The Path of the Sword (73 page)

Rapping smartly, the stony faced guard pushed them open and called something that Jurel could not quite hear. There was a pause and faintly, like feathers rustling, there came some response. The guard stepped back through the door and motioned them through.

They entered another audience chamber, smaller than the one where they had been captured but far more opulent. Golden statues of Gaorla and his saints stood in silent judgment along walls that were covered in more tapestries. The floor gleamed like there was a sheet of clear, smooth ice coating the darkly lacquered wood. They stood on a thick carpet, red with golden thread embroidering the edges that was a path between them and the dais which stood in the center of the room. Upon the dais, stood a golden chair—more a throne really, with armrests carved in the likeness of roaring lions, and a back that ended with a disk four paces wide carved in the semblance of the sun so that whoever sat there seemed to be basked in God's light. And upon the chair sat an incredibly obese man, wearing a white robe spotted with wine. His bald pate gleamed like the floor under a sheen of sweat and his face was red, his breathing labored like a man who had just run ten miles.

“Your Grace, we captured these men trying to escape,” the sergeant said as he dropped to one knee.

“So here you are then, my children,” the fat man said. His voice oozed like oil, and he smiled beatifically though the smile did not reach his cold calculating eyes. “I am High Priest Calen. You may address me as 'Your Grace.' And who has the honor of being granted audience with me?”

That cold gaze passed over them much like the sergeant's had, but unlike the sergeant's, whose gaze seemed dull, uninterested, like the gaze of a man who could follow orders but not give them, the fat man's gaze was bright and shrewd; under the layers of flab and indolence, Jurel knew there was a man of unquestionable intelligence—and cruelty. And just as the sergeant had, those cold eyes paused when they beheld Gaven. An expression of regret, of sadness passed over the fat man's face and he shook his head.

“Ah, I see one of our own has been subverted by the wicked.” The fat man clicked his tongue like a parent reprimanding a wayward child. “And what is your name, soldier? No, wait. Let me guess. You are private Gaven Slaynish, correct? Recently demoted for gross misconduct? Of course.”

His eyes moved again. “And you, of course, are Mikal the famous swordmaster, I presume. Or perhaps
infamous
would be more appropriate, hmmm?” He laughed at his own joke, wheezing lightly. “And you of course, dear Kurin. We all know who you are. But tell me, who is the brute with you?
Would that be Jurel? Your precious salvation? Your God of War? He does not look so formidable to me,
at least not all bound in iron as he is.” Another gloating laugh. “And the other one, the short ugly one
with
the piercing gaze? Oooh, it fair makes me shiver to see such a gaze.”

“My name is Daved. I am a good honest god-fearing man and I demand you let us go.”

His father was a strong man, as strong as any Jurel had ever met but even Jurel had to gape at Daved's demand. Calen laughed in astonishment.

“And the spirit matches the eyes. If not the intellect.” he leaned back languorously in the ornate, almost garish, chair. “Tell me, Daved, why is an honest god-fearing man, as you say, skulking through Gaorla's temple transporting escaped heretics?”

“These men have done no wrong. You hold them illegally.”

“Illegally, you say? Kurin has had a warrant on his head for decades. He is a known heretic. These others are his accomplices. It is a cut-and-dried case and I'm afraid the sentence is immutable.”

“Bullshit, you fat lump,” Daved roared, straining against his shackles, straining against the Soldiers who kept him from reaching the corpulent man in his chair. “You're a liar and a coward.”

Calen's expression froze, changing from languid good humor to icy rage faster than the eye could follow. His already ruddy face mottled further, until it was nearly purple and he trembled.

“Perhaps,” Calen hissed, “I have overindulged our guests. Perhaps it is time to establish who exactly is in charge here. Sergeant. Dispose of him.”

The sergeant barked a command and without hesitation a soldier drew his sword and plunged it into Daved's chest. The tip tore through his back and up, glistening wetly in the light and Daved gasped in surprise.

“
FATHER! NOOOO!
”

He pried himself free of the guards that held him, and caught Daved as his legs buckled. Carefully, Jurel lowered his father to the ground and stared into those eyes he had known all his life. Daved's face was the pale white-gray color of bone and when he coughed, red flecked spittle burst from his mouth. He shivered as if he were cold.

“
Hang on father.
We
'll get you out of here.”

He tried to smile. He tried to impart some confidence in his words, in his voice. But he had none to give. Through a haze of tears, he saw his own father smile weakly in return. Daved reached up and patted his son's shoulder as if it was Jurel that needed the comfort instead of himself.

“Never fear, my boy,” Daved rasped and his voice was weak, wavering in a way Jurel had never before heard, not even that night that Galbin fell from the roof, and it tore at him, threatened to destroy him right then and there. “Never fear. You'll be all right.”

“Father, no. You must not speak. Save your strength.”

“No. No, Jurel. My time grows short. Look, I can see it already. Look.” He seemed to look over Jurel's shoulder, into the distance. He seemed to see something that no one else could and he smiled gently, calmly like some great weight had been lifted from him. When he spoke again, his voice was a whisper, “Have I told you how proud I am of you, lad? Have I told you...?”

Coughing wracked him, a deep tearing hack that made him double over with his arms wrapped now around his bleeding chest, while blood spewed from his mouth, thick blood, the dark blood that was at the core of every man's being, that held the very threads of life. And when his eyes focused on Jurel's again, they were cloudy with pain.

“I love you son. I-I...”

He spasmed, grimaced, coughed more thick blood. The last light that was Daved Histane dimmed until, with one last rattling breath, it went out and he stared fixedly into the distance at something that no living being was ever allowed to see.

It could not be. No. It could not be. Jurel shook his father, calling his name quietly in the way that one does to waken a deep sleeper. A numbness descended on Jurel. A cold numbness that could never be matched by the coldest midwinter night, that could never be matched by the deepest waters of any ocean, or by the scrubbing winds on the highest mountain peak. His ears rang as though some gigantic bell played a mournful dirge and he shook his father, calling his name quietly.

“How touching. Let that be a lesson to you,” Calen said in that oily, self-satisfied voice into the silence of the audience hall. “There will be no escape. Not for any of you this day.”

Escape? Was he mad? Escape? Jurel did not
want
escape. There were plenty of ideas vying for Jurel's interest at that moment and escape was far down on the list. In fact, escape might have been the last thing, right at the very bottom. As he stared at his father, something stirred. Some hidden past, an ancient secret that had been buried by time and life.

His ears rang.

The mournful dirge of the gong in his head was accompanied suddenly by frantic, insistent, jangling bells that sounded like swords striking each other, like armor clinking, like steel clad feet marching by the thousands. His ears rang and though the fear was there, it was drowned by the rage, the hunger, the
lust
that coursed hotly through Jurel's veins.

“You killed my father,” he said quietly, interrupting whatever nonsense the fat man on his golden chair was spouting.

“I am terribly sorry for it, too,” Calen sneered. “Perhaps next time he will watch his tongue. Oh, my mistake. There will be no next time for him will there?”

He laughed though Jurel barely heard it. The force of the ringing increased, became a river in him, a river that searched for an outlet, and if it did not find one soon, Jurel knew it would
make
one.

“You killed my father,” Jurel repeated more loudly, and his voice rasped like sandpaper on wood.

As Calen laughed and said something that he could not hear, he closed his eyes, trembling, shivering, trying to hold himself together, to keep himself from flying apart into a million pieces. The river changed, intensified until it became a lake and then an ocean, and he clenched his teeth and shut his eyes so that he would not burst from the forces that raged within. Images flicked past quicker than thought in his mind's eye, images of his life, of his friends, of his father. Of both his fathers. They whirled, caught in a tornado spinning about with other mental jetsam: the tang of honey and wine and spices as Erin's lips brushed lightly against his; Valik's glare as he stood over Jurel with a raised fist; a sword, vicious and serrated wielded by a savage from the north; a red poppy on a white apron. Those and a hundred other images whirled and spun crazily, arcing into his view and back out faster and faster until it was all a terrible, red-tinged blur.

Then it stopped. As suddenly as a branch snapping, it stopped, and Jurel felt something like peace. But it was a false peace, the peace of a man too long in the desert suddenly being given too much water, an icy calmness that overlay the boiling of a cauldron over a fire.

He opened his eyes and looked up while thrills ran up and down his body causing his hair to rise, to stand up like he was too close to a lightning strike. Gasps rose from throats all over the room and the fat man, Calen, gaped at him, half risen from his chair, his eyes like saucers, his mouth dropping open in an O of surprise.

“You killed my father,” said the God of War.

Chapter 63

Kurin's body ached so fiercely he thought he must fall were it not for the guards that held him. The shackles about his wrists dragged his arms down; he feared his arms might come out of their sockets, and they felt hot around his wrists like they had just come out of a fire. He knew he was ill. His time in confinement had not been easy and his lungs burned, filled as they were with fluid.

In utter misery, he watched as Jurel wept and as Daved whispered something to him. Something that could not be heard by any but Jurel. The man's mortal wound was weakening him at an astonishing rate (
probably nicked the heart. That would explain it,
he thought); whatever Daved said came out as no more than a whisper. He watched and saw Daved's eyes grow dim, saw him spasm and slump, and his head lolled as his neck went limp. He sighed one last rattling breath.

“You killed my father,” Jurel said and the anguish in his voice tore Kurin's heart.

As Calen spoke words that were meaningless to him, Kurin wanted to leap forward and wrap his arms around the young man, to tell him everything would be all right. He wanted to sprint to the dais and disembowel the fat bastard who sat there. But he could barely stand without the help of the guards.

“Such a pity,” Calen said from his golden throne. “But one does not speak to a high priest with such impertinence.”

“Why?” Kurin croaked. “Why would you do such a thing?”

Calen watched the spectacle in front of him, below him, as if it riveted him like a good play acted by master mummers. He did not bother to look away from the tragic scene as he answered.

“He was unnecessary. And besides, you needed to be taught a valuable lesson,” Calen said and he waved his hand like a mosquito hummed about him.
Hush
, his demeanor said,
I am trying to watch the show.

Kurin was not a violent man by nature. He was a healer; he had always done everything in his power to provide aid and relief to whomever he could. But he was not a stranger to violence; at that moment, he would gladly have killed the fat bastard with his bare hands. Slowly. He watched as Jurel trembled with bowed head and closed eyes, and Kurin's heart went out to him.

“So this is your precious God of War, is it? This mewling whelp is supposed to save your ridiculous order?” Calen said suddenly.

“You have no idea, Calen, what that young man is capable of,” Mikal growled.

Calen finally looked away from the grim scene and regarded Mikal with smug surprise. “Oh? Is that so? Well then it is a good thing that he is surrounded by nearly sixty soldiers. Not to mention his shackles.”

He chuckled like a hyena, a high pitched sound that grated at Kurin. He leaned forward then, quicker than Kurin would have thought possible and his expression changed from mild smugness to stone.

“Now then. We have escaped prisoners. We have a turncoat, we have a dead heretic and we-”

Jurel lifted his head and opened his eyes, and Kurin gasped. The sound was echoed by the three score people in the audience hall and Calen half rose from his seat, his eyes wide with deepest shock. Jurel's eyes were blue. Not his regular blue, not blue as a handsome man has. Not blue as the sky, or blue as a stormy sea. But
blue
. They shone, radiated as though lightning had taken up residence in his head and the electric light poured out.

“You killed my father,” Jurel rumbled in a voice that Kurin could only describe as...god-like.

The misery was gone, the hollow anguish that had so torn at Kurin's heart was absent like it had never been. Instead, there was a depthless anger, a rage so all-encompassing that the hall itself seemed to feel it, seemed to quail from it. Gingerly, as gently as if he held the finest crystal, Jurel laid his father on the floor at his feet, laid a hand on his father's chest. Then he rose fluidly to his feet and...