“Ah, Your Grace,” Jalkan said. “I can’t really go anyplace just now. I’m all chained up, remember?”
“Why, so you are, Jalkan,” Adnari Estarg replied with feigned astonishment. “Isn’t it peculiar that I didn’t notice that myself?”
“Things have changed just a bit, Rabell,” Jalkan announced when he returned to the ancient convenium.
“Changed? How?” the fat man demanded suspiciously.
“Right after I checked out Adnari Radan’s palace, I went back to my cell to put the notes I’d taken into some kind of order, but there were three Regulators waiting for me.”
“Regulators?” Rabell exclaimed. “How is it that you’re still alive?”
“The Regulators aren’t quite that savage, Rabell. They chained me up, of course, and then they dragged me across town to the palace of Adnari Estarg.”
Rabell’s face went suddenly pale, and he started to tremble.
“The Adnari had evidently heard some rumors about what we’re doing, so he wrung the truth out of me.”
“If we hurry, we can be out of Kaldacin by sunset,” Rabell said in a squeaky kind of voice.
“Don’t get excited, Rabell. After the Adnari had heard the details of what we’ve been up to, he declared that from now on, we’ll be taking orders from him.”
“Is this all some kind of elaborate joke, Jalkan? If it is, you’ll notice that I’m not laughing very much.”
“Stay with me, Rabell. He told me that he was going to issue a proclamation to the effect that all Church property and buildings are required to be listed in official Church documents, and that the exact dimensions of every single room in all those buildings must be included. That proclamation will have his seal on it, and I’ll have it in my pocket. Whoever happens to be living there right now will be required to open the door and let me in. A week or so from now our people will be robbing houses we didn’t even know existed—and the handlers who take care of the children will be wearing the uniforms of Church Regulators, so nobody in his right mind will interfere in any way at all.”
A look of astonished wonder came over Rabell’s face. “We’re going to get rich, Jalkan!” he chortled. “We’re going to go way, way past rich! If I happen to be just dreaming, please don’t wake me up!”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, my dear friend,” Jalkan promised.
And then they both howled with laughter.
The Regulator who’d arrested Jalkan a few months earlier tapped politely on Jalkan’s cell door, and he was much more civil this time. “Adnari Estarg would have a word with you, Hiera Jalkan,” he said mildly.
“I’ll come at once,” Jalkan said, rising quickly to his feet.
They moved through the streets of imperial Kaldacin to the palace of the Adnari, and Jalkan was immediately admitted to Estarg’s study.
“Ah, there you are, Jalkan,” the fat churchman said. “Things might be looking up for us.”
“Oh?”
“Holy Naos Parok VII seems to be having some serious health problems. His assorted physicians have advised me that he won’t be around too much longer.”
“I’ll pray that he recovers, Your Grace,” Jalkan declared piously.
“We all will, of course,” Estarg agreed, “but let’s not overdo it. Divine Amar’s very busy right now—changing the seasons, making sure that the sun rises and sets when she’s supposed to—all those tedious little details that take up so very much of a god’s time. Parok VII has had a full life, and he’s done very well. The Church will miss him terribly, of course, but time moves on, and as soon as the holy old fool dies, he’ll have to be replaced.”
“I’ve got a fair idea of who’s going to ascend the holy throne when dear Parok leaves us,” Jalkan declared.
3
As it turned out, however, things didn’t go exactly as Hiera Jalkan and Adnari Estarg had been most certain that they would. All right-thinking men know that mighty Kaldacin is the very center of the universe, and that Divine Amar had intended it to be so since the beginning of time.
There were heretics, however—mostly in the southern reaches of the Empire—who steadfastly refused to accept the desires of Divine Amar. Rational men knew that Divine Amar had, in his infinite wisdom, chosen Adnari Estarg to succeed Holy Parok VII as Naos of all the world, but the heretics of the south turned away and, without consultation of any kind, they elevated a little-known Oran named Udar to the holy throne of the Naos.
The churchmen of mighty Kaldacin thought that was terribly funny, and they laughed long and hard at this colossal absurdity.
The laughter faded, however, when twelve armies marched up from the south and surrounded mighty Kaldacin.
The citizens of Kaldacin didn’t think that was very appropriate, so they turned to the various armies whose compounds lay within the city walls.
The armies, however, followed the advice of the well-known Commander Narasan when he declared, “We don’t get involved in religious squabbles.”
“But what are we going to do?” the civil and religious authorities wailed.
“I’d strongly advise capitulation,” Narasan replied. “That’s entirely up to you, though.” And he turned around and walked away.
The imperial government collapsed about then, and the armies of the south met little resistance as they marched through the gates. They occupied the imperial palace and the holy convenium of the Amarite church. The heretics of the south delivered several ultimatums to the true Church hierarchy. The ultimatums were couched in formal terms, of course, but the meaning was fairly clear. “If you don’t do exactly as we tell you, we’ll kill you,” gets right to the point.
The ceremony that elevated the little-known Udar to the position of Naos took less than half an hour, and the acceptance speech of Naos Udar IV took even less time. He said, “Divine Amar has sent me here to cleanse the Church, and I will obey him. If anybody here gets in my way, I’ll trample him into the dust.”
A sudden chill came over Jalkan at that point.
“Will anyone here speak in the defense of this foul miscreant?” the ornately robed Amarite judge demanded, giving the chained prisoner Jalkan a look of profoundest contempt.
Jalkan cringed, looking hopefully at his friend, Adnari Estarg.
Estarg, however, turned his eyes away, and Jalkan’s last hope faded.
“I didn’t really think so,” the judge declared. “Unfortunately, Church law forbids a sentence of death for any member of the clergy—even one of such low rank as the accused. It is therefore the decision of this court that the accused shall be taken hence to a public square and there shall he receive fifty lashes and then be stripped of his membership in the clergy. Let it be known further that no adherent of the Amarite faith shall have any contact with this vile beast, nor will shelter or food be made available to him for so long as he lives. Now get this trash out of my sight.”
The Regulators stripped Jalkan down to his loincloth, chained him to the post in the middle of the square, and then flogged him to within an inch of his life with long whips, ignoring his screams and shrill cries for mercy.
He was blubbering and bleeding profusely when they unchained him. He snatched up his clothes and fled with the mocking laughter of the crowd of commoners who had gathered to watch his punishment following him.
He went into a secluded alley and pulled on his clothes, muttering curses all the while. Everything had been going so well, and then that cursed Udar had usurped the divine throne of the Naos, and Jalkan’s world had all gone to pieces.
Adnari Estarg had betrayed him to protect himself, but the high churchman probably hadn’t had much choice in the matter.
Right now, Jalkan had something much more important to attend to. It was absolutely essential for him to return to his cell in the Church dormitory to gather up his clothes and other belongings before word of his ejection from the Church became general knowledge. Far more important than clothes, however, was the carefully concealed purse under his
cot. In his present circumstances, that money was an absolute necessity. Without the purse, he’d be a pauper with no prospects whatsoever.
As luck had it, the novice who was guarding the door of the Church dormitory was half-drunk, and he waved Jalkan through without any questions. Jalkan nodded briefly and went directly to his cell.
He heaved an enormous sigh of relief when he entered. Nothing had been disturbed—yet. He was certain that when word of his recent dismissal got out, people would be standing in line waiting for the opportunity to rummage through his cell. Wincing in pain, he crawled under his cot and retrieved the worn-out old shoe lying against the back wall. The weight of that discarded shoe brightened an otherwise gloomy day.
Jalkan discarded his clergyman’s robe and garbed himself in his best clothing. Then he took the heavy purse out of the tired old shoe and tucked it down into the top of his boot. He gave his cell a final look. All in all, his career in the Church had been quite profitable, but it was obviously time to move on.
The recent refusal of Commander Narasan to become involved in Church squabbles raised an interesting possibility. Jalkan was fairly sure that his purse filled with gold crowns would get Commander Narasan’s immediate attention, and a career as an army officer might be even more exciting than a career in the Church. “I guess it’s worth a try,” he muttered to himself as he left the dormitory. “I think I’ve just about exhausted the possibilities the Church has to offer, and I was getting more than a little tired of all the praying and groveling anyway.”
4
Jalkan had a bit of trouble adjusting to military life. There hadn’t been much physical activity involved in being a member of the clergy, so he wasn’t really in very good shape. Running five miles before breakfast every morning corrected that after a few weeks, but he still didn’t like it very much.
Then there’d been his training in swordsmanship, and after a very short time he’d come to hate the balding officer named Gunda, who was his instructor. Jalkan had assumed that his very expensive commission as an officer in Commander Narasan’s army had bought him a certain amount of respect, but Gunda didn’t seem to understand the meaning of the word “respect,” and his vocabulary was quite colorful. Every time Jalkan made the slightest mistake, Gunda showered him with curses and ridicule.
In time, however, Jalkan became more proficient, but he still couldn’t see why it was necessary. He was an officer, after all. He was supposed to give orders, not become involved in the actual business of killing people. That was the job of the ordinary soldiers, not the officers.
It was about a month after Jalkan had bought his commission that Commander Narasan’s army had been hired to take part in a small war off to the east of the empire. The officer named Padan referred to the war as “a slight unpleasantness.” Padan, Jalkan felt, had a very warped sense of humor. To Jalkan’s way of looking at things, “unpleasantness” was a gross understatement.
After a year or so, Jalkan became better adjusted to the life of a soldier, and he even began to enjoy it. Because Commander Narasan was perhaps the finest and most skilled strategist in all the Empire, the various wars his army was hired to undertake were usually quite short, and the eventual outcome was quite predictable—so predictable, in fact, that it was not unusual for the opposing army to capitulate as soon as they realized that they’d be fighting against Narasan’s army.
Jalkan definitely approved of that. The pay was good, and there wasn’t much danger involved. It occurred to him that the time he’d spent as a clergyman had actually been wasted. He was born to be a soldier.
It was during Jalkan’s third year in Narasan’s army that the father of young Keselo purchased a commission for his son. At first, Jalkan was quite sure that he and the rather stuffy young aristocrat would become close friends, but Keselo remained aloof. Evidently, Keselo’s years as a student at the University of Kaldacin had given him an exaggerated opinion of himself. Jalkan had encountered that often during his years in the Amarite church. Some men simply could not accept the fact that their education had not really ennobled them. Jalkan turned his back on Keselo at that point. He didn’t really need friends anyway.
Then in the spring of Jalkan’s fifth year as an officer in Narasan’s army, a duke from the southern part of the Empire approached Commander Narasan with a very generous offer. As nearly as Jalkan was able to determine, an old baron had recently died without an heir, and the rulers of two nearby duchies had been squabbling for almost a year about which one of them should annex the barony as “a protectorate.”
The duke who’d approached Commander Narasan had evidently grown tired of the endless argument, and he’d decided to take a more direct approach.
The money was good, and Commander Narasan had quickly agreed.
Jalkan, however, had a few doubts. The southern reaches of the Empire had given rise to the heresy that had placed the usurper Udar IV on the holy throne of the Naos of the Amarite faith, so Jalkan had good reason not to trust anybody who came from that region.
As it had turned out, Jalkan’s doubts had been even more valid than he’d thought. The opposing duke had secretly hired three armies to oppose Commander Narasan’s force, and the results had been disastrous.
Jalkan never fully understood Narasan’s reaction to the unfortunate events in the south of the Empire. Twelve cohorts had been slaughtered during the battle, but very few officers had fallen. The vast majority of the casualties had been common soldiers, so they weren’t really all that significant. Narasan, however, had gone into deep mourning. Then he’d broken his sword and left the army compound to take up begging in a scruffy part of the city of Kaldacin.
That raised a number of very interesting possibilities. There were several officers who outranked Jalkan, of course, but that wasn’t really a major obstacle. Jalkan knew quite a few professional assassins who normally worked for the higher-ranking churchmen. Once Gunda, Padan—and most certainly Keselo—were out of the way, Jalkan would be the logical successor to Narasan.
That lit a warm little fire in his heart, and he began to work on his agenda. Quite obviously, the common soldiers in the army were being grossly overpaid. Once Jalkan assumed command, his first order of business would be to reduce those wages by half at the very least, and after he’d made examples of the more vociferous objectors, the rest of the army would accept the decrees of their new commander. If everything went according to his plans, Commander Jalkan would soon be collecting as much money as Adnari Estarg had been raking in, or more.
Jalkan felt that was only right and proper. His future was beginning to look brighter and brighter.
Six months later, the cursed foreigner Veltan arrived in Kaldacin, and in less than a week Jalkan’s grand plan tumbled down around his ears. Commander Narasan returned to the army compound and snatched Jalkan’s glorious future right out from under him.
Jalkan tried his best to conceal his disappointment, but when he was alone, he spent much of his time inventing new curse words.
5
Jalkan had been quite certain that the foreigner Veltan had deceived Commander Narasan during their negotiations, but when the advance force reached Castano after the long march from Kaldacin, Veltan sailed into the harbor in a rickety fishing sloop and delivered ten blocks of what appeared to be pure gold.
That definitely got Jalkan’s attention, and he made a point of being in Narasan’s cabin on board the large Trogite vessel Narasan had hired to carry most of the officers off to the north when the commander carried the blocks on board. Jalkan definitely wanted to know just exactly where that gold was located.
Commander Narasan almost indifferently put the blocks inside the large trunk at the bottom of his bed and then handed a large map to Jalkan. “Give this to Gunda,” he said. “It’ll show him the path to follow that’ll get the fleet through that belt of ice floes lying between here and the Land of Dhrall.”
“Yes, sir!” Jalkan replied crisply, coming to attention and saluting smartl
y. He was fairly certain that a pose of strict military behavior was appropriate just now. A number of very interesting possibilities had turned up, and Jalkan thought it might be best to keep his interest in that gold strictly to himself.
After Commander Narasan and Veltan had sailed north in the fishing sloop, Gunda took charge of the advance force and they made preparations to sail from Castano.
Jalkan agonized over the monumental choice that was facing him at that point. He knew exactly where those ten blocks of gold were stored, and Commander Narasan hadn’t even bothered to lock that trunk. On the other hand, Veltan had told them that the Land of Dhrall had whole mountains of gold just sitting there waiting for somebody to gather it up. To be sure, Jalkan could quite easily appropriate those ten blocks and be gone before anyone noticed, but that would forever put the mountains of gold in the Land of Dhrall beyond his reach. A kind of paralysis came over him, and he was unable to make the choice.
The Treasured One: Book Two of The Dreamers Page 11