“Lie to others if you must, Brother Rhys. Never lie to yourself. You want to be there. You want to destroy the monster that was once your brother with your own hands. You have made this a personal vendetta, Rhys Mason. You are consumed with hatred and the desire for revenge, yet,” the priest added, his voice softening, “Majere still loves you.”
He reverently touched the staff that Rhys held in his hand.
As though a lightning blast lit up the darkness, turning night to terrible day, Rhys saw himself in stark clarity. The abbot spoke the truth. Rhys could have given Patrick the location of the young woman’s house. He had deliberately withheld it. He wanted to be there. He wanted to confront his brother, and he had been willing to sacrifice the young woman’s life for his own hateful need.
Rhys longed to fall to the ground at the abbot’s feet. He longed to spew out the poison that was eating him up inside. He longed to beg for mercy, for forgiveness.
The Abbot had hold of his forearm. Dropping his staff, Rhys took hold of the Abbot’s arm with his free hand, and giving a yank, he jerked the abbot off his feet and flung him to the ground.
“Atta, watch him!” Rhys ordered.
The dog leaped to her feet. She did not attack the abbot. She stood over him, her teeth bared, growling a warning. The abbot said something to her, but Atta had direct orders from her master now and wasn’t about to disobey him.
“Brother Rhys—” the abbot began.
“She won’t hurt you if you don’t move, Holiness,” said Rhys coldly. He was watching the other priests, who were now circling him.
Rhys lifted up his staff with his foot and flipped it into his hands. He wondered uneasily if the staff would continue to fight for him. After all, he was opposing Majere’s servants. He held the staff out in front of him, half-expecting it to splinter and crack. The staff remained firm and felt warm and comforting in his grasp.
“I don’t want to hurt any of you,” Rhys said to the priests. “Let me pass.”
“We don’t want to hurt you either, Brother,” said one of the priests, “but we have no intention of letting you go.”
They meant to try to subdue him, render him helpless. Rhys carried the image of the young woman and the terrible fate that awaited her in his mind. The five priests came at him in a rush, intent on dragging him to the ground.
Rhys lashed out with the staff. He clouted one of the priests on the side of the head, knocking him down. He thrust the end of the staff into another priest’s midriff, doubling him over, and struck a third on the back of the head—all in a flurry of moves that took only seconds.
He saw at once the priests were not as well trained in the art of merciful discipline as their abbot, for the two remaining on their feet fell back, watching him warily. The abbot must have tried to rise, for Rhys heard Atta bark and snap. He glanced back to see the abbot wringing a bleeding hand.
Wishing desperately he’d never walked this street, never set foot in this city, Rhys planted the butt end of the staff firmly in the cobblestones, and gripping it with both hands, used it to launch himself into the air. He vaulted over the heads of the startled priests and landed on the pavement behind them. Whistling to Atta, Rhys dashed off down the street.
He risked a glance backward, thinking they might be pursuing him, but he saw only Atta tearing along after him. Two of the priests were tending to the fallen. The abbot nursed his bleeding hand and gazed after Rhys with a sorrowful expression.
Rhys put all thoughts of the sins he’d committed out of his mind as he ran.
He reached the temple of Mishakal and found Patrick, his wife and Nightshade, along with the city guard, gathered in front of the building. Nightshade was pacing back and forth, peering up and down the street.
“Brother, you’re late!” Patrick cried.
“Where have you been?” Nightshade wailed, clutching at him. “It’s way after dark!”
“Come with me!” Rhys gasped. He shook off the kender and kept running.
5
The young mother’s name was Camille.
The only child of a wealthy merchant widower, she had been raised with every indulgence and was headstrong and spoiled. When, at sixteen, she had fallen in love with a sailor, she had willfully ignored her father’s command and run off to marry the sailor. Two children came along shortly thereafter.
Her father had refused to have anything to do with her and even went so far as to change his will to leave his money to his business partners. Time might have softened the old man, who truly loved his daughter, but he died within a week of making the change. Shortly after her father’s death, Camille’s husband fell from the rigging of his ship and broke his neck.
She was now a widow, destitute, with two small children to support. Her duenna had taught her to do fancy sewing, and Camille, swallowing her pride, was forced to go to the homes of the wealthy young women who had once been her peers to beg for work.
This did not bring in much money. She was twenty-one, lonely, half-starved, and in despair. The only other thing she had to sell was her body, and she was facing the horrible choice of turning to prostitution or watching her children starve when she met Lieu.
With his charming manner and good looks, Lieu would have been the answer to her prayers, except that Camille never prayed. She had heard of the gods—some vague mention that they’d returned after a long absence—but that was about it. Remote and far away, the gods had nothing to do with her.
He was the answer to her problems, though. Camille did not love Lieu. She was determined to marry him, however. He would support her and her children, and in return, she would be a good wife to him. The notion that he might be playing her false had never entered her mind. Though she’d known him only a couple of days, he had seemed to dote on her and her children. When she heard from the monk that Lieu had booked passage on a ship, Camille felt the blow in the pit of her stomach and found it easy to convince herself the monk had been lying.
She fed her children the meager amount of food that there was in the house, going without a meal herself. She put the baby to bed, then spent some time talking to her little son, a child of four, promising him he would soon have a new daddy, who would love him dearly, and that there would be lots to eat and warm clothes to wear and a fine new house where they would all live together.
The little boy fell asleep in her arms, and she carried him to the straw pallet in the corner of the one room dwelling and laid him down. She tucked a blanket around him, then did what she could to make herself pretty. She sat in the lone rickety chair to wait for Lieu.
He arrived later than she’d expected. He reeked of dwarf spirits but did not appear to be drunk. He greeted her with his usual charming smile and kissed her on the cheek. She shut the door behind him and bolted it.
Lieu stood in the center of the room with his arms held out. “Come to me, my sweet,” he said gaily.
She gave herself to his embrace. His kisses were ardent and impassioned. When his hot hands began to explore her body, however, Camille drew away from him.
“Lieu, we need to talk. You promised to marry me. I love you so, I don’t want to wait. Promise me you will marry me tomorrow.”
“I will marry you, but you must promise me something in return,” Lieu said, laughing.
“You will marry me?” Camille cried, ecstatic. “Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow, the day after, whenever,” Lieu said carelessly.
“What is it you want of me?” Camille asked, drawing near to him.
She thought she knew the answer and was prepared to give her body to the man who was going to be her husband. Lleu’s reply caught her by surprise.
“I am a follower of Chemosh,” he said. “I want you to join me in his worship. That is all I ask. Do that, and you will be my wife.”