Marriage or Death (part 2)

Henri had removed his guns and other weapons except for the knife he’d need for the ceremony this morning, but was having a little more trouble than anticipated finding an alter. It was only 9 am but he had been searching for three hours and had become lost in the maze of passages and canals. But he did finally find a church in the area known as the Waterways…the only problem was that it was completely empty. There were no pews, no candles, no symbols of any kind, and no altar.

Henri was dismayed, and was going to turn and walk out, when the voice stopped him. “Put the blood on the wall, underneath the center window.”

The words had not been in English of course, but Henri understood it all the same and he stopped, confused and unsure what this proposal could possibly accomplish. “Doesn’t it have to be an altar?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t have to be an altar like you are thinking.” It explained. “The building itself will suffice as the alter you need.”

Of course, Henri realized as he approached the wall and went to one knee and bowed his head and began the prayer in French, then he switched to German and after that English.

‘I humbly beg all deities and spirits, powerful and minor, benevolent and cruel, seen and unseen, to hear my mortal plea. I am to meet with the last Sinclaire in a meeting of honor and of peace to settle a blood feud between our two families. I beg that you watch over our meeting, according to the old agreements of honor and peace, so that we may resolve this issue, in marriage or death. Should someone present at that meeting, or should they become present, or involved in this conflict on either side, break that honor or peace by harming or detaining anyone else present, then I humbly ask that you bring onto them a punishment ten times worse than the crime committed, until the sun once again rises over this city a second time, even should the one that does this harm or detaining be one of your own favored.’

He repeated this prayer in Latin, Gaelic, Kobold, and Greek. And then he took out the knife he’d prepared and cut his left hand and placed the hand on the stone slab and let it drip. For a moment nothing happened, but then the voice told him that his plea had been accepted, by a few. In a way it felt like they too were in his mind now, though not as strongly as the first.

He continued on his way, wandering aimlessly, when he came to a graveyard. He didn’t need the voice to tell him that this place too would suffice. It was filled with crosses to mark the dead, but he’d already used that symbol and he was trying to speak to all deities and spirits, and it would not do to single out one. He searched the graveyard until he came to a different symbol, a pentacle in the ground marking a grave. He knelt before it, repeated the prayer in the same seven languages, and then made a cut behind his left ear and bled upon the grave and let the blood on the knife drip onto the pentacle.

The voice told him that once again the sacrifice was being accepted, and now in his mind he could feel the presence of other things which he had in a way invited in to watch this drama unfold. The living might condemn what he did, and could not understand his intentions, but the dead and those beyond them had no such boundaries. His own blood and name gave him no choice.

He wandered around, eventually going back the way he came until he saw a stone of some kind with a hole in the center. He didn’t know if it was an altar or not, and the voices told him no, but he still asked a nearby woman what it was. She said that it wasn’t, and that she doubted if there were any altars in Babbage at all. Henri became slightly distressed and asked how there couldn’t be any churches at all in a city, and then she pointed him to a rather large building behind him.

How he had missed this church he was not sure, but he went inside, no one seemed to be around but his new friends said there were a few men in the area and that he should keep his voice down a little. They would see to it that it was said loud enough and joined him as he knelt at the altar, this time an actual one, and said the prayer seven times and in the seven different languages again though he did it quietly, and he opened his clothes, and cut his chest just above the hidden steel cuirass that had been his grandpere’s when he had been a musketeer before they were disbanded. He had come to this place knowing that Sinclaire may have hired assassins and toughs who might try to stick a knife in his back and he was ready for them. While his grandpere had actually died a musketeer, it had been to the feud Henri’s great grandpere had started. Henri put the blood on the altar and the hammer, and he may have heard someone gasp when he did that last part, but if so they went running out for someone else. For a long time he didn’t feel any change in his head, and he heard nothing from them…was this place refusing his blood offer? But finally he was told that this alter would suffice and he felt more in his head than ever before. It was starting to give him a slight headache, but he laughed it off as he left the church undisturbed. He hoped they hadn’t heard, he wanted the marriage part to be a secret for Sinclaire. He needed to see the look of shock and potentially horror upon her face when he suddenly knelt before her and asked for her hand.

He continued to wander the city, it was quite hot out with all his layers of clothing and armor, but he didn’t really notice.  He finally found a gentleman in dark glasses outside of a Dr. Berithos’s establishment who was ready to assist him. He asked him where to find an alter or church, and after a moment of thought he said the only other church that he had not been to yet was a temple to the Elder gods that had just reopened. He led me to the establishment and Henri repeated the prayer, and this time cut his leg and put the blood into a chalice that looked like it was used to such things. He don’t know what he’d let in this time, but Henri had stopped keeping track at this point. The only voice that mattered was the first, it was closer to him than the others.

He wandered the city then in vain, wondering what he would do now, when that voice spoke to him again, “There are other altars, Fool.” It said without affection.  “In the wild, nature is it’s own altar. A library for those who worship knowledge and it’s pursuit. A bar to those who worship inebriation and those who preside over it.”

Laughing at how silly he had been, Henri began to think about what he could use next and nature seemed the way to go. There was almost none to find in Babbage so he wandered till he found the north wall again, and stood atop it and saw what he needed: A pond next to a tree, and the tree itself looked perfect for his intent.  He went down and said the prayer, removed his shoe and cut the top of his foot, and placed the blood on it. There wasn’t much here, but the others saying it with him helped gather the attention he needed from farther away.

The biggest problem he had however is that he did not want to use the library for his next stop. That Builder place had already seemed like it was a place of learning, and he had suddenly gotten another idea, possibly from one of the voices in his head, it was hard to tell now since everything was jumbling together in his head.

He stopped in front of the theater quite happy all the same. It was here that Shakespeare had said it best, he was just a player that was strutting upon this stage until he was heard from no more. The stage would be appropriate. He performed the ritual and removed his hat and cut the top of his skull.

Then he simply waited for hours, talking with the new friends in his head. 

One of them, a rather mischievous sounding one, asked him if he never wondered if they were real at all, if he wasn’t actually just crazy and there were no spirits listening, that he was truly just talking to himself.  He laughed and told it that it didn’t matter since it’s not like it would change anything really, since he’d still hear them in his head.