table of contents – (spoilers)
Brother Barrelmender was waiting at his pulpit when Choke, Peep, and Knuckle brought Aoelric to meet with him. He was alone in the church. Barrelmender stood up as they entered. He was an impressive figure in his black plate armor with its red fire embellishments. He had left his helm off, leaving it on his pulpit next to a Holy Book, its snarling demon visage facing the door.
Coming through the church’s double doors first, Choke stepped aside and gestured to Aoelric just behind him.
“Brother Cornelius Barrelmender, of the Brothers of the Holy Stone. I present Aoelric, who has requested to speak with you,” Choke said.
“Come in, sir. Please,” Barrelmender said, his voice strong and steady.
Aoelric dipped his head and moved further on into the church. As he entered the nave, he stopped to take a knee and bow his head, tracing the Wheel over his breast. Following just behind him, Choke and Knuckle did the same. Behind them, Peep shut the church doors and latched them. Then she moved around to the side wall to keep a clear angle on Aoelric with her shortbow in hand.
“Please, have a seat,” Barrelmender said as Aoelric reached him.
Barrelmender had pulled the two pews nearest the altar out and swung them around so that they faced each other just in front of the pulpit.
“Would you care for a mug of stugroot?” Barrelmender asked.
“No thank you, Brother. I am afraid to say that I have lost my taste for it,” Aoelric said as he took off his crossbow shoulder rig and laid it on one of the pews before sitting down next to it.
With only its finely-carved wooden stock protruding, the compact crossbow was almost completely encased in a sturdy, kite-shaped leather case. The case was cleverly designed with a sort of tensioned mouth of leather to encase the crosspiece and main body of the bow, holding it snugly while allowing for its swift extraction.
Brother Barrelmender gestured for Choke to sit in the pew opposite Aoelric, just a little down from center. Barrelmender then took his seat directly opposite Aoelric. He arranged his longsword so that its hilt was in his lap, ready for a fast draw. Knuckle moved to stand about a meter directly behind Aoelric, who acknowledged him with a pleasant nod before losing sight of him. Peep moved to sit down in the second pew still in its original spot, now at a right angle with Aoelric’s pew, which had been pulled out ninety degrees. This put her directly on Aoelric’s flank.
“So, here you are,” Barrelmender said after he had spent a long moment looking Aoelric up and down.
“Yes, Brother. Here I am.”
“Before we proceed, I will be casting three spells. Given what you told my apparitor last night, I shouldn’t think that will surprise you,” Barrelmender said.
“Not at all. Please do.”
“Thank you.” Barrelmender grasped the iron Wheel holy symbol on its chain around his neck. “Stron: grant me the sight to detect evil. Amen,” he prayed. Barrelmender then took his time staring at Aoelric. After this, he looked over Peep, Knuckle, and Choke.
“Stron: grant me the sight to detect magic. Amen,” Barrelmender said, casting his second spell. Once again, he stared at Aoelric. This time, he grunted as he raised his eyebrow. “You would seem to be geared up with a king’s ransom,” Barrelmender said.
“Thank you, Brother,” Aoelric nodded deeply. “I have been rather successful.
“Stron: grant me your wisdom to detect lies. Amen,” Barrelmender said.
“And that would be three,” Aoelric said with a smile. “I see you have no interest in etiquette, Brother. It would have been more courteous to cast all these spells before I came.”
Barrelmender snorted. “Sir. You have admitted to being teleported from Marrovique on an intelligence gathering mission. My courtesy extends to not attacking you on sight.”
“Well said. I like you already, Brother. I think we shall get along famously!” Aoelric said cheerfully.
“Bully for us. Now, if you don’t mind. What is your name?”
“Aoelric.”
“Just the one?”
“Yes. I am just a lord’s bastard, after all. No need to put on airs,” Aoelric said, smirking towards Choke as he did.
“Who is your father?”
“That, I shall not say. I am not involved in his affairs, nor he in mine. I have been enough trouble to him already,” Aoelric said.
“You have been employed by a law firm in Marrovique to come here and investigate Otilla of the Holy Fire, as well as the general situation. To this end, you were teleported from the mage tower in Marrovique to the one in Strana. Is this correct?”
“Yes, it is correct.”
“Where is the man you came here with? What is his name?” Barrelmender asked. His tone was cool and mildly officious, but not hostile.
“His name is Hargarl. I do not know where he is. He left before first light this morning.”
“He left, did he? Lieutenant Pekot, did any of our people at the gates report this?”
“No, Brother,” Choke answered.
“So, he left on foot,” Barrelmender said to Aoelric.
“That is one possibility.”
“What does that mean?”
“I do not care to elaborate upon that at this time. He has his means, though. And he is entirely at home in the forest,” Aoelric said.
“Is he meant to come back here before you leave, or are you to meet up with him outside?”
“When we are done here, I will head to our next destination. He will find me on the way, I am sure.”
“And where is your next destination?” Barrelmender asked.
“To the north,” Aoelric smiled.
“Where specifically?”
“That I shall not tell you, Brother. I apologize, but I am not at liberty to divulge it.”
Barrelmender stared at Aoelric for a good while. Aoelric stared back calmly.
“What do you suppose Hargarl will do if you do not leave Spitzer to head to your next destination?” Barrelmender asked, his tone just the same as before.
Aoelric smiled. “Whatever he wants, I suppose.”
“Yes, I suppose so, too.”
“I wouldn’t worry about Hargarl, if I were you. I am here, at your disposal. I suggest you focus on me, Brother. If you want, I could tell you a little about myself and why I was sent up here on this mission. As opposed to someone else being sent, I mean.”
“Alright, then. Why was it you that was sent?”
“A particular focus of my investigation concerning Otilla of the Holy Fire was on how the Church is handling her. How is her divine gift being managed by the hierarchy? That sort of thing. It was, of course, vital that we determine whether or not her gift is real, and how powerful it might be. But, as I suppose you have been able to glean from what you were told about last night, that was Hargarl’s contribution. My main utility was concerning the Church’s side of things in Strana.”
Barrelmender thought about his for a long moment. “How so?” he finally asked.
“I’m sorry, Brother. How so, what?”
“How is it that you have that utility?”
“Ah. Of course. I lost the thread there for a moment, Brother. I do apologize. As I stated, Brother, I am the bastard of a Bitanian nobleman. Not a minor one, either. In my youth, I was sent to seminary by my father’s people. I was meant to be a priest. Now, as a bastard, I would have struggled to go far within the hierarchy, but the school I attended was a good one. In Strana. Attached to the Cathedral,” Aoelric said, matter-of-factly.
“Really,” Barrelmender said, his tone taking a dark turn.
“Yes. And you know I speak the truth, Brother. And I do not do so to put on airs. I do so to communicate to you the stakes in this particular game we are all beginning to play. Or, perhaps, are beginning to be played in. The game is young, and in these matters it can never be perfectly clear who is a player and who is merely a game piece. Be that as it may, here we are,” Aoelric smiled beatifically as he spread his hands out.
“Indeed we are. You seem to have an agenda here. So, do continue, sir,” Barrelmender said, fingering his holy symbol.
“Thank you. Now I may have been sent to seminary to train to be a priest. Altarian, of course. But, as you can see, it didn’t work out. That sort of life was not for me. However, it did take me some time to figure that out, so I did stick with it long enough to establish some connections. These connections were the primary reason I was sent. That, and my general familiarity with several different layers of society up here. Not all, of course. But enough to be quite useful. And, as I told the Lieutenant here last night, it doesn’t take many rounds of drink for men to open up to an old school chum about the irritations and gossip of their work. Especially when those men are priests.”
“So you sniffed around the Cathedral and raked up what you could on what the Church is doing about Otilla of the Holy Fire. I can only suppose you know more about it than any of us here.”
“I suppose that I do,” Aoelric said. He did not seem too smug.
“You tell me all this, but will not name your noble father. Surely you know that with what you’ve given me, we’ll be able to figure out who he is easily enough.”
“Oh, indeed. My employers are counting on it. You will send your report to your superiors at the Brothers of the Holy Stone monastery in Flitwik. If they take it seriously, which they should, since it is rather serious, and they are the Brothers of the Holy Stone after all, they will dispatch an agent of their own to Strana to get to the bottom of it. That should take two to three weeks, if everything goes smoothly. This delay suits my employers, for some reason, or another,” Aoelric said.
“Flitwik, you say. You are very well informed, indeed,” Barrelmender said, his tone hard now.
“It is my job to become so. So, I thank you,” Aoelric nodded deeply.
“You need not be glib, though. The delay allows you to make good your escape before agents capable of handling you are dispatched.”
“Oh, come now, Brother! I am sure you and these fine young people are perfectly capable of handling me, if it comes to that. But it shan’t. And you are quite wrong on your point besides. Our mission is all but done. Even if you could somehow communicate this instant with your superiors, and they believed you completely and dispatched a squad of the Brothers’ hardest operators, they could not get here in time to interfere.”
“As to your employers. This law firm. What is its name?”
“Strathmore, Diamond, Barakat, and Akyol,” Aoelric answered smartly.
“Those last two names are Alquinian.”
“I believe that they are. Many people in Marrovique are Alquinian. Their money spends quite well.”
“I am sure that it does. So. Why are you telling me all of this? What is the point of all this? I grow weary of all this cute bullshit,” Barrelmender snapped, his profound irritation finally breaking through his calm veneer.
“As I said, my mission is all but complete. Hargarl’s has a few more bits and pieces left to do, I believe, but on that I cannot speak. As for mine, there is only one more bit of business. This meeting. You, Brother Cornelius Barrelmender of the Brothers of the Holy Stone. I have been instructed to tell you all of this, to leave this trail of breadcrumbs for your brothers to follow, so that when the time comes, they take me seriously. Or, rather, that they take my employer seriously. Further, as a token of my employer’s earnest intentions, I have been instructed to offer something more tangible to your Brothers of the Holy Stone.”
Aoelric leaned back to lace his fingers over his stomach as he smiled at Barrelmender.
“Well, get on with it, then,” Barrelmender said irritably.
“It is simply this. If your people ever want to reach out to me or who I represent, you may send a message through my right-born cousin, on my mother’s side. He is a priest in the cathedral in Strana. He is reliable. With everything else I have given you about myself, your people shouldn’t have too much trouble figuring out who he is.”
“So you are telling me that your cousin, a priest in the Strana Cathedral, is someone who can get a message to you, an agent of a law firm in Marrovique. Surely you realize that with this information, the Brothers of the Holy Stone will regard him as a security threat, if not an active Alquinian agent. His career is over, at the very least.”
“That is assuming it is not about to take a much more exciting and useful turn. Back channels are always necessary in matters of politics. How else do you suppose they exist?” Aoelric said.
“I understand this, of course. But you would give up your own cousin in this matter?”
“Having been instructed to, and well remunerated for it, I might add; I am all too willing.”
“To be clear now: you have been instructed to inform us that your cousin in the cathedral is a potential Alquinian agent?” Barrelmender said with a deep scowl.
“That is not quite accurate, now is it, Brother? I have been instructed to inform your Brothers of the Holy Stone that my cousin may be used as a back channel to contact the individual that retained the law firm that employs me. You have assumed that this somehow involves the Alquinians.”
“Given what you have told me, we have no choice but to assume it involves the Alquinians.”
“That may be, but it is still your assumption. Not my assertion,” Aoelric stated emphatically.
At this point, Choke leaned forward and looked over to Barrelmender: “Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt, Brother.” He then looked across at Aoelric. “Sir. When you spoke to me about your employment last night you said you did not know if there even was someone who’d employed the firm. Now you are stating that there is such an individual.”
Aoelric smiled and shrugged. “That’s true. I lied to you about it last night. I thought it best to plot a prudent course. I thought if I admitted to knowing that an individual retained my firm for this mission, that you would become fixated upon that detail. At best, that would only have wasted all of our time.”
“But yet you were honest about everything else,” Choke said.
“Indeed, yes. Just as instructed. I had to get your Brother Barrelmender’s attention.”
Barrelmender cut in at this point:
“You keep saying individual. Why so vague?”
“Only because I have utterly no idea who or what they might be. Or, indeed, if they are actually an organization. I was told by the firm of the client’s existence. But that is all. I know nothing further than that.”
“You speak the truth,” Barrelmender sighed.
“Of course. Anyone powerful knows of your organization’s means and ways. An agent cannot divulge that which they do not know. When expense is no concern, why not insulate matters with a reliable law firm?” Aoelric said.
“Why not, indeed.”
“Indeed. So, for the purposes of this conversation, shall we refer to the entity in question as the client?”
“Yes. That seems reasonable,” Barrelmender sighed “So, you said before that this openness is a gesture of goodwill from the client. To whom specifically is this gesture being made?”
“Good question. To the Brothers of the Holy Stone. Specifically.”
“So before coming up here, to Bitina, I mean, you were made aware of my existence? Or is this a convenient accident for you?”
“Another sharp question! Why Brother, you are much more formidable than I was led to expect. To answer your question, the first one, I mean: yes and no. The client knew only that the Brothers of the Holy Stone have the reins on the Otilla of the Holy Fire situation. In Strana. I learned of your specific involvement during the course of my investigations.”
“What? They’ve got reins on me now?” Peep snapped, leaning forward with an irate gleam in her eye.
Aoelric turned to smile at her. “Does it surprise you that factions within your faith would be jockeying to lay claim to you?”
“Look! I aint—” Peep flared up, before Barrelmender shut her down with a sharp hiss of anger and a tersely raised hand her way.
“Now is not the time for you to rise to this bait, Otilla. We can discuss it later,” Barrelmender said.
Peep bit down on her response with a grimace, but then nodded as she realized he was exactly right.
Barrelmender nodded to her in response before turning back to Aoelric:
“So, to distill all of this down, you were sent to gather information on the whole situation up here, including Otilla of the Holy Fire. As well, you were to establish a back channel, via and at the cost of your cousin, between the Brothers of the Holy Stone and your employer’s client, whoever that might be. That is basically it. I have that correct, yes?” Barrelmender asked sharply.
“Yes. Just so.”
“Well, I have to say, sir, that I cannot imagine why the Brothers of the Holy Stone would want to use that back channel. You can’t even say who the client is! So why in Aern would anyone need a channel to them? And what really have you offered? One corrupt priest? I expect the Brothers would sooner pluck him and extract what he knows before disappearing him. This is all hogwash.”
“I see why you would think so at this point. And, yet, you will write a report about what I have said and send it to your supervisors in Flitwik Monastery. And these bread crumbs I have scattered will lead to bigger morsels. There is something cataclysmic brewing out there, Brother,” Aoelric pointed significantly to the north. “And it is about to break loose. While there is no telling how this is going to play out, the client is obviously confident that whatever happens, there will come a time when the Brothers of the Holy Stone will want to communicate. And while I have no idea why the client would think this, I do know that at this stage of things, everything is nebulous. There are no facts yet. Only dreams, visions, and evil omens. When things finally break loose, then we shall all see.”
“So we are finished here?”
“I don’t know, Brother. Are we? You are the magistrate. Am I free to go?” Aoelric asked with a smile.
“Yes. As much as I probably should detain you for a vigorous questioning, that would involve talking to you more, and I really can’t bear the prospect. However, I suppose I should check while I can detect lies: where is it you are headed next?”
“You asked me that already, sir. To the north, I said.”
Barrelmender sighed deeply. “Yes, yes. To what purpose?”
“Well, as I stated before, at this point, my job is basically done. You were the last meeting on my agenda. From this point on I am basically a passenger of Hargarl’s.”
“Not a bodyguard?” Peep asked.
Aoelric chuckled. “Oh, he has no need of such a thing, believe me. Especially not now.”
“What do you mean by that?” Barrelmender asked.
“Well, your youngsters here met him. In civilization he is, how shall I put this… problematic. So I was not a bodyguard so much as a guide, or interpreter. Now, however, he is in his element, in the elements, I suppose. So we may reverse roles and I can become his awkward burden.”
“If your mission is now complete, what is Hargarl’s purpose to the north?”
“That I cannot say,” Aoelric said feigning a chagrined look.
“So you know, but are not at liberty to say.”
“Just so.”
“Yet you told my apparitor just last night that you are heading north to scout the goblin situation,” Barrelmender said sharply.
“Yes, I did. I lied to him. Again, I didn’t want things to bog down with him. I was tired and wanted to get to sleep. Lying seemed the most expedient thing.”
“Since you are now unwilling to say what Hargarl is up to, I must suppose that he is having meetings of his own to the north. Is that not so?”
“Yes, it is so. It is true that you must suppose such. And I know that only because you just told me so,” Aoelric smiled.
“Oh, yes! Quite clever! Reared at the teat of bureaucrats and lawyers, clearly!” Barrelmender snapped.
Aoelric’s grin broadened. “And you are obviously a battle cleric, not an inquisitor. Your lack of polish at interrogation does you credit, Brother. And I can see you are tiring of me, so I shall strive to take it easy on you. Please, do continue.”
“Hargarl is a druid. Is that not so?” Barrelmender said, far too loudly, now.
“I cannot say, Brother.”
“Good. He is a druid, then. And he is going to speak with the druids of the Moondark Hills. Is that not so?”
“Once again, I cannot say, Brother.”
“Alright, then, there we have it.” Barrelmender clapped his gauntleted hands together loudly. “Just one more thing, though. Having told me all of this, are you not worried that the Brothers of the Holy Stone might be organized and motivated enough to give you trouble on your road back?”
“Not at all, Brother. Fools we would be, indeed, if we were to set foot in the same place twice on this trip. We shall not leave the same way we came. We have another means of extraction.”
“Ah. So you are capable of casting teleport, are you?”
“Not at all. I have, however, been trained on setting up a teleportation circle to allow for incoming teleports. The client has been watching. Otilla interacted with that last night, I believe. And, just in case you have any silly notions, I would like to point out that the client has gone to great expense to send me on this mission. A mission that shall not be complete until I have given my full report to the law firm. And, I will add that Hargarl has also been trained on setting up a teleportation circle. This mission is a top priority for the client. Clearly. So, I think it is now time for all of us to say, ‘well met,’ and go our separate ways. But, before we do, I would just like to say that we have no intention of harming you or the people here that you serve. Quite the opposite. I believe that the reason why I was sent here to have this strange conversation with you is that the client believes that as things take their course, they may be in a position to help.”
“Yes. Good. I am sure we are well comforted by that,” Barrelmender said with a deep scowl.
Aoelric nodded and stood up, prompting Barrelmender, Peep, and Choke to do likewise. Aoelric then nodded deeply to Barrelmender and Choke before bowing to Peep.
“It was an honor to meet you, Otilla of the Holy Fire. And you, Brother Barrelmender, Lieutenant Pekot, and Sergeant Theodas. I wish you all good luck in the difficult days to come. And now I think I should be on my way.”
“Yes. At last we are agreed on something,” Barrelmender said. He stepped aside and gestured for Knuckle to get the doors.
Outside the church, across the town square, two riding horses were saddled and tethered to a hitching post outside of Stadnick’s stables. Barrelmender, Choke, Peep, and Knuckle all stood on the church’s steps and watched Aoelric mount one and take the reins of the other. He smiled and waved at them before riding towards the military base and the north gate.
“Go and check that he makes it out of town. Then come back here. He has given us much to discuss,” Barrelmender said to Choke and Peep.
Muse Vassal 