Chapter Text
“Iblis, show us your Truth, so that we may marshal our fire according to Your will,” the pyromancer intoned.
At the back of the shadowy stone chamber, three hooded acolytes echoed their mistress’s chant. The pyromancer — a black pantheress in a scanty purple robe — cocked her head to the left.
“The bone,” she demanded, thrusting out a hand.
Shadow nearly flinched at the sudden movement. Haltingly, he placed the cow’s fibula he was holding in the pyromancer’s hand. Snatching the leg-bone away, the pantheress turned her green-eyed glare towards a flaming brazier.
A young novice kneeling by the brazier heaped handfuls of salt into its bronze dish. The dancing flames flared as the pyromancer stalked towards them, holding the fibula like a sword. Then, she thrust the leg-bone into the inferno as if she were finishing off a mortal enemy.
“Iblis, show us your Truth, so that we may marshal our fire according to Your will,” she intoned. Once more, the trio of hooded acolytes reprised the chant.
Shadow couldn’t help but marvel at the pyromancer’s poise in the face of such heat. Dressed in iron armor, he could barely stand it from halfway across the chamber. His wonderment soon waned, however, and his gaze drifted to the novice kneeling beside the brazier. Barely more than a kitten, the young cat looked terrified.
He could just picture his wife Amaranth lunging forward to haul the youngster to safety. Perhaps it was for the best that Queen Rouge had sent him here without her. For all he knew, singed whiskers might be a rite of passage for these fire-worshippers.
Finally, the pyromancer pulled the charred leg-bone from the fire. Shadow watched intently as she set about examining it. He twitched as a hand appeared on his shoulder.
"Iblis shall reveal his Truth presently, noble lord," said the hooded acolyte, motioning to the shadowy chamber’s curtained entrance.
Reluctantly, Shadow let the cowled cat lead out of the shrine’s shadowy inner sanctum. They crossed the torch-lit outer sanctum and proceeded through a second curtain out into the daylight. There, the acolyte bowed left the hedgehog with his wife’s laughter echoing in his ears.
He sighed. The last few moments had gone exactly as Amaranth had predicted. Of course they wouldn’t allow an outsider like him to witness something as sacred as the interpretation process. Never mind the fact he put no more faith in Iblisian oracle-bones than he did in his wife’s beloved Comhartha tokens.
At least he’d have a few days to brace himself for that particular conversation. She hadn’t pulled a punch in ten years and there was little reason to think she would start now.
“Pa!”
Shadow’s ears pricked. His turquoise cloak billowed as he whirled round to scan the shrine’s walled courtyard. It bustled with predominantly feline pilgrims, all hoping they would be the next one chosen to see the pyromancer. He soon spied a skinny albino hedgehog, ducking and weaving his way through the idle crowds.
Shadow tensed as the youngster jostled one pilgrim a little too hard. The irked tiger seized the hedgehog by the scruff of his turquoise tunic.
“An Erinian?” the tiger sneered, “What’s a little needlemouse doing scurrying around here?”
“Looking for my pa,” said Silver meekly.
The tiger scoffed.
“Spare me, urchin.”
He eyed a pouch on the girdle around Silver’s waist.
“And what do we have here?”
He reached for the pouch. A black hand caught his wrist.
“And who’s this?” the tiger glowered, looking up at Shadow.
Shadow answered with his forehead. He literally tore his son from the tiger’s grasp — claws ripped the back of Silver’s tunic — and marched him back to the shrine. He shouldered perturbed pilgrims out of his path, cracking more than one would-be oracle-bone underfoot. He didn’t think to apologize. There were all manner of livestock bones for sale in the encampment outside.
A hooded acolyte awaited the hedgehogs at the foot of the shrine’s steps. Her voluminous purple robe made it impossible to tell if she was the same one as before.
“Noble lord,” said the cowled cat, “Your Truth awaits.”
Shadow grudgingly accepted the delay in questioning his disobedient son. If there was a reasonable explanation for his coming here, the boy would’ve told him already. He took Silver’s hand and started up the steps. The acolyte didn’t move at first. Shadow’s free hand gripped the pommel of the broadsword at his hip. The acolyte moved.
She showed the hedgehogs up to the shrine’s curtained entrance. The pyromancer awaited in the torch-lit outer sanctum. Her glaring green eyes glanced fleetingly at Silver, then settled upon Shadow.
“Iblis has spoken,” she said, weighing the scorched leg-bone in her hands, “His Truth is this…”
The road you will walk
Is fraught with dangers unseen
Walk it warily
Silver winced as his father’s hold on his hand suddenly tightened. At the same time, Shadow’s knuckles cracked as he gripped his broadsword’s pommel. It was all he could to do to keep from cracking the oracle-bone over the pyromancer’s head.
He stood there stewing as a hooded acolyte sidled over, relieved her mistress of the cow’s fibula, and presented it to the black hedgehog. Shadow snatched the oracle-bone, turned heel, and strode out of the shrine. His turquoise cloak billowed as the stumbling Silver was pulled along behind him.
He could hear his wife’s laughter again, heartier than before, and not without good reason. A nugget of commonsense advice for any traveler braving the roads of practically anywhere had not been worth a two-day chariot ride.
“Pa!” Silver piped up as they stepped outside.
The brooding Shadow stopped to look at his son. Now was probably as good a time as any to question the boy. Then he saw Silver’s gold eyes. They weren’t looking at him. Shadow looked up.
“Hello, needlemouse,” sneered the tiger. The white fur around his mouth was matted with dry blood.
Shadow’s red eyes narrowed.
“Move,” he said levelly.
The tiger stood firm. A group of pilgrims loitering at the foot of the steps craned their necks.
Shadow let Silver’s hand go and clubbed their obstructor over the head with the oracle-bone. Embrittled by the brazier, the fibula shattered into flakes upon impact. Shadow put Silver under his arm and stepped over the dazed tiger.
The hedgehogs swept down the steps and across the walled courtyard. Stunned by the flagrant disregard for an object touched by Iblis’s fire, the pilgrims scattered. Soon enough, father and son were traversing the encampment beyond the shrine’s outer wall.
The maze of tents, hovels, and glorified bivouacs teemed with yet more pilgrims; their servants and slaves; peddlers of food, would-be oracle-bones, and other wares; and self-styled mystics, offering the faithful a more accessible way of communing with Iblis. Of the masses who piled into the shrine’s courtyard every morning, only a handful would see the pyromancer on a given day.
Once the edge of the encampment was in sight, Shadow set Silver down on the muddy track. He led the ten-year-old by his ear the rest of the way. A bunch of kittens playing in front of a nearby food stall took notice. They fell about giggling at the sight of the lopsided albino hedgehog.
“Please, Pa,” whined Silver, “They’re laughing at me.”
“Be glad that’s all they’re doing,” said Shadow sternly, “You were told to stay with the horses.”
“I…got bored,” mumbled Silver.
“When did that become a reason to neglect your duties?”
“But…Lobo said—”
“Lobo?” snapped Shadow.
The black hedgehog stopped in his tracks, dropped to one knee, and grabbed his son’s shoulders.
“The queen’s laws empower me to kill Lobo if he contradicts my commands, Silver. Do you understand that?”
The ten-year-old blinked. “Th-they do?”
“Yes.”
Silver blenched. “Y-you w-wouldn’t ever actually—”
“No, never,” Shadow cut in, “But we cannot expect Lobo to take such a thing for granted.”
Still visibly shaken, Silver slowly nodded.
“Yes, Pa,” he murmured, “Sorry, Pa.”
“It’s not me you need to apologize to,” said Shadow, standing up.
The hedgehogs walked hand-in-hand out of Tophet. On the roadside up ahead, a brown wolf was perched on the footplate of a stationary chariot. Two black horses grazed nearby.
“Lobo!” Silver called out.
The wolf glanced up, then leapt to his feet. He bowed his head as Shadow and Silver drew near.
“Welcome back, mas…my lord,” said Lobo.
“Thank you, Lobo,” said Shadow, “Raise your head.”
The slave complied, establishing uneasy eye contact with the black hedgehog.
“Silver, what do you have to say?”
The albino hedgehog shuffled forward.
“I’m…sorry I ran off, Lobo,” he mumbled, twiddling his thumbs.
The stunned slave dropped to one knee, “Think nothing of it, young lord!”
Silver lifted his gaze from his muddy feet. “But I mean it, Lobo.”
The wolf smiled warmly. “You’re a good boy, young lord.”
Without warning, Silver hugged the slave. Eventually, Lobo returned the embrace.
Shadow watched them impassively. Had his own father caught him humbling himself in such a way at Silver's age, he might not walk as upright as he presently did.
"Silver," he said.
"Yes, Pa?"
"Go and yoke the horses. The sooner your mother's had her fun at my expense, the happier I'll be."