Meanwhile…
There was a blight festering within the heart of the capital—which still stood in stark contrast to the state of the humble village.
Denizens moped about with the most wretched of complexions, abetted by the squalid stone streets.
But within their malformed hearts, a spark of rebellion began to fester.
A man by the name of Christopheles was beginning to garner the ears of the people. There he stood, next to a figure draped in cloth.
"Is the heart of the people not representative of the ruler's deficits? The Maguses of the Sanctum of the Twilight teach us that we should not love—to love is to suffer. But they fail to realize that this suffering is the very source of love, as one cannot exist without the other!"
"YEAH!" the crowd shouted in unison.
"What about us? Damn their god!"
Christopheles unveiled the figure in the cloth—revealing a magus. He pulled out a blunderbuss and pointed it at her head.
"Where is your god now? Go on, pray," he sneered, ripping the gag off the woman.
She turned to him, her gaze as calm as the eye of a storm.
"The retribution for your actions has already begun. You suffer from them at this very moment."
"Yeah, I figured."
"Go on, tell the crowd what you mean," he demanded.
She replied, her voice steady:
"Your struggles are derivative of your deficits, Christopheles.
A murderer suffers from never knowing compassion.
A prostitute suffers from never knowing love.
An architect will never know the gift of natural order,
and a gardener will never realize his will to power."
Christopheles, realizing what the woman was implying, felt the gun begin to shake in his hands as his palms grew sweaty.
"Damn you. Damn you!"
The blunderbuss went off, and the magus went limp—her head thunked against the concrete in the town square.
With that action, the monument of divine order began to crumble.
Ruins.
As violence spread through the capital's streets above, beneath them—in the network of caverns that honeycombed the city's foundations—another piece of this unfolding tragedy waited in darkness.
In a dank, decrepit cell with mildew lining the corners and rats scurrying about, a prisoner slouched against the wall. She was broken, betrayed, and anemic. The light slowly inched toward her chamber. She waited with anticipation so pungent it choked her. The footsteps echoed within the desolate expanse of her mind, so deprived of stimulation.
The prisoner thought to herself, Had they finally come to execute me?
The footsteps grew louder, and the doors screeched open. A man stood there, his posture radiating sternness.
"Clotho Borales, your audience has been demanded by the king."
Clotho squinted, trying to inquire why—but she couldn't. Her throat was as coarse as sandpaper. The man looked down at her. He raised his hood as her eyes adjusted to the light.
"What had become of you, Clotho?"
A tear slid down the man's face as he gently carried her out of the cellar. He gave her water and placed her on his back, lifting her with care as she nodded off to sleep.
Again, she heard footsteps—this time with confidence. She noticed the rhythm, the timing between steps.
This person walked with purpose… a sense of urgency. Probably a servant. Or a high-ranking noble.
The door opened. A man entered, adorned in a silver-lined cloak and extravagant attire, with almond-colored hair.
The noble looked at her carefully. "You served King Raphael, correct?" Clotho nodded.
"It has been brought to my attention by sources within the court that there is a conspiracy against the crown—by the clergy."
He hesitated.
"This has weighed on my mind heavily, because I know what this empire—built upon the back of your deeds—has done to you. And yet, I dare ask this of you: If you would obligate yourself to the crown—no, to the people—once more… I would give you my vessel."
He lowered his eyes.
"I am but a bastard. I have no achievements to my name—no strength, no intelligence like my brothers."
Clotho, hoarse but steady, mustered a whisper.
"Yet your soul has no less vitality, no less essence. I would not take your vessel, child. It was the Great Mother's gift to you, and not yours to give."
She smiled warmly.
"My child, you need not graft my soul to your body to bestow my divine spark upon you."
The prince smiled pleasantly.
"Good answer. It was never necessary to begin with," he said.
"There was a procedure—one that grafted a person's soul to a homunculus. You would have been freeing yourself, yes… but damning yourself to a seemingly eternal existence on the earthly plane. You would have never seen the weight of your deeds—not because you would not have been witness, but because you would have been detached from the Mother… and given yourself to the Father.
You would have returned to her only when you found your heart once more."
An uncharacteristic seriousness overtook him.
"Alternatively, I would have allowed you to live out your days in peace, here in this very castle. But know this—
You damned us all."
Clotho finally gathered enough strength to speak, despite her decrepit state.
"I would aid you," she said.
Her resolve was set.
---
Below, the dank laboratory was dimly lit. Exotic creatures floated in vats. Limbs hung from chains above. The wailing of starved, malformed beasts echoed from iron cages.
A magus meticulously gathered the materials needed for the procedure. An emaciated old woman—Clotho—lay on the operating table. The prince stood outside, waiting, anxious.
The magus gave her a look of reassurance.
"Lady Clotho, this operation consists of me chanting to achieve resonance within my mind, body, and heart… to call upon Yargulash—the Lesser Great One of Death—to graft your soul to this vessel.
The consequences will entail stillness within the mind and heart, for movement within the body.
You will be robbed of your divine spark… for lives to come.
You will know no love. No pain. No joy. No suffering.
Only lust. Only pleasure. Only clarity. Only logos. Only principle.
The union of the Mother and the Father will be separated within you."
He paused, grave.
"Did you understand what you were sacrificing?"
The beasts in the lab continued to plead and wail.
A tear ran down Clotho's face.
"My humanity—for lives to come. For nations—for centuries to pass. I understood that, because of this, I would not have been able to witness the weight of my deeds…
But I would experience the weight of them—again, and again—for many lives to come."
The magus nodded, then began chanting.
The light around him began to bend and contort.
Clotho felt her mind split. Her heart broke. Her soul separated from her body.
It was placed into a creature with four arms, a tail, wiry legs with hocks, and feet shaped like those of a deer's.
But no fur was present.
Briefly, Clotho felt herself die.
Then she opened her eyes.
Her mind was empty.
The fear she once had was still there—but it no longer compelled her. Her rationale remained—but it no longer restrained her.
Clotho looked at her new hands and whispered a verse from the Tabakha:
> "A heart and mind that's not at war with itself is a lifeless one.
Movement, be it toward order or decay, feeds the cycle of life.
Stagnation… destroys it."
Sworn On The Heavens
The footsteps of marching men echoed through the desolate village, led by a woman named Saoirse. She was draped in dark gray and black armored robes with gold accents, a seraph emblazoned on her back.
"Guys! Guys! There's a magi here!" a boy shouted to his friends.
"A magi in this backwater?" the boy scoffed.
His older sister slapped him softly on the head.
"Backwater? This is a humble village—this is our home."
"And over half the villagers died in that fire. Even more were turned into abominations."
"Whoever's responsible for this will pay. I swear it on my title," Saoirse declared.
"Saoirse, don't—"
"Cornelius, don't lecture me. Gather your men. Find tracks—use hounds if you have to."
A woman emerged from the crowd gathered around them.
"Ma'am, they took my daughter. Here's her blanket—maybe your hounds can use it to track her down."
"This will do," Saoirse said, taking it gently.
"And whatever you see, ma'am... my daughter's a good girl. Please remember that."
Saoirse nodded.
As they began to ride off, Saoirse looked over to Cornelius.
"If you have to choose between killing the one responsible and saving that girl—"
"No, Saoirse."
"We do both. We're more than equipped to do both."
"Have you seen the village? Over half wiped out overnight. No—we are not equipped. And we'll be even less equipped if we spread ourselves thin."
"They are men, not resources, Cornelius."
"Don't do that to me. It's not fair," she snapped, then softened. "I care about the well-being of people—family and stranger alike."
That evening, Saoirse, Cornelius, and his men sat gathered around a campfire, the flames flickering against their faces.
She sat there and recited a prayer from scripture:
"Time, by which we measure movement, is the source of divinity in the human spirit.
The understanding of continuity allows me to lift myself out of the physical hell that results from a mind confined to the present moment.
It allows me to imagine tomorrow and yesterday—for better or worse.
It allows me to have compassion for those I have not felt with my eyes.
O Father, O Mother, forever in an eternal dance of chaos and order, and I, trapped in your belly between you two...
As above, so below. So within, so without."
She clutched her ouroboros—a snake eating its own tail.
"You're calmer, Saoirse," Cornelius noted.
"Because I am calmer," Saoirse sighed, letting out a soft laugh.
She grabbed some meat from the skewered animals roasting over the fire and took a bite, watching the men banter as she drifted into sleep.
Saoirse woke to the smell of charred wood and porridge, her neck aching from the hard ground.
She groaned as she sat up, pain shooting through her side, her head pounding.
Cornelius's head crept into her peripheral vision, his expression pensive.
"Saoirse," he asked, "why did you take on such a mission? What did you hope to gain?"
"Not gain. Give," she replied curtly.
"Fine—what did you want to give?"
He extended his hand and helped her to her feet.
"I feel that when the wicked are punished, the world rejoices—no matter how small, no matter how petty. No crime should go unjudged," she said.
"I believe it is collective action that moves the heavens and the earth. And it is the belief in that action that allows us to even take the steps in unison to execute it.
Understanding this… I would never tell myself or anyone else that we can't make a difference.
Because we are part of that difference."
Cornelius nodded.
Later that evening, as they rode on horseback, Cornelius turned to Saoirse.
"Why don't we measure people by merit and not character? Why is title and nobility held above wealth in this country?"
Saoirse raised an eyebrow.
"First, answer me three things:
Do you need wealth to hold a society together?
At what point does 'just enough' become wealth?
And what does being noble truly entail?"
Cornelius thought.
"Well... you do need wealth to run a nation. Money is necessary. But I question the need for nobility."
He continued aloud:
"If wealth implies having more than is necessary to function, then you don't need the excess.
Which brings me to what being noble entails… I'd imagine it means having demonstrably greater virtue than those who are not noble."
"And if you have excess wealth," he added, "you could be giving it to the world.
The Church teaches that we should not take more from nature than we need to function.
So excess is fundamentally bad—in all forms."
The storm began to tap-dance against the mud as torchlight from the tavern flickered through the rain.
Saoirse opened the door to hear disjointed voices inside:
"I got the clap from the old bitch."
"I just don't know what to do about my son."
"Where's my coin, boy?"
She took a seat at the counter across from a man with an eyepatch.
"Your folk ain't welcome here," he said. "Please leave."
"I'm looking for four men and a girl."
The man's face turned pale.