The Divided Knight - Chapter Four

They traveled east, Aylander guiding Thaddeus along old Eltaran paths that hadn't been used in more than a thousand years. Along these paths, roughly one day apart from each other, were small stone shelters that, while overgrown, had weathered the years of not being used quite well, and it was in these shelters that they made camp. Inside one of these shelters, after three days of travel, Thaddeus had come upon a chest full of Eltaran gold, gold which proved useful the day after when they came to a village and Thaddeus was made acutely aware that he had been wearing the same change of clothes for more than a month. Luckily the village was one that he had never visited before – he had actually visited very few areas outside the High Fortress and the royal palace over the course of his life, as Holy Knights only ever left when one of the mages needed an escort – and he was able the buy a new set of clothing without being recognized. He'd even been able to stop for a bath, though when he'd tried to have his old clothes laundered, the chagrined laundress – whom he'd paid for her services, regardless – had had to inform him that they'd fallen apart on her the moment she'd put them in the water.

After the bath, Thaddeus had nearly been spotted by a contingent of the King's Guard who were out on patrol. He hadn't known they were looking for him, specifically, though it was odd to encounter soldiers on patrol as close to the palace as he had been, and so he had beaten a hasty escape, returning to the Eltaran paths and leaving the comforts of civilization behind. Aylander had chided him about the near miss for several days afterward – this, after the Eltaran had said nothing the day Thaddeus had decided to visit the village – and so, for the next two weeks, Thaddeus had not lain eyes on another human being, understanding the need for caution while, at the same time, growing tired of spending every night in stone shelters that were hardly large enough to accommodate one person.

Something's happened.

Hearing Aylander's voice inside his own head had stopped bothering Thaddeus, even when it happened in the middle of the night, as it did, now. Opening his eyes, Thaddeus stared up at the unadorned ceiling of the shelter, lit from below by the still flickering camp fire of the night before. “What do you mean?” he asked – he never felt groggy when waking up, anymore, coming to full mental alertness almost at once no matter if he'd slept as long as he'd intended, or not.

Can't you feel it?

Sighing, Thaddeus said, “Aylander, even though I've spent my whole adult life around mages, that doesn't mean I have any magical talent, myself. If you've felt something, and that something is magical, don't expect me to have felt it, too. Tell me what you felt.”

It's . . . difficult to describe. A change. Like something's come into the world that wasn't there before. Something that shouldn't have.

Thaddeus frowned. There was something strange about what Aylander said. It was almost as if it was what Thaddeus had expected him to say. Had he been dreaming about it, maybe? “What do you think this something could be?”

Thaddeus sensed Aylander's pause to think. Something unholy. What do you know of the Necromancers, Thaddeus?

“Necromancers? They were an order of dark mages. The Conclave wiped them out four hundred years ago.”

Do you happen to recall the name of the last of their order?

Even though it had been an important part of his early lessons when becoming a Holy Knight, history had never been Thaddeus strong suit. If it hadn't had something to do with weapons, or with some bloody battle, he'd all but forgotten about it. “I can't say that I do. Why, Aylander? Do you think it's important?”

His name was Atraxos the Black.

Atraxos the Black? Thaddeus shivered. That name was a name out of children's stories, and Thaddeus was sure it hadn't been a part of the history he'd been taught concerning the Necromancers. Why would it have been? Atraxos had been killed more than three thousand years ago by Solanas the Elder, the first Magister of the Torvaran Empire.

“That isn't possible, Aylander,” Thaddeus said. “Atraxos the Black has been dead more than three thousand years.”

Nevertheless, it was him. Like me, it is possible that his body was killed but his soul lived on. Were you aware that the Order of the Crimson Serpent is not something new? It existed before. The elite guards of the Necromancer. Aylander paused, and when he spoke, again, Thaddeus could hear – and feel – all the pain and bitterness his soul still held. My brothers and I, the last Sword Priests of Eltara, were sworn to make sure it, and the Necromancers, never returned.

“Is that what happened to you? You failed, and became that which you were sworn to defend against?”

That is what happened to me, yes. My brothers and I were the last of the True, the ones who stayed behind when the rest of our people went off to make gods of themselves. When our people came back, they had become twisted, cruel, evil. The original Order of the Crimson Serpent, with the Necromancers as their masters. I do not remember those times personally – I am too young – but I remember what I was taught, and I remember the oath I swore when the last of the Necromancers was killed. The oath I failed to keep.

Somehow, even though he had never heard of them prior to their seizing of the royal palace and destroying of the Conclave, it didn't surprise Thaddeus that the Order of the Crimson Serpent were nothing new. The man who had led them – a mage named Garris Galgana, whom Thaddeus recalled had, for reasons he had never learned, fled the Conclave three years ago – couldn't have conjured them out of thin air. But why had Thaddeus never been taught about them, or their role in battles against the Necromancers? Forbidden knowledge, he thought. Not for anyone but the innermost circle of the Conclave.

“You may have failed, Aylander,” Thaddeus said, “but that doesn't mean you can't still fight. I freed you from what Galgana turned you into. I made it so that you can have the chance to redeem yourself.”

And I am thankful for that, friend Thaddeus. However, my brothers will never have that chance.

“Maybe not. We can mourn for them, later, though.” Thaddeus lay still for a time, staring up at the ceiling of the shelter and listening to the camp fire crackle. “Do you think what you felt was Atraxos coming back into the world, Aylander?”

It is a horrifying thought, but I think it likely.

“How do you think he was able to do it?”

I don't know. Perhaps through the mage, Galgana. I had a sense that that one did not fully understand the powers he was trying to wield.

That fit Thaddeus's memory of the man. Garris Galgana had never been an overly confident or competent member of the Conclave, and there were times Thaddeus could remember having felt pity for him. “If what you felt was Atraxos,” Thaddeus said, “I have a feeling that Garris Galgana is no more.”

He has become Atraxos's vessel.

“Yes.”

Our need to find the Wanderer has grown, then. How far are we from the village the Soul of the Conclave told you to begin your search in?

There never was a Soul of the Conclave, Thaddeus suddenly thought, not understanding why. “A few days, maybe. Surely not more than a week.”

Do you remember it well? That village?

Surprisingly enough, even though he hadn't been there in more than twenty years, he did. And the sting behind the reason he had left was no less, now, than it had been, then. “Yes, I do,” Thaddeus said. “And I wish we were going anywhere else but there.”