10 - 3 [Magus] The Slaughter of Sparrows Brings Black Tidings The Lone Sparrow III - 1st of Evening Star, Year 1125 A.E.

What would pa say? Barry thought in the lull of his recounting, a wayward thought into the ether that brought nothing more than self-loathing and shame.

The Lone Sparrow avoided speaking of his sorcery, lest he be branded a warlock once more—by a priest of blue rather than red, this time—or even worse; flash a glint of would-be coin. He skirted any mention of being able to command substance insubstantial with the voice of his soul as that ability seemed inherently…powerful.

More of Stregor’s words came to the fore of his mind, and if not for Barry’s newfound sense of mana, he would’ve thought the man’s spirit whispered in his ear.

“Lordlings and brigands are all the same. They see something shiny and they want for it. They’ll stop at nothing to take what they crave.

You see anyone with cloth too fine or too much silver on their fingers, go the other way. You can kill a bandit and none shall bat an eye. Yet to kill a blueblood shall spell yer doom.

Forget not that both are hellbent on their quarry should they get a whiff of something they want for.”

Barry spoke of the battle at large—be it their initial attempt at ambush, their last stand to the sea of walking dead or the Slaughter—and of being able to use his spirit to conjure those arms of his. Though Barry knew very little of magicking, there was no doubt that compared to his possession of ethos, his sorcerous limbs were nothing.

He avoided, too, talk of his lover, Rodrick. No matter that Barry wanted so much to speak to someone, anyone, and get the grief out of his chest, his trust was a fickle thing. And for good reason.

Men like him got the same treatment as warlocks in King’s Kedwen; burnt at the stake in the center o’ town or a crux on the hill overlooking the West. Barry remembered his pa finding him and Reggy’s son Eric behind the standing stones of their hamlet.

He remembered, too, the beating both of them received.

And so, the Lone Sparrow breathed an air most heavy, breath shackled by the mind. Barry would have laughed at the irony of reversal had he possessed any good humor after the retelling of the Slaughter o’ the Sparrows.

The threnody, the wailing of his very soul, sang mutely in the back of his thoughts. Tehlos, the insistence of ending All Things, whispered sweet nothings in his left ear.

Where the Song started and the Name ended, Barry was not sure. Both were different “things” as far as he could tell, yet their similarities were… many.

Two swords of differing realms, yet still swords just the same. Both were omens of ruin, in one form or another.

“I see, lad.” The Priestess said noncommittally, all but more hollow noise to fill in the heavy silence that talking of death brought about.

A tiny spark of anger came and went in the creases of Barry’s brow as the woman so carelessly brushed-off the topic. Yet still, he understood enough. Not all were comfortable with such things.

Unfortunately, Barry had his practice and fill and experience with the shadow o’ Mortus. Brothers and even the occasional sister that joined the band would fall in battle. The path of the sellsword was no safe road, a perilous stretch of mountain trail cowled in fog and will’o wisps that were wont to make a traveler’s step falter.

But a single wrong foot was all that was needed to fall into the River Pallus that wound its way around the warrior’s path. Barry knew so intimately, what with having dipped his arms into those cold waters already.

Now but shadows of their likeness were left in the wake of that dark day. Accursed, wretched and pale imitations hung from the scarred stumps of his shoulders, their sight dastardly enough to make others fear him.

Monster. Warlocke. Omen o’ Doom, he could almost make out their voices as he looked down to his hands just peeking out from under his tunic’s long sleeves.

His face was a battlefield hosting a war between contempt and gratitude; a clinchment, contradictorily, in conflict with itself—bittersweet.

The skin of his hands shifted in between lazy ebbs of dark and vicious tongues of black; not too dissimilar to locust-flame, his limbs wore the fire’s hide and the shadow’s hame.

A child of both. Unwanted babe.

Barry reckoned he would need to wear long sleeved tunics and gloves for the rest of his life, lest he make the parish priests run like the Hells had been set loose upon them.

Worst of all, a question left unanswered nagged at him. A fly that wove around his head, buzzing its incessant sound.

What made men hold vigil in a far away place?

In conjunction with the devil that was the Name and the wound that was the Song, the questing made his thoughts a turbid and stewing mess.

“Anyhow,” continued Emilia, her voice thin and uncomfortable as if her throat had to walk upon a stretch of ground flush with thorns. “Times a’ wasting. It’ll be better for ye to toil a bit to not get stuck in yer head.

“Empty hands are the Devil’s workshop and all that. Can’t have Her get ‘em nine-damned claws on ye, now can we?

“We’ll need to grab some magicking treatises from the archives. You’ll hav’ta be the one to climb the stacks and find the tomes, though—I’ll help, but I can’t do it myself; back isn’t what it used to be.”

“Uhhh. I can’t... read…” Barry rubbed at the back of his neck as if a bee had stung his nape. “Only my village’s elders knew their letters.”

“That’s okay, lad. In three or four days o’ the Wheelen week I can teach you the very basics. I’ll also shed some light on your magicking in between bouts of more mundane learnin’

“Come now, let’s not waste sunlight. You won’t like reading by the candle.”

Back into the stoneworked halls and then a few bends thereafter, they found themselves at a steelbound door. This one was unlike the others, without wood and wrought of plates of steel bound together by rivets.

“Oh my.” The Priestess said, her voice equal parts self-reproach and good-natured embarrassment. “I forgot ye just woke up from not having eatin’ in five whole days!

“Com’on laddie, we’ll get back to the archives later. Let’s get some food in ye belly.”

“Strange.” Barry responded, mumbling outloud. “I don’t feel much hungry. Didnae even think ‘bout a crumb since I woke, less we talkin’ ‘bout now.”

Emilia gave him a crooked smile, all crow’s feet and gull’s beak; wise and innocent both.

Barry followed after the old woman’s gait, her veiled steps making as though she floated atop the stoneworked floor. A trick of the sight, the sellsword reckoned.

A short walk later, they arrived at an empty eatery and cookery hall, a good twenty by fifteen span wide—bigger than the “porch”. Enough to house a dozen wise women after midmorning fast; generally, women in King’s Kedwen were smaller in stature. A mixture between the customs emphasizing a lady be “prim and proper” (whatever thinly-veiled Hells that meant) and the lack of good food made most a full head and a half shorter than Barry.

The sellsword was a proper giant down here in these sothron lands. North the Ydden, these customs were not so widespread nor deepset; the women there did not differ in height from men more than an inch or two at most.

The hall was empty, as was most of the temple. Strange.

“Hey, Emilia, why’s it that there are no other priestesses ‘ere? D’ya hide ‘em under them skirts?”

The Maiden of the Crone flashed him a crooked, mad-hatter smile. Barry was glad he could give her some mirth, what with her being so amicable and jesting all about with him ever since he woke.

And that she did, quite truthfully, save his life. That too.

“They’re helpin’ out with the preparations o’ the end of year festival. Had to go on and work as scribes to get the town treasury to cough up any sort of actual investment.”

Her eyes scoured Barry’s face for the signs of interest; he had not been found wanting.

She had heard him, and so he would hear her, too. The Priestess had been nothing but kind and gentle during his recounting.

Emilia let out a strained and long-winded sigh before she continued on.

“Been a slow cycle for Berrowden, compared to the last decade of the eleven tens’. The war to the East with the Middle Kingdoms and the bandits that prowl the more separated settlements have made it hard on the larders of many folk, be they high or low.”

Barry gave a nod. He knew damn well enough given that his occupation’s pay increased so much since the time he joined. What was once payment of a single shill, now became five. Good for his pockets, bad for the lives of simple, gods-honest folk.

He had sold so many family seals and heirlooms such as pewter finery and tin dirks. Most often, he did not sell back this items and prized possessions.

The family no longer existed. Who could he sell back to?

“Sit down by the fire, laddie, the ladies should be back by fourth glass past midday; the evening just when it starts to get black.

“I’ll go on and get some cold meats from the larder, some cheeses and breads too, ‘ill do ye good, laddie. You like milk-cake? What I am askin? Who doesn’t?”

The Priestess scurried off into one of the doors to the eastern side of the longer walls.

Barry sat down on one of the benches near the long tables dressed in embroidered cloth. The scrollwork along the fabric spoke of aerenghasts—angels in the sothron speech—and other godlings descending from On High to deliver good news and truths of the gods.

The sellsword saw it all for what it was; fabrications wrought of half-truths and outright lies. No benevolent gods would make such a world steeped in suffering and pain. Stregor had opened his mind well enough on that topic.

But neither would he himself dwell on such. Barry was just glad he was alive and that a woman, without need and simply because, had saved him.

That was enough. For now.