by A. C. Cobble
“The-The Council?” stammered the guard. “You know the password, then?”
She blinked at him.
“All of the other Knives give us the password,” asserted the guard. “It’s the only way to know who really works for the Church.”
“I’m from Enhover,” she reminded him. “I was meant to be traveling with the bishop, until… The truth, this is my first time in Romalla. If I do not make it inside in time to meet with the Council, it may be my last. Whatever password, whatever protocol you have, I do not know. Please, help me. I will make it up to you after your shift is over.”
The guard cringed and waved them by, but under his breath, he muttered, “Learn the password, ey?”
As the cart rolled out of earshot of the guard, Sam glanced at Ivar. “I think he was one of yours.”
The man laughed. “Not one of mine, but you are right. Your attention wasn’t arousing the poor man, it was scaring him. He was near shaking in his boots he was so frightened by you.”
“Frightened of me?”
“Shouldn’t he be?” wondered Ivar. “If you’d met that man late at night in a tavern and he’d tried to make your acquaintance, would you have given him a tumble or slit his throat? You could do either one, and if I’m not mistaken, you’d feel the same about both.”
“That’s not fair,” argued Sam.
“Who is Bishop Yates?” asked Ivar.
Sam smiled. “He’s the man I need to find.”
“Care to escort me to the market first?” requested Ivar. “Once I’m there, I can obscure my wares from nosy watchmen, but if I meet one on the way…”
“I’ll take you there and then I’ll have a look at what you’ve got,” stated Sam. “That’s part of the arrangement, isn’t it? I see you safely to the market, you give me my pick of your potions?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say your pick,” huffed Ivar. When he saw her raised eyebrow, he quickly added, “We’ll talk. We’ll talk.”
Nodding, Sam turned back to study the street and wondered what other strange encounters she’d have in Romalla, home of the Church.
The bishop stopped, and a pair of hulking, cassock-clad guards paused behind him. He frowned at her as if he recognized her but couldn’t make the connection as to how.
She nodded in greeting and watched as his gaze traveled up and down her body. She resisted the urge to roll her shoulders back, pushing her breasts against the tight fabric of her shirt, to swing a hip out to the side in a saucy pose, and to favor him with an inviting smile. Knowing how to tug on a man’s desires did not mean one should always do it. Now was not the time for toying with the bishop.
“Who are you?” asked Bishop Yates.
“I am— I was, Thotham’s apprentice,” she replied.
“Ah,” said the churchman, pinching his chins and nodding. “And what are you doing here, then?”
“I came to see the Council of Seven,” she replied. “I need your help finding them. It seems even in this place, the Church holds her secrets closely, and I’ve been afraid to approach a stranger. My mentor never brought me to Romalla, but he warned me how they may treat, ah, those of our ability.”
“He was wise, your mentor,” said Bishop Yates, his jowls shaking as he spoke.
“Wise?” she wondered.
“Keeping you from those vultures,” answered Yates. “Why are you trying to reach them, girl? The Council of Seven has little interest in Enhover. It’s best that way, I’ve found. Is this about the Dalyrimple affair? It was my understanding that matter was resolved.”
Sam shifted, eyeing the men behind the bishop.
“Is my understanding incorrect?” asked Yates. “Or do you believe there is another sorcerer operating within our borders? If so, why have you not brought this accusation to me? I could help you, girl.”
“No, I have no proof there are any sorcerers in Enhover,” replied Sam. “It stands to reason, though, that if there was one, there could be another.”
“Fair enough,” agreed the bishop, smiling. “We have you, though. That is your role, to monitor our people for any violation of Church law. If and when you find some clue, you should come directly to me, girl. I’m hurt that you did not.”
“You will not help me?” asked Sam, her eyes narrowing to a slit.
The bishop tilted his head, studying her. After a moment, he said, “I will help you find the Council of Seven, though, there are no longer seven of them and I believe you will be disappointed. The Council is like to be less helpful than you imagine. When you are done with them and they are done with you, come to see me. Your mentor and I were, well, not friends, but we understood each other. It would benefit us both if we shared the same relationship.”
“I am no girl,” she declared.
The bishop smiled. “No, not any longer, are you? I misspoke.”
“The Council?” she asked, hoping to get what she needed and then end the conversation. There was a reason Thotham was so cautious, she knew.
Bishop Yates evidently wasn’t bound by the same secrecy, and he waved to one of the priests behind him. “Take her to Bishop Constance.”
The man nodded, and she fell in beside him as he walked through the sprawling stone corridors of the Church. It was a massive complex, three or four times the size of the Church in Westundon, larger even than Prince Philip’s palace and twice as old. The Church’s halls teemed with cassocked priests and armed guards. The latter carried menacing pole arms and clanked as their archaic plate armor moved beneath pure white tunics emblazoned with the golden circle of the Church. Many of the men stopped and stared at her as they passed.
“Not a lot of women in the priesthood in Ivalla, you think?” she asked.
“Not why they’re looking at you,” advised her guide. “Sorcery is a bigger concern here than at home. Many of these men are trained to detect it. I imagine few of them understand what they’re feeling, like a proper attuned would, but even someone with no training could detect the dark presence of spirits around you.”
“The presence of the spirits?” she asked.
“Surely you know they cling to you,” replied the man, looking over his shoulder at her. “You’re like a burning torch walking down a dark hallway. Why is that? Why do the shades cluster in your wake?”
“It will fade,” she said, looking away.
“It will fade?” asked the man. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
Sam agreed, but she still didn’t answer. She cursed to herself. Kalbeth had warned her. The tattoo across her back, even after several weeks, seemed to writhe on top of her skin. That skin had healed, but evidently, the piercing of the shroud had not. The cold taint of the underworld would follow her for a time until it did.
Her guide was studying her, waiting for an answer.
“What is that?” she asked, pointing toward a silver emblem hanging around his neck, trying to distract the man.
“It is a symbol for the Sect of Sages,” replied her guide, picking up the silver pendant and showing it to her. A quill bisecting the Church’s circle. “It’s an order of scholars within the Church. It’s how I earn my bread, you could say.”
“And Bishop Yates allows you into his entourage because of that, because you’re a scholar?”
“He is a Sage as well,” said the priest. “The Church can be a lonely place, if you do not surround yourself with likeminded people.”
“I’d rather be alone,” claimed Sam.
“Your kind are strange,” complained the man, shaking his head, reaching up to brush away a shock of copper-red hair. “Whether you’re from Enhover or Ivalla, you’re all strange and secretive. Perhaps that’s why there are so few of you left.”
“I’m still here,” she asserted.
“Aye, and where is here?” he asked.
She paused, looking around at the blank stone walls and nondescript doors that lined the dim hallway the man had led her into. A hand dropped down to one of her daggers.
Her guide laugh
ed. “Don’t worry. I’m leading you where you want to go. My point was you don’t know where that is. You are marching blindly with no clue where you’re headed. You have no vision. It is a trait of the old Church, to move without thinking, to never make progress because there is no end to your path. The old guard were never going anywhere.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked.
The man merely shrugged in response and kept walking deeper into the labyrinthine hallways. As they went, they saw fewer and fewer people, and eventually, they were alone, only their footsteps echoing back at them.
“A last bastion of the old Church,” said the man after a long stretch of silence. Then, he stopped in front of a moonlit garden. “She’s likely in there somewhere. It’s her haunt, I suppose you could say.”
“In this garden?” questioned Sam, “And if she’s not?”
“Then I don’t know where to find her,” claimed the man. He watched her face and added, “She should be here. She retires here every night, I believe. Bishop Yates met her in these gardens just two evenings past. This is one of the few spaces deep in the bowels of the Church where one can get fresh air and see the night sky without looking through a pane of glass or a set of iron bars. It used to be a cemetery.”
Sam grunted.
“Good luck,” offered the man. “Both with the bishop and…” He waved his hand at her, seeming to encompass her body and the spirits floating around her.
“What is your name?” asked Sam.
“Adriance,” replied her guide. “Timothy Adriance.”
“I’ll remember that,” said Sam, “and maybe we’ll see each other again, Timothy Adriance.”
The man simply smiled at her.
When he left, Sam turned to peer at the dark foliage out of a wide, arched opening. Drawing a deep breath, she stepped forward.
From a narrow alcove just inside of the garden, a hidden voice asked, “What is it?”
She jumped in surprise.
A short woman rose from a bench and stepped into the open. “That was Bishop Yates’ man, Adriance? You must be from Enhover as well. Allow me to guess, Thotham’s mysterious apprentice? No one else surrounded by darkness like you would be so bold to walk into the Church and seek me out. Am I right?”
Sam’s throat was dry. She nodded.
“Come along then,” instructed the little woman. “The others will want to see you.”
The others, it turned out, were just three. They sat behind a semi-circular table, four seats filled, three empty. The Council of Seven, as they’d once been known.
“Your mentor could have joined us, you know,” remarked Bishop Constance. “Years ago, we invited him, but he refused to return from the field. So few do, these days. Either they cannot leave behind the adventure, or they die. Unfortunate that, but none of us live forever. It’s difficult, with fewer Knives, to find those with the constitution and wisdom to join us at the council table.”
“I can see that,” acknowledged Sam. “I’ve come for your help. When Thotham died, we lost so much. His knowledge, his skill, it’s gone, but the threat is not.”
“He was a skilled Knife,” agreed Constance, bobbing her head.
“We believe there is another group of sorcerers loose in Enhover,” continued Sam, her gaze flicking over the assembled council. “Ones superior to what we dealt with in Derbycross and Archtan Atoll. Sorcerers that are behind much of the recent unrest in Enhover.”
“Hmm, unrest you say, another group of sorcerers?” scoffed one of the Council.
Sam hadn’t caught the grouchy-looking man’s name, but she decided she didn’t need to.
Sitting forward, sticking his head out like a bobbing turkey, the man continued, “It is true that sorcery made a brief return after we believed it dead. We’d be fools not to acknowledge that, but I’ve seen the correspondence, and I spoke to Bishop Yates. Sorcery in Enhover is dead again.”
“What—”
“Harwick was cleansed,” declared Constance, speaking over both Sam and the man to the side of her. “Harwick, Archtan Atoll, and Derbycross. We made sure that nothing remains of those foul nests. The practitioners who once conducted the dark arts in those places are dead, and their equipment and materials are destroyed. We sent Knives behind you to clean up your mess, and they’ve confirmed there are no more leads to follow. Unless you have some evidence to the contrary, I’m quite confident that there is nothing required in Enhover. Since you are here, though, what is your name, girl?”
“Sam,” she answered, spitting the word out quickly. Keep her secrets, Thotham had told her, but she could not expect help from these people if she would not even share her name. “And I am no longer a girl.”
“Of course not. Sam… Samantha?” questioned Constance. “I ask that you remain some time in Romalla, Samantha, and then we can reassign you to a more suitable post. Perhaps paired with one of our more experienced Knives? There have been rumblings up in Rhensar, and it’s imperative that we deal with them quickly. Well, as quickly as the Church does anything. It is our mission to address these things before they reach the Prelate’s ear, and word travels quickly here on the continent.”
Bishop Constance sat back with a pleased smile upon her face. She looked as though she believed what she’d just related would be pleasing to Sam as well.
“I… No,” babbled Sam. “No, I came for help in Enhover. The threat is there, Bishop.”
“Is it?” asked the woman. “Why do you think so?”
“Just before I came,” explained Sam, “a secret society was attacked in Westundon. Dozens were killed, merchants, peers, and common alike.”
“Who was behind this attack?” questioned the old man to Constance’s right.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Sam. “That’s why I need your help.”
The man snorted and crossed his arms over his chest.
“I read your mentor’s reports… what he was able to report before he was killed,” consoled Constance. “You arrived at my garden with Bishop Yates’ man, so I suppose you know I met with him as well. He relayed the details of the encounter in Derbycross that had not been transmitted already. Terrible what that family did, but it’s not the first time we’ve seen awful secrets passed down through the generations. In my experience, it would be the first time that knowledge was shared outside of the family. Those people do not maintain secrecy of their dark pursuits for centuries by speaking of it. Tell me, is there any of this Dalyrimple family left alive?”
Sam blinked. “No, I—”
“It is settled then,” declared Constance.
“Marquess Colston, he was an elder in a society called the Feet of Seheht,” argued Sam. “He was a sorcerer with incredible power. The Feet of Seheht was the society that was attacked. Many were killed. Whoever is left is covering their tracks. They’re killing anyone who could lead us to them.”
“Was any sorcery used during the purported attack?” questioned Constance, her matronly mask falling away and a hard-eyed inquisitor taking her place.
The Whitemask, Thotham had referred to her as, and Sam understood. The warm, friendly expressions, her appearance, were all a mask. Underneath lived a woman ruthless enough to lead a council of assassins.
“Bishop Yates did not mention if sorcery was used,” said Constance. “If this Marquess Colston had shared what he knew, then certainly someone would have that knowledge and would use it to defend themselves. From what I was told of Derbycross, no mundane thugs would be able to burn down that man’s home. If there were sorcerers within this group you speak of, then why did they not protect themselves? And if there is a powerful sorcerer snipping leads, then why have they not come after you, Samantha? Why have they not come after this Duke Wellesley who was so deeply involved in the affair? Yes, Bishop Yates told us all about that. This is not our first time following the trail of a dangerous practitioner. There are tell-tale signs that followers of the dark path leave. I see none of those in Enhover. Do you have any
hard evidence, any suspects?”
“I… I-It’s…” she stammered.
She thought of the Book of Law, the grimoire she’d found in Isisandra’s effects. Simply owning the book was a violation of Church law. Reading it was worse. Sam’s kind were dispatched to kill those who tried to decipher such forbidden knowledge. She knew, in her gut, that sorcery was still a threat, but she couldn’t tell them everything that she knew or suspected. Not if she wanted to walk out of the room alive.
“You cannot show me evidence because it does not exist,” asserted Constance. “If there were sorcerers operating in the way you insist they are, we’d see the signs.”
“But Thotham’s prophecy!” exclaimed Sam, glaring at the council members.
“Here we go,” muttered one of the men who had not yet spoken. He rolled his eyes and glanced at Constance.
The bishop smiled at Sam from behind the table. “I’m familiar with your mentor’s claims. A darkness, yes, rising from Enhover? We all thought it silly decades ago when he first claimed to have seen the vision. I admit I thought he was quite mad just years ago when he last tried to convince me it was a true portend. Prophecy is a rare gift, Samantha. Much throughout history that has been claimed as a true vision is merely dream and conjecture. Sometimes, due to random chance, those visions have come true. More often, they do not.”
Sam frowned.
“You trusted your mentor. That is good,” said Constance, the matronly tone working its way back into her voice. “Perhaps he was right, and his prophecy was one of those exceedingly rare pronouncements that had a seed of truth. However, consider this. What if his prophecy has already occurred?”
Sam gaped at the bishop.
“You did not think of that, did you?” chided Constance. “The tree of darkness and the seed or whatever it was the old man claimed. Isisandra Dalyrimple could be the seed of darkness. She gained her powers from the branch of her family tree. You prevented her from spreading that darkness, as Thotham foresaw. The prophecy, if it was ever true, seems to have already happened.”
