It was a sudden chill that awoke him, a cold that seemed to penetrate to his bones, and he knew even before he opened his eyes that he was not alone.
An armoured figure stood at the foot of his cot, with the moonlight gleaming on the enamelled black steel. The familiar charnelhouse reek filled the room. ‘Awaken, Sir Sparhawk,’ the figure commanded in a chillingly hollow tone ‘I would have words with thee.’
Sparhawk sat up. ‘I’m awake, brother,’ he replied. The spectre raised its visor, and Sparhawk saw a familiar face ‘I’m sorry, Sir Tanis,’ he said.
‘All men die,’ the ghost intoned, ‘and my death was not without purpose That thought alone doth comfort me in the House of the Dead. Attend to me, Sparhawk, for my time with thee must be short. I bring thee instructions. This is the purpose for which I died.’
‘I will hear thee, Tanis,’ Sparhawk promised.
‘Go thou then this very night to the crypt which doth lie beneath the cathedral of Cimmura. There shalt thou meet another restless shade which will instruct thee further in the course which thou must follow’
‘Whose shade?’
‘Thou shalt know him, Sparhawk.’
‘I will do as you command, my brother.’
The spectre at the foot of the cot drew its sword. ‘And now I must leave thee, Sparhawk,’ it said. ‘I must deliver up my sword ’ere I return to the endless silence.’
Sparhawk sighed. ‘I know,’ he said.
‘Hail then, brother, and farewell,’ the ghost concluded. ‘Remember me in thy prayers.’ Then the armoured figure turned and walked silently from the room.
The towers of the cathedral of Cimmura blotted out the stars, and the pale moon lay low on the western horizon, filling the streets with silvery light and inky black shadows. Sparhawk moved silently down a narrow alleyway and stopped in the dense shadow at its mouth. He was directly across the street from the main doors of the cathedral. Beneath his traveller’s cloak he wore mail, and his plain sword was belted at his waist.
He felt a peculiar detachment as he stared across the street at the pair of church soldiers standing guard at the cathedral door. Their red tunics were leeched of all colour by the pale moon, and they leaned inattentively against the stones of the cathedral wall.
Sparhawk considered the situation. The guarded door was the only way into the cathedral. All others would be locked. By tradition, however, if not by Church law, the locking of the main doors of any church was forbidden.
The guards would be sleepy and far from alert. The street was not wide. One quick rush would eliminate the problem. Sparhawk straightened and reached for his sword. Then he stopped. Something seemed wrong with the notion. He was not squeamish, but it seemed somehow that he should not go to this meeting with blood on his hands. Then, too, he decided, two bodies lying on the cathedral steps would announce louder than words that someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to get inside
All he really needed was about a minute to cross the street and slip through the doors. He thought about it. What would be most likely to pull the soldiers from their posts? He came up with a half-dozen possibilities before he finally settled on one. He smiled when the notion came to him. He ran over the spell in his mind, making sure that he had all the words right, and then he began to mutter under his breath in Styric
The spell was fairly long. There were a number of details he wanted to get exactly right. When it was done, he raised his hand and released it.
The figure that appeared at the end of the street was that of a woman. She wore a velvet cloak with its hood thrown back, and her long blonde hair tumbled down her back. Her face was lovely beyond belief. She walked towards the doors of the cathedral with a seductive grace and, when she reached the steps, she stopped, looking up at the now fully awake pair of guards. She did not speak. Speech would have unnecessarily complicated the spell, and she did not need to say anything. Slowly, she unfastened the neck of her cloak and then opened it. Beneath the cloak, she was naked.
Sparhawk could clearly hear the suddenly hoarse breathing of the two soldiers.
Then, with inviting glances over her shoulder, she walked back up the street. The two guards looked after her, then at each other, then up and down the street to be sure that no one was watching. They leaned their pikes against the stone walls beside them and ran down the steps.
The figure of the woman had stopped beneath the torch flaring at the corner She beckoned again, then stepped out of the light and disappeared up the side street.
The guards ran after her
Sparhawk was out of the shadows at the mouth of the alley before the pair had rounded the corner. He was across the street in seconds, and he bounded up the steps two at a time, seized the heavy handle of one of the great arched doors, and pulled. Then he was inside. He smiled faintly to himself, wondering how long the soldiers would search for the now-vanished apparition he had created.
The inside of the cathedral was dim and cool, smelling of incense and candle wax. Two lone tapers, one on either side of the altar, burned fitfully, stuttering in the faint breath of night air that had followed Sparhawk into the nave. Their light was little more than two flickering pinpoints that were reflected only faintly in the gems and gold decorating the altar.
Sparhawk moved silently down the central aisle, his shoulders tense and senses alert. Although it was late at night, there was always the possibility that one of the many churchmen who lived within the confines of the cathedral might be up and about, and Sparhawk preferred to keep his visit a secret and to avoid noisy confrontations.
He knelt perfunctorily before the altar, rose, and moved out of the nave into the dim, latticed corridor leading towards the chancel.
There was light ahead, dim but steady. Sparhawk moved quietly, keeping close to the wall. A curtained archway stood before him, and he carefully parted the thick purple drapes a finger’s width and peered in.
The Primate Annias, garbed not in satin but in harsh monk’s cloth, knelt before a small stone altar inside the sanctuary His emaciated features were twisted in an agony of self-loathing, and he wrung his hands together as if he would tear his fingers from their sockets. Tears streamed openly down his face, and his breath rasped hoarsely in his throat.
Sparhawk’s face went bleak, and his hand went to his sword hilt. The soldiers at the cathedral door had been one thing. Killing them would have served no real purpose Annias, however, was an entirely different matter. The primate was alone. A quick rush and a single thrust would remove this filthy infection from Elenia once and for all.