Chapter 958: Severing Fate (Part Two)
Now that she could focus without distraction, Heila turned all of her attention to the glittering lines of the ritual that was even now consuming the lives of Loman’s acolytes.
This wasn’t her first time seeing the magic of Oracles, but it was the first time she’d had a chance to see it in a ritual that was simple enough to be understandable, and the differences between the magic of Oracles and the magic of Witches were shocking.
A witch’s magic was a natural, living, breathing thing. It moved and flowed, twisted and bent. There were rules, yes, but very little was rigid. If you placed a boulder in a stream, the water would flow around it. Place enough boulders and you could transform a stream into a pond, or divert its course into a new direction, but even then, it was difficult to dictate the new course the stream would take, as water found its own paths of least resistance.
When she inspected Loman’s ritual, however, there was none of the twisting, winding, loosely guided chaos that characterized much of witchcraft. Everything was fixed in place, like the stars in the heavens, connected by precise glittering lines and perfect arcs. There were no kinks in the flow of the energy, no points where it had to bend around something else or give way...
The magic or Oracles felt almost... Imperious. Arrogant. Vast and mysterious, resplendent in its perfection. At the same time, there was a distance to all of it, as if it looked down from high above and only deigned to influence the ordinary world if it was approached with reverence.
"Is this always how it was?" Heila wondered as she carefully inserted her Severing Knife in between the lines of starlight, carefully testing them before trying to cut anything. "Did the Church make it feel like this? Or did the Church change because their magic made them like this?" she muttered.
It was something that she would have to discuss with Ignatious when she returned to the Vale of Mists, but for now, it wasn’t important. The important thing was to cut Matthias and his companions free of the ritual that bound them and then deal with the wounded Lothian lord.
"You don’t really understand what you’re doing, do you, Loman?" Heila asked, glancing over her shoulder at the priest in tattered robes who still clutched his Bow of Stars as if it were his most treasured possession. "You repeat the ritual exactly as you’re taught, but you don’t understand it at all... that’s why it’s so brittle."
"I understand the will of the Holy Lord of Light and His grand designs as well as any man can," Loman said with a frown. "It isn’t for a servant of the Lord to question His designs; he need only carry out the Lord’s will," he said as if he were reciting scripture.
"No wonder you don’t know how to unmake what you’ve brought to life," Heila said with a frown. "If you’d had a real teacher, a good teacher like Auntie Amahle, you’d never do something like this. Whoever taught you sorcery wasn’t kind to you or anyone in your church," she said as she returned her gaze to the withered man trapped by the bumbling priest’s sorcery.
A bit of color had returned to Matthias’s cheeks as Heila’s potion fortified his body against the draining effects of the sorcery. A simple potion couldn’t resist Loman’s magic entirely, but now she believed that he had a fighting chance.
"I called this ritual brittle for a reason," she told Matthias, hoping she could bolster his confidence by explaining what was happening, but also hoping that she could convince the others to participate.
"I can break you free of this," Heila said confidently. "But when I do, the entire ritual will shatter. It will release everyone all at once because the threads that bind you together are so fragile, it’ll be like cutting one strand of a spider’s web. That’s also where the danger is," she added as she swept her gaze over the remaining four acolytes.
"Just like cutting one thread on a spider’s web, once the first strand is severed, the rest will blow away," she explained, looking each withered acolyte directly in the eyes in turn. "And if it brushes up against you or clings to you, you can get caught in what remains, even if I’ve cut Matthias free."
"You’re saying that if you save him, it will kill the others?" Loman asked, furrowing his brow as he heard the demon’s proposal. Now, it seemed, the truth was coming out. The witch offered salvation, but only for one man at the expense of sacrificing his fellows. It was exactly the kind of divisive, selfish manipulation that pitted one man against his neighbor that the Church had always warned the faithful about. "You might as well give Brother Matthias the knife to kill his own brothers with if..."
"Don’t twist my words, you stupid, bumbling, amateur!" Heila snapped, interrupting the battered priest before his insidious words could trick the man she was trying to save into rejecting her help. "I swear that when this is over, I will personally bind you in vines and drag you to Ignatious to burn away your foolishness! This is what happens when you meddle in things you do not understand," she fumed.
"I’m trying to tell you that I can cut Matthias free, but the others will die for certain if they don’t drink the same medicine he did," Heila said as she glowered at Loman. "But they’ve already pledged themselves to you, so they can reach your ’Heavenly Shores’ when your ritual kills them, so I need you, Loman Lothian, to demonstrate that you have half the courage that Sir Carwyn did and order your men to accept my help, or all of them will die!"
Instantly, all eyes fell on Loman as the acolytes turned to the man who had led them through this entire crisis. He was battered, bloody, and his once awe-inspiring black and silver robes hung in tatters on his body, but none of the acolytes saw a man who was defeated.
Instead, they saw a man who defined ’meeting his struggle.’ He was still holding his glittering Bow of Stars, ready to fight until the very last breath. He was still watching over them, even now that there was a demon witch in their midst. He hadn’t forsaken them or his faith and he even spoke up when he felt the demon was leading them astray.
To the men of faith who had survived the harrowing ritual, Loman Lothian looked even more sacred and holy than he had when this all began.
"Paeril said it first," Acolyte Oakil said as he knelt on the cold stones of the tower’s roof and bowed his head toward Loman. "I place my faith in you, Disciple Loman. I will die for you and the Holy Lord of Light if He requires my death," he said solemnly.
"I will die for you, Disciple Loman," Paeril said as he knelt on the ground. "Speak the words, and I will struggle to my last breath against this witch. I will not fail you."
"No, don’t, please," Matthias pleaded as he looked at the reverent expressions on his companions’ faces. "This isn’t right. Isn’t the most holy thing we could do right now to continue the struggle? The hardest thing we can do right now is to accept the help of a witch, isn’t it? And if we receive her aid, we can struggle on for many years to come. Please.... Haven’t enough of our friends died tonight? Why do you have to die too?"
In the end, it was Matthias’s heartfelt plea, along with his reminder, that broke Loman’s resistance. His vision had narrowed, he realized, when he picked up the Bow of Stars to kill his enemies, and as long as he held it, he struggled to think of anything beyond hunting down the demons that threatened his people until there were none left alive that could harm the faithful.
But there were many ways to meet a man’s struggle in this life, and countless paths to the Heavenly Shores beyond death. Somehow, he’d forgotten that when the fog of war enveloped him.
"Accept her help," Loman said, letting the glittering Bow of Stars dissipate at last as he slumped to the cold stone roof. "Live to struggle on tomorrow, and the day after, and as many days after as we have left."
"She’s right," he finally admitted with a deep, heavy sigh. "The battle is lost, and if we refuse to admit that, then we’re turning away from the light of truth. Do what you must to save my people, witch," he said, looking at the withered acolytes with eyes that finally saw the toll this night had taken on them. "They will not resist your help," he promised.