as near as anyone could guess, with bulging blue eyes that had faded long ago, a spongy, bulbous nose, thin hair, and the mottled complexion that came from imbibing too much mead for too many years.
Vakon held himself with his most military bearing and strode toward the High Theocrat. He was taller than the religious leader, and he relished the fact that it annoyed the diminutive man.
"You took your time opening the gate," Vakon com shy;plained. "Anyone could have seen me out there."
"At midnight?" Hederick retorted. "I opened it at the promised time, no sooner and no later." He motioned for Vakon to follow him. They headed between the outer wall and a lower, inner one that ran parallel to it. This was the corridor within which people gathered to witness the exe shy;cutions of heretics and other enemies of the faith.
Mendis hesitated, then spoke warily. "I want my money. Where are you taking me?"
"To get it, fool. Did you think I would just open the gate and throw it through?"
"Where is it, then?" Just to be safe, Vakon lingered a few paces back.
Hederick stepped from the outer corridor, opened a door into Erolydon's central courtyard. Keys jangling, he unlocked a plain wooden portal that was off to one side of the temple's huge main entrance. He stepped into a pitch-black hallway. Vakon stopped just outside the door. "Why aren't we using the main doors, Hederick?"
The High Theocrat's carefully modulated voice, which had lulled thousands of Seeker converts over the past decades, echoed out of the tunnel. "Mendis Vakon, you have the sense of a mole. Why not just pick up your reward at noon in the center of the temple courtyard, with hundreds of people around? We must be circumspect, you blockhead. Come on." Vakon grunted in protest, but still he followed Hederick into the dark tunnel. "Didn't you order everyone to remain in their cells?" he complained. "The priests and the guards? Who else would be about?"
The floor was slick, scored with deep striations. Vakon could feel the ruts through the thin soles of his dress slip shy;pers. The tunnel seemed to lead gradually downward.
"Of course, lunatic," Hederick snapped back. "I declared a night of prayer and fasting for priests and novitiates alike. I have ordered all to remain in their quar shy;ters tonight."
"So? We're safe then."
"That means they'll be confined-but awake-you fool. Now be silent."
Vakon started to retort, then he reminded himself of the wealth that soon would be his, and held his tongue.
Mendis Vakon believed in no gods-Old Gods, Seeker gods, or otherwise. The Seekers, true, were manipulative, cunning, and greedy, but so were the leaders of most of the religious movements that flourished on Krynn these days. What interested Vakon was that the Seekers were the biggest group-and the richest.
And the meanest, he added to himself. He was glad he'd slipped a dagger into a pocket in his leggings when he'd dressed earlier that night.
Suddenly, Vakon bumped into Hederick and cursed. He stretched a hand to each side and felt only dank air. "Where are we?" he asked apprehensively.
"Right outside the treasury. Be still." Hederick's keys clanked.
Just a few more moments, Vakon thought. It's so damned dark. Why doesn't Hederick light a torch while he opens the lock? We're below the temple. Everyone is in their cells above us. No one will see. No one …
Mendis Vakon turned and ran back the way he had come.
His slippers skidded on the incline. Hands caught at the back of the knotted cord that belted his shirt. The hands jerked upward, and Vakon crashed onto his knees. He tipped forward. His head hit slimy stone, and he cried out. Then another stone crashed into his temple. Vakon rolled over and felt for his dagger.
Hederick laughed knowingly. "I already have it, Vakon. I had to learn some such skills in my years on the road, after all."
The priest was surprisingly strong. Vakon felt himself being rolled across a slight rise. Suddenly the air was not merely stale, but fetid. Vakon sprawled on uneven slabs of rock as a lock clicked behind and above him, then he heard Hederick wheeze, as if from beyond a door.
Something stirred in the blackness within the chamber. Rats? "The dungeon!" Vakon protested. "You can't keep me in a dungeon! I am Mayor of Solace!"
A breathy chuckle came from the darkness. "No longer. I lead Solace now-thanks in part to you, Vakon." Another chortle. "Ironic, considering that you refused to embrace the Seeker faith, isn't it?"
Vakon scrambled to his feet and pounded at the steel-clad door. Dimly, he saw a small, barred window and sensed the High Theocrat peering through. Then a torch flared from Hederick's side of the door, and Mendis Vakon found himself eye to eye with the Seeker.
"Seekerism is claptrap," Vakon hissed. "False miracles and phony revelations. Your Seekerism is a farce, Heder shy;ick!"
"I knew you'd feel that way, Mendis Vakon," Hederick replied. "In fact, I have several witnesses who heard you speak in just such a fashion last night in the Inn of the Last Home."
"I was in no tavern last night, the Inn or otherwise!"
"My witnesses say you were. It's blasphemy, you know, to criticize the Seeker gods, Vakon. The Praxis says so. And the Praxis guides my life, as it does that of all truly pious people."
A snarl broke the silence in the chamber behind Mertdis Vakon, and Hederick laughed. Vakon flung himself around as the rumbling-halfway between a growl and thunder-reverberated within the stone walls. Whatever lurked in the shadows was dreadfully near.
"You're a heretic, Vakon," Hederick hissed through the door. "Heretics deserve to die."
"Then bring me to trial," Vakon spat out, terrified. What stalked him? He heard a rustling sound and felt cautiously around the straw that littered the floor, seeking something-anything-he could use as a weapon. "I have friends in Solace, Hederick," he spat out. "If I disappear, people will wonder."
"Friends? No longer, ex-Mayor," the High Theocrat rejoined. "Some of your friends are the very ones who were with you when you made those sacrilegious state shy;ments in the Inn."
"I tell you, I wasn't there!" Vakon insisted. "You can't prove that I was. I demand a trial!"
"As a matter of fact, I am judge and jury in Solace." The growling came closer.
Hederick continued speaking as though he and Vakon were carrying on a normal conversation. "I found you guilty of heresy a few hours ago," he said, "just before I had your dear family carted off to a slave camp." There was a pause, then soft laughter from the High Theocrat. "I can tell that the sentence pleases my god Sauvay and the Motherlord Omalthea. Just listen to the happy rumblings of Sauvay's pet."
"No!" Vakon shouted. Nearby, something roared, and fire belched through the dungeon. Sparks ignited clods of damp hay near the door. Vakon's cloak began to burn, and he thrust it away from him.
Then Mendis saw what awaited him-a lion of sorts, but two or three times the size of that beast. It had enormous eyes and a thick tongue that curved out as though in anticipation toward the terrified mayor. The lion's huge front claws emerged and retracted as it watched its prey.
"A materbill?" Vakon said in disbelief. "But they don't exist!"
"They do now," Hederick whispered through the door. "Sauvay sent me one. A birthday present of sorts. Did you know my birthday was in midsummer, Vakon?"