The Codex Lacrimae: The Book of Tears

Chapter 42: A Shadow from Byzantium

"Ah, Dietrich and Clarinda," Brother Braunen said from the far side of the ward where Aurelius and Mogthrasir confronted each other. He opened his arms, saying, "Welcome to our little corner of Hel."

"You've broken the covenants, Abbadon," Clarinda said, warily moving closer to Old Nick in his 'Brother Braunen'disguise. He and Hela stood near the rightmost of the two runeportecaskets.

"Me?" The old man chuckled, stamping the flagstones with his cane. "No, my dear, I've done nothing except follow your precedent. When Fate intervenes as directly as you did, all rules become malleable."

"No. When I told you both to leave the scriptorium, I was making sure that you stopped directly influencing events."

"That's where you were mistaken, Clarinda," Hela said. "Abbadon's greatest power is influence, and it rarely has to be exerted directly, if at all—usually, the mere inkling of an idea of an actual deed is enough to set most humans on Perdition's Path. No one, not even Fate, can control that impulse."

"Und for you to try to control it," Brother Braunen chided, grinning, "for you to actually use your position and authority as Urd to send Hela away, well, that caused more of a break in the covenants than any I could have attempted. Well done, Clarinda. You've freed Death and Hell on this planet a millennium before I'd dared hoped!"

"So, Braunen," Dietrich said, taking a different path than Clarinda, in the direction of the other casket, "after all these centuries, you reveal yourself. You're not just a rogue druid as Taliesin and I believed, but the Incarnation of Evil for this dimensional plane?"

"I tried to warn both of you," the old Hospitaller replied, shrugging his shoulders. "All I can say is that, unlike our new Aspect of Fate here, Hela and I have never acted directly."

Clarinda frowned at that, sensing another untruth and raced through her memories to try to find the thread that would unweave the Devil's lies.

Hela murmured something to one of the Wilde Jagd members who'd brought another dead knight to the black coffin beside her. As if hefting a sack of flour, the cadaverous figure tossed the corpse of the Hospitaller into the writhing mass roiling upward from the shadows of the sarcophagus. The black and green flames limning the frame of the runeporte increased in intensity.

"The rules are broken now," Hela said, smiling at Clarinda. "With Fate acting directly on this plane as you're doing, Death and Evil may do what they may. At least I'm putting my Wilde Jagd and these newly dead men to productive use."

Clarinda grimaced. She turned Cerys' wood chip in her fingers, the memory of the witch's words vivid: Remember this, Clarinda Trevisan: I am the Daughter of the Sun, and for those of Titan-blood, it takes but a thought to summon Youdic the Damned. His response is traumatizing to all except the Elder Powers.

"Why have you brought the woman?" Dietrich asked.

"Truly, Dietrich?" Braunen replied. "You'd try to distract me with a question while you try for a last-minute stab at that casket? Try a spell! Hit it with that staff! Nothing will affect this runeporte."

The Arch-Mage crossed his arms over his chest. "Again, why is the woman here? She was with you shortly after I appeared too."

"I know she was." The old man lightly tapped Rebecca's back with the end of his cane, making her flinch. "Let's ask her. Lady Rebecca, why are you here?" Braunen's features and physical form changed as he spoke, blurring into someone whom neither Dietrich nor Clarinda had ever seen. Stoutly built, but fit and muscular, the stranger had a handsome face with a distinctive, bushy mustache.