Salem's Witches (Neitherlands Book 1), page 22
She waited a moment, just in case anyone decided to answer her summons. Nobody did. Even the tumbleweed didn’t come around this time.
“Seeing as you’re too scared to display your powers, how about I show you the might of Xianuu?”
Annabella raised her claymore once more. This time, instead of bringing it down, she left it above her head, closed her eyes, and whispered a prayer.
The prayer wasn’t boomed to the whole audience.
Then, as if answering her prayers, lightning struck the claymore and, instead of electrocuting her as would have happened in a more logical story, it bounced straight to the ground, leaving a series of concentric circles burned into it, while the storm made its entrance on the city.
The mark of Xianuu.
Annabella stood there, staring at what she had just done. Or what Xianuu had just done. Or casual happenstance.
Sometimes it was difficult to pinpoint who did what. Either way, things were working out just fine.
As for her followers, at first nobody knew what had happened because, as it turns out, it’s very difficult to see the ground of a courtyard that’s hidden behind walls from a few blocks away. But some of the followers and bystanders who were nearby saw it. And they told the not-so-near ones, who told the not-so-not-so near ones, who in turn told the not-so-not-so-not-so near ones, and so on.
Soon enough, everyone knew and, being her followers, all joined together by their common hatred of Quackology, they did what was expected of them: They cheered.
Annabella took the cheering to be for her, since in the end she had been the one who’d stood up to Quackology. Perhaps Xianuu had conjured the lightning; it was likely, since she had never done anything like that before. But it was her life on the line, so the cheers had to belong to her.
She raised her hand above her head, and a moment later everyone went silent. They were probably afraid she’d use her Xianuu powers to make lightning hit them if they didn’t let her talk. It didn’t sound like such a bad idea.
“Now you know of the power of Xianuu and His envoy,” she said, her voice clearly audible over the storm. “As of this moment, the Church of Quackology has a week to cease all operations in New Wakilork and all over the Neitherlands. Should this demand not be met, there will be hell to pay.”
A week went by where nothing happened. Sure, some people in the city died and more were born and some were fired and so on, but nothing important for our story took place during that time, which meant that the date set by Annabella arrived.
Then, on that date, a church was blown up.
It happened early and, of course, unexpectedly. Most people don’t go around expecting anything around them to be blown up, unless they happen to be alchemists or students at the College of Wizardry.
Curiously, or perhaps not so much, no alchemists or wizards were involved in the event. The only person involved was a young man.
He couldn’t remember his name as he walked inside the church. It was one of the many neutral churches the Church of Quackology had bought and converted into their own. The morning meeting, as the Quackologists called their masses, was over, and most people had already left.
He was carrying a box, and he didn’t know where the box had come from.
He couldn’t remember anything before entering the church. He could only remember the box was important and he had to deliver it to the priest.
Everything else about his life was a mess, but none of that mattered. Only what the shiny red eyes had told him did.
The priest saw him and approached him. “May I help you?” he said, probably thinking of converting him to this new cult.
It was a bad cult. The eyes had said so.
“I’m tired,” he said, stalling their chat. There were still people in the church, and he couldn’t open the box just yet. Its contents were a secret, only for the priest and him.
The priest grabbed him by the arm and led him toward a pew. “Take a seat, young man. You don’t look well. Let me get you some tea.”
He didn’t answer. He sat there, counting the seconds before everyone was gone and he could fulfil his obligations. The eyes would be so happy.
The priest eventually returned, holding a cup. “Here you go,” he said as he gave the beverage to him. Then for a moment his eyes wandered toward the box. “What’s in there, young man?”
“It’s for you. A gift.”
The priest looked at him, puzzled. “Should I open it?”
“You must.” The young man smiled. The eyes had told him to smile, because smiling made things easier.
The priest grabbed the box and shook it a bit. Then he stared at its outside, as if trying to guess what it would contain.
But there was no way he could find out, because nobody knew what was in it. Only the eyes did, and they were nowhere to be found.
Perhaps defeated by curiosity, or perhaps just trying to be done with it so he could kick the strange young man out of his church, the priest opened the box.
Then he died, and the young man died, and the building itself died.
It was a sad state of affairs, and many questions were raised as to who would be sick enough to bomb a church. However, no proper information made it to the public, perhaps because nobody seemed to have any information.
The Church of Quackology, led by T. Peter Howard, made an immediate attempt to involve the Dominion, for attacks against religions were against the law. All said attempt managed to obtain was a note informing them the agents assigned to the case were on maternity leave, and therefore it would have to wait.
Said agents were known for being, among other things, men.
Since the Dominion refused to find a guilty party, Antoine LeFlay was forced to do what he did best: taking matters into his own hands. He already knew who the guilty party was, and he already had a plan. It was just a matter of making everyone see his truth.
“Can someone recount the chain of events, please?” he said right after entering the Deliberation Room, where the Quackologist High Jury had been locked up most of the day. The lack of fresh air gave the room a nice smell of human sweat. T. Peter Howard, as per LeFlay’s orders, hadn’t been invited to the reunion. “I’ve read so many conflicting reports on papers it’s difficult to know which one is true. I expect at least some of you do?”
“As per the report our investigations team gave us,” said High Jurer Stella, “it all started yesterday in the morning. A lone man entered our building in Damnation Boulevard. Minutes later it blew up.”
“Is that it?” LeFlay had expected a more thrilling story. The newspapers might have written lies, some of them involving dragons or celestial forces, but at least those stories were interesting. This one was anything but. “Is that all your team found out?”
“It did point out a murder of crows that nested atop the building flew away right after the explosion,” said another one of the judges. An old one whose name LeFlay hadn’t bothered to learn; he’d be dead soon enough anyway. “But there wasn’t much more anyone saw.”
LeFlay was disappointed. He had expected a full investigation into Annabella Bostwick’s treachery, along with enough proof that this had been her doing. That would justify an all-out war, which would allow him to destroy her, once and for all.
After all, not much time remained. He needed the war to begin, and to end, as soon as possible. Annabella had to be dealt with before Howard died, because otherwise he was sure some idiot or the other would claim it was time for her to return and inherit the leadership.
And Howard didn’t have long to live, no. The poor old man was dying up there, alone in his room all the time… It was just a matter of how soon he dropped dead, succumbing to an unknown disease just at the most convenient moment… And then, of course, it would be good ol’ Antoine who’d take the reins of his church and lead them to greatness. It was only fair his close friend and confidant continued serving.
“That’s…that’s very underwhelming,” he said. “I expected a thorough description. All you’re telling me is that the church blew up, which I already knew because, well, a god-damned church blew up.”
“We do know something else,” said High Jurer Stella. “It’s about the attacker. Our investigations say it was a young man.”
“And?”
“Well, just that. We were discussing it before you came in.” Stella sipped from her glass of water. “We think that, this being a young man, he was probably misled and lost.”
“Really?” Antoine could feel his blood starting to boil. He knew what Stella was about to say.
“Yes, it is often so with young men. Sure it is sad that we were attacked, and I feel sorry for the priest who died, but isn’t this our fault? We should teach youngsters better. After all, it is not their fault if they are misled. We have decided to start a new program to reach out to young men who might otherwise fall prey to other…interests.”
“Is that so?” If one paid attention, one could hear the telltale fizz of Antoine’s blood frothing inside his body. “Is this something everyone agrees with, that the little attacker was nothing but an innocent, misled victim of circumstance?”
All seven members of the High Jury assented. “It’s what’s common in this city,” said the old fool who couldn’t die soon enough.
Antoine was certain he was the one leaking information to Howard. “There are many young men wandering the streets, easy to manipulate. This is a lone incident, a lone-ranger kind of case, unrelated to any problems. The church is fine, Antoine.”
“I guess it is.” Antoine felt as if he was about to have a stroke, and he probably would have if he hadn’t been prepared for what was going on.
He made it a point to always be ready to deal with the idiocy of his underlings. It was a basic requirement of his job.
“Well, I’m glad this case is settled. But just so everything is discussed…” Antoine produced a folded piece of paper from his robe. “I myself interviewed several eyewitnesses, and with the help of an artist we came up with this portrait of him.”
The members of the High Jury looked bored, almost annoyed by LeFlay’s insistence that they knew all the facts. One of them even had the gall to sigh. Undaunted, LeFlay unfolded a part the picture, showing them the upper part of the young man’s face.
There was a mess of brown hair, and brown eyes. The young man’s skin had the telltale tan of those native to Ussuck. The desert people.
Antoine stopped, gauging the reactions of the High Jury. None of them said a thing about the portrait, but their faces were becoming stern, their annoyance turning to worry and…was that doubt he could see in High Jurer Stella’s eyes?
He finished unfolding the portrait to show a long, unkempt beard—the precise kind of beard that was not at all common in New Wakilork.
That did it.
“I believe we have been misled,” said High Jurer Stella. She was sweating visibly and panted slightly while she spoke. “I speak for the whole of this court when I say we must retire our previous verdict that this was a lone incident caused by a misled teenager.”
None of the other members of the jury said a thing. They all assented, looking as flustered as Stella.
“It is now clear to us, after giving this case further consideration, that this was an act of terrorism and an attack against our church. Therefore, we must declare the Church of Quackology to be at war.”
LeFlay grinned. It was all too easy, manipulating people to do as he wanted. It was just a matter of giving them the little piece of “evidence” to completely change their point of view, like showing them the face of the criminal. Knowing what the criminal looked like was often a deciding factor in a verdict.
Even when the supposed face of the criminal was anything but. But the jury didn’t know that.
He almost clapped at the verdict. Almost. He kept himself from doing so because he was, after all, supposed to be besides himself with worry at the idea of a war. Even when it gave him the perfect opportunity to get rid of that Bostwick wench once and for all.
“This is a horrible thing,” he said, unable to hide his grin, “to have our church attacked like this… Oh, but I promise I will catch the perpetrators of this act and get rid of them. I will make them pay, for nobody messes with the Church of Quackology and lives to tell the tale!”
The members of the jury applauded. This wasn’t the shy kind of applause people perform when they feel scared or confused; it was the all-out applause generally reserved for the primadonna at the opera or the Dominatrix.
“Also I must ask of all of you: Do not tell Howard of this.” LeFlay glared at the old fool with a tendency to run his mouth like a river. “He’s quite…frail of late, and it would be best if I was the one to let him know. Plus, I must remind you all I did say something like this would happen if we didn’t act quickly, and he went against my wishes at the time. Would any of you want this to happen again?”
The jury members exchanged stares. Most of them seemed to give the old fool a longer stare than the rest of their peers.
“I will make sure no information is leaked anywhere,” said High Jurer Stella. “Please give T. Peter Howard our regards, and our well wishes on his way to recovery.”
“I will,” said LeFlay as he got up and left the room.
Since he was a good man, he would tell Howard what was going on. He would also wish him, in the name of the jury, a speedy recovery.
But if things went well, he wasn’t sure Howard would be able to recover from the debilitating illness no one but LeFlay knew he had.
One of the warehouses built by the Thieves’ Guild had seen a lot of life recently. It had, until then, been a mostly abandoned place from when the guild was still young and had dreams of greatness. Said dreams had gone unfulfilled, leaving several of these warehouses empty.
For some reason, this one had recently hit it big: It stored humans at all times, which made it feel notably more important and somehow a better warehouse than its peers. The other warehouses had taken to shunning it and speaking about it in hushed whispers, usually with vicious rumors about the warehouse’s sex life, but it really didn’t care. It was making it big, and it hoped soon enough the Dominatrix would choose it to keep her things safe, for it was a very special and particularly good warehouse.
Inside the warehouse, and completely oblivious to its delusions of grandeur, the Maid of New Wakilork was in a meeting with her team.
And she was not happy.
In fact, she had noticed how her mood had gone downhill since that fabled night at Dominion Park. She had since gathered a huge following and amassed power like it was nobody’s business, but she seemed to spend more time being angry than anything else.
She was starting to think perhaps anger was a side-effect to having power. If so, she could completely understand why the Dominatrix was the way she was. She had probably once been a nice, agreeable, kind young woman.[34]
“Why is the sun still hitting my legs?” she said. “Didn’t I ask for the opening in the ceiling[35] to be closed already?”
“It’s stuck,” said Mr. Pyritepot, her spymaster. He was thin, tall, horribly weak, and was otherwise completely useless for war. “I tried closing it. It won’t budge.”
Annabella sighed in frustration. “Let’s get on with this then, and I’m going to ask again, did anyone of you tell the church bomber to go bomb a church?”
Complete silence ensued. In front of her, in a semicircle, sat twelve people. None of them said a word. They all then stared at each other, as if hoping whoever had given the orders would confess. No one did.
“Maid,” said Morrìgan, “maybe we should consider that this attack could have been ordered by the Church of Quackology, to jumpstart a war. After all, the only two people in here with the authority to order an attack are you and I, and neither of us did.”
Annabella stared at Morrìgan. She seemed awfully good at planning for a war, having plotted the entire declaration of war. Sometimes, only sometimes, she doubted her motives, and at times she felt downright suspicious of her. But then…
“Don’t you agree, my maid?” said Morrìgan. For an instant, her eyes seemed to flash red.
“I do,” said Annabella. Her doubts dissipated and, examined, seemed absurd. If anything, Morrìgan was the member most loyal to the cause. “But we are being blamed for this, and the Quackologists now have a reason to attack us. So we must be prepared, mustn’t we?”
“Why don’t we just embrace the barbarism they accuse us of and raid their headquarters?” said Sergeant General McCormick. He was neither a sergeant nor a general and he had never been in the military or fought any wars at all. Still, he insisted he be called that. “I mean, if they call us something…”
“They could call the Dominion and we’d have to fight the Quackologists and the city watch,” said Annabella. “That doesn’t sound all that smart, or does it now?”
Sergeant General McCormick shut his mouth and sat back, as he should have. He was supposed to be the chief strategist, but he was terrible at it. Now Morrìgan, she could come up with amazing strategies.
“I must agree with Mr. McCormick,” said Mr. Pyritepot. As if he was ever to go fight a war, with that weak build. He’d be squished like an insect within minutes. “We must attack them, show them our strength! We have to do all we can to destroy the filthy Quackologists!”
Annabella looked at Morrìgan.
“Your Maidship, I must say that, while these plans sound absurd, we’ll have to attack them at some point,” said Morrìgan. “After all, this is war. And whatever we do will have to be big, for I don’t know of any ways to get rid of them without spilling blood. A battle is pretty much impossible to avoid.”
Annabella knew this, and she didn’t mind it much. She wanted so much to see the Quackologists burn for following absurd beliefs that did nothing but hurt others. She wished for LeFlay to get his just deserts, along with all the High Jury who kept sending people to the stake, but…
