He yielded, circling and waiting, and finally his opening came. It appeared in the overextension of Jaim’s right foot. Dassem lashed out with his forward leg, striking the knee outwards, and Jaim, unbalanced, tumbled to that side as Dassem knew he would, his own blade already thrusting to take him through the heart as he fell.
Jaim struck the dirty cobbles of the road with Dassem already withdrawing his blade. He lay staring, a puzzled expression on his face, blinking at the sky as his fate registered in his mind. Then the puzzlement cleared and he nodded to Dassem, mouthing silently, My apologies …
Dassem saluted him, grip raised to his chin.
Three of the deputies converged on the body, collecting the swords, a waist-pouch, and other possessions. The fourth, the greybeard, bowed to Dassem. ‘He was the best of us. None other could touch him.’ He shook his cowled head in wonderment. ‘Our apologies, Sword. But we had to be certain.’
‘I offer no blame.’
‘We shall return to our congregations and struggle to survive this plague as best we may. You, too, should prepare, Lord Dassem. I suspect Heng will not be spared.’ And he bowed for the last time, gesturing his brothers away.
Dassem watched them go, then turned to Nara; she stood with her hand still clenched at her throat. ‘Every time, I worry,’ she breathed. ‘Even though I know I should have faith – I cannot help it.’
He returned to sit cross-legged before the sarcophagus once more. ‘I understand.’ He looked up at her. ‘Will you accept my training now?’
She shook her head. ‘I do not want to hurt anyone.’
‘But you may have to defend yourself.’
She winced and let her hand fall. ‘Well, there is that…’
He nodded. ‘Good. We’ll use the open yards between the mausoleums.’
A voice called from the street, making Nara jump, ‘Acolyte, or priest! Or champion. Or whatever it is you choose to call yourself! There’s a body out here.’
Dassem sighed and rose. He urged Nara further back into the mausoleum and moved to its open threshold, squinting against the light.
A single man stood in the centre of the street. At first impression he resembled a dock labourer or farm worker, in ragged tunic and trousers, his hair a greying unkempt mop upon his scarred, uneven scalp. But in Dassem’s vision he fairly glowed with power and potential.
One of the city mages who ruled Li Heng, named Ho.
Dassem stepped out on to the street. At least two others of the five city mages were probably present as well, hidden, watching from among the crowd.
‘Do you wish my professional opinion on the matter?’
The man gave a toothy smile. ‘Looks to me like your work.’
‘How can you tell?’
The mage’s meaty hands twitched at his sides and Dassem sensed the sizzling energies of an open Warren. ‘Call it intuition,’ he said.
Dassem slowly crossed his arms. ‘I understand you’ll need a witness.’
‘We’ll find one.’
‘Let me know when you do.’
‘We will. It’ll be exile for you, soon enough.’
‘Come back then.’
‘We will.’ And he nodded aside, presumably to one of his compatriots. A Dal Honese woman stepped out from among the crowd of onlookers, heavy and broad-hipped, with a wild mane of hair – Mara. She walked right in front of him, a hungry grin on her lips.
‘See you later,’ she said as she passed, winking.
Dassem watched them go, then returned to the mausoleum. He eyed Nara for a time, thinking. ‘We should begin at once.’
‘You don’t, ah, fear them, do you?’
‘No. But I did not come here for a war. They are the law here. People they want gone tend to disappear.’ He thought of the mad Dal Hon mage and his friend who had unleashed such a riot last season. They disappeared. Surprising, that. The slim one – the way he moved, so deceptively quick and graceful – he would’ve been a dangerous opponent. He was surprised these city mages got the better of that one.
And they’d wanted him gone all this time as well. All they lacked was an excuse. No doubt they thought they had it now.
He knelt once more before the sarcophagus, bowing so low his brow pressed into the cold gritty stone floor. Father Hood. Grant me strength. What shall come, shall come. Your hand falls on all without prejudice. Good, bad. Worthy, unworthy. Death is not a judgement – it is a necessity. Even these men and women, your priests, even they could not understand, or accept, your impartiality.
He pressed his brow hard into the dusty grit. So, is it I who am wrong?
*
Tayschrenn walked the Street of the Icon-Carvers in the Septarch district of Kartool city. Passing through the crowds, he hardly noticed the citizens and cult penitents who dutifully bowed to him. His thoughts, as usual, were completely occupied by the continuing subtleties and twists in his chosen field of priestly study – namely the immanency of D’rek, the Worm of Autumn.
So it was that his fellow priest, Koarsden, had to take his arm and pull him back, warning, ‘Look out there, Tay.’
Blinking, he now noticed among the rubbish littering the cobbles an emaciated, near-skeletal figure wrapped in dirty rags. A body so neglected-looking that one would have been certain it was a corpse. Sensing attention, the unfortunate turned cloudy, disease-blinded eyes his way and raised a quivering hand.
Knowing his duty, Tayschrenn mechanically took the hand, as fever-hot as a burning ember, all bones and snake-dry parchment skin, and muttered a quick, ‘May D’rek embrace you.’ He then stepped over the devotee and continued on his way.
‘Sometimes I wonder on the motives of these petitioners,’ Koarsden mused as they walked the rising street.
‘He is winning great merit for his descendants.’
‘True. But some, I suspect, come hoping to be cured.’
Tayschrenn knew of the debates surrounding this uncomfortable heresy within the cult. That there were those who were passed over by D’rek. In the end, among the highest rank of the priesthood, the Convene of All Temples, it was decided that the motives and mind of a god lie beyond mere mortal understanding. Such survivors were thus not officially condemned as heretics or apostates, but explained as cases of merit accrued by some ancestor, or as intervention by close relations already in the embrace of the Great Worm – most usually a dead child or parent of the afflicted.
Belatedly, he realized he was once more indulging in the vice Koarsden and others most often accused him of – over-analysing. He cleared his throat. ‘Why bother to drag oneself here, then? D’rek’s influence coils the world. One can just as easily reach the Worm from anywhere, can’t one?’
Koarsden lifted one of his shaved brows, watching him sidelong. ‘Careful, Tay. You may be the Demidrek’s favourite, but your habit of posing uncomfortable questions has not gone unnoticed.’
Tayschrenn merely shrugged beneath his black robes. ‘Facts cannot be wished away.’
After a time, Koarsden answered drily, ‘Unfortunately, they can.’ They continued in silence, then his friend shot an arm upwards. ‘Saw one.’
Tayschrenn raised his gaze, blinking at the tall spires jutting above. ‘Just a reflection of the sunlight on the mirror mosaic there.’
‘No, no. It moved. They’re up there, I tell you. Getting bolder too.’