Stay away from me, Michael. I may die, but I will take you with me.
“Michael?” Ashe demanded. “I know of no one named Michael.” He turned to the Bolg, whose eyes were locked, a look of disbelief passing between them.
The Patriarch raised his hand for silence. He took the roller in hand and laid on again, wringing the blood from the body. Like a sigh, the words came forth, infinitesimal, fragile.
Perhaps not to your face, Michael, the Wind of Death.
“Hrekin” Grunthor sword softly.
“The Wind of Death?” Ashe demanded, terror rising in his voice. “Is that not the evil soldier she was trying to escape from in the old land when you two-”
“Yes,” Achmed said shortly.
“And he has her?”
“Apparently,” spat the Dhracian, his voice frosty. He turned to the Patriarch, whose white robes were now spattered with dark blood. “Where? Ask him where?”
The men waited in anxious silence as the Patriarch posed the question. He held the canopic urn up to his ear, but whatever story was in the blood was so faint that he could not hear it. Finally, the holy man met their gaze and, seeing the horror boiling beneath the surface, he lifted the bowl to his lips and drank. The Ring of Wisdom on his hand glowed brightly as he swallowed.
He clutched the table then, steadying himself against the nausea and the shock that took him into its clutches, his face going as white as the upturned edges of his beard. Constantin put his hands over his ears, trying to keep the faint sound from escaping.
“On the seacoast,” he stammered, clutching the table again. “North of Port Fallen.”
Ashe and Achmed turned simultaneously and started for the door, only to be stopped in their tracks by the ragged voice of the Patriarch.
“Wait.” He steadied himself against the table, breathing shallowly. “Do not leave this place before you hear me, and before you have a chance to answer my question. You owe me this.”
The two sovereigns waited in silence, along with the Sergeant-Major, for the Patriarch to recover. It took but a moment. After a few deep breaths the color returned to Constanin’s face. He has doubtless inhaled or ingested more than his share of blood over the years in the arena, Achmed thought, watching the elderly man straighten his wide shoulders, then cross to the summoning bell and pull the cord.
The two acolytes returned a heartbeat later.
“Ritually burn the body,” the Patriarch instructed. “Place the ashes in the cinerary bowl, and scald the table with holy water.” He turned back to Ashe and the Bolg. “Come with me to the basilica. If there is even a breath of life remaining in this man, I don’t want to speak in front of him, for just as he was able to hear what his brother heard, even in death, so it might work the other way.”
37
The Great Basilica in Sepulvarta was the centerpiece of the city, with towering walls of polished marble and an overarching dome that was taller than any in the known world. The myriad colors and patterns of the mosaics that graced the floor and ceiling, along with the exquisite giltwork on the frescoed walls and the windows fashioned in colored glass, all contributed to its grandeur, but it was the sheer height and breadth of it that made it the masterpiece of all the elemental temples, great architectural marvels left over from the Cymrian era, still standing long after that empire had fallen and crumbled to dust.
The Patriarch led the three men up a cylindrical rise in the center of the sanctuary to a plain, stone table edged in platinum that formed the altar of the basilica. On this altar, the body of his predecessor had been ritually burned amid the flowers and feathers that were the burial tradition for clerics of the faith of Sepulvarta.
When the Patriarch was in the center of the sanctuary, standing directly beneath the aperture in the towering ceiling through which the Spire could be seen, he spoke. His words did not echo in the vast hollowness of the mighty cathedral, but rather remained close to the ears of those who heard them.
“Tell me of this man, this Wind of Death,” he said, his deep voice resonating but not carrying. “Who is he to you that you know of him?”
The three men looked at one another. Ashe spoke first.
“No one,” he said, his eyes red with worry and lack of sleep. “I know little of him; Rhapsody does not speak of him much. He was someone who tortured her in the old world; I know this because I have held her through the nightmares of him, dreams that were horrific to observe, and so I am certain they were reflective of one of the worst times in her life. But I do not know him.”
The Patriarch absorbed the Lord Cymrian’s words, then turned to the Bolg.
“Yet you did know him, or of him,” he said, watching them with the bird-of-prey eyes that had served him well in the arena.
Achmed exhaled. “He and I served the same master,” he said, weighing his words carefully. “In his case, his servitude was voluntary. Mine was not.”
“You were allies, then?”
“Never,” Achmed spat. “Neither allies nor enemies. He was filth, chaotic in his nature, impulsive and cruel. I knew of his actions, but I was in no position to stop them, nor of a bent to do so even if I had been able. At that time all I sought was the return of my name, which our master owned, and with it my freedom. It is true, however, that Rhapsody was on the run from him when we came across her. By taking her with us, away from the old land, we thought we had spared her from him. Since he had not crossed the sea with the fleets, we had every reason to believe him dead, until that corpse spoke his name a moment ago.”
“You as well?” the Patriarch asked Grunthor.
“Yep. I only knew ’im by reputation. ’E was ruthless and talented at destruction. O’ course, that made ’im a bit of an ’ero to the Bolg and the Bengards, my people.”
“I had other reasons to believe him dead,” Achmed said, staring at the distant ceiling above him. “There was a hero, the real kind, in the old land, a half-Lirin, half-human soldier called MacQuieth, now long dead himself.”
“I have seen his name,” the Patriarch said. “It is inscribed on an altar in the water basilica of Abbat Mythlinis in Avonderre, on the coast where the first Cymrian fleet landed. I attended a service in my honor there upon my investiture.”
“My mother was descended of his line,” Ashe said quietly.
“History says that it was MacQuieth who killed Tsoltan, the F’dor that was the Waste of Breath’s master as well as my own,” Achmed continued, his voice tight with the strain of containing his anger. “I could only assume that in orde to get to Tsoltan, MacQuieth would have had to have gone through Michael would have killed him first. They were known to be bitter enemies.”
“If he was as unstable and cowardly as you say, perhaps he deserted,” Ashi said tensely. “There is no reason to believe that a man who tortures women and kills children for the sheer enjoyment of it would hold to his post when the tide of the war began to turn.”
Achmed waved his hand impatiently. “Perhaps. But how he survived is unimportant. What is important is that there is another F’dor loose, one tha inhabits a host with a propensity for chaos, rape, and murder, without the long worldview of the last one we dealt with. If he really does carry Tysterisk the situation is even more dire, because that would give him the power of both wind and fire. What before was fear for Rhapsody has now become fight for the survival of the whole continent. I cannot even begin to put word around how bad this is.”
The eyes of the Patriarch maintained a calm and steady gaze. “You are incorrect that it does not matter how he survived. It may be critical for several reasons. If he is the host of a demon, under normal circumstances, he would have been subsumed to its will long ago; that is how F’dor function. Each of them is a distinct entity, an individual in an unholy pantheon that was bon at the beginning of time. Thus they are limited in number, unless they discover another way to propagate.”