Devil's tale

Devil's tale, chapter 39

Robert looked around the capital, or rather, the centre of the capital. Humans walked around the many marketplaces the city possessed, laughing, conversing and trading. None payed attention to the now abandoned Song-String-College, which was now void of students or professors. No more sounds came from the place, no arguments between artists could be heard from its grounds and even headmaster Roland himself had disappeared. Robert wondered if Avarice wanted revenge for what had happened, he certainly wouldn't have blamed the boy. According to military intelligence, Avarice had disappeared from the material plane of existence entirely. The king seemed to believe that this meant an attack was imminent, that Avarice had escaped to some other dimension of reality to gain power. Robert wondered how the king had come to this outlandish conclusion... what and how would Avarice or Roland think, if they knew about this? He shook his head, he hadn't the mind for this sort of thing. He was nearly at the end of his patrol, he only had to turn one more corner and he'd be back at his guard-office. Instead he turned the other way, it took him less time than he'd expected to reach the edge of the city. He sighed, he hadn't been here since his last patrol alongside Avarice. He looked around at the slums where all the non-humans in the capital resided. Devils and goblins sat outside ramshackle, wooden homes. Children didn't run around merrily but instead weakly ate soup fed to them by their equally miserable parents. Robert wondered why no one in the centre of the city seemed to mind or even care about these slums. Had they simply accepted them as a sad reality, unable to be changed? He snorted, it seemed the king had certainly done so, at least, since not once had Robert been given an order to offer aid in any way to the people in the slums. He remembered his conversation with Avarice's mother from a few weeks ago, what had her name been? Marianne. He didn't know how to feel about the woman. He knew she'd willingly abandoned her baby, a child Robert had come to love like a son, but the sadness in her eyes when she'd spoken to him had been unmistakable. He couldn't imagine the guilt she must have felt, or the fear that probably ate away at her.

"Captain Robert! Captain Robert!" Someone called behind him.

Robert turned to see a soldier, a private, judging by his uniform, running towards him with a scroll in his hand.

"Military decree, curtesy of his majesty himself." The boy panted, handing the paper to the captain.

Roland unrolled the scroll and his eyes widened with indignation and shock as he red the text. The document was several dense pages long, but it could be paraphrased as such:

"All military resources are to be at once diverted to the protection of his majesty's seat of power. This entails that said resources shall be directed either towards the defence of the boarder, or towards the maintenance of order within the capital. Henceforth, Sir Farris Fletcher shall be named commander of the royal guard, and right hand to his majesty the king."

"But- But this is ridiculous! The military also function our realm's police! What shall become of the regions beyond the royal city, should this order go into effect?!" Robert cried out, clearly shocking the poor private.

"I- I was just the messenger sir. Truely, I don't know anything more."

"Then who does?!" Robert demanded.

"I do..." Said a new voice.

Robert froze in place as he suddenly felt a massive power appear behind him. He was no mage but even he could recognise the power of an angel. But what terrified him, was that the voice of this angel, didn't belong to Roland. He turned slowly, with still shoulders and trembling hands. He got a substantial shock as for a second, he thought he saw Avarice in angelic form, he shook his head, that was impossible. The angel before him was young, had golden hair, blue eyes and brilliant wings. His face was nearly identical to that of Avarice, only with human features instead of demonic ones.

"You... you're his brother!" Robert exclaimed.

"And by saying that, you confirm my suspicions. You were Blackhorn's friend, weren't you?" Farris said coldly.

Robert scowled. "I admit that proudly."

"Then you're a fool." Farris placed his hands in his pockets and began to pace around Robert.