NOVEL NEXT B2 Chapter 7
Angar awoke with a start, his mind clouded, his thoughts dulled and hazy.
A vague instinct urged caution, even fear, but its source eluded him.
He lay on soft grass. He couldn't remember why. Lifting his head, he scanned his surroundings.
This wasn't Saint Krakus, but it was a Cloisteranage. He was on a training field, alive with the clamor of youth.
Nearby, a fighting tournament unfolded, cheers and the thud of fists filling the air, marking this as late evening, and free time for students.
As he pushed himself upright, he noticed a towering Crusader in gleaming armor nearby, his breastplate emblazoned with the sigil of the Pilgrims of Shaloth'Eshk chapter, a Gray's eyeless face, its head and forehead pulsing with jagged psychic tendrils.
No rank was shown, and a Psy Crystal pulsed faintly on his forearm.
The Crusader extended a gauntleted hand, and Angar clasped it, rising with the warrior's aid.
The Knight removed his helm, revealing a middle-aged man with weathered and tan skin, clean-shaven, his salt-and-pepper hair framing a face handsome by imperial standards. His eyes, though, carried a shadow of sorrow.
"Your name, young brother?" the Knight asked in a warm voice.
"Angar, Sir," he replied with a heavy tongue, his fogged head still drowning in confusion.
"You possess a formidable mind, brother, and a Resilience score far beyond your current Rank," said the Knight, a note of respect in his tone.
Angar's thoughts struggled to form a response. "Thank you, Sir," was all he managed.
"Walk with me, young brother," the Knight said, turning toward the tournament.
They approached the boys' matches. Just as at Saint Krakus, two tournaments ran side by side. There were a sprawling boys' group and a much smaller girls' contingent, separated by watchful clergy.
Angar and the Knight stood at the edge of a crowd, observing a bout where a boy, perhaps thirteen or fourteen, dominated another of similar age, beating him senseless, his fists a blur of controlled fury.
"That's me in my youth," the Knight said, his eyes fixed on what would be the victor. "The one winning."
Angar glanced at him as confusion stirred beneath his mental fog. The Knight offered no further explanation, but his eyes filled with a quiet grief as he watched the fight unfold.
A sudden peal of bells shattered the moment, the urgent toll summoning all students and staff to the Poenae Fori, the public square where lashings and executions demanded a mandatory audience.
The clergy herded the students with practiced efficiency, ensuring swift compliance. Angar and the Knight followed.
The Poenae Fori teemed with spectators. A sea of shaved pates covered with pileolus and somber robes encircled a raised platform.
A senior clergyman stood at its center with hands resting on the shoulders of a trembling boy, no older than fourteen, whose eyes darted with terror.
The Princeps Rectorium ascended the platform, his presence commanding silence. In his grip was a fasces, a bundle of polished wooden rods bound by crimson leather, an ax-head gleaming at its core.
The Princeps Rectorium's cold and unyielding voice boomed across the square. "For the third time, Rongyao Tafaqqad has been found guilty of carnal acts with female students, in defiance of sacred regulations, his seventh serious infraction."
He drew the ax from the fasces with deliberate ceremony, its blade catching the light. Two clergy stepped forward, forcing the shaking boy to kneel, pressing his neck against a weathered wooden block.
"There shall not be an eighth," the rectorium declared, raising the ax high. "The penalty is death."
The blade fell with a sickening thud. Angar turned his head, unwilling to witness this death.
The Knight noticed, and he grimaced. "Ron was my dearest friend," he said in a low voice, raw with old pain. "We grew up together, close as brothers. Family. Well, as close to family as you get in these Godless meatgrinders they call Cloisteranages."
The crowd began to disperse, but the Knight placed a heavy gauntlet on Angar's shoulder, his eyes locking onto Angar's with an intense stare. "The day before this, during free time, an older girl, near her graduation, was selling kisses for a tenth-credit each behind the gym," he said.
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"We both got caught, but I wasn't like Ron. I was naturally athletic, tough, with psychic potential, destined for Knighthood. Him? It was clear early on he was destined for a serf's life, toiling in some factory. I was useful. He wasn't. They pretended I didn't get caught, and Ron got the ax."
The Knight's sigh was heavy with guilt. "It's all so…heartless. Godless. Wrong. They raise us without a mother's warmth, nor her love. They take young boys brimming with life, with wonder, and break them, slowly crushing their souls. They strip away their spirit, their spark, until nothing's left but obedient cogs. These Cloisteranages don't forge people into something greater, they churn out soulless husks of meat."
His voice grew bitter, and each word a wound. "Theosis sees us as resources, nothing more. Some are useful, some aren't. Above all, it demands obedience. If it can't have that, it wants the problem gone. Maybe machines usurped all worthy labor and toil under Nexus, but Theosis is trying to turn all of us into soulless machines, mindlessly obeying, never searching for more meaning in life."
Angar tried to speak, to refute that, but before a word could form, the scene dissolved, and reality shifted like sand beneath his feet.
He found himself standing in a spacious bedroom beside the Knight. In the corner, a banner emblazoned with the sigil of Marauder Company M, Pilgrims of Shaloth'Eshk, stood, its presence suggesting they were aboard a ship.
Such banners were stored only in a captain's quarters, explaining the room's size, the decorations, and large bed draped in crimson linens.
On that bed, a younger version of the Knight lay entwined with a woman, radiating warmth in their closeness.
Her hand cupped his face, her smile soft with longing. "Did you get a message from Holy Theosis?" she asked.
"I did," replied the Knight. "Even if I must spend the rest of my life repenting, you're worth it, my love."
"Let's run away together," she whispered, her voice trembling with hope. "Leave this all behind, find some small world away from it all, out in the fringe, and start anew, together."
The young Knight's face tightened, and his eyes became heavy and shadowed. "You know I can't, my love," he said in a tone both resolute and pained. "I love you with all my heart, but I'm a Crusader. I have a duty. I can't run off."
The woman's smile faded, becoming a frown, like a silent wound.
The scene shimmered and reformed. Angar now stood outside the ship, the ramp open, the air buzzing with the hum of idling engines.
Marauder Company stood in rigid formation, stock still, their armor glinting under the harsh sun of this world. The younger Knight, the captain rank now clear on his armor, commanded the front, his face a mask of stoic resolve. Beside Angar, the older Knight watched with an unreadable expression.
A man in a gubernator's uniform descended a ramp with a tight grip on the woman from the bedroom, dragging her by her hair. His face strained to conceal a cold fury, with each deliberate step he forced her toward the ship chaplain.
The woman stumbled to her knees before the Presbyter, with eyes wide with fear, her breaths ragged and choked with tears.
The Presbyter's voice cut through the silence, filled with solemnity. "Do you swear before the Holy Trinity, upon your immortal soul, the proof you sent me of your wife's infidelity is true, Child?"
"I do," the gubernator replied in a voice that was near to cracking and laced with venom. "Not only that, but I caught her, Brother. I saw it with my own eyes. It wasn't the first time either."
"Then name the other of this flock with whom she sinned," the Presbyter pressed with a piercing gaze. "It wasn't in the scry-capture of her admitting to this profane act."
The gubernator's brows knit with rage, his eyes flicking briefly to the captain before dropping to the ground, fear clear in their depths. "I can't," he said, barely whispering.
"You can, Child. You must," the Presbyter insisted, his tone brooking no defiance.
The gubernator growled through clenched teeth. "I can't!"
The Presbyter paused as a shadow of understanding crossed his stern features. "So be it, Child," he said, clearing his throat. "Let us proceed. Tolmi Light, for the vile sin of infidelity, and the profanation of your sacred matrimonial vows, sworn before the Holy Trinity, upon your immortal soul, the penalty is death. The sentence shall be carried out by the aggrieved party, as ordained by Imperial Law, say I, by the power vested in me by the Church."
The gubernator drew a pistol. It lit up and hummed as he pressed it to the weeping woman's head. "I trusted you," he spat out, his voice finally cracking. "I loved you so much. I devoted my life to you. It was all a lie, you lecherous, Godless tramp."
The trigger snapped. A flash of light, a wet crack, and blood and brains sprayed across the stone-faced captain, flecking his armor with crimson.
The woman's body crumpled, lifeless, to the ground.
Angar went to speak, but the older Knight raised a gauntleted hand, and Angar's voice died in his throat, the words, all sound, refusing to leave his mouth.
This scene was too much. The Knight had stood by like a coward, letting a woman he'd sinned with bear the full blame alone.
He had taken a married woman to bed, the wife of a pilot under his command, a man that looked to him for leadership, entrusted with his life and honor.
"This one paints me poorly," the Knight admitted in a voice heavy with regret. "I know. I did love her, truly, with a fire that burned brighter than any oath. Divorce is a luxury for the wealthy, buried under bureaucratic chains only a fortune in credits can unravel. The pilot knew if he named me, I'd demand trial by combat, letting the Holy Trinity judge the truth through righteous duel."
With distant eyes, he shook his head. "Even if I killed her husband, I couldn't have married her. Not without retiring. If I'd spoken up, best case, she'd have become a prostitute in a Voluvicas District brothel. What kind of life is that? My silence was the kindest choice, considering."
Angar's whole body was frozen, unable to move, as the Knight placed a gauntleted hand on his shoulder, his gaze piercing Angar's soul again. "This incident was the Empire's fault," he said with a tone filled with bitter conviction.
"This unholy Empire destroys love, hates love, despises it. It's natural for a man to lust after love. It's natural for a woman to want a strong man that loves her. Love is natural. Love is good. We did nothing wrong but express our love in the most pure and natural way men and women can."
His words grew fervent. "They raise us stripped of a mother's love, brainwash us to be obedient meat, and when we finally find love, that glorious and Holy light we've been denied, the spark that makes our miserable lives worth living, they execute us for it."