Sanctuary's Assassin (The Complete Part 1)

Sanctuary’s Assassin

  Book 1 of The Healer’s Creed Series

  The Complete Part 1: Chapters 1-21

  Loren Elias

  Copyright Loren Elias 2015

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  CHAPTER 1

  He could not say why it caught his eye---The shimmer of the golden stalks rising up from the mural of fertile fields, one yellow sun tripping nourishing light past an eastern horizon. It was not his first visit. He should have just walked right by it. He knew his purpose, their purpose. They had not been called to this place to take in the sights and smells of the Palace Habenhold as convincing a temptress as she might be.

  Yet, as he entered the room, the Altar of Ceres greeted him. He could not avoid her abundance. Every manner of flower and grain and fruit and nut, bushels of melon, baskets of barley, the first fruits of the land, Ceres’ bounty flowing down her steps across the marble floor. He pulled up a slipping hood, tried to look away, reminding himself of his purpose.

  He hastened from the entry way, past a dozen high windows, half a dozen white stone columns toward the carved wooden table where strategy was laid, alliances forged and in many cases the very fate of Nine Worlds decided.

  Darkness crept in through the windows as Lesser Sun melted into the land. The shadows might have reached them had it not been for the torches lining unblemished walls. They surrendered the most welcoming glow as the he rounded the table to find his seat.

  He shook though the room lay pleasantly agreeable; for the Palace Habenhold, as magnificently as it caressed the senses, bore a certain eerie chill. And it brought him no wonder; for no less than a mirage encased him, a beautifully rendered image upon a crumbling ruin. He tried to forget it even for a moment, make himself believe what dark eyes beheld, but anytime Builder Magic littered the air, little could be said to be as it seemed.

  Weighted eyes peered out from beneath a heavy forest hood, worn from weeks of travel both, to see familiar faces. First that of Olev, a wise old dragon, no less than his brother, no greater friend. Olev lifted his jaw to one side and narrowed an eye in subtle greeting. "Healer, good to see you, My Friend"

  "Olev." The Healer replied as he dredged a crooked smile before turning to the man in the chair next to him.

  Sajjan spared not a glance as his face held only weight of a human face bearing the grief that called them to this place.

  The Healer sighed, lifting his chin to allow a coarse hood to slide from his face, revealing a head of straight black hair and a gently weathered face.

  Dirwan swooshed past him as she straightened pink frilly skirts to taut and took her seat. A mound of soft brown curls framed fair, rouged cheeks. She looked as if she were attending a ball of the royal court not an important meeting such as this, but The Healer thought it nothing out of the ordinary. After all, as he bore the blood of the Healer Line, so was she of the Builders. Throughout history Builders had been known for their infatuation with extravagance. No greater proof of the fact existed. Were these rooms not of her imaginings alone?

  Of no compare, Dirwan’s dress was, to the attire of Hapaku following close behind her in a simple smock. Two long, thin braids grey but not with age capped her shoulders. A scarf wrapped her head tightly, lest she suffer the dishonor of a revealed ear. Her appearance fell quite in keeping with the traditional vestments of her people, the Brocacians a land across the great waters far removed from the Healer's home. Hapaku, of the race Broiack was born of the line called Harvester.

  As Hapaku approached them Olev only lifted a smooth-scaled head. A slender tail flicked from one side to the other and then came to rest again. A nimble back arched a bit and then he just lay there, with eyes as big as Hapaku’s head following her as she reached the table and pulled a chair at Jabari’s right side. Dirwan had settled at his left down the long side of the table. Sajjan sat across from them next to an empty chair--- a bitter reminder of the events that had summoned them here.

  Finally, Sophrena of the Seer line entered with a scurry of dark plump, spindly legged attendants circling around her. Her eight hollow eyes shot out across the room and seeing everyone there at last, she swooshed her attendants away as her body transformed from that of a spider one and a half as tall as a man to a gaunt woman with piercing grey eyes and flowing black hair.

  Actually, she took the form of a gavi. But few at that table had ever seen a gavi, so they could only think of her as a very tall, thin human woman with long pointed ears. Nothing else made sense in their minds. She took her place at the foot of the table.

  Only then, did Olev expend the energy to slink his scaly head. The old dragon’s body again rested just behind Sajjan. Olev's head curled around and up at the front of the table.

  Dirwan, who sat closest to him, elongated a narrow neck, up-tilting a pointed chin to look him in the eye.

  Two massive claws stood so nearly the height of the table. Talons dragged across stone.

  Dirwan pressed delegate hands into her ears to block the sound.

  Olev spoke in a roar of a voice, quite characteristic of a dragon his size. Despite quite concerted efforts to adjust his volume, as far as those around were concerned he spoke in a voice so nearly unbearable, a booming roar. “Builder?”

  “Present.” Dirwan answered as the Balancer spoke her line.

  “Healer?”

  “Present.” A low voice rumbled from beneath Jabari’s weighted face.

  “Harvester?”

  Hapaku raised her head. “Present, Dear.”

  “Artist?”

  Sajjan sighed at the unspoken void left by Olev's failure to call for the Historian line prior to his own “Present.” He looked toward the empty seat at his side then away.

  Jabari’s heart ached.

  Olev paused, with the calling of each line more painful than the last.

  Sophrena spared him the misery. “The Seer is present and who stands among us to represent the Line of Balance?”

  “I do.” Olev spoke, blinking once then twice the two massive orbs that were his knowing eyes. “I call this meeting to order. Let it be written that on the day which has seen fifteen Haerfests of the rule of Ruric that the Order of E’epa doth convene. As it was in that day that our father’s father’s father’s father were called upon the mount E’ epa to uphold the Five Virtues as we guide our peoples.” He turned keen sight if not his head to Jabari. “Will you do the honors?” Ju’s glance fell upon an ancient text tightly woven yet fraying with age as it lay folded into Jabari’s guarding grasp.

  Jabari nodded, rolling a thumb across crumbling pages, that without a spot of magic would most certainly have long since returned to the land that beget them. With a shifting eye he found that place, those words no one wanted to hear. He knew they had heard it a hundred times. Undoubtedly they knew the words by heart. As if bringing the word to the air yet again would somehow increase their understanding, he spoke. “Here it is. I know we have all heard these words spoken to us from our earliest Haerfest. A foreboding, a warning of a day to come. I have brought with me on this long journey a book which has been with us since near the beginning. A book of prophecy. This book holds that warning that all of us have been raised to heed.” He was stalling and he knew it. He just did not want to say the words written nearly a thousand Haerfests past that now
seemed finally to be becoming their reality. Finally he freed the words into the air. “When the final light is cut, darkness reigns.”

  Dirwan gasped a shrill cry, again covering her ears as if puffy, pink sleeves could protect her, could make it not be so if she just blocked it out.

  Sophrena’s dark, hollow eyes surveyed her surroundings before returning to them. Thin, pale lips cracked as she spoke. “The Final Light.” Sophrena repeated those solemn words. “Through the generations, there has been speculation as to what this means. But now, now, in this time, it is clear as the day is long that the Historian Lucius was the ‘final light.’” Sophrena folded her gavi arms and then unfolded them and then folded them again as if she did not know what to do with such worthless appendages. “Cut down as he was without an heir for the E’epans by a wretched human, an evil king of the land Aletheia that many of us call home. Now comes the Darkness. When his mother died like she did of the sickness we should have known, we should have locked that boy up, bred him until we got our heir, but now, now the Historian line is gone forever.” An unseen force threw Lucius’ chair back away from the table. It cracked against the far wall, unable to stand the force, shattering into a million little splinters.

  Dirwan wept.

  Jabari drew trembling hands to rest against dry lips. “But we didn’t know. No one knew what the prophecy meant. Not until now.” Hands fell hard to the heavy wooden table. “What’s done is done. But still we move forward, as we must.” Jabari knew they should have figured it out but they had not and now all they could do was move forward, plan for the future, brace themselves for the looming darkness ahead.

  Dirwan shook her head, with eyes so barely parted as if she might be brought again to tears. “We need to prepare. We must help the people through this. Ruric’s reign thus far has been a thing greater than the conjurings of the night, but now that the last light it cut.”

  Jabari could not believe he lived to see this time, a time spoken through the ages as being some distant future, some tragic fate for mankind used to spurn young E’epans to stay focused on their purpose. Now here they were actually facing it. It frightened him beyond words. But he knew he had to be strong. Greater strength had never been needed in his lifetime. But if it were strength that these times demanded, strength he could not say he had.

  Sajjan sank thick fingers into a head of thicker hair of deepest brown. “We have to do something. We can’t just allow this to happen. Stay in the background, cleaning up the slaughter that lies ahead.” His tone lay cool but growing apprehension rang apparent. Again he ran his fingers across straight brown strands, pushing them away from the frame of his face, then allowing them to fall again around cheeks of wind-brushed red.

  Sophrena, with dark hair flowing down knobby shoulders of the fairest complexion could not hide her contempt. “We’ll not do what you are thinking. You know that the E’epan must never interfere in the rule of our peoples. We have been called up out of respective peoples to stand apart from such things.” She swept a wayward black curl away from her vision and glanced toward the darkening windows beyond then back to them.

  Sajjan leaned forward with posture fierce, eyes intent. “But they are not your people who must endure this. You would stand by if the land of Brocacia were prophesied to befall such a fate? Wouldn’t you try to change it?” He looked to Jabari and Dirwan for affirmation. “Jabari, Dirwan and I must think of Aletheia our land, our home, our people.”

  Jabari’s eyes rounded the table, making note of each expression he found there. The greatest weaver could not have woven a strand tighter than the purpose that held them there. He knew them all well, had spent many a day in that very hall discussing matters of the world. But the matters of debate had always centered on a drought in the Ganda Region. How do we get water to them? A battle between lands. How could the conflict be resolved? Nothing---nothing like this---of such grave concern where the fate of humanity itself now found a new dwelling upon their shoulders.

  Olev lifted a scaly head higher, looked around to all of the E’epans there, each line represented save one. “Such a plague will not stay in Aletheia.” When he saw Dirwan reach for tender human ears he lowered that resounding voice yet again. “Brocacia’s fate is in the same basket as are all regions of Nine Worlds. Broiack and Brim, Gavi and Spider. Human and Qaan’u. None will be spared.”

  “Then maybe. Maybe there is something we can do.” Hapaku’s eyes were insistent, her tone firm. “We could depose Ruric.”

  Olev released a hardy laugh. “Have you any idea what that would mean? Who in Aletheia could take his place? Between this King and the last, every Qi, every High Councilor, every General who opposed him has been killed. Even their heirs were wiped out. They risked no rivals. Not a highborn still lives who could rule the land. You cannot just hand off the mantle to a peasant and say ‘Here, rule Aletheia. You are King now.’ Utter Nonsense.”

  Jabari could hear a hint of distain in the Balancer’s voice but he knew that Olev spoke the truth.

  “One of the Kanas of Brocacia could lead the land out of this dark time until a suitable human can be found.” Hapaku spoke between the biting of her lower lip. One scaled cheek rose higher as an upward ridged brow sank to meet it.

  Jabari pondered the suggestion, before thoughtfully selecting next words. “No Offense, Hapaku,” Jabari lifted a hand to the fiercely shaking shoulder of his dear friend. “But that could very easily be turned against us. As much respect as we all have have for the Brocacian people, a High Lord from a foreign land taking Ruric’s place could be twisted by loyalists into a Brocacian invasion. That’s the last thing we want. The tie between Brocacia and Aletheia must stay strong if we are to survive this.” Jabari stood for a moment, re-positioning protesting robes. He closed the book, its purpose met.

  When he had again taken his seat, Hapaku made her reply. “It was just an idea.”

  “Duly noted as an option.” Olev interjected with a voice echoing through the great hall. “We are wasting our time talking about replacements. We must keep our focus. With one line gone, are the others safe?” The old dragon closed heavy eyes in weary display and then opened them again with some effort. “We are already hunted by Ruric. But in the fifteen Haerfests he has held rule none of us have ever seen our strands cut by him, sent across the river. Now that he has made it past that mark, will it not embolden him to double his efforts, to take out the E’epans who he has professed have no place in the modern world. The hunt will be on and before you know it we will have Ruric pressing forward on the caves of the Jagged.”

  “A fool’s errand.” Dirwan eyes dove as she straightened a bit of lace upon her pink sleeve. “They would be consumed by the swamp.” Her eyes again rose into a slipping glance.She had never been to the Jabari’s home, the Jagged as he affectionally called it, but all E’epans knew of it.

  Teeth peered through cracking lips as Olev spoke. “How many men do you think the swamp can eat? A thousand. Ten Thousand. A Hundred thousand. Ruric will keep going until the swamp has had its fill and then the Jagged will be his.”

  “All the more reason to stop him now.” Sajjan sat back in the ornate, wooden chair and pulled large hands into clasp upon the edge of the table.

  “We must do something.” Dirwan looked as if she might be brought to tears should the mood in the room not quickly shift to calm.

  Sophrena kept her poise. “All the more reason we should not waste our efforts on talking about replacements and focus on keeping the lines safe from harm.” Her hands discreetly folded in her lap as she spoke through thin, pale gavi lips. “We’re talking nonsense. Deposing kings. That’s not what E’epans do. It’s not our Charge. When the last god called our ancestors forth on the Mount called E’epa, he bestowed upon each line a great gift. And with those gifts came a Charge. We do not just change our Charge when the mood so carries us.”

  Jabari’s vision floated away from Sophrena to Hapaku sitting near her.

  From the lo
ok in Hapaku’s eyes, Jabari could see that she pondered all sides on the conversation with some consideration. She spoke. “Maybe these times call on us to be more than we have ever needed to be.”

  “Maybe it is not our Charge.” Jabari spoke up, turning to Sophrena then back to Hapaku. “But maybe, in these modern times, we must be something more.” He could not believe that such blasphemy had crossed his lips. He wanted to take it back, but could not.

  Dirwan continued his sentiment. “Ruric says we don’t matter in modern times. Maybe it is because we cling to the old ways. We do not accept that things are changing. Maybe we have to change too.”

  “Yes.” Sophrena cleared her gavi throat. “Why don’t we all rush in on the castle and end all of our lines now.” Sophrena had had enough. It was going nowhere. The human E’epans were mad to think such a thing and Hapaku, of the broiack race, their fellow Brocacian, of whom she would expect better, just encouraged them.

  Sophrena slunk from her chair, a waifly body transforming as she went back to the plump black body with eight delicate legs that revealed her true self.Humans who spoke nonsense, understood nothing.

  She turned her head back, catching glimpse of the three humans and Hapaku sitting at the table and Olev sitting beside it. She could see in aging eyes, he felt just as defeated as she. She could see in their eyes that they considered doing the things of which they spoke. Sophrena spoke from a voice that sounded like it came from a distant place. “I’m going to freshen up before dinner. When we reconvene I hope we’ll be ready to talk real solutions not foolhardy ones.” She exited the room with a huff. Ten attendants met her at the door, squeaking about in their own language, trying to calm her apparent rage as they came up around her, escorted her out.

  Olev rose, stretching a massive form, whipping his tail up, creating a coil of air that blew Dirwan’s hair back from her face. “We’re all tired and hungry. We’ve journeyed far to meet here. Maybe we possessed err in judgement, trying to discuss this on an empty stomach. I’ll see you all for dinner.” Scales popped and cracked as he stood. “It’s nap time.” He turned from them, ducking low through the high doorway. Olev had no escort nor did he need one.