The Void of Muirwood (Covenant of Muirwood Book 3) (2 page)

Pralt, we know that many abbeys have tunnels constructed beneath them, secret passageways that enable people to escape. Surely that is where the mastons fled.

Pralt exuded a sense of contempt for Corriveaux, which only inflamed his anger.

We know this, Corriveaux. I am not a simpleton. You cannot move a herd of kine without leaving a trail of dung. You cannot move a herd of people without evidence either. The trail leads into the center of the abbey, not into the dungeon where the learners are instructed and where underground trails are most likely. There is a screen of wood. The Rood Screen. The markings of their feet were evident all the way to the screen. Then they disappeared.

Corriveaux listened in shocked silence. He could almost see the other man’s thoughts, could tell that Pralt had personally led the inspection.

They are gone,
Corriveaux thought bleakly.

That is what I am trying to tell you. You must tell the Hand. What would he have us do? I am awaiting orders to raze the abbey and burn the city. The fleet is settling in and occupying houses. They left . . . they left cooked meals for us, Corriveaux. Every table was set as if expecting visitors. They left their belongings. All of them. Clothes, cloaks, vases, looms. Everything was abandoned and left behind for us to pillage. It is difficult maintaining order. The men want to go ashore and begin plundering. They left it all for us to take. Why would they do that?

Corriveaux gritted his teeth in fury. A peace offering. He knew that was what it was. We are innocent and harmless. We give you our city. We give you our possessions. Spare our lives, our culture. Do not hunt us.

The Apse Veil is open,
Corriveaux thought.

What is that?
Pralt demanded.

You have not studied the maston ways sufficiently. Their legends are as deep as time. The Apse Veil links the abbeys together, much like these waymarkers link us. If the Apse Veil had opened in any other kingdom but Comoros, we would have been the first to hear of it. It must mean they have gone to Muirwood. The mastons have returned after all, just as the Hand feared they would.

What would you have us do?
Pralt asked.

Be vigilant. They may have left spies behind to study our reaction. Have the abbey guarded night and day, but in secret. The mastons may be peaceful, but they are cunning. Some may try to slip through the abbey again. Be watchful.

I will make it thus. Farewell, Corriveaux.

Farewell, Pralt.

Corriveaux released the waymarker, and the din from the celebration flooded his ears, making him nauseous. He was sweating beneath his velvet tunic, so he took a moment to calm himself, repeating the dirge of the Dochte Mandar in his mind to focus his thoughts.

As soon as he felt centered, he hurried out of the chamber of the waymarker and down the hall—the racket of the revelers increasing with each step. He avoided the doorway leading into the great hall, where hundreds of Leerings illuminated the vaulted beams and provided heat and warmth for the men gathered inside. After they had their fill of the casks of drink that had been provided, the slave women would be brought in to dance, inflaming them all the more. Every day new ships arrived from foreign ports, bringing a new glut to be enjoyed—whether it be wealth, food, fabric, or art. Though it disgusted Corriveaux, it was necessary. Men would only commit the worst murders when they could drown their senses afterward and if they
truly
believed that those killings would improve their standing in their next life. It did not hurt that any last traces of guilt could be purged by the kystrels.

For a moment he felt an unexpected temptation to join in the reveling. But no, the Victus stood above the ranks of mere men. They were the masters of the fates. The spinners of webs. The patient spider awaiting its prey. He could feel the trembling strain on the lines. It was time to act, time to bite, time to feast on blood.

Corriveaux reached the end of the corridor and opened another door that led down into the dungeons. As he passed, Leerings meant for light greeted him. His boots clipped on the rough stone steps as he hurried his way down. At the base of the steps, a door Leering blocked the way. These had also been taken from the abbeys and would only open with the proper password.

Unconquerable.

The door responded to his thought and swung open with a grinding sound that made him squirm. Flames dimly lit the passageway beyond, and the smell of nutmeg hung in the air. Corriveaux entered and walked down the small arched corridor. Rooms were set into each archway along both sides of the main gallery. Within these alcoves were shelves and tables that sagged under the weight of gleaming maston tomes. Buried deep within the ground, it was a place sacred to the Victus. It was the inner sanctum, the only place where the tomes were allowed to be read. The Leerings were triggered so that if anyone attempted to carry one of the aurichalcum tomes away, all of them would be instantly engulfed in fire.

The tomes contained rich secrets, and one of Corriveaux’s favorite pleasures was to come here and glean knowledge from the pages.

Another chamber—Corriveaux’s destination—rested at the very end of the corridor. The heavy wooden door gaped open.

“Corriveaux,” said a raspy, gravelly voice as he reached the threshold.

He could not see the man behind the voice.

“Where are you?” he answered.

“Where you cannot see me,” came the reply. “Put your dagger on the plinth.”

That was different. A Victus’s dagger was his only safeguard against murder. Being asked to put it down was a request for absolute trust and fidelity. The dagger was a symbol. The members of the Victus did not all know one another’s identities. Only the Hand knew. The dagger was a sign to show the carrier’s allegiance, a token that enabled him to walk unmolested past any Dochte Mandar and fulfill his assignment, regardless of where he traveled.

Corriveaux did not hesitate to walk up and put his dagger on the stone plinth positioned beneath a light Leering by the entrance to the room. Standing at the edge of it, he could see a shadow move on his left. He did not flinch.

“One of you has betrayed me,” the dark voice growled.

Corriveaux felt a spasm of startled surprise. He dared not utter a word, but the hairs on his neck bristled with fear and dread. Could it truly be him?

A heavy step sounded, followed by a dragging noise. Corriveaux knew the Hand had a stump for one leg. His movement was ponderous due to his girth. A gnarled, meaty fist closed on the dagger hilt on the plinth.

Corriveaux wanted to protest his innocence, but he knew it would be foolish. If the Hand believed it was him, he would die regardless of his innocence. He stood calmly, steeling himself, trying to keep a ball of sweat from dripping down his cheek, through sheer force of will.

“What news from Assinica?” the man rasped, bringing the dagger out of the shaft of light. He coughed wetly.

“They have fled,” Corriveaux said tautly, keeping his eyes trained on the light. He wanted to flinch and flee, but he knew it would mean instant death.

“Yes,” the Hand said in his guttural tone. “I expected this when you let the High Seer slip away.”

“I—” Corriveaux checked himself just in time. He blinked, trying to keep his thoughts collected.

A wheezing laugh followed his self-correction. “There are only three men who know enough to betray us,” the Hand whispered. “You. Walraven. And Gastone. All three of you are uncommonly clever and motivated. All three patiently bide your time for my death. I know that. But the traitor must meet his fate, and soon, if we are to succeed.”

Corriveaux could almost feel the Hand’s hot breath on his neck as the other man came around behind him. The stump-like appendage thudded once more and fell silent.

“It is you I have chosen, Corriveaux. You are young. You are ambitious. You are impatient.” A low chuckle sounded. “You know what happens next.”

There was a grunt and then a gasp.

Corriveaux whirled, watching in horror as the Hand pulled the bloody dagger out of his own stomach. The hulk of a man shuddered and dropped to one knee, his meaty fist clutching the front of Corriveaux’s tunic. He dropped the dagger to the stone floor, and it clattered away.

Corriveaux stared at the Hand in shock as blood began pattering on the floor.

“You will lead us,” the Hand hissed, his voice full of pain. “I will counsel you from the dark pools now. Your rivals must . . . be destroyed. Do not trust them. One of them . . . is the traitor.”

His puffy face and jowls quivered. His eyes were fierce with determination.

“Bring back the hetaera,” he said. “Destroy the world. Or the mastons will defeat us.” And then he collapsed.

CHAPTER TWO

The King’s Threat

I
t was a beautiful spring day outside Pent Tower—sunlit, a little hazy with miry smoke, and trilling with birdsong. Maia sat by the window, watching as the knights marched in cadence below on the greenyard, their uniforms fastidiously clean and dangling with badges and ribbons and frills. From her view at the window, she could see the chancellor’s tower and its solitary window, and her memory suddenly bloomed with the sound of skittering mice and rats, a pair of wooden clogs, and Chancellor Walraven’s weary smile.

“I spent many hours in that tower,” Maia said, gesturing toward it with conflicting emotions. “Never in this one, though.”

Her friend Suzenne was pacing the room, her arms wrapped around herself for warmth, for though it was sunny, it was cold. Her face was drawn with anxiety and worry. When she heard Maia’s voice, she came over to the window and stood behind her.

“Which tower?” Suzenne asked.

“The one with the pennant fluttering. A bird just landed on it, did you see?”

“Is that the chancellor’s tower?”

Maia nodded pensively. “I did not know about the Ciphers then. I thought that I was the only woman in the entire kingdom who had been taught to read, that because I was a princess, I was above the taboos of the Dochte Mandar.” She sighed as she thought on all she had learned about kystrels and hetaera. She had been groomed by Walraven and the Victus to become one, to wreak havoc on the mastons and destroy them. Though Walraven had eventually joined the maston cause at great personal risk, he had not halted the Victus’s plot. They had hoped to use Maia as the vessel for Ereshkigal, Queen of the Unborn. Had she agreed, they would have made her their empress, the ruler and commander of all the kingdoms. They had promised her jewels and gowns, power unsurpassed since the days of the Earl of Dieyre. And she had somehow managed to deny them and survive. Until now.

Maybe my purpose has been fulfilled
, Maia mused. She had left the dark island of Naess with her grandmother, the High Seer of the mastons, and sailed to Muirwood Abbey. There she had studied the tomes, learned about the maston order, and become one herself. Then she had successfully reopened the Apse Veil, joining the worlds together so that the dead could finally rest in Idumea, and the mastons in Assinica could escape slaughter. She wondered if she had completed her purpose and the Medium would now shepherd her on to her next life. Maia was troubled by the thought. She did not feel ready to depart.

And yet why else had the Medium not warned her to stay away from Comoros?

“You are lost in thought,” Suzenne said, resting a hand on her shoulder. Not her left shoulder, where the hetaera brand lurked, hidden beneath her dress. “Did you sleep much last night?”

Maia shook her head. “I dare not,” she confided. “The Myriad Ones are everywhere. I think they are waiting for me to grow weary before attacking me.”

“Do you think they will?” Suzenne looked even more nervous.

Maia nodded. “I wrestled against them all night,” she said, her voice sounding hollow even to her own ears. “I am protected by wearing the chaen, but they intrude into my thoughts most insidiously. I can hardly think without some remembrance of their power over me. Did you not feel them this morning at the execution?”

Suzenne blanched. “That was terrible. You came here to prevent Lady Deorwynn’s execution, and instead we became the chief witnesses of her death.”

Maia stared sympathetically at her friend. “Are you afraid to die, Suzenne?”

The other girl’s anguish deepened. “Yes,” she whispered in a small voice.

Maia turned and took Suzenne’s hands in hers, squeezing them. “I am struggling with that fear as well, I admit. Chancellor Walraven taught me not to fear death. That lesson is in the maston tomes as well, and yet the urge to cling to this second life is so strong. Let us remember the maston ceremony. This is not our final destiny. Knowing that makes it easier to bear the truth of what may happen.” She swallowed hard. “I am so sorry that you and Dodd came with me to Comoros. I hope my father does not kill you because of me. That would be too much for me to endure.”

Suzenne tugged one of her hands free and wiped the tears that had fallen from her lashes. She dropped down to her knees in front of Maia. “I do not regret coming with you, Maia. Dodd and I are bound by irrevocare sigil. They may have separated us in this dungeon, but they cannot separate us forever.” She blinked quickly, suppressing further tears. “I know you and the King of Dahomey—”