-Camoran, Eastmarch-

  -Grand Cathedral of Kaedmon-

  Cardinal Langley was a man who got things done.

  As the junior member of the Council of Cardinals, his duty was to serve Lord Kaedmon as an advisor to the people of His most illustrious city – to be an envoy of the Allfather, a herald of the Paragon of Stability.

  He had done his job well for twenty years. His flock had enjoyed his sermons. They’d crowded round his podium when he was merely a boy preaching in an isolated village at the edge of Eastmarch, full of fervor for the one true God. His parents had jumped for joy when High Cardinal Remiel himself had sent a pair of Seekers to his village who became impressed with his rhetoric. At a mere 16 years of age, he had whole verses of The One True Path memorized to a T. He could recite the Catechisms of Serenity with more precision than any of his fellow villagers. The Seekers had told his parents that young men possessed of such fervor were needed in the capital city. The old Archon – the enemy of mankind – had fallen long ago. And she was supposed to be the last one. The time had come for the rightful rulers of Argwyll to spread the good word to all the land anew – and they were in need of promising young preachers like Langley.

  His parents had been overjoyed. Hs father – a [Mller] by Kaedmon’s decree, had hoped to win the ‘luck of the draw’ by having as many children as possible with his mother. Surely, he thought, one of them had to be born with a good destiny. But as son after son were born with only menial trades to their names, he had almost given up hope, as had his [Miller] wife.

  Then along came Langley – a [Cleric]. A magic-user, and the right kind of magic user at that. Baby blue eyes, luminous blonde curls, and pudgy fingers – Langley had come into the world full of life, singing the praises of His lord even if he didn’t know them yet. At least, that was what his father told his mates at the local pub.

  When the Seekers had come, his parents had given him up without question. They hugged him, kissed him, and sent him off with prayers that he’d forge a legacy beyond what Lord Kaedmon had planned for them.

  They’d wept tears of joy to send their son away. Of course they had.

  Because that was what they were supposed to do.

  Now, as a thirty-three-year-old man, Langley wandered the halls of the Grand Cathedral of Kaedmon with a manner that many said spoke of devotion beyond his years. He could often be found dreamily gazing at statues of the Allfather in mute fascination during the day, absorbing himself in confessional duties during work hours, and taking his lunch alone in his quarters deep in the bowels of the building, far from the eyes of the other Cardinals, pastors, or servants. His nocturnal activities were no stranger for a man of his persuasion – he frequented brothels, bars, and some of the most dismal back-alleys that the other clerics of the church tried to pretend simply didn’t exist. He had also been seen speaking to Hybrid slaves in the city suburbs or out in the surrounding farmlands – engaging them in long, pious chats that often left such servants much more pliable to their masters afterwards.

  There were some who condemned him for this – spreading rumors in darkened doorways that this young Cardinal was giving the Council a bad name and, by extension, tarnishing the reputation of His Lordship. Yet there were even louder voices that spoke of the young Cardinal’s activities as those of a truly pious [Cleric]. After all, it was said that Kaedmon brought the poor and the downtrodden into his world for a reason – as he did everything else. Didn’t it make sense for one of the faithful to reinforce this message every once and a while? Langley, in his way, was still administering to his flock – wherever they might be. He embraced a more full picture of the faith – one where even Hybrids could learn their place in the human world. Such notions idealistic to some, reckless to others, and yet inspirational to many. The fact Langley had such popularity among the people was the only reason his superiors did not see it fit to denounce him (so the rumors went). Even the High Cardinal tolerated his activities – and High Cardinal Remiel was a man whose judgement could not be questioned.

  Yet what none of those gossiping [Fishwives], [Urchins], and [Clerics] could know was what was happening in Langley’s own head over the past few years. Beneath the charming veneer of piety he presented – with his perfectly combed locks and angelic, youthful face – there was a secret being held. Behind his full lipped smile and his high-strung evangelist voice, there was something brewing deep inside him, in a place that he dared not look.

  He couldn’t articulate when exactly he had started to harbor these thoughts, or what exactly they meant, or even if they were from Kaedmon Himself. All he knew was that something was happening to him – something that all his prayers, and all his recitations of the Lord’s sermons, couldn’t abate.

  Within the mind of this perfect servant of Kaedmon, there was a problem.

  One that wouldn’t go away.

  ***

  One dim afternoon, during a particularly nasty storm that had blanketed the entire continent for the past few months, Cardinal Langley sat in his confessional booth in silent contemplation.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  When the door to the opposite booth opened and someone of haggard breath stepped inside, Langley’s response was mechanical, nothing more:

  “What troubles you, child of Kaedmon?”

  The shadowed figure on the other side of the confessional booth looked like an old, tired woman. As she spoke, the rasp in her voice was harsh, and made each word she uttered sound like it took a gargantuan effort for her to form.

  “Cardinal,” she said. “I wish to confess.”

  Langley nodded sagely, allowing the confessor time to collect her thoughts. She was clearly drenched. He could hear droplets of rain pitter onto the carpeted floor beneath the stool she trembled on. Her body heaved, as though she was about to break out in a panic at any moment.

  That was when Langley jumped in:

  “Speak, child,” he said. “Know that the ears of the Lord hear even the weak and the vicious in equal measure.”

  The silhouetted woman let out a deep, strained sigh.

  “I’ve been a [Washer-woman] by Kaedmon’s decree for thirty seven years,” she began. “And in all this time, I’ve been a dutiful servant of the Lord. I do my job. I do it well. I wake up every day and tend to the filth of my husband’s needs and even the neighbors’ when I can. I – I like to think that if the Lord Kaedmon has been watching me, he’s seen everything I’ve done to keep my household right, even if I’m just a low-born. I’ve done everything I’m supposed to. I’ve walked the right path.”

  Langley nodded. He knew where this was going, for he could already trace the seeds of doubt in this woman’s mind.

  “So why,” she gargled, a series of whooping coughs coming over her, “why has the Lord punished me by giving me a [Druid] baby?”

  Langley closed his eyes, letting the tears that wracked this woman’s body flow freely now. He only began talking again when she’d wiped them away.

  “The Lord has given your child a gift,” he said. “The child shall worship the Allfather by protecting his green lands and tending to the beauty of nature. As we all do, the child shall have their place. Even if they cannot remain in the city with you, the beauty of your love they shall take with them to germinate in the seclusion of their grove.”

  Silence. Langley assumed the woman was simply processing what he’d said.

  But the truth was far worse than that.

  “…Father,” she croaked. “You – you didn’t see him.”

  The horror in the woman’s voice struck Langley. Suddenly he found himself turning to regard her black shadow as her whole body shuddered, and her voice dropped to a raspy, haunted whisper:

  “…he came out…not right,” she said, then covered her mouth as she uttered the words. But the spirit behind her body wouldn’t let her stop there: “Covered in…maggots. Branches for limbs. Termites nipping away at his skin…his eyes – black. Two big, black holes. He tore me apart, Father. He ripped through me and came into the world as a…as…as a monster!”

  The woman let out a banshee wail, and for a moment Langley thought she might just transform into a beast of darkness herself.

  “Why?” she pleaded. “Why, Father? Why me? Why us? My husband he – he’s already gone. He took one look at the child and ran. But I – what can I do? He’s a creature of evil, Father. I know it. Just like those ones that serve the Archon!”

  He could feel her heavy breathing right up against his ear, now, and he did what he could to maintain his composure.

  “A mother’s love,” he said steadily, “must extend to all her children. That is the will of Kaedmon. He does not punish. He guides us.”

  “How can I love that – thing!?” she wailed back at him.

  “That thing is still your child, is he not?”

  Silence again. Langley fixed her shadow with his shining eyes.

  “Kaedmon has given you a test,” he whispered. “You may be a [Washer-woman], but He has made you a [Mother], too. Many do not get the chance for such an honor. Many children are not granted a hearth and home, or parents who wish to help them grow. But you do have such love to give. This may not be the child you asked for, but it is the child you have. Now Kaedmon is asking you: can you love him?”

  The confessor’s voice squeaked as this realization struck her. Slowly she slumped back int her stool, and grief overcame her once again.

  “…he can never live a normal life,” she wailed. “He – we can’t stay here!”

  “Then don’t.”

  Those words were said with force – a little more force than Langley had intended. But this confessional had become something more than what it was the moment the woman had told him she’d given birth to a non-human.

  “B-but,” she bubbled. “He’s not – not natural.”

  “He’s as natural to this world as you or me. Trust in the Lord, for He oft bequeaths tonics that first seemeth poisons.”

  He leaned forward, keeping his tone measured, eyes darting to the roof of the confessional box, to the side, surveying every little crack in its walls just in case.

  She was not the first citizen of the capital to come to him pleading that her newborn was a mutation. In the last two months, it had been somewhat of an epidemic – monstrous babies being born to mothers who had no contact with the outside world at all, who had nothing significant about them to boast of. They thought it a curse – but Langley knew better.

  Whether they understood it or not, they had been given a gift – a chance to survive what was coming for them all.

  And so he leaned down and told her what he’d told the rest of them:

  “Take the child and leave the city. Swaddle him in bedsheets or clothes. Go into the southern hinterlands and take solace in the Druid’s Grove there. They shall ask you a cryptic question when you enter their forest – do not try to understand. Simply reply, ‘The Fifth Pillar stands tallest in the dusk’.”

  He allowed her a moment to take all that in with a little gasp.

  “Father,” she breathed. “I don’t –“

  “You have been given a gift,” he told her directly. “It would be better for you not to be in this city. You should leave today.”

  He said it with such intensity that the [Washer-woman] had little to say in response. She waited a moment before nodding just as sagely as he had when she’d first sat down.

  When she left the confessional booth, Cardinal Langley breathed his own sigh of relief. Every time he gave that particular brand of advice to the members of his flock, he knew that he was stepping outside the bounds of his jurisdiction. He knew that the authority Kaedmon had granted him was not to be used to further anything but His name.

  But something in Cardinal Langley was changing. Slowly, the problem within him was starting to resolve. He was taking action, now. Because one day very soon, the entire city was going to change with him.

  Something was coming that they could not resist. And difficult choices would have to be made.

  He had to get them ready.