Somehow he would have to lead them all through everything that was to come without compromising this basic principle. De Molay was a savior in their eyes, the leader who would see them through to safety. These were not simple men, but leaders—rulers who’d forsaken their own titles and lands to follow a greater cause. These were men with lives resting on their decisions, on their integrity and their faith. They would not be the easy tools Santos had made use of in the past. They were their own men, and he had to keep this in mind as he molded them into a single cohesive force that could bring him the answers he needed. He had to hold them together long enough to meet his own needs. It would be a challenge, and after so many years of having things exactly his way, a challenge was something he looked forward to. He watched as they poured through the doors, and he smiled. Soon. He would know soon if he was wasting his time.
De Molay took his customary spot near the front, de Chaunvier at his side. They moved in silence, forming the circles—concentric binding rings that would become their protection and their focus in what was to come. Something was wrong almost immediately. One of the younger men, one whose name Santos couldn’t even recall, was moving toward the front, away from his normal position. Cursing inwardly, Santos moved instantly to cut him off.
“I mean no disrespect,” the young man said, the words spewing suddenly from his mouth as if he’d kept them there, poised on his tongue and suppressed until just that moment. “I have come with a message, a message that I was to bring to you, and to you alone.”
Santos stopped short. A message? Who, other than those gathered, would know who he was? His mind began to race, and the anger he’d suppressed for so long began to boil and rage in his stomach. Before the boy spoke, he knew the words that would follow.
“I was to tell you that Father Kodesh is here. He said you would understand…”
Santos was trembling. He struggled with the heat of the anger, the flames of rage that threatened to blaze outward from the black pit that had once housed his soul, and scorch them all to cinders. Closing his eyes and backing away, he came to rest against the stone wall of the chamber, beside the altar that held the head, and he grew silent.
The boy, horrified by the reaction his message had brought about, backed away hurriedly, crashing against the gathered knights and drawing cuffs and curses from all sides. None paid too much attention to him, though—all eyes were turned to Santos. It was several moments before the small man’s eyes blazed open once more, and when they did all those present pulled back and away. His eyes glowed with a horrible light, and his features twisted suddenly into an expression never meant for a human face.
“Prepare!” he grated harshly. His voice was magnified and distorted, echoing eerily through the chamber. All fell to their knees, heads dropping to the cold stone of the floor and hearts beating rapidly. Whatever had happened, whatever the name Kodesh had meant to him, it had brought forth the truest glimpse of power Santos had released in their presence.
The chanting rose as if from a great distance, and though they knew that it was Santos, this knowledge did nothing to calm the fear in their hearts. Worked into the words he spoke, blended with staccato rhythms and impossible pronunciations, they heard words—names—that called out to them. Each of them heard a different name, felt a different tug at his soul. They did not raise their heads, but as the pulsing darkness of the chant filled them, their voices rose to join it—drawn by the words, the names they could not recognize and yet could not escape. The names that were their very essence, drawn forth and stolen, feeding Santos’s growing strength.
As the rhythm took control, they began to rise, slowly, as if from a deep sleep. They stumbled against one another, wobbling in place as their heads dropped back in unison, eyes still closed but pointing skyward. As the chant continued, changing tone and picking up intensity, they grew steadier. The circles tightened, and they began to shuffle slowly forward, one body so close to the next that it was impossible to tell where each began or ended, their robes flowing together and flapping about them at each step.
Santos seemed oblivious to them, staring through them and beyond, his features still contorted horribly, his voice booming forth as if he spoke into a long, echoing chasm. The name Kodesh had launched him into a frenzy that could only be released through the flame of power, flowing up from deep within him. He needed to feel that energy, to experience the joining. He needed to know that it was too late for those above, that he would succeed where he’d failed once before, and that he would have Kodesh groveling at his feet as he’d dreamed on so many dark occasions. He needed to feel his power, and the best way to ensure that he did was the chant.
Each of those moving through the dance was joined in turn to Santos. Each of their energies would be turned toward the single task of reviving the head—of seeking the answers that would lead him to his goal. They all knew that they were seeking answers, they just didn’t know those answers would be directed only to Santos’s questions. They didn’t realize the totality of their servitude.
He could see de Molay leaping past every now and then as the circle spun a certain way. The man’s eyes were sunken, hollow and empty—haunted. Others had different ways of coping but the end of it was the same. Deep in their hearts they knew that Santos ruled them more surely than de Molay ever could. They knew that they would never achieve the freedom they sought, nor would there be an answer to Philip and his army. The end of the Knights Templar as they had known them was in sight, but even closer and more easily spotted was the means of their personal destruction.
The level of their combined voices rose and fell with the rhythm, and Santos felt the energy in the room expanding. He closed his eyes, letting the sounds wash his thoughts of revenge and his concerns for the completion of their task from his mind. He reached out to the power that hovered above and around them and began to channel it through himself, letting it renew and cleanse him. He felt his legs launching into the intricate steps of the dance, though he’d not directed that action, and he screamed in release.
Whirling from his place at the altar he launched into the midst of the others, taking a place in the circle and matching them step for step, his voice rising and falling within the backbeat provided by theirs, his words more quickly spoken and complete. He wove in and out of the sound, the melody to their harmony. None but he knew the meaning of the words, but all felt the power behind them, the power that grew around them and filled them, the power that promised the answers they sought.
He knew it would not reach the required level—not so soon—but he felt the tension, the hunger to succeed that permeated the hearts of the others who danced. He knew it could be done, and soon. Increasingly it appeared that if it were not accomplished soon, it would fail again, and that was a turn of events that he wasn’t ready to face even the remote possibility of.
They danced, and he chanted, and the hours passed slowly through midnight toward dawn. At some predetermined interval, though it would never be a point that any of the others could be certain of, the ritual ended. Limbs returned to the control of those born to them. Voices, hoarse from too much and too harsh use grew silent. Without speaking to one another, they filtered out, moving stiffly through the stone doorway into the passage beyond and on toward the stairs that would lead them to their chambers, strong wine, and beds long overdue.
Santos stood in the shadows, watching them go. They did not glance in his direction. For them, he did not exist, certainly not at that moment. He was a tool, a means to an end. That was what their minds repeated over and over, fighting to convince their aching, God-starved souls that it was true.
De Molay was one of the last to leave. He stopped for a moment, turning back, and stared at the altar. His eyes seemed to bore into the vacant, unseeing eyes of the head where it rested. The flickering light of the candle flames danced along the walls and the smoke from incense and offerings swirled about the base of the altar, lending it an air of otherworldliness. Finally, he dropped his
eyes and turned away. Santos wondered if the man might actually have felt something, been gifted with a passing vision. Whatever the case, he seemed satisfied with what he’d seen.
Santos watched him walk off into the darkness, but he did not move to follow. Instead, he turned in a different direction altogether—toward the door on the side of the chamber that led to his own quarters. He had to sit and gather his thoughts—there was work to be done, and he would need all of his faculties to complete that work. He was not immune to the rigors of the ritual, merely more accustomed to them. It had drained his own strength as well as that of the others, and what he’d borrowed from them he’d channeled back out again, feeding it to the head, using it to support the requests he made with his mind. He was not so much the final goal of that stolen power, but the redirecting force.
He sat and crossed his legs, then his arms, letting his head drop forward against his chest. Emptying his mind, he floated free, letting himself cast off his physical form and drift as his thought directed. Shut down and bereft of input from his mind, his body could recover more quickly. Free of the physical, he could seek answers to different questions. He could seek the other—the missing link. Kli
Kodesh was a thorn in his side, but rarely did he do his own work. The ancient Cainite slunk through the shadows, watching and smiling just out of sight, praying for something of interest to blossom from the ashes of a world gone too cold—too distant—to warm what remained of his heart.
Santos knew such despair well—but he had his own way of dealing with it—more direct. He lived for a purpose, a focus, and that focus called to him across years of denial—years when he had been unable to fulfill the tenets of his geas. He’d been charged to guard and protect certain relics, objects of power his creators had deemed too dangerous, too important, for the lot of mortals and immortals alike. For over a century he’d kept that pledge—adding some secrets, learning more of those he’d been entrusted—always secure.
Now those treasures, and their secrets, had been wrested from his grasp, his heritage denied. Inadvertently, Kli Kodesh had renewed Santos’s will to survive. The challenge had proven immense, the fear, the uncertainty, all of it had blended to bring levels of energy and intensity to his thoughts and actions that the centuries had stripped away. He might feel grateful for it, once he’d recovered that which was his—without the challenge he might have withered into shadows and left his charges to fate and history. Now it was personal.
He slipped into the Shadowlands, letting reality fade behind him. The familiar gray and black wash of decay engulfed the stone walls, dust and debris littered the passages, and the dim brilliance that permeated day and night in those lifeless lands poured in from above. The stone of the floor was ravaged by time, large chunks of it missing entirely. He let his spirit float upward through the cracks.
The keep was a ruin, the walls crumbling and fallen, the gates nothing but skeletons of stone and rotted wood. He let his senses range beyond the keep, searching. Somewhere he believed he would find them. Whoever, whatever Kli Kodesh had called to his aid was out there, waiting to be discovered and vanquished. He felt the death to come—the decimation. It wasn’t far in the future. All around him, in the shadows and beyond, the restless dead waited, some with slave chains, others watching for glimpses of the living. They, too, could sense what was to come.
He moved toward the main gate and passed across a patch of scorched earth with a wooden stake protruding from its center. The wood was charred. Dust swirled around its base in a breeze that seemed to come from every direction at once, and to dissipate the same way. Santos hesitated. Something important would happen here—someone important would die. He considered for a moment the notion of waiting to see if he might discover the source of the ashes, but his mind told him that those ashes lay beyond his own goals—in the days to come.
As he moved across the land he saw remnants of Templar robes, red crosses faded and torn, caught in the limbs of trees and blowing across the road. There was no trace of the flesh that had carried them—no indication of life—or afterlife—save those who waited in the shadows. They ignored him, and he them. He had nothing to share with the dead. There were always secrets to be learned in their company, but this night he required only their world.
He moved across the land to where Philip’s army was approaching. He could move much more swiftly in this state, and the miles flowed away beneath him rapidly. The camp appeared on the horizon, dim light from the fires flickering against the eerie illumination of the sky.
He moved among them. Seated around the fires were men with their faces half-eaten by decay, others missing limbs and with horrifying wounds that already festered with decay. They joked and laughed with others who would survive the days to come, unaware of the fate already etched across their death-tainted forms. Santos ignored them. He reached out with his senses, seeking something that didn’t belong, something beyond their mortal world of blood and death.
Once or twice he thought he detected a slight trace of what he sought. The essence of his past called out to him, and he could not discern whether his own mind created the sensations, or they were real. There was no concentration of the sensation, just ghost whispers that tantalized, but could never satisfy. The agitation of his inability to narrow his search to a particular area ate at his control, and he knew he must return. His physical shell was vulnerable when he was disembodied, and it would take a certain amount of time and effort to make his way back if something were to go wrong. Montrovant might well be waiting in the shadows, watching and laughing, but there was no time to dwell on it.
With a sigh of release, Santos slipped back across the miles. It was not like the slow, concentrated passage he’d made to reach Philip’s camp. He snapped across the distance, one world to the other, darkness and shadow to the flickering light of torch and candle—numb spirit gave way to the cool, damp recesses of the lower levels of the keep. The stone was back in place, solid and seemingly impervious to time or destruction. Santos smiled thinly as it all came back into focus.
Rising, he made up his mind. He would have to bring matters to a close quickly and certainly. He’d felt the level of energy during the ceremony—more than adequate to his needs. All that remained was the final, driving force—the desire of his servants, and that he could accomplish in only one way. He would have to go to them, and he would have to lie. De Molay was in a particularly bad position to doubt Santos’s word—he needed a miracle. All that remained was to promise it to him, and to turn that deceit to his own favor.
Santos strode purposefully through the passageways, reaching the main stair and starting up without hesitation. They’d not seen enough of him on the upper levels, it was time to make an entrance as only he could do. It was time for closure.
Ferdinand just managed to slip back behind the pillar as Santos’s short, robed figure emerged from the stairs leading to the lower levels. He wasn’t certain why he ducked—something deep inside his mind called out to him and he obeyed. He slammed himself against the cold stone of the wall, his heart hammering madly, and Santos slid past him as smoothly as a snake. Somehow the man did not look to his side, did not see Ferdinand quivering in the darkness—or did not find him important enough to acknowledge.
For a long moment after he was alone in the passageway, Ferdinand did not move. He felt trapped, as though a thousand eyes watched him, the combined weight of their stare pressing him against the wall. His mind told him that he was safe—that he’d not been spotted, but his mind could not control the fear, and the fear had latched onto his heart.
Finally he pulled free of the wall. Looking both ways up and down the passage, he drew in a deep breath and turned to follow in the direction Santos had taken. He didn’t want to follow. He wanted to turn and to run as fast as his legs could carry him away from what was to come, but he could not. Father Kodesh would want to know—would need to know—what was about to take place. Santos never left the lower levels, and it must be an imp
ortant event indeed to cause him to do so. Nothing of this magnitude could be ignored.
As he began to move, his courage returned. There was no sign of his quarry, but it wasn’t difficult to guess where he might be headed. Only a few nobles had quarters on the upper levels. The direction Santos had taken was a direct path toward de Molay’s private chambers.
Something was happening, something important. Ferdinand wanted more than anything to bear the news of whatever it was back to Father Kodesh, to win his trust. Too many things beyond the scope of reality as he’d grown to understand it had lured him to the shadows. He needed to know what Santos had planned, and he needed to know that, when it was all over, there was at least a chance that he would still be involved—that the boundaries of his existence might be extended. He wanted to know if he would be more than a momentary tool, granted the darkness that Father Kodesh strode through so boldly, or whether he would be cast aside and forgotten.
He rounded the last corner slowly. De Molay’s door was just ahead, and he peered around the corner, making certain that the passageway was empty, before sliding from the shadows and approaching the door. This was the true test of his courage. It was one thing to slink through the shadows, another to be out in the open. Though it would not be odd for a servant to wait outside de Molay’s door, this fact did not wipe away the fear.
He moved cautiously forward until he was a single pace—a second—away from the door. Too close not to commit. He took the last couple of steps and pressed his ear to the door. At first he could hear nothing but the pounding of his own heart, but as he stood waiting the fear receded a bit, and he became aware of the voices beyond the wooden door. The first was as familiar as his own voice. The Templar lord was excited, and his voice carried more easily than it might have otherwise. “Tomorrow? So soon? But Philip will not be here for at least three days—why now? Just yesterday your vision guided us to wait.”
To Speak in Lifeless Tongues: Book 2 of the Grails Covenant Trilogy (The Grails Covenant Triloty) Page 15