Jackal Among Snakes

At some point, Argrave stopped thinking about what was happening and what he was doing to stop it. It was as though he retreated within himself, going from an actor in a movie to someone watching it. He saw the spells being cast, saw his body rot away again and again to fight against this corruption encroaching upon the world, but he couldn’t say that he was the one doing it.

That was the only way he managed to stay sane.

It was impossible to distinguish between the wounds he caused himself and the wounds Gerechtigkeit imparted. They were one in the same, fundamentally—pain brought about because of an enemy. But as he all but showered in the embryotic tissue of the calamity of judgment, he began to see strange things—impossible things. It was as though time itself warped, bringing him back to eras of the past where the battle still raged.

Argrave saw great scores of enemies standing up against Gerechtigkeit. He saw Vasquer and Felipe I in their ranks, saw gods like Erlebnis and Law. He saw them rage, fight, and struggle against the calamity. He saw Gerechtigkeit’s hand, too, weaving things in the background. Manipulating. Corrupting. Exposing. Controlling.

The time-warped hallucinations came without an end in fragmented flashes of hardship and terror. He saw, for the first time, the perspective of the other side of this calamity of judgment. In coming so close to this embryotic tissue, he was exposed to the fundaments of Gerechtigkeit, who’d been born out of the child that’d once been Griffin. It wasn’t some curated propaganda piece, either—it was the true essence, showing the utter depths that Gerechtigkeit had been willing to sink to for the vaguest chance of victory.

Argrave saw that he’d attempted to create an infected lineage that permeated throughout the beast races, securing their loyalty in the next cycle—and in so doing, engineered their genocide. He’d played subtle roles in countless revolutions, ensuring that they never ended as ideally as those who’d began them intended. Argrave saw over a thousand revolutionary advances in magic and science utterly squashed in a deliberate effort to keep people ignorant. His watchful eye was a constant headwind against all progress in the world.

Argrave had always known that Gerechtigkeit’s influence wasn’t limited to the brief period that came once every one thousand years, yet he’d never pictured how extensive his oversight was.

He’d create great empires in one stroke, and have them cannibalize each other in the next. He used the lessons of one hundred thousand years to goad people into repeating cycles that he’d mastered. Jaray had been skillful, but Gerechtigkeit had mastered this. The gods were his only foil, the only countering force that brought forth their own power and experience sufficient to banish him every time. The gods were isolated, yes—but they were safe, and not at all inferior to him in terms of power. They balanced the cycle, ending it every time.

There had only been two exceptions to that rule: Argrave himself, and Lorena.

It was only when mortal power grew to something surpassing the gods that the cycle veered from its traditional route, enacting true change. Argrave knew the fate of Lorena’s struggle against the Heralds, yet now he saw flashes of it from Gerechtigkeit’s perspective. He saw unintelligible requests toward the Heralds, each about Sophia… and each rejected. In the end he’d avoided death only by conceding to the Heralds, accepting their aid in the face of Lorena’s onslaught. And, strangely… Argrave felt a great deal of regret in that decision.

Argrave continued to flow through battle after battle, and as he went backward Gerechtigkeit lost some of the experience, some of the ruthlessness, some of the low cunning that he’d possessed in later cycles. Some were brief, bitter defeats, while some were protracted campaigns spanning near a decade. Argrave found it all impossibly foreign. He hoped to find something at the center of all of this—something that could tell him what, precisely, had turned this man from the child called Griffin into the abomination that was Gerechtigkeit, if there was anything at all. He wanted to see how Sophia’s brother had become a monster.

He saw the first few cycles—dying at Sataistador’s hands more than once. Eagerness flooded him as Argrave thought he might be exposed to the beginning, might be exposed to the very day that the Heralds had taken Griffin from Good King Norman and subjected him to this.

Argrave had hope, until he realized he stared at an empty sky and a wound in the world.

It wasn’t an escalation of the pain that brought Argrave back to himself—rather, it was the sudden absence of it. The wound in the world had ceased to bleed. Like a raw injury exposed to salt and alcohol, the sudden lack of the sensation of pain was so overwhelming Argrave felt his body might fold inward, his head might collapse.

that he wasn’t broken already. And he couldn’t

met a gruesome end. He could logically understand that he was acting like a rabid animal, but it felt beyond his

Argrave!” one of the enemies that’d touched him shouted—it’d lost an arm from a blast of red lightning, and now stood far away from him. “We need to go. We need to get out

hands twitching with anticipation. This one was large and powerful—he’d need to respond

is waiting for you,” it said, and something inside

recognized the figure for who

me again?” Raven questioned, coming closer with sufficient caution. Argrave couldn’t say anything in response—it was like he’d forgotten

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he thrashed instinctually, there was enough reason within to

There, enough golems to hide the sun were approaching them. “If

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tore through the sky, sluggishly heading toward their position. The golems were beginning to converge back where Gerechtigkeit’s tissue had fell—that meant only one thing. The next stage of this long battle was to begin. She’d sent Raven out to help Argrave, because

and dispelling [Absolute Movement], Anneliese had

dignity in wake of something more primal. She could feel the stir of magic about him as he called upon spells, but she saw sparks of reason in his eyes

said commandingly. “Ground him. He needs to

thrash, but she could tell there was a madness in his eyes. As she began to imagine what he’d been through up there to reduce him to this, she began to cry. She did so silently, ever mindful of the vast army behind her that watched their every move. Raven used his imposing form

she eventually managed to ask of Raven when Argrave offered her no answers. He’d calmed, clutching her as if she was his only refuge in

where the golems continued to return to the point of Gerechtigkeit’s landing. “I suggest that you allow me to take him away to join with Sophia. We need to analyze Gerechtigkeit’s tissue for us to use Sophia’s power to follow Gerechtigkeit back through that wound. I can study the

Argrave mumbled something.

was that?” Anneliese pulled back.

words slurred like his lips and tongue were too

she said—not demanding, but begging.

She saw him. Relief flooded into her, damming the stream of

Anneliese promised. “We’ll begin the counterattack shortly. Trust me, Argrave.