The False Martyr (2 page)

“
You will! The Order has
chosen you. I have seen it. And more importantly, the Master has
seen it. In a different time, you would be approached. You would be
separated from the others. You would be sent to a Weaver commune to
. . . .”

“
Weavers? But . .
.”

“
Listen. Only listen.”
Screams, louder now, pounded the doors. The storm unleashed its
fury on the glass. Panes rattled, lead seams strained, sighing
under the weight of their burden. “You would be trained to read the
Tapestry and weave Its patterns. But that time is not this one. It
falls on you to rebuild. To take this seed, to protect it, plant
it, and wait for the one who can harvest its bounty. The Order
rests on you, Lius. In a few moments, everyone in this building
will be dead. Only you will survive to carry our most precious
artifact and ensure that it survives.”

Teros paused and looked
toward the doors. They were close now. The screams had stopped. He
felt his heart rate rise, his breath quicken. Sweat formed on his
hands and brow. He had prepared himself for this, had thought on it
for decades. Why was it still so hard?

He led the boy to the back
of the room, touched the eye of the savior, said a silent prayer,
then pulled on the arm of a statue. A door opened. It was small.
The passage was dark. Webs spanned it in a silvery multitude. “This
hall will lead to stairs. They will take you to the catacombs. The
tombs stretch below the city away from here. The Order will guide
you. You are a Weaver. The Order is yours. You must trust that this
is true. When you emerge, you will go north. Find Jaret Rammeriz.
Explain to him what has happened.” There was a thud in the hall.
Marcum, his secretary, the last line, began screaming. They were
here.

Teros shoved the box into
the boy’s trembling hands. His eyes were filled with panic. They
bounced between the intricate doors and the dark passage. Finally,
Teros reached up and pulled a lamp from the wall. The boy struggled
to hold it and the heavy box, but the Xi Valati just pushed him
toward the passage. “Go now. All this is as it should be. If ever
you revered me, then trust me now and go.”

The ten-foot tall,
six-inch thick, thousand pound doors flew from their hinges,
exploded into the room, revealing a small man in a black robe and
fifty creatures that would never be described as men. Covered in
thick, oily black fur, they were the shape of men, but their faces
lacked noses and ears, consisting entirely of beady black eyes and
gapping mouths that seemed to stretch around their entire heads.
Blood dripped from the creatures, sparkled on their pin-like teeth,
ran from their weapons, stained their leather vests, plastered the
fur to their terrible faces. They had already killed hundreds. Now,
it was Teros’ turn.

With a deep breath, he
walked calmly to his desk and addressed their leader, “I have read
much of you, Yuille, but I cannot say that I have looked forward to
our meeting.”

The little man lifted his
hands, threw back the hood of his robe, revealed a face that was at
the same time that of a young man and an ancient monster. He
sneered, crooked teeth peering between thick lips. His black eyes
leered. “Your followers died poorly. They have sacrificed
themselves for nothing. You will need to do far better if you wish
to match your savior. He would give up thousands, massacred without
a sound, to maintain his weavings. In comparisons, this was a
pathetic display. You, your Weavers, are weak. And now you will
join them.”

The man lowered his arms,
allowing the creatures to rush around him. Their weapons shined,
jagged and cruel, in the light of the lamps, reflecting crimson
from the blood they had already spilled. And Teros just looked to
the boy standing in the hidden passage and motioned him on. A tear
escaped down his cheek, but he smiled. The boy stood frozen, unable
to move as creatures from a nightmare descended like dogs fighting
over scraps.

Finally, Teros released
the trap that had been a lifetime in its preparation. He pulled a
brass marble from his pocket and tossed it up. It sparkled in the
flash of a lightning strike, shimmering like a ball of fire until
it reached the glass above. And at that moment, lightning filled
the sky, the wind rose to a hurricane. The dome shattered. For a
heartbeat, the shards of glass seemed to float, held for the
slightest instant by the wind. The Xi Valati slammed his hands on
his desk. The wind responded.

Glass shards whistled
through the air. Propelled by the wind but guided by some other
force, they struck down the creatures, cut them to shreds. They
fell back, held up hands or weapons, but had no escape from the
glass daggers that sought them from every side. And Teros danced.
He snapped at the air, threw his hands to the side, jerked his
head. The shards answered. At his direction, they flew. The wind
carried them, swirling and changing as if alive. They darted around
the old man close enough to clip his robe, but never hit
him.

The creatures were in
disarray. They had no hope. Fifty living, breathing things against
a thousand ethereal specters. It was a massacre for all but one.
The man in the black robe seemed to drift across the room. The
blades sought him, but he gestured them away. And with each step he
moved faster until his dance echoed that of the Xi Valati, until he
was coming around the desk, until he ended it.

His hand slammed up, metal
shimmered, and the Xi Valati stopped. Teros stared at the blade
standing from his chest, sputtered, coughed blood, and smiled to
match that of the man who had killed him. With the very last of his
strength he gestured toward the doorway where Lius watched. The
door slammed closed. He turned back to the demon before him and,
through the blood that welled in his mouth, said his final words,
“The pattern is maintained.”

#

Lius stared at the stone
block before him and shook. He had not even seen twenty years, had
taken his vows less than a year before, had barely spoken a word
since, had spent almost every second of that time either reading or
meditating. How did the Xi Valati even know that he existed? How
could he have been chosen for this?

He had always excelled at
his studies, had been able to see the meaning of things far beyond
the abilities of his fellow students, but he had never made a point
of it, had barely written, had barely spoken. His family was not
important – mildly prosperous merchants from Caliea – and as the
fifth son, he was so far down the line as to barely be noticed. And
now he held in his hand what had to be
The
Book of
Valatarian
,
THE
book. Not one of the travesties
they sold to the populous, not even the slightly closer adaptations
held within the deep libraries of the Hall of Understanding. This
was their master, the book penned by Xionious Valatarian, the full
and complete story of his life, of the battle with Chaos, the power
of Order, and the Exile.

Somehow, Lius had always
known that this book existed. He had seen the small differences
between the various versions he had read throughout his life, had
seen pieces, the smallest elements, the tiniest phrases, come and
go, and had known that somewhere there was a master work, a central
treaties that had given birth to all those others. It was like
tracking back all the paintings in a gallery, seeing all their
difference and similarities, and knowing that at some point they
had all come from the same artist.

Standing in the bleak
hall, ceiling nearly scraping his scalp, Lius was not sure which
was more frightening, the book he held or the scene he had
witnessed. He had just seen the Xi Valati assassinated, had
listened as his brothers were massacred, yet what shook him most
was what the Xi Valati had done in his final act. It was
impossible. He had controlled the wind, had harnessed the storm and
used it to cut down his enemies. The legends said that Valatarian
had been able to control the Order and manipulate it to his ends.
But those were legends, stories told to illustrate the power of the
Order. They were not true. Yet even that power had not been enough
to save the Xi Valati, to stop that strange man and the demons that
accompanied him. Monsters. Demons. Magic.
The Book of Valatarian
. Legends all,
and every one alive on this terrible, mind-crushing
night.

The slab of stone Lius
stood against shook. Dust fell. The webs wavered. Something had hit
the door, hard. He turned, looked at the surface, felt it shake
again, heard screams of frustration. “I want that book!” a voice
yelled in a language he had never heard but could somehow
understand. The robed man – the Xi Valati had called him Yuille,
had somehow known him – was trying to open the door. And though
Lius knew that it was a foot of solid stone, he no longer believed
anything to be impossible. Trembling, he turned and walked down the
hall.

Watching the door over his
shoulder, seeing the cracks forming in the stone, he barely noticed
the webs pulling on his lamp, falling across his scalp, collecting
on his robes, until one of their residents scurried across his
hand. He reacted without thought. He shook his hand to dislodge the
spider, pounded it against the wall. And dropped the lamp. The
glass shattered. The light blinked out, and he was encompassed by
darkness more absolute than he had ever known.

He stopped, breath
catching. He looked back, felt the stones shake again. Cracks of
light appeared, illuminating the dust falling from the ceiling like
gold. Shaking, on the verge of tears, Lius wanted to lie down, to
give up. He was a scholar. He was not made for this. He hated the
dark, was afraid of spiders, had never been adventurous or brave.
How could he have been chosen for this? It had to be a mistake. The
Xi Valati had meant to summon another. The names had been
confused.

The walls shook
again.
But I am here. The Xi Valati
entrusted Valatarian’s book to me. And if I fail, if that monster
is allowed to claim it . . . ?
Lius took a
deep, dusty breath, nearly choked on the webs and grit, then
clutched the heavy box to his chest and ran.

Somewhere in front of him
were stairs. The Xi Valati had told him that much. But he had also
said to trust the Order. That is what Lius did. He thought about
the Hall of Understanding, pictured the building in his mind, took
himself to its peak, to the glass-topped dome that housed the room
he had just occupied. He oriented himself and realized that there
was a long structure leading from each end of that dome. The
pictures of the building always showed symmetrical rectangular
halls leading to the dome, but only one of them was ever
used.
I am in the other hall, and it is
exactly as long as the one I traversed to reach the Xi
Valati.

Lius stopped. His foot
slid until his toes hung over the first step. He closed his eyes –
they were not seeing anyway – felt to his side for the curving
walls and started down the steps.

Behind him, stones
cracked. A voice rose. “Get him! Get that book!”

There was no time for
caution. Again picturing the building that had housed him for the
last three years of his life, Lius let his mind be his guide. He
ran, counting twelve steps, perfectly spaced, then a landing.
Twelve steps, landing. Twelve steps, landing. He knew the patterns,
could see them now, could picture the building perfectly in his
mind. But not because he had memorized its layout or had studied
its blueprint. Rather, he saw the patterns the architects had used,
knew how the Order had guided them, how It had dictated the
placement of every stone.

He came to a landing and
abruptly changed course. Somehow, he knew there would be a passage
to his left. He ran through it, book clutched to his chest, without
the slightest caution. He ran for twenty paces before he hit the
wall. It was a dead end as he had known it would be. Behind him, he
heard feet on the steps. His fingers found the secret latch that
they, somehow, knew would be waiting. With a jerk, the ancient
mechanism released. The wall swung out. He slipped through and
slammed it shut.

He was now behind the
chapel, in the passage that had been built to carry bodies to the
catacombs after the death services. He had never been in these
halls, had not even known that they existed, but somehow he knew
they would be there, just as he had known that the wall was false,
that a latch would be hidden half-way up the side. This passage was
just as dark as the one he had left, but he no longer needed to
see. His mind guided his running feet to another set of stairs.
These were wider to accommodate the transport of bodies, but they
followed the same pattern. He counted in his mind – twelve steps,
landing, twelve steps, landing. Past five landings he flew and came
to the catacombs.

Listening, he heard
distant pounding, a voice, screams. The pursuit was delayed, not
defeated. Reaching out, Lius considered the catacombs. He had never
been in them, had never seen a picture or read a description, did
not even know they were here. They had not been used in
generations, had been forgotten, abandoned. Yet he could see them
in his mind. He saw the pattern in them, the winding passages,
alcoves, dead ends, even the places where the roof had given way,
where nature had reclaimed its underground realm. It was all
dictated by the Order, laid out according to Its plan, and that
plan was Lius’ to read.