Book of The Dead

Chapter 22: New Way

Silence reigned around the table in the Renner household and Elsbeth felt like she could scream. She wanted to leap out of her chair and run out the door, or shake her father, or break down and cry, or plead for forgiveness, but she did none of those things. Frustrated and hurt, she kept her head down and finished her food, not looking anyone in the eye for the duration of the meal. When she was finished, she pushed her chair back and stood, carried her empty plate to the bench where she placed it in the tub to soak, turned and walked to her room without anyone saying a word to her.

The moment the door closed behind her the urge to scream and stomp her feet was almost overpowering, but she held it in, barely. What would be the point? Almost by instinct she began to repeat the litany of Selene in her mind, a calming exercise she had been taught by the sisters when she was just a little girl, fascinated by the strange miracles that these robed women wielded, and the universal respect they garnered.

Holy mother shelter and guide me,

Let your light fall upon me,

When I walk in your grace none can harm me,

Keep me pure as you are pure,

Lest we -

The words fell to tatters as she blanked, struck by the knowledge, the sure knowledge, that in the eyes of the Goddess she was no longer pure, no longer worthy.

She had been rejected. Judged not able to serve the being she had devoted herself to her entire youth.

The shame and guilt threatened to well up again but she shoved it away before it could overwhelm her again. She had wept so many times since that day, and so many more since Tyron had left. When she thought back to the day of awakening now all she felt was bitterness. The hope that had blossomed in her then had since turned to ashes, everything had gone wrong.

Perhaps it wasn't the awakening that ruined everything. Perhaps it simply brought to light the flaws that were already there.

The traitorous thought flittered to the forefront of her conscious mind before it retreated back into the shadows before she could squash it. There it would remain, resonating with uncomfortable truth that ate away at what she had believed to be true.

Tyron was a Necromancer, on the run from the law.

She couldn't believe it. He'd always been quiet and studious, but she would never have thought the pantheon would see fit to grant him a class such as that. She could remember the wild look in his eyes that night, and the terrifying flame that burned in the empty sockets of the skeletons. It was as if her old friend had vanished completely, replaced by something colder and darker. Then Laurel. And Rufus…

She shivered and realised at some point she had sat on her bed and was staring at the wall. She was so tired. So numb.

She glanced out the window. It was close to midday. They'd be leaving soon. Did she even care anymore? Would she ever care about anything again?

Unable to convince herself one way or another, she mechanically stood and changed her clothes, combing her hair as she prepared to head out. When she emerged from her room the house remained quiet and still, as it had been for over a week now. When she walked through the kitchen her father remained at the table, face stony as he traced the lines of the grain in the table surface. When she walked in he stirred himself and spoke.

"Elsbeth…" he began.

She didn't stop and walked through, calmly opening the door and shutting it behind her. She thought she should feel something as she ignored her father in this way, but curiously she didn't. She felt nothing at all. A few steps later she was out into the street and walking towards the smithy. There were few people in the streets right now, few enough that she barely had to move in order to move around them. A pall hung over Foxbridge and had since the day that the Steelarms had come home.

"Elsbeth," someone hissed from her left. "What are you doing child?"

Surprised at being addressed, she turned to see the mayors secretary, Jenin peering out her window.

"Mrs Barbury?" she said. "What's wrong?"

"Are you mad, girl? What if they find you?"

"Who?"

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"The Steelarms! If they see you you'll be killed!"

Elsbeth felt only confusion at this sentiment but the deadly seriousness of Mrs Barbury's tone forced her to think on it.

"But… why would they kill me? I was Tyron's friend…"

"Everyone knows you went to arrest him!"

"I did not!" she flushed, a hint of anger breaking through. "And the Steelarms left town, nobody has seen them since that day."

"Are you willing to bet your life on that?"

Elsbeth looked at the woman, really looked at her. In her eyes she saw concern, but more than that was fear. Fear that Magnin and Beory had put there. In that moment she realised that this was the same fear she had seen in everyone's eyes over the past days. They were terrified that the powerful slayers might decide they were no longer satisfied with just tearing down buildings and land, they might come for the people next. In displaying the might of a high level slayer, the Steelarms had allowed the fear that had lurked in the heart of every citizen of Foxbridge to boil over.

Yet she didn't feel it. She might not agree with what Tyron's parents had done, but anyone who had seen them with him like she had knew that he was the only thing in this town that they cared about, asides from Worthy and Megan. Some might have felt that they didn't care about their son, considering how often they left him behind, but she knew that wasn't the truth, they doted on him.

"Yes," she said and turned away to continue walking.

Perhaps people weren't avoiding her because of her rejection, perhaps it was because they feared she was marked for death by slayers. She could only shake her head. As if people needed another reason to isolate her. She hated it. She hated this town. She'd volunteered her time and energy to help for years, treated the sick, cared for their children, and they turned on her this quickly. When she looked around at what should be familiar sights, buildings she had known her entire life, instead she felt like a stranger.

She didn't glance at the temple as she strode past and soon enough she found herself on the outskirts of town, the cobblestone road giving way to hard packed dirt as the smithy came into sight. Rufus already stood out the front waiting, Laurel nowhere to be seen at this time.

When she realised it would just be the two of them, Elsbeth almost turned around and walked back home, but something inside her refused to back down and after a moment of hesitation she firmed her resolve and walked forward. When he saw her coming Rufus smiled a crooked smile and she felt a flash of anger in her chest.

"Hi," she said, stifling her emotions.

"Hey 'beth," he said as he moved to walk towards her but paused when she took a sharp step back. He sighed. "I suppose you didn't change your mind and decide to come with us?"

She stared at him as if he were mad.

"No," she said coldly. "Sorry if that ruins any of your carefully laid plans."

The man's face hardened.

"Don't believe everything that shit had to say, 'beth. I've always cared about you, you know that, right?"

As a matter of fact, she didn't. When she heard the venom in his voice when he referred to their missing friend, she realised that perhaps she had never known her friends at all.

"Why do you hate him so much?" she wondered aloud, "what did Tyron ever do to you?"

When she said his name a ripple of anger overtook Rufus' expression before he could hide and suddenly it was as if he could no longer be bothered to conceal it. He spat to the side, the contempt plain on his face.

"Because he's a worthless piece of shit who had everything he ever wanted handed to him on a silver plate. Because he looked down on all of us his entire life. You might not have noticed, but I sure did. He thought we were trash the day we met him when we were six years old and that never changed."

Shocked at his tone, Elsbeth could only shake her head in denial.

"You felt this way about him? This whole time? You were this jealous of him?"

"Jealous?" Rufus spat. "Of course I was jealous! While I lived under the thumb of a dead beat FUCK!" he turned and hurled the curse back at the unkempt smithy, "who beat me as often as he fed me, that prince lived under the protection of the two most powerful people in the province."

Elsbeth glanced toward the building warily and Rufus sneered.

"He's passed out drunk. I put a bottle on the table after breakfast and he snatched it up like a fish going after bait."

"What about your mother?" Elsbeth asked quietly.

If he was angry before, he was now incandescent with rage.

"Don't talk to me about my mother!" he bellowed before he gathered himself. "She's tougher than you think. She'll be fine until I get back and take her away from this shithole."

Rather than sympathise, Elsbeth felt her heart grow cold as she looked at this person who only a few short days ago she had held hopes of a future together with.

"So that's it then," she said slowly, "you just wanted to get out of town, get out from under the thumb of your dad, and make it big as a slayer. You befriended Tyron and me because you thought we could help you. I could turn out to be a powerful miracle healer and Tyron might be a mage or he might just help out with money and contacts. You never cared about any of us."

You never cared about me.

Rufus stared at her for a long moment.

"Pretty much," he admitted. "It's not like you wouldn't get anything out of the deal. Power, money, fame. You'd get to help people by fighting off the rifts and keeping everyone safe. Isn't that what you wanted?"

"What I wanted," she spat, "was to serve Selene! Something I can't do anymore."

"I never heard you say no," he smirked.

Boiling hot rage burned in her veins in that moment, so hot she could barely think, barely see, but along with it came the shame. He was right. He may have led her on, but she had willingly gone. She'd thought he'd felt something for her, thought they might be together. Now those dreams were all dust, along with those naïve feelings.

"You're a bastard," she ground out, surprising herself with her own anger. She wiped the tears from her eyes with her sleeve as she glared at him. "I hope I never see you again."

The grin slipped from his face and the handsome Swordsman sighed once more. He hadn't wanted things to turn out this way, but it was what it was. From that point on the two pointedly ignored each other as they waited for Laurel to arrive, which she did shortly after, but not from the direction they expected.

"Hey, Elsbeth," she called with a long languid wave. "Didn't expect you would come."

"I'm not sure why I did," she replied.

If her tone had any effect on the huntress, it didn't show. Laurel just shrugged and glanced at Rufus.

"You ready?" she asked.

"Yep. Where did you come from?" he asked, wondering why she'd come from the opposite direction from her house.

"I went and took a look at the Arryn farm," she said and the two looked at her, surprised. "What? It's incredible, the whole place is flattened."

"That's… good, to you?" Elsbeth asked.

"Good?" Laurel seemed to chew the word over for a moment. "I don't know if it's 'good', I don't really care either. It's impressive. Two people did that. Two."

The idea seemed to spark something in her, Elsbeth looked at her and thought her smile seemed almost… hungry.

"Is that why you're going, with him?" she tilted her head to the Swordsman who she still refused to look at. "So you can be powerful?"

Laurel looked at her for a moment before she nodded.

"Of course," she said, "I just don't want to stay here forever. I'd die of boredom. And I refuse to be weak in a world ruled by the strong. Are you really telling me you'd have been happy staying in this place your entire life? Slaving away to help people who refuse to help themselves?"

"Yes," she whispered.

It had been her life calling.

"Then out of the two of us, I think you're the one whose nuts," she shrugged and hitched her bow more tightly over her shoulder. "Imagine what would have happened to us if we'd actually caught Tyron and brought him back. Do you really think that they'd have left us alone? We'd have been dead without even seeing the blow that killed us. I'm not going to be powerless in this world, Elsbeth. I refuse."

For a moment the normally lazy eyes of the huntress lit with fire, but then the moment passed and she turned to Rufus.

"Come on then, meathead. Time to hit the road."

Behind her Rufus grabbed his pack off the ground, along with the rough looking sword in the well beaten scabbard he'd leaned against the stone fence. Doubtless something he'd stolen from the smithy.

"See you Elsbeth," he said, "good luck with everything."

"Just go away," she said.

She didn't wait for them to leave, instead she turned on her heel and strode back into town, leaving them in her wake. As she watched her go, Laurel smiled a little, thinking that the Priestess might have finally grown a little spine. Then she pushed her from her mind and focused instead on what was coming next. The Slayer College.

Avoided by the rest of the townsfolk, the two began the long journey east as Elsbeth walked home, her burned emotions congealing in her stomach in one queasy mass.

"Elsbeth. Stop right there," her father demanded as she strode through the door. "Don't you dare ignore me again."

"Oh? Like you've ignored me for a week?" she retorted.

The fire in her words took her father back, too used to his sunny, obedient daughter. Spurred on by his reaction, she kept going.

"In the time when I most needed you, when I was most hurt, you turned your back on me, and now you want me to come to heel? You want me to curtsy and be thankful?"

Her voice grew louder and louder as she spoke until she was shouting and her red-faced father bellowed back at her.

"Foolish girl! You think you can come here and speak to me like this after what you did?!"

"Fuck you," Elsbeth spat and as her speechless father recoiled from the unexpected vitriol she stomped out of the house.

A few minutes later she found herself pounding on the door of the Steelarm Inn as baffled townsfolk watched from their windows. The inn had been closed since Magnin and Beory had left, but Elsbeth wasn't to be dissuaded and continued to smack her fist into the wood until it was red raw.

Finally it creaked open and a devastated looking Worthy looked down at her through the crack.

"What do you want Elsbeth?" he asked, his voice so, so weary.

Suddenly the righteous fire leaked out of her and she just felt sad. Against her will the tears welled up in her eyes and she tried to blink them away but they wouldn't stop.

"I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry about Tyron. And what happened. I didn't know what was going on and I was so worried. A-and now, I don't have a place to stay and I was h-hoping I could sleep here tonight," she stammered as the tears began to flow freely.

As he looked down on the poor girl, Worthy's expression softened. Of all of Tyron's friends, he'd always known that this was the good one. Too bad she was caught up with the others.

"Alright lass. Come on in. We can put you up tonight and tomorrow we can go have a word with your parents, alright?"

He pulled open the door and called for Meg and before she knew it, Elsbeth was tucked into bed, a full meal in her belly and no more tears left in her.

And then she dreamed.

She dreamed of the gods. Of Selene, of Hamar, Tel'anan and Orthriss. Four figures seated on golden thrones, bathed in light. Their radiance was so bright she shied away from them as they turned toward her, judgement in their eyes. In her dream, she fled. Through the realms, down roads and into forests, until she was no longer running but pulled, faster and faster as was drawn deeper, further, away from the light, away from those thrones that burned. She felt calm wash over her as she fell through the world, through time itself, until she found herself in a place beyond, a place that reeked of age.

It was a forest, one that groaned under the burden of its years, where every bough was weighed down by time and even the shadows had history.

I don't think I've ever been somewhere like this, she mused to herself as she turned, finding only foreboding woods in every direction.

"Of course you haven't, child of the four," a voice came to her from amongst the shadows. "They desperately wish that all mortals would forget this place, to expunge it from their minds as if it had never been, but still it persists. The old things are like that. They are difficult to remove."

Still that strange calm lay on her. Deep down she felt a bubble of fear, she ignored it.

"Where am I?" she asked dreamily.

"You have been invited, child, a very rare boon indeed. There are so few who get the chance, these days, you should feel blessed."

"I do," she smiled as she turned and looked at the ancient world around her. Phantom nails began to claw at the inside of her mind. Her own. "But I don't know where I am. Or to whom I should feel grateful."

"Of course, I would be honoured to correct this. Where you abide right now has had many names, but I fear none will be familiar to you. Think of this realm as the Dark Forest. As to whom you should extend your gratitude, well now. That is quite the tale as well. The Old Gods are not accustomed to introducing themselves, so I will take the task upon myself."

"And who are you?" she said, a soft frown creasing her brow as her stomach churned with a distant panic.

A scream welled up in her throat, only for it to disappear as suddenly as it had appeared.

"There is no need for your fear," the voice purred, "the Dark Ones do not need your fear, they have drunk deep on the terror of mortals. It is your devotion that they crave."