"Are you sure this is a good idea?" the guard says, sizing me up, "This guy called down some major dark magic. Two of the Watch that brought him in are still under observation. They're sick with..."
He is silent as he looks into my eyes, or tries to. The smoked lenses I wear make the task impossible, which is the entirety of the reason behind wearing them. I can see the doubt on his face. In the months since my unexpected arrival I haven't changed the way I dress in the slightest. Unsaid is the general premise; what kind of an idiot walks around in the middle of the desert with no shirt and heavy plate armor on all four limbs?
"I'm sure. The Church of Kord will take full responsibility for what he does while in my charge." I reply. He sighs and steps down from the front of the prison wagon, leaving the reins in my hands.
"I'll have the wagon back before dawn." I say, getting the horses underway before the question can be raised.
In the back, behind stout iron bars, wrists bound with thick chain, and with a gag stuffed in his mouth is the current front-runner for the annual most-hated man in the city awards. Or he would be, were there such an award.
Argos Kane, heir-apparent to the Kane family trading fortune, has been engaging in some rather unfortunate extra-curricular activities. Dark magic, creation of undead, kidnapping, murder, and a host of other unpleasantness that ruins the appetite to think about.
The only reason he was captured was because of his arrogance, leaving a calling card of sorts at the scene of each abduction. A taunting letter sealed with black wax marked with the impression of a skeletal hand holding a disembodied eye. Vecna worshipper, and one who has garnered enough favor to be granted the ability to call upon the dark god's power.
It only takes a few minutes to reach the port district, full of warehouses, cheap inns, and even cheaper taverns. Though once infamous for the thugs and gangs that roamed its streets at night, such activity has dropped sharply over the past few weeks. However there is something sinister in the air and the people can feel it. Even the hardened sailors seldom venture out in anything less than groups of three.
A turn down a blind alley and we've arrived at our destination. I hop down from the wagon, open the doors, and enter the warehouse that has served as home for awhile. I tend to the horses first before removing Kane from the back of the wagon. He gives me a look that is half surprise and half glare, going to full on surprise as I have him take a seat and pour two drinks, one for myself and one for him. I then remove his gag and manacles. The shackles stay, however.
"I can smell the reek of sanctimonious sunshine on you, Pelorite. You'll get nothing from me!" he snarls. I just give him a small smile.
"I would appreciate it very much, Kane, if you told me where the girl is." I say, sipping my drink.
Kane looks like he wishes to dash the contents of his glass in my face for a moment. But he's had very little to drink during his imprisonment, water or otherwise. He looks like he was buried in a hole and left out in the sun to rot. The Watch and I have very different techniques when it comes to interrogation. He was actually buried in a hole and left out in the sun. Kane's face is bright red and peeling.
"Come the new moon the girl will be dead and I will have my reward." Kane says before taking a long drink. His eyes widen at the quality of the vintage, as it is to his taste. It ought to be, I stole it from his own wine cellar.
New moon, about five days away. It's nothing he hasn't already revealed. Kane has been remarkably cooperative regarding his actions, cooperative about everything except where his last victim is being held.
"So you're going to insist I take drastic measures, then?" to which he just snorts.
"Do your worst, paladin, I'm not afraid of what a goody two-shoes suck up to the Sun God thinks is effective torture."
My smile widens and I stand up and turn, allowing him to see the symbols of faith that have been inscribed upon my skin. I doubt he knows what they mean, but I give him the opportunity to realize how much of a mess he's gotten himself in to.
I retrieve one of my smaller weapons from its place leaning against a crate. Rather nice piece, with a handle carved out of ebony. I hold it up to the light, turning it from side to side to check for wear and rust on the blade. There is none, I take good care of my tools. One on side is there sunburst of Pelor, Lord of the Sun, upon the other is the circle and semicircle making the sign of Sehanine, Lady of the Moon. But the symbols are not quite right. If you hold it like I do, at just the right angle, you can see that a subtle carving shows Sehanine's semicircle background behind Pelor's sun, and that there is a ring of eight small triangles around the Lady's moon.
Kane was right to call me a Pelorite, but he was only partially right. I sit back down as I begin to tell him how wrong he is.
"You can think that the devoted of Pelor are all about sunshine, hugs, and happiness, Kane. You go right ahead and keep thinking about that." In some cases it's true. There are some churches where I report as Paladin Bright-Don't-Hug-Me-Please. I tend to avoid those kinds of churches like the plague.
"I, however, am not." I take off my glasses, showing him exactly why I wear them. Amber irises on a sea of black are not the sort of eyes one sees on an otherwise normal hum-drum human.
"I belong to the Order of the Eclipse, Kane. We perform tasks in the darkness so that those who stand in Pelor's light do not have to deal with the unpleasantness. Some of these are things that Pelor would frown upon. Wickedness, even for the sake of the greater good, is still wickedness."
Kane is staring at me, horrified. When I virtually leap across the table to grab his hand he lets out a shriek. He can scream as loud and as long as he likes. People know better to go running towards the sounds of pain in the Port District once the sun has set.
"Every Knight of the Eclipse knows that one day they will commit an act so heinous that Pelor will forever shun them and they will never again know Pelor's radiant power, leaving them forever with only Sehanine's cold light and the dark shadows in which they dwell."
I raise the handaxe, more of a tomahawk, really, lining it up with Kane's wrist.
"So, what do you think, Kane? Is tonight going to be the night where I fall from grace? Am I going to have to commit acts of violence upon you so vile that they will cause my god to shun me? You know what, Kane? I look forward to it. Tonight is going to be the night, I can feel it in my bones. Aren't you lucky, Kane? You get to the handbasket I ride down into Hell."
"She's in the basement of the abandoned cathedral! There's a secret door!" Kane whimpers.
I smile and I let go of his hand. "There, that wasn't so hard, now was it?"
I then bring down the tomahawk onto his wrist, severing his hand. He screams in agony, of course, holding the stump at the end of his arm and trying to frantically stop the bleeding. I sit back down in the chair and help myself to more of Kane's wine.
"You have a few minutes before you bleed to death. You will need to learn how to cast one handed, find yourself a nice hot fire to cauterize that stump, or manage to hobble yourself to someone who can heal you. Time's a wasting." I say as I put my glasses back on.
"You! You're dead!" Kane calls, his shackles rattling as he runs towards the double doors through which we came in. "I will have my revenge! You will rue the day you..."
His threats are cut off by a shriek, followed shortly by a splash. From his place within the prison wagon, Kane hadn't seen the makeshift horse stalls I'd built, and how their doors opened up from the floor.
There would be no more sounds from Argos Kane, tonight or any other night. The alligators had learned that there would often be soft, tender, bleeding meals given to them every few nights or so. Though they'd been disappointed the last two weeks. I'd run out of hooligans and hardened criminals to toss down to them.
"And something to wash him down with." I said, tossing the bottle and his hand in after him.
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