As the Church’s dogma had become the law of the land, the power of the Priests of the Black had expanded until they had become a vast and terrible inquisition obsessed with the discovery of doctrinal heresy as well as supernatural evil. In their obsession with destroying the demons of the world, they began to make use of the supernatural as well, recruiting fanatics who volunteered themselves for eternal punishment by playing host to a demon in order to help the Church’s crusade against evil. These were the legendary Ignahta Sempria, the Penitent Damned.
It was this overreach by the Black Priests as much as anything else that had provoked the great schism between Free and Sworn churches, and in the aftermath of the wars sparked by that terrible rebellion the Black Priests had been greatly reduced in power. Bit by bit, they had died out, until the death of the last Pontifex of the Black had officially ended the order. To the extent that they thought about it at all, most modern people viewed this as ancient history.
After all, they would say, everyone knew there wasn’t really any such thing as demons.
Brother Nikolai was waiting on the other side of the second grate. There was no key to this one, so it could only be unlocked from the inside, by Brother Nikolai or one of his successors. In his more whimsical moments, the Last Duke wondered what would happen if Brother Nikolai were to suffer an apoplectic fit and die without anyone noticing. Presumably they would have to smash the grate down, if only to retrieve the body.
Brother Nikolai wore soft black robes that fell in deep folds from his shoulders and shrouded him in silence, like a patch of moving shadow. His dark hair was bound in a thick queue, in the Murnskai fashion, but the most striking thing about him was the mask that obscured his face. It was a flattened oval with narrow slits for the eyes and mouth, surfaced with a thousand tiny chips of black volcanic glass, like a dark gem with innumerable facets. A tiny spot of light from Orlanko’s lantern was reflected in each facet, so Brother Nikolai’s face was alive with a thousand pinprick fireflies that danced and wove in unison as the lantern swung from the duke’s hand.
He was a Priest of the Black. Or a subpriest, or sub-subpriest, or something similar. Orlanko had never been able to parse the arcane hierarchies of Elysium, but he assumed that Brother Nikolai must be fairly lowly to be given such a dull assignment. He was something like a lighthouse keeper, for a very peculiar lighthouse, one that lived in the dark below the Cobweb.
“Brother,” Orlanko said, with a polite nod.
“Your Grace,” Brother Nikolai returned, and opened the grate. Beyond it the corridor ended in a pair of facing doors. One led to the little room where Brother Nikolai lived, studied, and prayed. The other held his charge.
Orlanko followed the priest and waited while he worked the lock on the cell door. Besides Orlanko’s lantern, the only light was from a candle in Brother Nikolai’s room. No illumination came from the prisoner’s cell, as she had no need of any.
Brother Nikolai opened the door and stepped aside. “You are punctual as always, Your Grace.”
The duke favored him with a thin smile and stepped inside. The cell was generously sized, and though spare it was kept scrupulously clean. A bed and a privy were the only furniture the prisoner required.
She sat cross-legged in the center of the room, a girl not past her early twenties with short, dark hair and the pallid skin that came from years without sunlight. Her robe was similar to Brother Nikolai’s, but gray. In front of her was an open book, which she was carefully passing her finger across, line by line, as though she were painting.
Brother Nikolai had once explained the procedure. The priests began with two young people. Any pair who shared a strong bond would work, lovers or even very close friends, but Black Priests preferred siblings so they could begin work at an early age. Twins were ideal. Once the pair had been chosen and carefully studied to ensure that they were free of physical or mental defects, they were both given the name of a demon to read.
From that moment forward, the two would be as one, two minds melting into each other under the vile creature’s irresistible pressure. The pairs would undergo training and instruction together, and then eventually one of the two would be shipped in great secrecy to some hidden outpost of the Priests of the Black, like this one, while the other remained in the endless dungeons under Elysium. Then they would wait until they were needed, to throw the voice of the pontifex across thousands of miles in an instant, receiving reports and delivering instructions.
There was a danger in this, of course. If the member of the pair who went abroad fell into the hands of the Church’s enemies, additional bonds might be created, additional minds added to the loop, with potentially disastrous results. The research theologians of the Black Priests had determined that eye contact was necessary for this procedure, and so whichever of the siblings was sent away had them removed, for safety’s sake.
The girl raised her head at the sound of Orlanko’s entrance, and the light of the lantern played for a moment on her pale, empty eye sockets. The Last Duke gritted his teeth at a sudden wash of nausea and set the lantern down, leaving her mutilated face mercifully in shadow.
“Hello, Your Grace,” she said. She had a lilting voice with a singsong Murnskai accent.
“You recognize the squeak of my shoes?” Orlanko said, venturing a slight smile.
“Oh yes.” She shrugged. “But that is no great feat, since only you and Brother Nikolai ever open that door.”
Orlanko glanced at her book, which lay near where he’d set the lantern. It was a copy of the Wisdoms, of course, a special one made for the blind, with thickly embossed letters that could be discerned by a passing finger. The Black Priests taught the children to read in this way, after they were bonded, so that their souls might receive some measure of grace. The pages of this one were almost blank, the painted letters worn away by the passage of her fingers.
“Would you like a new one?” he said.
“A new what?”
She couldn’t follow his gaze, of course. “A new copy of the Wisdoms. Yours seems to be worn out.”
She shrugged again. “No, Your Grace. I know the words by heart anyway.” She shifted slightly, robe rustling. “His Eminence is arriving.”
“Very well.” The Last Duke drew himself up a little, though of course there was nobody to see in the little cell.
The girl’s face twisted slightly, her mouth gaping like a landed fish’s for a few seconds. Then-and this was the part of the procedure that the duke always found most disturbing-a new voice emerged. Her lips moved to shape the syllables, but the sound was that of a man, his voice thick, breathy, and heavily accented. The words of the Pontifex of the Black, spoken in some dungeon fifteen hundred miles away, flashed across the continent by magic to emerge in this tiny cell.
“Orlanko,” the pontifex said.
“I’m here, Your Eminence.”
“My time is short,” the pontifex said. There was a breathy rasp to his voice that sounded unhealthy. Brother Nikolai had once told Orlanko that the pontifex had survived a pox in childhood that had badly damaged his lungs. “What do you have for me?”
“Less than I would like,” Orlanko said. “Vhalnich has not made any overt moves since returning from Khandar.”
“Has he had any contact with the princess?”
“None. The only time they have met was at a reception, where I was present personally.”
“And he brought nothing back from Khandar?”
“Only two of his officers,” Orlanko said. “And we’re keeping track of them.”
“Then whatever he discovered must be with the rest of the regiment. They’re still aboard ship?”
“Yes, Your Eminence.” Orlanko frowned. “You’re still assuming he found something.”