The Priesthood

It was late, and the sun had set hours ago. The four of them stood near the gates that would allow them access to the city outside the academy. Two guards were talking to each other, wondering if they should abide the outrageous demands of a priest or stick to the first commands given.

The gates they used were located after the postal office and the law enforcement building on campus, so one of the guards went to the latter to receive permission to allow Oidus to leave the academy grounds with three murder suspects.

Just based on this, it was certain that law enforcement had not made any progress in their own investigations of the matter.

He returned ten or so minutes later with a piece of paper, a degree of sorts, that would allow her and the novices to leave the campus. But they would have to be back by noon, or they would send a couple of inquisitors to find them and then bring them back.

The gates opened, and on the other side was the third-largest city in the kingdom. Around eighty thousand people lived there, and the city felt like it would never end.

There were buildings everywhere, and even people were still walking during the darkest hours of the evening. They could hear bustling bars and pubs with loud music and joyful shouts coming out of them. Such places often had illegal activities connected with them, be it something that was mostly frowned upon like prostitution or the consumption of alcohol.

There wasn’t much variety with the buildings they went past; it was clear that the further they went away from the academy, the less money the people around them had. The shops weren’t as nice, and the streets weren’t as clean. And there was this feeling of unease when they had to go into a dark alleyway.

Yirn was confident when guiding them through the city; after all, it was something that he was more than familiar with. His pace was fast, as he really didn’t want to spend too much time in the city. Moving quickly also helped them avoid having to deal with unwanted attention.

There was always the possibility of getting robbed, but their robes made it so that most would not dare to even approach them in such a manner, though they might taunt them as they went past.

The city wasn’t entirely surrounded by walls; only the inner city was, so the areas that were much richer and held much more "important" infrastructure of the city, like law enforcement offices or the city council. The city itself, with its walls, made it clear that there was a difference in class. An inherent difference in the people who called the city of Atarkan their home. Sure, all those who lived there called themselves "Atarkaneen", but the city was divided by physical barriers into sections of different people who had a different class in the society in which they lived.

Those within the walls were mostly richer people who had much more power than those outside of them. Those who were outside the walls but nearer to them felt themselves different from those who lived on the outskirts of the city.

Atarkan by itself was a city of considerable riches, but the academy that was within its walls was the main reason for the very existence of the city. It was the center of it and also had its own entity of governance and law separate from the city itself.

The academy, with the funding it got from the kingdom and the many rich families that sent their spawn to study there, was far richer than the city that surrounded it.

It would be easy for all men to see how unfair the world was if they walked through a city and paid attention to the things and the people they saw around them.

After about an hour, they had finally reached the southern edge of the city. There would still be many buildings and people living outside this "edge," but they would quickly become few and far between as the city would end.

They found themselves on the southern road that would lead them away from Atarkan; it was a busy road during the day, and they would travel about a kilometer to nearby hills that were surrounded by a sparse forest.

It had been a long time since Kanrel had taken a step outside of the city or even the academy. If one spends their time in a cozy environment with a well-kept inner park which is almost a simulation of nature, it would be easy to forget just how unkept nature truly is.

The leaves that had fallen from the many trees around covered the ground, and no one had swept them away. It also got much colder as they got further away from the city; frost had begun covering the leaves they walked on, and one could hear this crunch whenever a step was taken.

There wasn't any light around, not from buildings, just the moon that slightly showed itself from behind the clouds that covered it. If it rained, then it would snow.

Oidus was nice enough to create multiple lights that would light their way through the forest. With the help of this, Kanrel could see mist coming out of his mouth when he exhaled, and he couldn’t help but cough at times as the cold air tickled his throat when he breathed in.

He had already begun sniffing, and it was virtually one of the only sounds that they could hear in the cold autumn night.

They slowly scaled the hill, and at the top of it, they could only see as far as Oidus’s lights allowed them to. The tops of some of the trees and the hilltop itself.

By shape, it was mostly plain, with grass covering the top of it. There were some loose rocks and stones, but those were in the minority at the top of the hill. During midsummer, many of the citizens would gather around the hill to see and listen to a sermon held by the Grand Priest. During his sermon, he would showcase his magic to the common people, and they could ask him for help with anything that they could think of. The Grand Priest would then grant them their wish or heal their injury, as long as it was something that he could do or achieve by magic.

They weren’t there for a sermon, as such.

"Now then," Oidus said as she stood in the middle of the hilltop, "shall we begin?"

Kanrel gave her his notebook so that she could begin casting the code. She seemed to read through the code continuously. "I’ll have to do some minor altercations so that the code will better suit my way of using magic," she commented as she turned to an empty page and began to write.

Yirn stared at Yviev and Kanrel in turn, and as an answer, he got a nod from both of them; it was the signal for them to commence their code of entrapment. In rapid succession, they began, and it didn’t take long for Oidus to take notice. She had a confused look on her face at first and was about to say something.

Suddenly, her movement stopped, and it looked like she was being forced to sit on the ground. She rapidly moved her eyes around as she began to curse out loud, "What in the name of the Angels do you think that you’re doing?"

"Are you mad? Are you, after all, the murderers you’re accused of being?" She spat her words out, "Cleaver priestlings, you are... You’ve not only blocked my movement but also my sight; if I cannot see then I cannot do anything other than talk, at least that you’ve given me."

"Silence," Kanrel said with all the authority that he could find within, "you are here to be questioned by us, and not the other way around." He walked closer to her; his hands were shaking, but he wasn’t sure if it was because of the cold or the adrenaline coursing through his existence.

They could all hear a long sigh come out of her: "Sure, what is the thing you want to know so much that you've got to commit a crime to find out?" There was defeat in her voice, or maybe just boredom.

"Well, with the murders, we have a reason to suspect that you are either the person behind them or somehow related to them," Kanrel voiced out their accusation. Yviev was next to him, taking notes of the things that would be said. Yirn just stood there with his arms crossed.

A silence answered them, but soon they could hear a slight chuckle: "Is that why you’ve not visited me?"

"Just tell me the truth."

"I have nothing to do with the murders. Happy? Now let me go, and I won’t leave you all battered and on the brink of death for this transgression," she said with a sweet smile on her face.

"We have evidence," Yirn intercepted.

For a moment, Oidus looked surprised, then her eyebrows furrowed. "You’ve broken into my room, haven't you? And there you found the jar with the ears."

"A difficult thing to explain, indeed. I suppose you wouldn’t just take my word for it if I happened to say that weeks prior it had been placed in my room?" She asked and soon continued, "Of course you wouldn't."

"What do you mean?" Kanrel asked in turn. There was still a voice in his head that wished that she would be innocent of all of the things that they accused her of.

"You remember the day that the tongue was nailed to the wall at the laboratory? Before that, I found the jar in my room with a note that was very similar to the graffiti," she explained.

"We can’t just take your word for it." Yirn said his voice sounding almost sad: "What about the secret passage that leads into your room?"

"What secret passage? Say things that make sense, boy," she said, and another bright chuckle filled the air.

"The one behind the wardrobe in your storage room," Kanrel said. He almost believed her, but at the same time, lying was more than easy.

"In my storage room? The one that is locked? If you’ve been inside of it, then you must know how little things there are inside it; I never go there, nor do I ever put things in there," she explained. "And now you tell me about a ‘secret passage’?"

"Tell me of this secret passage..."

So Kanrel explained what they found there and how they first got there: the chambers, the engravings, the stone doors, and the words that were carved on the floors. And at last, the last chamber and the table in the middle of it; the note on top of it; and the words written: The truth shall set you free...

A contemplative silence came between them, and it took a whole minute for Oidus to say anything. "That, indeed, is quite interesting," she said, then sighed again. "But I must be honest with you and possibly disappoint you in the process; I had no idea of such a chamber or a secret passageway, nor have I ever seen or written words even similar to those that were on the note you found."

"I’ve nothing to do with the murders, and hearing your tale, I can understand why you would come to such a conclusion."

"If you now let me go, we can go through your gravity test, as you first proposed, and later we can investigate this chamber and its contents together."

Kanrel swallowed; he really didn’t know what to do now. On one hand, he didn’t want her to be the person behind everything, and on the other hand, it was difficult to believe her; telling lies is easy.

So he first looked at Yirn; their eyes met, and Yirn shook his head. It was clear that he didn’t believe a single word that Oidus had just said. Then Kanrel took a look at Yviev, who nodded instead; she believed, or at least wanted to believe, Oidus’s words.

Kanrel scratched his head. He could take a leap of faith. If they now let her go and she was the murderer, she could easily dispose of them, and she could as easily tell the guards that they had tried to run away or attacked her, and everyone would believe her.

The other option was to kill her. Taking her back to the city and then accusing her in front of everyone had too many risks involved.

"We have to kill her," Yirn suddenly said. "It is the only thing that we can do."

"No! If we kill her, how are we supposed to explain her not coming with us back to the academy?" Yviev expressed his disagreement.

"We’ll run away; we’ll go as far as we can!" Yirn pleaded.

Kanrel shook his head. "We have to let her go; this is the only option that goes according to everything we’ve been taught," he said, and his decision would be final; it was two against one.

If he truly were a priest, and a priest ought to do good, then that is what Kanrel shall do.

Yirn suddenly scoffed. On his face, there was a weird facial expression; it looked like a smile, but one not as well practiced as the one he would usually show. The smile he now had on his face was a true smile: "Fine, have it your way!" He spat out his words loudly, and soon they were surrounded by people in dark robes, their faces covered with grotesque masks.

They stood there, surrounded by individuals with weapons in their hands. "What is the meaning of this?" Kanrel asked.

"The truth!" Yirn yelled and lunged an explosive ball of fire at them. They had been betrayed; they were ambushed.