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Chapter 144: Last Words
🕑 Added 2023-08-29 11:37:01 +0000 UTCRieze followed the trail of blood, crossbow in hand.
Or more specifically, a trail of blood.
It was everywhere, painting grass, tree bark, the road and a bee hive which would either be evacuated or give spawn to some deadly honey bee monster which decided it could never go back to pollen.
Rieze sniffed the air.
Damp, despite the lack of recent rainfall. There was no moisture on any of the plants or leaves. But the air was thick and heavy with a weight as heavy as the humidity of the Dunes. And that wasn’t a comparison Rieze often made.
The sands were hellish even in the shade. But while there was no unrelenting sun dragging her beneath the sand, there was an ominous aura as physical as the fog.
It happened with little transition. The clear path through the grove of pines ended, and what replaced it was a mist which even her eyes failed to penetrate.
Suddenly, Rieze was faced with the prospect of smacking her head against nature again. And then it stopped being a prospect and became a reality.
“Uuuughhh …”
She groaned and rubbed her nose.
It’d received the worst of today’s punishments. As it usually did for some reason. She wondered if the redness of her nose could be spotted in the fog, then silently wished for it to become thicker.
But perhaps not until she’d safely exited the cave she was about to enter.
A slim parting in the cliff face, hidden amongst the trees. And within, a darkness filled with a familiar scent she’d last experienced … two days ago when she was pulled down into a ravine by giant chitin beetles.
It reeked of death now, just as it did then.
And so, Rieze finally groaned. She wasn’t certain if she was supposed to be here. In fact, she knew she wasn’t. She was supposed to be in Stermondt collating ledgers and financial reports.
Even though, again, that wasn’t her speciality.
But nothing was born of chance in this world. And between the orders of her peers gleefully rubbing their hands to hear her failed report, and the directions of fate, she was willing to hedge her bets on the cave of certain doom.
Thus, at 29 years old and ticking, she now found herself celebrating her birthday by squeezing into the gap to evil central, all the while squeezing the trigger of her crossbow.
Was Rieze the most devout sister in the Holy Church? Absolutely not.
But when the heavens placed her on a road, she pursued it. Even if that road often led to her returning to the cloister covered in grime and bits of dead heretics.
Judging by the sheer magnitude of the evil nearby, there’d be more than that today.
Still, at least this wasn’t the worst cave she’d navigated. The mist faded considerably inside, revealing a carved tunnel far too straight to be natural and a prodigious amount of beetles.
Oh, and skeletons.
She didn’t even pause to glance at them.
Yes, they were ominous. But she saw skeletons all the time. That in itself wasn’t too foreboding. At least not for a sister of the Holy Church.
And apparently, not for a questing minotaur, either.
“[Guiding Light].”
As Rieze illuminated her surroundings, she was puzzled to see markings chalked in the language of the Spiral Isle here. The words she didn’t know. But the drawing of a candle she did. The sign of a minotaur marking the start of a quest.
She gave a small sigh as memories of children asking far too difficult questions resurfaced in her mind. There was a reason she stopped tutoring services, and it wasn’t just because the pay was awful. Although it was mostly that.
How was she supposed to know if minotaurs went to ‘normal’ heavens? They had their own pantheons and their own deities to displease. The last time she’d faced the curiosity of children was more painful than anything she could trip over. And as she descended down the tunnel, she found more and more skeletons that threatened to do just that.
Probably because this wasn’t actually a tunnel.
It was a crypt.
This didn’t surprise Rieze. She’d come across a startlingly high number of crypts inhabited by various evil things over her years. They loved their skeletons, their cob webs and their dark hidden lairs.
What they didn’t usually love were cute brightly painted yellow doors complete with a straw mat and a ‘Private Property–No knocking’ sign stuck next to it.
Rieze paused.
This was new.
For a moment, she blinked in confusion, wondering if she’d intruded on someone’s bizarre, if actual residence. But then she sensed the odour of evil emanating from within. Her decision was made for her.
She opened the yellow door and swept inside.
And then, she truly was confused.
A crypt, yes.
Yet what the tunnel had opened up to was more than ancient stonework and open tombs, their contents looted over the centuries.
Shiny wooden cabinets and shelves. Colourful sofas and armchairs. Unpretentious rugs and carpets. Pots of flowers kept alive through the smallest chisels in the wall, allowing tiny pinpricks of sunlight to filter through.
No, Rieze wasn’t surprised in the slightest by the sight of a crypt being used as a nest. What she was surprised at was it being used as a warm cottage home.
Evidence of the crypt remained. Yet the enclosures usually filled with bones, dust and memories were instead meticulously filled with books.
Lots and lots of books, stacked high in piles stretching to the ceiling, weighing down the carpets, filling up the corners and being used as table stands for the potted flowers.
It was almost like a library.
Yet if it was, then it wasn’t a particularly refined one.
Scandals Of The Incorrigible Viscount, Vol. 1-8.
She peered down, examining a line of spines closest to her. The embossed text was bright and spotless, despite the dust which covered the shelves they sat on. And Rieze soon understood why.
As she stepped through this bastion of colour within a crypt, she rounded a bookshelf and found the caretaker of this home.
“Welcome,” said the girl sitting in a beanie chair nestled within an open coffin. She didn’t look up from the book she was reading, instead turning a page. “There’s tea and cake by the door. Help yourself.”
Rieze studied her features.
A girl outwardly half her age. Ivory skin. Blood red eyes. A hint of a fang. Silvery hair. Impossible beauty. And a young complexion at odds with the maturity of her eyes.
All damning traits.
But not as much as the pink pyjamas she wore in the middle of the afternoon.
That wasn’t merely laziness. It was practically an ode to the evil of sloth.
Only those who truly shunned the light gave themselves over to such indecency.
“I wasn’t told a vampire nested so close to Stermondt,” said Rieze, eyeing the stack of pillows also surrounding the beanie bag.
The vampire didn’t answer. Again, she flipped over a page.
“Would you like to read a book?”
Rieze gave it a moment’s thought.
“What books do you have?”
“Everything. Well, everything in the romance category, at least. You’ll find that I have quite the complete collection. I make an effort to keep up with current trends. I even have the latest volume to A Court Lady’s Indiscretion, and that still hasn’t been officially released yet.”
“I’m afraid I’m not particularly keen on romance. By any chance, do you have any books on accounting?”
“Accounting?”
“I’ve been tasked with increasing the amount of revenue the Holy Church receives in this region. Our basic services are at risk.”
The vampire blinked.
Finally, she looked up, giving a small tilt of her head as did so.
“A trying task. You have my condolences.”
“Thank you. It’s a role I have no experience in. I’m not certain how to go about it.”
“Well, I would suggest it’s not an accounting book you need. It’s a mercantile one. But if you simply need income, then perhaps it’s more efficient to become a personal cleric to royalty and simply donate your earnings. The fees that clerics can demand are breathtaking, and I no longer breathe.”
Rieze nodded. Being a royal advisor to all matters spiritual and holy was an excellent position. She knew someone who retired at the age of 30. But she doubted if she’d find such a role here.
“If only. It’s well known that in this kingdom, the last cleric to have worked in the Royal Villa was there simply to use holy magic to keep away mice infestations.”
“A task beneath the Holy Church, I take it?”
“Of course not. There’s no task beneath us. It simply doesn’t offer the remuneration necessary to assist in what I need. Do you possess any books related to trade, commerce or profit, then?”
“No. I’m long past requiring crowns.”
“What about copies of Sister Lumina Tilgate’s Compendiums Of The Just, then?”
“I don’t carry any holy texts. They burn my eyes.”
“Because you’re a blighted abomination?”
“No, because I have standards.”
“Then you should consider Sister Lumina’s writings. They’re unorthodox. Little about what she writes in her compendium would ever be repeated in a sermon. I highly recommend them. I think you might find the text interesting.”
“What is it about?”
Rieze raised her crossbow and smiled cheerfully.
“Vampire slaying.”
The anathema to all that was holy raised an eyebrow. She didn’t permit a note of consternation to flicker across her face.
“I’m afraid you’re not in a position to look so jovial if your experiences with vampire slaying comes from a book.”
Rieze shrugged.
“I have a consecrated crossbow, a bolt of undiluted silver and very good aim. Am I missing anything else?”
“Yes. Your manners.”
The vampire snapped her book shut, then placed it upon her lap.
Her scarlet eyes as she glanced towards Rieze glinted to the dim light of the braziers in the crypt and the guiding orb floating around the sister like a bundle of fireflies.
“Countess Miriam Estroux, of the former holdings of … well, it doesn’t matter. That place has long gone now, and all that’s left is my crypt. I say that as if it’s a bad thing. It’s not. I quite enjoy this. Peace and quiet was ever a novelty when I was at court. Now, who might you be?”
Rieze judged the distance between them. At less than 10 paces, she could close her eyes and still strike her target.
“Sister Rieze of the Holy Church.”
The vampire, Countess Miriam of a place lost to memories, wrinkled her nose.
With her slender frame, silver locks and her otherworldly beauty, she was the picture of regality–were she not sitting in a beanie bag in her pyjamas.
“I see. Well, the pleasure’s certainly not mine, Sister Rieze. It’s been a considerable age since I’ve last been forced to look upon a holy woman.”
“The Holy Church is the vessel through which our patron deities communicate. We ourselves are no more holy than anyone else.”
“Even compared to me?”
“Quite so. You might be the manifestation of evil and must be purged. But you being more wicked doesn’t mean I am somehow more holy.”
“Modesty is ever a heavenly attribute, I see. Now, I care not for why you’re here. Only when you’ll leave. That’ll be soon, I hope?”
“Very soon. In fact–”
“Excellent. Then allow me to speed you on your way. [Dominate Will].”
The vampire looked up, her scarlet eyes ablaze as she set her mind against Rieze’s.
A dreaded spell powerful enough to form the beginning of many tales where rulers of nations became the playthings of the undead. She felt it for a moment, like a rap on a door she was urged to open.
Rieze chose not to.
Instead, she smiled, and continued her reply.
“... In fact, my intention is to continue my duties as soon as I’ve set you to rest.”
The vampire slumped down into her beanie chair, then gestured around the crypt with a face filled with boredom at the bloody messiness ahead.
“I’m already resting. I’m resting exceptionally well. The only thing that’s not making me rest are random sisters walking into what is clearly a place of ominous foreboding. I’m genuinely baffled. Did you not see the sign? This is private property.”
“No sign would deter me from my vows. I hear the cries of your soul. One of torment and damnation.”
Countess Miriam whacked her book into her own forehead.
Rieze recognised the act well. She did it too. A calming manoeuvre. Odd that a vampire would do the same.
“Very well. Will you soothe my damned soul by sharing a few words from your holy scriptures with me? I dare say I’m several centuries overdue a sermon.”
Rieze raised an eyebrow.
It was so rare for unholy monstrosities to even suggest they had erred. Usually, she was forced to skip straight to destroying them.
“I intend to offer a bit more than that. Especially since the stench of blood still dwells on you. Those men of the road were not merely killed. They were butchered.”
The vampire peered down at her pyjamas.
Then, she sniffed her sleeves and frowned.
“Firstly, that wasn’t me. Otherwise, I’d have arranged their corpses in a prettier manner. That was the shadow lurker whose lair they’d disturbed. I calmed it down, by the way. You’re welcome. Secondly, the smell of blood is one which I fail to monopolise. You’re quite productive for a sister of the Holy Church from what I can tell.”
“No more than those in my cloister. We all have our duties.”
“And yours involves ample amounts of murder, I see. Why, if I wasn’t a spawn of death itself, I would thoroughly chastise you for your lax interpretation of mercy.”
Rieze wouldn’t have minded. She’d been chastised before. It usually stopped when she chastised them back.
“Mercy is offered to those who abide by good. Not to those who turn from it.”
“Well, then, I hardly see why I did anything worth pointing a crossbow at me for. If anything, I should have eaten those bandits or whatever other vampires do. The pests were breaking so many virtues that you would faint on the spot. An untenable danger outside my library. No fire safety precautions whatsoever. Open flame pits surrounded by dry foliage and trees. And to make things worse, they were using my own entrance as a privy.”
“Excuse me?”
“Let’s just say the mist is hiding more than my abode. I do hope you didn’t touch anything while you squeezed through the entrance.”
Rieze blinked.
Then, she turned to her shoulder and sniffed.
She really did almost faint. The vampire shuffled in her beanie bag away from her.
“In any case, I wash my hands of those rotting bodies. If you wish to file a complaint, do so with the shadow lurker next door. Though I hardly see why you would. The fellow not only reduced the amount of high level crime in this region, but also defended its ecological sanctity. A fine neighbour.”
“A strewn of rotten bodies does not invite my gratitude.”
“No. But it should invite your prudence. You should not have visited, sister. You are far from sanctified ground. More worryingly for you, you have only one bolt.”
Rieze smiled as she aimed her crossbow.
“I only need one.”
The vampire, to Rieze’s surprise, didn’t choose this moment to offer the first hint of famed vampire impertinence. There was no fetching smile. No edge of a glinting fang. And no flashes of amusement streaking across those scarlet eyes.
Instead, the girl rolled her eyes.
“I suppose the Holy Church didn’t teach you about poor last words to say.”
“That’s because they’re not my–”
“Ugh, yes, fine, I understand. Vampire bad. Hiss. Grr. Rest assured that this isn’t my first time someone pious has tried to stake me as I’m minding my own business. Let’s hurry and mortally wound each other. Hopefully the next volume of The Ashen Maiden’s Journey will be out by the time I wake up in another century.”
Countess Miriam Estroux hugged her knees to her chest.
The colour of her hair, her skin and pyjamas instantly darkened as she folded herself into a ball of shadow.
And then–
A thousand red eyes looked back at Rieze, followed by the sound of a swarm of wings. A thousand obstacles that the Abyss had set before her.
And not a single one was worthy of her concern.
Because Sister Rieze was (for now) the 12th of the Sonneritter. An A-rank cleric of the Holy Church. An annual subscriber to Working Life magazine.
And she did not need the sun to sweep away the darkness for her.
Comments
Vega
Is the priest lady going to get called speciest when she appears? Or would the fact that the vampire was a count outweigh the fact that she was a vampire when considering race?
Wait until you become an annual subscriber too. Then you'll be using it to open all your conversations.
phantom
"An annual subscriber to Working Life magazine." an odd thing to put on one's resume.
