Chapter 78

"If you’re to be my Apprentice, we have to do this the right way."

His voice was a papery mutter just above a whisper. There was a long pause as he took several breaths. "The old way. The proper way."

Katarina gave him a puzzled look. A Witch Hunter’s apprentice followed a raised Hunter about, learning their craft from one who lived it. When their Master passed, the Writ and Warrant passed to them, and a new Witch Hunter took their place in the ranks. Katarina didn’t know how much trotting and fetching she could do for him in this valley, but if he thought it was necessary, perhaps it was.

Well, that was the ‘old way’. The new way was born from necessity: If you survived the training, had the elasticity of thought, the quickness of mind and body, and didn’t die, you won your gun, you were given an assignment and sent out into the world, to stand or fall as you may.

Lord Donald eyed her from across the campfire. "You’re thinking stupid thoughts." He muttered. "Chase them away. Focus." He paused, and looked up at the night sky. For the longest time there was complete silence except the popping and rustling from the campfire. Just as she was thinking that the legendary Witch Hunter had either fallen asleep or even died, he spoke.

"The Witch Hunter stands apart." He began slowly. "Hundreds of years ago, the Witch Hunters stood apart. We took no oath to serve any country."

Katarina jolted at that.

"The only vows we took were to the Golden Lady, to the Order. To destroy magic wherever found, whatever the cost. No forgiveness. No retreat. No compromise." He stopped speaking again, breathing slowly, deeply, more deeply than Katarina had seen before. "We- we stood apart. We didn’t serve the Empire." He twisted the word bitterly. "We serve the Golden Lady. Only her. Only Her. Her light. Her will. Her flame, in our hearts, burning to the beat of one song: The sound of Her Glory."

He rolled his eyes to hers. Hard blue eyes, burning into pale green. "Do you understand? The Empire is just a body politic." he continued, mouth twisting and voice rising in disgust. "We are called to a higher purpose: to protect everyone, regardless of nation or boundary or rule or station for the terror of the arcane."

She nodded. She understood that. In his own way he was describing the autonomy of the Witch Hunter. A Witch Hunter had almost unlimited freedom to go where they wanted, do as they pleased. Witches could hide anywhere, from the lowest to the highest.

"We protect what needs to be protected." He stated firmly, "and nothing stands in our way."

After a long moment of thought, she nodded. It was impossible for her to disagree. There was a part of her that raged against the idea of defying the Anglish Empire, but it was slowly being eroded by the agreement that borders didn’t matter. The responsibility for ridding the world of magic users extended beyond nationalities, beyond borders.

He nodded at her agreement. "Good. Good. It’s better this way. Better that you come into understanding in your own way." He made a face. "You keep praying to the Goddess to keep me alive, and so here I am, but..." He clenched his jaw. "Doesn’t fucking matter", in a lower voice that she took for petulance. "Stupid fucking..." He trailed off.

"Fine." He finally said, his voice clearer and stronger than at any point before, as if he’d summoned up all of his fortitude and vitality for what came next.

His jaw was clenched; the muscles jumping in his neck. He took a deep, hissing breath through his clenched teeth.

"Katarina, take off my gloves. And undo the cuffs of my shirt." He paused and as she rose, she thought she could see a glimmer of moisture in the older man’s eyes. How old was he, and still fighting against Witches? Twice, three times the age of her tati, her father? More?

"Three is the number of the Goddess." He began, as Katarina removed his tattered gloves. "The number of power. The number of the Woman."

In the flickering firelight Katarina could see vinelike scrollwork on the palms and backs of his hands, and as she undid his cuffs, the scrollwork continued up both of his arms. Naturally flowing into the whorls and jags of the tattoos were certain symbols. Symbols she recognized through study, symbols it was safe not to think too deeply about.

"Six is the Goddess’ number doubled; it stands for her people, male and female, alike and different, given the world to tame and subjugate." he stated, as if reciting a verse. Katarina cast her thoughts back to her studies; there’d been no mention of such numerology in her understandings of the Golden Book.

He looked up at her.

"Seven. Seven is the number of the Goddesses’ people, plus one, for Herself, the golden heart of the Lily that flowers around her. The question has been asked, Katarina lon Pavlenko: Do you stand ready for what comes?"

There was no mistaking that tone, that question. This was the first choice, the only choice. Everything up to this point had been preparation. If she made this choice, she forswore all others, a dedication and commitment of heart and soul. That verbal spat in the courtyard with Lady Inquisitor Cayne and Paladin Nadette was just political bullshit. This, whatever the Wolf of Alastor had in mind for her; this was the real deal, the true commitment, the sacrament between herself, the Goddess, and Her Master.

She nodded. He gave her a look, somewhere between acceptance and approval. "You will only be offered one chance to refuse." He offered, and she shook her head. She was to become a Witch Hunter. Her path had been laid out in front of her, through training, through struggle, adversity, and discipline, but this was the actual choice, the first step.

"Knife." he gestured weakly, and she offered him one of the knives that were clearly used more for utility than fighting. His mouth twisted wryly. "No. The one in my left boot. Stiletto."

She pulled the knife free. The blade was of an amazingly fine steel, almost seemingly paper thin and only as wide as her finger. The fuller, such as it was, was filigreed in gold.

"The right hand is the hand of the mind. The hand of trust. The hand of strategy." He quickly, and without hesitation slid the stiletto through the palm of his right hand and out the other side with a muffled gasp. Katarina moved, and he glared at her, blue eyes blazing, and jerked the blade free.

"You had your chance to refuse. We both did. We both chose this." He growled through gritted teeth. He handed her the stiletto, slick with blood, and nodded at her. There was no moment of comprehension; it was as if once began, there could only be one conclusion. She steeled herself, the point of the blade pressing into her right palm.

"This ceremony, Katarina, is the old way. We only get seven breaths. Any more, and we both die. Remember: three, six, one." Her eyes widened at this- only seven breaths? For this? But no. She had chosen. More, she wanted this, the desire reaching up from the deepest reaches of her heart. She closed her eyes and took her first breath. Her right hand burned. Should she look? Could she look? She didn’t need to. She could feel the blade between the bones in her palm.

She somehow managed to pull the blade from her hand; the pain burned and she couldn’t even curl her hand; she cradled it in the left, desperately trying to keep from crying out. Six. Six breaths remaining.

She managed to open her eyes, and Donald gestured for the knife over the fire.

If it was this bad, this painful for her, how must it be for him? She wondered. His wounds, his injuries were horrible- and now he was doing this? Willingly?

"The left hand is the hand of the heart. The hand of passion. The hand of love." He gasped as he used his wounded right hand to once more thrust the blade into himself, this time through the left palm. He let out a reedy groan as he yanked it out, and nearly threw the knife at Katarina. The pain was blinding, burning, searing into Katarina’s right hand; how could she- She squashed those thoughts and forced her right hand to close around the blood-slicked handle of the knife. Rusty augurs of pain scraped through her hand, the joints seemingly filled with crushed metal shards, chunks of glass. She couldn’t help it; she screamed again as she rammed the blade through her other hand. Blood pooled and ran everywhere. Her head was filled with cotton batting. Everything wavered and swam in front of her. For a moment, perhaps for a hair of a second, she could see a woman standing between herself and Lord Donald Christiansen. It was just for an eyelash of a second, but Katarina was certain she saw her. Skin, pale as milk, eyes churning thunderstorms of gray and black, a black silk dress that clung to her form lasciviously and puddled in the dirt, concealing her feet. Not even half a breath. Not even in the moment of time it took to blink, there and gone as if it had never happened. She screamed again as she pulled the blade out of her left hand. Why had she agreed to this? She’d never hold a sword again. She’d never be able to even squeeze a trigger. She was going to pass out from shock. She was going to bleed out. She was going to die.

She pried her eyes open. Her Master, the man who’d taken her as his apprentice, gestured to her with bloody hands. She took a shuffling step and fell down, and he grasped her hands, left to left, right to right.

"It’s all right, Katarina. He whispered. How could he have so much breath? She had, what? Five? Four? One? The pain was making her delirious. "Focus on me." He whispered. She nodded, and took a deep breath.

"This will be the worst yet." He gasped, and katarina jerked in surprise, but suddenly, a blazing nova exploded from their clasped hands. Searing, burning fire, molten steel, her mind dragged out everything she could compare the pain to and found it wanting. She couldn’t scream. Or was she screaming? She couldn’t tell. The pain blazed through the wounds in her palms, Her hands were ragged lumps of pain, searing, savage splinters of pain dragged across her wrists, crawling, scrawling, scraping, slashing her arms to ribbons, and still she screamed. The pain crept past her wrists, past her elbows, sank rusty hooks into the meat of her biceps and-

When she awoke, she was laying on her side, shivering in the cold. Her hands clasped the hands of her mentor, crusted with drying blood. The fire was down to embers. She needed to build it back up again. She knew moving her arms, moving her hands would be agony. The remembered pain caused her arms to jerk; her hands separated from her teacher. She blinked a few times. There was no pain.

There was dried, crusted blood everywhere. Twisting vines of green, tinted here and there with oxblood and white lent definition. Madonnas bloomed up and down both of her arms in intricate tattoos. Symbols she knew she was forbidden to read were indelibly marked in between leaves and vines and petals. The First Language, the Divine Language, the words the Goddess Herself had spoken to breathe life into the world and bring it whole from the Terror of the Long Night and the Void of Oblivion.

The untrained could go mad looking at them. To speak them was to invite consequence; no human tongue could put voice to those symbols. There were tales, stories of people being struck dumb, brain-burned, even petrified into stone.

She quickly rolled down her sleeves and focused her complete attention on the campfire. Shavings, leaves, tinder, small branches, larger branches. An icy chill slid through her heart. The terror of knowing that she had been marked and couldn’t even examine it. She forced her mind onto the next task, breakfast.

-I have never heard of such a ritual from the Witch Hunters. They keep their secrets close to the heart indeed.

She thought she knew what she was agreeing to. She thought she understood everything that needed to be understood about being a Witch Hunter. The books, the lessons, the training- the endless gruelling training that left her gasping and panting- All of it. She thought she was ready. She thought she understood. She thought she knew everything, could handle anything, was prepared to face anything.

How easily the illusion vanished in the stark planes and colors of reality. In the weeks she’d been his apprentice, he had casually and almost contemptuously slapped away her ideas that she was in any way ready to face what was to come.

He gripped the Witches’ throat, forcing the man’s head up, gripped it tight in one hand that was gnarled, scarred, and spotted with age. His eye fixed hers in an implacable stare.

"Do it, Apprentice." He’d ordered.

The Witch, a rogue mage that had escaped the Church and had dodged the Inquisition and Witch Hunters for years, struggled in his grip, fingers catching, trying to tear the old man’s hands from his throat.

Katarina knew what she was supposed to do. She knew there was supposed to be no room for hesitation, yet she hesitated anyway.

"Do it. And say the words." her Master commanded. The words that all Witch Hunters knew. The oath, the curse, the promise of eternal damnation.

The gun was raised; the barrel wavered. There was no choice. Just by being there, in contact with the Witch, the man’s arcane powers were dampened, inert. But if she shot the mage, the bullet would pass through him and into her Master.

Her lips were numb, but she said the words.

"As a Witch Hunter in service-" She paused to clear her throat- "In service to the Golden Lady, I pronounce summary judgement: I name you blasphemer. I name you abomination. I name you heretic. I name you Witch, the punishment of which is death."

Har palms were sweaty and the gun trembled in her grip, but she squeezed the trigger.

-Oh, Katarina. Oh, Goddess, warm her heart and bring comfort to her soul.... Finish it. Finish it.

Alayne tempered her overwhelming sense of boredom with regret. Fifty-two initiates had gone out a month ago. Almost all of the pallets had returned, and only twenty-seven had come back. As the pallets landed one by one, the initiates announced themselves one at a time.

"Initiate Lennox, returning hale and hearty!"

"Initiate Corven, returning hale and hearty!"

"Initiate Morwen, I-I could use some help." An agonized announcement from a boy with half an arm, roughly bound and secured to his chest. Alayne waved over a couple of clerics. If the limb could be saved, the clerics would see to it. If they had to use magical healing to regenerate missing portions however, she supposed that they would see to that, too, though not many willingly opted for that.

As the last plank landed, Alayne let out a sigh. Katarina wasn’t on board. There was a large crate stamped for Darnell, and a shrouded, cloth-wrapped bundle, and another leather-wrapped bundle, but no sign of the girl with the fierce green eyes and straight back. It was a shame, the girl had potential to go far.

There was a murmur as the leathery bundle unfolded itself and stood upright to reveal a figure wearing a simply gigantic leather coat and a wide-brimmed hat too large for the wearer. As they stepped off the platform, a rustle of murmurs raced through the initiates.

As she stepped off the plank, every eye was on her.

"Who? Who are you?" Cyrillus demanded, snatching a guardsman’s mace and raising it half-threateningly.

The figure raised their head and tipped the hat back revealing a tear-streaked face, red and puffy from crying, emerald eyes blazing with indomitable will.

"I am Katarina, apprentice to the Wolf of Alastor." She stated through a voice clotted with anguish. "Last of the Rubinritter, and a true and faithful servant of the Lily of Spring, Goddess of the Dawn, the Golden Shield of the Defender, the Light which cradles and protects us all." She announced, tears streaming down her face.

Cyrillus’ mace slipped from his nerveless fingers and clattered to the flagstones. Devon had his hand over his heart; it looked as if he was struggling with shock. Alayne stepped forward. "Who or what is this ‘Wolf of Alastor’?" She enquired. Katarina gestured at the cloth-wrapped bundle. "A Justicar Witch Hunter. For him, I slew Archibald Heartsbane."

Now it was Alayne’s turn to gape with shock.

The other initiates gaped at each other. They had gone out and returned as Initiates. Katarina had gone out with them and returned an apprentice Witch Hunter and had even slew a Witch.

-Your part is done, Confessor. You can leave, now.

-No! You don’t understand! She killed-

-She killed her own Master. I know. But this is an Interrogation, and I need information.

-Please, you can see what it’s doing to her! You have to let me help her!

-I- ....shit.

High Lady Inquisitor Alayne turned away as the Confessor went to work, trying to soothe Katarina’s broken heart. Narcotic, hypnotic, hallucinogenic incenses wafted about the room; forcing the young Witch Hunter into the depths of her unconscious mind.

The mage that had to restart Katarina’s heart would have to be killed. A shame, to be sure, but it was a necessity. As much as she hated to do it, the Confessor would likely need to meet the same fate. She’d witnessed things that she shouldn’t have seen. Swearing her to the Emerald wasn’t enough.