Sheaf, Part Five

The cleric Karin caught my attention immediately, and when we left the town of Halfbridge, we left together.  She, too, was traveling on a quest to learn more about the world, and we spent many nights staying up entirely too late into the night, debating various scientific theories whilst the campfire burned down to glowing embers.

I would not say that I was in love, exactly, but I admit to a fascination.  Rarely in the life of Joseff had I met anyone with the same passion for knowledge and solving mysteries that I had, and Karin had that passion to spare.  Without a doubt, though, the largest mystery that I faced during that time was that of Karin herself.

Karin laughed, a rich, pleasant sound that made the woods around them seem more alive.  "I thought he was going to drop of a heart attack," she said.  "The look on his face!"

Sheaf chuckled, nodding.  "I told him that he'd get caught, didn't I?"

Karin lay back, peering at the stars through the clearing in the canopy of leaves overhead.  "You always seem to have another trick up your sleeve, Sheaf.  Sometimes, I think you surprise even yourself."

Sheaf shrugged, poking at the fire with a long stick.  "Sometimes I do."

She turned on to her side, peering at him.  "So what is the mystery of the great Sheaf, then?  We've journeyed for months, and I still feel like I hardly know you."

The touch of a frown appeared on Sheaf's face as he murmured, almost inaudibly, "I feel the same way."  Then, it was gone, replaced by a wry smile.  "This from Karin, lady of secrets, cleric of a nameless God and scientist of an unspecified field of study."

It was her turn to frown, now, and the two lapsed into an ever-so-slightly-uncomfortable silence.  They had seemed to wordlessly agree long ago that each of them would refrain from digging into each others past, but the topic still occasionally arose, usually in jest.  Each time, Sheaf felt a pang of paranoia, a need he didn't fully understand to keep his abilities, and the very nature of his existence, private.  Each time, he also felt that he desperately needed to give some of himself up, in order to learn more about this intelligent, skilled woman he traveled with.  Each time, he felt as if he needed to learn more about her, for some important reason he couldn't quite figure out.  And then, there was the Itch.

The Itch was a misnomer, of course.  He didn't have the words to adequately define the feeling that began to originate in the back of his head whenever he was faced with some mystery, some secret, until it reverberated throughout his skull.  It was a combination of a maddening itch that one couldn't scratch, and the feeling of bashing your funny bone against a stone wall, and the feeling of goosebumbs on his very brain.  It was all of these, and a thousand more things, and it was none of these.

It was absolutely maddening.

When the Itch presented, there was nothing he could do about it but search down the truth of whatever was hidden from him.  At the same time, however, he had no way of learning anything about Karin that she wasn't willing to disclose, and, as often as they talked, personal information of any real caliber rarely left her lips.  Oh, certainly, he knew that her favorite flower was the lily, and she had an uncanny ability to cook extravagantly spicy orcish food, but such tidbits of information did nothing, less than nothing, to scratch the maddening Itch that reverberated through him.

Of course, she was hardly the only cause of the Itch.  Anytime he entered a new town or city, it would inevitably come.  Sometimes, the pleasant times, he'd be able to do something about it.  The two of them, working together, would often track down truths, sometimes in the field, solving crimes or answering calls for adventurers, sometimes in libraries, researching the history or geography of the local area.

Figuring out whatever knowledge was hidden from him dissolved the Itch in a wave of ecstasy.  Waves of pleasure radiated out from his brain to the tips of his being, bringing forth a nearly orgasmic sense of satisfaction.  It was never enough, though.  Often, mere hours later, the Itch would begin again as some new secret was brought to his attention, either consciously or subconsciously.

Sheaf looked up, studying the stars as well, and wondered--not for the first time--if he was going insane.  Or, perhaps, if he already was.  His reminiscing was interrupted by a loud yawn, and he looked over to see Karin pulling her wool blanket over herself.  "I'm going to turn in," she said.

He nodded.  "Wake me up in the morning if I try to oversleep."

She snorted sarcastically.  "You?  Oversleep?  Never."

He chuckled under his breath as she turned over, her back to the fire, and began to drift to sleep, as his head returned to troubled thoughts.  Most predominantly of them all, of course, was the same question, the same maddening cause of the Itch that had followed him on-and-off again for months:  Who am I?

The Quest, Part One

Cadeus paced back and forth, his long white robe making a gentle swoosh on the ornate marble floor.  "Do you realize what you've done, Garek?"

Garek stretched in his seat, enjoying the release of his back popping before he picked out a long, slender piece of wood from a dozen duplicates sitting in a jar on his table.  "I believe I killed a criminal," he said, working the pointed end of the wood into the intricate etchings on the front of his armor.  This was the first chance he'd had in days to take it off, and finally clean the blood and grime from the more inaccessible areas.

Cadeus snorted.  "Hardly.  You assassinated an ambassador.  An Imperial ambassador at that!"

Garek rolled his eyes and began to work the wood into another etching.  "Assassinated?  Hardly.  I strode in, in the middle of the day, announced his crimes, read his aura to be certain of his wickedness, and struck him down."  He gestured at a scroll on the opposite end of the table.  "There is proof that he was using his diplomatic vessel to smuggle slaves, if you are convinced of his goodness.  I took it from his corpse."

"Yes, no doubt you did.  It doesn't matter how convinced you were of his evil, Garek.  You accepted money to end his life!  That makes you no more then an assassin!"

"Oh, please," Garek scoffed, running a clean cloth over the part of his breastplate that he was finished with.  "He was going to die, anyways.  The money was hardly incentive.  It was just an added bonus."

Cadeus sat on the couch, and held his head in his hands.  "You are going to be tried," he said, finally.

"And?  I've been tried a dozen times, and each time my killings have been found just.  If you recall, last time I was promoted."

"Yes," Cadeus said softly.  "You were.  Which makes this doubly difficult."

"Hmm?  How so?"

"You're a High Paladin, now, Garek.  That means your actions don't just represent the Temple of the Silver Wing and the lands that we have dominion over, they represent Template as a whole.  This isn't going to be a simple trial where you explain to Master Priest Alteris that you were justified.  This will be a Council trial.  The heads of all twenty-one temples will be present."

This was new.  Garek had been called to testify for his killings before--virtually every paladin and crusader in the Order had, at least once--but a Council trial was a different thing entirely.  While all twenty-one temples that ruled Template were supposedly aligned to the powers of Goodness and Light, each had their own specific belief sets that governed how they did so.  The Order of the Silver Wing, for example, worshiped no particular deity, but instead the idea of justice, righteousness, and lawfulness as a whole.

Still, he shrugged.  "Makes no difference.  I did what needed to be done."

"You could be cast out, Garek.  Exiled.  Cut off from the Temple, and any of it's resources."

"Well, then.  I suppose I should be glad that I had the foresight to commission and pay for my own armor, weapon, and shield."

"Damnit, Garek, you'd be homeless!"

Garek finally put down the piece of wood, and met Cadeus' eyes.  "This Temple, and this Order, is a means, old friend," he said, before pulling a long dagger from his boot.  He pressed the blade to the inside of his left forearm and ran it near to his elbow before casually flicking it, scattering the blood from the blade.  He showed the gaping wound to Cadeus before pressing a hand to it and murmuring a quiet prayer.  The skin began to knit itself together, miraculously fast, and once more he met Cadeus' eyes.  "The Light clearly doesn't think I've wronged," he said, "else my powers would be stripped.  If the Council of Template decides to exile me, then I'll make my way somewhere else, and continue my quest there.  I've got more important things to worry about then twenty-one fools who would rather play politics than do what needs to be done."

Cadeus frowned, confused.  "What are you talking about?  What quest?"

Garek smiled, a thin, wry smile that was as cold as a glacier on a moonlit night.  "I'm afraid, old friend, that that's none of your damned business."