It was a dream he didn't want to be in. From the moment he looked down and saw his sandaled feet on the dusty dirt road outside the little village he wanted desperately out of it because dreams of the place he had been born always turned into nightmares. He couldn't stop his legs from carrying him forward down that road that ran alongside the river. The docks were behind him, the smell of fish strong in the air. The grass was green and tall along the shore and the trees on the other side dense and full of spring growth. The little fishing village was ahead. He could see the first of houses now and the outlying gardens tended by the women in the village.
He did not want to go into that village, but the dream seemed determined to push him there. A woman was on her knees weeding one of the gardens. She glanced up at his passing and narrowed her eyes, making a small sign against evil with her dirt smeared hand. He looked at the ground beneath his sandals and passed her by. His feet were small and filthy. He could not recall where he'd been playing. Had he been playing? The edges of the dream fuzzed with reality.
There were people in the streets about their daily business. Faces that blurred before his eyes, half remembered. They all seemed so much taller than he. Some of them looked down at him in distaste. They scorned him. They whispered about him behind their hands and sometimes with not even that veil to hide their words. All the buildings were indistinct save two. The small house where he and his mother and lived with grandfather and the larger church that sat at the end of the street. His house lay not far from the church, Grandfather being a priest and living close to his calling. The cemetery lay between them. He could see all the gravestones from his window. At nighttime he could sometimes imagine things moving among them. Shades of the dead. He had mentioned that fear once to Grandfather and the old man's eyes had bulged and he'd started ranting and raving about second sight passed on by the hellspawn that had sired him. At the time Kall hadn't known exactly what he'd meant. At the time all he could do was cower under the old man's wraith. He'd had to say penance's for a week after that, in efforts to wash away the evil. Grandfather never had been satisfied.
He was almost home. There was a covered basket in his hands that he hadn't realized was there. Fish from the docks. A rock hit him in the leg. He yelped and whirled about. One of the older town boys who always bullied him stood jeering at him, hands on hips.
"Bringing fishheads to the town whore?" the ruffian sneered. They always called mother names. She always pretended not to hear. It made Kall so made he almost dropped the basket. He wanted to pick up the rock and hurl it back, but the boy was bigger than he and had bested him before in a fight. Besides, grandfather would only blame him and he'd have to do penance's.
"Don't call her that." He said tightly.
The bully laughed. "Make me stop. Bastard. Fatherless cur."
Kall ground his teeth. They called him names all the time too. The children only echoing what they overheard their parents saying. He stiffened his back in helpless anger and turned to go down the path to his house -- and another of the bully boys stood blocking that path, grinning. A stick in his hand. On this long spring day they had nothing better to do than torment him. He didn't want to get into a fight. He didn't want to loose the fish. He darted down the road past the cemetery and towards the church. The bullies ran after him, calling him names. He ran up the steps to the plain wooden doors. There were two stained glass windows next to the doors, the pride and joy of Grandfather's congregation. They had come all the way from Judas. The bully boys pitched rocks at him and one of them crashed through the right hand panel. The boys froze in sudden horror at what they'd done, then scattered like rabbits.
Kall stared at the widening crack in stupefaction. The doors were yanked open behind him. Grandfather stormed out, waving his cane like a weapon, thready beard waving in the breeze of his passage. Small, black eyes alight with fury.
"What? You did this?!!"
"No!" Kall protested in shock even as the old man snatched him by the ear and yanked him inside the shadow of the vestibule, throwing him down to his knees to better see the pieces of shattered glass that lay on the wooden floor. The basket of fish went tumbling.
"What demon spirit made you do this?" The old man cried, grabbing him up again by the collar, shaking him so hard his head snapped back and forth on his neck.
"But I didn't --"
"And you lie in a house of god to compound the crime?" Grandfather's hand snapped out and slapped him. "Hell spawn. Evil, evil hell spawn. Gods save us from your mischief."
"But it wasn't me." He was sobbing, lost and half convinced that Grandfather was right. That somehow it had been his fault. That he'd made those boys throw the stones.
Grandfather shoved him against the wall in a fury and the cane lashed his back. Retribution for something he hadn't even done. It hurt. It hurt so bad he shredded his lip and then he did something in reflexive urge to protect himself. He summoned an ice spirit. Spoke the words through the blood in his mouth and set it on the old man. It formed out of the air, a snarling ice beast that leapt onto the frail old priest and bowled him over, ripping his throat out in a single tear, then it turned its glassy, white eyes back to him, stared for a moment and bounded away. Kall pressed against the wall, biting his knuckle staring at the bloodied corpse. Another priest came out of the Abby, bent by Grandfather to see what wounds he had taken, then looked up at Kall with hard, incriminating eyes.
"Look what you've done, boy." He didn't know this priest and yet he did.
"I sorry." Kall sobbed. "I didn't mean it. I'm sorry."
Grandfather opened his eyes and lifted his head to look at him, throat bloodied and raw. "I should have drowned you at birth. You don't deserve to live. You'll be the death of us all."
"It's time to take your penance." The other priest said.
No. No. He came awake with a start, scrambled up and back against the wall while his mind tried to sort reality from dream. Dark room. Dank, moist air with the smell of age and mildew. He knew the room. Not an escape from the nightmare, merely a plunge into another all too real one.
A shadow moved against the wall by the door. The door was half open. At first he thought it might have been Angelo, but the furtive movements relayed that it wasn't. The Prophet would never be so circumspect in his presence. He was too shaken from the dream to speak, so he just stared. The figure paused in its escape -- crouched for a moment by the door, then straightened and turned. It was the girl with the hair that hid her face. She stood with her hand on the door, then seemed to make a decision and took a step back into the cell.
"You can't fight the master. It's lunacy. Resist and you make it harder on yourself."
"You have no idea what you're talking about." He whispered. His back hurt from the caning -- no, that had been the dream -- from Angelo's staff, then.
"Don't I?" she whispered back and was gone. He didn't have the will to call her back. Didn't have the excess mental energy to wonder who she was. He pulled his knees up, folding his arms around them and stretching his back to work out the kinks. His side ached terribly. He remembered the rib and tried a healing. But healing required concentration at the best of times and his was gone thanks to the wizardbane. How long it lasted he didn't know. Angelo most certainly did, down to the minute. Angelo was a devil.
They reached the snowy city after four days of travel. The castle was abuzz with the return until word got around - spread by the weary guards who accompanied them - of the losses they had taken. Their lord among them. Then silence reigned. All the maids walked around ashen faced and quiet, the castle guard fumed in the barracks. Yoko was the only one who didn't seem phased. Yoko was firmly planted in her own little world of blind happiness. She smiled at them all when they came in out of the cold, refusing to acknowledge the dour news they carried. Refusing to see anything that contradicted her desperate illusion.
It hit Schneider so hard, seeing her thus that he stared morosely into the fire while the rest of them discussed what had happened and what they might do about it. Gara was still weak and shaky, but he wouldn't go up to his bed, despite Arshes' urging. He didn't know how to take that sudden concern. He couldn't quite bring himself to meet her eyes after a confession he thought he was making on his dying breath. Damn Murasume blade and its predilection for keeping him alive when by all rights he should be dead. Arshes was having trouble meeting his glance which made matters worse by far. Gara had never been a man easily embarrassed but he wished at that moment to sink into the floor and escape. He should have gone up to bed, but there was danger and action that might not be wise brewing in Schneider's eyes.
Schneider had never been one to sit idly by when things needed doing. There was some hint of madness over the insults done him by the assaults on his friends. No one had ever dared to offend him so in the past. No one had ever managed to hit him so hard and in such a personal nature. It was worse than any attack on his person. He could have overcome that sort of strike. He couldn't fight this because Angelo struck where he wasn't. Angelo did his damage and ran, leaving bloody taunts behind him. It was driving Schneider crazy.
The sorcerer's gaze finally regained its focus. He tore his eyes away from the fire and Yoko and stalked towards the doors. Gara sighed, figuring nothing good was afoot. Figuring that he owed Schneider at least a moments worth of level headed good sense. It would serve them all in the long run. He pushed his aching body out of the chair, pretending ignorance of Arshes' worried look, and followed Schneider out the doors and into the moonlight courtyard. Not the quiet courtyard of weeks ago, but one even in night filled with supplies and accruements of war.
"Where are you going?"
Schneider tossed a dark glare over his shoulder. "Don't start with me, Gara. I'm in no mood."
"That I can see. You also have the look a man soon to fly the coop. Planning on taking off on your own to search Angelo down?"
"I can do it better than the lot of Kall's men."
"Maybe. Probably won't do any good. Angelo's not sloppy. He hasn't gotten this far leaving loose ends or clues. He's also pulling your strings like a master puppeteer. When did he figure out how to work you so good? When you were his prisoner in Meta-Rikan?"
The blue eyes narrowed. "He has no power over me."
"Maybe. Maybe not. What if you go off in a fit looking for him and he attacks here? I don't think Arshes and I can take him. Think about it. He hurts Yoko to draw us out. Separates us. Attacks us and draws you there and while we're all occupied he takes Kall. Bam. Bam. Bam." Gara hit his open palm with his fist. "He's got it all orchestrated. He's been controlling this game and we've all been playing to his tune. He wants you angry and not thinking rationally because that's the only way he can get to you."
Schneider looked away, expelling a breath of frustration. The look a man who knew a thing to be true, but still did not want to accept it, on his face.
Gara rubbed at his neck, wearily. "He's had a long time to figure out the best way to play people. He's been around as long as you, right? Only you never were good at the mind game. He seems to excel at it."
"Do you know how he's survived all these years?" Schneider hissed. "He's a mortal man. He should have died centuries ago. He's a body thief, Gara. He gains his magic by stealing it from others. What do you think he wanted me for? What do you think he took Kall for? He told me he was going to do this. He fucking told me! And I shrugged it off. Do you understand? Think about what happens if he breaks Kall and gains his power?" He glared at Gara. Gara thought about it and did not like the conclusions he made.
"And you want me to just sit around here waiting for the spring thaw?"
"No." Quietly, calmly. "I want you to stop and reason. I want you to use your damned sorcery to track Kall from here -- which is as good a place as any. It's a big damned continent, he could be anywhere. I want us all to go into this thing on our terms not his. I want you to wait till we've got a lead to go on. Kiro's combing the mountains. I'm sending my men south. Don't go running around like a chicken with its head cut off."
Schneider glared. "I -- do not ever run around like a chicken with its head cut off."
"Just a turn of the phrase."
From the look on Schneider's face, the absolute stubbornness, Gara thought he was going to ignore him and go off and do what he wanted anyway. He swayed a little, weak from the hard travel, a little dizzy from the intensity of this talk, from the foreboding predictions Schneider made. The wizard waved a hand at him, cursing under his breath.
"Go to bed, Gara, before you fall down. I'm not picking you up again."
"I didn't ask you to. Thanks for doing it the first time, anyway."
"It wasn't the first."
"Probably won't be the last." Gara muttered darkly.
"Go on. And stop looking like that. I'm not going. Satisfied?" His eyes glittered beneath black lashes. He crossed his arms, looking torn and frustrated. Gara thought it was only partly revenge that had him itching to find Angelo so bad. There existed a fear for Kall-Su that had nothing to do with Angelo pilfering his magic and using it against them.
It took Kall-Su a good while to step foot outside his cell again. Hunger and thirst were persistent supplicants at the back of his awareness. The refusal to accept this warped and malignant imprisonment were more insistent draws on his attention. Even then he lost time -- just blanked out in the middle of a train of thought and came back to himself with the incoherent suspicion that he had sat a long time just staring at the dark stones that made up the walls of the cell. At least he didn't dream during those times. And if he did, he didn't recall the details. He couldn't shake the memory of the last one. It clung like smoke to his skin and try as he might, he couldn't rub it off. Just like the bruises that he couldn't heal, even though he sat with his eyes closed and tried his hardest to direct the currents of a healing magic. He just couldn't formulate the thought patterns it took to control it. Which made him think about Yoko, who'd always been so good at healing. She had the touch of an angel. Which made him think about what the Prophet had done to her, reminding him of his own fault in the matter. Schneider was angry at him. The Prophet had surely taken him to get at Schneider. As if he mattered enough to make a difference. As if Schneider wasn't angry enough at him to give a damn.
Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. It always came down to guilt. He could not wash the guilt from his dreams. And Angelo was using it. He knew Angelo was using it and it didn't matter in the least, that knowledge, because he could not escape the persecution that he had always inflicted upon himself. Could not escape the fact that the only person who had ever really loved him had in the end died because of him, cursing his birth on her last breath.
If he sat there in the darkness thinking a moment longer, with the wizardbane creating endless loops in his memory, he would go crazy. He left the cell again. This time more wary, standing against the wall outside for a long time trying to figure which way to go. Where had the girl gone? She was an enigma in this place. Not an acolyte. Not a guard most certainly. She had warned him twice. He had ignored her twice. The advice of a mere girl meant nothing to the high lord of ice. But then he was far from that at the moment, and she seemed to know this foul place better than he.
He chose the path leading away from the temple. Turned at the intersection this time, deciding to take the advice on not venturing down the path that led to Below. Whatever that was. It sounded ominous enough to make him wish to avoid it. The halls were like a maze. There were stairs leading up and down. The place was monstrous. And not once did he see a single ray of light shining in from outside. In truth there seemed to be no windows. It chilled him - to whom cold meant nothing - to the bone, that cessation of natural light. It brought to mind the underground, cavernous place where Ansasla had rested, dormant in form, but insidiously active of mind.
He pulled his thoughts away from that humiliation. Yet one more thing to feel guilt about -- his weakness in that whole abominable situation.
He passed a pair of acolytes in the hall -- the first living souls he'd seen on this latest foray of exploration. They walked past him without doing more than surreptitiously casting glances his way. If they spoke to themselves once past, his hearing could not pick it up. He stared at their backs as they retreated. There was death in their eyes. Living, breathing death. Life without hope. Without meaning. There was nothing left for them to speak about. He leaned against the wall, a wave of despondency creeping over him. It was the place that drained the life from a body. The place and the whim of its twisted master. If there was a window it would have been better. But perhaps it had been designed that way apurpose.
Lily watched him because he didn't belong here. Because no one else had ever been brought here after she came and she was curious. Because he was beautiful and his eyes were bruised and lost. But mostly she watched him because he spoke to her and no one else in this place without windows had ever done that, save the master and the sound of his voice made her cringe inside.
It was easy to go unseen in this place, unless the master were expressly looking for you. Then he always knew where a body was. There were so many nooks and shadowed crannies, so many unused rooms to hide in so large a place that she could have avoided all the other living souls here for eternity in an endless game of hide and seek. But, what was the point? Why hide if she were already a slave?
But she did hide from him. For the same reason she watched him. Because he had spoken to her and she did not know how to deal with that after so long a time without it. She was desperate to know what manner of man the master held so much interest in. She was desperate to know whether he was merely another initiate into the monastery that was the place without windows, or if he were something more. More she thought. Because the Master had never shown such a fervent interest in anything before save his musings of vengeance. She wondered if this were an enemy. She hoped not, for she had seen what the Master did to his own people at small infractions. She would hate to see her beautiful, sad eyed angel be destroyed by the Master. But she feared it would happen anyway. He rebelled. He had not yet learned that capitulation was the way to less pain and in the end, less humiliation. She had tried to tell him. Free men never understood. It took a lifetime of slavery to learn those harsh lessons.
She hid in a open doorway while two acolytes passed, waited for a moment then peeked out. He leaned against the wall, looking miserable. He looked down the hall in her direction, at the backs of the acolytes. They and all their ilk would be heading towards the dining hall for the second and last meal of the day. She ought to be heading there herself, her stomach rumbled insistently. Stragglers got nothing. She wondered of a sudden if he had eaten anything since he was brought here. Two days. She had not seen him in the dining hall and food was not allowed outside it.
While she was debating, gathering her courage to perhaps step out into the dim light and speak to him -- steps echoed down the hall. Not the quiet, hesitant tread of the acolytes, but the confident step of a man who knows power. Not the Master's rhythm - she knew that too well. It was the step of his Shadow. She slipped further into the shadow of the doorway, crouching down to make a smaller shape in the darkness. Sinakha passed her by without pause, intent on other prey.
He came out of the shadows like a wolf on the hunt. The odd green of his eyes glowed within the flat planed specter of his face. For a moment, he was a ghostly, militant apparition and Kall-Su stared with the drunken fascination of a dreamer only recently arrived in reality. It was not until Sinakha put hands on him that his mind cleared enough to realize it was nothing more than Angelo's captain and indignation fought its way past the wizardbane at the treatment.
"Take your hands from me." He hissed, trying to dislodge the fingers that bit into his arm, drawing him down the hall as if he were a truant child. And Sinakha merely ignored him, as if he were no more consequential than a child. Humiliation upon humiliation upon humiliation. For so long he had lived with all respect afforded a warlord, a lord, a wizard of the highest echelon that the lack of it continually dumfounded him.
To struggle against the man's dogged determination was useless and only added to the shame, so he walked along, grinding his teeth until the sound of many voices raised in prayer alerted him that they were approaching some gathering place. The smell of food drifted down the passage. It made him recall how long it had been since he'd eaten. Not since the morning Angelo had ambushed him. How long ago was that? He found he had no clear notion.
A chamber lit my torches along the walls. Long, low ceilinged, lined with two plain wooden tables and at the end with the ever present alter and symbol of the high god. Kettles of soup or stew sat at the end of each table, along with baskets of bread and urns of water. Row upon row of robed acolytes knelt on the stone floor before the alter, perhaps thirty or forty of them in total, reciting prayers of thanksgiving. Altered prayers. Not quite the words he remembered from childhood. But the prayers then had been to the brethren of gods the village worshipped, not merely to the one god.
The sonorous rhythm of the chant was monotonous and echoed in the chamber. The bowed heads, the clasped hands, the fervent, desperate tremor in dozens of voices to be heard by the deaf ears of their god. As if they thought it were from his hand indeed that the bread came from.
The Prophet sat at the end of one of the tables in the only high backed chair that graced the room. In his hands he turned the symbol he wore about his neck. He did not turn his head to look when Sinakha led him into the room, though he was certain to have seen them from his vantage. He waited until his captain had marched Kall over they stood beside his chair before he deigned to look up. He smiled. Kall hated his smile. Detested it with a passion that made his fingers curl.
"Will you break bread with us, Kall-Su?" Angelo asked, as if Kall were a guest in this place. As if he had other choices available to him. He looked away, not answering, trying to ignore the hunger that the smells of food awakened. Sinakha's fingers tightened on his arm and he got a short, rough jerk to remind him of his manners.
"Ah, no need to be unreasonable." Angelo purred. "No need to deny yourself out of mere pride."
Pride. He had already assessed that pride was not worth a good many things. His first lesson one in this horrid place. "All right." A whisper of agreement.
"Kneel then before the alter of the high god and give prayers of thanksgiving for His generosity."
Kall half laughed, then decided the suggestion was too wretched for even satiric humor and hissed instead. "Go to hell."
The Prophet didn't even move and something lashed across Kall's face. It felt like tail end of a cat of nine tails. He stifled a cry and lifted his free hand to touch his face. It felt as if half the flesh had been torn off, but when he fingered it, he was whole. The acolytes never stopped their prayers. The Prophet turned the symbol around and around in his fingers.
"If you will not give thanks to the god you will not eat. It is the way of the righteous."
"But I'm not righteous, am I?" Kall said softly. "I thought you knew that."
"Oh, but I strive to correct that. I may fail. You may be beyond redemption. But one must try." His eyes gleamed. He waved a hand and Sinakha pushed Kall towards the bench next to Angelo's chair. Forced him down upon it when he stared at it stupidly. He sat there, staring at the rough table top, listening to the chanting, trying to block it out. It invaded his mind like a persistent tune. Over and over, deep voiced and repetitious.
Forgive us our sins, oh divine holy father.
Sustain our unworthy bodies with the food from your vine.
Hear our pledge for eternal faithfulness and protect our souls from
the reach of the dark pit.
Humbleness is our virtue.
And on and on it went. All forty lines of the prayer of thanksgiving. Repeated and repeated. A higher voice joined the chorus of male tones. Kall glanced up under his lashes to see that the girl had slid into the hall and knelt at the back of the row of acolytes, to add her voice to the supplication.
They ceased after a while, but the echoes still rebounded within his head. Stew was served and they all silently took their places at the benches, bent over their meals as if it were the most interesting point of their existence. It probably was. Sinakha stood behind Kall as though waiting for some infraction he might discipline. Someone brought the Prophet a glass of wine for him to sip while his flock ate their meals. One imagined he dined on better fare than what was served here. Not stew, bread or water was offered Kall.
Trivial, trivial punishment. He refused to let it get to him. Refused to let anger rise, but he could not keep down the resentment. The frustration that he was reduced to this.
"Do you wonder why they haven't come looking for you?" Angelo's voice wormed its way into his mind. He blinked, not quite certain he heard it with his ears. "Its been days. I must admit to surprise myself not to have Dark Schneider tearing down my doorstep. I had prepared, you know -- but he's not come. He's usually more protective of those he considers his own. Did you have a falling out?"
Kall tightened his lips, concentrating on the grains of the wood. Block out the voice even though it wormed its way into his thoughts. Ignore him, even though he spoke more truth than he could possibly know.
"I visited the Thunder Empress before I came to you." The Prophet informed him and he did look up at that, remembering the bursts of magic he had felt and chosen not to investigate. "She and the Ninja Master put up a good fight. I don't honestly know if they managed to survive it. I do know that he went to her though. He was desperate to get to her. But wasn't that always how it was between you? Didn't he always forsake you for her?"
He clenched his fists, trying to do anything to block out the insidious voice in his head. Recite the prayer in his mind. He knew the lines by heart. Grandfather had drilled them into him, one more obstacle against the darkness that tainted his soul. The first in a line of priests to defame him for evil, before he ever truly knew what evil was.
He couldn't get the insinuations out of his mind though. Not fully. Angelo spoke a portion of the truth. And if a portion were true --- how did he know what other parts were fabrications?