The Horns of Ruin

hey came for us one at a time,
came to kill the last servants of the dead god Morgan. I had lost brothers and
sisters before, to battle or old age. Scions of Morgan die all the time. We're
warriors. Now we were going to die in alleyways, in our homes, in crowded
theaters and empty hallways. They came to kill us, and we didn't know who they
were.

They came for me and Barnabas while we were walking through
the city, on our way back to the Strength of Morgan from an errand at the
Scholar's prison, the Library Desolate. Well. Mostly they came for Barnabas. I
just happened to be there, escorting him. It was me. I'm the girl who let the
old man down.

He looked good that morning. Healthy. He always looked
better out of the monastery. Those old, empty stone halls did little more than
weigh him down. Open air, even the dirty air of a crowded street in the city of
Ash, always put a smile on his face. He was smiling that morning. This was
before the hidden deaths, before the murders and betrayals. Before we knew what
was happening. He was the first one they came for, and we didn't know they were
coming. Not yet.

We walked down the road, and the crowd parted for us.
Barnabas was in his formal robe, a deep maroon hemmed with gold thread, and
carrying the staff of his office. Symbolic armor clattered on his shoulders,
and the cuffs of his robe were stamped with golden scale mail that shimmered in
the morning light. His knuckles bore the calluses of a life spent fighting and
working, the twin paths of the scions of Morgan. White hair and wrinkled face
sat on a frame thick with muscle and iron hard. Even in the waning days of our
Cult, there was glory in the office of the Fratriarch, and Barnabas Silent
looked every inch the part.

As proud as I was, I wished he'd left the formal robe at
home. I was dressed in my battle-day simples. Pride was fine, and glory was
better, but both of those things were bought with attention. As the
Fratriarch's only guard, I could have done with less attention. Of course,
whatever attention I avoided by dressing simply, I gave up with my holster and
sheath. But a girl shouldn't go out half dressed.

"It's a matter of state, Eva," Barnabas said, his
voice as gentle as mist at the foot of a waterfall.

"I said nothing, my Elder."

"You did," he said, nodding. "In the way you
stand, in the movement of your eyes. In the weight of your hand upon your
bullistic. You do not wish to be here."

"It's not my fault you like to get dressed up, old
man. No, no, I'm happy to be here. Thrilled to be walking through the city with
the holiest man I know, just me as a guard. Not like we have any enemies,
Barnabas. Not like the Rethari are massing at our borders, or their chameleon
spies have been dredged up in the collar countries. No, not at all. This is
ideal." I sped up a little to intercept a group of children who had
blundered into our path. The Fratriarch smiled and patted their heads as we
passed. They stared at us, whispering. "I just wish you'd brought more
guards. Maybe an army or two?"

Barnabas watched the children, his face equal parts gentle
happiness and melancholy. He turned back to me.

"The Rethari are always massing. It's what they do.
And as for their spies? We used to make stew of their spies. Besides, we have
no other guards, Eva. It's a matter of state. We go to seek the aid of our
godbrother. Only Elders of the Fist and Paladins may attend. Among the Elders,
Simeon was busy, Tomas and Elias are napping, and Isabel cannot be more than
ten steps from her library, for fear that one of her books go unread."

"I saw Tomas, just before we left."

Barnabas nodded absently. "Yes, yes. Not napping.
Tomas does not ..." He smirked and shrugged. "Tomas will not be
involved in this. And of the Paladins, Eva?"

I grimaced and looked around at the passing crowd. A
pedigear weaved past us, its clacking engine momentarily drowning out the
perfectly good awkward silence.

"You are the last Paladin of the dead god Morgan, Eva.
There are no more, and likely never will be," he said, patting my hand.
"I am the Fratriarch, and you are the Paladin. Let us attend to our
business."

He walked off. I sighed and followed.

"Yeah, let's just make a parade of it. You and
me," I said quietly, adjusting the hang of my revolver at my hip.
"Maybe I should have rented an elephant."

"Elephants don't belong in cities, Eva," the Frat
said, gesturing broadly to the crowded streets and towering glass buildings all
around. "It's not humane."

"To the elephant? Or the city?"

He laughed deeply, and I smiled and caught up. In younger
years he would have pinched my cheek or patted me on the head, as he had those
children. But now he was the Fratriarch and I was the Paladin. We walked side
by side through the city of Ash.

"If it's a matter of state, then we're going the wrong
way. Alexander will be at his throne today, in the Spear of the Brothers."
I pointed across the road. "That way, in case you've gotten senile."

"It is," Barnabas nodded, "and we are not
going there."

"You said-"

"Morgan had two brothers, Eva. We are going to visit
the scions of Amon."

I stopped walking, frustrating the crowd. Barnabas
continued on, nearly disappearing into the throng before I snapped out of my
shock.

A whole column of elephants wouldn't be enough, nor stone
walls. Nothing would make me feel safe in the halls of Amon the Betrayer.

Ash is a funny city. Not funny, like rag clowns and puppet
shows. Funny like it shouldn't exist. Funny like it should collapse in on
itself in a cloud of shattered glass and burning streets. My kind of funny.

It goes back an Age, back to when the Feyr were the
raceascendant rather than mankind, when the Titans ruled the skies and the
earth and the water all around. Before there were people, maybe. I don't know.
But it goes back to the Feyr.

What is today the city of Ash was once the capital city of
the Titans. Their throne, their birthplace, a city of temples and totems and
grand technology. The name of that city is lost to us, but it nestled in a
crater, like a giant bowl of stone sprinkled with buildings and roads and
carved riverways. We really don't know why the Titans and the Feyr fought their
little war, but they did, and that war came to the city in the crater.

The Feyr were masters of the elements. They made water out
of nothing, fire out of air. They could sink mountains and freeze the sun in
the sky. That's the story my momma told me, at least. Scratch that. That's the
story my nanny told me. So the Feyr came to the crater, to the city of the
Titans.

They burned it, then they drowned it. Two deaths for one
city. It was enough to win the war, and more than enough to scar the Feyr
forever. They filled the crater with a lake of cold, black water, and that lake
was choked with the slick ash of the dead city below. It was a wound on the
soul of their kingdom, the greatest sin they ever committed. In time they tried
to atone. They built temples of wood that floated on the lake of ash, trying to
suck the sickness out with their prayers.

And when war came to them, when mankind rose up and named
their gods and came marching with swords and totems of their own, this was the
last place the Feyr stood. Afterward, mankind made a city on that lake, built
up from what was left of the charred temple-rafts of the Feyr. Amon the Scholar
crafted engines that supported more and more structures, more buildings and
roads and people. It became the capital of the Fraterdom, the impossible
engines always churning against the lake to keep us dry.

It's a crazy way to build a city. Three hundred years, and
that lake is still black as night.

I escorted the Fratriarch into the shadow of the Scholar's
ominous prison. The Library Desolate was a dark wound on the city, its stone
and steel walls still blackened from the arcane battle that washed across it
generations ago. Whenever rain or time cleaned off some portion of its edifice,
the citizens of the city of Ash would gather to ritually scorch the stone black
again, as it had been burned when the outraged legions of Morgan descended upon
it to slaughter the priesthood of Amon the Betrayer, for the murder of their
god. That was a tradition we kept. The roof sprouted a cancerous rash of glass
domes, their panes smeared with ash and chipped black paint. The last House of
Amon the Betrayer lived in permanent night. The Cults of his brothers Morgan
and Alexander saw to it.