“Thanks,” said Kaspar. “You’ve been very helpful.” He handed back the map.
“No, keep it,” said Bek. “I’ve got no use for it now. My daughter married a miller up in Rolonda village—nice enough lad but I don’t care much for my in-laws—and my son’s in the Raj’s army, so I don’t think they’ll be needing a trader’s map any time soon.”
“Thank you very much,” said Kaspar.
As Kenner and Flynn started up the stairs to their room, Kaspar said, “One last question. You said that if we went straight west from here, we’d end up in the…”
“Great Temple Market Square,” finished Bek. “That’s a truth.”
“Is that significant?”
The innkeeper was silent for a moment, as if considering the question. “Maybe. A hundred years back Maharta was the trading center for the entire continent. Everything going up or down river—from all the coastal cities, from Serpent River up to the distant Sulth—would pass through there. So the old Raj’s ancestors built the great square so that merchants and travelers would have a place for their temples. Must be at least a hundred of them. If the monks said to go west, then maybe that’s as good a place to start looking for what you seek. I’ve heard there are sects so small they’ve only got two temples in the world, one in their home town and another in Maharta!” He laughed. “Even if the city’s not what it used to be, it’s still worth a look.”
“Thanks,” said Kaspar, standing up. He rolled up the map. “And thanks for this.”
“Don’t mention it. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Kaspar slowly walked up the stairs. By nature he was a man to make decisions and he hated uncertainty. But now he found himself in a unique situation; he knew he was compelled to finish this business with Kenner and Flynn before he could think of returning home. But he hated not knowing what he was doing. Hell, he thought, he wasn’t even sure about where he was going.
He reached the top of the stairs and entered the room.
The coffin was hoisted in a cargo net and then lowered slowly into the hold of the ship. Kenner and Flynn carried the chest aboard, while Kaspar finished selling the wagon and horses. They didn’t need the extra gold—they had enough riches in the chest to keep them comfortable for the rest of their lives—but Kaspar was determined to play the role of trader and not bring suspicion on them.
Bek’s advice had been sound. They had turned south at the corner where Bek had told them to, and were stopped only twice by warriors wearing the mark of the Eagle Clan on their tabards.
The bribes they made were not even masked, but simply the price of doing business. The second guard had even given them a token, a wooden coin with an eagle on it, that he instructed them to show to any other guards who might question them. Kaspar complained that the first guards hadn’t offered them such, and was greeted by a laugh and the observation that the bribe obviously hadn’t been generous enough.
Kaspar mounted the gangplank and followed Kenner and Flynn to the little cabin they would share. It was barely large enough for the two sets of bunks, one above the other. They put the chest on one of the lower bunks and Kaspar settled into the other.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said.
“About what?” asked Flynn.
“About what the old monk said, that if we make the wrong choice, we die.”
Kenner climbed into an upper bunk and lay down. “Seems a tough way of letting us know. Three wrong moves and that thing in the hold is left sitting somewhere with no one to move it.”
“I think it would find someone to move it somehow,” Flynn observed.
“Anyway,” continued Kaspar, “I was also thinking about something Bek said, how there was a road to Maharta a couple of days north of the city. We must have passed it. Maybe McGoin died because we didn’t take that road.”
Kenner lay on his side with his head resting on one hand. “I don’t know. I sometimes think that if we weren’t caught up in the middle of this we’d be a lot more terrified.”
Flynn pulled himself up onto his bunk. “Nothing special about it. Kaspar, you’ve been a soldier, right?”
“Right.”
“Sooner or later you just get used to the blood, right?”
Kaspar was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Yes. It becomes…commonplace.”
“That’s it, then,” Flynn continued. “We’ve just got used to the madness.”
Kaspar lay back in his bunk, content to wait for the call for the midday meal. He thought about what Flynn had just said and decided he was right: you did get used to the madness if you lived with it long enough.
But a troubling thought occurred to him then: he had been living with madness long before he had come here and encountered these men.
ELEVEN
MAHARTA
A call came from the deck.
Kaspar motioned for his companions to get out of their bunks. “We’re tied fast. By the time we get this up on deck, the gangplank will be out and I’ll see about hiring us a wagon.”
“Buy one if you have to,” said Flynn. He had already taken gold out of the chest and handed Kaspar a full purse which he put away under his tunic.
Flynn and Kenner left the cabin first and hauled the chest up the companionway. Kaspar took one last look around the tiny cabin in case anyone had left something behind. He closed the door and climbed the steps after them.
On deck he noticed two things almost instantly; the usual noise of the waterfront was missing. He had sailed into enough harbors in his life to know what to expect, and hushed voices punctuating an otherwise complete silence wasn’t normal. The other peculiarity was that the only activity on deck was a boom-crew hoisting the coffin out of the hold.
Glancing around, it took a moment for Kaspar to take everything in. Kenner and Flynn had put the chest down and Kenner was pointing over the rail. Kaspar looked and saw at least two hundred armed guards had cleared the entire wharf. Where the gangplank was being run out stood what could only be called a delegation of clergy, from a temple Kaspar didn’t recognize. Behind them sat what officers of the local Raj’s garrison and behind them came a dray-wagon with two heavy horses pulling it. It was empty and as Kaspar watched it was quickly rolled to where the coffin would be lowered. Over to the right waited an ornate carriage.
Flynn said, “I don’t think you need to worry about finding a wagon. It seems we are expected.”
The moment the gangplank struck the wharf, armed guards hurried aboard. They wore a light blue livery with gold and white trim, and their helms of steel were polished to a silver gleam. As the coffin was hoisted out of the hold, the soldier in charge came to stand before Kaspar and his companions and said, “You are the outlanders who accompany that?” He pointed to the suspended coffin.
“Yes,” said Kaspar.
“Come with us.” The soldier turned without waiting to see if he was being obeyed, and two guards grabbed the chest at Flynn’s feet while two others motioned for the three men to hurry along.
Kaspar felt a slight relief that he hadn’t been disarmed. Not that he had any illusion about his ability to fight two hundred of the Raj of Maharta’s finest by himself, but at least it meant he wasn’t quite a prisoner…yet. He knew there was only a slight difference between an armed guard and an escort, but sometimes that difference separated the honored and the condemned.
When he reached the bottom of the gangway, a regally dressed elderly man stepped forward. His robes were crimson trimmed with ermine and gold braid, and upon his head he wore a conical red hat adorned with runes of gold. He motioned and half a dozen other clerics moved to the wagon as the coffin was lowered. “I am Father Elect Vagasha, of the Temple of Kalkin. Please accompany me and we’ll talk.”
Kaspar replied, “I appreciate the illusion that we have a choice in the matter.”
The old cleric smiled and said, “Of course you don’t, but it’s nice to observe civility, don’t you think?”
He led them to a carriage waiti
ng by the edge of the crowd, and two footmen opened the door for him. When all were seated inside, the carriage moved off.
Kaspar looked out of the window. “This reception seems to have wreaked havoc with daily commerce, Father. And it’s unexpected.” He looked at the old prelate. “I assume Brother Anshu sent word of our impending arrival?”
“Indeed. He communicated with his order, which in turn sought out my own. The Brothers of Geshen-Amat are a contemplative one, given to very esoteric and mystical considerations. While they are held in high regard in matters of spirituality, there are some things which are best left to other orders. As I understand it, you are outlanders?”
“Yes,” replied Flynn. “From a land across the sea.”
“The Kingdom of the Isles,” said Father Elect Vagasha. “We know of it. We’ve known of it before the coming of the Emerald Queen. As we know of Kesh and those who dwell in other parts of the world. Commerce is rare between our hemispheres, but not unheard of.
“Our religion is not practiced in your part of the world. You would consider us a martial order, as many of our brothers and fathers were soldiers before they came to the faith, while others have served under arms from first moment they took holy orders.
“Moreover, we are a brotherhood of scholars and historians. We seek knowledge as one of the many paths to enlightenment so we were the logical choice to examine this…”
“Relic?” supplied Kaspar.
“That’s as good a word as any for now. In any event, why don’t you tell me what you know about it, from the beginning, as we drive to the temple?”
Kaspar looked at Flynn, who looked at Kenner. Kenner indicated Flynn should tell the story. Flynn began, “Over two years ago, a group of us gathered in Krondor. There were thirty merchants in all, and we formed a consortium…”
Kaspar sat back. He had heard every detail of the story so he let Flynn’s voice fade into the background as he looked out at the passing vista of Maharta.
This city, more than any other place he had visited, reminded Kaspar of home. This far south the climate was temperate and the summer weather more clement than he had endured so far. The buildings near the wharf were of brick and mortal, not the flimsier, if cooler, constructions he had encountered farther north. The streets were cobbled and the sea breeze blew away much of the stench of overcrowding he had endured in the City of the Serpent River and the other towns he had visited on his way here.
The market they entered seemed as prosperous as any he had seen, with well-fed, industrious people all around. The urchins who chased after the carriage and the wives out shopping could have easily been plucked from the streets of Opardum and deposited here. He felt a wave of nostalgia for his homeland he had not experienced so far since his exile.
As they rolled through another broad boulevard, Flynn said, “…and that’s when we found Kaspar.”
The Father Elect said, “So you were not part of this company from the outset?”
“No,” said Kaspar. “I had only come to this land a few months before I met Flynn and the others. It was mere happenstance that put me in the market the day they sought a fourth sword to help them get the…relic down to the City of the Serpent River.”
“So you had no prior interest in this item?”
“I merely sought to speed my way home. I did not come here by choice.”
“Oh?” The old prelate leaned forward. “How does one travel around the world if not by choice? Certainly not as a prisoner?”
“Not in the traditional sense, Father. I was not chained in the hold of a ship, if that’s what you are asking.” Kaspar leaned back and sighed. “I was exiled by a very powerful magician I chanced to run afoul of and, in truth, he was more forgiving than not, for had our positions been reversed, I almost certainly would have killed him.”
“At least you appreciate your enemy’s clemency.”
“My father used to say, ‘a day spent breathing is a good day.’”
“How you ran foul of this magician is probably a fascinating story,” observed the old priest, “however, let us leave it for a later conversation—should circumstances permit—and move on to what occurred once you joined the three survivors of this ill-omened expedition.”
Kaspar took up the narrative from where he had met Flynn, McGoin, and Kenner, and covered the high points of the journey, with the others occasionally adding a detail here and there. When he got to the description of the creature that killed McGoin, the priest asked some specific questions, then when he was satisfied with Kaspar’s answers indicated that he should continue.
“There’s not much more to say,” Kaspar shrugged. “We were in Shamsha two days later boarding a boat to the City of the Serpent River. The only thing that happened there was our encounter with Brother Anshu, and I’m sure you’ve had a full report on that from his temple. We spent three days in the City of the Serpent River before boarding the ship that brought us here.”
“And here you are,” said the Father Elect. The carriage slowed. “And here we are,” he added.
Kaspar looked out and saw they had entered a huge square, surrounded on all sides by temples. The one they stopped in front of was far from the gaudiest, but it also wasn’t the plainest. They got out of the carriage and the prelate said, “We have quarters for you, gentlemen. By the Raj’s orders, at our request, you will be guests here until it is decided what to do with you and your odd cargo.”
“And how long will that be?” asked Kaspar.
“Why, as long as it takes,” answered the old man.
Kaspar looked at Flynn and Kenner who both shrugged. Kaspar said nothing more as he mounted the steps into the temple.
The Temple of Kalkin was unlike any temple Kaspar had ever visited. Instead of silence, or the muted prayers of the devoted, or the singing of hymns, the main hall of the temple was filled with voice. Young men stood in groups, often with an older priest in attendance, sometimes without, sometimes listening to the older priest carefully, other times heatedly debating a point. Other brothers of the order hurried about, but nowhere did Kaspar see the silent devotion he was so familiar with in other temples.
“It gets a little loud in here sometimes. Let’s retire to my apartment while your quarters are prepared,” said the Father Elect.
He led the three men into a hallway, opened a door and indicated that they should enter. Once inside, a servant approached and took the conical hat and the heavy robe from the Father Elect. Underneath, Father Vagasha wore the same simple robe of gray homespun Kaspar had seen the other priests wearing.
The apartment was simply furnished, but possessed a wealth of books, tomes, scrolls, and parchments kept in cases along the wall. Otherwise there was only a single writing table and five chairs. The priest indicated that the three men should sit. He instructed the servant to fetch refreshments, then sat down too.
Kaspar said, “Your temple isn’t like any temple I’ve visited, Father. It looks more like a school.”
“That’s because it is, in its own way,” said Vagasha. “We call it a university, which means—”
“The whole,” supplied Kaspar. “Universitas Apprehendere?”
“Videre,” corrected the old priest. “Perfect understanding is the province of the gods. We merely seek to understand everything that we are permitted to see.”
Kenner and Flynn looked as if they were feeling out of their element, and Father Vagasha said, “Your friend speaks a very old language.”
“Ancient Quegan, and only a little. My instructors taught me the classics from several nations.”
“Instructors?” said Kenner. “I thought you said you were a soldier and a hunter.”
“I was, among other things.”
The servant arrived with a tray of refreshments, some cakes and tea. “I’m sorry I can’t offer you anything stronger, but my order is abstemious. The tea, however, is very good.”
The servant poured four cups and departed. “Now,” said the cleric. “What to do w
ith you?”
“Let us go,” supplied Flynn. “We’re convinced that if we don’t do what that thing wants us to do, it’ll kill us.”
“From the story of your most recently departed friend, it sounds as if it actually saved your lives.”
Kaspar nodded. “We’re merely guessing.”
The priest said, “One thing that surprises me is your relative calm about this. If I were compelled by some dark force beyond my comprehension, I think I would be beside myself.”
Flynn and Kenner exchanged glances, and Kenner said, “After a while…you just sort of get used to it. I mean, at first when things started going wrong there was a lot of discussion over what we should do. Some of the men wanted to leave that thing in the cave and take the rest of the gold but…we just couldn’t. It just wouldn’t let us.”
“So, it’s not like we have a choice,” added Flynn.
“That was our reason for seeking out Brother Anshu,” said Kaspar. “I knew there was something wrong and that I should be angry about it. I am not the sort of man who’s used to being told what to do. So I guess you could say I was bothered about not being bothered.”
“Must have made it difficult when you were in the army,” said Flynn, trying to lighten the mood.
Kaspar smiled. “At times.”
Exile's Return: Conclave of Shadows: Book Three Page 13