Sacred Fire

Chapter 13

The olive trees, laden with the green beginnings of fruit, whispered in the wind. They were a dense tangle, and the shadows beneath them lay thick. There seemed to be voices in the creaking of their branches, but if there were words they were muted, impossible to make out

Cathan stared at the olives, his face as white as a priest’s vestment. “Here?” he asked.

“Here,” the Kingpriest agreed. “I’m sorry, my friend. I forgot you know this place. But it is safe now-the wizards are long gone.”

Cathan swallowed, glancing behind him. The people of the Lordcity had not built any houses near this grove, even now, and even the crowd that had followed him and Beldinas from the Temple hung back at the edge of the broad, open area surrounding the trees. The superstitions about the olive grove ran deep, and with good reason: There had been a time when magic flowed in the sap of these trees, an ancient enchantment to keep out the unwelcome. Anyone who wandered into the grove unbidden soon found his memory muddled, so that he had no idea who he was, or why he had come. Cathan knew those tales were true, for he had felt the olives’ sorcery himself. He’d been here before, in the months before the war with the sorcerers.

The trees’ magic was still there; he felt a prickling that grew stronger with every step he took toward the grove. The spell had dimmed over the years, though. He looked up, above the spreading boughs at the Tower within.

The spire of the High Sorcerers-once one of five in the world, now one of three-soared high, a column of white stone topped with five crimson turrets and black parapets. Men called it the Bloody-Fingered Hand, and forked their fingers against evil whenever they gazed at it. Once, the greatest wizards in Istar had dwelt within, and it had seethed with the power of the three moons. But the wizards were gone now, fled to their sanctuary at Wayreth, and the Tower was a dead thing, stone only, devoid of enchantment. The sight of it still made Cathan’s mouth go dry.

“What better place to house the relics of heathens?” Beldinas said, leading the way around the grove. “There were no greater heretics than the wizards, after all, and none who did greater harm to our empire.”

“Why house the relics at all?” Cathan asked. He said nothing about the wizards, though memories of Leciane flashed through his head. He knew he could not sway the Lightbringer from his belief that sorcery was an evil thing. “Why not destroy them, leave them lost to history?”

The Kingpriest spread his hands. “We did that, when you were with the Hammer. But one can learn much from one’s enemies. The Dark One himself has taught me this. When light triumphs, the tokens of evil will lose their usefulness. Until then, though, it is good that those who fight the darkness have a place to see what it is they face.”

“The clergy, you mean,” Cathan said.

“And the knighthood. All who serve the church can benefit from this place, if they dare enter.”

They stopped at the south edge of the grove. There had not been a path through the olives years ago, but there was one now, running straight through their midst. White stones marked with the triangle and the burning hammer lined it on either side. On the far end stood slender gates of gold and iron. Beldinas gestured down the trail, and after a moment’s hesitation Cathan led the way. He tried not to look at the trees around him as he walked, tried not to listen for the words they whispered.

The Kingpriest reached to the throat of his robes and produced a medallion. With a nod to Cathan, he pressed it to the gates. There was a shimmering sound, a faint glow of a color Cathan couldn’t name, and the golden bars swung open, letting them pass. Beyond, the Tower soared above them: A sweep of broad black steps rose to tall doors of what looked like solid jasper, as red as heart’s-blood. Cathan’s heart thudded as he and Beldinas climbed the stair, the doors opening without a sound at their approach.

“Solio Febalas,” declared the Kingpriest as they stepped inside. “The Halls of Sacrilege.”

The shadows were thick inside, and even with Beldinas shining beside him, Cathan could see nothing but blackness for a time. Then the doors boomed shut and his god-touched eyes adjusted. Dim shapes appeared amid the gloom, cold and colorless in the Kingpriest’s silver light: terrible shapes, some that he knew, and some he did not. Here stood a huge dragon’s skull, the brainpan emptied to make a sacrificial bowl that still retained a crust of rusty blood. There was a massive pair of merchant’s scales, wrought of bronze and bent so they would never weigh true. Beyond was the shell of a giant tortoise, and past that a statue of black onyx, in the form of a hooded man with garnet eyes glinting within the depths of his cowl. The idols filled the Tower’s wide entry chamber; they were tokens of gods dark and false. When Cathan was a knight, he had destroyed many such icons. Now they came here instead. Somehow, that seemed the greatest sacrilege of all.

But there weren’t just the relics of evil. Among the foul artifacts, his eyes picked out objects that had been holy to other gods-an anvil of Reorx, made of cold steel set with glittering emeralds, and sapphires; a tree of Zivilyn, once a living thing but now gray and leafless; a fire-caldron sacred to Sirrion the Flowing Flame. These were faiths that had never done harm to any man, but had not striven against the darkness either. He had never understood them, how they could stand apart from both good and evil.

Beldinas saw him staring at the tree, and bowed his head. “They would not join us in our struggle,” he said. “Some even helped the evil ones, giving them shelter from the Hammer.”

“I remember” Cathan murmured. The purges of the gray faiths had been just beginning during his last days in the knighthood. “Was it necessary to wipe them out?”

“Scafo casi scafam boniat.” Beldinas’s voice was solemn. “A gray shadow remains a shadow, my friend.”

Cathan bowed his head. He thought of the priests, the faithful, who had gone to death or slavery because of that proverb. He and Ebonbane had sent their share howling to the Abyss-but their foes had been evil, Chemoshans and Sargonnites and Hidduki. The gray ones, the Sirriites and Shinareana and Chislev-kin… had they deserved the same fate? He thought of Idar and his family, who had suffered because they placed their faith in Zivilyn, and he remembered what Tancred had told him in the tunnels, what he must see here.

“Fan-ka-tso,” he whispered.

Beldinas looked at him sharply. “What did you say?” Cathan turned to gaze at him. “Fan-ka-tso. I want to see it.”

“Where did you hear of that?”

“Some of Tithian’s knights were talking about it,” Cathan replied evasively. “They wouldn’t tell me what it was-only that it was here.”

He had never lied to the Kingpriest before. As the eyes within the silver glow stared at him, he was sure the deceit showed in his face. He sweated, his heartbeat grew quick. Beldinas knew, had to see through him … then, against his breastbone, he felt the malachite amulet tremble, just slightly. It must have masked his thoughts, as Tancred had promised, for the Lightbringer bowed his head with a sigh.

“Very well,” he said. “I will show you. Better that you learn the truth, rather than hearing nothing but rumor and lies. Follow me.”

He turned and strode past the idols, toward a white door studded with sunstones. Cathan gave the heathen idols one last look, shuddered, and hurried after, following the Kingpriest’s light.

The statue had been large, towering more than twice the height of a man. It was hewn of golden jade, a stone found only in the jungles of Falthana, which the natives of that province claimed was made from the frozen tears of the last gold dragons. Cathan had never seen so much of the stuff, which glistened as if warmed from within. It was sculpted into a mannish form, though it differed from a human’s in several ways. For one thing, it had six arms, two of which held a chisel-tipped sword and a beaked war axe; three of the others had broken, and the weapons that remained were only hilts and stubs; the last was gone at the elbow. It was covered with scales: Armor or flesh, it was hard to tell. But the strangest thing of all was its head.

Fan-ka-tso had three faces, arranged about its head, each sharing one eye with the next. They all had different expressions: one laughing, one pinched with sorrow, one contorted with rage. Their eyes were chips of some deep blue stone Cathan didn’t recognize. Their teeth were sharp, almost tusks, and their tongues were pointed like spears.

The Hammer had not been gentle in pulling down the idol. It was broken in half across the waist, and the pieces stood side-by-side in the upper Hall. Its feet were missing-probably still attached to it’s plinth, somewhere in the depths of the jungle-and chips were missing from its lower half, where the knights had attacked it with hatchet and sledge.

Cathan stood before Fan-ka-tso, wondering. To his eye, it was yet another false god, some demon the Falthanans had elevated beyond its place. He’d seen many such icons in his time, but this statue was different, somehow. There was no blood on it, and there was something strangely familiar. Tancred had told him to seek it out: would he have done that if Fan-ka-tso were simply another beast of the Abyss?

“Its name,” he said. “I don’t speak Old Falthanan. What does it mean?” The Kingpriest signed the triangle, warding against whatever spirit might still dwell within the statue. “ ‘Ever-Watcher’” he said.

Cathan stiff an image came to his mind: Sir Marto, the big, blustering Falthanan knight who had been under his command and who had died at Losarcum. Marto had spoken a great deal about his homeland, about the great cities of Karthay and Yerasa, about the gods of his fathers: the Mirrorsnake who was an aspect of Paladine … the Lady of Tears, who was Mishakal the Healing Hand … and the Ever-Watcher, who was-

“Jolith,” he murmured, his blood turning cold.

Kiri-Jolith, the lord of battle, was one of the Divine Hammer’s patrons. Every culture gave him a different form, but the one venerated by the Istaran church was that of Carnid, the Horned One, a massive warrior with horns upon his helm. Fan-ka-tso was a different manifestation of Jolith, but it was still the same god. Yet they had pulled it down and ravaged it.

He turned to stare at Beldinas. “Why?”

“Some of the Falthanans rejected the gods’ true forms,” the Kingpriest replied. “They refused to convert to the Horned One. It had to be stopped.”

“So you sent the Hammer after them. What about the priests?”

The Kingpriest sighed. “Not all of them surrendered. There was nothing else to do.”

“Nothing else…” Cathan put a hand to his mouth, turned away as his eyes began to sting. In his mind, he could see it: The Divine Hammer wading into the fray, swords and maces flying, bringing down the last of the diehards. He had done it often enough, against those who walked in shadow. The clerics would have burned their bodies, purifying them with holy oil. As for the rest, those who surrendered … Karthay must have a slave market, too.

“But this was a god of light,” he breathed.

Beldinas’s hand rested on his shoulder. “It was a corruption. Carnid is the one true form of Jolith. The rest is trickery, distortion.” He gestured at the broken statue. “Evil is subtle, my friend. It is the scorpion hiding within the orchid’s bloom. They may have worshipped Fan-ka-tso as a good thing, but it was one of the dark ones’ tricks. If we are to defeat evil forever, we must destroy it in all its manifestations. The skin of holiness cannot disguise or protect it.”

There were other shapes in the gloom of the chamber. Cathan couldn’t bring himself to look at them, for he now knew they would be familiar: Habbakuk and Branchala, Majere and Mishakal…. Paladine as well. All of them as they had been worshipped in the old kingdoms, Seldjuk and Dravinaar, even Taol. The church had wiped out the dark gods, smashed the gray. Now it pursued the light.

“But who determines what are the true forms, and what are false?” he murmured. “Who decides?”

“I do,” Beldinas replied. “I am the gods’ chosen, remember?”

Cathan said nothing, only bowed his head. He felt old again… old, and tired.

“It is hard to accept, I know,” the Kingpriest said gently. “You’ve been gone a long time. The war with darkness is not as it was when you left. The fewer places evil can dwell, the more it is wont to hide, and no more than in men’s hearts. Every man’s … even yours, and mine.”

“Yours?” Cathan looked up, surprised, and he saw through the aura again, saw the man within. The surprising fear in his eyes.

“Mine,” said Beldinas. “I feel it, Cathan. All around me … and within me. It gnaws at my soul, like some beast of the netherworld. For a long time I thought I would never be free of it.” His voice dropped to a whisper. His grip on Cathan’s shoulder grew tight, claw-like. “But I’ve found a way. I know how to win the war, to drown the shadows in light everlasting!”

In that moment, looking into those haunted, hunted eyes, Cathan understood: the Kingpriest was mad. Fear and fervor had stripped away his mind, leaving something else. Brother Beldyn, the young monk he had sworn to so long ago, was gone, devoured by this creature who made enemies of good gods and enslaved those who did not agree with him. Cathan mourned for him.

He knew, then, what he had to do.

“I’m listening, Holiness,” he said. “Tell me.”

It was nearly morning when they left the Tower, heading back to the Temple. Beldinas smiled when they parted, and clapped Cathan on the shoulder. “Spring Dawning,” he said. “Remember, my friend. We set forth the day after Spring Dawning.”

“I’ll remember,” Cathan said. “Don’t worry.”

They parted then, the Kingpriest returning to his manse. Cathan stood alone in the Garden of Martyrs, staring at the names of men who had died for Beldinas. Following the orders of a lunatic. His own name had been carved there, and removed.

The air in the garden grew cold. Frost appeared on the leaves, on the obelisks. Cathan didn’t turn, didn’t need to. He could see the black-robed figure clearly enough in his mind.

“You understand, now,” said Fistandantilus. “It is nothing so simple as good against evil. Not any more.”

“You could end this,” Cathan said. “You could bring him low with a word. Why haven’t you?”

The dark hood whispered as the archmage shook his head. “What would that accomplish? It would make him the greatest martyr of all. Evil cannot strike the blow that must fall, Twice-Born. No, this time it must be good that fights against the light.”

Cathan understood, and it sickened him. Every instinct, deep in his bones, screamed at him that the Dark One was lying, that this was some elaborate trick… but he had seen it with his own eyes: the tunnels, and the cages, and the broken idols in the dark. And he knew the truth about Beldinas. It terrified him, even more than Fistandantilus did.

“Good,” the sorcerer said. “We will speak again, when this is over.”

Then he was gone, and the cold with him. Cathan stood alone, watching the mist of his breath vanish, until he felt the tears dry on his cheeks.