’Brother Reap, repent of your sins!
The granite walls of the chapel magnified the cardinal’s thin reverberated voice. He rested his ring-adorned hand on the greying bristle-covered skull of the man kneeling before the altar. The blood dripping from the man’s clothing intermingled with the wax of the molten candles. They stood in this manner for a long time, the priest, praying with his eyes closed and raised towards the sky, the kneeling figure, murmuring his sins with head bent. A choir of deaconesses could be heard in the distance, a crow answered them in front of a rose window, the setting sun painting a grotesque shadow of its shape on the frayed mural-adorned walls. Finally, the cardinal extended a golden chalice to the scarred lips of the man who took a long sip.
‘You have been absolved, Brother Reap. Through your atonement and your heroic deed,’ he waved towards the altar where an iron ax, hammered crudely from raw ore, longer than a grown man lay along a severed head. Its twisted horns were filthy with clotted blood and there were jagged shark-teeth jutting out from behind its lips. In the depth of its angular pupilled goat-eyes, even in death, there was an amber fire glowing. ‘Once you made a holy oath that as an atonement you would overcome the evil that stroke down on the princedom and lo and behold, you have done that. As proof, you have brought me the head of Demon Lord Barzagai and his dreaded ax, the Marrow Eater. What shall be you reward?’
The man looked up, through the heavy-odoured incense. While standing up, he never took his eyes off the chalice-adorned golden sun crown of the dome. His movement startled the cardinal. The man let out a big blow and bore his grey bland gaze into the cardinal’s eyes to which the other one took a step back, knocking off the chalice of the altar with his hand, hesitantly reaching for something to hold onto. The heavy relic rolled along the marble floor with a clatter, the red wine intermingling with the blood.
‘My reward,’ answered the man, his voice barely louder than a hoarse whisper. ‘was to get close to the true evil through the head of the demon.’ with that, he reached towards the altar, his scarred knuckle closing in on the crude handle of the ax. ‘That despite his guards, I could bring a weapon to his lair,’ he lifted the ax along with his voice, making all the blood leave the cardinal’s unwrinkled face. The priest stepped back hesitantly, tripping on the edge of his cloak.
‘But, son, think about it…’ he stuttered, trying to regain his balance, yet the other continued with an unflinching face.
‘Thus I may strike down on the true evil who stands between the light and its creations. The one, who falsely claiming himself to be the agent of heaven, puts his flock at his own service.’
‘Guards!’ the cardinal screamed but the man, with the giant ax raised above his head, continued.
‘Through the blood of the evil that has been the blight of the soles of the people I may finally wash away my sins!’
‘Please! I can give you anything you wish for,’ the priest pined.
‘I wish for truth!’ the man thundered, then he struck down. The sprayed blood extinguished the nearby candles. The head popped along the floor with a rattle, its path brought to a halt by the chalice, the amber glow fading slowly from his eyes.
The light of the setting sun dissolved the black smoke into pink. The burning abbey kept on glowing for a long time, even after the star of the day had set under the horizon. The man, upon reaching the copper sun-adorned menhir standing on the hill, looked back. Apart from the counterglow of the fire, his eyes were empty. He kept glaring at the shimmer for another while, then, throwing the ax on his shoulder, he hit the darkness-shrouded road.
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