The War For The Pallid Throne

A Saints Appetite

The inquisition knows the truth, the width of our claws and the depths of our hunger, yet they look the other way. Ours is a necessary evil. I wonder, is that what they tell themselves when emptying the prison cells and closing their eyes? Can those few men who know us sleep at night having seen the things we do? Do they toss and turn, hearing the screams of the purse snatcher and the snapped tendons of the baker? I hardly remember them, but I am not human, am I?   

1

"When the path leads you astray, Saint Iranol will know the way." Felix's mother was fond of saying that.

She clung to that pendant of hers, bending her knees on the night of the winter solstice.

Saint Iranol wouldn't show the way, not when his father shut the door in their faces and not when the inquisition dragged his mother by the heel and tied her up in the middle of town.

"Witch!" the crowds screamed as Felix looked on with trembling fists.

He remembered the icy chill of the wind and pulling the cloak tight to his neck. The wood was slick with ice; that's why it took so long to burn. His mother prayed as long as she could until the flames touched her heel.

That's when the screaming started.

Yet, despite her shrill cries, it was the smell that got him. That putrid stench of burning hair clung to Felix's nostrils like a spider's web. He lost consciousness after that, collapsing in the heavy snow. When the fire died down, the crowds walked past him without sparing a glance. After all, he was now just another orphan decorating the streets.

Felix woke at midnight, dragging himself up to poke through the smoking coals. Something flashed in the sparking light; a silver pendant etched with the ring of fire. He snatched the medallion, closing his fingers tightly as the metal sizzled against his palm scarring him forever. Then he looked up at the night sky. High above was his mother's god, a glowing star on par with the sun itself: the northern star, Polaris, Saint Iranol.

"Damn you!"

That's how it all began, Felix's journey towards the sunken valley. He would have joined the inquisition in another life, spitting on the gods who wronged him and persecuting fools who put faith in cold starlight. But Felix couldn't overlook what they did to his mother. So, he wandered the streets with no place to call his own.

Felix the sly, that's what they called him. The beggar who sat at the corner of main and slipped purses on the market square. In Bruma's capital, there was a baker on twelfth street who was blind in one eye. Felix stole pies from his left while inquiring on his right. Fortunately, at the end of the swollen square, shopkeepers never asked questions, even when the pawned diamonds were worn by the lady prior.

Yes, business was good, but deep pockets attracted unwanted attention.

"You owe us." his friends would say, robbing him blind in the back alleys as he struggled to pay his debts.

Felix coughed, another bruised chest and an empty belly. On nights like that, he knew exactly where to go.

Three hots and a cot.

There was always that one gatekeeper with a short temper. Maybe it was an accident when the stone struck that guard's helmet, maybe not. Either way, Felix's ass wound up in a cell to cheering inmates.

Felix the sly, he was a regular there. Yes, he was the man who wasn't taken to prison. He came to prison. A cold stone cell with a bucket, a pillow, and a rancid sheet.