209. [COUNTERPOINT] For Whom the Shepherd Calls

  Dear Ori Brother Quinlan,

  For years, I’ve watched the skies from atop the hill, as you so aptly described. For years, I couldn’t shake the feeling someone was watching with me. If not in body, then at least in spirit.

  Thank you for giving shape to the ‘you’ on the other side. Thank you also for entrusting me with your—no, our—secret. It’s not often that I get to be part of an adventure, and until you wrote to me, I thought I’d let another one pass me by. So, thank you above all for writing, and letting me into this story yet untold.

  My name is Jasper aft’Hanafin. Bishop to those who know me only by name, and Sister to those who know my face. If I had my way, everyone would call me ‘Jasper’—perhaps even ‘Jas’ for short? Forgive me, then, Brother Quinlan, that I yet lack the courage to show you the same courtesy.

  Even writing this reply was a struggle for me, bound as I am to my duty to the herd. My duty is my greatest and most sacred blessing, but at times, I’m brought low by the weight of it on my shoulders. A world that once spread from the mooring shores to Veilwatch Hill is now confined to a circular window above my head. It’s through this window that I watch the skies Day after Day, occasionally daring to dream that someone might be watching with me.

  I do not ask for my ring back, Brother Quinlan, nor do I wish for you to endanger yourself on my account. But if you were to follow your nose to this grand adventure you dream of, then I do sorely wish to share it. I haven’t the faintest to add to your trove of ideas, but your letter has inspired me to heed the flutters of my own heart. That they might beat as wings to uplift the veils that smother our worlds.

  Duty yet compels me to watch on from atop my hill, as I have for years, Day after Day. But toDay, the window above my head feels wider than it’s ever been. I can see farther and further, enough to dream that you, I, and all our neighbors on either side of the veils might one day share the same view.

  Yours toNight and toMorrow,

  Jasper

  Travertine aft’Nankervis crushed the letter in his hand, until nothing remained of its time-worn paper and rain-smudged ink.

  His fist trembled with the effort, and his jaws clenched with the effort of doing the same to his emotions. To the roiling darkness that had taken root since the fateful elevator ride. To the [Nightmare] that had sloughed off a tiger’s [Stripes] before burrowing deep inside a shepherd’s heart.

  No. That wasn’t entirely accurate. If Travertine were to be perfectly honest with himself, the darkness was nothing new. He’d always harbored it within him, long before he’d become a Templar—even before he’d first picked up a crook as a lowly shepherd boy.

  And it was that darkness that had, last Night, compelled him to do the unthinkable. To reach into the elevator shaft as Jasper’s butterflies descended. To snatch the envelope from their grasp and switch out its contents with his own hastily written note. It was the same darkness that now, in the cold light of Day, made him clench and tremble with the effort of suppressing his rage.

  His rage. His grief. His yearning. His jealousy. His loneliness.

  Yes. The darkness had been inside him all along. A lowly shepherd boy had once sought solace in his deer companions—aspirational Dlee and reflective Ord. But as he’d grown into his oath and eventually [Oath], he’d found a new calling. And that calling had completed the fundamentally incomplete man that was Travertine aft’Nankervis.

  I will be a constant hunter for and only for the herd.

  The [Oath]—and Travertine’s exacting adherence to it—had won him friendship, respect, and stature. He’d served the Templar Order longer than anyone, longer even than the Viceroy, and it was the Cardinal’s long, dour face that the people of Dawnwick knew best. The constant hunter who stalked the edges of Night, that the herd might sleep safe if not entirely easy.

  But all that service and sacrifice had brought him no closer to the one thing he desired above all—the one thing to fill the darkness in his heart. What good was friendship, respect, or stature if, in the end, it left him just as lonely as he’d ever been?

  The Day had worn down without event—the calm after the storm had passed. No Templar bore witness to the downfall of Flint the Butcher, but at least two among them had received confirmation of it from Pathsight. Travertine himself was one such contributor to the smite. A bitter irony, when he’d never felt less deserving of the herd’s trust in him as a hunter.

  Inside the Temple, the convocation went on. Just about the whole of Dawnwick from the farmlands to the markets to the schools and guildhalls had gathered under one enormous roof. To commemorate the dead. To exchange solemn vows to carry on in their absence. As they always have. Day after Day.

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  Even now, Travertine could hear the droning chants from the nave below. Indeed, the very steps he walked on palpably shook with a city’s unshakable resolve to be what it always had been. Yet, right now, he couldn’t bring himself to join the herd. He needed to be alone. Or, failing that, be with someone who could fill the darkness in his heart.

  The stairs upon the ziggurat were long and steep, but Travertine climbed them steadily, CROZIER click-clacking with every step. His deer companions—ever loyal, even in his darkest moments—kept pace. Aspirational DLEE and reflective ORD.

  Eventually, he came within view of the Observatory—and of the watcher stationed inside. Jasper aft’Hanafin sat by her lonesome, steadfast in her duty. Even now, her serene eyes pointed up into the telescope and the Gloam captured therein, as butterflies fluttered within a circle of light.

  The view was comfortingly—painfully—familiar, as if nothing had happened. As if there’d been no storm at all. And as if Jasper herself hadn’t penned a letter decrying her duty and conspiring with the shadows on the other side of the veils.

  Travertine paused, collecting himself before he took another step further. His fist hadn’t stopped shaking. The darkness hadn’t stopped roiling. But perhaps there was hope yet.

  If he could take one step further. If he could indulge himself this one step outside the purview of either a hunter or a shepherd. And if he could be rewarded for his courage with a smile that shone for him and him alone…

  But that was when the [Nightmare] came roaring back.

  The light, the circle, the serene doe eyes—they all vanished in a twister of shadow and smoke. Jasper’s figure remained seated but transformed. Mutilated beyond recognition, raked and marked by myriad feline claws.

  Her antlers broke off. Her roses withered. Her butterflies dropped to the ground as wingless stubs. The woman herself bled profusely from the wounds that covered her whole body, yet she seemed to pay them no mind. If anything, she relished them. Slender, white-spotted hands traced the wounds as if to caress the marks of the oathless.

  Travertine tore his eyes away and spun in place. He stormed down the stairs, CROZIER’s frantic click-clacks ringing against the overcast sky. He thought he heard a voice call his name. He ignored it and made his descent at speed, with only his deer companions following behind.

  By the time he made it to the bottom of the stairs—to the Temple’s entrance—the sky had opened. Drizzles soon made way for a steady torrent. Before long, Travertine and his deer familiars were all drenched in rain, just like they’d been last Night. It seemed the storm had reasons to linger after all.

  Travertine too lingered. His soaked boots carried him, not into the building to congregate with the herd, but to the back of the ziggurat. To the narrow strip of grass that separated the Temple from the Gloaming mists.

  He stood at the edge of the mists, lost in thought. His fist had stopped shaking, and the darkness in his heart had settled into a low simmer. He could think a little more clearly now, and it was with a clarity of mind that he contemplated walking into the mists. Alone save for the constant companionship of DLEE and ORD. Bereft of the protection afforded by the Keeper’s favored son.

  After all, why not? He thought to himself. I’ve long met the Karmic Benchmark and possess an Ascension Mandate besides. Duty and duty alone held me back from ascending with the previous cohort. Why shouldn’t I brave the mists and seek the prize that’s rightfully mine?

  It was a ludicrous notion, of course. Even if by some miracle he survived the [Unmooring], he’d soon be hopelessly lost amidst the Gloam, never to ascend or find his way back to the safety of the city. Yet, ludicrous though it might be, the notion gave him a strange sense of comfort.

  I could leave it all behind… if only I so choose.

  Travertine stood at the edge of the mists a while longer. Until a wry almost-smirk crept onto his face. He was calm. He was clear-headed. And he chose to turn around. To rejoin the herd and welcome the turning of another D—

  Amitabha.

  Travertine froze, wondering if the [Nightmare] had followed him all the way down here, now in the form of auditory hallucination. But then—

  The Path is long and dark. You started it as a hunter. Are you really content to finish it as a shepherd?

  Travertine spun once more to face the mists. There was no mistaking it this time. For something within the Gloam had spoken to him directly, giving word to the darkness privy only to himself. What… who…?

  “K—Keeper?” the Cardinal murmured shakily, voice barely above a whisper. Even as he spoke, however, he knew the truth to be something else. Something elusive. Something without a face.

  And as Travertine stared into the impenetrable mists, he saw it. A faceless face. The face of a god who heard and answered the calls of all creatures big or small, sunlit or shadow-cloaked, and everything else in between.

  The god spoke to him again, their deep-blue ‘eye’ glinting ever brighter against the gathering dark.

  It’s the principle of things. Promises conveyed and contradicted by the names we give ourselves. In embodying your oath, shepherd, I fear you’ve strayed from your Path.

  The shepherd gripped his crook with such intensity that his fist trembled. Darkness roiled anew within the hunter’s heart. Behind him and him alone, a doe stamped her foot and a stag bayed with menace.

  The Day draws to a close once more, and the Gloaming hours are nigh, the god proclaimed. Perhaps it’s time this protector of the herd hunted purely for himself.

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