Jon Sprunk - Shadows son

He took her arm with a gentle touch. "We have to get going."

She lifted her fingertips to her lips and blew a kiss at the empty chair. With a firm nod, she turned with him to leave.

Calm's eyes darted back and forth as they descended the stairs, but his adrenaline was fading in the absence of a credible threat. On the ground floor, he let Josey lead him through a series of rooms into a side wing of the house. From the dusty smell, this part of the mansion saw little use. Paintings decorated the walls of a long hallway, portraits mostly, of old men and women dressed in the fashions of previous generations.

Josey stopped at the end of the hall, at the opening of a narrow niche. It was empty, its paneled walls bare, although pale rectangles showed where pictures had hung in the past.

"This is it," she said. "The door was hidden in one of these walls. I could never find it again afterward."

Caim moved past her and searched the small space. He knocked on each wall. They were insulated, probably with cork. The floor felt solid enough. He was bending down to check the bottom panels when cracks in the strip of rosewood wainscoting caught his eye. He tapped the odd section with a finger. Nothing happened. Then he twisted it, and a piece of the molding pivoted away to reveal a small hole in the bare wood underneath.

A keyhole.

He smiled at Josey and moved aside. She approached with the golden talisman in hand. The key's smooth shaft slid into the hole without difficulty. Turning it produced a faint click, and a portion of the wall sprang open. He eased it open with the point of a knife. Stone steps wended down into the darkness beyond, flanked by walls of heavy blocks. Odors of earth and mold rose from the depths.

"Wait here," he said, and jogged back down the hallway to a sitting room.

He fetched a table lamp and returned to Josey. She stood at the top of the steps with her arms wrapped around her body, staring down into the dark.

He came up beside her. "Ready?"

"I guess so. Caim?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you.,,

He inclined his head. "Let's go."

Caim went first, with the lamp in his left hand, a knife in the right. The steps were steep and irregular in their spacing, almost as if they had formed naturally. Trails of niter ran down the walls like melted wax. Josey stayed close to his back. He wanted to whisper for her to give him more space, but held his tongue. This place held a lot of memories for her, most of them scary and confusing. Anyhow, he didn't expect any trouble. The hidden door didn't look as if it had been used in years.

The steps entered into a large, round chamber. The ceiling was double-vaulted and formed with rows of square stones. Down from the center hung a cast-iron chandelier. A vivid fresco illuminated the smooth walls. In the painting, twelve figures in hooded blue robes stood under a starry night sky. Each clutched a yellow dagger in the left hand and held forth the right, dripping blood from the palm, as they gazed upon a dead man sprawled under a burning tree. It was all very strange, and probably symbolic, but he couldn't make hide nor hair of it.

"All the years you lived in this house." His words reverberated back to him from the walls. "You never suspected this place was down here?"

"No, I told you. There was only the dream."

Shelves and casements stood against the walls. They held books and racks of scrolls, strange ornaments and miscellanea. It was like walking through an old person's memories, everything placed in no particular order.

"Looks real enough to me."

While Josey wandered around the chamber, Caim went to the center, where a design had been painted on the stone flagstones. It was a yellow lion with an eagle's head and wings on a field of navy blue. A griffon, symbol of the old imperium. So it was true. Caim wondered what else Parmian could have told them about the meetings if he'd applied more pressure. Perhaps nothing. The man had sounded sincere in his desire to leave his father's schemes behind. Whatever secrets the earl had possessed in life had likely died with him.

"Caim!"

He hurried over to Josey's side. She stood before a display stand. A row of ceramic plaques lined the top shelf. Josey's gaze was fixed on the center picture, which was a rather good likeness of her late father, Earl Frenig.

"Are you okay?"

"Fine." Her voice sounded odd, as if she were speaking to him from far away.

He studied the plaques closer. Twelve sober faces stared back, two of them women. "So these are the members of your father's society. Not a lot of people to challenge the might of the True Church."

"Twelve members." Josey ran her fingertips over the face of the shelf. "Same as the number of theocrats on the Elector Council. Father liked balance. He was a little odd that way. Making everything tidy, he called it."

"I wonder what came of them. Are they still alive? Or has the Church?" He remembered her father's fate too late.

"Silenced them?" she finished for him.

"I didn't mean to-"

She placed a hand on his forearm. "It's okay. I'm fine."

A large tome rested on a beveled table beneath the portraits. Its heavy cover was bound in smooth leather, possibly sheepskin, dyed a deep sapphire blue. Tarnished silver studs shined in the lamplight. Caim opened the book. The yellowed pages were covered in a concise scrawl of black ink. The characters were Nimean, but he couldn't understand a word of it.

"This looks like a code."

Josey broke her gaze away from the picture. "You don't read Old Nimean?"

"No. What does it say?"

"It's a journal. It looks like my father's hand. The title says 'Revolution Day."' She ran a finger across the page. "`In the eleven hundred and twenty-sixth year of the empire, a coalition of ministers and nobles from the outlying provinces gathered in secret. Dissatisfied with the influence held by the imperial court, and further motivated by liens against their properties and titles, these individuals plotted to depose the emperor. Key legionary commanders were involved by a variety of means, including bribery, blackmail, and at least one known murder of a state official. This inaugural meeting was held at the Basilica of St. Andros in the free city of Mecantia."'

She glanced at him. "The presiding minister was Praetor Terentius Vassili, count of Leimond."

"Archpriest Vassili?"

"Before his ascension to the Elector Council, it seems, and before Mecantia was annexed by primal decree. It goes on to say that the coup succeeded. The coalition armies defeated the imperial garrison and seized control of Othir."

Caim set the lantern on the table. "I thought it was the Church that led the uprising against the emperor."

"That's what we were taught," Josey said. "Since then, the prelate has held temporal power over Nimea in addition to his spiritual authority."

"For the good of the people, no doubt."

She frowned as she bent over the text. "Listen to this. After the usurpation, elements of the Sacred Brotherhood took the palace. The coalition leaders were tried by an ecclesiastic court and executed. Thereafter, select churchmen were put in important positions in a government imposed by the Council and supported by the Brotherhood. Any who voiced dissent were imprisoned, or killed outright, and their lands forfeited. There's a list of nobles who switched allegiance to the new regime and were allowed to retain their titles."

She read off the roll of names. The muscles in Calm's jaws bulged at the mention of a familiar name: Reinard, duke of Ostergoth.

He cursed behind clenched teeth. Mathias had vetted every detail of the Ostergoth mission because of the high-profile nature of the target. He had convinced Caim everything was in the clear, but it was too convenient to be coincidence. They had been played like fools.