In the distance, he heard the soft clinking sound of swords, and the clangs made him shift from a jog to a sprint, coming quickly to the stairs that led to the hospital.
Ibn-Khaldun patted his shoulder reassuringly, and Jacob dashed from the room, pushing aside all other thoughts except those that would help the injured Hospitaller. He’d try to figure out the mysteries of Marcus and Ríg later. He had his own job to do now.
******
Returning from a final check with Al-Tarusi on the next day’s deployments, Saladin’s brother, Hamzah al-Adil, reached the area where the Westerners were quartered. He noticed a bright yellow glow emanating from Lord Farbauti’s tent.
Al-Adil slipped furtively off the path and stealthily made his way toward the tent. There was no help for it — instincts were part of his duty to his brother, and if he felt a great…wrongness about these western lords, then it was his duty to follow where those instincts led.
The grand vizier heard voices as he drew near the flap. He fingered a bit of the cloth door and peered inside, putting a careful eye to the seam of yellow light that lanced into the darkness outside.
The Nordic lord, Farbauti, sat placidly on a stool before a sizable fire that blazed strongly in the center of the tent. The flames licked high toward the hole in the canvassed ceiling with so great a heat that it would contend with the hottest of desert days. Al-Adil began to sweat even from this brief exposure. Amazed that the cloth of the tent didn’t burst into flame, he squinted against the waves of distorting heat and saw that — except for the stool — there were no pieces of furniture, rugs, nor any adornment in the interior space save for two rolls of unused bedding near his position.
“Santini’s come into possession of the Codex Lacrimae,” Farbauti said.
“He’s not used it, though,” Kenezki observed. “Morpeth better not fail, because I tire of this game.”
Farbauti nodded but said nothing. He sat entranced across from the fire pit, his eyes glazed in a fixed stare at the flickering flames and his immobility interrupted only by the occasional tossing of various powders into the fire. The hue of the blaze changed with each dusting, from burgundy to emerald to sapphire, with the most recent toss yielding an ebony flame.
“I can’t find the Norns,” Farbauti stated with tension in his voice. “We held them off until Caesarea, but, as you can see,” he said with a nod at the black flames, “your departure from that city opened Urd’s Sight.”
“You’ve only used the Sight on four worlds,” Kenezki countered. “You’ll find them. The girl training to be Urd is a novice, as Santini will be if he somehow escapes Morpeth’s arrows.” The pirate’s words were emphatic. “He doesn’t know how to use the Codex.”
“Fortunate for you, isn’t it, Kenezki?” Farbauti didn’t look at the other man, but his voice was colder than the ice that began to crystallize the sand at the base of the fire.
Ice at the base of black-flames? Wondered Hamzah al-Adil. How is this possible?
Farbauti continued: “I can’t believe you interfered and hired a band of Assassins to poison Santini just after Ibn-Khaldun brought him the Codex Lacrimae.” The enormous warrior rose to his feet, towering over the squatting pirate. “I covered for you in front of Saladin, but I should slay you right now.”
“I’d like to see you try, Muspel-Spawn,” Kenezki sneered. “It matters not if I’m on land nor sea. You’d not last a moment against me.”
“You’ve introduced too many elements for us to keep clean tracking in this hunt,” Farbauti continued, ignoring the gibe. “The original plan had Fafnir leading the eastern army, and us using Saladin’s forces to crush the Krak in a pincer movement. We could then take the Codex at our leisure after storming the citadel.”
“I thought it worthwhile to pursue another line of attack,” Kenezki replied firmly, “in case Santini awakened the Codex Lacrimae earlier than expected.”
“The Assassins were a ‘line of attack’?” Anger smoldered in Farbauti’s voice. “The Codex doesn’t do us any good if it’s not fully engaged. That means more than just ‘awakened.’ If you recall, it awakened when taken by Raj’ al-Jared — that’s what kept us in the East for the past few years, when all the while Santini sat safely here. If that boy dies before the Codex Lacrimae truly returns to the Nine Worlds, all our work is for naught.”
“It is engaged, Farbauti — more than it ever was under Raj’ al-Jared,” Kenezki countered. “The magic flared to life the moment Santini touched it, and, if Morpeth does his job, the boy’s about to be cast somewhere into the other eight worlds with neither the Codex nor any other source of guidance to help him. While he’s gone, we’ll grab the tome and kill Santini when he returns. Simple.” The sly man smiled and rose to his feet, looking up at Farbauti. “It’s in the hands of Morpeth now. Events at Caesarea delayed me too long to make the follow-up contacts with the Assassins. Morpeth better not fail.”
“The delay didn’t do much good,” Farbauti commented sourly. “You still arrived without the caskets.”
“Yes, well, one cut of the Assassins’ blades or Morpeth’s arrows is all it will take — if Santini bleeds, he’s ours.”
Then the pirate suddenly dove at the entrance and yanked Al-Adil into the tent. The grand vizier saw something metallic flash in the firelight and then felt a slight pricking at his throat. Kenezki was in his face, smiling a terrible smile.
“Don’t move, Al-Adil. Since I met you, I’ve thought of little else save killing you.” He pulled the man to the fire and threw him on his knees before it. The heat slammed Al-Adil like pumping bellows, and his eyes teared as Kenezki’s strong hand forced him to a sitting position.
“You’ll both be dead by this time tomorrow,” Al-Adil said in quiet defiance. “You realize that, don’t you?”
“Wrong.” Kenezki said. The blade in his hand was quicksilver and Al-Adil felt a tug at his wrist. Suddenly terrified, the vizier realized that the franj had cut him, and then Farbauti’s boot crashed into his face, sending him sprawling. Kenezki grasped Al-Adil from behind in a rough embrace, preventing any movement of the man’s upper body by shoving his arms under Al-Adil’s armpits and clasping his head in a viselike grip.
“He’s stronger than he looks,” Kenezki grunted, and then gave an order: “His arm, put it over the fire.”
Al-Adil gasped as Farbauti wrenched his wounded arm close to the black flames. Blood from the long slash spattered across the ground and into the crackling fire. Kenezki brought a knee into the vizier’s spine, dropping him onto the dirt floor of the tent.
He looked at the fire in front of him. It no longer flickered gray, but now dominated by emerald and orange flames that glowed sickly in the close quarters. Impossibly, the vizier imagined that he saw the features of a man taking shape within it.
“Earlier you wondered about our intentions,” Farbauti said. “Allow me to introduce Fafnir, an erstwhile ally who some months ago agreed to lead the army that just arrived from the East.”
“Farbauti, who is this?” The figure in the flames asked with irritation.
“Hamzah al-Adil,” Kenezki responded, “the brother of Saladin. We have need of one of your attributes, Fafnir. He has seen and heard much that he ought not to.”
“Look at me,” the fire commanded. Al-Adil could do naught else, and the last words he heard were those of Kenezki: “Farbauti, when the dragon finishes with him, prepare a rune-gate to Svartalfheim. You and I will meet Santini there soon.”
“What?” Farbauti was incredulous. “You have heard of Morpeth, haven’t you? No one will escape his bow. This business could end in moments.”
“I foresee otherwise,” Kenezki replied. “Put the blade on the fire, would you?” he asked calmly, “I’ll reapply the poison later.”
Then the grand vizier’s vision was lost in the eyes glaring from the fire, and he knew no more as oblivion claimed him.
******
An hour later, Saladin had been standing outside his brother’s t
ent long enough for the winds blowing from the east to chill him. He moved aside as his personal physician, Ibn al-Baytar, emerged from the structure.
“How fares he?” Saladin asked the elderly man.
“Not well, Sire. He’s tried to slay himself three times now since we found him outside the tent of the franj. He gets closer to succeeding with each attempt, so I’ve ordered that he be restrained.”
“Kill himself?” Saladin frowned. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I’m...uncertain, Sire. Hamzah’s never been sad, never mentioned suicide, nor demonstrated any problems of the mind other than the usual stresses.”
“What could they have done to him in so short a time?” Saladin asked, frustrated. Had he seen Farbauti, Morpeth, and Kenezki, they’d have been slain on sight for this outrage.
“Perhaps a poison of some kind?” Ibn al-Baytar replied. “As you know, there are certain ones that don’t kill, but merely paralyze, or cause conditions similar to that afflicting Master Hamzah.”
“How will we heal him?”
“Salah,” Ibn-Baytar said, his tone faltering, “I don’t know if he’ll ever be more ‘healed’ than he is at the moment.”
Saladin grimaced and turned away, not letting fear or grief interfere with what he must do. He had an army to command and a siege to begin. As he turned to order one of his grooms to retrieve his horse, he saw Khalil and Fatima standing to the side, obviously awaiting an audience.
“Khalil...Fatima, you’re up late.”
“We were honored by your putting us near your pavilion,” Khalil replied, dropping a strange western-designed amulet that he’d been idly fingering back into his shirt. “The position also means that we probably hear more than we should – you’ve many visitors.”
Saladin bowed his head briefly, then: “Return to your quarters — there’s nothing to be done here, and I’ve got an urgent meeting I must get to.”
Fatima stepped forward.
“Salah, I’m sorry, but we heard part of the physician’s report.”
“That’s fine, Fatima. I trust you both, but I’d prefer you keep this to yourself —”
“No,” she asserted, “you misunderstand. We talked about Thaqib dying at dinner, but we didn’t tell you how he died.”
“What do you mean? You said that it was a ‘senseless tragedy.’”
“Senseless,” Khalil said, “only in that we let two foreigners stay with our camp one night as they headed westwards across the desert.”
Saladin felt a dread rise in his stomach. “Two foreigners?”
“Westerners who called themselves Lords Farbauti and Morpeth,” Khalil added. “You just mentioned their names. We offered them a night’s accommodation because they bore documents proving that they were your allies.”
“The pact we drafted in Cairo,” Saladin murmured, ache and rage vying to control his voice. “They needed a writ to show the commander of their eastern army.”
“We saw it and so let them stay for a night.”
“Thaqib...my brother, disappeared and was killed within days of their departure, Salah,” Fatima said, tears welling in her eyes, “and we’ve learned that the entire time we were negotiating with the Templar Grand Master, he wasn’t seeking allies like we thought, but rather telling people he was thinking about committing suicide.” She paused. “Evremar and the Templars might have been the ones who kidnapped him and murdered him, but Farbauti and Morpeth did something to him before that.”
Saladin looked back at his brother’s tent, the meeting with the eastern commander forgotten.
“Come inside with me,” he said, lifting the flap. “I need to know what you know.”
Chapter 19
Through a Mirror, Darkly
“Ori?” The blond-haired archer asked again, his bow still raised with the arrow aimed at Ríg, amusement in his voice.
Ríg heaved, having just kicked the other intruder in the chest with a flying leap that crashed the man into one of the loggia’s piers.
“Oh, Ori ! Ori… Aurelius ! I understand. The lad’s not as much of the gibbering idiot as he seems, is he?”
“Are you going to shoot or not?” Ríg said, straining to stay calm when all he wanted to do was kill this man and get to Marcus. He edged forward, and the man shook his head, pulling the bowstring even tauter than before.
“Ah, ah, ah!” The traitor warned. The shouts of other knights were nearing. “There’ll be all kinds of people here in a moment and you’ve got work to do, Ori. ”
“My name’s Ríg. What work? Who are you?”
The other man was rushing him now, and the time for talking over. Ríg deflected the man’s saber again, following the parry with a thrust of his falchion that the other man, in turn, turned aside with a dagger. Ríg sensed the archer firing, and cast himself to the side, feeling a nick across his wrist as the arrow passed. He launched himself forward and curled with practiced ease to jab upward into the man’s gut. Blood erupted onto the flagstones as Ríg began running at the archer, who’d nocked another arrow.
“Yield!” Ríg roared, the heat of battle still upon him, his blade coming up to the archer’s throat. He saw the assassin he’d kicked in the chest starting to rise, coughing, but he did nothing until the disgraced knight before him dropped his bow on the cobblestones. Then Ríg brought the hilt of his own sword cracking against the man’s forehead.
The action undid the gains he’d made on the archer’s position, though, because in the second he took to knock out the fallen, dying man, the blond-haired traitor’s foot lashed out, knocking Ríg squarely in the jaw.
Disoriented — he’d never seen anyone move so fast! — Ríg stumbled backward, trying to raise his sword, but the Hospitaller ran under his guard and slammed him into the wall.
“Now, fool! Awaken it, else you’re dead!” The man pulled on Ríg’s tunic as he threw him against the wall. Something was happening to Ríg, his head becoming light as the falchion dangled loosely from his hand, the nerves starting to deaden as he tried to speak.
“Who are you? Why did you try to betray us?” he thought he said, but language was failing him now as a blackness began to fall.
The man pushed Ríg disgustedly from him. “The Codex, Santini — awaken it now because the trap is sprung. We’re the Huntsmen of Muspelheim. Match our fire with the Codex Lacrimae, or die!”
Nausea clawed up Ríg’s throat as he weaved on the flagstones, a paralysis overtaking him.
The traitor bowed, and then disappeared at a sprint from his fading sight.
Ríg heard the knights shouting and running from the ramparts. More of the same could be heard inside the fortress as Perdieu roused this section of the castle. The knights found Ríg lying in the colonnade, his breath coming in deep, ragged heaves.
He heard shouts of surprise when his brethren saw the bodies in the loggia.
Marcus….find Marcus — he rolled down the hill. He thought he said the words, but when no one responded, he knew he’d lost the ability to speak.
Ríg tried lifting his head to see the men who were arriving, but he could only focus on his hands. They were still holding the sword loosely, but the sword clattered to the cobbled pavement as he began to shake. He flushed with sweat, the perspiration stinging his eyes as a million pinpricks of white light obscured his vision.
“Ríg?”
Someone was calling him — Brother Perdieu? — and he laughed harshly. Strong arms pulled at him and the gashes on his wrist and shoulder were discovered.
“Desmond, go get a surgeon. These wounds don’t look deep, but he’s not acting…there may have been poison on their blades.”
Ríg wanted to shout si!, but he had no voice. He knew nothing but emptiness and grief at the return of a madness he thought five years gone. Ríg fell to the ground on his side. His muscles slackened as he became senseless to anything but the pain coursing through his body from the fire in his forearm and back. For a moment he saw Perdieu’s bearded face looming ove
r him, but then blurred and faded to dark as Ríg closed his eyes.
Images from his past clambered quickly, hysterically, from the deeper reaches of his fevered mind. So long locked away in dungeons of nightmare while he slept, the memories of the ruined crusader stronghold of Mecina heaved themselves with enraged, awakening roars. Tears pulsed hotly from his eyes as a convulsion clacked his teeth together and sent spasms throughout his entire body. The inflamed agony that only moments earlier had been localized to his back and forearm now spread with the poison. He couldn’t get enough air, and the sucking sound he heard as his lungs constricted reminded him of the death-wheeze made by the first intruder he’d impaled coming across the wall at Mecina.
Just a boy! The first of the enemy over the wall had been just a boy and Ríg had run a broadsword through him because no one else had been there. The boy didn’t die immediately, but scratched and clawed at the stone of the rampart as air mixed with blood in his opened chest. His comrades — these now full-grown men — swarmed over the turrets and engaged a much younger Servius … no I’m Ríg...no, you’re Servius Aurelius Santini, I am he — he’s me . The madness is back! Santini, who that night slew all who appeared on that deserted part of the fortress at Mecina.
The cold cobblestones beneath his cheek provided a momentary comfort, but any relief didn’t last long as another series of muscle tremors ripped through him, pain lancing through his entire body. He found the strength to roll onto his back, but all the pain he’d endured thus far seemed a mere preliminary until that moment. He tried to scream but words weren’t possible and the only sounds he made were retching ones rather than speaking.
“There’s an injury here, too, on the arm,” a voice called.
“Lay him on his stomach, then,” another ordered.
Ríg felt himself lifted by strong hands and deposited onto a stretcher.
Death was here. He felt it in the blood that was flowing from his back. He hoped the approaching darkness held a silence that could stop the anguished recollections in his mind. There was also a certain relief that he wouldn’t have to contend with what he’d learned so far about the Codex Lacrimae.
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