The Sin War Box Set: Birthright, Scales of the Serpent, and The Veiled Prophet (47 page)

At last, he finished, offering, as he always did, to show any who desired what their potential might be. As expected, there was a moment of hesitation and then the first brave soul—a young woman whose face was half-concealed by a veil—stepped forward. Uldyssian repeated the same steps he had with his converts in Partha and Toraja and was not at all surprised when the woman gasped with delight and immediate understanding.

Her reaction caused a sudden flow forward by most in the front of the throng. The edyrem standing with Uldyssian moved to create some sort of order. Even then, he faced a sudden sea of outstretched hands, each supplicant wanting to be next.

They all imagine it differently
, Uldyssian thought as he chose one.
But they all see it the same once it’s been awoken. No one looks at it as if it were a way to take advantage of others
. He had wondered about that more than once. Was it because
he
was the messenger? If it had been someone like Malic, would the edyrem now be a force willingly embracing the evil of the temple?

Uldyssian could not believe that. As he greeted the man before him, he sensed nothing evil. Surely, the gifts could never be tainted.

But then, Lilith, Malic, and Lucion had all thought otherwise…

The crowd continued to swell. It was suddenly all Uldyssian could do to concentrate on his efforts. People were clearly spreading the word, for there were more in front of him than there had been in all the market at the beginning. Not even Partha had shown such eagerness. There, it had taken the healing of a child. In Toraja, it had needed more. But with Hashiri, it was almost as if the populace had expected his coming.

Uldyssian choked back any sign of his dismay. He quickly searched the crowd again, something that, with so many potential converts with which to deal, he had ceased doing.

He found them immediately. They were mixed into the crowd, especially among the later arrivals. They had waited for his concentration to be pushed to the brink before joining.

Peace Warders.

Without their uniforms to mark them, they were as any of the rest in the crowd. Once again, Uldyssian had grown overconfident. He had dared the Triune to act and they had obliged him.

But getting assassins close and enabling them to succeed were two different matters. Uldyssian easily picked out the foremost three. However, when he probed for weapons, Uldyssian found none. Did they hope to strangle him? Why send unarmed men against him, who could easily strike them down?

Or could he? Doing so would make it appear that he was attacking simple pilgrims. He noted two more behind the three. Five men and still their purpose was unclear. They pushed as hard as possible to reach him, even though they had to assume that he now kept an eye on each. What was the Triune hoping to achieve?

And suddenly, he knew.

Uldyssian pulled back from the eager supplicants. Even as he turned, with his mind he sought out Serenthia.

She was there, but not alone. Two figures, a small girl and an elderly man, held hands with her. Likely, Serenthia had sought to bring them to him. However, her expression—mostly puzzlement—indicated that she was just becoming aware of something amiss.

To his own heightened senses, there was
very
much wrong. He could see them for what they were even though they wore the semblances of others and seemed impossibly small and weak in comparison to their true, foul selves.

Morlu.

Uldyssian reached out for Serenthia, his power simultaneously rising up to strike the disguised creatures.

But in the next second, the morlu vanished…and with them, Serenthia.

Not again! Not again!

Those two words repeated themselves over and over in Uldyssian’s head. First Achilios, then Mendeln, and now, Serenthia. One by one, those nearest to him had been lost. It in no way eased his pain that he now suspected what had happened to his brother. Surely the morlu, using some spell, had materialized around Mendeln and stolen him away just as they had done to Serenthia.

But
what
had happened did not matter. Only somehow trying to save Serenthia. The temple had plotted well; most did not even notice that she was missing. The edyrem were all too busy trying to maintain some order without using their powers…a command given to them by Uldyssian. Even they would not have noticed anything amiss around Serenthia.

But now, alerted silently by Uldyssian, they straightened in disbelief. Eyes turned to where the raven-haired woman had stood.

And to Uldyssian’s astonishment, Serenthia and her kidnappers
reappeared
.

She stood as if some mystical spirit summoned to the mortal plane. Around her there once again glowed the aura. Her hair flew about, as if caught up in a storm. A grim smile crossed her face.

The glow about her shot without warning toward the figures holding her hands. Hissing escaped both the young girl and the elderly male, an inhuman hissing. In the blink of an eye, their skin
burned
away and as it did, both their shapes and height severely altered…until the two morlu stood revealed before the masses.

“Behold the true face of the servants of the Triune!” Serenthia shouted. “Behold the evil hidden from you all these years!”

The morlu that had been a child shifted one hand behind it, the bestial warrior’s reflexes like lightning. The hand came forward again, in it a curved blade as long as Uldyssian’s forearm.

But Serenthia merely eyed the hideous creature as he attacked. The blade dissipated to ash as it reached her chest, leaving the dust to blow back in the startled morlu’s black eye sockets.

Serenthia let go of the undead warrior…who suddenly flung up and over the crowd as if a leaf caught in a tremendous gust. He rose higher and higher, finally crashing into the roof of a building some distance away.

While this had gone on, the second morlu had remained oddly still. The reason for that Uldyssian knew was again Serenthia. Her aura continued to surround the hapless fiend, who could do nothing as she pulled free his own weapon—and then, with one smooth strike,
beheaded
him.

As the corpse toppled, she looked to Uldyssian. “The Triune has declared itself! They leave no choice! We must move against them immediately!”

He felt her determination mingle with his own. Well aware of the things that the priests might have had in mind for Serenthia, Uldyssian’s anger grew by the second. Still, he swore that he would keep control. Uldyssian wanted no repeat of what had just happened.

“People of Hashir!” he shouted. “This is the truth of the temple! This is—”

His head suddenly filled with what he quickly realized was sinister
whispering
. At the same time, Uldyssian felt a pressure in his skull, as if something sought to squeeze it to pieces. There came unbidden the brief image of a gaunt, bearded man who, despite his elderly appearance, radiated a darkness akin to that of the late, unlamented Malic and was surely another high priest of the Triune.

Summoning his strength, Uldyssian managed to force the pressure away. Far in the temple, Uldyssian sensed the high priest’s consternation.

Serenthia was suddenly at his side. She placed a hand against the back of his head, cradling it. “Uldyssian, my love! What are they doing to you?”

He could not speak, for just then a violent pain coursed through him, so sharp that his heart nearly ceased beating. Vaguely, he registered that Serenthia was still calling to him. Farther away, there were concerned shouts from others.

Shouts…and then
screams
. Despite his own dilemma, Uldyssian yet managed to sense that there were more morlu in the immediate vicinity. He tried to rise, but the pain was too intense. Uldyssian managed at least to look up at Serenthia—only her face looked distorted, out of sync.

His ears filled with more shouts, more screams. At some point, the sky had turned
red
. Uldyssian could make no sense of it—

Then, Serenthia cried out as something dark briefly covered her gaze. She fell back from Uldyssian, who would have tumbled to the stone street if not for another pair of hands seizing him tight.

“I have you,” promised a voice in his ear.

Mendeln’s voice.

Before he could react, the world spun around. The cries and other sounds receded, as if Uldyssian now heard them from the end of a vast tunnel.

At the very last, he heard Serenthia call his name—and then darkness swallowed him.

Darkness and stars.

Arihan had absolutely no idea what had gone wrong. Everything had been in place and all the servants had known their roles.

Capture the woman
, the Primus had commanded.
Capture her and you place a yoke around the male
. Arihan had immediately seen the wisdom of that. One glance through a scrying globe had been enough to reveal just how much the fool cared for his companion. To keep her from harm he would give his soul…exactly what the Triune desired.

But all accounts had indicated the woman far weaker than she had just revealed. In Hashir, she had displayed abilities that even Uldyssian ul-Diomed had not. Arihan would have sworn that she was actually even
more
powerful than the man the sect had been battling. Two morlu had not been enough, even cloaked as they had been by a spell given to him by the Primus.

Through the scrying globe, the priests from Hashir’s temple were frantically asking what was going on. They had no idea yet that the plan had turned into an utter disaster for them. The morlu were evidence enough that the Triune had a darker side than it exhibited and with passions as they were at the moment, Arihan foresaw a violent rush upon the temple that would only end with a bloodbath.

A painful noise in his head finally made the high priest return to the globe. A harsh exhalation escaped Arihan when he saw what those in charge of Hashir had now wrought. Some fool had decided that, since
he
had not reacted to the unfortunate turn of events, then they had better do something themselves.

And so the cretins had sent out the rest of their morlu after the peasant and his followers, not thinking how the Hashiri would react to this further revelation of the Triune’s true calling.

They are deserving of their fate, the imbeciles!
Ignoring any further contact with the priests, Arihan instead surveyed the damage their attempt was causing. Twenty morlu had materialized as if out of thin air among the populace, accompanied by twice that many Peace Warders. However, given orders by those without any good sense, the warriors of the temple were not simply seeking Uldyssian ul-Diomed and his core followers, but anyone near them.

The high priest frowned, noting a sudden absence of one particular subject. Where
was
the peasant leader? Where
was
Uldyssian?

Arihan could certainly see where the woman was. She stood at the center of things, reveling in the carnage and looking as if an angel reborn. A blazing aura continued to surround her and seemed to spread to other followers even as he watched. They began to beat the morlu and Peace Warders down.

Hashir is lost! Lost!
The bumbling fools had done it, not Arihan. He had followed the plan to the letter, the perfect plan of his master.

Now…if only the Primus would see it that way…

No sooner had he thought that than Arihan tried to smother the thought.

Too late.

My Arihan…I would see you before me
…

The high priest of Dialon stifled a shiver. He had served the Primus well these many years. There might be some pain involved, but the Primus would certainly not waste such a valuable servant.

Arihan rose from the stone floor of the meditation chamber he had usurped for his efforts. He dismissed the scrying globe and doused the oil lamps in the walls with the wave of a hand, then, uncharacteristically, rushed from the room. Now would not be a good time to let the master wait, even for a moment. Let him see that the high priest did not fear to come to him.

The same stolid guards let him pass into the private chambers. Arihan tramped bravely through the darkened outer room, ignoring little sounds around him that he had never noticed in the past. What he could not ignore, however, was a silky material that draped his face just before he reached the inner door.

The high priest spit out what was in his mouth and wiped away the rest. The gauzy material reminded him of a spider’s webbing, but that could not be. The Primus had always been very fastidious, even in his torturing. Whatever the filmy substance was, it surely had a logical purpose.

As Arihan wiped the last away, the door opened to admit him. He stepped through immediately.

“My Arihan…” came the Primus’s voice. “So good it is that you have come…”

His face a perfect mask, the high priest bowed toward the voice. “Ever I am at your service, most Holy One.”

“Ahh, yesss, but how good is that service?” An unsettling green light materialized above the throne, at last revealing the Primus. Although the figure on the throne smiled, there was what Arihan took for strain in the effort.

“All you’ve asked, I’ve done,” the high priest cautiously returned.

“And where is the female? Is she on her way to me at this very moment?”

“Nay, my lord. She is lost because of the
fools
in Hashir. They underestimated her. It was no fault of mine that the plan did not succeed, Great One.”

The Primus’s gaze grew terrible. The smile reversed itself. “And is it mine, then?”

Arihan caught himself. “Of course not! Never could such a thing be! The priests in Hashir were inept in their execution of your grand plot! They misused the morlu and their guards and have brought worse havoc down upon themselves. I fear, most holy lord, that the temple there is lost.”

“This one is most, most disappointed, my Arihan.” The Primus rose. As he did, the high priest noticed a spider on the wrist of the right hand. It was at least twice as large as the one he had seen on his last visit and
surely
should have been noticeable by his master. “Most disappointed. Assumptions were made. Promises were made…” Arihan’s master shivered and looked up. “Promises were made…”

“The female…she was stronger than expected,” the priest offered. “At least as strong as the male. That was something no one knew.”

Much to his relief, the Primus brightened. “Yesss…that could be useful. He would understand that this could not possibly have been foreseen.”

Exactly who this other was of whom he spoke, Arihan did not know, but the Primus’s reaction sent a chill through the high priest. There were only three beings that the son of Mephisto would fear…his father and the other two Prime Evils.

To assuage them, even the Primus would need a scapegoat. Arihan suddenly wondered how best he might flee, well aware that his chances of success in that direction were likely nil.

Another spider appeared, this one crawling out of the Primus’s collar just as had the one during the previous audience. Arihan belatedly noticed other small and very agitated forms scurrying over the throne…and even over his own feet. What were all these
spiders
doing here and why did his master react with such indifference to them?

“My Arihan…” the figure before him murmured. The Primus reached out to the high priest, who had no choice but to step nearer.

So close, though, Arihan now noticed something wrong with the Primus’s eyes. He had seen Lucion’s true eyes…and these were not them. In fact, so near, it was possible to tell that each was actually composed of
three or four
separate ones…and all were as crimson as fresh blood.

“Most Holy One,” he began, seeking some word that would mean his salvation. “It is possible that this woman—”

But the Primus shook his head. “No, my Arihan. No. The plot—my glorious plot—should have triumphed!
He
will demand the reason why and she may not be enough—”

“’He,’ O Great One?” the human blurted, trying to stall for time. The many spells he knew were unlikely to work here, but Arihan had to attempt
something
. Unfortunately, it was impossible to concentrate for another reason. There were too many spiders, either crawling on the throne, the walls, the Primus—and
himself
, Arihan discovered—or dangling from the ceiling. Some of them were as large as the high priest’s hand or even larger.

And at last Arihan recalled what those spiders indicated. He knew what stood before him, disguised as his master. He had never seen the demon, but had, as a young priest, read of him and heard the rumors that the creature dwelled deep in the recesses of the grand temple.