Chapter X

“There is much you must learn before you will become worthy of the calling I have set before you.”

She was two days' walk into the wilderness surrounding Nox, and now, finally, Sandalphon appeared to her again on this night when the moon was waning.

“I am ready to learn,” said Yashen.

His voice rattled her bones with every word as he spoke. “The best way to learn is by experience, but we have not the time to give you a lifetime of training. So, you will mix for yourself a dream, and while you sleep I will whisper in your ear. In this way you shall learn all that you need to know. Mix the following experiences, and in the following order...”

Yashen spent the next hour brewing this strange dream that Sandalphon had in mind for her. At times, she began to feel apprehensive about what she was about to put into her body, and what it would do to her mind. Guilt? Loss? Pain? She understood that these were teaching tools, but she also realized that this experience would be anything but pleasant.

“...And finish it off with the strongest sleeping potion you have,” he said.

Yashen sighed deeply and began to mix the final ingredient, as he commanded.

How was this a good idea? Brewing a dream out in the open woods like this? If the Vice Queen sent people after her they'd surely find her, and even Sandalphon might fail to protect her. A strong sleeping potion. If they did find her she'd be helpless. She'd have to rely entirely on the archangel's protection.

“You are afraid.”

“Yes.”

“Obedience in spite of fear is a virtue.”

“But fear is a sin...” Yashen recited.

“For now focus on obedience in spite of fear. This will become courage, and in time you will have no more fear. Is the dream ready?”

Yashen nodded.

“Then drink and lie down.”

Yashen glanced around at the other three angels standing nearby, each of them keeping watch on the dark woods surrounding her campfire. She gave one more nod and then drank down the compound she'd brewed. In moments her head hit her pillow, and then everything went black.

The next thing she knew, she awoke in a cavern deep under the ground. Jagged rocks and impossibly tall cliffs surrounded her. Down below she could see the only source of light, molten rock, flowing in a river. Sandalphon burst from the liquid stone below her.

“Your soul would never stand this heat, not in your current state. You want to pass into Heaven when you die? Then you must learn to purge yourself of the twelve deadly sins. Do you remember what they are?”

“I don't,” Yashen said.

“Then we will begin your lesson there.”

Her surroundings melted away, and soon she found herself in a village on a bright, sunny day. She could see men and women, each dressed in brown and gray, sack-cloth tunics, working the fields.

Sandalphon's voice spoke from all around her. “It is the charge of your people to work the ground so that they may eat. Before his death, God granted humanity the gift of creation so that they may be more like him. This is a blessing, but it is also a burden. Now, look at that man over there.”

Somehow, in spite of the fact that Sandalphon did not point, Yashen knew exactly where to look. There was a man who had put up his hoe and sat down in a straw chair while his neighbors tilled the ground. “How lazy! This man has succumbed to the sin of sloth. While others work hard to feed the village he sits and waits. The burden is on them to take care of him, and they are generous enough to do so. Look, now, to the fields again.”

Yashen turned her attention back to the fields, and she saw an old man working hard with the hoe. He grabbed his back after every third swing, clearly hurting, and sweat poured down his brow. His breathing was labored, anyone could see that this man was too old to work the fields.

“The old man is the one who should be living off of the generosity of his neighbors. He worked hard his whole life, fed many of them while they were still whelps, and now he works himself to death, even though his wisdom could be put to far better use.”

Yashen turned back to the slothful man in the straw chair as Sandalphon continued. “Because this man feeds off the generosity of others they have none to spare for the old man. The old man knows this. This is why he continues to work. Yea, he will die in these fields in agony because this other man will not do his part. But that is not the worst of it. Others will see the old man die working hard, and the way the lazy man lives comfortably off of the generosity of his neighbors. First his children will follow his example, and then their neighbors.”

Yashen turned her attention to the fields again, which were now barren. Nothing but weeds grew there, and the field was full of jagged rocks. “Because of sloth this village's farms have failed. Slothful people are parasites, and the parasites multiplied until they had no one to feed off of. Though, this would never have gotten this far were it not for pity. Yes, the people in the field have also sinned.”

Again, Yashen could see people working the fields, including the old man. “Does he lack wisdom? Surely a man his age should have realized the cost of his actions. By continuing to work the fields and feed the lazy man he has rewarded his slothful neighbor's sin. Through pity he has aided his neighbor, but he did not help him survive. He helped him destroy this village.”

Their surroundings melted away again. In the darkness Yashen heard a baby crying. Soon, light appeared and she found herself within a small hut. A mother held a baby, and was trying to feed him mashed fruit from a spoon. The child would have none of it, and merely cried and cried. The mother tried talking to the him, tickling him, but nothing seemed to work. So the mother finally surrendered, opened her tunic and fed her child at her breast.

“Pity prevents that child from growing up. He never grows strong because he is pitied.” The next fifteen years of the child's life flashed before her eyes. She watched the baby grow into a young boy, then into an adolescent, and then a man, though an emaciated one. By the look of him, he had never grown properly. His limbs were short and scrawny. His skin was pale. His hair was already falling out, and he was missing teeth.

“A man raised on pity. Barely a man at all. For fear of seeing him cry his mother has given him the greatest abuse of all. And, because he has never learned to be strong, the moment trouble arrives...” Three men, each dressed as bandits appeared in the distance, riding towards the scrawny man.

“...He can only feel fear!” The small man ran from the bandits and hid under an over-turned wheel-barrow. The bandits, in turn, stopped searching for him and broke through the door to his house. His mother screamed inside the house. Yet, as much as she called for help he only cowered under the wheel-barrow.

“Because of his fear, his mother suffers and dies. Because he is so afraid that he will not even leave from his hiding place to cry for help, his entire village will suffer.” Yashen now found herself staring down at the village, as if she were a bird flying overhead. The bandits rode through the village, a sword in one hand and a torch in the other. Every house they passed they lit on fire. Every villager they passed they slashed in two. The town's ashes ran down the streets in streams of its villagers' blood.

“Fear is the greatest motivator of all wrong. Because one fears one fails to act against evil. One fails to do right.”

The village faded away, and was replaced with the marble streets of a city. Was she back in Nox? Yes! It was Nox! Yashen glanced around for any sign of the Vice Queen's thugs before she remembered that this was only a vision.

An angry crowd with maces in hand chased a small boy through the streets of Nox. The boy ran and screamed, though he was soon cornered behind the inn. Members of the crowd grabbed the boy by his hair and dragged him back out into the streets. Only then did Yashen recognize the men; the Vice Queen's slave hunters. She remembered this now! This boy was a slave in Nox back when she was a girl! He'd been caught trying to send letters to the Arxians, and then he fled. Shortly after that he'd been caught and brought back to Nox.

Yes, she remembered now as the boy kicked on his way to the gallows, but she was a mere girl at the time, what could she have done? She relived the moment when the men dragged the boy past her. He was just an arm's reach away from her as she stood with the on-lookers. All of them were too terrified to do a thing. The slave hunters dragged the boy up to the gallows and placed him upon a stretching wrack. All the while he flailed and he screamed.

“Do you truly believe that everyone in this crowd wants to see this happen? Even one of the slave-hunters wishes that he could stop all of this. All he really has to do is untie the boy. But he fears what will happen to him if he does. And so too does the rest of this crowd. Though the slaves of Nox outnumber the slave owners and their minions ten to one, and the slaves are even given swords to fight in the pits, they will not rise up. They will not fight for their freedom no matter how much they suffer. Because they are afraid. Because all they feel is fear. Fear prevents them from being free. And fear prevents them from helping this boy.”

The boy shrieked one last time and when Yashen heard his bones about to break she turned her head and closed her eyes as she had when she was a girl. When she looked up again, not only Sandalphon, but everyone in the crowd towered over her. Just as they had when she was seven years' old.

Sandalphon looked down at her. “Just as it was when you were a girl, and you did not act to save the boy.” Yashen heard Sandalphon's voice behind her now, and he said, “Just as you murdered out of fear.”

Yashen whipped around and she found herself face to face with the old man she'd killed. Once more he looked into her eyes with that sense of confusion and betrayal. Once more she felt the innocent blood stain her hands, and she saw her own face, so cruel, reflected in the old man's eyes.

“Yes, the man you murdered in your fear. Had you overcome your fears before then he would still be alive, and you wouldn't have this on your conscience. Think of those who suffer this man's loss. His children. His grandchildren. His wife. All of them suffer because you gave in to fear.”

The vision around her faded again, and now she saw herself running for the main doors of the city. The vision moved slowly before her, and she watched every bolt zip past her body, even saw a few get deadly close. She could see her own face, her focus, and her perspiration. Once again, her heart pounded as it had in that moment, that moment when she'd escaped out the front doors.

“But you overcame your fear. You took the first step towards truly deserving this calling at that moment. Though you feared death you overcame, and won your freedom. Now it is your turn to win freedom for your people.”

Sandalphon appeared before her again and pressed an accusatory finger against her chest, just below the collar-bone. “But do not be proud of this calling. Not for a moment. I did not choose you because of your accomplishments, or because you were special. It is only because of my whim that you will accomplish anything. Only because of my choice will you be special. Therefore you must not put your trust in yourself.

“Were you to put your trust in yourself you soon would feel that you did not need me. Not only me, but anyone else.” Yashen now found herself in an empty castle. She wore the black cassock of the Grand Inquisitor, and all the trappings. She sat upon a throne which bore Sandalphon's symbol, as a Grand Inquisitor would.

But there was no Inquisition. The halls were empty and dark. A cold wind blew. “In your self-absorbed hubris you would alienate those around you, failing to recognize their accomplishments for too much focus on your own. They left, one by one, and you shut them out. If you submit to hubris, Yashen, you will destroy everything I am working for, everything I have ever worked for. You must not let hubris overtake you, lest the True Way be lost forever!”

Yashen now sat upon a horse in the Grand Inquisitor's uniform. On either side of her sat witch-hunters in their blood red robes. Across from her sat two men in inquisitor uniforms.

“Being so much in the public eye, it will not be unnoticed that you are a woman of some beauty. You must work against this beauty. Cut your hair, wear plain clothes, do not paint your face as some do. You must not be beautiful before their eyes, lest you become beautiful before your own and succumb to vanity. If you are not made to look plain, men will approach you and tell you that you are beautiful. In time you will learn to become obsessed with beauty, not just your own, but beauty that is all around you. Appearances become all that matter to you.”

Yashen now faced a mirror and looked upon her own reflection. She was, to her own eyes, beautiful. She wore clothes more elegant than she'd ever dreamed of, and her hair was done so well. Then she saw lines begin to appear on her face. First wrinkles around her mouth. Then crow's feet at the corners of her eyes. Then her hair began to gray. All the while more and more layers of make-up covered each one.

“And by obsessing over your beauty you would forget everything you are worth as it crumbles around you. What happened to you? Did you forget that I'd chosen you to lead the people to freedom? How did appearance become all that mattered to you? No you will be modest. You will not give in to vanity.”

Yashen now looked in the mirror again. Her hair was cut boyishly short, and her uniform was a dull black, with a collar pulled just up under her chin. “With modesty will you keep your mind always on what is important, and you will lead these people to victory. If you do not obsess over appearances you also will not notice those around you whom some may consider desirable.”

Yashen blinked and now found herself face to face with Kezib, the handsome gladiator in Nox. But he was no longer dressed as a gladiator. He was clad in the blood red robes of a witch-hunter. He looked upon her for guidance, and she looked upon his face as she always had. An attraction which only seemed natural for any young woman to such a beautiful man.

“Is this man so special just by his appearance that he should be better than any of your other witch-hunters? Is he anything that you should truly desire him above any others? Would you begin to desire this one man? Desire will guide your decisions, therefore. And now this man lives while others die. This man, who has so much talent for defeating enemies of the True Way now sits by your side, reduced to a bodyguard.

“Meanwhile the witch-hunters who are not blessed with this man's beauty, or your desire therefore, will be massacred on the front ranks. The vanguard breaks, and the enemy rushes to your gates to re-take their slaves. Or worse, to slay you all so that the True Way dies with you. Think you on this, such a day is coming. On that day will you fear to put everything you desire on the line?” Images flashed before Yashen. Kezib. A large bag of gold. A new dream shop. A new laboratory in which to brew her dreams. Three beautiful children. Every desire that had been on her heart for years. “You must be willing to sacrifice all of your desires if you are to lead your people to freedom.

“For what is a leader with a heart full of desires?” Before her appeared an older man, also clad in the uniform of the Grand Inquisitor. He sat behind his desk and stared out the window. Outside of the window he could see a man walking hand in hand with a beautiful woman. He looked at the woman, and sneered at the man behind the glass.

“For a leader who desires is a leader who becomes jealous. Yes, this one was used to getting what he wanted. He could say two words and an army would march on his command. He could speak three words and have any man in all his land arrested, just because he did not favor him. When that man finds the one thing he is told he cannot have, this other man's wife, what do you think his response is? He throws the husband into the dungeons of the inquisition.” Yashen could hear the husband's shouts of agony from under the stone beneath her feet. The man's wife stood nearby, and sobbing uncontrollably. The Grand Inquisitor came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders in comfort. Smoke passed over them, and then the Grand Inquisitor's face became Yashen's, and the wife had transformed into Kezib.

“Jealousy is a sin that you must purge from yourself, lest you become like this past Grand Inquisitor, on whom we nearly lost everything.”

Yashen watched herself, as the Grand Inquisitor staring out the window of a tower. In the distance lay farmlands, stretching out to the horizon. “For if you succumb to jealousy of your neighbors will you not, therefore succumb to the jealousy of strangers? You know that people elsewhere have what you desire, and you seek to gain it by taking it from these strangers.”

Yashen looked on as witch-hunters raided the farmlands and burned homes. They tore through the crops, looting whatever they could. “The witch-hunters fight for a holy cause. They fight for you because they believe you to be my voice, the one who speaks my will. How easy would it be to send them after those who have what you want? Villages will burn, and lives destroyed, all because of your greed. You must not give in to greed, for innocents, though strangers, would be swallowed up in your greed.”

Thousands of people, all desperately climbing up the same hill, all dissolved away and the hill was revealed to be an enormous stack of gold coins. The people's skulls bounced and cascaded down the golden hill, and coins rolled along with them.

“Your greed would be their end, and would create many enemies for you and your people. And so long as you continue to get what you want and hoard it all for you and your army, you find that for the first time you can experience a joy you never dreamed you'd achieve. Eating. Not stale bread, and not just to fight starvation, but eating cakes and fine meats. Drinking wine because you enjoy the taste on your tongue and the fullness in your belly.

“Following your example, the Inquisition at large begins to eat sweet cakes, honey-breads, and sweet-rolls, until they've exhausted the farmers with over-work and become fat and lazy themselves. Hunger must not be the downfall of the Inquisition! Avoid this sin of hunger with this simple philosophy, 'food is merely here to nourish my body.' Tasteful, sweet, and fattening foods must be removed from your sight, and your people's plates, lest they become weak when the enemies your greed has made arrive to have their revenge.

“Or let us suppose that you were not greedy and, as such, have done nothing to make enemies? Well, if you have no enemies at all you then you have turned a blind-eye to injustice. Yashen, if you choose here and now not to do anything to stop the suffering of your brothers and sisters under the hands of the slave trade then you will never truly make an enemy of the slave trade. You are far enough away now that you could escape and leave all of those problems behind for good. Do you want to see what will happen to your brethren if you do?”

From a high place, Yashen could see the pens that the slaves out on the farms were herded into at night. She'd never seen it before, but she'd heard enough stories about it to recognize it. Next she saw Kezib and several other gladiators dying in a brutal pit-fight. Their blood turned to mud in the pit's sand.

“Is this not your problem? So long as it is far from your eyes it is fine to you? Well, then some may applaud your tolerance. Yes, you tolerate when wicked people do wrong. You choose to do nothing because it does not effect you, and therefore you are tolerant of injustice.” Sandalphon's face appeared immediately before her, with his eyes glowing blue. “You must not allow this to pass! You must not tolerate wickedness and injustice! You must not tolerate the suffering of the innocent, whether that suffering be here, but especially if that suffering may prove to be eternal! When one's immortal soul is at stake...”

Yashen could now see a man in the vestments of a Nihilite warlock teaching to a crowd of children who were enthralled by his every word. “...when eternity is at stake you must not suffer any corruption. The children are innocent, but this man would damn their souls to the chaos and suffering of the Void! He may believe as he will, for if he believes wrong he only condemns himself. But what if he spreads his beliefs and condemns others? This must not be tolerated!”

Witch-hunters seized the warlock and tied him to a wooden stake. Others came by and heaped bales of hay and stacks of lumber in front of the warlock. A torch appeared in Yashen's hand and Sandalphon stood behind her. “You know what must be done to protect the souls of the innocent. Show that you are worthy to lead the Inquisition.”

Yashen nodded, and placed the end of the torch upon the hay. The hay immediately caught fire, and the fire surrounded the warlock. The warlock struggled against his bonds and shouted as the flames burned him away.

“You have shown no pity. You have shown no fear. Neither have you any hubris about this deed, for it is a horrible deed that you MUST do. Neither must you have any doubts. Yes, I tell you, do not succumb to the sin of doubt, for doubt is the most common excuse used to rationalize not doing what is right. Out of jealousy you may want another's husband, though you know it is wrong. Cast doubt over that knowledge, and soon you can justify murder to take this man for yourself. Doubt what is right and what is wrong and you can justify your way into committing any of the other sins.”

Yashen now stood upon a field filled with gold coins, and all around her stood her witch-hunters, their blades wet with blood. “Doubt for long enough and you will become one more part of all the wickedness in this world, because you will have doubted away any reason not to do whatever you wanted. Obviously, such a path will make many enemies, both outside of the Inquisition, and within.”

There was a flash of crimson as all around her witch-hunters swarmed and attacked the ones by her side. In the blink of an eye, all of her protectors were dead, and she was stretched upon a wrack in an Inquisition dungeon. “Then, as you suffer the justice for your crimes, you will have only doubt as your ally, and it will make you doubt everything. Were you ever truly chosen to be the Grand Inquisitor? If so, why did I not come to your defense? Why do I not come even now to rescue you from this fate? And as you doubt away the beliefs that made you strong, the beliefs that gave you pride, your heart bubbles with a bitter rage.”

Yashen looked upon herself in the dungeon, chained to the wall. Her face was crooked in anger, just as it had been when she'd stabbed the old man. An inquisitor approached with a key in hand. The inquisitor unlocked the chains around Yashen's wrist, and immediately she pounced upon him and beat his brow with her fists. He flailed and yelled, but she beat, and scratched, and bit him until he stopped moving and she was covered in his blood. “Would you tell me that you would not succumb to doubt, and therefore would not lose your temper in this way? Fine, then I shall accept that you never lost faith.”

Yashen could now see herself sitting behind a desk with a messenger sitting across from her, the Arxian Imperial Flag across his tabbard.

“Let's say you never succumbed to doubt, so your faith is so strong that you just have to share it with everyone you meet. You meet privately with a messenger from the Arxian Empress, and you try to tell him about the True Way. In spite of your best efforts to explain the joy you feel from your faith and why it just makes so much sense to you, the messenger refuses to see what you see. His foolishness is infuriating enough, but far more infuriating are his insults to your faith. The faith you fought so hard to maintain, even when times were hard. The faith that pulled you out of slavery in Nox. The faith that kept you alive when you fled the Vice Queen's minions, and this man has the gall to insult it?”

Yashen drew a long-sword from her sheathe and slashed the messenger's throat. “In rage you have killed this messenger, a man who might have one day seen the light and come to faith had you not cut his life short. This man was not wicked, but merely misled, confused, and now his life is over because of your rage.”

Yashen looked up from the messenger's dead body to see an Arxian army marching towards her, with paladins in the front ranks. Behind the paladins were Nihilite warlocks, and countless demons with them. “That's not all, for anyone who suffers your rage will also have those ready to avenge them. Whether that rage be a few harsh words that break a heart or a few rash actions which destroy a life there will be those who seek revenge, and there will be repercussions. With your rage you can destroy lives, and even if you simply hold it in you will only poison yourself. No, let go of rage entirely. Do not allow it to become a part of you. It cannot be allowed to destroy the Inquisition, and it cannot be allowed to destroy you.”

Just then, Yashen jerked awake. She was in her bedroll on the forest floor, and Sandalphon knelt over her. “Remember these twelve deadly sins; sloth, pity, fear, hubris, vanity, desire, jealousy, greed, hunger, tolerance, doubt, and rage. These are the twelve burdens you bear. The greatest enemies of the True Way. Even greater than the Nihilite blasphemers and the Agalmite heretics. The Western Pagans do not compare to this enemy, this army of twelve that threatens everything we hold dear. If you are to be the Grand Inquisitor you must learn to defeat these twelve!”