The Vampire & Her Witch

For a moment, no one knew what to say. The children, the ones who had learned their lord’s name almost as early as they’d learned the names of their own parents, were wide-eyed in surprise to hear that the greedy lord who lied to the woodcutter’s son had been a Lothian Lord. It was the parents in the crowd, however, and the ones further to the back, who put the pieces together, and when they did, many faces lost their wide-eyed shock as they donned red masks of fury.

”That’s blasphemy!” Gaius cried, standing up and forcing his way through the crowd with his cane as he trembled in fury. ”I fought for Odhran’s son, Caleb, and his father was a hero! A hero who fought the Demon Lady of the Vale and her hordes of demons! You’re lying! You’re... you’re...” he said, his voice losing strength as his legs began to shake.

Gaius clutched at his chest, and his cane rattled to the ground. He tried to speak, to tell the people that this Inquisitor was slandering a good man who had defended the march, but all that escaped his lips was a pained, exhausted wheeze.

”Help him,” the gray-haired woman who had been standing with him cried, pushing her way forward as she cursed herself for letting him talk her into coming here after they’d finished their meal in the chapel. They should have been resting right now; they should have been... They should have been anywhere but here!

Before she could reach him, however, Ignatious appeared at the old man’s side. No one had even seen him move, and his sword clattered to the floor at the same instant he wrapped an arm around the old man.

”To struggle is noble, and to speak up is righteous,” Ignatious said, raising a pale hand surrounded by a warm golden glow. ”But your heart needs rest, and peace,” he said, placing his hand on the old man’s chest as a gentle trickle of power flowed from his hand.

”I lost the sight of sunrise long ago,” Ignatious said as Gaius’s wife, Kaja, arrived beside them. ”But you still have many more to watch alongside your love. I won’t see you lose a single tomorrow for coming here tonight,” he promised.

For several heartbeats, it looked like nothing was happening, but then, slowly, the distressed look faded from Gaius’s face, replaced by a look of confusion as the pain in his chest melted away.

”A miracle,” Kaja said, gripping her husband’s hand as if she would never again let go of it. ”Thank you, High Inquisitor, thank you,” she said, over and over again as tears rolled down her wrinkled cheeks.

”Come,” Ignatious offered, helping the elderly couple to their feet before bending down to retrieve the old man’s cane. ”Let me help you to the front. You can hear the rest of the tale without straining yourself, and we can talk about days long past...”

”Listen to your lies, you mean,” Gaius spat, snatching his cane from Ignatious’s hand. ”I won’t be tricked by, ow, ow ow, Kaja, ow!” Gaius cried as his wife grabbed a fold of his flesh and pinched as hard as she could.

”He saved your foolish life,” she scolded. ”So you accept His Worship’s invitation, and you sit as obedient as the little ones up front and listen,” she said sharply. ”You owe him that much, don’t you, dear?”

”Only if he lets me say my piece too,” Gaius demanded in a huff. ”The younguns’ need to hear the truth, pure and simple, and the truth is that Odharn fought the demons who murdered his father...”

”Of course,” Ignatious said gently as he gestured for the children sitting in the aisle to make a path for the elderly couple. ”Everyone deserves to hear the truth,” he said, guiding Gaius and Kaja to a seat that was quickly vacated by a father and his young son for the couple that had received a miracle of healing from the High Inquisitor himself.

”Now, where were we?” Ignatious said as he returned to the dais and reclaimed his sword, returning it to its sheath before he took his seat. ”The Brothers’ War, Odhran and Leon Lothian,” Ignatious said.

”Them and your lies,” Gaius said bitterly, refusing to let the Inquisitor build momentum now that he’d realized the story the priest was trying to twist. ”You said that the woodcutter’s son fought hunters, farmers and woodcutters protecting their homes, but they fought the demons of the vale and kept us all safe from their murdering kind,” he said, pointing at Ignatious with his cane. ”You have to tell them the truth.”

”I am telling the truth,” Ignatious said with a helpless shrug. ”It’s just not the truth you’ve been told before, but I promise you, every word of it is true.”

”Are you saying the people that Odhran fought weren’t demons?” Kaja asked, trying to find a way to keep the peace between her husband and the Inquisitor who had just saved his life. ”Were they Freeholders or rebels or something else? Is that what you’re saying?”

”I’m saying they were people, just different from the people of Gaal,” Ignatious said. ”They may have big claws or curled horns or scaly hide, but that’s not what makes a man a monster,” he said, sweeping his gaze across the children. ”The children saw it clearly. The woodcutter’s son became a monster when he killed innocent people who were only protecting their homes. When he tormented others to learn their secrets even though those champions had done nothing wrong.”

”You’re twisting it!” Gaius said with a dark scowl forming on his face. ”This Inquisitor, this woodcutter’s son, he tortured demons and...”

”Please,” Ignatious said, raising his hand to stop the old man. ”He tortured people, people who call themselves the ’Eldritch,’ not demons. People with wives and children of their own. If anyone in the room was a monster, he was.”

”Brother Ignatious,” Aubin said, walking forward and resting a hand on the High Inquisitor’s shoulder. ”You don’t have to go so far...”

”Thank you, High Priest, Aubin,” Gaius said. ”You’ve always looked out for us, even the common folk. Please put a stop to this story and all these lies...”

”You misunderstand, my child,” Aubin said, looking at the stubborn old soldier. ”Brother Ignatious may be harsh, but if he’s been harsh to anyone, he’s been harshest on himself. As to the truth of it... I only know what’s been written in books. Books written by High Priest Leon Lothian and the people who fought on our side of the war.”

”But Brother Ignatious... He was there,” Aubin said, giving the vampire Inquisitor a worried look. ”He knows the truth of it better than anyone because he’s heard from both sides. He’s done the real work of an Inquisitor to sift the innocent from the guilty, and when he did, he condemned himself...”

”You give me too much credit, Brother Aubin,” Ignatious said, shaking his head even as a slight smile formed on his lips. ”It took me years of suffering in darkness and torment to condemn myself for what I’d done. The first person to condemn me was Mistress Nyrielle, the Eldritch Lady of the Vale,” he said, eliciting a wave of gasps from the parents and the older children.

”You see, I was the woodcutter’s son,” Ignatious said with a sad smile that was just wide enough for him to reveal a hint of his fangs. ”I died in that war, but that wasn’t the end of the story.”

”The night I died, I fell into darkness and torment that lasted close to eighty years,” Ignatious explained. ”Every cruelty and agony I’d inflicted as an Inquisitor was returned to me tenfold until I came to understand how cruelly I’d been used, and how much I’d been deceived.”

”It was only after I’d come to truly understand how wrong I’d been that someone finally rescued me,” Ignatious said quietly to the audience that was too stunned to speak. ”And when someone finally offered me kindness and the chance to remember the boy I’d once been, the simple woodcutter’s son bringing wood to the orphans and helping the poor... The person who risked her life to rescue me wasn’t just someone you’d call a demon,” Ignatious said, meeting Gaius’s gaze directly. ”She’s also a witch...”