Thanos looked morosely at the scrolls, hundreds of them, all on display, all in plain sight for anyone to read. What of the scrolls that were
not
on display?
Thanos sat down in the comfortable chair and placed the oil lamp on the desk. Xydis had been a cautious man, a man of sense. The writings in full view of the public would be mundane, dealing with the day-to-day business of the Church. Thanos could safely leave those to the scribes to catalog.
He needed to find the work dealing with the underside, the dark underbelly of the Church. Thanos knew all about it. His father had made no secret of it to him. Thanos had even undertaken some of the work himself. The accounts of bribes paid and received, sums given to assassins, the names of spies, as well as the money taken in from the slave trade, smuggling, and various other enterprises the Church decried in public and profited from in private. Such records must be hidden somewhere, and with them the secret to the vault.
Thanos closed the door to the office, locked it, and set to work. His first task would be to create a scroll naming himself as successor. The scroll did not take long to compose. He placed it among the others, hiding it well, but not too well. His second was to find the hidden chamber where the hidden records were stored.
He was exhausted. His nose was still clogged, his headache becoming unbearable. He found a Warrior-Priest to stand guard, and, since he had no home to go to, he wrapped himself in a hooded cloak and entered the ruined city, heading to the home of one of his favorite whores. He was delighted to find she was still alive and in desperate need of comfort.
Thanos returned to the Shrine early the next day, walking the streets of Sinaria before dawn. Survivors slept in the streets. A few were awake, searching without much luck through the rubble for whatever they could find. He stopped a moment to watch. He would help these people. He would rebuild Sinaria and it would be grander and better than before. He would do this not in the name of Aelon, but in the name of Thanos. Priest-General Thanos. Emperor Thanos. He liked the sound of that.
He went on to the Shrine, which had escaped the wrath of the dragon unscathed. He looked at the impressive building, at the dome from which shone the god’s light, and he thought with amusement of the old tale that Aelon would permit only the faithful to enter his sacred precincts. Thanos had been coming and going to the Shrine all his life and Aelon had never once struck him with a rock, much less a thunderbolt.
Thanos was greeted with pleasure by the priests. Atemis was there and informed him that the funeral for Xydis and the other Chosen of Aelon would be held today.
Back in his father’s office, Thanos searched for the hidden compartment and eventually found it—a trapdoor located in the floor beneath a rug underneath the desk. He was about to open the door when he was summoned to attend the funeral.
Thanos replaced the rug and the desk and went to do his sad duty as a son and bid his father farewell. Thanos had respected Xydis, if he had not loved him. Thanos had kept his father in the dark about his whoring and carousing. Thanos had worked hard to please his father and make him proud. He felt no regret, no guilt. Thanos had been a good son; about as good a son as Xydis had been a good father.
The funerals for the Priest-General and the Empress and the hundreds of other church officials who had died in the night were held hastily and in private. In the light of this new day, survivors were roaming the streets, looting any building still standing, including the Palace. They had not yet summoned enough courage to attack the Shrine, but the Warrior-Priests feared it was only a matter of time. The bodies were placed in a mass grave and hurriedly covered over.
Standing in the broiling sun, forced to endure the stench given off by the bodies, Thanos had to suffer through a great many sermons and speeches. He was called upon to speak a few words himself. He lauded Xydis to the heavens and then urged the priests to cease to grieve for those who were now safe with Aelon and turn their attention to the living who needed their help.
As Thanos was hastening back to the office, Atemis caught up with him. Thanos greeted his friend.
“You will be pleased to know that I found a scroll expressing my father’s wishes. I do not think we should make it public yet—”
“I would not wait too long,” said Atemis. “I have just received word that Warrior-Priest Raegar has returned to Sinaria. His war galley sailed into the docks this morning.”
Thanos wiped his streaming nose on his sleeve.
“Good for him,” he said offhandedly. He was eager to return to the office.
“Not so good for you,” said Atemis.
Thanos heard the grim note in the man’s voice and paused. “What? Why? You think I have something to fear from Raegar? He is a slave, for god’s sake!”
“They are saying Raegar performed a miracle,” said Atemis.
“What did he do?”
“He summoned a sea monster in Aelon’s name.”
Thanos laughed out loud and then put his hand to his aching head. “I have work to do, Atemis. Forgive me, but I must go.”
“Indeed you do have work to do, Thanos,” said Atemis in ominous tones.
Thanos hurried off. Summoned a sea monster! He would have chuckled over the notion again, but laughter made his head hurt.
CHAPTER
15
Raegar was not greeted by cheering crowds when he entered Sinaria. He was not wreathed in laurel, nor received with accolades by the people in the arena. He was greeted by the stench of death, the wailings of mourners, the screams of the wounded. His war galley had to be hauled by its sailors onto a beach because the docks had been destroyed. Raegar posted guards on the ship, fearing that people desperate for shelter would try to steal the lumber.
He paid the rowers for their services in supplies from the galley; food being more valuable than gold these days. He ordered Captain Anker—a much more respectful Captain Anker—and soldiers to escort him and Treia back to the Shrine grounds.
Raegar’s return was a triumph, though he did not know it at the time. Those who had been aboard
Aelon’s Triumph
talked excitedly of their experiences at sea, telling in awed and reverent tones of how Raegar, the Warrior-Priest, had first summoned a dragon to fight for them (conveniently forgetting that they had been terrified and threatened to mutiny). He had then called down Aelon’s curse upon two enemy ships and moments later an enormous kraken rose from the sea to drag both ships under.
The tale grew in the telling, as tales will. The kraken was soon as large as the palace and then became two krakens and so on. The enemy ships were more numerous until it was well known throughout the city that Aelon had destroyed the entire ogre fleet with an army of krakens and dragons. In all the tellings, one thing remained constant—the name of Raegar. Sailors and soldiers talked of his courage in facing the enemy. They spoke with tears in their eyes of how he had rescued the woman he loved from the fiends who had thrown her into the sea to drown. They talked of his faith in Aelon and how the god must love him.
The survivors of Sinaria needed hope and they needed a hero and in Raegar they got both. The fact that he had once been a slave added to the legend that was growing around him. He had known poverty and misfortune and loss. He was one of them. Raegar might not have been greeted by cheering crowds on his return, but the day after he could not walk the streets without being surrounded by admirers.
After debarking the galley, Raegar and Treia left with their escort for the Shrine in the early afternoon, a journey that should have taken only a short time on the well-paved roads of Sinaria. The roads were in ruins, however; impassable in many places, blocked by bricks and stones from buildings that had collapsed. Raegar and his soldiers stopped on the way to help shift wreckage and open the roads and to dig out trapped survivors.
Raegar used his great strength to lift heavy beams or move huge chunks of stone. Treia used her healing skills to aid the wounded. As they worked, the soldiers who escorted them told the tale of the kraken. Raegar was modest and gave all the credit to Aelon. Treia watched the people watching him with something akin to adoration and she began to think that what had seemed misfortune in summoning the Vektia dragon might turn out to be good fortune after all—at least for her and Raegar.
* * *
Thanos was meeting with the Council of High Priests when a messenger arrived from Warrior-Priest Raegar, saying that he had returned safely and would report to them as soon as he was able to reach the Shrine. The messenger related the exciting story of the dragon and the kraken, of Aelon’s curse and the sinking of enemy ships.
Thanos, looking around the table, saw the priests listening in awe. Here was another candidate for the office of Priest-General. For not every member of the Council favored Thanos. He had made his share of enemies over time. What man does not? He had assumed these priests would be putting forth another candidate, but he had not been much worried. He had the scroll that proclaimed him his father’s successor. Who could compete with that?
Apparently Raegar and a miracle.
Xydis and Thanos had often had a chuckle at Raegar’s expense. Xydis considered Raegar a loutish brute, useful for his connections with the shadowy underworld of Sinaria. A former slave desperate to be accepted in a society that would never accept him, Raegar would do anything for a word of praise and the vague hint that he might be destined for great things.
Thanos listened to the talk and outwardly smiled and inwardly gnashed his teeth. He was in an untenable position. He dared say nothing against Raegar or suggest that this talk of miracle-performing kraken was downright silly, lest he should appear to be petty, jealous, or, worse, apostate. Thanos had to loudly praise Aelon for Raegar’s safe return all the while heartily wishing the man were at the bottom of the ocean.
When the meeting ended Thanos did not stay to hear more about Raegar. He returned to the office of the Priest-General to continue going through his father’s things. His enemies questioned that Thanos should be left there on his own. His friends, among them the powerful High Priest, Atemis, said that as Xydis’s son and the probable next Priest-General, Thanos had every right to be there.
Unfortunately, Thanos had not found what he sought—the secret to opening the door to the treasure vault. He had read through most of the secret documents he had discovered in the cubbyhole beneath the desk and although he had learned a great deal that was highly informative, particularly regarding just how much wealth the church had amassed behind that bronze door, he had no idea how to obtain it. He remained hopeful, however, and continued reading.
* * *
By the time Raegar arrived at the Shrine, the political winds were blowing up a gale. He dismissed his escort, sending them off with Captain Anker to the makeshift barracks, their own having burned down. He kept Treia by his side and both of them knew the moment they entered the Shrine that they were walking into a storm. He was welcomed with rapturous gusts by some, who crowded around him, eager to shake his hand; a few of the more fulsome actually asked for his blessing. They talked openly of presenting him as a candidate for the office of Priest-General. Raegar was basking in the warmth of this breeze, when he was struck by a chill blast. High Priest Atemis came (slowly) to greet Raegar. The high priest said he had thanked Aelon for Raegar’s safe return, adding that Raegar would of course want to wait upon Thanos, who was in the office of the Priest-General, to pay his respects to the man whom Xydis had named as his successor.
Treia flashed Raegar a warning glance and squeezed his hand. He had no need of her silent counsel. He had been expecting that Thanos would challenge him for the office. Thanos had probably never imagined that Raegar would be challenging him.
Raegar had known Thanos for a long time. In fact, Raegar knew more about Thanos than Thanos suspected. Raegar’s friends in the underworld kept him well-informed. Thanos paid his whore enough to buy her secrecy. He never thought of paying off the man who “protected” her or her children, who would regularly report on “Mama’s visitors.” Raegar could have used his knowledge to discredit Thanos to the priesthood, but he feared that if he did, his own dealings with Sinaria’s criminal element would come out.
By ordering Raegar to come to him, Thanos was making a bold move. If Raegar acted upon Thanos’s orders, Raegar would be conceding that Thanos had a right to give orders.
Raegar was covered with the dirt and sweat and blood from his labors among the people. His face was drawn with fatigue and yet he spoke with an air of quiet dignity that impressed even the High Priest.
“I have been working to free survivors who were trapped in the rubble,” Raegar said. “I am exhausted from this and from my venture out to sea. I would not presume to greet Warrior-Priest Thanos before I have washed and changed and rested. I will be in my quarters. If Thanos has need of me, he can wait upon me there.”
Raegar gave a respectful bow and then left, in company with Treia, who held her head high. The High Priest listened to the talk among the other priests regarding Raegar. Their opinion of him was unanimously favorable. The High Priest carried Raegar’s response to Thanos, curious to see how he would react to Raegar’s refusal.
Thanos shrugged. He would have been surprised if Raegar had come to him. Thanos handed over the scroll naming himself as successor.
“I found it quite by chance,” he said.
Atemis did not read it, but stood tapping it thoughtfully on the desk.
“What’s the matter?” Thanos asked.
“I believe Raegar has a good chance of becoming Priest-General.”
Thanos sniffed and wiped his nose. “Raegar is a valiant warrior. I believe his people are known for their savagery in battle. But he has an inflated idea of his own importance if he considers himself worthy of being Priest-General. Such ambition in a former slave would be laughable were it not so sad.”
“That may be true,” said Atemis. “But many on the Council are impressed by him. The people who are now gathered in the streets outside the Shrine grounds are no longer here to attack us, but to cheer Raegar. He has restored their faith.”