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Hail all!!
Danlo suggested that I post "The Creed here. So, here we go...
The Creed
Krele Kest moved shadowlike down the reeking back alleyway toward the lump of gray stone at its end. The city lay enshrouded by a dead moonless night, clear and cold, with pale stars that offered no light. He drew up to the stone dwelling, whispered around to its back side and tapped lightly on the frigid, dirty glass of a small window. It was curtained only by a thin veil of material and he could easily see the glow of a lone candle dancing closer towards him. Abruptly, a bony hand pulled the curtain aside, and her face, worn and weary, appeared before him. Her exhausted eyes instantly filled with a mixture of dread and gratitude, and she raised her skeletal shaking hand to cover her thin mouth. Then she disappeared. Krele moved silently over to the heavy wooden door, tested the latch and slipped inside.
She stood before him in a dingy night dress way too big for her painfully thin body. "You come." She said in a trembling voice. "In defiance of God Himself, you come."
Krele took down the hood of his black cloak, and raked his blue-black hair away from his eyes. "Where is the child?" He breathed more than spoke.
"In there." She told him, pointing a shaky finger at a curtained doorway to Krele's left.
He moved toward it.
She placed a hand on his arm, her eyes to the floor. "My Lord Kest, will the magic….", she paused, lifting her gaze to his face, "will the magic hurt her?"
"No." He told her, forcing himself to smile. "The pain of the magic will be cast upon me. She will feel nothing."
"This, this frightens me." She whispered.
"Me as well." He said as he parted the curtain.
The child lay like forfeit on the pile of dirty, sweat-soaked quilts serving as her bed. She writhed and trembled. Her pale, tiny face bathed in perspiration. "Tell me Lord Kest." The child's mother sobbed. "What sort of God does this? What could be more evil?"
Krele's hard gaze locked on the child. "Our God spun himself from hate. He relishes in such things. But, this one small pleasure I take from Him. And, if He so chooses, He can shower me with his wrath." He told her, his voice seethed with contempt. She nodded then. Sorrow dripped from her eyes. He put a reassuring hand on her emaciated shoulder. “I will do what I can.”
Krele then removed his cloak and the sheathed sword from around his slight waist. Kneeling before the deathly ill child, he placed his cold hands on her burning cheeks. She started, whether from his frigid touch or some inner turmoil, he couldn't be sure. Her eyes snapped open and shifted wildly about, showing absolutely no hint of awareness. "Whatever happens," he said over his shoulder, "do not touch me, or her."
He closed his eyes, sucked in air like it some elixir of strength, then cleared his mind of everything save the image of the child. He continued to breathe, gathered his resolve. With painstaking slowness, he made his way into her, let her illness seep into his consciousness. It was devastating. It invaded him with rage and fury like a wild fire let loose in a forest of dead trees, ready to feed ravenously on anything in its path. He quailed for an instant, almost screamed in horror, ached to recoil from her agony. But then he felt her tiny heartbeat, a frail whisper barely audible within the cacophony of her illness. He reached for it, seeking a constant to hold on to, not wanting to lose himself to the inferno of her disease. Yet, it grew more and more feeble. She was dying. And his own blood boiled with her fever, his body engulfed in her pain.
Then, with ravaging vengeance, the mad riot of her delirium assaulted him. In a frenzy to seize a new mind, her nightmare crashed into him like a fist. Fiendish, hideous images reached for him, threatened to drag him down to the depths of utter insanity. He shrank from them, almost lost himself in absolute despair. Yet, he didn't. He wrestled with them, forced them aside, forced them to relent, and they shrieked at him in fury. He overwhelmed their hold, managed to stay the advance of her illness and delirium. Wearily, he called to the magic.
It answered.
Abruptly, a force hammered him. Piercing power stabbed him. With vicious ferocity, it attacked him, pulsing through his veins like raw venom. Every beat of his laboring heart increased the agony. He fought to maintain control; to keep the child's image in his mind. When the pain became so excruciating that he felt it in every nerve, muscle, and extremity, and could feel death reaching for him, he released the magic. He poured it into the child's image, and felt his hands, still placed on her cheeks, burn as though they were afire. His body screamed at him, but he ignored it and concentrated on channeling the intense power that swelled within him. The magic engulfed her illness, inhaled it, as though it were food the magic’s malice preyed on. It then tried to rebound on him, but he was strong and forced it to do his bidding. There was a moment when sheer panic threatened to overwhelm him, but then, as the magic drained out of him, her image faded and the pain lessened somewhat. Yet, he had gone too far, it was too much this time. His heart limped with exhaustion, and he sank into darkness.
He woke to a warm touch rubbing his smooth, pallid, face. He opened his eyes, forced them to focus on the blurred image that hovered above him. He soon realized that he was staring directly into the soft, smiling face of the child, her small hand still on his cheek.
In that instant, he thought of his father, and what he would have done to her had he found her. He winced as the thought stung him. But, his father was dead, killed by the very knife that he had used on so many others. Krele forced the reflection from his mind, and with the help of the child's mother, he sat up.
He found himself on the cold dirt floor of the child's bedroom. He held his hands to his face, breathed in and out thickly. Whispered to himself, “too much, sweet mercy, too much. Yet, I did it.”
"Thank you. Lord Kest." The child said then.
"Praise to the Creed." Her mother whispered.
Krele dropped his hands from his face and looked the child in the eye. "What we did on this night is against church law, forbidden. You must never tell anyone. If you do, I will die, your mother will die, and you will die. Do you understand?"
"Don't worry. Lord Kest." She said seriously, her forehead wrinkled in a frown. "I will never say anything to anyone."
"Good girl." He said, forcing a smile. She wrapped her small, thin arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.
"I wish you were God." She said.
His smile was genuine this time, as he gently unclasped her arms from his neck and stood painfully up. He looked at her mother. "How long?"
"Well over an hour." She replied, unmasked hero-worship in her eyes.
"Damn! I must go; I have been here far too long." He strapped on his sword and threw on his cloak. He pulled the hood over his dark hair and, without another word, left the small house and its two grateful occupants.
*********************
Shouts coming from the hallway forced their way into his sleep. He shook himself awake, groaned inwardly, rose, and quickly dressed in his church robe. He looked through the small peephole high in his door and saw churchmen running back and forth in the smoky, dark corridor of the rectory, barking and calling to each other. Krele stepped from his cell and held out his hand to stop one of them. "What is amiss?"
The other man sized him up in one glance. "How could you not know? The Archprimate has called a Full Assemblage. Two members of that vile Creed have been caught. They will be sacrificed by Sar Lok himself."
Krele, his mind whirling and his stomach lurching, stepped back inside of his cell and shut the door. Sitting on the edge of his cot, he raked his fingers through his tangled hair then cupped his face in his hands, rocked back and forth. "No, not Laara, please, don't let it be Laara." The thought thumped through his mind like a sick drumbeat. Moments later, a loud rapping on his door interrupted his reverie. An irrational fear flooded through him. He stared at it, frozen. Had someone found him out? Was he to be put under the knife as well? Whoever it was pounded again. Gathering himself, he stood and opened it. Jeresh Raul stood out in the hallway. Krele let out an explosive breath of relief.
"Krele you must dress for the assemblage. You will be punished if you are late."
"Jeresh, it's not ...” He began, yet couldn't bring himself to finish.
"No. It's not Laara or Hared." The old man said. "Now, you must hurry."
"Who then?" Krele pressed.
"Gorgen and Pak."
Krele sank to his cot. Jeresh pulled him to his feet. "There is no time for this, Krele. You will be next if you don't make haste."
Krele nodded and began to peel off the church robe he had slipped on moments earlier.
"Good." Jeresh said, as he moved toward the door. "I will see you in the cathedral. Hurry." And he was gone.
Krele Kest fought the bile in his throat as he robed himself in his ecclesiastical drapings; a black, silken robe with a blood-red sash, marking him as a parson of the church. He combed his thick hair back and checked his face in the mirror, it was still shaved close enough. For a moment, he ran his finger down the long thin scar on his left cheek, remembering, with pure contempt, the deacon who had thought his face was not sufficiently shaved. He then stared into his dark orbs, black as night, hollow and haunted, he flinched away from their steady gaze. Oh, how they unnerved him, pools of malice, they seemed to hold some deadly secret, a secret he didn’t want revealed. Abruptly, his thoughts were interrupted by the ominous toll of the cathedral's bell. "Damn!" He said out loud.
He ran from his cell, down the narrow, dim hallways of the rectory, across the overdone gardens and lush lawns of the church's grounds towards the cathedral. A bleak, ancient structure not unlike a towered prison fortress, walled and squared with battlements. It loomed like nightmare before him. The bell continued to clang. He ran up the dark-stoned stairs two at a time, entered the guarded doors and lumbered toward the Main Assemblage. His boots, thumping on the smooth marble floor, echoed blaringly in the wide corridor. He squeezed his slight form in between the golden, double doors of the Assemblage as they closed. He came to rest on a mid balcony, his breath haggard, as he listened to the bell’s final toll fade away.
"So nice of you to join us, my young Lord Kest." An evil-eyed priest, dressed in a white robe with a black sash, snarled in his ear. "You have just barely escaped the whipping post."
"So noted, My Lord." Krele gasped, lowering his head, he struggled to regain control of his breathing. Then the sound of the great golden gong echoed throughout the circular Main Assemblage, bouncing deafeningly around the balconies. The chanting began then, and he all but spat out the bitter tasting words as his black eyes scanned the immense chamber. Nothing but a smoldering cauldron of carnage, he thought to himself. His gaze swam over the unadorned walls, pillars and tiers, that circled three parts of the way around the massive hall, then it settled on the main floor where three ornate thrones rested on a dais. He moved his eyes up slowly to stare at the lone tier directly behind the dais. For there, with ten steps leading up to it, rested the golden, jewel-embedded sacrificial table, waiting for its next victim. Two braziers stood to either side of it, the flames of their blood-red fires flickered against the clean, smooth surface, making it look nauseatingly beautiful. Krele's eyes narrowed as he forced his gaze away from the table. Various churchmen, most of them parsons; yet there were also a scattering of deacons and priests; stood zombie like throughout the tiers. The whole of this vile church had gathered to witness this next atrocity, and it was all Krele could do to keep from wailing.
"All to your knees!" A booming voice bawled out. "Pay homage to the Archprimate, Sar Lok!"
All the churchmen, including Krele Kest, dropped to their knees. Krele saw the small, golden door open into the main floor, and watched as Archprimate Sar Lok entered, flanked on either side by his High Priests, the evil, young Korbalsh Zeeks and Krele's friend, Jeresh Raul. Sar Lok carried a bejeweled, smooth, black wood staff, capped with a human skull that had been dipped in gold. He wore a blood-red, ermined robe and was adorned with thick, gold chains that hung down almost to the floor. All his fingers wore a ring. But Krele paid scant attention to what the Archprimate was wearing; he focused on the evil man's deep red eyes and his harsh face, which seemed to defy age.
"Lower your eyes. Parson." The priest next to him hissed. "Lest I remove them from their sockets."
Krele bowed his head; it was considered defiance to look at the Archprimate before he ordered them to rise.
The gong sounded again. "All stand before the Archprimate and offer prayer!" That same booming voice bellowed. The appalling words tumbled out of Krele's mouth and he nearly choked on them. He found it harder and harder to worship their Dark God and His heinous church. His life, short as it was, continued to pass by, measured only by one horror after another.
When the prayers ended. High Priest Korbalsh Zeeks, Gral Kest’s successor, rose from his throne.
"Bring in the condemned!" He bawled out, his voice vicious.
Krele watched, tried to keep revulsion from showing on his face, as his friends were led in by a pair of black-clad church soldiers. They had been stripped naked, with thick ropes about their necks. The blood from their lashed backs dripped to leave small puddles on the polished floor. Krele searched their faces, they conveyed pain, yet they also conveyed the intense defiance held by the Creed. Krele fought back the sudden tears of pride he felt for his friends. At one instant, he and Gorgen locked eyes, and Krele knew then that he should feel no pity for their plight. Gorgen and Pak were willing to die for the Creed and for its all too important purpose. And they were willing to die for him. He sagged visibly, almost fell to his knees. The priest regarded him warningly.
Oppressive silence suffocated him as he watched Gorgen being tied to the table. He ached to leap from the balcony to free him. The gong sounded, shattering the silence violently. Archprimate Sar Lok rose from his throne and ascended the smooth steps that led up to the sacrificial table. Korbalsh Zeeks and Jeresh Raul followed behind. In his hands, Jeresh held a gold-encrusted case. Archprimate Sar Lok stood behind the table, facing the crowd of churchmen. Krele stood directly opposite the Archprimate's position, and he could see Gorgen's chest heaving as he struggled for breath. The gong sounded again. Jeresh Raul stepped forward and opened the case. Sar Lok reached in and pulled out the gleaming sacrificial knife; a golden, double-edged blade with a jeweled hilt. It was long and grotesquely curved, to make the gouging of the victim's heart easier.
The gong sounded then again.
Sar Lok raised his arms above his head, the sleeves of his robe slipping back to reveal his discolored forearms. "Our all-knowing God! Look down upon these who dare to defy Your Law! Relish their bloody deaths in Your Name and look favorably upon those who perform their punishment!" The Archprimate screeched madly.
"Praise to the Creed! And death to this church and its vile God!" Gorgen shouted as Sar Lok brought down the knife and buried it in his chest. Krele’s stomach heaved, as the Archprimate held up Gorgen's heart to the assemblage. And the gong sounded.
Moments later, as Krele fought to control his reeling stomach, Pak too, was gone, his heart squashed in Sar Lok's bloody fist. Krele nearly doubled over, yet somehow he remained erect.
"Oh God! May You find pleasure in the torment of these wretched souls!" The Archprimate bellowed.
"Hail to God!" The churchmen, except Krele Kest, responded automatically.
“Come with me.” The priest growled. He grabbed Krele’s arm and yanked him from the Assemblage. He choked back the bile in his throat as he allowed himself to be dragged along the hallways and passages of the cathedral. The priest ushered Krele into a bare, cell-like room, followed, and shut the door behind him. It was lit by a lone candle resting on a small wooden table. It reeked of blood, Krele had been brought here many times in the past. He faced the priest, ready. Without a word the priest delivered a blow across Krele’s mouth. He staggered back, brought his hand up to his bleeding lip. “Defiance, Lord Kest, will not be tolerated.” The priest hit him again. Krele fell back against the wall, remained on his feet. Blood dripped down his chin to his robe. “Now, Lord Kest, what is it you say when an execution has been intoned by the Archprimate?”
Krele met the priest’s eyes and croaked around his cut lip. “Hail to God.”
“Again.”
“Hail to God.”
“And again.”
“Hail to God.”
The priest grinned viciously then. “You will remember now, will you not, Lord Kest?”
“Yes My Lord.”
He then struck Krele a third time, further deepening the cut on his lip.
“Good, now get out of my sight.”
Krele nodded, and left the room, his hand on his mouth to stop the blood flow. He was used to punishment. Most of his body bore the scars of it. Not knowing how, he managed to make his way back to his cell in the rectory without losing the contents of his stomach.
He was sitting on his cot with his face in an old wooden bucket, when Jeresh walked in without knocking. He gaped at Krele, bloodied and retching.
"You all right?" The old priest asked him. “Why are you bleeding?”
"No." Krele snapped. "How could I possibly be all right? Jeresh, I will never, never get used to that. Never." He retched again. "They were my friends!"
"Your father was my friend. Yet, it was I who drove the knife into his heart." Jeresh replied evenly.
"My father was a murderer."
"So am I."
Krele looked up at him. "That's different, you don't enjoy it."
Jeresh nodded. "Why are you bleeding?"
“Lord Ahdant thought I needed a lesson in church policy.”
Jeresh scowled and eyed Krele. “You need to be more careful. Where were you last night?”
Krele felt instant panic well up in his chest. "Why? Was I missed?"
"Only by me. I came to tell you about Gorgen and Pak. Where were you?"
"I went out on an errand." Krele told him guardedly, he knew what Jeresh’s reaction would be. But before his friend could respond, Krele went on. "I'm leaving tonight for good. I can't stay here anymore." He saw the protest in Jeresh's eyes. "I am stronger now, Jeresh. I healed a dying child last night."
"You did what?!" Jeresh almost shouted.
"You heard me." Krele said as he stood up. "I belong with the Creed, not here in this bloody church, serving its rancid God. They are my people, and I do no good for them here. That was proved all too true today." He dabbed at his cut lip with a rough towel.
"Krele, are you mad? You will be hunted, and when they find you, it will be your heart in Sar Lok's fist."
"They will not find me. The Creed is safely hidden."
"Tell that to Gorgen and Pak." Jeresh snapped. "This is lunacy. I know how you feel. Damned, if I don't feel the same way, myself. And I know how adept you are in using this magic. But what you want to do with it is utter madness. Can't you see that it means certain death? You may very well strike down the Archprimate and all the churchmen with this power, but what about God? How do you hope to stand up against His wrath? He is God, Krele. God. All the magic and power in the world won't save you from Him." Jeresh paused only for a moment to pull in a long breath. "After you are gone, and all the churchmen are gone, and all that's left are the tormented people that you failed to save; what is to stop Him from turning his rage on them, forcing them to form a new and more brutal church? Answer me that."
"I have no answer." Krele said softly, his eyes staring hard at the old man. "But, Jeresh I have to try. Hared told me once that I am the only one that has come this far with the magic. Many have tried to achieve what I have already mastered and have either gone mad or have died. Jeresh, I am the one. Me, the one who can free us from this God and His evil servants. I healed a dying child last night. Damn it! No one, NO ONE has ever been able to do that!"
They were silent for a moment. Jeresh glared at him, but Krele could not meet his gaze and lowered his eyes to the floor. There were very few people that he respected and came close to loving, if it was possible to love in such a bloody world. Laara was one, Hared another, and the man who stood before him. He knew Jeresh felt the same way about him, which made doing what he needed to do much harder than it should have been.
"You must tell me where this place is, so if you need to be warned of anything I will be able to find you." Jeresh said at length.
"I can't, Jeresh." Krele said, pained.
"You must, or I will not let you go."
"You can do nothing to stop me."
"Oh yes, my Lord Kest, I can. I will put you in the dungeon, and keep you there indefinitely."
"You wouldn't do that."
"Yes, Krele, I would." Jeresh said seriously.
"Why are you doing this to me!" Krele shouted angrily, fresh blood splattering from his lip. Then, with obvious effort, he regained himself. "Your dungeon will not hold me, Jeresh. I can easily use what I know of the magic to free myself."
Jeresh moved forward, took the towel from Krele, dipped it in fresh water and started cleaning the blood from his lip. "Not if I have church soldiers guarding your cell constantly, you won't." Jeresh told him calmly.
Krele thrust his hand away. "Damn it, Jeresh! I thought you were my friend!"
"I am. And as your friend, I can not let you go to this Creed without knowing where you will be. Krele, I am very much against this, and I have no understanding of this magic, but I understand you. Now you must understand me and trust me."
Krele paced around the little hole of his cell, raking his fingers through his hair. "Fine, Jeresh, I guess you leave me no choice. I will be leaving after the Rites tonight. Come back, I'll tell you then."
Jeresh looked hard at him. "You will not try to leave before we talk again, Krele. I meant what I said."
"I know. Don't worry."
Jeresh gave him another look. Then left the cell.
Krele struggled to prepare himself for the evening's Rites. He dreaded it, for on this night, the last night of the dark moon, all the sick, or the babies born deformed, or the mad, or the seriously old would be sacrificed. The slaughter could go on for hours. "How will I make it through this?" He asked himself. But, he could not leave before the Rites, that would not give him enough time to reach the hiding place of the Creed before he was missed. Then he thought of Jeresh, for as much as this night would be a horror for him, he knew that it would be that much worse for his friend. Jeresh would be wielding the knife. Krele shook his head at the thought, and wondered again how his friend had escaped madness. Then his thoughts shifted to his father. Gral Kest was a High Priest, who had raped Krele’s mother and had sacrificed her after Krele was born. Krele grew up watching as his father murdered people, laughing as he squashed the hearts in his fist. He could still hear that vile cackle in his nightmares. But then a year ago his father grew ill, and Krele, who had already been forced to enter the clergy, watched with grim satisfaction as Jeresh Raul killed his father with the very knife Gral Kest had used on his mother. Jeresh had looked on it as certain justice, though Gral and he had once been friends. Krele looked on it as revenge. He forced the thoughts from his mind and continued to make preparations to leave. He decided that he would not overburden himself with unnecessary things and take with him only two changes of clothing, his long, black cloak, the sleek-bladed dagger Jeresh had given him, and his sword. He rolled the clothes, ordinary tunics and trousers, into a bundle and hid it under his cot where he kept his sword. He then slipped into his drapings and waited for the bell's call.
Jeresh entered moments later. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be getting ready for the Rites?" Krele asked him. Jeresh paced about the cell.
"Tell me where the Creed is hiding, Krele. Now."
Krele stared at him, something was wrong. "What is it?"
"Just tell me!" Jeresh snapped.
"Why?" Krele's mind was shouting warnings at him. Jeresh was not himself.
Jeresh turned away, wincing. "You will be spared if you tell me where they can find the others."
"What! You told them about me!" Krele shouted in near panic. How could he betray him like this?
"No! I never told them your name, but they suspect that someone within the church belongs to the Creed, and they know I know who it is. Krele, Sar Lok told me that you and I will be spared if we reveal the others."
"Never!" Krele whirled on him. "How could you do this? That's why you were going to let me go, isn't it? After I told you where I would be, you were going to lead them to us. Hared told me not to trust you. Tell me, Jeresh, were you going to thrust the knife into my chest as well?"
"Krele, listen to me. . ." Jeresh began, his hands out in front of him in a complacent gesture.
"NO! You have betrayed me! You of all people! I thought at least you hated what we were forced to be as much as I, but I was wrong! So very wrong! I should have listened to Hared! You are nothing but a bloody murderer like my father, like Sar Lok himself! I will never tell you where the Creed is! I will burn in the pits of Chaos itself before I betray my people!"
Krele began to remove his drapings and started thrusting his limbs into his trousers and tunic.
"Krele, you are wrong! I wanted you to tell me earlier so that you wouldn't be there! I thought only of you. I love you! Don't you see? This is the only way."
"The only way to do what?" Krele snarled as he belted his sword around his waist.
"To survive! Krele, all we can hope to do in this horror of a world is survive it. This is all there is! You know that as well as I."
"No. This is not survival, it is slavery and slavery is living death. You are nothing but a tool of blood in Sar Lok's hand."
Jeresh gripped Krele's arms to stop him from putting on his cloak. "Krele, if you do not tell me where the Creed can be found, Sar Lok will kill me." Jeresh peered into Krele's black eyes, pleading.
Krele locked his jaw, and looked hard into that pleading gaze. "So be it." He grated. "Better you, than the Creed." And he thrust himself away from the old man and stepped over to the door. Then turned. "Jeresh, you really are pitiful. What makes you think that Sar Lok would not have killed you anyway? You have been keeping secrets from him. From him! He would have forced you to tell him who I was, then you would have been tied to the table, and I would have followed. He would not have spared either one of us, you fool."
Jeresh's eyes hardened then. "What makes your life more valuable than mine?"
"My life can very well free us of this evil. Your life only feeds it." Krele replied smoothly. Then, with a movement barely detectable, he brought down a crushing blow to Jeresh's head. The old man collapsed to the floor. Krele gasped, unable to believe what he had just done. Slowly, he lowered himself to kneel beside the old man and felt his throat for a pulse. There was none. He sighed sadly and lowered his head. "I'm sorry Jeresh, there was no other way. At least, I love you enough not to let you be gouged by Sar Lok's knife."
The magic had heeded his call much quicker that time, he was getting stronger. But, he knew he couldn't stay. He had no time to even think about the terrible thing he had just done. So, leaving Jeresh in a lifeless heap on the floor of his room, Krele grabbed his small bundle of clothes and left. He knew that it wouldn't be long before they found Jeresh's body in his room. It would not take them long to know that he was the one responsible, or that he belonged to the Creed. He had to hurry.
The hallways of the rectory, at this time, were deserted, all the churchmen were preparing for The Rites. He would pass unnoticed unless one of them decided to go to the cathedral early. And he doubted that. He made his way to the far hallway where there was a flight of stairs that led to a cellar. He had done this so many times on his nightly errands that he didn't even need to think about it. The cellar, cold and clammy, reeked of dead things. Orange light sifted in from the many cracks in the stone near the ceiling. He made his way to the small opening he had created some time ago by removing loose stones up high near the top of the wall. He crawled through, coming out into the cold dusk by the back wall of the church grounds. He looked about, and seeing no one, he darted the few paces over and slapped himself against the frigid stone of the church's wall. He followed it for about ten steps, then knelt down and removed the small bush that concealed the opening of a tunnel that he had dug underneath. Taking one last look around he crawled into the tunnel, pulling the bush back over the entrance behind him. Once through and out into the city itself he kept to the back streets. Church soldiers were everywhere and he knew that very soon they would be looking for him.
He flittered along, staying close to walls and out of the torchlight, becoming just another errant shadow, for the night had fallen fast. The streets were awash with the city's despairing inhabitants on their way to the bloody carnage of the Rites. The calls of the church soldiers as they herded the parishioners toward what would be certain death for some of them, were soon replaced by shouts of warning. Krele listened closely, realizing that his time had been all too quickly spent.
They had found Jeresh Raul.
***********
"And the glory of the world becomes less than it was."<i></i>
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