Chapter 321

The elf woman was true to her word. 'Please let this work.' Draudillon thought as she stood in the rear of the estate. The survivors of her party and her unexpected comrades were gathered around a pyre of stacked logs constructed criss cross with a wide gap beneath. In this way the air fed the fires, and the height of the burning material, which elevated high enough that in her adult form the body would have been at chest level, ensured that the flames would shoot higher than any cookflame.

She held a torch in her right hand, "Born of the dirt of the world, we ascend to the sky and escape all things that would harm us." The Queen projected the power of her status in her voice, clear and unbroken, she wavered not a bit in her final duty to her subordinate.

One thing the Queen had added however which was not part of their rituals. The cloth wrap was streaked with pitch. The sky was mercifully clear and the day's warmth was mild, not far beyond the walls of the estate she could hear the hustle and bustle of the people of Arwintar who passed their days unaware that a living hell existed within arms reach of them all. The Queen touched the torch to several loose straws that would draw the flame deep within the pyre, and then shoved the torch underneath.

The flames roared to life almost instantly, and the Queen waited. 'Please let this work. Please.' She thought again, clasping her small hands in prayer as the smell of wood began, and the flames caught the pitch tainted wraps, and the body was engulfed in flames.

A roar went up that was redoubled from the first light, and black smoke rose, slowly reaching toward the sky where it would surpass a dragon's flight.

'Arche and Sebas told me that they were agents in Arwintar, close to this very spot before the war began. Even if the Allfather isn't here yet, there's no way someone isn't paying a mind to what happens in the capital when the entire Empire is on the line. Somebody will be watching, somebody will see this and wonder what is happening… all I need is for them to watch… if they just watch this place… I can get a message out.' Draudillon's thoughts ran faster than a wild horse, and she bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood, watching the fires rise, listening to the crackle of breaking wood and trying to ignore the pungent, foul smell of burning flesh.

'It wasn't for nothing, even if she didn't know it.' The Queen told herself, 'We're getting out of here. All of us.' She looked around at the various women, elf and human alike, and said again to herself, 'All… of us.'

Raymond's carriage fell behind the others by design. He departed hours after the other monarchs did, and when he left, he left in silence with no ovations or honors or interest in them at all.

His only company other than his array of hidden knives, was a bottle purloined from the place he stayed, which would no doubt be tacked on to the invoice sent to his embassy.

The carriage clattered along, and he could only rest his cheek against his fist, and his elbow rested against the edge of his carriage window. He looked out the window from the corner of his eye to watch the scenery pass. His mind drifted like a leaf in a slow moving river, aimless and without direction of its own.

A few things however, he could not avoid. 'Is she okay?' He wondered about Zesshi, the girl was utterly… lost when it came to anything to do with reality. 'That's our fault… she can't even make a campfire, not unless she remembers the things her mother taught her… and that's our fault too.'

His carriage carried him onward, racing at a swift pace that kept the scenery changing, which was a small blessing to have as it kept him from turning an eye to the bottle nestled beside him on the thickly cushioned seat.

It was large and green with a fat body and a long neck shaped like a swan's neck, curving to a downward curving neck, and a small bottom side the size of a dessert plate.

It was also more tempting than it should have been.

"You're just depressed. That's not what drinking is for." The Cardinal told himself, but he couldn't keep from worrying. 'Zesshi is the strongest being in the world… or was… but she's also a young girl in her… her body's terms. A sheltered girl who lost her mother… damn it! The more I say it, the more we sound like…'

Raymond didn't care for the direction of his thoughts, and so he turned his eyes away from the bottle one final time, refusing to look at it and instead focusing on the scenery, sweeping through village after village with barely a pause.

But oh, how his pulse raced and demanded that he pause. 'Is that… are those…?' He asked himself, and he couldn't deny his eyes, there were goblins tending the fields beside humans, and skeletons bearing water or swinging hoes up and down in an endless, tireless cycle.

Instantly the urge to rush in and slay the monsters rose to the fore, destroy the skeleton, protect the human… but time took its toll on his impulses, and instead, he pressed his face to the glass and watched with disbelief.

'It's one thing to see it in a city when there are guards to keep order… where there is power… but this is a village. A village…! Not a sword to be seen!' The former Black Scripture agent had seen men and women crack before in the field, strong, mighty figures, champions of humanity with the potential to grow even stronger… and they cracked under the weight of the atrocities they were compelled to commit.

A goblin tribe fleeing enslavement by orcs… slaughter them to the last infant.

A vampire hiding itself away that hasn't harmed anyone, they may someday, so they must die.

An elf who slew their master and escaped to try to form a rebellion… rebels against order were not needed in the Theocracy.

'I was so proud of myself… pushing through my doubts… pushing through… everything, doing my duty… washouts and failures… I couldn't hate them, but… I was so glad I wasn't one…' Raymond thought as he raced past, watching as a goblin accepted a waterskin from a human farmer before distance put the pair out of sight.

"Fluke. It's a fluke." He told himself, but unwilling to look further, lest he witness more 'flukes' he grabbed the red velvet curtain and yanked it shut, plunging the interior of his carriage into, if not total darkness, then into a dim red light which washed over everything within until the sun set and the carriage driver knocked on the door to say…

"We have reached an inn, Master. Would you like a room?"

Raymond looked outside the door of his carriage, the driver's cropped ears caught his eyes.

"You're not the driver I had yesterday…?" He half asked as he looked past her and toward the two story wooden building. "I had… a young boy?"

"Yes, master, you did. The embassy sent me instead, I was… acquired, by your butler, and sent after you shortly after you left. I arrived yesterday with instructions to act as your personal aid." The elf replied, her back stiffened ever so slightly, and at that, Raymond felt his lips turn down a little.

"Why?" He asked, his hand tensed around the neck of the bottle.

The elf's face was the neutral mask he'd seen on slaves since birth, but now he wondered, 'What lies behind it?'

"I have only the butler's word, but… if it pleases you, master, I can put together what I heard and what I was told into an educated guess…?" The driver's feet inched a hair farther away from him, had he not been of the Black, he might not have noticed it in the dim light, but it was there.

"Go on?" He said as he looked the driver over.

"Master, the day I was purchased, I could hear your butler say he needed to buy someone 'completely broken in'. And the day I was dispatched, your colleague, I believe the master's name was Dominic, instructed me to be dispatched immediately so that, 'no human could be infected by heresy'. I believe that I was dispatched because I will stay silent, refuse nothing, obey you completely, and not have any beliefs of the six tainted by foreign ideas."

It was all said with stiff formality, enough so that one would think she bore no resentment toward his kind at all.

"And… are you?" Raymond ventured.

"Master?" The elf asked, cocking her head.

"Broken?" He asked.

She sank to her knees then with her eyes downcast, holding the carriage door open with her back, though she winced when she did it, it was otherwise a seamless motion.

"To nothing, master. Nothing at all. I will obey. I ask only that you do not hurt me as I do my best to carry out your will." It was said as if she were announcing the time of day, with not a single break in her neutral face.

"Dominic…" Raymond rolled his eyes. "Of course he would be the one…" Then a thought came to mind, he furrowed his brow, "By chance, did the boy who drove before, make mention of informing the others of the fact that I was now traveling alone?"

The woman paled. "I… It didn't occur to me to ask, My Lord… I didn't know you had a companion…" Her neutral mask broke a tiny bit as her lips quivered, but there was no other sign but that and the color draining from her pretty, sharp featured face.

Raymond waved it off, letting out a sigh, "No, it's fine, you couldn't know." He said, though privately thought, 'That will not go over well.' Then he glanced at the inn again, it was rather larger than he expected it to be, with a large stable off to one side. "I suppose I should stop for the night…" He let out a long, slow yawn, which the elf did not repeat, though she bit her lip to keep it back.

"Go ahead and stand up." Raymond said without looking at her and stretched his legs as she rose, "That was a very long ride… but… if you're going to be with me the rest of the way, it will be awkward to just refer to you as 'girl' or 'slave' the rest of the way to Arwintar. What should I call you?"

"Master can call me what he wishes." The woman replied, and unbidden, she went to the back of the carriage to take down a large suitcase, which she hefted on her shoulder with surprising ease given its size and weight.

'The boy would have struggled with it.' Raymond noted, and cracking a smile he said, "I think 'What he wishes' is a tad cumbersome… just give me your name."

The elf stopped dead, and looked at him for several seconds before cracking the ghost of a smile. "Master jokes." She said, flatly, "but if he wishes my name, my name is Nua."

"Nua, then." Raymond replied, and asked, "Why do you not put that on your back, it would be far easier than on your shoulder."

The elf woman's neutral face returned when she said, "If it is master's wish." She then tossed the bag up just a little and snapped her arms out in time to catch the straps onto each shoulder, and carried his luggage behind him, suppressing the wince as she walked.