Silverthorn. Raymond E. Feist

to come from a great distance, escaped from the moredhel’s mouth and it shuddered again. Locked in this mystic battle, Nathan lifted his shoulders as if he were struggling to move away a great weight, and the moredhel fell to its knees. Its right hand bent backwards as Nathan’s voice droned on. Beads of sweat rolled down the priest’s forehead and the cords on his neck stood out. Blisters rose on the creature’s ragged flesh and exposed muscle and it began an ululating cry. A sizzling sound and the smell of cooking meat filled the room. Thick oily smoke poured off its body, and one guard turned his head and vomited. Nathan’s eyes grew wide as he exerted the force of his will upon this creature. Slowly they swayed, the creature’s flesh cracking as it blackened and crisped from Nathan’s magic. The moredhel bent backwards under the force of the priest’s grip, and suddenly blue energy coursed over its blackening body. Nathan released his hold and the creature toppled sideways, flames erupting from its eyes, mouth, and ears. Soon flames engulfed the body and reduced it quickly to ashes, choking the room with a foul, greasy odour.

      Nathan slowly turned to face Arutha, and the Prince saw a man suddenly aged. The cleric’s eyes were wide and sweat poured down his face. In a dry croak he said, ‘Highness, it is done.’ Taking one slow step, then another, towards the Prince, Nathan smiled weakly. Then he fell forward, to be caught by Arutha before he struck the floor.

      • CHAPTER FOUR •

      Revelations

      BIRDS SANG TO WELCOME THE NEW DAWN.

      Arutha, Laurie, Jimmy, Volney, and Gardan sat in the Prince’s private audience chamber awaiting word of Nathan and the High Priestess. The temple guards had carried the priestess to a guest chamber and stood guard while healers summoned from her temple attended her. They had been with her all night, while members of Nathan’s order tended him in his quarters.

      Everyone in the room had been rendered silent by the horrors of the night, and all were reluctant to speak of it. Laurie stirred first from the numbness, leaving his chair to move to a window.

      Arutha’s eyes followed Laurie’s movement, but his mind was wrestling with a dozen unanswerable questions. Who or what was seeking his death? And why? But more important to him than his own safety was the question of what threat this posed for Lyam, Carline, and the others due to arrive soon. And most of all, was there any risk to Anita? A dozen times over the last few hours Arutha had considered postponing the wedding.

      Laurie sat down on a couch next to the half-dozing Jimmy. Quietly he asked, ‘Jimmy, how did you know to fetch Father Nathan when the High Priestess herself was helpless?’

      Jimmy stretched and yawned. ‘It was something I remembered from my youth.’ At this, Gardan laughed and the tension in the room lessened. Even Arutha ventured a half-smile as Jimmy continued. ‘I was given into the tutelage of one Father Timothy, a cleric of Astalon, for a time. Occasionally one boy or another is allowed to do this. It’s a sign the Mockers have great expectations for the boy,’ he said proudly. ‘I stayed only to learn my letters and numbers, but along the way I chanced to pick up a few other bits of knowledge.

      ‘I remembered a discourse on the nature of the gods Father Timothy had given once – though it had almost put me to sleep. According to that worthy, there is an opposition of forces, positive and negative forces that are sometimes called good and evil. Good cannot cancel good, nor evil cancel evil. To balk an agent of evil, you need an agency of good. The High Priestess is counted a servant of dark powers by most people and could not hold the creature at bay. I hoped the father could oppose the creature, as Sung and her servants are seen as being of “good” demeanour. I really didn’t know if it was possible, but I couldn’t see standing around while that thing chewed up the palace guards one by one.’

      Arutha said, ‘It proved a good guess.’ His tone revealed approval of Jimmy’s quick thinking.

      A guard came into the room and said, ‘Highness, the priest is recovered and sends word for you. He begs you to come to his quarters.’ Arutha nearly leapt from his chair and strode out of the chamber with the others close behind.

      For over a century custom had provided that the palace of the Prince of Krondor contain a temple with a shrine to each of the gods, so that whoever was a guest, no matter which of the major deities he worshipped, would find a place of spiritual comfort close by. The order seeing to the temple’s care would change from time to time as different advisers to the Prince came and went. It was Nathan and his acolytes who cared for the temple under Arutha’s administration, as they had during Erland’s. The priest’s quarters lay behind the temple, and Arutha entered through the large, vaulted hall. At the opposite end of the nave a door could be glimpsed behind the bema that contained the shrine to the four greater gods. Arutha strode towards the door, his boots clacking upon the stone floor as he walked past the shrines to the lesser gods on either side of the temple. As he approached the door to Nathan’s quarters, Arutha could see it was open and glimpsed movement inside.

      He entered the priest’s quarters and Nathan’s acolytes stepped aside. Arutha was struck by the austere look of the room, nearly a cell without personal property or decoration. The only nonutilitarian item visible was a personal statuette of Sung, represented as a lovely young woman in a long white robe, resting on a small table next to Nathan’s bed.

      The priest looked haggard and weak but alert. He lay propped up on cushions. Nathan’s assistant priest hovered close by, ready to answer any need Nathan might have. The royal chirurgeon waited beside the bed. He bowed and said, ‘There is nothing physically wrong, Highness, save he is exhausted. Please be brief.’ Arutha nodded as the chirurgeon, followed by all the acolytes, withdrew. As he left, he motioned for Gardan and the others to remain outside.

      Arutha came to Nathan’s side. ‘How do you fare?’

      ‘I will live, Highness,’ he answered weakly.

      Arutha cast a quick glance at the door and saw the alarmed expression on Gardan’s face. It confirmed Arutha’s impression that Nathan’s ordeal had left him changed. Softly Arutha said, ‘You will do more than just live, Nathan. You’ll be back to your old self soon.’

      ‘I have lived through a horror no man should have to face, Highness. So you may understand, I must share a confidence with you.’ He nodded towards the door.

      The assistant priest closed the door and returned to Nathan’s bedside. Nathan said, ‘I must now tell you something not commonly known outside the temple, Highness. I take great responsibility upon myself to do this, but I judge it imperative.’

      Arutha leaned forward the better to hear the tired priest’s faint words. Nathan said, ‘There is an order to things, Arutha, a balance imposed by Ishap, the One Above All. The greater gods rule through the lesser gods, who are served by the priesthoods. Each order has its mission. An order may seem to be in opposition to another, but the higher truth is that all orders have a place in the scheme of things. Even those in the temples who are of lower rank are kept ignorant of this higher order. It is the reason for occasional conflicts erupting between temples. My discomfort at the High Priestess’s rites last night was as much for the benefit of my acolytes as from any true distaste. What an individual is capable of understanding determines how much of the truth is revealed to him by the temples. Many need the simple concepts of good and evil, light and dark, to govern their daily lives. You are not such a one.

      ‘I have trained in the Following of the Single Path, the order I am best suited for by my nature. But as do all others who have reached my rank, I know well the nature and manifestations of the other gods and goddesses. What appeared in that room last night was nothing I have ever known.’

      Arutha seemed lost. ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘As I battled against the force that drove the moredhel I could sense something of its nature. It is something alien, dark and dread, something without mercy. It rages and it seeks to dominate or destroy. Even those gods called dark, Lims-Kragma and Guis-wa, are not truly evil when the truth is understood. But this thing is a blotting out of the light of hope. It is despair incarnate.’

      The