Daviloran came rushing in. He saw the blood, and the needle still in place. Blurting boyishly, he accused Falc of high-handedness.
Falc showed no offense. “Yes. I have acted high-handedly, Holder. Someone ordered the murder of Sir Kaherevan and others, and I am convinced it was not Holder Stavishen. I’m also convinced that it’s part of a plot against the Order, the very Order itself. I am high-handed, superior and egoistic about it, and arrogant. This in addition to being religious and dedicated to my Order and the society we are sworn to maintain.”
Daviloran stared. Slowly his eyes narrowed. At last he smiled. “And truthful, Falc! Don’t forget truthful!” He chuckled.
“To a fault.” Falc shrugged. “It would never occur to me that you might question that, so I did not mention it. Might my cousin join me — assist me?”
“In here? With that mess?” Daviloran’s angelic face took on an expression of shock. “Of that I can hardly approve! Nor will I leave again. I have seen men tortured, Sir Falc, and women as well. I’ve taken a hand. My sensibilities will not be offended, nor my corota gland either.”
“You both enjoy it!”
Falc and Daviloran exchanged a look at that outburst from their prisoner. What a stupid thing for Mandehal to say, even in his distress! Of course they enjoyed it. They were hardly fergs or butterflies; they were men of Sij.
Falc glanced around. “I promise not to be so disrespectful as to kick your corpse as was done to Sir Kaherevan’s body, murderer.”
He held his stare until the impostor proved unable to meet that steady gaze, and looked away. It was then Falc knew that what he had suggested was true. Kaherevan and almost undoubtedly the other omos as well had been kicked after they had been stabbed and sliced, and even after they had died. He swallowed hard. Neither of the others saw the quiver of his hands. He turned from a man he wanted to strangle, slowly, but would not.
“Holder Daviloran: Are you sure you’re prepared to know who really ordered the murder of your Contracted omo — and at least four others?”
Daviloran blinked, wondering. He nodded. “Of course I am.”
A Son of Ashah surprised both the others then, by actually laying hands on a lord Holder. In astonishment the prisoner watched the incredible monkish fanatic wrest an oath from the shocked lord of lands and wealth, his own host who dared not resist. Falc dictated the oath in the names of Ashah and Markcun, holding the other man’s hand to his head in the swearing pose: that Daviloran would not tell anyone, or take any action on what they would soon learn, until Falc had reported to “my Order’s Master, and to my Contractor whose name you know. Swear, my lord.”
The face of the master of Cragview was darkened by congesting blood and his voice trembled in outrage, but he swore. He also bestowed dark looks on Falc, who thanked him and bowed respectfully before returning his attentions to the prisoner. Even on the heels of that impassioned scene he spoke quietly and seemingly without emotion:
“I hope you are convinced that I am a man of my word. When I tell you that I shall not stop before I have finished what I set out to do, it is so. No amount of babble will persuade me to stop before I am utterly finished. So, whatever your name: speak.”
Falc took up another needle. The prisoner gasped. He cringed, but would not speak.
“Man, man! This time the needle goes directly into your eyeball. You will suffer more than pain; think of die unfortunate aftereffect! It will last so long as you live, which will be longer than you will prefer. Who employed you and others to murder Kaherevan and others of the Order Most Old? I know the plot, you poor tool! Your employer seeks to create dissension among the Holders and thus the citystates all over the continent. He chose to accomplish this by weakening the Order Most Old by the deaths of its members, at the same time creating mistrust of the Order. For who can trust an omo, when he may be an impostor? Your master is an enemy of civilization! I believe you came here to prove yourself an impostor, though not by this means, for you had no reason to expect me here!”
Suddenly Falc paused, cocking his head in thought. “Hmm... probably by murdering Daviloran and escaping, hmm? All would know that a false omo had done it.” He glanced significantly at the Holder, who looked no longer angry but shocked. This was the first he had heard of a plot. “Yet some would suspect that it was a true Son of Ashah, which is worse. Now, slime-born. The... left eye, I think. Speak, tool! Your employer cannot do as much to you for confessing as we can for refusing! We are here now, and he is... where?”
The prisoner refused to speak.
Amid the shrieks that resounded through the underground chamber and back from its padded, reinforced walls of stone was... a name. That name was so staggering to Falc of Risskor that he broke his pledge and stopped what he was doing before he had finished. While he and an open-mouthed Holder Daviloran listened, staring, the weeping prisoner babbled all he knew.
6
Omo and Holder were in agreement that no one else must know what they did; not yet. They made the search of the impostor omo’s darg and bags themselves, in private. Daviloran brought forth an indication that the prisoner must have been something of a poet. He handed the verse to the man in black, who read it aloud.
Lords rise like grain, men fall as rain,
And O the shume, with his purple plume Withstands them all; blooms ever till fall.
Impervious to pain its imperial stain!
The crawk flies high, sends down its cry
From woodland glen to homes of men;
Purple shume heeds not but rises from rot
When the crawks die and vacate the sky.
Seek ye in vain to challenge the rain;
Think not to rise, O creature that dies —
For rint and hawks, longbean and crawks
Strive on in pain with nought to gain!
They fly in speed but drop no seed
Whilst ever they seem to chase sun’s beam;
Never dies the shume of purpling bloom!
It sheds its seed and spreads its breed.
Falc finished reading and looked at the other side of the paper. It was blank. There was only the poem. The master of Cragview Holding gazed at the black-clad man who stood reflectively staring at nothing. He was silently recollecting the message he had delivered to Chasmal, from his own Contracted Holder:
Here is something no one knows about the purple shume. Not only does it stand tall and its main stem grow ever thicker, but it puts forth aerial roots.
“Quite the poet,” Daviloran said at last — quietly.
Falc looked at him as if he had forgotten the man’s presence. “No. Mandeh — that man did not write this,” he said, immediately realising that the prisoner had spoken truth that last time. And now Falc of Risskor was sure that he understood the entire plot — and it was enormous indeed!
TEN
Fear is the parent of foresight.
— Sath Firedrake
Aye, there is indeed a magic place beyond the twinkle of the stars, beyond the moonbeams.
It is called Darkness.
— the second Master
*
A billowing cloud of dust rode the wake of the six riders in the brown-trimmed grass-blue and yellow of Holder Daviloran of Cragview. They slowed only when they reached the pink walls of Lango-by-the-Sea on slobbering dargoni whose tongues dangled. The people of Lango got out of the way of that sextet with the determined look, although even in their obvious haste the riders were mindful of the people on the streets they traversed. They arrived swiftly before the sunburst gate of the Holding they sought. Nervous guards, all placket-armoured in green and yellow with strong black piping, held the dangerous-looking group before the gate while they sent word to their employer.
After a time he appeared on the wall, a nigh-bald man in a long singlet of black-piped green and yellow over clothing of azure and grey. Faradox of Lango stared down at the visitors seeking admittance. He recognised their colours. One of them swiftly uncovered and the Lango
man recognised that round face and its features, too: his fellow Holder Daviloran, he who chose to dwell outside city walls without being arlord.
“A greeting, Lord Daviloran, and I hope your blood runs swift and warm. You will pardon my concern, but you look quite the war party...”
“That because we feared attack on the long ride here, my lord, whose blood I hope runs swift and warm. Apprehension is understandable. If it soars in you, admit only one of us then, under guard. Five of us, at least, will hand over our arms. We have ridden long and hard, and we absolutely must talk with you.”
That decided Faradox of Lango. “Open the gate for the lord Holder Daviloran of Cragview!”
“Their weapons, my lord?” a sentinel asked, even as the great gate was unbarred.
“Don’t anticipate me, man,” the Langoman Holder said, and smiled a tight smile.
Even after they had been admitted and their dargs taken to be fed and watered, their host was reluctant to dismiss the several peacekeepers he kept in his private audience chamber. They stood here and there about the high-ceiled hall hung with the colours of Lango and this Holding. A tapestry of six colours and many hues covered one wall, depicting the city-god Ro wresting arms and Lango’s banner from demons with the look of First Civilization men. Warm brown-and-red chairs ranged along two sides of a heavy table of polished brown wood. The chair at its head was larger, and beautifully carven, and provided with a cushioned back and seat.
“That is well with us, so long as my lord Faradox absolutely trusts these men and they are sworn to secrecy about our identity and business here.”
The Langoman blinked richly blue eyes under handsomely arched brows. He was a man of average height past middle age, with some girth he carried well. His chin was unusually square below a blue-and-grey moustache that covered a mouth apparently short and straight and sparse of lip. His nod was a single jerk of his nearly hairless head.
“I speak for them in that, on pain of their heads and tongues.”
Immediately the tallest of his visitors removed his wide-brimmed hat and thrust back his cloak.
“Wh — Sir Knight, never have I seen one of you in disguise!”
“Nor do I like it, Holder Faradox. I am Falc of Risskor, Contracted to Holder Kinneven of Lock. With the hope that Holder Faradox’s blood runs swift and warm, I have a question. Before my lord answers, I beg that he dismiss these guards and speak with us in private on a matter more important than my lord Faradox could believe. My question is whether four weapon-men of this Holding have recently been slain and beheaded.”
Faradox could not conceal his surprise. “No! But a darg with my colours was brought me just at the beginning of this month of Vom, bearing four heads in saddle-bags... Sir Falc. They were not, however, of my men. Shar, take your boys and depart. I am quite safe with these guests. Leave the door open. Post two men ten paces from it and let no one closer. Except Mellil; send her hither posthaste, with her pipes.
All of them watched Faradox’s peacekeepers leave, and he spoke again only when they had gone:
“An open door preserves secrets better than a closed one. The sound of Mellil’s pipes will entertain, but more importantly prevent even the two nearby guards from being able to distinguish our words. Sir Falc: my Housechief did recognise one of those heads as a peacekeeper of another Langoman Holder...”
“Lord Holder Chasmal?”
“Wh-why... yes...” The face of Faradox renewed its look of surprise.
“Please pardon my interruption, my lord; you needed to know that I knew. Wearing your colours, those four lay in wait and attacked me. In my ignorance I sent you those heads to let you know that your attempt had failed.”
“Name of Ashah, Ro, and Markcun — I made no such attempt!”
“We all know that,” Falc said, “now.”
He went silent when she entered; surprisingly not the young ajmil he had expected, but a well-dressed and far from pretty young woman he knew and recognised. A little surprised and showing nothing, he bowed to Faradox’s daughter.
Her father said, “Privacy sounds, Mellil, please.”
She nodded and sat in the chair near the door, where she commenced a slow, quiet playing of her twin-piped instrument. Noting without thinking about it that it was of Kemite making, Falc returned his attention to the square-jawed man gazing expectantly at him.
“Uncover,” Daviloran said, and the other four revealed new surprises. Three others wore his colours but had left their weapon-belts outside. The fourth, incredibly, was a woman even less attractive than Mellil. She bowed a head whose medium blue hair had been gathered carefully under a peacekeper’s helmet of Cragview.
“My cousin Jinnery,” Falc said. “She only just managed to escape when those same four men murdered her uncle and his son and burned their farmhouse. I assumed her protection, near Morazain.”
“Your... cousin,” Faradox said, sinking his azure-and-grey-clad form slowly into the beautifully carven chair at the head of his conference table.
Falc glanced at Daviloran. “Nothing but truth must be spoken in this room. I have merely called her my cousin. Our relationship has been brother and sister... and we have frequently gotten on no better with each other.”
Faradox nodded, waiting.
“I’m glad you chose to sit, my lord,” Daviloran said. “Esteemed Falc?”
He had not intended to remind Faradox of his manners, but his words served that purpose. Faradox gestured. “Be welcome in this house, all of you, and do seat yourselves, all.”
They did, in good chairs without the padding of the Holder’s. Falc spoke at once.
“My lord Faradox, the Holder Chasmal is part of a continent-wide plot. Its purpose is to weaken the citystates of Sij by destroying the Order Most Old and thus trust and confidence among the citystates. They have already attacked me twice, and slain six omos.”
Faradox sat up very straight. “By all gods! I’m glad I seated myself! Is this possible? Man, you speak enormity!”
“I know.”
Faradox rapped two fists on the long table and thrust himself to his feet. His hands were as pale as his face was dark with infusing blood. “Your count is wrong, Sir Falc. My newly-Contracted omo was ambushed, trapped, and slain only two nights ago — less than three weeks after I employed him! Fortunately I was approached by another only today —”
“What is his name?” someone asked in a strange voice, and the lord Holder Faradox would have sworn that it was none of these six.
“Sir Sench,” Faradox said, his eyes casting glances among the six, “of —”
He broke off as a strange illumination came into the room. It brightened, shimmering. It was coalescing into something; an image... Men reached for weapons that were not there, and previously unseen daggers appeared in Faradox’s fists as if they had grown there. Mellil’s playing broke off on a dreadful note. Eight people stared at an image that only Falc recognised. That did not save him from being more than surprised. No such appearance had been mentioned when he had reported to the Messenger, three nights ago.
The Messenger spoke to them all in that eerie voice out of the depths of a stone well:
“None but the knights of my Order have ever seen me thus. Circumstances dictate extraordinary measures. Sench of Southradd is dead, murdered by the plot-cabal of which Holder Chasmal is a part. Their recognition code-phrase is the plant you call purple shume.
“The supposed Son of Ashah who approached you today is an impostor,” the Messenger went on, indicating to their further shock that he must have overheard their very words. “Doubtless he is wearing the true habit of a Son of Ashah... stolen from a murdered corpse. Faradox of Lango will be uplifted among men if he allows his visitors to convey that impostor to the High Temple of the Order of Ashah.”
Faradox sagged. His daggers were forgotten in pale-knuckled fists. His fear of treachery had faded when he saw that the others were surprised and shaken, too — except for the renowned Falc. Somehow that ea
sed Faradox’s apprehension, if not his comprehension. How possibly could this be? He started to speak, had to stop and clear his throat, and tried again in better voice:
“Who — what —”
“I am Ashah, patron of the Order Most Old, Faradox of Lango. Only the most monumental threat to your entire society prompts me to reveal myself thus to anyone not of the Order founded in my name, who are my chosen men. If others do not know that I have thus appeared to you, all will benefit. Faradox of Lango, this threat to your civilization must be removed.”
A visibly shaky Faradox agreed.
“Mellil,” he said quietly, “hurry and fetch Prefect Shar to the door. My lord Daviloran, will you loan me your three guardsmen?”
He followed the shaky young woman to the door, with the shaky men of Daviloran following him. Faradox spoke to his peacekeeper chief just outside the audience room, that the fellow might not see the impossible manifestation inside.
“Give these three men of our very good friend Holder Daviloran their weapons, Shar. Take them to that fellow Sench who came today, and anest him. He is not an omo at all, but wearing the garb of a murdered one.”
Leaving Shar to handle his shock in his own way, Faradox paced back to his chair. He kept his gaze on the wavering manifestation all the while. He could not quite see through it. Was it watching him, too, or merely moving its eyes at will? It? Ashah! After this, should a man perhap cease swearing by the demigod Markcun and Lango’s divine protector, Ro?
“Faradox,” that hollow voice said, “I shall send you a true knight of my Order before the nearer sun has completed a full circuit of Sij. May the blood of all of you run swift and... hot.”
The Messenger vanished, and the outr6 light left the chamber more rapidly than it had come. Sighs gusted out, and the other three stared at Falc.
“You have seen — experienced this afore,” Faradox said.
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