Bad Faith

Chapter 2

Two months prior

The chapterhouse of the Ahvalyn Order in Fressia was a small one. They didn't have a large following in the area and it was maintained through subsidies from Central rather than local donations. It had been decades since anyone but the local guide had held a gathering. Master-guide Yohaness sat cross legged in front of the group, wearing the plain brown robes that was a marker of his station, arms folded with one fist under his chin. The local guide Invin was wearing something else, sitting to his right. As if his gaudy white and gold robes weren't enough, the man was wearing jewelry. Chapterhouses on the outskirts of the empire tended to pick up quirky beliefs over time. Compared to the time he discovered a guide was demanding goat sacrifices, this was nothing. In any case, he came for a purpose.

Kneeling in front of him were six paladins. Every chapterhouse housed that many. It was their calling to protect their areas from magical threats and assist with local law enforcement when not otherwise engaged. Paladins shared a single rank without commanders or accolades. A kind of pecking order generally evolves with time, with those more powerful or charismatic assuming positions akin to first among equals. Paladin Maxxon earned his place through strength. A former soldier who discovered his potence as a grown man, he had more experience in combat than the other five combined. Grey might be flecking his temples, but the man was hard and strong as any paladin Yohaness had ever met. He couldn't have hoped for someone more suitable.

Yohaness addressed the group, "Two weeks ago, the Prophet had a vision of coming chaos. A creature who could bring tumult to the entire empire will be somewhere in the forest mountains of Nerahvar. The only specific information about the location is that it will be at a weirding point. As such, we contracted an academy magician to help you find it." The paladins shifted uneasily and glanced at each other. "This is necessary. I spoke to the Prophet personally about the matter. The importance of this mission compels us to compromise. We must use any means necessary to assess the threat. Your travel itineraries are in your rooms. Questions?" There were none. "Time is of the essence."

Maxxon led the mounted paladins to where they were meeting their guide. Paladins usually work alone or with a partner for big jobs, so it was an odd feeling to have five others with him. It made him feel invincible and that made him worried. Arrogance and carelessness walked hand in hand. From their chatter on the road thus far, Maxxon gathered the others thought it was overkill to have everyone sent at once. He wanted to agree. He felt he should. There was something deep inside him, though, that was nothing less than apprehensive. The way the master-guide spoke, it made him think if it were possible he'd have sent more. Maxxon was pulled from his thoughts by a question.

"Max, what do you think they meant by assess the threat?" asked Gregor. Maxxon had been partnered with each of the other paladins at least once excluding him. As far as Maxxon knew, Gregor had never paired with anyone. Nobody was quite sure what he could do. His armor was a light chain shirt and leather chaps and vambraces. He didn't bring a weapon. "These other clowns think we should just kill it, but if that's what they wanted why didn't they just ask for that?"

Maxxon glanced over the others. Samuel and Thomlin had been hanging back some for most of the trip but cantered up to hear his response. The past few months had been hard on them. They kept alternating out on jobs and hadn't been able to be partnered. Maxxon suspected Invin had something to do with that. The inn they were staying in was big enough they could have their own room and it made Maxxon glad. They were both large men in heavy plate, and both carried a claymore and a rifle. Damian was riding alongside Gregor and staring off into space. He wore no armor, opting for dark, loose-fitting clothes that hid always-one-more knife. While the mobility of it suited Damien, Maxxon was sure the reason he didn't wear any armor was because he thought it was a hassle to get in and out of. Nassar was riding on the other side of Gregor but staring intently at him, waiting for a response. Nassar was their newest, having joined their chapterhouse less than a year ago and admired Maxxon with a fervor that made him uncomfortable. He even started to wear the same armaments. Full scale mail armor and a spear and buckler. The only difference was that Nassar hadn't developed his potence enough to use a rifle so took a bow instead. Nassar might worship him, but they all looked up to him and he'd be damned if he let them down.

Maxxon took a deep breath, "There is a chance this is beyond us. If it looks like a rout, someone needs to report back and let them know just what could manage that." The somber silence was broken almost immediately by Gregor's laugh, but it faded almost as soon as it started. Gregor looked at the others to see they were taking Maxxon's words seriously.

Gregor cocked an eyebrow as he asked, "What could hold off six paladins?"

Damian seemed almost bored as he replied with a question of his own, "What could bring chaos to the entire empire?"

Maxxon said, "Chaos isn't always about the power of the individual. For all we know it could just be especially insidious or charismatic. I think that's the point. There is too much we don't know and so our job is to assess the threat. I'd still wager that if it's some kind of aberration we can kill it here to end the trouble, but an open mind goes a long way."

Samuel and Thomlin had exchanged a few whispers before Thomlin spoke up. "For all we know, we might find an angel that will sweep the corrupt out of power. That'd be pretty chaotic."

Maxxon's reply was quick, "Hope for the best but plan for the worst. We have our mission and it's far from clear. Keep an open mind and steady hand. With this many of us, we should be fine."

Gregor clucked his tongue, "It should go without saying we'll be fine." He pursed his lips. "For some reason I'm glad you said it anyway."

They had only been on the road for a week, but Maxxon was glad everyone kept their spirits up. It been a lot of years since he was hired as a paladin and for some reason he still felt the military commander's need to manage morale. These were all professionals. They weren't foot soldiers nervous about their first campaign. Each could have single handedly defeated his entire first command. The combined might of the Avahlyn Order could match any military in the world, but they were dedicated to keeping the peace. Not for the first time Maxxon felt a warmth that brought a sheen to his eyes. He was doing good. It was why Academy magicians weren't popular in the Order. The Avahlyn Order teaches potence should only be used for the benefit of mankind, but academics were amoral inquisitives with no care for the consequences of where their thirst for knowledge took them. There are places that are too dangerous for people to go, places of darkness and desire, that the academics relish visiting. That daemons even exist on this plane is their fault. Maxxon's head always started to pound when his mind went to trying to balance the morality of freedom against prudence. He let it go. There was no need to dwell on that kind of thing with his mission in front of him. Get to the magician, find the weirding point, find the threat.

The paladins rode toward Chessildin. The place was more like a frontier outpost than a town. The settlement of Chessildin was purely to keep an eye out for incursions from the country on the other side of the mountain range. The Republic of Nerahvar wasn't a republic. They had a senate in words only. They were ruled by the despot Grand Vizier. The politicians of Nerahvar gave up their names and were referred to by their position in government, and the Grand Vizier had been in power for all written memory. His long life was proof that he knew some kind of magic to extend lifespans, and the corrupt and cowardly flocked to him for even hints of a taste. There was a peace between the powers and had been ever since the current Emperor adopted a noninterference policy upon taking power. The Unending War ended.

A war that had gone on for more than a hundred and fifty years was over. It wasn't long before people started learning the truth. The glorious and righteous Vermillion Empire, the Empire of the Falling Phoenix, was the aggressor. The current story making the rounds was that Emperor Stallid VI decided the empire's philosopher kings were the ones who deserved immortality. The next ten Emperors all took the name of Stallid and kept the aggression. They all wanted to live forever and it cut short their lives. A war of untold misery and heartache for the sake of powerful men's desire for immortality. It had been thirteen years since the non-aggression pact and most fortifications along the border were abandoned. Only twenty-seven fortresses and towns were still populated, all before the tree line of the forest.

The only thing that saved both lands from complete devastation was the mountain range and its forest. The forest had many names in many languages and the Empire never settled on one since it was outside their formal borders. The people in towns like Chessildin just called it "The Wood." It made every foray into enemy territory an exercise in damning attrition. Things gathered in the mountains here. Weirding points and creatures that defy comprehension and things harder to understand still. It took less than a year for the settlements abandoned beyond the tree line to be retaken by the forest.

The paladins crested the hill overlooking Chessildin, they could see past its walls to The Wood. It stretched out like an ocean of trees, the foothills of the range were as waves in the unbreaking green sea. Maxxon didn't have any pleasant memories of The Wood. Thankfully as a paladin he didn't need to come back very often. While there was the occasional leak of aberration from the forest, it almost seemed to keep a non-aggression pact of its own. While politicians and generals griped at it, nobody who lived at the settlements in the wood complained when Emperor Stallid XVII ordered them abandoned. With the sizeable forces at the border forts, paladins only needed to be called out every few years and never needed to trek very deeply. With two chapterhouses approximately the same distance away, Maxxon himself had only been back to The Wood once since the war ended. It was a moment before Maxxon realized he had stopped their procession to stare at the forest. The others were lined up to his sides and staring themselves, nobody complaining they had stopped.

Nassar broke the silence, "Maxxon, were you ever here with the army?"

Maxxon's eyes glazed over and the life left his voice as he said, "I've been in the mud."

Nassar had heard about the soldier's stare. Anyone who spent much time fighting in The Wood either came back with the soldier's stare, the soldier's burden, or didn't come back at all. He wanted to say something, anything, but couldn't find any words. Nassar was aware that he was naïve. Coming from him, he knew even if he got all the words right they would still be wrong. So he didn't say anything, even as the group all shifted so they could stare at Maxxon, each with their own unique blend of reverence and pity. Paladins were fighting men and women, but they knew there was a difference. It could only have been at most a minute, but it felt to Nassar like an eternity before Maxxon spoke again.

Maxxon took a deep, slow breath, closed his eyes and said, "It won't be the same. The Wood doesn't fight as hard against small parties, and we can handle anything it throws at us in any case." He looked at each of them in turn with steel, with strength. "Let's get going."

The tavern in Chessildin was lively. Only a dozen or so tables in the entire building, half of them occupied, but the people were having fun. It wasn't the forced joviality of soldiers walking the edge of sanity, but the honest laughter of a pleasant night. Maxxon might have transferred his oath from the empire to the order, but for the emperor who took what was and made it into this, he would do anything. Stallid XVII could make of game of kicking puppies and drinking the blood of virgins and Maxxon would be his most fervent supporter. That in one man's lifetime he could go from utter desolation to real hope for the future, Maxxon really saw the Vermillion Empire's standard, the burning bird of resurrection, in his mind when he thought of the way things were going. His mood slipped as he caught sight of their guide.

The man was definitely an academy magician. The staff leaning against his chair was etched with glyphs. A good number of them. The order hired a powerful academic. The academic magician used magic in a different way than intuitives like Maxxon. Where Maxxon used the potence inside himself and directed it according to thought and feeling, academics used glyphs to twist the potence of the world in specific ways. Each academic had to figure out their own language of glyphs, with the more capable able to tease out new and interesting ways to use the glyphs they discover. It made collaboration between them difficult in an already secretive and jealous party. Maxxon eyed the staff with its goodly number of glyphs. Glyphs in a particular unchanging order on a permanent medium like a staff would be very limited. Academics' spells would often need to be adjusted for location, time, any number of variables. That the man they were meeting knew enough to make a permanent medium useful would make him at least a journeyman. Given the number of glyphs, Maxxon assumed him a master magician. When the academic noticed them and met his eye, he was given pause.

Not old enough to be a master. The man was in his late twenties at the most. More surprising was the fact that he stood up to shake each paladin's hand saying, "I'm Pericles, call me Peri."

Academics were infamously condescending. Maxxon didn't hold it against them, their minds really were exploring higher mysteries, but it was still annoying. While a master magician could do any number of incredible things with time to prepare and draw out his spells, in the chaos of an actual altercation, the most learned academic would be putty in the hands of any intuitive and most soldiers. Hel, most boys with pointed sticks. To be looked down on by someone Maxxon could tie in a knot made something primal in him boil. He had been mentally preparing himself for an insufferable companion ever since they left the chapterhouse a week ago. They had made good time even with one of their pack horses dying from colic. Since the way used to be a main thoroughfare to the frontlines, there was a checkpoint at least every day's ride. Paladins could use any government facility with free reign, so they were able to swap horses each day and stay in a bed each night. By some standards a luxurious journey, but for Maxxon had been tainted with apprehension of meeting the academic who would be accompanying them for an unspecified amount of time.

The initial greetings were followed up by Gregor taking his chin in his hand in a mock contemplative way and saying, "Named for a great Towerborne, how auspicious." Maxxon held his breath for a lecture on superstition.

"Fate and fortune, is it?" Pericles eyes lit up before sliding next to Gregor and saying, "Auspices are fickle things... for only 2 obol I can write you a charm in magical glyphs – guaranteed luck. That's a discount only 'cuz you're so handsome." A beat later and the other paladins were laughing. Pericles delivered with an almost indiscernible smirk and a twinkle in his eye. A humble magician with easy humor. Maxxon couldn't contain his grin and allowed himself some hope for the expedition.

As the others were stifling their laughter (more relief their academic was friendly than amusement), Maxxon asked, "Make any headway finding the point?"

Pericles shifted smoothly from carefree to serious, "I haven't been here for very long and the flows are really hard to read in that forest." He looked over his should as if he could see through the walls and into The Wood. "Really hard."

The paladins settled into their chairs. Maxxon continued, "Where does that leave us?"

Pericles sighed and said, "I would like to stay here in comfort while I try to find a good place to start, but if I'm honest..." He brought his fingers to the bridge of his nose and groaned. "Then we should just get in there. I'll be able to find it faster from within."

Pericles' self-pity was cut short by a patron shouting over to him, asking for another joke. His transition back to carefree was just as smooth. He stood up and motioned to the man who shouted, "Anybody wants to hear, pull a chair."

A small audience gathered at a few tables nearby. Peri leaned back in his chair and started, "So a master magician was touring Academy campuses in the empire, giving the same lecture over and over. He climbs out of his carriage to air his grievances with the driver. The driver had sat in at each lecture and heard it as many times as it was given. In a show of solidarity the driver says, 'You know I've heard you give this lecture enough times, I'll bet I could give it back to you word for word.' The master was a rare congenial magician (someone easy to get along with, I know, but we exist I swear it) and while laughing challenged him to do so. To the master's shock the driver, over the course of the next hour, repeated it just as he said he would, word for word. At this impressive feat, a plan bloomed in the master's head." Peri leaned forward and crossed his fingers conspiratorially to look around at a now quiet audience. A natural showman.

He continued when he was sure everyone wasfollowing along, "The master magician asked his driver to take his spot in theupcoming colloquium. After a spell to swap their sight and sound, the mastertook a spot in the back of the gathering to watch his prank unfold. To hiscredit, not only did the driver give the lecture perfectly again, but wascapable of answering the questions of the attending magicians. However, therewas an upstart magician in the audience that was working with something themaster had proven earlier in his career but had nothing to do with the currentlecture. In blatant disregard of what was appropriate, the upstart not onlyasked the driver to clarify what was meant in a particular portion of the oldwork, but insinuated that it was deliberately convoluted to hide the master'slack of understanding." The men in the small audience, including the paladins,were now leaning forward, listening intently, not only waiting for thepunchline but taken in by Pericles's story, his charisma. Pericles had an airabout him, there was something to his easy posture and smiling eyes. Hecontinued, "The driver gave him a, 'tsk, tsk, tsk' and without a moment ofhesitation replied, 'The answer is so simple, I'll have my driver tell you.'"

The whole tavern shook with the men's laughter. Even Maxxon's trepidation aboutgoing into the forest couldn't keep the laughter from shaking his chest. Heliked Pericles already. Maxxon waited for Pericles to tell a few more jokes andfor the little audience to disperse. With the seven of them now left with theirown table Maxxon said, "We leave with first light, sound good?" His responsewas a round of murmurs and a groan from Pericles, but nobody disagreed.