Chapter 74 - Chapter 74.

After a lengthy conversation, in which Hutch explained the extent of all he could remember of his time before Illimev, Casimir assured him that he had nothing to worry about.

"If that's all that Brett thinks he has on you, I'm not certain what you were even worried about."

"Really? Not a single clue?" Hutch questioned, sitting forward on the couch. "You can't possibly see why I might be worried about you finding out about Cherry's profession?"

"No. Sorry. You make it sound like it should be obvious," Casimir replied, before finishing the last bite of his muffin.

"Okay. Maybe I'm the one missing something then, because last I heard you had a track record for disliking 'adult' entertainment."

Casimir's look of confusion only deepened. "Not going to say you're wrong, I've no interest in any of that particular area of entertainment, but where on earth would you get that idea from?"

"You annihilated an entire religion that worshiped a fertility goddess. Executed the priests, burned down the main temple. Super big in the adult entertainment industry on Illimev. Ringing any bells?"

Casimir sat back on the couch and grew stoic. The atmosphere of the room growing heavy.

"Vuxsyphel. The fertile goddess. Impossible to forget. At least now I understand your hesitation to tell me, but let me be clear, that cult has nothing to do with this planet. The choices your mother has made, regardless of what I think of them, have nothing to do with you."

"Thanks for that. At least now you know my biggest secret and can plan for the fall out."

"There won't be any fall out, Hutch. You're our butler, and I could care less about your mother, and what she does for a living."

"Then why did you do it?"

"Do what?" Casimir asked, tossing the folded-up muffin wrapper onto the table next to his empty mug.

"Why did you kill and outlaw the Vuxsyphelians?"

"Because they were a cult of predators, traffickers, and cannibals."

"Hold up. What?" Hutch blurted out reactively, having no context for what he's just been told.

"Do I need to say it again?" Casimir stated, his eyes narrowing as he glowered at Hutch, his hands clutching at the edge of couch cushion, making it obvious that something about this conversation was deeply affecting him.

"No, but an explanation might be nice. I mean, that's the exact opposite of everything I've ever been told about them."

"Let me guess; you were told they were a peace-loving religion. That Vuxsyphel teaches that love should be available to everyone, shared and expanded to every corner of the world. It was never this surface level stuff that was the problem, Hutch. It was everything that was hidden underneath. What they preached to the masses was little more than the cover on a dirty magazine. The problem was what happened when I opened the cover and saw all the children on the inside."

"Children?"

Casimir nodded.

Hutch turned away. What Casimir was saying was disturbing and went against everything he had been led to believe about Vuxsyphel and what she stood for. He'd heard on more than one occasion, from the older members of the Kopi'ama, what a tragedy it had been that the Vuxsyphelians were gone, as Kahlala would have made a beautiful, avatar of the goddess, and how much it would have benefited the entire tribe. Even Kahlala hated Salvador for denying her the opportunity, and Ghan'dono admonished him for the same thing while supporting Kahlala and telling Hutch, how the loss of the Vuxsyphelians was no more than a way for Salvador to control the tribes. 'He takes away our religions to destroy our culture. By taking away our strongest, and most sacred beliefs, he managed to break apart what unified us. We are now all separate tribes, with nothing to rally around. That is how he has won.'

"I don't want to doubt you, Cas, but that doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't line up at all with what Ghan'dono and the Kopi'ama have told me about them. And I know Kahlala never would have wanted anything to do with a cult that hurts children."

"And I believe you," Casimir replied, as he folded his hands together on his lap.

"Then help me out here. Tell me you had some proof to back up what you're saying?"

A few moments passed, when Casimir turned and looked at Hutch. "The night I killed King Hassaedees, I had watched two maids drag a little girl, no older than eight or nine, from one of the large gathering rooms in the palace. You would have known it as the storage room on the second floor. The child was naked. Bleeding. She couldn't stand or walk on her own, and was in the early stages of a pregnancy. She was one of the goddess' avatars. Her lips and gums were raw and swollen, her front teeth were missing. Removed years previous as all young girls of the cults are. And I can still remember the look in her eyes, so empty and vacant. A real, lights on, but no one's home, sort of stare. She'd been in that room for two days with the king, and his eight noblemen, for a fertility ritual, that included five other Vuxsyphelian women, and two of the head priests. That girl died the following day, and one of the priests ordered me to send her body to the kitchen so that he could prepare her and the unborn child, as such a sacrifice was a gift from the goddess herself, for the king. And only his hands could turn them into a meal fit for the royals of Qur'loam. He'd have the child prepared and sent to the queen, as eating it would guarantee she'd fall pregnant with a healthy son, beneath the moon of Vuxsyphel. I killed him on the spot. The king and his nobles, and the rest of the Vuxsyphelian cultists followed a few minutes later."

"I think I'm going to be sick," Hutch muttered, clutching his hand over his mouth.

"And you didn't even have to see it. But I did. And so did the King's Guard, because I gathered them up, and I showed them. It took less than a minute, to convince them that things had to change. They followed me into that room, and on that very night, I killed the king and took his throne. I had hoped that what we saw was some sort of fluke, but it was far worse at the temples. When I discovered the truth behind what they were, what they believed, and the vile depths of what they did," he shook his head, and swallowed back his emotions. "Let's just say, I found it so beyond disturbing, that I can't imagine why I would owe anyone an explanation for what I did. And sadly, I still think they deserved far worse than what they got. My deepest regret over all of it though, is that I could only ever stop them from operating within the borders of Qur'loam."

"Tell me they couldn't have known... that my tribe…"

"I guarantee you," Casimir interrupted, "by the time you arrived and heard the stories, no one was left in Qur'loam that knew the truth aside from me. You have to be in deep with the Vuxsyphelian's to find out what they are truly about. The house xalgar, weekend visitor, and temple tourist, never would have seen behind the curtains. To the outside world, they promote themselves as harmless, while Vuxsyphel remains the effigy and symbol for indulgence, debauchery, and splendor, behind closed doors."

"If everything you've said is true," he remarked, starting down at his hands, "why wouldn't you make sure that everyone knew it?"

"Because politics are a horrifically dirty game, Hutch. And in the end, it was better to have the tribes fear what I would do, then to have them question whether I did the right thing. Try to remember, that to them, and many of the tribes, the Vuxsyphelian's for as vile as their habits and beliefs, no one saw what they were doing as wrong, and many on Illimev still don't. Different culture. Different time. Qur'loam was the first country on the continent with an age of consent and it was a fight to have my own court set it at 16. A precedent that was considered too old by most. Sadly, myrrget was the only thing that forced the leaders of other countries to put laws in place against the cult, and set their own ages of consent, most of which were as young as 13, and so few enforced any of those laws. I did the best I could, but it was a near impossible war, that was going to take centuries to win. Much like our own broken little world. Now that you know, is Salvador any less of a monster in your mind?"

"I don't know," Hutch answered honestly, as he stared at Casimir. "I used to wonder if there was ever any difference between monsters and kings, because it certainly never seemed like there was. Now, I'm starting to wonder."