How Firm a Foundation (63 page)

“But—
but,
my children!—the Inquisition has shown itself to be the enemy of all mankind. Whatever it may once have been, it has fallen into the grasp of men like Zhaspahr Clyntahn who have distorted and twisted it into something which it may never be
possible to cleanse again. Its members have become not servants of God but His enemies. God gave all men free will, the ability to choose, and they have chosen to serve the
Dark,
instead.

“So be it. ‘As he sows, so shall he reap, and the mercy he denies to others shall be denied to him in his turn.’ There will be no torture, but neither will there be mercy. From this day forth, Inquisitors—not
simply intendants, not simply Schuelerites, but those in the direct and personal service of the Grand Inquisitor—shall receive precisely what the
Writ
promises them. As they have chosen to deny mercy to others, it will be denied to them. Soldiers and sailors may be allowed to surrender and receive the humane, honorable treatment to which their actions have entitled them; Inquisitors will not.
Let the word go forth, my children. Let there be no ambiguity, no misunderstanding. Those who wish to renounce the distorted and twisted policies and commands of Zhaspahr Clyntahn are free to do so. They may still face trial and punishment for acts they have already committed, but they will be granted that trial. And for those who do not wish to renounce their allegiance to Zhaspahr Clyntahn, who
continue to willingly lend themselves to his acts of murder and terrorism and torture, there will be a different policy. The only trial they will receive is to determine whether or not they truly are servants of the Inquisition, and if they are so found to be, there will be only one sentence, and that sentence will be executed upon them immediately and without appeal, just as surely as, in the fullness
of time and God’s good grace, it will be executed upon Zhaspahr Clyntahn himself.”

.III.

Sairaih’s Tavern, City of Tellesberg, Kingdom of Old Charis

Ainsail Dahnvahr had forgotten how good real Charisian beer tasted. His father had been willing to pay the premium for Charisian beer when Ainsail was younger, and he’d developed a taste for it. Of course, that had changed abruptly when the kingdom of Rahzhyr Dahnvahr’s birth turned against Mother Church, although Ainsail was
pretty sure his father would have gone ahead paying for the imported beer if that hadn’t become so … indiscreet in the Temple Lands.

It shamed him to admit that, but there was no point trying to pretend otherwise. His father’s faith was weak, no match for the fervor of Ainsail’s mother’s belief. Or Ainsail’s, for that matter. There’d been times Ainsail had suspected that deep in the secret places
of his own heart his father was still a Charisian first and a servant of God second, and that had caused him more than shame. That suspicion was the mother of
pain,
and twice Ainsail had almost mentioned his father’s Charisian sympathies to one of the Inquisition’s agents.

I should have,
he thought now, staring down into the beer mug.
God forgive me, I
should
have. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t
.

He took another swallow of beer, trying to wash away the sour taste in his mouth, the knowledge that he’d failed God and the Archangel Schueler. And he wasn’t even positive why. He knew his mother still loved his father dearly, despite Rahzhyr’s lack of conviction. That was the reason he hadn’t informed the Inquisition. He was sure of it. And yet.…

Memories flowed through him. Memories of a
time when he’d been a boy, not a young man faced with his father’s weakness. Memories of riding on his father’s shoulders, laughing as his father tickled him or wrestled with him. Memories of his father’s hands teaching him the use of plane and miter saw and lathe. Memories of when Rahzhyr Dahnvahr was the tallest, strongest, smartest, most handsome man in all of Ainsail’s world. And as those memories
glowed through his mind once more, the suspicion returned. It wasn’t his
mother’s
love for his father which had made him too weak to do what he knew he should have done.

Well, no mortal man was perfect. Not his father, and certainly not him. But if he was as strong as he could be, and if he truly trusted in God, then he would find he had strengths as well as weaknesses, and he would learn how
to use the steel in his soul to offset the soft and flabby iron. And whatever his father’s faults, however badly his father might have failed or the weakness of his father’s convictions, there was nothing wrong with Ainsail’s faith. He’d proven that to Archbishop Wyllym’s satisfaction, and Vicar Zhaspahr had personally chosen him for his mission. That was enough to awaken the sin of pride in any
man, however hard Ainsail might fight against it. But perhaps God would forgive him a
little
pride. And it wasn’t as if Ainsail could have accomplished his purpose without the aid of dozens of others, most of whom he’d never met and none of whom knew who he truly was.

“’Nother round, dearie?” the plump barmaid asked him brightly.

“Yes, I think so,” he replied, setting the empty mug on her tray
and dropping a silver tenth-mark beside it. Her eyes widened at the size of the coin, and she started to hand it back to him, but he put his own hand on top of it. “Keep it,” he said, and smiled at her. “I’m leaving on a long voyage, and I won’t have anywhere to spend it anyway. Besides, you can wish me luck for it, if you like.”

“Oh, that I will!” she assured him with a broad smile. “And I’ll
have that new beer back to you quicker than a cat lizard could lick her ear, Sir!”

“No ‘sir,’” he told her. “Just a simple sailorman.”

“Not to me, you’re not,” she assured him.

From the glow in her eye she would have been perfectly prepared to demonstrate that to him, as well, but he only smiled and made shooing motions to send her on her way. Not that it wasn’t tempting, but there were other
and far more important things to concentrate on at this moment. In fact, it had probably been foolish of him to give the girl such a lavish tip. It might make her remember him later, not that “later” was going to be a problem. Besides, he’d been sent on his way with plenty of cash and, as he’d told her, he wouldn’t have any place to spend the rest of it.

He leaned back in the ancient, leather-upholstered
booth, smelling decades of pipe smoke, of beer, of fried sausages, fish, potatoes, and spider crabs. It was a comforting, homey kind of smell that soothed his nerves. And he had to admit there was something soothing about the ebb and flow of the conversations around him, as well.

He’d never quite fitted in in the Temple Lands, with his “islander” accent. The other boys his age had been merciless
about teasing him over it, and there’d been several fistfights—one of them fairly spectacular, culminating in an uncomfortable interview with the city guard—before they’d finally learned better. But no matter how hard he’d tried, he hadn’t been able to rid himself of that telltale accent, and in the end that had proven a good thing. It had helped him slip seamlessly back into the land of his birth,
yet he was still more than a little amused by how
right
the dialect he’d tried so hard to eradicate in himself sounded falling upon his ear from others.

Well, it’s not as if they’re
all
heretics and blasphemers, now is it?
he asked himself.
There are plenty of Faithful still right here in Charis. They’re just afraid to show it, that’s all. Wave Thunder’s damned spies are everywhere. They’ve managed
to sniff out every organization the Grand Inquisitor’s tried to establish here, so of course the Charisian Temple Loyalists are afraid to trust anyone enough to organize any kind of effective resistance!

For that matter, he reminded himself, there
had
been Charisian Loyalists who’d dared to raise their hands against their heretical, excommunicate king and his apostate bride. They’d almost gotten
that bastard Staynair in his own cathedral! And they’d come within inches of getting Sharleyan at Saint Agtha’s. And then there’d been the man who’d made his own mission possible.

“Here you are, dearie,” the barmaid said, sliding the fresh beer onto the table before him. She’d added a complimentary bowl of fried potato slices, and he smiled his thanks as he popped one of the fresh, piping hot
slices into his mouth. In fact, it was hot enough he had to follow it rather quickly with an extinguishing swallow of beer.

“Good!” he told her, nodding enthusiastically even as he puffed out air to cool his scorched tongue and lips. “Hot, but good.”

“Not the only thing here you could say that about,” she told him with a saucy wink, and headed back off through the early evening crowd with an
even saucier swing of her hips.

He smiled after her, but then the smile faded as he thought about how far he’d come. Not much further to
go
, though, he thought. Not much further at all.

He never would have admitted it to a soul, but he’d had more than a few reservations after his mission had been fully explained to him. Not about the mission itself, but about the complexity involved in getting
him into position and preparing the way for it. The thought of returning to Charis completely on his own would have been enough to make anyone nervous. The fact that he was strictly prohibited from actually contacting any of the people who’d made his trip possible or contributed to the arrangements here in Charis had produced even more anxiety. He had to simply trust that each of the people responsible
for moving him along would do his—or
her,
for all he knew, in some cases—part and that none of the details would go astray. The notion that such a complex set of arrangements could possibly work had seemed absurd, but as Archbishop Wyllym had pointed out, the Inquisition had been conducting similar operations for centuries. Perhaps not under conditions quite this extreme, but close enough to give
them the expertise they needed once they’d realized what an efficient counter-spying organization they were up against here in Charis.

And there hadn’t been all
that
many people involved, not really. It only seemed that way to him because he’d had to rely on them so blindly. But that very blindness had been his own best defense, because they hadn’t known him, either. For that matter, they hadn’t
even known
why
they were doing what they’d been assigned to do. Not only that, every one of them had done his or her job exactly as Ainsail had—with no contact with
anyone
else in the service of Mother Church from the moment they or their instructions left Zion. No one would overhear any conversations or intercept any communications between them because there
were
no conversations or communications.
There were only Ainsail and his fellow volunteers (none of whom had ever met, so far as he knew, even in Zion) and the detailed directions they’d been given before they were sent out.

When the Charisian powder mill blew up, Ainsail had been certain the entire operation had gone up in the same explosion. He had no idea who the Inquisition’s contact inside the Charisian Navy was, yet it had been
obvious there had to be one. And when he’d heard about the explosion—he’d still been in Emerald at the time, waiting for the brig to carry him for the final leg of his wearisome journey from Zion—he’d realized that whoever the contact was, he must have been unmasked somehow. And that meant he hadn’t been able to complete his part of the preparations.

Ainsail had considered aborting the operation.
He’d had that option, yet he’d known even as he’d considered the possibility that he wasn’t going to do it. He hadn’t come this far to turn back. And so he’d continued and, to his amazement, he’d found the promised supplies waiting exactly where he’d been told they’d be. Obviously, the Inquisition’s contact
had
managed to complete his preparations, and Ainsail found himself wondering if perhaps
the destruction of the powder mill had always been part of the plan. For that matter,
had
the contact been in the mill when it blew up? Could he have contrived the explosion with some sort of delay mechanism that let him escape before the blast?

Ainsail didn’t know about that. It wasn’t the way
his
part of the operation was supposed to work, but there was nothing that said other parts of it couldn’t
work differently. In fact, he rather hoped it had. Anyone who could have made Rakurai possible was far more valuable alive than dead.

I don’t suppose I’ll ever know,
he reflected now, cautiously testing another of the potato slices to see if it had cooled enough. It had, and he chewed slowly, savoring the taste despite his scorched tongue. It was the best tasting fried potato he’d ever had, he
thought, and then snorted in amusement.
Sure it is! Then again, maybe it’s not. And maybe the beer isn’t really as good as I think it is, either. Maybe it’s just that knowing how close I am is making me savor everything more than I ever did before
.

He didn’t know about that, and he wasn’t going to waste his time worrying about it, either. He had two more five-days here in Tellesberg, and he intended
to use those days wisely.

.IV.

Citadel of Schueler, The Temple, City of Zion, The Temple Lands

He didn’t know if it was day or night.

They were careful about that. There was no daylight, no moonlight or stars, to help keep track of time, and they deliberately fed them—if you could call it “feeding”—at irregular, staggered intervals. No one was allowed to sleep uninterrupted, either. Buckets of ice-cold water hurled
through the bars of their cells were enough to wake anyone up, although sometimes the guards varied their procedure. White-hot irons on the ends of long wooden shafts were quite effective at rousing sleepers, as well.

They’d been stripped of even the ragged remnants of their uniforms before they’d been consigned to their cages under the bowels of the Citadel of Schueler. It wasn’t part of the
original Temple complex, the Citadel; it had been built later, expressly for the Inquisition, and its walls were thick enough, its dungeons buried deep enough, that no one beyond its precincts could hear what happened within.