‘The word of man is fickle. The word of man is fragile. The word of man is meaningless.’ He let the words hang, then looked at the tall priestess. ‘The spirit of a god is true. The spirit of the god of life and death perceives the soul. The spirit of this god is among us.’ He nodded to the priestess.
She stepped to a small table to the side of the room and, from a delicate stand, fetched a small golden ball, its upper side pierced by small holes that let escape a dense white smoke. She let it swing gently on a golden chain, the movement letting a cloyingly sweet and yet acrid smell drift as far as Brann’s nose. His eyes watered slightly, but curiously there was no urge to cough – the smoke seemed to settle on the throat, leaving a taste, rather than irritate it.
The nondescript man indicated to the three men to face the ledge. ‘On it,’ he said bluntly. ‘Kneeling.’
Each of the three looked at him as if he were mad, but the man merely stared at them. One shrugged and gingerly climbed onto the stone sill, and the others followed. One, he who was at the left of the three, swayed and lurched at the sight of the drop so close, and grabbed at the inside of the sill to catch himself. The others controlled themselves more, but they too rested their hands on the stone.
The blunt voice spoke again. ‘Kneel up.’ The man who had swayed looked at him in horror, but again was met with only a stare of unblinking eyes. He gave a slight groan and the man beside him took his elbow, assisting him to maintain what little steadiness he could muster as he pulled himself erect. Brann noticed, however, that the helping man held his companion, but did not let the other hold him. If the man should succumb to his teetering balance, he would be let go and would not drag the one beside him with him.
The priestess moved to the first man, the most nervous one. The smoking ball swayed, releasing increased clouds of smoke as it moved. She was tall enough to swing it slowly right around the man, encasing him in the haze. She stood a long moment behind him.
She pushed him.
With a scream that escalated from shock to terror to despair, the man plummeted. A sickening cracking squelching thud was audible even at this height, and there was a single shriek, though more of surprise than horror, from an unseen woman, then silence.
The priestess moved to the next man. He now was visibly shuddering as the golden ball swung around him, the smoke as thick as ever. Again the wait. Longer this time. As no push came, his shoulders relaxed slightly.
She pushed.
He twisted as he went, a desperate hand reaching back for the ledge that was already beyond his grasp. Again the scream, again the sound of impact.
She moved to the third man. Somehow, he kept himself still, but as the smoke swung in front of him his breeches stained darker, the fear running from him and pooling on the stone floor at the inside of the ledge. She stood behind him, carefully placing her feet. He swayed, but managed to catch himself.
Her hand shot forward. She grasped the back of his tunic and dragged him back into the room. He fell backwards from the ledge, lying in his own piss like an animal frozen in fear.
The nondescript man grovelled as the Master stepped forward to loom above the man on the ground. ‘You are found worthy. You shall lead. You shall serve.’
He walked back to his place in the line, and the nondescript man nudged the figure at his feet with one boot. ‘The door you came in by. Now. You will be shown where to clean yourself and given your instructions.’
Brann was closest of the priests to them, and the priestess pointed to him. He rose, uncertain, but saw her finger move to indicate the table with the empty stand for the ball of smoke and he saw beneath it a basin with a cloth.
He smiled inwardly, and grimly. This was not the activity he had envisaged for himself for this meeting, but what must be, must be. He fetched the bowl and cleaned the floor where the man had lain. In doing so, however, he found himself in earshot of a low conversation between the nondescript man and the priestess.
‘You can really read their souls?’ he said.
Disdain. ‘Of course not.’
‘Then you knew already of the treachery of the first two?’
‘I knew nothing of the sort. For all I knew, they were as loyal as you.’
‘But…?’
‘But now I know that the third man will serve with a loyalty bordering on fanaticism. Even the passing hint of a disloyal thought will fill him with this memory of terror.’
‘And no eyebrows will be raised below at the two examples you made? This is, remember, a secret meeting.’
Her smile was as cold as her eyes. ‘Most come here to celebrate life, or seek to prolong it, but some come to bring it to an end. It is not unknown, and so will not create consternation or suspicion. By now, the acolytes will have tidied and cleaned. There will be no sign remaining.’
The man nodded. Brann finished and moved back, returning to his seat, keen to avoid attention. There was no doubt in his mind why the priests were trusted not to speak of what transpired in such a meeting when any transgressors could meet an end similar to what he had just witnessed.
The nondescript man’s subservient manner dropped from him like a shabby scabbard pulled away from a gleaming and keen blade. His voice became sharp. ‘Colleagues. To business.’
He placed himself at the head of the table, and the Masters pushed back their hoods and sat three to each side of it, while the priestess sat at the vacant end. Brann let his eyes drift over the Masters. Four were men, two women and, in the moments before they sat, he had seen one common feature: eyes cold and unfeeling. The maniacs who did their bidding may revel in, and even thirst for, the pain and suffering of others, but these were different creatures. These felt nothing, and could inflict pain and suffering all the more easily, and effectively.
Am I so different? he asked himself. When I fight, I am as cold and effective as they. But he answered himself. No. When I am not fighting, I make different choices to these people. It is not so much what you do, but why you start it and to what end. A knife can be pushed into a heart just as easily by the hand of a good man or bad; the difference is in the motive. The people seated around that table seek to sow evil and misery; I seek to stop it.
The nondescript man spoke, snapping Brann’s attention awake once more. The man exuded authority now, staring around the table with a calm assurance; sitting erect with both arms extended to rest calloused hands on the polished wood of the table top. ‘Colleagues, welcome. The High Master awaits news of your progress and sends his wishes which you will, of course, treat as directives. As you are aware, I also possess his authority over all but the most critical decisions and permissions, should you seek them.’ Brann sucked in his breath. The Messenger! The man continued. ‘But, first: we seem to be short of one Master. This would be the first news we seek.’
A broad man cleared his throat. ‘Daric was attending to affairs in Cardallon. He was due then to cross the sea before coming here. Things are somewhat chaotic in Ragalan, and while this chaos is admittedly of our doing and what we wish, still it does carry with it the potential for complications and even danger. It would not be unlikely that he has been delayed.’
A hard-faced woman grunted. ‘From what I hear, the situation is such that it is not unlikely that he has been delayed permanently.’
The Messenger shrugged. ‘Either way, it does not affect our actions. The fighting in Ragalan needs little direction from above to achieve the discord that we wish, and should we need them to divert their attentions south, one of you can take the message.’ He looked around the table. ‘Long-term, it does not matter, for there is now no long-term. The High Master is drawing this to an end. The millens have been sent north. The Emperor has reacted, so now the High Master can act.’
A stir of interest rippled through those before him.
A tall man with the face of a bird of prey – the Master who had spoken to the three applicants – said: ‘And what would you require of us at this time?’
The priestess lea
nt forward. ‘I, too, am naturally eager to serve with whatever is needed in this most auspicious of stages.’
The Messenger looked at her. ‘And the Mother-of-All? She would not be a problem?’
The woman snorted. ‘She knows little and understands less. Age has robbed her of the facility for either. Her ear is held by a select few, and the others are concerned with matters internal at the Order. She will believe what I tell her and hear only what I choose to tell her.’
The Messenger regarded her coldly. ‘That is what Taraloku-Bana told us of the sway he held with the Emperor. Such influence is fine until a personal agenda worms its way into the situation.’
She maintained her aloof poise, but Brann noticed she had to work to do so. Those who are accustomed to universal obedience are so easily unsettled by superior power. ‘My only concern is for the cause,’ she said.
‘The High Master hopes always that this is the case.’ He glanced at the balcony, and the implication was clear.
She nodded, but clearly paled as she did so.
The Messenger smiled. ‘You will all have your parts to play, for that which you have so successfully set in motion in lands varied and widespread needs no more of your guidance to continue. Your talents will be found a use, fear not.’ He spread his arms expansively. ‘But who wants to hear instructions on an empty stomach? First, we refresh ourselves.’ He raised his eyebrows at the priestess, and she took the opportunity to regain her composure.
Her hand flicked casually at the two priests at the end of the line, and the pair immediately rose to disappear through the far door, returning with two trolleys loaded with food. A second trip brought more trolleys, one more with food and the other with drink, and at their arrival, the other priests rose. Brann inwardly groaned as he and his companions followed suit, but if they had to wait while the Masters ate before they could hear the plans, then so be it.
They moved to the trolleys and copied the priests, lifting the platters and distributing them across the table. Sophaya lifted a tray bearing a decanter of wine and several goblets and moved to the table, leaning her legs against the edge to brace herself as she leant to lay the heavy load towards the middle of the surface.
The Master to her side leant back to admire the way her robe clung to her as she stretched forward. As she straightened, he caught her arm with one hand and pulled her hood back with the other, approval clear in his expression as he saw her large dark eyes and oval face with the soft fringe of her deep brown hair framing it.
Brann saw Gerens stiffen and tried to shoot the boy a warning look, but his friend only had eyes for the Master holding the girl he loved. Her arm remained gripped, and the man faced the rest of the group.
‘I like the look of the dessert course,’ he said, ‘but I think I will save my enjoyment of it until after our meeting has closed.’ He looked directly at the priestess. ‘You are an Order that celebrates life, are you not? What better way to revere it than the act that creates it?’
She shrugged, no hint of any objection in her face.
Brann stared at Gerens, willing the boy’s eyes to turn his way, but to no avail. Gerens was like a primed crossbow, barely balancing the straining force and the restraint.
The Master’s mouth twisted into a form of smile, his eyes back on Sophaya, whose own expression revealed nothing of her thoughts. ‘With all previously untried delicacies, of course, it is always wise to take a small taste of what the whole may be like.’
He bent and rose, his free hand slipping under the hem of her robe and up her leg to cup her buttocks.
Gerens sprang with a feral growl and a slender knife.
It was unclear which action from a priest surprised the Masters more: the violent lunge or the uttering of a sound. Either way, the astonishment shackled their reactions and Gerens was on the man, wrenching his offending arm so hard that they heard the pop as it left his shoulder socket. Brann groaned inwardly in frustration as he reached for his sword, his other hand grabbing his robe and whirling it up and over his head.
It was then that the Master made his biggest mistake: his uninjured arm reaching for the long serving knife that lay beside a steaming haunch of lamb. Gerens’s arm was a blur, his slim blade ramming down and through the man’s hand to pin it to the table. A scream of shock and widened eyes were all that time allowed the man before Gerens brought up his other hand, a second knife plunging through the front of the Master’s throat and almost vertically into his head.
Both knives were pulled free in sprays of blood as the corpse crumpled to the floor. In the space of only a few heartbeats, everything had changed. In the time it took Brann to suck in a breath, it all changed again.
The scant seconds it took the Masters to react had passed. Weapons were drawn around the room. The priestess backed to the door. A priest screamed. He and his fellow clerics scrambled for the door in panic. The sound of boots running on the tiles far below told Brann his own companions had responded to the scream. The Masters whirled, their backs to the table, assessing the danger. The door at the far end of the room burst open and four men-at-arms barrelled in, knocking the fleeing priests back into the room before they managed to push past the soldiers and make their escape.
The Messenger’s eyes lighted on Brann’s black sword. Brann saw the man look him up and down. ‘You!’ he growled. He turned to the Masters, pointing at Brann. ‘Kill him first. Then the rest.’
Brann looked at his own companions, the familiar coldness flowing through him. ‘Kill them all,’ he growled, and lifted his sword towards the Messenger. ‘But keep that one alive.’
The Masters had thrown off their cloaks, freeing themselves to fight. Most had swords but one woman, sinuous and with a face that would have been taken to be kind until the cruelty in her eyes was seen, drew a pair of wickedly curved knives, a green gem set in the pommel of each hilt. Grakk shouted, ‘Beware those blades: poison coats them. If she draws blood…’
The woman’s smile was gleeful. ‘One cut is always all it needs.’
Sophaya’s throwing star took her in the throat, and the knives dropped to the floor. ‘I hate poison,’ she spat.
The Masters came at them. Two made for Brann. His axe had been left at the inn, being of a shape impractical for hiding beneath a priest’s robes, but his sword and knife would easily suffice. Two men would not be easy, but they were not an insurmountable problem – three leopards in the fighting pits below Sagia had taught him that. The energy of his fighting self flowed through him, brightening his sight, heightening his senses, forming quick simple thoughts. There had to be an overall aim – manoeuvre them, position them, tire them, finish them quickly: whatever the situation demanded – but the actions to get there changed in every instant, and when he felt the repressed Brann rise, he found that what seemed in the moment to be right, usually was.
The pair came fast, but not rushing, spreading slightly with calculation in their eyes, working as a pair. They knew what they were doing.
But so did Brann.
He faked to his left but, as the man to his right struck at what should have been an unprotected back, Brann shifted instead and dropped, sliding to his right and under the blow. His sword swung at the man’s ankles as he went but his opponent’s reactions were quick and experienced, and the feet jumped just enough to clear the cut of the blade.
But no man can hover. As the feet returned to the ground, Brann’s left hand was already moving, and the black-bladed knife sliced across the front of both ankles. The man screamed as his legs jerked back in unison, muscles reacting to flee the source of pain before his head even knew of the action. He flipped to the ground, chest and face striking the stone flags hard.
The second man sought to catch Brann before he set himself, and leapt over the dazed man on the floor. Brann expected it and moved in a backwards and sideways motion, allowing him to rise with sword extended. He kept it forward and the man saw his chance, swiping hard with his weapon to knock it wide. Now his own weapon w
as inside Brann’s sword, allowing him an unopposed backhand cut at the head and neck.
Except that Brann’s knife drove through his neck, the tip emerging on the far side. The razor edge cut forward, opening the throat in a shower of blood that almost blinded him, and before the movement had finished he had reversed his grip on his sword and driven the point down through the back of the neck of the groggy man attempting to rise from the floor.
Two men-at-arms and a Master lay dead across the room, and Grakk and Gerens were engaging the remainder, including the Messenger who fought with a level of skill that always allowed one of his companions to be in more danger than he was. Brann cast around for Sophaya, just in time to see her nimbly duck under a wild swipe by the priestess with what looked like a sacrificial knife and deftly grab an ankle to flip the screaming woman over the balcony to follow the two men she had murdered earlier. Brann was sure the irony was entirely intentional.
He was moving to join Gerens and Grakk when the door behind him crashed open. He whirled to find his other companions pouring into the room. The balance of power shifted in that moment, and Brann could see the recognition in the Messenger’s eyes. As the remaining foes grouped with fanatical determination, the Messenger slipped back towards the door.
‘He’s getting away!’ Brann shouted.
‘Protect his departure,’ one Master yelled. ‘He must reach the High Master.’
The Messenger flung himself through the door and disappeared. Brann howled in fury and threw himself at the group, followed by their reinforcements. The groups clashed in a cacophony of crashing metal and snarling roars. But Brann did not seek to win a fight. They had a surfeit of numbers and ability for that. He sought a way through the bodies locked in straining combat, and almost immediately he saw a chance. A gap opened as their foes’ number already started to dwindle and he dived and rolled, coming up in the same movement and launching himself at the door.
He found a corridor curving round the shape of the dome and hurtled along it, sheathing his sword and, after wiping it hurriedly on his sleeve, his knife. There were steps behind him: he heard Konall and Grakk following, with perhaps some more. A door leading to downwards-spiralling stairs was on his right, and he paused, straining to hear over the sound of his own heaving breathing. Feet on stone. Moving away. It must be him. ‘Down here!’ he shouted to those closing behind him and plunged ahead.
Hero Risen (Seeds of Destiny, Book 3) Page 27