“Tonight, my friends, the performance is real. To you, my most faithful, I dedicate this, the final production of ‘The Mystery of the Pale King.”

As an orphan growing up in a distant border province, Faron took pride in the epic tales of the Hero of Hathur, a great and powerful warrior who ruled in the name of the sun-worshipping Church of the Sol Creator. That pride is shattered by accusations from the Hero’s family that he squandered their entire inheritance on the production of a profane play with him at the center: “The Mystery of the Pale King.” The Church proclaims him under interdict and dispatches Bishop Antonius, his devoted page Faron, and a cadre of soldiers downriver to repossess Hathur on its behalf.

The cruelty they witness on their perilous mission forces them to confront the horrors at the heart of Hathur’s past and question not just their devotion to the Church but their very beliefs in gods and heroes. Amid a storm of betrayal, murder, and sacrilege, Faron must survive fanatical cultists, their obscene rituals, and the evil hiding in the light in order to save Bishop Antonius from the Hero’s final performance.

Inspired by the historical legend of Gilles de Rais, The Mystery of the Pale King probes the roots of modern American dysfunction in a grim flintlock fantasy setting that reflects the best and worst of humanity.

Coming September 17th, 2024 from Timber Ghost Press. You can pre-order your copy HERE

Excerpt from The Mystery of the Pale King

by Sam Flynn

The Sol Church’s record of the events in Hathur, or rather the remnants I managed to rescue from the ruins of the Holy City, reads, “The resurgence of suppressed beliefs in Yorgos, and the rebellions incited by their malignancy, can be directly traced back to the death of the Hero of Hathur, whose storied life ended in tragedy when the living saint was murdered by one of our very own priests, the turncloak Bishop Antonius . . .”

Lies upon lies upon lies. To think, I once dreamt of being a priest. 

Even with a soul calloused by many betrayals, the depth of erasure committed by the institution to which I had dedicated my life still wounds me. It cannot, it should not, but it does. I shall not allow their final slander to remain buried. I must write for the sake of those who died and yet more for those who live so that the truth of what happened in Hathur may not be forgotten. I do not know of any person alive, myself included, who could explain what truly occurred in that haunted domain. As much as I would like, I cannot promise answers. Only my truth. There are enough lies in the world and, as you shall come to understand, I have no desire to tell more. I know only that I must record, as best as I can, that which defies description. 

Bishop Antonius . . . a wolf clothed as a shepherd, a pagan fanatic of the worst sort, a demon-worshipper who also killed the Hero’s three grown children. The Church bears no responsibility for the sins committed by such a duplicitous soul.

• From the official records of the Sol Church, dictated by Archbishop Claudius

PART I: The Journey

Over two-score soldiers and sailors accompanied us from the Holy City across the starving kingdom of Yorgos, the most the Archbishop claimed the Church could spare amid famine and unrest. Our mission was simple: deliver the royal edict declaring the Church’s repossession of the southern border province of Hathur to the legendary “Hero of Hathur.” 

“An important clerical duty,” Archbishop Claudius promised Bishop Antonius, to whom I was assigned as page, going where he went, attending to his needs, and recording his dictations. Menial as my tasks were, I was proud of my post. Bishop — as he insisted I solely refer to him — was remarkably young for his position and many, including myself, wondered of his potential ambitions, but unlike the previous Bishops I had served, lust and sin had not replaced his devotion to the light of the Sol Creator. Far from power-hungry, Bishop was a reluctant and pious leader more at home preaching to the poor peasantry than cajoling the wealthier circles he often had to navigate, many of whom knew him as the priest who wished to allow women entry into the Holy City for the first time in centuries, the stance which made me admire him most.

I must confess to foolish surprise when the Archbishop called us to his solarium, an opulent golden room larger than most of the city’s chapels, and first told us of the mission. Whatever rumors of jealousy within the Church over the Hero’s popularity, I never believed the priesthood would act against one of its living saints. My maturation since I joined the Church three years previous could not erase my roots in legends I had grown up hearing about the Hero, Cassius Hathur. All of Yorgos knew him as one of the kingdom’s greatest men, who led conquest of the outer lands, bearing the One and Only banner of the blazing sun, ten fiery orange tendrils extending from the yellow circle. As a reward for his successful mission, the Church bequeathed him the distant-but-bountiful border province of Hathur.

My expectations of a meeting between Bishop and Archbishop Claudius were high. Imagine my shock when the Archbishop confided the reason he summoned us: the Hero of Hathur had brought his eponymous province to bankruptcy. 

“The Church did not know how dire the situation was until the lord’s three children Drusus, Livia, and Julius appealed to the Holy City,” he explained. “They revealed that Lord Hathur has sold so much land, he no longer has the collateral to cover his enormous debts. The king granted their request for an edict that forbids further property sales, as well as declaring his Church credit frozen and his remaining estates forfeit.” He handed over a piece of parchment.

“My economic knowledge is limited,” Bishop hedged as he read, “but if he exhausted his estates and borrowed on top of the sales, the coinage had to go somewhere. What extravagance was worth all this land and loans?”

The Archbishop sighed deeply before answering. “A play.”

Bishop’s astonishment left him blank-faced and blinking. The benefit — or burden — of hindsight makes me suspect he paused not from astonishment but creeping dread. He regained focus, cleared his throat, and smiled weakly. “I hope it’s a farce about a bankrupt lord.”

 The Archbishop wrinkled his nose. “Decidedly not. Lord Hathur not only wrote but performs the titular lead role in this play of his, ‘The Mystery of the Pale King.’”

My quill scratched and I looked up, certain at the time I’d misheard. Bishop’s eyes flicked over to me briefly. 

“And far from farce,” the Archbishop continued, oblivious, “travelers’ tales of the performances describe nothing less than pagan heresy. Blasphemy denigrating the Sol Creator as a false god and our Church’s charitable record of proselytizing our faith in conquered lands like Hathur. He refused his children’s pleas to halt his nightly performances. Moreover, in this time of famine, he has opened up his cellars and storehouses to the peasants. Smallfolk across Yorgos flock to Hathur to partake of the free food and drink provided for his profane spectacle!” 

“My page might know about this heresy. He was born in Hathur, grew up there.” Bishop twisted in his chair to face me. “Faron, have you heard of this Pale King?” 

The Archbishop raised an eyebrow. I swallowed, taking the time to put down my quill before speaking. “Yes, I have. It concerns—”

“I don’t need a page to define heresy for me,” he harrumphed and readjusted in his chair. 

In truth, I was relieved not to speak and flattered by the comparison, but Bishop seemed affronted. “You must have more than travelers’ tales to charge the Hero of heresy,” he said.

The Archbishop’s lips were white lines. “Details come from the dispatches of our first messenger, Cleric Paulus. He went missing after his arrival in Hathur. His final missive was partially destroyed, the surviving contents nigh incoherent, save the last sentences.”

The Archbishop permitted us to view Paulus’ half-burnt letter, the only legible words of which I reproduce here: The Creator is a lie. We are not light but shadow. The darkness is not empty. Do not come looking for me. Do not come at all. 

Bishop was perturbed. “I know Paulus well. The Creator blessed him with a cleverness I envy. The missive could be bait, written under duress, or perhaps coded.”

“Whatever Cleric Paulus’ fate, the letter is more proof that Lord Hathur’s heretical self-aggrandizement spreads like a sickness. The Church won’t stand for his apostasy any longer. You shall sail the Queen’s River south to Hathur and put an end to it.”

At that point, he ordered me to stop recording. I did then, but I shall do no such thing now. 

“One final item.” The Archbishop withdrew a scroll from his sleeve and handed it to Bishop, who broke the seal and read. By the time he finished, his eye started twitching, a tic both unusual and distressing. Then he stood from his seat, walked to the fireplace, and tossed the parchment to the flames. A snap and a flash, and the scroll became smoke — but the message lingered. I would find out later what it contained, but in the moment, baffled was all I could be. 

Bishop stared at the fire. “Why does King Leo ask this of me?”

“His price for the Church’s repossession of Hathur.”

“This is why I was given the Bishopric so quickly, isn’t it? It was never about merit.”

The Archbishop frowned but allowed his idealistic impertinence to slide. “When you return, the king shall make you an Archbishop. Consider this mission simply a steppingstone.”

“‘A steppingstone.’” He chuckled humorlessly. “I thought I could escape here.”

“None of us can escape the design of our Sol Creator,” the Archbishop preached. “Not even the Hero of Hathur.”

I had to process the bitter implosion of a foundational childhood legend while my superiors spoke in notes, riddles, and lamentations. During preparations for our journey to the outlands, my resentment was high. Why would the Hero shame himself and the Creator? How could the Creator have allowed this debacle? I thought about the secret scroll and Bishop’s reaction. Resentment, just like me. He did not like what was asked of him any more than I did. 

The more I pondered, the more convinced I became that King Leo was jealous of the Hero, jealous that other nobles called him the true king of Yorgos, jealous that smallfolk worshipped his benevolence instead of the Church’s, a prophet outside their control. That, I suspected, was the true reason for the Archbishop’s ire.

What a fool I was. 

I was blind. Blind to the spider’s web I was caught in. Blind to the pain ahead. Every inch of my body yearns to reach back in time and save myself from the coming horror. Yet, if I could intervene in the past, I know I would not listen, even to myself. I would plunge ahead, insistent that I was different, my dedication to, and ambition within, the Church ironclad, my faith in the Sol Creator unshakable. I had the worst affliction of all: I believed I was right.

Bishop, on the other hand, displayed doubt for the first time since I had met the priest, his faith shaken by the secret he carried. He was far away even when attending to the extensive preparation for the expedition, such as finding a ship with a discreet captain and crew. 

While those tasks occupied Bishop, responsibility fell to me to keep our provisions in order: clothing and blankets, stakes and canvas to make tents, tools for repairs, oilcloth and steel flints to make fires, stores of biscuits, beef, pork, cod, and cheese, with butter, salt, mustard seed, and assorted spices for flavor, iron pots, frying pans, dishes, and utensils to eat from, maps, compasses and telescopes for navigation, soap, antidotes, balms, and potions for medicinal purposes, and, finally, swords, pistols, muskets, shot, and gunpowder filled the armory.

Our ship was the Maiden-Made-of-Light, a small galleon under the command of one-eyed Captain Clint, a jocular sailor and regular ferryman for the Church’s missions down river. Alongside me, Bishop, and the ship’s crew of twenty were another twenty of the Church militant known as the Shooting Stars. The presence of the yellow soldiers, though aligned with the Sol Creator, made me uneasy, as if the Church aimed to deliver battle rather than a letter. I refused to believe the Hero had fallen so far that he would kill his fellow Yorgosi. 

The night before we were to set sail, I was forced to communicate to Bishop that poor storage and rodents had robbed us of a third of our foodstuffs. With a small amount of trepidation, informed by experience with past Bishops, I entered Bishop Antonius’ office and found him at his desk, forlorn as ever. “I drown in material concerns when all I wish to do is sit in prayer,” he said wearily after I told him. 

I was silent, stuck between curiosity and propriety. 

Bishop had no patience for such indecision. “Speak your mind, Faron.”

“If I may, Bishop,” I eyed my superior with, I admit, suspicion. “I have never seen you so …burdened. The Archbishop handed you a secret scroll. What did it say? How am I supposed to record our travels accurately if I don’t have all the facts?” 

Bishop shrugged. “So, don’t record accurately. Record truthfully. Our Creator gave us five senses for a reason. I want you to use them during our travels.”

“My five senses tell me you don’t like this mission.” 

He chuckled. “In that, you are correct. The Church’s material concerns are antithetical to our Creator’s spiritual quest. Unfortunately, such suffocating ‘administration’ comes with my office and title. So does ‘errand boy’ and ‘scapegoat,’ it seems.”

Bishop said to speak my mind, so I did. “The Archbishop feels threatened by you, Bishop. He’s given you an impossible assignment because he wants you to fail.” 

Far from perturbed, he was impressed. “You’re quite wise for a page.” 

I looked down and shuffled my feet. Nobody had ever complimented me like that before. “You’ll be a great Archbishop.” 

Bishop’s expression fell. “I don’t know if I’ll accept.”

“What? Why?” I didn’t expect that response. The Bishop I knew was pious and dutiful but also fiery and ambitious. He believed in the Church with a fervor I envied. Deep down, I knew his melancholy had to do with the secret scroll the Archbishop handed him. 

“Faron, ignorance is humanity’s natural state. You must learn to enjoy what the Creator has given you, not fret about what He has not. In fact, I should be questioning you, not the other way around. Before the Archbishop dismissed you out of turn, you were going to speak on the pagan legend Lord Hathur has taken to. This Pale King. I have not heard tell before.”

My hairs always stood up when asked to talk about my home. “Well, the legend comes from the pagans who originally inhabited the south, the Zarak, and is supposedly their interpretation of the first meeting with the Church. The Zarak lived without lords or kings, practiced arcane arts, and worshipped many gods, not just the Creator. Gods of nature, gods of attribute and the like. According to them, the Pale King was the first Yorgosi leader they met. The Church records speak of no such figure and instead tell tales of many missionaries sharing the divine Light of the Sol Creator with the natives. But the Zarak claim the Pale King pretended to embrace their pagan beliefs, only to turn on Yorgosi and Zarak alike, claiming godhood and vowing to violate of the natural order.” I remember having to stop to wet my dry throat. 

“And did he? Violate the natural order?”

“The legend doesn’t say, but,” I shrugged, “the world is still here.”

“The Zarak aren’t,” Bishop remarked evenly, giving away no overt reaction to my nervous disposition, much to my relief. “Do your parents remain in Hathur?”

My heartbeat quickened. “My father raised me but… well, he died. Didn’t have anyone until the Church adopted me. Saved my life, really. I never knew my mother.” 

Bishop inclined his head. “Apologies, Faron. My own ignorance reveals itself. We have more in common than I knew.”

Unsure what he meant by that, I took the opportunity to change the subject. “The Hero was a saint of the Church. He made me proud to call Hathur home.” Anger twisted my tongue. “Now he’s turned against the Creator and bankrupted the land, all to put on a play.”

Bishop nodded sympathetically. “I once witnessed a nobleman bet his entire family’s estate on his brother’s victory in a duel — only to watch said brother lose his head. Do not underestimate the folly of highborn. No, my curiosity lies in Lord Hathur’s purpose behind the play. The Archbishop claims ‘The Mystery of the Pale King’ threatens the Church’s supremacy in Yorgos. Are threats what the Hero hopes to achieve by paying for such elaborate theatrics? Does he seek converts? To spur an uprising? Has he simply gone mad?” He sighed. “Whatever the truth, we shall soon find out.” 

Coming September 17th, 2024 from Timber Ghost Press. You can pre-order your copy HERE