King's Sacrifice (23 page)

The Warlord
lifted the pen, wrote upon the paper.

When they
come to take me to my father, make some excuse to separate yourself
from me. Investigate. Find out what is going on.

Sagan looked at
the young man intently, to see if he understood, or perhaps to
measure his courage. Fideles nodded, lips pressed tightly together,
jaw held firm.

The Warlord
nodded, apparently satisfied. Lifting die paper, he held it to the
flame, laid the burning paper upon the altar and watched the fire
consume it to ashes. He stirred the ashes with his fingers, scattered
them with a breath. Carefully, he wiped the ink pen clean with the
hem of his black robe, replaced pen and ink upon the desk.

When the key
rattled in the iron lock, Brother Mikael entered the room to find the
Warlord and the young priest on their knees, absorbed in prayer. At
first, neither seemed to notice the monk's presence.

"Lord
Sagan," said Brother Mikael, "your father will see you
now."

The Warlord
remained kneeling a moment longer. Fideles, glancing at him, was
astonished at the man's sudden pallor and ghastly look. Sweat beaded
on Sagan's upper lip, his skin was livid beneath its tan, the eyes
sunken and darkly shadowed. His breath came quick and fast, his skin
burned to the touch. When he started to try to stand, his step
faltered. Fideles, rising at the same time, caught and steadied him.

"My lord,"
said the priest in a low voice, "you are not well. Perhaps I
should—"

Sagan said
nothing, cast him one sharp, commanding look, and removed his arm
from the priest's grasp.

Fideles
understood, kept quiet. He took a step forward, after the Warlord.
Brother Mikael, who had remained standing aside respectfully to let
Sagan out the door, turned his body to block the exit when Fideles
approached.

"I had
assumed, Brother, that you would want to wait for Lord Sagan's return
here, in his cell," said the monk.

"Thank you
for your thoughtfulness, Brother," said Fideles, "but I
have taken a vow to pray all night, on my knees before the alter of
God in the chapel, to ask for salvation for my lord's father's soul."

"May your
prayers be answered," said Brother Mikael reverently, bowing his
head and standing aside to allow Fideles to pass him. "You
remember the way to the chapel, Brother?"

"Yes,
certainly," snapped Fideles. Brother Mikael's sudden meek
acquiescence was disconcerting. "Thank you, Brother, for your
concern," the priest added in gentler tones, "but I lived
here for many years. I am not likely to ever forget my way."

Brother Mikael's
hooded head nodded. "Then I will offer myself as escort to Lord
Sagan."

The two of them
left, walking down the hall in the light of Brother Mikael's lantern.
Fideles remained alone in the room. He waited until his lord and the
monk had passed beyond his sight, then he took the candle from the
desk, lit it at the flickering, perfumed flame of the lamp upon the
altar.

"'Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,'" he
said to himself quietly, " 'I will fear no evil; for thou art
with me.' Be with my lord, as well," he prayed, and walked into
the dark and empty hall.

In the midst of
life we are in death.

Prayer Book,
1662
, Burial of the Dead

The monk,
Brother Mikael, walked the dark corridors of the Abbey, his lantern
held steady to light the way before him. Sagan followed after, his
head bowed, his hood pulled low over his face. Neither said a word.
The Warlord did not attempt to engage the monk in snare-laden
conversation; he did not try to see past the shadows hiding the
monk's face.

If this Brother
Mikael were truly one of Abdiel's minions, one of the mind-dead, he
would be easily recognized by his expressionless face, his empty,
vacant stare. Sagan could have, with one swift movement, yanked the
hood from off the monk's head, discovered the truth. The Warlord's
hands, hidden within his sleeves, were clasped together in prayer. He
already knew the truth. He knew he was not following a monk. Derek
Sagan was following God.

The narrow
hallways they traversed were empty. When they passed open areas, such
as the candle-lit, incense-warm chapel, other members of the Order
could be seen, moving silently about their business. The hooded heads
almost always turned in their direction, unseen eyes watched their
slow and solemn progress.

The monk led the
way past a herbarium; the Warlord could tell the nature of the room
by its smell of moist soil and growing, living things. He caught a
glimpse, in the lantern's light, of bunches of dried stalks and
leaves hanging in neat rows from the rafters, of flasks carefully and
neatly labeled, of a mortar and pestle on a worktable.

We will be near
the infirmary, he thought, remembering the layout of the monastery
where he had spent the first twelve years of his life. His father
would be in the infirmary, where the sick and injured were taken to
mend, where the dying were taken to ease their last hours.

A tremor of
dread and excitement shook the Warlord's frame, a burning as of a
fever swept over his body, his stomach clenched. Pain shot through
his hands, clasped together too tightly. Blood pulsed and throbbed in
his head, obscuring his vision.

But the monk
walked past the infirmary without pausing.

The Warlord went
cold, suddenly, as in battle, when the initial adrenal rush wanes and
you are left, cold and empty, to simply do a job. He became aware of
his surroundings, saw that they were in a cul-de-sac; the hallway
ended, there was no passage out. A door, marked with the inscription,
Requiem aeternam,
stood at the end.

Sagan glanced
back at the infirmary. A coal fire lit the room, to keep those within
comfortably warm. But no one lay in the beds, no invalids sat upright
in wheeled chairs, no herbalist fussed over his patients. The monk
reached the door. Stretching out his hand, he pushed it open and
stood aside humbly, indicating that the Warlord was to enter.

Sagan drew back.
He had no need to ask where he was. The inscription, the smell of
dank stone, and the flow of chill air that brushed his cheek told
him.

"Why have
you brought me here?" he asked sternly. "Is my father dead,
then? Why didn't you tell me?"

Brother Mikael
seemed disinclined to answer. He held the lantern high, lighting the
way into the room, indicating, with an almost imperceptible nod, that
Sagan was to enter. When it became clear, however, that the Warlord
would not stir a step, the monk responded.

"Your
father lives."

"Then take
me to him!" Sagan demanded.

"I have,"
Brother Mikael answered softly.

"This is
the mortuary!" the Warlord stated, endeavoring to control his
rising anger.

"It was his
wish," said Brother Mikael.

Sagan stared at
the monk, who stood impassive in the doorway, body pressed against it
to leave room for the Warlord to go past him. Abruptly, Sagan walked
by, entered the chamber.

The mortuary was
a large, unheated, windowless room made completely of stone. A
grooved channel, cut into the floor, carried away the water used to
wash the bodies of the dead, prepare them for the final rest. In the
center of the room stood a stone bier, flanked by four wrought-iron
candle holders, as tall as the height of a man, supporting thick,
round beeswax candles. By the soft candlelight, Sagan saw upon the
bier not a corpse, but the body of a living man.

Derek Sagan had,
in his time, boarded enemy ships, knowing he was outnumbered ten to
one, aware that unless he was quick and cunning, certain death
awaited him. He'd done so confidently, boldly, without fear. But he
could not now take another step. He was suddenly weak and frightened
as a child, lost and alone in the darkness. He looked at the robed
figure lying on the bier, its body covered with a thin, worn blanket,
and the candle flames grew large in his swimming vision, their fire
threatening to engulf him. A faintness seized him, he came near
sinking to his knees.

"Deus
miserere!"
he gasped, and at the sound, the head upon the
bier turned, the eyes looked at him.

His father had
always seemed old to Sagan, though the priest had been relatively
young when he had broken his vows and been forced to reap the bitter
fruit of his sin. Derek's earliest memories were of a stern and
implacable face, deeply lined with the ravages of shame and guilt and
the self-inflicted pain and privation that was the anguished soul's
only ease. Before the young child knew this man, called only the Dark
Monk, to be his father, Derek sensed a bond between them. It was a
terrible bond, never mentioned, never alluded to by anyone, but
visible in the burning eyes of the Dark Monk whenever their tormented
gaze rested on the child.

When Derek was
ten, and it was believed the precocious child could understand, the
abbot took the boy into his study one day and, in a few blunt words,
explained to Derek his father's sin, his father's chosen penance—a
vow of eternal silence—and his father's wish that Derek be
raised within the Order's dark, thick, impenetrable walls. A king's
command had altered that, but it could not alter the fact that Derek
knew, from that moment on, that life had been granted him only at the
cost of his father's disgrace and eternal suffering.

During Derek's
first twelve years, spent daily in his father's company, the Dark
Monk said no word to his child. At the end of those twelve years,
when Derek left to enter the world, his father did not come to bid
him good-bye.

But now the son
had come to bid good-bye to the father.

God heard
Sagan's prayer, granted him the strength to move forward. He came to
stand beside the bier, near his father. Sickness and old age had
smoothed out and softened the stern, grim harshness of the features.
Lines of torment that had been carved deeply into the cheeks were now
blurred by the wasting away of the flesh. The lips, the stern
guardians of the vow, once pressed together so firmly, were flaccid
and shriveled. The man's body, formerly strong and muscular and
unbent beneath its self-imposed burden of pain, was thin and skeletal
and shook beneath the blanket and the too-large brown robes. Derek
might not have recognized his father except for the eyes. Their gaze
he knew. Their gaze he remembered.

He slowly folded
back the cowl from his head.

The eyes of the
dying man watched every move, searched the face, absorbed it, and
then the head rolled back upon its hard, cold pillow. The eyes
closed, not in peace, it seemed, but in bitter despair.

"He is very
near the end," came a voice from out of the shadows.

Sagan was not
surprised to hear the voice. He realized, when it spoke he'd been
expecting it.

The candlelight
shone upon a bulbous head, tottering precariously on a neck that was
far too slender to support it, and caused the head to seem to spring
suddenly from the darkness, like a demon conjured from the shadows.
The hairless head was grotesquely disfigured, covered by unsightly
patches of decayed skin, several smallish lumps. Two large nodules
protruded from the base of the neck.

The man was old,
every bit as old as the dying man lying on die bier, and seemed in
not much better health, for though wrapped in thick, heavy robes, he
shook and shivered. The voice, however, was strong, if thin, and
indicative of an indomitable will:

"Abdiel,"
said Sagan, an acknowledgment rather than an exclamation.

"A
pleasure, my lord, to see you again after so many years. I am,
however, rather disappointed. You're not surprised to see me. It
would almost appear that you were expecting me. I trust Mikael and
the others in the cast have not misplayed their roles? Ah, no. I
begin to understand. The astute Brother Fideles could not be fooled.
Where is young 'Faithful'? Out investigating, perhaps? You won't tell
me? No matter. He will come to me ... or should I say 'to you,' my
lord."

"I'm the
one you want. Let the priest go."

"Oh, I
intend to, my dear. He'll leave here quite unharmed. I want my
message delivered safely. And you've arranged for his departure with
your usual efficiency, Sagan; left me nothing to do except to have a
little talk with him."

The Warlord did
not appear to hear Abdiel, nor care about the ominous implication of
the mind-seizer's words. He had, after a first, brief, and almost
uninterested glance at the old man, turned his gaze back to his
father.

"Now that
you have me, remove my father to the infirmary, where he may spend
his last hours in peace."

Abdiel appeared
faintly insulted. "Really, Derek, I am not such a monster as you
suppose. Admittedly I used your father to bait my trap—rather
cunning of me, you must admit—but I would never needlessly
torment a dying man.

"Believe
me, I would myself have been far more comfortable waiting your
arrival in a warm room instead of this dank tomb. Mikael told you the
truth about this, if very little else.

"We found
the Dark Monk here in the mortuary upon our arrival. Apparently, when
he discovered his death was imminent, he asked that his living body
be brought here and laid upon this bed where customarily only the
corpse lies. I deemed it best not to move him, for fear he might not
survive the transfer. I knew, you see, that you would not come unless
you believed in your heart that he lived. It became critical,
therefore, for me to keep him alive. I assure you, Derek, that
his
own son
could not have taken better care of him."

Abdiel chuckled
at his little joke.

Sagan ignored
the mind-seizer. The Warlord knelt beside the dying man's bier,
clasped the wasted hand.