The Betrayed (33 page)

Despite his duties, he often thought about Mali.

Her strength fascinated him. She was a free woman, unafraid, resolved. To a whore like himself, it was one of the most beautiful things one could see.

The night of their union had been…special. He had felt so relaxed, so serene with her. But as they’d started to make love, the ghosts of his past had come back, taken over his body. He could still remember humanity oozing away.

He sighed. Dead men could not love. Even if he wanted, he would not know how.

Adam shook his head, trying to disperse the morose thoughts. Ragged shouting and cheering stole his attention. A group of mercenaries and some of his troops were clustered around something, their faces twisted into the bestial rictus that children had when they tortured insects.

Adam felt the anguish of his memory coiling inside his belly. He needed deliverance, an excuse. He started toward the group.

Indeed, the soldiers were busy torturing a small dog, having hung it upside down from the wash lines and poking it with embers. The furry little thing squealed and trashed. Adam’s blood chilled. The ghosts of past burns on his back tingled.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

The group sobered instantly. Smiles vanished; guffaws choked.

“We were having some fun, that’s all,” one of the mercenaries hazarded.

“Poking one another’s arses would be called fun,” Adam offered, smiling softly.

“What’s wrong, sir? It’s just a stupid little dog,” the mercenary said.

“Just a dog,” another soldier offered, shrugging.

Adam took a deep breath. “Just a dog.”

Half an hour later, all the members of the little group were hanging upside down, ropes coiled about their feet, already turning black from the lack of blood. They wept and begged as Adam’s men readied hot pokers. One of them was already unconscious. A huge crowd had gathered. No one said a single word.

“If I ever witness a man torturing an animal—or another human—he should better kill himself before I get to him. Do you understand? Good.”

Whispers spread like wildfire.

A mercenary captain was heading his way. The man had a strut of one very displeased. Adam turned to face him.

“Who gave you permission to torture my men?” he said.

Adam did not even blink. “Would you like to join them, Captain Franco?”

The mercenary sniffed sharply. “Commander, what is the meaning of this?”

The former whore nodded to himself. “Ah, ‘commander,’ that’s better. Your men presumed the life of a small dog was less important than theirs, so they decided to torture it. They are being reeducated as we speak. I believe they see the errors of their ways.”

The captain flushed with rage. “Release them at once!”

Adam rolled his eyes, pretending to think this over. “No.”

The mercenary looked around him. Hundreds of Adam’s men stood all about. They all had the same insane look in their eyes. They worshipped this lunatic.

“You torture men over something as insignificant as a little fucking dog. You are mad,” the captain spat.

Adam smiled again. “Maybe. But you are a presumptuous animal to think that a dog is less important than yourself. You are an animal, Captain. Don’t delude yourself. At least the dog has some dignity. Now, get lost before I lose my temper.”

The captain gritted his teeth, swallowing hard. He was weighing his options.

Adam decided to help him. He reached into his pocket; he always had coins there. He threw a fistful on the ground before the hireling. “Dance for me, fool.”

Captain Franco eyed the coins, but didn’t move to pick them up.

Adam made a derisive shooing motion. “Go on, fuck off.”

Biting off a curse, the captain stalked away. Adam was not worried. The cur would serve him, because he paid him money. It was as simple as that. And he would never dare betray him, because he knew Adam was a greater monster than he’d ever be. His soul would eat itself for it, but he would stay and fight and die for Adam.

He nodded. The three masked men lifted the pokers from the fire and began their grisly work. Screams shook the camp.

Adam did not stay to watch. He had a reading lesson to attend.

CHAPTER 30

A
rmin sat in the foyer of the City Library, reading. Discovering the name of the sponsor had opened a whole new world of possibilities before him, a completely new lead in his investigation. Now, slowly, the loose ends were finally coming together.

Davar. A simple name of a simple man. He had paid handsome sums to dozens of clerks all around the city, discreetly inquiring about this person. The truth had trickled like honey, drop by lazy drop.

Twenty years ago, Davar had been a minor noble in Caytor, not far from Eybalen. Then, one day he had sold all of his property and started the Movement. With the money he had, he bought friends and the first followers and built shrines. The founder patriarch of the Feoran religion.

Armin’s mind refused to accept the facts at face value. Something was terribly odd. Why would a religious zealot of a sect that professed against the rich and noble give money to his very opponents?

The reason eluded him for now. Whatever Davar intended, he kept it well hidden. As the years progressed, the Movement had grown, becoming the menace that held Caytorean society in thrall. Most of the time, Davar had been in Eybalen, manipulating, sending his underlings across the realm to lure and convert people. And then, one day, less than a year ago, he had vanished, just as suddenly as he had come.

Rumors held that he was in western Caytor, rousing people to his cause. About the same time, the eight murder victims had begun their strange businesses, ferrying people and goods to an unknown location, with Davar’s gold in their pockets.

Ronald Wan’der Norssin had disappeared, too, leaving behind a lot of outraged and angry bank managers, but he had discovered Shipwright Boune had not been the only person to collaborate with the patriarch. Most of the deceased had received payments from him.

Armin wished he had some access to the Feorans. He burned to know where they pooled their resources, where their money came from. They did tax the followers symbolically and gladly welcomed donations. They also plundered other temples and orchestrated small crimes. But most of their shady finances went into the establishment of new shrines and temples, into buying weapons. There was no way the Movement could support the huge endeavors the eight dead men had done.

This made Armin believe there was yet another actor in the story, one who pulled the strings of its puppets.

This time, he had no luck. Davar was a dead end.

Another investigator might have given up, but not Armin. Lacking a lead, he searched for one. There was always something, some giveaway. People were creatures of history; they lived in the past and shaped their future with memories. Things always had a reason, always a precedent.

So now he was in the library, poring over books.

The ascension of the Movement intrigued him. If it had happened once, it must have had happened before. He had begun delving into the history of Caytor. And when it had proved boring and uneventful, he’d started reading about religion.

Finding good sources on the houses of the gods had been a tricky one. The patriarchs did not seem too keen to share their annals with the public. A part of their power came from the mystery of the past, the uncertainty of old testaments and faded writings.

Still, even the most dated books drew a very simple picture of the world. The gods and goddesses had always been there, as long as humanity had existed. The names of the deities and characteristics were consistent as far back as the books went.

None ever mentioned Feor.

Armin found it even more intriguing that both the Feorans and the old religions tried to keep Feor from the books as much as possible. There must have been a reason, more than just plain disdain. If they did not want you to read something, it meant there was something that they did not want you to know about.

It seemed like a dead end. But then, he started thinking about the names. Most names had no meaning in the modern Continental, people’s as well as those of their creators. And suddenly, a new god had risen, and it had a name, an old name.

Names got changed down the pathway of time. Only very sophisticated and powerful societies managed to keep their identities from being eroded by the winds of time. Sirtai had their family lines worming into ages long forgotten. It was a testimony to their power and integrity.

The continentals were shallow nations, contemporary, fleeting, cultures that would vanish with the years, assimilated into newer, better, stronger societies. They even had no family names. And when an old name emerged amidst their lot, there was a reason for it.

The City Library had a whole section on languages. Armin had spent the last week hunting down dictionaries, trying to decipher names. Every hour took him further into history. Books became vellums and parchments and strips of leather, even pieces of rotting wood.

He sat by a large desk of polished oak, heaps of books surrounding him. He found vague references and similarities, even managed to decipher the names of some of the goddesses, like Lilith and Selena. Feor was a mystery.

The sun was setting. They were going to close the library soon. It would be another day without success.

Maybe it was sheer luck, or his superior intellect, but he found himself holding a derelict Keutan dictionary, tracing entries with a finger. He dared not touch the brittle pages. He barely dared breathe. The letters were the same, most of them, but the words had no meaning in Continental. Even the translation was alien to him. He had to use several books to finally understand what the words meant.

Then, he found it. Feor.

He leaned back, smiling. Another piece of the mystery unraveled.

Gently, he placed the dictionary on the table and rose, stretching his weary limbs. He began pacing around the foyer, thinking. Keutan was a very old language. The last time it had been spoken was thousands of years ago. People who had used it, the forefathers of modern Caytoreans, were long, long gone, another speck of dust in the passage of time.

Armin went to see one of the librarians. “Excuse me,” he said.

“We are closing very soon, sir,” the man stated in a cold, emotionless voice.

“Indeed. I need books on Caytorean history, the oldest you have.”

Grudgingly, the librarian abandoned his post and led Armin to a warren of shelves and ancient manuscripts. Maybe it was Armin’s foreign look that intrigued him.

Hidden in a corner of cobwebs and bird droppings, there were some of the most derelict books on the history of the Caytor nation. Armin took his time, prying the books from the sediment, turning pages with his heartbeat skipping as they crackled and crumbled.

Finally, he managed to find several intact volumes. There was not much time. He skipped over pages, struggling with the archaic dialects. He could have easily found most of what was written in them in new, preserved books, but he had no interest for the obvious.

He just wanted to know how far the annals went. Dates. He searched for dates, for monumental and epic events that marked changes in history and the passing of eons. There were mentions of wars, great and small, but nothing that seemed extraordinary.

Caytor changed its name and shape on the sketched maps as history faded into ancient oblivion. Armin found the texts fascinating. He knew he would be back to read in earnest. But for now, he just needed to know what the historians had to tell him.

A bell tolled. They were closing the library. Librarians rose from their desks and began ushering people out. A cough startled him. The same man who had helped him earlier stood nearby, impatient, stern. Armin placed the books on the heap, thanked the man, and went outside.

All of the books had been written in Caytorean, albeit an ancient form that made his eyes water. But they were all dated much after Keutan had died as a language. He was not going to find what he needed in the City Library.

He doubted he would find what he needed in Eybalen. History was a human thing, something that existed because of people. Without people to relate to events, history was just a collection of fancy tales.

As a nation, the Caytoreans could not care less about those who came before them. It was not their story to tell. Armin vaguely knew that the ancient nations of the continent had been pagan, worshippers of demons and spirits and idols. They could not merit mentioning in the world shaped by the gods and goddesses. So, the Caytoreans ignored them and allowed their stories to be forgotten. It was not different from what Sirtai had done to the natives of the islands, or from what had happened to the nomadic peoples in the Red Desert.

However, as long as somewhere a book existed to tell the tale, those long dead and vanished could not be completely forgotten. They existed in those books.

Sirtai vaults were deep with knowledge about the continental peoples. And while the Eracians and Caytoreans hid dark and horrible truths about their past though forgetfulness, Sirtai scribes had written their stories down without sentiment. The real truth about Caytorean history was kept in Tuba Tuba.