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As Sandreena was about to answer her, the High Priestess said, ‘Tea?’ and without waiting for her guest to answer began to pour the hot liquid into fine porcelain cups.
Sandreena examined the cup handed her by the High Priestess and said, ‘Tsurani?’
Her hostess shook her head and said, ‘From LaMut. But it is of Tsurani design. Real Tsurani porcelain is far too costly for us to use here. The Goddess provides, but not to excess, child.’
Even that tiny explanation felt like a reproach to Sandreena.
‘So, again, why are you in Krondor?’
Sandreena knew she did not have to explain. She could claim it was mere happenstance that had brought her to the capital of the Western Realm of the Kingdom of the Isles. But she was certain that the Mother Superior already knew of her summoning to the Father-Bishop’s office. She would not trust coincidence when a conspiracy was possible.
‘I was in Port Vykor, High Priestess.’
‘Visiting Brother Mathias?’
Sandreena nodded. He had brought her to the Mother Temple in Kesh where she had been tutored and expected to become a priestess. He had come into her life again in Krondor when she had changed her calling from that of a novitiate in the priesthood to a Squire-Adamant of the Order of the Shield of the Weak. Mathias had stepped in to take her as his squire when the debate between the High Priestess Seldon and Father-Bishop Creegan had grown contentious. Sandreena now knew that she was a useful tool for Creegan and whatever personal affection or desire he might possess for her, was easily put aside. Seldon saw her as a stolen possession, another setback in her endless struggle with the Order and those associated with it, especially the Father-Bishop. It was rare for anyone to rise from the martial orders to a position of authority within the Temple proper, but Creegan was a rare man.
‘He is … content,’ said Sandreena slowly. ‘The illness that takes his memory has not lessened his pleasures in most things. He’s content to fish when allowed, or to walk in the gardens. He sometimes remembers me, sometimes not.’
‘He is well otherwise, then?’ asked High Priestess Seldon and for a brief moment, Sandreena saw a hint of genuine concern and affection. Brother Mathias had refused rank and position over the years, but had gained great respect in the Temple.
‘The healers at the retreat say he is healthy and will abide for years. It’s just difficult … to not be remembered by him.’
‘He was like a father to you,’ said the High Priestess in a flat, almost dismissive tone, and whatever spark of humanity Sandreena had glimpsed was gone. Sandreena was Creegan’s creature, and the High Priestess would never forget that, or forgive her betrayal. Sandreena knew that much of the friction between the High Priestess and the Father-Bishop was because Seldon believed Creegan had usurped too much authority in Krondor, rather than being caused by losing a talented novitiate to the Order. It was rumoured that the High Priestess saw herself as a viable candidate for the most holy office in the Temple when the current Grand Master’s health failed. And if that were true, Creegan would be her biggest barrier to the office of Grand Mistress.
Sandreena resisted the temptation to remind the High Priestess that she had no idea what a father was like, given that her mother had no idea who her father had been; and that from what she had seen of other fathers while growing up, they were generally poor at best, and drunk, abusive, womanizing, brutal monsters at worse. No, Brother Mathias had been closer to a saint than a father. He had become, and remained to this day, the only man she trusted without reservation. Even Father-Bishop Creegan was viewed with some reservation, because his needs always trumped hers or indeed anyone else’s.
She simply nodded and made non-committal noises.
‘So, what is next for you, my child?’
Sandreena knew it was best not to equivocate. The High Priestess would have sources in the Temple. Yet, she didn’t have to tell the complete truth. ‘Word has reached the Order that pirates are troubling a village along the Keshian coast. It seems that the imperial court is too busy to be bothered with the problem, so as I am the closest Knight-Adamant to the village, I’m to go.’ Using her title reminded the High Priestess that despite her rank and former position of authority Sandreena visited her only as a courtesy, nothing more. Draining her cup, she rose and said, ‘I should be on my way, High Priestess. Thank you for taking time from your very busy day to seem me.’
She stood waiting for a formal acknowledgement, as was her right, and after an awkward moment, the older woman eventually inclined her head in consent. She could expect any priestess or novice to remain until dismissed, but not a knight of the Order. As Sandreena reached the door, the High Priestess said, ‘It is a shame, really.’
Sandreena hesitated, then turned and said, ‘What is a shame, High Priestess?’
‘I can’t help but feel that despite the work you do for the Goddess, you’ve somehow been turned from the proper path.’
Sandreena instantly thought of a dozen possible replies, all of them unkind and scathing, but her training with Brother Mathias made her pause before speaking. Calmly she replied, ‘I always seek the path intended for me, High Priestess, and pray daily to the Goddess that she keeps my feet upon it.’
Without another word, she turned and left. As she strode furiously down the long hall she longed for something to hit, a brigand or goblin would do nicely. Lacking one, she decided it was time to go to the training yard and take her mace to a pell and see how fast she could reduce the thick wooden post to splinters.
Sandreena stood panting, having taken out her bad temper on a pell for nearly an hour. Her right arm ached from the repeated bashing she had given the stationary wooden target. Like all members of her Order, she carried a mace. The tradition of not using edged weapons was lost in time, but believed to be part of her Order’s doctrine to strive for balance. Those she fought were given every opportunity to yield, even to the point of death. Edged weapons spilled blood that could not be given back. She had wondered on more than one occasion whether the original proponent of the tradition knew how much damage could be done to a body with a well-handled mace. A broken skull was as fatal as bleeding.
A girl wearing the garb of the Order, someone’s squire, or a page, approached her. She was very pretty, and for a moment Sandreena dryly considered that she was probably on the Father-Bishop’s personal staff. Sandreena nodded a greeting. ‘Sister.’
The young acolyte held out a small, black wooden box. ‘The Father-Bishop asked me to give this to you. He said you would understand.’
Sandreena laughed. She was on his staff.
The girl looked slightly confused and Sandreena said, ‘Sorry, just an idle thought after a long practice. Are you training for the Order Adamant?’
She shook her head. ‘I am a scribe and cleric,’ she answered. ‘I serve in the Temple library.’
‘Ah,’ said Sandreena. The Father-Bishop had one of his little spies where she could monitor all comings and goings; as well as being the repository for all the Order’s valuable volumes, librams, tomes, and scrolls, the library was where all of the scribes did their superior’s bidding. She took the box. ‘Thank you.’
She watched the slender girl walk purposefully away and for a fleeting moment wondered what her life story had been before coming here; did she have a loving father and a mother who wished for grandchildren? Was she a fugitive from a harsh and uncaring world? Putting aside such pointless thoughts, she opened the box.
She understood immediately what the contents of the box heralded. Within lay a dull, pearl-white stone set within a simple metal clasp and hung from a plain leather thong. She lifted it out with a resigned sigh. It was a soul gateway. Before she departed on her assignment, Sandreena would now have to endure a very long and difficult session with one of the more powerful Brothers of the Order, preparing her stone, so that in the event of her death, her spirit could be recalled to the Temple, and questioned by those who could speak to the departed. If the magic used were strong enough, she could even be resurrected in the Temple. This act was the most powerful magic available to the Temple, rare in the extreme and most difficult to execute. She wondered if her scars would reappear in the event of her resurrection; the scar on her thigh had a habit of itching at the most inconvenient times. Then she considered the stone.
Its presentation meant that whatever she was being sent to discover was important. So important that even if she didn’t survive, the discovery must still be reported to the Temple, even if that report came from her ghost, kept from Lims-Kragma’s Hall for a few additional hours. Or, should the need be great, and if Lims-Kragma were willing, she might escape death entirely.
Despite the heat of the day and her exertion, she felt a chill and a need to cleanse herself.
From a window high above the marshalling yard behind the Temple, Father-Bishop Creegan watched the girl regarding the soul gate he had sent to her, and said, ‘She’s young.’
The man standing at his shoulder said, ‘Yes, but she’s as tough as any Knight-Adamant in the Order. If Mathias were still sound, or Kendall still alive, I’d say either of them would do, but right now she’s the best mix of skill, strength, and determination you have.’
Creegan turned to face his companion, a man he had known for most of his life, though only well over the last three years. He was dressed in the garb of a commoner, and a rather dirty one at that, his hair was scruffy and his chin beard surrounded by days of stubble. Even his fingernails were dirty, but the Father-Bishop of the Order of the Shield of the Weak knew that this was but one of several guises employed by James Dasher Jamison.
‘Are you acting on behalf of the Crown?’
‘In a manner,’ said the most dangerous man in the Kingdom from Creegan’s point of view. Not only was he the grandson of the most important Duke in the Kingdom of the Isles, he was also reputed to be the mastermind behind the Kingdom’s intelligence services, and even, according to some, in control of the criminal brotherhood known as the Mockers.
Jim Dasher looked out of the window for a moment longer, then said, ‘An impossibly beautiful woman, that one.’
‘As dangerous as she is lovely,’ said Creegan.
Jim Dasher looked the cleric and said, ‘You two … ?’
‘No,’ said the prelate. ‘Not that the thought hasn’t crossed my mind upon occasion.’ He waved his guest to a small table with two chairs. ‘If I have one flaw, it’s my love of beautiful women.’ The room was not utilized for any specific reason, but Creegan had long ago claimed it for his clandestine meetings and other moments when he felt the need to be away from the High-Priestess’s army, or when he wanted a few undisturbed minutes to think.
‘I knew her,’ said Jim, ‘when she was a whore.’
‘You?’ asked Creegan.
Jim Dasher laughed, a single bark of embarrassment. ‘No. Not that way. I may not be first among those she would wish dead, but I am high on that list, no doubt.’
‘Really?’
Dasher nodded. ‘I sold her to the Keshian trader.’
Creegan let out a long sigh, and shook his head. ‘The things we do in the name of the greater good.’ Then he asked, ‘But it was you who arranged for Brother Mathias to intercede and rescue her from the Keshian, wasn’t it?’
‘I wish I could claim that were so,’ said Jim. He looked out the window again, this time into the distance and said, ‘My plan was for her to endure the company of that fat monster for a month, then I would have made contact with her and turn her to my purpose; I was going to promise her safe passage back to the Kingdom from Shamata and enough wealth to start a new life if she provided me with certain documents that were in the merchant’s possession.’
‘I never knew that,’ said Creegan. ‘I always thought it was all some elaborate plot to rid yourself of a Keshian spy and that Mathias just happened to recognize the girl’s quality.’
Jim barked out another laugh. ‘Zacanos Martias was as much a Keshian spy as you are. What he was, however, was a choking point for certain .…’ He paused. ‘Let’s just say that since his demise it’s been a lot easier for me to get certain things in and out of Kesh. I now deal directly with those whom Zacanos previously distanced me from.’ He drummed his fingers on the chair arm. ‘Still, I wish I had been able to get those documents from him. By the time my people got to his home in Shamata someone else had already been through his effects, leaving nothing of importance.’
‘Who, I wonder?’ asked the Father-Bishop.
‘The Imperial Keshian Intelligence Service,’ said Dasher. ‘Which, of course, doesn’t exist.’
‘What?’
Jim waved his hand. ‘Old family joke.’ He sighed. ‘As long as the Emperor is smart enough to leave his spies in the control of Ali Shek Azir Hazara-Khan, I have my work cut out for me.’ He sat forward, as if in discomfort. ‘That family has been responsible for more trouble between our two nations than any other single group of people.’
‘Why not simply have them removed?’ asked Creegan.
‘Well, to begin with it would constitute an act of war, and we need an excuse to bloody our noses against Kesh’s Dog Soldiers like a house fire needs a barrel of pitch. Secondly, it’s not how things are done in the espionage game; death is the last choice in all circumstances. And lastly, I really like Ali. He’s very funny with some wonderful tales, and he’s a very good gambler.’
‘Your world is one I can barely understand,’ admitted the prelate.
‘As is yours to me, Father, but sometimes the greater good demands that we trust one another.’
‘Obviously, or else you wouldn’t be here.’ The Father-Bishop stood. ‘I need to return to my office.’ As he walked his guest to the door he said, ‘If you didn’t engineer that encounter between Brother Mathias and the Keshian merchant, who did?’
‘You’d have to ask Sandreena what she recalls; if there was another player in the game, I have no idea who it might be.’
‘Perhaps it was simply the Goddess’s plan,’ said Creegan and Jim saw he was not being facetious.
Jim said, ‘I’ve seen too much in my life to believe anything involving the gods to be out of the question.’
Jim Dasher glanced out of the door and said, ‘I’ll try to be as inconspicuous on my way out as I was coming in.’
‘Then goodbye,’ said the Father-Bishop as Jim Dasher hurried down the short hallway that led to the southernmost stairs. Creegan knew there was a good chance, despite the busy Temple throng, that the agent of the Crown would manage to get cleanly away with no one noticing the scruffy looking commoner.
He sighed; things were becoming far too complex and he worried that the enormity of their undertaking was going to prove too much, even for the combined resources of the Crown and the Temple. He put aside the thought as best he could; there was no point in wasting time and energy on matters beyond his control. Better to trust the Goddess and move on to the day’s needs.
Creegan followed Jim Dasher down the stairs and as he had suspected, saw no sign of the man in the massive, open courtyard when he reached the door.
• CHAPTER THREE •
Taredhel
THE AIR SHIMMERED.
A light breeze blew across the valley as heat waves rose from the warmed rocks on the hillside and larks flew overhead. The afternoon sun chased away the night’s chill and bathed the grasses in a warm blanket as spring arrived in Novindus. A fox sunning herself raised her head in concern, for she smelled something unusual. Springing to her feet she turned her head left and right seeking the source. Curiosity soon gave way to caution and the vixen darted off, bounding into the shadowed woods.
The cause of her fright, a solitary figure, made his way carefully through the thinning trees. At this altitude, the heavy woodlands below gave way to alpine meadows and open reaches providing easier transit.
Any observer would think him barely worth notice. A large hat masked his features. His body appeared neither overly stout nor slender, and his garb simple travelling robes made of grey homespun or poor linen. He carried a sack across one shoulder and used a gnarled black stave made of oak.
The man paused and looked at the peaks to the north and south, noticing their bald crowns above the timberline. They were known by those who lived nearby as the Grey Towers, but he put aside his appreciation of their majesty and instead considered them in a complex evaluation of the valley’s defensibility.
A people once lived here, but invaders had driven them out. Then the invaders eventually departed, but the original inhabitants of the valley never returned. There were signs of their settlements scattered throughout this region, from the deep northern pass, beyond which a large village of dwarves resided, to the south where the high ridges gave way to the sloping hills that led to bluffs commanding the strait between two vast seas.
Like all of his race, the traveller knew little of dwarves to the north, or the seemingly numberless humans. Of those who had lived in this valley before he knew only lore and legend. What little he had pieced together had provided him with more questions than answers.
He had travelled this continent for three months, and was barely noticed by most as he passed; even when seen or spoken to, he was barely remembered. He was an unremarkable being, who may have been tall, or just average; a man of some circumstance, or perhaps of modest means. His hair could have been described as brown, or sandy, or sometimes black. The guise, created by the arts and employed by the traveller, made him difficult to notice or remember.
Looking around, to finalize his sense of the place as much as to ensure he was not being watched, the traveller reached within a belt pouch and withdrew a crystal. It was of no intrinsic value, but it was his most precious possession; his only means of returning to his people. He held tightly to the crystal and let his glamour slip away, revealing his true appearance before his return. Had he stepped through the portal in his magical guise, his death would have been immediate.
The traveller considered it strange that while he did not change physically he felt as if he were casting off clothing that was too small. He took a moment to stretch his long arms before incanting the brief spell that activated the crystal.
There was a sudden sizzling sound, like a small crackle of lightning, followed by a rip in the air that looked like a tall curtain of heat shimmer, then a portal formed above the ground: twelve feet high and nine feet across, a grey oval of nothingness. An instant later the traveller had stepped into it and vanished.
Up in the trees, a motionless figure observed the departure. It was by only the most strained of coincidences that he was in this valley at all, for it had been unoccupied since the Riftwar, but the game trails and pathways along the more northern ridges gave faster access to his destination than the more frequently used routes through the Green Heart Forest to the south. Like most of his kind, solitude or anticipation of danger didn’t bother him, but an appreciation of swift passage was keen in the messenger. Of all the mortal races, only the elves had better woodcraft skills than the Rangers of Natal.
He was a tall, lean man, with skin burned dark by the sun, though his brown hair showed streaks of red and blond from the same exposure. His eyes were dark and hooded, his high cheekbones and narrow eyes, and his straight nose gave him an almost hawk-like countenance. Only when he smiled did he lose his grim visage, something that rarely occurred outside the comfort of his home, in the company of family.
Ranger Alystan of Natal was undertaking a service for a consortium of traders in the Free Cities, in negotiation with the Earl of Carse. He carried a bundle of documents that both parties considered vital. His sun-darkened features were set in concentration, his dark eyes narrowed as if willing himself to see every detail. His dark hair was still free of grey, but he was no youth, having spent his life serving his people with stealth, speed, and sword.
He had chanced upon the newcomer’s trail just an hour earlier, spotting his fresh tracks in the spring-damp soil. He had first thought little of the traveller, perhaps a magician from the look of him and his heavy staff, but he had followed. His usually limited curiosity over a solitary nomad wandering the wilds of the Grey Towers – even should he be prove a magician – was piqued not when he first glimpsed the traveller, but rather from the first moment he had taken his eyes from the man.
Alystan could not recall what the man looked like. Was his cloak grey or blue? Was he short or tall? Each time he took his eyes from his quarry he could not recall the details of his appearance. Alystan was certain that the man was a magic user, and that he was using some glamour to hide his true visage. To his consternation, the ranger found it easier to follow the magician’s tracks than watch him. Something about doing so made him wish to turn his attention away and go about other business, so he forced himself to stalk this mysterious figure.
Then he saw the change.
In that instant every detail of the creature’s true appearance was etched into the ranger’s memory. Upon witnessing its sudden departure, he knew he now had a more important task. The last time that strangers had appeared through a rift in this valley, their arrival had heralded the coming of a twelve-year-long, bloody war. And from the creature’s appearance, history could be repeating itself.
To Alystan, it looked as if an unremarkable man had transformed himself into the tallest elf he had ever seen. He wished he had been able to move closer and note more detail, but the traveller disappeared too quickly.
From what Alystan had seen the creature stood nearly seven feet in height, with massive shoulders, but a surprisingly narrow waist, giving his upper physique a startling ‘v’ shape. His legs were proportioned like those of an elf, though more powerfully muscled. A decorative band secured his grey-shot red hair on top of his head, the rest falling below his shoulders. But it was the creature’s startling shade of red hair that had surprised him: it was not a natural reddish-brown or even the orange-tinged red sometimes seen among humans and elves alike, its hair was a vivid scarlet colour. Its brows were the same vivid hue, and seemed to have been treated with wax as they swept out and up, mimicking a butterfly’s antennae.
Alystan moved cautiously, in case other creatures waited close by, though he doubted it, this valley had remained unoccupied during the century since the Riftwar. The dark elves who had once abided here were content to remain far to the north, and Alystan had only seen the trail sign of one man. Or elf, he amended.
He continued to think about what he had seen as he made his way back up to the higher game trails. Like other elves whom Alystan knew, the newcomer had shown effortless grace as he had stepped through the magic portal. But, unlike the elves known to the ranger, this one trod with heavy feet, as if it was ignorant of wood-lore or simply didn’t care. No elf of even modest experience would have left tracks so easily followed.
There had been something else about the creature. Alystan had only caught a briefest glimpse of the creature’s face, as it had looked around before disappearing, but it had been long enough to notice the creature’s eyes. They were deep set and so pale a blue that they were almost cloud coloured. There had been something malevolent in its face; Alystan couldn’t express how he knew, but he was certain it was no Midkemian elf, previously unknown to the Rangers, but something else. It was obviously intelligent enough to use magic to pass as human, no mean feat for even the most powerful of the magic-using creatures, the great dragons. Not only was this elf creature a magician of some fashion, it was possibly a very powerful one.