#40 The Trinity of the Three-Petalled Rose
This was the moment she had been working towards; the confluence of her multiple schemes. Lady Beauvoir had lived a long un-life filled with diabolical projects, but even in that context, this was going to be special. Her power was waxing and this night she would finally rise to domination in Barfunfeltz. Not outward, obvious domination of course, for that was not her fashion; but real power, the power behind the thrones, the power of the puppeteer.
Before her were three mighty creatures of undeath: one Soulblight, one Abhorrent and one Malignant. Three, but One. Three parts of what had once been One and was about to become One again. The One had been known as 'The Paladin' and then 'The False Apostle'. But after the Gravewalkers had cast him down, she believed his soul had been split into three. One by one, those Three had been fully separated from each other and individually reinvigorated. Each was now a powerful being, but together they would surely become even more than the sum of their parts - a demigod perhaps! This was the 'Trinity of the Three-Petalled Rose' which she had now gathered: the Malignant Empty Hearse from which had proceeded the Abhorrent False Messiah and most recently, the Soulblight Pontifex Surrexit.
Beauvoir knew the mad Hermit of Barfunweltz would be enjoying his own, deluded, religious ecstasy. He stood among the Three now, preparing to officiate over their reunification. It had long been his ecumenical dream to reunite the three denominations of the False Apostle's fabricated religion: the nighthaunt 'Procession of the Foolish Martyrs', the flesh-eating 'Raptured Court' and the deadwalkers' 'Reformed Society of the Sanguine Rose'. She relished the prospect of their reunification too, but only because of the formidable army it would place within her control.
Bringing these 'Three Petals of the Rose' together for tonight's rite had not been straightforward. The Empty Hearse was as complex to summon as any Nighthaunt, yet the False Messiah and Pontifex Surrexit had both been far more difficult to manipulate.
With shrewd foresight, she had previously made preparations to draw in the False Messiah by planting herself into the collective delusion of his Flesh-Eater Court. Thus they already believed it was prophesied that she would one day bring to them another manifestation of their Lord of the Rose. Once the Pontifex Surrexit had appeared, she sent her puppet the Revivalist to declare to the Raptured Court that the prophecy was fulfilled. The False Messiah soon appeared to take his place in the ensemble, followed as ever by the Baby-Eating Bishop of Barfunweltz.
Unexpectedly, Lady Beauvoir had found the Soulblight's presence the most problematic to secure. Ever since the moment he emerged from his coffin within the black coach, the Pontifex Surrexit had been supremely aloof: utterly detached, inscrutable, enigmatic and almost incomprehensible. Even with Beauvoir's prodigious guile and machiavellian skills, she struggled to manipulate such a creature. Yet here he was, standing alongside the Empty Hearse and False Messiah.
The Hermit stood in the centre of the Three, each located at a particular point within the massive triptogram he had burned into the ground with Shyishian fire. The deranged Hermit raised his voice in dramatic liturgical conjuration as the bruised sky thundered with the power of death magic. Lady Beauvoir listened carefully to his incantation to check every intonation and syllable was without error. She quivered with anticipation - the blind necromancer was performing the rite perfectly...
Nothing had happened.
The Empty Hearse flickered and faded back into the underworld. The False Messiah abruptly lost interest, leaping onto his terrorgheist and flying away into the darkness. Only the Pontifex Surrexit remained. Turning to look straight at the Lady Beauvoir, he finally spoke. His tone was disdainful and his meaning opaque:
"No rose has three petals."
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