To Niall's disappointment, we did not rush into action. I wanted to plan the operation in detail, and his descriptions of the town proved most useful.
Niall was not yet grown enough to dispense with sleep entirely, but during the day I helped train him in basic weapons skills. Not that I intended him to do any fighting, but it helped keep him occupied.
The headman of Mundathra was their high priest, Father Mandamus, the badger who had presided over Niall's attempted execution. Within seven days these roles were somewhat reversed.
About a month before his 'crime', Niall had been inside the Holy Father's home on an errand, and so he had a clear memory of its location and layout. This was just what I needed in order to be able to warp there, the only difficulty was getting this information out of his head.
One possibility was to enter his waking mind, but this was difficult, time-consuming and would be rather draining for both of us.
So instead I entered his dreams that night, another nightmare recollection of his brush with death. Asserting my presence within it, I caused him to enter a lucid state, and wishing away the angry mob of pitch-fork bearing villagers, followed him down the thirteen steps of the gallows and off into Father's Mandamus' house.
There were several doors inside, some of which would not open - Niall did not know what was behind them. Fortunately we did catch a dim glimpse into the bedroom, so I wouldn't have to search the property when I arrived. The only guards were posted outside.
Leaving Niall behind, I left his dreams and warped into the real living room of our foe. It was past time when all good Beings should be in bed, so I went there directly. As I stood over him, I hesitated. It didn't seem right to attack him in his sleep, but I shrugged the feeling aside rapidly. It's not really an attack anyway...
Using a low-level stun I forced his sleep to become even deeper, so that he did not awake when I bundled him over my shoulder and warped back to my fortress completely undetected.
The priest stirred a minute or two after I used the counter-stun spell upon him. He blinked, sniffed the air and looked around, but he did not panic. In his mind I could tell that he had half-guessed what had happened and a moment or two later his mind-shield snapped on.
I watched him impassively from a desk obscured in shadow, a G-36 purring softly to itself and capturing the proceedings on tape.
"Father Mandamus, I have brought you here because you have broken the laws of my realm."
He turned with a start as I spoke, stepping out from the shadows as I did so. I had assumed something close to my normal form, changing only the markings on my fur. This served to emphasise the fact that Niall and I were related, while yet concealing my true identity.
"I thought this place had the reek of sulphur," he replied, seeing my
headwings. "Whom am I addressing, demon?"
"My true name is not for your ears," I replied, "But you may call me Johan Cross. As I said, I am most deeply unhappy at the way you have been treating your fellow townsmen. Capital punishment has been banned for all but the most severe crimes for many centuries. It may only be used with my express authority, yet you have continued to take people's lives. That is murder.
As I spoke, Niall stepped out from the shadows, his arms folded and his face set in a grim manner.
"Niall," said the priest sadly. "I am unsurprised to find you here in this house of blasphemy. I always knew that we should have sent you to heaven as well as your mother. Our failure to hang you at birth has stunted your soul, and now you face only the pits of hell when your wicked life is through..."
"What...?" cried Niall in distress. "I was told she died just after my birth!"
"Indeed she did," he said. "But we took it upon ourselves to aid her in her passage to God.
You see, her husband was sixty-four when she became pregnant. When she gave birth to a winged demon child, our suspicions were confirmed!
"Greatly desiring the child her ageing husband could not sire, she had in sin made unholy pacts, seeking intercourse with devils, until she was answered at last by an incubus!
"For this most terrible way in which she had strayed from the path of righteousness, we were forced to hang her as a witch. She confessed to it after only a short period of questioning."
"Let me see if I understand," I said in a stony voice. "You tortured my great-grandson's wife until she managed to invent some cock-and-bull story that you wanted to hear. And then you hanged her, not merely taking her life as Lord Page and I had forbidden by decree, but doing so before the vulgar gaze of the public, denying her even the dignity of a blindfold?"
"Yes," he said, smiling. "That suffering, death and shame purified her soul allowing her swift passage to heaven. For just as our Lord's lupine Son died upon the gallows-tree to bring us salvation, so too did she find salvation for herself."
I looked at Niall. He was crying softly and making the sign of the Noose again.
"Father Mandamus," I said. "As lord of Ha'Khun and its surrounding territory and thus your ruler, I hereby formally accuse you of mass-murder and treason.
I was taught to believe that life was sacred, yet it seems that only by ending yours can I ensure the safety of my citizens. Have you anything to say in your defence?"
He laughed scornfully. "I serve a higher power than you, demon. You preside only over temporal law! We serve the spiritual laws given us by our Lord. It is under His authority that we end the lives of the wicked to help them atone for their sins. So He has commanded to us in person.
For yea, I have witnessed His glory with my own eyes... For ever and ever, Amen..."
The badger made the sign of the Noose, his eyes shining with religious fervour. I looked at him very strangely, unable to maintain the grave demeanour I had chosen for his trial.
"You met God?" I asked him, unable to believe what I was hearing. Insanity.. that would be a valid defence. "Tell me about Him," I added.
"He visited our founder, blessed him to be long in years, and it was so, Amen.
He gave to us the new commandments and said that He would return to lead us into paradise. At Easter Mass His presence visits us in secret chambers and His will is made known to us in person!"
"..And what is His will?" I asked, incredulously.
"Those who have sinned must be sent to Him at once to ease their passage to heaven, as I have said. Where it is unclear who has committed the sin, we are to question all concerned with force until one of them confesses.
And most importantly, we are to remain ever vigilant for His prophet!"
Behind me, Niall began to recite fragments of the litany.
"And shall come at last a horse with the wings of a demon and the mind of an angel. Dark in appearance and dark in name, he shall yet do My bidding in all things...
"After many hundred years of journeying shall this chosen one come unto the brethren and work many wonders in My name...
"For just as the omlette doth need the breaking of eggs, so too My return doth need the breaking of souls...
"The souls of queen and fae must needs be spilled, for only thus can paradise be brought at last to the earthly kingdom..."
The priest beamed. "Spoken like a true child of the faith!", he said.
Something snapped inside Niall's mind and it went black with rage. I really don't know how else to describe it. Unable to find words to express his reply, he opted instead for something rather more direct. The priest crumpled, a small bullet-wound just above that beatific smile, a single red tear mingling with the white stripe down his forehead.
Niall's reply had left the priest in an uncooperative mood and since his corpse had so far refused to answer any of the many questions I still had, we were forced to settle for a less immediate way of obtaining answers.
To begin with, I sat Niall down in front of a typewriter and asked him to type up all the fragments of litany that he could remember. This was made easier by the discovery of a small bible upon the late Father's person, but it also gave Niall something to focus upon and helped to distract him from the guilt of what he had just done.
Studying the mass of texts, there was a definite pattern to the Furry Church's rather unorthodox mode of worship. It seemed that within the last fifty years, the Church of Christ the Furry had actually begun to phase out the deity after which they were named, using the Lupus Christi only as a figurehead and a pretext for hanging people.
Their actual prayers were now aimed directly at God rather than using His son as an intermediary like all other such groups did. Looking back at what the priest had said about meeting God in person, which he had also spoken to Niall about on the gallows, I suddenly realised that their religion had, in effect, been invaded.
As far as I could make out, some force or deity had imposed itself upon them, pretending to be their god and steering the faith in some strange direction to fulfil its own agenda. This in and of itself was quite disturbing but there were things which I half-recognised from the tomes I had studied at SAIA and this unsettled me still further.
After pondering it for a few more hours, it suddenly began to make sense.
The hangings were sacrifices, the emotional energy released by the crowds was going to feed some malignant creature. A rogue Fae was a possibility, but then it would have easily been able to manifest itself in corporeal form instead of just at the Easter Mass and besides, sacrifices for energy just wasn't a usual Fae tactic - they simply didn't need to use such crude methods.
And then it all fell into place.. the creature behind this twisted religion was almost certainly a malign entity I had read about which called itself the Dark God. Its origins were not known, but it was believed to have been a physical creature at one point before it was slain or otherwise forced it into a noncorporeal form.
Throughout all of its many known manifestions there was one main point which remained pretty much static - it wanted its followers to assist it in the creation of a body to bring about its resurrection on Furrae... and now Niall's townsfolk were helping it to do just that.