by D. P. Prior
Everything had been going according to Ain’s will. Everything, that is, except Rhiannon.
***
The Gray Abbot watched Shader remove his rain-drenched hat and coat, revealing a white tunic with an embroidered red Monas over a mail hauberk. The embellished scabbards of two exquisite swords were belted to his waist. Apparently the trip to Aeterna had resolved nothing. A shame, but not a surprise. Some men are born wolves. Even if they suppress their true nature, they seldom make good contemplatives. You only needed to look at Blightey to see that. The human obsession with immortality and control buried beneath the soil of sanctity only to fight its way to the surface as a spray of strangling creepers, weeds that still infected the Templum today.
Shader’s face was gaunt as a skull, cold eyes glinting from shadowy sockets. Black hair framed sunken cheeks, splaying across his shoulders, the barest suggestion of a widow’s peak retreating from a high forehead. His shoulders were square like a swimmer’s, waist narrow, legs long and terminating in knee-length boots of worn leather. White hands ridged with veins hovered defensively over the pommels of both swords, betraying the discomfort that his lips failed to utter.
Shader pivoted with practiced grace and reached up to hang his coat on the peg by the door—an unconscious gesture, no doubt, but further indication that he was not staying. Even here in Pardes, he moved lightly on the balls of his feet, the fruit of years of training that refused to give ground to the disciplines of the abbey.
“Your friend Aristodeus came to see me during your stay in Oakendale,” the Gray Abbot addressed Shader’s back. The knight stood motionless, prompting him to go on. “You are not surprised?”
“He travels a lot.”
The Gray Abbot pressed his palms together beneath his nose. “He struck me as rather paternalistic, mapping out the best path for his son.”
“That’s why my father employed him.”
“Interesting. The guidance of a parent is a mixed blessing, don’t you think? Tajen wrote that it is our duty to obey, irrespective of whether the parent is right or wrong.”
“But that obligation ends with the death of the parent,” Shader finished for him.
“Quite, but was he speaking literally or figuratively? I suppose we’ll never know. What we have, though, is a conflict between heart and duty.”
The Gray Abbot opened the door to the long corridor flanked by the cells of the brothers. He gestured Shader inside and followed him, letting the door slam behind.
“Entrance halls are places of ambivalence,” he explained. “Neither one thing nor the other.” He glanced at Shader for a reaction, but the knight seemed lost in his own thoughts.
“Did Aristodeus say he wanted me here?”
“Not exactly. My guess is that he wanted you to imbibe the sanctity of the abbey. Probably sees it as character building. I am not altogether foolish, my friend. I’ve lived a long time—perhaps even longer than he has. I’ve seen many things, witnessed great events, acts of surpassing goodness and deeds of unimaginable evil. There are those who would take a stronger stand against the wrongs of the world than I have done.”
Shader stopped to lean against the door of a cell. He fixed the Gray Abbot with an intense blue stare. In the flickering torchlight of the corridor he looked spectral, unearthly, a being not quite suited to the world he found himself in.
“If we are the hands and feet of Nous…”
“Why does evil go unpunished? Injustice go unchecked?” The Gray Abbot tried not to appear smug, but the conversation was unfurling just as he’d hoped.
“Pater Abbot, I am a fighter through and through. I cannot stand by whilst the poor are enslaved, children are harmed, women raped.”
“You have seen all this?”
“Some, but that is not my point. The world is full of evil and yet the Templum does nothing, except when the threat’s on its own doorstep. The only reason we were sent against Blightey at Trajinot is because Latia would have been next.”
The Gray Abbot clapped a hand on the knight’s shoulder and they continued their stroll along the rows of cells.
“Luminary Narcus wrote that shame often leads us to criticism of the Templum.” He held his breath, waiting for the explosion he assumed would come. It wouldn’t be the first time. Shader was riddled with the pride that strengthened a warrior, but was deadly to a monk. Surprisingly, he just smiled and shook his head.
“You read me too well, Pater Abbot.”
“Rhiannon?”
Shader shuddered as he drew in a deep breath. “Is it possible to atone for such sin? It feels as if my soul is partway to the Abyss.”
The Gray Abbot laughed—he hoped it was a gentle, well-meaning laugh. “Frater, it is no sin to love a woman. Ain would be a capricious god indeed if that were the case.”
“But the Liber—”
“Says a lot of things that would have Ain blasting the world with lightning—if he were capable of rage, and if he actually wielded destruction like a petulant child.”
Shader’s jaw dropped, but the Gray Abbot pressed on. “Story-book language for little children. And as for sex—” He assumed an expression of grim seriousness. “Things have insinuated their way into the Liber since the time of the Reckoning that would be unrecognizable to the luminaries of old.” Maybe not unrecognizable, he thought to himself, but certainly unorthodox. “The friar, Otto Blightey—”
“The Liche Lord of Verusia?”
“Indeed. Blightey wasn’t always evil. His was once the most hallowed name in Nousia. When the Templum rose from the ashes of the Reckoning, Blightey was the foremost advisor to the Ipsissimus. He gathered the fragments of holy writings that would form the Liber and helped weave them into a system that appealed to the widest range of people. It was the glue that bonded the nations and gave them the strength to emerge from the cataclysm. Once it was finished, all traces of the old scriptures were erased in the name of unity. Not everything in the Liber was orthodox, though. Blightey introduced elements that would have been condemned by the Old Faith. You’ve no doubt been bewildered by the lack of cohesion in the scriptures.”
Shader nodded, a deep frown etched into his forehead.
The Gray Abbot went on. “It doesn’t quite fit together.” That was an understatement. “There are conflicting elements, paradoxes. The Liber is riddled with misprision and traducement. Don’t get me wrong, the truth still resides there, but it is hidden like a diamond in a swamp. You should speak to Frater Gardol about it. He’s spent years identifying the authentic voice of the first Luminaries, tracing a golden thread through the pages of the Liber. His knowledge surpasses even mine, and I was raised with the original scriptures. Unfortunately recollection grows more and more unreliable the longer you live. It’s still not quite the book I was raised with, but it’s a good start. If only I’d had mine copied before it crumbled into dust we could have avoided a lot of confusion—assuming the Ipsissimus would accept it after all this time. But to return to the point about carnal love, its association with sin is a later interpolation. Ain, if Frater Gardol is to be believed, not only tells us it’s a good thing, he positively commands it.”
“But what about us?”
“The consecrated? Celibates? Either we are the blessed or the deluded. Either Ain has set us aside for a special task or we have been deceived—in which case we are the children of the Abyss, not those who fall in love.”
Shader’s face was creased with angst. “I still don’t know what I should do.”
The Gray Abbot sighed and laid a hand upon his shoulder. “I think the tournament clarified one thing.” He eyed the swords buckled at Shader’s waist. “You have established that Pardes is not for you.”
“You won’t have me back?”
“It was not I who bore weapons into the abbey. I would say, my friend, that you have already chosen your path.”
Shader sagged as if he’d received a punch in the stomach. He hung there for a moment, bent over at the waist, hands on
hips. The Gray Abbot took hold of his shoulders, afraid he was going to fall. Shader waved him away and slowly straightened up. He nodded, meeting the Gray Abbot’s gaze, tears streaking his cheeks.
“It has been a lie.” Shader’s voice was harsh and grating. “I’ve known all along, but didn’t want to believe it. Tell me, Pater, can a man kill and still love Ain?”
“It’s what the Elect do. It’s what you are: a consecrated knight. A monk of war.”
Shader’s head was shaking vigorously. “I tried, Pater. I tried so hard.”
“I know. I remember the beating you took outside the pub. Faith doesn’t get more heroic than that. But it’s not you. The real you would have fought back, probably killed the whole lot of them. I can only guess at Ain’s reasons, but he has made you for sterner things than the life of a monk. If we are destined to be the hands of Nous, is it so hard to imagine a hand wielding a sword? At the abbey we oppose evil with silence. Perhaps that is not enough.” The Gray Abbot knew that to be the case, knew that some evil could not be defeated with love; which is why Blightey had been hounded into the forests of Verusia by the full might of Aeterna.
“But Rhiannon refused me.”
The Gray Abbot wouldn’t have been surprised to detect the hand of Aristodeus in that as well, or the meddling Huntsman, whom the philosopher had ostensibly come to see.
“She has her own path to discern. If it is Ain’s will, you will be together. In the meantime, Frater, you may stay here. Resume the life of the abbey as best you can and let us see if we can hear the voice of Ain above the din.”
THE SICARII
Shadrak dropped from the rooftop, rolled and came up standing in the shadows cast by the Tower of Glass. The monolith reached to the stars, its surface mirroring the night’s blackness and rippling in the moonlight. An old woman hacked and coughed as she tottered past, a heavy basket in each hand. Something about her reminded Shadrak of Kadee—the crook of her back, the chin tucked into her chest, eyes on the ground. He was half a step towards giving her a hand when she coughed again, this time more violently, blood spattering the ground. Shadrak pulled his hood tight over his nose and mouth and waited for her to pass.
Looking about to make sure he wasn’t seen, he sprinted for the shadows cast by the lintel above the doors, which were smooth like the rest of the tower, meeting in the middle with a hairline crack. Pulling on a soft leather glove, he flipped open the cover of a panel and pressed a sequence of buttons. There was a rush of air as the doors parted. Shadrak stepped across the threshold removing the glove, careful not to touch the outside where it had been in contact with the buttons, and flinging it into a cylindrical container in the entrance hall.
Soft light pulsed from long strips set into the ceiling, illuminating the marble stairs leading to the next floor. A red triangle shone above a recess housing a silver door that slid open as he approached. Stepping into the cubicle, he pressed button number 75 and braced himself as the door shut and the cubicle started to shudder. His stomach lurched and he staggered, supporting himself with a hand on the rear wall. The light in the ceiling flickered and a low drone raced towards a shrill whine before the cubicle juddered to a halt. The door hissed open onto a corridor of windows that overlooked the sleeping city from a dizzying height. A covered cart was making its way along Weaver Street towards the monument of Gorkan the Great in the plaza, where bodies were starting to pile up.
Shadrak crept to the door at the far end, opened it enough to slip through, and slunk into the shadows. A black-cloaked figure stood guard at the end of a passageway lined with doors. Shadrak approached, silent as the grave, and pressed the tip of his finger into the guard’s back. The man squealed and raised his hands. Shadrak gave him a friendly pat.
“All right, Tony?”
The assassin turned and looked down at him. “You sneaky little sod. Scared the bleeding life out o’ me! Better go in, they’re waiting.”
The meeting room was a small amphitheater with banks of colored chairs that rotated upon narrow pedestals. Half the seats were occupied by black-cloaked Sicarii journeymen, all eyes upon him as he entered. The guild’s four masters sat below them around a crescent shaped table made of red glass. The windows were shuttered to prevent any spill of the wavering light coming from strips of crystal set into the ceiling.
“Good o’ you to join us, Shadrak.” Master Paldane smiled through thin lips, his good eye bloodshot and blinking, the other milky and blind.
“Don’t leave the Maze much these days, Master.”
“Except on imperial business,” sniped Master Grayling, looking painfully thin, a rash of blisters almost completely covering one side of his face. “Don’t think we didn’t hear about the visit you paid a certain Bovis Rayn.”
“Weren’t by choice, as well you know, Master.” There’d been six smart-dressed men waiting for him when he’d got home that night. Gave him the choice of taking the job or languishing in the imperial dungeons for the crime of being an assassin. Shameless hypocrisy. Would’ve had bright futures, if they’d not been so easy to find. “Someone broke my cover, told ’em where I lived.” Someone in this room, most likely.
Shadrak scanned the assembled assassins, many of whom looked down, pretending not to be watching him. Only the poisoner, Albert, caught his gaze, piggy eyes flitting from him to the table as he deftly sliced some cheese with a garrote. He looked more like a restaurateur than a paid killer, dressed in a sharp black jacket and pressed trousers in the style of the Ancients. From the neck up he resembled nothing more than a Nousian monk, with the narrow band of dark hair camping out at the base of his shiny scalp.
Master Rabalath looked down his broken nose at Shadrak. “You should be more careful,” he began, the other masters already nodding their agreement. “When people know where you live it’s hard to remain unseen. Whatever you might argue, the only way for a Sicarii to pick up a job is through us. Anything else gets … messy.”
“If the emperor’s men come to my house with a job, I have to assume it’s ’cause one o’ you shopped me.” There was a rustle of cloaks around the amphitheater “Can’t say I take too kindly to that.” Shadrak made a show of scraping the dirt from beneath his fingernails.
“How’s your old mom, Shadrak?” asked Master Frayn, the youngest of the masters, lean and muscular to the point of vanity, and sporting a thin, oiled mustache. “Must say I found her rather charming, for a Dreamer.”
Muffled giggles and exchanged whispers.
Kadee might not have been his real mother, but she was the best person he’d known. Almost good enough to balance out his darker leanings. But not quite.
“Died last winter.” Speaking the words made it so much more real. If he hadn’t had his anger, he might have shown weakness. “Surprised you didn’t know, intelligence being your strong point and all.”
Frayn stiffened at the slight. A master out of touch was a master in danger of losing the respect of those below him; and the Sicarii were always jostling for position. It was positively encouraged.
Shadrak gave his most malignant grin to Frayn, at the same time imagining what it would feel like to rip that ridiculous mustache from his face along with the skin. “Good of you to ask, though. Makes me feel tingly all over, knowing a master cares about my family. How’s the little nipper coming on, Frayn? He must be, what, two? Three? No better part of the city to raise a child than Charinbrook, wouldn’t you say?”
The blood drained from Frayn’s face, and he glowered whilst tugging the ends of his mustache straight.
“But to answer your concerns, Master Rabalath, the emperor’s men who paid me a visit won’t be doing that again. Took the job, did the bastard, then did the scuts that hired me. Now I’m guessing if anyone else knows where to find me, they must be in this room.” He gave them all a good look, let them know he was memorizing their faces. “As to the matter of freelancing, I find the suggestion … insulting.” He made sure the last word hung heavy in the air.
A
lbert cocked an eyebrow, but Shadrak tried to keep his face blank. If the guild found out the pair of them had been creaming off some lucrative contracts the past few years, things could turn very nasty. He didn’t doubt Albert had already prepared something suitably deadly in case they were made: an air-born toxin or a contact poison to be daubed on the seats of the latrines; but there were other Sicarii equally as dangerous, and you didn’t get to be a master without knowing how to survive your colleagues whilst having them retired on the quiet.
“Glad to hear it,” Rabalath said, to the nodded agreement of everyone in the room.
“So,” Frayn sneered, back to his pompous-arsed self, “how’s it going in your shitty little kingdom under the city?”
Shadrak stared at Frayn for an uncomfortably long time. The master’s cheek twitched and he began to fiddle with his mustache.
“Found more Ancient-tech weapons?” Paldane sought to ease the tension.
“No.” Shadrak wasn’t about to tell them the truth about that. “Reckon mine’s the only one. But to answer Master Frayn, I’ve spent hours beneath Arnbrook House. Seems the council are a bit jittery about this plague.”
“As are we all,” Rabalath wheezed, coughing into a handkerchief like he was about to drop dead from it.
“Governor’s been spending a lot of time with his public health advisor. Seems they’re trying to reassure Jorakum, get this blasted quarantine lifted.”
“That’ll be my man Cadman.” Frayn sat back with his arms folded across his chest, looking at the other masters like a schoolboy who’d just come top of the class.
“No doubt Hagalle thinks the plague’s punishment for all the missionaries he’s shogged in the arse and sent scarpering back to Nousia,” Grayling said. “Templum curse or some bollocks.”
Frayn frowned and sat upright, stroking his chin and looking all business, as if he were commanding everyone’s attention. As if he were head of the guild and not Rabalath. He opened his mouth to speak—