The False Martyr (5 page)

A new sound replaced the
silence of the room, the distinctive slap of sandals hitting
stones. Teth’s heart echoed their pounding – fear was within her
grasp. The steps approached her room. She felt her nudity as if the
blanket were gone, had no idea where she was, who held her, what
they meant to do with her. And lying there helpless was all the
invitation her captors likely needed, and all she needed to
convinced her body to respond.

Grunting, gasping,
struggling, she forced her recalcitrant muscles to obey. She barely
won the battle. Cramps claimed her legs, her neck and back spasmed,
her head pounded, and her stomach churned. She pulled herself to
sitting, reached with clawed hand to the robe, and forced it over
her head.

Tears were running down
her cheeks. Her limbs were splayed like a fully extended mannequin
as the rough wool fell around her, replacing the scratches of the
blanket with an all-encompassing alternative. The steps were just
outside. She stared toward the door, waited for it to fly open,
wondered what she hoped to do if it did.

The steps continued on.
They did not so much as pause at her door, and soon, they were
gone.

Releasing a breath, Teth
worked the cramps from her legs, leaned forward, rested her elbows
on her knees, allowed her head to hang between her shoulders, and
tried to stretch the spasms from her back. She brought a hand to
her forehead and squeezed her temples to alleviate the pounding
behind her eyes. When her miseries had faded enough that she could
unclench her teeth, she reached across the desk to the brown
earthenware pitcher. She poured water into a cup that looked like
something a child would make with mud and drank. Cup after cup of
the warm water followed, and she swore that it tasted better than
any honey. Only when the pitcher was nearly empty did she consider
that the water might be drugged. Overcome by fear, she nearly made
herself sick before she realized the futility of it – why drug
someone who’s already helpless? That did not stop her from sniffing
the stale bread and crusty mash of beans on the plate. Finding
nothing out of place, she ate with little more caution than she had
afforded the water. When the food was gone, she licked her fingers,
wishing for more. A last cup of water finished the jug, so she
leaned against the wall behind her and stared at the
door.

The food and water were
already having the desired effect. She could feel her headache
easing, the quivering in her arms and legs lessening, her strength
returning. Eventually, boredom overcame caution, and she forced
herself up. Her legs trembled, every muscle, even the tiniest, most
insignificant, ached. The robe fell to the floor, pooling around
her bare feet. She reached slowly and pushed a strand of damp hair
behind her ear then pulled the hood of the robe up over her head.
She took a few shuffling steps toward the door, extended her hand,
and realized it did not have a handle. It consisted of nothing more
than four wooden planks that had been slotted together. Metal pins
extending from the ceiling and floor to hold it in place and allow
it to pivot. The door had no adornment, no latch, no handle, no
bolt or bar. Teth reached a hand toward it and pushed. It swung
out. It did not move easily, but nothing barred her way, so she
held the door open, leaned forward, and peeked down a long
hall.

There was nothing to see.
To either side were fifty feet of bare stone. The only thing
disturbing the smooth blocks were doors spaced every ten feet on
either side. The only light came from windows at either end. There
were no lamps or braziers, not even brackets to attach such
devices. There was no indication of how the hall was lit when the
sun was not up to fill the need. Groaning, grunting, and cursing
under her breath, she shuffled to the first door and stopped to
listen. She heard nothing. The next door and next were equally
silent, yet the stones beneath her feet were worn down the middle
so that the floor was the shape of shallow bowl. That bowl was
spotless, held not a stray rock, smear of mud, or speck of dust.
Thousands of feet had walked these halls, but there was no sign of
them now.

Teth reached the end of
the hall and looked out the window at a wide river running just
outside. Past it was prairie. The grass grew wild and long. No
cottages marred it, no fields tamed it. She was up three stories,
and the day was clear. Her view was disturbed only by the shimmer
of heat rising off the grass, but she found no sign of a landmark
until her eyes stretched far to the right. Nearly falling from the
window, she followed the flow of the swollen river until it
disappeared into a grey thread. At the end of that thread was
smoke. So far off as to be barely distinguishable from the shimmer
of heat, it could have been a single cloud on the blue horizon, but
having seen the fires that created it, she knew the truth. White
from this distance, it drifted slowly up to form the only wisps in
the sky.

It was Thoren. And it
burned.

Turning her eyes from the
fire to the sun, Teth took a moment to orient herself. The sun was
half-way to the horizon. She had to remind herself that Thoren was
to the north. She stared at the sun again, shook her head, then
thought better of it. The yellow ball was approaching the western
horizon. It was late afternoon. She had slept an entire
day.

When there was no more
information to be gained from the window, Teth looked with dread at
the narrow stairs to her side. She had worked her muscles to
stiffness enough times to know that there was nothing worse than
walking down stairs with sore legs. Still, she had to find out
where she was, who had rescued her, what they intended to do with
her, and where they were keeping Dasen. So it was with grinding
teeth, she tottered – almost falling as her knees switched between
locking and buckling – down the stairs.

It took an eternity to
reach the first landing. Breathless from even that simple effort,
she looked down the hall and saw a line of doors identical to the
one she had left behind. She sighed then stared at the steps
leading to what should be the ground. Offering her eternal soul for
a simple railing, she hobbled down another flight in a procession
of grunts and quiet curses.

Doors waited to either
side of the steps, bordering another long hall. Dripping sweat and
cursing the hot, scratchy robe that was already rubbing her most
sensitive areas raw, she chose the door to the south. Like the door
to her room, it had no latch or lock. It simply swung open to
reveal a stone path through a carefully manicured garden. Teth
stepped from the door and blinked against a pounding sun that not
only blinded her but made the robe feel like it was about to catch
fire with her inside.

Shielding her eyes, she
considered the garden. Its edge sloped toward the river, stopping a
half-dozen paces from the sharp bank. It consisted of precisely
placed trees that marked out the rhythm of the garden like drum
beats in a musical score. The plants, bushes, flowers, and vines
provided the melody, but it appeared to be a very simple and
repetitive song with the same patterns repeated time and again like
a children’s rhyme. Rising from the center of the garden, peeking
just above the ring of trees that surrounded it, was a tower. The
lines of grey stone looked ancient, but they were smooth, the
mortar between them did not show the slightest wear. Not a spot of
moss, mildew, lichen, or ivy marked them. By Teth’s reckoning, it
was not an especially tall tower – those in the center of Thoren
had looked taller even from a greater distance – standing maybe
fifty feet. From her angle, she could see only two of the straight
walls, but they seemed to meet at an angle too wide to be a square.
Beyond the garden were glimpses of other buildings, but their exact
size and structure were difficult to discern from between the trees
and shrubs. And still, there were no people.

Looking down, she found
the path was set with cut stones of slightly varying shades of
grey, brown, and white to make a repeating pattern. It took her a
moment to notice that pattern. When she did, her heart leapt. Her
eyes rose, and she looked with increasing urgency for movement, for
some indication of life. She listened, heard the birds twittering,
the whir of insects, the skittering of squirrels, and behind it
all, a distant smack. She focused on that sound: Smack! Smack!
Smack! It sounded with the regularity of a metronome behind
everything else, set their pattern in the same way the trees set
the pattern of the garden.

Mind racing, evidence
piecing together, Teth stared at her brown robe, at the pattern in
the path, at the garden. She felt almost more than heard the
pounding of wood, its rhythm more regular than her panting breaths.
Fear rose through her, drove her miseries away, left her numb. “The
Order take me,” she whispered.

“
Dasen!” she yelled with
her next breath. She turned back to the hall she had just escaped
and screamed, “Dasen! Where are you? Answer me!” Her voice bounced
off the building and seemed to be absorbed by the garden behind
her. Then silence. She yelled again, watched the rows of windows
with growing desperation. There was no response. She searched the
buildings, the garden, the path. Dasen was not here, somehow she
knew it. They had him somewhere else. Did they know who he was,
what he could do?

“
The Order be damned,” she
whispered and meant it as literally as possible. She ran, ground
her teeth and forced herself to ignore her body’s protests. She
made it only a few feet before the path turned to the east. She
followed it, watched the pattern of its mosaic repeated again and
again. She came to a circle, followed it around the tower, counting
its sides one, two, three, four, and hidden around the last bend
would be five. She watched what could only be a temple appear down
a path to the side. She considered that path, but the time wasn’t
right. The temple would be empty, and they wouldn’t hold Dasen
there. As much as she dreaded it, she needed a person, needed to
confirm what she already knew and find out why she was here in this
nightmare of her childhood, in the place she had dreaded from the
moment she knew of its existence.

Turning down the third
path, she approached a long, low building with a tile roof. Like
all the other buildings, it was fashioned from simple, grey stone.
More importantly, it was the source of the compound’s only
sound.
Smack!
Like a hundred men pounding boards together in unison, the
sound hit Teth, reverberated through her louder and louder with
each step toward its source.
Smack! Smack!
Smack!
The pounding seemed to match her
strides, her heartbeat, her breaths. Everything was contained in
that rhythm. Her body shook with it.

She burst through a door,
entered the ribcage of the beast that held her, and looked upon its
beating heart.
Smack!
Her eyes blurred, adjusting from blazing sun to dim
interior.
Smack!
The air seemed to catch in her throat. It was heavy, musty,
smelled of dye and wool and sweat.
Smack!
The sound was deafening, made
her shake, but almost more disturbing was the silence. The absolute
stillness that existed between blows.
Smack!
Fifty shapes formed out of
the gloom. Long shapes with webs woven between them and robed men
arrayed around.
Smack!
Two pieces of wood slammed together on each machine in
perfect unison, the sound a blow as strong as any fist.
Smack!
Teth’s eyes
dilated enough for her to finally see what she already knew was
there. The arms of the looms pounded together.
Smack!
Men on one side sent shuttles
flying between the strands to be caught by their seeming twins on
the other. A final man pulled the lever that pounded the boards
together, secured the thread, and switched the weft.
Smack!
The shuttles flew
back and were caught as one. A lever was pulled.
Smack!

Teth’s eyes turned
adroitly from the looms to the men surrounding them. Their hoods
were thrown back, bald heads, hairless faces stared blankly
forward, paying not the slightest attention to the new
arrival.
Smack!
“Weavers,” she whispered as all her fears were confirmed. “By
the great and holy Order.”
Smack!

“
Dasen!” she screamed. She
ran toward the closest loom, reached for the man who had just sent
the shuttle spinning between the strands of the weft. “Where is he?
What have you done to him?” The smack of the loom sent her back.
Her groping hand caught the Weaver’s hand, kept it from catching
the shuttle that was racing toward him.
Smack!
A look of shock appeared on
the man’s young, utterly hairless, face. He dropped the shuttle.
Teth watched it fall in slow motion, saw the man’s face fall with
it as fear bloomed in his eyes.
Smack!

The man fell to the
ground. He did not try to recover the shuttle. He did not scramble
to maintain his position. He just fell to the ground, lie flat,
head pressed to the stones at his feet. Hands clasped behind his
back.
Smack!
His
fellows at the loom did the same. As one they went to the ground,
laid motionless.
Smack!
And the rest of the room continued without the
slightest recognition of the damage done, of the pattern disturbed,
of the tapestry ruined.
Smack!