Chapter 40: 32 – The Inevitable Answers

Andrei

Councilwoman Faust left Oskari without a word, but not without leaving us with anything at all. After evading the angry villagers, the Commander returned to the Peak where Ivana presented him with three keys and a note. To accommodate their stay, Sinclair, Reider, and Varis were granted access to one of Oskari’s abandoned homes, and that’s where some of us gathered one afternoon while the villagers continued their protests.

They demanded tax relief. They demanded reliable trade with Jaska. They demanded restoration of their livestock which were often dinner for the wolves. Had there been enough pitchforks for everyone, surely they’d have brandished them wildly.

The house was modest, wholesome but touched by time, and the furniture was caked with a layer of dust and grime I’d clean in the coming days. That day, Commander Reider was out searching for the Strachan, leaving me alone with the Legacy at the dining table beneath the window overlooking Sinclair’s favourite pond. On the topic of recent events, she and I were going in circles.

"The people ask only for what they should already have,” I said.

“I say, leave the politics to those suited,” Varis replied.

“Who, then? Captain Lobodin means well, but he’s no more a leader than this table. Or are you recommending yourself?”

“I’ve already spoken with the Captain, and we’ve come to a decision. For those who continue to rebel, execution awaits.”

I had just finished sipping from a mug of freshly poured tea, internalizing a reaction as the hot liquid poured down my throat. “Legacy Varis, I beg you clarify—quickly.”

“Certainly. We will ask all those who demand relief to stand upon their doorsteps tonight, and one by one, they are to be made an example.”

“You’re speaking madness.” I said. “Setting aside the sheer brutality of your suggestion, the population can't afford such losses.”

“Precisely.” The Legacy shrugged. “One example should be enough for the people to realize they fight a fight they cannot win. And if they don’t? Well, you could consider relocating your work elsewhere. Jaska, perhaps?”

Unfortunately, Helena Varis’s mindset was not the exception when it came to Palisade’s disregard for the Barren people. But, I wondered how the Commander—a man of integrity and optimism—went to bed with such a vile woman. I would have none of it.

Later that afternoon, I walked the village among the fallen autumn leaves, knocking on doors until all were warned and advised to spread the word to those I may have missed. It was then I promised what remained of the portrait fund and my unspent allowances to the cause. It was not bottomless riches, but it was more than the people of Oskari had seen in their lifetimes, and it was more than enough for them to feel acknowledged.

That night, when none stood on their doorsteps to protest, it was a small victory for the village I’d come to love.

---

It had been five days since we'd last seen Sinclair, and Commander Reider traveled all the way to the Drop to learn she'd passed through recently, and was last seen with Faust. The Administrator confirmed the Councilwoman left for Palisade, but that Sinclair hadn't checked out in any official capacity. We determined it was quite likely she'd been given some special task, and could even be working with Finlay.

In the village, the children still played, labourers still laboured, and the attendance at our dusk sermons had waned but had not altogether fizzled. Some found renewed hope and remained faithful—even without tragedy in the midst. The rest carried on as they ever would.

The information I sought in the church library was easily located, and the volumes were leather-bound and letter-pressed by decade. Oskari’s death records dated as far back as roughly four centuries, and I flipped through the pages looking for names and dates of those consumed by the Waste. For the most part, the cases were sporadic and singular, but a pattern of multiple deaths emerged within a century of searching, and it continued backward until I selected the oldest book from the shelf.

There it was again—the first recorded instance of an entire family who’d succumbed to the Waste within weeks of each other. Lidia Ruza, sixteen years old. Victoria Ruza, born and dead in the same year. Reveka and Valeri Ruza, thirty-three and thirty-five respectively. According to the records, the Ruzas were buried in the crypts beneath the church. However, there were no crypts beneath the church, behind the church, or anywhere in the vicinity of the church. There was a small cemetery for those without other options, but the villagers preferred to bury their loves ones on their personal land.

While tending to chores the next morning, I approached the Father. I wondered if the records predating the ones I’d found had been sent to the archives in Leberecht, but the Father informed me there were no earlier records. A fire, killing three Partisans and injuring several more, had destroyed the majority of the village’s historical documents.

“To your knowledge, were there ever any crypts in or around the church?”

“Funny you should ask,” Father Belaia said. “The catacombs beneath the church were sealed off not long after the fire. The locals believed the church was cursed, and that their loved ones were no longer safe in our grounds. This is when the people of Oskari started burying their dead with their homes.”

“I see, and where was the entrance to the crypt located?”

The Father shook his head.

“Why haven’t I read about any of this?” I asked.

“There are some things we can only learn by speaking to other people. You should not limit yourself to that which you are reading in books, Brother Strauss.”

I went on to ask the Father about some of the names I’d seen in the records, primarily the family names of those who’d been marked as mass-victims of the Waste. As for those who’d passed in the more recent decades, the Father shared what he could, but there was nothing especially remarkable about those families. Not to say they weren’t worth remembering, but I was looking for names that might have had a significant history in the village—ones that may have been connected to a legend.

Of all the names we discussed, there was only one name that fit the bill.

“What do you know of the Ruza family?” I asked.

“Now that is a well-known name. The patron Ruza was known for his work on the Widow’s Peak Inn. If you are interested in the village history, I would reach out to Ivana. Her family has been here, running the Widow’s Peak for centuries.”

---

I hadn’t spoken to Ivana at the Widow’s Peak since my apology for nearly destroying it. She hadn't come to thank me for the new window, nor had she been present at any church services. I hadn’t expected she would be. The woman owed me nothing for all the damage I’d caused, and she'd seemed dismissive of religion the first time we met.

“Now there’s a face I’ve missed around here. Have you come to blow my bar to smithereens this time?”

“No, only to ask a question. This time, anyway.”

The response earned me a smile—albeit a fleeting one—from the proprietress of the Peak.

“Sure,” she said. “What is it?”

“What can you tell me about the Ruza family?”

“Eh—father built the roof or something, but there are stories. Hungry? Thirsty?”

“Not particularly, but thank you.” I said. “You mentioned there are stories?”

“Yeah, but they’re just stories, so unless you like that sort of thing…” Ivana frowned, considering me for a moment. “You like that sort of thing, don’t you?”

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I nodded.

Not without a dramatic sigh to kick things off, the proprietress shared her version of a four-hundred-year-old tale. It was believed Mister and Misses Ruza traveled from a far-away village to settle in Oskari with their daughter and newborn son. They were well-liked, well-groomed on the outside as they made certain to be, but in several years’ time, a scandal was born.

“The girl got pregnant.” Ivana said. “Big deal, right? Well, the stories say she was assaulted. I’ve heard versions where it was the brother, or her father, or some old pervert. Just to put it into context, this was all around the same time a portion of the church all but burned to the ground. Anyway, the girl gave birth, and I guess nobody bothered to learn the baby’s name because it’s always just, ‘the baby.’”

“I see,” I said. If the records were correct, the baby was called Victoria.

“So, the baby didn’t make it,” Ivana continued. “And then the girl died, too. Some say it was a broken heart, but I don’t know. People don’t think the Waste is contagious, but when an entire family keels over? Well, except for the boy. Nobody knows what happened to him. Hungry? Thirsty?”

“No, still not. But thank you.”

The four-hundred-year-old story didn’t tell me much, but it was interesting. Ivana didn’t have anything more to add, but we did get to talking. I discovered she was born in Oskari, but she lived her formative years in Jaska where she was fortunate enough to have had a formal education.

“I took over the inn when my sister died.”

“My condolences,” I said.

“Oh, this place isn’t so bad. Besides, it’s a family thing. It’s what we do. Too bad this village is the shit-fly’s dinner.”

“My condolences were for the loss of your sister.”

“Oh. Yeah, thanks. Hungry? Thirsty?”

My answer hadn’t changed. From behind me, heavy boot-steps beat against the stairs in a measured pace, with a familiar rhythm. There was the clinking of metal against metal, and I turned expecting to see the Commander.

The man coming toward me was a Partisan, armoured in a combination of chain and plate, but he was most certainly not Michael. The middle-aged man wore his grey hair long and unrestrained, his features concealed by a great beard. I’d never seen him before, but he looked to me with such familiarity, I’d nearly convinced myself we were old friends. The elder Partisan did not smile, nor stop, he simply carried on toward the doors.

“Brother Strauss,” he said. “Come.”

---

The man’s name was Emerich Bach—a defected Partisan and former priest of Amalia. He’d been evading the Assembly for just about two decades, but had been defected from Palisade long enough for the Assembly to call off the Chase. He remained discreet, because if an active Partisan encountered a suspected defect, they were still obligated to report the sighting to the Administrator of the Drop. The details would then be shipped to the appropriate Council, and subsequently issued to Councilwoman Kelly’s Enforcers who would take the job themselves or delegate to their Chasers. All that said, Partisans were promised sanctuary at any church—regardless of their status with Palisade, and the clergy were not required to report them. I kept the door to my office closed for this particular chat nevertheless.

Once the conversation was underway, Emerich Bach revealed he'd been observing the village of Oskari from the sidelines for some time—long before we arrived, and especially while we were otherwise indisposed. This revelation would come to explain the potato garden incident, and I was informed the reason the woman hadn't disintegrated the same way the man at the Bountiful Blessing had was a matter of freshness. Lovely.

“Does your being in Oskari have anything to do with Amalia’s… infestation?” I asked.

“Is that what you’re calling it?”

“Not officially.”

The man had the one telling physical feature of a Partisan, but for every shade of brown or green, there is a shade of grey. Emerich Bach’s eyes were on the cusp of white, small and shocking beneath a substantial brow. Across the desk, the old man sat in silence far longer than was comfortable.

“Thirty-two years ago, I left Palisade for Istok. I studied my whole life for that day because I always knew, even as a boy, that I’d serve in Amalia’s name. It took eleven years—eleven years, Brother Strauss—to discover what you’ve discovered in mere months.”

“If it makes you feel better, it has eluded Father Belaia for decades.”

The middle-aged man chuckled. “Perhaps you’re more prepared than I thought.”

“Prepared for what?”

“For this conversation, for what is coming, and for what I’ll be offering you.”

As the man leaned forward across the desk, I settled back against the chair. “The Devourer you are seeking is called Lidia Ruza.”

The triumph I felt for being on the right track was insignificant when weighted against the implication that the most far-fetched of my theories hadn’t been so far-fetched at all.

“Devourer?” I asked.

Emerich Bach straightened and shrugged. “They are known by many names, but I find this one most appropriate. While this may not be how they originated, these are now Barren men, women, and children who have been cursed in death as we are blessed in life. They are parasites who manipulate and feast upon the weak to sustain themselves.”

“Why does the Assembly keep this from us? Surely they must know, and if we’d been prepared, it would have been safer for everyone.”

“It's important to know the problem is contained within Amalia. I’m certain you’ve heard the stories, and perhaps you've witnessed the side-effects in those Partisans who've returned to Palisade after experiencing what we have. Why is it kept secret? The institute of Palisade is corrupt beyond repair. Focusing on the Assembly’s motivations will only distract us from our own.”

Having spent years listening to Sinclair gripe about the corruption and the futility of everything, none of this came as much of a surprise.

“What motivations? And how exactly did these Devourers originate?”

Emerich Bach could only offer a theory, but it was a plausible theory.

The creatures—the Devourers, the Givers, Those Things—may have been the goddesses’ first attempt at creating divine servants who turned against their original purpose. Bach suggested that while the Devourers went on to dominate the world, they controlled the Barren people as their slaves and cattle. The Divide may have been the goddesses’ first response to rectify their mistake, but not all Devourers were destroyed.

I was all too familiar with the next part of the story: Partisans, blessed children promised to the Barrens as an apology, and if Emerich Bach’s theory held true, we were the goddesses’ second response to their mistake.

“We are not their friends, their subordinates, their superiors, or their equals,” he said. “Brother Strauss, we are their destroyers.”

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