Gallows's page

I had to lose an eye to really see. Lothian showed me, that night in the Warrens. But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself.

I don't remember too much about my parents, except that I loved them and was happy when I was with them. The good parts are hazy; all I can see clearly is the day they were hung. Davrel, that stern wonderful bastard, dragged me there himself. I had my eyes and my ears covered and I was crying my head off ("crying my head off", attending an execution? Ha ha? Not funny?). I didn't hear their crime when it was read. I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to see. But Davrel pulled my hands from my eyes when the hangman pulled the lever and the floor fell out. When I shut my eyes, he put a hand on my brow and held them open that way. I don't remember much about my parents.

Father Davrel was a lovable sort, huh? He's head of the orphanage in Midtown. Davrel's tough on his charges, always has been. Being raised by a dwarf is bad enough, but a dwarf with a divine mandate to switch you at every opportunity? Tough stuff. I hated him for most of my life for the day my parents hung from the scaffolding and he made me watch. "Gallows child" he called me when he lost patience (which was often) and the other kids took it up. There's nothing a bunch of orphaned and damaged kids want more than another kid to take it out on. But he also saw something in me and he recommended me to squire for one of the paladins working with the guard, a woman named Alessa.

Alessa wasn't bad, at first. We got along okay and she was a lot nicer than Davrel (not hard). She didn't mind if I was a little strange and I did my job well enough. She even called me "Simon", the moniker my loving parents had given me. It was when I was toward the end of my term of service, age 17, that we fell out. We were eating at a tavern near the docks after a raid on a gang of smugglers (she and a few other knights had been called in to handle some undead and evil spellcasters). Squires don't talk unless they're talked to, you know? Especially when other knights are around.

Well, some drunk at the next table was giving my mistress the eye, you know? Making comments. And I'm not supposed to stand for that. It's beneath her to notice, but not beneath mine. So I walk over and tell this drunk to mind his manners, real calm and courteous like I'm supposed to. He tells me to shove it where the sun don't shine, he'll look where he likes. I've done my job, I've got my response. I'm supposed to sit down and be discrete, right? Wait until he asks me outside so it wasn't me causing trouble. But then he says something about me. Then he says something about my parents (keep in mind, I hadn't known what they had done). I didn't wait until he asked me, hell, I didn't wait until we were outside. I socked him right where he sat. Alessa broke up the fight, then chewed me out in front of everyone and took her coat of arms from my tabard. I wasn't a squire any more and I would never be a knight.

From there I took up as a guard at a little chapel in Midtown, on the border with the really bad part of town. They needed someone to watch the collections, make sure no one messed with the priests and congregation. I didn't mind it, but I carried a lot of anger around. I hated everyone and everything and if I had known anything outside of Ptolus, I would have picked up and left. So one night (I was 19, I remember) this real unsavory type swipes something from the alms plate. It was the middle of the sermon, so I couldn't say anything. But I kept in his area for the whole time in case he ran. After the priest was done, I grabbed him and demanded he empty out his pockets. He gave me the song and dance. The priest told me to let him go, that he had seen the whole thing and didn't care. That this guy needed it if he was stealing from the church. I couldn't believe it. So off he went, with a pocket full of stolen money meant to feed poor families and keep the roof from leaking in the chapel.

I couldn't let it go. I just couldn't. I got a sense of him from asking around; a small time thief and thug living in the Warrens. No family to speak of, but a habit for fallen women and booze. One of thousands, I'm sure, knowing Ptolus like I do. I found him one night outside a really crummy looking tavern. I demanded the money back. He spit in my face. We had a little fist fight in the muddy gutter. I was over-confident, assuming that a trained fighter against a scrapper would always win. I didn't know how high the stakes were. I didn't see. He pulled a knife, gave me a few cuts. I gave him some more bruises (I still wasn't mad enough to try and kill him; this was just a few coins after all). Until he got lucky and took my eye out.

I knew enough to stay up, to avoid falling to my knees screaming "my eye! my eye!". He almost got me again, but I avoided it through luck alone. I hit him in the side of the head and he fell. I forgot all about why I was fighting him in the first place. I had to get my eye taken care of. The priest at the chapel wouldn't help me, though. He said I had picked a fight when he told me not to, that I fought for pride and not for Lothian or the people of this chapel. I was furious, because I knew he was right. I thought I knew how the world was, I thought I could block out my eyes and ears and avoid the truth my whole life. That I had failed as a squire, that my parents could have been innocent if I just kept it from myself long enough. Lothian had to show me otherwise. I hadn't been using that eye, so he took it from me.

Before I could have it healed, before I could move on, I had to know. I had to see. So I staggered, bleeding, to the orphanage where I grew up. Davrel was up, of course, handling some paperwork. He was surprised to see me, from his quizzical eyebrow, but his face remained impassive.

"Davrel,"I croaked, panting and shaking (I had lost a lot of blood),"what did my parents do? Why were they killed?"

He considered me a long moment and said, plain as day,"They were Chaos cultists. They worshipped the devils imprisoned below and smuggled resources to other cults."

I passed out.

But in my feverish state, I learned. I saw. Davrel wasn't being cruel, he was trying to make me accept that people can be decent on the surface and still be rotten underneath. He knew that if I grew up thinking that my parents were good people that had been unjustly executed, that if my only memories were fond ones, then I might well fall into the same business they had. Sometimes justice is cold, but it needs witnesses nonetheless. The chip on my shoulder got smaller and I stopped hating the dwarf. My eye had been attended to when I woke. I explained to Davrel what I had learned, what I believed: that Lothian had guided my attacker's hand to blind me and that a wound to the flesh was a boon to the spirit.

"Gallows", he said and shook his head,"Lothian isn't a crime lord or a loan shark. He doesn't mutilate people to send a message."

But I know I'm right. It was after that day that I could feel my god's presence in me. That I could sense foul evil in the hearts of men and monsters and deliver my lord's justice in a swift and powerful strike when I felt their wickedness. Even Davrel couldn't deny it and while the other paladins question my sanity, call me an apostate and a heretic, they don't question my devotion. My parents served Chaos. I will set myself against it and the Knights of the Pale will one day recognize my devotion and invite me into their midst. I am a knight now and I will rise to meet the enemies of my god and my city, every wound a divine insight.