Tower of Shadows (1)

Refugees huddled in tents outside Albion glimpse the flayed skin and robe of yet another priest slain by heretics, strung from a bare tree, a scene also watched from afar by a strange, hidden creature. Conditions in the sprawling camp are dire: shelters barely shield their occupants, garments hang in tatters, the starving fight over rats, and carts of the dead roll out as an everyday sight.

When a knight drives a supply cart toward the Tower of Conviction, desperate beggars mob it hoping to grab food, only to be rounded up by the Holy Iron Chain Knights. Farnese scolds them for robbing the clergy, yet her resolve buckles when one refugee holds out an emaciated infant too weak to nurse. Mozgus then arrives on horseback and, seeming to grasp their plight, invites the cart-swarmers into the Tower to be rewarded and to have the baby treated.

Inside Albion, Mozgus passes most of the beggars to another cleric but keeps the mother and her ailing child, leading her to a doctor who promises the infant will mend. The grateful woman thanks him, and he replies that he merely enacts God's will, adding the ominous note that payment for this kindness will come due later.

He then guides the mother, along with Farnese, Serpico, and Azan, into a torture chamber where his disciples are already working over other refugees. Albion, he says, has festered into a nest of sinners, exposed by the knights and informants and driven to confession. As Farnese tries to look away, Mozgus commands her to watch, insisting this brutality is a face of the Holy See she must embrace. He then delivers the horrified mother to his torturers, who strip and sear her with hot coals while Farnese forces herself not to turn from the sight.

The chapter runs twenty two pages within the Conviction Arc and first appeared in Young Animal issue 3 on January 22, 1999. The unnamed watcher lurking near the camp is the being later tied to the Egg of the Perfect World.