"Sometimes there is loss, Eva," he whispered. "Perhaps that is today"s lesson."
But it was not. There was thunder, and the common levy advanced. Set shoulders lofted bullistic rifles like a bristling forest of metal and wood, which then erupted in fire and smoke. It was the greatest sound I had ever heard. The valkynkein swept forward on iron treads, tearing into the soft flank of the Rethari force. Thunder and lightning and the sharp stink of cordite as the conscripted warriors of the city of Ash advanced. Warriors. Farmers, fish sellers, tailors, beggars. But armed with the Scholar-crafted weapons of the Royal Armory. They were unstoppable. They put fire into the Rethari, and the scaly legions fled. Their totem-men tromped away, their heavy feet digging into the b.l.o.o.d.y mud of the field. The battle was carried by common men, and the weapons of Alexander and his pet Scholars.
That was the lesson of the day.
I woke up, startled by the sound of the maid pushing dust down the hallway outside my door. I stood naked and shivering in my room, bullistic in hand, listening to her brush, brush, brush her way until she turned a corner and the sound faded. I had been sleeping, but I had not been sleeping well. Dreams of the Fratriarch, of Elias, both lying cold and dead in the Rest. Of them rising up and calling after me with static voices that scratched against my bones like the song of the impellors.
My fingers shook as I got dressed. They shook as I cut my breakfast in the quiet mess hall, shook until I stuffed them into the pockets of my pants and hurried away from the Strength. This was before dawn. The sky was just barely light, and the streets were empty.
It was a h.e.l.l of a thing the Elders were asking me to do. The Cults of the Brothers Immortal had their differences, as the Brothers themselves had their differences. Petty things that brothers do, whether or not they are G.o.ds. More so for Morgan, Alexander, and Amon, since they were born human and became G.o.ds through their actions during the war against the Feyr. Petty things, and serious things, and in one case at least, murderous things. But ever since Amon had betrayed Morgan, since the Cults of Morgan and Alexander had hunted down their wayward Brother and put him to the torch, enslaved his Cult, and harnessed their wisdom ... ever since then, Morgan and Alexander had stood close. Whatever grievances we had against each other were insignificant beside the Betrayal.
So what were we doing now? Hiding an artifact of the Betrayer in our monastery, acting behind the Alexians" backs, risking the life of our Fratriarch to preserve that secrecy. These were the orders of the Elders. And now they were asking me to break into Alexander"s palace and free an escaped Amonite. An Amonite who might know where Barnabas had been taken, who certainly knew something of what had happened to him. All to keep the scions of Alexander in the dark. It made me ... uncomfortable. But that was my vow, reiterated to Tomas just yesterday, burned into my heart since I had been left at the door of the Strength.
I wandered the city of Ash in quiet contemplation, wandered as the city unfolded around me, as the night fell to morning, and morning became day. I was wasting time. But my hands had stopped shaking, at least.
I felt better, the closer I got to the Strength of Morgan. That old building always gave me peace, nestled darkly among the bright gla.s.sand-steel towers of the city. It was a place of dense power and ancient strength, like a foundation stone from which an entire world could be built. I had built my life on it. Easy to forget its majesty in my trouble.
I paused along the wide boulevard that circled the Strength, resting beside a vendor cart at the edge of a stream of pedigears clattering over the cobblestones. The Strength rose above me, its egglike shape exaggerated by its height and width. The stone of its walls was intricately carved with friezes from the history of the Cult, its sides interrupted by terraces and gun platforms and wide gla.s.s windows on the higher levels that glittered in the sun. On the far side I could just make out the walled driveway where I had been turned over to the Cult as a child. And, facing me, the wide mouth of the recessed portal that led to the main door of the cathedral. Against the height of the Strength that door looked small, though it was ten feet tall and made of thick wood. The arched portal was easily thirty feet high, and bounded by statues of the warrior-saints. At our current strength, we couldn"t afford the processional guard that traditionally stood at attention. That door remained closed but unlocked, even in this time of trouble.
What was not unlocked, and never open, were the sally ports that ringed the monastery. Solid stone doors, hidden in the seams of the holy carvings, openable only with invokations and secret knowledge. Which is why it caught my attention when the farthest sally port I could see cracked open and a single figure slipped out. Whoever it was scurried across the mostly deserted boulevard and disappeared into the press of buildings on the other side.
I was invoking before I fully understood I was moving, and moving before half a breath had left my mouth. The boulevard was never crowded these days, not since the Strength had lost its prominence as the spiritual center of the Fraterdom. Nothing got in the way as I sped along the edge of the buildings, each step faster with every invokation of speed and the hunt. By the time I reached the place where the figure had disappeared I was flaring power in a coruscating aura of glory. I turned the corner and turned my Morgan-blessed senses on the trail.
Whoever it was, he was running invokations, too. My senses were baffled by a m.u.f.fled aura of misdirection. The street twisted under my feet, the buildings that should be so familiar fading from sight to be replaced by a nondescript facade of unknown houses and featureless walls. The sky closed in. Even my sense of balance took a tumble. I braced myself against a building that I"d never seen before and looked around. Behind me, the Strength was lost to sight. The average citizens who had the misfortune of traveling this street at this time stood dumbfounded in the road, unsure of where they were or where they were going. I pa.s.sed them by, pushing through the subterfuge of the invokation with the burning eyes of the hunter. Faint hints of the figure"s path called to me, disturbances of air and power that could only be detected by the sharpest of eyes. Morgan"s eyes, blessed to me.
After that initial surge of misdirection the trail settled down. Traces of invokations hung in the air where my target had jumped a fence or pa.s.sed, ghostlike, through an intervening wall. A couple times I found myself following ghost tracks and had to walk back and pick the trail up again. Twice I spotted the figure. Nondescript robe, shuffling through the crowd that had gathered in front of a fish vendor. Once he was in the clear, there was some sort of commotion in front of the shop that drew everyone"s attention but mine. With no one looking, the shuffling figure jumped gracefully up a fire escape and disappeared into the alleyway beyond.
He was better than me. In a pure chase, speed against speed, invokation to invokation, he would have outdistanced me in a breath. It was only his apparent need for subterfuge and the occasional crowd that was slowing him down enough for me to keep in range.
My pursuit took me deeper into the city, away from the harbor horns and to the opposite sh.o.r.e of Ash. These were the oldest buildings, the first structures the Fraterdom had raised after the defeat of the Feyr. I kept catching glimpses of the Spear of the Brothers, the marble tower that had served as the seat of power before the three Cults had split and settled into their own domains. After the betrayal of Amon, Alexander had returned to the Spear to build his throne, leaving his Cult"s Healing Halls to the administration of his scions and declaring himself the G.o.dking of all mankind. When it was built, the Spear was the tallest structure in all Ash. Now, like the Strength of Morgan, the Spear was dwarfed by the gla.s.s-and-steel towers of the modern metropolis. Ironic that Alexander sat humbled by the technology created by his policies toward the Scholars.
We did not go to the Spear, however. The figure skirted the edge of the administrative district, keeping to the old town and transportation hubs, more than once ducking into shops and then out the back door without speaking to merchant or customer. People seemed unphased by his pa.s.sing. There were a couple more instances of the disorientation, when it felt like the world was being squeezed through a tube and everything became unfamiliar. If my quarry was a scion of Morgan, he was reeling off invokations I had never heard of, much less learned. I felt the Betrayer"s hand in this. My pace quickened, driven forward by curiosity as much as my warrior"s training. I wanted this target, wanted to hunt him down and drive him to the ground.
Our path began to orbit a cl.u.s.ter of buildings. I slowed down. The figure was looking for tails, checking and double checking his path. I had him well in sight now, but there was no getting any closer. We circled that cl.u.s.ter of buildings once, twice, and then he stopped in front of one particular place. White walls, plaster chipped and old, windows shuttered, but the iconography still maintained. One of the original missions of Alexander, its glory faded, its doors long closed. But not to this man. He crept silently to the door and laid a hand against it. Something happened, an invokation or a signal, and the door opened. Before he went inside, the figure looked up and down the street, then disappeared into the darkness. I saw his face.
Elder Simeon, son of Hatheus, holy scion of Morgan.
Simeon walked slowly through the darkened hallway, discarding the invokations of stealth and speed that he had been wearing since he left the Strength. He was unarmed and unadorned, as the relics of the Cult would have too readily marked him as a scion of Morgan. His clothes were plain, and he wore no emblems around his neck or at his wrists. One of the most powerful men in the city of Ash looked like little more than a shopkeep, caught in the bad part of town.
The hallway opened into a tall central room, a domed s.p.a.ce off which various arched doorways led. Light came from a scattering of frictionlamps around the room, flickering under minimal power. A second-level terrace overlooked the main room. The floor here was a mosaic of tiny earthen tiles, but so many of the pieces were shattered that the picture was lost. Simeon scuffed his foot across the fragments, frowning. He looked around the room, then drew something from his pocket. A pendant. He held it aloft and incanted something under his breath. A pulse rippled through the air, and the shadows shifted.
"We are here, Simeon of Morgan. There is no need to shout."
The voice came from the terrace. Simeon turned to face the speaker, though he couldn"t see him. He kept the pendant held high.
"I didn"t want to meet like this, Malachi. There are too many eyes."
"Our eyes, Elder? Or your own?"
"Both. Come out, Healer."
A shadow detached itself from an archway and pa.s.sed between two lamps. The man was trim and proper, white armor laced with gold and linen. He wore the armor well, a man accustomed to fighting as well as parade. A brace of daggers twinkled at his belt, and his gauntlets glowed with the subtle power of the Healer"s icons. His face was smooth and young, though his eyes looked like the eyes of a doll. His lips were too big. Golden hair cascaded across his shoulders. His icons marked him as a High Elector of the Cult of Alexander. It was Nathaniel, who had early on been put in charge of the defense of the monastery, and whom the Elders had kicked out.
"Is this better, Warrior? Both of us in the light."
Simeon took a step back, breathing a curse. "I have had business with you, Elector, and put you aside. I am used to dealing with Malachi, of the House of Sutures. Where is he?"
"This matter has been elevated, as have I. I am in charge of this investigation now. The Council of Blood is deeply concerned about the possibility of their brothers of Morgan acting behind their backs, and have asked me to take a hand to it. So, tell me." He leaned against the railing. "What news, Elder?"
"They are not acting behind your back so much as acting in their own interest. You must understand their-"
"They are hiding an abomination of Amon. That was your report, no? That is why you came to us originally?"
"I came to Malachi because we are old friends, and things are getting out of hand. Your involvement is unwelcome."
"My involvement is at the behest of the G.o.dking, Elder. Now, tell me, what is happening in the House of Morgan that you would call such an urgent meeting with your friend?"
Simeon looked nervously around the room, then settled into himself.
"They have tasked the Paladin to retrieve the girl in your care. The Amonite. They believe she will be able to help them interpret the artifact."
"And why don"t they get another Amonite? There are plenty."
"They do not wish to alert Alexander to their purpose. They wish the artifact be kept a secret."
"Mm." Nathaniel paced the terrace slowly, hands behind his back. "And the Paladin? How does she intend to retrieve this Amonite?"
"I don"t know. We give her a loose leash."
"You should tighten it. There are enough troubles in the city without a Morganite kicking in doors and starting fights on the monotrain."
"She was attacked. The Fratriarch was kidnapped!"
"Regardless." He stopped and looked down at Simeon. "Control her."
"Two things, Elector. One, it doesn"t work like that. She doesn"t work like that. Two, you must remember that I am an Elder of Morgan. I will not be taking orders from your Cult, G.o.dking or no. I am here as a courtesy, because I think things have gone off the tracks."
The Elector stared at him with a dead face, then entertained the briefest of smiles. "Of course. Forgive me. I so rarely meet another of my standing. So this ... Paladin. She will attack the Spear and save the young girl?"
"Perhaps. Your best hope is to hide her. A Paladin of Morgan is not something to be fought."
"We have our defenses. I am shocked that one of your Cult would seriously consider attacking the throne of the G.o.dking." The Elector flipped his hand in the air, as though dismissing a cloudy day. "Strange times."
"She would, if that is the only way for her to protect her Fratriarch. And your defenses? They are the defenses of a Healer. The Warrior will find her way through."
The slightest of smiles again, and then the Elector continued pacing.
"Of course. Additional precautions shall be taken. Any insight on what happened to Elias? I a.s.sume you are running your own investigations."
"I ... I think Eva may believe that it was an inside job. That he was betrayed by one of our own."
"Really? You should be careful, then, Elder, sneaking out of the Strength for shady meetings with the scions of Alexander. Does she suspect us, then? You lot are always blaming someone for your troubles."
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, for the decline of your order, the loss of your Fratriarch. Like when you threw my detachment of guards out of the Strength. A wise and deeply considered move, I am sure."
Simeon flushed and clenched his fists. The Elector was a much younger man, but he wasn"t familiar with the fury of Morgan. Either that, or he was suicidal.
"I came here for your own good, Elector. For the good of the Fraterdom. If you"d rather take your chances with the Paladin, or the Amonite, then you are free to do so. But there is no cause to insult me."
"Insult you? No, no. That was not my intention." He paused again and leaned lightly against the rail. "We will take care of the girl. She will tell no secrets, either to Alexander or any of his children. And as far as chances go, I think you will find that we are not p.r.o.ne to taking them at all. Leash this one."
A shadow darted out from one of the pa.s.sageways around the central room, skipping over the shattered mosaic and striking the Elder before he could raise his old hands. The shadow resolved into a man, bound in gray with an iron mask across his face, crudely molded to give the impression of a nose, eyes, a mouth. These features twitched as he attacked, as though laughing. He held a knife in each hand; wide, flat blades that flashed across the Elder"s chest with such speed. Simeon gasped and stumbled back, then invoked a weak shield that could not hold long against such an a.s.sault. As the Elector looked on, another half-dozen figures entered the room from various doors and hidden chambers, closing on the old man. They were all similarly dressed, and all bore the icon of the Betrayer.
I intervened.
I had used a lot of energy keeping up with Elder Simeon. I was tired. My reserves were ragged from three days on the hunt. It had been like a long, running battle, a battle fought more in retreat than advance. So when I saw that first knife go into Simeon"s chest and draw back with the Elder"s blood all over its blade, I felt a moment of fatigued vertigo. Hadn"t been preparing for a battle. I was like a scout who found herself too far behind enemy lines, suddenly thrust into the fight, without hope of relief. Desperately in need of relief.
But the Cult of Morgan was out of reserves. There were no more armored columns of Paladins waiting in the barracks, no more legions of initiates of the Blade and Bullet filling the training grounds with the noise of their practice. The battle was joined, and there was me. There was only me.
I drew my sword, incanted a scant few invokations of armor and strength, then drove my blade through the skylight I had perched beside and leapt to the Elder"s aid. I hadn"t been there for the Fratriarch. This was a doomed battle, but I would be there for Simeon. And then there would be none to take my place, but this is what warriors do. It is what we know.
I fell past the terrace, and was pleased to see a look of distress on Nathaniel"s face. The Elector, or whatever he was, whichever G.o.d he was sworn to. Time for that later, if there was such a moment in my life. I landed in the middle of the mosaic, shattering brittle tiles in a ripple of sharded dust. The a.s.sa.s.sins stopped for a fraction of a breath, their murderous attention drawn from the Elder to this new threat. Simeon made a sign with his hands, a benediction of forgiveness, then collapsed against a pillar and used the last of his strength to invoke something hard and impenetrable. I was alone.
"One fewer that we have to hunt down, my brothers," Nathaniel sneered. "End this one, and then finish Simeon." He had drawn one of his daggers, a small, sharp thing of silver. He pointed it at me and laughed. "It will be good to be rid of this one."
They came at me in fluid attack. As soon as I engaged one he would melt away and I would find a knife at my back, probing the defenses of my sword forms. I had to be careful, never expending too much on offense so that my defense could remain solid. It was a mobile battle. I was glad it was my last. There was no need to hold anything back, no need for a reserve in antic.i.p.ation of the next fight. There would be no other fight. I would die with the blood of a Betrayer on my sword, and that was enough for me.
"Morgan stood against the thousands," I incanted, leveling my sword against my foes. This is how the invokations of Morgan should be sworn, I thought. In battle, with blood on your steel and adrenaline in your lungs. We should burn down the monasteries and build a world of battlefields. "Their spears struck at him, and he stood. Their shields defied him, and he stood." One of them came at me, blades low and then high. His mask was a twisted visage of glee and malice. I blocked the attack and swept my sword back at the inevitable blindside attack. Metal found flesh, and I turned to see one of the a.s.sa.s.sins crumple, his lifeblood pumping out over the holy forged blade of my faith. "Their legions attacked him. He stood. Forever, on the hill of Dre"Dai-mon, on the eve of Cuspus, against the forces of chaos. Morgan stands. The Warrior stands."
The noetic power of Morgan wrapped around me, somehow drawing from the frenetic energy of my final stand. Or so it felt, to me. For years I had practiced a religion of forms and maps, studying the great battles of my G.o.d and my brothers. That time was past. The time of battles was upon me, and my faith was purified for it. Deep veils of power engulfed me, and the strength of Morgan filled me. I laughed with heartfelt joy, with gleeful abandon. My last battle, forever.
One down, but there were more. They were incanting their own rites of power and strength. I knew nothing of the forms of the Betrayer. The last time the Cult of Morgan had drawn steel against the scions of the a.s.sa.s.sin, Amon was still alive, and Morgan was only freshly murdered. There had been pockets of resistance after the pogrom, but mostly we fought the enemies of the Fraterdom. The Feyr, the Rethari, the Yongin. People whose G.o.ds were waning, or had not yet fully ascended.
Best not to wait for them to find their forms. The closest one was incanting some story about the secret places of the a.s.sa.s.sin, ritually invoking the hidden knife, the false partnership, the dark alley. It seemed to me that their powers were limited to the unexpected strike. They were here. I knew them, could see them. This was a battle now, not an a.s.sa.s.sination. While he spoke with the power of his lungs, incanting ancient rites of betrayal, I shuffled forward and brought the full weight of my double-handed sword against his skull. The tip split his forehead, parted his eyes, and ended the business of his mouth. He fell like a rag discarded by a servant. I exulted in the directness of Morgan.
His fellows howled like scalded cats and rushed me. Excellent, I thought. They abandon the shadows. This is the place of Morgan. In the light, in the field, in the battle fully joined. I danced between them, parting tendons from bone, opening flesh and revealing marrow. They hesitated, and I brought them the glory of battle. Morgan surged through me, as though he reached out from the grave to give his servant strength against the Betrayer. Of course. This is what I worshipped, the fallen warrior, the betrayed G.o.d. This is the battle I was consecrated to fight.
It was not enough. I ended two of them and maimed another. Perhaps he would find a beggar G.o.d, that one. But there were too many. I overextended. Too much offense, and one of their blades parted my armor and put barbed steel against my bone. I staggered back, and another found its way into my shield. They came at me like waves of hail, battering me and then falling back. One of them circled the room, cracking open the frictionlamps and snuffing each element. Soon, I was battling in the dark. The only light came from the invokation of my armor, noetic runes flaring in the shadows. It was not enough. They appeared before I could react, struck, disappeared. My defense forms were not enough. I fell back to the Elder, where he huddled behind his shield, comatose, blood seeping from his wounds. It would make a nice statue, I thought. The Paladin, last of her kind, standing between the darkness and the light. I would be content with that. They circled, and I invoked the last of my strength, then began to write the ballad of my death.
They intervened. I did not know them, though they were familiar to me. The two I had seen, just before the attack on the Fratriarch. Bulky men in cloaks, armored cowls over half their faces, hoods down, tattoos banding their eyes. They fell from the roof, just as I had. They carried weapons, in each hand a punching dagger that folded out from hidden places, expanding and growing even as I watched. Their eyes flared brilliant light as they landed. Their incantations were of absolute power, spoken in the words of ancient languages. Again, the Betrayers paused.
The first that stepped to the new attackers was cut down. The second as well. There was no third attack. The rest jumped away, the shadows swallowing them even as the newcomers lifted their arms and filled the dome with light. The Elector was gone, the gold trim of his cloak flitting around a corner even as his servants disappeared.
I stood in a guard position. They raised their hands to me, then nodded in the direction Nathaniel had taken. I shook my head and went to the Elder. His shield flickered and disappeared like a wisp of smoke under my hand. His breath was ragged.
"Eva. I didn"t know who they were. I didn"t realize."
"Enough, Elder. What has happened here?"
"The girl. They will end the girl. She must be saved."
"From Alexander," I said, grimacing. "He seems to have it in for us."
"I don"t know," Simeon gasped. "I don"t know who these people are, or who they stand with. But the girl must be saved. We have made so many mistakes, Eva. She must be saved."
"We"ve made nothing but mistakes, Elder." I stood, wavering as the power of Morgan left me. "But I will do what I can."
"What you must, Paladin. They have taken her to the Chanter"s Island."
I nodded and looked around. The men were gone. I turned to the archway the Elector had taken, touched my sword to my forehead, and remembered Morgan as he lay dying on the Fields of Erathis. I had found the scions of the Betrayer. They would not escape me.
*"wen "wen really had been sent to look after me by his boss. I wasn"t _ sitting in the local station more than five minutes before he came rushing in. Like he was just in the area. Sure.
"G.o.ds, Forge. You look like h.e.l.l."
"h.e.l.l is filled with trite expressions," I said, wincing as I stood. "You my ride?"
"I don"t think you"re going anywhere. Honestly, you"re barely able to stand."
"Yeah. That"s why I called for a ride." Truth was, I had stumbled into this station to give them the word on my Elder. They had rushed out with medical bags and trauma machines, out to where I had told them Simeon was lying. They hadn"t come back yet. In the meantime I had sat down, and just hadn"t gotten around to standing up again. Long as Owen was here, though, I figured he could make himself useful. "Let"s get going."
He tugged at the leather shoulder strap of my holster as I tried to get by. I turned to him.
"Seriously, what went on out there? I"ve got reports on the rig of a roughed-up Elder of Morgan and a lot of dead bodies."
"That"s what happens, usually. One of us, lots of them." I rested against the counter for two long breaths. "Is he going to be okay?"
"The Elder? I don"t know, honestly. Who is it?"
"Simeon. He was out there ... talking. Trying to do what he thought was the right thing." I looked Owen briefly in the eye, then tugged free of his grasp and started toward the door. "Anyway. We"ve got some ground to cover."
"There more bodies you need to lead me to, Paladin?"
"Not yet. But there will be." That got him to follow me.
The ride over was quiet, quiet as it can be in a patrol wagon with blaring sirens. The Chanter"s island home wasn"t too far, but it was a lot farther than I was going to walk. On the way I gathered what strength I could. Meditated. Thought about Simeon and Elias, put down by Betrayers" blades. Barnabas. Wherever he was. I thought about those strange tattooed men, and the cold, dead eyes of the coldmen as they came at us in the Amonites" cistern.
"What happened?" Owen asked, sternly. "What are you driving us into, Eva? What am I going to lose my boys to this time?"
I opened my eyes and looked down the length of the wagon. Owen"s patrol was strapped in, trying hard to keep their eyes forward, the fear off their faces. Trying, and failing. Some new faces, to replace the boys we lost in the cistern. Owen sat next to me, his hands crossed over the biggest, widest shotgun I had ever seen. Boy had upgraded. Not so much of the Healer in him now, perhaps. That was good.
"Who attacked the Elder, Eva? Must have been a h.e.l.l of a thing, to take down one of your old men."
"I don"t know. Seems to be more and more common all the time. As to who they were ... I"m not sure. I don"t know, and I"m praying like h.e.l.l that you don"t know them either."