Chris Pierson - Sacred Fire

Quarath glanced back, then shook his head and looked down. He ignored the young acolyte’s questioning look as he passed him, his mind already on the day ahead. The Lightbringer was meditating, he would tell the courtiers. Perhaps he would attend to them tomorrow. They would be disappointed, but he didn’t particularly care. Istar could go on perfectly well without the Kingpriest, with him in charge.

Out the front doors of the manse, and down the garden path in the predawn darkness, his mind traveled ahead of him. His thoughts were so intent, he never saw the shadow watching him from the shelter of the Garden of Martyrs.

Cathan crouched low in the Garden of Martyrs, watching Quarath. He’d found sandals and a clerical habit in a wardrobe near where Lady Ilista had left him. With the hood drawn low to hide his eyes, and his scabby hands hidden in huge sleeves, he looked no different from the other priests in Istar-and there were hundreds of priests. He could move about the Temple with freedom-until the guards in the dungeon noticed he was missing, and raised the alarm. With luck, it would be hours before that happened.

When he’d seen the Emissary emerge from Beldinas’s manse, however, he’d scrambled for cover. Quarath’s senses might pick up on something the human clerics missed. Cathan knew that if the elf got a good look at him, his disguise might not matter. So he hunkered down, losing himself in the shadows, keeping quiet. Finally, when Quarath disappeared into the basilica, he let himself breathe again.

He also relaxed his grip on the wooden cudgel he’d managed to procure from a storeroom. He would have preferred a sword, but he felt lucky enough to find any weapon. He would have used the club on Quarath if it came to that. The thought sickened him, but he recognized that the elf would be dead soon anyway, with or without his help. So would everyone else in the Lordcity. He glanced at the sky, feeling the hammer hanging above him, and shivered.

The manse was guarded as always: two knights, armed with halberds, stood watch, and more than a dozen others would materialize at its front gates in a heartbeat, if the call went out. Fortunately, there were other ways in, besides the gates. There was a servants’ entrance that the acolytes used, but it too had guards. The upper levels had many windows and balconies, but he would be spotted if he tried to climb in from below. There was even a covered walkway that ran directly to the basilica, but there was no way he could reach it from the ground.

Still, there was one way known only to the Kingpriest’s innermost circle. He walked gently on the crushed-crystal paths, around to a quiet bower in the southernmost part of the grounds. Silvernut trees grew there, their drooping branches heavy with their long, white fruit, and a reflecting pool ringed with benches stood in its midst. The place was deserted, though one small, gold-furred monkey that was perched on the back of a bench watched him with curiosity.

He prayed to Paladine for luck.

Clenching his teeth, he edged forward. The monkey watching him suddenly shrieked; there was a shudder all around him, and the monkey’s cry was cut off. He felt for a moment as if he were pushing through warm liquid, then the air around him changed, from cool and breezy to warm and stifling. The scent of silverfruit changed to faint incense. He opened his eyes, and saw he was inside.

Symeon, the first Kingpriest, had ordered this entrance put here when the Temple was built. In those days, the Orders of High Sorcery had still been friends to the church, and so the imperial manse was built with an open archway on its south side, hidden from view by magic. The Kingpriests and their advisors used this way only rarely, and then only in times of trouble. Fortunately, though wizards were long gone from Istar, the enchantment remained.

He found himself in a small meditation room, dark but for one candle burning before an icon of the platinum dragon. Ruddy light spilled from beneath a door. Swallowing, he moved to the door and cracked it open, just an inch.

There were stairs on the other side, and nothing-no one-else. They led up into the Kingpriest’s private chambers. Blue carpet cushioned each step. Cathan climbed them quickly, as silent as dust falling, and stopped when he reached the doors at the top. They were gilded, marked with the imperial sigil. He held the cudgel ready, praying that he would not have to use it, and bent to listen.

No sound came from within: no voices, no prayers, not even the bustling of servants. Cathan’s breath came quick and sharp. He didn’t know how he knew the Peripas would be in here, in the Kingpriest’s own chambers, but even so he had never been so certain of anything in his life. Holding his breath, he pushed on the doors. They opened without a sound.

The chamber was dark, completely still. And now there was a slight sound. It came from the bed, set in its midst. The Lightbringer was snoring softly.

Cathan almost smiled as he crossed the chamber, club in hand. He stopped when he drew near, however, sucking in a startled breath. The Kingpriest lay curled up like a child, wrapped so tight in his satin blankets that they might have been funeral windings. His face was pinched with fear, twitching with every breath he drew. Cathan barely recognized him at all now-he seemed to have aged twenty years in the past six months. A film of sweat glistened on his face.

Cathan raised the cudgel. He didn’t even realize what he was doing until it was poised above the bed like a headsman’s sword. His face turned grim: it would be a mercy of sorts, putting an end to Beldinas’s fear-his ill-fated life.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t make his hand move, couldn’t kill this old man who had been his friend. He stood there for more than a minute, club held high. In the end he gave up, bowing his head as his arm lowered to his side again. The Kingpriest went on sleeping, unaware.

Cathan spied the Disks then, lying on the floor. He blinked for a moment, stunned that they should be in plain view like that. Then he swooped down and picked them up. They jingled as he did so, but the figure in the bed did not stir. Clutching them to his chest, Cathan turned and looked at the Kingpriest one last time. He knew he would never see Beldinas again-not in this life, anyway.

“ Oporum, Pilofiro ,” he murmured.

Farewell, Lightbringer.

Then he was gone, back the way he’d come. The golden doors shut noiselessly, the stairs flew by in a blur, the meditation room was still dim and empty. He paused there, long enough to regard the Peripas in the candlelight. They glimmered like silver water. He steeled himself, tucked them into his robe, then walked straight into the room’s south wall…

… back out into the cool of the garden again…

… and stopped, staring at the golden monkey lying dead on the ground, its fur rimed with ice.

“Well done, Twice-Born,” said Fistandantilus from the bower’s far side.

“Go away, damn you,” Cathan said. “You said you were finished with me.”

The grove was dying even as he spoke, the silvernut trees dropping brown leaves in showers, their white fruit turning black and shriveled. Ice grew on the surface of the reflecting pool. Cathan’s breath fogged in the air as the cloaked figure stood watching him.

“No one has damned me in hundreds of years,” the archmage said. “I’m not certain whether that’s bravery or foolishness. But think twice before you do it again, MarSevrin-I could call the guards, and I wouldn’t even have to shout.”

“You could,” Cathan said. “But you won’t, because you brought me here. You wanted me to turn against Beldinas, and you nudged me every step of the way. You have foreseen the burning hammer. Isn’t that right?”