Well hello there, pilgrim, and welcome to the sixty-second edition of Shadows & Sorcery!
If you read like John Wayne, then boy will you have an interesting time with this week’s edition! You may have noticed that, for reasons completely beyond my control, the past several issues have all had a tale about pilgrims. Well, my generator keeps spitting out pilgrim titles that I’m afraid keep sparking ideas so I run with it. If you haven’t been noticing it, then you absolutely will now
This week will prove particularly egregious because every tale in this issue is about pilgrims. Please enjoy Shadows & Sorcery: Pilgrim Edition.
Also, the experiment continues: last week’s edition seemed to go down a treat if the numbers I’m seeing mean anything, so we’re trying it out again with this wonderful themed issue. If you think it SUCKS, do let me know! This whole thing is a two way system, readers need writers, and writers need readers. A balance must be struck. And while you’re going off to tell me how much you hated this, or even if you were pleased with it, leave a little like, give that little heart a tap or a press or pound it with your whole fist!
There’s been a few new readers in the last while, and they may not know, so this is a reminder that the first tale of every single issue is completely free to read, and a bunch are completely free to read, too! Check ‘em out!
Lastly, the next instalment of The Path of Poison should have been out with this issue, but it’s actually going to be coming out during the week. Apologies for the delay!
This week, we meet one of the curious Shrouded Pilgrims people can’t seem to stop talking about, we get a sweeping history of the mighty Pilgrim’s Archives, and we hear the grim lament of the Blighted Pilgrims…
Shrouded Pilgrims
They arrived first in a caravan, a long line of large, box-like wooden wagons, like massive sealed chests, intricately decorated with strange carvings. Their order's speaker came forth first to the magistrate responsible for seeing new arrivals of this kind, who had been called out to see them once the caravan was spotted nearing the city. The speaker wore a long black gown or robe, a heavy drapery about the shoulders, thick gloves, and a kind of tall, stiff hood and veil which covered all the face save the mouth. All of this, too, was black, but had dim silver designs playing across whole parts of it. The fellow's skin, as much as could be seen, had an almost greyish pallor. The lips were muted and bloodless, austere and grim in countenance. The speaker announced the presence of Auram Aka, and requested audience with the city's prince. Mere moments after they were granted privilege to stay in city limits, which came not an hour later, a number of faceless, veiled cult officials, each one clad in the same black and silver robes, though without gloves to show their greyish hands, spread out into the city and to the pauper dens, alms houses, and hospitals, laying hands upon all those they came across, healing wounds and lifting ills as if they could be merely brushed away.
Evidently, or so it was hoped, the prince had given them lease for an extended stay, because the first tower appeared quite literally overnight. Another display of their power. It looked as if it had been standing there for centuries already, a vast, smooth, tapering rectangle of dusty, light stone. A single door of brass and naught else—no windows, chimneys, or any other conceivable aperture. It wasn't particularly intrusive either, which as time wore on, was understood to be their peculiar habit: everything they did and were was designed to be but a dim presence. Their priests may have come out every so often in response to pleas for aid, but they did not hold services nor festivals, they did not evangelize or attempt conversion, and their doors remained sealed almost indefinitely. Maybe once or twice a month a single person in the small hours might see a few priests or a speaker leaving or entering back into the tower, nothing else. They lived in the city, but apart from it.
Soon new towers appeared in other cities, and each time pretty much the same story. Of course as time went on, news spread. Now there were mysterious towers inhabited by a body of curious priests who sometimes performed incredible miracles. They did not demand adherence or tribute, and no strange rites suddenly seeded themselves into secular life from on high. But they had power, they let the princes know that, and it was by virtue of their power did they hold such sway across the realm. Princes listened to the speakers who commanded entire audience chambers when they appeared.
Then, years into the cult's existence in the city-states, the pilgrims began to appear.
That they were Auram Aka was unmistakable—they were clad in similar fashion to the speakers and priests already known, but these ones were completely and entirely shrouded in opaque black cloth, great dark veils across their whole forms, coming mere fractions of inches from the ground so nothing like feet could be discerned. No arms, sleeves, or anything, just wandering clouds of shapeless silvery darkness. It would be an understatement to say they made people uncomfortable. Although general sentiment wasn't negative, it was in places suspicious, and as time wore on and the cult never made attempts at communication, that suspicion deepened. People began to vocally take more notice of things such as missing persons, livestock, produce, odd sounds or sights, but quite frankly, nothing much had changed. Yet, now there were new figures, wandering in lonely places, purposes unknown, countenance unseen. And people imagined all kinds of things behind those shrouds.
That they were pilgrims was known because Auram Aka speakers said so themselves. When pressed for information for the sake of an increasingly uneasy people, and for the safety of these travellers, a speaker was bid tell anything that could be told. And so they were called pilgrims, seekers of holy places known to the cult, and their towers allowed them to live in closer proximity. The towers were holy places, cut off from the mundane world, and this went for everything within—including the monks, and especially the pilgrims who must be removed from mundanity at all times. Hence the shrouds and robes members wore. But while the subject was broached, the speaker requested the prince to please be kind to the pilgrims and leave them be. They would not interfere, as none of the cult ever had. The prince was apparently so moved that he proclaimed free movement for the pilgrims through the realm. Soon after, speakers in other cities did the same, with the same results. Dark argent pilgrims became a fixture of common sight across the cities.
Naturally, imposters began to appear, certain people seeking the bounties of free movement, but despite a noticeable and persistent increase in criminal matters—which did not help the reputation of Auram Aka—they were never successful. Simply put, you could always just tell which ones were real, and several times passing priests made such subtleties known to the authorities. Two such persistent criminal elements were Morgo and Bak, no strangers to the prince's dungeons. Hardened and ruthless fellows, street smart but otherwise not particularly so. Between petty acts of thuggery, they often mused over tankards about the cult, and especially the pilgrims. "Must fetch a fortune, those robes," was their thought. The rich black, the silver, had to be worth something. Imagine what they could get from a really good fence with the stones to handle it. And they'd finally get to see what one of those creepy Auram Aka looked like under there, that'd be a tale to tell, make 'em famous. They'd be experts, even, paid for their knowledge by thieves and scholars. And so, one evening with a curious steely sky, four, or maybe five drinks in, Morgo and Bak decided they'd kill themselves a pilgrim.
The roads outside the grand city walls were wide and open, you could see anything coming for miles around. That was the point. Guard houses, waypoints, farmer's huts—small outlying buildings of all kinds were built small and low for the express purpose of visibility. But they weren't so low that those who knew what they were doing couldn't make them into admirable cover, and Morgo and Bak damn well knew what they were doing. During the hour of long shadows they stole from the city's great gates, which were only a short time from being shut, and the smaller, more personal gates through the gatehouse becoming the only path in and out of the city walls. But others existed for those in the know, which would mask their return and triumphant celebrations.
They had made a point to bribe and threaten certain very new watchmen for a full week under the cunning guise of "district association" members, concerned about the movements of those strange, frightful pilgrims. Thus did they learn that one was making an approach, possibly due for rendezvous with the tower in the city. Morgo and Bak knew this pilgrim would never reach their destination. And so, in soft black cloaks that blended into the late evening shadows did they go, looking and ducking from shade to shade with careful eyes, remembering and guessing as best they could the postings of guards who might wonder what they were seeing. As the light grew poorer and it would become harder to see further out, the thieves relaxed their skulking but the kept to the roadsides by the low stone walls and lone trees and bushes.
Night was seeping over the horizon and the city was becoming naught but a smudge in the near distance, with orange waves of firelight coming from its top rim. While the land still held twilight definition, it was for all intents and purposes, dark. The buzz of the drinks had worn off a little, and the kind of tension that comes only with robbery had set in. It wasn't nervousness, or agitation, no doubts or fears lingered in those heads. It was merely the itching desire to get to it, and have their prize. This was the road, they said to each other. Luckily the guards didn't patrol down this far, at least a little out of fear of seeing one of those pilgrim suddenly stride from the darkness. Couldn't blame 'em, really. But it made their work much easier. Out here, not even the keenest eye could spot them. They were alone.
Suddenly, there it was. It. They didn't know what was under there. Could just be some old fella. Could be a beautiful woman! Could be any of the things people say is under there. Didn't matter to them. They didn't really consider their mark a person in the way they considered other people as such. It was a problem to be solved, a puzzle to complete, a chest to be cracked open for treasures. This was the plan: Bak would jump out, brandishing a long, thin dagger, the kind used to put wounded soldiers to death on the battlefield, while Morgo crept up behind with a bludgeon. They supposed they didn't really need to kill the pilgrim, and less blood on their hands would be preferable...but they weren't exactly going to go out of their way to avoid it. At the first sign of a struggle, in the misericord would slip, in the right place, eventually. But gods was it a weird sight in the dark. Like a shadow detached from the ground or something, not a single footstep to be heard, the shroud slightly flowing. They could see in the last gasp of setting sun those silvery designs played across the veil. Neither admitted it, but it was more eerie than beautiful. Each man tapped the other's shoulder—the mutual sign to begin.
Bak stepped out with his most menacing swagger, and said in a low gruff voice laced with every ounce of brutal thuggery he could muster "Hold now, pilgrim, and hand over the veil". The walking shadow stopped instantly. No stagger to its movements, no unsureness, no step back. It just stopped. Morgo was slinking up behind with his blackjack, a nasty thing with a hollow head filled with clay, and a flexible shaft of leather, short but capable of breaking bone. And it had done so many times in the hand it rested in. "Come on," said Bak, edging closer, blade held out like a stinger. But the pilgrim didn't move, not a muscle. Bak shot a single glance to Morgo who readied his arm, but the pilgrim followed his eyes. In a flash it spun around and sent out shrouded arms, parting the great veil somehow. Morgo screamed in a way Bak had never heard in even their most dire combats or thrashings in the dungeons. He stood not five paces from what he was seeing, but he couldn't move.
Bak fled gasping through the darkness. Gods, he kept repeating half in his head, half through gulps of air, what was it? Behind him was nothing more than the mad flutter of cloth. No, he thought, it was too dark to see properly, he had not glimpsed a shape press itself against that veil, it was the starlight on that freakish silver making pictures in his mind. Where was Morgo? He wasn't on the road when the pilgrim had turned back around. What was it...what was it they'd been scoffing about ages ago? All that stuff about the Auram Aka, cut off from the world? If so, where were they? Or maybe, what had come down, wearing shrouds?
From the top of a low, wide turret on the city walls, a watchman could have sworn he'd seen a light or something flash like a star way out on the roads. Far away but clear as midday. Couldn't be though, right?
Bak was found curled up against the city walls by two early morning patrolmen, half-frozen. They knew his face. Mugging gone wrong, they figured. Best throw him in a cell and let a physician take a look. But there was something about that just wasn't right. He wasn't beat up or anything, but he couldn't, or maybe wouldn't open his eyes. And as far as those two men know, he never did again.
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