Chapter 92

Katarina came awake with the sound of a key clicking in the lock to the front door of her apartments. She slid her hand under her pillow and grabbed the handle of her knife as the front door opened and closed quietly. She’d been expecting her room to be searched or invaded like this from the moment she’d been shown her suite of rooms, and had been vaguely disappointed when neither had actually happened. Well, it didn’t matter; they were doing it now and she was ready.

Quiet footfalls approached her bedroom door, and Katarina prepared herself. If they came for the things in her room, she’d have to throw the bedcurtain open, climb out of bed, locate, and then attack. Complicated. If they came for her it would be much easier.

The bedroom door rattled as whoever it was fumbled with the lock. Katarina slid her knife from under the pillow and adjusted her feet so she could spring out from the bed. She was ready.

The bedroom door opened and closed, and there was a brief rustling of cloth. Katarina nodded. A servant or maid, connived or convinced to search the place.

Suddenly the bedcurtain was pulled to the side, and Katarina drew her knife back.

The knife itself was made from the glass she’d found in Ardeal, and the strange metal she’d found in Montesilvano. During one of her excursions in the city she’d stopped at the Miskatonik to see if her saber could be enchanted. Instead, the mage had offered to take the glass and metal and craft for her a knife, which she’d taken a liking to.

Olivia eyed the glittering blade with wide eyes. Katarina sighed and stuffed the blade under her pillow.

"You getting in, or no?" She complained as she slid back under the covers. Olivia joined her, visibly shaking. "You’d said, before..." Olivia breathed, but shook her head. "I hadn’t expected, not really..."

"Oh hush." Katarina replied irritably. "Get your ass over here."

Katarina had come to like the Baptistery at the pinnacle of the Grand Cathedral. True, she had to spill her guts about the things she’d seen and experienced, but afterward, she was able to relax in the strangely buoyant waters of the baptistery, gaze up at the painted ceiling, and subsume her mind into the individual sensations of her body as she slowly drifted around the pool.

The feeling of the water lapping between her toes, the weightlessness of her body, relentless drag of her hair gone, all of these things were the entirety of her world. She didn’t have to focus or concentrate on anything except herself.

She opened her eyes. The light, reflecting upon the shimmering pool of water bounced up to the gold-embossed sun of the baptistry. No matter what time of day or night, the baptistry was filled with a warm, golden light, as if constantly being bathed in the Goddess. That was the point, she realized. The water was warm, but not alarmingly so. The flickering light was hypnotic. The session with the confessor before the use of the pool was accompanied with mind-opening incense. Naturally there would be a sense of disconnection from herself, a basking in the light of the goddess, a sense of being purified.

For a moment, Katarina was calloused and cold, jaded and cynical. Functionally no different than a carny sleight of hand. Look as pigeons erupt from his sleeves!

But no. The fire within her refused to be doused with jaded condescension. Glory was in her breast.

A sense, a feeling, a presence she’d always known was there. Quiet, unobtrusive. Through Katarina’s training and rigorous mental discipline, she had developed an inner sense that alerted her to the presence of others. Those others were intrusive; Katarina’s reflex to this was a defensive recoiling, in preparation to do war. Even Olivia herself threw off an intrusive response.

"The world cries for the return of Glory." She murmured, lowering her feet, feeting the water drag at her hair heavily, and turning to who she knew would be there, waiting.

Simurgh leaned against a gold-white pillar, in her sleeveless, full length dress that puddled at her feet. Her arms were crossed under her breasts and her head tossed in a pointed, seething anger. She refused to look at Katarina as she lifted herself from the pool.

The Witch Hunter eyed the Angelic Spirit as she dried herself. Repressed fury crackled around the woman. Angelic Spirits were mercurial, whimsical, and deadly when provoked. Anything could provoke them. You did not provoke the storm, you did not tempt the volcano, you did not bargain with the earthquake.

And yet, somehow, Simurgh had... what? Attached herself to Katarina? That didn’t seem possible. There might be a way of finding out, however. It was risky, foolish even. It could kill her, or worse.

Katarina closed her eyes and reached into herself as she had been taught. Who had taught her? And when? Strange, she couldn’t remember. Her heart beat a deep, organic rhythm in her breast. Her breathing was slow, relaxed and deep. The tiles under her feet were warm. The air rushing through the open Baptistry was cool, and her skin pebbled. The weight of her hair dragged at her back. She could feel the muscles in her chest and belly and legs, filled with oxygen-enriched blood. She could feel them tense or relax as her balance shifted imperceptibly. Her stomach rumbled a need for food. Not yet. Deeper still, and she could feel the synapses sizzle, the roar of blood in her veins. There was an orchestra in her body, deeply and uniquely hers. And there was power. She drank deeply of that power, reaching deeply into herself, lifting it as if she would a heavy weight. At first it seemed impossible. Easier to lift the Grand Cathedral with one hand than to pull forth the power with struggled to bloom in her. But each try focused her will. Each attempt brought her closer to it. Now it was almost easy.

She opened her eyes, and focused them on Simurgh. She was ready.

"ZIZ." She spoke, and the Angelic Spirit’s head whipped around, eyes blazing. To know the truename of the Angelic Spirit was one thing, to speak it, another. Certain celestial rules bound her to respond to it.

"What angers you so?" Katarina asked in a much gentler voice. The Angelic Spirit’s mien softened immediately. Her mouth opened and closed wordlessly. Her jaw clenched, then.

"I am... unused... to being commanded." She spat the last word as an epithet. Katarina immediately raised her hands, open and defenseless to the unpredictable Angelic Spirit.

"I would never command you." She replied quickly.

The Angelic Spirit tilted her head slightly, a expression flitting across her face so briefly that it mightn’t have even been there. Sadness?

"Not you." The divine elemental replied curtly. Katarina blinked and remembered. "Ah. Like in Ardeal, with the sword." She guessed, and the woman nodded grudgingly. The Im Adad were a fraction of the Goddess’ own power, bundled with extrinsic and ever-changing emotions. They roamed freely through the world, doing how they pleased, answering to no one’s authority except to the Goddess that spawned them. Apparently, Simurgh did not like having to do so.

There were a great many things Katarina was not looking forward to, either. She was destined to become a Saint. The Church was even now were combing through records and reports of her behaviors to see if she met the exacting qualifications for Sainthood.

It wasn’t just the Church. The Goddess Herself had suddenly turned a focused interest in the Witch Hunter, sending her dreams and visitations from long-dead Saints of the past. It wasn’t too long ago that Katarina had quested through the ancient and long-abandoned lands of the Anglish Empire, retrieving the ashes of Saint Alicia, the reliquary of Saint Andrianna, and the Crux Rosarius of Saint Celestine.

Each of the anointed Saints had visited Katarina, demanding she retrieve these items.

She’d completed each of these tasks at great cost, and still she quested onward, driven by visions of the Golden Lady through ancient mountains and desolate valleys, until she arrived at Osk, the first capital of the Empire of the Golden Lady, forgotten and abandoned. There, she retrieved the Emerald Tablets, five jeweled plates written with gold in the divine language. For this quest, she had been rewarded with the sacred regalia of the Goddess: the bracelet of truth, the crown of glory, and the rod of authority. Katarina had been wholly unsurprised to learn that at some point in the past, the rod of authority had been reforged into Celestine’s mythic blade Galatine, the Sword of the Dawn.

Katarina was expected to formally return the relics of the saints and the tablets to the Church. The regalia of the Goddess was hers to keep, hers to guard, and when it came time for her to pass on, the Regalia would once more be returned to Osk.

However, the moment she returned the lost relics of the Saints or the Emerald Tablets, the moment anyone discovered she had them, she would be elevated by the Church to the status of Sainthood. She knew that, and despite knowing, railed against it. Being chosen by the Goddess as a Saint was something she could accept. She would pray, she would fight, she would kill anything in her way that offended the eye of the Goddess, but the Church was something else entirely. To be dedicated as a Saint by the Church would mean a life of indolence and perpetual boredom. There was no doubt in her mind that the moment the Church discovered the Goddess's blessings on her, she would be forcibly retired and kept locked away, safe in Darnell, perhaps trotted out once in a while to remind the peasants and nobility that true power came from the (Church) Goddess.

To heap indignity atop indignity, her family was urging her to come home, take a husband, and take over the family enterprise. They were merchant lords of Begierde, wealthy and powerful... and matriarchal. The only other sibling of Katarina’s was her younger brother Kristoff. He would not be able to successfully inherit the business unless he married beneath his station... and fathered a daughter. Katarina however, had no such restrictions. She could inherit the business, the succession unbroken, and Katarina could mother any number of children as she liked, just so long as one of them was a daughter.

She didn’t want to be anything except what she was already: A Witch Hunter in service to the Golden Lady. She wanted to hunt Witches, ride through forests and beside streams, singing her songs to the Golden Lady, bringing her gun and sword to bear against the enemies of the Goddess.

Simurgh, fickle as ever, faded from sight. After witnessing this several times before, it didn't unnerve Katarina nearly as much as it had in the beginning. She stared up at the stylized sun picked out in gold leaf on the roof of the Baptistery as she contemplated the seemingly limitless complications of her life.

"Maybe this was a bad idea." She muttered to herself. "Of course it is. Nothing to do but stare at the ceiling and think about things I really don’t want to think about." She grumbled to herself.

As she dried herself off, she ran through her priorities. First and foremost she had to placate the Book of the Golden Lady, the ruling council of the Anglish Empire. Lull them into a sense of security and laxity so that she could escape. Time spent in Darnell was time not spent hunting witches. Her mouth turned down as she thought about what her escape might mean to Lady Cardinal Olivia. Katarina was reasonably certain the Lady Cardinal was head-over-heels in love with her. She grudgingly admitted to herself that she too loved Olivia in return. Leaving would break the woman’s heart.

She pulled her hair over one shoulder and dried it off, reserving a frown for her hair as well. For most of her life her hair had been a flat, lusterless white. Not gray, not silver, white. The Golden Lady had seen fit to change that, now her hair was a lustrous silvery white, streaked with golden threads of blonde. With a grunt of irritation and the ease of long practice she braided her hair into a thick cable that hung to her hips.

She shrugged into a man’s silk shirt and breeches, flipping her braid over her shoulder as she reached for her waistcoat. As she reached for it, hanging on the back of the chair she’d placed it, she stumbled a bit, not much, but just enough to knock it off the back of the chair and onto the floor.

She eyed the puddled cloth curiously, eyebrow climbing. Her vest’s inner layer was cotton, the outer was a deep blue brocaded silk. Sandwiched between the two layers were thin ribbons of steel, magically treated to be flexible. Despite that treatment however, her vest should not have landed the way it had. She lifted it with a hooked finger. The weight was off. Had someone removed the steel? She squeezed the fabric in her hand, probing, and frowned. This was what had been bothering her the past few days. The weight, the flexibility, of the vest was completely different. There was no doubt there was something sandwiched between the layers of cloth, but it wasn’t the steel that had been there for years.

Katarina shrugged into the garment, and adroitly navigated the rows of hooks and loops from waist to neck. When she got back to her room, she’d cut through the stitching in the fabric and find out what had been done to her vest.

Her coat and hat had been given to her when her master died, though she couldn’t honestly remember actually wearing the coat itself. She just draped the oversized thing across her shoulders like a cape, as she did now. She picked up her hat, and settled it on her head, and headed out of the baptistery.

She still hadn’t been able to draw Galatine from its sheath. Katarina was naturally strong, as strong as any woman forced to spend her life in the woods, and she had been trained by the best warriors of the Empire, but no matter how she tried, she could not pull the sword from its sheath. That vexed her.

She’d spend some time with Elizabeth, she decided. The young paladin was probably chafing at the bit. A few hours practicing the longsword would likely do the both of them some good. She drew up short, and mentally kicked herself. Elizabeth had shipped out with Alayne already. If the High Lady Inquisitor hadn’t changed the plan, they would stop at Einsamkeit and switch boats, stop at Begierde and drop off Elizabeth, who would offer her services as a paladin to the house of Pavlenko. Alayne would disappear, ostensibly on an "investigation".

She started mentally reviewing the Litanies of Glory as she requisitioned a horse from the stables and headed for the Garrison, the fortress of the warrior elite for the Golden Lady. She’d train with Nadette. The woman didn’t pull her punches.

Nadette offered a solicitous hand to the Witch Hunter, who sprawled in the dust at her feet, her blunted training sword a few feet away.

"Katarina, when are you going to stop fucking around?" Nadette offered, and Katarina glared at the older woman even as she accepted the hand up.

"I don’t know what you mean." Katarina replied, slapping the dust from her clothes.

"Yes you do." Nadette replied knowingly. "It’s been a week since you’ve been invested as a Justicar. You’ve never stuck around Darnell longer than absolutely necessary before, so that means you’re hanging up your gun, or you’re planning something." Nadette observed.

"The Book of the Golden Lady have seen fit to give me a Drake." Katarina replied, stooping to pick up her sword.

Nadette’s mouth fell open. "A Drake!" She exclaimed softly. "That is no small prize." She agreed. Katarina nodded. "A female one. I’ve been learning to fly."

Nadette nodded slowly at that. Drakes were rare, and the females highly prized for their flying as the males were wingless. Horse-sized, with a long and sinuous neck and tail. They were said to be cousin to the dragons of myth, but since nobody had ever actually seen a dragon, that was just speculation.

"Where would you be expected to find food for the beastie?" Nadette asked, and Katarina rolled her eyes. "I haven’t the faintest idea." She replied. Nadette laughed nastily.

"So you are planning something." She confirmed, lifting the point of her sword and readying it.

Katarina leveled her own sword at Nadette. "Pure speculation." She mocked, and attacked.

They traded blows, each probing for a weakness.

"The longer you’re here, the easier it will be for them to say, ‘You know what? Screw this whole Justicar crap. You’re going to be an instructor’." Nadette advised, thrusting through Katarina’s obvious feint.

"I know." Katarina grumbled. It seemed as though everyone had designs for her future, and nobody was interested in her opinions on the matter.

"I were you, I’d make sweet love to that Lady Cardinal you’re so enamored with, and then sneak out before dawn. Head north. Head east. Get a boat south to the old continent." Nadette growled. "Get you gone, Witch Hunter. Before something happens that you can’t take back."

Katarina stopped, and grounded her sword.

"You’re right." She agreed, and sighed. "Olivia is going to kill me when she finds out."

Nadette smirked, the thick scars alongside her face turning it into a ghastly sneer. "Just don’t get caught." She grounded her own sword. "Lay low for a while. Wait for heads to cool. Then do your job, Witch Hunter." Katarina nodded, and passed the training sword to Nadette.

"You give the best advice, Nadette." Katarina offered, the exhaustion showing in her voice.

"Only because it makes sense." the grizzled old campaigner replied with a bark of a laugh.

Katarina stitched her vest with shaking fingers. The steel was indeed gone, replaced with- she shook her head, and forced her concentration on the next stitch. The realization was too big, the shock too much, the import too great, so she simply shut down, grimly focusing her mind on one thing: re-stitching the fabric she’d cut just a few minutes earlier. It was either that, or go mad.

She’d come back to her suite of apartments dirty and exhausted, her day spent with eight hours in the stables learning to fly, learning the care, feeding, and grooming of her drake, followed by a trip to the baptistery, and two hours in the training yard with Nadette. She’d indifferently ripped the fine stitches at the hem of the vest with a thin blade that was a part of her sewing kit, and peeled the layers of cloth apart, and then froze, shock building behind her eyes, fingers cramping as they clenched involuntarily at the realization.

At some point the steel had been replaced with a fine mithril chain. So fine, in fact, it was nearly a cloth in and of itself.

Mithral was an extremely rare metal, a gift from the Goddess Herself. In the stories, it was always given complete- a sword,a suit of armor. In only a few instances had it been given as ingots for someone else to forge. The metal was lightweight and practically unbreakable. The two most known pieces of mithral were the Living Saint Celestine’s breastplate and signet ring, both of them locked away and guarded jealously day and night by a full legion of the best warriors. Now Katarina had somehow inexplicably been given a chain vest of the stuff. How? Why? When?

"Physical beauty is passing - a transitory possession - but beauty of the mind, richness of the spirit, tenderness of the heart - aren't taken away but grow and increase with the years." A voice echoed behind Katarina’s chair.

The Witch Hunter moved without thinking, Diving forward in a roll, drawing her long knife as she went. She flipped up to a low crouch, blade out and threatening.

A severe-looking woman stood over her, her hair was drawn tightly to the back of her head, a thick braid draped over one shoulder and ran to her waist. A narrow blindfold was bound across her eyes.

She wore some snug dress that left her arms bared to the shoulder; the woman looked physically as strong as Katarina herself.

The woman looked down at her and nodded.

"In Aston, you used my teachings." She spoke down at the Witch Hunter, and Katarina rolled to her feet.

"Who are you?" She demanded, gesturing with the knife.

The woman simply plucked the blade from Katarina’s grip with seemingly little effort. "In life, I was known as Andrianna." the woman replied simply, and Katarina fell down; shock turning her legs to jelly.

"By the Goddess." The woman complained severely. "I’d thought you were made of sterner stuff than this. Stand up, you stupid cow, and let’s have a look at you."

Katarina stared up at the dead saint uncomprehending. Andrianna was raised to sainthood long long ago. The Goddess had blessed Andrianna with healing and given the blind woman her eyes.

"I said, stand up!" The woman’s voice cracked out, hard and dry. Katarina scrambled to obey, the memory of Nadette’s harsh training echoing through her.

Andrianna’s line of sight rose and rose as Katarina stood; Andrianna was a solidly built woman, a little taller than Olivia, but Katarina was taller than Andrianna.

"By the Goddess." The woman breathed. "You really are a cow." She cursed amazedly.

"I am not a cow." Katarina objected, and the dead saint laughed.

"No? You know what a cow is, right?" She asked mockingly. "A great stupid, lumbering beast with huge udders." She answered for herself, and slapped Katarina across the breasts casually.

Without thinking, without pausing to consider, Katarina lashed out and slapped the blindfolded woman across the head. The woman laughed at that, and held up her hands in surrender.

"Ah, yes, good good." She explained sarcastically. "Great, wonderful. You’ve got spirit. Most people turn into feebly mumbling simpletons when a dead woman shows up."

Katarina opened her mouth, but the shorter woman held up her hand. "Shut up. This is stupid and neither of us want to be here. Shut up and let me say my piece. Then I’ll leave and then you’ll leave and you’ll go back to sleep and wake up and wonder about the "deep meaningful significance" of this meeting." She spat angrily.

Katarina subsided angrily, hand clenched into a fist warily in case the woman tried anything. "Wait, I’m asleep?" She objected, to which Andrianna wordlessly replied by pointing at the chair. Katarina could see herself slumped in the seat, her embroidery in her lap.

"See?" Andrianna asked pointedly, and Katarina nodded dumbly. She looked up at the Saint.

"I’m listening. Say what needs to be said." Katarina offered, and Andrianna barked a harsh, no-nonsense laugh.

"She thinks she’s ready." Andrianna muttered. "You were given an important mission, you recall." Andrianna remarked pointedly.

Katarina nodded. "Find the relics of the Saints, and return them to the Church." She agreed.

Andrianna shook her head. "You found them, which is well and good, but you haven’t given them to the Church."

"You should know the ‘why’ of that, if you’re watching me that closely." Katarina retorted, and Andrianna barked her laugh.

"You will not escape it that way, fractious child." Andrianna replied knowingly. "You’re to keep the regalia, by the way. They’re yours. As is the Armor of the Celestial Battalion."

Katarina frowned at that, puzzled. "The what?" She replied, giving the other woman a baffled look.

Andrianna rolled her eyes at this. "The vest. A gift from someone greater than I."

"Who-" Katarina objected, but Andrianna raised her hand. "Let it be. It’s not why I’m here."

Katarina ground her teeth in frustration.

"The Golden Lady gave you eight Litanies of Glory." Andrianna murmured.

Katarina’s eyes widened at this statement. "Yes."

"But you don’t have the ninth." Andrianna replied. It was not a question, but Katarina nodded anyway.

"The ninth is to call one of Her servants to your side to aid you." Andrianna explained, stepping up to Katarina. "It can only be done once."

Katarina took a breath, moistened her lips, and shrugged minutely. "I’m not sure I follow."

Andrianna eyed the Witch Hunter. "I’m saying, you’ve already used the Ninth Litany."

"That’s impossible, I-" Katarina began, but the Saint raised her hand.

"Think, mortal."

Something clicked in Katarina's head. In Aston, Araya had encouraged Katarina to perform the Ritual of the Wisp, which would have bound a celestial spirfit to her own soul. A tiny thing, a needless thing; an angelic spirit with very little intrinsic power of their own. Those that survived the Ceremony often used them as messengers or scouts.

Araya had told her, too: "It’s like choosing to step over a mud puddle with the left foot first, or the right foot first. There is no difference in the end, you arrive at the conclusion."

Katarina could have performed the Ritual of the Wisp. She could have learned the Ninth Litany on her own. Instead, the Goddess had shackled Simurgh's soul to her own as punishment for the Celestial of the Storm's defiance. A choice without a choice was no choice at all.