The next day, to those who could enhance their vision enough, the G.o.dking could be seen walking to and fro in front of his throne.
His head was bent and his brow was furrowed due to the thoughts in his head. There was no one around him, as they had all talked deep into the night forgetting all their responsibilities. When dawn approached, everyone had to leave to get back to what they had been postponing, and Daneel had watched them go sadly, wis.h.i.+ng that this wouldn"t be the last time that everyone gathered together like a family.
This wish had occupied his mind for quite some time, but right now, it was something else entirely that had made him go back to this old habit.
When the three a.s.sa.s.sins had asked for an audience an hour back, he had thought that it was just a normal update on the duties that they had been given. For this entire month, they had been hard at work as Daneel had made good on his promise to use them as much as he could.
Only, when they arrived, they brought with them the news that Alistair would be speaking with him in 2 hours as there had finally been a breakthrough.
They hadn"t needed to say anything else to let him know what they were talking about, as this was something that had been one of the main topics of their discussions in all these weeks.
Alistair had not come back to speak to him after that conversation of theirs, and Daneel had hoped that that meant that she might have paid a much bigger price than she had let on to come and save him as weakened enemies were always better than those in their prime. Hence, when he found out that she was simply occupied with a major a.s.signment given to the sect, he had been disappointed.
However, that disappointment had vanished instantly when the a.s.sa.s.sins began to boast about their spy network, and how it was the reason that she had even found out about the ploy to take his life.
Daneel had waited for the boasts to turn into solid info that he could use to plan better, but alas, as always, Husare had postured around for a bit before finally admitting that they had not received any word from the spy since that day.
Still, they had a.s.sured him that this would change the nearer they got to the war, and today, finally, they had made good on that promise.
For the 10th time in five minutes, Daneel checked the clock that was floating in front of him. After seeing that there were still 55 minutes to go, he cursed and made the decision to sit back on the throne, knowing that he should find something to occupy himself if he did not want to go crazy.
Thankfully, this decision turned out to be the right one as the 50 minutes that he spent a.n.a.lyzing the droplets of blood given to him by the Treasury went by quickly. Of one of the droplets, only half was present as he had used it to create Drakos"s body, but the rest were still revolving around the central being whose ident.i.ty he still did not know.
This was certainly baffling, but it was also a good sign. Any G.o.dbeast whose blood could protect itself so fiercely must definitely be one that he would definitely want to Shapes.h.i.+ft into when the time came. Yet, when the system had told him that the only way to find out what it was was to have his consciousness enter it like he had done the last time when he had spoken to the remnant of the Black Raven who was the only being who knew of his true ident.i.ty, he had hesitated and temporarily shelved the idea.
He still remembered just how vulnerable he had been then, so if possible, he did not want to risk losing a part of his consciousness especially when they were so close to the beginning of the war.
He needed his full consciousness, intact, for all of the tasks and plans that they had created, so if it was affected in any way, there would be dire consequences.
It was when he was thinking on this conundrum that the now-familiar a.s.sa.s.sin appeared in front of him.
Different from the last few times Daneel had seen him, he was still in his original form. His eyes were his own, and his mouth was twisted into a scowl.
The reason behind the scowl was obvious enough, as Daneel could imagine the pain of having one"s eyes destroyed each and every time a conversation had to be carried out between them.
"Her grace appears to be delayed. She told me to be here by now."
As he said this in a gruff voice, Daneel raised his eyebrows but then nodded and made a seat and a gla.s.s of wine appear behind the man.
Wine always had the power to sweep away all sorts of grievances, so when the man saw the rich liquid slos.h.i.+ng around in the large gla.s.s, he avidly reached for it and gulped it down in one go.
The gla.s.s refilled itself automatically, but just as he brought it to his mouth again, a spasm of pain went through his entire body before he hunched over and clutched his face in agony.
Daneel did not move to help him. Instead, he simply leaned forward and waited for the ancient being to arrive.
"Missed me?"
With these two words, the a.s.sa.s.sin stood up straight and Daneel once again gazed into those serpentine eyes which he had certainly not missed.
Alas…he did have to keep up appearances.
"Of course! Or rather, I missed the feeling of being aware of what my enemies are doing…I take it that you are here to give that back to me?"
With a coy smile, the basilisk looked at him with one eyebrow raised before frowning as she had had to raise her neck to meet his eyes.
With a wave of her hand, she made a tall platform appear on which a large snake came into being that curled itself into the shape of a throne.
Flying up and taking her seat, she looked down at Daneel who simply shrugged and said, "You could simply have asked me to step down."
"The basilisk does not ask. She takes. Anyway, let me get straight to the matter at hand. My spy was unfortunately put out of commission recently, and he only just recovered enough to go back to the Bishop. Still, he pulled through. This is the exact information about the army that is going to be sent."
Daneel almost grinned with happiness as he heard this, but right away, he could not help but remember that the being in front of him wanted nothing more than his death.
Only the thin veil of the prophecy induced by him seemed to be the thing keeping her on his side, so when Daneel grabbed the trinket out of the air which had been thrown by Alastair, he began to study it with a neutral expression.
This soon changed, however, because the information was much more detailed than he had ever thought it would be. Even though she had used the word "exact", he had thought that she might only give him a vague range of the size of each squadron that would be sent, but as Daneel saw the row after row of information about almost each and every member of the army, he looked up at Alastair with his eyes wide open.
Letting out a laugh that once again made his skin crawl, she said, "I knew that would surprise you. But in fact, it"s not all that special: we already have a complete database of all the members of the Church except for those of the highest rank. The main thing we had to find out now was simply which of them would be sent. The mission to take control of Angaria is a minor one compared to the others regularly carried out by the Church, so if we hadn"t been capable of even this, we would have had no right to call ourselves the premier a.s.sa.s.sination sect in all the free lands. However, what I"ve given you so far is only the good news. There is still some that is bad, so put that aside and listen to me."
Daneel hated the patronizing tone that she had just used, but with his people in mind, he obliged.
When he heard her speak, though, he grasped the armrests of the throne tightly and hoped that this was a bad dream.
"A Saint has been a.s.signed to supervise the entire mission. That doesn"t mean that he might step in… But it certainly does not bode well for our cooperation. If he senses even a hint of us helping you during the war, he might just decide that it would be best if he flattened you all in one move. So, I"m afraid that the plans that you made with my a.s.sa.s.sins regarding how they might step in if the situation is dire have to be discarded."
For a few seconds, Alastair watched as Daneel digested the information.
He could feel her eyes on him, but he simply didn"t care about what she saw at this moment. The a.s.sa.s.sins had been positioned as a trump card that would have turned the tide of the battle if used properly, but that could no longer be done.
Still, the information in his hands gave him hope, so when he finally spoke, it was in a tone filled with courage… and bloodl.u.s.t.
"It is a worthy sacrifice if it ensures that the Saint does not step in. And yes, you have come through in a way that I could never have imagined. Thank you. Let them come. When they do… there will be such a ma.s.sacre that they will never even dare to take the name of my home ever again. Let them come!!!"