Chapter Fifteen
Family history is so dreary
Unless it's filled with murderous pride
Then with me, I can take my leave
and Love to hear of my Father's deride
Damon sat staring at the campfire. Since boyhood, Faldo had been his sibling, his brother and now he was gone. They had got the man who had been such a sadistic son of a bitch as to let his own guard gang rape his daughter, but the cost was terrible. He huddled a little closer to the crackling fire, allowing the warmth seep into his numerous injuries. A healer had attended the wound in his arm, getting the bleeding to stop and closing the hole.
Healers did not practice inheritance and were therefore limited to the fifth circle. The damage to the inside muscles and tendons would need to heal on its own. His other injuries were sore, and he was exhausted, having not slept in seventy-two hours.
He tried to lay down with Cariline, who slept fitfully beside him. But every time he closed his eyes, he saw the blue eyes filled with fear, falling into burning oblivion. Cariline cried out in her sleep. He reached over and soothed her gently with his hand. She was carrying his child and the grandchild of the Grim. It still seemed all too surreal to him, thinking of himself as the child of a fairy tale.
He chuckled despite himself, out of everyone in the world the one person who is the Heir to The All-Father was an atheist. Could the world get any more ironic than that? He sighed and gently got up out of the warmth of the woolen blankets and the fire, taken in a sharp breath as the frigid air hit him. He slowly walked away from their open fire to look for the quartermaster to see maybe about a cloak. He despised cloaks, they were bulky and got in the way.
In Tharpe, he had paid Sarah the Seamstress a small fortune to make him an amazing long coat with beaver fur lining. Now he would have to suffice with what he termed as an insufficient shoulder blanket, but with this arctic air, that filtered in on off the Northern Spine, he would take one. The sky had clouded over during the morning, and there had been flurries slowly falling through the wind coming off the lake. If he guessed it right, there would be snow by tonight.
At the quartermaster's, he got not only a cloak but also a new set of boots. The master had looked at his feet and winced and looked406Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9jqu2v5fFB
for fifteen minutes to find Damon some boots. He had been walking around with cloth wraps around his feet since his cousin had come by his fire and demanded his armor back. Thomas was furious about the hole in the chain armor from the close range crossbow bolt, complaining about the time it would take him to patch it up.
Damon had to threaten to loosen a few more of his incisors to back him down. Thomas was a bully, and without the guard to back him, like all bullies, he had no balls. Damon didn’t have the energy this morning to deal with him.
He walked down towards the shore and saw the shadowy bulk outline of a person who stood there. He approached the stranger silently from behind. After what he just went through in the past two days, he was more than a little cautious. The ground was soft beneath his feet, the long grass giving just a little crackle and the lake its soft lap of the water against the soggy shore. He was almost close enough to touch when the baritone rang out.
“Don’t even think about it son,”
Damon jumped backward in surprise landing firmly on the marshy ground. He gave a small curse and got back up trying in vain to brush the mud of the seat of his pants. He looked to the imprint where his rear hit and the cold muck on his hands. Had he been wearing his long coat and not this useless blanket, his ass wouldn’t be muddy. He walked up to stand beside the Grim.
“You know you usually are remarkably good,” The Grim complemented him not taking his eyes off the tossing boat offshore, “I did not hear you, I felt you. Your soul and the closeness of the Seed.”
“You keep talking about this Seed. What exactly is it?” Damon asked curiously, “I may be an atheist, but my mother did make sure I had the best the Temple had to offer in education. I have never heard of this Seed.”
“Then you did not listen,” The Grim reprimanded nonchalantly, “When I first made Second-Man, the first ones born where my Children. As a matter of self-protection against annihilation, any child of mine is a male child who bears a Seed. It is my fear of perishing that brought this upon Second-man and this plane of existence. I can have no daughters Damon, though I do wish I could. I sort of hope your child will be a girl. I would like a Granddaughter.”
Damon smiled, the thought of The Grim dangling a baby over his knee, making googling noises at it, seemed to make the dark world a little brighter.
“I think I would like a little girl too,” Damon said carefully, still unsure of how to act in the presence of a being he did not believe in till yesterday, “but really I would take a healthy baby.”
“That’s the spirit,” the Grim said with a broad smile of approval, slapping him on the back making the little man rock forward.
“Father, what went wrong with my brothers?” Damon asked with a raised eyebrow while trying to rub at his stinging back. The Grim let out a heavy sigh.
“I had hoped to save this for after the wedding Damon. It is a heavy burden to bear; it may weigh heavily on a time of great joy.”
Damon shook his head fiercely, “No, I want to know what makes me so different. I murder, I steal, I cheat. I do a lot of things people considered bad, which makes me good enough to be the Seed of Grim, the Crown Prince? I didn’t even believe in the afterlife for the love of Chaos!”
He threw up his hands in frustration and sat on the shoreline looking out at the waves. His seat was already muddy, so he didn’t mind the wet as he picked moodily at the dry grass. From here, he could barely see the smoke of Tharpe still rising into the air in the distance and thought of the good friend he left there.
“Did you know Faldo and I used this very dock to smuggle hard liquor into Tharpe un-taxed? If my mother only knew how much I did to help alleviate some of those taxes she put on.” Damon said putting his head into his hands to try to stop the memories, “Or how the ones we forced into the ‘protection money’ were the ones who were charging outlandish prices. Sure we kept part of that money, but we moved a good majority to honest merchants who helped the poorer ones too. But if people know them things they tend not to pay up because you’ve gone soft.”
The Grim sat down beside his son smiling, shaking his head, “You know Damon, you want to pretend you don’t care, but just like the statement you just uttered. You didn’t do it for money or to fight the Temple. You did it because you cared for the souls of the people who were suffering. You went after Fredrick and the people who caused all this because they caused pain to people and you served justice. You answered your question on ‘why me’ better than any of my petty words ever will. You might talk like an uncaring tough ass, but my Seed shows through. It is in your nature.”
The Grim reached over beside his son grabbing a rock and tossed it into the very center of the lake. Damon gave him a wide sidelong glance. Grim winked back at him with his red eyes dancing mischievously, “My first seven encountered the knowledge of sorcery when second-man was in its infancy. They approached their age of inheritance and sought me out to ask me for their portion of what they felt they were owed. It was then that I let them know that I was the All-Father and until I perished none would gain their inheritance. Baine was the eldest by a month and was wroth with anger over it. He slew a healer in the village where he and his mother lived in his rage over it.”
“This is fascinating,” came Jen’s voice behind them, “Why don’t we have this version.”
She walked up, still dressed in her light chain mail with the crest of Grim on it, and leaned against a water willow that branches swayed gently in the cold wind. She reached up and brushed an icy snowflake off her nose and looked at the pair.
“You know it is still uncanny, actually seeing you two side by side. But anyways, according to the Book of the Lost, your sons were just evil with the power of Chaotic sorcery, lusting for soul infusion, and that type of thing. Why don’t we hear the rejection side of things?”
The Grim shrugged, “I didn’t write the book, and the book has been rewritten over the last, oh what, four hundred and fifty thousand years. I imagine I could probably correct a whole lot of propaganda in the Book of the Lost that you have today.”
“Imagine that, necromancers rewriting their own religious book without the permission of their deity—“ taunted Damon.
Grim held up a finger “I never claimed to be a Deity,”
“I was raised around it father,” Damon continued, “Without the permission of the FATHER to control the masses better. And you had to wonder why I was an atheist?”
Jen chuckled beside them under the tree, they both looked at her questioningly, “Nothing just thinking of advice from the man I am going to promote into the first officer position in the East. That we, in the Temple, need to act more like humans less like our shit don’t stink.”
“Wise man,” The Grim nodded in agreement, “Don’t let him go too far.” he continued his explanation, “They had been using sorcery in secret for a year at this point, and each was equally matched in power. They discovered you could not gain any more power on your own other than what you were born with, hence why they wanted their inheritance. Sorcery is addictive, like the plants and roots of the alchemist. To much use and that is all one can think of, and Chaos knew this when it released the secret to my sons and on second-man. When Baine slew that woman, he found the answer to his problem, his brothers found out and were thrown into a rage.
A war broke out between my sons. The one who gained the most power would be the one to challenge me. Since they were my sons, their capacity was much higher than that of regular sorcerers. Out of them all, Baine was the strongest, he was the hardest to turn. After turning, I continually expanded their territory, keeping them busy watching over the land. Baine will be here to help convey the dead to the nearest Temple. This is his Domain.”
Jen shivered, never in her life had she met one of the originals. She came over to her husband a caressed his back gently, letting her fingers play over his muscles.
“Grace, you still haven’t answered his question,” Jen said gently.
“I have,” Grim argued with his wife, “Damon does not seek the throne, nor does he have the capability for sorcery. The others caused chaos and destruction, as is the usual side effect for those who lust for power. Damon does not seek station nor power, despite outward appearance, his thirst for mayhem is from human nature. It does battle with his incorruptible seed of Order through his kind acts of charity.”
“Everyone has the capability for sorcery. It is just energy driven by purpose.”
“Not Damon, he does not believe in a Purpose. Therefore he cannot work any sorcery.” Grim stated firmly turning to stare at his son, “Which is why Damon, you must go to the Underworld carrying my Seed back to the Throne of Judgement.”
“NO!” Jen objected, “He is your heir if you are to disappear. He is all we have left.”
“I cannot. I will die.” Damon said visibly shaking, “No one may enter the Gatehouse portals while living.”
“No, you may not,” The Grim said to Damon standing and giving him a hand up off the bank, “You have three years, during that time you will slowly come into you inheritance. On your twentieth Grim-Tide, in three years, you pass into immortality, but you are different, in that you are an immortal with a soul. Go to the City of the Dead, to the Seat of Judgement and take the Throne. It will, how should I say it, replant my Seed there and allow for my rebirth.”
“What happens to me then?” asked Damon, his dark eyes troubled.
“I truly don’t know son. I have Lucy pouring over prophecy as we speak. If she finds something, she will send a reaper. You can see them now. She has kept her ability to control them, even after death.” The Grim said affectionately.
“What do we do during the intervening years?” Jen questioned her husband as she stretched, rubbing a fist in the small of her back.
“Well, there is a town to rebuild, Sorcerers to chase out of the East, and my grandchild to watch over but there is one more thing that I might have left out.” The Grim said, a slightly mischievous grin.
“What is that,” Damon said.
“The Seed of Destruction will be sown the minute I am gone.” The Grim said ominously in a deep rumble, “You won’t be alone in your search for the Seat of Judgment.”
“And what if I don’t want to be the damn Seed of Grim?” Damon spat back a little defiantly. Two days ago he had enough problems being the Matron’s son and now here he was expected to take some damnable throne. It put him in a poor temperament.
“Then Destruction wins,” Jen said softly looking off towards the smoldering Tharpe making Damon’s blood run cold.
Thomas crept into Bethel’s dim tent slowly watching her shadowy shape slumber. After the night everyone had, the camp was slumbering through the morning. His Aunt had been disgraced and turned into a recluse. He understood she had to be in mourning, so he would stop in and cheer her day up. It was a freezing day, and her braziers were unlit, she obviously needed extra warmth under the covers.
When he found his armor in a wreck, it had put him in a foul mood, and normally Bethel soothed those moods. She had taken and shown him the real way of Order when his mother wanted to go off and study in a monastery because she felt the calling to be a healer. She had abandoned her thirteen-year-old son, to that wretch of a father. The drunk old soot died two years later in his sleep, leaving Thomas without house nor food. Old Matron Suz had come to deal with the body and inquired on his welfare and relatives.
Bethel had shown up, as his last living relative in the East and took him in. That was shortly before she left to go with old Suz to chase down Bethel’s husband, Rascus. Thomas and Damon had already hit it off on the wrong foot. Damon had never had a sibling and wasn’t about to share his mother. Thomas was much bigger and thrashed him for years afterward in revenge for what a little shit he was.
Bethel came back changed, and now as the Mother Matron, she found him some work on the Guard. As his muscle built, so did the Matrons interest in him. At first, it was just a touch here or a comment there. But that first encounter with her at the Temple taught him more about a woman than all the whores at the Three Pigs. She snared him when she offered him promotion over the others for continued service at the Temple with her.
He was sure that her behavior yesterday was because the Grim was there, but she was no longer his wife. There was no reason they could not continue their arrangements again. Thomas slipped closer to her cot was she slumbered and rubbed his hand up her firm thigh in the way of introduction, and she stirred, murmuring. He stood and undid his pants buckle, letting them fall to the floor with a clank.
Bethel came out of her bed with a sudden lurch, her long steel grey hair cut to a short stubble and hard gray eyes blazing. There was a knife clutched in her hand as she landed on top of him, with his pants trapping his ankles, knocking him to the ground. Her hand reached down and grabbed a handful of his intended entertainment proposition, and she held her knife threateningly to it.
“This is wrong in the eyes of Order, a sin,” She hissed, “Repent, for I am here to drive the sin from the land. To stop the Chaos from spreading, Repent.” She repeated.
Thomas whimpered, and she pressed her blade down drawing a little blood, letting it flow in a small trickle to between his legs and he wailed, a screech howling between his lips. Isobelle came flying through the tent flap and grabbed Bethels hands.
“Cease this now Bethel.” She commanded as she grabbed pressure points to make the knife fall. Bethel’s hands let go, and the knife fell point, first sticking Thomas’s leg. He howled like a wounded Demon, and Isobelle silenced him with a skeptical look. She reached between his legs to remove the blade, looking with satisfaction at his battle wounds.
“This man tried something against the natural Order he must be punished,” Bethel said adamantly.
Isobelle looked back at his bleeding leg and well pride and back at Bethel and smirked “I think he has he won’t try it again. Will you?”
Thomas shook his head furiously. Bethel nodded her head in acceptance and stood up to go back to bed as if nothing had occurred. Isobelle eyed Thomas’ red face with a knowing smile.
“I trust you won’t mention this, will you?” He asked wincing in pain while pulling up his pants.
“Now why would I spread such a horrible story like that?” she asked her bell-like laughter peeling as she walked out the tent.
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