Hero Risen (Seeds of Destiny, Book 3)

by Andy Livingstone

  Outside, a slumbering drunkard in the shape of Cannick sat slumped against a wall at one side of the square, while at the side across from him sat Marlo, returning to his days as a street urchin to sit begging from the evening passers-by; no one would leave through the main entrance without being seen by one or both. During the afternoon, Brann had sent Marlo and Sophaya to circle the building and they had reported no apparent entrances other than the huge main doors. There could, of course, be doorways hidden from sight, but with his limited resources Brann was forced to prioritise support within the building where any action was most likely to occur.

  The old soldier in Cannick was amused by Brann’s irritation at the restriction on his plans. ‘Any officer, from the highest general to the lowliest subaltern, can find a use for more swords and will moan at their lack,’ he had pointed out. ‘Plans are all about priorities.’

  ‘And about what to do when things don’t pan out as expected,’ Brann had replied.

  The broad face had split into a loud bark of a laugh. ‘As is always the case, young Brann, as is always the case.’

  Brann thought back to the exchange as he curbed his impatience and gave Hakon a minute or so to be well clear of them before easing open the door. The time when plans may have to be adapted – discarded, even – ran from the first moment to the last, and his stomach churned at the thought. He almost wished for the fighting calm that would settle over him when the self that he had grown to suppress as naturally as breathing was released by the threat of violence. Almost wished. Violence was not part of the plan.

  His hand moved to the sword at his side, tied to his thigh to prevent it from shifting and revealing its presence under his priest’s robe. Violence had a tendency to make itself part of the plan.

  They moved, unmet, through the dim corridor. On close inspection, the thick dust on the floor would reveal their passing, but what had been more important to them was the indication it had given of how seldom the passage was used. The bound priests would hopefully remain undiscovered until an anonymous message alerted their colleagues, at dawn the next day, if all went to plan.

  Brann forced his thoughts back to the present. To dwell on the unexpected would make him too distracted to deal with it should it occur. They climbed the short spiral staircase that let them emerge in the main hall area. Immediately, Philippe happened to stumble upon them, clutching his ribs and limping.

  ‘May I prevail upon your good selves to aid me in my need,’ he implored.

  Grakk nodded benignly and took him by the arm, leading him to the nearest empty alcove. Sophaya drew the curtain as soon as they were all inside, but left the slightest gap to allow her to peer outwards.

  Brann smiled. ‘You don’t feel that you overacted at all there, Philippe? The limp was a touch dramatic.’

  Sophaya snorted. ‘I think it was just right. Have you seen the way men suffer?’

  Grakk regarded her disapprovingly. ‘Now, young lady, that is perhaps an exaggeration. Should we observe how all women cry and scream at the sight of combat, when we have the evidence to the contrary before us provided by our friends Breta, Mongoose and even your good self?’

  Sophaya’s large eyes rolled. ‘It was only a…’ she began, but stopped, seeing the lack of comprehension in Grakk’s face, and remembering Grakk’s logical approach to humour – an approach with extremely narrow boundaries. ‘Never mind.’ Her smile was winning. ‘My apologies, dear Grakk.’

  He beamed and nodded.

  The cold burning of Gerens’s eyes turned to Brann. ‘What now?’

  ‘Now we wait.’

  The wild hair shook like black flames as Gerens shook his head in disapproval. Gerens disapproved of many things, but waiting was high on that list. He wouldn’t pace; he wouldn’t fidget; he would sit still, statue-like, and stare. But the stare conveyed more impatience than any movement. Brann hated waiting also – everyone did – but Gerens made him seem like a meditating monk.

  Time dragged by, slowed further by tension. Brann moved behind Sophaya, peering through the crack in the curtain. The sky through the high windows was noticeably darker, and the throng in the main hall had thinned. The temple would grow gradually quieter, although it never closed: neither illness, injury nor death had respect for human routine and, while the worship of the devoted tended to be a daytime activity, healers were required to be on hand in the darkness as much as the light – often more so, thanks to the work of miscreants in the city’s alleys and shadows.

  ‘They won’t check this alcove?’ Sophaya’s voice in the silence, despite its murmur, made him jump.

  Grakk answered. ‘The closed curtain is sacrosanct. The work of the priests here is respected beyond exceptions.’

  She wasn’t totally satisfied. ‘Even if it seems to be taking a while, and some helpful healer wants to offer help?’

  The bald head was shaken. ‘They are consummate professionals. Should they need assistance, they will seek it. So, conversely, should they not ask for help, they will be left in peace to concentrate as necessary.’

  Philippe snored slightly. Brann’s head jerked round, seeing the young man stretched out on a waist-high leather bench, a white blanket crumpled beneath him. ‘Oh, gods, I had forgotten he was there. How can he sleep?’

  Gerens shrugged. ‘He seems to inhabit a role like we would a garment. He makes his head believe he is poorly, and his body follows.’ He grunted. ‘At this time, it seems a desirable lesson to learn.’

  They fell back into silence. Philippe’s gentle snoring was infectious, and Brann felt his eyes grow heavy. He yawned.

  Sophaya stiffened as a shadow passed the space at the edge of the curtain. ‘Mongoose,’ she breathed to the faces bright with tension.

  There was the sound of something small dropped to the tiled floor. A small stone was kicked under the curtain. Then another. And another. Three suspected as being Masters had arrived. Soft footsteps scuffed as Mongoose moved away.

  ‘I see them,’ Sophaya hissed.

  His heart quickening, Brann moved to join her at the curtain, but Grakk waved him back. ‘Allow no chance for suspicion to be aroused. It is in the nature of the young thief to remain unnoticed; your skills lie in other areas.’

  They all looked at Sophaya. ‘Each is cloaked and hooded,’ she whispered. ‘Two men, one woman.’

  Philippe surprised them by sitting up. ‘How can you tell, if they are hooded?’

  Gerens frowned. ‘Because she is magnificent, obviously.’

  ‘And also,’ Grakk said, ‘because her livelihood depends on discerning such things.’

  Brann waved them to silence. ‘Where do they go?’

  ‘I will tell you when they go somewhere. Calm yourself, they are walking slowly across the hall.’ She adjusted her angle slightly, like a reed swaying in the breeze. ‘Ah, good. A doorway, not the one we came from, but the next one along. They entered there.’ She turned to look at Brann. ‘Do we follow or wait?’

  Brann smiled, looking at Gerens. ‘We have waited enough.’ Gerens brightened and shot to his feet. ‘Why hide any longer, now that we know where to head? We are four priests, after all. Why would priests not walk about their temple?’ He fixed his robe and pulled up his hood. ‘You ready, Philippe?’

  A glance at the young man told him that his question had been unnecessary. Philippe was already back in character. He had lost his limp and walked straighter, but in the tentative fashion of one still nervous that the pain would not worsen again in an instant. He reached for the curtain.

  ‘Wait.’ Grakk stepped in front of Philippe and passed him a handful of small coins. ‘There are offering buckets placed strategically around the hall area. Priests are always more amenable to your presence if you make a donation in gratitude for your treatment, and the noise of several small coins attracts more attention than the sound of one. Should you then find a seat to pray, you are unlikely to be disturbed, even should you stay most of the night. Discouraging those who pay is not good for
business.’ He looked around the others. ‘And remember, my priests: we do not talk. At all. You may not think you can be heard, but your body will give it away. The loquacious face each other in a different manner to the mute.’

  Philippe nodded to Brann, and this time he did open the curtain, smoothly and without fuss. The others had their hoods raised also, and they left without a backwards glance at Philippe. The moment the alcove was empty, an acolyte entered and wiped the leather bench, replacing the blanket and taking the used one in a sack. Brann sighed slightly in relief that their patient had made use of it.

  They moved with purpose to the arched opening and found stairs spiralling upwards, similar to those that had led to the basement but wider, able to let users pass easily in both directions. The first level they reached was too busy for Brann to think it could host a secret meeting, as was the second, but the third was quiet enough to sow doubt as to whether they should continue their climb. They moved onto the balcony to gather their thoughts; a treatment alcove with the curtain open to reveal it to be vacant beckoned them but, before they could move into it, Brann was jerked as Gerens gave his robe a surreptitious tug. Brann followed the boy’s stare, and saw a single hooded figure move unhurriedly across the floor beneath them.

  Too unhurriedly, unnaturally so.

  The person headed for the wall directly beneath them, and did not reappear. Either they had entered a treatment alcove without a priest in attendance, which would be pointless for someone with a valid reason to be in the temple, or they would be climbing the stairs.

  He glanced around. No one else walked this balcony at the moment. He stood with his back to the hall below and risked a whisper. ‘Get ready to follow, whether this one comes out on the balcony or continues up the stairs.’

  Sophaya shook her head slightly. Her head was down, her face lost in her deep hood, but they heard her whisper. ‘Too obvious. Back down the stairs slightly, then climb. Slowly. Old trick: let the person pass you, then they will not be suspicious that you follow for they know you are behind them.’

  It made too much sense for any reply, and they moved quickly to do as she had said. Footsteps hurried from below, and before long approached behind. In single file they moved as one to the side, their left shoulders brushing the wall and their heads down as if the figure passing them was of no importance. The dark cloak, clutched tight at the front by a man’s calloused hand to prevent it from tripping him on the stairs, caught the edge of Brann’s vision and then it was gone, the occupant of the cloak paying them as little attention as they had appeared to pay him.

  The sound of boots on steps continued past the floor they had stopped on, and they quickened their pace. Each time they passed a floor, they glanced out, but though they saw movement on many, all were of the holy order and none in the black cloak that was the one colour that never clothed a cleric of Akat-Mul.

  Brann glanced at Grakk, and saw the sharp eyes return his look. The eyes flicked up and Brann nodded. It looked like they were headed as high as the levels reached. It made sense: a highly secret meeting would tend to be held as distant from the activity of normal life as possible.

  They came to the top of the stairway abruptly, finding themselves in a windowless corridor that curved with the shape of the dome. Six priests in robes identical to those of Brann’s companions stood in file before a shut door, still as statues, and hoods rendering them creatures without identity.

  Footsteps climbed behind them, the soft steps of priests, not the boots of those heading for the meeting, or so his logic hoped. It was a chance – slim, but a chance nonetheless. He inclined his head and the others followed him back down. Almost immediately, they came across six figures in the ubiquitous clerical robes. Brann, eyes down and hood up, paid them no heed as he made to pass them and received the same lack of interest in return. As he reached the last in the line, however, he turned. His knife, reversed to strike with the pommel, knocked two of the priests unconscious before his companions moved with a warrior’s instinctive reaction to deal similarly with the other four.

  Brann’s hand dropped onto Gerens’s wrist to stay the boy’s knife from slicing the throat of the priest he had subdued.

  ‘We can keep them silent just as well by filling their mouths with rags cut from their robes,’ he whispered.

  Gerens considered it for a moment. ‘Good thinking. Blood on the steps would probably raise suspicion.’

  Not to mention, Brann thought, the act of murdering possibly innocent priests in the temple of the god they served. Akat-Mul may not exist, but if He did, it would not be sensible to invite His retribution.

  In seconds, they had dragged the senseless priests back to the empty third level and left them bound and gagged behind the closed curtain of the treatment alcove. They hurried back up to the waiting priests above and, without pausing, Brann joined the tail of the line, the other three following his lead. They stood, heads bowed and hoods raised, mimicking those in front. Brann’s heart thumped. They took a chance based more in hope more than reason, he knew. But short of fighting their way into the room with no knowledge of what lay in wait for them – something that would likely reduce their chances of gaining any information that could guide their next steps – they had no other option than to risk that they were considered by those in the line ahead and in the room beyond as nothing more than a part of the group who had been sent to attend.

  Long minutes passed before footsteps grew in volume from below. A figure, cloaked and hooded as those who had gone before, passed their line without even flicking a glance to the silent figures waiting along the side of the passage. The heavy door scraped open at a single knock, its base catching the stone floor and protesting loudly in the quiet of the corridor, and the figure stepped in while a man’s voice, cold and with the dismissiveness of one used to obedience and ungrateful of it, rapped out from the room beyond. ‘All now are here. They may enter.’

  Brann risked a quick look ahead. A tall woman in the rainbow robes of the priesthood stepped from the room; Brann’s breath stopping as he willed her not to register that there were two priests fewer in the line than there would have been. She barely deigned to look at them, however, as she flicked her head towards the interior, her long dark hair, tied behind her, swinging as she did so, her manner indicating that lowly clerics were almost insignificant to her. The priests filed in and Brann found himself in a long chamber, a door at the far end and a table set in the middle. Six cloaked figures, their heads still hooded and faces in shadow, stood silently before the table, facing the interior where a waist-high ledge, its smooth top an arm’s length in depth, ran the length of the room and gave a view into the interior of the temple. Brann glanced at the ceiling: it curved sharply from the base of the wall, so the level they were on must be in the dome and would therefore sit more inwards than the balconies below, giving an unrestricted – and presumably spectacular – view vertically to the brightly tiled floor of the hall.

  The curve of the ceiling meant that the usable height of the room was restricted to the inner side of it, but two yards or so from the outer wall a series of pillars formed arched alcoves between them, reminiscent of the treatment spaces below but wide enough for only one person. Brann’s breathing was loud within his hood, and he flexed his fingers in the hope that is would ease the tension in his muscles. Each second that passed with no one questioning their presence brought encouragement that the priests were there only as subservient minions, too lowly to warrant even a passing glance. Brann let out a quiet sigh at the thought that this meeting was so deep within the organisation’s walls of secrecy that it lent those attending a sense of safety. A false sense, fortunately.

  The priests in front moved along the wall and slipped into an alcove each, and Brann followed suit as his turn arrived. It was not high enough for even him to stand upright, but he discovered a small stone stool carved as part of the architecture and perched himself upon it. It was set far enough back that he could see behind the pillars
left and right, and was relieved to see that he sat the same as the legitimate priests to his right and his fellow imposters to his left.

  He stared at the backs of the cloaked figures, his hand almost shaking with the force of his grip on his sword hilt. But he knew, for it was he who had impressed it on the others, that the most valuable prize tonight would be information, not assassination. Everything they had done in the past months had led them to almost the highest echelon of this mysterious and loathsome organisation – but almost the highest, not the highest. They had come so close to the one real goal they had. To indulge themselves in the slaughter of a great evil and lose the opportunity of reaching the greater evil was a thought that filled him with a shuddering horror. But if they could gain enough information and even seize the Messenger with the Masters still within the reach of a sword…

  The door at the opposite end of the room opened and three men were led in by the same nondescript man that Brann and Grakk had spotted scouting out the temple earlier that day. He bowed to the Masters and indicated to the trio, their faces uniformly taut with tension, that they should stand with their backs to the ledge. Each of them clearly noticed the dizzying drop so close behind them, with one man visibly paling at the sight before he turned to face the Masters. The line of black cloaks stood stock still for long moments, the silence in the room growing more heavy with each pounding heartbeat.

  One Master near the centre of the line took one pace forward. A harsh voice grated from his hood. ‘You seek to serve. You seek to rise from the mass. You seek to lead men under our guidance.’

  The three nodded, nerves jerking their movements.

  ‘Some seek to harm us. Some seek to betray us. Some seek to infiltrate us.’

  Brann’s breath stopped in his throat at the last, but the focus remained on the three men who shook their heads in desperately emphatic unison.