The Horns of Ruin (19 page)

That was the lesson of the day.

I woke up, startled by the sound of the maid pushing dust
down the hallway outside my door. I stood naked and shivering in my room,
bullistic in hand, listening to her brush, brush, brush her way until she
turned a corner and the sound faded. I had been sleeping, but I had not been
sleeping well. Dreams of the Fratriarch, of Elias, both lying cold and dead in
the Rest. Of them rising up and calling after me with static voices that
scratched against my bones like the song of the impellors.

My fingers shook as I got dressed. They shook as I cut my
breakfast in the quiet mess hall, shook until I stuffed them into the pockets
of my pants and hurried away from the Strength. This was before dawn. The sky
was just barely light, and the streets were empty.

It was a hell of a thing the Elders were asking me to do.
The Cults of the Brothers Immortal had their differences, as the Brothers
themselves had their differences. Petty things that brothers do, whether or not
they are gods. More so for Morgan, Alexander, and Amon, since they were born
human and became gods through their actions during the war against the Feyr.
Petty things, and serious things, and in one case at least, murderous things.
But ever since Amon had betrayed Morgan, since the Cults of Morgan and
Alexander had hunted down their wayward Brother and put him to the torch,
enslaved his Cult, and harnessed their wisdom ... ever since then, Morgan and
Alexander had stood close. Whatever grievances we had against each other were
insignificant beside the Betrayal.

So what were we doing now? Hiding an artifact of the
Betrayer in our monastery, acting behind the Alexians' backs, risking the life
of our Fratriarch to preserve that secrecy. These were the orders of the
Elders. And now they were asking me to break into Alexander's palace and free
an escaped Amonite. An Amonite who might know where Barnabas had been taken,
who certainly knew something of what had happened to him. All to keep the
scions of Alexander in the dark. It made me ... uncomfortable. But that was my
vow, reiterated to Tomas just yesterday, burned into my heart since I had been
left at the door of the Strength.

I wandered the city of Ash in quiet contemplation, wandered
as the city unfolded around me, as the night fell to morning, and morning
became day. I was wasting time. But my hands had stopped shaking, at least.

I felt better, the closer I got to the Strength of Morgan.
That old building always gave me peace, nestled darkly among the bright
glassand-steel towers of the city. It was a place of dense power and ancient
strength, like a foundation stone from which an entire world could be built. I
had built my life on it. Easy to forget its majesty in my trouble.

I paused along the wide boulevard that circled the
Strength, resting beside a vendor cart at the edge of a stream of pedigears
clattering over the cobblestones. The Strength rose above me, its egglike shape
exaggerated by its height and width. The stone of its walls was intricately
carved with friezes from the history of the Cult, its sides interrupted by
terraces and gun platforms and wide glass windows on the higher levels that
glittered in the sun. On the far side I could just make out the walled driveway
where I had been turned over to the Cult as a child. And, facing me, the wide
mouth of the recessed portal that led to the main door of the cathedral. Against
the height of the Strength that door looked small, though it was ten feet tall
and made of thick wood. The arched portal was easily thirty feet high, and
bounded by statues of the warrior-saints. At our current strength, we couldn't
afford the processional guard that traditionally stood at attention. That door
remained closed but unlocked, even in this time of trouble.

What was not unlocked, and never open, were the sally ports
that ringed the monastery. Solid stone doors, hidden in the seams of the holy carvings,
openable only with invokations and secret knowledge. Which is why it caught my
attention when the farthest sally port I could see cracked open and a single
figure slipped out. Whoever it was scurried across the mostly deserted
boulevard and disappeared into the press of buildings on the other side.

I was invoking before I fully understood I was moving, and
moving before half a breath had left my mouth. The boulevard was never crowded
these days, not since the Strength had lost its prominence as the spiritual
center of the Fraterdom. Nothing got in the way as I sped along the edge of the
buildings, each step faster with every invokation of speed and the hunt. By the
time I reached the place where the figure had disappeared I was flaring power
in a coruscating aura of glory. I turned the corner and turned my
Morgan-blessed senses on the trail.

Whoever it was, he was running invokations, too. My senses
were baffled by a muffled aura of misdirection. The street twisted under my
feet, the buildings that should be so familiar fading from sight to be replaced
by a nondescript facade of unknown houses and featureless walls. The sky closed
in. Even my sense of balance took a tumble. I braced myself against a building
that I'd never seen before and looked around. Behind me, the Strength was lost
to sight. The average citizens who had the misfortune of traveling this street
at this time stood dumbfounded in the road, unsure of where they were or where
they were going. I passed them by, pushing through the subterfuge of the
invokation with the burning eyes of the hunter. Faint hints of the figure's
path called to me, disturbances of air and power that could only be detected by
the sharpest of eyes. Morgan's eyes, blessed to me.

After that initial surge of misdirection the trail settled
down. Traces of invokations hung in the air where my target had jumped a fence
or passed, ghostlike, through an intervening wall. A couple times I found
myself following ghost tracks and had to walk back and pick the trail up again.
Twice I spotted the figure. Nondescript robe, shuffling through the crowd that
had gathered in front of a fish vendor. Once he was in the clear, there was
some sort of commotion in front of the shop that drew everyone's attention but
mine. With no one looking, the shuffling figure jumped gracefully up a fire
escape and disappeared into the alleyway beyond.

He was better than me. In a pure chase, speed against
speed, invokation to invokation, he would have outdistanced me in a breath. It
was only his apparent need for subterfuge and the occasional crowd that was
slowing him down enough for me to keep in range.

My pursuit took me deeper into the city, away from the
harbor horns and to the opposite shore of Ash. These were the oldest buildings,
the first structures the Fraterdom had raised after the defeat of the Feyr. I
kept catching glimpses of the Spear of the Brothers, the marble tower that had
served as the seat of power before the three Cults had split and settled into
their own domains. After the betrayal of Amon, Alexander had returned to the
Spear to build his throne, leaving his Cult's Healing Halls to the
administration of his scions and declaring himself the godking of all mankind.
When it was built, the Spear was the tallest structure in all Ash. Now, like
the Strength of Morgan, the Spear was dwarfed by the glass-and-steel towers of
the modern metropolis. Ironic that Alexander sat humbled by the technology
created by his policies toward the Scholars.

We did not go to the Spear, however. The figure skirted the
edge of the administrative district, keeping to the old town and transportation
hubs, more than once ducking into shops and then out the back door without
speaking to merchant or customer. People seemed unphased by his passing. There
were a couple more instances of the disorientation, when it felt like the world
was being squeezed through a tube and everything became unfamiliar. If my
quarry was a scion of Morgan, he was reeling off invokations I had never heard
of, much less learned. I felt the Betrayer's hand in this. My pace quickened,
driven forward by curiosity as much as my warrior's training. I wanted this
target, wanted to hunt him down and drive him to the ground.

Our path began to orbit a cluster of buildings. I slowed
down. The figure was looking for tails, checking and double checking his path.
I had him well in sight now, but there was no getting any closer. We circled
that cluster of buildings once, twice, and then he stopped in front of one
particular place. White walls, plaster chipped and old, windows shuttered, but
the iconography still maintained. One of the original missions of Alexander,
its glory faded, its doors long closed. But not to this man. He crept silently
to the door and laid a hand against it. Something happened, an invokation or a
signal, and the door opened. Before he went inside, the figure looked up and
down the street, then disappeared into the darkness. I saw his face.

Elder Simeon, son of Hatheus, holy scion of Morgan.

Simeon walked slowly through the darkened hallway,
discarding the invokations of stealth and speed that he had been wearing since
he left the Strength. He was unarmed and unadorned, as the relics of the Cult
would have too readily marked him as a scion of Morgan. His clothes were plain,
and he wore no emblems around his neck or at his wrists. One of the most
powerful men in the city of Ash looked like little more than a shopkeep, caught
in the bad part of town.

The hallway opened into a tall central room, a domed space
off which various arched doorways led. Light came from a scattering of
frictionlamps around the room, flickering under minimal power. A second-level
terrace overlooked the main room. The floor here was a mosaic of tiny earthen
tiles, but so many of the pieces were shattered that the picture was lost.
Simeon scuffed his foot across the fragments, frowning. He looked around the
room, then drew something from his pocket. A pendant. He held it aloft and
incanted something under his breath. A pulse rippled through the air, and the
shadows shifted.

"We are here, Simeon of Morgan. There is no need to
shout."

The voice came from the terrace. Simeon turned to face the
speaker, though he couldn't see him. He kept the pendant held high.

"I didn't want to meet like this, Malachi. There are
too many eyes."

"Our eyes, Elder? Or your own?"

"Both. Come out, Healer."

A shadow detached itself from an archway and passed between
two lamps. The man was trim and proper, white armor laced with gold and linen.
He wore the armor well, a man accustomed to fighting as well as parade. A brace
of daggers twinkled at his belt, and his gauntlets glowed with the subtle power
of the Healer's icons. His face was smooth and young, though his eyes looked
like the eyes of a doll. His lips were too big. Golden hair cascaded across his
shoulders. His icons marked him as a High Elector of the Cult of Alexander. It
was Nathaniel, who had early on been put in charge of the defense of the
monastery, and whom the Elders had kicked out.

"Is this better, Warrior? Both of us in the light."

Simeon took a step back, breathing a curse. "I have
had business with you, Elector, and put you aside. I am used to dealing with
Malachi, of the House of Sutures. Where is he?"

"This matter has been elevated, as have I. I am in
charge of this investigation now. The Council of Blood is deeply concerned
about the possibility of their brothers of Morgan acting behind their backs,
and have asked me to take a hand to it. So, tell me." He leaned against
the railing. "What news, Elder?"

"They are not acting behind your back so much as
acting in their own interest. You must understand their-"

"They are hiding an abomination of Amon. That was your
report, no? That is why you came to us originally?"

"I came to Malachi because we are old friends, and
things are getting out of hand. Your involvement is unwelcome."

"My involvement is at the behest of the godking,
Elder. Now, tell me, what is happening in the House of Morgan that you would
call such an urgent meeting with your friend?"