Surrender to the Will of the Night - By Glen Cook Page 0,13

if we do come up against an Instrumentality like Kharoulke?”

“More developed than Seska was. Probably bend over and kiss my ass goodbye.”

“Because?”

“At some point an Instrumentality should become powerful enough to see ambushes ahead of time. Then it’d stand off and do you wicked. With a platoon of first-string sorcerers I could lure him into a trap that didn’t look like a trap until the firing started. If the first salvo was accurate I could finish him before he pulled his shit back together. But if I didn’t get him the first time I’d never get another chance.”

“Not what I’d hoped to hear. But pretty much what I expected.”

“You ask me, boss, if you want to handle a demonic assertion like the Windwalker, you better get the Patriarch on the case with God. Get Him to come out and flex His muscles the way He used to do in the olden days.”

An interesting suggestion. But not especially useful.

Hecht suspected that God would not show up.

His faith had suffered serious ablation lately. “Think about the Kharoulke problem. If we ever face something that big it’d be handy to have a strategy set.”

“Of course, sir.”

Kait Rhuk was dedicated. He would do that. When he was not busy catching whores.

* * *

Cloven Februaren came and went. In the main, he brought good news. Buhle Smolens was headed for Brothe with five hundred crack mountain infantry. Patriarchal garrisons throughout Firaldia were on alert. The Master of the Commandery, the new Brotherhood chieftain at the Castella dollas Pontellas, Addam Hauf, would quarter Patriarchal troops there, meaning the Brotherhood would back the Patriarchal forces.

The Brotherhood existed to make war in the Holy Lands. They could not do that without support from the west. Internecine squabbling anywhere meant reduced resources available to those determined to liberate God’s homeland.

The Captain-General was satisfied that everything possible was being done. If Boniface hung on for a week, a smooth succession would be assured. Buhle Smolens would be close to the Mother City. The Captain-General would be headed south.

The Ninth Unknown said he thought the Patriarch would last a month.

He was able to get that close, now he had begun to put thought into the effort.

Cloven Februaren began to show the strain of trying to hold everything together. Hecht told him to ease up. If it looked good, let it ride. Let it work itself out.

Advice he had to take himself. He could not walk away before the wedding.

* * *

The wedding did come, though the wait seemed endless. As an anticlimax. Being Boniface’s representative, the Captain-General watched with the attendant clerics. He played no part himself, not being in orders. Pella was not allowed to join him. The boy remained outside the Holy Kelam and Lalitha Church, shadowed by Presten Reges and Shang “Bags” Berbach. The lifeguards were frantic. If ever someone wanted to get at the Captain-General through his son, this was the time.

Holy Kelam and Lalitha was one of the great churches of the Grail Empire, rich in architecture, furnishings, and decorative detail. It was an object of pilgrimage. Relics of both Founder namesakes were buried beneath its altar. The lame and sick came to light a candle and pray to Lalitha, who had wrought miraculous cures while living.

The Captain-General spared little attention for the wonders of the church. He focused on the wedding party. On Princess Helspeth and King Jaime. There was little mystery about his interest in the Princess Apparent. The Adversary had found a foothold inside his soul. He did wonder why the Direcian monarch interested him, though.

Attitude? The man was sure to be trouble. Everyone watching could tell he was impatient to get this nonsense over. That he was eager to start throwing his weight around.

Jaime was headed for a world of disappointment. Katrin might be besotted, might be fawning over him, but she was Johannes Blackboots’s daughter. No pretty Direcian would win control of the Grail Empire simply by wedding her.

And if she did surrender all reason?

The Council Advisory would step in. A dozen grim old men and their grimmer women. They watched from the floor, afraid that they had erred by agreeing to this match.

They could tell that the Castaurigan had ambitions unfettered by reality. He expected to outshine Peter of Navaya, using his new spouse’s wealth and power.

Could he be that blind? His bride meeting privately with Boniface’s military commander had outraged him. He had no idea what might have been discussed, but was aware that the Church was little interested