“In the arena, I used to hear blood sing the death of my opponents. Sometimes it rang a story, sometimes not. Perhaps it was this cheering, rather than that of the crowd, which motivated me. It was too long ago to say adequately.”
He caressed the body again. “This man is quite dead. He has little life left in his blood, if any, perhaps no more than a whisper or a hum left for me to trace. But I will endeavor to trace it, if that’s what you wish, for Rhapsody. And to find out whatever clues we can to the origins and intents of this man’s master. The dead know more than the living, but it is not easy to hear them when they tell what they know.”
The three men nodded silently.
The Patriarch excused himself and returned a few moments later, clad in a white robe, rather than the silver one he had been wearing, and carrying a tear-shaped religious vessel known as a lachrymatory, a canopic urn, a cinerary bowl used to store burial ashes, and a censer of burning incense. He was followed by two acolytes bearing white linen cloths, which they spread on the table beneath the body.
“Whatever this man did in life, he is entitled to the same rituals in death as any who sought succor under my roof would be offered,” he said, his deep tone denoting the refusal to hear dispute. He waited until the acolytes had lit the ceremonial braziers, then gestured for them to leave, closing the door behind them.
As silence took hold in the room, the Patriarch set the burning censer on the table, then uncorked the crystal ampulla that hung on a chain around his neck, a tiny phial with many facets that contained a blood-red liquid. He anointed his own eyes and ears with the contents of the phial, then the chest of the corpse above the heart. Then he made a countersign on his own lips.
“You will tell me who has taken the woman,” he said, his deep voice ringing in the tones of a Namer, or a king.
Next, he opened the lachrymatory, and with great care poured a drop of the liquid into the rotting eye sockets of the body, quietly chanting a prayer. The liquid in the lachrymatory emitted a sound that hummed familiarly in Achmed’s skin; after a moment he recognized it as Ocean’s Tears, living water from the sea. He had one such drop in a protective case, hidden deep within the Loritorium where the Earthchild slept.
The body on the sheeted table seemed to swell slightly, rehydrating, its shrunken flesh and stretched skin reinvigorating a bit.
The Patriarch then moved his robes aside about his waist. From a belt sheath he took forth two implements, a tool that looked like a burnishing roller and a curved ceremonial knife with a platinum blade.
As the three men watched, Constantin firmly sliced into the chest of the cadaver, not wincing at the black ooze that slid out, coating his hands. He sawed down the length of the dead man’s chest, cutting through bone and all-but-dry viscera, then carefully wiped the bloody blade and his hands on the edge of the canopic urn, meticulously collecting every drop.
He set the knife down across the corpse’s legs, then took the roller and pressed down on the chest, wringing the blood drop by drop from the rigid flesh.
More than an hour passed, then two, as the Patriarch continued to work, squeezing the blood from the body into the canopic urn. When he had collected enough to barely cover the bottom of the container, he held it up to his ear, closing his eyes.
No sound could be heard in the cavernous room; each man held his breath, lest the release of it disturb the Patriarch’s ear.
Finally, Constantin looked up.
“There is very little of this man’s soul left behind,” he said quietly, reverently, his blue eyes gleaming sharply. “There is but one tie he had in life, to another heart that beat in time with his own. This man was a twin, and not just any twin, but a heart twin, someone whose physiology is so similar to his brother’s that their pulses matched. It is that one fragile tie, thinner than the silk of a spider’s web, that binds even the slightest bit of his soul to this realm; elsewise, if not for that connection, he would be beyond our reach in the Afterlife, or the Vault of the Underworld, more likely.”
Achmed and Grunthor nodded, while Ashe, who had grown gray with the effort to remain calm, merely listened.
“I can hear but one word in the clotted remains of this man’s blood.”
“What is that word?” Ashe asked nervously.
“‘seneschal,’” the Patriarch replied.
“Seneschal?” the Lord Cymrian repeated. “Like a regent, or a castle protector?”
The Patriarch shrugged. “Sometimes it is a judge, someone who is appointed by a sovereign to oversee justice,” he said. “Do you know of any in the Alliance?”
“No,” Ashe said. “For a short time, Tristan Steward was a seneschal of the House of Remembrance, but of course that is gone now, burnt to ashes and being rebuilt.”
The Patriarch held up his hand “Shh,” he said suddenly. “There is another whisper, even fainter, perhaps something that he did not hear himself, but that was heard by his twin.”
The three men held their breath again.
From the depths of the rotting corpse’s sundered chest, a tiny puff rose, like a wisp of smoke. The words were so slight as to be almost inaudible, but they were spoken in a woman’s voice, a voice they all recognized.
Stay away from me, Michael. I may die, but I will take you with me.
“Michael?” Ashe demanded. “I know of no one named Michael.” He turned to the Bolg, whose eyes were locked, a look of disbelief passing between them.
The Patriarch raised his hand for silence. He took the roller in hand and laid on again, wringing the blood from the body. Like a sigh, the words came forth, infinitesimal, fragile.
Perhaps not to your face, Michael, the Wind of Death.
“Hrekin,” Grunthor sword softly.
“The Wind of Death?” Ashe demanded, terror rising in his voice. “Is that not the evil soldier she was trying to escape from in the old land when you two —”
“Yes,” Achmed said shortly.
“And he has her?”
“Apparently,” spat the Dhracian, his voice frosty. He turned to the Patriarch, whose white robes were now spattered with dark blood. “Where? Ask him where?”
The men waited in anxious silence as the Patriarch posed the question. He held the canopic urn up to his ear, but whatever story was in the blood was so faint that he could not hear it. Finally, the holy man met their gaze and, seeing the horror boiling beneath the surface, he lifted the bowl to his lips and drank. The Ring of Wisdom on his hand glowed brightly as he swallowed.
He clutched the table then, steadying himself against the nausea and the shock that took him into its clutches, his face going as white as the upturned edges of his beard. Constantin put his hands over his ears, trying to keep the faint sound from escaping.
“On the seacoast,” he stammered, clutching the table again. “North of Port Fallon.”
Ashe and Achmed turned simultaneously and started for the door, only to be stopped in their tracks by the ragged voice of the Patriarch.
“Wait.” He steadied himself against the table, breathing shallowly. “Do not leave this place before you hear me, and before you have a chance to answer my question. You owe me this.”
The two sovereigns waited in silence, along with the Sergeant-Major, for the Patriarch to recover. It took but a moment. After a few deep breaths the color returned to Constanin’s face. He has doubtless inhaled or ingested more than his share of blood over the years in the arena, Achmed thought, watching the elderly man straighten his wide shoulders, then cross to the summoning bell and pull the cord.
The two acolytes returned a heartbeat later.
“Ritually burn the body,” the Patriarch instructed. “Place the ashes in the cinerary bowl, and scald the table with holy water.” He turned back to Ashe and the Bolg. “Come with me to the basilica. If there is even a breath of life remaining in this man, I don’t want to speak in front of him, for just as he was able to hear what his brother heard, even in death, so it might work the other way.”
br /> 37
The Great Basilica in Sepulvarta was the centerpiece of the city, with towering walls of polished marble and an overarching dome that was taller than any in the known world. The myriad colors and patterns of the mosaics that graced the floor and ceiling, along with the exquisite giltwork on the frescoed walls and the windows fashioned in colored glass, all contributed to its grandeur, but it was the sheer height and breadth of it that made it the masterpiece of all the elemental temples, great architectural marvels left over from the Cymrian era, still standing long after that empire had fallen and crumbled to dust.
The Patriarch led the three men up a cylindrical rise in the center of the sanctuary to a plain, stone table edged in platinum that formed the altar of the basilica. On this altar, the body of his predecessor had been ritually burned amid the flowers and feathers that were the burial tradition for clerics of the faith of Sepulvarta.
When the Patriarch was in the center of the sanctuary, standing directly beneath the aperture in the towering ceiling through which the Spire could be seen, he spoke. His words did not echo in the vast hollowness of the mighty cathedral, but rather remained close to the ears of those who heard them.
“Tell me of this man, this Wind of Death,” he said, his deep voice resonating but not carrying. “Who is he to you that you know of him?”
The three men looked at one another. Ashe spoke first.
“No one,” he said, his eyes red with worry and lack of sleep. “I know little of him; Rhapsody does not speak of him much. He was someone who tortured her in the old world; I know this because I have held her through the nightmares of him, dreams that were horrific to observe, and so I am certain they were reflective of one of the worst times in her life. But I do not know him.”
The Patriarch absorbed the Lord Cymrian’s words, then turned to the Bolg.
“Yet you did know him, or of him,” he said, watching them with the bird-of-prey eyes that had served him well in the arena.
Achmed exhaled. “He and I served the same master,” he said, weighing his words carefully. “In his case, his servitude was voluntary. Mine was not.”
“You were allies, then?”
“Never,” Achmed spat. “Neither allies nor enemies. He was filth, chaotic in his nature, impulsive and cruel. I knew of his actions, but I was in no position to stop them, nor of a bent to do so even if I had been able. At that time all I sought was the return of my name, which our master owned, and with it my freedom. It is true, however, that Rhapsody was on the run from him when we came across her. By taking her with us, away from the old land, we thought we had spared her from him. Since he had not crossed the sea with the fleets, we had every reason to believe him dead, until that corpse spoke his name a moment ago.”
“You as well?” the Patriarch asked Grunthor.
“Yep. Oi only knew ’im by reputation. ’E was ruthless and talented at destruction. O’ course, that made ’im a bit of an ’ero to the Bolg and the Bengards, my people.”
“I had other reasons to believe him dead,” Achmed said, staring at the distant ceiling above him. “There was a hero, the real kind, in the old land, a half-Lirin, half-human soldier called MacQuieth, now long dead himself.”
“I have seen his name,” the Patriarch said. “It is inscribed on an altar in the water basilica of Abbat Mythlinis in Avonderre, on the coast where the first Cymrian fleet landed. I attended a service in my honor there upon my investiture.”
“My mother was descended of his line,” Ashe said quietly.
“History says that it was MacQuieth who killed Tsoltan, the F’dor that was the Waste of Breath’s master as well as my own,” Achmed continued, his voice tight with the strain of containing his anger. “I could only assume that in order to get to Tsoltan, MacQuieth would have had to have gone through Michael, would have killed him first. They were known to be bitter enemies.”
“If he was as unstable and cowardly as you say, perhaps he deserted,” Ashe said tensely. “There is no reason to believe that a man who tortures women and kills children for the sheer enjoyment of it would hold to his post when the tide of the war began to turn.”
Achmed waved his hand impatiently. “Perhaps. But how he survived is unimportant. What is important is that there is another F’dor loose, one that inhabits a host with a propensity for chaos, rape, and murder, without the long worldview of the last one we dealt with. If he really does carry Tysterisk, the situation is even more dire, because that would give him the power of both wind and fire. What before was fear for Rhapsody has now become a fight for the survival of the whole continent. I cannot even begin to put words around how bad this is.”
The eyes of the Patriarch maintained a calm and steady gaze. “You are incorrect that it does not matter how he survived. It may be critical for several reasons. If he is the host of a demon, under normal circumstances, he would have been subsumed to its will long ago; that is how F’dor function. Each of them is a distinct entity, an individual in an unholy pantheon that was born at the beginning of time. Thus they are limited in number, unless they discover another way to propagate.”
The holy man fell silent for a moment; the others looked awkwardly away, knowing that he himself had been the product of such a breeding. He looked up again quickly.
“If a demon has taken him over, what had been his personality should have been completely subjugated to its will,” he continued. “Since he came after Rhapsody, this does not seem to be the case. This is cause for some concern. There must be something untoward, something different about this symbiotic relationship. That worries me.
“Moreover, it causes me to wonder what sort of ties he has in this land. Clearly your ties to him are but weft thread, not the warp.”
“What do you mean?” Ashe asked.
The Patriarch studied the Lord Cymrian. “Did you see the Weaver when you were in the realm of the Rowans?” he asked finally.
“No,” Ashe said. “Or if I did, I don’t remember. I recall very little from that time; I was too badly injured. My only memories are of fragments of faces, and hazy, pain-filled dreams.”
“The Weaver is one of the manifestations of the element of Time,” the Patriarch said seriously. “Those who know the lore of the Gifts of the Creator generally only count five, the worldly elements, but there are others that exist outside the world. One of them is the element of Time, and Time in pure form manifests itself in many ways. The World Trees, Sagia, the Great White Tree, and the three others that grow at the birthplaces of the elements, are manifestations of Time. As is the Weaver. She appears as a woman, or so it seems, though you can never recall what her face looks like after you see her, no matter how much you study it at the time. She sits before a vast loom, on which the story of Time is woven in colored threads, in patterns, the warp, the weft, the lee.
“The Weaver is the manifestation of Time in history,” he continued. “She does not intervene in the course of events, merely records them for posterity. It is a fascinating tapestry that she plaits, intricate in its connectivity. All things, all beings, are threads in the fabric; it is their interconnectivity that weaves what we know as life. Without those ties that the threads have to one another, there is merely void; absence of life. And in those ties, there is power.
“Those ties bind soul to soul, on Earth and in the Afterlife. It is the connection that is made in this life that allows one soul to find another in the next. This is the means by which love lasts throughout Time. But other things last throughout Time as well.
“Sometimes the ties that are forged in enmity are as strong as those woven in love. Souls that have the need to finish business that is steeped in hatred can transcend many things, many realities, if the tie is strong enough. From what you have told me, none of you have the connection that would give you any power over this man, if he is still man, though more likely he is man-in-demon. The tie is not strong enough, the weft thread of the fabric, where lives cross, but don’t intertwine.
“Bu
t the tie between him and Rhapsody, that is different. There is a direct connection there. This makes her both more powerful, and more vulnerable where he is concerned. It is the warp thread, the most basic of connections. And so she will therefore be more equipped to fight him than either of you. If she has been unable to prevail — as it seems is the case — there is little you will be able to do against him.”
“Nonetheless, I will give my life, and afterlife, if need be, in the effort,” Ashe said. “Thank you for your help, Your Grace. Excuse me now; I have to find my wife.” He walked to the stairs that led up to the sanctuary, only to be stopped by the deep voice of the Patriarch.
“Wait. You have not answered my question.”
“What is it?” Ashe asked, struggling to maintain his patience.
“What was decided by the Scales?” the holy man asked. “I have had no word from Sorbold on the outcome of your discussions.”
“I would be interested to know that as well,” Achmed said.
“They weighed in favor of the Mercantile,” Ashe replied.
“The Mercantile?” the Patriarch demanded. “Who?”
“The Hierarch of the western guilds, a man named Talquist,” the Lord Cymrian said. “He seemed levelheaded and considerate; he will rule as regent for now, by his own choice, until the period of a year passes, at which time, if he is still confirmed by the Scales, he will assume the throne as emperor.” He stopped when he saw the Patriarch’s face go pale. “Your Grace? What’s wrong?”
“Talquist?” the holy man said softly. “Are you certain?”
“What disturbs you about him?” Achmed asked.
The Patriarch sat down unsteadily on the chair at the top of the sanctuary. “You could not have brought me worse news,” he said to Ashe, his deep voice absent of the power it usually had.
“Why?” Achmed demanded. “Tell us why.”
The Patriarch stared out the aperture in the basilica’s ceiling at the Spire rising into the endless blue above him.
“Talquist is a merchant in only the kindest usage of the word,” he said finally, watching the wisps of cloud pass overhead. “He is a slave trader of the most brutal order, the secret scion of a fleet of pirate ships, which trade in human booty, selling the able-bodied into the mines, or worse, the arenas, using the rest as raw materials for other goods, like candles rendered from the flesh of the old, bone meal from the very young. Thousands have met their deaths in the arenas of Sorbold; I cannot even fathom how many more have found it in the mines, or the salt beds, or at the bottom of the sea. He is a monster with a gentleman’s smile and a common touch, but a monster all the same.”