The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 1178: Terrible Costs (Part Two)
"So, how does it work when the Church uses a miracle of healing?" Diarmuid asked in a voice that had gone dry and hoarse with strain. "And what is the price that we’re paying when we do so?"
He’d thought that he was strong enough to face this head on, but the deeper they waded into the inner workings of the Church and its miracles, the harder he found it to remain his usual detachment.
It was one thing to confront the Church’s lies about the Eldritch. He’d seen enough half-truths and misunderstandings to understand that even the well-intentioned could wander astray when they thought they were doing the right thing based on their limited knowledge or their past experiences.
He could even accept that many in the Church had become lost in the quest for power, and that they’d gone astray from the Great Prophet’s teachings. After all, no one was perfect, and that extended to the men and women who donned the vestments of the faithful.
But Diarmuid had unleashed Holy Flames himself. He’d summoned the light of the Holy Lord of Light to perform miracles, and he knew what it felt like to touch a power that was so much vaster than a single man’s life. Until now, he’d known, not just believed, but known, that the Holy Lord of Light guided his hands and heard his prayers because he could feel the vastness of His Light every time he prayed for a miracle.
Now, he didn’t feel certain of anything, and that uncertainty was slowly gnawing away at him, like a rat chewing through the ropes that secured a ship to the docks. If it went on much further without finding something else to anchor himself with, Diarmuid was afraid that he’d be cast adrift with no faith left to anchor him in place.
Yet, despite all of these shocking revelations, Ignatious seemed to have found a way through these uncharted waters to maintain his faith, so Diarmuid clung to the High Inquisitor’s words as if they were the only thing keeping his faith tethered, and he prayed that he would hear something that would help him understand and accept the truth.
"An injured man’s fate is to suffer from his wounds and bear his scars, or die from those wounds," Ignatious explained. "When an Oracle heals that man, the man’s fate is changed."
"To the vampire and the witch, it may or may not matter," Ignatious said. "Lady Ashlynn and Lady Heila have healed many people simply because they felt that it was the right thing to do. But think, Diarmuid," the vampire said, looking directly into the Inquisitor’s dark eyes. "How much did the fate of Hanrahan change because Heila chose to heal the wounded defenders in addition to healing Dame Sybyll’s forces?"
"In the grand scheme of things," Diarmuid said after thinking for a few moments. "I think the outcome would have been the same. Dame Sybyll’s army was impossible to resist. But there might have been uprisings of the common folk. Some of those men might have become the seeds of a rebellion, or their families might have if their husbands, fathers, brothers or sons had died from their wounds."
"Lady Heila prevented much of that with her actions," Diarmuid acknowledged. "So, I suppose she changed the fate of many people that night. The fate of Hanrahan Town might not have shifted much; it would have been conquered either way, but the fate of the people who fought for it is very different."
"Exactly. Well reasoned," Ignatious said, praising the Inquisitor as if he were a prized pupil. "But extend it further. Like a stone cast into still waters, imagine the ripples. She didn’t just preserve the lives of the soldiers, or prevent their families from taking up the cause of vengeance or rebellion."
"Heila’s action that night also preserved the lives of the shopkeepers who might have been caught up in the fighting," Ignatious said, holding up a finger to begin counting off points. "She also preserved the wealth of the treasury that would have been spent to repair the damages of a battle within the town’s walls."
"She made it possible for people who weren’t even there during the battle to accept its outcome, and, most significantly for you, she helped you to see the Eldritch as something other than demons," Ignatious said. "If she hadn’t healed those men, would you be sitting so calmly at this table?"
"No," Diarmuid admitted with a heavy sigh. "Though it wasn’t just her act of healing that helped me to reach this point. But I can’t deny that her actions that night were the most significant considerations when I chose to accept Dame Sybyll’s offer to sit on her court that night, and from there, many other things followed."
"You can see the chain of events that unfolded from a single action," Aspakos said from the opposite end of the table. "Now, imagine if Heila had known what would happen as a result of her healing before she’d done it. And imagine if she’d known what would happen instead if she didn’t," he said.
"That’s the power of true Oracles, of the Sovereigns and their Celestial Courts," Aspakos said. "You may use the power of light or flames to heal a man or to smite him, but the light and flames are no different than a physician’s needle and thread or a soldier’s sword and shield. They are the methods you use to change a person’s destiny, and in so doing, change the destinies of the people around them, rippling across the whole of the world."
"But the more ripples your ’miracle’ creates," Aspakos warned. "The higher the price you must pay. If you were skilled in the use of your power, you would know this. You would understand that healing a person like young Loman carries a much higher price than healing a common soldier."
"But your Clergy aren’t true Oracles," Erkembalt said, shaking his head at how poorly these human sorcerers understood the power they were meddling with. "You’re like children in a dark forest with torches and you don’t know if the fires you’re setting will keep you warm for the night or if they’ll ignite a conflagration that consumes the forest."
"No one taught you how to calculate the costs before you change a person’s destiny," Erkembalt said, tapping the wooden table in agitation at the recklessness of it all. "So when the price comes due, you burn yourself up trying to bear it. Your priests die trying to their own ’miracles’ because they didn’t understand what it would cost, and they don’t understand how to stay within the limits of the power they bargained for..."
"You’re getting ahead, old friend," Aspakos interrupted as he saw the artificer becoming increasingly agitated. If anyone here knew what it was like to give up power that they’d bargained for in the past and to live within their limits, it was Erkembalt.
The man had resolutely walked away from the Sorcerers of Sundered Earth to live a more ordinary life with the woman he fell in love with, and his powers had diminished greatly as a result of that decision. Erkembalt clearly had no regrets. He wouldn’t trade the happiness he’d found with his wife and children for all the power in the world, and whatever price he’d paid when he went back on his oaths, he clearly accepted it.
The same could not be said, however, for the young man sitting next to Aspakos. To the dark-feathered sorcerer’s eyes, the young man’s fate resembled an unraveling tapestry with the plucked out threads becoming too tangled in each other to be neatly woven back in again... The damage wasn’t irreversible yet, but if Loman continued as he had been, treating his bargains recklessly, then he would pay a far greater price than any man should.
And, because he was a person destined for greatness in one form or another, the ripples that spread from shifts in his destiny wouldn’t be like those from a small stone cast into a pond. Instead, they would be the waves caused by dropping a giant boulder into still waters, and countless people would find themselves swept up in the ripples of the Lothian Lord’s changing fate.
"They need to understand the bargain, Ignatious," Aspakos said, turning away from the young priest to look at Ignatious and Diarmuid. "If they don’t understand the chains that bind them, they’ll never be able to work their way free of them..."
