“You want a great deal,” Khai said calmly. His eyes closed a small fraction. “In the east, they would call that the path to suffering.”
“In the east, they worship cows. You’ll pardon me for thinking their ideas are stupid.” Salvator paced around the small office behind the curtain. Books and papers, measuring tools, maps. And a small bed in the corner. “Now. Let’s start with this temple of yours. What does it do exactly?”
The Aegyptian shook his head. “You may as well kill me if you expect me to tell you that.”
Salvator shrugged. “I may kill you anyway.”
“Indeed. And that is hardly an incentive for me to talk, is it?”
Both men chuckled.
We’re two a kind, aren’t we? A pity we’re on different sides today.
The Italian wiggled the point of his rapier at his hostage. “What would you be willing to talk about short of me taking a look at your spleen?”
“Ah. Perhaps a history lesson. A brief one.” Khai gestured to the other chair.
Salvator sat, his rapier resting on his knee. “A word of warning. I’ve killed four of your guards to get in here. I expect I’ll have to kill more to get out. If you play for time, especially if you bore me, I’ll only kill you as well. But not necessarily quickly or painlessly.”
“I appreciate your honesty,” the Aegyptian said. “I’ll be brief, and as entertaining as I can. So you want to know about our swords, do you? Well then. Several thousand years ago on a faraway island, a sword smith discovered a strange golden nugget. He quickly learned that it was not ordinary gold. It drank in aether like a magnet draws in iron shavings. And it swallowed the souls of the dead that touched the metal, making the gold hotter and harder. In the span of a few generations, the sword smiths on this island learned to handle the gold with clay, and they learned to forge the gold into tools, and jewelry, and blades.”
“I could have guessed that much, and probably made it more interesting with a few angels or demons for a bit of violent excitement.” Salvator frowned.
“Ah. Yes, well. The sword smiths fought many bloody and exciting battles against the armies of heaven and hell, and dragons, and killed your Satan a few times for good measure, but they also formed a society of scholars to study the golden steel, to understand its properties, to discover its purpose and origin, and to master its power.” Khai gestured to the room around them. “In time, the society spread to other lands, absorbing similar cults and scholars along the way. Here in the west, they made our fair Alexandria their seat of power. And here we are, and here endeth the lesson.”
“Bored. I’m bored now.” The Italian made a few half-hearted stabbing motions at the Aegyptian. “Tell me the good bits. Quickly.”
“You seem a man of skill and intellect. I might be better inclined to reveal our private enterprises to you if I considered you an ally instead of an interrogator.” Khai leaned slowly across his desk toward his sheathed sword.
Salvator lunged and fell back into his seat in one fluid motion. The Aegyptian yanked back his arm with a sharp gasp and he clutched his bleeding hand to his belly. His little finger rolled down the angled desk and fell to the floor.
“Supreme Knight is not an honorary title, by the way. You have to earn it. By killing people. You get extra points for creativity and initiative.” Salvator flicked the blood from the tip of his blade. “And I don’t work for money or arcane knowledge of the universe. I’m a patriot. So unless you’re secretly the king of Italia, I’ll thank you to sit very still and tell me what I want to know. Or we can explore new and innovative ways of removing excess flesh and bone from your mortal coil.”
Khai looked up with a pained rictus and a silent snarl. “I mistook you for a civilized man of intellect and breeding. Please pardon my error.”
Salvator sighed as he reached over and slashed across the man’s face. The Aegyptian blinked and then reared back pressing his palm to the thin gash across his cheek that began weeping copious amounts of blood. Again, the Italian flicked the blood from his blade. “I can do this all day. Oh, who am I kidding? I’ll grow bored in a minute and just kill you. And then I’ll have to go find someone else and start all over again.”
“Fine!” Khai spat the word and drops of blood spattered his clothes and the floor. “Some members of our brotherhood continue to search for the steel. It appears there isn’t much of it in the world, and over the last two millennia we’ve collected most of it in the more civilized nations, including your wretched Italia. My old master in particular had a passion for finding new sources of it. But they are the minority.”
“Yes, and?”
Khai grimaced as he clutched his maimed hand. “The rest fall into two schools of thought. Those of us who use the wisdom and knowledge contained in our swords to consolidate power over the nations of men, and those of us who seek new and different forms of that power in itself.”
Salvator nodded. “So, your assassinations and such probably fall in the former group. And what sort of powers are you trying to get for yourselves?”
Khai sighed and shook his head. “Some want to speak to the dead, or to absorb the knowledge and wisdom of the dead within themselves. Some want to understand where the aether steel came from, or how it was made. And some want to apply the steel to their own flesh, to somehow preserve their own souls for all time. To become truly immortal.”
The Italian smiled. “I take it you’re less interested in immortality than in the more mundane life of an earthly emperor.”
“No one has ever succeeded in undoing death or extending life with the steel. Why chase a dream when you can live in luxury and shape the course of human civilization to build a perfect human nation that spans the entire globe?”
“Sounds charming. Especially when we establish the capital in Rome. I’m thinking-” Footsteps echoed in the cavernous practice room. Salvator frowned at the curtain and then at the walls around them. “Other doors?”
Khai smiled just a little. “No, I’m afraid. Just the one.”
Salvator stood and quickly surveyed the tables and shelves around them. He grabbed two small books and shoved them into his pockets, then a heavily annotated map which he rolled and shoved inside his coat, and lastly he picked up the sheathed short sword on the desk, which he swiftly hooked to the right side of his belt. The door opened.
“Master Khai?” a young man called.
Salvator gazed down at the old Aegyptian. “Master, is it?” He whisked his rapier at the man’s throat and felt a horrible jarring vibration race up his arm when his steel struck its target. The high collar of the man’s shirt split open to reveal the dim gray sheen of metal.
Armor? Score one for paranoia.
The curtain behind him flapped open and Salvator spun to face the two young men, who stared back at him with wide curious eyes. But a single glance at their bleeding master was the only order they needed. Both drew their swords and a soft orange glow illuminated the room. The fiery blades obscured everything near them, their blazing light drawing hypnotic lines through the shadowy air.
Not this time.
With a grimace, the Italian threw his rapier back into its sheathe and pulled out his stolen short sword. The ceramic grip was too thick, the blade was too short, and the whole thing weighed twice as much as clumsy Espani espada. But the blade did not glow at all.
A fake! This thing is rubbish.
He slashed twice at his opponents to push them back and then ran across the room and into the racks of practice weapons. Tossing the heavy sword aside, Salvator darted through the shelves and racks to the door and dashed out into the vast shadowy expanse of the practice room. His footsteps echoed louder and louder as he crossed the room, and soon a cacophony of answering echoes told him that the two other men were running close behind.