A Thief in the Night

Part IV

The Shadows Lengthen

Interlude

Even as the red sun of the Vincularium flickered into a kind of dawn, outside, in the wider world, night was falling. On the road to the ancient city, Herward the eremite kept his watch, his eyes fixed on the dark hole in the once-inviolate seal.

He shuddered as the last purple light of day fled, and bolstered himself with a swig of black mead. His sole sustenance, it was a concoction of mead made from wild honey with fermented weeds and root vegetables, brewed and left to age until it resembled molten obsidian. The stuff had given his ancestors courage to charge into battle and to brave the tortures of the elves. It had sustained Herward for years without solid food, and opened his eyes to visions and hallucinations past number. No matter how hard his life in the ancient fortress had been, no matter what privations he faced, the black mead kept him going. It had kept him steadfast and strong.

It had no power whatsoever to give him the courage to step inside the Vincularium.

He could not say what he was so afraid of. Had he not spent much of his adult life yearning—hungering desperately—for the secrets of that place? And yet now those secrets seemed foul and horrid. He felt as if he put one foot inside that dark hole, it would be immediately chopped off. Or worse—a long-dead hand would grasp the foot and pull him inward, pull him inside out of the moonlight, and he would never reemerge.

His mind so full of dark fancies, his body trembling with fear, Herward nearly expired on the spot when someone crept up behind him and softly spoke his name.

His hand shot out and his clay bottle flew away to shatter on the stony road. So much for liquid courage. Slowly he turned to see what dread phantom had come for him, what horror he’d loosed from under the mountain.

Yet it was a smiling face that greeted him, a smiling face with twinkling eyes he could just make out under the shadow of a monkish cowl. The man who stood behind him wore no bronze armor, but instead the undyed wool habit of a priest.

“Oh, I—I’m sorry, you frightened me,” Herward said, clawing at his wild hair, his scabrous skin. He must look a terror himself, he thought, though he felt like a lizard caught too far from its hiding place in the rocks. “I beg your pardon, brother. You know my name?”

“In Helstrow they told me I’d find you here,” the newcomer said. He did not move forward to embrace Herward, nor even offer his hand, but he offered no violence either. There was a supernal calm about the man, an aura of perfected peace. He looked as if he’d been truly touched by the divine, and that calmed Herward a little. “There are many there who remember Herward the Holy.”

“Herward the Mad, you mean,” the eremite said with a laugh. “Oh, I bear them no malice. They made sport of me, it’s true, but I know my ways are not those of others. That’s why I came here, really. To live life in my own fashion.”

“When we are touched by higher things, it is hard to stay worldly,” the newcomer said. “May I sit with you? I’d talk awhile, if you’ll have my company.”

Herward nodded eagerly. By custom he was a loner, undesirous of human connection, but this night was different. He’d been plagued by doubts before as he sat and watched the hole in the side of the mountain. He’d started to think he heard things moving around just inside, and was grateful for someone else to share his vigil. “Of course, of course! You are a fellow holy man, I see. Yes, I can sense it about you, you know the calm of communion with another world. Please, please join me, friend, brother, ah . . . ?”

“Call me Prestwicke,” the newcomer said. He found a boulder by the side of the road and sat down upon it. His habit was dusty, as if he’d come a long way. “It’s good to sit, and rest awhile.”

Herward sat down in the road and folded his skinny legs in a pose of meditation. “Have you come far?” he asked, because he knew not what else to say.

“From Ness, and lately,” Prestwicke assented. “The miles are long, but the work is the important thing. I do not shirk my duty, nor do I complain. But . . . it is good to sit, and rest.” He looked toward the hole in the mountain but did not remark on it. For a long quiet time the two of them simply sat and shared each other’s company without words. Herward was just grateful not to be alone.

When the newcomer did speak again, his voice was soft and pleasing to the ear. “You were visited recently, weren’t you? By armed men, no less. That must have been hard for you. That sort are so full of bodily desires and greedy aspirations. Their very presence must have tried your devotion.”

How Prestwicke could know that was a mystery, but Herward kept doubt from creasing his face with a frown. Perhaps Prestwicke had been given that information in a vision. “As you say, I do not shirk my duty. The Lady asked me to help them.”

“Now this, Herward, is why I wanted to meet you,” Prestwicke told him. “How long has it been since I met another who really understood what holy work means? Too long I’ve been surrounded only by common folk, or worse—priests.”

Herward cringed at the man’s tone. “Now, the priests of the Lady are good men, and learned, and wise,” he said, almost rising to his feet to defend them. “They are touched by Her hand just as much as—”

Prestwicke interrupted him. “They lead the people in prayers that go unanswered. They sing . . . hymns.” He lifted one hand in dismissal.

“The Lady places us each in our station, and gives us our work. Her priests She chooses because they can teach, and heal, and bring to the people a—”

“They do nothing of value. They take money from the people to burn incense and read from books. Bah! Do you know, Herward,” Prestwicke went on, “there was a time—long passed, of course—when priests were feared by the common herd? When they inspired awe wherever they went?”

“The Lady’s chosen ministers bring only comfort and—”

“The days I speak of were before the Lady came to our world,” Prestwicke said with a little shake of his head. “It was the first work of Her clergy to track down and destroy the old priesthood. Because they knew, Herward. They knew what real priests were capable of. They could make the rain fall. They could change the course of battles. They could perform wonders, Herward. Wonders.”

Herward felt as if icy water had been poured over his shoulders and back. He began to think this visitor was not what he seemed. He might not even be human. There were old tales of demons that took human form, of tempters and cajolers. “You’re speaking of sorcery,” he whispered.

“I most certainly am not,” Prestwicke said, and though he did not raise his voice, it seemed to echo like a thunderclap. “Sorcerers are vile creatures, despoilers of ancient ritual. They steal scraps of incantations and chants from the old priesthood, and use them for their own venal purposes. I’m talking of the old priests of Sadu. The holy brotherhood that placated and worshipped the Bloodgod, in the name of all humankind.”

“Lady preserve me,” Herward said. “Why have you come to me? I’ll resist you, I swear. If you try to take my soul—”

“Their ways are lost now. Their books destroyed. But secrets have a strange way of being remembered. I’m going to find the old ways, Herward. I’m going to bring them back. I can’t let you stop me.” Prestwicke rose to his feet. “Back then, in the old days, the priests of Sadu would perform sacrifices. Human sacrifices. The people would choose who amongst them must die. It mattered little to the priests who was chosen—any life would do as far as Sadu was concerned. Any life would give them the power, the strength to do His work in the world.”

The knife did not suddenly appear in Prestwicke’s hand. It had been there for a while, but Herward had not noticed it before. Now he saw nothing else.

There are many kinds of fear. There is fear of the unknown, and fear of immediate violence. There is a kind of supernatural dread, too, when one realizes that a painful, bloody death may only be the prelude to something much worse.

“I don’t know if the Lady is even real,” Prestwicke said. It was ugly blasphemy just to say that out loud, but Herward did not challenge it. “I know She doesn’t protect Her priests. I’ve seen them bleed. You, on the other hand, are different, Herward. You seem to have genuinely been touched by something bigger than yourself, just as I have. Of course, it’s possible you’re just insane.”

Herward raised one hand to make a holy sign across his chest. Prestwicke moved faster than a striking snake and knocked his arm away. The knife did not touch Herward’s skin, but he heard it slash through the air, an inch away from his throat.

“It might be interesting to see just how much power you have. It might be entertaining to test my god against your goddess, and find out which one can actually protect their chosen. But then again, there’s a chance I might lose. You might kill me.”

Prestwicke chuckled. Herward found himself unable to resist, and he made sounds that might have been giggles or might have been tiny screams.

“But the people didn’t choose you for my sacrifice,” Prestwicke went on. “They chose another. I have to go inside the Vincularium now, Herward. It’s better—more proper—if I don’t kill anyone else until I finish this task. So I’ll ask you politely. Are you going to try to stop me?”

Herward opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

The knife was only a hairbreadth away from his eyeball. Herward was a man of celestial visions, of grand thoughts encompassing the whole of the cosmos, but in that moment, in that slowed-down time, he could see nothing—nothing at all—but the shiny, sharp point of that little knife.

“No,” he said.

Because sometimes fear is stronger than faith.