A Darkness at Sethanon

Jimmy reached the door, pulled his rapier, and signalled. The six men with the ram, a beam with a fire-hardened end, stepped forward. They quietly rested the end against the door, pulled back, took three swings, then on the fourth crashed the ram against the door. The door had been bolted, not barred, and exploded inward, sending splinters flying from around the lockplate and men scrambling for weapons. Before the men who held the ram could let it fall and draw weapons, a flight of arrows sped past them. Roald and his men were through the door as the ram struck the stones and bounced.

The sounds of fighting, screams, and oaths filled the room as other voices shouted questions from other parts of the building. Jimmy took in the layout of the room with a single glance and swore in frustration. He spun to confront the sergeant leading the second company. ‘They’ve opened doors to buildings on the other side of the walls behind this one. There’re more rooms there!’ He pointed to two doors through which questioning shouts had issued. The sergeant led his detachment off at once, splitting his squad and sending men through both doors. Another sergeant led his group up the stairs, while Roald and Laurie’s men overwhelmed the few assassins in the first room and began searching for trapdoors in the floor.

Jimmy ran to the door that he was certain led to the room above the sewer. He kicked open the door and found a dead Nighthawk and Arutha’s men coming up through the trap. There was a second door out of the room and Jimmy thought he saw someone duck around a corner. Jimmy followed after, shouting for someone to follow him, and turned the corner. He dodged to one side, but no expected ambush remained. The last time they had fought the Nighthawks, Arutha’s raiders had found the assassins determined to die rather than be captured. This time they seemed more determined to flee.

Jimmy ran down the corridor, a half-dozen soldiers at his heels. He pushed open a side door and found three dead Nighthawks on the floor of a room behind the first they had entered. Already soldiers prepared torches. Arutha’s orders had been specific. All the dead were to have their hearts cut from their bodies and burned. No Black Slayers would rise from the grave this night to kill for Murmandamus.

Jimmy shouted, ‘Did anyone run by here?’

One soldier looked up. ‘Didn’t see anyone, squire, but we were busy up to a moment ago.’

Jimmy nodded once and ran down the hall. Rounding a corner, he discovered a hand-to-hand struggle under way in a connecting corridor. He dodged between guardsmen who were quickly overwhelming the assassins and ran toward another door. It was not entirely closed, as if someone had slammed it behind him but not stopped to see if it was shut. Jimmy shoved it wide and stepped into a broad alley. And across from him were three open and unguarded doors. Jimmy felt his heart sink. He turned to discover Arutha and Gardan behind him. Arutha cursed in frustration. What had once been a large burnt-out building had been replaced by several smaller ones, and where a solid wall had been, now doors invited passage. And not one of Arutha’s soldiers had arrived in time to prevent anyone from fleeing by this route. ‘Did anyone escape this way?’ asked the Prince.

‘I don’t know,’ answered Jimmy. ‘One, I think, through one of these doors.’

A guard turned to Gardan and asked, ‘Shall we pursue, Marshal?’

Arutha turned back into the house as shouts of inquiry came from nearby buildings, from citizens of Fish Town awakened by the fighting. ‘Don’t bother,’ said the Prince flatly. ‘As certain as the sunrise, there are doors to other streets in those homes. We’ve failed this night.’

Gardan shook his head. ‘If anyone was already here, they might have bolted as soon as they heard us attack.’

Other guards came up the narrow alley, many with bloodied clothing. One ran to the Prince. ‘We think two escaped down a side street, Highness.’

Arutha pushed past the man and re-entered the building. Reaching the main room, he found Valdis overseeing the guards as they conducted the grisly work of ensuring no undead assassins rose again. Grimly the men cut deeply into the chest of each dead man and removed his heart. The hearts were burned at once.

A breathless sailor appeared and said, ‘Your Highness, Captain Hull says you should come quick.’

Arutha, Jimmy, and Gardan left the room, as Roald and Laurie came into view, weapons still in hand. Arutha regarded his blood-spattered brother-in-law and said, ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I just came along to keep an eye on things,’ he answered. Roald looked sheepishly at the Prince as Laurie added, ‘He could never learn to lie with a straight face. As soon as he asked me to go gambling, I knew something was up.’

Arutha waved away further comment and followed the sailor to the room leading to the sewer, and down the ladder, the others coming after him. They moved down a tunnel to where Hull and his men waited in their boats. Hull motioned for Arutha to board, and he and Gardan entered one boat, Jimmy, Roald, and Laurie another.

They were rowed to a large convergence of six channels. A boat was tethered to a mooring ring in the stone, and from a trap in the ceiling above hung a rope ladder. ‘We stopped three boats of them coming out, but this one got past. When we reached here, they had all escaped.’

‘How many?’ asked the Prince.

‘Maybe half a dozen,’ answered Hull.

Arutha swore again. ‘We lost maybe two or three down a side street and now we know this lot got away. We may have as many as a dozen Nighthawks loose in the city.’

He paused a moment, then looked at Gardan, his eyes narrowing in controlled anger as he said, ‘Krondor is now under martial law. Seal the city.’

For the second time in four years, Krondor endured martial law. When Anita had escaped from her captivity in her father’s palace and Jocko Radburn, Guy du Bas-Tyra’s captain of secret police, had sought her out, the city had been sealed. Now the Princess’s husband searched out the city for possible assassins. The reasons might be different, but the effects on the populace were the same. And coming on the heels of celebration, martial law was a doubly bitter draught for the people to swallow.

Within hours of the order for martial law being given, the merchants began to troop to the palace to lodge their complaints. First came the ship brokers, whose commerce was the first disrupted as their vessels were held in port or denied entrance to the harbour. Trevor Hull led the squadron assigned to blockade duty, since the former smuggler knew every trick used to run a blockade. Twice ships attempted to leave and both times they were intercepted and boarded, their captains were arrested and their crews confined to ship. In both cases it was quickly determined that the motive had been profit and not escape from Arutha’s retribution. Still, since it was not known who they were searching for, any man arrested was kept in the city jail, the palace dungeon, or the prison barracks.

Soon the ship brokers were followed by the freight haulers; then the millers, when farmers were kept out of the city; then others, each with a reasonable request to have the quarantine of the city lifted for just his special case. All were denied.

Kingdom law was based upon the concept of the Great Freedom, the common law. Each man freely accepted service to his master, except the occasional criminal condemned to slavery or bondsman serving his indenture. Nobles received the benefits of rank in exchange for protecting those under their rule, and the network of vassalage rose from common farmer paying rent to his squire or baron, who paid taxes to his earl. In turn, the earl served his duke, who answered to the crown. But when the rights of free men were abused, those free men were quick to voice their displeasure. There were too many enemies within and without the boundaries of the Kingdom for an abusive noble to keep his position overly long. Raiding pirates from the Sunset Islands, Quegan privateers, goblin bands, and, always, the Brotherhood of the Dark Path – the dark elves – demanded some internal stability in the Kingdom. Only once in its history had the populace borne oppression without open protest, under the rule of mad King Rodric, Lyam’s predecessor, for the ultimate recourse to grievance was the crown. Under Rodric, lese majesty had been reinstated as a capital crime and men could not express their grievances publicly. Lyam had again struck that offence from the laws of the land; as long as treason was not espoused, men were free to speak their minds. And the free men of Krondor spoke their displeasure loudly.

Krondor became a city in turmoil, her stability a thing of the past. For the first few days of martial law, there had been grumbling, but as the seal on the city entered its second week, shortages became commonplace. Prices rose as demand exceeded supply. When the first alehouse near the docks ran out of ale, a full scale riot ensued. Arutha ordered curfew.

Armed squads of the Royal Household Guard patrolled the streets alongside the normal city watch. Agents of both the Chancellor and the Upright Man eavesdropped on conversations, listening for hints to where the assassins lay.

And free men protested.

Jimmy hurried down the hall toward the Prince’s private chambers. He had been sent to carry messages to the commander of the city watch and was returning with the commander at his side. Arutha had become a man driven by his need to find the hidden assassins. He had put aside all other matters. The daily business of the Principality had slowed, then had finally come to a halt, while Arutha searched for the Nighthawks.

Jimmy knocked upon the door to the Prince’s chamber; he and the commander of the watch were admitted. Jimmy went to stand next to Laurie and Duchess Carline while the commander came to attention before the Prince. Gardan, Captain Valdis, and Earl Volney were arrayed behind the Prince’s chair. Arutha looked up at the commander. ‘Commander Bayne? I sent you orders; I didn’t request your presence.’

The commander, a greying veteran who had begun service thirty years before, said, ‘Highness, I read your orders. I came back with the squire to confirm them.’

‘They are correct as written, Commander. Now, is there anything else?’

Commander Bayne flushed, his anger apparent as he bit off each word. ‘Yes, Highness. Have you lost your bloody mind?’ Everyone in the room was stunned by the outburst. Before Gardan or Volney could censure the commander’s remarks, he continued, ‘This order as written means I’ll be putting over a thousand more men in the lockup. In the first place—’

‘Commander!’ snapped Volney, recovering from his surprise.

Ignoring the stout Earl, the commander plunged forward with his complaint. ‘In the first place, this business of arresting anyone “not commonly or well known to at least three citizens of good standing” means every sailor in Krondor for the first time, traveller, vagabond, minstrel, drunk, beggar, whore, gambler, and just plain stranger are to be whisked away without hearing before a magistrate, in violation of the common law. Second, I don’t have the men to do the job properly. Third, I don’t have enough cells for those who are to be picked up and questioned, not even enough for those who will stay on due to unsatisfactory answers. Hell, I can barely find room for the ones who are already behind bars. And last, the whole thing stinks to high heaven. Man, are you daft? You’ll have open rebellion in the city within two weeks. Even that bastard Radburn never tried anything like this.’

‘Commander, that will be enough!’ roared Gardan.

‘You forget yourself!’ said Volney.

‘It’s His Highness who forgets himself, my lords. And unless lese majesty’s been returned to the list of felonies of the Kingdom, I’ll speak my mind.’

Arutha fixed the commander with a steady gaze. ‘Is that all?’

‘Not by half,’ snapped the commander. ‘Will you rescind this order?’

Showing no emotion, Arutha said, ‘No.’

The commander reached for his badge of rank and pulled it from his tunic. ‘Then find another to punish the city, Arutha conDoin. I’ll not do it.’

‘Fine.’ Arutha took the badge. He handed it to Captain Valdis and said, ‘Locate the senior watchman and promote him.’

The now former commander said, ‘He’ll not do it, Highness. The watch is with me to a man.’ He leaned forward, knuckles on Arutha’s conference table, until his eyes were level with the Prince’s. ‘You’d better send in your army. My lads will have none of it. When this is over, it’ll be them who’ll be in the streets after dark, in twos and threes, trying to bring sanity back to a city gone mad and hateful. You brought this on; you deal with it.’

Arutha spoke evenly. ‘That will be all. You are dismissed.’ He said to Valdis, ‘Send detachments from the garrison and take command of the watch posts. Any watchman who wishes to stay employed is welcomed. Any who refuses this order is to be stripped of his tabard.’

Biting back hot words, the commander stiffly turned and left the room. Jimmy shook his head and shot a worried glance at Laurie. The former minstrel would understand as well as the former thief what sort of trouble was brewing in the streets.

For another week Krondor stagnated under martial law. Arutha turned a deaf ear to all requests to end the quarantine. By the end of the third week every man or woman who could not be properly identified was under arrest. Jimmy had communicated with agents of the Upright Man who assured Jimmy that the Mockers were conducting their own housecleaning. Six bodies had been found floating in the bay so far.

Now Arutha and his advisers were ready to conduct the business of interrogating the captives. A large section of warehouses in the north end of the city near the Merchants Gate had been converted to jails. Arutha, surrounded by a company of grim-faced guards, looked over the first five prisoners brought forward.

Jimmy stood off to one side and could hear a soldier mumble to another, ‘At this rate we’ll be here a year talking to all these lads.’

For a while Jimmy watched as Arutha, Gardan, Volney, and Captain Valdis questioned prisoners. Many were obviously simple fellows caught up in some business they didn’t understand, or they were consummate actors. All looked filthy, ill fed, and half-frightened, half-defiant.

Jimmy became restless and left the scene. At the edge of the crowd he discovered that Laurie had taken a seat on a bench outside an ale house. Jimmy joined the Duke of Salador, who said, ‘They’ve only some homemade left, and it’s not cheap, but it’s cool.’ He looked on while Arutha continued the interrogations under the summer sun.

Jimmy wiped his forehead. ‘This is a sham. It accomplishes nothing.’

‘It lessens Arutha’s temper.’

‘I’ve never seen him like this. Not even when we were racing to Moraelin. He’s …’

‘He’s angry, frightened, and feeling helpless.’ Laurie shook his head. ‘I’ve learned a lot from Carline about my brothers-in-law. One thing about Arutha, if you don’t already know: being helpless is something he can’t abide. He’s walked into a blind alley and his temper won’t allow him to admit he’s facing a stone wall. Besides, if he lifts the seal on the city, the Nighthawks are free to come and go at will.’

‘So what? They’re in the city in any event, and no matter what Arutha thinks, there’s no guarantee they’re locked up. Maybe they’ve infiltrated the court staff the way they did the Mockers last year. Who knows?’ Jimmy sighed. ‘If Martin was here or maybe the King, we might have this business at an end.’

Laurie drank, and grimaced at the bitter taste. ‘Maybe. You’ve named the only two men in the world he’s likely to listen to. Carline and I’ve tried to talk to him, but he just listens patiently, then says no. Even Gardan and Volney can’t budge him.’

Jimmy watched the Prince’s interrogation for a little longer while three more groups of prisoners were brought out. ‘Well, some good’s come of this. Four men have been turned loose.’

‘And if they’re picked up by another patrol, they’ll be tossed into another lockup and it might be days before anyone gets around to checking out their claims to having been turned loose by the Prince. And the other sixteen have been returned to the lockup. All we can hope for is Arutha’s realizing soon that this will gain him nothing. The Festival of Banapis is less than two weeks off, and if the seal isn’t lifted by then, there’ll be a citywide riot.’ Laurie’s lips tightened in frustration. ‘Maybe if there was some magic way to tell who is a Nighthawk or not …’

Jimmy sat up. ‘What?’

‘What what?’

‘What you just said. Why not?’

Laurie turned slowly to face the squire. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘I’m thinking it’s time to have a chat with Father Nathan. You coming?’

Laurie put aside his mug of bitter beer and rose. ‘I’ve a horse tied up over there.’

‘We’ve ridden double before. Come along, Your Grace.’

For the first time in days, Laurie chuckled.

Nathan listened with his head tilted to one side while Jimmy finished his idea. The priest of Sung the White rubbed his chin a moment, looking more a former wrestler than a cleric, while he thought. ‘There are magic means of impelling someone to tell the truth, but they are time consuming and not always reliable. I doubt we’d find such means any more useful than those presently being employed.’ His tone revealed he didn’t think much of the means presently being employed.

‘What of the other temples?’ inquired Laurie.

‘They have means differing little from our own, small things in the way spells are constructed. The difficulties do not lessen.’

Jimmy looked defeated. ‘I had hoped for some way to pluck the assassins from the mass wholesale. I guess it isn’t possible.’

Nathan stood up behind the table in Arutha’s conference room, appropriated while the Prince was overseeing the questioning. ‘Only when a man dies and is taken into Lims-Kragma’s domain are all questions answered.’

Jimmy’s expression clouded as a thought struck; then he brightened. ‘That could be it.’

Laurie said, ‘What could be it? You can’t kill them all.’

‘No,’ said Jimmy, dismissing the absurdity of the remark. ‘Look, can you get that priest of Lims-Kragma, Julian, to come here?’

Nathan remarked dryly, ‘You mean High Priest Julian of the Temple of Lims-Kragma? You forget he rose to supremacy when his predecessor was rendered mad by the attack in this palace.’ Nathan’s face betrayed a flicker of emotion, for the priest of Sung himself had defeated the undead servant of Murmandamus, at no little cost. Nathan was still plagued by nightmares from that event.

‘Oh,’ said Jimmy.

‘If I request, he may grant us an audience, but I doubt he’ll come running here just because I ask. I may be the Prince’s spiritual adviser, but in temple rank I am simply a priest of modest achievements.’

‘Well then see if he will see us. I think if he’ll cooperate, we might find an end to all this madness in Krondor. But I’ll want to have the Temple of Lims-Kragma’s cooperation before I blab the idea to the Prince. He might not listen otherwise.’

‘I’ll send a message. It would be unusual for the temples to become involved in city business, but we’ve had closer relationships with each other and the officers of the Principality since the appearance of Murmandamus. Perhaps Julian will be kindly disposed to cooperate. I assume there’s a plan in this?’

‘Yes,’ said Laurie, ‘just what have you got up that voluminous sleeve of yours?’

Jimmy cocked his head and grinned. ‘You’ll appreciate the theatre of it, Laurie. We’ll whip up some mummery and scare the truth out of the Nighthawks.’

The Duke of Salador sat back and thought on what the boy had said; after a moment of consideration, his blond beard was slowly parted by a widening grin. Nathan exchanged glances with the two as understanding came and he, too, began to smile, then to chuckle. Seeming to think he forgot himself, the cleric of the Goddess of the One Path composed himself, but again broke into an ill-concealed fit of mirth.

Of the major temples in Krondor, the one least visited by the populace was that devoted to the Goddess of Death, Lims-Kragma – though it was commonly held that the goddess sooner or later gathered all to her. It was usual to give votive offerings and a prayer for the recently departed, but only a few worshipped with regularity. In centuries past, the followers of the Death Goddess had practised bloody rites, including human sacrifice. Over the years these practices had moderated and the faithful of Lims-Kragma had entered the mainstream of society. Still, past fears died slowly. And even now enough bloody work was done in the Death Goddess’s name by fanatics to keep her temple tainted by a patina of horror for most common men. Now a band of such common men, with perhaps a few uncommon ones hidden among them, was being marched into that temple.

Arutha stood silently by the entrance to the inner sanctum of the Temple of Lims-Kragma. Armed guards surrounded the antechamber while temple guards in the black and silver garb of their order filled the inner temple. Seven priests and priestesses stood arrayed in formal attire, as if for a high ceremony, under the supervision of the High Priest, Julian. At first the High Priest had been disinclined to participate in this charade, but as his predecessor had been driven past the brink of insanity by confronting the agent of Murmandamus, he was sympathetic to any attempts to balk that evil. Reluctantly he had agreed at the last.

The prisoners were herded forward, toward the dark entrance. Most held back and had to be shoved by spear-wielding soldiers. The first band contained those judged most likely to be members of the brotherhood of assassins. Arutha had grudgingly agreed to this sham, but had insisted on having all suspected of being Nighthawks in the first batch to be ‘tested’, in case the deception was revealed and word leaked back to the other prisoners being held.

When the reluctant prisoners were arraigned before the altar of the Goddess of Death, Julian intoned, ‘Let the trial commence.’ At once the attending priests, priestesses, and monks began a chant, one that carried a dark and chilling tone.

Turning to the fifty or so men held by the silent temple guards, the High Priest said, ‘Upon the altar stone of death, no man may speak falsehood. For before She Who Waits, before the Drawer of Nets, before the Lover of Life, all men must swear to what they have done. Know then, men of Krondor, that among your number are those who have rejected our mistress, those who have enlisted in the ranks of darkness and who serve evil powers. They are men who are lost to the grace of death, to the final rest granted by Lims-Kragma. These men are despisers of all, holding only to their evil master’s will. Now they shall be separated from us. For each who lies upon the stone of the Goddess of Death will be tested, and each who speaks true will have nothing to fear. But those who have sworn dark compacts will be revealed and they shall face the wrath of She Who Waits.’

The statue behind the altar, a jet stone likeness of a beautiful, stern-looking woman, began to glow, to pulse with strange blue-green lights. Jimmy was impressed, as he looked on with Laurie. The effect added a strong sense of drama to the moment.

Julian motioned for the first prisoner to be brought forward and the man was half dragged to the altar. Three strong guards lifted him up onto the altar, used ages past for human sacrifice, and Julian pulled a black dagger from his sleeve. Holding it over the man’s chest, Julian asked simply, ‘Do you serve Murmandamus?’

The man barely croaked out a reply in the negative and Julian removed the dagger from over the man. ‘This man is free of guilt,’ intoned the priest. Jimmy and Laurie exchanged glances, for the man was one of Trevor Hull’s sailors, ragged and rough looking in the extreme, but above suspicion and, judging from the performance just given, not a mean actor. He had been planted to lend credibility to the proceedings, as had the second man, who was now being dragged to the altar. He sobbed piteously, yelling to be left alone, begging for mercy.