Fire of the Inquisitor

Lucia tore some meat from the stick it was roasting on tasted it, the blackened meat wasn’t half bad. She looked over to where the inquisitor was sleeping, his body was starting to fidget and head moved from side to side. It would seem the smell of the cooking meat was getting a response from him as she hoped it would. Still, it took him a few minutes to pull himself out of sleep and open his eyes. When his fell on Lucia he jolted up in a panic, grabbing at this mask.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t remove it,” Lucia reassured him. The inquisitor nodded and relaxed his body, lying on the makeshift bed Lucia had made for him. “I was about to, but you’re breathing seemed normal and I couldn’t find any blood on you.”

“I am weak from being separated from my lady’s light,” he said.

“Well, we have plenty of meat thanks to two-mole rabbits,” Lucia smiled. “It looks like your captors didn’t feed you much.”

“Inquisitors fast while they are on missions,” he said.

“My god.” Lucia took a stick of meat and tried to hand it to the inquisitor. “How long has it been since you’ve last eaten.”

He did not respond or take the meat.

“I forgot your people don’t have a sense of time like we do.” She put the stick back near the fire. “But I know your lady would want you to starve to death.”

The inquisitor laughed from behind his mask.

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s funny to hear a human presume what my lady would want,” he said.

Lucia frowned but again offered the stranger some food. “Please take it, if only as thank you for saving me.”

The inquisitor stared at her for a moment. “You mean like a gift.”

Lucia thought about it. “I guess you could think of it like that.”

He sat up almost and if Lucia wasn’t mistaken he seemed excited. “My lady would expect me to receive a gift from a stranger.”

Lucia quickly handed him the stick of meat. “Well, then please accept this food as my gift to you.”

The inquisitor hesitated as if considering if he was really in the right before slipping it under his mask gobbling it down. Lucia smiled as she watched him eat and even handed him some from her share when he had finished with his. The young soldier was happy to finally have some company but realized that she didn’t even know his name.

“My name is Lucia,” she said. “I would love to know your name.”

The inquisitor started coughing as if he was choking on food. Lucia worriedly started toward him, but he held out his hand. “You can call me inquisitor.”

“Oh come on, you have to have an actual name.” She sat back down.

“It’s not important,” he said.

Lucia frowned. “It’s important to me, you saved my life.”

The inquisitor looked down as if really struggling to reveal his name. “My name is Rosa Sable, you may call me Sable.”

Lucia smiled. “It’s not such a bad name.”

“It is a warrior’s name.” His head remained lowered.

“Well, then you should feel prou …” Something clicked in Lucia’s head before she could finish her sentence. In the Umbragoth culture, all of the warriors were women. She felt bad for embarrassing him. “I’m sorry.”

“It was my mother’s name and I am not worthy of it,” he said.

Lucia felt like putting her hand on his shoulder but wasn’t sure how he would react. Instead, she said, “You seem like a very capable fighter to me.”

Sable snorted, “Capable maybe, but a warrior can defeat thirty foes with two arrows.”

Lucia knew he must be exaggerating, but didn’t suggest it to him. “I didn’t know warriors married.”

“Uncommon, but not unheard of.”

“I’m sure she’s very proud of you,” Lucia smiled.

“She’s dead,” he said.

“Oh, I’m sorry again.” Lucia felt like kicking herself. “What about your father?”

“Dead also.” He took another bite of meat. “They died during the war.”

“That’s terrible.” Lucia felt herself searching for her father’s coin. “Do you have any family?”

“My lady is all the family I need,” he said, dryly.

“Did she raise you?” The words felt stupid as soon as they left Lucia’s lips.

The inquisitor laughed almost nervously. “My older sister and I were taken in by an old warrior and raised here in the Fields of Shadow.”

“You were raised in this awful place?” Lucia gasped.

“I realize we lived closer to the edge of the fields now.” Sable nodded. He stared past her for a moment as if the memory had taken hold of him. “We lived in a small house by a lake.”

Lucia smiled. “And what became of your sister now?”

Sable’s head fell again. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sorry.” She felt so bad that she blurted out the first thing she could think of. “I have four brothers, all soldiers like my father.” Now it was Helana’s turn to lower her head. “Only they have hardly spoken to me since I decided to become a soldier.” She wondered if they were even worried about her. “They don’t think women should fight in battle, I guess it would be like you trying to be a warrior.”

“I would never try to be a warrior,” the inquisitor said.

“But if you wanted to.”

“I would never want to because my lady chose for me to be an inquisitor” Sable finished the last of his food. “It would be like wanting my lungs, not to breathe.”

Helen looked at him speechless for a moment, painfully aware that she knew nothing about Sable’s culture or how his mind worked.

“I’m tired,” the inquisitor said, lying down. “I will need to sleep some more.”

“I didn’t know your people ever slept before today,” Lucia said feeling tired herself. She had tried to sleep before, after starting the fire and catching their dinner, but worry over Sable’s health had kept her up.

“We sleep when we to heal our bodies or receive a vision from our lady,” he said, his eyes already closed.

“Sleep well,” Helen said. The was no response, either he was already asleep or he just didn’t know how to respond.

The young soldier couldn’t help but stare at the strange man while she tried to fall asleep herself. It felt like it had been ages when she didn’t feel so alone, and she thanked God for that much. She had to overcome the urge to add Sable to her letter to her mother but knew that sleep was more important and that for the first time in a long time she knew that it could wait until she woke up next. As she drifted into sleep she prayed that the comrades she had been separated from would find someone like she had found Sable.