witnessing alone the emergence of a magnificent morning sun.
Three days along the broken highway to the Kingdom of Midland the pair encountered a mammoth steed loitering in the prairiegrass some yardage from the edge of the road. Foreignmade arrows protruded from its dorsal saddle like malformed quills arranged slapdash, but astonishingly the animal bore no injuries. In its eyes a lingering trace of fright could be glimpsed, a kernel of whatever violence had sent it fleeing to the refuge of yon grassland. Farnese hung back as Guts approached the horse with a docile palm outstretched, rumbling exhortations of tranquility.
The beast took to Guts with little inducement. Perhaps, wondered Farnese, on mutual grounds of hulking stature. Counterparts in excess physicality. After plucking the squandered projectiles from the saddle, Guts steered his newfound attendant by the reins to rejoin her on the path. The creature gazed at her with imperious aquiline scrutiny.
"Think we have room for a friend?" said Guts, stroking the mustang's velveteen peninsula of a neck.
Farnese wrangled her livening nerves. Horses had always made her uneasy. Of all mundane duties it was travel which was certainly the worst part of her stint with the Holy See. Often she elected to ride in a hansom whenever a journey arose, avoiding with near medical compulsion any contact with the stables. "Indeed," she said, folding her arms. "Should you deign to rely on this beast."
As if unexpectedly hagridden by the soul of an acrobat, Guts vaulted in a single motion the towering incline that was the steed to assume the riderseat with stupefying grace. He lowered a hand to her, staid eye glittering in the frosty sunlight. "It won't bite, Farnese. At least – I don't think."
She snorted in mock indignation. "Quite reassuring."
The acolyte witch grabbed the proffered manus after a brief interval of reflect, allowing herself to be boosted featherlight onto the smooth tanned pillion. Guts positioned her behind him with a smirk. Undoubtedly enjoying her paperthin valor. When she evinced her complaisance to him in manacled soprano, the Black Swordsman drove a heel into the creature's flank to send them galloping down the road in a blur like a hurtling comet of brume.
For another two days they flew down the crumbling artery toward the heart of Midland on horseback, spending their nights huddled in the warming knot of his cloak beneath the naked firmament. Farnese named the steed Epephros, and she took to feeding him all manner of comestibles she harvested jackleg from the adjacent regions. The horse particularly appreciated a sparse variety of wheatgrass which grew in rosy bundles across the plains. Farnese made effort to accumulate as much of the spindly shinhigh sward as she could reasonably fit in her travelpack, fearing the impending snowfall.
A dying twilight sun at their backs, Farnese and the titan Guts soon reached a small village at the nadir of a sprawl of tablelands. Falconia materialized on the redpainted horizon as they drew close to their destination like a dazzling hallucination escaped from the debilitated mind of God.
Guts brought the horse to heel at the shoddy pergola which bore the name of the town on ruined guideboard.
"You sure this is the place?" he said, casting his head over a mountainous shoulder.
Farnese fiddled with her sigil ring where it encircled her left index whitegold and intricate. "I couldn't mistake it. Schierke showed it to me before I left for the cave."
"Say no more."
There proceeded from that ingress empty streets brimming with filth. Windowframes deteriorating and moldered grey with cobwebs. Farnese and her companion roamed through the outlandish village on the back of Epephros with utmost caution, eyes flitting about.
What few lights were on in the buildings on either side of the thoroughfare began to wink out as they passed. Unquestionably at the terrifying portend of this giant man striding into their infirm community. Farnese pointed to a sign indicating an inn at the end of the street, summoning Gut's attention. They picked up the pace. A drunk lay against the wall near the front door of the place, bottles scattered about. Guts curled his nose as he dismounted Epephros, seizing Farnese by the waist with both fleshen and titanium hand to aid her down. He hitched the steed to a complimentary post and then stepped to overtake the acolyte witch, pushing inside the inn as she followed.
Ragged were the barkeep and a small gathering near the lodging's hearth – the room's sole occupants. Farnese took the lead, marching into the hall. Guts tailed her as though a product of some apparatus which had manufactured her shadow huge and elongate, a hulking barbican with movements totally devoid of surplusage. What little noise there was instantly ceased at the presence of the newcomers. Farnese watched the man tending the booze attempt to dispel his dread as she smothered a smile. Impressions of fear never seemed to bother the Swordsman, but she could not help but wonder if he sometimes wished to be seen on less contentious terms.
Farnese approached the barman. "Hello, sir. We are looking for a party. The Birdhunters. We would appreciate it if you might direct us their way."
Wide were the innservant's eyes as they peered over the dome of her flaxen head to at Guts. "Erm – yes, milady. That way." He lifted a squat finger toward a set of doors across the room. "In the private dining hall."
Thanking him, the acolyte witch headed for the doors, Guts at her heels. "I knew they would be here," she murmured. Guts emitted a neutral sound. She placed her hand against the wood enclosing her former companions and paused, belly aflutter.
"Don't think too much about it," said Guts, suddenly at her ear. His massive form shielded her like a blackcloth veil made to cover a rampart. "Pretend we never went our separate ways."
Was it absurd that his rationed words were always so apt? She set her jaw and then pushed open the door.
"Lady Farnese!"
"Guts!"
The shouts of Serpico and Isidoro interwove to spring pleasantly boisterous across the room. Farnese beamed as the picture before her came soft into being. Serpico in a chair by a roaring fire. Puck circling wildly about Isidoro's head, the latter leaping up and down in a fashion that made him appear more simian than ever. In the corner stood Schierke, staff in hand, as if she had been practicing her incantations diligently but a moment ago. Their old comrades greeted them in quick succession, embraces shared, excitement and relief blending in that breakaway room of the inn.
"What took you guys so long?" cried Isidoro the group pulled apart. "More trolls?"
"Shut up, Dropey!" admonished Puck as he struck the monkeylike young man on the head with a comb. "They just got here!"
Guts chuckled at this display. "Something like that."
"Nothing too hideous, I hope?"
Serpico grinned at the Swordsman's side, his emerald tunic billowing as if of its own accord. Wind sylphs, thought Farnese. Still with him as dedicated as ever.
"It was a druid," said Farnese as if relaying the weather. "It waited for me at the bottom of the cave. Luckily, I was not alone for long."
Guts peered down at her, the fire refracting in his eye affectionately.
Schierke shuddered. "A druid…? Interesting. Well, I'm glad you're alright. The both of you."
"Oh, man," interjected Isidoro. "I would have liked to see that thing shit itself when Guts went to work!"
Farnese opened her mouth, but it was Serpico's voice that rang with wonderment in place of her own.
"What in Christ's good name is that?"
Every eye found the marvel that lay at the culmination of Serpico's pointed finger.
The Godlimb.
And in the faint pond of hearthlight the Black Swordsman settled first, pulling a chair out from the long table at the center of the room and falling into it like an anchor. He dusted off his breeches in needless ceremony and then cast his eye on Farnese.
"Guess it's time to explain ourselves. Farnese?"
