Page 3 of Crucible of Chaos

‘The Abbey of Isola Sombra is less than half a mile across the causeway,’ Estevar observed. ‘The monks are known for their gracious hospitality to all who arrive at their gates. Why await me here? Unless it was to prevent me from reaching them myself?’

Sir Daven slid a gauntleted hand into his cloak and withdrew a cylinder of black leather roughly eight inches long and barely an inch in diameter. The message sheath was banded in azure and bore a silver wax seal of a wasp shattering a shield: the hereditary insignia of the Margraves of Someil. ‘I know the Greatcoats have oft been at odds with the nobles of this duchy, Eminence, but my lord is no enemy to the new king, nor to his magistrates.’

Estevar eyed the black leather tube warily. Bribing magistrates was a common tactic for those with a vested interest in the outcome of a case. The lord caravanner had offered him a small fortune to avoid a trial. Was this some attempt by the Margrave of Someil to secure a ruling against the Abbey of Isola Sombra, whose legendary obstinance in refusing to pay taxes–either to the king or to the local nobility– rested upon the dubious claim that their tiny island was by tradition a sovereign nation unto itself?

‘Please,’ Sir Daven said, jabbing the message sheath at Estevar’s chest, ‘read my lord’s words and heed them, I beg you.’

Imperious attempted to bite off the knight’s hand. When that failed, he snatched the leather cylinder away from him.

‘Cease, you avaricious beast,’ Estevar growled, yanking the crushed tube from between the mule’s teeth. ‘Save your appetite for the abbey, where we shall shortly be feasted as befits visiting dignitaries.’

He undid the azure ties, unfurled the parchment and read quickly, before the rain smudged the ink, rendering the missive illegible. He checked the half-seal at the bottom of the parchment, comparing it with its mate on the other side, a security device. The rich purple-black ink he recognised as a rare mixture made of the iron-gall from an oak tree and the crushed seeds of a berry found only in this duchy: a concoction so carefully guarded by the margraves that even the finest forgers found it near-impossible to reproduce. All of which suggested the document was authentic, which made the five lines scrawled upon it all the more troubling.

From his Lordship Alaire, Margrave of Someil,

Warden of the March, Defender of the Faith,

To you, my friend, in earnest warning,

As you love life and value your soul,

you will not set foot on Isola Sombra.

A blaze ignited in Estevar’s belly, chasing away the cold and wet, even the ache of his wound. When bribery was deemed unlikely to succeed, the nobility all too often resorted to blackmail and bullying.

‘A threat?’ he demanded, crushing the parchment in his fist as the rain poured down even harder, the thunder in the sky above punctuating his outburst. ‘Your precious margrave would seek to intimidate a Greatcoat into abandoning his lawful mission? Does he so fear what the Abbot of Isola Sombra might reveal to me of his activities that he’d stoop to—?’

‘Abbot Venia no longer rules Isola Sombra,’ the knight said icily, his countenance darkening. ‘He who once defied kings now cowers beneath the covers inside his tower while madness and devilry reigns over that holiest of islands!’

Estevar could barely restrain his laughter. ‘Has the cold and damp frozen that helmet to your head, Sir Knight? You speak of two hundred pampered, petulant monks as if they were an army of invading soldiers!’

Sir Daven shook his head, sending splatters of rain onto Estevar’s face and beard. ‘Not soldiers, sir, but warlocks– heretics who dabble in curses and necromancy, perverting their bodies in unholy orgies—’

Estevar cut him off. ‘Enough. I am a Greatcoat, not some backwoods constable to be frightened off with childish tales of witchcraft. As the King’s Crucible, it falls to me to investigate cases suspected of supernatural intervention. I have witnessed hundreds of occult rituals all across this country– some genuine, most elaborate trickery, but none the preposterous pantomime you’re ascribing to the brethren of Isola Sombra.’ He handed the black leather cylinder to Sir Daven. ‘You call yourself a sheriff outrider? If the Margrave of Someil truly believes some nefarious demon worship to have taken hold of the abbey, surely he would have sent a contingent of his finest knights to investigate, rather than have you wait out here in the rain like an unwanted pup?’

The knight refused to take back the sheath, saying instead, ‘Look inside the cylinder, Eminence; a second document awaits your perusal.’

Estevar cursed himself for failing to notice the smaller piece of parchment tight against the inside of the case. He had to dig it out with his fingernail before unfolding what turned out to be an elaborate sketch of a naked man such as one might find in a medical text. What made it unusual were the strange markings covering the body: esoteric sigils in designs unrecognisable to Estevar despite his years of research into the esoteric traditions of Tristia.

‘My Lorddidsend a dozen of my fellow knights to investigate,’ Sir Daven said defiantly. ‘When they emerged the next morning. . .’ He paused, visibly shaken by whatever memories plagued him. ‘Twelve braver, steadier men and women I have never known, yet not one of them has uttered a word since their return. They sit in separate chambers within the margrave’s fortress, attended to by his personal physicians–not clerics, mind you, trainedphysicians–who claim their souls have fled their bodies.’

‘There has to be a logical explanation,’ Estevar murmured, returning the picture and the margrave’s message to the cylinder before placing it in a pocket of his greatcoat. ‘There isalwaysan explanation.’

Steel returned to the younger man’s eyes as they locked on Estevar’s. ‘Theories and conjectures do not fall within my purview, Eminence, nor was I sent here merely to await your displeasure.’ He lifted the ivory horn strapped to his side and jabbed his other hand towards the six stone towers rising from the dense greyness. ‘Should anyone or anythingcome back across that causeway, my orders are to first raise the alarm, then fend off whatever chaos has been spawned in the cloisters of Isola Sombra until help arrives or death takes me!’

Holding the knight’s gaze, Estevar sifted through what clues he could discern in the younger man’s determined expression. Were the clenched jaw and stiff posture signs of the unyielding devotion to duty so often espoused by Tristian knights, or mere melodrama meant to frighten away one of the King’s Magistrates before he could interfere in whatever schemes were unfolding on Isola Sombra?

Estevar’s fever-addled brain rebelled against him, alerting him instead to the flush in his cheeks and the burning ache in his side. What business did he have setting foot upon the ill-fated isle at the end of that storm-drenched causeway armed with nothing but a rapier, his arrogance and a cantankerous mule?

‘Heed my liege’s warning, Eminence, I beg you,’ Sir Daven said, no doubt sensing Estevar’s wavering intentions.

How strange that only moments before, he’d been ready to abandon this place and ignore Abbot Venia’s plea for him to arbitrate the dispute between his contentious monks. Now that this same dispute had exploded into something far more unsettling, Estevar found himself unable to walk away.

He knew himself to be a ludicrous figure in the eyes of many: a foreigner to these shores who dared demand a place among the legendary Greatcoats; a fat, pompous buffoon who insisted on fighting his own duels when younger and fitter men would have refused; an eccentric who alone among the King’s Travelling Magistrates investigated crimes attributed to witches, demons and sundry other supernatural forces. In short, Estevar Borros was a silly fool, driven by his innate stubbornness as much as his affinity for the law. But there was yet one more failing to which he was ever subservient– the one that, even more than his arrogance, had led him to accept the most recent duel: the persistent, impossible-to-quiet voice that had brought him from his homeland across the sea to this strange, troubled nation. The addiction was more potent than any drug, a nagging need that could overpower even the pain of a festering wound in his side.

Looking towards the abbey in the sea, contemplating what chaos awaited, he murmured, ‘I am curious.’

‘What?’ asked Sir Daven, grabbing his arm.

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