The Assassin King

6

The occupants of the hidden room looked at one another in amazement as footfalls could be heard descending the stone Is he mad?” Anborn said in a low voice. “It was his bloody demand that this meeting take place in secret; why in the name of every wench I’ve ever bedded would he be breaking the seal of this place to allow an interloper? Your husband is a fool, Rhapsody.”

“Won’t get an argument from us on that,” Granthor said. The Lady Cymrian rose, still weak, and stepped over to the doorway. From the darkness at the bottom of the staircase a figure emerged, cloaked and hooded. The man came immediately to Ashe and spoke a few soft words in a low tone, then followed him into the hidden chamber. The Lord Cymrian closed the door behind him. Even beneath the plain broadcloth cloak it was clear that he was tall and wide of shoulder, taller than any of the men present except for Grunthor. He did not bow, but turned in the direction of Rhapsody and the infant for a moment, then reached out a large hand, one sheathed in a lambskin glove, and rested it gently on the baby’s head. Gwydion Navarne watched the odd spectacle unfold in silence. With the other hand the man reached up and took down his hood revealing hair streaked gray and silver with age, though there was still enough white-blond hue to it to hint of hat it must have looked like in his youth. His beard was long, curled slightly at the ends, and his eyes were clear and blue as the cloudless summer sky, reflecting the flickering light of the lantern. Constantin, the Patriarch of Sepulvarta. For a long moment after he knew he should be kneeling, Gwydion remained frozen in place, finally rising long enough to sink to one knee. His father, Stephen Navarne, had been at. adherent of the Patrician religion, though he was also a good friend of Llauron the Invoker, the former head of the Filidic order of nature priests, and had been conversant in and respectful of the religious practices of both sects. Stephen’s attitude, unique as it was in the polarized world of faith, was unsurprising given both the geography of his duchy and his accepting nature. Navarne was located at the crux of the northern forest of Gwynwood, the eastern border of the neighboring duchy of Avonderre, and the northern fringe of Tyrian, making it the crossroads of the continent’s faiths. So the magnitude of the Patriarch’s appearance in his family’s home was not lost on Gwydion Navarne. The Patriarch only left the Basilica of the Star, Lianta’ar, in Sepulvarta for occasions of state, such as royal funerals, marriages, or coronations, or in the direst of emergencies. As far as Gwydion knew, no one royal was being buried, married, or crowned. The Patriarch’s white brows drew together, and gestured impatiently at Gwydion. “Get up,” he said tersely. “It’s far too crowded in here to be doing that, and inappropriate for a man who has been invested as duke of an Orlandan province. Rise from your knees and sit down.” Gwydion complied, abashed. “What brings you here at this time, Your Grace?” asked quickly, offering the Patriarch a chair. The holy man’s body, while elderly, still bore the signs of great strength from his youth; he waved a hand dismissively at the chair. “I can’t remain here long, lest it be discovered that I am gone from Lianta’ar,” Constantin replied. “I bring disturbing news-but by the look of things, I am not alone in that.”

“Step within the circle, then. Rial, Anborn, and Gwydion were reporting on the preparations Sorbold is making for war.” said Ashe, sitting down beside Rhapsody. He ran a hand gently over his son’s head. “It would appear that Roland, and perhaps the other members of the Alliance, are the targets of “Eventually,” the Patriarch agreed, coming within the protective light. Some will fall before you, others after, if Tanquist has his way. The silence in the room thickened until it was palpable. Tell us what you mean, Your Grace,” Ashe said finally. The old man’s searing blue eyes caught and held the lanternlight, reflecting and intensifying it. “The first place Talquist will attack is Sepulvarta. His troops are massing even now on the mountain rims and in the foothills to our south. The holy city-state is the doorstep of Roland and the Middle Continent; Talquist will wipe his feet upon us as he crosses the threshold into your lands. I have no doubt of this.”

“The holy city?” Gwydion said, his words slow with shock. “How is that possible? Sorbold is an adherent to the Patrician faith! One of the five elemental basilicas is within their domain. Even in the most ferocious of battles in the Cymrian War, when all else was left in desolation, Sepulvarta was spared. It would be an affront to the All-God—” Was it not an affront to the All-God, or the One-God, as the Lirin call Him, when the Third Fleet sacked the holy forest of Gwynwood a thousand years ago? We burned the Outer Circle, and even attacked the Great White Tree,” Anborn said bitterly. “I—Elynsynos’s own grandson—led those attacks. In war, nothing is held sacred. That Sepulvarta has remained unscathed until now is purely a coincidence—a miracle.”

“The Lord Marshal speaks the truth,” Constantin affirmed. War is coming to us first; it has already begun. It is one of tree things I have traveled here, in secret, to warn you about, Lord Cymrian. I have also come to tell you that Nielash Mousa, the Blesser of Sorbold and one of my chief benisons, is dead or dying. He has given his life in the defense and protection of Terreanfor, the basilica of Living Stone, in Jierna’sid.”

“There was an assault on Terreanfor?” Achmed asked as Anborn started to become agitated. “Why would Talquist attack the only one of the five basilicas within his own nation?”

“The attack was not from without, but from within,” said the Patriarch. “Terreanfor, being the sacred basilica of elemental earth, is the greatest known repository of Living Stone on the continent. Talquist has been secretly harvesting that precious commodity of the basilica for his own purposes. The man who told me of his treachery witnessed it personally; partook in it, unwillingly. This blessed element, this gift of die Earth-Mother, has been made use of in the unholiest of ways—I suspect the assassination of the Dowager Empress and the Crown Prince Vyshla was the first of these events, but I have no idea how Living Stone could have caused that to happen.”

“The Dowager Empress was a withered crone well past her deserved time to live,” said Anborn. “And her fat bump of a son could hardly rise from his own chair without assistance. What makes you think their deaths were not of natural causes? It is gravely important that we not attribute to malice that which should rightly be explained otherwise; we will become lost in what threat is real and what is not.”

“True,” said the Patriarch. “But while I cannot prove their sudden and mutual deaths to be regicide, I do know that Talquist rigged the Weighing on the Scales of Jierna Tal to have himself anointed emperor. All the modesty and the humble choice to remain regent for a year was an act; Talquist has been planning his ascension for a long time.” The searing blue eyes narrowed. “I have known this man, and his cruelty, for many years.” The small earthen room fell silent, even to the flickering lantern. Not much was commonly known about the origins of the Patriarch; he had appeared from seemingly nowhere at the first Cymrian Council of the new age, mixed in among the Diaspora of descendants of the exodus from the lost island of Serendair. Ashe and Rhapsody exchanged a glance with the two Bolg; they all knew his story, but had never revealed it. “You needn’t expound further, Your Grace,” said Ashe. The Patriarch shook his head. “If these men are your most trusted councilors, they deserve to know,” he said, eyeing An-born, Rial, and Gwydion. “A war is brewing that has the potential to lay waste to much of the Known World. Any secrets of my past are insignificant now—it is better that all hidden things be known, so that we can hope to stave off at least part of the destruction that is to come. It is as the All-God would want it.”

“As you wish,” Ashe demurred. “No man here is likely to judge you.”

“The Lord Cymrian speaks the truth,” said Rial. “All of us are less than perfect in the One-God’s eyes. Go on, Your Grace.”

“In my youth, I was a slave in the gladiatorial arenas of the borough of Nikkid’sar, in the city-state of Jakar in Sorbold,” the elderly man said. “And while I am an aged man, since that time of my bondage only a few years have gone by in the sight of the world. Being born of demon blood—a misbegotten offspring of the last known F’dor to bedevil this land—I was a brutal killer, knowing no remorse, only bloodlust.” He paused as Gwydion, Anborn, and Rial blinked in astonishment. “It was the Lady Cymrian who saved me—and you, Lord Marshal, when you rescued both of us in the process, though you undoubtedly do not recognize me.”

“I certainly do not,” said Anborn. “And if I had had my way, the gladiator that Rhapsody pulled from the arena in Sorbold would have died by my own hand. Had she not stayed that hand, your tainted soul would be roasting in the Vault of the Underworld now, if you are that wretch, that spawn of the demon.” The Patriarch nodded, no offense visible in his expression. “I am the same man who, four years ago, Rhapsody took behind the Veil of Hoen, to the mystical domain of the Lord and Lady Rowan, that place on the doorstep of death, where the near-dying find healing of one kind or another, either passing through the Gate of Life to the Afterlife, or being restored to health, to return for a greater purpose in the material world.” His gaze fell on Ashe. “I believe you know this realm.” The Lord Cymrian smiled slightly. “I do.”

“So, having been healed there yourself, you know the weight of the responsibility that comes with that second chance at life. When that which was demon was removed from my blood in that drowsy place of healing between the worlds, I had little left of me; all I had known was violence and murder. So I remained there in study, allowing much of my life to pass in absorbing the healing arts and the wisdom of the Rowans. My excessive longevity— bequeathed to me by the Cymrian mother I never knew—allowed me to spend centuries on that side of the Veil without dying there. When I finally returned to this side, I was old, had lived the equivalent of six hundred years, but only a short time had passed in the eyes of the world. For this reason, no one recognized me. The name of Constantin had been associated only with the young, hale killer of the Sorbold arena. I made no attempt to shield myself, have not altered that by which I was called, but no one has made the association—not even Talquist, who owned me when I was a gladiator.”

“It does not surprise me to know that Talquist engaged in the promotion and propagation of bloodsport before he ascended the throne,” said Rial. “But how has he come by so much power so quickly, without even being officially crowned?” The Patriarch looked down at the Ring of Wisdom on his hand; it was a simple ring, with a clear, smooth stone set in a plain platinum setting. Inside the stone, as though internally inscribed, were two symbols on opposite sides of the ova.l gemstone, resembling the symbols for positive and negative, the signs of balance between Life and Void, the two great constants of the universe. “Before he rigged the Weighing and stole the throne of Sorbold, Talquist was a merchant,” he said quietly. “While the royalty, the nobility, and even the military tend to view the merchant class as lower, inferior, in truth they have always had the greatest base of power, because they control the trade, and the contact with the outside world, of a nation. Talquist has long had access to allies in foreign lands that the Dowager barely maintained diplomatic relations with. He has a fleet of merchant vessels that have been plying the seas for years, keeping abreast of all that is going on in the Known World. I suspect he is an ally of the Magnate of Marincaer and the Baron of Argaut, both of whom also own large shipping concerns on the other side of the Central Sea and the world. He has been trafficking the goods of the mines and linen factories of Sorbold for decades; I suspect he is a far richer and well-connected man than anyone knew. Now that he has the Sorbold navy under his command as well, he rales the sea from the southern tip of Tyrian all the way to Golgarn in the east. And probably beyond.”

“But where are the slaves coming from?” Ashe asked. “Merchant ships are not equipped to assault coastal villages, and Sorbold naval vessels are not attacking the coastline of the Alliance. If the Sorbold navy had sailed across the Central Sea to Manosse, or some far-flung land away from the continent, Talquist would be vulnerable at home. This does not make sense—something is missing.”

“Agreed,” said the Patriarch. “Much is missing—much more than you can even imagine.” Something in the sound of the holy man’s voice made Gwydion’s blood chill suddenly. The council had been trading information of terrible consequence and unfathomable grief with efficiency and detachment; it was as if in the face of impending invasion and a war that would bring about the deaths of thousands, only the coldest logic could remain. But now, there was something deeper in Constantin’s words, something otherworldly. A quick glance told him that the others had heard the ominous warning as well; Rhapsody’s eyes were glittering, her face frozen. “Tell us,” said Ashe finally. The Patriarch’s eyes went to each person in attendance. Finally he averted them, as if to keep them from boring through the others. “Many things are missing, but I will begin with the one closest to your own family. Rhonwyn, your aunt, Lord Marshal, your great-aunt, Lord Cymrian, the Seer of the Present, has been taken from the Abbey of the Sun in Sepulvarta.” The members of the assemblage looked blankly at each other. Rhonwyn, like her two sisters, was a living relic, with the vision of Fate. Though, unlike her sisters, Rhonwyn was gentle and frail, most of the population that knew of their existence was too intimidated or frightened to even meet their gazes. A few intrepid souls occasionally worked up the courage to approach them long enough to seek a prophecy, often leaving in terror before it was finished. “Define ‘taken,’” said Ashe quickly. “Though the abbess did not see it occur, she believes that the Seer was abducted,” said the Patriarch. “I left Sepulvarta upon hearing this news, though I had already determined to come to you with other tidings. When the abbess climbed the staircase to the Seer’s tower to bring her the morning meal eleven days ago, she was gone. Rhonwyn has not left that abbey in a hundred years, save to attend the Cymrian Council that invested you both, m’lord and lady. She is incapable of it—incapable of independent survival.” Achmed and Rhapsody exchanged a silent glance. Several years prior they had climbed that same staircase together to visit the frail Seer, one of the triplet daughters born to the dragon Elynsynos and Merithyn, the Ancient Seren explorer who had been her lover. The three sisters, known in the language of the Cymrians as the Manteids, had each been born with a surpassing gift of sight, and all were impelled to speak only the truth about what they saw, though what was true was not always the same as what was accurate. Each of the sisters was thought to be, at least on some level, insane. Anwyn, the Seer of the Past, was the least so—the Past was a more concrete realm than either the evanescent Present or the uncertain Future—and she had been known to connive in the use of her gift of sight, hoarding the knowledge it gave to her and dispensing it in ways to be interpreted as she wished it to be. Manwyn, the Seer of the Future, was both the most unbalanced and most sought after, because being able to see what had not yet come to pass gave many desperate pilgrims the belief that her aid might help them achieve or prevent what they could not otherwise be able to achieve or prevent. Most left her crumbling temple disappointed or deluded, because the prophecies the madwoman chanted at them often had many interpretations. Rhonwyn, the most fragile of the sisters, actually had the clearest grip on reality. The difficulty was that it was momentary; as seconds passed, the Present turned into the Past, and she could not recall from moment to moment what had been asked of her, or even what she had said. Few had the patience or the insight to tolerate speaking with her for more than a few minutes, and most generally gave up in frustration, leaving her alone and unsought after in her decaying abbey, smiling to herself and staring up with blind eyes that had no irises into the sky above her. “For a week or more before the Seer disappeared, she had been visited regularly by a priest from the manse of Sorbold within the city of Sepulvarta,” the Patriarch continued gravely. “Each day the man would come to the abbey with two acolytes, climb the courtyard stairs, and pose a single question. Then he left, returning at the same time the next day.”

“Did the abbess conveniently overhear the question?” Achmed asked. “After a few of the daily visits, she made it a point to be working in the outer garden beneath Rhonwyn’s tower at the time the clergy arrived,” said Constantin. “She tells me that the same question was asked on two occasions—the last two days before the Seer disappeared.”

“And what was it?” Anborn demanded. The Patriarch glanced at Rhapsody. “The question the priest asked was this—‘Where is the Child of Time?’ On the two occasions that she overheard, the Seer was silent, then said only that there was no Child of Time. It would seem that on the last day the priest received a different answer. By my estimate, that would have been on Yule, the Turning Day of the new year.” His voice became softer. “When was your son born, m’lady?” The Lady Cymrian’s face went white; Achmed and Ashe exchanged a glance. “New Year’s Day,” Ashe said finally, “as the night passed from one day to the next, from one year to the next. But why was a priest of Sorbold seeking this child—our child, if he be this so-called Child of Time?”

“Because his emperor has been searching for that child ceaselessly,” said the Patriarch darkly. “I have heard it in his prayers, and in those of the remaining priests of Sorbold.” He eyed Gwydion Navarne, the only adherent of his religion in the council. “In our faith, unlike that of the Filidic order of Gwynwood, prayers are not offered directly to the Creator, but through channels, to the pastor of each congregant’s local temple, who offers up those prayers and the others of the locality to central abbots, who pass them along to the benison of their area, who present them, in prayer, to me. I offer them to the All-God in supplication through the great spire of Lianta’ar. At each step the worship becomes more powerful, more pure, because it is joined by so many other offerings of praise and thanksgiving. I do not normally discern what is being asked for—it is only my responsibility to add my own entreaties for the All-God’s grace and make the offering. “But, as I told you, Nielash Mousa, the benison of Sorbold, is dead, or dying. And Talquist has killed many of the order, especially those who lived within the manse at Jierna Tal.”

“Why?” Ashe asked incredulously. Constantin’s brow blackened. “We’ll get to that in a moment,” he said darkly. “As a result of this carnage, the prayers of the faithful in Sorbold are now scattered, misdirected. So they come to me directly, and as a result I hear them—and it distracts me from my station. Of late I have heard the same entreaty made over and over to the All-God on behalf of the emperor—and that is to find the Child of Time.”

“Again, I ask you, why?” Ashe said, his tone darker. The air grew noticeably drier as the dragon in his blood grew more agitated. The elderly cleric returned his stare, then sighed, his lined face showing his age for a moment. “If you are asking me for Talquist’s reason, I cannot give you an answer. I hear his prayers, but I cannot see into his heart, black and twisted as I know it to be. But I can surmise a possible motivation—though I pray to the All-God I am wrong.”

“Tell us,” Anborn commanded impatiently, but Ashe held up a hand to his uncle. He had seen the clouds form in the Patriarch’s searing blue eyes, and knew whatever realm he was looking back into was a terrifying one. He glanced at Rhapsody, who was as white as the blanket she cradled. “Please, Your Grace,” he said quietly. “Explain, in whatever way you need to do so.” Constantin remained silent; as he waited in thought, it seemed to Gwydion that the last of the moving air in the room was inhaled and gone. When finally he spoke, his words were soft. “Over time there have been those who can see beyond the realm of sight, beyond the places where the eye has dominion,” he said. “Sometimes that special sight is due to a gift granted at birth, or because of a special heritage. It is an ability that can, under extraordinarily rare circumstances, be learned, if taught by one of great knowledge. Or sometimes it is not an ability to see, but rather the opportunity to transcend the limits of normal sight with an instrumentality that has the power to do so. I do not know which of these methods Talquist might have made use of, but I suspect he has done so, at least once, probably more often. And the place I believe he may have gained an unwarranted glimpse into is that place between the doors of life and death, the Veil of Hoen, of which we were speaking a moment ago. “The Veil of Hoen, for those of you who have not ventured there, is a place of dreams, the realm of the Lord and Lady Rowan. The Lady is the Keeper of Dreams, the Guardian of Sleep, Yl Breudiwyr. The Lord is the Hand of Mortality, the Peaceful Death, Yl Angaulor. In that place of transition there are many things that are not known in this, the material world. One of those entities is known as the Weaver. Do you know of this being?”

“You mentioned this once to me before, but it is not an entity I have any knowledge of outside of your words,” said Ashe. “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, fire, water, air, earth, and ether. But there are other elements 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. “The Weaver 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 in that drowsy, timeless place, 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.” Ashe nodded. “When you told me of this before, you said that in those ties, there is power—that 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.” His hand covered Rhapsody’s, and they exchanged a glance that brought smiles to their faces, in spite of the coming threat.

“I did,” said the Patriarch. “But what I did not tell you was what I noticed in the tapestry she was weaving. In this massive record of history there are millions of threads, woven together into the perfect depiction of the tale of Time. “In one place, however, there is a flaw—a discrepancy that in a tapestry on this side of the Veil would scarcely be noticed, if it was seen at all, an imperfection in thread or technique. But an imperfection in history that has already occurred should not be possible in the Weaver’s tapestry; it is only a record of what has gone before, without variability or equivocation. It is almost as if the threads of Time had been taken apart and rewoven there—as if Time itself had been altered in this one place in the Past.” The only sound for a long moment was the crackling of the lantern flame. “Time—rewoven?” Ashe asked at last. “How can that be? I thought you said the Weaver does not interdict in history, but just records it.”

“Aye,” said the Patriarch. “And as far as I know, she does not. But the split threads, the imperfections in history, appear only once in all of the tapestry, at least from what I could see—and it seems to have happened in the Third Age of history, at the very beginning of the Seren War—centuries before Gwylliam’s coronation, or the Cymrian exodus from Serendair.” Gwydion saw the blood leave the faces around the room, most especially that of his guardians. “Be there any clues as to how Time was altered?” Rial asked. Constantin shook his head. “Only a prophecy woven into the threads above the flaw, a riddle of sorts that seemed to precede whatever event would have left history marred.”

“Do you remember it?” Anborn asked tersely. “Indeed,” replied the Patriarch. “It was a primary object of my studies while I was beyond the Veil, but I never was able to connect it to anything else in history. It appears to be the last prophecy uttered in pure Time, before whatever change occurred took place.”

“Tell us, man, and be quick about it!” Anborn ordered harshly. The Patriarch shot him a look of displeasure, then turned to the Lady Cymrian, whose face was now pale as milk. “I speak these words to you as a Lirin Namer, m’lady, in the fervent hope that you might be able to decipher them,” he said softly, “To my knowledge they have never been uttered in this world, as they took place in Time before it was changed.” He cleared his throat and intoned the words carefully.

Rhapsody’s back went rigid. Her shoulders stiffened and her arms began to shake. Then she looked down at the sleeping child in her arms. Her lips, until that moment firmly pressed together, responding to neither taunt nor tenderness, fell open as the words spilled out of her mouth. “Dear One-God,” she whispered.