They passed the playhouse on Fagan Street, torchlight streaming from the doorways and windows, and turned down Kalion, passing the building used for cockfights Kane frequented whenever the mood took him. A little further on it was Lady May’s whorehouse that passed by the window. Kane smiled to himself. It was one of the best in the district if not all of Illandia. He could think of a score of girls behind those curtained windows who would have fought each other tooth and nail, if he were to appear at the back door this minute.
As they passed under the Mason’s arch, his mood ebbed a bit; they were passing from Mainbridge to the entrance to the Grommets. It was the poorest and dirtiest part of the quarter and no nobleman with a will to keep his purse entered here after dark. Even the city guard gave it a wide berth if they could help it.
Lea squeezed his hand and smiled up at him. “There’s nothing to worry about, Milord.
The crowds quickly dissipated the deeper they went into the Grommets until a short way down a dark street lined with dilapidated tenements, the carriage drew up at a gate at the head of an alleyway. A man smoking a pipe stepped out of the shadow of a doorway. There was a quiet exchange with the coachman, and then the gate was opened. The whip was put to the horse’s backs and the carriage jerked forward to be swallowed by the dark alley. Kane lost his appetite for conversation as the walls of the aged buildings dashed past the carriage windows. He also suddenly remembered how much he hated surprises.
They arrived in a misty, foul smelling courtyard with little in the way of light except for the soft yellow glow from the carriage lanterns.
Lea shuffled up and gave him a kiss on the cheek as the carriage slowed to a stop. Then she opened the door and stepped down. Kane reluctantly followed, wondering why of all places, Fren would organise a meeting with her highbrow friends here. Glancing up at the darkened brick buildings, Kane figured them to be abandoned, for no light shone anywhere and the hour was not so late. Whether that was a good thing, he could not tell, but he didn’t like the feel of this place. It was oddly cold and quiet, even sinister. Then there was the stench. It was comparable to notorious Swamp Lane in the wharf district on a still misty morning, if not worse.
“There’s a butcher’s yard over the wall, Milord. He raises his own pigs I believe, and does some work for us on occasion,” Lea, explained. “Please, there is nothing to fear. You’re expected with great anticipation.” The girl spoke over her shoulder as the driver handed her a lantern. “This way.”
Kane took her hand, allowing himself to be led across the filthy, rubbish-strewn and weed-filled yard to a narrow alleyway. The passage was barely wide enough to walk down in single file, and without the lantern light it would have been quite impossible without catching one’s foot and falling. The stench of raw sewage filled the air. Frowning at the repugnant smell, Kane put a handkerchief to his nose and didn’t resist as Lea hurried their pace. Rounding a corner, she stopped at a weathered timber door. From what Kane could tell, they were in another cobbled courtyard, with abandoned brick tenements rising around them on all sides. In such grim surroundings, it was easy to imagine that one was being watched. Lea flashed him a reassuring smile, as if to say she was sorry he had to endure this, and then knocked at the door.
“Password?” a gruff male voice asked from inside.
Lea looked at Kane again, her eyes twinkling with admiration in the lantern light. “Kathius.”
The door creaked open, and two armed men bowed low, giving them entrance. They wore no markings on their rough-spun robes that might signify their loyalty, Kane noticed as Lea drew him past. It was all more than a little disconcerting, and he began to wonder what he had gotten himself into—what Fren had gotten him into! They were moving down a gently declining passageway now. Lea led the way, holding her lantern high; its yellow glow throwing eerie shadows against the rough stonewalls. The air was stale and dank, and they heard only the noise of their own footfalls and dripping water.
“Why Kathius?” Kane asked to take his mind off the dismal surroundings.
Lea smiled sympathetically at him as they hurried along. “Kathiusian blood runs in your veins, Milord.”
That was true, of course. Ever since the Druid warrior Kathius united the tribes of the Trilling region under his banner and defeated the invading warlord Vafuso the Bloody, every king who had sat upon the Arkaelyon throne could trace his linage back to the realm’s founding father. Even during the eight hundred years the realm had been in the iron grip of the Larniusian Druids, and the monarchy had been forced to pay tribute and to do Amthenium’s bidding, the line had not been broken.
“So why all this secrecy?” Kane asked.
“Our kind has had no choice but to live in the shadows since the fall of Brutarius, Milord.” That adoring smile spread across her face again. “At least until now. Come along; there is nothing to fear.”
The more she reassured him, the more he wondered. And her explanation didn’t help any, either. What had she meant by “our kind” and “until now”?
A few more twists and turns, and they drew up in front of a set of rough timber doors. Lea handed him the lantern and pulled a ring of keys from her bag and began to search for the right one. Illuminated in the lantern light, Kane noticed an unusual symbol carved into the door’s surface, though it was so covered in accumulated dust and spider webs that he could not make it out. Curious, he touched the marking with his finger, wiping away the cobwebs, and immediately realised that he was looking at a braided circle looped into the symbol for infinity. He had seen it before, though he couldn’t think where. Then it came to him in a flash, and he yanked back his hand as if he had been burned. “What sort of devilry is this?” he said to Lea, thrusting a finger at the door. “This is the symbol of the Larniusian Druids.”
“I know, Milord, but it is no devilry. You have nothing to fear.”
Lea took his free hand and stretched up on the toes of her boots and kissed his cheek softly. “Trust me.” She turned and opened a small peep slot in the door and whispered to someone inside, then slipped her key into the lock. There was the double clunk of successive bolts being thrown across, and then the heavy doors slowly ground open on their iron hinges. A claustrophobic heat and the stench of burnt flesh wafted out, making Kane blink and take another involuntary step back. A man attired in the same black robe as those at the first door, bowed and stepped aside to let them in.
“Come, Milord.” Lea took his hand and led him across the threshold into another torch lit passageway. Fifty paces ahead was a small, humble door. When they reached it, she turned to face him. “Do not be alarmed by what you see inside, Milord. I promise, we mean you no harm.”
“So you are Druids, then?”
“Yes, Milord.” Lea fed a key into the lock.
“And Fren?”
“The head priestess of our kind.”
“And how am I linked to all this?”
Lea swung open the door and gestured Kane inside.
“You bear the mark of Larnius. Maig prophesied your return long ago, at the fall of Brutarius. The prophecy says that you will lead Maig’s children from the darkness and restore her dominion over the world.”
“Is that so?” Kane said stiffly. They had stepped through the doorway and he was hardly listening as he surveyed—with distaste—the perfectly circular chamber they had entered. It was perhaps forty paces across. A sizable gallery of arched stone looked down from above, and a large hearth was set in the wall opposite the door. A fire crackled in the silence, throwing its flickering light out into the chamber. What was truly sinister, though, was the stone altar that stood elevated at the centre of the chamber. A naked woman lay there. She was bound and quite dead, her corpse the colour of Zemithian ivory except where her belly had been cut open and her organs removed. Congealed blood and gore stained the floor, and the smell made Kane wrinkle his nose and pull out his handkerchief again. This was devilry if ever he saw it.
“It’s an appeasement ritual, Milord,�
�� Lea began to explain. “It’s done at the turn of each moon to ensure Maig’s protection of our kind.”
“I’m sure the young woman feels greatly comforted,” Kane remarked dryly.
“She was a whore from the wharf district. No one will miss her.”
Kane wondered at that as he looked over the chamber again. That this sort of devilry should go on right under the church’s nose was hard to fathom. Like everyone else he’d thought druidism had been annihilated during the years of restoration that had followed the fall of Brutarius Victorium and the end of the Long Terror. Yet after his meeting in the archbishop’s chambers earlier, almost anything seemed possible now. “You’ll know well enough, I care naught for this religious nonsense.”
“Indeed,” a man’s voice answered from behind him.
Kane turned around sharply. He had thought himself and Lea alone. Lord Henry Cameron stepped out from a passageway that had opened silently beside the fireplace. Attired in courtly apparel he seemed his normal mild-mannered, portly self. Though there was nothing normal about what went on in this chamber and Kane wasn’t exactly taken by the man’s quiet confidence or that Fren was not even present to explain herself.
“This isn’t exactly what I would have expected of you, sir,” Kane said with barely veiled contempt.
Lord Cameron smiled with understanding. “People are seldom what one expects, Milord. However, you need not concern yourself with this.” He gestured to the room around them. “It’s not common faith that need bind us.”
“So, pray tell, what does bind us, then, for I was of the understanding that this meeting was to be about arranging the unfortunate death of my sister.”
“And it is; however, it is not that alone that binds us either—though, of course, your sister’s death is very important to us. Rather it’s that we share a common vision for Arkaelyon, one that goes well beyond the repatriation of the Amthenium Basin.”
“Is that so? ‘Share,’ you say? Or am I merely to be a pawn in your game, also?”
“No pawn, Milord, and yes, it is so. You, sir, are a man of vision; this slavery venture is evidence of that. And let’s be honest. Can you truly stand there and say without lie or doubt that you didn’t consider the benefits that kingship and the possession of the Book of Minion might afford you when the Archbishop revealed his plans to you this afternoon?”
Kane smiled at that and walked slowly around the chamber, his eyes lingering on the tapestries hung on the stone wall below the casements. “Certainly, I thought the Archbishop was being somewhat conservative in his vision—if, in fact, this book possesses the power ascribed to it.” The thread and stitch in front of him spoke of scenes from Arkaelyon’s history, most of them of the period of the Goddian-Druid wars a thousand years past. There was the anointing of Larnius, the druid apprentice who, as Kane understood, betrayed the Kathiusian Druid Council, and made a pact with the first Mother’s sister, Maig, when the druid council refused to take up arms against King Ariel’s great purge. There was the fall of Amthenium, and the death of Ariel that had begun the Long Terror and a great deal more.
Lord Henry Cameron was smiling at Kane’s remark. “Oh, I assure you the Book of Minion will not disappoint you. What you see there in thread and stitch is evidence enough of its power at work.”
Kane was studying a tapestry on which a man of some importance was reading from an old tome and the dead were rising from their graves. Impatient to get on with this meeting, he turned to face Lord Henry saying, “So what is your vision, sir?”
“In short, the restoration of Arkaelyon’s ancient borders.”
Kane laughed. “Are we talking before the Goddian-Druid wars or during the rule of your kind that followed? I believe it is said that there was not an inch of soil on the continent the Druid Overlords did not control or had not spilled blood on which some would say meant the same thing?”
Henry dismissed Kane’s cynicism with an understanding smile. “First we want to restore Arkaelyon’s seven dukedoms, effectively bring Corenbald, Noren and Lunwraith back under the control of Illandia. Then we’ll bring the continent to kneel before your throne. Whether it requires blood or not will depend on them.”
“How generous of you. And you do this because I am the chosen one of whom this lovely young woman spoke?”
“Yes, Milord.”
“And what exactly is in this for you and your bloodthirsty kin?”
“We are merely servants of a prophecy.”
“Yes, Lea said as much, but what is it you want?”
“What we wish is revenge against the Goddian church—reformist and orthodox alike—and to restore the old Druid ways so our kin need not fear persecution and Maig may again be worshiped as she deserves. There is also the annihilation of the remaining Kathiusian elders to deal with …”
“White druids?”
“Yes, the one and the same.”
“And why do you need me for this?”
“Because we are men and women of faith. And we are bound to the will of the one spoken of in a certain prophecy given to Lord Brutarius Victorium before his fall. The Hand of Maig to be exact.”
“And this Hand you speak of is I, so you are bound to my will.” Kane chuckled with incredulity. “Fren informs me that it is you lot who have put the Archbishop on his present track.”
“That is correct, Milord.”
“Well, if you have the resources to hoodwink that wily beast, then I’m sure you have the power to find the book and wield its power yourselves. So why do you need another pawn?”
Lord Cameron nodded good-naturedly and came forward. “I can understand your suspicion, young sir. However, the Prophecy of the Fall is clear: Only he who bears the mark can possess and wield the power of the book without invoking its curse and bringing death down on his own head.”
Kane chuckled again. “Clearly you neglected to inform the Archbishop of this curse.”
Cameron smiled genially. “He is blinded by his own zeal, and it is that zeal that will eventually kill him, at which time the book will fall to its rightful owner: You.”
“Why should I believe that you speak the truth?”
“For one, you know that Fren would not deceive you. Further, by bringing you here this evening, we are placing our very lives in your hands. If you chose to, you could return to the Illandian Abbey with word of what is done in this chamber and what we are planning, and my associates and I would lose everything, including our lives—and no doubt most slowly and unpleasantly.”
“Assuming you would just let me walk from this place unmolested, of course,” Kane pointed out.
“We are tied to your will, Milord, and we trust in your judgement and the judgement of our goddess who has appointed you as her next Hand. If we can serve you best by dying, then we would gladly face the fires of execution that the Archbishop would quickly kindle for us.”
Kane could see that the man was either in earnest or mad, or both and this aroused his interest. “Then I presume that you and your associates have a plan?”
A relieved smile touched Lord Cameron’s lips. “We do, Milord, and if it is to your liking, we will proceed. If not, again, we are at your bidding. Now, if you will, please come this way; the council is eager to serve you.”
Kane stepped into the torch lit passageway beside the fireplace, with Lea and Lord Cameron following. After a short walk they came to a wall blocking their way. Lord Cameron pulled a lever hidden in the shadows, and a stone panel slid smoothly to one side, disappearing into a cavity. Stepping through, Kane found himself in a room that looked to be little more than the converted cellar of a tavern. Torches sat in iron brackets on the stone soot stained walls and a candelabra hung from the timber beamed ceiling above, dripping wax onto the rough-hewn wooden table that stood at the centre of the room. The eight people seated there, most of them familiar to Kane, came to their feet in solemn expectation.
“Welcome to the Larniusian Druid council, Milord,” Cameron said, stepping up bes
ide him. “I know we are mostly acquainted of course, but I think it is in order that I introduce everyone to you in their respective capacities, and of course those here whom you do not yet know.”
Kane nodded his agreement. He did his best not to show it, but to see that two of Arkaelyon’s most distinguished lords—not including Henry Cameron—were members of this secret cult surprised him no end. He had thought he knew all the ins and outs of Arkaelyon’s gentry, but obviously, he had missed much. A great deal in fact.
“You know Lord Galloway, of course, Faith Galloway’s uncle, and younger brother to King Richard of Corenbald.”
Kane nodded his acknowledgement. Bruce Galloway, or the Duke of Highwood as was his official title, had always treated him with favour when Kane and his siblings had been sent as children to reside at Wanstead Castle during the summer crusades, though he hadn’t seen much of the man over the past couple of years.
“Bruce is the arch elder of our Corenbald covens.”
“It’s an honour, young sir,” Galloway said, rising slightly from his chair and offering a polite nod.
Kane acknowledged the Duke of Highwood with an equally polite nod.
Lord Cameron then gestured to the next man. “Albert, here, is the chief elder of our covens in the Dukedom of Renwick.”
Kane also knew that the tall, redheaded Lord Albert Brachard was Renwick’s largest producer of grain. Why, his fields generated almost as many bushels as the Gilmores’ vast estates here in Illandia. And like the Gilmores, Albert Brachard had been one of the first lords to pledge his support for the slaving venture. They had got along famously when Kane visited the Brachard estate to seek the man’s support for his slavery bill and had met causally on a number of occasions since. He was one of the men he’d talked to about getting rid of his sister, and the jovial lord had been most enthusiastic about it. Kane now understood why.
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