David Dalglish - A Dance of Ghosts

“As have you,” he said. “There are few with the skill, and the audacity, to come to the Stronghold in search of prey.” He did his best to look over his shoulder at the door. “I take it the guard posted there is dead?”

Thren twirled the sword in his hand.

“He is.”

“A shame. Mihir was a good man.”

“He died a quick death, if that makes you feel better.”

Luther chuckled.

“Little can make me feel better, Thren. I fear my capacity for joy has been permanently ruined.”

Thren ignored him, instead continuing to twirl the sword, slowly, his fingers in masterful control of the leather and steel. He stared at Luther, analyzing him, judging him.

“Why?” he asked.

Luther shifted, trying to find a measure of comfort, given one hand was stabbed and bleeding and the other roughly tied behind his back.

“Such a large, vague question,” he answered. “One my order has devoted a great many of its years to solving. Could you be more specific?”

“I’m in no mood for jokes or sarcasm, priest. You know who I am, which means you know why I’m here. You sent the Sun Guild into Veldaren with aims to kill me. I want to know why.”

“Untie my hand, and I will tell you,” Luther said.

Thren tensed, the twirling of his sword halting.

“I am no fool,” he said.

“And neither am I. You are here, which means I am a dead man. But even if I could, I would make no move against you. I’ve been waiting for you, Thren. Waiting for you to do the impossible, and to come to me, because truth be told, I need you alive. Why else would I have come to you in a dream to show you the way?”

Thren looked undecided, and it was clearly an emotion he was unaccustomed to. Debating wordlessly with himself, at last he sat up from his bed, cut through the ropes holding Luther to the chair, and then sat back down on the bed. The dagger he left embedded.

“There,” he said. “Now talk. Why did you want to destroy my Spider Guild?”

“I had no animosity toward your guild in particular,” Luther said. “I needed all of the guilds weakened so the Sun Guild might come in as I requested. You were the strongest of them, the one most likely to withstand their arrival. I expect you to be familiar with such a role by now, Thren. The tallest must first duck the swing of a reaper’s scythe.”

“And the Widow?”

Luther thought of what he’d known of Stephen Conning-ton, and he shook his head sadly.

“A poor child with a horrific past,” he said. “His mind was damaged beyond repair. I did my best to contain his more vile habits, to direct them to better uses, but over such distance, my control was limited.”

Thren stabbed his sword into the wood floor, put both his hands upon the hilt, and rested his lips against his knuckles. The man stared at him, his concentration frighteningly intense.

“For what reason?” he asked at last. “What is your hope, the goal of your little game? Have Karak’s followers decided to make a move on my city?”

“In a way, you are right,” Luther said, “but not how you believe. The paladins and priesthood have nothing to do with my plans, Thren. I am very much alone but for a trusted few.”

“You can’t expect me to believe that,” Thren said. “You’re a powerful priest of Karak, hidden in the top of the Stronghold…”

“Held prisoner atop the Stronghold,” Luther interrupted. “Or did you not notice the guard and locked door?”

“Something else I fail to understand. Why are you a prisoner here?”

Luther thought over the past months, of his vague letters to Daverik and his shadowed conversations using the chrysarium.

“I presented ideas some might consider … heretical,” he said at last.

Thren stood, and he pointed his sword at Luther, the tip hovering less than an inch from his neck.

“You’re lying,” he said. “I may not bow to Karak, but I know enough about those who do. A heretic of Karak within the faithful? You’d have been sacrificed within hours, yet here you are. I don’t believe it.”

Luther laughed.

“Then your mind is more closed than I thought. My faith has never wavered for my god, Thren, not once. They performed every test, subjected me to fire and spell, and always the outcome was the same. There is no denying my beliefs, and given my years serving the Lion, there are many who would defend my zeal. So, here I am, locked in a room, a thorn in the priesthood’s side that they cannot decide how to deal with. Perhaps in a few years, they’ll poison my food or send in a younger paladin with a blade. Perhaps they’ll merely leave me here to wither away and die. In the end, it doesn’t matter. The next few months are the ones that will decide the fate of our world, and I doubt I will live to see them.”

The conversation was clearly not going where Thren had expected it, and after a moment of doubt, he sat back down on the bed, sword across his lap.

“Enough cryptic talk,” he said. “The fate of our world? I’ll not hear such tales. Whatever you’re doing, you thought it was the best for your god. You want Karak’s presence strengthened in Veldaren somehow, just admit it.”

“I have betrayed my god, you damn fool,” Luther said, his voice rising loud enough to spur Thren back to his feet. Knuckles smacked across his mouth, cutting open a lip, and as the blood dripped down, Luther laughed at how ridiculous it felt that the sting in his mouth momentarily hurt worse than the dagger still embedded in his hand.

“At least, betrayed who he is now,” Luther continued despite Thren’s glare. “My heresy was in suggesting that the god we know, the god we think we serve, is not the same god we first worshipped when he walked the lands centuries ago. My only wonder is if our god himself changed … or only our understanding of him, an understanding largely shaped by a single man. The First Man, once known as the Eveningstar, the only human crafted by the hands of both brother gods prior to the war that tore them apart. He is a wretched being who denies death’s authority over him, a man who sows chaos while preaching order. Life is nothing to him. Humanity means nothing to him.”

“His name?” asked Thren. “What is his name?”

Luther felt a weight settle on his chest.

“He is known as the prophet, the beast of a thousand faces, the voice of the Lion. His name is Velixar, and for the past year, I have done all I can to protect our world from his coming wrath. Even if it meant disobeying my order. Even if it meant plotting in secret and bringing chaos and disorder to your city of Veldaren.”

It was too much for Thren to take in, Luther could tell. The man stared at him, meeting his eyes as if to force the truth from him through sheer conviction. Luther met that stare unafraid. He felt no shame for what he’d done, and every word he spoke was the truth, for the first time confessed by his lips to anyone other than himself. Even in his prayers to Karak, he had denied himself full honesty, for what did it mean to pray to a god while working against his own prophet? What kind of man would worship a god yet still deny what he might have become?

Only a madman, Luther knew, and it fit him perfectly. A madman plotting against his own order, a madman spurring chaos into an already-broken city.

“The Sun Guild?” Thren asked. “What is their part?”

“I needed someone who could stand against you all,” Luther said. “Someone with no connection to the priesthood in Veldaren. Muzien has eyed your city since you and Grayson went there to conquer it, and when I came to him offering bribes and the aid of Karak, his ears were listening. All I requested was that he transport the stone tiles bearing the symbol of his guild that I made for him into the city. Those tiles … I’ve personally cast spells upon every single one prior to my imprisonment. Those tiles are the key, Thren, the key to saving Veldaren from the prophet’s return. Muzien’s rise, his takeover of the streets … all of it is merely my means to an end.”