Gonji: Fortress of Lost Worlds. T.C. Rypel
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I doubt it. So he will still rely on the strength of his land forces, neh? His proud mounted archers. No erratic firearms could have supplanted the skills I helped hone. Hai, the king will remember me, but it is the Duke of Aragon with whom I am most concerned.
Cervera—and the fanatics, whose power burgeons, so I have heard. Will they still hate and oppress me for what I cannot help being? And for what I allowed to happen?
Returning to his fire, he stooped and picked up a dove-gray feather from the wygyll’s wing. This he pocketed and, unfolding his map, he marked the place of the cuesta with a carbon-blacked thumb. Later he would inscribe the name of this significant place: Wygyll’s Aerie: the Mount of Hunger.
Something dropped into the snow beside him. He drew it up and examined it. A flat, round stone inlaid with the elaborate etching of a man and a huge bird, crouched and facing each other, their heads touching. The symbol was protected by a clear resinous substance that reminded him of the lacquers used in certain craftwork of his lost Dai Nihon. And he recognized after a time the nature of the curved, inlaid surface that had been etched.
It was part of a chitinous beak. Perhaps that of the wygyll’s lost mate. It had been fashioned into something like a medallion.
He looked up at the cliff face, saw the creature peering down. Part of a bandage Gonji had applied to its neck could be seen in the pale moonlight.
The samurai bowed to his erstwhile enemy. The wygyll hesitantly replied in kind, before withdrawing slowly out of sight.
CHAPTER THREE
In Toledo, the lamplit halls and austere sleeping chambers above the Office of Inquisition, adjacent to the great cathedral, were abuzz with whispers and murmurs. The solemnity of midnight matins had been disturbed not only by the unorthodox nocturnal visit but also by the appearance and mien of the visitor.
The young initiate who tended the gate and admitted him would later be unable to explain what had compelled him, though he would do many hours of culpa in chastisement.
An officious deacon apprenticed to the Hall of Records received the visitor with much ado, ranting a litany of reasons that proscribed his unconventional visit. But the tall stranger in the unidentifiable monk’s habit simply stared him down with steel-vaulted eyes, replying nothing, and serving up at last the packet of traveling papers whose seal so upset the deacon that he was led, shaking and stammering, to the barber-surgeon.
The prelate in charge of the turning day’s ecclesiastical affairs, Father Martin de la Cenza, a small, delicate man of unflappable bearing, next received the sinister visitant. Acknowledging the sealed communique with a single languid closure of his eyelids, Father de la Cenza bade the stranger sit in the sparsely appointed foyer outside the clerical offices. Obtaining a single name in reply to his own introduction, de la Cenza moved at once to awaken the Grand Inquisitor.
Almost an hour later, Bishop Ignazio Izquierdo, the High Office’s interim Grand Inquisitor, stood at the center of the thick-napped carpet in his office, adorned in dignitary vestments and his tall mitre. He strove to find the best way to occupy his hands to keep them from wringing. His palms were moist, his throat parched as he awaited the meeting. An ashen-faced novice scurried about the musty leather and velvet trappings of the shelf-lined room, shakily igniting the ornate wall lamps. In his intimidated haste, he knocked a large tome from its nook. It thudded to the floor. Symmetrical tracks of sweat coursed the novice’s cheeks on either side of the silent O his mouth described as he hurried from the room in response to the bishop’s impatient hand swipe.
A moment later, the door before Izquierdo opened. The stranger strode through, followed by Father de la Cenza.
“You are Balaerik,” the Grand Inquisitor intoned in a cracked voice that made his face redden.
“Anton Balaerik,” came the calm elaboration.
“You are different from what I imagined,” Izquierdo started haltingly, which evoked a curious, amused twitch from Balaerik. “I mean,” the bishop continued, “our communications—I still don’t quite understand. You are, are you not, a clergyman of some order? I do not recognize your habit.”
Balaerik threw off his hood. “I am donado—a lay brother,” he explained. His face was angular, the skin pasty and offset by a neatly trimmed black beard whose contours made one mindful of a vulture’s wings. When he bowed his lofty head to display an odd half-moon tonsure, its form above the aquiline nose and pointed chin resembled something nameless that vaguely disquieted the Grand Inquisitor.
“Of what order?”
“Ours is a new order. I thought that was clear. An order devoted to the rank-and-file support of the Inquisition’s efforts on levels your own methods might not be suited to dealing with. We are funded by factors within Holy Mother Church, and our work is done secretly, under cover of night. The night is the ‘day’ of the Dark Powers, you see. And through our order, the day of their doom.” His eyes began to shine like beacons over a deadly shoal as he went on. “You are concerned with saving souls through scourging and burning. You drive the possessing spirits from the unfortunate possessed. We attack the possessing spirits themselves, unleashed by you, often to possess again! They and the Dark Power which fortifies them will fall before the holy power we’ve been granted.
“We are the silent scythe of the Inquisition, Inquisitor. For only by secrecy can we combat the disorder caused by heretics and infidels, the creeping rot of the black sorcery they foster. Ours is the same battle, though we are more concerned with the ghastly atrocities committed by the infidels. And…by their supernatural minions.”
Izquierdo’s brow furrowed. He moved round his desk, where he sat heavily in a large, high-backed chair. He motioned for Balaerik to sit, but the messenger declined. The Grand Inquisitor sifted the information in his mind, troubled by this strange interference in his office’s affairs, wondering what it portended. But something more imminent bothered him.
“You make no mention,” the bishop intoned slowly, carefully, selecting each word, “of the source of this…power and authority you claim. What is your spiritual investment in this grim business? What I do, I do in the name of the Lord God of Heaven, and His Son Jesus Christ, who—”
“You place me at a disadvantage, I’m afraid,” Balaerik interrupted, eyes lowering in apparent shame. “Ay de mi! Alas for me! We are sworn on solemn oath to speak not the Most Holy Names. Nor even those of the recognized and canonized saints of the Church. It is because we regret the necessity of our…violent military posture, which chafes the very tenets of our faith, that we have taken this onerous vow.”
Balaerik could not have stung Izquierdo more deeply if he had gone on to voice the obvious indictment of the Inquisition’s own hypocrisy. The bishop had heard it many times from the mouths of heretics, but never had it been so unsettling as now, dangled in the air by an ostensible fellow clergyman. Human pride began to cloud his thinking, confusing the issue.
Balaerik extracted from his cloak a round container that fit into his palm. Fashioned of bone or ivory, it was hinged near the top, where a tiny lid had been cut into it. It was simple in design, with no ornamentation or other marking.
“A reliquary of the saint whose patronage guides our order,” the donado explained, “who shall, of course, remain unnamed.”
Izquierdo nodded reverently, a bit too acceptingly, by the expression of young Father de la Cenza, who seemed ever about to blurt something. But he held his tongue.
Reaching a hand toward the sealed packet the prelate still carried, Balaerik said, “His Holiness has explained our order’s founding and operation in a missive. He further—”
The Grand Inquisitor cleared his throat, cutting him short. “That is another matter of a delicate nature—your coming here to meet me so altogether…unexpectedly, and bearing the papal seal during this time of awful confusion. God help us all. Have you actually had direct contact with His Holiness, Balaerik? We’ve all heard the terrible stories surrounding the Pontiff’s election. Stories of signs and ill omens attendant upon his succession. And even—” He glanced