Only Angels

In the white­washed cell, there sat a man alone. He hunched, man­a­cled, at a table set for two. High up the wall, set­ting sun­light played through iron bars. A criss­crossed beam graced the man, the table.

Steam rose in bright and volu­mi­nous plumes. Heady, spiced steam from roasts, stews, and pies couched in fine ser­vice. Glass­ware glit­tered on the rough-hewn wood. A pair of wine glass­es, emp­ty. The man paid no heed to this rich spread. His eyes lay still, dis­pas­sion­ate.

There was a clack and grind of a turn­ing heavy lock. The man star­tled and stared through his stringy fringe at the open­ing door. A large fig­ure entered, clad in heavy red robes. A short, black veil was tied round his bald head, con­cealed his eyes. His bare, shaven arms clutched a jug of wine.

“Max­im­il?” he asked.

The lank-head­ed man grunt­ed.

“I am called Kuero.” He approached, pulled back a chair. It grat­ed on the stone floor. There was a pop of cork, a splash of young wine into both glass­es. Kuero sat with a huff.

“I,” he said, pick­ing up his glass. “Am to be your–”

“Exe­cu­tion­er,” inter­rupt­ed Max­im­il, dul­ly. “You will kill me in the morn­ing.”

“Yes,” said Kuero. He drank from his glass and pulled forth a pep­pered ter­rine.

He tucked in with knife and fork, chew­ing. “Eat,” he com­mand­ed, point­ing to the spread. “This is the chef’s best. All for you and I.”

For a while, Max­im­il sim­ply watched, his gaze low and glow­er­ing. He watched cuts of fat­ty ter­rine pass the Exe­cu­tion­er’s plump lips. He watched the sun­light glit­ter in wine, glazed octo­pus, and rich pud­ding. Abrupt­ly, he growled, seized his glass, drank deep. His man­a­cles clat­tered.

Kuero watched the stem upturn. He grunt­ed in approval. “Good.”

Max­im­il sloshed more wine into his glass, gulped it down. “Does my final meal please you, Señor Kuero?” he gasped, lift­ing the drip­ping ves­sel from his lips.

“It is for you as much as I. It pleas­es me that you drink.”

“Oh?” said the pris­on­er, break­ing the crust of a meat pie. “Why such hos­pi­tal­i­ty? As I recall, doomed folk meet the exe­cu­tion­er at the raven­stone, not the din­ner table.” He gulped a greedy folk­full. “And her name is Guil­lo­tine, not Kuero.” *

Kuero sliced a hunk of octo­pus. “You speak well, Max­im­il.”

The pris­on­er, chew­ing indus­tri­ous­ly, lift­ed his man­a­cled hands, jan­gled them. “Too well, evi­dent­ly.”

“The elo­quent apos­tate is the most heinous.”

“The most dan­ger­ous,” grum­bled Max­im­il.

“You incit­ed faith­less hys­te­ria.”

“I suc­ceed­ed in my task. I am sat­is­fied.”

Kuero nod­ded, grim. “Because of that sat­is­fac­tion, we sit togeth­er now.”

“Oh?” mum­bled Max­im­il, rip­ping a hunk of bread with his teeth.

“You are unre­pen­tant. For that, you are sub­ject to the old ways of exe­cu­tion.”

Max­im­il laughed, spewed crumbs. “Absurd,” he said, gasp­ing. He swal­lowed more wine. “The ‘old ways’ I know are cer­tain­ly not extinct, and they def­i­nite­ly don’t involve feast­ing with the exe­cu­tion­er.” He waved the butt of bread. His shack­les clinked. “Why not burn me at the stake? Would­n’t I make a bet­ter exam­ple?”

“You will be an exam­ple, in any case,” said Kuero. He poured Max­im­il more wine.

“What exam­ple will I be, then?”

“An exam­ple of the Lord’s mer­ci­ful law.”

“By giv­ing me time to repent my apos­ta­sy before death?”

“The­o­ret­i­cal­ly.”

“You don’t sound con­vinced, Exe­cu­tion­er.”

Kuero was qui­et a moment. His jaw worked slow­ly. The black veil remained impas­sive. “Only angels are exem­plars of the Lord’s law.” He chewed, swal­lowed. “Repen­tance comes only at the swords of angels. And I am no angel, in this moment. You and I both know there will be no repen­tance at this table, Max­im­il.”

Max­im­il nod­ded. “Any­one could guess that, giv­en my pol­i­tics.” He leaned for­ward, picked up a small cake. “But repen­tance is not the Church’s motive, is it? This is a mat­ter of–”

“Of image,” said Kuero. His lips twist­ed.

The pris­on­er grinned, bit into the cake, put it down. “That does­n’t sat­is­fy you.”

The exe­cu­tion­er took anoth­er bite of octo­pus, pushed the plate away. He took up the wine jug, poured anoth­er glass, drank it slow­ly. Max­im­il watched him for many min­utes, nib­bling cake. Over­head, the sun­light fad­ed, slid aside, left Kuero in shad­ow.

“I knew a time, not long ago,” said Kuero, final­ly. A tor­rid edge entered his voice. “When a man like you would face no pre­ten­tious end.”

Max­im­il shift­ed, lis­tened. A wry tone crossed his scruffy face. “Oh?”

Kuero growled. “Not long ago, Max­im­il, an apos­tate would not meet his end at the raven­stone. Not by the lick of the pyre. Not by the touch of the guil­lo­tine.” His wrin­kled lips sneered.

“He would die in the street. At the step of his own home, or at the fruit­seller’s hutch in the mar­ket square. When most unsus­pect­ing.” Kuero leaned over the table. “And when we cut him, there would be no repen­tance. No lofty exam­ple.” He mused through bared teeth. “Just the Lord’s sign in the gut­ter.“

There was a pause. Max­im­il gulped, tried to read­opt his tone. “You were an Inquisi­tor.”

“I am an Inquisi­tor.” The black veil fixed Max­im­il with what was unde­ni­ably a stare.

The pris­on­er scoffed, straight­ened some­what. “As if that yet means any­thing. Mere zealot-thugs. State-spon­sored ter­ror­ists.” He rolled his eyes, reached for more wine. “Vio­lent evi­dence of a crum­bling theoc­ra­cy. Inquisi­tors are–”

“Angels,” Kuero boomed.

There was silence. Max­im­il sat, wide eyed. His lips twitched, as if to speak, but did not. Above, a cloud passed over the barred win­dow. The wan­ing light died.

With care, the dark form of Kuero rose. It took up the wine jug, corked it, tucked it under one arm. It moved to the door.

“Apos­tate…” it said, turn­ing. Max­im­il did not look. He seemed small. 

“I will see you in the morn­ing.”

Alexo plucked a plum from the crate. He squeezed it, smelled the sweet skin. “Hmm, biene,” he pro­nounced, held up four fin­gers to the gro­cer. The gro­cer, a brown mouse, nod­ded. Alexo placed some cop­per pese­tas in an out­stretched paw, took up three more plums.

“Ivrne,” he said, prof­fer­ing one over his shoul­der. Behind him stood a young woman in a linen sun-hood. She took the fruit in thin, pale fin­gers. “Thank.”

“ ‘Thanks,’ ” cor­rect­ed Alexo. “And you’re wel­come.” He turned away from the gro­cer’s stall. “Come. We must find Mai­ta.” Ivrne fol­lowed. 

The mar­ket filled a wide brick square before Isodo­ra Chapel and its flank­ing cypress stands. Hot and bright with South­ern sun. Hun­dreds of folk crowd­ed there, wove their clut­tered way through wavy rows of stalls bear­ing fruit, baked goods, fish; the assort­ed plen­ty of the sea­side land. 

“There are so many,” said Ivrne, look­ing about. She spoke with an upturned lilt. Dark eyes, white­less, dart­ed neath her hood, framed by yel­low hair.

“There are even more folk in the Cap­i­tal, my friend,” said Alexo.

“Why do they gath­er here?” said Ivrne, turn­ing the fruit in her hands.

“For the mar­ket, of course.”

“No. Why this place?”

“Ah, I see,” said Alexo. “This build­ing,” he said, point­ing to the high spire. “Is a Chapel. Folk who fol­low the Lord Aveth wor­ship here. The built the city around it.” 

“I have heard of,” nod­ded Ivrne. A crease of dis­taste crossed her brow. “Are these all Avethans?” she said, sus­pi­cious.

Alexo nod­ded. “Near­ly all the folk of Alagór are Avethan. The humans, at least.”

“You’re not.”

“No. Not any­more.”

“Because of me?”

Alexo paused a step. He glanced to the open door of the church, at the censer hang­ing in the arch. The coil­ing smoke of frank­in­cense was pal­pa­ble even at a dis­tance, hot on the palette. ** Alexo glanced to Ivrne, briefly met the inky, expec­tant eyes.

“Yes,” he said. Ivrne nod­ded, squeezed his hand briefly. Alexo shiv­ered. † They walked on.

They neared the square’s cen­ter. There, the crowd was thick­est, gath­ered round the green­ing stat­ue of a grim claus­tral matron. At her bare, bronze feet were piled gifts of fruit and coin. Folk approached her briefly to lay offer­ings and make the sign of the Lord.

Ivrne point­ed at the stat­ue. “Who?”

“Saint Isodo­ra. The Chapel was built in her hon­or. They call this Isodo­ra Square.”

“What are they doing?” Her black eyes flit­ted over the offer­ings, the throng­ing wor­ship­pers.

“They are lay­ing gifts for her.”

“Why? Are not saints dead?”

“Avethans believe her spir­it remains alive. They show gen­eros­i­ty in hopes she’ll bestow a bless­ing upon them.”

“What does bless­ing do?”

Alexo smiled, wry. “In Isodor­a’s case, folk hope she’ll pro­tect them from crea­tures like you.”

Ivrne grinned imp­ish­ly, con­sid­ered the stat­ue a moment. She tugged her hood down, slipped into the crowd. Frown­ing, Alexo watched her approach, bend, del­i­cate­ly place her plum on Isodor­a’s toes. She returned beside him, smug.

“You’re their most dread­ful of night­mares,” said Alexo, smil­ing.

“Let us go,” smiled Ivrne. White teeth flashed under the hood. 

They set to walk­ing again. Alexo picked and nudged his way through the mar­ket crowd. Ivrne sim­ply crept ahead, unno­ticed, in the sun­light between bod­ies.

Abrupt­ly, she stopped, looked down at the paving bricks. “What is this?” she said, turn­ing back to look. Alexo stopped beside, looked down, frowned. “Ah,” he exclaimed, low.

In the space between the red, sun-hot pavers, there was glit­ter­ing, pit­ted gold. A glit­ter­ing, grid-like web of met­al, as if some­one had poured molten wealth in place of mor­tar. It con­tin­ued for sev­er­al meters on either side.

“What is?” asked Ivrne. She bent to touch the gold, warm in the sun.

“Not some­thing Avethans should be proud of,” said Alexo, soft­ly. “There was a time when the Holy Inqui­si­tion poured gold wher­ev­er they spilled blood.”

Ivrne with­drew from the bricks, gri­maced. “They killed here?”

Alexo nod­ded. “They did.”

“Why?”

“The Inqui­si­tion exe­cut­ed peo­ple they called heretics.”

“Why pour gold?”

“So every exe­cu­tion would be remem­bered.”

Ivrne stud­ied the bricks for a while. Dots of gold swam in her inky eyes. “Mai­ta is not Avethan, yes?”

“No,” Alexo replied, qui­et. “Mai­ta is like me.”

“Good.” Ivrne turned to leave, took care not to tread on the gold.

“Speak­ing of,” said Alexo, peer­ing over heads. “I do believe I see her.”

A dark, freck­led woman was push­ing towards them, her hair wild about her face. She was pant­i­ng from a run. Ivrne waved to her. “Ah, Mai­ta!” said Alexo, smil­ing. “Speak of the ser­pent, and he shall appear!”

Mai­ta stopped before them. Alex­o’s smile fad­ed. A stark fear showed on the wom­an’s face. “Mai­ta?”

“You idio­ta, Alexo,” pant­ed Mai­ta. She point­ed to Ivrne. “Tak­ing her to the open town. They already know. They are already here.”

“What?” said Alexo, grow­ing pale. His eyes dart­ed about the crowd. A com­mo­tion was grow­ing. Peo­ple were shout­ing, part­ing in droves from a dis­tur­bance some yards away.

Maita’s eyes bulged. “They are com­ing,” she said, shov­ing Ivrne in the oppo­site direc­tion. “Run, you fools!”

Ivrne glanced once at Alexo. Ani­mal fear widened her white­less eyes. She blinked and van­ished into the flee­ing crowd. Van­ished like mist in the sun. Alexo began to backpedal. Mai­ta tried to tug him faster. 

In a daze, Alexo observed the object of the crowd’s flight: A rus­tle of black and white cloth over cord­ed limbs. A wild flut­ter­ing fringe of prayer slips affixed to a slit-eyed helm. A titan­ic length of glit­ter­ing rec­tan­gu­lar blade out­stretched. A voice, heavy with molten fer­vor. 

“Unto the glo­ry of the Lord!” 

“Alexo!” cried Mai­ta. 

Alexo star­tled, began to run too late. Heavy foot­falls over­came him. Steel shone white in the South­ern sun. A cry was cut wet­ly short.

Blood again stained the bricks of Isodo­ra Square.

The Holy Inquisition

Offi­cial­ly, there is no Inqui­si­tion. 

Not since Parou­sia, recent­ly ago, when it was offi­cial­ly dis­solved in cel­e­bra­tion of the Lord’s return to her peo­ple. That the dis­band­ing of a group sup­pos­ed­ly in ser­vice to the peo­ple should be deemed a cel­e­bra­to­ry gift says much of its rep­u­ta­tion. ††

Fir­lund’s Office of Secrets clas­si­fies the group as ter­ror­ists, mil­i­tants fed by the shad­owy depths of the theo­crat­ic Alagóri­an state. The State itself insists they are dis­band­ed. The Church of Aveth mim­ics the State’s sen­ti­ment, yet con­tin­ues to laud the group’s dead­ly achieve­ments.

The peo­ple of Alagór are of divid­ed mind on the Inqui­si­tion. To many, the pub­lic assas­si­na­tion and covert dis­ap­pear­ance of apos­tates and heretics is a ter­ri­ble smear against their reli­gion. ‡ A dis­grace. To oth­ers, it is an essen­tial image. A cor­ner­stone in the edi­fice of faith.

The hunt­ing Inquisi­tor is a supreme­ly evoca­tive image: Shin­ing great-sword, flow­ing chiaroscuro robe, and noble brow bee­tled in fury. A fig­ure reflect­ed from the for­ma­tive lore of Aveth. The sub­ject of chapel murals and tem­ple icons. Laypeo­ple call this incar­na­tion Inquisi­tor, Exe­cu­tion­er, or Ter­ror­ist, but the tru­ly pious use its scrip­tur­al name: Aveng­ing angel.

Angels

The Inqui­si­tion is found­ed upon a par­tic­u­lar line from the Lord’s Writ: 

Under Her law, only angels are exem­plar.

Since its incep­tion by the Church some cen­turies ago, the faith­ful Inqui­si­tion has made a mis­sion to attain this holy author­i­ty. Since no angel yet walks the world, Inquisi­tors believe it falls to them to assume the holy aspect; becom­ing moment­ly in their work angel­ic exe­cu­tion­ers.

Assump­tion of angel­ic aspect is the Inqui­si­tion’s most cher­ished rit­u­al. It is a solemn arm­ing cer­e­mo­ny. A wor­thy Inquisi­tor is bathed in holy water, smudged with sacred vapors, dressed in the liv­ery of their task. Sacred armor lined with prayer seal is draped in the volu­mi­nous black-and-white man­tle of angels. ‡‡ A sacred blade is retrieved from its arcosoli­um and tak­en to hand. The Inquisi­tor, armed, is unleashed, pur­suant their tar­get. Briefly, a Pun­ish­ing Angel.

These angel­ic assas­sins are known as Inquisi­to­r­i­al Exe­cu­tion­ers. Sight­ings of their holy vio­lence inform most folk’s image of the Inqui­si­tion. And they are often sight­ed: The Inqui­si­tion, unless covert means are absolute­ly nec­es­sary or oth­er­wise con­ve­nient, will always make a pub­lic spec­ta­cle of an exe­cu­tion. A sud­den pageant of blood­shed which even in the faith­less instills an awful, stunned rev­er­ence.

Exe­cu­tion­ers are far from the Inqui­si­tion’s only oper­a­tives, how­ev­er, and are not the sole pos­ses­sors of its fear­some rep­u­ta­tion. The appear­ance of an Inquisi­to­r­i­al Inves­ti­gador, too, inspires near the same holy dread as an angel­ic assas­sin. These sly and elo­quent detec­tives per­form the inquiry for which their group is named.

Before the group’s polit­i­cal dis­so­lu­tion, an Inqui­si­tion Inves­ti­gador would make no sub­tle­ty in their work. Often, they’d intro­duce them­selves from the church pul­pit with a tow­er­ing Exe­cu­tion­er in tow. Such an intro­duc­tion would often yield fear­ful answers and fin­ger-point­ing before inquiry even com­menced.

Nowa­days, inves­ti­ga­tions are more covert. The name of the Inqui­si­tion is no longer bandied about. It is used in a mea­sured manor to inform an appro­pri­ate­ly respect­ful lev­el of fear. Fear is war­rant­ed, for, after an inquiry con­cludes, an Exe­cu­tion­er’s blade is nev­er far behind.

Parousia

Since its offi­cial dis­so­lu­tion fol­low­ing the return of Aveth, the Inqui­si­tion has not gone to ground. Rather, it has mere­ly become more vicious. While pub­lic exe­cu­tions have become more infre­quent in the streets of Alagór, covert inter­na­tion­al Coastal killings have increased aggres­sive­ly.

Nary a week pass­es with­out a bru­tal assas­si­na­tion claimed by the Inqui­si­tion. The tar­gets are main­ly non-the­ist. Skep­tics, ide­o­logues, and älf-sym­pa­thiz­ers deemed apo­sta­t­ic ene­mies of the Lord Returned. Recent­ly: A Firl­ish magi­cian slain, her hands sev­ered. §  An Emper­oussin the­ol­o­gist fed lye. A Belvirin­ian phil­an­thropist starved to death in his own locked cup­board.

Rumors say the Inqui­si­tion’s recent aggres­sion is a prod­uct of direct guid­ance by the returned Lord. Oth­ers rebuke this. They point out that the Lord has not descend­ed from her mile-high minaret since her return. Instead, they say, these inter­na­tion­al bru­tal­i­ties exist to draw focus from a more sub­tle, more insid­i­ous plot with­in Alagór itself.

Rumors of such a plot are spo­ken only to trust­ed ears. They say the Inqui­si­tion has engen­dered a plot to remove Aveth from her mile-high minaret clois­ter. Not to depose her, but to free her. To remove her from a high cell imposed by faith­less lead­ers, to restore her as leader of mankind. As the con­quer­ing gen­er­al she was in the Bel­lu­an­tic Age.

To do so, the Inqui­si­tion relies not on the bru­tal­i­ty for which it is known. That is a dis­trac­tion. By the Inqui­si­tion’s hid­den hand, the sec­ond Domin­ion of the Lord will come by the inquir­ing secre­cy for which it is named.

Note

“I’ll write a short some­thing on the Inqui­si­tion, maybe 1.5k words,” said the author. Nary did he know the mag­ni­tude of this lie.

In my games, the Inqui­si­tion has been a for­ma­tive fac­tion. There was once a months-long affair devot­ed to ser­pents and strange Inquisi­to­r­i­al mis­sions which cul­mi­nat­ed in Parou­sia. These days, I some­times set up Dis­hon­ored-style assas­si­na­tion mis­sions for a team of Inquisi­tor char­ac­ters. Makes a weird cam­paign type nice­ly removed from ven­tur­ing. Might make a relat­ed cam­paign for the Office of Secrets, too (maybe some spy-ver­sus-spy affair in oppo­si­tion to the Inqui­si­tion.)