(6) The Tower of Cilifus 6
In his hands was an exclusive idol of Heavenly Piercer Krant the Shallow Abyss.
It was ugly as sin. Its head a mass of warts, its feet a featureless pile of shit, its sole arm a frail handle with no hand.
Hadn't cost him a single green copper though. He just had to answer a few dull questions, then that Tessan woman opened a drawer on her desk and handed him a carving identical to her own.
"Our little secret, alright?" She said with a wink, nevermind the two others in the room. "It's my side business, I don't want to lose it all right at the peak."
It hadn't left his head since. Why? He had never been a decorations kind of guy, every house he lived since his teens had been a testament to that, and even if he was this would surely not be his style. Beyond the fact these were a bunch of weirdos he barely knew, it didn't take a good nose for craft to know this was amateur work. So, why?
Again, it didn't look special, so that was an angle covered. He enjoyed its weight, nicely solid from tip to top, and nothing got knocked loosed when he rattled it around. If there were any secrets to be found on its surface, his fingers weren't digging any.
Tentatively, he gave it a sniff. A smidge aromatic? Musky and woody, faint enough it was close to sweet, not too pungent. He stuck his tongue out, slowly bringing it closer—
"Idolatry of the long dead I can comprehend, there is power in symbols and the lingering Purity of those who followed the Father-Mother. Idolatry of the still living..."
Francies side eyed forlorn Garces, not only for being broken from his peaceful contemplation but for being reminded where they were.
Say what you will about Handres, they weren't joking around, if he hadn't registered today he would be sleeping on the sidewalk. Thanks to their foresight though, they were assigned to a so called dormitory, where their necessities would be taken care of until they could do their first expedition.
It was a hovel. Francies would be the first to admit this was incredibly rich coming from him, but Cilifus had raised his expectations at every turn so far, only to suddenly give him this. Rooms closer to indentations on a hallway, completely windowless and stinking of mold, ratty curtains all they had for privacy, which meant he was privy to every shift, every groan, moan, and of course every sob from the other Guests.
Even the food was dreary. Tack so hard you had to gnaw, and so devoid of flavor Handres' wagon's affair tasted like a noble's feast by comparison, along with a single cup of watery grog handed to them by a woman who looked like she would rather be at the gallows.
Well, good enough an excuse to eat the stuff he brought with him. He popped a jerky in his mouth, and watched as Garces' expression turned blank.
"What?" he asked. "I might be a hare, but I'm as folk as you."
"I have know other Long Ears before, but... I suppose I should have bothered knowing them better, my apologies," Garces huffed. "Considering I eat at all, it was a stupid gap to maintain."
"Eh, we all have our flaws." Mouth sufficiently occupied by the gamy flavor, he returned his attention to the figure, running all his test again one by one. He had to be missing something.
They had taken this side room over as soon as the opportunity came. A few mismatched chairs set aside by a hobbled table in passing resemblance to a leisure room. Nobody joined them; the dormitories as a whole were desolate, with less people among both staff and visitors combined than needed to fill a single wing.
"If you excuse me the change in topics, could you explain your sudden fascination with these Heavenly Piercers? You did not seem so taken with those we came across on the road or on the way here." Garces said.
"Sure can't. Wanna help me figure it out though?" he pushed the Krant statuette across the table. "Hold this for a while."
Garces reached for it with the tips of his fingers, plucking it like tick and keeping as far from his body as his arm allowed. Slowly, he let it closer, passed it from hand to hand, thumbed its details with ginger care, always grimacing.
"Speaking professionally, it is passable work," Garces said. "Good weight, quality wood, surprising detail for such an otherwise caricaturesque figure. No sign of parasites or infestation... the bark is an interesting aesthetic choice, regardless of subject matter."
"Huh. Now that was an unexpectedly complex answer, but I wasn't thinking about the physical side of things. Can you feel it?"
He brought it closer, examining it with a squint. "You will have to specify what I am supposed to be feeling."
"That's the problem, though. I don't know what it is."
"You are sure it is there, however?"
"Not really."
Garces blinked.
"My bad. Feels like my gut is on to something, but what it is I have no clue."
"An ominous sensation." Garces pushed the statuette back towards him. "Not an unexpected occurrence in the Sin of Levelas, I must assume."
"Figured you weren't having the nicest time around, but you've been handling it well. Except that one time," Francies said.
"Except that one time." He grunted. "Like it or not, this will be my life for the near future, and between having my limits tested or bringing more hardship to my family, the choice is obvious."
Francies chuckled. Not a bad perspective at all. At the least the ride had been comfortable, and the dormitories did let him bath, with cold buckets of water and a bar of soap that was half hair by mass, but it did.
In a nice surprise, the razor they lent him had been as smooth as silk. A hairy hare was a shameful sight, and being able to care for a week's worth of negligence like it was an hour's should spare the place from his complains for now.
Then, he frowned. "Speaking of hardship, where's that Éliol fella'? Last I saw him in the baths, but I can't even hear him anymore."
"Took his luggage and left." Garces sighed.
"Fancy boy is going to sleep on the streets? Nah, I don't buy that."
"He was murmuring as he walked off, but I'm afraid I did not catch on to what."
Maybe he had family in town, like the other two hares from the wagon. Francies wouldn't bring them up out loud though, the whole situation looked like a fantastic mood sinker.
Now Éliol was fair game, but Garces didn't seem interested in gossiping at the moment. He looked, in a word, thunderous. "Francies, I hope I do not come across as meddling, but I have another personal question I would like to ask you."
"Go ahead? Just don't get upset if you don't like my answer." Francies said, sitting straighter.
"Very well. Francies, once you have your citizenship, what are you planning to make of your Invitation?"
He pondered the question for a few seconds. "Hey, this one feels more like a 'get to know each other on the road' kind of question than the last one."
"I was in need of that answer, then." Garces glanced away. "This could wait. You might not yet had a certain plan for your future."
"Certain like yours?" Francies said, and saw the moment his joke jabbed the mild Stone Skin right in the heart.
According to a certain Guest who visited South Lateno and went on a drinking binge so insane she nearly got kicked out of the village, there were two types of Guests in this world: those who felt so bad for being invited they became Flagellants to atone, and those who didn't and spent the rest of their lives pretending the former were a myth.
Flagellants where everywhere these days, though they didn't need to announce themselves as such. The moment he saw some pompous assholes walk into the chapel, then immediately towards the center of the village with faces like they were about to rant up a storm, he knew the trouble brewing.
He also learned to tell their passing. Foxes, Maelans, those spirited away they victims, he couldn't prove they were real. Flagellants? They liked to send messages. Minced bodies, lungs submerged in ponds of salted water, the kind of stuff he used to think were the older hunters trying to scare him, until he stumbled upon one.
He Understood the logic behind joining them. Safety, community, a lingering connection to the Pure Ones, people killed for less. He just wanted none of it.
"My path has never been set in stone. There were always alternatives," Garces' eyes widened. He glared. "Not that one. I would never!"
"That one what?" Francies frowned.
"You know the one. What else could a Stone Skin be talking about when they mention alternative work?"
"You're going to have to enlighten me. because if brought up some sensitive topic, then I'm really not sure which it is."
"No, you... you did nothing. It is this world that is wrong, and I apologize for jumping at shadows, I had some many relatives and friends harassed by those covetous slavers that—It does not matter. sorry."
Francies chuckled, awkward. What a knack for heavy turns this Garces guy had.
"This town makes me hyper vigilant," he continued. "I cannot sense the exact things you do, but I do not doubt your instincts for a second. As expected of a living gateway to the Churn, the air here is wrong. Putrid."
"I don't have the slightest clue what I'm going to do here, if that was what you were asking before." Francies said. "I don't even know what I can do yet, or what the Invitation lets me do."
Garces nodded. "I assumed as much, which is why I wanted to bring it up before the Tower separates us. I think your way of being is dangerous, and fear the Tower will have nothing but suffering in stock for you."
Francies scoffed. "You're doing that thing again, talking like we're on the same trail while I'm on the other side of the mountain, if you catch my drift."
"I... believe I do. Allow me to show you something."
Garces extended his hand between both of them, opening wide then slowly clenching it into a fist time and time again. The table wobbled as he leaned forward, but he didn't bother.
"When I was a young man, I suffered an accident while building a roof. I will spare you the details, but while I could have been injured far worse, it did cause me one lasting consequence: my pinkie lost most of its movement, and I could not press in against my palm."
Watching the clenching more carefully, he noticed his pinkie did move slower, and couldn't quite flex all the way. "Ouch. Hope it didn't get in the way too much?"
"I learned to live with it. Until my Invitation arrived and cured most of the problem away."
Francies frowned. "Sorry if I'm being dense here, that doesn't looked fixed in the least."
"It isn't, but as I said, only most of the problem." He clenched again. "It was far worse before. With effort I could wriggle it, and no more."
"Alright. That sounds pretty good, though, if a little half-baked on the Tower's part. What's the catch?"
"This pinkie was one of the biggest reasons my invitation was discovered."
Francies saw the finger under a new light. Faking loss of movement on a single finger for days, weeks on end was pure madness, no way you wouldn't lower your guard or get distracted at some point. "Sorry to hear, but I'm really not getting it."
"The Book of Truths speaks of our conception by the Pure Ones. Inside our souls, we carry the Purity they inherited from our Father-Mother in balance with the innate filth of mortal existence. Every step away from that cleanness, from that hope, another fragment of divinity is besmirched and the closer we become to sinking into the muck of the Primordial Churn.
"Despite assurances, I could never quite dismiss the idea that my Invitation was punishment for some transgression. It made me healthier, stronger, it soothed old pains, but at what cost?" Garces' nails dug into his palm. "It took everything from me because I enjoyed its benefits at the wrong time.
"And in a way, that is the work of sin, is it not? The sinner does not expend their whole lives planning the sin, usually. It is that moment of temptation, that opportunity to take something you should not have, that strays good folk from the path.
"You have seen the results of this particular sin. When you saw Mon Handres, did it never occur to you that they might no longer be—"
Garces glanced over his shoulder. Ears perked, Francies knew nothing had changed in these last few minutes, save the few who had fallen asleep, but he followed his eyes anyway.
Under faint candlelight, under the glint of two roving fireflies, had the shadows always looked this sharp, this crooked? Maybe they had, he hadn't been paying attention. But there it was again, that twist of stomach, something terribly wrong crawling beyond where his fingers could point.
Garces didn't need to finish his thought. Francies' mind wandered to Handres, a person who did not breath, whose eyes could not possibly see from the darkness of their sockets.
"Honestly, maybe they're just a very odd fella," Francies whispered. "I don't know anything about the Tower yet, I've been here for less than a day."
"And I am saying, today we saw more than enough." Garces matched his volume. "Cilifus is an asylum."
"That was obvious. You said it best though, like it or not it's our new life."
"I worry for you, Francesto."
He sighed. "Well, no need to. I can take care of myself."
Garces frowned. "I know you are a capable combatant, that is not what I mean. Cilifus is a spiritual trap, its worse snags will not be of a physical nature, not while you remain unmoored."
"Unmoored? What in the Churn are you talking—Oh, is this about that interview at the Notary's?" Damned be his lack of care, he should have asked for privacy. "I'm fine. I've been fine."
"You have the makings of a righteous man, but no anchor to hold you steady. that is the kind of prey our savviest enemies love most! The taste of the lawful soul is—"
Francies should not be mad at this. He had far worse before. But that motherly condescension suddenly burned him up from the inside. He just had to let it out.
"Alright buddy, forget meddlesome, now you're borderline proselytizing," he said. "What is this bullshit about savvy enemies and this place being a spiritual trap or whatever? You said so long everyone believes the Father-Mother and the Pure Ones you were fine with them, but a couple hours in a place you don't even care to figure out makes that fall apart? What gives?"
Francies saw Garces' mouth bob open, twice then thrice, before the older man closed his eyes. He stood up, a terrible time to remind Francies of the sheer difference in size and muscle between them. Thankfully, he didn't show any hostility or tension in his posture, only weariness.
"I recognize my place in your life, Francesto, or lack thereof, but I still want you to see reason, come it from whichever source. The currents of such a place lead to one destination, one no just folk deserve, but many fall victim to," Garces said.
"I'm not telling you to fuck off or anything, but I've heard this sermon before. I know where I am and what I'm doing," Francies said.
"Sermon? It is straighforward fact. The Tower will subsume the vulnerable, sooner or later, and I would hate to see it happen to you." His voice lowered.
"Nothing will happen to me. And if I'm unmoored, what are you then?"
He smiled. "I have a lifeline. One which I would be more than pleased to introduce if you so need."
"Eh, I know it well enough already."
"Suit yourself, the offer will remain up. Meanwhile," he stretched his shoulders, "We should rest. The hardest part of this ordeal is soon to come, and I am rather exhausted from our journey."
Usually, Francies should have been too. A long trip exhausted you to the bones, and he had not slept more than a couple hours since he boarded Handres' wagon. But he felt electric, alive! From excitement? Anxiety? He had no clue.
"Rest well, Francies. I hope you didn't take my concern as an insult, I genuinely would like to see you thrive, against all odds."
"Well, rest well you too. Keep watching, I'll show you those odds."
Empty showmanship, Francies didn't care one way or another. Garces' gaze carried a storm of emotions, but it was easy to suss out he hadn't believed a word out of his mouth.
Garces walked into one of the alcoves, and closed the curtains behind him. Meanwhile, Francies held his statuette to his chest and wondered where that had really come from.
"Old men are just too complicated, aren't they Krant?" he said, not exactly hoping an answer, yet bracing himself just in case. "Now that it's just the two of us, wanna show me what you're all about?"
It didn't.
And two days later, when he was awoken at the crook of dawn to join his first expedition, he still wouldn't be any closer to cracking its mysteries.