She laughed. “Right to business then, is it, love? I might have a mind to help you, but then I might also want to see your bloody scrotums on a plate. I had a life—a grandson. His mum passed, and he had no one to look after him. You had some grand adventures with my body, but it’s not like I have a ancient Geas telling me what to do anymore.”
“It wasn’t meant to happen to you, and I’m truly sorry,” Heath started to explain. “Give me his name, and I’ll make sure money gets sent to look after his expenses.”
“But it did happen,” She let out a disappointed sigh. “And I don’t want your money. Honestly, love, you’ve made more money than a person can spend in five lifetimes, yet you’re still working these jobs like your next meal depended on it. It’s not worth getting yourself killed over, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen. You’re not an immortal construct who can just swap bodies any time he feels like it.”
“Fuck, mate,” Sword growled. “She’s a manifestation of corruption trying to get in your head. Shameless is what it is, dragging her up with her sob story. I sent money after the boy from my share. It’s sorted, not that it matters to her.”
She shrugged. “Aye, you did. And that money went right to my ex-husband, so on behalf of the whores of Reda, thank you. But listen to me prattle on. You lot are the last people I expected to see in one of these places. So has life outside the strictures of the Orthodoxy treated you so badly that it’s come to making pacts in haunted moors?”
“Harrowers.” Heath looked to the ground. “There’s been a rash of killings in Rivern. Victims dead in their sleep, eyes burned out. We think it might be a warlock who made a pact, but there’s no pattern to it. I need a name.”
“I don’t suppose if I told you your name was Heath, you’d offer up your soul?” She chuckled a bit. “Sorry. Pact humor. No, the name you want is Lord Evan Landry.”
“It can’t be that easy.” Heath regarded her from the corner of his eye.
Catherine looked at the ground and coyly brushed the stone with the tip of her boot. “The Harrowers must be in a generous mood. Maybe it’s your good looks. Could also be all those orphans you burned to death. Says a lot about the kind of person you are that the maddened echoes of corruption admire you, doesn’t it?”
“Could also be the fact that the last time one of these fuckers walked the earth it was me that lopped its smirking head off its shoulders.” Sword raised his blade and admired its pristine edge. “And it’s me they answered when I came round with my steel.”
“I just relay the information as it comes to me,” Catherine said, “but if I might add my own commentary, it does seem that one would be well advised to be wary of a gift offered so readily. I might even wager it was some kind of trick.”
“Is it?” Heath asked.
“Of course it is, love.” Catherine threw her hands up in exasperation. “I shouldn’t have to tell you this. Coming to a dolmen and asking for anything is a death sentence we’ve seen played out time and again. No matter how harmless it seems, it always comes with a price. Do not under any circumstances follow up on this information unless you want to die.”
“Now I’m intrigued,” Sword said.
“That’s all I know.” Catherine slumped her shoulders. “Or at least all the powers that govern this blighted place are willing to share anyway. A name is good…for them. Most days they can’t tell any two of us apart, let alone the difference between past and future.”
“A description or location would be more helpful. What do they want for that?” Heath asked.
“Heath…” She looked at him coldly. “This is low, even for you.”
“I’m trying to help people,” Heath said defensively.
“If you’re counting yourself as a person,” Catherine said, smiling.
“I’m different now.”
“A little late for those nine orphans and the two women looking after them.” Catherine cracked her knuckles and looked at the sky. “I mean this in the nicest way possible, but you’re a murderous, selfish, piece of shit, love. Always have been. Oh, except maybe for that brief instant you stopped running with Cordovis and joined the church to save your ailing mum. That was a real stand-up moment for you until they recognized you for a heartless killer and inducted you into an order of assassins.”
Heath balled his fists. “What happened in Reda was unfortunate, but I realized—”
“You’d rather murder for profit than ideals. Yeah, I was there, remember?” Catherine snorted. “And don’t begin to pretend you ever gave a damn about the cause. I could count on one hand the number of times I saw you pray. It came down to coin, pure and simple. I don’t even think you have a soul to bargain with.”
“Allow me, mate.” Sword placed his hand on Heath’s shoulder and addressed the shade of his former body. “First let me just say, as one arcane construct masquerading as a person to another, you’re doing a great job with Catherine…the cadence and judicious use of biographical information really humanize the character. But using a dead woman’s skin to make moral judgments on a bloke—that’s shameless.
“Second, it was you lot who raised up that cult of demonic spider orphans in Reda. So if anyone here has blood on their hands, it’s you. Plain and simple, that orphanage would still be standing if someone hadn’t got the brilliant notion to pay a visit to a dolmen. And for what, exactly?”
“I couldn’t begin to tell you. I’m just the messenger,” she began.
“I wasn’t finished.” Sword twirled his blade. “I’m older than the Harrowers by a couple of centuries and have some insight into human nature. People don’t need the shades of dead loved ones to remind them that they’re terrible. People have to be assholes. It’s a basic fact of survival that people sometimes have occasion to kill each other, just as much as they need to keep each other alive and indebted.
“A bloke who kills another bloke in an alley for a sack of coins is evil. A soldier who kills on the battlefield for the same stipend is good. Moral codes are a fucking snarl of inconsistencies—and they’re supposed to be. If everyone was a fucking saint, people would have died of starvation. There’s really only one moral prerogative: survival.”
Catherine folded her arms. “Are you quite finished, love? Because it sounds like you’re trying to use a moral argument to convince the Harrowers to abandon their eternal hatred for humankind. And if that’s the case, I can save you some time.”
“I’m saying the Harrowers’ whole fucking thing is stupid. And they know it’s stupid. And they know that I know that they know…” Sword paused then continued. “Anyway just fucking tell us who Evan Landry is so we can go kill the stupid bloke.”
Catherine looked at Heath imploringly. “Don’t ask me to do this. Our relationship is complicated, but despite your numerous flaws, I do give a shit about you. I shouldn’t, but I do, so there it is. The voices in this place are screaming for your blood. I suppose one benefit of having my mind shoved into that sword is that I know how to deal with that kind of magic, but if you ask me again, I’ll have to tell you.”
Heath smiled. “I can handle it.”
“Maddox knows who Evan Landry is,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “He’s your safest path. But if you go back to Rivern, there’ll be nothing but death ahead for you. There’s more going on than you realize, and Landry’s just the beginning.”
Heath nodded. “I wish things had worked out differently for you, but I also have to say I was proud to know you.” He bowed slightly.
She forced a grin. “Me too.”
“Wait…” Her expression suddenly soured with worry. She raised her hand cautiously as she strained to hear something. “Ohan damn it.”
“What?” Heath asked.
“They want to make an offer,” she said warily. “To me.”
“It’s bullshit,” Sword said. “They’re masters of this kind of chicanery.”
“It’s a good one.” Catherine laughed to herself. “They say they can bring me back if I can convince you to do something. And I have to say I have a mind to do it. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t believe it was the right thing to do. It’s a chance to genuinely atone for something. But I’m terrified you’re going to say no.”
“It was lovely seeing you again.” Sword grabbed Heath’s arm and started to lead him toward the edge of the clearing, but Heath didn’t budge.
Catherine clasped her hands. “Kill him. Kill the poor Fodder and release him from the sword’s Geas. Then leave the blade here. Their magic can draw it into the stone so no one will ever touch the cursed thing again. Do that, and I’ll walk out of here with you, as much the person I was as the echo can muster.”
Heath said, “There has to be some other way. Something else they want.”
“She’s playing on your guilt, mate,” Sword said. “They don’t want me at your side because they know you need me.”
“If you take your money, you can leave Rivern,” Catherine pleaded. “Avoid all of this and start over somewhere else. We both can. You just need to let go of the Sword. It’s always been there by your side, to give you a pat on the back and a gentle nod of encouragement with every bloody transgression. It’s manipulated people for centuries.”
Sword rolled his eyes. “Okay. I think you’re being a little unfair, and just for the record, the parties you represent are clearly no strangers to emotional manipulation.”
“I don’t feel good about this, Sword,” Heath said quietly.
Sword tensed. Those words were usually followed by some radical, unpredictable behavior.
“He’s sick,” Catherine stated. “The same affliction that killed his mother is ravaging his body as well. He can’t heal that kind of sickness on his own, but the Harrowers can temporarily grant him the power to fix it. If you really cared about Heath, you’d do this for him at least.”
Sword turned to Heath. “I fucking knew something was wrong with you.”
“It’s how my grandmother died,” he said. “And I’m around the age my mother started getting sick.”
“Fuck!”
Catherine eyes were wet with tears. “I feel bad for doing this, love. Really I do. But I want to have a life—the one I should have had, simple and shitty as it was some days. And you…you deserve a chance to make up for all the wrong you’ve done. Leave the sword here. End the cycle of misery. Give us both a chance.”
Sword frowned. “I can’t tell you what to do, mate. I may not be flesh and blood, but I’m a person, and whatever happens to me if you leave me here won’t be pleasant. And we can find a way to heal you. Cancerous afflictions were treatable like colds in Sarn, and there are tomes waiting to be rediscovered.”
Heath rubbed his temples. “There has to be a solution. The Harrowers want the blade, and they’re driving a hard bargain. If we understood why Sword was so important, we could unravel their intentions.”
“They don’t give a fuck what you decide,” Catherine said. “No matter what you do, you’ll have to live with that choice for the rest of your life, regretting it each day and always wondering. There’s no middle path to negotiate. This anguish is what they live for, love. Yours, mine, or his, they’ve already won.”
Heath inhaled deeply. “Then I won’t give them anguish.” He walked slowly toward the stones. “I didn’t believe. I didn’t join the Inquisition out of any sense of purpose. I didn’t leave it out of any sense of purpose. I wasn’t your enemy. I honestly didn’t care one way or the other. Hells, your pacts were a source of income.”
He rested his hand on the stone and shut his eyes. “But you made a mistake, and that mistake has made you an enemy. Because now I do see the light. I do see the reason for this crusade against darkness. Before it was just about the payday, and I still beat your warlocks every single time. But now I’m going to do something I’ve never done before. I’m going to care.
“First I’m going to beat this illness. Then I’m going to give Catherine her life back. And after that—Ohan help me—I’ll dedicate my life to ending the Harrowers forever. I’ll become abbot of the Inquisition, and I’ll turn the Order into a holy army, if that’s what it takes. This I swear.”
When he looked up, Catherine’s shade was gone. Sword stood in the clearing, his sword arm dangling by his side.
“Heath, mate…” Sword gently sheathed his blade. “We don’t even know if what that thing said is true.”
“They don’t lie,” Heath said, “but they do bend the truth. My mother died because we were too poor to pay for treatment without charity. I may not be able to heal my disease, but money isn’t a concern. I’m more focused on Evan Landry right now.”
“Right,” Sword said. “No idea who the bloke is. There was only one Landry left living in Rivern, and he was one of the first to bite it.”
“That we know of,” Heath added. “If you had the power to kill anyone without it ever being traced back to you, what would you do? Assume you’re someone who doesn’t have connections in professional circles.”
“I’d get even with whoever pissed me off,” Sword said, “but there’s no way the killer knew all his victims. Some were refugees from Amhaven. They didn’t have time to make any enemies.”
“So why kill them?”
“Maybe he just likes fucking with people.”
“The city is practically under siege,” Heath said. “Trade has been halted; the government is in virtual exile. People are too afraid to sleep at night. Who benefits from that?”
“Thrycea,” Sword said. “I bet it’s those bleedin’ Stormlords!”
“One of them is in the Invocari tower because she refuses to testify before the Veritas.”