Part XII
The cold winds of Frostmarch night stung his bare face, yet he seemed not to notice. A light rain had added to the night’s frigid embrace. They had been following the Archbishop for nearly an hour, and by now, the drizzle had done well to completely soak Bishop Johan Landcaster’s long coat. To a normal man, the cold winds and even colder rain would make for a rather unpleasant evening.
Yet again, the Bishop seemed not to notice.
The former Inquisitor had been fueled this evening with a zealous fire that burned through his entire body and soul. Not only a few hours prior, he had been but one of a handful of disparaged clergymen within the Church of Decus, a man whom stood helpless in the face of a menace whose treachery had been well hidden from the world of Eden. Yet now, he was a man on a mission, a veritable Avatar in pursuit of justice and truth; the truth behind Archbishop Anslem and his true nature.
The day had started normal enough. Early morning worship in the Cathedral, a walk through the training yards of the Academy. Lunch with Stephen Abimelech, a young Templar he had taken friendship with nearly five years ago. An afternoon of solemn mourning for a son still declared missing in action, abandoned in the colonies of the old world. Even his early evening had been uneventful, until that gentle rapping upon his chamber door…
Xtopherus, he called himself. A Tender of the Church Garden. Landcaster had long known of the horrors that the Garden had been responsible for dealing with; necromancy, daemonic forces, and even relics of the Illblooded. He held a certain disdain for the Garden and its methods, yet their presence within the Republic had been needed. The Consortium could not be entrusted with certain knowledge and secrets the Church held, and thus was the Garden’s role within the great Republic to handle that in which was both sacred and blasphemous.
The man’s features had belied his weathered soul, for his eyes spoke the tale of a man who has seen more than a lifetime’s worth of horrors. This look alone had been enough to convince Landcaster to parlay with the Tender, for on any other occasion, he would of simple dismissed the man from his presence out of disgust. After their conversation, Landcaster had been truly thankful he hadn’t bid the mysterious soul farewell, for he brought with him words that would forever change both the life of Johan Landcaster, and the future of the Venerated Republic itself.
“I’ve evidence of the Archbishop’s treason.”
It had been the first words out of the Tender’s mouth, and what would follow had been the last piece of a puzzle the Bishop had been attempted to put together over the past four years under Archbishop’s Landcaster’s rule. The young man spoke of inconceivable atrocities. Men and women, Republic citizens, the subject of horrifying and blasphemous tests, by order of the Archbishop himself.
There had been the tale of terrifying and deadly creations, the results of the Torment mutating and shaping the human body into new and frightful creations. The story of magical experimentations, with arcana and spells unlike even the most knowledgeable of necromancer had heard of, had been a shocking revelation. Yet the tale of how the Archbishop himself would grace the Garden with his presence, and demonstrate such mastery over both the Torment and the foul and new magics had been the most disturbing of all the stories.
Yet they had all been just that in the end; stories. The Garden had been a classified endeavor, and access to its halls and dungeons were fiercely guarded. To secure evidence from its hallowed halls was nigh impossible.
And then came the second revelation of the evening. The Tender claimed to have firsthand knowledge of a secret parlay the Archbishop had planned and ordered, involving certain elements of the Garden handpicked due to their proficiency with the dark magics they had been tasked with using, and including that of some of the horrid creations birthed of the Torment. A trek had been scheduled for that very night, to an abandoned village nestled in the outskirts of Tor.
Landcaster had wasted little time in making a decision, one that could lead to the proof he needed in revealing the Archbishop as the traitor he undoubtedly was. He hurriedly rushed through the streets of the Torian senate, calling upon those he could trust in secret, telling them of his newfound information. By the tenth bell of the night, he and seven others faithful to the cannon of Decus and the Church absolute, gathered to meet with their new Tender benefactor outside the walls of Tor.
And so did eight began their trek down the path of truth, following an unmarked caravan out of the Republic capital, enshrouded in darkness. Through the quiet countryside they stalked their prey; the Archbishop of the Venerated Republic and a handful of his most trusted men.