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The city smelled of gods and devils, of life and death and the sweat of a hundred thousand people. It smelled of temples and shrines, of churches and chapels and the blood-metal of its strange machinations. It was a city of magic and menace, of wickedness and wonder in which wealth and wisdom were worshipped in equal portion.
It was a city besieged.
Azar still slept beside him, her breath soft against his chest. The latticework sunlight warmed her body. His finger traced the scarlet glyphs that scarred her midnight skin. The siege engines thundered in the distance. Flecks of dust danced in the pillars of light speckling the room around them. He lit a cigarette and wondered what would happen when the city inevitably fell. Hints of massacre in Copan had reached Nághordum months ago, long before the first Seven Kingdoms regiments poured into the Kaf Valley and the zealous Shâwal Adherents fled to the saline caves that lined the Kapal Mountains. He inhaled sharply, felt the subtle kiss of opium, and sighed.
“Trouble sleeping?” Azar asked.
He found her voice intoxicating, smooth and sultry with slight hints of huskiness. He prized silence, but he loved Azar’s voice. “I thought I’d worn you out.”
“Perhaps you’d like to try again.”
“Later, I promise. I’ve a busy day ahead of me.”
“You are the bastard son of a Seven Kingdoms nobleman,” Azar replied. “How busy can your day be?”
He laughed and threw a pillow over the young woman’s face. “You’re a little cheeky this morning, a good night last night?”
Azar wrapped her legs around his waist and sighed. “Always, with you, Tool. What a silly name. When will you tell me your real name, the name you were given at birth?”
Wisps of grey-brown smoke meandered upward. For men like Hieronymus and Kâ’ndak, names were weapons. Once they knew your name they owned your soul. He had never given it away before, and the few who knew it had long since died.
“Never mind,” Azar said. “I might not know your name, Tool, but I do know your heart and your body. Must you leave? Can you not stay a little while longer?”
He heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs and sighed. Very few people knew where to find him. So few, in fact, that he slipped a pearl handled dagger from beneath the mattress and stepped naked from his bed. “Stay behind me,” he whispered. There were rumors circulating concerning enemy agents, spies lurking in the shadowed corners of Nághordum, watching and waiting for the right moment to move. They would poison the water supply, burn the food stores, weaken the walls with magic, or worse, simply open the gates to the seemingly inevitable flood of Seven Kingdoms soldiery waiting in the valley beyond. Tool found the rumors amusing. He had spread as many as he had heard. Hieronymus once told him that disinformation bred discord amongst the besieged. Tool had been given a specific task, but Hieronymus had suggested anything done to help break the city’s spirit would be well rewarded in the end.
The door at the far end of the room swept open, disturbing dust and the dying brown clouds of opium smoke still lingering in the early morning air. The woman in the doorframe smiled and shook her head. “Nice dagger.”
Tool blushed when he realized she was not looking at the knife in his hand. He reached back and pulled the sheet from Azar’s body. He wrapped it around his own waist and shrugged.
“I hate to intrude on what appears to be a pleasant morning, Tool, but I’ve learned something you might find interesting.”
He glanced back at Azar. Her skin, black and beautiful, shone beneath a layer of sweat. She looked back at him, love and lust alive in her ebony eyes. “It better be very interesting,” he said.
“Atenkhanu crossed the border this morning. He hopes to break the siege on Nághordum by drawing us into battle at Ten Kings.”
“What does Hieronymus think?”
“Our mutual friend is unconcerned,” the woman replied. When she stepped forward her pale eyes caught the speckled sunlight. She smiled and kissed his cheek. “I’ve missed you.”
“What, did you think you’d never see me again?”
The woman shook her head. “My sister said I would. Then again, the future is her domain, not mine. I live in the present, and until now it’s been far too long between visits.”
“What do you want?” Azar asked.
Tool thought he saw fear in the young woman’s eyes, fear and something more; recognition perhaps? He smiled and touched her cheek. “Her name is Patience,” he said. “She is a very old friend.”
“She is just a friend?”
“Just a friend.”
Azar refused to return the woman’s steady gaze. Patience smiled indifferently and looked back at Tool. “Hieronymus wants confirmation that you received his message.”
Tool nodded. “Can you fetch us some water, Azar?” The revelation that Hieronymus wanted affirmation alarmed him. He knew the book meant something to the young magus, but its importance had been understated during Tool’s briefing. If anything, Hieronymus had made it seem almost frivolous, an ‘if you have the time’ request. After Azar left the room, he looked closely at Patience. “Did he say anything else about the book?”
“He called it the Fable of the White Hare, but you already know that. He said the information it contained could prove invaluable during their impending battle with the Khashani Emperor.”
“Their?”
“You’ve been here a while,” Patience said. “Perhaps you haven’t heard. The Seven Kingdoms sent a Cabal with the Dwarf when the stonewights left Vesil Valdor last spring; the seven most powerful sorcerers in the Kingdoms. Hieronymus is but one of the weapons arrayed against Atenkhanu. Your primary goal is still the etching of the runes in the temple beneath the city, but should the opportunity arise, find and steal the book.”
“And if the opportunity doesn’t arise?”
“Make the opportunity.”
Tool chuckled. “That sounds like Hieronymus, alright.” He sat back down on the bed and reached for his cigarettes. “Smoke? Khashani opium is quite nice.”
“You appear to have thoroughly embraced life here in Nághordum.”
“I live in the present, Patsy. Maybe that’s why we get along so well.” He lit the cigarette and slipped it between his lips. He savored the taste and sighed. “I’ll bring you the book before I hit the hidden temple with Hieronymus’ magic. I trust you’ll find a way through the city’s defenders?”
“That will not be a problem,” Patience replied. “Bring me the book and I will leave you to your appointed task. I trust Azar will not be a problem?”
“Are you kidding? Women are always a problem. Tell Hieronymus not to worry. He will get his book, and his spells will be cast. Trust me. I do remember my loyalties.”
“I’m sure that will put the Adjutant General’s mind at ease.”
Tool could not tell whether she was being straightforward or simply insincere so he smiled and blew her a kiss. “Good, then get lost.”
Patience leaned forward and kissed him again. Her lips felt warm and moist against his unshaven cheek. After she left the room he stood and stepped onto the balcony. From there he could watch the river wander down from the mountains into the Kaf Valley, the region aboriginals called the Hollow of the Hand. On clear days Tool could see the shadows of the skiffs and fisher boats rippling on the river bottom. During high tide barges laden with salt were sent upriver to distant ports like Copan and Rid. During low tide the kites and gulls filled the mud flats, feasting on the unfamiliar flora and fauna surrendered by the ancient river.
“Has she left?”
Tool turned and looked at Azar. Her dark skin swallowed the late morning sun, but her smile reflected its warmth. He pulled her into his arms and laughed. “You were jealous.”
“I was not.”
“Yes, you were jealous. You, a goddess, were jealous of my old friend Patience.”
“You find it funny?”
“I find it impossible to believe,” he replied. He kissed her.
“I am not a goddess,” she whispered. “I simply serve one.”
Tool looked west across the battered rooftops. He saw the countless regiments of the Seven Kingdoms rolling like waves across the valley floor. He watched the stonewight trebuchets launch leprous corpses into the war-weary city, flailing streaks of flesh and bone that showered the ancient streets and courtyards of the Old Quarter. The city would never survive a sustained siege. If Patience was right and Atenkhanu had crossed the border in order to break the siege, open war would exist between the Khashani-Oru and the Seven Kingdoms. The world would inevitably be drawn into any conflict between its two greatest empires. The din of war would be deafening.
“I need to go. Patience wants me to find a book.”
“She wants you to find a book?”
“It’s a gift for a mutual friend. Can you tell me where the Prime Minister keeps his library?”
“In the Citadel,” Azar said. “His library is on the top floor, in the apartments occupied by Kâ’ndak.”
Tool frowned. Kâ’ndak was the Prime Minister’s magus. A renowned astrologer, he had also been known to dabble in alchemy and metallurgy. There were rumors circulating that suggested darker, more necromantic arts, but little evidence had been found to support such brazen claims. Regardless, something about the magus terrified Tool. The complicated witchery practiced by men like Kâ’ndak and Hieronymus troubled him on a completely different level. “Then I need to get inside the Citadel.”
Azar sought and found his hand. “I think I can help. Kâ’ndak is a Shâwal Adherent. He has supported the Temple of Aluzd for years. In return he asks for, and receives, the ardent thanks of Aluzd’s acolytes.”
“Are you telling me the Temple prostitutes its acolytes to the magus in exchange for his support?”
“There are countless gods and goddesses in the Shâwal pantheon,” Azar replied. “Temples have been built and burned at the whim of Nághordum’s nobility. Patrons can help strengthen our mystery school. Kâ’ndak has given us strength. He helped the Temple establish a strong foothold in Nághordum.”
“But at what cost? Have you slept with him, Azar?”
Azar looked at him and smiled. “Now who is the jealous one?”
#
The Citadel stood at the centre of Nághordum, at the very heart of the Kaf Valley. It was both the lowest and the highest point in the broad basin and gave the Prime Minister and his small parliament a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside. The view had deteriorated considerably in recent weeks, and Tool doubted parliament looked upon the Kaf Valley with the same self-serving joy they felt before the Seven Kingdoms arrived. When word of the siege at Copan reached them, the parliamentarians assured the people of Nághordum that the armies of the Seven Kingdoms would never enter the Kaf. They were either stupid or naïve, or perhaps a bit of both, because the Seven Kingdoms had long viewed Nághordum as the jewel in Arman’s crown.
Tool stood beneath the portcullis, staring up at the Citadel expectantly. Azar had been inside for less than an hour when the lights in the distant library darkened. She would entertain the old magus. Once he fell asleep she would re-light the oil lamp in the library window. Tool would then slip inside the Citadel and past the guards. He would climb the countless steps to Kâ’ndak’s apartment, enter the library, find the Fable of the White Hare and, together with Azar, slip silently away. It was a good plan, but the risk to Azar was far greater than the value of the book he had been asked to steal. Tool did not care how much it helped Hieronymus at Ten Kings. If the book cost Azar her life he would forgo the Cabal’s plan, burn the book and avenge her death by taking Kâ’ndak’s head.
He had originally balked at Azar’s plan, but the acolyte convinced him it would work. Kâ’ndak loathed waking with anyone beside him. Once he fell asleep, Aluzd’s acolytes always left the Citadel. He would not be surprised when she was gone the following morning. She assured him the most difficult part of their plan would be his. He would need to slip past the guards, both outside and inside the monstrous tower. He had not told Azar how he would do it, but Tool had been given the proper tools by Hieronymus.
When the light reappeared in the library window, he pulled the small totem and the rolled parchment from his shoulder pack and knelt down in the dirt. The runes he sketched had been drawn on the parchment by Hieronymus himself, embossed with a witchery the young magus wielded with unquestioned authority. Tool drew a circle in the dirt using the strange totem, a bone wrapped in tightly woven thread. The thread, stained scarlet by blood, felt alive with the energy it contained and he wondered again at the magic men like Hieronymus employed. It was old magic, foreign to the Seven Kingdoms. If one believed the legends, the magic Hieronymus used had come from Oru. Not the kingdom but the Shi’Nisstrian Daemon who fell from the heavens and founded the first great earth-born empire.
He whispered the words Hieronymus had taught him. The words were a key. Once spoken, they unlocked a gateway, a portal through which he could travel unfettered by the physical world. Hieronymus called them warrens, rifts in the fabric of space-time. Tool mistrusted them, but knew he would never get inside the citadel, our outside the city walls, without them. The energy sizzled in the air around him. He felt a weary darkness surround him. When it swallowed him the world blurred. He stepped out from under the portcullis and walked toward the tower. He saw the guards, distorted by the magic he employed. “They cannot see me,” he whispered. Hieronymus had called it a Dreaming Warren, a pathway through Slumber fed by the energy of Kâ’ndak’s dreams.
The Citadel looked more like a prison than a palace. When the door slammed shut behind him he had the sense that he had been entombed. The winding central staircase led, not to vast apartments and a grand library, but to a scaffold from which dangled the skeletal bodies of the city’s previous magi. Hieronymus had warned him that once he entered the Dreaming Warren he would see the world, not as he knew it, but as the dreamer perceived it.
He stepped up the narrow staircase. He ignored the countless doors he passed, uncertain whether the men and women he saw were real or simply figments of Kâ’ndak’s tumultuous imagination. When he reached the last door he turned the handle, whispered the words Hieronymus had taught him, and stepped from the Dreaming Warren into a large hall lined with elaborate tapestries and ornate marble statues.
Azar met him at the far end, waving him down the dark corridor behind her. She wore a sheer dress that fuelled the fevered fires of his jealousy. “I have to find the book,” he whispered, more to himself than to her. If, during the process he accidentally killed the filthy old bastard, so be it.
“He is asleep,” Azar told him.
“I know.” He followed her into the library. The smell of leather and dry paper almost overwhelmed him. He had seen Hieronymus’ study in Barin Ginor. The five thousand leather-bound tomes, rolled parchments, maps and weathered grimoires made the Barin sorcerer’s library the largest in the Seven Kingdoms. This one dwarfed it. The four walls were lined with books. Their gilded spines glistened in the gaslight, revealing names and languages both foreign and familiar. He wondered where in the maze of printed works the Fable of the White Hare would be. “If Kâ’ndak considered the book as important as Hieronymus, he would keep it in a safe place,” he mused. His eyes wandered the room, roaming the stacks and shelves for clues. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Eliminate the obvious first,” Azar suggested. “You take the left wall while I look along the right. We can meet back in the middle and go from there.”
“That’s what I like about you, Azar. You’re always thinking.”
“That is not what you told me last night.”
“I was too wrapped up in my own thoughts to give yours their due. Let me know if you find anything.” He watched her cross the room, his eyes lost in the rhythm of her hips. She left him breathless. She always had. He felt guilty using her to find Hieronymus’ book. She had volunteered, but he could have said no. Perhaps he should have. By dragging her into his plans he had made her complicit. He shook his head. Azar was anything but foolish. Surely she knew he was conspiring against Nághordum’s defenders. If they captured him, they would torture him, and if they tortured him they would very likely learn her name. Azar would die a traitor’s death simply because she had fallen for him. No, he thought. I love her more than anything. I would never betray her.
He ran his fingers along the leather spines and gilded letters lining the outer wall. The titles teased and titillated. He saw books on alchemy and astrology, divination and daemonology, and works on the ascension of the immortal soul. Tool was a common foot soldier, a man with a knack for subtlety and an unbridled enthusiasm for absinthe, opium and women. He rarely felt the same proclivity for books. Old tomes and rolled parchments were the playgrounds of men like Hieronymus. He preferred softer, curvier playgrounds.
When he reached the far wall he turned and looked back along the shelves he had just searched. Nothing leapt out at him. There could be hollowed books or false bindings, hidden cupboards or cryptic clues almost anywhere. “This is hopeless.”
Azar’s response was an elated little yelp. “I have found something.” He followed the sound of shuffling books to its source and found her standing on a small library ladder, a hefty tome tucked beneath her arm. “Take it before it falls,” she said.
Tool took the aging volume from her and brought it to a nearby table. There were no words inscribed on either cover or spine, but a single white hare had been embossed on the frontispiece. He read the title and frowned. “This is a treatise on daemons and other subversive spirits. The white hare aside, what makes you think this is the book we’re looking for?”
“The book has been rebound,” Azar explained. She ran a finger along the front hinge. “Can you see the difference? The leather spine is less worn; the covers are ragged while the binding is relatively fresh and firm.” She turned the book on its side. “The middle pages are much older, more crudely cut than either the front or back pages.”
“Someone took an older book and bound it between the pages of a newer book,” Tool said. He looked up at her with obvious admiration.
She smiled and looked away. “I am the assistant librarian at the Temple of Tomorrow.”
“Remarkable,” Tool replied. He flipped through the pages of the book until he found the older text. The title page had not been kept when the book had been rebound. Given the archaic language, the missing page would not have helped him identify the book. “I don’t understand the language,” he said. “Do you recognize it?”
Azar studied the sepia letters more closely and frowned. “It appears to be the language of the Sleeping Gods.”
Tool’s eyes widened. “You can read the language of the Sleeping Gods?”
“I serve the Awakened, remember? The Goddess of Tomorrow is my mistress. As her acolyte I am required to read and speak many languages.”
“And here I thought you were just another pretty face. What does it say, what’s it about?”
“I only read the first verse. In it, the hare is slain by a stonewight magus named Forge. Her body is found by a young woman named Ash. When Ash touches the White Hare she has a mystic vision. In this vision the God of All Things tells her to take the White Hare to the Hollow of the Hand. At the very heart of the Hollow there grows a tree referred to in the book as the Tree of Knowledge.”
“That seems pretty straightforward to me,” Tool said.
“You know as well as I do that the Kaf Valley is also called the Hollow of the Hand. And Nághordum stands at the very heart of the Kaf Valley.”
“Are you suggesting this Tree of Knowledge is somewhere in the city?”
“I believe the verse is more allegorical than that.”
“What, like Nághordum is the Tree of Knowledge?”
“Perhaps,” Azar said. “I do not know. The only thing I know about the Fable is that it is a cipher. These woodcuts are purported to contain the true names of the Sleeping Gods. The accompanying text is apparently the key to unlocking each hidden message. I wish we had more time. I would love to read the book from start to finish, if only for the beauty of the language.”
Tool closed the book and slipped it inside his shoulder pack. “We should leave.”
The sound the door made when it opened startled them. Tool turned toward it and saw Kâ’ndak silhouetted by the gas-lit corridor beyond. “You will both die, of course,” the magus said. He drew a talisman from the folds of his robe and whispered an incantation that chased the two thieves deeper into the library. “I am very disappointed in you, Azar. After all I have done for you. After everything I have done to you. I expected better.”
“As did I,” Azar said.
“I have a great idea,” Tool whispered. “Let’s not antagonize the city’s most powerful magus. Is there another way out?”
“The window.”
“We’re at the top of the tallest tower in Nághordum. We could leave the library via the window, but the first step would likely kill us.”
“Would you rather we stay here? I got us both inside the Citadel. You were supposed to get us out.”
“The magus was supposed to be asleep,” Tool snapped. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the Citadel from the outside. Were there any leverage points, lips or ridges that would support their weight? How far up were they? The sound startled him from his thoughts. “What is that?”
“Kâ’ndak’s incantation,” Azar replied. She pointed toward the shelves at the center of the room and screamed.
The rats swarmed around the shelving. Countless hundreds scurried across the marble floor toward them. Their red eyes burned in the dim light while jagged, yellow teeth formed malicious grins framed by rabid foam and hints of old blood. Tool opened the window. He looked down, swore, and then looked up. The roof was within reach. He grabbed Azar by the arm and pulled her toward the window. “The roof,” he hissed. He helped her through the small opening and watched her clamber onto the Citadel’s steeply sloped roof.
He felt the rats around his ankles, knew they were nibbling at the leather of his boots, and swore when he felt them crawling up his legs. He pulled himself through the window, kicked the rats free and scrambled onto the roof beside Azar. He waited there, breathless, while the rats screeched and screamed below. When they fell silent he knew Kâ’ndak had reached the window. He peered over the edge of the roof, arms outstretched, and waited. When the magus stuck his head out the window, Tool grabbed it and twisted sharply. The snap was much louder than he’d expected. He felt the old man twitch once before going limp. Tool released his grip on the man’s head and let his body slip back inside the Citadel.
“You just killed the Grand Magus of Nághordum,” Azar whispered.
They sat there, struggling to find their breath and steady their hearts. The rats began tearing at the dead man’s flesh. It was a sound Tool knew he would never forget. He tried to block it out. He tried to focus on finding a way back down that did not involve the library, but the sound tore through his mind, filling his head with images that would forever fuel his nightmares. The sound of tooth on bone shocked and sickened him and when he looked at Azar he saw that she was crying. “We have to go back in there,” he whispered.
She laughed. It was a sound born not of mirth but of fear. “After you.”
Tool smiled. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. He tucked it between his dry lips, struck a Lucifer against the slate roof and lit the tightly bound tobacco. He inhaled, savored the sickly sweet moment, and then he sighed. “Once you’re inside just run. Don’t look down, don’t stop, just run. I can’t do much about the rats, but I can deal with any guards that get in our way.”
Azar nodded. He reached back and squeezed her knee before slipping over the edge of the roof and through the open window. The rats were thick around the corpse, so thick in fact that his feet did not touch the ground when he landed. Their brittle bones broke beneath his weight and they squealed their rage in his wake.
He met the first two guards at the library door. He never gave them time to draw their swords. They died with startled looks on their young faces. He watched Azar slip through the window. She stifled a scream when her feet touched the rats carpeting the marble floor. She ran without looking down. When she reached him she shoved him through the door and slammed it shut behind them.
“That was disgusting,” she said. She looked down at the dead men and sighed. “They were so young.”
“They would have killed us,” Tool said. He buried both guilt and conscience and turned toward the stairwell. He pulled a dagger from his belt and gave it to her. “Take this and stay behind me.”
Azar took the knife. The reluctance in her eyes touched the scraps of human warmth Tool had failed to bury. “They will kill us if they catch us,” he said.
“Who are you trying to convince?”
“I’m Seven Kingdoms stock, Az. If I am caught, I’ll be taken and tortured, but I will die in the end.”
“What will they do to me?”
Tool looked away. “Stay behind me.”
They were descending the stairs when two guards appeared in the foyer below. They looked startled but steady. Tool threw himself at them. His momentum tore the breath from their lungs while his sword took their lives. He wiped it clean on their silk-cotton robes and glanced back up at Azar. Her eyes shone black with fear and he knew then their love had been tainted by the blood he had drawn.
The Citadel was surrounded by a private courtyard. The courtyard was enclosed within a circular stone wall broken only by the portcullis Tool had used earlier that night. The gate had been open then, but when he peered through the darkness now he could tell that it was closed. He saw the shadowed shapes of men beneath the darkened arch, the subtle glint of moonlit arrowheads on the wall above the gate and he knew they were trapped. He closed the door and locked it. “Is there another way out?”
“Why?”
“We won’t last a moment in that courtyard. There must be another way out.”
Azar bit her lip. It was a nervous habit Tool generally found endearing. Now it simply bothered him. He looked past her, into the dark corridor beyond. He saw the shadows and shoved her aside. She screamed when she struck the ground. Tool felt the first bolt bite his shoulder. The second struck the wooden door behind him.
“The basement,” Azar whispered. She crawled back toward the stairwell. Tool wasted little time. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. They ran down the stairs, the spiral design both dizzying and dangerous. They stumbled more than once but when they reached the bottom they were more concerned by the absence of light than the presence of fresh cuts and bruises.
“Now where do we go?”
“We must find Kâ’ndak’s wine cellar,” Azar replied. “The Citadel stands at the center of the valley. It was built on holy ground by the Shâwali Priesthood. They considered it holy because it once housed a temple used by those who worshipped the Sleeping Gods.”
“The Awakened,” Tool whispered. Before stumbling into godhood, the men and women worshipped by the Shâwali Adherents had been flesh and blood creatures, priests who worshipped and ultimately usurped the Sleeping Gods.
He heard footsteps on the stairs. He took Azar and shoved her back against the far wall. “Wait here and be still.” He returned to the foot of the stairs. They were narrow. The guards would have to descend in single file. The strategic advantage was his, and he seized it. He buried his sword in the first man’s chest, his dagger in the second man’s throat. He shattered the third man’s nose with his fist before slitting his throat.
“This way,” Azar whispered. Tool retrieved his weapons and followed her voice deeper into the bowels of the aging tower. She led him through a maze of corridors and cramped rooms that ended with a dankness smelling of fermented fruit and damp oak. “The wine cellar,” she explained. “Kâ’ndak loathes the Seven Kingdoms, but he loves their wine. More than a few of these bottles have reached the century mark.”
“A waste of a good drink,” Tool said.
“Some wines improve with age.”
“Kâ’ndak will never know that for sure, now will he? If the wine’s good, drink it. Live in the present, remember?”
“I serve the Goddess of Tomorrow.”
“You keep telling yourself that.”
Azar laughed. “There, between those two barrels.”
Tool followed her gaze. Despite the absence of light he saw the door. “How many people know about this?”
“Not many,” Azar replied. “I only know about it because I have read about the Citadel’s history. I doubt Kâ’ndak advertised its existence.”
“Then it’s likely unguarded. Good.”
Azar turned the wrought iron handle to no avail. “The door is locked.”
Tool examined the lock. “I was a thief before I was a soldier,” he said. He pulled a small pick and simple tension wrench from his shoulder bag and shrugged. “I’d hate to need them and not have them.”
“I have learned a great deal more about you in the last hour than I ever imagined possible.”
“And yet you’re still with me?”
“Given the alternative, staying with you seems the most prudent course of action.”
“Smart and beautiful; that’s what I like about you.”
“I thought it was because I was always thinking.”
He heard an audible click. He turned the handle and pushed. The door uttered an oxidized groan. “Just when I thought it couldn’t get any darker,” he muttered. “What did your books tell you about these tunnels?”
“They were used by the original Shâwali Priests,” Azar replied, “the ones who eventually became the Awakened. According to Galan they lead to a temple.”
“What kind of temple?”
Azar shrugged. “I have read about Dream Houses. Galan mentions them in his book. The Adherents were mystics long before they became martyrs.”
“They aren’t martyrs, Azar. They’re madmen, fanatics.”
“They are men and women willing to die for their beliefs. They adhere to their faith with a fervent zeal rarely seen in the Seven Kingdoms. There are always two sides to a story, Tool.”
“I have seen firsthand what the Adherents are willing to do for their faith. I’ve seen the torture, the rape, the beheadings and mass executions.”
“And did we not both witness the Seven Kingdoms army, your army, catapulting Copan’s diseased dead into the Old Quarter? Were the lepers dead when they were placed in your siege engines and shot into Nághordum? How many lives were lost in Copan? How many do you honestly think survived the massacre there?”
Tool fell silent. Azar filled the silence with a vehemence that shamed and startled the Seven Kingdoms spy. “And you, Tool. Have you come here to spread good will? Have you come to warn us, to give us an opportunity to negotiate our surrender? Or have you come to poison our water, to gather intelligence on our strengths and weaknesses, to open the outer gate or worse, to poison our chances with those bastardized totems and incantations your magi call magic?”
“Why are you here? If you’re so opposed to my goals, why have you been helping me achieve them?”
Azar looked away. Tool thought he knew the answer. He thought he understood the depths of her love. He stepped through the doorway. Azar followed him.
The two chose not to speak for several minutes. When the narrow corridor opened onto a vast chamber, Tool stopped and looked around. The torches were lit. He drew his sword and looked nervously at Azar. “I’m guessing this is the temple?”
“It looks more like a theatre.”
Their voices overlapped when they echoed, making it difficult for them to understand one another. “Did you say theatre?” Tool asked.
Azar nodded.
“But there aren’t any seats, just words and pictures painted on the floor.”
“There are seven gangways,” Azar whispered. “On each gangway there stands a gate.”
Tool followed her gaze. The gates were decorated with countless images, glyphs and runes that looked both odd and oddly familiar.
“Of course there are no seats,” she said. “There would not be an audience sitting and watching a play on the stage. The function of the theatre is reversed. There would only be one spectator, standing here, where we are, looking towards the auditorium, gazing at the images on the seven gates and the seven rising grades.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“This is not a temple at all. It is a Memory Theatre.”
“It’s a what?”
“A Memory Theatre, a mnemonic device. Look, the seven gates are memory placeholders, stocked with words and images. Of course,” she gasped. “The myths and legends were true. This,” she waved her hands across the vast theatre and smiled, “is the Tree of Knowledge.”
“You mean we’re standing at the center of the city?”
“We are standing at the center of the Kaf Valley, the heart of the Hollow of the Hand. We are standing at the very cradle of civilization.”
Tool nodded. His own appreciation for the past was tempered by the Adjutant General’s orders. Hieronymus had been adamant about one thing. The runic symbols he had given him were to be drawn at the center of the city. He knelt in the dirt and pulled the bone talisman from his breast pocket.
“This is where the Shâwali Adepts came to learn their craft. They became priests here, magi. These glyphs contain the knowledge of the Sleeping Gods. This theatre contains the lost secrets of their magic, of ascendancy. This is where the Shâwali priests first awoke!”
Tool drew a circle in the dirt. “Can you understand any of it?”
“If I had time I am certain I could translate the glyphs,” she replied. “They are much older than mine, most likely the mother of the Oruphe tongue. Given time and the proper resources I am sure I could translate this theatre.”
“Time would be nice,” Tool said. He began etching runes inside the circle he had drawn. “Sadly it’s in short supply.”
Azar turned and looked at him. “What are you doing?”
“My job,” he replied. “Hieronymus ordered me to draw this spell at the center of the city. According to you we’re at the center of the city now, hence the spell.”
“You cannot do that, Tool. The Seven Kingdoms will destroy Nághordum. They will not understand this theatre, what it means. They will burn this city and butcher its people. We will lose everything.”
“I have my orders. We aren’t bad people, Azar. We didn’t come here to conquer, we came here to liberate. The Shâwali Adherents have committed acts of intolerance and terror against the Shi Freemen, your ancestors. That’s why I’m etching this spell in the dirt, that’s why you’ve been helping me, and that’s why we must succeed. The cost of victory is far less than the price we would pay for defeat.”
“You cannot possibly be that naïve. The Seven Kingdoms have been pushing their borders south for decades. They do not want to help the Freemen, they want to help themselves to the knowledge and the resources found throughout Arman.”
“I’m not naïve, I’m pragmatic. Once I’m done here we need to leave. We cannot be here once the sorcery begins.”
“I will not let you finish your spell.”
“It isn’t mine,” Tool replied. He tried to bury the burgeoning guilt he felt burning in his gut. She was right. The Seven Kingdoms would destroy Nághordum. The soldiers would rape and pillage, feast and burn and in the end the Hollow of the Hand would be little more than a pit of ash and charred bone. “I have to finish it, Azar.”
“You do not,” she said. “You will not finish it. I will not let you.”
Tool smiled sadly and looked up at her. “And how do you intend to stop me?”
She drew the knife Tool had given her. She held it between them, the tip an accusing finger she levelled at his chest. “I do not want to hurt you, but I will not let you turn this city over to them.”
He stopped etching runes in the dirt. He lowered the totem and sighed. “I love you, Azar. I loved you the moment I met you. But I have to do this. I can’t turn my back on the Seven Kingdoms. I cannot commit treason.”
“What are you asking me to do?”
Tool lowered his gaze. He smelled the other woman’s perfume before he saw her face. “Patience,” he whispered.
“Finish your spell,” she replied. She turned and looked at Azar, and then whispered, “It is my wish.”
Tool did not understand what she meant, but Azar must have. She fell silent and simply watched him work.
He could not read the characters he drew. Hieronymus had simply written them on rolled parchment and ordered him to re-draw them, exactly as they were, at the heart of Nághordum. Hieronymus said the spell would weaken the ancient city’s defences. Although he did not understand them, Tool drew the runes and glyphic pictures perfectly. When he was done he knelt back and studied his work. He should have felt the same smug satisfaction he always felt when his missions proved successful. When he looked up at Azar however, he felt like a failure. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“How sweet,” Patience said. “You did a wonderful job, Tool. And you, dear Azar, were perfect.”
Tool looked from Patience back to Azar. He frowned, certain he had missed something. “What do you mean?”
“I am the one who should be sorry,” Azar replied. “I could not betray my mistress any more than you could betray your kingdoms.”
“What are you talking about?”
Patience offered him an indifferent smile. “I am her Goddess, Tool. The Shâwali call me the Goddess of Tomorrow.”
Tool shook his head, confused by the odd revelation. He looked at Azar, but she managed to avoid his gaze by staring down at the spell he had drawn in the dirt.
“No,” she screamed. She looked up at Patience, horror stricken. “What have you done?”
Tool looked down at the etching, uncertain what she had seen there. He thought he saw movement, subtle shadows shifting in the sand, but the marriage of blackness and candlelight played tricks on his eyes. Patience laughed. It was a cold and empty sound and it echoed sharply off the walls of Azar’s theatre. “The spell was not mine,” she said. “I was told to bring you both here. I did not understand his intent until I saw the runes Tool so elegantly transcribed.”
“What are you talking about?”
Tool growled, certain the shadows were pooling in the circle he had drawn. “What is it, Azar? What does it say?”
“It is an invocation, Tool, a summons. Your magus used you to awaken something.”
Patience struck the young acolyte with the back of her hand. “Not another word.” She stepped back when the shadows screamed. Obsidian wisps rippled up from the circle Tool had drawn, wrapping around his legs and waist like the tendrils of an unseen serpent. He felt the darkness pierce his flesh, felt it feast on muscle before finding a home in the very marrow of his bones. He tried to pull away, to turn and run but the darkness pulled him back toward the circle, back toward the spell he had drawn. The spell had betrayed him. Hieronymus had betrayed him and when he looked into Azar’s eyes he finally understood that she had betrayed him too.
“You led me here!” he screamed. “You helped me get inside the Citadel. You found the book and the door that brought us here.”
“I followed her will,” Azar cried. “The spell, what you’ve done must be undone. You must stop it.”
Patience grabbed Azar’s neck and squeezed, crushing her throat in a moment so sudden the young girl never had time to scream. Tool drew his sword and severed the woman’s head. It struck the floor and silence swallowed its echoed thud.
Tool crawled across the sandstone floor and knelt beside Azar’s lifeless body. He pulled her into his arms and tried to forget what she had done. He still loved her. He would always love her. “It wasn’t your fault,” he whispered.
The scuffling of hands and feet on sand startled him. He turned toward the circle and swore. Eyes born somewhere in the depths of darkness now shone like twin moons. The soft light they shed gave her face both shape and substance. She was beautiful, silk and gossamer, a strange mixture of innocence and dread. When their eyes met, Tool felt the inevitability of death pounding in his chest like the baleful drums of fate.
Her moonlight eyes never left him. Her long, slender, arms slipped through the circle’s dark embrace. Thin, delicate fingers crept across the sandstone floor, pulling her from the shadowed confines of the etched invocation. Her hair, a wild, white, and wandering mane, fell across her porcelain face, momentarily masking the monstrous splendour that glistened in her eyes.
When she spoke he felt the chains ensnare his soul. Her words, barely a breath against his cheek, tore all hope from his heart.
“I know your name,” she whispered.
END
Illustration by J. Lonnee
