Severed Souls (28 page)

They shared looks among themselves.

“Now, each of you has again taken a new master—but this time one worthy of your unwavering loyalty. You are now all bonded to me, Lord Dreier, as is Erika. Like Darken Rahl, Hannis Arc is a fallen, unworthy past master. It is now my ability that powers your Agiel.”

“We understand, Lord Dreier,” one of them said as her back stiffened and her shoulders squared up. “Thank you for the opportunity to serve you.”

The others straightened and swore their service, their loyalty, and their lives to him as well.

Ludwig placed a hand on Erika's shoulder. “Mistress Erika has been with me for quite a while.” He offered them a smile. “She will of course be your mistress. She is in charge of you and you will do as she says. But that is merely a chain of command; she does not own you, as Alice did. You are again sisters of the Agiel. Understand?”

All of them, standing up straighter, looking well pleased, nodded without reservation.

“Now,” he said, “I know enough about Hannis Arc to be able to tell you that I have different requirements of my Mord-Sith. First of all, you are to wear black leather to indicate that you are in service to me. Is that understood?”

Again, they all nodded.

“That service to me extends to the bedroom.”

They blinked at the unexpected command, and how blunt he had been about it. But they were far from shocked. It had been one of the reasons they had left Darken Rahl. Ludwig had heard about the way Darken Rahl used women. Hannis Arc, on the other hand, didn't care about their bodies, just their service to him. Ludwig Dreier cared about both.

But unlike their link to Darken Rahl, their link to Ludwig was forged with occult powers. They might have believed that it was in part a function of their belief in his mastery over them and their sworn loyalty as was their previous bond, but it was not. This time it was a bond forged with powers that they could not break as long as they lived, as long as he lived. This time death was their only escape from their bond, no matter how badly they might come to wish they could leave their service to him, the way they had left their service to Darken Rahl.

But he didn't have the same rather exotic cravings with which Darken Rahl had been obsessed. In fact, he considered the things he had heard about what the man did to women in the bedroom to be repugnant. Hardly a wonder they had wanted to be free of him. Ludwig's Mord-Sith would not be plagued by the same wish to leave him just because he took them to his bed. He had simple tastes and simply enjoyed being with women the way the Creator intended. Mostly.

“Any questions? Comments?”

“No, Lord Dreier,” they all said as one.

He turned to Erika. “You pick for me. Pick which one will spend tonight with me.”

Erika pointed at the one she knew he would like best, the blonde she had used her Agiel on.

“You.”

The Mord-Sith bowed her head. “Yes, Mistress. I am yours tonight, then, Lord Dreier, and any night you would have me.”

Ludwig was pleased that, once again, given the choices that he had shaped for them, they had chosen wisely. Once again, his insistence on focusing on people had advanced his cause. It so happened that it had also gotten him a comfortable new home from where he would prepare to offer choices to Hannis Arc's chaos.

He nodded. “It's still early. First, show me Bishop Arc's study—the recording room where he used the prophecy I sent to him.”

Although Ludwig had sometimes personally brought some of his important prophecies to Hannis Arc—the ones he wanted to make sure the bishop saw—the man had always insisted on meeting with him in a small secondary office, or in the grand entrance hall, sitting in the chairs, sharing tea, as they discussed the prophecy. While they sipped tea, Ludwig fed the bishop the prophecies he wanted the man to know.

Hannis Arc had never let him see the recording room, though, the place where he did most of his work. Ludwig wanted to see it himself and know why not.

The woman that Erika had picked for him held her arm out to the side. “This way, Lord Dreier.”

 

CHAPTER

39

Up on the top floor, an old scribe named Mohler nervously fumbled with the keys with one hand while holding a lantern in his other. Ludwig knew the man. He was the one person Hannis Arc seemed to trust, at least as much as he trusted anyone. He was the only scribe allowed to handle the prophecies that Ludwig sent to the citadel.

As Ludwig Dreier impatiently watched the man groping through all the keys on the ring, flipping them over one at a time with a thumb looking for the right one, he gave consideration to simply using his ability to blow the heavy door off its hinges. With a sigh, he reminded himself that there was no need to rush, or use his ability for trivialities.

That was one of the ways he had managed to remain hidden under Hannis Arc's nose for so long—he didn't use his power when he didn't absolutely need to. No one was going to come chase him away from Hannis Arc's office door. The whole place belonged to Ludwig, now. So he continued to wait patiently.

Mohler looked up. “Sorry, Master Dreier—”

“Lord Dreier.”

“Yes,” Mohler said, absently, his head bobbing, “Lord Dreier, I meant to say.”

Erika lifted the lantern from the man's hand so that he could use both hands to search through his fat ring of keys. Glancing up from time to time, nervous, fearing to be too slow, he sighed with relief when he at last found the key he was looking for. He tried to poke the trembling key in the lock, but he missed several times. Erika finally took hold of the man's gnarled hand, steadied it, and fed the key into the lock.

He looked up. “Thank you, Mistress. I've been opening this door nearly all my life.” He hesitated. “I've just never had to open it for anyone other than…”

“Understandable,” Ludwig said, peering down at the sparse gray hair that lay over the top of the hunched old scribe's bald head. “But you are still opening it for your master.”

Mohler looked up and blinked. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

The man smiled at the notion as he started turning the key in the lock, jiggling it in a way that he apparently knew the old lock needed in order to give up the secrets beyond. With the proper touch of the scribe's experienced hand, the bolt finally clanged back, freeing the door. Mohler pushed the door in as he stood aside to admit the new master.

Inside, the scribe took his lantern back from Erika as he plucked a long sliver from an iron holder on the wall near the door. He lit the sliver in the flame of his lantern, dropped the glass cover back down, and then rushed around the room using the flaming sliver of fat wood to light candles and lamps.

The recording room was far more expansive than Ludwig had expected, with a high beamed ceiling but no windows. Even with all the candles and lanterns Mohler was lighting, it was rather dark and gloomy. Ludwig scanned the odd collection of various things standing on display.

Those displays were all placed in an even grid pattern, almost resembling pieces placed on a chessboard, and yet the way the cabinets, cases, statues, and pedestals were mixed together randomly made no logical sense, except perhaps as a representation of chess pieces of a game in play.

Ludwig found the confusing arrangement rather obnoxious. He realized, then, that if he wanted, he might have them lined up together in an orderly manner, or placed against walls. He thought it would make more sense if he grouped like things together. As he walked through the room, he mentally began redecorating the place, placing specific things together and making it more convenient to find particular items.

He didn't know how Hannis Arc had worked in such seeming chaos. He supposed that he had lived here his entire life and was used to it. And, of course, Hannis Arc was an advocate of chaos, so in an odd way it did seem fitting.

But it also told Ludwig something important about the way Hannis Arc thought. He was in certain ways brilliant, and in many ways highly focused, while in other ways incredibly powerful, effective, and dangerous, yet he wasn't necessarily logical. At times, he went about things on whim, or became fixated on one thing to the exclusion of all else, such as his obsession with the House of Rahl.

Ludwig saw that the glassed cabinets he walked past held an odd mixture of rarities such as bones from strange creatures, or small statues, mechanical devices, and even round tubes with carved symbols all over them. The symbols resembled those tattooed all over Hannis Arc. They were called story tubes and they had been written in the language of Creation. Ludwig knew that items with those symbols were ancient and exceedingly rare. Lives had been traded for such rare treasures.

There were a number of stuffed animals in various places around the room. Besides the more common creatures in common poses—deer standing in an oval display of grass; a family of beavers on a mound of sticks; and raptors, wings spread, on bare branches—there was a large bear towering up on its hind legs, jaws spread wide, with its claws raised so that it looked perpetually ready to attack.

The things that really drew Ludwig Dreier's attention, though, were the dozens of pedestals evenly spaced in various places throughout the room, conforming to the grid pattern. Each pedestal held an open book. The books were all enormous, with heavy leather bindings that showed great age and wear all around the edges. They would have been hard to move because of their sheer size, but also because they looked quite frail, so they appeared to have permanent homes on their pedestals, rather than on some of the bookshelves against the back wall.

Tables near the book pedestals were piled with disorderly stacks of scrolls. Ludwig recognized many as scrolls he had sent to the citadel—to Hannis Arc—to be recorded in the books of prophecy.

Some of those scrolls still had unbroken seals as they sat waiting their turn to be opened and recorded. Ludwig found that irritating. He had gone to enormous trouble in both time and effort to collect each and every one of those prophecies, to say nothing of the people who had given their lives in that work.

Mohler held out a hand of gnarled, arthritic fingers. “This is my work, Lord Dreier. These are the books you asked about.” He gently laid his hand on one of the open books with a kind of reverent affection. “This is where I write down all the prophecy brought to the citadel.”

Ludwig frowned. “You mean the prophecy that I sent to the citadel.”

The old scribe stroked the knuckle of his first finger back along his gaunt cheek. “Well, yes, Lord Dreier, those, and others.”

Ludwig's frown deepened. “Others. What do you mean, others? I was Bishop Arc's abbot. I am the one who uncovered prophecies on his behalf and sent them here, to the bishop.”

Mohler dipped his head. “Yes, but there were others.”

“Others? What others?”

The old man shrugged his hunched shoulders, hands opened out to the sides. “I am sorry, Lord Dreier, but I was not privy to such things.” He gestured to one of the tables piled high. “Scrolls and books are brought in, and I record what is in them here, in these books.”

“And only you record prophecy? You recorded all of what is in these books?”

He again placed a deformed hand on one of the books on a pedestal. “These books are my work, but they predate me, of course. They contain the work of many who came before me. All of it is recorded here. I have entered all the prophecy found in these books since Bishop Arc entrusted me with the task back when I was still young. I have worked at this my entire life.”

Ludwig realized that Hannis Arc was not the only one privy to prophecy. Ludwig was sure that in all those many years of working with the books, Mohler would have had to go through the books and read what had come before. This unassuming old man probably knew more prophecy than just about anyone else alive.

That made the man useful. Or dangerous.

Ludwig had a sudden thought. “How do you know which book to write the prophecy in? Do you fill one book and then go on to the next?”

“No, each prophecy must go in its proper book.”

“How in the world do you determine that?”

Mohler frowned at the expanse of pedestals throughout the room that held books. He seemed confused by the question. “Well, Lord Dreier, each prophecy must be recorded where it belongs.”

“How do you know where a prophecy belongs?” he asked patiently. “Did the bishop tell you?”

“No … no, that was my job.” He gestured at the scrolls. “As you can see, he did not open them beforehand. He would review them after I had entered them. He said that it was easier for him to read it all once it was in my hand. Some of the writing is sloppy, or rushed, or poorly done so they can sometimes be quite difficult to read, so he always waited until I recorded them. It is my job to figure out what they say and then write it down clearly for the bishop.”

“But what makes you decide to enter any given prophecy in a particular book?”

“The subject, of course,” the scribe said with simple sincerity. “I put them where they belong. That way, if the bishop wanted to review a particular subject, he could go directly to that book, rather than spend time searching through everything.”

He gestured to a particular volume not far away. “For example, all the prophecy in that volume is about the House of Rahl. Of course, it is often difficult to categorize prophecy because it is usually about more than one thing. So, I must use my discretion. I try to determine the thrust of the prophecy, what it pertains to, and then I put it in the proper book.”

“That's complete lunacy,” Ludwig said half to himself.

“Lord Dreier?”

He frowned at the scribe. “That means they would not be set down according to any chronology. There is nothing—no chronology—to link all of these subjects and events.”

Ludwig knew quite well that chronology was what mattered most. What did it matter what prophecy had to say about a particular event meant to happen thousands of years ago?