Death’s Usher: An Unholy Crusader

Read Part One here

“WHAT IS THE OATH of the Grave?”

“Death’s first usher, the Dragon, first pledged it,” Great-Grandmother says.

“Many did so in the past, but they’re few and far between these days. Most have forsaken it and sworn allegiance to the Exarch and his Law instead. The Oath consists of three tenets. First, accept death’s inevitability and help others do the same. Secondly, help all souls reach their intended destination. Thirdly, and this is the part neither of us will like, consider undeath unholy and fight it in all forms. Shambling corpses, skeletons, ghouls, vampires? All fair game. You can understand why I didn’t pledge this when I had the chance. I was a healer, but I wouldn’t betray my husband. I took the Oath of Shared Suffering instead. It allowed me to partake in my patients’ afflictions.”

“You were ill along with them?”

“Aye. I remember saving the life of one little girl who’d come down with the rat-borne plague. Her fever, headaches, and fatigue almost killed me. Yet we both persevered and came out stronger.”

“Can’t I do that? Instead of being death’s usher, can’t I be life’s champion?”

“You could, but that wouldn’t help us lost souls. We’d still be bound to this boneyard forever. If you take the Oath of the Grave, you’ll see us off to our rest, no matter if we descend or ascend.”

“By going against myself and my own bloodline? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Not on the surface. Look deeper. It hurts to be undead. You can bring peace to those who live in the blue-black zone between life and death. Aren’t you always cold? Orukin is. Even the ghosts in the first three hells are better off than you two. They know their fate. You don’t know yours.”

“And that’s why I can change it.”

“Naturally. You are damned, but you can repent. Take the Oath of the Grave and prove yourself, not only to the Master Inquisitor who sent you here, but to me and the great Wyrm whose agony is unparalleled.” Great-Grandmother gestures to the souls around her, who lean in as if waiting for something long overdue. “Will you help or forsake us in our hour of need?”

“I can’t help. I’m a bard, not a priest. I don’t know how to conduct you to your final resting place.”

“That doesn’t matter. As soon as you agree to the three principles of the Oath, you will.”

I think for a moment, then smile, baring my delicate fangs. “What if I like who I am? What if I find more kinship with the undead than with the living? What if I think shambling corpses, wraiths, skeletons, ghouls, and vampires deserve to live as much as you did, Great-Grandmother?”

“If I still had a mortal head to shake, I’d shake it. Undead are evil. They seek revenge on the living for their unnatural state. If they can’t punish those who raised them up, they’ll punish everyone. Some are merely mindless, like skeletons, but liches use them as shock troops on the front lines of their armies for good reason. Undead who cling to more than a semblance of intelligence are cunning and dangerous, like wolves, except they have greater goals than feeding and producing more of their ilk. Take Orukin. I loved him and married him, but he still thirsts for kith blood. He can see their souls, but he doesn’t help them. He’s out to save his own hide. Don’t trust him.”

“Why not? He saved me from Thomas the farmer.”

“By ripping his throat out without a second thought! He could have hypnotized him with a gaze, but no. Orukin aimed to satisfy his appetite in body and spirit. You may be an ambitious prostitute, but you’re not evil. The Master Inquisitor is wrong in aiming to send you to the second hell. His Law is unjust, as you say, but you don’t know the half of it. The Oath of the Grave isn’t only for the dead. The living who swear it are comforted, too. You may be a dhampir, and you may have the urge for a blood feast once a month, but that makes you the perfect candidate to be Death’s new usher. Help us, and we’ll do the same for you. We’ll come to your aid in the throes of battle.”

“What battle?”

“Oh, you’ll fight several. I can see it in your near future. Such is a soul’s privilege.”

“And if I refuse?”

Great-Grandmother pauses. “Then you’ll live as a fugitive, hunted and unprotected, but free.”

“Free. I like the sound of that. I think I’ll take the risk.”

“Another thing before you decide. The Exarch and his Inquisitors already fight undead, per their Oath of the Law, but for the wrong reasons. They carry every one of your kind that they manage to kill back to a secret laboratory. They want to know how you’re all created and how they can exterminate you forever. You’d be a valuable specimen while you’re alive. If they catch you…”

I shudder. “If I take the Oath of the Grave, do you and your fellow souls promise to guard me?”

“Forever and always, dear child. Until you take us where we so desperately need to go.”

“Even the hells, if that’s what you deserve?”

At the mention of this, the moans of the unshepherded spirits hit my ears with unexpected force.

“Yes. We must pay for our sins. Throughout countless ages, we can eventually move down toward the heavens. The hells aren’t eternal, except the eleventh. You can guess what that one is.”

“I don’t like this at all. The first two parts of the Oath of the Grave are fine, but I don’t want to fight undead except in self-defense. I’m one of them. Thomas might as well have staked and burned me if I’m meant to die. Isn’t there a way I can skip that part?”

“I’m afraid not. The Oath is an all-or-nothing vow. Since you’re so concerned about the third tenet, why not sneak past hostile undead instead? The Dragon won’t be able to see if you do.”

“That brings up another relevant question: Why is it trapped in the Void?”

“The Master Inquisitor sent it there. The Exarch who came afterward follows in his footsteps and will not release it. If death has no usher and we’re just as stuck as the Dragon, we have no hope. We’re at the utter mercy of the Law, which knows no such thing. Help us. Please.”

“All right. I’ll do it for your sake and my own.” I take a deep breath.

“Death is inevitable. I accept it as I accept the curse of my bloodline. I won’t live forever. No one can, and no one will. Even full vampires must take care. I’ll help all souls descend to the heavens or ascend to the hells: whatever they merit according to the Scales, not the Law. If undead attack me, I’ll fight them despite my heritage. To those who seek rest, I’ll bring it. I now consider myself unholy. The Master Inquisitor has chosen me for salvation and commanded me to repent. I thus take the Oath of the Grave for as long as I live and even after that. I swear on my soul.”

“Very good.” Great-Grandmother’s spirit comes to me and signals for the others to follow.

“How, exactly, do I take you with me?”

“Bare your shoulders. We’ll enter through them and become an invisible protective cloak for you.”

I shiver as I obey and feel several presences push past the thick skin of my shoulders and into the blades. I wonder if they’ve possessed me, so I kick twice in the air to see if they’ll stop me. They don’t. I turn around, touch the ground, and raise my arms, all of my own volition.

Then I think to myself: “I’m thinking a thought, and this thought is my own. I’m in control of my mind, no matter how many souls are traveling with me. They’re my companions, not my masters.”

None of them take control. At least I don’t think so. When I’m satisfied that I’m carrying them and not the other way around, I look to the east. The sky is lightening. I must find a hiding place before the sun rises. Where, though? All the graves are full. Then I spot a stone building on the far edge of the cemetery. It might be a charnel house: a crypt for storing skeletal remains that haven’t been buried yet. I rush toward it, hoping and praying it isn’t locked. Drat and blast it! It is.

“Use your fingernail,” Great-Grandmother says. “You have long ones with which to pick a lock.”

That I do. I slide my index finger into the lock’s hole and twist it, then hear a click. Silently thanking my distant ancestor, I enter. The door creaks shut. I’m left in all-encompassing darkness, but that’s no problem for me. Inside the building are funereal urns, shovels, piles of dusty bones, and a few rough-hewn coffins. I open one and find it empty. I climb inside, lie down, and shut the lid.

This will do until sunset.

The best thing about being descended from vampires is having a longer life than most. That’s also the worst part. I don’t know how much time I have left. The Inquisitors and Mara will soon be on my tail. Where do I go from here? Where do I take the souls I’m now carrying IN my shoulders? Great-Grandmother said that as soon as I took the Oath of the Grave, I would know. I don’t.

I close my eyes. I see a spire atop a massive eleven-sided building. It stands beneath a yellow-grey sky, clouds thick above and level after level of crypts below, filled with corpses and more bones. This is not only a temple, but the Hendecahedron in the city of Exarchion: a place I’d rather die than go to. Inquisitors are thicker there than thieves. The Exarch watches over all of them and all of us. Rumor has it that inside the spire, there’s a viewing room that allows our Prophet, Priest, and King to see our whole realm. I don’t believe it. How could he behold little old Milham’s Ford, ten days away on foot and barely worth putting on a map? How could he see the furthest reaches of Codiza? No kith live in the wastes except exiles and intrepid, some would say foolish, explorers.

I focus all my energies on the spire, hoping the answer to the souls’ destination lies there.

I see nothing but hear a low, haunting chant: “U’um. U’um. U’um.”

The Exarch’s name, forbidden to all upon pain of death. I know this without knowing how.

The air around the spire shimmers. Then a glowing white window appears within it.

As does a tall figure, both masked and crowned.

I jump and bang my head on the underside of the coffin lid.

The vision winks out. I’m left alone with racing thoughts and an aching noggin.

I won’t go to Exarchion. I’ll flee Milham’s Ford, but then I’ll head in the exact opposite direction. In Vobod, all sorts of villains and miscreants oppose the Exarch and his Law. I’ll be safer there.

“No, you won’t,” says Great-Grandmother, tweaking my right shoulder. “Hide in plain sight.”

“Beneath the shadow of the spire and the Hendecahedron? I think not.”

“The portals to the heavens and hells are inside the Exarch’s inner sanctum. You must find them and take us there. Vobod may promise liberty, but you’ll end up ensnared like everyone else.”

“Inner sanctum? I had a vision of the eleven-sided building. I couldn’t see inside, though.”

“No one can. Not even we souls. That’s because he clouds it with several layers of unfathomably dark magic. No one else knows how he does this. You must find out. It’s the key to uncovering the twenty-two physical portals to the afterlife. Eleven for the heavens, eleven for the hells.”

“Why are there portals at all? I thought the Dragon carried souls away.”

“Now that it’s bound in the Void, the Exarch needs another system. One that he controls.”

“Ah. No wonder he calls himself our Prophet, Priest and King.”

“An archmage too. Magic carries the death penalty for everyone else, but he is exempt due to his own Law. If no one can practice magic, how can anyone tell if a crime is being committed?”

I snort. “How convenient.”

“Don’t go to Vobod, dear. Nothing except more sin and vice awaits you there. Take us home.”

“Hold! Maybe someone in the City of Freedom knows how to dispel the Exarch’s magic.”

My shoulders shake as Great-Grandmother laughs. “Who? Another whore? A brigand? I doubt it.”

“It’s Exarchion or nothing, then?”

“I’m afraid so. Fear not. We’ll do just as we promised and protect you every step of the way.”

I think hard. I could run to two other cities from here. Mirabilis, to the north, is a military outpost. I stand to make good coin there – er, no, I don’t. I’m supposed to repent, not practice the oldest profession. On the other hand, Sudansa, to the south, is a scholars’ haven. I can’t read. Neither can the vast majority of kith in our realm. Yet I might find someone there who knows magic.

Yes. Who will suspect I’m off to Sudansa? As a bard, what business would I have in a place full of long-winded sages, navel-gazers, and ivory towers? However, hardly anyone ventures that way.

I’ll have to travel at night and rest during the day, as usual.

I hear the charnel-house door creak open again.

Footsteps. The striking of a match. Someone breathing hard, like I did after I finished running.

Great-Grandmother tweaks my shoulder again. “Get out. Now.”

I freeze instead. If I play dead, maybe the intruder will leave me alone.

The lid to my coffin shifts, then is lifted. Cold air makes my pale skin prickle.

“Let’s see what we have here,” says a baritone male voice. “Anything worth stealing?”

Good thing my eyes are closed. I breathe through my undead sac as I did earlier, in Thomas’s barn.

The man runs his hands over my seemingly-dead body, but I can’t feel his skin for some reason. He rifles through the coin purse fastened to my belt and takes out the copper pieces I earned for performing tonight. I hear them clink and yearn to slap this stranger as I would have Thomas.

I have to do something before the thief sees my closed stakehole wound. I panic, then remember I haven’t removed the bandages Mara wrapped around my chest.

“What in the Void?” the man says. He rips off one strip of sackcloth, then another, then a third.

I lunge for him. He staggers backward and trips over the lantern he just lit. The lantern doesn’t fall, but he does. Right on his prat. I scramble out of the coffin and take a good look at him.

He’s clad in scale mail, which means he’s either a mercenary or a private soldier for a noble house. Inquisitors and professional soldiers wear plate or half-plate. His greasy hair falls to the nape of his neck, and a shadow of stubble bristles on the lower half of his face. He’s missing his left eye and not wearing a patch over the gaping socket. He is wearing gloves, though: black leather ones.

He blinks. His left eyelid opens and shuts over an empty hole, which unnerves me more than if the socket simply stared. My legs scream at me to get out of here, but I’m frozen in place.

He grabs me before I can bolt. “You’re not dead. Are you an abomination? Answer me!”

“No more than you, graverobber.” I struggle as hard as I can against his grip, but it’s too strong.

“I should kill you where you stand, but I don’t meet a vampire every day. Who are you?”

“I’m not telling. Besides, I’m a dhampir. The curse runs in my blood, but I can stand the sun.”

The man unsheathes two curved daggers, their blades slick with coatings I don’t recognize, but one smells like blood. Rats’ blood. He pins me between both weapons. One of them pierces my armor and skin. My energy level surges. Either he doesn’t know that venom and blood heal the undead, or he forgot. “Why were you hiding here, in a charnel house and a coffin, if that’s the case? I’m assuming you recently fed.”

“Then your assumption is correct. Let me go, and I won’t tell the Inquisitors you rob graves.”

“Reveal what I want to know, and I won’t tell them you’re a bloodsucking monster.”

I sigh. “My full name is too long for most kith to pronounce. I’m Tenet. And you are?”

“Inquisitor Ibnar.”

I almost scream.

“Calm yourself! I’m in the process of breaking the Oath of the Law and swearing another.”

“A likely story. What’s your new one?”

Ibnar grins, revealing teeth much whiter and straighter than mine. “The Oath of the Voidbound.”

I gasp. I’ve heard of such a thing, but only in dark back-alley rumors. “You WANT to go to the Void?”

“It’s not a matter of wanting, per se. It’s a matter of choice.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Every decision I’ve made in this life, good or bad, has led me to this point. Do I want to go to the Void? All my choices point to yes. That’s what a dark soul like mine desires.”

His soul isn’t dark. It’s a bright golden-green, the colors of envy and greed. But I don’t tell him.

“Are you serious? The Void is the only everlasting hell! You’re an Inquisitor. You send kith there, not aim to go there yourself. Why break your Oath? You have quite enough power already.”

“The answer is too complicated for most kith to understand.”

“All right, all right. You’ve got me. Can’t I have a little hint?”

Ibnar nods once, bobbing his head up and down in slow motion. “My new Oath is this.” He ticks its points off on his gloved fingers. “First, forsake all previous vows. Second, rob eleven graves. Third, murder eleven kith. Fourth, travel to each of the eleven hells due to your evil deeds. Fifth and most importantly, rescue eleven souls. One from each hell, then the Dragon from the Void.”

My mouth falls open.

“Am I a hero or a villain? I’ll leave that up to you to decide. Fortunately, you’re not on my kill list.”

“L-lucky me. I don’t see how you can fulfill the last part of your new Oath. Can you see souls?”

“That’s what I hope to learn in the course of my journey.”

A sudden idea occurs to me. “If you take me with you, then you take the answer.”

Ibnar blinks. I smile inwardly at having stunned an Inquisitor.

“You still haven’t told me why you want to turn traitor, Ibnar.”

“And I won’t. Not until I know I can trust you not to sink your fangs into my neck while I’m asleep.”

“Deal. Can you please lower your daggers?” The Inquisitor does, though not without hesitation.

“They’re known as kukris. I call one Yersinia and the other Belladonna. Before you laugh at me for naming my weapons, that’s how I remember which one has which coating: Yersinia in the blood of plague rats, and Belladonna in the liquid essence of deadly nightshade. I keep the same poison on each kukri and don’t mix the two. Applying that kind of substance is beyond my talents. You may wonder how and why I’ve acquired them instead of wielding a plain sword and shield like my fellow Inquisitors. That’s for me to know and for you to possibly find out if we travel together.”

“I don’t and shouldn’t trust you, but I need a bodyguard. I’ll pay you to take me to Sudansa.”

“The sages’ city? ‘Tis at least five days away. Seven at most. With what coin will you pay me?”

“The ten copper you stole from me not too long ago.”

Ibnar throws his head back and guffaws. “You’ll have to do better than that, Tenet.”

My cheeks flush. “Then you, and only you, can have me. Look out. I bite.”

“So you do, fanged one. I’m afraid I must decline your gracious offer. As lovely as you are, you’re at least half-descended from risen corpses. I steal from the dead, not desecrate them.”

“Point taken. How can I convince you to go my way and put those kukris of yours to good use?”

“We split any plunder we take down the middle, exactly half. You’ll also be my eyes and ears when we travel after dark. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m as blind as a mole and need a lantern.”

“All humans do. You’re not a dwarf, elf, gnome, ogre, troll, or lizardman.”

“Or vampire.”

“Dhampir. I can see clearly in the dark, though. I’ll be your guide once the sun sets.”

“No. We head out immediately.”

“Sunlight may not kill me, but it makes my skin itch and my eyes burn. Trust me. You don’t want me complaining all the way.”

“Is that what you are? A professional complainer?”

“No, just a professional.” I bite my tongue and draw ichor from it. I swallow. “Ex-professional.”

How do I wipe the smirk off Ibnar’s face? He won’t be able to dodge my next question:

“What’s your body count?”

“Do you mean as an Inquisitor or an assassin?”

“Both.” I can’t believe I need to discern between the two.

“Eight contract kills in my new occupation. Fifty-five in my old one: blasphemers, desecrators of the dead, heretics, idolaters, soothsayers, witches. All sorts of religious criminals. Why don’t they count toward my current quota of eleven? Conducting executions isn’t the same as committing cold-blooded murder. The fifty-five died according to the Law, the eight according to my own will.”

“And the will of your employers, right?”

“Right.” Ibnar runs his fingers along his stubbled chin line. “When I tell you how many I’ve slain, I trust you won’t go blabbing to one of my ignorant colleagues in exchange for your life being spared at the stake. If you do, I’ll hunt you down. Never mind animals. Kith are my favorite prey.”

This should scare me more than it does. Part of me is terrified. Yet another, deeper part realizes that teaming up with someone who deals in poison and death every day would be to my distinct advantage. He’d not only be able to fight anyone who accosts us on the road, but also heal me if I’m injured. All he’d have to do is smear belladonna or whatever venom suits me on my wounds.

“If you’re not an Inquisitor anymore,” I ask him, treading carefully, “then what are you?”

“An unholy crusader. I’m at war with the Exarch and his five hundred ecclesiastical Laws that make us slaves. Perhaps in Sudansa, I’ll locate an expert on the dark magic he uses to conceal his inner sanctum in the Hendecahedron. Is that what you’re after, too?” When I nod, he continues, “Now for more pressing matters. You drink blood. Hunting is a compulsion for me as well as a job. We can work together, but don’t get in my way. I’ll share anyone I kill with you to sate your hunger. In turn, you won’t turn it toward me. We’ll treat each other with the respect we mutually deserve.”

“I agree. If you keep me safe, I’ll keep you well-informed of the goings-on after dark.”

“What else do you do for a living besides…?”

“I’m a bard.”

Ibnar frowns, then spits on the ground. “No singing or playing the damn lute unless I request it.”

“Not even to pass the time while traveling? Besides, I don’t have my lute with me.”

“Fortunately. I would like a tale or two, but don’t push your luck.”

“Understood.”

The road to Sudansa has just gotten infinitely longer, and we’re not even on it yet…

Credit: Tenet