A Thief in the Night

Chapter Fifty-five

Croy desperately needed to rest. Yet he would not, not until Cythera and the others were safe.

Morget, on the other hand, had never seemed so vital. “I am a hero now!” he exclaimed, hefting Dawnbringer over his head. “I will be a great chieftain. You will see. Everyone will see!” he proclaimed.

“I’m sure your reign will be a glorious one,” Croy agreed. He glanced up at the ledge, high overhead, through which he had entered the throne room. He did not relish the prospect of climbing up there again. The only other option meant proceeding through the arch ahead of him-through which the demon had entered. One way was as good as another, he supposed.

“Many nations will fall before me,” Morget told him. “Men will bow when I approach. Women will want to make love to me.”

“That’s often more trouble than you’d think,” Croy warned him. He had some experience in that realm. “Especially when they’re already married to other people. Hark at this arch-do you think it will take us back toward the central shaft?”

“They will clamor for my central shaft,” Morget laughed. “Yet I promise you this, brother. No matter how she begs, I will lay no finger on your bride.”

Croy inhaled deeply. That was coming very close to impugning Cythera’s honor. If Morget took his jest any further, he would be required by his own honor to respond. He had no desire to have to duel Morget just then, however. He wasn’t sure he could lift Ghostcutter without exhausting his meager reserves of strength. “We should be quiet now,” he told the barbarian. “The girl you saw will have had time to reach others by now. We could walk into an ambush in the next room.”

“I will be as silent as death, my mother,” Morget assured him with a great bloodcurdling laugh. “I promise.”

Croy shook his head but said nothing. He headed through the arch, the tiny light of his candle throwing long shadows into the room beyond. He could not see the walls of this new chamber at all, nor its ceiling. Just as on the top level, where they’d faced the revenants, the light made a small island in a sea of darkness.

Yet as he pressed forward, he thought his eyes must be playing tricks on him. It seemed almost as if the sun was coming up. He stared and closed one eye, then the other. He knew from past experience that when one spent too long underground sometimes one’s eyes became differently adapted to the lack of illumination. Yet both of his eyes agreed, and he could doubt the evidence of his senses no longer.

A ray of red light stretched along the floor, flickering in and out of existence at first, then growing stronger. This was no beam shed by a lantern or a torch-even a bonfire would have given less steady light, and certainly the light of a normal fire would be a different color. Yet even as Croy watched, the light strengthened and grew more clear. Huge shapes loomed toward him out of the darkness-big, blocky silhouettes that he soon realized must be the walls of buildings. The red light grew even stronger, and it was just like watching the sun rise over the walls of Ness.

“Morget,” he whispered, “do you see this?”

“Aye,” the barbarian answered.

Croy moved forward toward the light, uncertain of the dangers but needing desperately to know its source. This new light made long shadows of everything it touched. It made him think there must be some magic afoot, and he wondered if maybe Morget hadn’t been right after all, and the girl they’d chased was, in fact, some kind of magician. They had slain her pet demon-what mischief could she be making for them now?

Croy’s skin prickled and he grew very, very aware of his surroundings.

In the new light, he could see they had entered a massive courtyard, an open space full of low buildings-houses, temples, granaries, who could say?-with, high overhead, a vaulted ceiling held up by stout pillars. Ahead, the red light came from between two buildings with massive marble walls. Behind him, he saw that the throne room was just one more of these large structures.

Up to this point the Vincularium had shown him only tunnels and enclosed spaces, but now it was like he had walked into a mammoth city, and he felt as if he had fallen through some magical portal and wound up outside of the Vincularium, perhaps hundreds of miles or more away. Only the vaulted ceiling assured him that he was still underground.

He passed between the two columned facades and crossed another hundred feet of flagstones before he came to the far end of the courtyard. It ended in a ledge over the central shaft, a broad viewing platform with a marble and bronze railing. He had been searching for the central shaft for hours now, it felt like, and he’d finally discovered it. Yet it was so wondrous in appearance he barely noticed where he was.

The shaft itself was lit up like full daylight. Croy could see all the way to the top level where he had entered the Vincularium, and up at that dizzying height stood the source of the reddish light. It was the crystalline orb that hung in the center of the shaft, suspended on its three massive chains. It burned now, with a roiling fire that almost hurt his eyes to look at, an incredible conflagration contained entirely within the transparent globe. He could see now that dozens of pipes crowned the orb, running away into the domed ceiling of the dwarven city.

Dawn had come to the Vincularium.

“Like an enormous oil lamp,” he said, trying to puzzle it out. “But how-what- Ah, of course. It’s magic.”

No other explanation satisfied Croy’s view of the world. It had to be magic that made the light burn. He marveled at it, having fit it neatly into his simple philosophy. If you saw something you couldn’t explain, if it seemed to have no rational explanation, then it was undeniably magical in nature, and therefore it couldn’t be explained, so you didn’t need to worry about it. It was a common enough attitude in Skrae, at least among the human population. Dwarves, Croy knew, found this rationale endlessly frustrating, but then dwarves rarely needed much justification to be frustrated with humanity.

While he stood gaping at it, the light of the orb grew suddenly stronger and he had to look away with a gasp. If he tried to look at it a moment longer, he felt his eyes would be seared from his head. He blinked away blotchy afterimages of green and purple and looked down into the pool of water at the bottom of the shaft.

And then he got his next shock. A naked woman was swimming through the dark water, her limbs parting the surface with a languid motion. Her skin was as pale as ivory, and she struck him as being too slender to be human-though what he saw of her angular form did not make him think of emaciation and hunger, but of a sublime beauty. Starvation hadn’t made her so thin. He’d seen human women who had gone too long without food, and it made them cadaverous and ugly. This woman looked like she was born to be willow-thin. Even her bones looked more slender than a human’s. As she swam, her dark hair flowed behind her, buoyed by the water.

Croy stood enchanted, watching her stroke her way across the pool. He might have stood there and watched forever-had Morget not grabbed his shoulder and hauled him bodily around.

“Brother-come quickly. Such wonders must wait.”

“But-” Croy shook himself to break his reverie. The sight of the swimming woman had bewitched him. “What is it, Morget? Why do you look like that?”

The barbarian had gone pale, even under the red ink that masked the bottom half of his face. His eyes stood out from their sockets as if he’d seen a ghost. “Just come with me,” he said. “And have your sword ready.”

He took Croy back to the center of the courtyard and shoved him behind one of the marble buildings. Together they peered around a twisted column of cyclopean blocks. “Behold,” Morget whispered, and pointed into the long shadows between the buildings.

At first Croy could see nothing. His eyes had adapted to the light of the Vincularium’s artificial sun, and the shadows in contrast were too absolute. Then he spied a pair of figures emerging from the reddish light. They wore armor of bronze, and they were as rail-thin as the woman he’d seen swimming in the pool. Revenants, he thought. They must have tracked him and the barbarian all the way down from the top level. Well, he could still fight such, though His hand stopped before he could get his sword free of its scabbard. Moving between the two revenants was… something else. A creature of no fixed form, five feet in general diameter. Howling faces pressed outward from inside its skin.

“Another one?” Croy asked. “Another demon? The little brother of your beast-or perhaps its child?” Whatever it was, it chilled Croy’s blood. If there was more than one-far worse, if this demon could somehow multiply-it was a far greater threat than he had ever imagined. He’d thought a demon so close to the border of Skrae could be a thing that undid the world if it wasn’t stopped. Yet if there were more than the two, if the demon had been down here for centuries, reproducing, creating an army of itself-how could even the Ancient Blades ever resist it? How could they possibly win?

This could mean the end of the world.

Morget, who should have shared Croy’s apprehensions-the barbarian was an Ancient Blade as well, sworn as Croy was to checking the advance of demons-seemed more concerned with his own singular destiny. He seethed with anger, and Croy imagined he would start roaring at any moment. Yet when he spoke it was with the cool tones of a man estimating a job of work. “I know only this-my labor here is not yet done.”

Part IV

The Shadows Lengthen

Interlude

E ven as the red sun of the Vincularium flickered into a kind of dawn, outside, in the wider world, night was falling. On the road to the ancient city, Herward the eremite kept his watch, his eyes fixed on the dark hole in the once-inviolate seal.

He shuddered as the last purple light of day fled, and bolstered himself with a swig of black mead. His sole sustenance, it was a concoction of mead made from wild honey with fermented weeds and root vegetables, brewed and left to age until it resembled molten obsidian. The stuff had given his ancestors courage to charge into battle and to brave the tortures of the elves. It had sustained Herward for years without solid food, and opened his eyes to visions and hallucinations past number. No matter how hard his life in the ancient fortress had been, no matter what privations he faced, the black mead kept him going. It had kept him steadfast and strong.

It had no power whatsoever to give him the courage to step inside the Vincularium.

He could not say what he was so afraid of. Had he not spent much of his adult life yearning-hungering desperately-for the secrets of that place? And yet now those secrets seemed foul and horrid. He felt as if he put one foot inside that dark hole, it would be immediately chopped off. Or worse-a long-dead hand would grasp the foot and pull him inward, pull him inside out of the moonlight, and he would never reemerge.

His mind so full of dark fancies, his body trembling with fear, Herward nearly expired on the spot when someone crept up behind him and softly spoke his name.

His hand shot out and his clay bottle flew away to shatter on the stony road. So much for liquid courage. Slowly he turned to see what dread phantom had come for him, what horror he’d loosed from under the mountain.

Yet it was a smiling face that greeted him, a smiling face with twinkling eyes he could just make out under the shadow of a monkish cowl. The man who stood behind him wore no bronze armor, but instead the undyed wool habit of a priest.

“Oh, I-I’m sorry, you frightened me,” Herward said, clawing at his wild hair, his scabrous skin. He must look a terror himself, he thought, though he felt like a lizard caught too far from its hiding place in the rocks. “I beg your pardon, brother. You know my name?”

“In Helstrow they told me I’d find you here,” the newcomer said. He did not move forward to embrace Herward, nor even offer his hand, but he offered no violence either. There was a supernal calm about the man, an aura of perfected peace. He looked as if he’d been truly touched by the divine, and that calmed Herward a little. “There are many there who remember Herward the Holy.”

“Herward the Mad, you mean,” the eremite said with a laugh. “Oh, I bear them no malice. They made sport of me, it’s true, but I know my ways are not those of others. That’s why I came here, really. To live life in my own fashion.”

“When we are touched by higher things, it is hard to stay worldly,” the newcomer said. “May I sit with you? I’d talk awhile, if you’ll have my company.”

Herward nodded eagerly. By custom he was a loner, undesirous of human connection, but this night was different. He’d been plagued by doubts before as he sat and watched the hole in the side of the mountain. He’d started to think he heard things moving around just inside, and was grateful for someone else to share his vigil. “Of course, of course! You are a fellow holy man, I see. Yes, I can sense it about you, you know the calm of communion with another world. Please, please join me, friend, brother, ah…?”

“Call me Prestwicke,” the newcomer said. He found a boulder by the side of the road and sat down upon it. His habit was dusty, as if he’d come a long way. “It’s good to sit, and rest awhile.”

Herward sat down in the road and folded his skinny legs in a pose of meditation. “Have you come far?” he asked, because he knew not what else to say.

“From Ness, and lately,” Prestwicke assented. “The miles are long, but the work is the important thing. I do not shirk my duty, nor do I complain. But… it is good to sit, and rest.” He looked toward the hole in the mountain but did not remark on it. For a long quiet time the two of them simply sat and shared each other’s company without words. Herward was just grateful not to be alone.

When the newcomer did speak again, his voice was soft and pleasing to the ear. “You were visited recently, weren’t you? By armed men, no less. That must have been hard for you. That sort are so full of bodily desires and greedy aspirations. Their very presence must have tried your devotion.”

How Prestwicke could know that was a mystery, but Herward kept doubt from creasing his face with a frown. Perhaps Prestwicke had been given that information in a vision. “As you say, I do not shirk my duty. The Lady asked me to help them.”

“Now this, Herward, is why I wanted to meet you,” Prestwicke told him. “How long has it been since I met another who really understood what holy work means? Too long I’ve been surrounded only by common folk, or worse-priests.”

Herward cringed at the man’s tone. “Now, the priests of the Lady are good men, and learned, and wise,” he said, almost rising to his feet to defend them. “They are touched by Her hand just as much as-”

Prestwicke interrupted him. “They lead the people in prayers that go unanswered. They sing… hymns.” He lifted one hand in dismissal.

“The Lady places us each in our station, and gives us our work. Her priests She chooses because they can teach, and heal, and bring to the people a-”

“They do nothing of value. They take money from the people to burn incense and read from books. Bah! Do you know, Herward,” Prestwicke went on, “there was a time-long passed, of course-when priests were feared by the common herd? When they inspired awe wherever they went?”

“The Lady’s chosen ministers bring only comfort and-”

“The days I speak of were before the Lady came to our world,” Prestwicke said with a little shake of his head. “It was the first work of Her clergy to track down and destroy the old priesthood. Because they knew, Herward. They knew what real priests were capable of. They could make the rain fall. They could change the course of battles. They could perform wonders, Herward. Wonders.”

Herward felt as if icy water had been poured over his shoulders and back. He began to think this visitor was not what he seemed. He might not even be human. There were old tales of demons that took human form, of tempters and cajolers. “You’re speaking of sorcery,” he whispered.

“I most certainly am not,” Prestwicke said, and though he did not raise his voice, it seemed to echo like a thunderclap. “Sorcerers are vile creatures, despoilers of ancient ritual. They steal scraps of incantations and chants from the old priesthood, and use them for their own venal purposes. I’m talking of the old priests of Sadu. The holy brotherhood that placated and worshipped the Bloodgod, in the name of all humankind.”

“Lady preserve me,” Herward said. “Why have you come to me? I’ll resist you, I swear. If you try to take my soul-”

“Their ways are lost now. Their books destroyed. But secrets have a strange way of being remembered. I’m going to find the old ways, Herward. I’m going to bring them back. I can’t let you stop me.” Prestwicke rose to his feet. “Back then, in the old days, the priests of Sadu would perform sacrifices. Human sacrifices. The people would choose who amongst them must die. It mattered little to the priests who was chosen-any life would do as far as Sadu was concerned. Any life would give them the power, the strength to do His work in the world.”

The knife did not suddenly appear in Prestwicke’s hand. It had been there for a while, but Herward had not noticed it before. Now he saw nothing else.

There are many kinds of fear. There is fear of the unknown, and fear of immediate violence. There is a kind of supernatural dread, too, when one realizes that a painful, bloody death may only be the prelude to something much worse.

“I don’t know if the Lady is even real,” Prestwicke said. It was ugly blasphemy just to say that out loud, but Herward did not challenge it. “I know She doesn’t protect Her priests. I’ve seen them bleed. You, on the other hand, are different, Herward. You seem to have genuinely been touched by something bigger than yourself, just as I have. Of course, it’s possible you’re just insane.”

Herward raised one hand to make a holy sign across his chest. Prestwicke moved faster than a striking snake and knocked his arm away. The knife did not touch Herward’s skin, but he heard it slash through the air, an inch away from his throat.

“It might be interesting to see just how much power you have. It might be entertaining to test my god against your goddess, and find out which one can actually protect their chosen. But then again, there’s a chance I might lose. You might kill me.”

Prestwicke chuckled. Herward found himself unable to resist, and he made sounds that might have been giggles or might have been tiny screams.

“But the people didn’t choose you for my sacrifice,” Prestwicke went on. “They chose another. I have to go inside the Vincularium now, Herward. It’s better-more proper-if I don’t kill anyone else until I finish this task. So I’ll ask you politely. Are you going to try to stop me?”

Herward opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

The knife was only a hairbreadth away from his eyeball. Herward was a man of celestial visions, of grand thoughts encompassing the whole of the cosmos, but in that moment, in that slowed-down time, he could see nothing-nothing at all-but the shiny, sharp point of that little knife.

“No,” he said.

Because sometimes fear is stronger than faith.