Trials of Joliet

Raum departs on foot for the execution grounds, led along by attendants and an axeman. As they leave the castle, he notices the Lord, dressed in a suit of armour and equipped with a sword, also leaving the castle, on the back of an armoured horse. He’s going to battle. But with what? Before Raum can speculate, attendants nudge him back into motion.

People peer out of shopfronts and houses to watch him pass, with some bystanders joining the throng in an impromptu parade. Though nominally this should be a sombre occasion, the prevailing air is one of suspense, intrigue, and excitement. What’s your deal? What did you do? Whatever happens, tonight, he’ll clearly be the talk of the pubs.

There’s too many eyes on him to simply break away. Not that he’s familiar enough with the city to reliably know where to hide, or to run to.

Joliet, he knows from glimpses of the majordomo’s maps, is a seaside city located relatively close to the national border. To roughly break down its geography, its suburbs and castle are in the east, its mercantile district is in the centre, its port is in the north, and its industrial district and train station are in the west. If he had to pick, on a snap judgement, where to go into hiding, intuition tells him somewhere between the industrial district and the port would be the least patrolled.

The execution grounds come into view. Raum’s heartbeat thunders in his ears as he steps onto the platform, from where he looks upon the crowd that has grown as his audience.

If only he were more clever. Then he could say the perfect words with the perfect mannerisms and the perfect, charming smile to appeal to these people, make them riot, and afford him an opening to just slip away. They came here boredly for ceremony — with the right finesse, maybe, he could inveigle them into a show far spicier than the gorefest they’re already anticipating.

The moment he fantasises this plan, those perfect words and mannerisms slide trustily into his mind.

Yes. He could modestly request a final word, after all, and before the pressure of the crowd, the headsman would have to obey. He could thank everyone for coming, thank the executioner for treating him well, and earnestly admire all the things that he’s found enchanting — and indeed come to love — about Asphodel. Then, hooked, he would speak of himself, for a moment. He would contrast the wonder of Asphodel against the cruelty of his life and upbringing in Ordanz, just as a passing tease, just enough to let people feel they knew him. Then he would return to Asphodel, more sadly, to speak of the Whitewood massacre.

And after fluffing up his punters in anger and misery, he would loose the moneyshot: Aquila killed the Whitewoods.

Pandemonium. Instantly. What makes him so confident? How can his heart feel so hot, and ready, and excited, to stake the unproven word of a desperate criminal against the sanctified word of the King? He can’t even say himself. Maybe just the fact that his accusation is true, is what convinces him it’ll work.

The headsman concludes his speech and turns to guide Raum to kneel.

This is the moment to speak. He asks.

As anticipated, the headsman allows him this oration. As anticipated, the crowd is soon captivated. The words flow fluently. Holy crap, Raum thinks, it’s working. But just as he returns to Asphodel, bordering his transition into dialogue about the Whitewoods, something lurches coldly in his gut.

All eyes in the audience are locked on him intently. Earnestly, investedly — they’re not just jonesing for entertainment. He’s tricked everyone here into genuinely caring about him, and they are taking him utterly seriously.

His driving wave of heat and excitement ebbs under a sober sense of uncertainty. So, say he does infect the public thought with seditious doubts against the King.

Then what?

Truly, then what. He’s not here to start a movement, or rebellion, or whatever else kind of messy unrest could come of actually believing him. And he’s certainly not speaking to be an icon or martyr. Even should an official discretisation of Raum smooth over his treasonous accusations as a blip, the vague, but assuredly extant possibility that they could persist, or even grow, yanks Raum’s mind screeching away from its original script.

He scrambles for improvised words. But it’s quite clear he was wrapping up his speech. The headsman prompts him to close with a grunt, and the transfixed interest from his audience wanes visibly. Raum gasps a breath, backs up, and thinks to resort to the far stupider plan of just running—

—Just as he takes the first step, every radio in every shopfront of the square, of the district, of the city, bursts alive with the familiar, angry voice of Reyl. The headsman again nudges Raum down, ready to ignore the interruption, but then pauses as the words she’s saying register. Aside some other stipulations, she’s holding the family of the local Lord hostage and will kill them unless Raum is returned safely to her. Corroborating her threat, she broadcasts the crying of a distressed child, begging for help.

Yeah. That’s Reyl.

But it’s not even just her. Right as she signs off with her deadline and drop-off point, a massive explosion rocks the area, with great plumes of black smoke billowing over the distant industrial district. The only warning comes from Reyl’s radio — the blast broadcasts more quickly, and at higher volume, from her end before its shockwave reaches Raum. Her radio cuts in the middle of her surprised cry of “Shit!". She is clearly quite near the area of the explosion.

Raum shoves the headsman aside and dashes into the panicked crowd, gunning for the industrial district while chaos and confusion cover him. As the shouts rise behind him, the sky soon closes in black smoke and red flame, delivering him into a vision of hell.

More explosions boom out as fire from the initial blast spreads to nearby factories and mills. The shockwaves batter Raum, and with his arms bound, he can’t keep his balance. Though he thinks to simply rip through the thread, sentimentality stops him. Instead he manages to winch his arms out of the bindings and loop the cord around his neck, still in-tact.

It soon becomes clear to him that there is no organized local guard force in Joliet, or at least not one presently addressing the fire. Civilians scream as they run about, trying to evacuate buildings and the region in general. Silhouettes with flames licking behind them appear in the windows of tall, multi-storied buildings. Horrible pleading, wailing, and wet crunching peals out in sequence as people dive out from the windows and pelt down like hail upon the hard cobblestones below, snapping legs, backs, skulls, and pelvises. To simply sprint past, ignoring them, sears Raum’s chest with guilt. But right now he doesn’t have the time, or means, to help them.

Meeting up with Reyl is priority one. Raum is the only one who can defuse her, and the things she may do if she thinks him dead are horrific beyond imagining.

A distressed citizen gives Raum directions to Reyl’s drop-off point, deeper in the industrial district. Despite her shock at Raum’s funerary garb, she is far too panicked to question it. He thanks her and promptly sprints off. But as the smoke pouring from neighbouring buildings get thicker, and the flames louder, and the swelter in the air more oppressive, Raum realises the woman’s route is taking him deeper into the initial blast zone and might not be currently traversable.

He comes to the square outside the train station. The destruction here is immense. The station itself is aflame and gushing torrents of smoke, shrapnel litters the ground, and bricks from neighbouring buildings have spilled out onto the roads like loose entrails. If he’s going to proceed, it means cutting through the station. Judging that an incredibly bad idea, Raum thinks to withdraw and find alternate directions — but sees that the people collapsed here in this square are all dressed in silks or light armour, and then spots, with a jolt, the Lord among them.

Unlike others here, he is conscious, but struggling. He is trying frantically to take off his armour, but his movements seem laggard and slow. Raum, recognising the Lord indispensable for dealing with the current crisis, debates barely a second before dashing over. Though the fear the Lord might kill him is immense, Raum hopes leveraging the hostage situation will dissuade any immediate aggression. Rationalisations, calculations, risk/reward assessment — really, all just background noise in his mind, to stop his rational brain from screaming as his heart’s sincere desire to help takes over.

The armour is sweltering to the touch. As Raum rips the last latches off and the plating clatters away, the Lord is revealed — red, swollen, and panting in relief. He was boiled in his armour like a brazen bull, and though he promptly then vomits and near passes out, the sight of the ruined square full of his injured subordinates sharply stabilises him, and he miraculously hoists himself to his feet. Though Raum’s presence mystifies him, it’s brief. He promptly snaps back into focus and barks orders over the square to the yet-healthy members of his contingent, then demands Raum report what he knows of the situation.

Raum divulges what he can and presses the point of the urgency of the hostage situation. The Lord descends into frantic thought as he plans how to allocate his resources and respond to the chaos. As he does, Raum’s nosy curiosity itches until he cannot help but ask what happened.

The Lord snaps that Raum should know. But he doesn’t. Raum’s plain confusion irritates the Lord, until he realises that Raum isn’t faking.

Toreas, the Lord spits. Toreas is what happened.

Raum is stunned.

He recognises the name. But it’s not one he ever imagined hearing in this context.

“Toreas," to Raum’s knowledge, is the name of a relatively influential Ordish mercenary. Though not present or active in Ordanz during Raum’s lifetime, Desiree interacted with him at least enough to reference him on quite personal, and amicable terms, here and there. …Could this foreign cult business, actually, seriously be involved with the Thorns, of all things?

No way. It didn’t fit. Desiree’s mentions of him were always in past tense, reminiscing. But then, why…?

Seeing Raum’s shock, the Lord questions what’s so surprising. Raum was signalling for him, after all. A second of confusion passes until Raum promptly realises, right, yes, that would be what his stalling and signals to Reyl would look like if one presumed he was a cultist. Pieces feel to come together. Toreas, the man with Desiree, is the cultist who ravaged Indris. He followed Raum to Joliet, used the train, just got here, and the Lord got advance warning. So that’s what changed things so quickly. But why is he pursuing Raum? Because of Desiree? Raum responds that he just didn’t expect the name.

The Lord is unsettled. Raum, a presumed cultist, is being thrown off by his own faction’s movements. Sensing that there is much more happening here than Raum’s saying, and baffled as to what makes Raum so important, the Lord gives a heavy sigh and retrieves a radio from a fallen subordinate. He experiments with it, but it only crackles with static under the area’s thick smoke. He curses and orders Raum to stay put as he dispatches his contingent across the city — you organise carriages to transport the wounded, you arrange a field hospital, you cut a firebreak. While they depart, the Lord gestures Raum to follow him and mounts a panicked horse they find a few streets over, as his own is missing.

He helps Raum onto the horse, and once he’s stably on, cracks the reins.

As they dash through the streets, the smoke thins overhead and the sound of distant waves swells louder. They’re headed to the port, and not Reyl’s drop-off point in the industrial district, which puzzles Raum until the Lord again attempts to use his radio. This time, the signal connects.

The Lord addresses Toreas on a public channel, announcing the city’s surrender, and urging Toreas to come to the port to pick up Raum. Raum, catching on, speaks to confirm himself present. The voice that responds is somehow shrill, but heavy, like a sword groaning across stone. Goosebumps rise down Raum’s spine. “No. You come to me," it says.

The Lord snaps. You are in a civilian district! We have boats here so you may leave, you have made your point well enough. After a short period of silence, Toreas again speaks, and concedes. He will come to them.

The Lord sighs in immense relief. Raum asks to be included in his thought process, which is essentially this: Toreas detonated explosives in the train after hearing Reyl’s broadcast, which let slip that Raum was actively on the execution block. It stands to reason that Toreas would have gone straight for the execution site in the city square to pick Raum up. If they’re going to have any confrontation with Toreas, it absolutely mustn’t be in an area with civilians. They’d undoubtedly die. Moreover, Toreas is strong. Too strong to simply fight as though he were typical opponent. As Phoenix’s second-in-command during the Tyrant’s Reign, he was notorious for single-handedly setting cities ablaze and slaughtering their entire populace. It was only because he’d disappeared over the past decade that people didn’t still live every second of every minute in fear of him, assuming him finally vanquished. Well, obviously, they’d all assumed wrong.

The Crown had drafted many plans on how to counter-act Toreas. Many had been tried and many had failed. But the fundamental principle of drowning him in saltwater has always been constant. Raum looks over the docks, spotting shipping containers in rows beside forklifts. Instantly, he intuits the plan. Lock him in one of those and dump it into the ocean.

Though Raum has to question whether Toreas, one single guy, is worth that degree of precaution, it’s obvious that the Lord’s answer is ‘yes’.

Switching gears, Raum urgently advises the Lord that though his communication may have pacified Toreas, it does nothing about Reyl. Since she’s not working with Toreas. The Lord snaps the horse into motion back towards the industrial district, pressing Raum for what on earth are Reyl’s allegiances then. Raum’s sincere answer of ‘Ordanz’ stuns the Lord into silence.

That Raum and Reyl are Ordish is not exactly a secret. But the general assumption made of shady Ordishmen is that they are holdover chattels from Phoenix’s regency. Though Raum and Reyl would have had to have been infants during that era, it is not exactly inconceivable that Phoenix would have enslaved them regardless, and in truth there was precedent for it. But with such a strong preconception established — the idea that Raum and Reyl are simply Ordishmen from Ordanz, loyal to Ordanz, and working for Ordanz, didn’t occur.

Spies, in other words. Sensing the Lord has reached this conclusion, Raum encourages the assumption. Ordanz ain’t on great terms with that cult, either, you know. Though he’s only ad-libbing from well-informed inference, the Lord seems to accept it with great understanding. It explains Raum’s association with and knowledge of the cult, being an infiltrator of it, though apparently things had gone wrong. With a mutual enemy, they’re not technically working at cross-purposes, either.

Though they’re closer to the industrial district than Toreas is to the port, they only have so much time before he gets there, finds them missing, and realises something is up.

So, the Lord anxiously grumbles, he’s outlined his plan for Toreas. What’s Raum’s plan for Reyl?

While silently praying that Reyl hasn’t killed anyone between the time of the explosion and the Lord’s broadcast, Raum puffs out his chest and assures: Hey, now. Honest-to-god, that is my sister.

The roar of the inferno drowns every other noise from the street, the sky a black ceiling of smoke. Regardless of its paintjob, every building along the lane of Reyl’s drop-off point beams crimson. Nobody is here. They’ve all left, sensibly.

As the Lord struggles to calm their horse enough to hitch it to a streetlamp, Raum observes the scene, scanning doorways and windowsills for anywhere Reyl may have used as a hideout. Though no screams or movements draw him to it, the instant Raum spots an open window overlooking the roof of a shorter, neighbouring building, he knows that’s the one.

He also knows she’s left the area. Assuredly, she hopped out the window and parkoured her way across the rooftops until she got to safety. The relief from this observation is great, but fleeting. With flames licking at the building, the hostages — the Lord’s family — remain in imminent danger. …If they’re still there, and if Reyl didn’t already kill them, that is.

Seeing the Lord stumble and brace his arms around his stomach, only a couple steps after leaving the horse, Raum realises he absolutely cannot go in there. After being nearly boiled alive in his armour, he needs attention from a battalion of nurses. Only determination, panic, and a sense of great responsibility are keeping him on his feet. A good lungful of smoke, or even the exertion of climbing stairs, will knock all of those out in an instant. And with the street otherwise deserted, or rather evacuated, there’s no one more qualified around to pawn the job off to.

Without hesitating, Raum rushes into the building and up several flights of stairs to the floor with the window he spotted. The higher he goes, the hotter the air, and the louder the crackling of burning wooden beams overhead. This could quickly become a repeat of the cathedral, Raum’s subconscious mind registers, as he frantically twists the knob of the door at the landing. It doesn’t give — though it’s not locked. This type of resistance feels barricaded.

Raum braces against the wall, careful to keep his head beneath the cloud of smoke that hugs the ceiling, and kicks a hole through the bottom of the door. He reaches through, dislodges the chair on the other end, and enters the room. By its couches and so on, it appears to be a living room.

Though heavy smoke churns against the ceiling, the open window has kept it from consuming the room completely. A wall of flame fills the doorway to the next room over, presumably the kitchen, completely impassable. Raum’s ears burn as heat blazes through his metal earrings. And there, gagged and hogtied with bedsheets, on the ground beside a table, is a woman and two children.

They’re yelling against their gags, quite alive. Any spark of relief Raum has at this discovery is immediately overshadowed by the sentiment of: fucking goddamn it, Reyl.

It’s so pointless, he thinks, as he hurriedly unties them with slick, sweaty hands. If she was going to surrender this spot anyway, discard them as hostages anyway, she could’ve just let them go. But of course she didn’t. Of course. Of course…

Well, it’s Reyl. What did he expect?

His flash of indignant anger smolders away under a wave of strange, but profound despair. Though the heat of the fire evaporates his tears before he can shed them, the familiar wet heat behind his eyes tells Raum that he’s crying. Come on! He wants to scream at himself. In these circumstances?! Get it together!

Just as he gets the last of the family untied, he notices flames have spread in barely a second down from every wall to the skirting boards. Terror, deeper and more primal than any he’s ever felt, clenches in his gut. Though the mother and daughter have a head start on him, and are already at the door, Raum shouts for the family to get out of the room as he, sprinting, scoops the freshly-untied boy by the belt and the collar and tosses him through the doorway behind them. Raum follows not even a second later, glimpsing the three all jumbled, toppling, careening down the stairs — when the room behind him explodes into flame.

Such intense pain rakes down his back, Raum cannot even scream. Only squeak, with vocal chords taut as overtuned strings. The world spins as painful impacts batter his head, chest, and agonisingly his back, ushering him in the general direction of ‘down’. Soon a strong pair of hands drags him out of the doorway. He then finds himself staring up at the Lord, and the smoke-black sky of the burning street above him, as he rests atop the cobblestone.

Raum tries to move, but his back screams with pain. Were he able, he would gladly surrender to the blackness closing around his vision and faint, but the pain forbids even that respite. Every time his consciousness feels to slip, it jolts him alert again like a shock-collar, charged with the fury of a thunderbolt. Raum surmises, quite quickly, that his back is seriously burned. Fear and panic surge from his heart to his throat — only to freeze, as if having hit a blockade before reaching his brain. Raum’s fist is clenched, he discovers, around the sacrificial red cord he’s been wearing as a necklace. It has miraculously survived the burning building completely in-tact, and by that fact, confers him an inexplicable strength to stay calm and keep going.

Bizarre how it works. Really, it shouldn’t. But that’s how little things often are.

Raum grits his teeth and forces himself up. Though vertigo assaults him, he manages to stand and stay standing. The Lord finishes talking with his family, fretting but visibly relieved, seemingly instructing them where to go that’s safe. As they scamper off, one of the children turns to worriedly look at Raum, but their mother soon urges them along and away.

The Lord gestures Raum to the horse with a jerk of the chin, instantly losing the softness he had but a second ago. Every step is lava searing down Raum’s shoulderblades, culminating in a volcanic eruption when the Lord helps yank him onto the horse. While Raum chokes and whines and sniffles in pain, the Lord says nothing, his expression unreadably stern, and again cracks the horse into motion.

When the Lord finally speaks, it’s only to ask one short question. Was your sister there? The hitching of Raum’s throat, for once not from any emotional distress but purely from physiological pain, keeps him from answering with anything but a clumsy shake of the head. The Lord falls silent again.

Indeed, he failed to reach the drop-off point in time to meet up with Reyl. Though his plans, or rather, ‘vague roadmap towards the principal goal’, have been massively set back by this development, he has no complaints against now going to confront Toreas. If Reyl caught the Lord’s earlier transmission, and Raum fancies she indeed did, then she is likely on her way to the port also. Or, depending on her initial location at the time of broadcast, and what shortcuts she might’ve taken, she could be there already.

But, someone who is definitely there already is Toreas. Mounted upon the Lord’s white stallion, dressed head to toe in an imposing set of runed armour, and keeping a vicious longsword sheathed at his hip, Raum silently prays for him not to be mad about their temporary absence. With the helmet covering his face, it’s hard to tell his expression.

The mystery is solved as Toreas then speaks in that low, groaning voice. He had extraordinarily low expectations of the Lord and is vaguely surprised he kept his word. A pause comes as Toreas seems to consider what to say next — and Raum, amazed, senses that he is somehow hesitating, or nervous.

Before he can contemplate that, though, a sense of great unease comes over him. The distant forklifts, and other equipment, are out of their previous positions, but haven’t been brought closer so as to be immediately useful. Toreas dismounts, as does the Lord, who yanks Raum off horseback as well. The vague ideas Raum had of how the Lord might negotiate this situation are quickly veering into uncomfortable unknowns, cemented with bafflement and horror when the Lord tosses Raum forward and says, “Just take him."

It’s not that Raum thought himself close enough to the Lord for this to feel like a betrayal, in particular. But he had thought their slight relationship amicable enough, and the Lord wilful enough not to concede to Toreas, that he wouldn’t be thrown away at the first opportunity.

Well, goes to show. Whatever amicability existed likely only did so in his head, to facilitate his cooperation with a hostile party without going insane from paranoia. Or perhaps he had just become stupidly romantic about how much the Lord would care about him, since he had unconsciously, and very quickly, come to like and trust the Lord himself. He was barely more than a stranger, and a questionable one at that. Of course the Lord would prioritise the city over him.

All the same, as Raum stands in the gulf between the Lord and Toreas, he finds himself, for the first time in a while, feeling properly alone. The weird, constant assurance that there would always be someone to depend on — this time, just isn’t coming.

And though his heart freezes, a numbing calm washes over him too. A nervous, but appeasing smile rises automatically on his face, and his shoulders hitch to make him look smaller. “Be nice to me, okay? I’ll be good. Don’t kill me," his whole body is asking. He can’t even find the whole process sickening — because, true to form, Toreas does take him by the wrist firmly, but not roughly.

The Lord invites Toreas to board any of the vessels docked at the port and leave. Toreas obliges, boarding a boat, dragging Raum along behind him.

Once situated in the brig, and well out into the harbour, Toreas parts from the steering wheel to finally, properly address Raum.

Raum, of course, has questions. Where are they going, what does Toreas want with him, why was Toreas with Desiree, what’s the situation with her. Before Raum can find the nerve to ask anything, though, Toreas takes the initiative with a single, strong accusation — your master, the Archwitch Valens, has sent you to kill me.

Raum is speechless. How?

Seeing Raum’s bewilderment, Toreas chuckles and dryly affirms his deduction that whatever means Raum had to kill Toreas got confiscated during Raum’s incarceration. That odd, edgy nervousness about Toreas then melts into overwhelmingly unconcerned confidence, as he instructs Raum to lay belly-down on a table, and begins bandaging his burns with the ship’s first-aid kit. From such a close vantage point, Raum dimly realises there is no person inside Toreas’ armour.

Gritting his teeth through the pain of gauze shearing his burned skin, Raum squeaks and squirms. Something about his pained, helpless, desperate demeanour seems to stir Toreas to pity.

As if to drown out the silence, Toreas begins to speak. Much like Morgan in the tower, it seems he has several years’ worth of pent-up opinions waiting to be dumped on any safe ear. Raum strains to listen, letting the information come, and patches the snippets together.