As they approached the gate a small window that Marta hadn’t noticed before popped open, framing the face of a rather bemused looking old fellow in gray robes, who regarded them as one would any other curiosity that happened to appear before them.
“What is your business with the Kuldun Order?” he asked.
“Merely pilgrims with an offering of supplies,” Prince Dolan said. “Good to see you again, Brother Olan.”
“And you, Highness, though you really should stop talking such rubbish. Why are you really here?”
“As I said—“ Dolan started to repeat, but the monk just shook his head.
“In that case, our thanks. If you have a question, write it down and leave it with the supplies by the wall. Good day.”
The old monk was in the act of closing the portal when Marta stepped forward. “Please, sir. My companions and I do have an urgent query that only the Kuldun monks—we believe—can answer, however it cannot be written on a sheet of paper.”
The old man frowned, and hesitated. “And who might you be, young lady?” he asked.
“My name is Marta. Black Kath of Lythos was my mother.”
The old monk simply stared at her for several long moments. “Well, then,” he said finally, “I can see it now, and curse me for a thick fool for not noticing sooner.” He turned back to Prince Dolan. “Black Kath’s daughter? Honestly, Highness, you should have said that in the first place. Of course you may enter.”
For a moment or two it was her own companions’ turn to stare at her, but Marta simply waited until they heard the turning of what sounded like a massive metal bolt and in another moment the gates swung inward. Marta’s party proceeded through.
The monk’s station just at the edge of the rightmost gate was a small alcove, almost a cave cut into the side of the mountain. Inside there were lamps and a desk and several rolls of parchment. They had apparently interrupted Brother Olan in the act of reading one of them, now held open by stone weights on the desk. Prince Dolan paused long enough to speak to the old monk again.
“Have you been well, Brother?” he asked.
“Well enough, and kind of you to ask, Highness. Please go up to the stables. Our acolytes will see to your animals and get you sorted. I gather you will be staying for a while?”
“At least for a few days, though we’ll try not to overstay our welcome.”
“Such that it may be,” Brother Olan said, though there was a twinkle in his eye. “Hard to say about such things. The Abbot might insist on more time,” he added, glancing at Marta.
“Sir, I gather you knew my mother?” Marta asked.
Brother Olan turned somber. “Oh yes. We were all saddened to hear of her passing. You, pardon my saying are more of a mystery. Welcome.”
“Thank you. Oh, and by the way…there will be another one like me coming along the trail before too long. I’d consider myself in your debt if you’d let her in as well?”
“Certainly. It’s not even a question.”
Marta wasn’t terribly surprised to learn that the monks knew of her mother’s death. Their reputation would have dimmed in her eyes if they hadn’t.
“Apparently there was something you weren’t telling us,” Prince Dolan said after they had cleared the gate area. “First of all, how did you know they would let you in?”
“I didn’t. I only knew that my mother visited the Kuldun Monastery on several occasions, and they never refused her. Curiosity, remember? It’s the one thing she did tell me about the monks here—they’ve raised curiosity to a holy virtue. They wanted to know about her and the Arrow Path, as much as she was willing to share. I reasoned that they might want to know about me, too,” Marta said.
“Well, you were right,” Dolan said. “As for what we might be able to learn from them, I suppose we’ll know soon enough. Now the second part—who is following you?”
“Someone I need to meet. Don’t worry, Highness—if she’s a threat, it’s only to me.”
“And yet you asked Brother Olan to admit…this person, whoever it might be.”
“Yes. Though I think it likely they would have done so anyway.”
“You know the person following you?”
“We’ve never met. But I think we’ll have to do so. She is looking for the same thing I am, and such are the strictures of the Arrow Path that I cannot interfere, nor her with me save that she has chosen to follow me rather than make her own way. Besides, she could collapse this place around their ears if the monks refused, and she just might be impetuous enough to do it. This way is better.”
“Very well, but I do hope you know what you’re doing.”
Marta, for her part, hoped the very same thing.
Ω
16 the pieces assemble
“From birth to grave, everyone is fighting their own private war. Just don’t assume that you understand someone else’s struggle because you are intimate with your own.” – Black Kath’s Tally Book
They had been guests of the Kuldun Monastery for two days before the abbot sent for Marta, and no one else. Marta had wondered if Prince Dolan would find the snub insulting, but he merely shrugged.
“While Borasur-Morushe is of course on good terms with the Order, a king’s fifth son is just an excess prince and not particularly interesting to them. You, as I should have realized, are quite another matter.”
One of the numerous acolytes escorted Marta to her audience with the abbot. He appeared to be pretty typical of the ones she had seen—somewhere between twelve and perhaps sixteen, with a shaved head and a preoccupied expression, doubtless a result of the strict regimen of lessons and physical labor required. At the age of seventeen they would decide whether to remain at the monastery for life or return to their homes, taking what they had learned with them. While a great many did return home, more than a few chose to remain, such that the number of monks at the mountain fortress remained relatively stable. Marta imagined that the organization might be somewhat similar for the Sisters of Kuldun, but her information on the monastic compound’s associated convent was even sketchier. In all her trips to the Kuldun Order, her mother had never once mentioned visiting it.
The acolyte ushered her through a set of thick double doors into what she assumed was the main chapel. There were statues of all the acknowledged avatars of the deity Amatok in niches set into the walls—here a warrior figure, there a divine shepherdess, a priest, a priestess, and various tradesmen and women. There was a certain egalitarian aspect to the worship of Amatok that Marta found appealing, or would have if her experience with the Power that was Amaet hadn’t soured her on divine beings in general. Yet even though the monastery was associated with Amatok, their real deity was knowledge. Perhaps the original rationale was that gods knew everything, and the more you knew, the closer you were to the gods. Yet by this age everyone understood that the monastery’s primary reason for existing was knowledge, its acquisition and, in controlled circumstances, its dissemination.
Everything else was ritual and window-dressing.
Marta saw the throne-like chair on the raised dais at the end of the hall where, she presumed, the abbot would normally be seated during services or lectures, but it was empty. Instead there was a table in front of the dais, and two people were seated at it in hushed conversation as they studied something in front of them. One was an older man, a dwarf in brown robes, but the other was a woman of about forty dressed in flowing blue robes, her hair completely covered by a white cowl. They both looked up as she approached, and the dwarf smiled at her.
“Welcome, Black Kath’s daughter.”
“Thank you, Your Eminence,” Marta said, and gave a brief curtsey. Now she could see, even if she hadn’t already realized, that the man was wearing the silver chain around his neck that was the abbot’s badge of office. But who was the woman?
“May I present Her Eminence, Prioress Alanthea?”
Marta blinked. “Of the Sisters of Kuldun?”
“The same,” said the wo
man. “You sound surprised.”
“I must admit that I am, a bit,” Marta said. “While I understand that an audience with the abbot is an uncommon privilege, a meeting with the Prioress of the Sisters of Kuldun is practically unheard of.”
The abbot sighed. “Please, Lady Marta…you’ll inflate Alanthea’s estimation of herself even more than it already is.”
“Said the man who once kept the King of Lythos waiting for an entire week,” replied Alanthea, grinning.
The abbot actually blushed. “Well, in my defense, that was rather a busy week…please have a seat, Lady Marta. We have business with each other, I believe, and it may take a while.”
Marta found a chair on the opposite side of the oak table. “Thank you, Your Eminence, but it’s just ‘Marta.’ I’m the daughter of a witch. There’s nothing highborn about me.”
The abbot and prioress exchanged glances. “Seb, she doesn’t even know, does she?” Alanthea said.
“Not that it matters,” the abbot, whose name apparently was Seb, said. “It’s a token of respect as much as a title.”
“I suppose so, especially in her case,” Alanthea said.
Marta might have felt a little offended that the two of them were talking about her as if she weren’t in front of them, but she didn’t have any idea of what they were talking about and had other priorities. As for “Seb,” it was an unusual name in Marta’s experience, but also a vaguely familiar one. Yet, try as she might, she could not recall where she had heard it before. She turned her attention back to the here and now.
“I am grateful for this opportunity,” she said, “And I don’t wish to take up any more of your time than I need to. The reason I’ve come—“
“Is Master Solthyr’s sword, the one called Sunlight-on-Water, yes?”
For a long moment Marta didn’t trust herself to speak. “How…how did you know that, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Seb and Alanthea exchanged another glance. “We don’t mind at all,” Leantha said finally. “But it’s rather difficult to explain right now. Suffice it for the moment to say that we were told to expect you.”
“Told by whom?”
Seb smiled. “First—we can’t tell you who notified us of your coming, for to do so would betray an old friend’s trust in my discretion. Second—you knowing who told us would complicate your search, possibly beyond repair. This would obviously not be in your interest?”
“It would not,” Marta conceded.
Seb’s expression was grim. “For what little it may be worth, I knew your mother and was very fond of her, and was truly grieved when I learned of her passing. However, we’ve never met and you have no reason to believe anything I say to you. So here we are. Now then, if you want our help—otherwise why come here—I will have to ask for a price, just as you must if our situations were reversed. Is that fair?” the abbot asked.
Marta sighed. “It is. What is your price?”
“My price is that you agree to trust me….” He detected Alanthea’s glare and quickly amended, “Us, I mean, and understand that we are trying to help you find what you seek.”
“No disrespect intended, but that is a steep price.”
“Oh, we do know that,” Alanthea said. “We learned quite a bit from your mother over the years, perhaps not as much as she learned from our Order, but a great deal still. We know about the Laws of Power and how completely a witch must trust her own instincts in the search for them. However, the abbot and I are agreed that we might be able to help you, and we’ve chosen to do so.”
Marta looked at them both, trying to hear what her instincts might be telling her about them, but she found her judgment oddly silenced. “Why?” she asked finally.
“Why you need to trust us?” Seb asked. “I would think that would be obvious.”
Alanthea just smiled. “No. She means why do we want to help her? Isn’t that so?”
Marta nodded.
“Perhaps for the affection in which we held your mother—grumpy and taciturn as she often was,” Seb said. “Perhaps because, if we can help, then you as an adept of the Arrow Path would owe the Order a favor, something that could prove extremely valuable to us.”
Marta felt her instincts stir a bit in their sleep. “It’s neither of those things—at least, not completely.”
“She is good,” Alanthea said to Seb. “But I expected no less.”
“I’m afraid that this is one of those complicated things,” Seb said. “Where you will simply have to trust us.”
“I do,” Marta said, and knew it was true, whether the reason was a judgment or because she really had little choice. “I do trust you.”
“Well then, let us finally get down to the matter at hand—you’re searching for the sword called Sunlight-on-Water because you believe it has some connection to whatever Law of Power you’re currently in pursuit of. So it is perhaps a key, not the thing itself?”
“That is what I believe,” Marta said. “I also believe it will be necessary to bring all seven of Master Solthyr’s named swords together.”
“What happens when you bring all seven together, assuming you can find them?” Alanthea asked.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Marta said. “It could be dangerous.”
So they also know that I haven’t found all of them, not even counting Sunlight-on-Water.
“I dare say. Naturally we can’t allow that to happen within the Order’s compound,” Alanthea said. “but this isn’t the end of your search in any case. The Order does possess the sword called Sunlight-on-Water and we are prepared to loan it to you for the time required. Since it is a rather valuable artifact of interest to the Order, there must be a price for that as well.”
“I expected no less. What is it?”
“Rather high, I’m afraid,” Alanthea said. “First, you must agree to visit us every four years. We will ask you questions about your life, the contracts you’ve made, or really anything we might want to know.”
It felt very odd to Marta to be on the other end of such a bargain, but then again she was the one asking for help. She also understood that, in this instance as well, the price was what it was. Negotiation was not an option.
“I will agree to that,” she said. “What else?”
“You are aware of your shadow, are you not? The witch who has been following you?”
“I am,” Marta said.
Seb nodded at someone on the other end of the hall, and Marta realized that the acolyte who had brought her there had never left. Now he did leave, and in a moment returned, leading another person.
It’s her!
“Marta, Black Kath’s Daughter of Lythos? We would like you to meet Dena of Borasur-Morushe,” Alanthea said. “Because we believe it is past time that you did.”
“Is this the second part of the price?” Marta asked.
“That you meet? Hardly. Unless I’ve badly misjudged you, that meeting was already on your agenda,” Seb said. “No. Our price is that you both will work together until all seven of Master Solthyr’s blades are recovered.”
Dena was now within earshot, and she clearly heard what the abbot had said. “I never agreed to this!” she said.
Alanthea smiled. “No, but you will.”
Dena took the seat beside Marta that Seb indicated, but otherwise said nothing.
Marta looked at her. “You knew I was after the blades.”
Dena turned her glare on Marta. “Of course I did. It wasn’t that hard to figure out. The only possible reason was that it is connected to the Fifth Law.”
“Have you also figured out why?” Marta asked.
“No,” Dena said. “And neither have you.”
Alanthea cocked her head. “Now I have to ask—how did you know that?”
Dena lapsed back into sullen silence, and it was Marta who spoke. “Simple—Dena understands that if I knew the reason that the swords had to come together, then I would know the basis of the Law I was searching for. Once I knew that,
I would know the Law itself.”
“And there would be no need to bring the swords together,” Seb finished.
“None at all,” Marta confirmed. “She hasn’t felt the pull of the Law, as I have, but she’s at least paying attention.”
“Now how did you know that?” Seb asked.
“You do have a lot of questions,” Dena said. “But a witch would know—if I felt the pull, I would be following my own path to the discovery of the Law. I would not be reduced to following someone else.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Marta said. “You following me was harmless enough, Dena, but it was pointless. Surely you understand that?”
“I would have figured it out. I will figure it out. If I see what you see, hear what you hear, I will know,” Dena said.
Now Marta and Dena both looked at the other two. “No questions about that subject?” Mara asked.
“None at all. We only want to know if you both agree to our terms,” Seb said, and he repeated them for the ones Dena might not have heard.
“I already have,” Marta said.
“Why should I?” Dena asked.
“For the obvious reason that you will see what I see, hear what I hear. Isn’t that everything you wanted, and all that you required?” Marta asked.
“You don’t believe that I can do it,” Dena said.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” Marta said. “The question is—what do you believe?”
Dena took a long breath, then let it out in a gusting sigh. “Very well, but only until all the swords are brought together. After that, we go our separate ways.”
“You may depend upon that,” Marta said.
“Well then,” Alanthea said. “Mokai will escort you back to your quarters for now. I will have the sword sent to you.”
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