Somewhere deep within a cave, Agoni finally woke from the darkness that had taken him during his own execution.
He surveyed his surroundings slowly, wondering whether this was Terrarum, the promised paradise.
"I thought you were dead," said a voice from the shadows.
Agoni jerked around. A young man had been sitting quietly against the wall the whole time, and Agoni frantically demanded to know who he was, and whether they were still in the land of the living.
Rattel explained that he had assumed the old man was a corpse, since he had been out cold for a long time. Then he drew his sword and announced that he was about to begin an interrogation.
He levelled the blade at Agoni's chest.
"Are you loyal to the Airen Empire?"
Confused by the sudden question, Agoni struggled to understand what the young man wanted from him, and Rattel made it perfectly clear that the answer would determine whether he lived or died.
Agoni tried to move and discovered that one of his legs was broken. From the way the young man stood, and held the sword, and watched him, Agoni could see that he was a professional. Injured as he was, he stood no chance whatsoever.
So he tried to be diplomatic. He urged Rattel to put the sword away and asked him plainly what it was that he wanted.
Rattel told him that some days earlier he had spotted a sphere of water crossing the sky, and that although he had chased it, he had lost it in the end. From what he had been able to see, there was someone inside it. And since the sphere had smashed into the ground at that speed, he was quite certain that whoever was inside had been blown to bits.
Rattel did not know that the person inside the sphere was the man he was interrogating.
Agoni himself had no idea how he was alive. He wondered whether the bag of stones had saved him somehow. He also noticed that the bag was not with him, which meant it must have come loose during the execution.
Rattel expressed his frustration by driving his sword into the wall beside Agoni's head.
"In the name of our god Amma," he said, "are you loyal to the Airen Empire?"
Hearing that, Agoni understood immediately that he had fallen into the hands of a heretic.
The realization threw him into a moment of deep thinking. He remembered urging his own son to become the sword of the empire, to wipe out the heretics who threatened it. He remembered the words he had used.
But in the face of death, a man cannot afford to misspeak.
"I know nothing about loyalty to the Airen Empire," Agoni said. He claimed that he had merely lost his footing while wandering around carelessly, because he was nothing but a senile old man.
After that, Rattel treated his leg. He also made sure to tie a rope around his ankle to restrict his movement as they walked through the tunnel.
Agoni urged him to take the rope off, pointing out that he could not run anywhere, since he had no idea where they were. He added that he would only get in the way if he could not walk at a decent pace. Rattel refused.
Agoni continued: he was already so old that a fall would be disastrous, and if things went wrong he would not be able to get back up, which would only spell more trouble for the young man, since it would be extremely hard work to drag him.
Rattel ignored all of it, and pulled harder on the rope to cause him pain.
With that, Agoni understood that this one had no intention of listening to a word he said, and he decided to accept his fate.
Nonetheless, he was surprised that a cave as elaborate as this one existed so close to the imperial forest. And he remembered that the young man had invoked Amma.
Amaka was a group of heretics that were believed to have been wiped out over fifty years ago, which raised a question worth a great deal to the right people: had they been hiding down here in this cave all along?
Agoni tried to think back to the moments before he lost consciousness. He had been launched toward the western, or perhaps the southwestern, side of the forest's central tower. He was fairly sure that the moment he made his escape he would be able to pinpoint the location of this cave. For now, he needed to focus on understanding its interior. He would return later with reinforcements.
Then it dawned on him that he had already been branded a traitor.
He was furious with himself for still thinking like the Imperial Knight Commander he was no longer.
"What's your name?" Rattel asked.
"Agoni Feitus," he answered honestly.
Rattel told him that he had been genuinely surprised to find him here, because the cave was protected by divine blessing. It was not a place anyone could enter by their own will, least of all someone from the Airen Empire.
They soon reached what appeared to be a dead end. Rattel pushed his blade into the wall, and the wall answered with a bright, blinding light that left Agoni with more questions than he had arrived with.
When the light subsided, he saw that there was a pathway in front of them, and the pathway led to a temple.
"There are only two possible reasons why you found yourself here," Rattel said. "Either you are a minion of the Airen Empire, sent to wipe out the heretics. Or you have come at the calling of our god, Amma."
He stood aside to let the old man limp forward.
"Welcome to the domain of Amaka."