Post by redsycorax on Aug 25, 2022 3:52:16 GMT
On Earth-64, there has never been a Renaissance, Reformation, Industrial Revolution or Age of Empires. Most of Europe consists of balkanised lands that are unable to consolidate into kingdoms. Even England is unable to exert control over Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Eleanor IV is the queen and the Emerald Archer and La Canari Noire are its paramount heroes. Women are still burnt as witches and dissidents from Catholic orthodoxy die as heretics. Most life expectancy is limited to a mere forty years. Which begs the question, what if one is a witch in such a world?
++
Zatanna was startled awake as a thief tried to seize her pentagram. She grabbed it back and hit the intruder with a club, causing him to cry out and stumble away in the dark. And then, in the darkness, she saw 'him' -or was it an 'it'? Either way, the creature was hideous, with broken teeth, a cadaverous, pustulent face and red cornead eyes, with pupils of obsidian black. He snarled from his ragged hood and then the vision was gone. She invoked Hygeia, Aesclaepius and Aphrodite Urania to protect her from harm this night and the dreadful vision faded as if it were a mere phantasm of sleep. As the birds began to sing, her mother called her awake.
Sindella tutted: "Zatanna, are you wearing that pentagram again? How many times have I told you about the dangers that entails."
"The goddesses and gods will protect me, Mother. They always have."
"Not so loud, daughter. Walls have ears. And make sure that you are chastely dressed when you leave. You know I do not like your dalliance with the Constantine lad."
"Oh, Mother. At least he's one of the Blessed."
"He is of chaos bent, irreverent and dangerous."
Zatanna sighed to herself. This conversation always went one way. She wondered what life might have been like if she had been brought up by her father Zatara instead of her mother, at times. But that was impossible. Zatara had sought sanctuary in the only pagan land left in Europa, Lithoune. There, at least the tyrannical reign of Pope Benedictus Tenebrus and his Cardinals did not extend, however refracted and diffused by the absence of rapid communication and transportation methods. Unwillingly, he had left his daughter behind. His relationship with Sindella, however, could charitably be called 'strained' and at worst, 'estranged.' Here, in far Shetland, there was some diversity, thanks to the fact that the islands were en route from the relatively pluralist Nethers, with their tradition of inclusion and religious and social pluralism. If matters deteriorated, she could always make a run for there. Or perhaps, one day, when she came into her full power, she could even fly to safety and sanctuary. She had heard rumours of aer transports there, ornithopters and such, in defiance of the reactionary pope's edicts against powered flight. Ah well- the old man could not live forever, surely- even if the rumours about his 'nosferati' status were true, one day he would make an inevitable mistake and flare into flame and dust. No matter. This was an idle girl's fantasy, she reflected, but now she must put aside the trivia and fantasies of childhood and embrace her womanliness. Already, she had had her first bleed and with that came the awakening of her gifts. At times, she wondered what it must be like for boys like Johnny. With no such sign of the acquisition of physical adulthood other than growth and the ability to father children, how could he tell when he came into his power? Mind you, the Constantines were hereditary magii, like her family. No doubt they had their own traditions, as Zatara and Sindella did. But no-one talked about it in public. For this was still a world where the magii like her parents, Zatanna, Johnny and their fellow covenmates could be hung or incinerated if found practising the Craft.
She did not know that she was being keenly observed and not by the ardour of young Johnny Constantine.
ROWANHILL:
The hideous visage behind the mask belonged to Orlik, one of the more pragmatic of the wamphyrii. Wamphyrii usually hid themselves in the unexploited forest lands, where they could prey on unwary baseline humans who were unwary or desperate enough to travel through the woods because they needed to transport fuel or food or medical care to distant settlements. Invariably, they never left the forests. Some were remade into other wamphyrii, others were drained of their lifeblood and left for the carrion or direwolves. Orlik was also an enterprising creature, and through his research into the limits of their species scope, he had discovered that human religious symbols and vocabulary no longer had provenance against their species- or at least, the rites and rituals of Christian religious observance did not. As a consequence, he had killed a priest and had risen in the ranks of the Nocturnist Order, who had been devised to unleash a crusade against the undead, subverting their purpose and slaying many of the more ardent and honest of their number. When Orlik and Zatanna had exchanged glances, they recognised one another for whom they were. As he trod toward the secrecy and security of his burial mound, Orlik found himself wondering if the witch's mother was as adept as her young daughter, and if not, whether she could be enlisted as one of their number. All the better to entrap the young witch with- and to destroy her, before she could master enough skill and prowess at her art to obliterate him from existence before he could make his move.
"Oi! John!" As a small rock banged against the wooden shades of their house, the tawny blonde hair of John Constantine emerged from behind it:
"Have a care, Chas. You're lucky my parents are trading off in Duverovinum, else they'd fetch up a right racket. What ails you?"
Chas Critcher indicated the sundial in the Constantine yard. There was no need to reinforce the message:
"Aye, is it the full moon already? D'ye need that manner of help?"
"You know I'd not trouble you otherwise."
John nodded: "I'll get a tunic and breeches and be with you. Why did you not remind me, man?"
"It's been difficult to escape the eyes of the Holy Inquisition these last few months, for all of us."
"Be not afear'd, man. I'll guard you against harm this night." It was an enigmatic conversation, carefully designed to avert suspicion if any spies were in the vicinity. However, Chas Critcher was a werewolf and therefore one of the Forbidden, placed under the Interdiction of the Holy Inquisition, tasked with the Crusade Against the Night. Alone of their regular companions, only John, Zatanna and their covenmates knew about the Critcher legacy and were sworn to keep them safe, due to the historic bonds between the magii and the lycanthrope kind. As the two repaired to a hidden fastness in the Rowanhill Forest, chains jangled in John Constantine's backpack. He sprinkled dreamdust to confuse and disorient any overly inquisitive souls until they reached the Critcher Family Fastness. Once there, Chas Critcher hurried indoors and John locked the door and then chained and bolted it as Chas hurriedly undressed. When he was naked, he sighed in relief and then bit down on leather as the traumatic pain of lycomorphosis set in, his body distended and his bones and internal organs distended themselves. As he saw John outside, bloodlust took over as he smelt the sweet, succulent human scent and his wolfself hurled itself against the door. It held fast, given the Constantine family's affinity to Hecate, goddess of barriers and mystic transformations. Frustrated, Chaswolf howled and kept howling. In an invisibility cloak, John seated himself, enhanced his own eyesight and began to read. Several hours passed in that manner.
VICINITY OF ASTEROID 99942 APOPHIS:
Several million miles away, the asteroid Apophis tumbled over itself in the reaches of deep space. According to astronomers, there was a moderate chance that the asteroid's trajectory would be badly modified in 2036 and that it might impact Earth three years later. But there, in the vastness and solitude of deep space, a yellow beam of eldritch energy had begun to change its parameters. Slowly but surely, the 1210-foot chunk of rock was moved into a deadly new orbital path- one that would have ominous consequences. And as a result, the Vatican Observatory confirmed these dark findings to Bruce Cardinal Wayne, who began to entertain a desperate strategy to avert an almost certain apocalypse. If Apophis were permitted to travel along its orbit, almost twelve hundred million tons of dynamite would impact the planet and humanity and probably most of the planet's biosphere would meet fiery and watery deaths.
ROWANHILL:
And in Rowanhill, as within cities and villages throughout Europe as the news broke, panic and turmoil set in. Old cults, such as the Flagellants and Dervishes, arose across Christian and Muslim lands, as did a resurgence of messianic cults within Judaism, as well as the spectre of antisemitic pogroms. And in far Rome, gentle Pope Franciscus had been poisoned by the scheming Cardinal Joseph Ignatius, who took the ominous title Benedictus Tenebris. The "Dark Pope" covertly encouraged peasant and noble rebellions against central authority and reinvigorated the power of the Congregation for the Defence of the Faith, better known as the Inquisition. And it was thus that one dark day, Archbishop Orlik's goons broke down the door of the humble dwelling of Sindella and Zatanna Zatara and to the young woman's shock and horror, she was roughly manhandled before a court, charged with the capital offence of witchcraft and sentenced to be burnt at the stake under the vicious, five century old statutes of the Witchcraft Act, passed in the early seventeenth century by the authoritarian regime of King Jacobus. Sindella could not and would not save her daughter, but sat alongside the Archbishop, her face and hair pallid as the consequences of her cumulative transfusions of wamphyrii-blood began to take effect. Zatanna realised her mother had been subborned and sobbed alone at night, within her cell. And then, she looked up...
As the evening auto da fe ceremony convened, Zatanna was taken to the town square to be incinerated. She looked over at Johnny Constantine, restraining himself with great effort, and oddly enough, winked at him, showing preternatural calm as her certain doom threatened. Around her, flagellants and manic street preachers crowed and cavorted, calling divine vengeance down on the benighted soul who had been found in league with the Dread One, as the thin veneer of medieval civilisation gave way to archaic and envenomed superstitions and malignant facile and malicious folklore and legend. They had little idea what was to befall them as the intended funeral pyre was lit for the young woman. It blazed up into fire and fury and the flames started to leap high around the bound figure. And then, strangely, things uncanny began to happen around her. Ordinarily, her neck would have been broken beforehand as a sign of 'mercy' by her Inquisitors, but that had not been done. Or else, she would be screaming out in pain as her clothing and skin combusted under the fierce heat. That was not happening either, despite the ardour and intensity of the flames. And then, a miracle happened. Zatanna broke her bonds, the flames parted and she stepped through them, to face her accusers and would-be tormentors. The flagellants and their company paled before the spectacle as Zatanna strode toward Archbishop Orlik and her suddenly quailing mother, until Sindella realised that the Inquisition's foot soldiers had suddenly made themselves scarce.
Off to the side alleys, Chas Critcher and several other men and women doffed their clothes as their lycanthropic features coursed through their features and bodies. John Constantine himself had summoned a sigil of chaotic energy, concealing it within his cloak. He made his way through the crowd, nodding to the distant buildings on the perimeter where Chaswolf and his packmates had now established themselves. Chas and one or two of the more daring wolfmen and wolfwomen had already made silent incursions into the nearer soldiery, abducting them silent and unseen. But Archbishop Orlik was all too aware of their sudden isolation and plight. He had been betrayed! None other of his wamphyrii kind had arrived here for the evening's thwarted and cancelled gory festivities. Sindella hissed at her daughter, determined not to betray her newly minted sire, allowing her bloodlust to prevail over the fragile bonds of parenthood and kinship that should have bound her to Zatanna. But Zatanna halted, as Chas called to his companions:
"Pack companions! Come forward! Halt!"
"You speak Old Enochian?!" Archbishop Orlik stammered in unbelief.
"I am Chas Critcher, an Alpha of the Wolfkind and I have brought others of my kind here, madman. Wolves are not slaves or serfs. Pack companions! Slay the Inquisitors, tear them limb from limb as you would any other savage wild animal! Fall on anyone who wields a whip or spear! Strike the chains of any victim or intended victim of the Inqusitors! But leave those who are ordinary folk alone!" As the grateful villagers fled to the sanctuary of their homes, Zatanna was joined by John Constantine, who held her hand. She gripped it fast.
Panicking, Archbishop Orlik shrieked: "Inquisitors! I am your overlord! Kill her! Kill all of them!"
But it was too late, much too late. She nodded to Constantine, who strode after the running, quailing Archbishop, who suddenly felt himself truly naked in a way that was more than the mere absence of clothing could have yielded him. Sindella snarled and threw herself at her daughter, who still did not move. And then, from the deceptively frail and slender frame of the teenage girl, a white halo began to form, growing in intensity and passion until it started to dazzle the eyes of the few who remained standing or watching the night's events. And then, Sindella became aware of her true peril, but her momentum and murderous intent had already betrayed her. In seconds, the surrounding square was full of blinding sunlight as Sindella screamed - and the newly spawned wamphyrii childer opened herself to cry out in agony and sudden rage, as the light scorched the pallid flesh from her and she combusted into a smoky microstorm of dust and brittle bone.
Distantly, John Constantine became aware that reinforcements had arrived. And he raised an eyebrow at the tall, regal woman whose fiery eyes blazed in rage and righteous fury at the wamphyrii who suddenly found himself with nowhere to run. But Queen Eleanor IV of England was not one to be swayed. She dismounted her horse and said, coldly and clearly: "Archbishop Orlik, formerly of the Congregation for Defence of the Faith, otherwise known as the Inquisition. Under the Concordat of 1976, your foulness is forbidden expressly in England and its dependencies. You are henceforth sentenced to death."
Defiantly, Orlik snarled: "Have a care, girl. You know not what you oppose."
But Eleanor shook her head: "The lady's not for turning. Very well. Between us then."
"You would dare to raise arms against the Holy Inquisition and risk the wrath of His Holiness Pope Benedictus Tenebris himself?!"
"Silence! Your game is over, you inhuman obscenity! Even if my Emerald Archer and good Lady Dinah are distant, your tyranny over Europe is over!" And then, above him, Archbishop Orlik saw an eye-aching burst of light as the would-be world destroyer asteroid Apophis was hit by a long-concealed, engineered nuclear weapon and the brave and the bold Bruce Cardinal Wayne gave his life to avert a dark fate for the world that he had served for so long. And at Rowanhill village limits, a determined and icy cool queen turned warrior wielded her sword long and expertly, having learnt well the painstaking lessons that Lord Oliver Quean, her Emerald Archer, and his companion Lady Dinah Drake, La Canari Noire, had given her for many years. As Zatanna and Constantine joined their regal companion, he suddenly turned and bolted and found himself in a prepared pentagrammed circle. Zatanna said a single word: "Ignis!" And in minutes, the unnaturally prolonged existence of many stolen centuries came to an end. But the subject of that woe does not deserve an elaborate obituary.
EPILOGUE:
And therein lies an end to this tale. It did not end cleanly as Queen Eleanor, Zatanna and John Constantine rode to her palace. For weeks and months afterward, the world was torn by assassinations, peasant and noble uprisings, bloody reprisals and communal violence. But in distant Rome, the short-lived tyranny of the final Pope, Benedictus Tenebris, was over, as, helmed by the Emerald Archer and La Canari Noire of England, the forces of an Italian rebellion hauled him from a deep cellar, tore his fine robes from him and exiled him to a distant village, bereft of the power and glory that he had so briefly held. And only months thereafter, the nondescript beggar Joseph Ignatius breathed his tortured last, dead of cholera in a Naples alleyway. Thereafter, the world was different, as technologies began to flow from the debased and tyrannical church that had hoarded them for so long and were now released to benefit humanity. In Londinium, Queen Eleanor reigned long, wisely and well, with her Round Table of Justice and Mercy established and steadfast. The Emerald Archer, La Canari Noire, Zatanna and John Constantine and Wolfman (Chas Critcher) served the cause of justice and the common weal long and well alongside her. And in time, Zatanna and John Constantine married and had their own children. Every September, though, the Apophid meteor shower intersects earth orbit and the memory of the valiant Saint Bruce's noble sacrifice is held dear.
THE END [3.10 PM, AUGUST 30, 2022]
++
Zatanna was startled awake as a thief tried to seize her pentagram. She grabbed it back and hit the intruder with a club, causing him to cry out and stumble away in the dark. And then, in the darkness, she saw 'him' -or was it an 'it'? Either way, the creature was hideous, with broken teeth, a cadaverous, pustulent face and red cornead eyes, with pupils of obsidian black. He snarled from his ragged hood and then the vision was gone. She invoked Hygeia, Aesclaepius and Aphrodite Urania to protect her from harm this night and the dreadful vision faded as if it were a mere phantasm of sleep. As the birds began to sing, her mother called her awake.
Sindella tutted: "Zatanna, are you wearing that pentagram again? How many times have I told you about the dangers that entails."
"The goddesses and gods will protect me, Mother. They always have."
"Not so loud, daughter. Walls have ears. And make sure that you are chastely dressed when you leave. You know I do not like your dalliance with the Constantine lad."
"Oh, Mother. At least he's one of the Blessed."
"He is of chaos bent, irreverent and dangerous."
Zatanna sighed to herself. This conversation always went one way. She wondered what life might have been like if she had been brought up by her father Zatara instead of her mother, at times. But that was impossible. Zatara had sought sanctuary in the only pagan land left in Europa, Lithoune. There, at least the tyrannical reign of Pope Benedictus Tenebrus and his Cardinals did not extend, however refracted and diffused by the absence of rapid communication and transportation methods. Unwillingly, he had left his daughter behind. His relationship with Sindella, however, could charitably be called 'strained' and at worst, 'estranged.' Here, in far Shetland, there was some diversity, thanks to the fact that the islands were en route from the relatively pluralist Nethers, with their tradition of inclusion and religious and social pluralism. If matters deteriorated, she could always make a run for there. Or perhaps, one day, when she came into her full power, she could even fly to safety and sanctuary. She had heard rumours of aer transports there, ornithopters and such, in defiance of the reactionary pope's edicts against powered flight. Ah well- the old man could not live forever, surely- even if the rumours about his 'nosferati' status were true, one day he would make an inevitable mistake and flare into flame and dust. No matter. This was an idle girl's fantasy, she reflected, but now she must put aside the trivia and fantasies of childhood and embrace her womanliness. Already, she had had her first bleed and with that came the awakening of her gifts. At times, she wondered what it must be like for boys like Johnny. With no such sign of the acquisition of physical adulthood other than growth and the ability to father children, how could he tell when he came into his power? Mind you, the Constantines were hereditary magii, like her family. No doubt they had their own traditions, as Zatara and Sindella did. But no-one talked about it in public. For this was still a world where the magii like her parents, Zatanna, Johnny and their fellow covenmates could be hung or incinerated if found practising the Craft.
She did not know that she was being keenly observed and not by the ardour of young Johnny Constantine.
ROWANHILL:
The hideous visage behind the mask belonged to Orlik, one of the more pragmatic of the wamphyrii. Wamphyrii usually hid themselves in the unexploited forest lands, where they could prey on unwary baseline humans who were unwary or desperate enough to travel through the woods because they needed to transport fuel or food or medical care to distant settlements. Invariably, they never left the forests. Some were remade into other wamphyrii, others were drained of their lifeblood and left for the carrion or direwolves. Orlik was also an enterprising creature, and through his research into the limits of their species scope, he had discovered that human religious symbols and vocabulary no longer had provenance against their species- or at least, the rites and rituals of Christian religious observance did not. As a consequence, he had killed a priest and had risen in the ranks of the Nocturnist Order, who had been devised to unleash a crusade against the undead, subverting their purpose and slaying many of the more ardent and honest of their number. When Orlik and Zatanna had exchanged glances, they recognised one another for whom they were. As he trod toward the secrecy and security of his burial mound, Orlik found himself wondering if the witch's mother was as adept as her young daughter, and if not, whether she could be enlisted as one of their number. All the better to entrap the young witch with- and to destroy her, before she could master enough skill and prowess at her art to obliterate him from existence before he could make his move.
"Oi! John!" As a small rock banged against the wooden shades of their house, the tawny blonde hair of John Constantine emerged from behind it:
"Have a care, Chas. You're lucky my parents are trading off in Duverovinum, else they'd fetch up a right racket. What ails you?"
Chas Critcher indicated the sundial in the Constantine yard. There was no need to reinforce the message:
"Aye, is it the full moon already? D'ye need that manner of help?"
"You know I'd not trouble you otherwise."
John nodded: "I'll get a tunic and breeches and be with you. Why did you not remind me, man?"
"It's been difficult to escape the eyes of the Holy Inquisition these last few months, for all of us."
"Be not afear'd, man. I'll guard you against harm this night." It was an enigmatic conversation, carefully designed to avert suspicion if any spies were in the vicinity. However, Chas Critcher was a werewolf and therefore one of the Forbidden, placed under the Interdiction of the Holy Inquisition, tasked with the Crusade Against the Night. Alone of their regular companions, only John, Zatanna and their covenmates knew about the Critcher legacy and were sworn to keep them safe, due to the historic bonds between the magii and the lycanthrope kind. As the two repaired to a hidden fastness in the Rowanhill Forest, chains jangled in John Constantine's backpack. He sprinkled dreamdust to confuse and disorient any overly inquisitive souls until they reached the Critcher Family Fastness. Once there, Chas Critcher hurried indoors and John locked the door and then chained and bolted it as Chas hurriedly undressed. When he was naked, he sighed in relief and then bit down on leather as the traumatic pain of lycomorphosis set in, his body distended and his bones and internal organs distended themselves. As he saw John outside, bloodlust took over as he smelt the sweet, succulent human scent and his wolfself hurled itself against the door. It held fast, given the Constantine family's affinity to Hecate, goddess of barriers and mystic transformations. Frustrated, Chaswolf howled and kept howling. In an invisibility cloak, John seated himself, enhanced his own eyesight and began to read. Several hours passed in that manner.
VICINITY OF ASTEROID 99942 APOPHIS:
Several million miles away, the asteroid Apophis tumbled over itself in the reaches of deep space. According to astronomers, there was a moderate chance that the asteroid's trajectory would be badly modified in 2036 and that it might impact Earth three years later. But there, in the vastness and solitude of deep space, a yellow beam of eldritch energy had begun to change its parameters. Slowly but surely, the 1210-foot chunk of rock was moved into a deadly new orbital path- one that would have ominous consequences. And as a result, the Vatican Observatory confirmed these dark findings to Bruce Cardinal Wayne, who began to entertain a desperate strategy to avert an almost certain apocalypse. If Apophis were permitted to travel along its orbit, almost twelve hundred million tons of dynamite would impact the planet and humanity and probably most of the planet's biosphere would meet fiery and watery deaths.
ROWANHILL:
And in Rowanhill, as within cities and villages throughout Europe as the news broke, panic and turmoil set in. Old cults, such as the Flagellants and Dervishes, arose across Christian and Muslim lands, as did a resurgence of messianic cults within Judaism, as well as the spectre of antisemitic pogroms. And in far Rome, gentle Pope Franciscus had been poisoned by the scheming Cardinal Joseph Ignatius, who took the ominous title Benedictus Tenebris. The "Dark Pope" covertly encouraged peasant and noble rebellions against central authority and reinvigorated the power of the Congregation for the Defence of the Faith, better known as the Inquisition. And it was thus that one dark day, Archbishop Orlik's goons broke down the door of the humble dwelling of Sindella and Zatanna Zatara and to the young woman's shock and horror, she was roughly manhandled before a court, charged with the capital offence of witchcraft and sentenced to be burnt at the stake under the vicious, five century old statutes of the Witchcraft Act, passed in the early seventeenth century by the authoritarian regime of King Jacobus. Sindella could not and would not save her daughter, but sat alongside the Archbishop, her face and hair pallid as the consequences of her cumulative transfusions of wamphyrii-blood began to take effect. Zatanna realised her mother had been subborned and sobbed alone at night, within her cell. And then, she looked up...
As the evening auto da fe ceremony convened, Zatanna was taken to the town square to be incinerated. She looked over at Johnny Constantine, restraining himself with great effort, and oddly enough, winked at him, showing preternatural calm as her certain doom threatened. Around her, flagellants and manic street preachers crowed and cavorted, calling divine vengeance down on the benighted soul who had been found in league with the Dread One, as the thin veneer of medieval civilisation gave way to archaic and envenomed superstitions and malignant facile and malicious folklore and legend. They had little idea what was to befall them as the intended funeral pyre was lit for the young woman. It blazed up into fire and fury and the flames started to leap high around the bound figure. And then, strangely, things uncanny began to happen around her. Ordinarily, her neck would have been broken beforehand as a sign of 'mercy' by her Inquisitors, but that had not been done. Or else, she would be screaming out in pain as her clothing and skin combusted under the fierce heat. That was not happening either, despite the ardour and intensity of the flames. And then, a miracle happened. Zatanna broke her bonds, the flames parted and she stepped through them, to face her accusers and would-be tormentors. The flagellants and their company paled before the spectacle as Zatanna strode toward Archbishop Orlik and her suddenly quailing mother, until Sindella realised that the Inquisition's foot soldiers had suddenly made themselves scarce.
Off to the side alleys, Chas Critcher and several other men and women doffed their clothes as their lycanthropic features coursed through their features and bodies. John Constantine himself had summoned a sigil of chaotic energy, concealing it within his cloak. He made his way through the crowd, nodding to the distant buildings on the perimeter where Chaswolf and his packmates had now established themselves. Chas and one or two of the more daring wolfmen and wolfwomen had already made silent incursions into the nearer soldiery, abducting them silent and unseen. But Archbishop Orlik was all too aware of their sudden isolation and plight. He had been betrayed! None other of his wamphyrii kind had arrived here for the evening's thwarted and cancelled gory festivities. Sindella hissed at her daughter, determined not to betray her newly minted sire, allowing her bloodlust to prevail over the fragile bonds of parenthood and kinship that should have bound her to Zatanna. But Zatanna halted, as Chas called to his companions:
"Pack companions! Come forward! Halt!"
"You speak Old Enochian?!" Archbishop Orlik stammered in unbelief.
"I am Chas Critcher, an Alpha of the Wolfkind and I have brought others of my kind here, madman. Wolves are not slaves or serfs. Pack companions! Slay the Inquisitors, tear them limb from limb as you would any other savage wild animal! Fall on anyone who wields a whip or spear! Strike the chains of any victim or intended victim of the Inqusitors! But leave those who are ordinary folk alone!" As the grateful villagers fled to the sanctuary of their homes, Zatanna was joined by John Constantine, who held her hand. She gripped it fast.
Panicking, Archbishop Orlik shrieked: "Inquisitors! I am your overlord! Kill her! Kill all of them!"
But it was too late, much too late. She nodded to Constantine, who strode after the running, quailing Archbishop, who suddenly felt himself truly naked in a way that was more than the mere absence of clothing could have yielded him. Sindella snarled and threw herself at her daughter, who still did not move. And then, from the deceptively frail and slender frame of the teenage girl, a white halo began to form, growing in intensity and passion until it started to dazzle the eyes of the few who remained standing or watching the night's events. And then, Sindella became aware of her true peril, but her momentum and murderous intent had already betrayed her. In seconds, the surrounding square was full of blinding sunlight as Sindella screamed - and the newly spawned wamphyrii childer opened herself to cry out in agony and sudden rage, as the light scorched the pallid flesh from her and she combusted into a smoky microstorm of dust and brittle bone.
Distantly, John Constantine became aware that reinforcements had arrived. And he raised an eyebrow at the tall, regal woman whose fiery eyes blazed in rage and righteous fury at the wamphyrii who suddenly found himself with nowhere to run. But Queen Eleanor IV of England was not one to be swayed. She dismounted her horse and said, coldly and clearly: "Archbishop Orlik, formerly of the Congregation for Defence of the Faith, otherwise known as the Inquisition. Under the Concordat of 1976, your foulness is forbidden expressly in England and its dependencies. You are henceforth sentenced to death."
Defiantly, Orlik snarled: "Have a care, girl. You know not what you oppose."
But Eleanor shook her head: "The lady's not for turning. Very well. Between us then."
"You would dare to raise arms against the Holy Inquisition and risk the wrath of His Holiness Pope Benedictus Tenebris himself?!"
"Silence! Your game is over, you inhuman obscenity! Even if my Emerald Archer and good Lady Dinah are distant, your tyranny over Europe is over!" And then, above him, Archbishop Orlik saw an eye-aching burst of light as the would-be world destroyer asteroid Apophis was hit by a long-concealed, engineered nuclear weapon and the brave and the bold Bruce Cardinal Wayne gave his life to avert a dark fate for the world that he had served for so long. And at Rowanhill village limits, a determined and icy cool queen turned warrior wielded her sword long and expertly, having learnt well the painstaking lessons that Lord Oliver Quean, her Emerald Archer, and his companion Lady Dinah Drake, La Canari Noire, had given her for many years. As Zatanna and Constantine joined their regal companion, he suddenly turned and bolted and found himself in a prepared pentagrammed circle. Zatanna said a single word: "Ignis!" And in minutes, the unnaturally prolonged existence of many stolen centuries came to an end. But the subject of that woe does not deserve an elaborate obituary.
EPILOGUE:
And therein lies an end to this tale. It did not end cleanly as Queen Eleanor, Zatanna and John Constantine rode to her palace. For weeks and months afterward, the world was torn by assassinations, peasant and noble uprisings, bloody reprisals and communal violence. But in distant Rome, the short-lived tyranny of the final Pope, Benedictus Tenebris, was over, as, helmed by the Emerald Archer and La Canari Noire of England, the forces of an Italian rebellion hauled him from a deep cellar, tore his fine robes from him and exiled him to a distant village, bereft of the power and glory that he had so briefly held. And only months thereafter, the nondescript beggar Joseph Ignatius breathed his tortured last, dead of cholera in a Naples alleyway. Thereafter, the world was different, as technologies began to flow from the debased and tyrannical church that had hoarded them for so long and were now released to benefit humanity. In Londinium, Queen Eleanor reigned long, wisely and well, with her Round Table of Justice and Mercy established and steadfast. The Emerald Archer, La Canari Noire, Zatanna and John Constantine and Wolfman (Chas Critcher) served the cause of justice and the common weal long and well alongside her. And in time, Zatanna and John Constantine married and had their own children. Every September, though, the Apophid meteor shower intersects earth orbit and the memory of the valiant Saint Bruce's noble sacrifice is held dear.
THE END [3.10 PM, AUGUST 30, 2022]