As Archpriest Anaxthenes gazed out the panes of glass into the pastoral scene outside, where his gardeners tended his lawns, it was hard to believe that Roxthar and the Usurper Kalvan had turned the world he had known all his life upside down. What kind of world was it where True Believers persecuted their brethren in the name of the false-god, Styphon?
Anaxthenes turned, as he heard the soft swishing of Thessamona, his favorite concubine's, gown. She had been his mistress for over twenty years and she still possessed much of the freshness and beauty that had attracted him all those many years ago at the court of Hos-Ktemnos. While some of his younger concubines were lovelier, none had shared Thessamona's incisive mind. These days she was the only living person with whom he dared share his true thoughts. If Roxthar were to ever get her on his rack, they both would 'ride the flame' as so many of the Investigator's victims had in the last moon. The stench of Roxthar's 'cleansing fires' hovered over Balph like a cloud of Ravens at one of Kalvan's battlefields.
"Are you worrying again, my lord?" Thessamona asked.
Anaxthenes nodded. It was such a relief to be able to actually voice his thoughts without thinking of plots and counterplots, treachery and disloyalty. "Our world is on the verge of destruction."
"Surely, you exaggerate. Roxthar does not dare move against you openly."
"He dares, he just doesn't find it politic. He is trying to use me, as I used Sesklos all those many years. But I was not speaking of our simple palace here and our life together. He will be the death of Styphon's House, if the Usurper Kalvan does not destroy us first!"
"I don't understand," she said. "Has not Roxthar's Investigations raised Temple donations to an all time high?"
"Yes, but that's part of the problem. We want people to respect Styphon, not live in mortal dread of his Investigators. Now they offer their gold to prove their piety to Styphon! That's the entire problem; how can there be heretics of a Temple that has no god?" There he said it out loud, the unbidden thought that had long plagued his mind.
Her laugh sounded like the tinkling of bells. "He is a madman, of course. We've discussed that many times. He is looking for air in a rock. But doesn't Styphon's Treasury need more gold to pay for her armies?"
"Yes, but we already have more than enough. Roxthar is creating a climate of fear, and, if it continues, it will break out in a thunderstorm-and who will take the brunt?"
Thessamona nodded. "The Inner Circle and Highpriests. Roxthar will say it was their corruption that has incensed the mobs. When it is the fear of his Investigation that has driven the multitudes out into the streets."
Anaxthenes nodded, squeezing her shoulder, in an unusual display of affection. "You understand what my fellow highpriests do not. Sesklos now fears Roxthar more than Hadron's demons! The old priest has at last outlived his usefulness."
"What about one of your vials?"
"I was tempted last winter, but that was before Roxthar's ascendancy. No, it might prove too convenient. Too many fingers would point my way."
"Someone has to take the helm of your rudderless galley, before a rock rips out the belly."
"A most apt metaphor, Thessamona. What the fools of Inner Circle don't realize is, Styphon's Temple was doomed the moment Kalvan"-he hissed the word-"learned the Fireseed Mystery. Of course, the Temple had anticipated such an event. In the past hundred winters, we have killed two other alchemists that 'learned' the Mystery. Kalvan was not known to us and worked in secrecy in a small princedom that had escaped our eye until Styphon's gold was discovered in one of their valleys. It's not a common substance, like the other ingredients of the Mystery, and smells of Regwam's Caverns."
"Then why are we still here? You have enough gold for a prince." Anaxthenes smiled. "And leave a lifetime's work! I am no voluptuary, who can sit and drink myself insensate, or lose myself in the weaknesses of the flesh. My pleasure is in bending men to my will and changing their lives."
"Yes, it is hard to imagine you sitting still for any length of time." He stopped his pacing to laugh. "You know me too well, Thessie."
"I still do not understand why the Temple of Styphon is doomed, as you say. The Temple owns more gold than all the Great Kings combined, it owns the Great Banking Houses, it commands a huge trading fleet and war fleet, as well, and owns more land than is contained within the borders of Hos-Agrys."
"All of what you say is true, and more," Anaxthenes replied. "The Temple has wealth like a farmer has manure. Unfortunately, our greatest weapon-the Mystery-has been pillaged. Some think this Kalvan is a former Zygrosi Temple underpriest who joined the Temple to steal our Mystery. It may be true, although he takes to command like one born to it."
"As does, my lord," Thessamona replied.
Even after all these years, she was still in awe of his noble birth. Yes, he was of the nobility, the fifth son of a penniless baron, who left the family tarr to make his own fortune. Years later he had bought the family estate, kicked his older brothers out, and put their former seneschal in charge. That the estate had thereafter shown good profit had amused him to no end.
"Yet," he continued, "without the Mystery to hold over the barons and princes like a club, we are no more useful than a merchant. The day some Great King decides to tax our Banking Houses or put duties on our cotton our time is ended-maybe not that moment in time, but shortly thereafter. Outside of the Temple underpriests, how many true believers of Styphon are there? Archpriest Roxthar. And Archpriest Cimon, the one they call the 'Peasant Priest,' who is so rare a bird that he was elevated to the Inner Circle so that we could display his piety to those besotted worshipers of Dralm! How many 'real' converts has Roxthar's Investigation brought? Not one whose faith in Styphon will last one day longer than Roxthar's last breath!"
Thessamona sighed. "I have never seen you so heated. Why do you not use one of your vials upon-?"
"Don't say it, don't think it! That wolf-in-man's clothing will smell it, I tell you. He breathes in thoughts. If Roxthar were to die, his followers-mostly ambitious underpriests who hang upon his robes to further their own careers-would turn upon the Inner Circle and kill us all. These are no longer men of restraint: they have tasted human blood and suffering and now they gorge themselves upon it. Roxthar feeds them and thus he owns them. The Investigators are outcasts to all humanity."
"You are not thinking clearly, my lord. Who is it that owns the Temple? Not the old fool they call Styphon's Voice. Nor is it Dracar for all his plots and counter-plots. Nor is it Cimon, for all his piety. Nor is it Roxthar for all his terror. It is you, my lord. You who know the Archpriests and their appetites. You who know their secrets and where they are buried. It is time you made some plans."
Anaxthenes nodded. "You are right, as always, Thessamona. I must or the Temple is doomed."
"If Roxthar is made Styphon's Voice, even the peasants will throw rocks at the priests of Styphon!"
"Yes, the devil must know that. That is why he uses others in his place. Sesklos is not worth the candle it takes to light his chamber, since it will be snuffed out soon. Dracar is the key."
Thessamona smiled as if she could read his thoughts. "Do you want me to boil the roots upon the next full moon?"
Anaxthenes shook his head. "The time is not right. I will let you know when the time has come for Dracar to join Hadron's Realm."