by A Van Wyck
“From back when magic was young and strong,” the old priest continued. “In those days, a handful of mages, working in concert, could move veritable mountains. You are welcome,” Cyrus huffed, taking a seat, “to measure every nook, cranny and corridor of the Tower – as we have done. But you will find no space bigger than this table unaccounted for.” The priest motioned to the table in question, which bore the detailed maps of the interior of the Lily Tower. He and Neever had been poring over them for days.
“That kind of magic,” he countered, “that scope of magic, does not exist.”
“Not anymore perhaps,” Cyrus admitted. “But it did once.”
“Your ancestors,” he challenged, “hid a whole building inside a space no bigger than this table?”
“Not just any building,” Cyrus informed him archly, “a vault. A library.”
His ears perked. The one thing he’d been unable to drag from Cyrus was the nature of the mark.
“I’m stealing a book, then?”
“A text, yes,” the old priest confirmed.
Finally…
“Understand me,” Cyrus warned, seeing the excitement overtake him, “the existence of Seven Deep is perhaps the best guarded secret in all the Empire. Ensconced within is perhaps the most secure vault in all the Empire. Even should all our planning succeed in getting you inside, the worst will be far from over. You will be inside a reliquary of the most dangerous artifacts – both holy and unholy – the priesthood has ever curated. And ours is a very, very long history. You,” a crooked finger pinned him, “must journey all the way to the bottom of the Well, where the most dangerous relics are kept, and return alive.
“It is no laughing matter.”
“I’m not laughing!”
Cyrus and Neever exchanged a glance.
“So, this ‘text’ I’ll be stealing…”
“One of the fabled lost writings. I’ve spent more than three decades of my life sifting through the Temple Library, the Lower Library, the Dry Archives and everything else I could get my hands on. I’ve followed the spoor of obscure references, scribbled margins and torn pages until, finally, in the crumbling journal of Terriam Jorm, of the hundred and thirteenth year of the Hodric dynasty, I foun–”
He could feel his eyes glazing over.
“–I will spare you the details,” Cyrus promised wryly, seeing this too. “Suffice to say, I finally found it – with a reasonable degree of certainty.”
Some strong emotion, tightly controlled, pulled taught the priest’s brow.
“I have been content to let it rest, all these years, but now…” Wispy hair swished as the old man’s head shook.
“And how will this wondrous writing ‘prevent’ your civil war?”
“The situation at present,” Cyrus explained, “is a stacked tinder-pile, ready to go up at the slightest spark–”
The old man had become short of breath during his monologue. Now he trailed off into a coughing fit that shook his spare frame. He clutched at his bony chest.
Neever quietly got up to pour a glass of water while Cyrus weathered the hacking. It was painful to witness.
This old man isn’t long for this world, he realized, looking on expressionlessly.
Cyrus smiled a lopsidedly apology through thick tears, “If I’m going to put out a fire this size, I need the biggest bucket I can find. Once that text sees the light of day, its message will be unassailable.”
Neever must have seen the skepticism on his face. Yhe monk took over the explanation while the old priest drank some water.
“It is the handwritten account of Juris Arbiter, the first Prime. One,” the monk expanded at his blank look, “of the four founders of the Empire. The Primes are our holiest saints. The closest things we have to demi-gods. To even think of gainsaying the words of a Prime is heresy of the highest order.”
“Sounds like a real page turner,” he opined. When neither of them met his eyes he felt a niggling suspicion. “You have extracts of this ‘lost writing’, yes? Or a summary perhaps? Some inkling of its content?”
“No.” It was Neever who answered. “No one has.”
He gaped at them. “And you know this Juris is on your side because…?”
“Other, more recent, texts,” a somewhat recovered Cyrus responded, “hail the first Prime as a proponent of mercy and compassion.” The way he said it made clear that ‘recent’ did not necessarily mean from this millennium. “If support for the modernist view exists anywhere, it is there.”
He sunk his head in his hands.
These priests are all sun-addled, wall-eyed lunatics…
“Tell me,” he begged, peering at them through his fingers, “you at least know what it looks like…?”
* * *
Rodus heaved himself over the lip of the roof and sprawled painfully. Above him, stars swam in the overcast sky. With trembling fingers he hunted along his shoulder.
Damn that woman and her cursed blowpipe!
He plucked the poisoned dart from his flesh and stropped it across his tongue. The faint flavor of graveworm curdled his lips. He spat.
Helia’s hips for a handcart! He had moments, if that!
Fingers growing insensate, he dug beneath his leathers, selecting one of three wax sealed phials. He bit the top off it and let the grainy muck flush down his gullet. It took his throat lining with it and he coughed blood.
Waves of heat and nausea washed over him. He stared at the bottoms of the dirty clouds as the two tonics fought over his life...
–he must have lost time, he thought. But not much. Fingers he could feel again came away red as he wiped at his chin. But he didn’t feel up to standing quite yet.
And if Emion Hallet’s assassin was still hunting for him, he was better off staying put anyway. It was a minor miracle she hadn’t discovered him up here already. She should have been after him like a hound on a hare.
They had severely underestimated the squat priestess. Tonight had been intended as reconnaissance only. And not only had she sniffed them out but he’d watched Watana go down with a dart in his neck. He hoped Geoff had made it back to the den.
But it got worse. They’d had to watch as she made off with their prize. If Hallet’s agent held Justin Wisenpraal first, there wouldn’t be enough of the keeper left to take back to Tellar, let alone interrogate. But he and Geoff couldn’t extricate the priest from under an assassin and a dozen armed mercenaries by themselves. They’d need help and they had no allies here...
Ideas swirled as his head became clearer and clearer.
The masha’na had a compound near the palace. If he could put them on the keeper’s trail before it grew cold, they could rescue the priest. There would always be another opportunity to grab Wisenpraal. Assuming the man did not die in the rescue attempt...
He would have to risk it.
Inquisitor Mattanuy was not going to be pleased.
It was a battle to stay awake these days. It was war to go to bed at night, knowing what horrors lurked there. He could no longer remember what it felt like to wake from a peaceful night’s sleep. Though he knew full well how it felt to wake at almost every quarter bell.
The nightmares that stalked him were varied in detail but uniform in theme. He relived the bandit attack in the mountain pass a hundred times. Only, this time, there was no Christian to hold him back. When he’d done with slaughter, he’d recognize the faces of those he’d felled. The baker and his seamstress wife. Christian. Justin. Himself.
He dreamed of a room, close and humid, covered in the blood and remains of a butcher’s family. Flies buzzed with laughter as they swarmed, crawling into his ears, his mouth, his nose. The slick floor denying him escape.
And he dreamed of a little girl with freckles and a shock of rust-hued hair. He heard again and again the nauseating crack of her head against an alley wall. And when she lay atop a cairn of garbage, her lifeless eyes would turn on him. And she would accuse him of her murder.
But worse
still were the nightmares he couldn’t remember. The ones he woke from in a cold sweat. The ones that left him with an odd sense of dislocation. And a very real, very prescient knowledge that something was in the room with him.
More often than not, he woke from those to scramble frantically into a corner. With his knees drawn and his head hidden, like a child’s, he’d sob until his breathing calmed. Until he could convince himself he was alone – convince himself he was awake.
And worse still was the shame. Once he realized he’d allowed his infantile fears to humiliate him yet again.
Tonight was one of those.
He sat on the edge of his cot, elbows braced on his knees and his head in his hands. Struggling for calm as he watched cold sweat slowly pattern the space between his bare feet. Mute testament to his shame. It had been a big one. He still felt shivery and lightheaded from the adrenaline ebb.
He became aware of footsteps coming down the corridor but paid them no mind. Guards routinely (and randomly) patrolled all parts of the palace these days. It was part of the new system the High Arcanist had devised. But the footsteps continued straight to his door. He wondered briefly who among the guards he knew had such a heavy, stomping tread. The knock sounded overloud in the midnight stillness, echoing in the small room.
Welcoming the reprieve, he got up. His little room had no lock, Lieutenant Heiss never knocked and, at this time of night, it certainly wasn’t the Guard Captain. He lifted the latch. Outside was a royal guardsman he recognized from the hallways but whose name he didn’t know.
“Yes?” he wondered. For a horrible moment, he imagined something had gone wrong at the princess’s quarters. But the guard’s posture communicated no urgency.
The man looked surprised at finding him awake.
“Visitor for you.” The words were not unkind but they were devoid of interest. “Grab your clothes.”
The guard turned around to wait.
Groggy with lack of sleep, he grabbed his britches and undershirt, laced his feet into his sandals and threw his robes on. The guard led them down the hallway. The man smelled of shaving soap and sword oil and boot polish. A faint hint of whiskey was muddled beneath the stronger scent of cloves. He noted the man’s distracted expression.
“Bothering you?” he asked.
“What?” the man enquired with raised brows.
“The tooth,” he explained, inclining his head towards the guard’s clamped jaw.
The man frowned. “How’d you know?”
“Cloves and whiskey,” he deflected, realizing it would be rude to admit he could smell the rot on the poor man’s breath. That tooth would have to come out and soon.
“Some,” the guard shrugged.
They continued in silence all the way to the spiral staircase. At the sight of it, a half-remembered unease gave him pause. He shook it off. They wound their way down quite a few flights, passing a dozen, darkened landings. The palace slept on.
“Bear?” he blurted, perking up. As they rounded the last spiral, the hulking masha’na came into view. Motionless, thick arms crossed and feet braced apart, the Temple warrior dwarfed the guardsmen to either side.
He couldn’t help but smile. He’d seen very little of any of the masha’na since their arrival in the capital. Less, after becoming bodyguard to the princess. The sight of the huge Temple warrior warmed his heart.
The two palace guards who blocked Bear’s path seemed unaccountably nervous, clutching their halberds and anxiously eyeing the scarred veteran, despite the fact the big man was unarmed. Of course they couldn’t have allowed Bear up to see him, it being the royal apartments. He felt a moment of sympathy for the two, having had to tell the hulking holy warrior no. “Bear!” he beamed.
The moment he and his escort hove into view, those heavily lidded eyes fixed on him. The masha’na didn’t wait for formal greetings but nodded brusquely that he should follow, turning to walk quickly away.
Frowning, he rushed to catch up. “Bear?”
“Keeper’s gone,” the man said by way of greeting, staring straight ahead.
His feet stopped of their own accord, cold flooding his chest at the words. “What?” he breathed, voice thin. “When? How?!”
“Don’t know yet,” the man announced, not breaking pace. “Come on.”
Forgetting their audience – who stood mystified, having understood nothing of the short exchange in Heli – he hurried after the masha’na. There was urgency in the man’s gait and he had to stretch his strides to keep abreast of the longer legged warrior.
“What has happened?” he panted, pleading, as they exited the palace proper. Bear turned them toward one of many side gates rather than down the cobbled walk.
“Last night,” the masha’na began, “after evening meal, keeper set off into the city. Had his healer kit with him. One of the brothers followed to keep him safe.” They halted at the gate where Bear exchanged quick words with the guards, accent brusque but serviceable. One fumbled with the gate key, the other disappeared into the guardhouse to retrieve Bear’s swords. The masha’na talked as he re-buckled his weapons, leading them out into the city. “Less than a bell later we got word at our compound – couple of Heli been in a scrap.” The burly warrior led them deeper into the city, sparing him a glance. “Jossram’s dead.”
The news hit him like a seirin to the gut. Mother’s mercy… “Killed?”
The veteran nodded, leading them through what looked like a market, the stalls now empty and abandoned. A couple of blocks later the cobbled street turned into roughly fitted stone.
“Cut down from behind, looks like,” the masha’na offered, emotionless tone belying a deep swell of anger. “Three attackers, maybe more. Found no trace of them, ‘cept blood and the odd finger.”
“Muggers?”
The scarred man turned a jaded eye on him. “What do you think?”
He nodded, looking away. No, of course not muggers. An army of muggers wouldn’t be enough. It was ludicrous even to think it. They continued in silence while he mouthed a prayer for the departed Jossram.
“And Father Justin?” he asked, unable to put the question off any longer.
“No sign,” Bear growled.
“He’s alive?” If he’d been hoping for reassurance, he was disappointed.
“Maybe,” Bear shrugged massive shoulders.
He bit his lip. Helia, hear my prayer, he beseeched, keep your faithful servant safe this night. He lengthened his stride, his thighs and calves protesting stiffly. Bear glanced at him but said nothing, keeping pace. The stone underfoot eventually gave way to dirt, the houses giving way to hovels, the sparse braziers giving way to darkness. They worked their way deeper into the disreputable quarter called the Narrows.
Finally they turned a corner onto the sight of lit torches down the street. Ruddy light picked out the faces of the men holding them.
Recognizing the masha’na, he hurried over.
The flickering flames made them look haggard and terrifying as they moved around in the darkness. The warriors looked up at their approach, hands settling on sword hilts. Only when he and Bear stepped into the dubious light did they relax. Expressions grave, the blocking cordon stepped aside for them. The alleyway was crowded with masha’na and the smell of blood. By torchlight he recognized the golden curls of their kneeling commander.
“Christian, what has happened?”
The leonine swordsman straightened, gesturing at the alley floor as if that were enough explanation.
He took in the pale figure of Jossram, lying in the dirt, laid out as if in state.
“There’s grit in this exit wound”, Christian stated tonelessly, gesturing to a narrow gash that was the only visible injury. “He was already down when they ran him through.”
“Why is he naked?” he asked the first question that came to mind.
“Beggars found him before we did,” the young captain explained, “took everything, including his sword.” There was an angry rumbling from t
he flanking masha’na.
He stared at the dead man. A random memory surfaced: Jossram, playing the pennywhistle, one night on their long trip to the kingdom. He realized he’d known very little about the man.But he couldn’t long tear his thoughts away from the matter that had his teeth on edge and his pulse beating in his ears.
He met Christian’s grave expression. “The keeper?” He hadn’t meant for his voice to sound so weak and he cleared his throat. Christian squeezed past him, beckoning for him to follow. The officer led them down the road, talking as they went.
“We only have so much time before this gets taken out of our hands,” the masha’na predicted. “No way are these kingdom types going to let us run things our way. This neighborhood is in the watch’s blind spot, otherwise they’d be here already. Even so, they can’t be far behind.
“We needed to gather as much information as quickly as possible,” the commander explained, “so we began knocking on doors. Most of these,” the masha’na gesturing at the double row of hovels, “are empty now. The occupants fled rather than get involved. But we did find this...”
They’d come abreast of a wooden shack. The door had split down the middle and hung from one fraying hinge. Christian pushed it aside, motioning for him to enter.
“Watch where you put your feet,” the man cautioned.
He took a single step inside and stopped dead. The blood-reek overwhelmed him. For one terrifying moment, he was somewhere else again.
Blood on the walls, blood on the floor – these poor people!
He shrugged the horrifying memory off.
Large, dark patches marked where blood had soaked the earthen floor. The splintered remnants of a table or chair littered the interior. Under the fog of blood hung the scent of rancid fish and long sickness. His eyes found the oil lamp. Thankfully it hadn’t gone up when it shattered. In the far corner, a cot with a broken leg leaned drunkenly.
“The way I see it,” Christian was saying, voice coming from far away, “they snatched the keeper first. We found a healer’s satchel in a refuse pile not far from here, so there’s a good chance the keeper came in here. They kicked in the door. Those were the owners,” the man nodded toward the humped figures lying across the skewed cot. “Looks like the old man put up a fight. They gutted him badly but he still made it over to the bed, Helia bless his brave old soul. A single sword thrust did for them both.”