Backstory: Solomon

In my time, I’ve met men and women of extraordinary talent. I always sit quietly, patiently listening to their tales. As they stand and beat their chest victoriously, they tell of their most worthy adversary -- those they each know as the devil. They gather at tables by the dozen, in their pubs and halls, slapping each other on the back and sloshing their drinks as they measure and size one another.



“Oh, how I saved the dame. Oh, how I saved the village. Oh, how I surely saved the world.”

They hoard their crowns and walk about strutting. Content they grow, in this little fantasy they’ve cast. They dream that going off and settling the matters of some distant power will be as righteous as it is lucrative. They know not who our true threat is. They know not who holds the strings of their marionette domains. They know not the people that sit beside them plotting their deaths.

Old they will grow, sitting by the hearth, reminiscing about the devil they each slew. And they will not know how wrong they were.

My father, Timot Shepard was a low-level politician in the great city of Peakshadow. I grew up better than most boys, with my father teaching me to read, write and speak properly, as well as to ride.

A one-time sailor, my father had seen the world before settling down in the City of the High King. He was never far from the sea, though and would teach me knots, sending me for long runs along the wall if I failed to tie it properly or in the correct time. As a "man of the people", Timot knew every beggar, bar wench and inn keeper along the rim of the city. He would frequent each of their establishments often, but his true haunt was the small district of the city we called home.

Because he represented these people to the High King, he was often seen as a kind of father-figure or guardian by both the governors and the people alike. Tolerated by one, beloved by the other. I watched as the people brought him their problems, as though he were a minor nobleman of sorts, but only in our small district. It was a very strange relationship to behold, and I often chalked it up to my father having been a man of the world in his youth.

Yet, for all the things I had watched my father resolve, he was not universally hailed as the savior a boy might think. At a young age, I began to follow my father through the city when he would go on his wanderings. Oh, how I loved to watch him help our neighbors. If some wayward trouble found its way into our neighborhood, Timot could be seen quietly paying a coin to dispel it. Sometimes he would whisper in an ear and even ruffians would profusely apologize before scurrying away.

Yet some people always seemed to look sideways at him and even worse at my mother, Teresa. She rarely left the house for fear of what people would say or do to her. When did go it was straight to her destination and back, often with one of my father's friends to accompany her. She once went to the market to fetch my sister, who was sick with fever, some medicine. My father's man was slain and for her trouble, she was beaten viciously in the street. I remember my father’s outrage when he came home to discover her in tears, bruised and bloodied -- trying to wash the filth of Peakshadow off of her.

But those that accosted her had not been careful, neither with her, nor with those who had seen their crime. So my father sent one of his errand boys to fetch the guard and the witnesses. To my surprise, even one of the ceremoniously dressed Captains of the Watch came to our doorstep. Either father or mother was more loved than I knew.

My father led them to my mother’s bedside, the better to see what had been done to her. From behind closed doors, we heard shouting and threats. The Captain left eyes wide and hands full of coin. The next day, a half a dozen men were hung from the neck outside the local court -- a punishment not often seen, and I suppose reserved for those that do the most grievous wrongs.

I’ll never know for certain, but I’ve always suspected that event changed my father forever. The next few years saw me grow from a boy to a young man, and my sister from an infant into a young girl. She often stayed at home, helping my now ailing mother around the house whilst my father went out to provide for our family.

With my mother ill, he began to try and help the neighboring districts as he did ours, hoping to levy a larger stipend from the city’s treasury. His efforts took a toll on him, as he began to grow more and more tired, seemingly aging before my eyes. He rarely slept and I never once saw him sit to eat. But my family was still able to survive and so I know he must have been doing well. As he exhausted himself, he grew shorter of patience and longer of anger. At home and in the district he grew hard to be around.

It was the first Satyrsday of the new year when they came, just after Night Watch. I’ve seen it in my dreams many nights since. I can still smell the burning. Father was in his study, I was reading on the terrace by the light of his fire. Mother and sister were in the rooms and the whole house was quiet. Suddenly, there was a crashing in the night and sounds of struggle on the floors below. Father barely had time to arm himself when five men had burst into the study, carrying dark serrated blades and dressed in blackened mail. Their faces were covered in soot, in order to hide themselves in the night. Before them, they prodded mother and sister.

The five men stood silently gloating over their hostages in the study opposite my father. He had armed himself in the commotion and was holding a crossbow in each hand. I could hear every breath from my sister as loudly as my own, for there was not another sound in the room. Suddenly, footfalls -- a sound like that of a hammer striking an anvil came through our home. Long and as steady as blacksmith working, he came. On the floor, then the stairs, and sure enough, a huge, brutish figure entered the study.

He was dressed in dark wool, trimmed in ermine. His skin was dark and his eyes were like coal beneath his heavy brows. He was a head taller than my father, with a similar blade to that of the others. Beneath his shirt I could see the curious gleam of his grayish mail looking like rows of barred teeth. He wore no helm and made no attempt to cover his face. He had the look of a man foreign born and one eye was set higher than the other.

“You bastard!” my father screamed at him, to which the monster cocked his head and smiled. “Poor Uncle Timot” the man’s voice was deep and rough, mocking my father with the nickname the errand boys used for him. “Shame. I really did like you, you were eloquent with your work. I can’t believe you allowed yourself to get sloppy; over this.”

The brute flicked my mother’s hair. Then, with a hand wave, he motioned to his men, two of them began spreading lamp oil around our house. I still remember how strong it smelled among the books of the study. Over the sound of glassware breaking and shelves tumbling, I heard the oil being splashed around. I remember the man in black giving my father an option: either he Timot would burn or his family would.

It wasn’t the death of my mother that haunts me. It wasn’t the death of my sister. It was the smile on my Father’s face as he leveled his crossbows at them and shot them both of the women I had known through the eye.

The men who had held the hostages stood frozen, looks of disbelief frozen on their face. The man in black clapped and then walked away, laughing.

His last commands were, “Kill him and find the boy.”

As the man in black descended the stairs, his two men at arms continued to stare at father in shock and horror. Finally, one of them reached for his cruel blade, and at that movement, my father dropped his useless crossbows and drew two daggers concealed beneath his tunic. Thus armed, he ran at the men, moving as a blur between them, blade cutting here, and piercing there. I can still see their hands raised to ward off his offensive, but it was over before it began.

The carnage was concealed in the combustion of our home. It was only a moment before the room was filled with smoke and flame. The fire was roaring too loudly and burning too brightly to risk escape, so I curled up inside the crawlspace and wept. It seemed like an eternity later, but just as my head was swimming and I was sure I would die, I heard shouting and banging. Suddenly the walls around my hiding place were broken and a pair of hands lifted me from my own personal hell.

I awoke several days later inside a Church. Paxil the Hermit was the cleric there and ministered to me although I did not speak a word to him. He fed me and clothed me, asking only that I help him with minor tasks around the church. As I grew healthier my share of his workload increased. I would kneel with him every morning when he would pray for forgiveness and healing. My silent brooding he took as a sign of interest, but I did not say the prayers with him. He spoke to me of the Canons and the way of righteousness as I began to take on more and more work in service to the Church. I became a man under Shepherd Paxil’s guiding light, toiling and learning, and maintaining my silence. I took no entertainments, only reading to fill the time.

It wasn’t until my twentieth year that I spoke again. after Shepherd Paxil asked me to lead the prayer the one morning. The old hermit, a man of peace and love, heard me speak for the first time since my family’s death -- it was a prayer of retribution and imprecation. The next month Paxil introduced me to a man I knew only as Sir, who would spend the next twelve years teaching me. I passed from page to squire to knight and when my vigil was over and the blade was upon my shoulder I felt the power of the great God within me -- driving me to seek justice for all who died like those I loved. When the proof of my devotion was shown and the Prefect's hand was healed, he held it aloft and declared me a Paladin of the church.

I became a soldier of the light.