“Is it all really necessary?” I asked, staring out the window of the speeding train.

“Is what necessary?” Ban asked, his mouth full of a grilled meat kebab.

“Everything! The inquisitors, a Nun, the captain of the Knights of Ada, an anti magic tank even?” I was exasperated.

“Well of course, you saw those things in the desert, it seems that whatever it is we are protecting is like some kind of Malefic magnet,” he responded, swallowing a kebab whole, “how else would you explain everything that’s happened?”

“What do you mean?” I looked at him with narrow eyes.

“Remember that ghost train that crashed into the third circle?” he asked, “What I’ve heard is that Salem was originally on that train, and jumped way back in the first circle because of the Malefic attack.”

“So that train went through three circles carrying Malefic?” to say I doubted his words was more than an understatement.

“It’s just what I heard, some of those Inquisitors were talking about,” he shrugged.

“And what other proof do you have?” I scrutinized my companion.

"We fought many Malefic in the desert, did we not?"

“The Malefic we fought in the desert attacked a caravan before we arrived.”

“Ah, but the Malice was traveling towards the direction we were coming from, and you tell me, when have you ever seen Malice travel away from the city core?” he pointed out, waving his finger like a sword to accentuate his point, “coincidence? I think not!”

I stopped, and pondered his point, thinking hard on it, I too noticed the oddity in which the Malice had been traveling. The chief back in Achak's village had spoken of the man who Malice followed. Was it really Salem? It had to be, the Outer Guard mentioned Salem was being chased by Malefic when he had arrived in the city with the object.

“Did you ever manage to ascertain as to why there was a civilian riot in the city?”

“From my understanding, Salem killed a witch after the Malefic had been dealt with, the village didn't take too kindly to watching their hero slain,” he answered.

“Why would he do that?” I sprung from my seat, an unusual amount of rage building in me.

“Well to be frank, Goddess forgive me for saying, but he’s a bastard,” Ban said, uncharacteristically blunt, “she disrespected him, so he exercised his right to execute her.”

“That is unforgivable! It is a complete and total abuse of power!” I yelled, drawing the eyes of the others on the train.

“Calm yourself my love,” Rafa tried to ease my fury, “remember where we are, and who is watching.”

I cleared my throat, and sat back down, a fire still burning inside me.

“Like I said, he’s a bastard, but he’s a famous bastard, a hero even,” Ban shrugged, “and as such his actions will go unchecked by the church. He is the man who killed the Witch Queen after all,” and then said with a mumble, “or so they say.”

I remained silent for a time, reflecting on all I had seen and heard. Clearly whatever it was that we guarded was more than just a weapon, it had to be. What could possibly draw the Malefic to it in such a way? The chief said as much, that there was another force drawing in the Malice, no doubt, that had to be the package. Whatever laid inside that malicite coffin, it was attracting darkness around it like some strange magnetic force. It seemed the only people who knew the contents for sure, were the High priestess and Salem the Queenslayer. Of course I could not just ask him myself, as an Inquisitor he had no obligation to answer to a nun. Minister Bosk may have known as well, but given the situation, that now had seemed unlikely. The only persons present to possibly know where Judeka and Seta. Despite my better judgment I stood up, and approached the grand inquisitor, who sat on the very far side of the train car.

“You are troubled,” she said as I stood before her.

“I have questions, several in fact,” I was forthright with her, and she nodded.

Seta stood up and walked to the train car door, “join me in the next car,” she instructed.

I followed, going past the joiner into an empty passenger car.

“You told me in the desert we are not enemies, what did you mean?” I started with an easy question. “You have treated me in a way unbefitting of our relationship.”

“Do you know what that place was called?” The Inquisitor asked, seemingly ignoring the question.

I shook my head, and so she answered, “Now it is called ‘the Valley of Tears’, but it was once a village called Sydonia,” she explained.

“The valley of tears? I have heard of it, it is a cursed place,” I said, “but that does not answer my question.”

“Yes the unholy site of the grand purge, you know what happened, I take it?” Seta again avoided answering my own question with a question of her own.

“There was a coven of witches the church had executed, that is all I know,” I answered, my patience growing thin.

“It was about twenty years ago now. The church led an entire army out to the First Circle where the Witch Queen herself was rumored to be building an army of her own. It was believed that she was to lead a rebellion against the church, starting there in the quiet little farming village of Sydonia,” she paused for a moment, as if measuring my interest, and continued her story, “before that however, an investigation was made in secret. You see, the High Priestess of the time was enamored with the rumors that the Witch Queen had returned, and so she sent her most trusted inquisitor to find out what she could. The inquisitor spent months amongst the villagers, lying and scheming their way closer and closer to the ‘so called witch queen’, reporting back everything they saw and heard along the way.”

“You are speaking of Salem, correct?” I had guessed, knowing he was the one credited with having killed the Witch Queen.

“No, it was a woman actually,” she answered, “a silly girl who had big ambitions. She believed that taking on the mission would have brought her the renown, and in ways she was right. That does not matter though, what matters is what she had learned.” 

“And just what did this inquisitor learn then?” I tried to be patient, but I felt as though she were dragging things on, as if to distract me from my original question.

“The rumors were partly true, in that the witch had amassed a following, though it was no army, simply a coven of witches working to ease the suffering of the people living within the wastes.”

“How big was the coven?”

“Nine witches, two oracles, and a shaman,” she answered.

“Twelve in total? Surely that would not be enough to provoke the church into a war though?”

“And yet it did,” her voice shook, “another inquisitor had hid himself amongst the village. He gained favor with the Witch Queen due to his relation to one of the Oracles. And when she was most vulnerable, he struck her down. Once she was out of the picture, the war began. Several tanks and nearly the entire Inquisitorial forces marched upon the village,” she stopped for a moment, her chest heaving as she sobbed, then said, “the assault was led by the Grand Inquisitor, An Ael woman named Semial, and they left almost no survivors.”

“So you have remorse for your past, is that what you are saying?” I asked, still unsure how anything connected.

“I have nothing to be remorseful of, except that I couldn’t protect the ones that I loved,” she said, her voice listles as she stifled her crying in an attempt to regain her composure.

I tilted my head. Thinking back on the night we spent at that valley, when I saw Seta crying in the desert. I remembered her soft beautiful face, full of anguish, and scarred with burns. I remembered that she smiled at me with her tear-filled purple eyes. Eyes that glowed a strange glow, as her violet hair blew in the wind.

“You, you are Mestael, so that means you were not the grand inquisitor then?” I asked.

“I am Mestael, and no, I have only been the Grand Inquisitor for seventeen years now,” the inquisitor replied.

It was at that moment that I finally saw it, the truth that Seta had been hiding. The burns, the mourning, the way she spoke so lovingly about her enemy. “You, you were not one of the inquisitors in the village raid... You were one of the witches.”

The imposter placed her finger in front of her mask, “I was an inquisitor and I was a witch, both things are true.”

“Very well, then can you at least tell me what we are protecting?” I asked once more, the question that had infuriated and drove me to near madness till that point.

“Come now, isn’t it obvious?” She responded, her tone playful, “I’m sure you already know.”