The handle of Tacit’s heavy case felt reassuring to him, as he stepped along the shore of the Black Sea. A cold wind came off the water. It was close to dark. Night time seemed to fall earlier and faster in this part of the world. Maybe it would have been better to wait before making the journey but it was too late for second thoughts now. He shivered and drew his long dark coat tighter around him. It was a little loose, but Tacit would grow into it. He’d taken it from his master, just as he had Tocco’s revolver and case. His master would have approved. The old Inquisitor wouldn’t have wanted his belongings to have languished in his Inquisitorial locker. It wasn’t the Inquisitor’s way to sit and gather dust. “Only in death let the dust have a chance to settle on you,” Tocco always said. Tacit thought of his master’s grave and unconsciously his hand fell to the revolver at his side.
Ahead he could see the outline of rocks, running down from the hills on the right, tumbling into the dark depths of the sea. Everything appeared just as it had been described to him when the assignment had been posted. A witch. On the shores of the Black Sea, Romania. Spreading witchcraft, fear and lies. To be terminated. An urgent assignment. His first on his own.
He followed the outline of the rocks down towards the sea with his eyes and shuddered as he recognised a dark shape amongst the silhouette of jagged rocks, a hunched figure staring back towards him. He swallowed and considered taking a shot at it from here.
He braced and caught hold of himself, measuring his breathing and his thoughts. Stupid. Remember your training. Calm. Keep calm. Focus. Control. Always control. He removed his hand from the handle of the revolver and stepped forward, muttering an ancient prayer to Saint Joseph under his breath. It was one which had always caught his imagination.
Oh, St. Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God. I place in you all my interests and desires. Oh, St. Joseph, do assist me by your powerful intercession, and obtain for me from your divine Son all spiritual blessings.
He looked up at the figure. He’d never hit her from here, not even with the Saint’s help.
He walked until the pebbles of the shore slowly turned into rocks and began to climb, passing stones marked with the black etchings of witchcraft. The route up was damp with night mist and spray from the sea tide, seaweed and algae making the way treacherous. But Tacit’s heavy soled boots bit firm into the rocks, his fingers like crampons within the crannies of the stone.
He pushed his case onto the topmost rock ahead of him and heaved himself after it, cursing that he’d brought the thing at all. A bullet to the witch’s skull would suffice. No ointments, potions or symbols would be needed on this assignment.
“So, you have come to carry out justice then, Inquisitor?” the witch called from the far end of the spur. Tacit drew himself upright and stared down at her, her lank white hair running over her filthy brown robes. “I see it in your eyes, Inquisitor!”
“Through this dusk? That I doubt!”
“My eyes are keen, Inquisitor, it’s yours that you should be wary of,” the witch called back calmly.
“How do you know what I am?”
But the witch did not answer, instead stepping behind a stone and vanishing from view. Tacit grunted and picked up his case, at the same time pulling a revolver from his side. The next clean shot he promised himself he would finish the witch and he’d go back into the warm.
“So, are you happy upon the path designated for you, Inquisitor?” a voice called suddenly from behind him, causing him to turn, the revolver levelled to the empty darkness beyond. At once Tacit realised the trickery of the witch and looked back to the path he was following and the hole hidden behind the stone into which she had slipped. It led down into a hellish black. He put down his case and extracted a lantern from a deep pocket of his coat. Two clicks and the lantern instantly sprang into white light. Leaving the case behind him, he crept into the mouth of the cave.
“I asked you a question,” the witch’s voice asked again, seeming to rise up from all around him. Tacit kept his eyes to the path ahead, ignoring any urges to look either side or behind him. “What is it, Inquisitor? Lost your tongue?”
“I don’t speak to witches,” Tacit growled back into the blackness, “those who shroud themselves in darkness.”
“No, of course you don’t. But you speak to the lights, don’t you?” the brittle voice asked and Tacit wavered in his step. “You talk to the lights, Poldek Tacit, don’t you?”
“How do you know my name?” Tacit hissed, crouching a little lower in the darkness, feeling isolated and exposed.
“Oh, I know far more than just your name, Poldek. I know everything about you. How you were plucked from the bosom of your dead mother. How you were drilled in the ways of the Catholic Church. How you were set on this path of hell-bent destruction.”
“I don’t know what you mean?” Tacit cried, a fear beginning to form in his throat.
“Of course you don’t know,” the witch hissed. “You’re foolish, blind to the world around you. Only a fool would allow himself to be manipulated like you have been to serve the needs of your superiors.”
“I have no such choice,” he stuttered, turning about himself and the dark. “This is my path.”
“Of course you have choice,” the voice came. “We all have choice. We can choose to do as we are bid, or we can choose to act as our soul implores us to act. Tell me, Inquisitor, do you have a soul that you still listen to?”
Tacit grimaced and thrust the trigger of the revolver hard into his forehead, scratching at his skin, relishing the dull sting of pain, the focus it brought to him. “Silence witch!” he cried. “I won’t listen to your accursed words any more!”
“It does not surprise me, Poldek Tacit, that you’re not listening. After all, when have you ever listened? When have you ever acted upon your own desires, your own wishes, your own judgement?”
“There is only one judgement!” Tacit called back. “The judgement of the Lord God himself!”
“Oh you are a pitiful one, Inquisitor!”
“Not so pitiful as to hide myself away. Come out! Show yourself!”
“All in good time.”
Tacit shifted himself in the passageway, putting his back hard to the wall. The voice in the corridor continued.
“Tell me, is that fear that I sense?”
“I have nothing to fear from the likes of you!”
“Indeed! You need only fear The Church itself.”
“Blasphemy!”
“If your Church was truly so loving, do you really think it would have put you through the trials it has? And what a gracious and fulfilling role it is! Bringing damnation and suffering to all who cross you.”
“It has prepared me for this role.”
“You admit it yourself then? That you have needed to feel pain in order to be prepared for all that your role brings? Well let me tell you this, Tacit, the pain you have known has not yet finished. It has barely started. More is to come, far more crippling than you could ever imagine.”
“I have heard enough! Show yourself to me!”
“So that you can silence my tongue?” the witch spat and then laughed wickedly. “Patience, Inquisitor! Isn’t that what your training teaches you? To be patient? To wait for the right moment to act, to strike, to bring retribution to your enemies? Well, be patient then! For I have not finished.”
“Then say it and let us be done with our business.”
“So, that is what you consider your faith? A business, like the stitching of uniforms and the finishing of artillery rounds?”
“You speak in riddles, witch!”
“Very well. A war is coming, the likes of which mankind has never before known. Upon you, Poldek Tacit, will fall the fate of millions. The question is whether, when the time comes, there will be enough of you, of your soul, left to act, or whether you have lost yourself completely to lights.”
Instantly the darkness was thrown into blinding light from which Tacit had to shield his eyes. He winced through the searing brightness, making out the vague outline of a figure standing a little way in front of him.
“You stop using that part of you,” the witch’s voice boomed, “and it shrinks and dies.”
“Enough!” Tacit cried. “I have heard enough. Be done with your message and let me be done with my business.”
“Yes, let us come to your ‘business’.” The figure opened its arms wide, like a bird about to take flight. “You will choose poorly, Poldek Tacit. You are not nearly as big as you think.”
As soon as the revolver recoiled, the cave was thrust into immediate dark, taking all sight and Tacit’s thoughts with it.