It was just after nightfall when the first one joined her. A short and stunted twig that may once have been part of some larger creature, its emaciated body struggling to keep up with her stride. Wille could have crushed it with a single step, but didn’t. She let it follow her, its uneven gait tracing an irregular pattern in the snow.

Then she was joined by another. A mare of good stature but rotten around the edges, her head hung down lifeless between her legs. She walked backwards, knees disjointed, as the emerging legs of her foal twitched and fronds of long eponychium twisted around her tail. One by one more and more Gol of various misshapen shapes and sizes joined her in monstrous procession. The dream eating Gol was there with its grinding, slablike teeth, though it had changed somewhat since leaving the monastery with Lydia in its jaws. A pair of slender arms now hugged the torso, and a second set of eyes had appeared, blinking, in the tear ducts of the first. Some of its teeth had gained holes, and as they gnashed together the wind whistled through them. Four legs, not two, made it move with a resolute trot and the quadruple eyes regarded Wille with an inscrutable emotion, one repressed or simply left unsaid.

The parade of Gol followed their leader to the gates of Palus Somni under the shining gaze of the full Orphan Moon. Wille was surprised to see that their utility had returned, as the holes in the walls had been patched, quite thoroughly it seemed, by a grey stone she didn’t recognise through the haze of slowly falling snowflakes. A grey stone that, had she stared for longer than a glance, she may have noticed was ever so slightly pulsating, carrying a faint flow of movement inside the molten rock.

Larger and less recogniseable Gol had joined her as the night darkened. Bone-skin constructs so full of bile that they left a trail of vitriolic splatter with every step, that walked awkwardly with backs hunched because to stand would set them at risk of tumbling, so tall were they that gravity had become their enemy. They could cross the wall with a single bound, and yet they waited with her with sycophantic smiles, legs tucked beneath them, as she stepped up and pulled the cord that rang the gatehouse bell.

No immediate answer led her to ring again, the exertion pulling taut against her bruised ribs and making her gasp and bite her lip to keep from crying out. She could hear the creak of floorboards above her and knew that Isidore was awake. Most likely, they were staring out the window at the mass of Gol outside, unsure of who or what was ringing their bell.

“Isi-” But her voice caught in her throat. She tried again. “Isidore! It’s me!”

“Isidore! It’s me!” Said a voice that was her voice that came from behind her. Soon several cries of “Isidore!” and “It’s me!” rang out as feet stamped and heads swayed, some more discernible than others.

The floorboards creaked towards the stairs, until a curly-haired head appeared out of the side door with a look that said they had very quickly progressed through several stages of grief and were now approaching, if not acceptance, then a serenity that can only be found under an extreme amount of duress.

“Wille. You’re back.” Isidore said in a flat voice.

“Listen to me Isidore, I know what this looks like, but-”

“You have no idea what this looks like.”

The sharp edge to their voice took her off-guard, just for a moment. She wrapped her hands around the cold metal bars of the gate to stop herself from falling over. The walk had been more of a burden than she’d anticipated, and something was oozing out of her dressing and down her left hip. Inside her chest, behind the beating of her heart, something seemed to grate and whirr just barely inside the bounds of conscious hearing.

“Well, yes, of course. But please hear me out, these creatures… Oh! Where to begin! These creatures are not at fault here, they - and us - are influenced by forces we can barely comprehend. Beneath the monastery there is a lake, and in the lake is a being we call the Dreamer-”

“Heresy!”

“I’m serious, Isidore. I’ve seen it. I’ve met it.” Isidore grimaced at these words, their mouth set in a hard line as flakes of snow caught in their hair. “It means us no harm, it just doesn’t… coagulate well with our world. It needs to go home. Will you help me?”

Isidore no longer looked angry, but they still didn’t answer her.

“I can leave them outside until I can explain to the others. They wont hurt you, so please let me in.”

Isidore took a large iron key from their waistcoat pocket and took a step towards the smaller door set within the larger gate, twisted it in the lock, and swung it open. Wille stepped inside and made a halting motion towards the gathered Gol, who cocked their heads or hunkered down on their limbs in understanding as she turned away from them and began walking up the snow-dappled lawn towards Palus Somni.

Isidore was sobbing now, thick tears rolling down their face, hot rivers against their cold-blushed cheeks.

“It’s happening again. Dreamer, forgive me, it’s happening again.” They muttered to themselves in the doorway, unfollowing.

“Hm?” Wille turned back.

“Just like before. The girl, the Gol, the heresy.” They spat this last word, spittle mingling with tears and snow. “Do you have no thought in you at all? You think they will just tell you the truth, that they are the victims, so you can come back here and bring the plague with you? You trust every monster you meet? You are a stupid, foolish girl, made of fantasies and simple-mindedness. You and Harriet alike.”

They took their dirk out from where it had been hidden in the shadow of the doorframe.

“Harriet? Isidore, what-”

And in an instant, they rushed. The stab was quick, and true, but not deep. A thrust of fury, not of intent. The blow that followed, however, was deliberate and the handle of the knife sent her to oblivion.

Isidore lowered her carefully to the ground, cradling her close.

“Not again.” The words were ragged with sobs, tears falling from their lips and eyes.

“Not again.”

---

“...Are you awake? Ahh, yes. There you go. Hello. My name is Saint Francesca, but you can call me Cesca. My, you did lead us a merry chase. No no no, no, hush now. Don’t struggle. It will only tighten the knots. Sister Judith is an expert, you know. So you wouldn’t want to make it any worse than it has to be.”

The feeling in her chest, that grating and whirring, was going round and round in her ears like the buzzing of some awful hive. When she opened her eyes, and after the fuzz and mist cleared, she saw a kindly but unfamiliar face in front of her. Kindly like a matron, not kindly like a friend. It took a while for her words to come into focus, but when they did she looked down at her body and saw the ropes and chains. Thick hessian cords normally used for bellringing, fortified by the same chains used to fence off plots of herbs. Everyday objects, turned rotten with criminal intent. Isidore’s knife poked out from between her ribs, almost in the exact spot where her dressings were thickest. Her frock was stained red from the site of the puncture down to her feet. So much for luck, she thought. Oil ran into her mouth and she almost choked on the taste, acrid and strong, while piles of finely chopped branches lay at her feet, festooned with ribbons. Cesca’s tatter-tree stake had finally found a use.

Beneath the knife her wound writhed. She couldn’t tell if it was her imagination but the twitching sensation seemed real enough. Muscles contracting and loosening in tidal swells beneath her bosom as the moon loomed overhead. The writhing was interrupted by another, more sinister, sensation. The touch of fingers on her forehead, gently stroking her hair where it lay curled and lank across her face. Cesca smiled at her with wide red lips and stepped back, down off the creaking platform, while intoning some meaningless prayer.

There was a commotion at the gate as Isidore ran a flaming torch over the iron, sending Gol scattering backwards from where they had gathered.

“Get away! Back, back!”

Before long they were back, fingers and tendrils curling around the bars while several sets of vacant eyes gazed at her from outside the ring of light. Cesca took no notice, only took a torch from a woman behind her. It was just the four of them. Wille assumed the rest of the abbey hadn’t been notified of her return and now slept on, unaware of the scene in the courtyard or the Gol at the gates.

She thought about Claudia, somewhere inside and waiting for her. The windows felt hollow when she looked up at them. It was hard to remember this place as where she had grown up. She had slept every night of her life behind those windows and now the glass was empty and dark.

Gods, her side was throbbing terribly. No pain anymore, just the ever-present shudder.

She thought about what was about to happen, but with a certain sense of detachment. It was unreal, these past few days had been so far beyond belief that she couldn’t bring herself to care.

She had looked into the soul of a God and returned forever changed. Let them bring their fire, their ropes and knives. Let them say their prayers and bow their heads and clasp their hands in supplication to a force that recognises them not. They can try their hardest to contain and control, to force and to govern. It was absurd, really, how much they sought for power in all the wrong places. Their cries mere mewlings before the coming storm, plaintive wails that betrayed their inner insecurities. Such pitiable, such miserable ones. So sorry a state of affairs would never arise if given the chance for true compassion.

She did not know how she knew this, but it rang in her ears to the beat of the blood as flecks of boiling fat hissed and frothed in the flames.

---

When the first of the flames had licked up the tatter-tree stake Isidore had turned away, put their back against the blaze and faced out onto the wild. But the fire was reflected in every eye on every Gol that lurked out there in the darkness, and though they didn’t want to see it, it was unavoidable. So they had closed their eyes and crouched, hugging their knees as the flames spluttered and popped with every falling snowflake.

The screaming started soon after, and even with their head squeezed tight between their arms they could still hear the muffled shrieks, followed soon by the stench of burnt hair and charred meat, still on the bone.

The Gol at the gates did not react to seeing their leader burnt at the stake. They only watched, unmoving. As though they were waiting for something to happen, Isidore thought as they finally raised their head. The light from the bonfire behind them cast their shadow long and steep across the grass and out through the gate, joining itself to that mass of darkness beyond the walls. They stood, uncertainly, and turned at last towards Sister Wille.

It was hard to make her out, but there was indeed a dark shape at the centre of the writhing flames. She couldn’t hear it clearly over the roar but Cesca was laughing and prancing around, giddy with adrenaline and clapping her hands like a young girl with a new toy. Judith remained silent, ever the good servant, but the fire in her eyes was more than just a reflection.

“Isn’t it glorious?” Cesca shouted over the roar. Isidore supposed it was aimed at them, but the Inquisitor was already lost once again in her own reverie, twirling around and bowing before the fire in acts of delirious worship. For a fleeting moment, Isidore wondered if they had done the right thing. There were monsters outside, yes, but what was this euphoric dance of pain and terror if not some other kind of demon?

They shuddered. No matter. It was done, and the convent would be safe. Cesca was a question for another time.

Cesca danced, and inside the flames the dark shape danced alongside her. The flickering of the fire made the lump of flesh at its core seem to flutter and twist, the edges becoming indistinct in the blaze. The flurries of snow added to the effect, warping in the heat and sending sparks flying high into the late night sky.

Then Isidore saw it. A shadow in the core began to unfurl, to twist and wind itself out and upwards only to burst out of the fire and onto the courtyard. A pulsating mass of muscle, charred black and shedding soot as it snaked out across the floor towards them. Isidore took a step back, and another, back onto the grass but the being only extended so far. It hacked and coughed, Isidore supposed that was what it was doing at least, because it shuddered with effort and eventually spat out the dirk which clattered gracelessly against the cobble. Cesca had stopped dancing.

The wood of the stake cracked and popped as it buckled under the weight of the being now stood there. The ropes had long since burned to nothing, but the chains had remained, and they now swung with red-hot intensity around the newly-born Gol as it broke itself free. One arm, now monstrously engorged, remained tethered to a block of wood, while the other reached to pull itself out of the flames. The wooden platform buckled as it stood, beastial legs disjointed and splayed while it’s body reared out of the fire and into the snow-speckled night. Wille’s head had elongated, her face becoming a canine snout that tapered into a ragged point. The burnt skin was starting to shed, draping her new face in a burnt-black curtain that fell down her back in an unruly mane.

With a single, strong bound she leapt from the fire trailing smoke, gigantic claws tearing streaks down the wall of the monastery as she clambered for purchase. Settling on the roof with her paws against the balustrades, she howled into the night and thick plumes of acrid smoke bellowed up from her burning abdomen and out through her wide-split mouth. It was a sound like no other Isidore had ever heard. It was the sound not of pain, nor fear, but purpose. A call to action that reverberated the world and set the Gol at the gates to movement.

Despite all her cruelty it cannot be said that Saint Francesca was not an intelligent woman, for she and her aide had already fled, leaving Isidore alone as sacrifice. A snowdrift had already formed around the ice-cold dirk when they lifted it up off the floor. A smart blade, simple and strong. From the rooftop, the Wille-beast glared at her with sparkling eyes as fiery cruror dripped from her maw. The front of the building was already showing signs of fire damage as the flames consumed whatever fuel they could find, igniting the ivy and the wooden window frames.

“Come, Golem.” Isidore cried, their words snatched by the wind. They held their dirk - their small, useless dirk - in the ready position. Behind them the front gates buckled and snapped as hoards of skeletal hands tore at the metal.

“You will find no fear here.”