Stephen who stood on his knees amongst the bedclothes, fuming out the remnants of his spent rage with every labored breath.
Finally Ethan broke the silence. 'I'll leave you. My friends and I will go to the High Priest of The Order here in Wayland, Your Highness. If anyone attempts to prevent us, they'll meet with worse than your guards did in the throne room.'
Ethan turned away from Stephen and walked out of the bedchamber with one of the King's advisors on his heels. The heavy wooden door closed behind them as they joined Seth and Levi in the hall. A tray of food smashed against the inside of the door as it closed. The king cursed his counselors once again, though the walls did much to mute what he said.
Seth spoke to the advisor without looking toward him. 'Can you direct us to the Temple here in Wayland? The sooner we're gone from the palace, the better, I think, for all of us.'
The King's advisor nodded vigorously. 'Yes, of course. I'll have someone escort you there. It lies on the outskirts of the city-not far at all.'
Ethan looked at Levi curiously, wondering why the Temple should be so close to the main population while The Order in Nod had remained secluded and their Temple location a secret. Levi, for his part, only shrugged silently as they fell into step with Seth, who had already begun to follow the King's advisor down the dimly lit stone corridor.
NEW ORDER
True to his word, King Stephen's advisor had provided a young page to escort them, by carriage, through the eastern portion of the city where the Temple of Shaddai lay near the city's border with the vast forests beyond. Far from a secret installation, as the Temple in Nod, this Order seemed to be housed within what Ethan could only call a palace-equal to, if not surpassing, that which King Stephen dwelt in.
Levi pulled his head back inside the carriage window. 'Boy, would you look at that!' he exclaimed to Seth sitting across from him in shadows of the velveteen carriage.
Seth smiled coyly. 'Sorry, can't.'
'Oh, yeah right,' Levi said sheepishly. 'Sorry about that, mate.'
Seth laughed. 'Not at all, Captain. I live for embarrassing moments like that.'
Ethan could hardly believe the structure before them: intricate stone carvings inlaid with gold, silver, and precious stones. Ethan had thought the Temple at Nod beautiful, but in a far more functional way. This seemed almost gaudy to him, and he wondered what manner of men trained here.
Their carriage drove across a bridge over a deeply set trench with a river running through the bottom. Ethan peered out the window with Levi, trying to gauge it. 'That must be a fifty foot drop,' Levi said.
Ethan looked back inside at Seth. 'Have you ever been here before, Seth?'
'Years ago, before I lost my sight in Macedon, but I don't remember it as you're both describing it,' he said. 'In those days, The Order of Shaddai was still establishing itself and only had a modest few buildings with a training yard in the middle.'
'Well, I'd say they've established themselves pretty well,' Levi said. 'They're living posh. I wonder what kind of warriors they make.'
Ethan wondered that as well.
Once inside the courtyard, their carriage was met by a contingency of priests dressed in golden colored robes with embroidered fringes and cuffs. Most of the ten men standing before them had graying hair and wore tall pointy hats upon their heads. Ethan looked at them queerly, until he spotted Isaiah coming out of one of the archways leading within.
Isaiah smiled and gave Ethan a slightly exasperated nod as he passed the other priests, letting him know he too had similar feelings about the Wayland priest's attire. He approached and embraced him. He whispered into Ethan's ear, 'We must talk privately as soon as possible.'
It had taken nearly an hour of pomp and circumstance, introductions and ceremony before Isaiah, Ethan, and his companions were left to speak together alone. Isaiah began to sip from a cup of tea as the steward finished serving them all, then left the room with a bow.
'Master, I'm so glad to find you safe here,' Ethan began, almost before the door had closed. 'When we saw what happened at the Temple-' He couldn't go on, the horror of the scene still fresh in his mind.
Isaiah nodded gravely, searching each of their eyes. He paused at Seth. 'It's good to see you again, Seth.'
'Master.'
'I'm sorry for your eyesight, my friend.'
'The Lord has blessed me with a new sight to replace that which was taken.'
Isaiah smiled weakly and nodded. 'Things are worse than you may know, gentlemen.' He paused to gather himself. 'Mordred sent an army to attack the Temple. They appeared to be some sort of cross between man and demon-abominable beasts. They came to us through the pine forest and we were unable to stop them. The last I'd heard, before departing, was that the entire pride had been killed trying.'
'But how did they find their way?' Levi asked. 'That place was buttoned up tight among the Thornhills. I don't see how-'
'That is the worst of the matter,' Isaiah interrupted. Anger and pain burned on his face. 'Gideon led them to us.'
'What?' they all three asked at the same time.
Ethan tried a weak smile. 'Master, did you say, Gideon led them?'
The heartbreak in Isaiah's eyes left no doubt. 'He betrayed us to Mordred, Ethan. Our lookout spotted Gideon leading them safely through the Shale Steps and then on toward the arch beyond the Pine Forest. Otherwise Mordred's soldiers never would have found us.'
In the back of Ethan's mind, puzzle pieces began to click together, forming a picture he did not want to see. Gideon in the uniform of Mordred, not fighting for their sport, but training? Seth and Dung finding an assassin in the dungeon cell rather than Gideon. And the ability of Mordred's army to find the Temple despite only a few secret ways of entry.
They sat speechless for a long moment, before Isaiah carried on. 'There is more,' he said. 'The High Priest, here, has received a message by hawk from one of their spies onboard a Wayland barge near the Northern Horn. They've spotted an armada of ships, bearing Mordred's standard, rounding the cape-three days flight by hawk.'
'When was the message received?' Levi asked.
'Just before your arrival here,' Isaiah said.
'That would put them just under two days from the Port of Trace and another day from here,' Levi surmised.
Isaiah nodded. 'The invasion we feared has finally come to Wayland.'
'Does the King know?' Seth asked.
'A courier is already on his way to bring Stephen word, but I'm not sure what capability he still possesses after his defeat at Emmanuel. I'm afraid the situation is very dire.'
Ethan had been staring at the wall during all of this as though he hadn't heard. 'Is Gideon dead?'
Isaiah looked at him. 'I don't know, Ethan. I would have hoped so-'
Ethan looked into his eyes, stunned.
'-after all,' Isaiah continued, 'it would become our duty to deal with him if he had survived. And that would be a very hard burden to place upon you or any of the surviving priests.'
It had not occurred to Ethan, until that startling moment, that he should ever be called upon to kill Gideon. He had become more than a brother to Ethan in their relatively short time together. Harming him seemed unthinkable despite his betrayal. And he wasn't even sure he believed that. There had to be some other reason, some way that Mordred had controlled him, forced him to lead his soldiers to the Temple. 'Master, I can't-'
