Page 77 of Crucible of Chaos

Mother Leogado, reluctant but intrigued, joined them. ‘We’ve seen the evidence of that perverse ritual’s effects. But it is one thing to invoke dark magics to transfigure a depraved and debauched monk into something approximating a demon, quite another to create a living god.’

Opening his notebook, he displayed the sketches he’d made of the sigil-covered male and female figures etched upon the walls of Venia’s secret chamber. ‘Sin has no more substance than holiness. But neither are they mere inclinations, to be conjured and banished like idle thoughts. Rather, both are manifestations of—’

‘Faith,’ Malezias said from where he crouched by the wall, hurling the word like an oath at them all. ‘You speak of faith as if you understood its potency. You don’t. None of you understand.’

‘But Abbot Venia understood, didn’t he?’ Estevar asked.

Malezias sank in on himself, staring down at the floor between his feet. ‘Aye, he understood,’ he muttered.

‘Perhaps someone could explain it to me?’ Caeda said. Her voice was cold, spiritless. ‘If I’m to judge this proceeding, I ought to understand the weapon used to commit the crime, shouldn’t I?’

Strigan turned, his eyes widening in momentary surprise and confusion. ‘Who the hell—? Oh, what shy little mouse has crept inside our hole? I have a little mouse that would dearly love to creep inside you—’

‘Stop,’ Estevar said, keeping a wary eye on Malezias, but the big man stayed where he was, showing no more emotion than Caeda herself. Perhaps he’d lost his faith at last.

‘How did she get in here?’ Mother Leogado demanded, drawing one of her two curved shortswords from the scabbard at her side. ‘Speak true, girl, else I’ll—Wait, I remember now.’ She turned to Estevar, scowling as if her forgetfulness were his doing. ‘You said you couldn’t preside over the trial because you were prosecuting the case against us. We asked who else could serve as magistrate, and you chose her.’

‘But she can’t be here,’ Brother Agneta protested, levelling her pistol at Caeda. ‘She’s dead. Venia killed her.’

The others stared in mute horror at the young woman sitting on a rock in the middle of the torchlit cavern. For the first time since Estevar had met her, she did indeed look like a ghost come to haunt them for their sins.

More howling erupted from the maze of tunnels outside, follow by the shrieking of iron gates being ripped from stone walls as Venia’s demonic apostles made their way, slowly but surely, towards the prayer caves.

‘I will not speak for anyone else,’ Brother Agneta said, a tremor in her voice, the pistol shaking in her hand, ‘but I find myself eager to learn how this trial is supposed to banish the devils who will soon be at our door.’

Estevar resumed his pacing, this time around the pages he’d arranged on the floor. ‘Venia wondered the same thing. With his flock divided, squabbling over different interpretations of religious doctrine even as they abandoned the moral virtues upon which the abbey was founded, he deciphered the sigils of thePurgadisritual, hoping to inscribe upon the flesh of a single individual the sins of the entire community, thus liberating Isola Sombra from its moral defects.’

‘Me,’ Caeda said quietly. ‘You’re talking about me. That’s why he locked me up in the infirmary, strapped me to a table and dug those needles into my skin. The ink stank of blood and filth as he was drawing those awful symbols all over my—’ She held up her arm, stared at the pale, unmarked flesh. ‘How could it have washed away so completely after he threw me from the cliff?’ Her eyes went to Malezias, who refused to meet her gaze. ‘You told me the salt water washed most of them away, and you cleansed the rest from me– but you lied, didn’t you?’

‘Why would Abbot Venia not have spoken to the rest of us about his experiments if he was willing to go so far as to enact thePurgadisritual for the first time in centuries?’ Brother Agneta asked. Evidently, she had either forgotten or dismissed Caeda’s presence once again. ‘Strigan, Leogado and I had nearly as much support from the brethren as he did.’

Estevar retrieved the pages. ‘The answer is simple enough: by the time he’d made his discovery, you’d split the brethren into factions. He tried to reconcile you all, but the Margrave of Someil’s designs upon the island had become clear and Venia believed he had to prove his theories correct in order to forestall the takeover of the island.’

‘As I’ve been saying for months!’ Mother Leogado insisted. ‘The margrave has long sought to conquer Isola Sombra—’

‘Actually,’ Estevar corrected her softly, ‘Someil’s generals and nobles refused to support his intended conquest, which is why he fell prey to the urgings of Sir Daven, a knight secretly working for someone else.’

‘Who?’ Agneta asked.

Estevar shrugged. ‘Alas, I was unable to extract that testimony from Sir Daven before I killed him.’

‘Youkilleda Knight of the March of Someil?’ Strigan demanded, standing far too close to Estevar. ‘We’re the ones on trial andour accuseris a confessed murderer?’

‘It seems to me that there is plenty of murder to go around,’ Caeda observed from her rocky throne. ‘Proceed, Eminence.’

‘Ah, is that Caeda I see?’ Strigan began, wiggling his hips. ‘Have you come to—?’

‘Pay attention, you idiot,’ Brother Agneta said, pairing her injunction with a slap that sent the naked monk reeling. ‘If you look at her every minute or so, the memory of her doesn’t fade.’

Mother Leogado was staring at Caeda with the unflinching determination of a soldier wading onto a battlefield although outnumbered by the enemy a hundred to one. ‘And whydowe keep failing to remember her? Is this some consequence of thePurgadisritual? Or are all ghosts so forgettable?’

Estevar looked at Caeda, saw that she wasn’t ready for the answer and returned to the more mundane facts of the case. ‘AsI was saying, the poisoned wine exacerbated your obsessions, leading you to retreat to your own corners of the abbey to plot against one another, even as you railed against your brethren plotting against you.’

‘Not me,’ Brother Agneta reminded him. ‘I haven’t drunk a drop in twenty years.’ Her grip on her pistol was steady again. ‘Nothing worse for the aim than shaking hands.’

‘Alas, my dear, your particular form of paranoia is the product of your inquisitor’s training and unpleasant disposition rather than any toxin.’

’I still don’t understand,’ Strigan complained, grabbing Estevar’s notebook from his hand and staring uncomprehending at the illustrations inside. ‘If Venia failed with Caeda, why did he then repeat his experiments on me?’

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