The second man pushed forward. He was shorter and stockier, his eyes small and round. ‘Go back where you came from!’ he ordered. ‘I’ll not be turned aside by the likes of you!’
‘What you are planning is evil,’ said Ekodas softly. ‘I cannot permit it. If you continue along this gulley you will find the road to Estri. It is a small village and there is, I understand, a woman there who has a special smile for men with coin.’
‘I know where Estri is,’ hissed the second man. ‘And when I want your pigging advice I’ll ask for it. You know
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what this is?’ The knife-blade came up, hovering before Ekodas’ face.
‘I know what it is, brother. What is your purpose in showing it to me?’
‘Are you a halfwit?’
The first man took hold of his friend’s arm. ‘Leave it, Caan. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Matters to me. I want that woman.’
‘You can’t kill a priest!’
Tigging watch me!’ The knife swept up. Ekodas swayed aside, caught the man’s wrist and twisted the arm up and back. His foot snaked out, hooking behind the knifeman’s knee. The forester fell back. Ekodas released his grip and the man tumbled to the earth.
‘I have no wish to cause you pain,’ said Ekodas. The man scrambled up and charged. Ekodas brushed aside the knife-arm and sent his elbow crashing into the man’s chin. He dropped as if poleaxed. Ekodas turned to the first man. Take your friend to Estri,’ he advised. ‘And once there bid him goodbye. He brings out the worst in you.’ Stepping past the man he approached the Nadir woman. ‘Greetings, sister. If you will follow me I can take you to lodgings for the night. It is a temple, and the beds are hard, but you will sleep soundly and without fear.’
‘I sleep without fear wherever I am,’ she said. ‘But I will follow you.’
Her eyes were dark and beautiful, her skin both pale and yet touched with gold. Her lips were full, the mouth wide and Ekodas found himself remembering the images in the forester’s mind. He reddened and began the long climb.
‘You fight well,’ she said, drawing alongside him, her knife now sheathed in a goatskin scabbard, a small pack slung across her shoulders.
‘Have you travelled far, sister?’
‘I am not your sister,’ she pointed out.
‘All women are my sisters. All men my brothers. I am a Source priest.’
‘Your brother down there has a broken jaw.’
‘I regret that.’
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‘I don’t. I would have killed him.’
‘My name is Ekodas,’ he said, offering his hand. She ignored it and walked on ahead.
‘I am Shia.’ They reached the winding path to the temple and she gazed up at the high stone walls. ‘This is a fortress,’ she said.
‘It was once. Now it is a place of prayer.’
‘It is still a fortress.’
The gates were open and Ekodas led her inside. Vishna and several of the other priests were drawing water from the well. Shia stopped and stared at them. ‘You have no women for this work?’ she asked Ekodas.
‘There are no women here. I told you, we are priests.’
‘And priests have no women?’
‘Exactly so.’
‘Only sisters?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your little tribe won’t last long,’ she said, with a deep throaty chuckle.
The screams died down and a hoarse, choking death-rattle came from the slave. His arms relaxed, sagging into the chains and his legs spasmed. Zhu Chao slashed the knife into the ribcage, sawing through the arteries of the heart and ripping the organ clear. He carried it to the centre of the circle, stepping carefully over the chalk lines that marked the stones, zig-zagging between the candles and the wires of gold that linked the chalice and the crystal. Laying the heart in the chalice he drew back, placing his feet within the twin circles of Shemak.
The Fourth Grimoire lay open on a bronze lectern and he turned the page and began to read aloud in a language lost to the world of men for a hundred millennia.
The air around him crackled, and fire ran along the wires of gold, circling the chalice in rings of flame. The heart bubbled, dark smoke oozing from it, billowing up to form a shape. Massive rounded shoulders appeared, and a huge head with a cavernous mouth. Eyes flickered open, yellow