Thirteen-hour pocketwach - Cunningman - Storm on the horizon - Sinister monoliths - Murder - Something knocks on the door - Flood of rats - Facing evil - The question of faith

The pocket-watch he gave me had thirteen hours on its face, and a small skull where the number twelve should've been displayed. I tried to decline. What use is there for such a useless gift?

If the pocket-watch had been in better condition it'd make for a curious souvenir, but alas, the item had seen better days: cracked glass, rusted all over. Simply hideous. At least it was functional. My guide insisted, however, saying: "Take it you bloody bleeter, or you will be mighty sorry." 

Not willing to enrage my new companion further, I accepted. Glad I did so now, because that ominous device saved my life.

Thomas Ferchel was the name of the good gent who gifted me the pocket watch. An eccentric fellow, to say the least. He was dressed in the manner of a Guldakh commoner from one hundred years ago, no less. He wore a brown long coat and a tricorne hat, both so terribly out of fashion it would have earned him much ridicule if he dared to venture into the streets of Zagral (my birthplace). 

He would reap even more mockery for his antics. 

The moment he boarded our ship he started fussing about, pacing up and down the length of the vessel and muttering: "This won't do. This won't do either, no, no, no, no! God's sake!" and then, to my horror, he took a knife, and started carving symbols into the expensive mahogany wood.

"Hey, hey! What are you doing?" I shouted.

The ship belonged to my lord, Duke Wherdby, on whose behalf I was to conduct business in Aldern. He would have been very upset if his beloved ship came to any sort of harm. But mister Ferchel wouldn't let up. 

When I confronted him he said: "I'm doing my job you bloody numbucket. But alright. I'll get off at the nearest port if you don't like it."

Under normal circumstances I would've immediately canceled our contract, but he was indispensable to our efforts as a guide and cultural interpreter. (Or at least that is what Duke Wherdby conveyed to me).

Aldernians treat outsiders with distaste and contempt, and the smallest offense, even if imagined, is always met with overwhelming hostility. Conducting trade is therefore impossible without the proper knowledge of local custom.

Aldernians speak Zagra, pray to the One True God Devanura, and are of the same ancestral tribe, but the divisions between our cultures are great.

Maybe it's because of the centuries-long isolation from the greater Empire. A range of cyclopean mountains creates a natural border from the north, east, and west, and is nigh impassable all year round due to storms and blizzards. The Barony of Aldern is more accessible by sea from the south, but even this route is perilous, because the coastline is stormy, and the shallows are full of jagged rocks that lie in wait to rake the bottom of passing ships. The mysterious and isolated nature of this province is so infamous that people started calling it "The Brooding Hermit of Asafor" 

No matter the cause for hostilities we needed Thomas to negotiate for us, and so we settled on a compromise. Carving into the wood itself was out of the question, I told him he could use white paint instead. Thomas begrudgingly agreed but with much mumbling and grumbling. 

He spent the next day and night painting. He painted twisting spirals, circles, runes, all over the ship. Railing, masts, the floor, not even an inch was spared. He paid most attention to the door that led into the captain's quarters. The hired captain was indifferent towards this, "Yer ship yer rules.” he shrugged when I inquired if he minds Thomas's eccentricity.

After another day I gathered enough courage to ask Thomas myself. I had to swallow my pride first, as I always do. Serving the nobility gave me much practice in biting my tongue back, which I did, least I wouldn’t have learned why Thomas turned our ship into an art piece. 

"I'm a cunning man." He said when I asked. 

"A cunning man, as in being smart and crafty?

"Something like that.” 

He could be surprisingly friendly when you refrained from questioning his methods. 

“I undo and prevent curses," he continued.  

"So you admit to being a witch?”  Zagral inquisition would find that interesting indeed.

"Nope, not a witch."

"A magician then?"

Thomas laughed. "Wrong again."

"But you practice magic."

"And the bird shits on a fence." Thomas said as he lit a pipe. The air filled with a sweet scent of quarapa. 

People from Iron City make engine fuel from this crop. I have no idea how someone can smoke something so foul.

After a while of awkward silence, Thomas acknowledged the question hanging in the air: "No, I can’t do magic but I can influence things that can."

"Like?"

"You are awfully curious for your own good."

Back then I thought Thomas a charlatan, putting up a show for me so he could fleece me for additional services. I was like every Zagralian citizen back then, so very naive. I believed that Devanura created the universe and we, his chosen people, honor him by following His word and studying His work and that there isn't more to it. And as such I couldn't help but prod: “Everything is happening by his will. Do you claim to be more powerful than Devanura himself, if you can manipulate the world without His miracles, science, or heretical practices?”

And to that he laughed again as if he was dealing with a child: “You seriously think that God is responsible for every fart?”

Blasphemy! My mind shouted. But I kept silent.

Thomas finished our exchange by knocking the burned quarapa from his pipe and by saying: “Get one thing under that feathered hat of yours, my lord. There's no god in Aldern.”

And with that he departed, leaving me perturbed, but above all else, puzzled. 

What he said was impossible to conceive: Godswill permeates everything and everyone. By Godswill I draw every breath, because Devanaura allows it. He animates my very being. Little did I know that this voyage would leave me with a crisis of faith and a forever changed worldview. 

I do not doubt the existence of the Almighty, but I must confess that my faith is not nearly as strong as it used to be. What I have witnessed in Aldern shook me to the very core. I've seen such horrors. If such things come from our Lord, or if He merely allows their existence, I can't but ask: Why?

As the days went by, I slowly became used to Thomas's behavior, but there was one man on our ship who did not find Thomas Ferchel amusing. The only sailor permanently employed in Lord Wherdby's service: John Mooris.

Whereas Thomas was merely eccentric, John was downright intolerable. He was an old unpleasant man hobbling about with a peg leg, to which he came in some battle about which he often bragged, but which nobody seemed to recall. 

Why Lord Wherdby kept him in his employ eludes my reason, the only thing he seemed good at was walking about and pestering everyone else. He was perpetually in a bad mood, and fancied himself the right hand of Devanura in all matters ship-related. He didn't dare argue with me or the captain, but he seemed to enjoy tormenting everyone else, finding pleasure in scaring the young deckhands in particular. He carried a large knife with him wherever he went, and whenever someone dared to oppose him he would unsheath that ugly dented cleaver and he would thumb its blade saying, “I don't like your face very much, boy.” 

If it were up to me I would have him removed a long time ago, but all my appeals to Lord Wherdby fell on deaf ears. I don't believe that there are truly evil men in this world, but John put this belief to the test every time I passed by him. He liked shooting seagulls, he beat deckhands with a plank whenever they made a mistake, and he took delight in torturing rats and mice that got caught in his traps. He must have killed and maimed thousands of rodents during his long service. That ought to be the main and only reason why Wherdby kept him around, for I can't think of any other useful quality this hateful man possessed.

There was perhaps one thing he loved. A small ratcatcher dog to which he gave a loving name Pullie. 

Drinvald ratcatchers are a small but ferocious breed. They have short white hair and stubby legs, barely reaching one’s ankles, and the courage, personality, and temper of manticores. They are almost blind, but have an excellent sense of smell. All these qualities make them perfect for chasing and killing rats, even in the darkest, most claustrophobic of places. This dog breed is also known for its good nature and friendliness towards humans when properly cared for and trained.

Not so Pullie.

This dog was the most loathsome creature aboard. It did its job admirably, I must say. The ship hadn't had a rat infestation in years, but no one besides John dared to enter the lowest deck where this demon prowled. No matter its small stature Pullie seemed hellbent on killing anything but John. He was the only person who made regular trips to lower decks, either to feed Pullie the remains of rats he caught, or to close Pullie's pen when the sailors needed to get work done. 

Outside of this small dog there was not a living soul in this world that John liked. I myself disdained the little imp, but I also pitied it. Rarely is there a dog that grows to be hateful without a hateful master. And despite how much I loathed John and his dog, I am saddened that it were these two souls that Aldern claimed as payment durin our short yet eventful visit.

It happened right after we entered the Aldern waters.

Gargantuan clouds gathered on the horizon further away on Facipar ocean and the captain predicted that a bad storm would hit us soon, and so we raced to Aldern port before the winds could sweep us onto the rocks.

We did not make it on time. The wind picked up right as the sailor in the crow’s nest shouted, “Land ahoy!” 

We approached enormous blackstone obelisks that jutted up towards the sky. They towered over the flat waves, so monumental they put the greatest cathedrals of Zagral to shame twice over. Each monolith measured two hundred meters in height, no less, and a row of great many of them stretched along the gloomy coastline, like black tombstones. When I asked Thomas as to their purpose, he responded that this knowledge is lost to time. I observed something strange however. Despite the storm yet far away, and the sea relatively calm, a short bout of sea sickness spread among the younger sailors when we passed between the pillars. I myself felt my stomach lurch, and a sinking dread washed over me, and it seemed to return every time I stared at the monoliths for far too long. 

I reasoned it must have been the lobsters we had for dinner.

Eventually the storm caught up to us only about a mile away from port. 

Storm clouds flooded the sky and cast the world of blue and turquoise under the shroud of gray and black, occasionally lit up by baleful green lightning in the distance. The caw of seagulls disappeared under the rumbling of faraway thunderclaps. The captain wasn't willing to take the risk in the shallows, and so he bade us to raise the sails, drop the anchor, and pray.

And we did, but nobody seemed more nervous about the situation than Thomas, who watched his pocket-watch more than the sky. He asked the captain again and again whether we would be arriving at port soon. 

When the captain told him to buzz off, Thomas stopped asking, and started up and down the ship with a bucket of paint again. He checked the symbols, made additions and repairs, even as the drizzle started. Every now and then he stopped to check his pocket watch. I observed him through the open door from my cabin even as the black storm swallowed the last golden rays of the setting Sun, and grey deluge started pouring and the green lightning cracked the sky in two. Still he painted, fast and erratic, now in the evening gloom in the light of a swaying lantern, his mad brushstrokes punctuated by thunder and rumble.

I glanced at the pocket watch he gave me. 

Half an hour left till both hands rested upon the death-skull. 

When I lifted my eyes from the watch, I saw Thomas standing in the door, a grave look on his face.

“Gather everyone in the captain's quarters. Now.”

I asked why, but he flashed me an evil eye and I gave up further opposition. The last thing I needed was another argument.

Others would grumble, but that was the price of appeasing the man crucial to our efforts.

And so I went, pulled the night shift sailors off their duties, woke up the early sleepers, and called on the sailors who wanted to kill time by playing cards. I was about as popular as a plagueboil on one’s behind at that moment, but looking back at events that followed, I'm glad I did as Thomas told me. There was much complaining, but because I'm responsible for paying the wages, the sailors listened to me. Only John Mooris proved hard to wrangle, because his monthly pay was set and came directly from lord Wherdby's treasury. I managed to convince him but only just. When he passed around me a heavy smell of liquor trailed behind him. He was drunk, even though drinking on duty was strictly prohibited. 

Captain’s quarters were sizable enough to fit the whole crew. Men either sat on the floor, or leaned on the walls, and a dozen angry but silent conversations trailed through the hushed silence. The lantern, that hung above us, cast a sickly yellow light over the wooden walls, and our shadows swayed with the ship and the storm outside raged. 

Only the captain didn't seem to mind. He repeated his mantra, “Yer ship yer rules,” but under the breath he added, “as long as the pay be good.”

Thomas was the last to come in. He checked the door, over which he had painted some days ago, and then he secured the latch. “Nobody leaves until I say.”

I looked at the pocket watch. Five minutes 'til the hour of death. 

Moments stretch into infinity when there is nothing to do and when the weight of late evening presses on your eyelids. Only Thomas watched the door intently, like a cat poised to spring at a mouse, once it leaves its burrow. 

And then it came. 

Among the heavy pitter patter of rain, something sniffed, and whined, and then it pawed at the door with stubby legs. 

John's head snapped to attention, “Pullie?” and he moved towards the door only for Thomas to bar his way. 

"That door stays closed," Thomas said, his tone leaving no room for a retort. 

But John didn't care, "That's mah dog out there. Move outta way, boy, or y'll hurt yourself."

Thomas folded his hands over his chest and answered with a firm, "No."

Pullie's whining grew into whimpering, and pawing into scratching, and the storm picked up as well. 

John's hand closed around his cleaver, "Move y' bastard, or I'll stick y' like a pig." 

Thomas frowned, "We'll all die if you open that door."

"Lisn'," John unsheathed the knife, ran a thumb over the blade, and said, “Am tired of yer bullcrap boy. Y' fucked with the ship, y' fucked with the capt'n, but y' ain’t fuckin'  with me. Last warnin’.” 

Everybody was aware of the mounting tension now. Conversations died down. Furtive eyes burrowed into the two men. 

I was about to step forward to diffuse the situation when Thomas started saying, "You are drunk…" and that was the last straw. 

John's cleaver shot towards Thomas's neck. 

But Thomas was faster: His motion a smooth blur, he ducked under, unsheathed his own knife, and shinnnk. 

Clutching his throat, John toppled over, bleeding over the floor, gurgling and twitching. And then he was dead.

All hell broke loose, "Murder!" someone shrieked. "Get him!" the entire crew scrambled to enact swift justice. Disliked or not Thomas just killed another human being during a sea-voyage. Among sailors, that is a sin equal only to fratricide. They pinned him down, and for the first time since we embarked, the indifferent captain exercised full authority of his office. "Thomas Fertchel, as a highest authority on this ship, second only to Lord Above, I sentence ye to death. Ye will hang come sundown ye murderin' motherless bastard!" 

Nobody cared that the murder happened in self-defense, but such is human nature. The more people in one room, the harder it is to think for oneself. 

They would have lynched Thomas then and there (and me with him if I stepped in), but luckily, or rather unluckily, the murder trial was cut short. 

Banging on the door. 

So powerful it almost tore out the hinges. Everybody fell silent. And again. The door shook. 

"What the hell?" the captain said, looking around. 

I did the same. Everybody was accounted for. Whoever it was, it wasn't one of us. The dog outside fell silent as well. 

Thomas managed to get a breath in, despite the sailor kneeling on his chest. "Don't open the door." he wheezed.

One sailor had enough courage to call out, "Who…" he swallowed, "who's there?" 

A voice, the same as Thomas's, but cracked and raspy, echoed. “Open the door. Open the door. Open. The. Doooor.” 

It was then when the last vestiges of bravado left our bones. We huddled and pressed against the walls like mice stuck in a barrel, leaving Thomas lying on the floor. 

The cunningman quickly hauled himself up, put his tricorn on, and faced the door with his hands outstretched. He answered the inhuman thing outside with a litany in a tongue I did not recognize. It certainly wasn't the language of our priests.

One hinge came loose, the door tilted slightly sideways and talons came through the gap, followed by an unnaturally long arm. That arm was gaunt, slimy, and black with rot, and it fumbled blindly for a latch. 

Thomas's recitation reached its peak, and the symbols painted on the door lit up with a green glow. The light was cold, ghastly, and pale, but it had the effect of white hot iron on the hand. The thing outside screeched. Its flesh sizzled and smoldered, and the hand retracted. 

I think I glimpsed a cloudy eye in the lightning flash and I saw something inside of it. I can't be quite certain what, I don't even know how to describe it. The only fitting word is perhaps: Infinity. 

I saw a vast, empty, blackness, far away from God's creation. I saw the birthing and dying of countless suns, and the genesis, and the final judgment, of one hundred worlds. I heard the birth-cry of the universe and its death throes. Not in the glorious eternity of our lord's light, but in cold stillness and darkness. All that was nothing compared to the immense hatred, contempt, and disgust the creature felt towards all creation. Even itself. But in that moment it was all aimed at us. 

I don't know if what I've seen was true, or if it was a lie that the Beast tried to instill in my head. At that moment it felt as real as the quill in my hand. The vision forced me to my knees. Into the dust. I blinked. The eye outside was gone. 

Is it over? I thought. 

I clutched the watch in my palms. We were fifteen minutes into the hour of death. The true horror had only just begun. 

Scratching, scurrying, squeaking. Coming from the walls. 

Rats? 

The ship had rats, like all ships do, but this many? 

The sounds grew louder and another sound joined the cacophony. Snarling of a small dog, and creaking of wood, coming from a dark corner nearby. 

Thomas snatched the lantern from its hook and shined the light into the darkness. There was a plank in the wall crudely nailed over an old mouse-made hole. It was bending under enormous pressure. The plank snapped in half, hinging only on a few splinters. A tiny dog's head with bared fangs peeked out through the crack, molten, skinless, slick with blood and pus, its blind eyes bulging and glinting in the dim light. It looked right at us and let out a ghastly wail. 

Only Thomas's shouting woke us out of the horror-induced trance. "Back off. Back off, I say!" He herded us into the opposite corner, and then he fished a piece of chalk from his pocket and hastily drew a circle around us. 

"Stay inside or die." Just as he said that, the plank came off completely. 

I can describe what followed, but only from snippets and glimpses. My mind simply refused to believe what the senses perceived. 

The entire cabin shook and rumbled as more planks came off the walls, and through the holes poured rats. Hundreds upon hundreds of squealing, writhing, dead rats, entangled in a mass of bones and fur. The room filled with the stench of an open grave and the cacophony of screeching rodents. 

They flooded everything but the place encircled by chalk. John's dead body disappeared under snapping rat skulls and wriggling worm tails. And then John rose, and stood ankles deep in the crawling mass, half limp, hanging on some invisible string. His head lolled about as he lumbered forth into the light, and towards us. In that moment the last iota of our sanity broke. Some sailors started shrieking in terror, making themselves small against the walls. Some curled into themselves and cried rocking back and forth. Some fell to their knees, pressing their faces to the floor, prostrating themselves in desperate prayer and begged Devanura for salvation. 

Thomas stood at the precipice of the circle face to face with the monster his lips moving furiously in recitation of some kind of spell, prayer, or incantation.

John's head dangled to the side, partially detached, and from his throat peeked the thing that now helmed his unholy existence. 

His dog, and some rats, forced themselves inside. Their heads were peeking out of the open wound akin to how a maid might look out of her window, awaiting the return of her beloved. 

Thomas was staring directly into the pus-filled eyes on the dog's head. In those eyes I recognised the same thing I glimpsed through the door.

I didn't dare to look again for fear of being shown another lie, but Thomas peered into those eyes with absolute concentration, like a toreador staring down a raging bull. I could sense the tension inside of him. The balled fists, the perspiration beading on his forehead. 

The thing leaned in and the dog's head hissed into his face. He blinked. The monster made a step forward but then stumbled backwards. The tide of rats likewise seemed to rise and then ebb. 

And then it hit me. If Thomas wavered, if only for a second, we would all be dead. Or worse. Luckily for us his will stood resolute, while ours cracked like an eggshell. 

I prayed, I prayed because my sanity depended on it, joining the whispered chorus of other sailors. 

We recited the ward of my soul: 'Oh lord of light, most exalted most merciful, you who twice walked the earth, you who shall bring paradise when your feet touch the soil once more on the promised day. Please ward our souls in your absence, so we might lay eyes on your glory. Fill our hearts with your love, so we may be just, and virtuous, and enact good upon this earth.' 

But before we finished with "Thy will be done." a crooked thought cut through the silk of my consciousness. 

'LIES! NO-GOD. NO-LIGHT. NO-GOODNESS. NO-SOUL. ONLY DEATH. SUFFERING. LIFE-POINTLESS. MEANINGLESS. NOTHING-BEFORE. NOTHING-AFTER. GIVE UP. GIVE UP. GIVE UUUUP.'

I looked up. Others were crying. I was crying. Blood. We were all crying blood. 

One young sailor, Jeruha, still a boy, let out a cry of anguish and desperation. He tore a knife from his belt and held it against his own neck. He breathed rapidly through clenched teeth, and then he bellowed, and he prepared to slice his own throat. 

I don't know where I gathered the courage, but I jumped at him. I wrestled the knife from his hand and restrained him so he couldn't hurt himself, or anyone else, yet still he shouted: "Please, please, no more! Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop!" His voice cracked and turned hoarse yet still he whimpered. 

Over the sobs I could hear John's dry laboured wheezing. "Re-lease… Re-lease… K-k-k-kill m-m-me." The head begged while blood bubbled and chortled through the rat-infested wound. 

The dog fused to the neck snapped, snarled, and screeched, and the enthralled body took a swipe at Thomas. It got stopped by some invisible force. 

I don't remember how long this stalemate lasted, I can only recall that it felt like an eternity. 

The voice inside my head was relentless, promising a life of suffering and torture. It rebuked my every attempt at finding solace, promising that there is no heaven, no purpose. There is only a short bout of life, filled with suffering, concluded by a pitiful end, and followed by unconscious eternity. 

But then there was another voice in my head. Gentler, inviting. 

'There is a way,' it said, 'there is a way to be freed from all this. From the punishment of existence. From the vicious cycle of suffering and evil. There is a way to take control of your existence. Immortality. Not in the next world, groveling at the feet of some uncaring God, but in this one. I could give you the power to take control of your destiny. No more covering before the so-called Duke Wherdby. No more senseless errands. You could punish the whole uncaring world for the miserable existence it forces upon you. All you need to do, is move your leg, and smudge the line of chalk.' 

I am ashamed. I am truly ashamed that I was tempted. I would have done it, because not all those thoughts came from the outside. Some of them were true and they were mine all along, only repressed. 

Ever since we are born we are taught what is good and what is bad.

Don't take what isn't yours. Don't inflict needless suffering. Be kind…

Compassion and kindness comes naturally to most. But then there are other perceived wrongdoings and must-dos smuggled into our education. 

Thou shalt not express displeasure when thou sufferest. Thou shalt not question and oppose thy betters. Thou shalt always blame thyself, and only thyself, for thy troubles… 

These don't come to us from nature, and when we refuse to submit, we are broken down and bent by punishments, and we are hammered until we fit the mold. But what if we were given power and were absolved of all the consequence?

What would I do then? 

I will never know because before I could succumb, the watch in my hand clicked and announced the beginning of the next hour with a high-pitched, metallic ding, at the same time with the watch in Thoma's pocket. 

The tone oscillated and reverberated through the air, drowning out all the unholy whispers and screeching…

…and then it was over. 

Voices stopped, John dropped onto the carpet of now still rats. The eyes of his dog were now empty and dim, vacant of the evil presence that haunted its flesh. 

All was still.

We arrived at Aldern port the next day. The sailors would normally unload the cargo and then scatter into the alleyways, chasing whatever would be their fancy, but that day all headed up a paved road towards a massive black cathedral that stood on The Temple Hill. 

Only a few sailors, myself included, stayed behind, and of our group only Thomas seemed unfazed by the events of the previous evening. He stood at the stern, looking out over the row of black obelisks standing in the sea, and over the horizon coloured in shades of red and orange by the rising sun. He was leaning on the railing and smoking. 

He offered me a pipe when I joined him. I hate quarapa, but in that moment I took the pipe with my still shaking hands and drew the bitter smoke into my lungs. We partook in the peaceful morning for a time, before I gathered enough courage to ask the question that hung on my mind since that horrific incident, "What was that?" 

Thomas drew on the pipe without looking at me. "What was what?"

"That… that thing."

"Oh, that," he said, blowing smoke through his nose. "Do you really wish to know?"

"Yes."

"No. No you don't." 

As is the human nature, that made me curious even more. Desperately so. For we fear that which remains veiled by mystery. Imagination can craft such delightful terrors in the absence of truth, and so I was even more anxious to learn what had accosted us that night. "It must have been one of the fallen. A prince of hell no less." I offered. 

But Thomas only chuckled, "You wish."

"Surely not The Nameless himself!"

"Indeed, the lord of hell was it not." he mocked my Zagralian cadence. 

"Then what was it? Speak damn it, or I will cast you overboard this instant. Why didn't you warn us?"

"Because you wouldn't have listened. I act first, explain later. It makes my job much easier."

“Oh, is that why John Mooris now lies on a bed of rats with his dog attached to his head?”

Thomas let out a frustrated sigh, “I can tell you what would've really happened. First, most of you wouldn’t have believed me. Second, opinions would've split. Half of you would've done one thing, the other half another thing, and no one would've done as I said. Third, you’d all be dead.”

“How do you know?”

And that was when he shouted, “Because it happened to me before!” and then he added in a more sorrowful tone, “And not once.”

“I… didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, it’s in the past. Most of you are still alive, no? Makeshift wards usually don’t last that long when Args Argatos comes knocking.”

So that’s how the thing is called, I thought. Args, args… I’ve heard a similar word from intellectuals on Lord Wherdby’s parties. Those people who enjoy flaunting their knowledge of dead languages. The figures of speech in which I’ve heard the word were: ‘Ergis afabiti (Rule of many).’ And: Isau f’erabos, ergs lubenoros (Servant of today, king of tomorrow.)

“Args,” I said, “that sounds like ergs. J’ktal language I believe.”

“Yes. An older form. It means king.”

“And Argatos?”

“The world.”

“So you call it The King of the World.” I couldn’t believe my ears, “There is only one King Above All, and that thing surely wasn't him.”

Thomas scowled. "I told you before. There is no god in Aldern. There is only him." 

I looked over the Aldern city skyline. It bristled with bell towers carrying Devanura's symbol, the holy spear pointed up towards heaven. 

I said, "Awfully lot of churches for a godless land."

"That's exactly because. Think about it, where do sailors go after they arrive at port?"

I shrugged. "Taverns, brothels, shops..."

"And where did your lads go?"

"The temple." 

"Exactly. They need answers just like you do. I'm sure you'd be cooped up in a confessional booth just now, if your duties weren't keeping you here. What you experienced last night is the everyday reality for people who live here. Every day, every night, at exactly the same time, death walks over the land. That's why we measure time in thirteens. See the bell-tower? When the thirteenth hour strikes, that's when you want to be behind locked doors, preferably on concentrated ground. The harbour and the city are safe at night. But if your travels take you past the walls, make sure that the pocket watch I gave you is well set, and that you seek shelter in a warded house before the bells strike midnight."

"Such evil… What sin have the people of Aldern committed that Devanura sees fit to punish you so?" 

"Beats me," Thomas mumbled as he stuffed another pipeful of herb, "some brats probably climbed over the wall of Devanura's garden, stole a cartload of apples and shat over his flowers. Or perhaps he just doesn't like us."

"Nonsense. God loves all his children."

"Well then why doesn't he do something?" 

"He is testing our faith."

"Hm," Thomas snorted, "Riddle me this. Everything is dictated by his grand design. Future is already set, correct?"

"It is so." 

"Then why the need to test us?" 

"That is for Him to decide. Who am I to question?"

"So why did he grant you the gift of reason?"

I fell silent. I was thinking for a minute but then I said. "Let's suppose that the whole Zagralian priesthood is wrong then. What are we supposed to do instead?" That gave Thomas pause in turn. He was thinking for a good long while. 

The Sun was now up and shining, the drying wet flagstones the only trace of the yesterday's calamity. I let him ponder, watching seagulls and the splash of waves. 

Thomas finished the pipe and finally he broke the silence, "I think that belief is a natural and necessary part of our being. Belief supplements our lack of knowledge. Belief is a guess that we think is true with all our heart. Belief helps us make a decision and take action in the absence of information. Hell, Aldern would crumble if people didn't believe that Devanura will reward their suffering. Faith gives them hope and the will to pull through the hardest of trials."

"So why don't you believe?" 

He sighed and knocked the burnt herb from the pipe, "I have seen too much evil, faced Args on numerous occasions. I used to pray, but Devanura never intervened and so I leaned more into the methods of my master. Arcane invocations and incantations, those are the reason why we are even speaking right now. It's true that Args can't transgress on consecrated ground and some Devanuric priests excorsised him successfully. But for every succesful exorcist there are three that met terrible ends, and no matter what, he always comes back in the end. It's been like that for centuries, perhaps millennia. But I do believe in something. I believe in a better tomorrow. That one day there will be a woman, or a man, who will get us rid of that monster. It most likely won't be me, but I can do my job in the meantime and protect those I can with what I can do. In the end I think that every belief requires a leap of faith. But also the willingness to change. Belief is as necessary as truth. I hope this answers your question."

It did not, but it had to make do because Thomas shoved the pipe into his pocket and disembarked. 

I was left alone with my thoughts. 

We didn't stay for long. My duties took me outside of Aldern on a few occasions, but I always made sure to be back before the watch struck thirteen, and as such I avoided another encounter with the Beast. The trade went smoothly in Aldern City with Thomas acting as our ambassador. We unloaded the spices, and some other trinkets, and loaded in several tons of prime red Aldernian timber.

Nobody dared to enter the captain's cabin until some strange men stopped by. They wore beaked masks and black oilskin robes. They did not speak. Communicating only through muffled grunts, and hand signals, they informed us they came to 'dispose of the remains,' as Thomas interpreted. They cleared the cabin of its horrifying contents, 

carried it away in sealed containers and dumped it all into a large burn pit beyond the city walls. 

Our voyage back was uneventful. Only the sailors kept more silent than usual, even for a band of salty sea dogs who prefer saying little. 

I myself had a lot to ponder for the rest of the voyage.

I resigned from lord Wherdby shortly after. I went on a pilgrimage across the empire, visited many places of worship and talked to many learned men. 

My faith had been restored in the end but it needs to be said that I haven't been unchanged by the ordeal. 

For even though I believe in Devanura and his works wholeheartedly, there will always be that seed of doubt in my heart. 

I fear that if I ever were to return to Aldern. If I ever met the monstrous King of the World again. If he would make me another offer to escape the cycle of suffering and to spread terror over the world in turn. 

I would take it.