Arnem and Niksar make their way swiftly to the foot of the guard tower steps, and, once outside, proceed along a pathway that runs at the base of the city’s outer walls, and is kept clear at all times for the passage of troops. Taking a left turn, Arnem decides to cut the distance to Yantek Korsar’s quarters by taking Broken’s main avenue, the Celestial Way,‡ which separates the market stalls of the Second District from the more formal shops and sturdy residences of the Third. Weary of his family worries, the sentek turns his mind to his duties, and to the possibilities that may be unfolding: Must it be the Bane? he wonders, in silent frustration. Will no more worthy enemy present themselves? He thinks of his months fighting Torganian raiders amid the frozen passes of the Tombs, and of the ferocity of those southern tribes: surely, he has not survived many years of faithful service only to discover that the soldiers of Broken are to be given the humiliating task of chasing a race of wretched exiles through an impenetrable wilderness. And why chase them? Simply because of the occasional crimes of the Bane Outragers? Whatever god does rule the affairs of men, Arnem decides, he or she would not permit so noble an instrument as the Talons to be bent to so petty a purpose. Perhaps it will be an eastern campaign: an attempt to finally confront the horsed marauders who press Broken’s borders with a regularity that nearly matches that of the rising Sun, out of whose blinding brightness they prefer to attack; or perhaps the fearsomely organized soldiers of Lumun-jan have returned once more—
Neither these ambitious ruminations nor his underlying anxieties about the possible connection between the dilemma facing his family and this unexpected council can dull the physical instincts first sharpened during Arnem’s childhood: as he and Niksar pass the mouth of an offal-strewn alleyway that feeds the Celestial Way from the west, the sentek ducks to keep his head from being struck by a hurtling object. A clay wine jug smashes into the mortared base of a house just a few feet from him, with force enough to kill. As he looks up he sees Niksar searching the area, his short-sword drawn; and then they glimpse a thickly made, unkempt man standing in the alleyway. The man grins and lets out an idiot’s laugh.
“Off to lick royal arse, are you, Tall?” the drunkard cries. “May you choke on it!” The man vanishes back through the alleyway in the direction of the Fifth District, Niksar moving to pursue him; but Arnem grasps the younger man’s arm.
“We’ve far more important business, Reyne,” the sentek says; yet he pauses long enough to consider the drunkard’s words. “Tall?” he says in wonderment, as Niksar sheathes his sword. “That man was too big to be a Bane — I thought only they used that term for our people.”
Arnem is answered by yet another voice, this one disembodied, disturbingly serene and floating out of the shadowy rear doorway of the nearby house:
“The Bane aren’t the only people who resent your kind, Sentek …”
Arnem and Niksar watch in some confusion as the shadows produce an ancient, bearded man. His hair is no more than a mist surrounding his head, while his robe, once an elegant design in black and silver, is now a faded testament to years of hard luck. The man steadies himself on a staff as he limps painfully forward. “Have you visited the Fifth District of late?” the old man asks.
For the second time tonight, Arnem must prevent apprehension from manifesting in his demeanor. “Indeed,” he says, approaching the man calmly. “It’s where I was born, as were my family. We live there still.”
“You? Then you are …?” The old man stares at Arnem with recognition that makes the sentek ever more uneasy. “You are Sixt Arnem …” Milky eyes stare first at the stars and the ascendant Moon, and then at the beacons outside the High Temple, until at last the old man murmurs, “But am I ready …?”
“‘Ready’?” Arnem echoes. “Ready for what?”
“For what is likely beginning,” the man says calmly. “You go to the Sacristy, Sentek — I suspect …”
Unlike Arnem, Niksar is unable to master his wariness of the agèd specter, and approaches his commander. “Come, Sentek. He is mad—”
Arnem holds a hand up to silence his aid, then says, “So, we’re bound for the Sacristy?”
The old man smiles. “And if so, you will hear lies there, Sentek — though not all who speak them will be liars.”
Arnem frowns, growing less patient and more relaxed. “Ah. Riddles. For a moment, I thought we might actually avoid them.”
“Mad or taunting, his words are treasonous,” Niksar says; then he scolds, “Be careful what you say, old fool, or we must arrest you.”
“The Bane are the cause of your summons.” The old man raises his staff from the ground. “This, I believe, can be stated with certainty.”
“There’s no prescience in that,” Arnem says, affecting carefree laughter. “You’ve likely heard the screaming on the Plain.” The sentek resumes his march. “Why Kafra should have chosen to number those wretched little beings among his creations, I’ll never—”
Arnem and Niksar have not gone a dozen paces before the old man declares, “It was not any god who created the Bane, Sixt Arnem — we of Broken bear that responsibility!”
The two officers quickly retrace several of their steps. “Stop it,” Arnem tells the old man urgently. “Now. Whatever your madness, we are soldiers of the Talons, and there are things that we cannot hear—”
Arnem suddenly ceases to speak, as his eyes go wider. The old man’s face is still nothing but a strange mask of misfortune — but his robe … Something about the faded silver and black, and the fine cut — something about the robe looks disturbingly yet inexplicably familiar.
“You do not remember me — do you, Sentek?” the old man asks.
“Should I?” Arnem asks.
His mouth curling, the old man replies, “No longer. And not yet …”
Arnem tries to smile. “More riddles? Well, if that’s all you offer—”
“I have given you what I have to offer, Sentek,” the old man says, raising his staff a few inches higher. “If you go to the Sacristy tonight, you shall hear lies; but not all who speak them will be liars. And it will be your task to determine who disgraces that allegedly exalted chamber.”
Rage flushing his cheeks, Niksar can no longer contain himself: “We should kill you here,” he declares, a hand to his sword. “You speak one heresy after another!”
The old man only smiles again, looking at Niksar. “That has been said,” he replies, raising the hem of his robe with his free arm. “Before …”
In the dimness of the avenue, with Moonlight playing off water that flows quietly in the gutter, Arnem and Niksar can see that the old man’s left leg is far darker than his right; but it is only when the agèd arm taps the staff against that left limb, producing a hollow knock, that the two men guess the truth. The old man smiles at their horror, and continues to tap the wood strapped to the stump of his thigh.
“The Denep-stahla!”† Niksar whispers.
“The young linnet knows his rituals,” the old man answers, dropping the hem of his robe. He continues to tap his staff against the makeshift lower leg, producing a sound that is more muted, but no less dreadful, than that which preceded it.