The Sword

by Bryan M. Litfin

  “What’s the woman for?”

  “Errands. Sharpening quills. Fetching books. Hey”—Teo slapped the man on the chest with the back of his hand—“listen, I’ve got orders from the provost to do this research! You gonna let me in or what?”

  The intimidation approach seemed to work. The man sneered, but he backed down and opened the gate for Teo and Ana, telling them where to go. They hurried toward the archives before anyone else could question them.

  The Temple of Astrebril consisted of a central grandiose building crowned by the immense spire that soared into the sky like a granite spike. Many tiny hovels for the resident monks dotted the grassy slope in front of the main building. Level ground was virtually nonexistent. The whole place was surrounded by an outer wall, while high interior walls separated certain parts of the temple complex from view.

  “Spooky, huh?” Teo whispered.

  “Evil.”

  The archives were located in the main building. Teo and Ana entered through a side door and moved to some isolated shelves at the rear of the stacks.

  “Now what?” Ana asked in a low voice.

  “We can’t get into the rest of the temple from here. So we’ll just wait, to lead them to believe we’re researching. Then we’ll leave and sneak around back. I know how to get in.”

  “And after that?”

  Teo held open a slit he had cut in his monk’s habit at the hip. The sword of Armand was there. “After that, I unleash my wrath!”

  The tone of Teo’s voice and his prideful demeanor grated on Ana. She knew if Maurice would be rescued today, it would be because Deu helped them, not because of skillful swordplay. She considered saying that to Teo but decided against it. Now was not the time.

  Teo was scanning the bookshelves. “While we’re waiting here,” he said, “I might as well see what they have in their holdings.” He walked to the Ancient Languages section and pulled a book from the shelves. His eyes lit up. Ana came over to see what it was. The book was titled A Complete Lexicon of the Speech of the Ancients Known as FRANSAIS, Commonly Referred to as the Fluid Tongue.

  Teo glanced up. “This is a fantastic reference work! Look at this! The word for ‘god’ in the Fluid Tongue, dieu, is defined as the one true God.”

  “That’s how Jacques Dalsace used the word in the letter he left with the Sacred Writing—as a proper name. In our speech it’s ‘Deu.’”

  “Right! But none of our lexicons at Lekovil ever render dieu like that. They define it only as a generic god. Obviously the word meant something more in the Fluid Tongue. The Ancients used it to name God himself. This dictionary should be in the University archives. I’m keeping it.”

  Ana tsked. “The clergy are always trying to keep us from the truth,” she said bitterly. “They don’t want us to know the Creator.”

  Teo looked at Ana and nodded. “The people of Chiveis need to hear about Deu.”

  “I guarantee you, they’re about to find out.” Ana could feel a fire rising within her soul.

  “Well, we’re going to need Master Maurice’s wisdom for that. I think it’s time to move. Let’s slip around back and see if we can find him.” Teo put the lexicon in his rucksack and led Ana from the archives.

  It was a secret room for a secret deed. Candelabras lined the wall, illuminating the central aisle with their flickering glow. As for the shadowy corners of the room, who knew what might be lurking there? It might be human, or it might be something else.

  At the far end of the center aisle stood a single structure. A cage. Its bars were made of iron. Its door hung open, hungry.

  Princess Habiloho could feel the wine starting to take effect. It had been spiked with a drug that made the room grow fuzzy and her mind grow dim. The effect was surreal.

  The congregation consisted of men and women dressed in the gauzy robes of the Order of Astrebril. They sat with their eyes closed, chanting, though not in unison. Each was at a different point in the liturgy, so the hubbub of their voices made an indecipherable sound that filled the room with speech but not meaning. The otherworldly noise was very holy. Right? Isn’t this how religion is supposed to feel?

  The great oaken door, the only entrance to the room, slammed shut behind Habiloho. There was no going back now. The chanters quieted as an expectant hush settled upon them.

  A very old woman rose from the front row. Her back was a misshapen hump, and one of her eyes was clouded. The other eye stared into the distance, seeing nothing, or perhaps seeing things that couldn’t be described. She had a parchment in one hand and a knife in the other.

  The hag shuffled down the center aisle in a trance. All the clerics watched her walk. The light of the candelabras danced on her wrinkled face.

  “I greet you from the world below!” she croaked. “I am among the spirits, even as we speak.”

  Should I say something? “Hail, wise one!” Habiloho cried. The congregation murmured its approval.

  “Your hand,” the hag demanded.

  My hand?

  “Your hand!” The hag’s movement was fast for someone so old. With a quick grab and a flick of the knife, she drew blood from the princess’s palm. It trickled over Habiloho’s black fingernails. The cut burned, though it wasn’t deep.

  The hag held up the parchment and read in her froggy voice, “Freely do I bind myself to thee! Freely do I become thy slave! My soul I give to thee forever, O Beautiful One! Here in the presence of all, I do swear an oath in my blood to Astrebril, my lord!”

  The hag proffered the contract. I’m supposed to sign it. Habiloho’s bloody finger smeared a single letter on the page: H.

  The deed was done. A lusty cheer erupted from the room, though Habiloho didn’t feel like celebrating. Events seemed to be racing out of control, events that couldn’t be changed. She felt tears well up, but she suppressed them and told herself to continue with the plan.

  The High Priestess materialized from the shadows. Her face was painted white, and her diaphanous gown billowed behind her like the wings of a dragon. The serpentine scepter she carried glinted in the candlelight. “Your soul is Astrebril’s forever,” she intoned. “Let us now proceed to the Ritual of Enslavement, that you may enter his holy order.”

  Habiloho was led to the cage. She stopped at the door. Her desire for revenge against Teo had driven her to this day, but now that it was here, the sacrifice seemed to require more than her soul could offer. The crowd leaned forward in excitement and began to chant again. This time they uttered the same word over and over: Astrebril! Astrebril! Astrebril! The name bounced off the walls and filled the room with tension. Habiloho entered the cage.

  The High Priestess turned her around so she was facing away from the crowd. “Hold on here,” the priestess instructed. “Do not release.” Habiloho gripped the iron bars tightly, her wrists trembling. She knew something terrible was about to happen.

  Astrebril! Astrebril! Astrebril!

  SMACK!

  The unexpected pain exploded across Habiloho’s back. She cried out as the whipping switch made contact, slicing a line of fire along her shoulder blades. It took all her willpower not to let go of the bars, not to turn around. Again the switch fell, and again. Habiloho’s eyes watered. The pain was intense.

  How many will there be?

  She gasped with each blow. There were six in all, and then they stopped.

  “Six more,” said the High Priestess.

  No!

  The next six blows came from a bundle of switches instead of just one. Habiloho’s pain was continuous, excruciating, unbearable. Finally the beating stopped.

  “Six more,” the High Priestess demanded. “No mercy.”

  Please! No! Someone help me!

  The last six came from a leather whip. By the end of it, Habiloho knew she would have blood on her gown, perhaps even permanent scars. Her knees sagged.

  “All kneel,” said the High Priestess. Habiloho fell to the floor of the cage, still facing away from the crowd, her bloody hand sliding
down the iron bar. She heard the congregation move into a kneeling position as well.

  A black cloth fell from the wall above. There, protruding from the shadows, was Astrebril himself, spreading his bat wings to the ceiling. The idol’s serpentine body coiled up from the floor, and his wicked head hung over the cage. Astrebril’s bearded face grinned as he surveyed his newest slave.

  “FEAR HIM!” At the High Priestess’s words, a fountain of flame and sparks shot from Astrebril’s mouth onto the caged princess. Habiloho shrieked, and even the congregation made fearful noises. Pungent smoke filled the room, the stench of the Beautiful One.

  Two men grabbed Habiloho’s shoulders, one holding her right side, the other her left. She could not move or turn around.

  Something cold touched her neck. Metallic. It encircled her throat, too tight, constricting, yet not enough to choke. A hammer rang against a pin at the nape of her neck. The men turned Habiloho to face the congregation.

  “Behold Astrebril’s eternal slave!” The High Priestess raised her scepter. Through the smoke, the priestesses and eunuchs cheered Habiloho from their kneeling position.

  Astrebril’s eternal slave? Oh god . . . what have I done?

  The glacier dangled from the cloudy summits into the lesser mists below, ending not in pristine, blue-white splendor like its upper reaches but in a dirty crumbling of ice and rock and gray soil. Meltwater ran down a gully, above which loomed the rear wall of the High Priestess’s temple.

  “This is the place Lewth showed me.” Teo scanned the wall, looking for a crack in its stony face.

  Ana shivered. “I don’t like it here. It has a bad smell.”

  Teo and Ana had exited through the temple gatehouse with a mumbled excuse about picking plant specimens, using the same ruse Lewth had employed months earlier. Now they left their horses picketed in the grass and looked for an opening in the wall.

  “Is this it?” Ana peeked into a narrow crack. “I think I see a mill.”

  She stepped aside as Teo approached. “Good. That’s it.” He thrust his head into the crack, glanced around, and wriggled through. Ana’s slender form slipped inside much more easily.

  The place appeared deserted. High walls hid it from the rest of the temple. The largest structure was a gristmill for grinding grain, an odd thing to find so far from any arable fields. Its large external wheel could be turned by horses. Wagons stood outside other smaller buildings.

  “Do you think Master Maurice is being kept in the spire?” Ana glanced at its foreboding height. “We need to find a way in.”

  “It looks like the millhouse is connected to the rest of the temple. Let’s see if it is.”

  They crossed the open space to the stone building, seeing no one, yet feeling exposed as they ran. Inside, wooden shafts and gears were connected to the horse wheel outside. The gears turned two massive millstones, each as tall as Ana. The stones were set into a shallow depression coated with a residue of black powder. It emitted a sharp aroma.

  “That’s not flour,” Ana remarked.

  Teo glanced around the strange room. It was cluttered with barrels and sacks. He pointed to a flame emblem stamped on the side of a barrel. “Look at this—Vulkain’s symbol.”

  Ana lifted the lid. “And this is his brimstone!” The barrel contained the yellow rock that the Vulkainian priests wore around their necks as an amulet. “I wonder what it’s doing in a temple of Astrebril?”

  Teo knelt beside a pile of sacks, each marked with the laughing-goat symbol of Pon. One of the sacks was ripped, and he pulled something black from it. “Charcoal! Pon’s followers make it in the deep forest along the Tooner Sea.”

  “And then they go to their filthy parties.” Ana scrunched her face and shuddered.

  “Let’s not bring up that touchy subject.”

  “Right.”

  Teo considered the two substances in the room—the brimstone of Vulkain and the charcoal of Pon. What about Elzebul? He crossed to a table lined with mortars and pestles. Each bowl was marked with Elzebul’s symbol of a housefly. Teo stirred the white crystals and feathery powder in one of the mortars. “Look at this stuff. I wonder what it is?”

  Ana bent to inspect it. “I know what it is.” She moistened her finger and touched the white powder, lifting it toward her lips.

  Teo seized her wrist. “Stop! It might be poisonous!”

  Ana craned her neck and licked her extended finger. Teo released her wrist, rolling his eyes to the ceiling and throwing his hands into the air with an exasperated sigh.

  “Don’t worry,” Ana soothed, “it’s not poisonous. It’s salt stone. It grows naturally on the walls of stables and henhouses—anywhere there’s manure.” She smiled. “Remember, I’m a farm girl. I know about these things. If you put this salt on your garden, it really makes the vegetables grow.”

  “Oh, I suppose the High Priestess is into gardening, and she doesn’t want anyone to know.” Teo’s tone was playfully sarcastic.

  Ana shrugged, wearing a mischievous expression. “You’re the brilliant professor. Shouldn’t you have realized the salt stone isn’t for gardening? It’s for mixing with brimstone and charcoal. Grind them all together and they make that smelly black powder. See?” She pointed to the residue beneath the giant millstones. Some of it hadn’t been well mixed and was still visible as a yellow or white powder.

  Teo moved toward a staircase at the back of the room, a little bit miffed that Ana had figured out the mystery first. “I suppose you’re right, but what’s the powder for? When Lewth showed me this place, he thought it was very important to the High Priestess.”

  “That I don’t know,” Ana admitted. “Let’s keep an eye out for more clues as we go along.”

  Teo began to climb the stairs. “I’m going to check that door up there,” he said. “It looks like it might lead to the rest of the temple. Maurice is probably being held in the main building.”

  At the top of the stairs, Teo put his ear to the door. He listened for a moment but heard nothing. Slowly he opened it, wincing as it squeaked on its hinges. He peeked through. No one was there.

  “This way, Ana!” He beckoned with his hand. “It connects.”

  Ana joined Teo in a bare room. A second door made of the same sturdy oak was recessed into the opposite wall. The room’s third door was much larger, obviously designed for wagon traffic. It was closed and chained with an imposing iron padlock. The only object in the room was a covered wagon to which two lanterns were affixed on poles. Teo lifted a flap of the canvas tarp on the wagon’s arched framework, trying to see what was inside.

  Male voices sounded from outside the room. Horses’ hooves clip-clopped on the flagstone floor.

  “Someone’s coming!” Ana whispered.

  “Quick! Back to the mill!” Teo started for the door but pulled up short. It had swung shut behind them. He tried the knob. “It’s locked!”

  Keys jangled in the latch on the other door. There was nowhere to run. Teo reached into his monk’s habit for his sword.

  “No! In here!” Ana slipped inside the covered wagon, and Teo followed, pulling down the tarp just as three men leading a pair of horses entered the room.

  “You get ’em hitched,” a man said. “I’ll get the lanterns going. It’s gonna be a long, dark ride.”

  Teo and Ana sat perfectly still, afraid even to breathe. The wagon was filled with many leather backpacks. A pungent smell, the same as in the mill, hung in the air.

  Soon the team was hitched to the wagon, and Teo could see the glow of the lanterns through the holes in the tarp. One of the men rattled the iron chain. The large double door swung open, blowing a stale mustiness into the room. The air that came in was noticeably cooler. With a snap of the reins, the driver directed the wagon forward into a dark tunnel. The double doors squealed shut, and then the only light was from the two lanterns.

  On the far side of the door, a man’s muffled voice called, “I’ll be here when you get back!”

  “He�
�d better be,” said one of the drivers to the other. The wagon rolled up a gradual incline into the heart of the mountain.

  Ever so carefully, Ana shifted her position so she could whisper into Teo’s ear. “Now what?”

  Teo cupped his hand and buried his nose in Ana’s soft hair. “Can’t get out of the tunnel. Locked in. Guard below. Have to wait.”

  The wagon traveled uphill for what seemed like hours, though Teo couldn’t be sure in the darkness. Twice the wagon stopped at places where windows had been carved from the tunnel to the outside world, admitting natural light and fresh air. The drivers didn’t linger there, only tending the horses a bit before moving on. Time slowed. In fact, time became irrelevant. There was only the darkness, the stale air, the plodding hooves, and the upward climb. Always upward.

  Finally the wagon stopped.

  Teo heard one of the drivers dismount and open a door, allowing the wagon to proceed. The man locked the door behind him, then returned to the wagon and said in a jittery voice, “Let’s unload this thing and get back down. I hate it up here.”

  “I gotta get some air, boss. Can we open the outer door for a minute and take a breather?”

  “Good idea.”

  The two men walked with one of the lanterns down a passageway. When they opened the door at the far end, Teo felt a welcome breeze waft down the hall.

  “Now’s our chance,” Teo said. “If they’re going to unload, we need to get out.”

  Teo and Ana jumped from the wagon and hid behind a pile of rubble. Soon the two men returned. They opened the rear flaps of the wagon and set all the backpacks on the floor. Climbing into the drivers’ seat, they urged the horses into a different passageway, which apparently circled back to the main tunnel.

  “What time will Her Eminence arrive, boss?”

  “She’ll get here well before dawn tomorrow. If we hurry, we won’t have to pass her on our way down.”

  “Gods! That’s a scary thought,” said the first man as the yellow glow of the lanterns began to recede.

  “Teo!” Ana whispered urgently. “They’re taking the lamps!”