‘Go away, Dardalion, you are tainted beyond my humble counsel.’
‘I will fight them alone,’ said Dardalion bowing stiffly.
As he turned the priests moved back to allow him a path, and he walked it without turning his head to see their faces, his mind closed to their emotions.
Clearing their ranks, he crossed the stone bridge and paused to stare at the stream. He no longer felt uncomfortable in the armour, and the burden was gone from his soul. The sound of footsteps caused him to turn and he saw a group of priests crossing the bridge, all of them young. The first to come was a short, stocky man with bright blue eyes and close-cropped blond hair.
‘We wish to speak with you, brother,’ he said. Dardalion nodded, and they formed a half-circle around him and sat down on the grass. ‘My name is Astila,’ said the blond priest, ‘and these of my brethren have been waiting for you. Do you object to communing with us?’
‘For what purpose?’
‘We wish to know of your life, and the change you have undergone. We will best understand that by sharing your memories.’
‘And what of the stain to your purity?’
‘There are enough of us to withstand it, if such it be.’
‘Then I agree.’
The group bowed their heads and closed their eyes. Dardalion shuddered as the priests flowed into his mind and he merged into the oblivion of their mass. A kaleidoscope of memories flickered and flashed. Childhood, joy and torment. Study and dreams. The mad rush of images slowed as the mercenaries tied him to the tree and went to work with their knives, and the pain returned. Then … Waylander. The rescue. The cave. The blood. The savage joy of battle and death. The walls of Masin. But through it all the constant prayers for guidance. All unanswered. Nausea swept though him as the priests returned to their bodies.
He opened his eyes and almost fell but sucking in air, he steadied himself.
‘Well?’ he asked. ‘What did you find?’
‘You were stained,’ said Astila, ‘in the first moments when Waylander’s blood touched you. That
is why you cut your opponent to pieces. But since then you have struggled – as the Abbot pointed out – to restrain the evil.’
‘But you think I am wrong?’
‘Yes. And yet I will join you. We will all join you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we are weak, even as you are weak. Poor priests we have been, despite our struggles. I am prepared to be judged by the Source for all my deeds, and if His judgement says eternal death then so be it. But I am tired of watching my brothers slain. I am sickened by the deaths of the children of the Drenai, and I am ready to destroy the Brotherhood.’
‘Then why have you not done so before now?’
‘That is not an easy question to answer. I can only speak for myself, but I feared that I might become as one with the Brotherhood. For my hatred was growing – I did not know if a man could retain any purity, any sense of God. You have, so I will follow you.’
‘We were waiting for a leader,’ said another man.
‘And you have found one. How many are we?’
‘With you, thirty.’
‘Thirty,’ said Dardalion. ‘It is a beginning.’
11
Waylander dismissed the two female servants and rose from the bath, brushing flower petals from his body. Wrapping a towel around his waist, he walked to a full-length mirror and shaved slowly. His shoulder ached, the muscles were tense and knotted from the battle at Masin and an ugly bruise was flowering along his ribs. He pressed it lightly and winced. Ten years ago such a bruise would have long since vanished; ten years before that, no bruise would have flowered at all.
Time was a greater enemy than any he had faced.
He stared into his own dark brown eyes, then scanned the fine lines of his face and the grey hair fighting for dominance at his temples. His gaze flickered down. The body was still strong, but the muscles were looking stretched and thin, he thought. Not many years left for a man in his occupation.