The Vampire & Her Witch Chapter 1785: A Time Long Ago (Part One)

Ignatious commanded the cathedral the way Thane commanded armies, drawing the congregation into a series of hymns and prayers that pulled both hearts and minds in the direction he desired.

Individuals found themselves overwhelmed and lost in the sea of voices singing sacred songs and reciting familiar passages. With more than a thousand people in the vast cathedral chamber, so long as Ignatious could pull three out of four people along with him, anyone who didn’t feel like joining in found themselves isolated and alone in their intransigence.

The key was that he never strayed too far from the familiar, at least, not at first. They sang songs of enduring struggle and prayed for those who fell too soon. He told them about Owain’s dark sorcery, draining away the lives of his vassals in an attempt to overcome Ashlynn during their trial by combat and then led them in a prayer for the late Baron Saliou and the knights who lost their lives to Lothian sorcery.

And then, when he felt the time was finally right, he asked the parents of the congregation to come forward with their children, filling the front rows with the youngest among the faithful and their parents. Some of the children had to be roused from their sleep, and a few went back to sleep as soon as their parents claimed a seat, but Ignatious only smiled and told the parents to let their children sleep if they wanted to.

After he pulled the youngest children forward, he turned to the older ones, calling for young men and women of less than twenty years of age to fill in behind the parents with younger children.

"This is our chance," Yastin said eagerly, pulling his companions forward. "The High Inquisitor is going to offer a blessing, I just know it... Come on, we need to get as close as we can!"

"Wait," Bosh, the largest youth in their group, said, looking around them as the crowd shifted and pulsed like a living thing, filled with people making their way forward through the crowd. "Miss," the burly youth said, looking at a willowy girl of sixteen or seventeen as she struggled to make her way through the crowd of people moving backward to make room in the front rows.

"We can help," Bosh offered, planting himself in the crowd like a boulder in the river and forcing the crowd to move around him. "Just follow close to us," he said, waving for Yastin and the others to join him in escorting the young woman.

Norit and Thun joined him quickly, calling out to other young women in the crowd to move together with them, while Yastin looked anguished over the delay as he watched other youths claiming the best spots closest to the High Inquisitor. Still, he stayed with his friends, helping to clear a way forward for the people who could have easily found themselves pushed to the back along with the crowd.

In the end, their group claimed a spot two rows back from the youths who’d arrived first.

"I hope we don’t miss out on the blessing because we’re not close enough," Yastin grumbled, craning his neck as he looked at the front row of youths where they could have been sitting if they hadn’t delayed. "If the High Inquisitor thinks we were dawdling..."

"We’re closer than we were, aren’t we?" Bosh replied with a shrug. "It’s still a good thing."

On the dais overlooking the congregation, Ignatious smiled slightly as he watched the crowd settling into their new positions before he retrieved two items, carrying them to the front of the dais where he took a seat, allowing his feet to dangle over the edge in a posture that his teacher would have called ’beneath the dignity of his office.’

Ignatious didn’t care. Dignity had lost its meaning in his mind many years ago, stripped away along with so many other useless things as he languished in the darkness of the Tangled Tower as High Lord Hamdi’s prisoner and... pet.

"Tonight, I have a story to share," Ignatious began. "It’s an old story, from before any of you were born about a young man who burned brightly even though his origins were humble," he said, picking up the first of the items he’d brought to the front of the dais.

It was a simple hand ax, the kind that could be found in nearly every home for splitting firewood into smaller logs and kindling. It wasn’t special in any way; the haft was plain and unadorned without any of the sacred symbols the church would have carved into an object meant to be used in worship or sermons, and the ax head itself still held a faint residue of sap and wood dust from recent use. It was a very simple, very humble tool.

"The story starts far from here, in a small town near a vast forest," Ignatious said, looking into the eyes of the youngest children and their parents. "It starts with a woodcutter’s son who pulled carts of firewood from the forest to the town."

"Eight in ten carts he sold to the people," Ignatious said, turning the ax over in his hands. "A silver penny for a whole cart of wood, enough to burn for half a month or more in the cold of winter," he said, glancing at the stained glass windows of the cathedral and the lightly falling snow outside. "Or a snip for a bundle, enough for a night and a day."

"One cart in ten, he offered to the lord, a tithe in thanks for keeping the monsters in the dark at bay and the lands safe to work," Ignatious continued. "The last cart, he brought to the Brotherhood of the Broken, an orphanage in the town, so the children wouldn’t be cold on the long winter nights."

"Now tell me," Ignatious asked one of the older children in the front rows. "Was the woodcutter’s son a good young man?"

"Very good!" the child said enthusiastically, nodding his head. "He made money for his family, he paid his lord, and he even helped the orphans. He was very good!"

"I think so too," Ignatious said with a small smile on his lips. "And the Brotherhood of the Broken thought so as well. They offered him a place in their kitchens, tending the ovens that baked bread and the hearths that kept the children warm. Not all the time, but when he was done with the woodcutter’s work, he worked for the orphans, and he learned the scriptures and the prayers of the Church," Ignatious said before holding out his hand and summoning a ball of dancing, golden flame.

"The woodcutter’s son believed in doing everything he could to help the people, and the Brotherhood of the Broken believed that he was special," Ignatious continued. "Blessed by the Holy Lord of Light with a pure golden flame. They summoned the Inquisition and encouraged the boy to follow them away, leaving his father, the woodcutter and the children of the orphanage behind in order to serve the Holy Lord of Light in a greater calling."

"Tell me, young man," Ignatious said, looking directly at Yastin where he sat among his friends. "If you were in the young man’s position, would you have taken the offer? Would you have gone away?"

"I would," Yastin said, nodding his head eagerly. "If it were me, I’d work hard to make the best of the blessing of the Holy Lord of Light and... And I’d send back silver to my pa and the orphans. It’s hard to get a chance like that," he said. "But if I had one, I’d do whatever I could to make the most of it."

"Mmm," Ignatious said, nodding as he set down the ax, before picking up the second item he’d brought forward, the Holy Flame Blade, secure in its gilded, jewel-encrusted sheath. "And that’s what the woodcutter’s son did. He followed the Inquisition, he put down the ax, and he took up the sword. He swore the oaths the Church demanded and his flames grew even brighter and hotter," Ignatious said, briefly conjuring a ball of golden flames the size of a full-grown melon before waving his hand and dismissing the fire.

"In the abbeys of the Inquisition, he learned that some monsters posed as men," Ignatious said. "They hid themselves behind masks that always smiled when they should, or cried when they should, even as they schemed against their neighbors and tormented the common people. Whenever he found a monster, he burned them like kindling, until there was nothing left but ash on the wind..."

Some of the children at the front clapped, eagerly celebrating the victory of the woodcutter’s son. He was killing the monsters and saving the people! A few of the older children even whispered excitedly that he was a hero for slaying the demons and monsters in the dark.

The parents, however, and the young adults behind the children, wore more serious looks on their faces. Ignatious said that he burned monsters to ash, but there was no triumph in his voice or celebration of victory. Instead, the way he said it seemed almost... sad, and they didn’t know why...