CHAPTER 1248: KHOSROW'S FANE III

Disappointments kept coming as they made their way through Khosrow’s Fane. Beneath the luster, the shining stone, a change was happening that Leon, who had never been to the fane before, couldn’t identify. But Gwarim, who had visited often enough, could hardly walk a single block without bemoaning another lost ‘monument’; another lost tavern, brothel, fighting arena, or other place of relatively ill repute. Archelaus, meanwhile, pointed out the loss of statues, monoliths, and other less ambiguous monuments, which their entire group was finding to be far more widespread than they’d thought now that they had realized the scale of change.

“… but why this one?” Elise wondered aloud as they stared at the bare stone in the center of an empty marble forum. The marble had been laid over gray limestone bedrock, a square of which was now visible with the absence of the monument.

“I can hardly say,” Archelaus whispered as Gwarim sullenly glared at the bare stone. “It was a beautiful piece: a pillar of white and blue moonstone about as thick as I am tall. The surface had been carved into an extensive relief that spiraled up to the capital, which described in glorious detail the Third Transplanar Campaign of Kavad, son of Khosrow. The campaign was one of the wildest successes in the entire war, with Kavad facing off against a force of a dozen Primal Gods, a million angels, and hundreds of millions of their worshippers. Fifty thousand planes held in their fell grip, but in a brilliant campaign lasting only two decades, Kavad out-maneuvered, divided, and then defeated the Primal Gods in detail, winning all fifty thousand planes for Khosrow’s cause.”

“An impressive feat,” Leon said, no small amount of awe stirring within him at the mere idea of such a wide-ranging campaign. He knew that Mir, the sentient lance now at the summit of Westmount, detested Kavad and Khosrow for its treatment, but Leon couldn’t help himself. Even Jason Keraunos had inspired awe for his assault on the Great Strand of Nia, which had ‘only’ added ten thousand new planes to the territory of the Storm Lords; and Kavad had done that five times over, while contending with Primal Gods and their most powerful angelic servants.

Or so Archelaus claimed, anyway; a small part of Leon’s mind immediately discounted it as exaggeration, even if the core of it was true.

“The major battles, triumphs and setbacks both, wound their way up the pillar,” Archelaus reminisced. “At the top was a statue of Kavad himself, holding his lance high, proclaiming his conquests to be the domain of humanity.”

“Seems like an odd thing to get rid of in Khosrow’s Fane,” Leon remarked.

“Odd indeed…” Archelaus murmured. “Perhaps we’ll find answers in the War Gallery. And if not there, then certainly in the monastery around the fane itself…” His eyes turned to the hill where the temple to Khosrow stood—or more accurately, to the black buildings that surrounded the fane, through which black-robed monks walked and worked.

The party continued past the empty forum, encountering people once again just a few streets over where they had packed into a small marketplace that their route was taking them. So crowded was it that their group had to stop and return to the ground, forgoing flying for the time being out of respect for the fane’s height limit.

However, as they approached the edge of the crowd, it became clear that the people weren’t browsing shops, socializing, or doing anything else they might be expected to do at a marketplace, but rather craning their necks and straining their ears to listen to what a man in plain brown robed was shouting above the din.

“… be a lesson to all those who consort with powers profane and evil! In the land of man, no power but that of man shall hold sway! See him, know the face of evil, and remain alert! Watch your neighbors for signs of similar corruption and report them immediately if even the slightest sign is recognized!”

“What is…?” Gwarim murmured as their party, almost in unison, turned to see what was happening.

On the far side of the marketplace was a short rostrum, atop which stood the brown-robed man and five others. The brown-robed man himself looked rather like those in black robes—his robes were simple and unadorned and cinched around his waist with plain rope. His head was shaven completely, sparing not even his eyebrows, while his fairly tan skin glistened in the afternoon light. His aura, however, was a marked departure from the black-robed men Leon had seen thus far in that it was resplendent with the power of an eleventh-tier mage.

Four of the other men on the rostrum were similarly dressed and radiated tenth-tier auras. Two stood at the ready, their feet slightly spread as they listened to the brown-robed man’s words. The other two were holding the final man between them, enchanted black chains binding him so completely that Leon couldn’t even sense the prisoner’s aura.

The prisoner’s face, however, was free, and Leon’s eyes immediately narrowed as he noticed the telltale signs of vampirism: pale skin, fangs glinting in his snarling mouth, and a faint whiff of demonic power in his aura. Unlike the heat of Xaphan’s power, however, Leon’s hair stood slightly on end as his magic senses swept over the prisoner. He was sworn to a lightning demon, but more than that, Leon was startled to sense that the prisoner was also eleventh-tier. A dark scowl seemed etched upon his face, but from what Leon could tell, it wasn’t just calling upon any of his or his patron’s power that the chains prevented; his power of speech was also taken by more enchanted black metal clamped around his neck.

“Theron…!” Gwarim whispered in disbelief.

Leon opened his mouth to respond when the brown-robed man raised his hand and conjured a gleaming golden sword of such ostentatiousness that it seemed almost alien in his hand.

“Let the light of Khosrow meet him and cleanse both body and soul!” the brown-robed man roared as the crowd cheered.

Gwarim’s aura spiked as the brown-robed man turned to face the prisoner. It was clear that the prisoner—Theron, apparently—was about to be sent into the arms of his Ancestors, and Gwarim wasn’t about to let that happen.

“HALT!” the Despot thundered as he took back to the air, rising to just below the height limit even as his stormy aura slammed into the crowd like a lightning bolt. Before his voice had echoed more than once, his half dozen guards had already joined him, presenting a powerful front against the brown-robed man and his four flunkies.

People screamed and jolted back from Gwarim, and the brown-robed man froze just as it seemed he was about to strike down Theron. Slowly, he turned, his golden sword still raised, and glared at Gwarim.

“You dare to interrupt me?!” he hissed.

“What madness has taken you?!” Gwarim growled, his cavernously deep voice rumbling across the marketplace, audible even above the mass of people breathing and whimpering between him and the rostrum, though at least the screaming had stopped. Many of the people were even peeling away from the crowd and getting away from the market, surging past the rest of Leon’s group.

“This creature has profaned his perfect human form!” Brown Robe shouted back at Gwarim. “He is a threat to all of humanity, and will be dealt with accordingly!” He made to turn back around, but Gwarim’s aura surged, slamming down upon him and halting his movements.

The other four eleventh-tier mages on the rostrum drew weapons of their own and added their auras to Brown Robe’s countering Gwarim’s.

Sensing the direction this was heading, Leon glanced first at his ladies. Elise was looking incredibly concerned, but when her emerald eyes met Leon’s, she nodded resolutely, understanding immediately what he was asking. Valeria didn’t have to go that far as her aura roiled and churned, her desire to step in almost tangible; she was in full agreement with Leon. Cassandra and Maia, meanwhile, didn’t seem to care much about what was going on, but they were both down for a good fight.

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A glance at Archelaus told a more reticent story, with the man looking extremely reluctant to intervene. However, he bowed slightly to Leon and stepped back, wordlessly excusing himself from the conflict.

With that done, Leon took to the sky as Gwarim and Brown Robe continued exchanging barbs and threats. His family, Paladins, and then his guards, followed suit.

“He is my friend more than anything else!” Gwarim roared as he started threateningly floating toward the rostrum. Leon noted that the brown-robed men on the rostrum were still ready to fight, and hardly blinked even as Leon joined Gwarim at his side. The larger man paused briefly to nod at Leon in mild surprise, then kept his slow and steady approach.

“Your threats mean nothing here!” Brown Robe insisted. “No man is foolish enough to defy the will of the Great Lord! If they were, then they’d incur the wrath of all those within Khosrow’s Law!”

“If you harm so much as a hair on that man’s head,” Gwarim spat, the marketplace now largely cleared of people save for those who were hiding behind stalls and watching with bated breath, “then no power in all of the Great Strand of Lux will save you from me.”

Quietly, Leon called upon his magic and began gently pushing the few remaining people in the marketplace away, and most of them seemed to get the picture. A few more required him to practically pick them up and almost throw them out of the marketplace, ensuring that if violence broke out, there at least wouldn’t be any civilian casualties.

“The Sun King himself has guaranteed the peace and autonomy of Khosrow’s Fane,” Brown Robe said with an arrogant smirk. To his credit, it at least caused Gwarim to pause his slow advance. “I am sacrosanct; with a word, I will castigate you before the universe and turn you into an enemy of all good men who live under the guidance of the Great Lord!”

“You talk too much,” Gwarim responded as he resumed his advance. “The Sun King isn’t here, you sparkless fool. No matter how fresh or cool the water of a distant lake is, it won’t quench your thirst in the here and now…”

Gwarim’s head tilted slightly as Leon felt a brush against his mental defenses. Recognizing the source as Gwarim himself, Leon let his power in.

[Leon, my new friend,] Gwarim silently said even as Brown Robe reiterated his previous threats, his confidence not shaken at all. [Will you fight alongside me, if the need arises?]

Leon gave him an almost disbelieving look. [You had my back on Voidshore. I wouldn’t be at your side now if I was going to leave you high and dry.]

Gwarim smiled in gratitude, then summoned an enormous double-bladed ax from his soul realm. One of the blades was long and viciously sharp; the other was shorter and thicker. The first was made for slicing through flesh, while the other blade was more for crushing and punching through armor. The blades themselves were made of Adamant and sparked with golden lightning, while the haft was a dark red wood that practically sang to Leon’s magic senses. Enchantments were inscribed along the haft increasing the power of lightning that flowed through the weapon, while light magic enchantments on the blades themselves showed that the element, renowned for its unparalleled healing capabilities, could also be incredibly brutal—the light magic would part flesh like a surgeon’s scalpel, in effect drastically increasing the cutting power of the weapon.

The mountain of a man didn’t don his armor, but his six guards did. As Leon drew Iron Pride, four of his Tempest Knights remained with Elise while everyone else in his entourage summoned their weapons and armor.

“I see you will not listen to reason…” Brown Robe whispered in disappointment. “For that, we’ll have to—” His words caught in his throat as magic fluttered around him. His raised arm fell slightly as he turned his head, looking like he was listening to someone silently speak.

Leon scanned the area, looking for the source of that power. His senses settled around a man dressed in all black with paper white skin and the darkest hair Leon had ever seen. His eyes were the color of coal and completely lusterless, as if all the light and joy of life had been robbed from him. His face was all lines and no curves, giving him a severe, almost deathly appearance that sent a shiver down Leon’s spine. The rest of his body, too, was just as lean, but in his aura, Leon sensed strangely familiar power. He appeared to be a twelfth-tier mage just like Leon and Gwarim, but something about him seemed ancient and unknowable; he stood on the balcony of a nearby townhouse, staring down the street at the rostrum, his expression utterly impassive, as if everything going on in the marketplace was so far beneath him that he almost hadn’t deigned to get involved.

But involved he was, if the slight fluctuation of his aura indicated; he was silently speaking with Brown Robe, and the reason for it became quickly apparent.

Brown Robe scowled deeply and let his sword arm fall to his side. “Keep your profane filth, then,” he hissed. “May you both die screaming…”

With that, he returned his weapon to his soul realm and turned away. Gwarim and Leon had advanced to within a hundred feet of the rostrum by this point, more than close enough to bolt over and enact terrible violence upon Brown Robe and his followers, but both stopped in the light of this unexpected de-escalation. However, Gwarim didn’t waste a moment, darting over the second Brown Robe and his fellows stepped off the rostrum, and attempted to tear the chains off of Theron.

Theron attempted to help, but bound as he was, there wasn’t much he could do. There wasn’t much Gwarim could do, either, as the chains disrupted his power once he touched them, leaving them in something of a dilemma.

“How do we… get these damned… things off?!” he cried as he struggled to even bend the enchanted chains. “Theron, are you able to move?”

Theron shook his head, showing that not only were the chains binding his legs as well as his arms, but they’d also been attached to a ring in the center of the rostrum just behind him.

“Leon, can you help me with this?” Gwarim asked, but Leon was distracted.

Brown Robe and his four followers had set off in the direction of the deathly-pale man on the balcony, but they marched right past what seemed to be the door. Leon watched them go for a moment before his golden eyes turned and made eye contact with the pale man.

Coal-black eyes widened in visible surprise as they met shimmering gold, the stare lasting long enough to be blatant.

“Who is that?” Leon asked as the rest of their group, including Archelaus, caught up to them.

“I don’t know, but I’ll find that loud fucker’s name!” Gwarim said as he stood up to join Leon in staring down the street.

“Not him,” Leon said as he looked meaningfully at the pale man. “The man there on the balcony, staring at us…”

Gwarim looked down the street again, his eyes swiveling around before turning back to Leon. “Who? I don’t… see anyone staring at us…”

Leon’s eyes flickered to Gwarim for just long enough to break his line of sight with the pale man. “What do you mean?” he asked as he turned back to face the focus of his attention. “Hi… Where’d he go?”

The pale man had vanished in the split second that Leon’s eyes had left him, leaving the street empty, save for Brown Robe in the distance and a few citizens poking their heads out from windows and behind alley corners.

“Forget them,” Gwarim said. “Help me with Theron!”

Leon frowned, but did as requested.

The chains were strong, made of a material unknown to Leon. The enchantments were strong, too, but his eyes raced over every black link, the runes revealing their function. He parsed through inefficiencies, redundancies both intentional and not, and parts of the chain where the enchantments were weakest.

He found one link in particular where the enchantment was old and slightly damaged by warping of the metal. He pulled this link as far from Theron as he could manage, then stuck the tip of Iron Pride into it.

“Hold the chain taut,” Leon said to Gwarim, who had been looking rather balefully at the ring where the chain attached itself to the rostrum. The Despot acquiesced, grabbing hold of the chain and letting Leon put significant strength behind a thrust and pulse of lightning.

The anti-magic enchantment in the link, already strained, shattered under Leon’s applied pressure, and both Gwarim and Theron began thrashing to get the rest of the chains off of the vampire. With the chain itself now broken, the rest of the anti-magic enchantments failed, and Theron was freed in moments, chains and manacles hitting the floor of the rostrum.

“Thank you,” he rasped to Gwarim, his voice sounding strained. “I… nearly took a trip down the Aesii…” He looked at Leon gratefully, too, but wasn’t able to say anything before Gwarim jumped in.

“How did this happen?!” Gwarim demanded.

“Maybe we should leave the questions for later?” Cassandra interjected before Theron could give any answers. “The locals look like they’re getting sick of our presence…”

Indeed, many of the locals were returning to the market, and few were giving them anything less than looks of outright hatred. None of them were doing or saying anything, but as more and more were filing in and the crowd was reforming, everyone in the group agreed to leave before anything regrettable could happen.

Theron was a little weak, but with Gwarim’s support, he followed them easily enough, leaving behind the marketplace where he nearly met his end.

As they left, though, Leon couldn’t help but cast a glance over his shoulder at the balcony where the pale man had stood.

‘Who was that?’ he wondered. ‘And… his power… why was it so familiar?’