SWORDS (The Paladin's Thief Book 3)

by Benjamin Hewett

  Magnus is the only one who frowns.

  Father Jeremiah turns back to Magnus now, talking with him in low tones about his hopes for the future and what he plans to teach Lucinda first. He walks the length with us, paying the most attention to Magnus and Lucinda, and promising her the training and education she has requested. I’m not sure why it irritates me to get less attention. Am I not good enough? Am I too old?

  Bah. I’m the one who told him I wasn’t really a recruit. And I’ve got better things to do.

  The Altus Mitre suggests to Lucinda that she spend lots of time with Magnus, as he is—though still naïve—one of the better brothers-in-arms. “All the brothers are competent in the sword,” he says, “but Magnus excels in it.”

  After that, he excuses himself, undoubtedly to improve his outward appearance, and invites us to enjoy the solitude of the courtyard a bit longer. I do. I especially enjoy the fresh smells and variety of plants, at least until they make me sneeze to the extent that I obscure end-of-recess Assembly call.

  Fortunately, Timmy comes to find us. “Da! Come quick! Father Jeremiah thumped his magic staff on the ground and there was this white flash, and now they’re saying all kinds of bad things about Magnus’s friend.”

  “It’s not a magic staff, Timmy,” Magnus says, hurrying us back to the assembly hall. “It’s Rod of Office. They use it whenever someone challenges the Altus Mitre or is put on trial, or both. It sets the boundaries of the trial and prohibits physical interference.”

  Timmy has to sprint to keep up. “What? And why won’t they let him just sit down while they’re saying mean things?”

  The hall is awash with emotion when we arrive. Few people notice us slipping into the open front row pew where Valery is sitting, a shocked expression on her face. Cobalt stands beneath the dais, as defiant as they come. Only his feet betray him, turning inward nervously, one heel creeping backward until being repulsed by the giant bubble of light around him and the three Mitres on the dais.

  Magnus is craning his neck, looking for someone nearby who can give him the scoop. I slide in next to Val. “What’s going on?”

  She seems confused. “What does ‘assault of innocents’ mean?”

  “It’s a fancy way of saying he hurt people that he shouldn’t have.”

  “And graft?”

  I have to think about this one. “Using one’s position of trust to get personal favors.”

  “Da?”

  “Or worse.”

  The list continues under Father Hugues’s recitations.

  “Da! Could one of Magnus’s friends really do all those things?”

  “I hope not.”

  “. . . patronage of Dowardian brothels, misuse of Abbey funds. Behavior unbecoming. Fraud. Failure to respond to orders. Failure to report via post.”

  Father Hugues seems to grow tired of the lengthy list. “Cadet Cobalt, where have you been for the last year? Why haven’t you sent reports?”

  Cobalt’s blue eyes are stony. “I’ve already told you. I fell from the parapets of Byzantus, trying to escape. I remember nothing else. If you wanted to know so badly, why didn’t you send some more people to spy on me?” Obviously this isn’t the first time they’ve had this discussion.

  There are dark looks between most of the people present, but Father Hugues’s face is genuinely sad.

  “I raised you like a son.”

  “You must be patting yourself on the back right now.”

  Father Hugues—who appears the type to get angry at this sort of thing—just nods slowly. “I am sorry I failed you. Perhaps you should have spent more time with me on the outer holdings.”

  Cobalt opens his mouth suddenly, but no words come out.

  Father Hugues’s voice is steady and calm. “No defense is made for the lesser charges, and the most grievous are yet to come. You were identified in the Dark City, consorting with the Nightshades. Your arrival in Fortrus coincides with the death of two other Cadets, whom you were seen threatening shortly before their murder. Finally, another cadet reported you bloody and wounded in South Fortrus the following day.”

  The fact that Father Hugues remains calm seems to upset Cobalt the most. He interrupts the charges. “As a child I came to your gates, begging deliverance, and this is how you treat me?” His eyes flit to the Altus Mitre, Father Jeremiah, and then back to the Mitre Animus, the spokesman. “This was the best you could do with me?”

  Father Hugues’s red face stays calm, but there is at last there’s a flicker of anger behind the mask. “There comes a time when even the weakest take responsibility or perish. Today is that day, young Master Cobalt. Have you no evidence to mitigate the charges?”

  Cobalt’s face is hard and silent, but he says nothing, seemingly content to be implicated in murder and malfeasance.

  Father Hugues sighs. “We take your silence as confirmation of evidence received. We pronounce you fallen from grace, and you are stripped . . .”

  Suddenly, Magnus is on his feet. “I stand in his defense. I witness.”

  The hall is silent, heads turning to Magnus, the man so many have labeled as naive. Several even roll their eyes.

  The Mitres notice this, and Father Hugues glances at Father Jeremiah, who makes a furtive shushing motion with his hand. Father Hugues complies. “Brother Magnus, as usual your intentions are admirable. But your defense would only prolong and perhaps deepen the injury. And how shall the newest and most naïve of all defend such actions? Can you deny what others have plainly seen?”

  Magnus holds his head high above the reproach. “No. Of murders I know nothing. And I am still naïve. I bear the scars from it.” He lifts his shirt to where his flesh was torn short weeks before, still raw and scabbed, and discolored from the lingering poison of darts and cobblers.

  Magnus squares his shoulders. “But I have also learned that appearances can be deceiving, both those we approve, and those we do not. I do not know why Cobalt will not defend himself, but I can speak for his motives in Byzantus. I was there.”

  A ripple of whisper runs through the crowd.

  Father Jeremiah leans forward in his seat at the center of the dais. “I was under the impression that the two of you parted ways after only a short time.”

  “I should have been more clear. We kept company to the very pit of the Nightshade Sanctum.”

  More echoes of surprise.

  “Do tell,” says Father Jeremiah, with an unmistakable note of interest in his deep voice.

  “We were supposed to be searching for an associate of the Altus Mitre,” Magnus says, half-glancing at the silent assembly and then addressing the other Mitres. “The search was going poorly. We decided that if we didn’t find him by Byzantus, then we’d infiltrate the Nightshades Temple and try to appropriate a handful of rings.”

  Magnus omits the part about Cobalt intending to join the assassin’s guild.

  “And did you succeed?”

  “No. In Byzantus, Cobalt and I failed miserably.”

  Cobalt grumbles, unable to help himself. “We didn’t fail miserably, Maggotus. I just lost my nerve.” His voice carries in the silence, briefly regaining some apparent interest with the proceedings.

  The council looks at Cobalt, but he clamps his jaw shut immediately under their regard.

  “What does he mean, Brother Magnus?” Father Hugues prompts.

  “He means we made it to the inner sanctum, to the place where High Nightshades and Dreadlords are born, where the rings are placed upon their fingers and the oaths are forced upon them. Cobalt’s research suggested that the initiates are given a choice of rings, from a black box with the crest of Tenebrous etched in silver. If we could obtain . . .”

  “. . . steal . . .” Cobalt interjects.

  “. . . obtain that box, we’d have secured more rings than any brother before.”

  “Doesn’t the Dark Brotherhood have protections against this sort of thing?” Father Jeremiah’s eyes are piercing. The other Mitres look shocked, some of
them making notes on vellum sheaves.

  “I don’t think they do. Who would dare?” Magnus shifts his weight from one leg to another. “That’s part of the problem, Father. Cobalt knows how a Nightshade thinks. He was able to get us all the way to the Inner Sanctum. But he missed a few important details.”

  “Like an exit strategy?” I mutter. Lucinda shushes me, though she’s already familiar with this part of the story.

  All the same, Magnus’s narrative is compelling and it pulls the entire attendance along. He tells them of the tunnels, of obtaining the passwords, of dark rooms and sanity stretched thin. He tells them about the guide they hire to lead them in and get them out, and about the obsidian walls of the temple, the spiral staircase to the depths, and the black sconces lit with blue soul-lights. The entire assembly holds its breath, leaning toward him as he speaks, drowning in the tale.

  “Every shadow carried a dagger, every whisper a threat,” Magnus recites. “We finally stopped at the entry to the Grand Sarcophagus, a room lit by bowls filled with moonlight. Cobalt took an initiates amulet from beneath his black cloak and placed it around his neck. He removed his sword belt and laid it in the shadows near the wall. Then he handed me a small parchment roll in an oiled case. ‘Everything I learned between Doward and Byzantus,’ he said, ‘while you were playing darts. If you make it out, don’t waste it.’ He grinned at me. ‘Maggotus, you have to be your enemy if you want to defeat him.’

  “ ‘Pan never said anything like that,’ I responded.

  “ ‘You don’t know Pan like I do.’ Cobalt stood there grinning at me for a full two minutes. ‘C’mon Maggotus. Just a little farther now.’

  “We were halfway across the room when a cold, white hand reached out from the last bier, and grabbed him by the arm so tightly that he couldn’t shake it off. And the corpse spoke: ‘You have returned!’

  “It stood, green light flooding from its eyes. I couldn’t breathe, move, or speak. We’d heard about the corpse-gods, but the stories don’t compare. A second cloaked corpse rolled from its bier, landing in a crouch before standing. And then another. The second’s face was ice-pale with blue, shining eyes and he seized Cobalt by his other wrist. The third had black hair and a feminine shape, with ethereal blood flowing from her eye sockets. These three closed around Cobalt, and the woman took hold of his amulet, pulling him forward. They moved like those whose bodies are present but whose thoughts far away, ignorant of myself and our guide. ‘Come, Brother,’ they said. ‘Take your Oaathsss.’

  “They pulled Cobalt into a high-vaulted, blue-lit chamber. I followed at a distance, as close as I dared. Our guide stayed trembling near the mouth of the Grand Sarcophagus, frozen in place from the moment the corpses moved.. There were people there, and normal torches held by flesh and blood. The Nightshade Oaths must still be administered by the living, see, on an altar of blood and bone, but in the Grand Sarcophagus these three reign.”

  In the Assembly Hall there is a noise, and it breaks through the story for a moment. “You’ve seen the Three?” This time the interruption comes from Hawkwood. “You’ve escaped unscathed?”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘unscathed,’ ” Magnus says, barely pausing, “but yes. We escaped. The Three guard the final rites of the Nightshades. Cobalt had told me the legends, but campfire stories in previous weeks failed utterly to describe the ice on my soul. I nearly broke and ran then, but we were so close, perhaps twenty paces from our goal, holding—we thought—an unknown dagger to the heart of our enemies. And in that same moment we both realized we could not succeed. These were the Three. They would put Cobalt on that altar—he was powerless to stop them; he’d worn their amulet of his own free will—and they would hold him there until the oaths were done. And I couldn’t speak, help, or run. All I could do was feel the tears tracking down my face and know that Cobalt was lost.

  “ ‘Magnus, please,’ he said quietly. I’ve never heard Cobalt ask for help, not from anyone. To hear him beg shook me. He was lost, and I would be lost too, if I didn’t turn away immediately.”

  Magnus’s arm is shaking where it grips the pew in front of him. The Assembly Hall is as still as the air inside the tomb he has described. Magnus wipes sweat from his face, straining to finish his story.

  “And then something stirred the wind, blowing my hood back.

  “ ‘Magnus, please help me,’ Cobalt said again. His voice came out a bare whisper. It lit a fire inside of me that burned away my fear. I said a prayer then, begging the heavens to receive our souls, and launched myself at Cobalt and the Three, drawing my sword. Better to go down swinging, I thought, than to abandon a brother..

  “Cobalt smiled then. He heard the ringing of my sword and looked to me, face filled with hope. I bolted toward him, and he jerked his captors hard, stumbling them as I lunged. When my sword sliced through the first, all three collapsed, and three tar-thick shadows flew into the darkness above on blackened wings.

  “The doors of Hell opened around us. Gongs thundered. Darts and arrows whistled past, flying into the Induction Room from holes in the walls, and razor-wire sprung from crevices in the stone, traps laid for anyone stupid enough to try to steal their precious rings.

  “The men at the altar stood speechless and unbelieving at our audacity, pierced by their own arrows, falling, cursing, and bleeding. We could see the rings scattered upon the floor where the box had been dropped. Most had fallen far out of reach, but one rolled toward us, across the stone of the Induction Room and past the altar. Cobalt scooped this up.

  “The urgency of our predicament pounded like a drum in my chest. Run. Run. Run. I jerked Cobalt up after me. Above us, Nightshades swung down chains from the dark, vaulted ceilings, brandishing weapons, but already we were leaving the Grand Sarcophagus.

  “I had thought that escaping a Nightshade fortress would be harder, but the Nightshades aren’t taught to close ranks, I suppose. The first responders were no match for us, not once Cobalt found the greatsword.” Magnus points to the blade that is lying at the foot of the dais. “With that in his hand he had his courage back, and nobody could stand before us.

  “We fled together back up the passageway, twenty yards behind our escort. Aside from that first chamber, half of whose occupants were killed by their own traps, our escape was almost easy. Poisoners, a few confused Magii, and a swordsman, nothing like the men I would later meet on the road to Ector. But leaving the city was a different story. There aren’t any bells in Byzantus, but the gongs were ringing, big heavy ones down by the gates, and small ones in almost every shop along the main thoroughfare. From the temple gate to that first alley, every inch was a fight, until our guide led us into the sewers and down the rest of the wall, where the wastewater jets out. The archers on the towers spotted us, but my escort didn’t slow down at all. I followed him as fast as I could, straight into the water, where we’d left horse-lines and low-riding rafts.

  “ ‘Meet me in Ector,’ is the last thing Cobalt said to me. ‘I have to go back to rescue an informant before it is too late. We’ve made fools of them and there will be retribution. They’ll know we had help, and when that slaughter is complete, they’ll come for us, our families, and our friends. And the Abbeys will pay.’ Since that moment, neither of us has had much time for writing reports.”

  After Magnus finishes his story, there is silence.

  Father Loring is the first to break it. “This is a very, very unconventional approach for bringing light and safety to the world, Magnus and Cobalt. It’s a tribute to your courage. It’s too bad it didn’t work.”

  Father Barrett snorts in derision.

  “Brother Magnus,” Father Hugues says—they have to call him that now, since he’s been accepted—“this information bears considering. It does seem to cast light on some elements of Cobalt’s questionable behavior, if he was indeed searching these cities for information about Nighshades. And, you do yourself justice to defend your comrade so fervently. Were this testimony from any other, I might doubt its ve
racity. Has any Cadet or Brother journeyed into Byzantus and back in the last century?”

  “Yes,” Father Jeremiah says. “I am aware of two. This story is plausible, but that is a discussion for another day. It seems as if Brother Magnus’s exploits in Ector were just the tail end of another saga, a larger one of which we shall require full accounting. But these words leave most of the charges unanswered.”

  Father Jeremiah’s massive shoulders lift a bit as he leans forward to peer over the judgment dais.

  “Brother Magnus, do you have any other pertinent details? Explanations for the deaths of important informants in Byzantus? One murdered by the hand of your comrade? Or why, for instance, was young Master Cobalt’s sword buried and bloodstained in the bed post of Cadet Jen’s room the night he was beheaded?”

  Magnus shakes his head, having no more words.

  “Because I left it there,” Cobalt says, answering the last charge only. It’s not much of an answer, but he’s standing straight, staring the Altus Mitre down. All trace of defiance is gone, but there is no submission either. He looks exactly like Magnus for a moment, except shorter. “Magnus can’t explain that,” he growls, “and I will not waste my breath. My words mean nothing here.”

  Father Jeremiah raises an eyebrow, sits back in his chair again, and returns Cobalt’s stony gaze. “Call your vote, Mitre Animus.”

  “Are there any other defenses?”

  None stand.

  An argument breaks out between Father Loring, who is on the judgment dais, and Father Barrett who is sitting in a side row to the left with other Mitres. At first it is quiet enough that only I notice the exchange, but soon everyone can hear it.

  The Mitre Lodgis’s face is flushed, as if he’s just been insulted. “. . . doesn’t matter!” he says, voice half-way between raised and shouting. “Since when has this cadet told the unvarnished truth? He’s been saving his own ass since the day he arrived.”

  Father Loring’s response is cold and soft, but the room is suddenly quiet enough to hear this unprecedented display of dissention in the Mitre ranks. “You don’t find it odd that he’s making no effort to defend himself today? Considering his previous record for making excuses, I find that very disconcerting.”