by Mel Odom
“I had hopes,” Cholik answered diplomatically.
Kabraxis smiled, and the effect on his demonic face was obscene. “You’re a greedy man. I like that.”
Cholik took no offense. One of the things he enjoyed about the relationship with the demon was that he had to offer no apologies for the way he felt. In the Zakarum Church, his temperament always had to be in line with accepted church doctrine.
“We’re going to outgrow this town soon,” Cholik said.
“You’re thinking of leaving?” Kabraxis sounded as though he couldn’t believe it.
“Possibly. It has been in my thoughts.”
“You?” Kabraxis scoffed. “Who thought only of the building of this church?”
Cholik shrugged. “We can build other churches.”
“But this one is so big and so grand.”
“And the next one can be bigger and more grand.”
“Where would you build another church?”
Cholik hesitated, but to know the demon was to speak his mind. “Westmarch.”
“You would challenge the Zakarum Church?”
Cholik answered fiercely, “Yes. There are priests there whom I would see humbled and driven from the city. Or sacrificed. If that is done, and this church is positioned to look as though it can save all of Westmarch from great evil, we could convert the whole country.”
“You would kill those people?”
“Only a few of them. Enough to scare the others. The survivors will serve the church. Dead men can’t fear us and properly worship us.”
Kabraxis laughed. “Ah, but you’re a willing pupil, Buyard Cholik. Such bloodthirstiness is so refreshing to find in a human. Usually you are all so limited by your own personal desires and motivations. You want revenge on this person who wronged you or that person who has been fortunate enough to have more than you. Petty things.”
A curious pride moved through Cholik. Over the year and some months of their acquaintance, he had changed. He hadn’t been lured over to the Darkness as so many priests he’d known had feared for those they sought to save. Rather, he’d reached inside himself and brought it all forward.
The Zakarum Church taught that man was of two minds as well, constantly fighting an inner war between the Light and the Darkness.
“But my plan to move into Westmarch is a good one?” Cholik asked. He knew he was currying the demon’s favor, but Kabraxis liked to give it.
“Yes,” the demon answered, “but it is not yet time. Already, this church has earned enmity from the Zakarum Church. Gaining the king’s permission to build a church within the city would be hard. The tenets between the king and the church are too tight. And you forget: Westmarch still seeks the demon that was seen with the pirates. If we move too quickly, we will draw more suspicion.”
“It has been more than a year,” Cholik protested.
“The king and the people have not forgotten,” Kabraxis said. “Diablo has left his mark upon them after the subterfuge he ran at Tristram. We must first win their trust, then betray them.”
“How?”
“I have a plan.”
Cholik waited. One thing he’d learned that Kabraxis didn’t like was being questioned too closely.
“In time,” Kabraxis said. “We have to raise an army of believers before then, warriors who will go and kill anyone who stands in their way to bringing the truth to the world.”
“An army to oppose Westmarch?”
“An army to oppose the Zakarum Church,” Kabraxis said.
“There are not enough people in all of Bramwell.” The thought staggered Cholik. Images of battlefields painted red with the blood of men flashed through his mind. And he knew those images were probably much less horrific than the actual battles would be.
“We will raise the army from within Westmarch,” Kabraxis said.
“How?”
“We will turn the king against the Zakarum Church,” the demon replied. “And once we make him see how unholy the Zakarum Church has become, he will create that army.”
“And the Zakarum Church will be razed to the ground.” Warmth surged through Cholik as he entertained the idea of it.
“Yes.”
“How will you turn the king?” Cholik asked.
Kabraxis gestured toward the church. “In time, Buyard Cholik. Everything will be revealed to you in time. Diablo returned to this world only a short time ago by corrupting the Soulstone that bound him. He unleashed his power in Tristram, taking over King Leoric’s son, Prince Albrecht. As you will remember, for you were privy to the machinations of the Zakarum Church at the time, Tristram and Westmarch almost warred. The human adventurers who fought Diablo thought they destroyed him, but Diablo used one of his enemies as the new vessel in which to get around these lands. As we plan for conquest and success, so Diablo plans. But demons must be cunning and crafty, as we are being now. If we grow too quickly, we will attract the attention of the Prime Evils, and I’m unwilling to deal with them at the moment. For now, though, you have a service to give. I promise you a miracle today that will bring even more converts.”
Cholik nodded, stilling the questions that flooded into his brain. “Of course. By your leave.”
“Go with Dien-Ap-Sten’s blessings,” Kabraxis said, intoning the words that they had made legendary throughout Bramwell and beyond. “May the Way of Dreams take you where you want to go.”
FIFTEEN
The service passed with liquid ease. Standing in the shadowed balcony that overlooked the parishioners, Buyard Cholik watched as the crowd fidgeted and waited through the singing and the addresses of the young priests speaking of Dien-Ap-Sten’s desires for each and every man, woman, and child in the world of men to rise and succeed to their just rewards. The young priests stood on the small stage below Cholik’s balcony. Mostly, though, the young priests’ messages intoned the virtues of serving the Prophet of the Light and sharing profits with the church so that more good work could be done.
But they were all truly waiting on the Call to the Way of Dreams.
After the last of the priests finished his message and the final songs were sung, songs that Kabraxis had written himself, which echoed of drumbeats like a hammering heart and melodic pipes that sounded like blood rushing through a man’s ears, a dozen acolytes stepped up from the pit in front of the small stage with lighted torches in their hands.
The drums hammered, creating an eerie crescendo that resounded among the rafters of the high-vaulted ceiling. Cymbals crashed as the pipes played.
Frenzy built within the crowd. There still, Cholik saw, were not enough seats in the church. They’d just opened the upper floor of the church three weeks ago, and the membership had more than filled the cathedral again. Many of the worshippers were from other cities up and down the coastline, and a number of them were from Westmarch. They made pilgrimages from the other cities by hired caravan or by paying ship’s passage.
Some ships’ captains and caravan masters made small fortunes out of operating twice-weekly round-trips to Bramwell. Many people were willing to pay passage for the chance to walk the Way of Dreams, for health reasons or in hopes of gaining their heart’s desire.
Once Cholik had discovered the startup of the lucrative business, he’d sent word to the captains and caravan masters that they would be expected to bring offerings in the way of building materials for the church with each trip. Only two ships had gone down and one caravan was destroyed by a horde of skeletons and zombies before the tribute asked of them started getting delivered on a regular basis. More caravans were starting up from Lut Gholein and other countries to the east.
The crowd shouted, “Way of Dreams! Way of Dreams!” Their manner would not have been permitted in the Zakarum Church, and they bordered on the fringe of becoming an unruly crowd.
Guards Cholik had chosen from the warriors who believed in Dien-Ap-Sten lined the cathedral walls and stood in small raised towers in the midst of the congregation. For the most part, the guard
s carried cudgels that bore the elliptical rings that were Kabraxis’s sign cleverly worked into the wire-bound hilt. Other guards carried crossbows that had been magically enchanted by mystic gems. The guards dressed in black chainmail with stylized silver icons of the elliptical rings on their chests. All of them were hard men, warriors who had ventured down the Black Road, as the Way of Dreams was called by initiates, and had been imbued with greater strength and speed than normal men.
The dozen acolytes touched their torches to different spots on the wall that held the stage and Cholik’s balcony. Cholik watched as the flames leapt up the whale-oil-fed channels and came straight up to him.
The flames, aided by a ward that was laid upon the wall, raced around Cholik and lifted the balcony and the design from the wall, exposing the flaming face of the cowled snake that had been designed by black stones intermixed with white. The flames danced along the black stones and lit in the pits of the snake’s eyes.
The audience quieted waiting expectantly to see what would occur. But Cholik sensed the violence in the room that was on the cusp of breaking out. The guards moved at their posts, reminding everyone they were there.
“I am Master Sayes,” Cholik said into the sudden silence that filled the cathedral. “I am the Wayfinder, designated so by the hand of Dien-Ap-Sten, Prophet of the Light.”
Polite applause followed Cholik’s words as it was supposed to, but the expectant air never left the room. Believers though they were, the people waited like jackals at a feast, knowing that as soon as the larger predators left the area, they would have what was left.
Cholik scattered powder around him that ignited in great gouts of green, red, violet, and blue flames that stopped short of the closest parishioners. The scents of honeysuckle, cinnamon, and lavender filled the cathedral. He spoke, unleashing the spell that held the gateway to the wall.
In response to the spell, the flaming cowled snake’s head lunged from the wall, hanging out over the crowd and opening its mouth. Cholik rode the balcony that stood out over the snake’s eyes. The snake’s mouth was the entrance to the Black Road, leading to the gateway where a black marble trail wound over and under and through itself, winding around to bring the traveler back to the snake’s mouth bearing the gifts Kabraxis had seen fit to bestow.
“May the Way of Dreams take you where you want to go,” Cholik said.
“May the Way of Dreams take you where you want to go,” the audience roared back.
Beneath the hood of his robe, Cholik smiled. It felt so right to be in charge of all this, to be so powerful. “Now,” he said, knowing they hung on his every word, “who among you is worthy?”
It was a challenge, and Cholik knew it, reveled in the knowledge.
The group went wild, screaming and yelling, announcing their needs and wants and desires. The crowd became a living, feral thing, on the brink of lashing out at itself. People had died within the church, victims of their friends and neighbors and strangers over the past year, and the limestone floor had drunk down their blood, putting down crystal roots into the ground beneath that Kabraxis had one day shown Cholik. The roots looked like cones of weeping blood rubies, never quite solid and seeming to ooze into the earth more with every drop that was received.
Undulating, taking Cholik with it, the fiery snake head reached out over the crowd, over the first tier of people, then over the second. People held their ill and diseased children above them, calling out to Dien-Ap-Sten to bless them with a cure. The wealthier people among the audience hired tall warriors to hold them on their shoulders, putting them that much closer to the entrance to the Black Road.
The snake’s tongue flicked out, a black ribbon of translucent obsidian that was as fluid as water, and the choice was made.
Cholik gazed at the child who had been held up by his father, seeing that it wasn’t one child but two somehow grown together. The children possessed only two arms and two legs attached to two heads and a body and a half. They looked no more than three years of age.
“An abomination,” a man in the audience cried out.
“It should never have been allowed to live,” another man said.
“Demon born,” still another said.
The dozen acolytes with the torches raced forward, aided by the guards till they reached the chosen one.
There has to be some mistake, Cholik thought as he stared at the afflicted children knitted together of their own flesh and bone. He couldn’t help feeling that Kabraxis had betrayed him, though he could think of no reason the demon would do that.
Children so severely deformed usually died during childbirth, as did the women who bore them. Their fathers put the children who didn’t die to death, or it was done by the priests. Cholik had executed such children himself, then buried them in consecrated earth in the Zakarum Church. Other deformed children’s bodies were sold to mages, sages, and black marketers who trafficked in demonic goods.
The acolytes surrounded the father and the conjoined children, filling the area with light. The chainmail-clad guards shoved the crowd back from the father, making more room.
Cholik looked at the man and had to force himself to speak. “Will your sons follow the Black Road, then?”
Tears ran down the father’s face. “My sons can’t walk, Wayfinder Sayes.”
“They must,” Cholik said, thinking that was perhaps the way to break the moment. Some who wanted to walk the Black Road gave in to their own fears at the last minute and did not go. The chance to walk the Black Road was never offered again.
Unbidden, the snake’s obsidian tongue flicked out and coiled around the twin boys. Without apparent effort, the snake pulled the boys into its fanged mouth. They screamed as they approached the curtain of flames that hugged the huge head.
Standing on the platform over the ridge of the snake’s heavy brow and peering through the fire, Cholik only saw the two boys disappear beneath him and couldn’t see them anymore. He waited, uncertain what would happen, afraid that he was about to lose all that he had invested in.
Meridor stood at her mother’s side, watching as the massive stone snake licked her little brothers into its huge, gaping maw. Mikel and Dannis passed so close to the flames that light the snake’s face—she knew they didn’t actually have faces because her father told her that, and her older brothers made fun of her when she mentioned it—that she felt certain they were going to be cooked.
Her uncle Ramais always told stories about children getting cooked and eaten by demons. And sometimes those children were baked into pies. She always tried to figure out how a child pie would look, but whenever she asked her mother, her mother would always tell her she needed to stay away from her uncle and his terrible stories. But Uncle Ramais was a sailor for the Westmarch Navy and always had the best stories. She was old enough that she knew she couldn’t believe all of her uncle’s stories, but it was still fun making believe that she did.
Meridor really didn’t want her younger brothers baked or broiled or burned in any manner. At nine years of age and the youngest girl in a household of eight children, she was the one who watched and cleaned Mikel and Dannis the most. Some days she got tired of them because they were always cranky and uncomfortable. Da said it was because each of her brothers was a tight fit living in one body. Sometimes Meridor wondered if Mikel’s and Dannis’s other arms and legs were somehow tucked up into the body they shared.
But even though they were troublesome and cranky, she didn’t want them eaten.
She watched, staring at the stone snake head as it gulped her brothers down. Since no one was listening to her, she prayed the way she’d been taught to in the small Zakarum Church. She felt guilty because her da had told her that the new prophet was the only chance her brothers had of living. They were getting sicker these days, and they were more aware that they weren’t like anybody else and couldn’t walk or move the way they wanted to. She thought it must be pretty horrible. They couldn’t be happy with each other or anyone else.
&
nbsp; “Way of Dreams! Way of Dreams!” the people around her yelled, shaking their fists in the air.
The yelling always made Meridor uncomfortable. The people always sounded so angry and so frightened. Da had always told her that the people weren’t that way; it was just that they were all so hopeful. Meridor couldn’t understand why anyone would want to walk down into the stone snake’s belly. But that was where the Way of Dreams was, and the Way of Dreams—according to Da—could accomplish all kinds of miracles. She had seen a few of them over the past year, but they hadn’t mattered much. No one she knew had ever been chosen by Dien-Ap-Sten.
On some evenings, when the family gathered around their modest table, everyone talked about what they would wish for if they had the chance to walk the Way of Dreams. Meridor hadn’t added much to the conversation at those times because she didn’t know what she wanted to be when she grew up.
Lying on the snake’s tongue, Meridor’s brothers wailed and screamed. She saw their tiny faces, tears glittering like diamonds on their cheeks as they screamed and wept.
Meridor looked up at her mother. “Ma.”
“Shhh,” her mother responded, knotting her fists in the fancy dress she’d made to go to the Church of the Prophet of the Light. She’d never worn anything like that to the Zakarum Church, and she’d always said that being poor wasn’t a bad thing in the eyes of the church. But Da and Ma both insisted that everybody be freshly bathed and clean both nights a week that they went to the new church.
Scared and nervous, Meridor fell silent and didn’t talk. She watched as Mikel and Dannis rolled in the snake’s mouth toward the Way of Dreams housed in its gullet. Over the months of their visits to the church, she had seen people walk into the snake’s mouth, then walk back out again, healed and whole. But how could even Dien-Ap-Sten heal her brothers?
The snake’s mouth closed. Above it on the platform over the snake’s fiery eyes, Master Sayes led the church in prayer. The screams of the two little boys echoed through the cathedral. Knotting her fists and pressing them against her chin as she listened to the horrid screams, Meridor backed away and bumped into the man standing beside her.
