Chapter 93: The Illustrations
But the odds of a successful conception were low, the witch's notes lamented. And even if a child was born, most were inferior specimens, their demonic blood diluted. Still, even a lesser bloodline was enough to produce a natural-born sorcerer. The child would then be raised by the organization, eventually intermarrying with other witches to produce yet more sorcerers. If the child was a girl, she could be offered back to the same demon god for a second pact, becoming a witch and a sorceress both. The demon, after all, would not make unreasonable demands of its own daughter or granddaughter. It was a foolproof, self-perpetuating system. The author of the grimoire had added a sarcastic note in the margin: Give it a few more generations, and they won't be the Witches' Scythe anymore; they'll be the House of whatever-the-demon's-name-is. A bloody dynasty. It was a path to power that was safe, stable, and swift. And the witch's envy, her bitter resentment of those who had been born into such a system, was a palpable thing, a stain on the very page.
Weighing the options with a cold, detached logic, I could understand why she considered the sexual price to be one of the cheapest. It was certainly better than surrendering your soul upon death, or offering up five pound of your own flesh. It was a single, finite payment, with no lasting, tangible harm. But that was for a girl who had no concept of chastity, or who had simply ceased to care. As the witch herself had written, a girl desperate enough to summon a demon was not one to quibble over the cost. But I was the exception. I cared. I was a man. The thought of being… used… by some hulking, monstrous demon, some unknowable, tentacled entity from the void… it was a violation I could not, would not, accept.
But the grimoire offered one last, desperate hope. There was one demon, it seemed, who would not make such a demand. Gremory. For the simple reason that she was female. What price she would demand was a gamble, but it was a gamble I was willing to take. I explained the situation to Jared. He was, at first, horrified by the idea of me summoning a demon. But when I explained that it was the only way to become a witch, the only way to gain the power we needed to survive, he reluctantly agreed. The first tribute was the easy part: expensive jewelry. That was a task for Jared.
He simply nodded. “I know a place,” he said, his voice grim.
“And the second tribute…” I mused aloud, “the blood of a virgin. That’s going to be a problem. We can’t just go around knocking out young girls and bleeding them, can we?”
I looked up and saw Jared staring at me, a strange, confused expression on his face. “What is it?” I asked. “Is there something on my face?”
“No,” he said, his voice hesitant. “It’s just… Parula… can’t you just use your own blood?”
“What? My own… oh.” The realization hit me with the force of a physical blow. Of course. Parula was a virgin. I could use my own blood. It was the perfect, logical solution. And yet, the thought filled me with a profound, unsettling sense of loss, as if another piece of my old self, my male identity, had just been stripped away. Damn it! I couldn't think about it anymore. I turned back to the grimoire, burying myself in the work of translation. It was the only way to quiet the turmoil in my own mind.
Jared, now bored, began to pace around the small alcove. “Brother Jared, can you please sit still?” I snapped, my nerves frayed. “I can’t concentrate.”
“But there’s nothing to do,” he whined. “Should I go steal the jewelry now?”
“No! It’s too dark! It’s too dangerous!” I said, the memory of the city's nightly horrors still fresh in my mind. “Tomorrow. We’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Alright,” he sighed, and sat down on the floor. A few moments later, having finished another section of the translation, I looked up, a pang of guilt striking me. I had been ignoring him. And then I saw that he was reading. I was stunned. He couldn't read. And the book… Ah, it was the old, black-covered Bible I had used to brain the witch. I had intended to read it myself, to compare it to the one from my own world, but the grimoire had consumed all my attention.
I was surprised to see Jared had actually picked it up to look at it. But the problem was, this Bible was written in English. He couldn't even recognize the letters of Castilian, let alone read a book in English.
“What are you looking at, Brother Jared?” I asked, my curiosity piqued. “You can’t read that, can you?”
“No,” he said, looking up with a smile. “But the pictures are nice. I’ve never seen anything like them.”
I leaned over. The Bible was filled with exquisite, full-page illustrations, likely the work of a master artist. The page he was looking at depicted an old, venerable man with a staff, leading a great crowd of people through a parted sea, while beautiful, winged angels watched over them from the heavens.
“That’s the story of Moses parting the Red Sea,” I explained, the knowledge surfacing from a long-forgotten Sunday school lesson. Jared, of course, had no idea what Israel or Egypt or the Red Sea were. His attention was focused solely on the angels, who were depicted as beautiful, androgynous youths, without a stitch of clothing. Their bodies rendered with an artist's loving attention to detail. It was the kind of "art" that the pious, hypocritical nobles of this city would likely pay a great deal for.
The quality of this illustration was remarkably high. Even to my eyes—which in a past life had seen more than their fair share of such art, it was admittedly a little thrilling. The proportions of the body, the exquisite level of detail... it was, without a doubt, a true work of art.
The art itself was theologically inaccurate, of course. In the Old Testament era, angels hadn't yet taken human form; they were concepts, formless beings of spirit, certainly not divided into male and female. The artist had clearly taken some... artistic liberties. Still, to print such an image directly in a Bible was a bold move. A single misstep, and it could easily be condemned as heresy. The artist might even find themselves enjoying the same fiery fate as the witch.
“There are pictures like this on every page,” Jared said, his voice filled with a childlike wonder. “It’s a shame I can’t read these intersting stories like Parula.”
Just then, a strange, ethereal light flashed from where Jared was sitting. I turned my head, the light was gone, but for a fraction of a second, I saw a faint, golden glow fade from his emerald eyes.
Comments (1)
Please login or sign up to post a comment.