Madman's Gambit - Part 1

Castle Mechi

Province of Mechi, Rodakrov

~

"'With every utterance of breath, there is an utterance of my creation' sayeth the father," I recited loudly as I strolled down the back corridor. Placed equidistant from the east entrance and the west entrance of it was the living chambers of the priest. Appropriate, since he considered himself to be the center of the damned universe. Light poured out of his open doors, as priests always welcomed guests, no matter the ungodly hour of the night. "'And with every twinkle of thought, so, too, is a twinkle of me. I am the beginning, and I am the end. I am the creator and the ender of suffering. I am the teacher of truths and the purveyor of all things good."

I came to a stop at his threshold, leaning a shoulder against the jamb.

"A bit preachy, no?"

He sat by the small hearth that was cradling a fire, a leather-bound tome in his lap. As he lifted his golden gaze to greet me, he unhooked his reading spectacles from behind his ears and let them hang by the beaded chain around his neck.

"A bit holier than thou?" I continued, more to my amusement than to his mockery.

"God is meant to be holier than thou," Vitale pointed out.

"Not my gods," I shrugged. "My gods are volatile and chaotic, like the lands which they created."

The man's eyes scoured over my face before narrowing in a provocative fashion. "And yet you can be found praying to them when the sun disappears beyond the horizon."

My pulse skipped, adrenaline shooting through my appendages and making my fingers cold. I crossed my arms, tucking them in a subtle attempt to warm them. I never prayed in front of that damnable man, which meant there were times in which I was unaware of his presence. My lack of awareness unsettled me.

"'Truth can be found only in my words' sayeth the father." I continued my recitation, forcing down the anxious lump forming in my throat. "'And all else is falsehood. All good is found in me, and evil is the weapon that tries to strike me down.'"

I pushed myself off of the jamb and crossed under the threshold. Vitale's chamber was so bare that even a Krov would've been uncomfortable in it. He had a wooden trunk filled with clothing, always shut; a bare bones bed with a single pillow and two blankets, as such was necessary if one didn't want to lose toes in the middle of the frigid nights; and upon the simple table pressed against the south wall was a collection of three tomes - one was the scripture he now nursed in his lap, another was an alchemical opus that served more as his bible than anything else, and the final was thin and unmarked. I had no idea of the contents, and nor did he allow me the opportunity to discern them, which made me all the more curious.

"From these teachings, the incomparable summer priests gleaned that it is an act against Pater Deus to kill. 'This must be why,' I had mused at my father's funeral procession, 'this spirited and impudent little man refuses to handle the quietus of Akim."

"Yes," he spoke after a moment. "Life is a sacred thing."

He was prepared with the response. I sighed, bored with him already. I would've left had I not had a true reason to be there.

"Animals are below your self-righteous god," I countered his pitiful defense. "Must I render The Book of Form-"

"'And all creation is of my perfect design,' sayeth He, 'of which man is the highest order of all, tasked with the purpose of authority.'"

I smirked at his interjection. He hated when I quoted his god to him.

"'And it is so that all creatures will look upon man as their master.' Yes, Nikolai, I know The Book of Formation," he said curtly. "And it is true that such was claim I accepted as truth, before I traveled to the Mad Lands."

I crossed for the wooden chair adjacent to his, asking, "And what reformed that ignorance of yours, hm?"

The scanned over the open pages of his scripture once more before closing it, as if trying to protect it from prying pagan eyes.

"Rats, rabbits, pigeons, they are all simple creatures. They are born, the feed, they excrete, they die. Their eyes are black - soulless. I doubt, however, that my god has ever laid eyes upon the majesty of the snow tiger," he admitted. "It truly is a creature of nobility, with eyes bluer than the Inlet of Abel."

"And yet here before you sits a creature of nobility with the eyes of a rat, a rabbit, and a pigeon," I remarked calmly, mostly out of habit, as a sharp tongue was something that had to be whetted daily.

It was curious - the Casterians considered the Krovs heathens belonging to a culture too far gone for any semblance of salvation, and yet it was us heathens who did not feel it necessary to record in our little manuals of life that we reigned over animals. Mostly because we were not stupid enough to believe that we actually did.

What was more - if Vitale truly thought that rats were soulless creatures, then he was more benighted than I ever gave him credit for. He wouldn't dare to utter such nonsense if he had the chance to meet Timur. My father had found him as a kit, dying alone in the stables, and tucked him within his layers of wool and fur, intent on saving him.

See, my father always had a soft spot for rats, so much so that even before his lunacy had an iron grip on his mind, he enacted an injunction that declared the act of killing one within the grounds of Castle Mechi was an imprisonable offense.

And I was no exception. He gifted me that dying kit and instructed me on the husbandry of his species. Given the name Timur because of his resilience and will to live, my father warned me of the punishment I would receive if ever I neglected him. But of all the things I inherited from that mad man, his intrigue for the little creatures was amongst them.

They knew their names and a wide array of words which they, themselves, were incapable of speaking. They demanded companionship and affection. They were susceptible to weariness and depression if not properly engaged and enriched. They needed to be treated with respect, or else they would leave you, because rats knew their worth - something a soulless creature simply could not comprehend. Or a Casterian, as it happened.

"You are a king, without question, my lord," Vitale agreed hastily. "With nobility so boldly distinct that the pigment of the eye has no more sway on your innate worth than an ant has over a boot."

"Oh hush, before you make me vomit," I grimaced in disgust. "I haven't come here to listen to you brown nose me."

Vitale cocked a brow, intrepidly muttering, "You could've fooled me."

"You seem," I shot back, my gaze hardening on him. "To hold on to the foolish notion that you're indispensable, priest, what with that mouth of yours flapping so heedlessly."

"Foolish, yes," he ceded. "But is it false?"

Vitale knew best that if audacity was already aired, hesitancy made room for a critical strike. In the winter lands it was all or nothing, and even then, your chances were divided and well matched.

This time, though, he came out on top - not because he was indeed indispensable to me, but, rather, because it would be an absolute clusterfuck if he fell into the hands of someone else. The damned bastard knew his worth.

"What a rat," I muttered, the witticism amusing to me alone. And then, I sighed. "While I do so enjoy our religious parley, priest, allow me to cut to the heart of this discourse. It is a sin for priests of the Sanctorum to murder a fellow man."

The comment didn't strike him as still as I assumed it would. Instead, he wet his lips in thought, eyes upon the closed tome sitting in his lap.

"The Sanctorum gives people purpose," he began eventually, slow and deliberate. He was choosing his words cautiously. "When I was ordered to venture north, I did my duty, figuring I would return soon thereafter. When I did not, I then came to the conclusion that my purpose was to enlighten you with the words of Pater Deus."

I furrowed my brow, narrowing my eyes at him.

"You were not the first southern vicar who has ventured here, or the first, even, who resided here. I knew the Sanct Canon in and out before I knew of your existence, priest."

"Yes," he supplemented without hesitation. "You could recite it, but you looked upon it as... fiction. An ideological philosophy. And philosophy is the work of men, not of god. I thought that my job was to make a believer out of you, but it became vividly clear, not long after your revival, that swaying you this way or that was not my purpose at all."

I leaned back in my chair, intrigued.

"Then, pray tell, holy man - what is your purpose? Let us see if it is a necessity, or - better, even - if it is a superfluous layer of waste I can shed and do away with."

My jesting didn't faze him at all. His brow remained in the drawn position that seemed customary for him - as if he were in a perpetual state of deep contemplation. It was irksome.

"To deliver you from evil, my lord."

I looked away as hastily as I could without seeming startled. The bastard had a viper's gaze - it could freeze anything under its frigid indifference, or, worse, sear a man with inflicting appraisal. It had been that way since he had arrived seven years ago and his familiarity with me did not temper its wicked intensity.

"Then my assumptions are well guided," I concluded, carrying on despite it. "It was you."

At his drawn silence, I mustered the might to return my attention to him. Wicked, yes, but just like a viper, if the gaze was broken, it was broken for good. Whatever prey it held was long gone.

"A bold move, even for you, Vitale." I cast an appraising look about his tanned face. His neutrality was formidable, but not impregnable. The crease between his brow may have been nonexistent to all others, but for seven years I had studied this man. Puzzles, you see, exhilarated me. "To break a tenet created by your god, all the while committing treason in a heathen land. And without my permission."

I watched his brow twitch.

"We are in the twilight of year seven, my dear priest." I cocked a brow, watching him watch me. Those blasted golden eyes of his. Every second more I gazed into them was another second my blood boiled. "Tell me, what changed?"

"Sire?" He was a steady man, my priest. But the pitch of his question made it clear that something was awry.

"What changed? What possibly could've happened, Vitale," I pressed, narrowing my eyes as I tried to discern what secret he was so desperately attempting to suppress. "To make you forsake your god? My father's madness has been here longer than you, and it remained here, despite you. Thus, his madness could not have been your watershed. So, what was?"

The priest's eyes dropped to his lap as he inhaled, taking his time to formulate his answer. It was a trait that I wasn't fond of. I wasn't particularly patient, nor did I appreciate the fact that nothing that came of such ponderings were unrepentant truths. In some way or another, they were tempered. They might as well have been lies.

"The progression of your father's illness," he began eventually. "Presented in such a way that it affected not just him, but you, as w-"

"Your Majesty!"

I whirled in the direction of the shouting.

"Forgive the intrusion," the manservant begged breathlessly from the threshold, bowing low to avoid my glare. "A vanguard approaches the gates, sire."

I stood, my muscles already charged with adrenaline. "A vanguard? What colors do they bare?"

"Or and purpure, sire."

"Or and…"

My gut twisted viciously. Not even a week had passed since the last of my father's ashes were delivered to the gods. How pathetic Emperor Emerentius II truly was.

"Are you positive?" Vitale demanded of the servant, rising to his feet, as well.

"Aye, sire. Captain Ratko has the garrison at the ready, awaiting orders."

"His orders are to stand down." I turned on my heel and began for the door. "It seems an old, unsavory guest has stuck his nose where it doesn't belong."

"Sire?" The servant posed, pressing his back against the wall so as to let me pass without touching me.

"That vanguard holds a pest within it," I growled, rounding on him. I knew the Aquiladessi bastards would come crawling back soon enough, but I figured I had at least until the end of the ice season. I abhorred when I was wrong. "Captain Ratko is to deliver him to me weaponless and without his colors. The Casterian standard will not taint the integrity of Castle Mechi, and if he is stupid enough to allow it to do so, then I will paint the halls with his blood and give the rest of his putrid body to Rostya to with as he pleases. You make sure he understands this."

The man stayed in my presence only long enough to offer a rushed bow before sprinting down the north corridor with my orders.

"So, they have come," Vitale murmured.

I clenched my fists.

"Like flies to shit," I spoke through gritted teeth as I ripped the leather cord from around my neck, tossing it - and the iron key it held - to the priest. "What better time to show Rostya his new accommodations? Release him. And be quick about it."