Prophecy's Daughter Page 17

  The central core of the monstrous mass was now throbbing with a rhythm that exuded a strange attraction, bringing forth a cry from all those it touched. The ranks of soldiers surged forward in a fervor, stopping short of the circle as terror returned, freezing them in indecision.

  The great mass of the thing faded until only the swaying priests remained, uttering their dying chant. The bodies of the now mercifully dead hung limply from the spikes.

  Arn staggered back from the wall, ill, but refusing to empty himself like the masses of the army below. He had seen and dealt death coldly, and that was not what sickened him. He knew that the summoned presence brought forth by the priesthood was the antithesis of all that was natural in this world. Something ancient and revolting. Something that hungered.

  Arn closed his eyes in concentration, then turned on his heel and disappeared down the ladder into the alley beyond.

  Arn moved briskly through the gathering darkness of early evening, his purpose stretching out before him like a glimmering trail. In the woods just below Temple Hill, he slid through the brush toward his target, two priests engaged in deep conversation, heads bowed beneath their hoods, a mere forty paces from the great temple doors.

  “Such overconfidence,” Arn said, stepping from behind a tree.

  Both priests raised their heads as Arn’s hand flashed in an arc, which traced Slaken’s path through their throats. Catching their dying bodies, Arn heaved one over each shoulder before either hit the ground and staggered back into the brush, moving down the slope toward the abandoned coal cellar he had found hidden in the vines. By the time he dumped his twin burdens down the steps, Arn was panting with exertion.

  He wiped his blood-covered face on his sleeve, an act that failed to improve his appearance. Not taking any more time to rest, Arn turned once again into the night.

  The evening communal gatherings in the city below Temple Hill would all be breaking up shortly, the populace having served up the periodic offerings and having received for their devotions the joy of continuing their miserable lives for yet another month under the “protection” of their priestly lords and masters. The scattered brethren would make their way in ones and twos up toward the high hold of the monastery above. His opportunity existed in the shadowed streets and wooded trails leading to the high gate, but that opportunity would not last long.

  Changing tactics, he began killing priests and leaving their bodies temporarily hidden near where they fell, one here, two more there. The darkness, his old friend, hid the blood evidence that would alert passersby to his deeds come dawn. Just before midnight, he reached the desired quota and began the arduous task of retrieving the corpses and carrying them stealthily back to the hidden cellar.

  Barely an hour before dawn, exhausted, Arn dragged himself through the shallow marsh that rimmed the lake beyond the easternmost of the city walls. This early in autumn, the shallow waters were only mildly cold. Arn moved out into the reeds, cut several, and selected one through which he could blow air. He placed one end in his mouth and allowed his blood-covered body to slip below the murky surface.

  Arn let the cold and relaxation slow his hammering heart. Amidst that stillness, his mind drifted into a dream-filled sleep.

  26

  Mo’Lier

  YOR 414, Early Autumn

  Just after dawn, Jorthain was awakened by his aide, a cowering old monk with long gray hair falling onto his shoulders. The lord high protector wondered at the audacity required to disturb his slumber on the morning after conclave. “What, Boban? Out with it before I lose patience.”

  “Your Eminence, you must come with me immediately.”

  “I must?”

  The familiar cloak of anger settled over the high priest as he swung his legs off the bed, reaching for the black robe hanging on the wooden peg by the headboard.

  The other man wailed and cowered on the floor, the shock of realizing what he had just said draining the blood from his face. “Forgive me, master . . . my state of mind, the urgency of my desire for your guidance, has caused me to blunder in my words.”

  Jorthain finished fastening his robe and moved to stand over the body of his prostrate aide. He let the silence linger after the other man’s babbling subsided. What could have driven this fool to disturb his rest? He knew he would find out very shortly and that it would undoubtedly stoke his rage further.

  The high priest strode to the balcony that looked out over the city below and dominated the terrain for leagues around. Only the upper spire of the monastery, directly behind his room and up the stairs to the north, commanded a better view of the plains to the south. His attention was immediately drawn to the commotion in the camp outside the city walls. The entire military seemed to be in motion, milling about in wild and frenzied fashion. Yesterday, Krylzygool had delivered a harsh message to the army of the protectors. And yet, as Jorthain looked out over that landscape on this new dawn, disorder reigned supreme.

  Jorthain grabbed the far-glass sitting on the stand by the balcony and trained it on the scene below. He scanned rapidly across the encampments, observing the melee as men and vorgs roiled, some rushing toward the circle and some running away. Fights were breaking out as some struggled to free horses under guard at numerous rope corrals. Some of the corrals had actually been broken, allowing horses to run free amidst the gathering chaos.

  “Your Eminence, I . . .”

  “Quiet. I will get answers when I ask for them. Until then, silence is all I expect.”

  The high priest snapped the far-glass to the center of the maelstrom, the circle itself. No one moved onto or off the site. Although the circle was surrounded by hundreds of onlookers, it appeared to be no different than when he had strode from the area the day before. The poles stood with the putrefied remains of their victims and nothing else, except . . .

  He adjusted the focus on the glass with small turns. At the base of each of the thirteen poles stood thirteen priests, the hoods of their cloaks pulled low over their heads. Then he saw it. As he moved the glass across the distant forms, one of the cloaks blew back in the morning breeze. There was no body, just the head of a priest atop a spear embedded in the ground, a head that wore the priestly cowl stained a darker shade with blood.

  Jorthain scanned rapidly back around the circle of priests, this time spotting the stains on each robe, the lack of fullness to the shapes. His thoughts froze.

  It was incomprehensible that someone in the mass of offal below had dared to defy him after yesterday’s display. But there was no denying what his eyes now beheld just beyond the city walls. What was worse, this blasphemous attack on his priesthood had been seen, and the rumor of it spread like wildfire. The city walls were now teeming with curious onlookers, some still in their nightshirts.

  Clearly someone had dared to challenge his power, and the consequences of that challenge were yet to be sorted out. A large portion of the army had apparently convinced themselves that circumstances were about to get worse than what they had seen the day before and were in the process of getting away before they could get caught up in the inevitable cataclysm. Many soldiers were being engaged by disciplined veterans, determined to thwart the mass desertions. Commanders stumbled around yelling, trying to make sense of the disorder, while combat raged all around.

  Jorthain turned abruptly and strode back into the bedroom. “Boban. On your feet now.”

  The other man scrambled to comply.

  “I want the Conclave of the Nine convened within the hour. I will lead it. Pick a woman that will be certain to please our master. We will perform the ceremony in my personal chambers. Now, be gone.”

  The other man bowed, then spun on his heel and swept from the room.

  By the time the high priest arrived at the stairwell leading down into his ceremonial chamber, all of the others were already within. The muffled cries that arose from below lent anticipation to the old man’s steps. While the occasion of this summoning was infuriating, he still felt the same enjoy
able racing of the heart that he had felt as a young priest at his first such ceremony. The pleasure that it gave the ancient one was returned in measure to those who conducted the ritual.

  As he stepped through the oblong portal at the base of the stairs and emerged behind the altar, the eight elder priests raised their arms in unison, palms upward, the mouth and eyes of the serpentine bands that encircled their ring fingers turned to face upward with their palms. A soft chant rose and fell in a pulsing rhythm, timed to pace Jorthain’s steps up the dais to his place atop the altar.

  The woman tied facedown was bent forward across a great ball that formed the altar’s center, two paces in diameter, her hands and feet bound in leather straps to hoops of steel embedded in the altar’s base. Jorthain reached forward, grabbing her blonde hair and pulling her head back so that he could look into her face.

  She was in her early twenties, with light blue eyes, now distended in fright. She moaned behind her gag, shaking in spasms of fear. The high priest gazed at her for several seconds before turning to grab the pearl-handled ceremonial dagger from its mounting place on the wall behind the altar.

  The chant picked up in pace and rose in volume, a beat that sounded more and more like Jorthain’s pounding heart. He raised the dagger before him, laid out on his own upstretched palms, revealing the same jewel-eyed serpent entwined in the handle that formed the loops of the priestly rings. Slowly his fingers closed around the handle. Then Jorthain stepped forward and slit her throat from ear to ear.

  Blood arced outward in long twin spurts, then gushed again in rapidly diminishing arcs into the large basin surrounding the round marble stone. Jorthain laid the dagger aside on a pedestal, then spread his arms wide, as if the bloody stone was an altar.

  “Krylzygool . . . hear me.” His voice rose in a high-pitched shriek. “Accept this offering most pure and grant us your vision, oh ancient one.”

  The marble stone, now stained in sheets of red on one side, had taken on a sickly yellow cast.

  “Let the pure blood feed the ancient heart. Let the terror of the innocent salve your immortal desires. Let the devotion of your servants stoke your mighty presence.”

  The stone’s color changed to purple, then it pulsed and deepened to scarlet, as a wave of pleasure brought moans to the swaying priests.

  “Master, reveal to us now that which we need to see in order to serve you. Show us the source of defiance that has been thrust at your priesthood, nay, even thrust at you. Show us the one who sneers at your power and strives to drive doubts into the minds of those you dominate.”

  A brown aura pulsed from the stone, bringing gasps of terror from the assemblage. The darkness deepened, the feeling of rage rising, growing, reaching outward. Jorthain felt his muscles cramp and tighten as he fell prostrate on the altar, unable to breathe as his chest bound up on itself. Just as he felt his consciousness fade to the smallest pinprick of light, the darkness yielded, replaced with a deep sense of frustration. Then that, too, was gone.

  The high priest gasped, struggling to draw breath. His blood beat painfully in his temples, and as he rolled to his knees, he thought that he might yet lose consciousness. He managed to raise his head to see that several of the other priests were also struggling to rise. Others had succumbed and lay curled where they had fallen.

  “What?” Norel, one of the elder priests, managed to gasp. “What can it mean? Krylzygool showed us nothing.”

  Jorthain pulled himself erect, although the effort cost him dearly. “I must contemplate what I have just witnessed. I will call for you all to convene with me once I have meditated on this. Restore yourselves and assist the others. You will await my summons.”

  With that, the high priest turned and slowly made his way back to his quarters, where he collapsed, exhausted, into his bed. When he awakened, most of the day had passed so that the late-evening rays of the sun slanted over his balcony. Jorthain sat up, leaning over to splash water from his bedside basin on his face and neck.

  No response. Never in all his years had he seen anything like it. A perfect sacrifice resulting in no reward other than the initial pleasure. What had Norel said?

  Jorthain walked to the balcony and gazed out beyond the city walls once more. If anything, the situation was worse this evening. Veterans fought to prevent less-disciplined troops from large-scale desertion. Their efforts were unsuccessful. Commanders were trying to reorganize the remainder of their troops but with great difficulty. He could imagine why. Despite the murder of thirteen priests, there had been no response from the temple in over twelve hours.

  And why not? Because unbeknownst to the horde beyond the city walls, the most powerful of the protectors had failed in communion with their Krylzygool. Or had their god failed them? Jorthain quailed, lambasting himself for the blasphemous thought.

  Jorthain had a very good idea what that failure meant. The witch. The one who had killed his priests sent to collect the annual tribute from the flock in the mountains. She had somehow reached out and set a mark on their very door, a warning meant to intimidate and frighten. Somehow she had managed to place wards that blocked even the perceptive powers of the ancient one.

  And now Jorthain himself had aided her by collapsing in exhaustion after the dark calling so that an entire day was lost in restoring control of the army. The old man’s head pounded as the blood beat against his temples, rage turning his face a deep shade of purple. He moved across the room, bumping the oblong nightstand hard enough to bring a bruise to his thigh. Cursing under his breath, he pulled on the bell cord that dangled near the headboard of his bed. Within seconds Boban appeared in the doorway.

  “Yes, Your Eminence?” he said.

  “Send out word to the commander of the guard. I want a full city search conducted immediately. Anyone who cannot be proven to be a member of the army or a citizen is to be arrested and held for inquisition. Also, I want all commanders in that rabble of an army beyond our gates to conduct a head count and personally vouch for the identity of all their men.

  “I want a list of all who are unaccounted for delivered to me by midmorning tomorrow. Finally, I want all priests to report to their parish masters and account for their whereabouts for the last twenty-four hours in detail. Once the masters have been satisfied that they have heard from their charges, I want them to schedule time with me personally so that I may review the matter. Do you understand exactly what I want?”

  “Yes, master,” said Boban.

  “Good, then you may go,” the high priest said. Then he paused. “One thing more. Alert all who participated in the Conclave of the Nine this morning that they are to come to my chambers immediately.”

  “As you wish.” Boban scurried out the door.

  Jorthain paced. There was no doubt that the witch of whom mighty Kragan had warned them was behind this disastrous sequence of events. He could see her in the images that Kragan had revealed in Jorthain’s scrying vase. She exuded an attraction that befitted one marked by elemental kind. The witch of prophecy had now attacked Jorthain. The high priest gritted his teeth. Would that he had readied his army more quickly.

  As the eight elder priests began arriving, Jorthain ushered them to chairs in his audience chamber. When all were present, he spoke. “As most of you have probably come to understand, our enemy has moved against us. There can be no doubt that the one we have to blame for this blasphemy is the witch whom we seek to destroy.”

  A sharp intake of breath indicated that not all the priests had arrived at this conclusion. The fact that his god had failed to identify the killer led Jorthain to speculate on the assassin’s nature. Only someone in possession of powerful wards could have accomplished this. The thought of the witch who had defeated a half dozen of his protectors flashed to the forefront of his mind.

  “She has managed to insert an agent in our midst, an agent warded with magical protections against discovery. I want this person found quickly. I have already issued orders for the search to commence, but I want eac
h of you to organize the brethren in a search of every part of the city and the surrounding countryside.

  “Leave no stone unturned. Anyone who cannot find others to vouch for his identity is to be taken and imprisoned for further interrogation. Any who resist are to be killed immediately. No priests are to travel in groups numbering less than three. We cannot underestimate the capabilities of the witch’s agent. He has already killed at least thirteen of our brothers under our very noses. I will not let him go unpunished.”

  Norel raised his voice. “And if we don’t find him? What then?”

  “You will find him. Let no doubt enter your mind. No one violates our holy place to commit such atrocities and leaves unpunished. The assassin is running by now, probably trying to blend in with the deserters, so ensure you send out enough hunting parties to cut off escape. He will head to the east, up into the mountains, so get our scouts out in front of him. He won’t be a vorg, so bring me only human suspects.”

  As the priests stood to go, Jorthain raised his hand. “Please, do not disappoint me. I would dearly hate to lose any of you in whom I have placed such trust.”

  As one, the assemblage bowed and made their way swiftly from the room. As Jorthain watched them depart, he examined the fear that had been growing within him. If the witch in the Glacier Mountains, southeast of Mo’Lier, could block the powers granted to the protectors by Krylzygool, she posed a greater danger than he had thought. A new worry sprang to mind. What would Kragan do to him if he failed in his mission to kill her and her family?

  27

  Areana’s Vale

  YOR 414, Early Autumn

  Wearing a mostly white apron, Rolf Grombit scurried through the crowded Flowing Ale Tavern; the crowd had not yet reached its peak. That would happen at the guard shift change. His jovial nature allowed him to harangue his waitresses and cooks without offense being taken.