The Vampire & Her Witch

At the far end of the table, Liam Dunn pushed his chair back slowly, snagging one of the empty goblets from the table that just moments ago had been the only thing offering any relief from the spicy, green chicken slathered in far too much of the even spicier dark-green sauce. At the moment, he’d forgotten about food entirely as he took several heavy, plodding steps across the dining room to the table that held casks of wine, cider, and ale.

Liam wasted neither time nor words as he filled his goblet to the brim with the strongest of the wines available before tipping the goblet up and drinking it down to the last drop.

Liam wasn’t like the sheltered noblemen from the duchies who had been his classmates at the academy. He’d fought the Eldritch before. He’d seen things that couldn’t be explained as anything but witchcraft, or rather, what the Eldritch called sorcery. He’d even seen what he’d thought of as the pinnacle of miracle working in Hanrahan when Loman Lothian unleashed his rain of luminous arrows, and Hauke resisted it with a vast shield of ice.

In Hanrahan, he’d seen warfare that was nothing like the clash of men and metal he’d come to know from fighting in the wilderness at the borders of Dunn Barony, but everything he’d seen in Hanrahan paled in comparison to what he’d just witnessed.

Sir Ollie had torn open a portal to the land of the dead and allowed the souls of the fallen to join them for dinner, swirling around the dining room as though they were uncertain about which of the guests to devour. Then, High Inquisitor Ignatious had created an even greater miracle to save them all from being hauled off to the darkness where the damned wailed in eternal agony.

Liam didn’t know how else he could describe what had happened. He didn’t know whether this meant that the priests of the Church were lying or not... that was for men like Loman and Diarmuid to understand.

All he knew was that he’d never listened as closely as he should have when the old, balding priest in Dunn preached about the fate that awaited those who failed in their struggles... And that he never, ever, wanted to offend Sir Ollie the way Sir Rain had. Whatever had happened to the absent knight from Aleese, however bad the beating he’d received from Sir Ollie was, it was a saint’s own mercy compared to what the young knight was capable of unleashing!

”Anyone else need a cup while I’m up?” Liam offered in a shaky voice. ”Loman? Hauke? Anyone?” Liam asked as he swept his gaze down the length of the table.

”N-no,” Hauke said with great difficulty as he struggled to unclench his fists. The tips of his claws had bitten deeply enough into the thick pads of his palms to bleed, and the blood itself had frozen into a tiny crimson waterfall that bound his fists to the table below them.

Hauke knew better than anyone at the dinner table what it was like to lose control of your own body when the spirits of the dead turned against you, and for a moment, he could have sworn he’d heard the voice of Ansgar, Lord of the Seven Peaks, cursing Hauke for betraying his people and offering their throne to a witch like Ashlynn.

The sound of that voice alone was enough to throw his thoughts back to the days when he’d been a prisoner in his own mind, unable to do anything but watch the world outside. He’d been unable to speak, to eat, or do anything to care for himself during those long, helpless days while he waited for Aspakos, Erkembalt, and Ashlynn to free him from the ancestor’s curse.

Now, for a few terrifying moments, he thought that the dead had returned for him and that he’d find himself once again the prisoner of his ancestors.

Thankfully, the worst he’d suffered was a minor wound to his palms and the embarrassment of freezing himself to the table until he could slow the beating of his heart enough to regain control of his power. The human lord sitting across from him, however, didn’t seem to have gotten through things so easily.

Loman had attempted to get up from his chair at least three times since High Inquisitor Ignatious banished the darkness and the mournful wails of the dead. Each time he’d tried to move, his body refused to obey his commands. His legs felt like jelly, and if it weren’t for the high back of the chair, he was certain that he’d have fallen to the floor when his strength left him.

For a moment, his faith had failed him in a way he’d never dreamed was possible. Sitting in the darkness, listening to the accusatory cries of the acolytes who had given their lives to fuel his miracle, and even worse, the bitter curses of vengeance sworn by the soldiers who died to his indiscriminate rain of luminous arrows, he’d felt like he’d simultaneously been the greatest fraud ever seen in Lothian March, and the victim of the largest lie in the history of humanity.

Everything he’d done, every prayer he’d ever said, every donation he’d ever taken, every miracle he’d ever performed... All of them were lies. All of them were scams meant to deceive the ignorant masses into obeying the whims of a hollowed-out faith that served its own interests before the interests of the flock.

None of it, not even the Holy Lord of Light, felt real in the midst of that darkness. It was just an act, a show put on for fools, and he’d been the greatest fool of all for believing in any of it. There were no Heavenly Shores, no peaceful afterlife, no future lives awaiting those who hadn’t met their struggle well enough to reach paradise at the end of this life... Just endless pain and suffering, alone in the darkness of death.

Then, right when his faith had been all but destroyed, he heard a prayer that began with the Great Prophet’s own words: ’Fear not the darkness, for I will light the way...’

But when Ignatious spoke them, they weren’t just words. They were the beginning of the greatest miracle that Loman had ever seen. Loman was one of the few people in the room who had ever personally witnessed the power of an Exemplar, and what he’d witnessed from the vampire-inquisitor was a holy flame so pure and sacred that only the Saint himself, or one of his Exemplars, could possibly match it.

It should be impossible Everything that Loman had ever believed told him that a vampire was a creature of darkness who couldn’t withstand the light of holy fire, but when Ignatious conjured his dancing holy flames, not only had the Inquisitor withstood the flames without suffering, the Demon Lady of the Vale hadn’t suffered either, nor had any of the other vampires within the dining room.

The Holy Lord of Light had lit a beacon in the darkness in this very room, and he’d done it at the request of a vampire... The beacon had banished the darkness of the dead, saving them from the horror of the Void, but it had done nothing to harm the nearly half dozen vampires, or any of the witches, sitting in the room.

”How?” Loman asked with incredible difficulty, staring at Ignatious as if he were the reincarnation of the Great Prophet himself. ”How can you create such a pure miracle, while mine are so... tainted?” Loman asked in a voice that was fragile and on the verge of breaking entirely. ”How can a creature of darkness summon the light without being harmed by it?”