upset the deacon that he was led, shaking and stammering, to the barber-surgeon.
The prelate in charge of the turning day’s ecclesiastical affairs, Father Martin de la Cenza, a small, delicate man of unflappable bearing, next received the sinister visitant. Acknowledging the sealed communique with a single languid closure of his eyelids, Father de la Cenza bade the stranger sit in the sparsely appointed foyer outside the clerical offices. Obtaining a single name in reply to his own introduction, de la Cenza moved at once to awaken the Grand Inquisitor.
Almost an hour later, Bishop Ignazio Izquierdo, the High Office’s interim Grand Inquisitor, stood at the center of the thick-napped carpet in his office, adorned in dignitary vestments and his tall mitre. He strove to find the best way to occupy his hands to keep them from wringing. His palms were moist, his throat parched as he awaited the meeting. An ashen-faced novice scurried about the musty leather and velvet trappings of the shelf-lined room, shakily igniting the ornate wall lamps. In his intimidated haste, he knocked a large tome from its nook. It thudded to the floor. Symmetrical tracks of sweat coursed the novice’s cheeks on either side of the silent Ohis mouth described as he hurried from the room in response to the bishop’s impatient hand swipe.
A moment later, the door before Izquierdo opened. The stranger strode through, followed by Father de la Cenza.
“You are Balaerik,” the Grand Inquisitor intoned in a cracked voice that made his face redden.
“Anton Balaerik,” came the calm elaboration.
“You are different from what I imagined,” Izquierdo started haltingly, which evoked a curious, amused twitch from Balaerik. “I mean,” the bishop continued, “our communications—I still don’t quite understand. You are, are you not, a clergyman of some order? I do not recognize your habit.”
Balaerik threw off his hood. “I am donado— alay brother,” he explained. His face was angular, the skin pasty and offset by a neatly trimmed black beard whose contours made one mindful of a vulture’s wings. When he bowed his lofty head to display an odd half-moon tonsure, its form above the aquiline nose and pointed chin resembled something nameless that vaguely disquieted the Grand Inquisitor.
“Of what order?”
“Ours is a new order. I thought that was clear. An order devoted to the rank-and-file support of the Inquisition’s efforts on levels your own methods might not be suited to dealing with. We are funded by factors within Holy Mother Church, and our work is done secretly, under cover of night. The night is the ‘day’ of the Dark Powers, you see. And through our order, the day of their doom.” His eyes began to shine like beacons over a deadly shoal as he went on. “You are concerned with saving souls through scourging and burning. You drive the possessing spirits from the unfortunate possessed. We attack the possessing spirits themselves, unleashed by you, often to possess again! They and the Dark Power which fortifies them will fall before the holy power we’ve been granted.
“We are the silent scythe of the Inquisition, Inquisitor. For only by secrecy can we combat the disorder caused by heretics and infidels, the creeping rot of the black sorcery they foster. Ours is the same battle, though we are more concerned with the ghastly atrocities committed by the infidels. And…by their supernatural minions.”
Izquierdo’s brow furrowed. He moved round his desk, where he sat heavily in a large, high-backed chair. He motioned for Balaerik to sit, but the messenger declined. The Grand Inquisitor sifted the information in his mind, troubled by this strange interference in his office’s affairs, wondering what it portended. But something more imminent bothered him.
“You make no mention,” the bishop intoned slowly, carefully, selecting each word, “of the source of this…power and authority you claim. What is your spiritual
The prelate in charge of the turning day’s ecclesiastical affairs, Father Martin de la Cenza, a small, delicate man of unflappable bearing, next received the sinister visitant. Acknowledging the sealed communique with a single languid closure of his eyelids, Father de la Cenza bade the stranger sit in the sparsely appointed foyer outside the clerical offices. Obtaining a single name in reply to his own introduction, de la Cenza moved at once to awaken the Grand Inquisitor.
Almost an hour later, Bishop Ignazio Izquierdo, the High Office’s interim Grand Inquisitor, stood at the center of the thick-napped carpet in his office, adorned in dignitary vestments and his tall mitre. He strove to find the best way to occupy his hands to keep them from wringing. His palms were moist, his throat parched as he awaited the meeting. An ashen-faced novice scurried about the musty leather and velvet trappings of the shelf-lined room, shakily igniting the ornate wall lamps. In his intimidated haste, he knocked a large tome from its nook. It thudded to the floor. Symmetrical tracks of sweat coursed the novice’s cheeks on either side of the silent Ohis mouth described as he hurried from the room in response to the bishop’s impatient hand swipe.
A moment later, the door before Izquierdo opened. The stranger strode through, followed by Father de la Cenza.
“You are Balaerik,” the Grand Inquisitor intoned in a cracked voice that made his face redden.
“Anton Balaerik,” came the calm elaboration.
“You are different from what I imagined,” Izquierdo started haltingly, which evoked a curious, amused twitch from Balaerik. “I mean,” the bishop continued, “our communications—I still don’t quite understand. You are, are you not, a clergyman of some order? I do not recognize your habit.”
Balaerik threw off his hood. “I am donado— alay brother,” he explained. His face was angular, the skin pasty and offset by a neatly trimmed black beard whose contours made one mindful of a vulture’s wings. When he bowed his lofty head to display an odd half-moon tonsure, its form above the aquiline nose and pointed chin resembled something nameless that vaguely disquieted the Grand Inquisitor.
“Of what order?”
“Ours is a new order. I thought that was clear. An order devoted to the rank-and-file support of the Inquisition’s efforts on levels your own methods might not be suited to dealing with. We are funded by factors within Holy Mother Church, and our work is done secretly, under cover of night. The night is the ‘day’ of the Dark Powers, you see. And through our order, the day of their doom.” His eyes began to shine like beacons over a deadly shoal as he went on. “You are concerned with saving souls through scourging and burning. You drive the possessing spirits from the unfortunate possessed. We attack the possessing spirits themselves, unleashed by you, often to possess again! They and the Dark Power which fortifies them will fall before the holy power we’ve been granted.
“We are the silent scythe of the Inquisition, Inquisitor. For only by secrecy can we combat the disorder caused by heretics and infidels, the creeping rot of the black sorcery they foster. Ours is the same battle, though we are more concerned with the ghastly atrocities committed by the infidels. And…by their supernatural minions.”
Izquierdo’s brow furrowed. He moved round his desk, where he sat heavily in a large, high-backed chair. He motioned for Balaerik to sit, but the messenger declined. The Grand Inquisitor sifted the information in his mind, troubled by this strange interference in his office’s affairs, wondering what it portended. But something more imminent bothered him.
“You make no mention,” the bishop intoned slowly, carefully, selecting each word, “of the source of this…power and authority you claim. What is your spiritual
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