Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Disaris stumbled through the entry doors of a once-lavish home and fell to her knees before a man dressed in long red robes and a tall hat decorated with onyx beads and the skeletons of birds.
While his clothing was morbidly majestic, the man himself was forgettably average-looking.
Until one looked into his eyes and saw the fires of fanaticism burning there.
Ceybold knelt beside her and bowed until his forehead touched the floor. “Master,” he said. “I have brought you a gift. My wife, Disaris. The code breaker who was translating the Holy Book of the Dark Mother, Kocyte.”’
Disaris swallowed a gasp. This was the Hierarch?
The notorious leader of the Daggermen? The man who embraced violence as a standard to live by and worshipped a goddess so vile that other gods had exiled her from this realm?
Her mouth went dry. She had lived among evil before, feared if she did so for too long, she’d be corrupted by it.
Succumb to it. Now she knelt in the heart of its source.
The Hierarch regarded her and Ceybold with a gaze colder than that of any serpent’s.
“Ceybold, I thought everyone in Baelok was dead.” He softly clapped his hands together as if applauding Fate.
“So it is true,” he said, his toothy smile at Disaris making her flinch away.
“The goddess has blessed us with your safe return, mistress. Welcome back to the fold.”
Equally disgusted and furious, Disaris didn’t have the time or patience to indulge in social etiquette with the leader of assassins. “Where is Luda?”
Ceybold’s sharp cuff to her head made her ears ring, and she canted sideways from the blow. “Shut up, bitch.” His command was hardly more coherent than a snarl. “You haven’t been given permission to speak.”
He got a taste of his own discipline when the Hierarch backhanded him hard enough to knock him over.
He lay on the ground, clutching his face, eyes wide as he stared at his master.
“Neither have you, Ceybold,” the Hierarch said in a mild voice.
He turned his attention back to Disaris as if Ceybold’s presence was no more important than that of a fly, and just as annoying.
“Your sister is well,” he assured her in a tone usually reserved for grandfathers who passed out sweets to their grandchildren instead of murdering them.
“She doesn’t quite have the talent you do for translation, but she’s improving.
Things will be different now that you’re returned to us. ”
Bron had once told her to stop bargaining with people, especially those like Ceybold.
Too bad Fate kept throwing obstacles in her way that forced her to gamble with such repulsive people.
“I want to see her,” she insisted. “I won’t translate a single rune or letter for you until you show me proof that she’s alive and unharmed. ”
Her defiance was a risk, taken not because she was fearless but because she was desperate.
The note Ceybold had left for Bron guaranteed he’d come back to the Daggermen’s lair with the intention of wreaking havoc.
Ceybold was counting on it. Disaris had to know if Luda was here and find a way to help her escape.
The Hierarch shrugged. “Fair enough.” He signaled to one of the many disciples surrounding him who bowed and disappeared into a hallway at the back of the room.
He then pointed to Ceybold who’d resumed his subservient position and stared at the floor.
His head jerked up, mouth wide with shock when the Hierarch pointed to him and said “Kill him.”
Ceybold inhaled and scurried back from the pair of Daggermen approaching him, knives drawn, ready to to dole out the same ending they gave to all their victims. He held up his hands to ward them off.
“Wait! Wait!” he pleaded. “I know how the portal stones work. Not just the one we used at Slaekum’s temple. ”
Another gesture from the Hierarch, and his minions returned to their positions. Their master tilted his head, watching the cowering Ceybold for a long moment before telling him, “Go on. I’m listening.”
Disaris listened, disgusted as Ceybold did his best to talk his way out of his own execution.
He had no idea how to decipher the stones and make them work.
He’d admitted as much to her himself after he killed Zaras and took Disaris hostage as the so-called “gift” for the Hierarch to curry lost favor and reclaim his status.
“You and Bron never even saw me hiding near the Hayman Stone,” he said, wiping his bloodied hands on one of Zaras’s dish towels.
“You were too busy keeping an eye on the Daesin soldiers chasing you.” He wagged a finger at her.
“Everyone knows if you don’t properly shut a door, something will come in or go out.
I waited until the leader of the Daesin guard followed you through the portal, then I went in as well, and just in time. ”
Heartbroken over Zaras’s death and furious over her own recapture by the man she’d fervently hoped had died at Baelok, Disaris paused in her ruminations for how to escape and kill Ceybold to repeat his words in her head. The leader had followed them.
Cimejen.
Disaris prayed that Golius’s hunting dog would find them and become their ally instead of their adversary. Either way, she’d rather take her chances with him instead of the Daggermen.
Ceybold spoke even faster as the Hierarch visibly began to lose patience.
“I can show you how the stone near here works and how to use it in conjunction with the Hayman Stone. But first, you should know she…” He paused to point at Disaris.
“Came through the portal with a battle mage known as the Moon Raven. They were followed by a Daesin officer. I came through after them.”
The Hierarch glanced at Disaris. “Is that true, mistress?”
She nodded. “The gate part, yes. The rest, no,” She gleefully lied, “I came alone.”
“You lying bitch!” Ceybold attempted to lunge at her, then thought better of it as Daggermen closed in on him. He struggled and begged forgiveness when the Hiearch again signaled to his minions. “Muzzle him.”
With Ceybold gagged and things much quieter, the Hierarch reached out and helped Disaris stand. “If what he says is true, then you’re even more valuable than I thought. Who is this Moon Raven?”
She stood her ground, ignoring how her stomach twisted itself into knots. “Let me see my sister.”
A short time that felt like forever passed as Disaris waited. Her patience was reward by the much-desired appearance of her sister, escorted into the grand foyer by a half dozen more Daggermen.
Luda screamed her name when she saw Disaris and rushed to her. “Disa!”
The two women embraced, holding each other tightly until Disaris loosened her grip and stepped back to better see her sister. “Are you all right?”
The girl nodded and made to answer, but the Hierarch interrupted her. “Of course she is. Luda is the key to many things, including your cooperation.”
This revolting excuse of a human being sickened her more than Ceybold did, but once more she made a wager. “Let her go, and I will translate the rest of your grimoire and show you how to use the stones as a portal. I do know to open them. I can show you the way through.”
“Disa!” Luda squeezed her arm and shook her head. “No!”
The Hierarch’s mocking chuckle only inflamed Disaris’s fury. “Why would I let either of you go? You’re the chinks in each other’s armor.”
He wasn’t wrong, but Disaris refused to only see it that way. A weakness was also a strength. Loving Bron had taught her that.
“Who is this battle mage, and what are his powers?” His question alerted her to the fact that while he didn’t believe everything Ceybold had told him, he didn’t discount everything he said either.
She was about to stall, to lie and insist that no one followed her through the gate when suddenly the entire building rocked on its foundation under the force of a booming thunder.
Daggermen rushed to protect their master as sconces and pictures fell from the walls, while other things unseen crashed to the floor with shattering noises.
Another boom followed the first, and this one blew out the windows, sending showers of glass raining down on them from every direction.
Luda grabbed Disaris’s hand and pulled. “Hurry,” she yelled over the chaos of falling furniture and the bellowed orders of Daggermen telling each other to protect the Hierarch.
The two women raced through the trembling house, Disaris following Luda down unfamiliar corridors and through rooms cluttered with toppled furniture and broken glass. Heavy footsteps sounded behind them. They were being pursued.
She dared not look back, afraid of stumbling and falling, and bringing Luda down with her. Or losing Luda altogether. She cannoned into her sister’s back when Luda came to a sudden halt. A Daggerman stood in front of the door they were running toward, his smile wolfish and murderous.
“Bastard!” Luda screamed at him.
Disaris didn’t say anything. She grabbed the nearest item to her – a wooden ewer half full with liquid—and hurled it at the man’s head.
His eyes widened as he tried to dodge the missile and the cascade of wine arcing toward him.
The ewer smashed against the door, and was followed by a plate, a loaf of bread, and an eating knife.
The Daggerman knocked the projectiles aside and advanced toward them. He made it two steps before the door behind him slammed open with enough force to throw him forward and rip away from its hinges.
A powerful gust of wind blew inside on a howl of rage and with it a concussive wave that knocked the two sisters against a wall and the guard through another shattered window.