Into a Dark Realm (26 page)

Martuch returned to his stool and sat down. “I have seen worlds in the first plane, Pug. I have seen men step on insects, without thought, a habit perhaps, or a deeply ingrained abhorrence of vermin.

“That is as close as I can come in explaining to you how we Dasati males react when we see children. When I first saw males and females of other races carrying their children, holding them, going through crowded markets and leading them by their tiny hands, I could scarcely credit my senses.

“I don’t know if I can make it any clearer, but it was as repellent to me as any perversity you can imagine witnessing in public.

“A mother scolding her child for wandering off in a crowd, that I could comprehend, for our mothers defend us to the death during the Hiding.” He paused. “But when I saw a father lifting his child, merely to make it laugh…” He sighed. “It troubled me more than you can begin to comprehend. It nearly made me physically ill.

“I think you might understand if you were suddenly whisked by magic to a place where you could observe a Purging. To see grown men in armor riding through the night, crashing through thickets in the woodlands, charging through camps of terrified children and enraged mothers, many of whom throw themselves on the points of spears and swords to permit their little ones a slight chance at survival, well, all the time the warriors were laughing and joking as babies died…what you might feel seeing that is how I felt watching a man kiss a baby’s cheek.

“And yet, deep within, I knew the wrongness was not in that father and child, but in me and my race.”

“How did you come to this insight?” asked Nakor. “And how did you first get to the first circle?”

Martuch smiled, and looked at Nakor. “All in good time, my friend.” He stood again and paced, as if trying to organize his thoughts. “The first time I felt the wrongness, as I think of it, was during a great purge.

“Word had reached the Riders of the Sadharin that a Facilitator—a trader, actually—had seen smoke at sunset in a deep woodland only a half-day’s ride from this very castle.

“The mountains to the east of here begin with a series of foothills, and there are many caves and ancient mines in the region. It would be impossible for an organized force to explore every one in a year, let alone find moving camps of females and young.

“We rode at sundown so that we could strike the camp in the dead of night, and by the time we reached the camp, we could smell woodsmoke on the air, and hear the soft sounds of mothers crooning to their young.

“We became filled with bloodlust, and wished to do nothing more than cleave and rend and trample these
things
beneath the hooves of our varnins. One female must have been alert, for we heard a warning scream moments before we overran the camp. Our women are clever, and dangerous when protecting their young. Several pulled warriors out of their saddles with their bare hands, dying to keep their children safe. One warrior had his throat torn out by a woman’s teeth.

“I killed three females that night, to allow one of my brother riders to regain his mount, and when he had, the camp was empty. In the night I could hear the sounds of screams and cries, and the wailing of children cut off by the sound of swords striking flesh coming from all around me in the night.

“I could feel blood pounding in my ears, and my breathing was heavy. It is much the same feeling as we get when we are ready to couple. In my mind the pleasures are equal, making life or taking it.

“I rode into the underbrush around the camp, and when I had entered a thicket, I sensed something. I looked down, and crouching under a low-hanging branch was a female, holding her young son. I never would have seen her had I kept riding or had I not looked down at that exact moment. She would have been behind the searches and could have made her way to freedom and safety but for chance.”

Martuch stopped his pacing and looked at Pug. “Then the amazing thing happened. I drew back my sword and made ready to kill the female first—she was the danger—and then the boy. But rather than leap to protect her child, she held him tightly to her chest and looked at me, eye to eye, Pug. She stared at me and said…‘Please.’”

Pug said, “I take it that was…unexpected.”

“Unprecedented,” said Martuch, sitting on his stool once more. “‘Please’ is a word a Dasati rarely hears, except from a Lesser saying, ‘if it pleases you, master,’ or a warrior or priest saying, ‘this was pleasing,’ but as an entreaty, no, it is not our way.

“But something in that woman’s eyes…there was strength and power there: this was not the pleading of a weak woman, but an appeal to something more profound than mindless killing.”

“What did you do?” asked Magnus.

“I let them go,” said Martuch. “I put up my sword and rode off.”

Pug said, “I can’t begin to understand what that must have felt like.”

“I scarcely understood myself,” said Martuch. “I rode after the others and by the time dawn arrived thirteen females and twenty-odd children had been butchered. The other riders laughed and joked on the way back to the great hall of the Sadharin, but I kept my own counsel.

“I had no sense of achievement or pride. I realized at that moment that I had changed within, and that there was nothing glorious in slaughtering those who were far less able to defend themselves.

“A woman with a knife is to be treated with respect, but I was mounted on a war-trained varnin, wearing full armor, carrying a sword and a dagger, and had a war bow on my saddle. I should feel a sense of accomplishment because I killed her? I should feel triumph in slaughtering a child whose only defense is teeth and nails?” He shook his head. “No, I knew there was something terribly wrong.

“But like many who come to this insight, I assumed the wrongness was within me, that I had lost sight of His Darkness’s truth, so I sought out a Deathpriest to counsel me.” Martuch looked at Pug with a half-smile. “Fate conspired to bring me to a man named Juwon, a Deathpriest of the highest rank outside the Inner Temple, a High Priest, one who has jurisdiction over all this region of the Empire.

“He listened to my story, and later confided in me that the standing order in the Dark One’s service is that any who comes with the doubts I expressed is to be instantly confined, interrogated, then put to death. I just happened to have confided in the highest-placed prelate in the region, who also worked secretly on behalf of the White.

“He listened, bade me keep silent on this matter, but asked me to return. We sat together many times, for hours, over a period of months, before he took me aside and said my calling was to serve the White.

“By the time he revealed this to me, I had already come to the
conclusion that there was far more to this than my mere hesitation over killing one woman and one child. Since then I have spoken many times to him, to Narueen, and other wise men and women, to priests, Bloodwitch, and others. I have come to see so much more than I was taught as a boy.” Martuch leaned forward. “That is how I came to serve the White. More, I have come to love the White, and hate everything about His Darkness.”

“How did you get to the first plane of reality?” asked Nakor.

“I was sent by the Gardener.”

“Why?” asked Pug.

“He is the one who works most closely with the White,” said a female voice from the door. “We do not question his orders. If he tells us to go to another reality, Martuch, or I, or any other serving the White, will go.”

Pug turned, and instantly stood, lowering his gaze to the floor. Magnus and Nakor were only a moment behind.

“Quicker,” said Narueen as she entered the room. “A second’s hesitation will make you remarkable. Remarkable Lessers are dead Lessers. Remember, Attenders are useful, but also despised for their helping ways.”

Pug stood motionless, and she came to sit on the spot on the divan he had just vacated. “Sit beside me,” she said to him, and then to the others, “You may drop your pose. It will almost certainly be the last chance to do so, and there is much we need to discuss before you leave.”

“Already?” asked Pug.

“Yes,” said Narueen. “I received word that something extraordinary may be taking place on Omadrabar. High Priest Juwon has been called to the Court of His Darkness, and if they are calling in the priests from the outer regions, then this is a meeting of importance.”

“Any idea why?” asked Martuch.

“When a Supreme Prelate dies, and there’s a need to anoint his successor, this type of convocation is usual; but there has been no word of his illness. Besides, news of his untimely death would have
accompanied any such order. In the past, the Supreme Prelate might convene such an assembly to announce new doctrine; but Juwon would know about such a theological movement in the hierarchy of the church.” She shook her head slightly: a very human gesture. “No, it must be something else.” She looked at Pug. “We always fear discovery. But one advantage we have is that the servants of the Dark One have no desire for the populace to know we are not a myth, that we exist.

Pug asked, “When you say ‘we,’ do you mean the Bloodwitches or the White?”

“Both,” she replied, “for in my mind the Bloodwitch Sisterhood and the White have been one for many, many years, long before we realized we served that force which stood in opposition to the Dark One.”

“Martuch told us the story of his sparing a woman and her son. Do you know it?” asked Nakor.

Narueen nodded and her expression was revealing, the closest to a show of emotions Pug had seen from her. “I know it well, for I was that woman and Valko was the boy I held. We had ventured out of the caves a short distance away and were cooking. Our fires were lit too early, obviously. The children were fractious, Valko was teething and angry. The cooling breezes of the evening soothed him.”

“Why did you simply say ‘please’?” asked Magnus.

She sighed. “I don’t really know. An instinct that let me see something inside him. He was a vital warrior, the sort of man women seek out to father their children, at the height of his power. He had his bloodlust up and was ready to kill, but there was a…look to him, something around the eyes under that fearsome black helm that made me just ask him to spare us.”

“And so lives change,” said Martuch. “Valko doesn’t know the story, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell him yet. He will learn it soon enough, but what you must know is that our young Lord of the Camareen came to his office just this week. He beheaded his father only six days before you arrived. The celebration of his ac
cession was two nights ago. Had we arrived then, most of us would likely be dead by now.”

Pug said, “I often wonder at these small coincidences in life: that something that appears nothing more than a chance, but in the end turns out to be vital.”

Nakor had been unusually silent throughout all of these discussions, content to watch and listen. He reached into his bag and pulled out an orange.

Pug’s eyes widened. “How did you do that?”

Nakor’s ever-present bag had a small permanent two-way rift in it, which allowed him to reach through and pluck oranges and other items off a table in a produce shop in Kesh. By any magic Pug knew, it couldn’t work here.

Nakor just grinned. “Different bag. Looks the same, but it’s not. I just put some oranges in it. This is the last one.”

He dug his thumb into it and peeled the skin, then took a bite. He made a face and said, “Horrible. I guess how things taste to us has changed, too.” He put the orange back in the bag and said, “I’d better get rid of this somewhere along the way.”

“Yes,” said Martuch, rising and holding out his hand. “I’ll see to it. I wouldn’t want you to have to explain to a Deathpriest how you came by a fruit from the first plane of existence.”

Nakor handed over the fruit and turned to look at Bek, who was sitting quietly, staring out of the window. “What is it you find so fascinating, Ralan?”

Without turning, Bek said, “It’s just that I really like it here, Nakor. I want to stay.” He turned and his eyes were shining with emotion. “I want you to fix what you did to me, that day outside the caves, because I think here I can be…happy. This is a good place, Nakor. I can kill and make people cry, and everyone thinks it’s funny.” He looked out of the window again. “And it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”

Nakor went to the window and looked out. “It’s unusually clear, today—”

The way his voice dropped caused Pug and the others to look at him. “What is it?” asked Pug.

“Come here,” said Nakor.

Pug looked out past his two companions. The daylight of Kosridi had taken some getting used to, as there was little visible by Midkemian standards, but Pug had found that once his eyes had adjusted to a much broader spectrum, what Nakor had called “the colors beyond violet, and under red,” he could see a profound difference between night and day on this world. With the sun above, he could see heat and energy and more detail than at night. But even then, he saw far more with his “Dasati eyes” as he thought of his new vision than he ever would have imagined possible. And he understood why he hadn’t seen apparent signs on Delecordia or here: it had taken him a while to apprehend the energy signatures used on the stone above doors to indicate the purpose of the building.

Today was “bright” as there were no clouds in the sky, and the sun shone down. Pug could see the rolling vista of the town beyond the castle, and the ocean below that. Then it struck him that there was something familiar about what he was seeing.

Nakor said, “I’ve only been to a place like this once before, years ago when Prince Nicholas had to sail after—”

Pug cut him off. “It’s Crydee,” he said softly.

“It looks a lot like Crydee,” said Nakor.

Pug pointed out to the southwest. “There are the Six Sisters.”

Narueen said, “That is what those islands are called.”

Pug said, “We’re in Crydee.” He looked out again and said, “This town is built…well, it’s Dasati, all one continuous series of interlinking buildings, like the Ipiliac, but there, that bit of land jutting out north of the harbor…that’s Longpoint!”

“What does it mean?” asked Magnus.