The False Martyr Read online

  The False Martyr

  The Pattern’s Purpose:

  Book II

  By H. Nathan Wilcox

  Praise for From Across the Clouded Range, Book One of The Pattern’s Purpose:

  “Truly epic - I could not put my iPad down. Characters are well-balanced and believable. I cannot wait for the next book. It has been a long time since I have read such a captivating story. Hats off to you! Please keep writing. Talent such as yours must be shared with the world.”

  “I’ve been reading fantasy books for 35 years, so I have a lot of titles under my belt. I loved this book and cannot wait to sink my mind into the second. Please, Mr. Wilcox, write, write and write some more.”

  “Excellent read, well-crafted and compelling. Desperate for the next book to see how the story develops. Brilliant would and have recommended it to anyone reading this genre.”

  “This book is quite hard to put down once you start reading it. The characters seem real, and the story captivates the imagination. Brilliant !!!”

  “Excellent & captivating. Characters are well written, tons of action, and a story line that sinks its hooks into you.”

  “From Across the Clouded Range is a story that is masterfully told. The characters have depth and soul and the story unfolds in such a way that it was impossible for me to put it down! Looking forward to more from H. Nathan Wilcox and anxiously anticipating the next installment.”

  “I did not want this book to end. A really great read. Can't wait for book two!”

  I don’t know any of these people. I’m not related to or married to even one of them. Though here’s what my dad had to say:

  “Better than 80% of the fantasy books I’ve read.” – Thanks, Dad.

  And my wife:

  “It’s really good!” – Though it was the first fantasy novel she’s ever read, and she has to say that, or I’ll stop cooking for her.

  Download From Across the Clouded Range now anywhere that downloads are available. (And it’s FREE!)

  To the people of Greenwood Village (and a few of you from Englewood) for making us feel so welcome in our new home.

  Copyright © 2016 by H. Nathan Wilcox

  Distributed by Smashwords

  Cover Art by Bas Hollander

  Visit him at http://www.artbybas.com/

  Maps by H. Nathan Wilcox

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. Please, feel free to share it. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. Thank you for your support.

  Please note that this book contains adult themes, sexual situations, violence, graphic images, and naughty words

  Seriously folks, this book is a pretty hard “R”. Please, don’t let your kids read it unless you’re prepared to have some uncomfortable conversations.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  The 13th Day of Summer

  The storm had arrived exactly as it should, exactly as the pattern dictated. Xi Valati Teros Maciam stared at the dome above, listened to the thunder rumbling, watched the first drops patter across the glass that composed its expanse. The end was near.

  His eyes turned to the massive white desk before him – its expanse broken only by the magnificent box in its center – then rose to the intricately painted walls spanning the circular room at the pinnacle of the Hall of Understanding. He studied the story described along those walls, watched for the thousandth time as their savior brought his followers together, aligned them to the Order, and called upon Its power to exile the Lawbreakers. He glanced at the thick carpets, the intricate lamps, the great doors, the statues of his predecessors standing in judgment of his own efforts and silently said goodbye. He had always loved and hated this room. He loved the dome, the light, the painting and the story it told. He hated the officious desk, the disapproving marble frowns, the weight of responsibility he carried here.

  A crash of thunder brought his eyes back to the glass plates above. The lead between them was old, the glass older. Over the years they had lost their ability to restraining the nature they were meant to reveal. Water streamed down the seams, dripped onto the carpets, created puddles on the tiles, stained the heads of the petrified saints. Yet, Teros had steadfastly refused to have the leaks repaired, had put up with the dripping water for years in service to this night, to the pattern he had painstakingly maintained.

  Normally, buckets would be arrayed, pans placed, towels dispensed, ire raised. Servants, clerks, guards, officials would all mutter about the senile Xi Valati who allowed the room at the center of the great and mighty Church to leak like the thatch of a peasant’s hut. But on this night, no one moved to capture that water or keep it from the antiquities the failing ceiling was designed to protect. Save Teros, the statues, and the box sitting before him, the room was as empty as it had likely ever been in the history of its existence. No guards stood at the door, no couriers awaited orders, no secretaries scribbled notes, no valati gave advice or made petitions. Tonight, it was Teros alone with the rain, at least for a few more moments.

  “Enter, Lius,” he commanded before the young man outside had the chance to knock. He heard the boy jump. His hand had not even risen to approach the door, but the Xi Valati had been following Lius strand within the Tapestry a long time and did not need to see or hear him.

  The great carved door swung slowly open. A bald head appeared in the gap – the most devote acolytes within the Hall treated their heads and faces so that hair would never interfere with their studies. A slim face followed, a scrawny hand with thick, dark hair, a rough brown robe, sandaled feet. The boy – really a young man, but to one of Teros’ age they were all boys – kept his head down, shoulders slumped, back and knees bent. “You summoned me, Your Grace?” he asked, voice barely audible.

  “I did. Please close the door and approach.”

  “But, Your Grace, I am a student. For me to approach the Xi Valati . . . .” His voice trailed off, caught between the travesties of acting so far above his station and doubting the Order’s highest representative.

  “It is I that summoned you. Now, close the door and approach. The time is short.”

  As if to punctuate the statement, a scream, low and distant, wove its way through the mammoth building and found its way to the door. The sound was of unbridled pain, came from the greatest depths of the soul, contained every remaining ounce of life in its owner, marked his return to the peace of Order with its peace-rending ferocity. Lius looked back through the doorway as if the sound had issued from immediately behind him rather than eight stories and hundreds of paces away. And that shriek was only the harbinger. Others rose, one after another until a chorus of them were wending through the corridors, climbing the stairs, and bombarding the doors to where the boy stood trembling.

  Finally, Teros was required to rise. As he knew it would, the look on his face was enough to force the boy into action – the threat before him enough to overcome the more distant, if more terrifying, prospect below. Lius stepped through the doorway and eased it closed behind him. Slowly, he approached. He was a head shorter than the Xi Valati, but Teros was a tall man, so the boy was not much below average. He was thin, wiry, meek, and entirely plain – narrow brown eyes, broad nose, big lips, crooked teeth, small ears, blemished skin. Teros hoped that he had read the Tapestry correctly, that this sapling of a boy would be able to carry the burden he was about to place on him through the storm that would ravage him.

  “Your Grace,” the boy mumbled and fell to his knees halfway to the desk, prostrate as if approaching a god.

  “My son,” Te
ros spoke softly. “Please, we do not have time for all this cowering and subjugation.” He looked toward the door. Though its surface restrained the screams, he could sense them, could feel the deaths they foretold growing closer. “I have an important task for you, and there is little time for me to explain it. Please, come here.”

  A crack of thunder sounded with such force that the room shook. Water streamed from the leaking windows, forcing Lius to dodge them as he approached. The glass strained against the fury of the wind and water that pounded it. Teros gave it his attention. A few moments longer. A far better administrator than weaver, he prayed that he had not missed anything, that he had prepared the pattern as he should.

  A crash from within the building, screams loud enough to penetrate even this fortification, focused Teros on the task at hand. He looked to the boy and took a deep breath. “Do you see this box?” He placed his hand on the delicately carved top of the seemingly seamless box. The wood appeared to glow in the dim room. The carvings seemed to move, the elaborate patterns flowing around its surface.

  The boy stared then licked his lips and held his breath. “Is that . . . ? The Order help me . . . . I have only . . . .”

  So he already knows. Teros nodded as his reading of the Tapestry was confirmed. Only a handful of the most powerful and trusted members of the Church knew of the existence of this box and the book it contained. For the boy to have even guessed meant that he had studied deep, had read the delicate web of clues, had seen the pattern that pointed to its existence. “It is. And it is now yours.”

  Lius retreated, stumbled, fell to his back. His hands came up as if the Xi Valati had just offered him a rabid wolf. “I could not. I am . . . I don’t . . . I have not.”

  “You will! The Order has chosen you. I have seen it. And more importantly, the Master has seen it. In a different time, you would be approached. You would be separated from the others. You would be sent to a Weaver commune to . . . .”

  “Weavers? But . . .”

  “Listen. Only listen.” Screams, louder now, pounded the doors. The storm unleashed its fury on the glass. Panes rattled, lead seams strained, sighing under the weight of their burden. “You would be trained to read the Tapestry and weave Its patterns. But that time is not this one. It falls on you to rebuild. To take this seed, to protect it, plant it, and wait for the one who can harvest its bounty. The Order rests on you, Lius. In a few moments, everyone in this building will be dead. Only you will survive to carry our most precious artifact and ensure that it survives.”

  Teros paused and looked toward the doors. They were close now. The screams had stopped. He felt his heart rate rise, his breath quicken. Sweat formed on his hands and brow. He had prepared himself for this, had thought on it for decades. Why was it still so hard?

  He led the boy to the back of the room, touched the eye of the savior, said a silent prayer, then pulled on the arm of a statue. A door opened. It was small. The passage was dark. Webs spanned it in a silvery multitude. “This hall will lead to stairs. They will take you to the catacombs. The tombs stretch below the city away from here. The Order will guide you. You are a Weaver. The Order is yours. You must trust that this is true. When you emerge, you will go north. Find Jaret Rammeriz. Explain to him what has happened.” There was a thud in the hall. Marcum, his secretary, the last line, began screaming. They were here.

  Teros shoved the box into the boy’s trembling hands. His eyes were filled with panic. They bounced between the intricate doors and the dark passage. Finally, Teros reached up and pulled a lamp from the wall. The boy struggled to hold it and the heavy box, but the Xi Valati just pushed him toward the passage. “Go now. All this is as it should be. If ever you revered me, then trust me now and go.”

  The ten-foot tall, six-inch thick, thousand pound doors flew from their hinges, exploded into the room, revealing a small man in a black robe and fifty creatures that would never be described as men. Covered in thick, oily black fur, they were the shape of men, but their faces lacked noses and ears, consisting entirely of beady black eyes and gapping mouths that seemed to stretch around their entire heads. Blood dripped from the creatures, sparkled on their pin-like teeth, ran from their weapons, stained their leather vests, plastered the fur to their terrible faces. They had already killed hundreds. Now, it was Teros’ turn.

  With a deep breath, he walked calmly to his desk and addressed their leader, “I have read much of you, Yuille, but I cannot say that I have looked forward to our meeting.”

  The little man lifted his hands, threw back the hood of his robe, revealed a face that was at the same time that of a young man and an ancient monster. He sneered, crooked teeth peering between thick lips. His black eyes leered. “Your followers died poorly. They have sacrificed themselves for nothing. You will need to do far better if you wish to match your savior. He would give up thousands, massacred without a sound, to maintain his weavings. In comparisons, this was a pathetic display. You, your Weavers, are weak. And now you will join them.”

  The man lowered his arms, allowing the creatures to rush around him. Their weapons shined, jagged and cruel, in the light of the lamps, reflecting crimson from the blood they had already spilled. And Teros just looked to the boy standing in the hidden passage and motioned him on. A tear escaped down his cheek, but he smiled. The boy stood frozen, unable to move as creatures from a nightmare descended like dogs fighting over scraps.

  Finally, Teros released the trap that had been a lifetime in its preparation. He pulled a brass marble from his pocket and tossed it up. It sparkled in the flash of a lightning strike, shimmering like a ball of fire until it reached the glass above. And at that moment, lightning filled the sky, the wind rose to a hurricane. The dome shattered. For a heartbeat, the shards of glass seemed to float, held for the slightest instant by the wind. The Xi Valati slammed his hands on his desk. The wind responded.

  Glass shards whistled through the air. Propelled by the wind but guided by some other force, they struck down the creatures, cut them to shreds. They fell back, held up hands or weapons, but had no escape from the glass daggers that sought them from every side. And Teros danced. He snapped at the air, threw his hands to the side, jerked his head. The shards answered. At his direction, they flew. The wind carried them, swirling and changing as if alive. They darted around the old man close enough to clip his robe, but never hit him.

  The creatures were in disarray. They had no hope. Fifty living, breathing things against a thousand ethereal specters. It was a massacre for all but one. The man in the black robe seemed to drift across the room. The blades sought him, but he gestured them away. And with each step he moved faster until his dance echoed that of the Xi Valati, until he was coming around the desk, until he ended it.

  His hand slammed up, metal shimmered, and the Xi Valati stopped. Teros stared at the blade standing from his chest, sputtered, coughed blood, and smiled to match that of the man who had killed him. With the very last of his strength he gestured toward the doorway where Lius watched. The door slammed closed. He turned back to the demon before him and, through the blood that welled in his mouth, said his final words, “The pattern is maintained.”

  #

  Lius stared at the stone block before him and shook. He had not even seen twenty years, had taken his vows less than a year before, had barely spoken a word since, had spent almost every second of that time either reading or meditating. How did the Xi Valati even know that he existed? How could he have been chosen for this?

  He had always excelled at his studies, had been able to see the meaning of things far beyond the abilities of his fellow students, but he had never made a point of it, had barely written, had barely spoken. His family was not important – mildly prosperous merchants from Caliea – and as the fifth son, he was so far down the line as to barely be noticed. And now he held in his hand what had to be The Book of Valatarian, THE book. Not one of the travesties they sold to the populous, not even the slightly closer adaptations held within the deep lib
raries of the Hall of Understanding. This was their master, the book penned by Xionious Valatarian, the full and complete story of his life, of the battle with Chaos, the power of Order, and the Exile.

  Somehow, Lius had always known that this book existed. He had seen the small differences between the various versions he had read throughout his life, had seen pieces, the smallest elements, the tiniest phrases, come and go, and had known that somewhere there was a master work, a central treaties that had given birth to all those others. It was like tracking back all the paintings in a gallery, seeing all their difference and similarities, and knowing that at some point they had all come from the same artist.

  Standing in the bleak hall, ceiling nearly scraping his scalp, Lius was not sure which was more frightening, the book he held or the scene he had witnessed. He had just seen the Xi Valati assassinated, had listened as his brothers were massacred, yet what shook him most was what the Xi Valati had done in his final act. It was impossible. He had controlled the wind, had harnessed the storm and used it to cut down his enemies. The legends said that Valatarian had been able to control the Order and manipulate it to his ends. But those were legends, stories told to illustrate the power of the Order. They were not true. Yet even that power had not been enough to save the Xi Valati, to stop that strange man and the demons that accompanied him. Monsters. Demons. Magic. The Book of Valatarian. Legends all, and every one alive on this terrible, mind-crushing night.

  The slab of stone Lius stood against shook. Dust fell. The webs wavered. Something had hit the door, hard. He turned, looked at the surface, felt it shake again, heard screams of frustration. “I want that book!” a voice yelled in a language he had never heard but could somehow understand. The robed man – the Xi Valati had called him Yuille, had somehow known him – was trying to open the door. And though Lius knew that it was a foot of solid stone, he no longer believed anything to be impossible. Trembling, he turned and walked down the hall.