The Conciege
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(THOB) Chapter 137: Urden - Interlude
🕑 Added 2024-01-22 04:57:58 +0000 UTCDinma had said nothing in the past hour. When they walked through the gates of the city, he had paid her entrance fee while she looked around. Despite the hood concealing most of her face, she leaned back to take in the buildings and people around her.
They were just returning from the healer’s house where he’d gone to show her to a friend. Not all his contacts from his time at the realm were priests. Some men he had saved from certain perils, and he knew if they learned he was no longer of the frock they’d still help him.
Ozen was one of such men. When he’d met the man, Ozen had been accused of being a Tainted by many of his competitors who claimed no one could treat as many patients as he did in a month. The church, being what it was, had brought the case to the seminary. In one week, the man was facing the fire. The seminary had no proof, but the man had too many influential men against him. Witnesses came forward carrying one claim or the other, and though the man denied, there was nothing that could be done.
Urden had spent the last three days left to the man tracking down most of his patients. A day to his burning, he presented his case; over thirty treated patients vouching for the man’s superior skill. For the church, the only thing worse than annoying men of power was seeming unjust in the eyes of the realm. They’d set him free, and as remuneration for the suffering they’d cost him, sent nuns to aid in restarting his business and directed their sick to him. He thrived easily after that, vowing to repay his debt to Urden.
But that did nothing to change the fact that those he’d treated that claimed he was Tainted hadn’t borne false witness against him.
The man was as Tainted as the black mountain. But he was one of the most civilized men he’d seen amongst the Tainted, and Urden welcomed the friendship of the civilized whether they were Hallowed, Tainted or bowing at the foot of some random mountain in service to their gods.
Ozen’s touch was that of a healer’s. With a few conformities here and there, the man could heal almost any non-fatal injury. Diseases on the other hand were tricky, but the man had found his way around even that.
Urden had seen many tribes who used the Tainted as healers, and many of them would have served as great mentors for Dinma, but Ozen had well near perfected the secretive use of his touch even under watchful eyes which made him the perfect man to teach her.
Still, finding the man hadn’t been as easy as he’d expected. Since the last time he’d been in the realm, Ozen’s practice had grown. Gaining business from the church was a great improvement, coupled with his fame as one of the best students of the legendary Nixarv, his business had pretty much become an empire with buildings in almost all corners of the realm.
The building he’d known the man to practice in was now one of his many establishments. Luckily, where he operated from was still within Ardin, and with easy directions, Urden had found it.
All the man had needed to know was that the savior of his life had brought him a promising young girl who was to serve under his tutelage. And that was all he needed to know. As for Dinma, she was to learn all she could from the man while understanding in her own secrecy how he managed a life using his gifts. She knew a lot about healing. Now it was time she knew more.
He looked at Dinma. The brown skinned girl was so out of her element in the realm. She kept staring at everything as they walked, only shuffling closer when a stranger got too near. He couldn’t blame her, he’d never taken her to a place as advanced as the realm—not that there weren’t so many options—and he’d never taken her to a place with so many people.
She shuffled closer, avoiding a man who’d looked at her with a strange expression, and he put a calming hand on her shoulder.
Dinma was a far cry from the girl he’d taken from a small village in the south. She’d grown into her form with luscious curves, firm from having to travel so much on land and horse. She rose up to his mouth at her full height, and her hair which was presently Sundered under her hood, no longer stood atop her head like sheep’s wool.
Arfina had applied a white creamy substance too it before they’d left. It had soaked up all her hair for over half an hour, and he’d gone through those hours apologizing for crimes he did not commit each time the girl complained of how much it burned. He would have washed it off immediately had Arfina not been there. It was always best not to worsen a relationship with a woman who’s brother he amputated, not that she held it against him.
When the cream had come off, the hair fell like Arfina’s, it’s black pigmentation, a glossier black unlike it had ever been. Arfina had washed it off with warm water and educated the girl on how to create the substance, saying it would help her fit in better. In three days, it still fell down her face but was thicker than Arfina’s with brown streaks, but it didn’t seem to bother her. Now, beneath the hood, she wore it in a tight knot.
Urden surveyed the area before them, keeping an eye out for the alley that was supposed to be a few feet ahead of them. This was where he would handle the priest that had been following them for the last quarter of an hour. He only hoped he could be fast about it before he drew any more attention. Coming into the capital dressed as a traveler had been the least risky situation he had envisioned, but not everything worked out the way he wanted. It was something he’d learned lifetimes ago.
With his hand on Dinma’s shoulder, he stirred her away from the streets and into the alley. He felt her confusion in the way her head shook under the hood, and with a firm but gentle hand, he held the hood over her head and stilled its movement. He wouldn’t kill this priest. Not only would it make it difficult to leave the realm, Dinma wasn’t ready to witness that form of death. That was probably a lie. She knew the things he’d done. But knowing was different from seeing. And he didn’t want her to see him do them. He didn’t want to know how she’d see him if she witnessed it.
“Stay behind me,” he told her after they’d gone deep enough, and turned to face the opening they’d come in through.
The buildings opposed the blazing noonday sun and silhouetted them in shadows, but the light from the streets before and behind them made the darkness of the shadows mild. The priest strode into the alley.
Urden opened his mouth to speak then shut it. His Sunders came free immediately and he darted forward intent on keeping the fight away from Dinma. The bastard priest hadn’t even thought to assess his situation; he’d simply stepped through the distance with Sunders drawn.
Urden met him halfway and Sunders met. There was no test of strength as most priests were prone to whenever they met him. No game of shoving to see if they could push him back. This priest simply stepped away from the lock and came back Sunders swinging. He was fast, and from the little Urden could see; young.
Urden parried the man’s strikes as he was pushed back. But rather than fall back, his steps took him in a circle. In moments, the wall was behind him, then the entrance, and then he was back where he’d started.
What annoyed him was the efficiency of the man’s strikes, each was intended to be fatal, no feints, no intentional swings to disarm him, only killing strokes. Just as Talod teaches.
If he knew the sword stance the priest was using, then stopping him would be easy, he just had to time it right. The young priest brought his Sunder down in a practiced attack and Urden saw his chance. He would accept the blow to his shoulder, it would hurt, but in a few weeks it would heal, however, the blow to the head he would give the man would knock him flat. Sacrifices. He always hated them, but he understood their necessity.
Then his opponent reversed his grip on his hilt. A Sunder that had been coming down with it edge dropped faster with its point. Urden had a moment to panic before he propelled himself forward and past the man. Unrelenting, he halted his motion, turned on his heel and attacked. His blow missed, but it hadn’t been its intent. Driven by the attack, he moved to stand between the man and Dinma and frowned.
If the priest had successfully driven the Sunder into his shoulder, he would’ve died. There had been no feint in the attack, no calculated bait to lure him in, the annoying man had simply changed the strike on instinct. But what annoyed him wasn’t that it could’ve killed him, it was the thought of dying in front of the girl.
He hated to admit it against a young opponent, but if he intended on escaping without killing the man, he was going to have to take the fight more seriously.
You’d think the seminary was done making monsters, he thought as he sheathed his Sunders. To his surprise, the priest did the same. That was when he saw it. The black burn marks beneath the priest’s partly drawn up sleeves, his hair held up behind in a bun, the calm disinterest in his eyes that he’d only ever seen on one other person, and only when the man had chosen to go into battle. It was the look of a man about to do something he felt he needed to. It was the look of indifference. This was a priest he couldn’t let live. A man who had suffered the excruciating pain of shadow fire and had lived through it and developed an absence of empathy to human lives. He would knock him unconscious, take Dinma away, leave her in the cover of safety, then he would return to finish him off.
Urden stepped, closing the distance as quickly as he could. The priest met him halfway, undaunted by his speed. He struck with a finesse looking to stun and not kill, but the man evaded, taking any opportunity to strike he could find with a detached precision, flowing through what he could easily recognize as Fravis’s teachings.
Tired of the farce, Urden struck a vicious blow to his solar plexus. His opponent staggered back, the blow had served its purpose but he had to follow through with the attack. He darted forward, the next blow aimed at the throat and connecting with built up force. The priest coughed up spittle but his eyes remained uninterested. It was almost as if they watched their body get beat up, but without the pain. He kicked the priest’s leg from beneath him and finished it with a brutal blow to the head.
The priest’s hand slid from behind him before Urden’s blow connected. Urden saw the metal before the string. He caught the bow where the man’s hands held it before it struck him and vaulted over him. When his feet hit the ground he pulled forward with a lowered stance and threw his opponent.
Urden held the bow in his hand as the priest rose to his feet still choking from the blow to his throat. It was a nice bow, fashioned from Asmidian steel. Its design reminded him of something from the time of the Urn tribe’s reign. Perhaps something fashioned by their descendants, he thought and discarded it to the side. He may no longer possess the adeptness he’d once had over the bow but he saw no harm in keeping it after they were done.
The young priest was standing now, his hair a mess. Somewhere in their exchange his hair had come loose and Urden wondered which of his blows had caused it. Perhaps it was the throw.
He closed the gap again.
The man’s Sunders came free. It seemed he had decided he couldn’t win in unarmed combat. However, his decision had been made sluggishly. Urden caught both wrists before they came down. There was a struggle but he was having none of it. He drove his head into the man’s face and changed his hold on the man’s hands as he reeled back in pain. Turning the hands outwards so the Sunders pointed away to the sides, he drove his knee into the priest’s abdomen. He felt the man’s strength wan and pulled him down to drive another into his face. The Sunders slid from the man’s grip and he buckled under his own weight. Returning to end it was too much of a risk. He would kill the man here and make it look like he was only unconscious. Dinma would easily believe it true.
But then the alley darkened and his vision waned, then breathing became a task. A Tainted? Urden realized. Impossible!
A Tainted in a cassock was a greater abomination than the seminary’s employment of the Tainted to serve them in certain aspects of their duties. This angered him, and with a growl he clenched his fist for a killing blow before everything around him faded into blackness. But when Dinma gasped behind him and fell to her knees, he realized his mistake.
Fear!
Releasing the man and terminating his execution for the second time, he stepped away immediately, rushing over to Dinma. He could feel it now. He’d been caught unawares, the fear had gripped him, but what the man didn’t know was lifetimes were more than enough to master one’s fear. And in Cyrinth’s insane ideas he’d been left with a gift, however waning it now was.
As he did when he used his gift, he pushed from his within him, and when he felt it rise, he pulled from without. He felt the impact as the wave hit him, rushing into him. At first, he felt terror, then pain. So much pain it hurt even in his head.
He staggered forward, fatigued from what had happened, and caught himself. It was when he realized it had stopped. Not taken back as he did his, but simply cut off.
“That’s what you did to those men that night, isn’t it?”
The priest’s voice was a hoarse, emotionless, soft baritone. In his short time in the priesthood he had most likely been shouting a lot. Most likely one of the priests who’d been sent to the west border to hold off the Merdendi horde come back to report. Add a little emotion to the voice and it wouldn’t have fit the man’s eyes which remained indifferent and oddly blue…
“You have,” Urden heaved, “got to be joking!” He almost roared the last part and shot the priest an angry look. “Are you mad, Ezril?!”
Dinma shifted behind him but kept her head lowered still. Apparently, she was over the effects of her fear because she whispered, “The Ezril?”
“Not a word out of you, young lady,” he silenced her. Then swiveled his attention back to his adopted son and said, “I could’ve killed you!”
Then he would’ve had to explain to Cyrinth how he had done something so stupid when Vayla depended on the boy… man. Not that he was ever going to see the immortal fool.
Now that he paid attention, everything was beginning to make sense. The man before him bore very little resemblance to his adopted son from over ten years ago, but other signs were there that should’ve told him. The scars for one, not many people escaped being burned by shadow, and if rain or shadow water had played a part in his survival, the scar would’ve been less… scarred. Then there was the streak of white hair, just above his right eye brow, a sharp contrast to the black. He smirked, he had known it would be a matter of time. The boy… man, was simply lucky he didn’t have to suffer all of it in one blow as he’d done.
Ezril shrugged where he stood, bleeding from his nose and a cut in his lip. “You could’ve,” he said then spat out a mass of bloodied spittle. “But you didn’t.”
He picked up his Sunders with strained movements that Urden was certain wasn’t from wounds inflicted in their bout and sheathed them. “Now,” he continued as though they hadn’t just tried to kill each other. “I’m curious. Tell me about Cyrinth.”
Urden found himself taking a step back in shock, then regained his composure.
“Cyrinth’s an old friend,” he answered, walking over to pick the discarded bow, then tossed it to Ezril.
Ezril caught the bow easily and strapped it behind him. “Alright,” he said, then turned to leave. He stopped halfway through the turn. “Another question,” he said. “Why me?”
“Because you are the strongest Hallowed on Vayla.”
“If that’s true,” he said, but there was nothing to indicate he doubted Urden’s words, “then how come you’re still standing, because I did intend to kill you.”
“Well, strength is better with experience, which you have little of.” Urden told him. “However, experience comes with age. And on Vayla, you might be the strongest, but I’m technically the oldest.”
His son snorted in disinterest. “When last did you see Cyrinth?”
“Haven’t seen him since he tried to burn me alive…” … not that he didn’t succeed.
How did Ezril learn of Cyrinth? And just how much did he know?
Urden shook the worry. It didn’t really matter. The old fool was an insolent bastard of an immortal king who couldn’t give a care of the consequences of his decisions on others as he had shown when he’d drowned himself and his entire throne room in shadow fire, while Urden was still in it, a knowledge that the man had possessed at the time. The man was a true slab of pig shit and he couldn’t care less how long ago it had been since he’d heard from him.
Urden controlled his thoughts. Considered, his friend had done a few good things for him, especially raising him after his first rebirth to some destitute farmers who’d sold their only child for money barely one week after its birth. He could still picture the mischief in the man’s eyes and the coy ear wide grin on his lips when he’d awoken to his memories on the fifteenth day of his thirtieth year. The ass-sucker.
This time Ezril nodded as if his words made total sense. An acceptance that could only come with such level of detachment as was the one in his eyes, just like Cyrinth’s during the war of the Scorned; oh, how he hated that title. But the victor dictated the tale. And he and Cyrinth had been the losers that day. That look—as Cyrinth had told him—was the result of a true stand. He only hoped his son wouldn’t use it so much as he watched him walk away. It had a strange effect on those who used it, and even Cyrinth hadn’t been immune. It was why he had used it so scarcely.
"Do you know I went home," Ezril said, his voice sounded resigned. "There was nothing there for me. Aunt Teneri was gone. One of the guards, Eln said she'd just upped and left one day--the man didn't even recognize me anymore. I felt like a stranger. I still went home, though. Found a new family living there."
He smiled weakly. "Do you know where she went. When I last saw her she was talking of dying soon. Is she dead?"
Urden didn't know what to say. "Your aunt moves around often, Ezril. I have no idea where she is. Dead or alive. But if she wants you to find her, she'll come to you, instead."
Ezril nodded, but Urden didn't think he cared for anything he'd said. There was a chance all he had heard was that he couldn't help him as he walked away.
“Keep killing the priests that come after you and it’ll only be a matter of time before Dragmund can’t say no to his majesty,” Ezril told him over his shoulder. “But then again,” he shrugged, blasé. “It’s not like you have a choice.”
Then he was gone.
It wasn’t entirely true. The latter, not the former. Sometimes Urden did have a choice. Turning to Dinma, he ushered her out of the alley through the second exit and into the hectic street that had somehow been oblivious to the fight that had happened, happy that she had kept her head down the entire time. She was going to have to work with Ezril at some point in time, seeing as her touch was essential to the man’s survival. But that didn’t mean he had to know her when he eventually saw her.
