King's Sacrifice

by Margaret Weis

  The Warlord nodded, apparently satisfied. Lifting die paper, he held it to the flame, laid the burning paper upon the altar and watched the fire consume it to ashes. He stirred the ashes with his fingers, scattered them with a breath. Carefully, he wiped the ink pen clean with the hem of his black robe, replaced pen and ink upon the desk.

  When the key rattled in the iron lock, Brother Mikael entered the room to find the Warlord and the young priest on their knees, absorbed in prayer. At first, neither seemed to notice the monk's presence.

  "Lord Sagan," said Brother Mikael, "your father will see you now."

  The Warlord remained kneeling a moment longer. Fideles, glancing at him, was astonished at the man's sudden pallor and ghastly look. Sweat beaded on Sagan's upper lip, his skin was livid beneath its tan, the eyes sunken and darkly shadowed. His breath came quick and fast, his skin burned to the touch. When he started to try to stand, his step faltered. Fideles, rising at the same time, caught and steadied him.

  "My lord," said the priest in a low voice, "you are not well. Perhaps I should—"

  Sagan said nothing, cast him one sharp, commanding look, and removed his arm from the priest's grasp.

  Fideles understood, kept quiet. He took a step forward, after the Warlord. Brother Mikael, who had remained standing aside respectfully to let Sagan out the door, turned his body to block the exit when Fideles approached.

  "I had assumed, Brother, that you would want to wait for Lord Sagan's return here, in his cell," said the monk.

  "Thank you for your thoughtfulness, Brother," said Fideles, "but I have taken a vow to pray all night, on my knees before the alter of God in the chapel, to ask for salvation for my lord's father's soul."

  "May your prayers be answered," said Brother Mikael reverently, bowing his head and standing aside to allow Fideles to pass him. "You remember the way to the chapel, Brother?"

  "Yes, certainly," snapped Fideles. Brother Mikael's sudden meek acquiescence was disconcerting. "Thank you, Brother, for your concern," the priest added in gentler tones, "but I lived here for many years. I am not likely to ever forget my way."

  Brother Mikael's hooded head nodded. "Then I will offer myself as escort to Lord Sagan."

  The two of them left, walking down the hall in the light of Brother Mikael's lantern. Fideles remained alone in the room. He waited until his lord and the monk had passed beyond his sight, then he took the candle from the desk, lit it at the flickering, perfumed flame of the lamp upon the altar.

  "'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,'" he said to himself quietly, " 'I will fear no evil; for thou art with me.' Be with my lord, as well," he prayed, and walked into the dark and empty hall.

  Chapter Five

  In the midst of life we are in death.

  Prayer Book, 1662, Burial of the Dead

  The monk, Brother Mikael, walked the dark corridors of the Abbey, his lantern held steady to light the way before him. Sagan followed after, his head bowed, his hood pulled low over his face. Neither said a word. The Warlord did not attempt to engage the monk in snare-laden conversation; he did not try to see past the shadows hiding the monk's face.

  If this Brother Mikael were truly one of Abdiel's minions, one of the mind-dead, he would be easily recognized by his expressionless face, his empty, vacant stare. Sagan could have, with one swift movement, yanked the hood from off the monk's head, discovered the truth. The Warlord's hands, hidden within his sleeves, were clasped together in prayer. He already knew the truth. He knew he was not following a monk. Derek Sagan was following God.

  The narrow hallways they traversed were empty. When they passed open areas, such as the candle-lit, incense-warm chapel, other members of the Order could be seen, moving silently about their business. The hooded heads almost always turned in their direction, unseen eyes watched their slow and solemn progress.

  The monk led the way past a herbarium; the Warlord could tell the nature of the room by its smell of moist soil and growing, living things. He caught a glimpse, in the lantern's light, of bunches of dried stalks and leaves hanging in neat rows from the rafters, of flasks carefully and neatly labeled, of a mortar and pestle on a worktable.

  We will be near the infirmary, he thought, remembering the layout of the monastery where he had spent the first twelve years of his life. His father would be in the infirmary, where the sick and injured were taken to mend, where the dying were taken to ease their last hours.

  A tremor of dread and excitement shook the Warlord's frame, a burning as of a fever swept over his body, his stomach clenched. Pain shot through his hands, clasped together too tightly. Blood pulsed and throbbed in his head, obscuring his vision.

  But the monk walked past the infirmary without pausing.

  The Warlord went cold, suddenly, as in battle, when the initial adrenal rush wanes and you are left, cold and empty, to simply do a job. He became aware of his surroundings, saw that they were in a cul-de-sac; the hallway ended, there was no passage out. A door, marked with the inscription, Requiem aeternam, stood at the end.

  Sagan glanced back at the infirmary. A coal fire lit the room, to keep those within comfortably warm. But no one lay in the beds, no invalids sat upright in wheeled chairs, no herbalist fussed over his patients. The monk reached the door. Stretching out his hand, he pushed it open and stood aside humbly, indicating that the Warlord was to enter.

  Sagan drew back. He had no need to ask where he was. The inscription, the smell of dank stone, and the flow of chill air that brushed his cheek told him.

  "Why have you brought me here?" he asked sternly. "Is my father dead, then? Why didn't you tell me?"

  Brother Mikael seemed disinclined to answer. He held the lantern high, lighting the way into the room, indicating, with an almost imperceptible nod, that Sagan was to enter. When it became clear, however, that the Warlord would not stir a step, the monk responded.

  "Your father lives."

  "Then take me to him!" Sagan demanded.

  "I have," Brother Mikael answered softly.

  "This is the mortuary!" the Warlord stated, endeavoring to control his rising anger.

  "It was his wish," said Brother Mikael.

  Sagan stared at the monk, who stood impassive in the doorway, body pressed against it to leave room for the Warlord to go past him. Abruptly, Sagan walked by, entered the chamber.

  The mortuary was a large, unheated, windowless room made completely of stone. A grooved channel, cut into the floor, carried away the water used to wash the bodies of the dead, prepare them for the final rest. In the center of the room stood a stone bier, flanked by four wrought-iron candle holders, as tall as the height of a man, supporting thick, round beeswax candles. By the soft candlelight, Sagan saw upon the bier not a corpse, but the body of a living man.

  Derek Sagan had, in his time, boarded enemy ships, knowing he was outnumbered ten to one, aware that unless he was quick and cunning, certain death awaited him. He'd done so confidently, boldly, without fear. But he could not now take another step. He was suddenly weak and frightened as a child, lost and alone in the darkness. He looked at the robed figure lying on the bier, its body covered with a thin, worn blanket, and the candle flames grew large in his swimming vision, their fire threatening to engulf him. A faintness seized him, he came near sinking to his knees.

  "Deus miserere!" he gasped, and at the sound, the head upon the bier turned, the eyes looked at him.

  His father had always seemed old to Sagan, though the priest had been relatively young when he had broken his vows and been forced to reap the bitter fruit of his sin. Derek's earliest memories were of a stern and implacable face, deeply lined with the ravages of shame and guilt and the self-inflicted pain and privation that was the anguished soul's only ease. Before the young child knew this man, called only the Dark Monk, to be his father, Derek sensed a bond between them. It was a terrible bond, never mentioned, never alluded to by anyone, but visible in the burning eyes of the Dark Monk whenever their to
rmented gaze rested on the child.

  When Derek was ten, and it was believed the precocious child could understand, the abbot took the boy into his study one day and, in a few blunt words, explained to Derek his father's sin, his father's chosen penance—a vow of eternal silence—and his father's wish that Derek be raised within the Order's dark, thick, impenetrable walls. A king's command had altered that, but it could not alter the fact that Derek knew, from that moment on, that life had been granted him only at the cost of his father's disgrace and eternal suffering.

  During Derek's first twelve years, spent daily in his father's company, the Dark Monk said no word to his child. At the end of those twelve years, when Derek left to enter the world, his father did not come to bid him good-bye.

  But now the son had come to bid good-bye to the father.

  God heard Sagan's prayer, granted him the strength to move forward. He came to stand beside the bier, near his father. Sickness and old age had smoothed out and softened the stern, grim harshness of the features. Lines of torment that had been carved deeply into the cheeks were now blurred by the wasting away of the flesh. The lips, the stern guardians of the vow, once pressed together so firmly, were flaccid and shriveled. The man's body, formerly strong and muscular and unbent beneath its self-imposed burden of pain, was thin and skeletal and shook beneath the blanket and the too-large brown robes. Derek might not have recognized his father except for the eyes. Their gaze he knew. Their gaze he remembered.

  He slowly folded back the cowl from his head.

  The eyes of the dying man watched every move, searched the face, absorbed it, and then the head rolled back upon its hard, cold pillow. The eyes closed, not in peace, it seemed, but in bitter despair.

  "He is very near the end," came a voice from out of the shadows.

  Sagan was not surprised to hear the voice. He realized, when it spoke he'd been expecting it.

  The candlelight shone upon a bulbous head, tottering precariously on a neck that was far too slender to support it, and caused the head to seem to spring suddenly from the darkness, like a demon conjured from the shadows. The hairless head was grotesquely disfigured, covered by unsightly patches of decayed skin, several smallish lumps. Two large nodules protruded from the base of the neck.

  The man was old, every bit as old as the dying man lying on die bier, and seemed in not much better health, for though wrapped in thick, heavy robes, he shook and shivered. The voice, however, was strong, if thin, and indicative of an indomitable will:

  "Abdiel," said Sagan, an acknowledgment rather than an exclamation.

  "A pleasure, my lord, to see you again after so many years. I am, however, rather disappointed. You're not surprised to see me. It would almost appear that you were expecting me. I trust Mikael and the others in the cast have not misplayed their roles? Ah, no. I begin to understand. The astute Brother Fideles could not be fooled. Where is young 'Faithful'? Out investigating, perhaps? You won't tell me? No matter. He will come to me ... or should I say 'to you,' my lord."

  "I'm the one you want. Let the priest go."

  "Oh, I intend to, my dear. He'll leave here quite unharmed. I want my message delivered safely. And you've arranged for his departure with your usual efficiency, Sagan; left me nothing to do except to have a little talk with him."

  The Warlord did not appear to hear Abdiel, nor care about the ominous implication of the mind-seizer's words. He had, after a first, brief, and almost uninterested glance at the old man, turned his gaze back to his father.

  "Now that you have me, remove my father to the infirmary, where he may spend his last hours in peace."

  Abdiel appeared faintly insulted. "Really, Derek, I am not such a monster as you suppose. Admittedly I used your father to bait my trap—rather cunning of me, you must admit—but I would never needlessly torment a dying man.

  "Believe me, I would myself have been far more comfortable waiting your arrival in a warm room instead of this dank tomb. Mikael told you the truth about this, if very little else.

  "We found the Dark Monk here in the mortuary upon our arrival. Apparently, when he discovered his death was imminent, he asked that his living body be brought here and laid upon this bed where customarily only the corpse lies. I deemed it best not to move him, for fear he might not survive the transfer. I knew, you see, that you would not come unless you believed in your heart that he lived. It became critical, therefore, for me to keep him alive. I assure you, Derek, that his own son could not have taken better care of him."

  Abdiel chuckled at his little joke.

  Sagan ignored the mind-seizer. The Warlord knelt beside the dying man's bier, clasped the wasted hand.

  "My father, will you die without granting me your final blessing? Do you hate me that much?"

  The head turned, the eyes opened. The mouth moved, lips forming words the voice had long ago forgotten, or had perhaps never known, how to speak.

  "Hate . . . you? My son. My son ..."

  The eyes closed in wrenching anguish. The hand holding fast to Sagan's tightened, expending the frail body's last energies. Two tears, squeezed from beneath the waxen eye-lids, rolled down the gaunt cheeks. The lips moved, stirred perhaps by the last breath. Perhaps forming a last word.

  "Forgive ..."

  The hand slowly relaxed its grip. The folds of the blanket across the chest rose and fell no more. Sagan remained kneeling in reverent silence, the thin hand pressed to his breast. Then, rising slowly to his feet, the Warlord kissed his father's hand, placed it on the sunken chest.

  "'Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus Dominus, Deus Sabaoth. Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua. Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts,'" Sagan chanted, moving with solemn mien, bowed head, and slow step around the head of the bier.

  Glancing swiftly from beneath reverently lowered eyelids, he saw Abdiel, huddled within the thick robes, shivering, in the shadows, watching with morbid interest. He stood alone. Mikael, guarding the door, could never hope to move fast enough to prevent his master's death at Sagan's hands. The old man's scrawny neck in that bone-crushing grip, a swift twist, a snap. . . .

  The Warlord was near the mind-seizer now. Only a few steps separated them. Sagan started to lift the other flaccid hand that lay by the corpse's side, to compose the limbs for their final rest. His voice rose, "'Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory . . .'"

  The Warlord turned suddenly, swiftly, made a lunge for Abdiel. He was within arm's length of squeezing the life from the mind-seizer when a glittering object rose up before Sagan's eyes.

  His brain reacted instinctively, analyzing the danger, halting his body's forward movement. He jerked backward, lost his balance, fell painfully on one knee. Breathing heavily, he remained crouched on the stone floor at Abdiel's feet, a prey to a terror he hadn't imagined it possible he could know, his eyes staring in disbelief at the object in the mind-seizer's hand.

  "I knew nothing else would stop you, Derek." Abdiel smiled unpleasantly. He twisted and twirled the object in his hand, caused its crystal and gold to shine in the light. "Certainly not the threat of death. What would death matter to you, if you could save the life of your precious king? For you know, don't you, my lord, that Dion is my only object. But this . . . the serpent's tooth. . . . You're afraid, aren't you, Derek? I don't need to probe your mind to find out the truth. I see your fear."

  The object the mind-seizer held appeared innocuous, some type of elaborate and ceremonial weapon resembling a scythe. Its handle was made of gold and styled to resemble the scaled head and upper body of a striking snake. From the snake's mouth protruded a blade made of gleaming crystal.

  The blade gave the weapon its name: serpent's tooth. Shaped like a snake's fang, the clear crystal was actually a hollow vial that had been honed to a needle-sharp point. Such a fragile instrument could not penetrate armor. It seemed too delicate to penetrate flesh. But Derek Sagan, staring at the weapon in the old man's shaking, palsied hand, made no move against him.

  The blade didn't need to p
enetrate. One scratch across the skin, barely breaking the surface, was enough. The poison in the crystal vial entered the body swiftly, and, once within, there was no antidote.

  "Every man has his breaking point, even you, Derek Sagan." Abdiel began to withdraw from the room, gliding backward, keeping the serpent's tooth between himself and the Warlord.

  The precaution seemed needless. Sagan remained on his knees, head lowered, shoulders hunched. Abdiel never took his gaze from the Warlord. Reaching the door, speaking to Mikael, the mind-seizer still kept watch on his victim.

  "Give the signal," Abdiel commanded.

  Mikael nodded, shoved open the door. Twenty of the mind-dead stood in the corridor. Robed in brown, disguised as monks, each held a scourge in his hand. One by one, they began to file into the mortuary, ranged themselves around the walls.

  "I want him beaten, injured, broken, but not dead. He has information in his head that I need."

  Mikael glanced at the huddled figure of the Warlord. "You have defeated him, master. A great victory."

  "You think so, my dear? No, Sagan is merely in shock. Soon he will recover his wits, he will start to think, to plot, to plan and figure a way to try to defeat me. Look, Mikael. Look how, even now, he begins to shake off his horror.

  "Look at him raise his head, see the gleam in his eyes. If I joined with him now, even under the threat of this"—Abdiel gestured with the serpent's tooth—"his mind would be strong enough to resist me. Pain and suffering and the despair of knowing himself helpless, a prisoner, will soften him up."

  "Yes, master."

  Mikael made a sign with his hand. The mind-dead began to move forward, wielding the scourges. Small whips, they were made of thirteen strands of leather soaked in brine. Each stroke of the lash inflicted a vicious cut in the flesh; the salt, entering the wound, stung and burned. At the end of each of the thirteen strips dangled a sharpened piece of metal, like a nail, meant to puncture, rip, and tear.