The Knife in the Dark (The Seven Signs Book 2)

by D. W. Hawkins

  With that, Maaz turned and slithered away into the night.

  Maarkov let out a long breath, and took another pull from his pipe. Inera gave him a long, opaque glance. For a moment, Maarkov thought she might open up to him, speak to him with honesty. There was so little honesty in their little band of murderers, and Maarkov’s heart momentarily ached for it. He thought he saw something in her eyes.

  Maarkov offered her a weak smile.

  She turned, form sliding back into the black bird, and fluttered away into the night.

  Maarkov watched her go, then took another pull from his pipe. At least this would be over by morning. They could head back to Shundov, and he could go back to ignoring his brother.

  A man needs something to look forward to, after all.

  **

  “This,” the Mekai said, holding a scroll gingerly to the light, “is one of the oldest pieces in the archive. It’s four copies down, and in Old Vendon.”

  “What does that mean?” Shawna asked.

  “Whenever a document falls into disrepair, it is copied down into a new text,” Lacelle explained, shuffling through her research. “If it is in an old language, it is translated. This is the fourth copy of this text, and it is in a dead language—so it is very old, you see.”

  “I understand,” Shawna said, turning a reverent eye on the ancient scroll.

  “What is it?” D’Jenn asked.

  “It’s a history,” the Mekai said. “It’s in an old style, though—when the words were meant to be sung in verses. It’s a poem about the founding of the Sevenlands.”

  “A folktale, you mean,” D’Jenn said.

  “Don’t be so quick to judge,” the Mekai replied, turning a serious gaze on D’Jenn. “Just because something is old doesn’t mean you can dismiss it.”

  “What does this have to do with my mother’s armlet?” Shawna asked.

  “You’re about to see,” the Mekai said. He perused the document, muttering to himself as he did so. His spectacles floated up of their own accord, depositing themselves on his nose, and he cleared his throat. “Here we are—And Ishamael went to the holy place on the hill, where the gods listen. He said to them ‘Look upon my people, they are dying, they are enslaved. Look upon my people’. The gods replied to him ‘Ishamael, have you not fought the invader, have you not killed him, have you not driven him before you?’ ‘I have’ said he. ‘Then it is your lot to die, it is the lot of the Vendon to die, their bones ground to dust, their cities burned, their children wailing’ said the gods. ‘If Ishamael cannot beat the invader, then it is the lot of the Vendon to be shattered.’

  “Ishamael’s heart was firm, though, and he challenged the gods. ‘Why’ said he, ‘have you sent this horde upon us? You give them steel, and anger, and men as numerous as the stars, yet you make the Vendon fractious and mistrustful. Are the Vendon not your people, do they not cry out, do you cower from the wailing of their children?’ Ishamael shook his fists at the gods and decried their judgment. ‘Cower, then’ said he, ‘as this horde-from-nowhere shatters the Vendon, and kills the last of the Blessed of Eindor. Let the gods cower in fear’.”

  “I’ve never heard this version,” Dormael said. “In the one I’ve read, he prays to them and they bless him with victory, or some such. Where did this version come from?”

  “It is very old,” Lacelle said. “One of many such scrolls in the archive, all scattered pieces of something greater. You have no idea how much I wish we had the rest of it.”

  The Mekai cleared his throat, and everyone went silent.

  He continued, “So the gods looked down on Orm, the Place Where the Gods Listen, and they looked down on Ishamael, and they looked down on the Vendon. They weighed Ishamael as a man, and found the worth of him. Then the brothers—Evmir, whose Hammer forged the world from the Void, and Eindor, who gave the world magic—looked down on Ishamael and said ‘Do you wish to drive your enemies before you, to shatter their steel, to break their anger, to kill their men as numerous as the stars?’ ‘Yes’ said he, ‘I wish the children of the Vendon to live.’

  “Then the brothers looked down on Orm, the Place Where the Gods Listen, and said ‘Give us a sacrifice’. Ishamael had brought a sprig of new ivy, fresh with berries on the stem, and he gave that to the bowl, and said ‘It is life that I bring to you’. The gods answered him.”

  “Wait,” Dormael said. “Did you say a sprig of new ivy?”

  He recalled the armlet’s dream in a sudden rush of vivid color—the stone bowl, the ivy, the kneeling man, and the woman being stretched over the altar. Dormael’s blood went cold, and he tried to make sense of what he was hearing.

  “I believe that was what it said, yes,” the Mekai replied. “Why?”

  “The armlet,” Dormael said. “It showed me a scene like that in a dream.” He explained the dream to everyone in the room, recalling as many details as he could. Lacelle and the Mekai listened to his tale, and then shared a guarded look with each other.

  “I believe that’s confirmation,” Lacelle said. “It is as we feared.”

  “What?” D’Jenn asked.

  “The armlet,” the Mekai said, handing the scroll over to Lacelle, who put it aside. “Tell me something about it—when it acts out, what universally appears?”

  “Fire,” Shawna said, and Dormael nodded in agreement.

  “Young Bethany refers to the thing as ‘fiega,’ which you all know is the Old Vendon word for ‘fire’. This is something that the armlet told her, not something she named it on her own,” the Mekai said. “You see, in the story, the gods answer Ishamael, and gifted a weapon to him. If I recall correctly—‘And so she shall serve you, and grant you seven signs of power over the world. Take her and hammer their bones to dust, kill their men as numerous as the stars, shatter them, and leave their children wailing. Take this hammer and drive them before you’ said the gods. And Ishamael took it.”

  “So you believe my mother’s armlet is this weapon?” Shawna asked. She sounded skeptical, and Dormael couldn’t blame her. He was as religious as the next man, but even with the dream, this sounded hard to believe.

  “Only a piece of it,” Lacelle said. “I know it sounds a bit rich, but hear us out. This weapon, this Nar’doroc, was used to drive the hordes back to the east. There are many old stories amongst the steppe tribes in Dannon, songs as old as this one that tell of their people being killed by a god-man who had a weapon they called ‘hirminusloch’. Many historians believe it’s the source of the hatred they hold for westerners.”

  “By the time he had driven the horde from the lands of the Vendon, Ishamael had united the nine tribes into one,” the Mekai said. “Two of them wanted him to share the power of the Nar’doroc, though, and Ishamael refused. So, seven tribes fought two, and only seven remained. He used the power of the Nar’doroc to twist the rebels, and drive them into the mountains. In his shame, he sundered the Nar’doroc into seven pieces, and gave the chief of each tribe a single piece of the whole. According to the story, though, the Nar’doroc stopped working when it was sundered.”

  “What do you mean he twisted them and drove them into the mountains?” Allen asked, joining the conversation. “You mean the Gathan Mountains? Do you mean that Ishamael created the Garthorin with this…this thing?”

  “This is just one story,” Lacelle said. “You have to realize that we’re drawing on different sources, here, and each one can be difficult to properly translate given many different things—the assumed diction of the time, the dialect in use, the location where it was recorded, and many other things you don’t care to hear about. In other words—there’s no way to be certain about any of this. Don’t take it for the gospel of the gods. Remember—these poems were meant to be performed for an audience. There is some embellishment.”

  “I see,” Allen said. “But still—according to this story, Ishamael used Shawna’s armlet to create the Garthorin. The bloody Garthorin.” His eyes went to the silver box on the table, and he smiled. “I
’ve been waiting for a chance to hunt the Garthrorin. That’s a real test for a man.”

  Lacelle gave Allen a bewildered look, but he didn’t notice.

  “The thing Ishamael would have used to ‘create’ the Garthorin—as you put it—would have been completely different,” Lacelle said. “The Baroness Llewan’s armlet would have been only a single piece of a greater whole.”

  “Wait,” Dormael said, coming to a realization. “If Shawna’s armlet is only one of seven pieces of this thing, then where in the Six Hells are the rest of them?”

  “You’ve stumbled right onto the problem,” the Mekai said. “Where, indeed? We’ve already spoken of the players in this game—the Galanian Emperor, this mysterious vilth—but now we better understand the stakes.”

  “What does Victus know of this?” D’Jenn asked.

  “Some of what we do,” Lacelle said with a grimace. “But we can take some small solace in the fact that his knowledge doesn’t run very deep. He knows the armlet is powerful, but the research the Mekai and I have been gathering is unknown to him.”

  “What have you been gathering, Deacon?” Dormael asked.

  “Anything we could find that mentioned the thing, or something like it,” Lacelle replied. “Most of it is scattered information, but there are a few pieces in there that point to possible locations for the other pieces of the Nar’doroc.”

  “The Nar’doroc?” D’Jenn asked. “The…God-hammer?” That was what the words would mean, translated directly. Dormael wasn’t as adept at the ancient language as his cousin, but even he could make out what the words were intended to mean, the idea they were meant to convey.

  “That is the word used for the thing in the original poem,” the Mekai said. “It’s a rough translation, and I’ve never seen the word elsewhere.”

  “We can bet that Victus will send agents to search for the other pieces of this thing as soon as he finds out what it is,” Dormael said. “I would, were I him. The moment he is able to get his hands on the research—or anyone who performed it—he’ll put operations in play to recover them. If we suddenly disappear with the thing in tow, he’ll suddenly become curious about it.”

  “That’s why we have to kill him tonight,” D’Jenn growled. “It’s the only way to ensure that he’s out of the game. Leaving him to act in our wake is dangerous.”

  “No,” the Mekai said.

  “Honored One, I must insist, everything I’ve been taught says that—”

  “No, Warlock Pike. I will not repeat myself,” the Mekai said, holding up a hand to forestall any more argument. “The truth is that Victus has already won. I knew it the moment I saw that boy’s face—Kendall—in Bethany’s memories. The mysterious deaths, the machinations, the odd decisions made by the Council…all these things and more I should have seen coming. Victus has purged any Warlock with the desire to stand against him—all except for the two of you. We don’t know what contingencies the man has in place against an attack, but we can safely assume that he would have something nasty prepared. Look me in the eye, D’Jenn, and tell me you believe the man will be unprepared, or unguarded.”

  D’Jenn let out a frustrated breath, and looked away.

  “Exactly,” the Mekai said. “If the two of you tried to go after him tonight, with no plan, no preparation, you would be killed—at which point, all hope of recovering the Nar’doroc would be lost. We cannot allow that to happen.”

  “Honored One,” Dormael said, “he will move against you. If you don’t kill him, then he will kill you. The Mekai serves for life—death is the only way he ascends to your office.”

  “Do not think I go forward blindly, young Dormael,” the Mekai smiled. “I can see the field as readily as anyone else. I know what is waiting for me.”

  “Why would you sacrifice yourself willingly?” Shawna asked. Everyone grew silent, and all eyes turned to the Mekai. He offered Shawna a melancholy smile, and let out a long sigh.

  “He’s already secured all the real power to be had,” the Mekai said. “He has the only group of wizards in the Conclave who are trained to fight with their magic. If I try to command them to arrest him, they will refuse. If I come out against him publicly, he takes control by force, killing any who oppose him. The violence would be terrible—wizard against wizard, brother against sister. Such a thing might spiral out of control, and tear the entire Conclave apart. Maybe the entire city.”

  “So you’re just going to give up without a fight?” Allen asked.

  The Mekai turned a sharp gaze on the gladiator.

  “Not at all,” he said. “With what power I do have left, I will put a burr in his plans. First, the lot of you will leave here tonight, taking the entirety of this research with you. Lacelle, you and your team—the people you used to dig all this up—must also go into hiding. Anyone who worked on this will be just as important as the documents themselves, and Victus cannot be allowed to get his hands on you.”

  “As you say, Honored Mekai,” Lacelle said, blinking in surprise. “Must we also leave tonight?”

  “You must,” the Mekai nodded. “Though it pains me, you must. Take your people east, Lacelle, to Alderak. The Sevenlands will not be safe for you.”

  Lacelle nodded, the bewilderment contained to her cold blue eyes.

  “As for the rest of you,” the Mekai said, turning his gaze on Dormael and his friends, “you will be charged with recovering the rest of the Nar’doroc. Find it before the others can. I’m sure I don’t have to elaborate upon how dire this situation is—do everything in your power to recover the pieces. Fight, even kill, if you have to. Find the other pieces of the Nar’doroc, and find a way to destroy them.”

  “Why destroy it?” Allen asked. “If it’s such a powerful weapon, we should use it—or someone should, anyway.”

  “No,” the Mekai said. “Though I admit, the prospect is tempting. A thing such as this is terrible. I have felt the breadth of this armlet’s power, and it is truly frightening. If there are six more of these things out there—and others looking for them—then their destruction is paramount. Even if we were able to control it, which I doubt, such a thing would only attract those who would seek its power. There would always be the chance that the wrong person may wield it. We must prevent that at all costs. It must be destroyed.”

  “Did you find information on the thing’s destruction, Honored One?” D’Jenn asked. “We’ve barely been able to contain it with our magic, much less destroy it.”

  “There is one place that we think you’ll be able to find out,” Lacelle said. “The Holy Place, at Orm—in the story, the Place Where the Gods Listen.”

  The room went silent.

  Orm had been the site of a great temple in the old days, the holiest place in all the Sevenlands. Its place was significant in all the histories Dormael had ever read. The temple to the gods at Orm was built upon the stones of an older temple, built to older gods. For thousands of years, it had served as a holy place to the people of the Sevenlands.

  During the Second Great War, Orm had been sacked by the Dannons.

  There had been no soldiers at Orm, only priests, priestesses, their families, and the people for whom they had cared. The details of the slaughter recorded in the archives were disturbing—even to Dormael, who had a strong stomach for such stories. It was the move that pushed the Conclave into action against the coalition of Alderakian kingdoms, and saw the wanton slaughter that had earned the Conclave such enmity worldwide. The event changed the history of the Conclave forever.

  People believed that the weight of all that blood—the innocents at Orm, and all the people who died as a result of the Conclave’s revenge—had laid a curse on Orm deep into the very stones. The once holiest place in all the Sevenlands, holy stones built upon holy stones, now stood corrupted. People avoided the place with religious fervor.

  Dormael had no wish to go himself, and he didn’t consider himself a superstitious man.

  “What will we find at Orm?” D’Jenn asked. />
  The Mekai got a strange gleam in his eyes.

  “As you may know,” the Mekai said, “I have a particular obsession with history. One of my abiding interests happens to lie in the life of the man who founded the Conclave—Indalvian himself. Amongst a small group of serious historians, there has long been a theory that Indalvian left vaults full of his lost writings and inventions scattered around the world—we call ourselves the Cabal of the Epitaph.”

  “Cabal of the Epitaph?” D’Jenn asked. “That sounds a bit macabre, Honored One.”

  “The name is from an inscription on an old obelisk, a story for another time, perhaps,” the Mekai said. “The point is that I have long believed one of these vaults to be in the catacombs beneath the temple at Orm. The inscription—there’s a piece of it that reads ‘in the place of the dead under the house of the gods, behind a door only their hammer can open’. I believe we now understand the significance of the word ‘hammer’. I always believed that its use was metaphorical, but after reading about the Nar’doroc, I’m not so sure.”

  “That’s not a lot to go on, Honored One,” Dormael said.

  “Regardless, it’s the one place that was mentioned in connection with the Nar’doroc,” the Mekai said. “If this thing is truly a weapon, a gift from the gods, then there must be some mention of it in the ruins of Orm. We’ve gathered together what information we could from the Conclave’s archive, but the holes in it need to be filled. Orm is where you will find your answers.”

  “We’ll be seen leaving,” D’Jenn said. “If he’s gone so far as to make an attempt on Bethany, you can bet Victus is having us watched. Getting out unseen will take planning, and then we’ll have to duck Conclave agents all the way to Orm—a feat Dormael and I both know is nigh to impossible. I still say we kill Victus tonight. Leaving him behind us is a mistake, Honored One. Leave him to strengthen his power base, and he becomes exponentially more dangerous.”

  “You may be right, Warlock Pike,” the Mekai said. “But the truth is that sending you boys in to kill him would more than likely result in your deaths. Like it or not, you two are my only loyal assets, and I will not allow you to waste your lives in a foolish attempt. I will spend your abilities where they are needed—and right now, they’re needed to find the seven signs of the Nar’doroc.”