Chapter XV

Even though they were not far from the capital city the paladins traveling with Hadar insisted that they camp in the wilderness when the sun had set. They argued that it was because in Arx there was a long-standing tradition of kings returning home from victorious battles during the morning hours. The people would see him riding up to the city as the sun peeked over the horizon, and they'd cheer him on. Hadar understood that his people could certainly use a morale boost in these troubling times, but he hardly felt victorious, even as he rode through the streets at a slow trot and peasants threw rose petals and sang songs for him. All the fanfare, he felt, was so misplaced on a king who'd allowed such casualties.

At the gates of the castle Sarahi awaited him, with Milo standing behind her. “Welcome home, love,” Sarahi said and gave Hadar a tight and spirited hug.

“I'm glad to be back,” Hadar said as they embraced.

Once they'd parted Milo walked up to Hadar and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Are you alright, Sire?”

“Well...we rescued Countess Ezra so...mission accomplished.”

Milo and Sarahi could both tell by Hadar's tone that he was far from satisfied with the outcome of the battle, he was even further from being even happy about what had happened, but they didn't want to burden him with their questions right there at the gate. Once they were inside they met with him in his room, the one place where they were assured privacy. They first brought him up to speed about all that had happened, specifically about Grigori's investigation, those in the dungeon undergoing questioning. They told him about the death of Ocran, which they suspected was murder, but most importantly about how Grigori had said that if the Inquisition had its way they'd massacre everyone in Arx who didn't convert to their religion.

“That's...horrendous!”

“And he was unapologetic,” Sarahi said. “There was no hint that he felt any guilt saying it, and no indication that he disagreed with his superiors either!”

“Is it really so surprising?” Milo asked. “It seems pretty typical Inquisition tripe.”

“I think I need to have a word with Brother Grigori,” Hadar said.

Hadar then recounted to them the events of the battle, and the disaster that it was. He told them all about how many men he'd lost, and how many innocent people died because of his poor leadership. He couldn't even finish the story, because when he got to the part where he fell under the Seeker's control and killed Achava and Adem he started to sob uncontrollably. He remembered every horrific detail. His allies, friends, men who trusted him, felled by his own blade. Their lives were cut short because of his carelessness and his overactive sense of mercy.

Sarahi hugged Hadar tightly and let him cry on her shoulder. Milo's approach was, well, different, “Cheer the feck up!”

“Milo!” Sarahi chastised him loudly, finding his words appallingly insensitive.

“Hear me out!” Milo insisted. “How can any of this truly be your fault, really? All battles have casualties, that's just a fact of life! You faced well over a hundred demon thralls with only a handful of men and only five died? You did something most would have deemed near impossible! Poor leadership? Bah! A bad leader would have lost the battle altogether!”

“But...I made so...many...mistakes...” Hadar said, between sobs.

“Learn from them!” Milo said. “And who's to say anyone else would have done any better? For all you know that was the best possible outcome!”

Hadar sniffled and wiped his tears on his sleeve. He looked up at his friend with understanding, and started to calm down a little. “...So many people died...”

Milo's tone turned from his strange mix of chastising and uplifting to purely sympathetic. “And it's always hard when people die, I know, but who are we really weeping for? Those paladins who followed you into battle? God has welcomed them into Heaven, where they're hailed as heroes with fanfare hundreds of thousands of times more grandiose than the fanfare you received when you came back to the capital!”

“Tell that to their families...I still have to face them at the funeral...”

“If the King himself takes time out of his schedule to attend each of the funerals of those who fell in battle and the families are anything but grateful then the Void with them!” Milo said. “You're the King, damn it! You have a kingdom to run! Countless more lives depend on you every single day! You didn't have to go to the battle at Count Ezra's castle yourself, you could have just ordered the paladins to do it, but by going there you showed all of Arx that you won't ask your men to do anything you're afraid to do yourself! You fought beside those men, risked your life with them, bled with them, rather than just telling them to do it themselves! You've done so much more than is required of any king, and I'll bet you've made Amasi proud!” The thought of Amasi looking on Hadar with pride in what he'd accomplished did cheer Hadar up, and in spite of the tears still rolling down his face he smiled at Milo. “Know this...there's no king I'd rather serve than you.” Milo knelt before Hadar and bowed his head. “I'm honored to serve you, your Majesty.”

“Milo, you always know what to say...” Hadar said, smiling widely at his friend and patting him on the shoulder. He looked at Sarahi and dried his tears on his sleeve. “You've found yourself a good man, Sarahi.”

“I know,” Sarahi said, beaming at Milo.

Once Hadar had fully calmed down he set out to find Grigori and confront him about what he'd said to Sarahi. He wanted to know the truth of it for sure, in Grigori's own words. He found Grigori in the guest room he'd been staying in, and judging by Grigori's wince as he pulled the top of his cassock over his shoulders as Hadar walked in it was obvious he'd been whipping himself again. Disgusting!

“Inquisitor!” Hadar shouted.

Grigori turned his head, surprised to hear himself not called by name for once. Obviously the King was angry with him about something. “Yes?”

“What's this I hear? That you and your people would have us all executed if you had the power?”

Grigori rolled his eyes. “Oh, this. If you want to drag others into the Void with you when you die how would it be humane for the Inquisition to allow you to carry on?”

“So it's true!”

“Indeed!” Grigori retorted. “Your whole society is sick! The True Way is the only medicine that could cure it, but I doubt you'd be keen on taking that medicine. You're so used to being sick that you love it!”

“How is your so-called 'True Way' better than the way we live, Grigori? Seriously! I don't think I've ever, in all the time you've been here, seen you smile, so you can't be enjoying life!”

“And yet we have almost no crime, no corruption. Here there is constant crime and corruption!”

Hadar's nose wrinkled in disgust. “Indulge me, inquisitor, what would you suggest?”

“You want to know what advice I'd have for your people? Stop yourself before you sin,” Grigori said. “But don't wait until you stand on the edge of the cliff. If you trip up a little then it's too late and you are damned by the blood on your hands. Stop yourself long before, so if you trip up you are not so damned. Draw a line in the sand that you will not cross, and make that line something as simple as entertaining sinful thoughts and feelings. That's where it starts!”

“This rubbish I've heard before!” Hadar spat at the ground at Grigori's feet. “You and your 'Twelve Deadly Sins!' To you and your people EVERYTHING is a sin! You cannot sneeze or cough without begging for forgiveness and deliverance from damnation! You cannot yawn without having to lash yourself forty times! Your Sandalphon convinces the followers of the 'True Way' that they are worthless, evil creatures. He raises the moral bar so high that all are guilty in his version of the Law, and as such they are blessed to be granted his 'love' and 'forgiveness,' and must crawl to him for it. Do you know what that is like? That is like an abusive relationship. A woman being beaten by her husband is thoroughly convinced that she is nothing, that she doesn't deserve him, and that even how she suffers at his hands is what she deserves, and thus she keeps going back to him. Does that sound right to you?”

“Not informing people of their sins is a far worse abuse. Would you not warn your wife were she about to drink poison? Sandalphon warns us of where the line is between salvation and damnation, how could he not and still count himself an angel of mercy? Set the moral bar so high that all are sinners? Ha! The argument that sinful thoughts and emotions are 'only natural' is a lie, and a sign that we, as human beings, have become so corrupted by the demons' influence that we think evil is nothing new. In a society where murder is condoned for hundreds of years murderers would soon say that killing their fellow men is 'only natural.'”

“Your angel has no sense of mercy!” Hadar said. “Mankind doesn't need to be punished for every little misstep!”

“Every little misstep? Like lusting after a woman obsessively? Is that a little misstep? The very man you told me to ignore because he'd done nothing wrong attempted to rape Miss Alma! Only then did anyone else seek to punish him, and they chose to damn him!” Grigori's fists clenched in rage, though he tried hard to fight the building anger inside. “You seem to think that only the 'bad sins' need to be punished, I say to you there is no difference between the various sins humans can commit. If in prison you have two men, one who murdered many people for money and the other who murdered only his wife out of anger at her adultery both will think themselves morally superior to the other. The man who killed many at least was not so evil as to kill his own wife. He only killed strangers, people he wasn't expected to love, people who never loved or trusted him, and he only did so for gain while the other man gained nothing when he murdered his wife. The man who murdered his wife thinks himself morally superior because he only murdered one person, and only because she truly wronged him, while the other man murdered people who'd never transgressed him.”

Hadar couldn't believe the absurdity of what he was hearing. “Are you to truly tell me that a poor man who picks a rich man's pocket because he worries how he will be able to feed his family is no different than a man who rapes and murders countless women? That they are moral equals?”

“That very example speaks volumes as to what your approach to running a kingdom has wrought, sire! I'm sure if we were to leave the walls of this castle and walk the streets of your capital city we'd see examples of both happen before our very eyes! Your society is falling apart, Hadar. When I walked through your capital I could see it. Corruption, vice, and sin everywhere. Whores plying their trade, thieves taking whatever they wanted, and even in your own castle I have seen vanity, arrogance, pity, fear, and desire. Did you not hear me when I told you what transpired with Alma and Iddo? Is it any wonder that demon-worshipers can blend in so well amongst your people? You and those like you allow this hive of sin to exist, it's like a festering wound on the surface of the world, infected, and left untreated!”

“And I have heard much of how it is in Kolob. People living in constant misery, as if happiness itself were a crime. They live life, but they enjoy nothing. Their lives are bleak and gray. No, they don't live, they just exist! Would God have created such a beautiful world with so many joys in it if he wanted us to live like that?”

“More of the souls in Kolob see Heaven than the ones here. I'd venture it's a rare thing when a citizen of Arx enters the halls of Heaven. What's more important? Enjoying the pleasures of a temporary life, one that's so fleeting that it can be taken from you in a breath, and you know neither the day nor the hour? Or how you spend all eternity?”

“What is so unholy about happiness in this life, Grigori? If it harms no one what harm can it do? Obviously if forced to make the choice between being happy for all eternity or for a temporary lifetime I would, of course, choose being happy for all eternity. But this is a false dilemma, once again presented by your Sandalphon!”

“Again you falsely accuse Sandalphon of leading us astray, but what angels do you have that confirm you are on the right path? Yes, I know angels have come to Arx's defense in the past against Nihilus, but you do not regularly receive guidance from any, we do!”

“I would say that most angels trust us to make our own decisions. They let us live our lives. They treat us like adults rather than like children, and they don't lead us everywhere by the nose.”

“And how has that worked out? Can you walk the streets of the capital alone and feel safe? You cannot even walk the halls of your own castle and feel safe! Under your leadership tremendous acts of evil are committed! How did that battle at the castle of Countess Ezra go? How many people died for your sins?”

Hadar grabbed Grigori by the collar of his cassock, almost ready to strike him for daring to bring that up. “That is getting far too personal, Grigori!”

Grigori was unfazed by being seized and threatened. He was no stranger to pain and hardly afraid of it. “Well, maybe you need a more personal attack to make you see! You're swimming in a turbulent sea of sin! Your pity costs lives and your vanity distracts you from what's truly important!”

“My vanity?”

“How pretty your hair is?” Grigori spat the word “pretty” like it was a profanity, or poison he was trying to get off his lips. “How well you always dress? The way you keep yourself? You think I haven't noticed your obsession with your looks?”

This certainly caught Hadar off-guard. He wasn't sure what this had to do with what they'd been talking about, exactly. “That's...I really don't spend that much time on my hair...”

“Just long enough to hang in front of your eyes but not long enough to end up scraggly? Soft and golden like a baby's hair? Always kept combed just perfectly? The way you brush your hair back with your hand and pat it down unconsciously? You're tending to it all day! One's hair should be kept short and practical, out of one's eyes, out of the way! You focus so much on trying to make it look good with no regard for how it gets in your way!”

Hadar couldn't help but blush a little, and he let go of Grigori's collar. “You've...put a lot of thought into that...you sure I'm the only one obsessing over it? You sure I'm the only one obsessed with appearances?”

“Don't bring me down to your level!”

Hadar's voice was much calmer than before, but now obviously confused. “Grigori, I didn't bring you anywhere. We were having a less than civil discussion about religion and philosophy, and suddenly you started talking about how you think my hair looks nice. You brought that up, not me.”

Grigori suddenly felt more embarrassed than he'd ever been, but he couldn't put his finger on the reason why. His head was spinning, his face was hot, and his stomach churned. “I...you disgust me!”

Hadar found this obvious defense mechanism humorous and chuckled lightly. “Do I now?”

“Yes. I feel...sick looking at you...” Grigori touched a hand to his forehead, as if trying to check himself for a fever. Not that one was ever a good judge of one's own temperature, one's hands were often about the same temperature as one's forehead. His eyes roamed all over Hadar's face for a moment, that mocking half-smile that made Grigori feel strange, he could only describe it as frightening. Those big, blue eyes of his, staring at him with amusement. His eyes had a softness that hid that he was accusing him, Grigori knew he was being accused of something. “I...have work to do. There are still more warlocks to root out...I'll get back to that. Don't distract me! I almost forgot the real reason I'm here. For my anger I apologize. Anger is a sin, and I'm sorry I've sinned against you.”

“When everything you believe is being mocked it's...only natural,” Hadar said.

Grigori composed himself, adjusted the collar of his cassock and re-buttoned the buttons that had come loose when Hadar grabbed him. “I will do what I promised to do. I will see to it that your castle and all the people in it are safe, and then I will return home. I understand I'm not welcome here.”

“If you talked more civilly like this more often you might be more welcome, Grigori.” Hadar's voice had turned soft and compassionate, very different from his harsher tone earlier in the “conversation.” Grigori somehow felt even more sickened by the sound of Hadar talking to him like that. He was light-headed, dizzy, and felt like he could almost vomit.

“I'll...keep that in mind...”

For the rest of the day Grigori avoided Hadar whenever he could, trying to keep away from that uneasy feeling that rose up whenever he was around him. He couldn't put his finger on what exactly it was, but he hated it. His pulse pounded and his hands shook like he was gripped with terror, he felt embarrassed, as if he had some deep secret that Hadar knew, and he was as light-headed as he usually was when he'd been fasting for many days.

The very next day a priest arrived at the castle and asked for an audience with King Hadar, saying that it was terribly urgent. Hadar agreed to the audience, sitting the priest down in his office. “Tell me, what troubles you?”

“In the city there's been a plague spreading,” the priest said.

“Oh! Well, I'll get some physicians working on that right away.”

“No! That is...you misunderstand. It's not a typical plague that can be treated with medicine. The victims aren't responding to strong drugs, so one physician was smart enough to take them to the cathedral for us to look them over. The patients had many strange symptoms, their skin turned dark green, their eyes turned yellow, they had troubles breathing, no appetite, and even the inability to swallow food or drink. Only with holy magic were we able to cure them, not with medicine.” the priest got increasingly nervous as he talked. “You know what causes this and can only be cured this way? Gidim!”

Hadar had heard of Gidim, they were a particular kind of demon that rather than possessing, enthralling, or trying to consume human bodies would dwell within them. They were so small they couldn't be felt or seen, and they would cause horrible diseases. After they'd infected one host thoroughly they'd use small, dead parts of the host's body to make more of themselves and then spread to other hosts through a variety of contagions. “Which means that the plague is something someone started on purpose.”

“Yes!” the priest said. “Some witch or warlock is hiding in the city infecting our citizens, your Majesty!”

“I will make sure this monster is found and stopped! I'll lock down the city for now, no one in or out. In the meantime, father, keep seeing to the sick. Heal whomever you can, and encourage everyone in the city to pitch in and take the ailing to the cathedral.”

“Thank you, sire.”

This was a crisis that had the potential to be far worse than the Seekers in the castle. Gidim plagues in the past had claimed thousands of lives. What Hadar didn't know was that this was in part because one out of ever one hundred people infected with a Gidim plague showed no symptoms, but these people carried more contagions than anyone, their very breath was sickness and death to all nearby, and Gidim were smart enough to choose particular “healthy carriers” who would be able to spread the plague best. Hadar knew he had to put a stop to this right away, and so he sought out Grigori.

Grigori was in the dungeon when Hadar found him. He was interrogating the prisoners again. Grigori threatened them with pain and suffering, and even vaguely hinted to them that he might have murdered Ocran rather than it being in self-defense as he claimed. Hadar hoped this was just a scare tactic and nothing near the truth. “Grigori, can I borrow you?” Hadar asked.

Grigori hesitated a moment before he walked away from the prisoner tied to the chair and stepped into the hall with Hadar. “What is it, Sire?”

“We have a Gidim plague spreading through the city. I'm going to need you to re-focus your efforts on investigating that. Search the city and find the witch or warlock responsible. This plague MUST be stopped!”

“The whole city?” Grigori raised an eyebrow. “You must think I'm a pretty amazing inquisitor if you think I can investigate an entire city and catch the culprit. Here in the castle there's only so much ground to cover, so finding Ocran and getting him to talk was easy. On my own I couldn't possibly find the culprit in a city this large. May I call for assistance from other inquisitors? With more of us on this case...”

“No!” Hadar interrupted. “After hearing what your brethren in the Inquisition think of us I'd have to be a fool to agree to that. Do you think me a fool, Grigori?”

“If you think I can do this on my own then...the thought does cross my mind, Sire.”

“I will not bring more of them here. You will have the city guard at your disposal and will be allowed to search every home in the city if you need to, door to door, but I will not send for more inquisitors.”

Grigori shook his head. “I trust you'll have your own interrogators continue questioning the prisoners here?”

“Of course,” Hadar said. “We'll get to the bottom of this, but for now the people need you. Save my city, Grigori.”

“Very well, Sire. I'll start working immediately.”