Farlander

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Bravery of Fools A procession was leaving the Temple of Whispers. It was a royal procession, a fact made apparent from its size and grandeur and the banners it displayed, those of the Matriarch herself, showing a black raven on a white background. From the rooftop, Aleas, Baracha and Ash watched as it crossed the bridge over the moat and wound its slow way eastwards, where the games were to be held today, in the Shay Madi.

Along the streets, red-garbed devotees rushed in their hundreds to see this unexpected procession of the Holy, crying out as though their wits had fled them entirely. Columns of Acolytes emerged and disappeared again in the thick fog like ghosts of men, some detaching in squads to hold back the press of devotees. Palanquins borne by dozens of slaves swayed past, one after the other, their occupants hidden behind heavy, embroidered curtains. Lesser priests pounded on drums, or gyrated in a rising frenzy, or whipped their bare backs with the branches of thorny bushes. Aleas watched closely, counting them as they went by.

'It might help us,' said Baracha, tensely, 'with so many gone from the Temple.'

Ash replied with a shrug, then he straightened up and began to sort items from a canvas bag that lay open on the concrete roof. Today he was dressing for vendetta, as they all were. He wore reinforced boots, tan leather leggings padded around the knees, a stout belt, a loose sleeveless tunic, and bracers. Over this he threw on a heavy white robe that reached down to his toes. Baracha donned an identical robe. They stood facing one another, flexing their limbs in their new garments.

'Stiff,' Ash grunted.

'Like wearing a sack of canvas,' Baracha agreed.

These priestly robes would have to do; they had been easier to replicate than the fully armoured dress of the Acolytes.

Beside the two men, Aleas tugged a cloak from his own bag and began to shrug it over his head.

'No,' ordered Baracha, 'not yet.'

The big man hoisted a harness of heavy leather, slipping it over Aleas's shoulders so that it was fastened in an X across his torso. To this, he and Ash began to secure the various tools of their trade, or at least those they had been able to gather together, throughout the night, from the various black-market traders they knew within the city. These consisted of a set of throwing knives, their blades perforated with a series of holes for lightness; a small crowbar; a foldable grappling hook and climbing claws; pouches of ground jupe bark mixed with barris seed, along with pouches of flash powder; an axe with separate haft extensions; crossbow bolts; two bags of caltrops; a medico, and a coil of thin knotted rope; a leather flask of water; two small casks of blackpowder, air-tightened with tar, more difficult and expensive to procure than all the rest of the equipment combined. It was a ridiculously heavy burden, and Aleas soon felt his legs buckle beneath the weight.

'You're going to be acting as our pack mule,' his master explained. 'Which means you stick to us no matter what, and whenever we call out for something you pass it to us quick.'

Baracha hefted a small, twin-firing crossbow. 'When you're not passing us gear,' he said, thrusting the crossbow into the young man's arms, 'you'd damn well better be shooting at someone.'

Aleas jerked his head, straining a nod. The tension was growing in him.

Ash helped get the robe over his sudden additional bulk.

'You look like a pregnant fishwife,' he said, clapping a hand to the lad's shoulder.

Aleas frowned, and waddled around, making exaggerated movements. He could tell from their expressions that he wasn't a pretty sight.

The temple bell struck eight o'clock.

'Your army is late,' commented Baracha.

'Have faith. It will be here.'

Ash returned to the parapet. He set one foot up on the ledge, supporting his crossed arms on his raised knee. He watched the last of the royal procession pass by. He looked up at the tower. For a time, he simply stood and took it in.

They were located on the safest vantage point they had been able to find, the high-up roof of a casino built on a street that ran along the perimeter of the moat. The premises were still open at this early hour, if the lights and sounds pouring from a few open windows below were anything to go by. Aleas shifted his weight from one foot to the other, afraid to sit down, in case he could not get up again unaided. He joined Ash at the parapet, though after a moment of looking at the tower he gazed out instead over the rest of the city, the merest outline of it visible through the fog.

I might die today, echoed his mind, as though detached from the fact.

His stomach seemed on fire.

Behind him, he heard his master reciting the morning prayer. He knew, without looking, that Baracha would be kneeling with his arms folded across his chest, his face turned towards the faint hint of the sun. Today he would ask for courage in his prayer, and the blessings of the true prophet Zabrihm.

Ash, too, knelt on the flat rooftop, and assumed a posture of meditation.

'Come,' he said to Aleas. 'Join me.'

Why not, thought Aleas, and struggled with his load until he was kneeling beside him.

Aleas breathed deeply, seeking stillness. It would not come easily, though, for his body was agitated, tense. It was at times like this that he wished he genuinely believed in the power of prayer like Baracha. Instead, he performed his own litany: his own private call for meaning.

I do this for my friend, he asserted. Because he deserves my loyalty, and because I was born of Mann, and have much to redeem for my peoples' ways. If I die, I do so with righteousness.

If I die, I -

Footsteps, sounding from across the rooftop.

'Your army,' announced Baracha dryly, climbing to his feet.

Aleas turned his head, as a man appeared out of the fog and stepped towards them, his eyes goggling as he took in their attire.

'So you crazy fools really mean to go through with it, eh?'

'You're late,' responded Baracha.

The man plucked the tattered top hat from his head. 'My apologies,' he said,' and he bowed so low that the hat in his hand almost scraped across the concrete roof. 'The directions your girl gave me were somewhat scant, but I'm here now, and I have what you need.'

As they all gathered to face him, Aleas could smell the man's stench even across the distance of several feet. His thinning hair hung in lank strings from his scalp, flaked with dandruff, and his scrawny body hunched unprepossessingly beneath a soiled flapcoat. When he scratched at himself, Aleas could see the man's fingernails were caked with dirt. When he grinned, his teeth resembled a brown mush.

The newcomer exhaled wetly as he extracted something from the deep pocket of his coat. It was a rat, and the creature began to struggle as he held it out by the tail. The animal was entirely white, its eyes pink.

From another pocket the man took out a sachet of folded paper. He opened it up with one hand to reveal a minute amount of white powder.

He blew it into the face of the rat. The creature twitched and made a sound that might have been a sneeze.

Fascinated, Aleas watched as their visitor began to swing the rat to and fro, the animal struggling all the while. At a certain moment he exaggerated the swing, so that the rat sailed upwards, around, and right into his gaping mouth. He clamped his mouth shut, the pink tail dangling limp from between his lips.

The man looked, in turn, at each of their faces, registering shock save for Ash, who had known what to expect.

The rat man hunkered down on his hands and knees. With his chin almost touching the roof he tugged at the tail, drawing the white rat from his mouth. He lay it out upon the concrete, where it appeared to be dead.

He blew air against its tiny face. The rat stirred, twitched its whiskers: its eyes cracked open. It rolled on to its side and gazed at him as if mesmerized. The man gathered up the creature into his hands, then he climbed carefully to his feet. He next approached each of the Rshun in turn. At each one, he squeezed the animal so that it ejected a squirt of urine on to their clothes. The stench of it filled Aleas's nostrils.

The stranger drew a canvas bag from another deep pocket. He dropped the rat inside it, then with great care he plucked one of his hairs from his own head and used it to tie the bag closed. The rat started to struggle within, the bag hardly seeming secure.

'Here,' he said, offering Ash the squirming bag. Ash squinted at it. He gestured to Baracha, and the man offered the bag to the Alhazii instead.

Baracha was even less keen. 'The boy can take it,' he decided.

And so Aleas was burdened with yet another item to carry: this time a sack containing a struggling rat.

'He is a king amongst rats,' explained the man to Aleas. 'They will come for him, when he calls them.'

'And when will that be?'

'Right now.'

Aleas looked about him. He could see nothing, certainly no rats.

'Our thanks,' said Ash gruffly, and handed the man a purse of coins.

The man bowed again, less pronouncedly this time. He tapped the top of his hat after he had replaced it upon his head. 'I would wish you good luck, but that seems a rare commodity these days. Anyway, it's hardly worth squandering on fools. Goodbye, then, Ash. May your end be a glorious one.'

With this final blessing he hobbled away.

*

'When I said we required an army,' muttered Baracha, as they crossed the street and approached the bridge, 'I was talking in a literal sense. Men and such. Men with weapons. Armour. Discipline.'

From the edges of their vision they could see shapes emerging and scattering in the fog. The rats were coming out.

'These are better,' said Ash.

The Rshun stopped before the squat sentry post that barred their way on to the bridge. A masked Acolyte stepped out, hand resting on his sword hilt. He began to speak, but stopped abruptly when Ash thrust a knife into him, twisting it up into his lung.

Ash withdrew the blade, air whistling from the gaping wound. The man toppled on to his side, gasping like a fish out of water behind his mask.

Baracha stepped over him. A brief scuffle sounded from within the sentry post. He emerged grim-faced. They stepped on to the bridge.

Aleas still carried the bag in his hand, limp now. The king rat had stopped squirming. He cast a look over his shoulder and saw a shapeless mass following behind them. The tower loomed overhead, hidden eyes watching their approach. Loopholes ringed the lower reaches of the temple, jutting out from its sheer sides so that archers could fire straight down. Aleas tried to walk normally in his robes and with his heavy burden.

They halted at the base of the tower itself, in front of the massive iron gate. A grate slid open, at waist level, revealing only blackness beyond.

Aleas moved as instructed. He pulled open the neck of the bag, easily snapping the hair which bound it, and emptied the animal through the hole.

Almost immediately its fellow rats emerged from the fog and rushed for the gate. The three Rshun swung away to either side, batting the swarming creatures from their legs. Against the gate, the rats piled upwards like a drift of leaves until they were able to squirm through the open grate.

'Smoke,' demanded Ash, flapping his open hand. Aleas fumbled beneath his robe for one of the small bags filled with jupe bark and barris seed, and tossed it to him.

Shouts sounded from within. An alarm went up, a bell clanging fiercely.

The farlander bent and lit the bag's fuse with a match. He tossed it to the ground, where it began to spew clouds of white smoke that helped to augment the natural cover of fog. A bolt shattered at Aleas's feet and without even thinking he raised his double crossbow to aim at a loophole some twenty feet above his head, and snapped off a shot. From a different loophole a rifle spurted a blast of smoke and a hurtling lead shot, which couldn't be seen save for its bloody and instantaneous progress through Baracha's left ear.

'Aleas!' bawled the Alhazii. Aleas twisted and fired again.

While he was at this business of returning fire, Ash and Baracha were working to free one of the two small casks of blackpowder that hung beneath his robe. Baracha ignored the ruin of his ear, which hung in tatters, dripping blood. 'You tie knots just like my mother,' the Alhazii grumbled to Ash, both of them struggling to get the cask loose. More shots crashed down. The noise was deafening, shards of wood flying up around their feet. The cask finally came loose. Aleas reloaded his crossbow and huddled by the side of the gate, knowing they would be shot through in no time like this, smoke or no smoke. But he could hear shouts from the loopholes now, and guards yelling in panic. The rats had reached them.

His master's gruff voice could be heard above the gunfire: 'We need to use more,' he was shouting. 'We need to use both casks.'

Ash wasn't listening, though. He laid the wooden cask by the gate, soaked its fuse with water, scurried away.

'Clear away!' hollered Baracha, and all three jumped down from either side of the bridge on to the concrete foundations beneath it.

The fuse was a short one, though it seemed an eternity as they waited for it to soak through. The blackpowder cask was constructed from a single piece of wood, with a finger-wide hole at its top filled with thick, semi-hardened tar. The fuse poked through this, and when it sucked the water to the contents within, it would ignite from the sudden contact with moisture.

It exploded suddenly. An ear-jarring rush of air crashed overhead, followed by reeking black smoke and portions of wood and rat that splashed into the water of the moat in a brief shower of debris. Coughing, they poked their heads back up. The gate was still intact.

Baracha yelled as he jumped back on to the bridge. He waved his arms at the gate. A shot raced past his head, though he didn't flinch. Instead he straightened and looked up with a scowl.

Ash leaped up, too, and helped Aleas back on to the remnants of the bridge. Aleas's ears were still ringing from the explosion. No time to think, though. Through the smoke he could see that planks of the bridge had blown away to leave only the concrete foundation, exposed and blackened; the gates too were blackened, badly buckled, but seemingly intact. Before them Ash stood stroking the scabbard of his sword. He exchanged a glance with Aleas, his eyebrow raised. Aleas bent to reload his crossbow. More shots crashed out. One took the skin from Baracha's shoulder, before it skipped off the concrete, sailing past Aleas's right knee.

'By all that is holy!' Baracha bellowed up in rage. 'Will you aim at someone else, just this once!' He snatched the crossbow from Aleas and aimed at a loophole still boasting a cloud of drifting smoke. He fired twice. A shout of pain rang out. He tossed the piece back to his apprentice.

'Now what?' he demanded, rounding on Ash. 'I told you we needed to use both casks.'

Ash held a finger to his lips, attempting to hush the big man. He stepped through the clearing smoke and placed a palm against the smaller door set into the gate, which was now warped and partly ajar. He tilted himself forwards, pressing hard.

The door fell inwards. It clanged to the ground without any hint of a bounce. Within lay only smoke and darkness.

The pair of them swept through. Behind, Aleas hobbled under his load. An Acolyte lay writhing on the ground, smothered in a carpet of rats. They trod a path around him, not looking.

A wide entranceway lined with murder holes. Another gate at its end. But it lay open.

Beyond was a large, starkly gas-lit chamber, where several riding zels stood with their reins tied to posts, and next to them a few empty carts. Troughs of water lined two walls and a stable was close at hand, if the smell was anything to go by. Passages led off from the open space. The Rshun chose the one directly ahead, Ash going in front, Aleas taking the rear.

This passage led into the lower sanctum of the Temple of Whispers, the largest open area to be found within the tower. The walls of the space were the same colour as exposed flesh; a sacrificial altar, of pure white stone, stood at its far end in a pool of gaslight turned low. Columns of pink marble ran in two rows the entire length of the sanctum, rising into the dimness of a ceiling arching high overhead, which was covered entirely in friezes of Mann – images that reflected much of the chaos to be found on the floor below.

The chaos was one of panic: a desperation to escape the torrent of crazed vermin now converging on everything that moved. Acolytes struggled across the open space as though they were on fire, each enveloped in a mass of writhing fur. Some rolled on the floor, trying to crush their attackers. Yet the three Rshun stood amongst it all, unmolested.

'I did not expect this to be so easy,' quipped Baracha, which only an Alhazii could say while his ear dangled loose from his head.

The rats cleared a path for them as they trod through the mayhem. An enclosed spiralling stairwell occupied each corner of the temple space, three of them leading upwards. The nearest one, on their right, led downwards, however. The Rshun hovered next to it, peering into the gloom below.

'Slave quarters,' announced Ash.

'How can you tell?'

'The stink.'

The Rshun converged on the far end of the sanctum, before a shallow pool of water that extended across the entire floor, and separated the rest of the temple from the altar. They stopped to confer.

'You think Kirkus is still in the Storm Chamber?' Baracha asked, as an Acolyte charged past him and dived into the water. They all ignored him.

'We have no choice but to assume so.'

'There should be a climbing box,' said Baracha. 'All of these towers have one. Can you spot it?'

'There,' said Aleas, motioning to a door he could just discern in the wall behind the altar.

'We try the climbing box, then,' said Baracha. 'We'll never make it if we have to fight our way through every floor to get to the top.'

'Agreed.'

Ash mounted the thin bridge that vaulted the pool, his sword, even now, still in its sheath. Baracha stepped straight into the water and waded across. Aleas chose the bridge.

The twin doors of the climbing box were small, cast-iron, and firmly shut. There appeared to be no hole for a key, or any other obvious way in which it could be opened. 'Crowbar,' demanded Baracha with a snap of his fingers, hand outstretched.

Aleas began fumbling within his robe, till Baracha impatiently tore the front of the garment open to expose the harness. He snatched the crowbar from it, and set to working on the doors.

Still, they wouldn't open.

'We need to blow them,' he grunted, handing back the crowbar. Ash consented, and they took the remaining keg of blackpowder, set it against the door, soaked the fuse.

'Clear away!' bellowed Baracha as they scurried for cover. This time they had the good sense to cover their ears.

As the smoke cleared, a shaft was revealed through the blasted doorway. It soared straight upwards through blackness, as did the metal cable hanging taut to one side, and an iron ladder next to it.

'I was rather hoping we could hitch a ride,' observed Aleas drily.

'We climb,' rumbled Baracha.

*

Aleas went last, and he gritted his teeth with effort as he hauled his weight, hand, by hand up the rungs of the ladder. The shaft was illuminated partway by the light from below, but already he had lost sight of Ash in the murk above him, leading the way with Baracha some distance behind, climbing more slowly, because of his bulk. The shaft reeked of grease and was full of dust, so that Aleas stopped to sneeze more than once.

After a time, he was forced to stop and rest. The air rattled in his throat. His lungs were burning. He wiped his nose clean on his sleeve, and then crooked an elbow around a rung and locked himself in position by clasping both hands together. Aleas was strong and fit, but he wondered whether he could finish this climb. They were too far up now for the light penetrating the open door below to reach them, but his eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and he could see his master vanishing up ahead.

He had no choice but to follow, so he began to climb again.

It took him another four rests, with a great deal of hauling in between, before he rejoined his master. Baracha hung on the ladder in the dimness, waiting for him.

'What took you so long?' he hissed down.

'I was enjoying the sights,' said Aleas. 'And then, for the fun of it, I got to talking with a pretty girl from Exanse. Or was it Palo-Valetta? You know, I don't recall.'

'Pass the crowbar,' mumbled Baracha's voice.

Aleas did so, no easy manoeuvre with them both perched precariously on the ladder. He watched his master pass the crowbar on up to Ash, who was blocked from further progress by something solid spanning the shaft. Before long, chips of wood cascaded from above.

Aleas caught a fragment in his eye, and cursed as he blinked to clear it. For a moment his legs dangled freely.

'Aleas!' hissed his master in remonstration.

An entire plank of wood tumbled past then, bouncing off the side of the shaft as it disappeared beneath his feet. Two more followed, and then Ash was clambering up through the hole he had made, with Baracha following soon behind. Aleas, half blinded, pulled himself wearily up the final stretch. He grasped the edge of a jagged hole which had been hacked through the floor of a climbing box. Next moment, Baracha clutched him by the harness and heaved him right through, so that he hung there in his grasp, facing the big man, before his feet were set on the floor. He rubbed his afflicted eye, though that only served to make it worse. He could feel grime in his nostrils, sweat pouring from his skin.

The carriage was sealed with iron doors, a curved handle on either side obviously intended to slide them apart. Through them they could hear the muffled sound of bells ringing, and a voice barking orders.

Again, the crowbar failed to prise the doors open.

'Stuck fast,' gasped Baracha, while Ash studied a metal lever sprouting from one side of the cubicle. He pushed it up: the climbing box shuddered and rose by a centimetre. It clunked to a stop, then dropped back to its original position.

'We are not at the very top yet. This climbing box goes further.'

'So why doesn't it move?'

Ash stroked at a brass plate fixed immediately beneath the lever. All three peered closer, and saw that embedded in the plate were four brass tumblers, each stamped with a series of digits. Ash tried them with his thumb. They rotated, like tiny wheels on an axle, revealing different numbers as they moved.

'I've heard of this,' piped up Aleas. 'It's a number lock. You need to set the correct number on all four tumblers.'

Ash, thumbing through them, gave up with a wave of his hand. 'It would take a miracle to chance upon the correct sequence. I fear we are stuck.'

Even as he said this, the doors slid apart.

A dozen startled Acolytes stood blinking at the Rshun, who blinked back at them just as surprised.

Baracha, growling, grabbed the Acolyte closest to him and yanked him into the carriage. It broke the spell.

Ash and Aleas each grabbed a handle and began to close the doors, while the other Acolytes struggled to push their way through the narrowing gap. Fists crashed against Aleas' head, clawing hands grabbed for his hair.

Aleas strained against the handle while fending off an Acolyte; with blows impacting against his head, he saw glimpses of bared teeth, eyes widened in anger, a backdrop of bobbing heads and blades manoeuvring for an opportunity to strike. The doors were almost closed now. They were blocked by the shoulders and legs of a single Acolyte, who snorted through his nostrils at the effort of it, but still would not pull back.

'Arm yourself,' ordered Ash, as he wove his head back and forth from a lashing fist. The old man drew his blade at last as he jerked his head back from the point of a sword, and hacked down with his own. Blood shot into the climbing box, unreal, ghastly, bright.

Aleas struggled to draw his own steel. The sight in his left eye was bad – there was a splinter there for sure, which he could feel every time he blinked. He freed his blade and jabbed without aim.

Behind, he heard Baracha shouting at his captive. 'The number!' he was demanding.

'Push,' Ash encouraged the young apprentice, leaning into the effort. The door closed by another fraction.

More hands gripped at the closing edges. The Acolyte in the gap was either unconscious or dead, and those behind were using him now as both shield and leverage. Ash was meanwhile making a fine mess with the point of his blade. Blood jetted and pooled on the floor; Aleas slipped on it, fumbled to stay fixed to the door handle, dropped his sword in the process from his greasy hand. A burning pain slashed along one cheek, and he dodged his head aside, feeling wetness there. He tightened his grip against the door handle. and instinctively batted aside a blade he did not even see.

'Master!' he hollered, turning his head to the Alhazii.

Baracha had a hold of the man he was interrogating and was panting deeply only a millimetre from his face. The man was no Acolyte at all, but a priest of elderly years, with a bald pate and white hairs sprouting from his flaring nostrils.

'You'll get nothing, I tell you, nothing at all out of me.'

'No?' replied Baracha, as he hiked up the priest's robe and worked his hand beneath it.

Across from Aleas, Ash tumbled away from the door.

Aleas yelled as his hand lashed out to grab the suddenly vacated handle. The doors slipped wider again, allowing more shoulders and arms to gain leverage. Aleas roared for new strength, fought to keep the gap from widening any further. This is it, he thought, expecting a knife in his ribs at any instant. We never stood a chance.

The priest bumped against his back in his struggle with Baracha. 'Stop that,' the old man was shouting in a clipped accent.

'Master!' Aleas tried again. A face cursed at him, thrust so close he could smell the garlic on its breath. Above it, a length of wood was being forced between the doors, then someone else began to lever them open.

Baracha ignored him. 'The number, or I rip them right off of you.'

Ash was down; he was conscious, but moving as though drunk.

'Stop it!' shrilled the priest in a voice that verged on hysteria. Then he screamed with all his might.

'The number!' Baracha raged.

'Four-nine-four-one! Four-nine-four-one!' The priest's awful squeal filled the small space, and then it ceased abruptly. Aleas felt him slide down against his legs.

Baracha tossed something ragged and bloody to the floor. Bile rose in Aleas's throat. He didn't have time to linger on it, though, for a knife was snaking about his stomach, trying to find a way through all the gear slung about him.

Baracha leaned over Ash and thumbed the number lock on the door.

'Hurry,' Aleas growled.

'It doesn't work. The fool lied to me.'

'The lever! Push the bloody lever!'

With a shudder, the climbing box began to rise. Shouts of pain accompanied the sudden withdrawal of limbs from the doors, which did not move along with the carriage but fell away as they rose.

Aleas sagged back against one of the walls. He was sheeting sweat. Three gulps of air and then he pushed himself off the wall, and knelt down beside Ash.

'What's wrong with him?' Baracha asked.

Aleas saw the knife dangling from the old man's thigh, and inspected the gash. 'It's only a flesh wound,' he announced. Carefully, he drew the blade free. Ash gasped.

Baracha sniffed at the blade.

'Poison,' he said. 'Hurry boy, an antidote.'

Aleas gathered his wits. This was no time to fall apart.

He grabbed the medico hanging over his hip. 'Which one?'

'All of them.'

Aleas lifted all four vials of antidote and poured a few drops from each one between Ash's lips.

The climbing box clattered to a stop. Baracha jumped over to the new set of doors, grasped the handles to keep them closed. No one attempted to open them, though.

Aleas rubbed at his inflamed eye. He lifted the flask of water he carried and tilted his head back to wash it clear. He blinked, and repeated the treatment. It seemed to work. He then took a long drink.

'Rush oil,' Ash rasped from the floor.

Aleas knelt. He took a small clay pot from the medico, peeled off its paper stopper, dabbed some of the waxy cream on his finger, and smeared it on to Ash's lips.

The sparkle quickly returned to the old man's eyes. 'Help me to my feet,' he ordered.

'Easy,' said Aleas, helping him up. 'You've been poisoned.'

'I know. I can feel it.'

Baracha was listening against the double doors. 'How do you feel?' he asked quietly, turning. Ash offered a quick shake of his head.

'I think it's crushed hallow seed,' said Aleas, holding the poisoned blade close to his nose.

'Very rare,' commented Ash.

'And difficult to flush. We must purge you, once we get out of here.'

'Are you both ready?' asked Baracha.

Ash recovered his sword from the floor. He cast free his heavy robe and used it to clean the hilt, and then the curved length of its blade. He looked like a farmer cleaning his scythe.

A sharp pain struck the old man as he finished. He stooped, clutching his side as he sucked in a lungful of breath. It took an obvious force of will to straighten his back.

He finally nodded.

Baracha slid open the doors.