9: The Iron Temple

by Ginn Hale

  The Iron Temple

  Book Nine of The Rifter

  By

  Ginn Hale

  The Iron Temple

  Book Nine of the Rifter

  By Ginn Hale

  Published by:

  Blind Eye Books

  1141 Grant Street

  Bellingham, WA 98225

  blindeyebooks.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may used or reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by Nicole Kimberling

  Cover art, maps and all illustrations by Dawn Kimberling

  Proofreading by Jemma Everyhope

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters and situations depicted are fictional. Any resemblances to actual people or events are coincidental.

  First edition November 2011

  Copyright © 2011 Ginn Hale

  ISBN 978-1-935560-09-8

  For Sharon and Jimda for encouraging me to believe that this was a real job.

  —Ginn

  The Story So Far

  When John uses a key that belongs to his mysterious, scarred roommate, Kyle, to unlock a door in a crumbling ruin, he and two friends are transported to the world of Basawar.

  John and his best friends, Laurie and her lover Bill, befriend a young priest named Ravishan and learn from him that their only hope to return home is to find a way into the monastery of Rathal’pesha, where talented young men like Ravishan are trained to travel instantly across countless miles through the Gray Space.

  But ongoing attacks by peasant revolutionaries called the Fai’daum make church leaders and the ruling class highly suspicious of newcomers like John and his friends, and after witnessing witches and suspected revolutionaries being burned on the Holy Road, John knows he can’t simply appear at the city gates, much less the doors of Rathal’pesha, and expect a warm welcome. His chance to prove his character arises when he overhears Fai’daum members planning an attack against the noble Bousim family’s caravan.

  John warns the men guarding the caravan but then must take part in a counterattack. During a night of brutal battle, John saves the lives of both a Bousim soldier named Alidas and a young Fai’daum revolutionary called Saimura. In the process, he comes face-to-face with the demoness, Ji Shir’korud, who wears the flesh—and teeth—of a large golden dog.

  Because of his bravery, John and his friends are allowed to join the Bousim household.

  Lady Bousim takes Laurie and Bill into her personal entourage. John, on the other hand, chooses to accompany Lady Bousim’s son Fikiri to Rathal’pesha. There, John hopes to find the key that will take him and his friends back home. John’s handsome friend Ravishan is overjoyed to see him again, but Ushman Dayyid, second-in-command under Ushman Nuritam, takes an immediate disliking to John. Despite the fact that John wins the friendship of many priests, including Ushiri Ashan’ahma, Ushvun Samsango, the physician Ushman Hann’yu, as well as Ushiri Ravishan, Dayyid’s animosity only grows.

  And all is not well in Lady Bousim’s household either. Not only has the Lady Bousim begun instructing Laurie in the forbidden art of witchcraft but the commander of the cavalry, Rasho Tashtu, has taken an unseemly interest in Laurie. Despite the commander and other spies in the Bousim household, Laurie and Bill are overjoyed when they discover that Laurie has become pregnant with Bill’s child though now the need to return home is even more urgent.

  John uses his ever-increasing power to help Ravishan train so that he will be chosen as the Kahlil. As they grow much closer, John learns that Ravishan’s parents were members of the Fai’daum. When they were apprehended, Ravishan was forced to burn his own mother alive to save his sister, Rousma, and himself.

  But when Ravishan’s and John’s budding romance is discovered by Fikiri—who has been spying on them at the bequest of Dayyid—Fikiri blackmails them, insisting that Ravishan bring him and his mother along when they leave for Nayeshi.

  However, all their plans are thrown into disarray when during the Harvest Fair John kills Dayyid to protect Ravishan. Bloody and horrified by his own violence, John is only shielded from discovery by sheer luck; the Fai’daum attack, hoping to save one of their own from the Payshmura priests’ pyre. In the ensuing chaos John once again comes face to face with Saimura and helps him escape from the deadly weapons the that ushiri’im unleash in retaliation.

  In the aftermath of Dayyid’s murder and the Harvest Fair Massacre, John realizes that he is the Rifter and more alarmingly, that Ravishan is the youth who will grow up to become his future roommate, Kyle. But in the face of Ravishan’s joy at being chosen as Kahlil, John can not bring himself to confess any of his suspicions. Instead he travels with Ravishan to Vundomu and then Nurjima, where Ravishan is to be consecrated as the Kahlil.

  Before the final ceremony takes place, however, John is summoned back to Rathal’pesha where he learns that Bill has been murdered and Laurie has been taken to become an Issusha—a fleshless oracle like Ravishan’s sister Rousma. Worse than that, Fikiri, attempting to take Ravishan’s position, has accused him of murdering Dayyid.

  To save Ravishan John admits to the murder and in his drugged state also reveals that Fikiri’s mother is a witch. John is then tortured and sent to burn on the Holy Road.

  Ravishan saves him but now the two of them face a cruel northern winter as fugitives. Fortunately they are discovered by the Fai’daum who take then in. John learns to better control the destructive power within him under the tutelage of Ji. Ravishan and later Fikiri become messengers and assassins for the Fai’daum. And they couldn’t be more needed because now the Fai’daum plan a massive attack against the Payshmura stronghold in the south. If they succeed both Laurie and Ravishan’s sister Rousma could be freed.

  However, Ji will not risk John being sent south where his mere physical presence could trigger the Great Gate. He and Ravishan part, each determined to do all he can to win this battle. Already, John has proven himself to his Fai’daum companions, having earned the name Jath’ibaye after a daring clash with Bousim Rashan’im.

  But only time will tell if he and the few other Fai’daum fighters remaining in the north can counter the new, terrible tactic of the Payshmura Church.

  Chapter Eighty-Eight

  Even blanketed in snow, the city of Gisa bustled with commerce. Constant streams of merchants, tinkers, and travelers with their carts, wagons, and flocks of animals flowed through the wide main streets to congregate at the gates of the hulking railway station. There, armed city guards in Bousim green and tithing agents wearing gold Payshmura emblems exerted control over the crowds as the mood seemed to strike them.

  Hunched in the shadows of a carter’s workshop, dirty, bruised, and dressed in the bullet-riddled rags befitting the beggar he played at being, John watched for hours as countless merchants, herders, holy men and widows passed through the gates after answering only a cursory question or offering the odd bribe.

  Absently, John shook his beggar’s cup and then ducked as a boy bicycling past spat in his direction. He’d just begun to think that shipping the wagonloads of illegal Fai’daum arms aboard the trains could be easily done when suddenly a tithing agent shouted out a command to the yawning city guards. At once they swarmed around a young couple, encircling them with their gleaming rifles at the ready. Every item in the couple’s tidy wagon was rifled through and many of them were simply tossed aside into the half-thawed mud of the street. At last the tithing agent discovered several pieces of jewelry—silver wedding chains, John thought—and pocketed them. Only then was the terrified couple allowed to gather their soiled belongings and be on their way.

  Things certainly wouldn’t end so simply if the guards uncovere
d a cache of munitions and rifles in crates supposedly filled with iron ingots.

  When John reported back to Lafi’shir at the Hearthstone Hostel, the ground commander seemed to have expected as much.

  “We should be able to board our fighters as passengers simply enough, but the weapons…” Lafi’shir stroked his thick beard. “It’s too bad that none of the agents we have relations with are on duty in Gisa this time of year…Well, we’ll just have to do what we can to keep the agents and city guards occupied, won’t we?”

  John nodded, but he didn’t have a good feeling about it. He’d only just recovered from providing a distraction two days ago. Still, they couldn’t afford to wait. The crates of arms were beginning to mount and the last shipment was expected to arrive any day now. They had to move those munitions out before someone in one of the warehouses got nosy or greedy and peeked inside.

  John expected that Lafi’shir would use street fights or lantern fires as his distractions. But Lafi’shir favored more nonviolent ways of distracting the city guards and the men in his elite unit seemed suited to the work.

  Pirr’tu with his dark good looks, thick black beard, and brawny build struck the perfect image of northern dignity, particularly when in Saimura’s rangy company. So when the two of them began to argue loudly about which of them had seduced a voluptuous maid and which of them had mistakenly slipped into bed with the wrinkled widow who employed her, it drew at first snickers and then peals of laughter. Two of the city guards even took sides, cajoling Pirr’tu to admit that he’d bedded a hag.

  John laughed as well from his spot on the stoop of the carter’s workshop and casually beckoned his fellow Fai’daum to pull their carts of arms past while the distraction lasted.

  Tai’yu, a lanky red-haired fighter with a nose like a hawk’s beak had apparently refined his own solo routine to perfection after serving under Lafi’shir for ten years. Prancing with a mix of dignity and foppishness that only the wealthiest merchants adopted, he crossed into the middle of the busy street. Then seemingly without warning, his flashy belt broke and sent his silken trousers plummeting into the mud. Tai’yu tripped and yelped in dismay. Then, as he pulled his pants up, the back seam split and the flap of his long underwear dropped to expose his bare buttocks.

  It was pure slapstick and drew a crowd of howling onlookers.

  Fenn—a young green-eyed stableman newly recruited to serve Lafi’shir—assisted the show by cursing Tai’yu from atop his tahldi and then feigning the loss of his seat.

  Thankfully, neither John’s acting nor his riding skills were deemed good enough to allow him to participate in this impromptu street theater or any of the variations Lafi’shir’s unit performed over the course of the next ten days. Instead he kept watch in filthy rags or assisted with the heavy lifting and loading of the wagons at the warehouse.

  When the last shipment rolled out on an evening train, John felt suddenly relieved, and for the first time, he realized just how nerve wracking all this comedy performed in the face of rifles really had been. He wasn’t alone—in fact, Tai’yu and Fenn seemed almost giddy when the entire unit regrouped around the big wood table in the Hearthstone’s dining room. They snickered and giggled like twelve-year-old boys as they recounted their last triumph to John.

  “No one paid attention to anything else, once the seams split.” Tai’yu grinned. “And I was shouting for the women to look away. Cover your eyes. Cover your eyes.”

  Tai’yu waved his thin arms in the air.

  “None of them did, of course,” Tai’yu said.

  “Who could with you squawking and waving your ass around like it was on fire?” Fenn grinned.

  John smiled at the image. He tasted his stew. Thick hunks of weasel mixed with boiled roots.

  “Does someone have the seed salt?” John asked.

  Fenn handed the clay shaker to John. Their hands touched as John accepted the shaker and Fenn gave him that same green-eyed glance of invitation that he had offered during combat practice in the Warren. None of the other men at the table seemed to notice it. John wondered if Fenn simply had a flirtatious manner.

  John salted his stew and ate. At least the food was hot and John felt well enough to eat it. The last of his bruises had faded and not a single scar remained where the bullets had torn through his neck only weeks ago. Across the dining room, John noticed the door open. Saimura shook the snow off his boots as he came inside. He glanced to the table and met John’s gaze. Then he hurried up the wooden staircase to the rented rooms upstairs. John had hardly managed to say more than two words to him in the last week.

  “It’s better to entertain city guards than to fight them,” Tai’yu said. “This way they don’t even know there has been a disturbance. They just have an amusing story to tell.”

  “Pity we can’t win all our battles with buffoonery,” Pirr’tu spoke as he chewed. Then he carefully wiped crumbs of bread from his black beard before flashing a charming smile at the serving girl. She briefly returned his smile, then blushing, disappeared into the kitchen.

  At the head of the table, Lafi’shir frowned down at a scrap of paper that had come from the Warren along with the last shipment of munitions. John had stolen a glance at it when they’d been sitting down but only to scan for any mention of Ravishan or the work he was doing for Sabir. To his disappointment, the paper had only offered him the mention of an unfamiliar farm.

  Obviously, it meant far more to Lafi’shir. At last he sighed and then fed the paper into the flame of the table lamp.

  “So are we moving?” Pirr’tu asked Lafi’shir.

  “Tomorrow. We need to get to Sheb’yu’s farm as quick as we can,” Lafi’shir said.

  “Trouble?” Pirr’tu asked.

  “All I know is that Ji wants us there fast.”

  “How long of a ride will it be?” Fenn asked. John suspected he was already thinking about which tahldi to take. Fenn seemed to know all the animals as individuals.

  “Four days riding hard through the Stone Hills Pass and sleeping in our saddles.”

  He glanced to John. “Will you be well enough to ride, Jath’ibaye?”

  John noted Lafi’shir’s persistent and deliberate use of his new name with a kind of amusement. The man just wasn’t going to allow him to go back to being Jahn. In truth, he was growing used to the name himself.

  “I could ride now if you need me to,” John said. He wasn’t sure about sleeping in his saddle, but he wasn’t about to say so. One way or another he knew he’d keep up with the other men.

  “Saimura was too right about you healing up damn fast,” Fenn commented. “You must come from a line of tough witches.”

  “I was just lucky to have had Ji teach me,” John replied softly. “And to have one of Saimura’s healing talismans.”

  “Where is Saimura, anyway?” Tai’yu asked.

  “He went upstairs,” John said.

  “Go get him, will you, Jath’ibaye?” Lafi’shir asked.

  John hesitated. Saimura didn’t seem to want to see him at all lately. But then Lafi’shir’s request hadn’t really been a question. It was an order.

  John left the table and loped up the stairs to a long hall of closed doors. Saimura shared the third room on the left with Pirr’tu and Fenn. John knocked lightly.

  “What is it?” Saimura sounded annoyed.

  “Lafi’shir wants you downstairs,” John said.

  “Tell him I’ll be down after I get out of these wet clothes.”

  John didn’t see much point in going downstairs without Saimura—not when Lafi’shir had told John to get him. John leaned against the wall and waited. After five minutes or so, John knocked on the door again.

  “I think Lafi’shir wanted to see you sometime soon.”

  “I thought you went back downstairs,” Saimura said through the door.

  “No,” John replied. “I’m still here, waiting.”

  “You don’t need to stay. Go downstairs and enjoy your dinner.”

 
; John scowled at the door. “Saimura, this is getting childish. Just come to dinner.”

  There was no response and John briefly considered burning the lock apart. Then the door opened just slightly. Saimura peered out at John through the crack. His eyes were wide and bloodshot.

  “You did something to me,” Saimura whispered.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “In the stable, when you used my talisman, you…did something.”

  John realized that Saimura had to be talking about the strength John had taken from his talisman.

  “I didn’t mean to do anything,” John said quietly. “I just needed strength. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  The muscles in Saimura’s jaw clenched. John tried to meet his eyes, but Saimura lowered his gaze.

  “Saimura, you’ve been a friend to me,” John said. “You brought me into the Fai’daum. I would never hurt you intentionally. I’m sorry for what I did, but I didn’t know it would happen. I don’t even know how it happened.”

  “You don’t even know what happened, do you?” Saimura sounded both strained and accusatory.

  “Not really, no,” John admitted. “But I didn’t mean to harm you.”

  “You didn’t harm me,” Saimura responded tersely. “You didn’t even hurt me.”

  John frowned at him, unsure of what Saimura meant.

  “You broke through the barriers between myself and my talisman,” Saimura said. The muscles of Saimura’s jaw flexed again. “You were in me. You were there inside me, taking what you needed, and I couldn’t stop you.”

  John felt his face go hot and red. The words Saimura had used made the whole thing sound like a rape. Then John remembered the warm, quivering gasps of Saimura’s talisman. He remembered the sobbing that had stopped him. A sick feeling of horror sank through John.

  “I didn’t mean—I never—” John couldn’t think of what to say. He needed some way to make things right with Saimura, to take back what he had done.