The church had been stripped, all traces of the god it had once honoured gone, replaced by neglect and something that felt like fear. Thirteen niches in the walls looked to have been taken to with hammer and chisel, leaving pale, empty holes, devoid of faith. The fractured ribs of the ceiling where smoke had climbed and clung for years had been left to rot with sections open to the elements. Rain had found its way through a broken stained glass window, even the knee-worn bowls before the altar had started to fill with the detritus built up by years of disuse. The building was just old stone, cold and patient. Fog gathered in the gutters, breathing out of vents he could hear but not see, as if the stone itself exhaled.
They came between one heartbeat and the next. One man sprawled, palms skinned on grit, pulling in air that tasted of wet ash while he shivered uncontrollably. The other lay still, listening to the world around him. Not for voices, but for some semblance of order. Cities breathed a certain way. This one held its breath. He tried to match its rhythm and failed. The air moved wrong here, it was too heavy, too expectant. He noted the pattern anyway, because having one, even a false one, was better than none
The first man blinked hard, breath hitching in short, frightened bursts. “Did you see that… thing? The pop-up?” His voice cracked on the last word.
He waved a shaking hand in front of his face. The other man didn’t look at him. He lay still, watching the room the way a predator watches weather. Not wholly out of instinct, more discipline. He couldn’t remember when he’d learned it, only that stillness had always bought time. Something flickered, a thin pane of cold light superimposed over the stone floor.
System Notification
Location: Crownreach, Auldrast
HUD Integration: failed
Sky-Born Interface: not detected
Class Access: locked
Condition for activation: temple verification required
Status: system observation only
Observation only. The words itched, like someone had put glass between him and the world. It faded as he finished reading. The scared man leaned closer, desperate for confirmation.
“You… you saw that too, right? Tell me you did.”
“No,” the calm one said. He didn’t bother looking at him.
“But something’s wrong. We need help. Real help.” He pointed at the door with trembling fingers. “There are people out there. Shops. A street. Someone has to help us.”
The calm one didn’t follow his gesture. His eyes stayed on the doorway, on the fog, on the silhouettes that moved without voices.
“You think strangers will risk themselves for us?” he said. “You would. That doesn’t mean they will.”
The frightened man swallowed hard, shoulders curling in. “I can’t stay here. We need to move. We need to find someone.”
“You go first,” the calm one said. Not unkind, just factual. “I’ll watch.”
The other man hesitated, caught between terror and the thin thread of hope he was clinging to. They locked eyes. Panic met calculation. Desperation met someone who wasn’t desperate at all. He took a step toward the smashed doorway but stopped short of the threshold. The calm one watched him, and the street beyond, and the fog that clung to the stone like something alive. Not with fear, with assessment. Fear would have been simpler. He knew what to do with fear, knew when to use it, when to keep it at bay and when to channel it. This quiet focus was worse, like the world was waiting for a mistake he hadn’t made yet.
“You might have better luck,” he said, tone quiet and impossibly composed. If the city punished differences, he needed to see how hard. Better him watching than running blind. “You look like you belong more than I do.”
The frightened man looked down at his threadbare clothing, then at the calm one. He squared his shoulders, taking strength from the words.
“So you’ll stay? In here?”
“For now. One of us should stay in cover. If it’s safe, you can call me out. Seeing two of us might scare away someone who’d help you. Help us.”
They looked at each other again, both convinced that they were right. The moment passed as one winced and looked down at his scuffed palms and the other went back to watching the laneway. One wanted to believe the world would meet him halfway if he met it cleanly. The other had learned the shape of it, most people would tear you down for anything and judging by the people outside, the possibility of warmth would do it. With a sigh he turned back to the other man.
“Keep to the wall. Don’t let anyone get a fix on your face. If they do, keep moving.”
The other made a face at that, annoyance, pride, fear, they all crossed his face as he stepped outside. He did it well, the watcher had to admit. He moved with his shoulders tucked, his pace was unhurried. Unwittingly or not, the fog softened his edges, the way it did with the locals. A woman passed with a basket wrapped in oilcloth; her eyes slid over him and away. A boy looked up, looked again, then hooked his fingers into his mother’s skirt and whispered. A man in a leather apron raised his head, blinked once as his eyes flashed, then turned very deliberately to the nearest door. It felt familiar, the way people moved when punishment was expected. He didn’t remember why.
“Outsider,” the man said. It wasn’t a shout, but it acted like a statement dropped on stone.
The sound of it rang and spread. A runner peeled off at once, coat flaring, boots loud against the cobbled ground. Two women set their baskets down carefully, like people setting down prayer-books. They quickly pulled up the long sleeve of their coat revealing brass bands. A pair of soldiers stepped from the alley at a trot, maroon cloaks snapping wetly in the chilling breeze, breastplates dull with old oil. What looked to be a key formed from a crown stamped into the plate and stitched heavily into the rear of their cloaks. The watcher filed it all away, picking out details like someone who was used to making lists and acting on them. They weren’t parade soldiers today. Their eyes were tired but ready. All this happened as the man watched from the gloom within the sacked church. He shifted his body slightly, conforming against the shadow and broken doors.
“On your knees,” one soldier said, while the other looked around at the growing mass of people.
“By order of the Crown and Church, display your bands.” He didn’t speak in anger, rather it was the voice of someone who knew he’d be obeyed.
Daniel obeyed as most people did when someone with a pike in hand told them to kneel, the movement pulled at his threadbare tunic revealing his naked wrists. The guard beside him lifted a horn from his belt and blew one short, flat note as everyone present pulled up their sleeves. Doors along the laneway opened, more heads turned, and several merchants concluded sales with the monotony of people who knew what was going to happen. All this the watcher catalogued as he waited. More locals revealed their bands. Others whispered into the fog, their voices eerily catching the breeze that funneled the words into the abandoned building.
“Unregistered.”
“Classless. Poor wretch.”
“Idiot,” someone hissed back. “He’s Sky-Born. That’s worse.”
“Outsider!”
A child’s voice cut through the others. “No band! No band! Will he burn?”
The voices continued as a cart creaked forward from somewhere down the lane and a boy climbed onto it, then pulled an oilcloth off a pile of dry split wood. Civilians moved toward him without looking at each other. Hands reached, received one or two pieces then headed to an area and stacked it. Then they moved back with practiced speed. Like mending a fence. Like putting out washing. Like any other duty they had performed countless times before. The watcher in the church didn’t step out. He pressed in closer to the cold jamb and watched them work. His fingers had gone cold without him noticing. He flexed them once, slow, like testing if he still owned them. The gesture also revealed his own wrist, clearly devoid of his own band. The wood was laid in a neat square, and straw was threaded into the lattice. A brazier appeared from a shop, its small flame guarded under a tin lid as it was carried forth, feebly pushing away the fog. A priest in dark wool arrived at a measured pace, a chain of keys at his belt and a brass scanner in the shape of a holy sigil in his hand. He knew the soldiers and they knew him. He didn’t ask who’d raised the cry. He didn’t look for guilt. This was the part of the rite that needed him. With a sense of finality he pressed the scanner lightly to the kneeling man’s forehead, it emitted a soft glow then gave a little kettle-like hiss. The priest nodded.
“Witch,” he said to no one in particular.
“Witch,” a woman echoed.
“Outsider,” another murmured.
The voices carried in the tight laneway with the fog layer pushing down on them as the watcher flinched slightly. The soldiers cleared the locals back and made a space across the lane, the thread that made up the symbol in their cloaks glinting dully. Silence fell in a way that wasn’t empty; it was held. Everyone else knew what was going to happen, the watcher held his breath in anticipation. Then it shifted, like a current running under ice, before footfalls came quick and firm at the far end of the street. The soldiers stiffened and stepped aside as others arrived. Their coats were cut for movement, more than that, for the kind of movement required for combat. Dark maroon over articulated plates, scripture stitched in black and brass thread down the hems. Leaning forward slightly the watcher strained to make out the symbol on their chests, then one turned and displayed their cloaks. A closed fist over a flame wrapped in what looked to be a spiked wreath. Each carried a set of brass manacles and a short pike or flail. The crowd’s focus sharpened in a visible way, it held a sort of intensity that threatened violence.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
“Inquisitors…”
“Witch Hunters!”
Behind the Inquisitorial squad came him. No simple uniform or articulated plates, holy armour. White plates bordered in crimson, almost ceremonial until you looked at the joints and saw the wear. Gilded trim had been rubbed dull where hands had gripped it a hundred times. Brass filaments veined the plastron and gorget, pulsing faintly with a restrained, sanctified life. At his hip hung a sword with a hilt forged of a bright metal held in a plain scabbard scored with prayer. On the other, a holstered revolver: blocky, brutal, etched with runes that looked like sentences cut short.
“Credence”, the whisper went through the crowd.
“High Inquisitor Varros,” the priest said, bowing deeply. He didn’t look surprised to see him, rather, he looked grateful the burden of decision had been lifted.
“It’s the Witch Hunter General,” someone whispered, and two others flinched and made signs across themselves as if the name had been said too loudly.
The High Inquisitor didn’t acknowledge the bow. He didn’t need to. He halted a few paces from the kneeling man and lifted his chin a fraction. The Inquisitors took one step forward in perfect time with the soldiers who took one step back without being told. The street held its breath tighter. Varros looked at Daniel for a heartbeat then turned to the crowd. He had a face that stayed with you when you didn’t want it to: not because it was remarkable, more like it was arranged for authority. When he spoke, the filaments along his gorget brightened, until the cloying fog glowed with an almost divine golden light.
“Good people,” he said. His voice was clean and strong, more than it should’ve been. It seemed to push back the fog in the area “You did rightly. You saw rot and you reported it. The One God takes note.”
The words One and God hung in the air, almost a threat, almost a lifeline.
He looked down at the man on his knees. “Name.”
“Da-” The man swallowed. “Daniel.”
“House?”
“No house.”
“Origin?”
Daniel stared up at Varros, then up at the fog. He tried the truth because it had always worked for him before.
“London.”
The word meant nothing to the crowd, but it meant everything to two men. Varros’s mouth twitched. It wasn’t a smile. It was a tick of satisfaction: a piece that fitted where he’d expected it to. He inclined his head a fraction toward the priest. The scanner touched Daniel’s skin again. The hiss this time was sharper, like the Witch Hunter had given it more power just through his presence.
“Witch,” said the priest, formally, like a judge reading a charge.
“Prepare the cleansing,” Varros said.
The watcher in the church frowned at the unexpected word, then looked over at the wooden construction and it all started to make sense. The citizens had continued building the pyre behind the condemned man. They didn’t look at Daniel, they didn’t look away from their work. A woman fussed the straw into the wood lattice with the same careful hands she’d use to fold a child’s shirt. A man fetched a second armload of straw without being asked. The boy on the cart hauled on the brake to move his cart into a better position then wiped his nose on his sleeve without taking his eyes from the General. All this the watcher took in with rapt attention.
Varros took two steps back and let the priest do his part. He didn’t grandstand, not when it wasn’t needed. When he turned his head, the crowd turned theirs the same way, like iron filings aligning to a magnet. He glanced once toward the ruined church at the end of the lane, into the fog under its broken arch, like he expected more. The watcher felt the look reach him like a touch. Don’t move, he told himself. Don’t even think about not moving. His breath stalled anyway. Watching authority that absolute scratched at something older than memory, like his gaze could pull forth a deep seated need to be obedient, a need so deep you didn’t even know it existed. Varros’ eyes didn’t narrow, they didn’t seem to even search. They simply took note. Then he looked away again. The watcher in the church released a slow breath as an Inquisitor with a jaw like a vise leaned in close and murmured something to Varros who shook his head once.
“Burn the witch,” Varros said.
The brazier cap came off releasing a thin, eager flame to lick at the air. Straw took with a soft whuff. Smoke crawled low, then climbed, then got smothered by the fog holding it above the laneway. When the fire found resin it crackled like dry laughter. Someone began to chant; others joined because the words were simple and they kept your hands from shaking. “
“One God. One King.”
“Purity through order. Fortune favours the pious.”
Daniel closed his eyes. He didn’t plead, he was a man who’d believed in rules and simply couldn’t find them here in time. Varros didn’t look at the fire. He watched the faces all turned to him and measured the obedience. The devotion. He listened to how silence bent under fear and whether it bent the same way it had last time. His hand rested lightly on Credence’s grip, not for threat, but out of habit. The weapon hummed faintly in the damp like a caged hymn. The flames climbed and the crowd swayed, the way crowds do when they agree to be one thing. The way they should in the presence of High Inquisitor Michal Varros, the Witch Hunter General. The priest lifted his hands and intoned the closing line. Varros stepped forward one pace, just inside the heat’s reach. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. He let the fire do the shouting and spoke into the place beneath it.
“Amen, witch.”
The word landed in him like static, familiar in shape but not in sound. The word Amen didn’t belong here. Not as a word, not in that shape. It wasn’t in any sermon the Church printed. It wasn’t in any hymn that children learned. One man in a temple doorway felt the world tilt under his feet.
Amen.
Varros turned his head, just slightly, and looked into the fog again. Through smoke and mist and distance the two of them locked eyes for a heartbeat. Varros couldn’t see into the gloom, but the watcher could see out of it. He could see the man’s eyes, the steadiness of his pupils, how relaxed he was having burned a man to death. Then Varros looked away and lifted his hands to the crowd.
“Good people,” he called, as the pyre collapsed behind him, the embers lighting him from behind causing the brass to reflect the light onto the walls like slashes of light. His gorget shone again as the smell of cooked resin and meat flattened the lane. “You’ve kept our city clean. Go home with quiet hearts. Report the strange. Shun the unlucky. Trust your clergy. Trust the Royal Guards,” he indicated the guards with the key and crown emblem, “trust the Inquisition,” he motioned to his people, then continued. “One God. One King.”
“One Witch Hunter,” the crowd intoned.
A small smile curved the Witch Hunter’s lips. Small enough that if you were caught up in the moment you wouldn’t see it, but, if This was a job like any other. The citizens carried the remaining wood back to the cart as the priest replaced the brazier cap. Inquisitors pulled aside the char with iron hooks as the two Royal Guards faded into the fog, their part was done. Varros spoke softly to the vice-jawed Inquisitor. The man nodded and with a hand gesture three of his fellows peeled off, drifting into alleys without noise, hunting the way smoke finds a crack. Varros’s gaze passed over the ruined temple one last time, weighing it, then he turned and walked away, brass filaments reflecting the flying flames onto the walls around him, as if the armour itself exhaled. The watcher in the church didn’t move until the lane’s shape returned: shop to shop, window to window, life filling back in around the scorched stone. He slid deeper into shadow as two gossiping women passed the shattered door, heads bent together, breath white.
“Another witch,” one said.
“Praise be to the Inquisitors,” the other breathed, out of habit rather than belief.
“Outsiders always show in the HUD of true believers.”
They looked at each other and stifled their laughter. All of a sudden the watcher felt like he was hunted. He took the side lane that bent down under a sagging arch, then another that smelled of cabbage and coal. He didn’t look back. He didn’t need to. He filed every step and breath away so he could retrace his steps if needed. He could recall everything like he was still watching the execution, whose hand had lifted the first straw, how far the Guard had retreated, the sheen on the General’s plates, the rhythm of his speech, the word that didn’t belong.
Amen.
He’d seen enough to know some of what mattered: the work was practiced; the fear was useful; whatever this was, it wasn’t just about the man who burned. People here survived by following the masses, without asking questions. He worked differently, he did his best work covered by the masses, understanding where and when to bend and tweak rules to ensure success. He kept moving, shoulders low, pace unhurried, like a man with work to get back to. Someone that didn’t need to be interrupted. The fog closed in around the man in tattered clothing, leaving him unseen and unnoticed, just as he wanted.
