by Toby Bennett
“If you bring me that stone and the information you have promised me, you have my word I will offer you more than scraps.”
“You have my word that I will hold you to that, you and Alanchi both.”
Chapter 11:
“What webs are weaved without the sight to see them?
Or desires chased that have no shape?
What weary wandering leads us back to a long dropped gem?
Which but for greed, we would not forsake.”
The pale lizard curled through the heavy creepers that framed the great doors of the Asylum. The lizard was hunting, ever alert to the risk of the bats that sometimes nested in the pale leaves; the great lights, set high above the portal, burned ceaselessly, they drew an army of tiny insects for the reptile to feed on, just as they drew the mad and desperate men and women who came through the shadowed portal beneath. By some trick of design, the blinding lights barely penetrated beyond the leaf shrouded portals. The abrupt change from light to darkness forced pilgrims to make the first part of their journey into the Asylum feeling along the walls or even crawling on their knees; this only added to the act of supplication required when one surrendered to the priests of Niskaan.
The white lizard shot up between the cream coloured leaves, intent on the cloud of insects that hummed and bumped around the supernatural orbs of light adorning the towering walls. The reptile had almost reached its prey, when the foliage exploded and a black winged bat lunged out and latched onto the unfortunate hunter. It was all so quick that, unless you knew what you were looking for, you would not be able to pick out the dark shape in the shadows of the leaves where the lizard had been enveloped in warm leathery wings. The dark robed men, waiting to receive the pilgrims and supplicants streaming in through the eternally open portal, were just as quick. Raving or disorientated, you were scooped up and brought to the smoke filled halls of worship, where older priests and monks stocked narcotic braziers and sang or whispered of the hidden god. It was only once the supplicant had entered the giddy half trance that marked so many of Niskaan’s chosen, that they would be allowed to wander the halls of the Asylum. Most who entered would never leave, although the doors were always open. The outer wards were a city unto themselves, where the smell of daily life quickly overwhelmed the sweet smell of incense.
Akna knew he would be able to move through the wards unnoticed, so long as he was circumspect but he also felt a certain kinship with the white lizard as he ran the gauntlet of young priests, awaiting their next victim in the dark ahead of him. He stepped to one side of the doorway and stood with his eyes shut for several minutes; when he felt ready, Akna felt his way into the entrance way and groped along the wall, like any other pilgrim. Akna only opened his eyes when he felt a hand upon his shoulder.
“Welcome, my child, have you come to rest in the shadows?”
“I seek the stillness of the dark.” Akna replied dutifully. Unlike the other supplicants Akna was not dazzled by his exposure to the lights outside, he was able to see some of the features of the man who had accosted him. To his relief he did not recognise the face beneath the cowl, after three years it was unlikely that he would, since the entrance to the Asylum was the preserve of the most junior clerics but even the possibility of being recognised had not been something to take lightly.
“There are many wonders hidden in the shadows, do you desire to see them?”
“I desire to see all that may be seen without light.”
“And what will you give for revelation?”
“Only that which is too heavy to carry.”
Akna spoke the ritual of the supplicant in the singsong tones of the true believer. The litany was a remnant of a time when Niskaan followers still needed to sell their ways to others; when the asylum had been only for the mad. In more modern times, the pilgrims knew the correct response by heart, the most venerable sometimes even having been prompted in dreams by more ambitious clerics to come and render themselves to the service of the Lord of Shadows. By the time it came for the priests to take them, they had already convinced their followers that the dreams they stole were unwanted burdens, this was often true but it no longer mattered to the priests. They had all the psychic energies they needed from the multitude inhabiting the outer ward and a standing army of willing bodies that they could call to back them, should the token lords of the city ever be foolish enough to question their will.
The priest had kept him moving as they talked and they were now a few hundred feet into the Asylum. Even if Akna had not made sure that his eyesight was attuned to the dimness of the passageway, he would have known they were approaching the initiates halls, the smell of the drugged smoke was strong but the smell of unwashed people was stronger. Gilash had always called it the true scent of piety, the stench of men and women, who were too wrapped in their worship to tend to the basic needs of propriety or their own bodies. The thought of his old master and the familiar sounds and smells of the Asylum stirred something in Akna, it would be wrong to describe it as true emotion, more the pang of discovering a void, where such emotion should have been. There was a time when all he had known was the hallways of the outer wards and the desire to rise above them. He could still remember fighting for his place in the gangs of children that ran wild in the abandoned corridors. Then Gilash had found him, reclaimed him, the priest had said and given him ambition to serve a higher calling. The Patriarch would not be happy to find that Akna had fallen back into his old ways and that he was here to secure his position in the gangs that ran the streets in the city beyond the crowed Temple to the Lord of Shadows.
Gilash wouldn’t be happy to discover that he had even survived, Akna reminded himself. His memory of leaving the Asylum came in jagged visions, snatched images rather than any coherent sequence but there had been no mistaking his old mentor's intent. Now that he was partially recovered from his ordeal, Akna could understand Gilash’s thinking. The Cardinal had wanted to bring down the head of House Asemutt, caution dictated that any link between the house and the assassin should have been eliminated. Revenge was a luxury enjoyed by people with less ragged souls, Akna understood what had happened and he held no grudge but that didn’t lessen the danger of coming to the Asylum, even three years on. He’d cropped his hair short, kept his hood up and painted his face with the markings of a supplicant but if anyone saw through his thin disguise and still remembered the assassin who had escaped, he was almost certainly dead. Those charged with his death the first time would be unlikely to admit their mistake, he was counting on that, but Lothar’s men and even the few members of Asemutt, who had seen him when he returned to the House represented a real danger, should they penetrate his disguise. If he were recognised, a quick death was something to be hoped for.
So why had he come? It was not the first time the question had been asked but then he had let Zenker supply the answer, without really thinking about it. He was not attached enough to his life to be put off by the danger but, equally, the possibility of being hunted by Alanchi or the Ash-men didn’t rate very highly in his reasons for returning to his old home. Zenker could say what he like but the assassins the street gangs might send after him would be nothing compared to what Gilash could do, if he realised his most promising student were still alive. That presumed that he had weathered Lothar’s storm, not unreasonable given the resourcefulness of the man but only more reason why Akna could expect no mercy. Zenker had tried to encourage him with the hope that Takiaza would be able to give him the secret to regaining what Lothar had taken but he could not fool himself. The Hierophant was a poor bet; at best he would be the play thing of a daemon or more likely, a priest by now and there was simply no guarantee that he would know anything useful, even if Akna could somehow find and compel him. The only reason for his being in the Asylum, other than an unrecognised need for self destruction, made no rational sense.
“Ilsar.” He whispered the name.
“What was that brother?”
“Nothing, someone I once
knew.”
“And they have come here?” the priest sounded slightly alarmed. It was not unknown for family members to come seeking those they had lost to Niskaan’s song and smoke.
“No, I was just wishing she was here.”
“In time she will come and you will have prepared the way. Besides whoever this Ilsar was you will find a more meaningful bond amongst the faithful.”
“You have good ears. I’m surprised you heard me over the singing.”
“Remember, brother, that the priests here are gifted with the ability to penetrate the veils we hang about our minds.”
The thought made Akna stiffen. His own talents had been maimed by the damage Lothar had done to him or he would have been able to sense the priest trying to connect with his mind. Likely the priest was weak and would have been easily fooled but numb as he was, Akna could not longer defend himself as he once had. He had assumed that his condition would at least make him as unreadable to the priests as they were to him, apparently this was not the case. It was possible that the best he could hope for now was to get out, before someone more expert in penetrating another’s thoughts found him.
“I had heard that Niskaan bestowed such gifts; tell me does the shade lord tell you anything else of why I have come?” Akna loosened the dagger at his wrist and watched the priest carefully as he answered. Any hint that the priest could see his true purpose would mean that the cleric had breathed his last. The priest frowned.
“The Lord of Dreams has not blessed me with any further insight, which is most strange. Does this woman haunt you in some way?”
“She does at that.”
“I thought as much, your mind seems empty of all other thoughts.”
Akna allowed himself to relax slightly. He did not think that the priest was lying, when he said that the rest of his mind was closed to him, but that only emphasised the question of what the woman had done to loom so large in his consciousness. Perhaps there was more to the venom she had used on him than either he or Zenker suspected, though even the alchemists at Harport would not be able to create a compound with such a subtle effect that, along with death, it seemed to have an effect on the victim beyond the veil. Akna would not even have believed it possible, if the priest hadn’t sensed his thoughts of Ilsar but found everything else a blank. There was no denying that he was drawn to the woman, who had tried to kill him but the assassin found it disturbingly hard to decide what he would do when he found her. He told himself he would kill her before she even had a chance to react. She was a trained killer and she had clearly ensorcelled him but he had a terrible suspicion that the inhuman calm, which had served him so well through his three year career as a professional killer, might abandon him when they met.
They were nearly at the great prayer room now and the priest was anxious to hand the new worshipper over to his fellows waiting within and get back to the entrance to find a more promising supplicant. Even a light probe of the mind of the man he was escorting, had told him that, apart from his feeling for the woman, he would be able to offer up almost nothing of any value. If he didn’t know better, the priest would have said that the supplicant had already been scourged of all connection to the realm of dreams.
“It’s through these doors, just let them know that Brother Zerilm sent you.”
“I will do, thank you for your help.”
Akna pulled the door open, releasing a new blast of smoke and chanting into the dark corridor. Light also spilled out and Akna was careful to turn his body as much as possible, so that his face was still shadowed. Zerilm didn’t even bother to see that his charge went through the door, he simply turned and went back down the corridor. His neglect made sense, he didn’t need any credit for having brought in an empty shell like Akna, there were almost certainly many more interesting madmen making their way up Niskaan’s lighted way and into the shadows beyond.
For his part Akna, was grateful to be left to his own devices. He had been prepared to go through the motions to gain admittance to the Asylum, but since no one was watching, he had the opportunity to circumvent the pointless rituals. The nearby singing obscured the sound of approaching footsteps and hushed voices but Akna knew there were others coming to swell the ranks of new souls being crammed into the initiation ceremonies. He shut the door quickly and strode over to one of the Alcoves that supplicants might use for prayer, not that the alcoves were actually used for their apparent purpose; no priest would ever have allowed a pilgrim to stop so near the hidden entrances to the Asylum. Invariably the men and women who knelt in the tiny shrines lining the left hand side of the main corridor into the Asylum, were simply waiting for newcomers to pass before they reached for cunningly concealed levers, which would open secret ways into the labyrinth of tunnels, circumventing the official route of the pilgrim and allowed the church's agents to pass unnoticed.
Almost unnoticed, the Patriarch of Asemutt made it his business to try to follow the comings and goings of anyone who knew his societies secret ways. There were many who laid claim to knowledge of the outer Asylum but Gilash took it personally if agents of other sects used his routes without permission. It did not do for others to see where his men might be travelling and though some overlap in the tunnels was inevitable, most agents of the church's clandestine sects knew better than to use the entrance that Akna had just used without permission. For three years there had been a cold war between the inner and outer wards and Gilash had found it wise to watch not only the comings and goings of others but those of his own men.
For most of the inhabitants of the inner wards, the city beyond the Asylum meant little. Everything the elite of the church wanted was brought to them and their focus seemed to be only on internal advancement; for the most part they were happy to let Asemutt keep its position as an intermediary between them and the outside world. Only one cardinal seemed intent on breaking the lower order’s traditional hold on the mundane matters of the outer wards and the city beyond. Whatever Lothar’s spiritual ambition, he had continued to use his position to pile insult on injury. Favouring a distant cousin over Asemutt’s traditional interests had been enough to make Gilash wish Lothar dead but he had barely escaped direct accusation in the inquest into the first attempt on Lothar’s life. Gilash did not dare try again, unless he could be sure that he was not implicated, his caution increased when the Primate of the Silakian Order, who traditionally had handled the church’s charitable work in the city, had been implicated in a plot against the Cardinal. Lothar’s orphanages had taken over the Silakain Order's mandate and no one was exactly sure what had happened to the Primate. Some said that Lothar had a small flask that he could put to his ear to listen to the man scream, but no one was sure if he were actually dead or if Lothar had been refreshing the flask, over the last year or so.
Lothar was too powerful for Gilash to impeach and Gilash was too useful for his friends in high places to entirely abandon, no matter how often Lothar cajoled his brethren in the higher orders; so each watched for some mistake that the other might make. For all his training and experience, Akna had not yet realised how alert the factions within the apparently slumbering Asylum were. If he even noticed the humming of the strange insect, which proceeded him down the passageway, he never imagined it winging its way back to a silver hive in the Patriarch's chambers. Others of the insect’s kind joined it bringing with them all they had seen that day. These visions would be synthesised into a honey, eaten by the Patriarch every day In a few short hours Gilash would learn that a stranger had entered the Asylum, he might even recognise a face he had never thought to see again.
Ilsar had said that she would return the Hierophant to Niskaan’s Temple, but that was very little to go on. The Asylum was as large as a small city and there might be a thousand places where her master could hide. There was little doubt that she would have been going to the inner wards, Akna doubted that the Hierophant would be content with the rundown ruins of the outer wards; when Takiaza had been alive, the palaces on the tip of the
Graven Hill had been the entirety of Niskaan’s Temple, they had not even been owned by individual members of the church but rather had been shared by the faithful. The building of the Asylum to house the mad had only just started then, so Ilsar’s reference to the temple made it almost certain that she would take him to the inner part of the massive complex. Then again, promises were easy to make and easy to break. Would a daemon, if there really even were a daemon, risk the proximity to so many powerful clerics, who would be only too happy to ensorcel him and drag him into their service? The whole story might have been a tale, told to keep the Hierophant compliant. Akna’s instinct told him that Ilsar could only have been working for one of the major figures in the church’s hierarchy but he would need to get more information before he could act.
That’s where Jucan and the other failed assassins came in. Akna was not foolish enough to believe that any of his old brothers had ever cared for him enough to hesitate for even a second, before telling Gilash that he had not succeeded in killing the man who could link him to an attempt on Cardinal Lothar’s life. Only four men would never want to tell him that Akna was still alive. Akna was hoping that Daven, Huk, Yilt or Jucan had heard the name Ilsar and could tell him were she might be found.
Yilt was probably the least dangerous of the men he planned to find, he would also be more approachable since, unlike the others, he frequented the smoking dens and drinking establishments of the outer wards. Daven and Huk were too disciplined to engage in such vices and Jucan considered himself above frequenting the common establishments. Yilt always claimed that there was much to be learned about the Asylum, by learning to stomach the home made spirits, sold in the many establishments that had sprung up within the disused corridors of the Asylum. His favourite hangout had always been the “Blind Rose” and that was where Akna was heading first.
The Rose was one of the largest bars in the western ward, it didn’t just take up most of the corridor, it also extended into a suite of rooms that had once been a public infirmary. In the dim and forgotten past, when the tavern had come into being, the infirmary had been popular for a potent draft handed out by the priests who worked there. The liquor was made from some distillate of the Ashren roses that had once grown all along the Graven Hill but had given way to Moonhorn as the sun had become a rarer and rarer sight. The priests had contrived a way to keep the purple flowers alive, without the aid of the sun and they had used extracts from the flower to produce a potent drink, which quickly bore the imbiber into Niskaan’s realm. As the priests were the first to find out, if you drunk enough your sight would never return; the priests who made the prized rose wine had spent the rest of their lives being tended to by their flock and when they died along with the flowers, those who had cared for them were left to get on with surviving as best they could. They couldn’t offer the medical help that the blind priests had once offered but they had beds to spare and they had learned enough about distilling spirits to ensure that they could earn their living. The Rose had been doing well ever since and some even claimed that there might still be a few bottles of the legendary spirits, which had cost the original priests their sight, hidden somewhere in the tavern.
