In the ensuing hour, the Grand Inquisitor set the wheels of pursuit in motion, signing the necessary orders, composing messages with the aid of Balaerik. Their eyes strained with curtailed sleep, half-dressed novices-the secretariat of the High Office-prepared the orders and affixed the offices seal. Messengers were dispatched, and authorizations for the disburs.e.m.e.nt of funds were made by the Grand Inquisitor, these sufficient to cover any expenses incurred in the hunting down of the oriental monster and his bewitched companions.

All the preparations were completed at the behest of Anton Balaerik, Bishop Izquierdo a.s.suming the position of a token overseer. The novices seemed to take wary note of the Grand Inquisitors submissive new demeanor and subordination to the sinister donado, but they kept their place.

Then, as the secretaries were dismissed in the hour before dawn, their work finished, Balaerik instructed the bishop to perform one more act: "You have been betrayed by one of your trusted subordinates, Your Eminence. You must arrest Father Martin de la Cenza for heresy, conspiracy, and demonism. It was he who made it possible for the Oriental to escape."

Izquierdo nodded slowly, a dark, ugly look etching his features. He called for soldiers to secure the arrest of Father Martin. Then he and Balaerik were alone again.

"You neednt seek me out again," Balaerik told him, "unless it is to implore my help. Youve served me well."

Balaerik ambled up close to him, took him by the arms, and kissed him on the cheek. Bishop Izquierdos eyes flashed maniacally, and a strange cry broke from his throat as he pulled back. He began to laugh, feeling his cheek where the eerie donado had kissed him.

"Who are you?" Balaerik asked. "What is the secret that only we two share? Who are you?"

"I am-the Grand Inquisitor," Izquierdo breathed in awe, as if he had only now learned that fact.

"And what is your true name?"

Izquierdos countenance brightened. "Torquemada." His whisper rasped across the s.p.a.ce between them. "I am Torquemada."

"Yes," Balaerik agreed, smiling, "first and foremost of all prosecutors of the Inquisition. And what is your holy mission?"

"To burn and bleed and section the witches, the infidels-all those who oppose me."

Balaerik nodded and backed away into the shadows.

"That is good."

Father Martin blinked with surprise to encounter Father Jan Sebastio amid the scurrying figures in the Zocodover.

Both were streaked with sweat and grime, their faces and garb smudged with black smokestains.

"You-" de la Cenza started, gaping at the papal messenger. "I thought-"

Sebastio pulled him aside, out of earshot of the soldiers. "Were you a party to this business, Martin?"

De la Cenza hesitated before responding with a slow affirmation.

"Why didnt you say something?" Sebastio asked angrily. "I called up to the window of his prison, but thats as close as I could get to him."

"I-I thought that you must be privy to it, being Gonjis friend, and if not, I couldnt trust you to-listen to us-conspirators against the Church, against the Crown of Spain-"

"Not against the Church, but against Evil, Father," Sebastio countered. "Against things we know to be wrong." He looked about, bobbed his head toward the clattering columns of troopers. "Out after the rebels, I gather. I trust the plan you wouldnt let me in on was a sound one." His voice still carried indignance.

"I dont know. I had little to do with it."

"Did you speak to Gonji about me?"

De la Cenza looked pained. "No. Im sorry. There was little time to speak of anything. And as I said, I thought youd be off with him."

"Hsst," Sebastio warned. "This looks like trouble."

A squad of grim-faced guards from the Alcazar approached them on the double.

"Father Martin de la Cenza? You will accompany us, por favor, to His Eminences quarters."

"Why, may I ask?" Father Martin demurred.

The officer in charge cleared his throat of the pungent tang of sulphur before responding. "Youll pardon me, but Im afraid its my duty to place you under arrest."

"On what charge?" Sebastio bl.u.s.tered.

The trooper eyed him narrowly, as if urging the priest to mind his own business. But he answered reticently: "Conspiracy, for one. The Grand Inquisitor will elaborate in his chambers, I think. May I inquire as to who you are, Padre?"

"Father Jan Sebastio, the papal representative, and you, young man, will at once alert the Nuncio, Archbishop Texeira, to join us in the Grand Inquisitors rooms. Bishop Izquierdos decision-making is unbalanced of late, and I intend to prove that hes unfit to serve as head of the High Office."

"I take my orders from the colonel, Father."

"Indeed?" Sebastio bellowed. "And I think General de la Vega will be interested to hear how the Grand Inquisitor has usurped his command prerogatives. Not only tonight, but for some time now. Now would you like to send one of your men after the Nuncio, or shall I see the general about collecting him himself?"

The officer postured arrogantly a moment before flicking his head in compliance, sending one of the guards off at the run to find Archbishop Texeira.

"Martin," the Grand Inquisitor said gently when Father de la Cenza was brought before him. He shook his head morosely, his demeanor that of a calm, loving father forced to censure a wayward child. "Dear, deluded Martin. I was afraid it would come to this since you chose to spend so much time-what are you doing here?" His att.i.tude changed when he saw Father Sebastio follow close behind the arresting squad.

Sebastio shut the chamber door. "No-no, pay me no heed. Continue with your accusations. Eh-isnt your adviser here-Balaerik?"

"I am Grand Inquisitor."

"Si, quite so," Sebastio agreed. "So then charge Father de la Cenza, and present your evidence."

There was a knock on the door.

"Admit no one else," Izquierdo roared at the mute portal. "This is a private session."

But the door swung open with a rush of air, and a grim-faced sentry admitted Archbishop Texeira. Consternation twisted Izquierdos features.

"What is the meaning of this disturbance?" the bishop demanded.

"I was about to inquire exactly that of you, Your Grace. Why have you arrested Martin?"

"What business is that of the Papal Office?" Izquierdo trembled with anger and suspicion. An irrational flicker caused his eyes to dart from face to face in the lamplit chamber.

Sebastio addressed Texeira, the Papal Nuncio, without taking his eyes from Izquierdo. "It seems His Eminence trusts no one now. No one save this mystery monk Balaerik. Who exercises power in this office now?"

"I am the authority here," Izquierdo railed, "and those who oppose me suffer the consequences, whoever they may be!" He pointed an accusing finger at Sebastio now.

"Indeed?" Texeira said. "And shall I be arrested, as well? I question the extent of the authority you claim. Who has set the army to give chase to the fleeing refugees? I have seen people felled in the streets, arrested without reason merely for loitering about in their fear and confusion. Is that not a prerogative of General de la Vega? Did you consult him before setting the army to lashing out at unseen enemies and fomenting possible rebellion?"

"That is my affair!"

"Withdraw your orders at once, and release Father de la Cenza," Sebastio commanded, "until this business can be investigated rationally."

"I will give the orders here," Izquierdo shouted. "Forces have been set into motion that cannot be stopped." He posed triumphantly now, unsettlingly smug. Even the guards were affected, looking to their leader uneasily. "Guards, take these three all into custody. A taste of the iron maiden will bend you to the will of the High Office. No one dare question my power, which derives from-from the Master himself!"

Sebastio eyed Martin tellingly. They shared the same thought.

"He cannot say his name," de la Cenza whispered in horror.

"What?" Izquierdo shot back.

"Have you made the same pledge taken by Balaeriks evil Brotherhood?" the prelate asked with revulsion.

"Say his name!" Sebastio demanded.

"Arrest them! Take them to the dungeons!" Bishop Izquierdo bellowed.

Archbishop Texeira raised a staying hand, though no move had been made by the uncertain guards. "Tell us, Ign.a.z.io, from whom your power derives. Say the name of G.o.d the Father and of His Son, Jesus Christ."

"Take them away! Take them to the stake!" He made a threatening gesture, the guards tensing. Their leader moved between the bishop and the accused clergymen.

"Im afraid the Grand Inquisitor is not a well man," Texeira informed them. "The stress of his office has taken a toll. Advise General de la Vega, and send word to the Duke of Lerma, that Bishop Izquierdo has been taken into custody for his own safety."

"No!"

Izquierdo attacked the Papal Nuncio, cursing and growling and trying to beat him with his fists. It required three guards to bring him under control.

The squad leader looked to Father Martin and Archbishop Texeira for guidance.

"Corporal, alert your commander as to whats happened here," Father Martin said. "Tell him we must meet with General de la Vega. Ill gather the offices clerks to find out what actions the bishop has taken. We must restore order, foremost. And someone-someone must locate and bring in the donado Anton Balaerik for questioning."

"Let me go!" Izquierdo shouted as he struggled with the guards. "You dare to lay hands upon me? I am Torquemada- "Torquemada!"

A chill swept the room to hear the name of the long-dead first Grand Inquisitor, who was a.s.sociated with a reign of Inquisition terror beside which the present days policies seemed insignificant.

The ten Spanish Lancers waited astride their mounts in the gully of the Tajo River gorge, as they had been instructed. Anxious to join in the pursuit of the rebels who had disrupted the autos-da-fe in Toledo the night before, they were nonetheless fearful of the power wielded by Brother Anton Balaerik. One trooper had heard of the formation of the mysterious Brotherhood of Holy Arms, and he even now regaled them with the apocryphal information that set them to shuddering, though they growled in boorish approval of the new orders aims.

"I dont like the moon tonight," one of them said nervously, gazing up at its sickly glowing, gibbous form.

"Shut up," his commander enjoined. "Who cares what you like?"

"Whats he doing out there? Dios-think I should have a look?"

"Just mind your place," the sergeant ordered.

"Were the ones picked to ride along with this band of his, eh?" another man asked rhetorically, scratching at an itch in his privates.

No answer came, for they all knew that it was so, and by their grim faces it was clear that they felt as much terror as honor in their selection by the strange donado.

And out of their sight, farther along the banks of the Tajo, an eerie event transpired.

Balaerik extracted the round object he had called his "nameless saints reliquary." Extending it in both hands and p.r.o.nouncing soundless words, he bent and dropped the ivory sphere into the mud of the riverbank. It began to glow softly, then to spin, and out of some unseen aperture there poured a thin gray mist that swirled and billowed into a roiling cloud shot through with animate forms.

These became discrete, separating into ten twisting cyclones of thickening murk that hovered just above the bank.

The eyes appeared first, sultry red eye-slits with tiny, iridescent black pupils. Then sinewy limbs appeared out of the mist-animal limbs; four of them, sprouting shiny, hooked claws and settling, at last, to earth. They seemed barely to touch the ground, though the heads and torsos that molded and solidified seemed heavily muscular. Litheness, grace, and savagery vied for supremacy as the creatures began to move as one in the soft sheathing of black mist that seemed ever to accompany them, to conceal the fullness of their shadow life.

To know their meaning, men would call them demons, for indeed they were: huge, vicious, sentient temple cats. Witches familiars from another world, a hungry world. Guardians and a.s.sistants to necromancers in their nefarious work.

They circled Balaerik once, flashing dark razored teeth, as they stretched and breathed and fixed themselves in their new environment, on this new sphere of existence. Cunning and adaptive, they knew the work theyd be about beyond any need for spoken communication.

The bodies of the Dark Company silently floated toward them against the rivers current. Fishlike, bloated, rotating slowly in a grisly ballet, the deathless ones drifted toward the banks, where Balaerik awaited them, arms folded patiently.

The temple cats spoiled to get at them, not liking the waters cold touch. When the corpses progress brought them into waters ankle deep to a man, the cats began to pad out gingerly, snarling in their soft, distant fashion.

Each cat seized a corpse by the neck in a soft but firm bite, dragging it ash.o.r.e. Then they began licking the corpses, cleansing them, turning them over as needed, such that an amazing transformation occurred: The decaying, bloated gray bodies and tattered bits of garb were slowly, laboriously made over, renewed. Clothing and body armor were dried and repaired; slung weapons were purged of rust and rot; the swollen, mottled flesh of each cadaver shrank, becoming uniformly pallid, firmly set in the stiffness of the freshly dead.

The eyelids were licked open to reveal dead, milky-white orbs, and now each cat sat atop one body and pressed its gaping jaws over its subjects entire face, exhaling into the lungs, the nostrils, and the eyes at once.

Movement began in the corpses chest cavities. The cats sucked in the ejected river water and regurgitated it onto the bank.

When they had completed their ghastly work, layers of time had lifted from the once moldering corpses, though they were yet among the dead.

Now each sentient cat took a languid position at the head of each supine form. They seated themselves sphinx-like, to stare down fixedly at the dead warriors. Balaerik came up to them and stood over each silent form in turn: "Hilmar-Ullrich-Wiemer..." he p.r.o.nounced over the first slain man.

"Death be undone."

There was an impact to the body. A rupture tore through its cuira.s.s and shirt and upper chest. Blood gouted from the angry wound. Then there was an abrupt reversal, an aberration in time-a pistol ball jerked free of the mans chest and rolled onto the muddy bank. The wound remained, like the cone of an erupting volcano, but the body began to stir, the warriors eyes rolling wildly as the darkness of the unbinding grave was once again cast off.

"Jurgen-Kleinhenz...Death be undone."

The hulking murderers twisted, broken neck snapped back into place with a hollow crack that mocked the hand of justice.

The Spanish sergeant stayed his troops whispering with a spank of his thigh. Balaeriks Brotherhood of Holy Arms looked like nothing any of them had ventured, though theyd spent the better part of an hour speculating.

"Theyll need horses, wont they?" the sergeant asked. He swallowed hard to see Balaeriks complacent smile as he led the bizarre procession of squelching forms along the river bank.

"That will be no problem," the donado replied, evoking an unabashed whimper from one of the younger lancers.

"What the h.e.l.l?-G.o.d in Heaven!"

The lancers saw the cats gather at the mouth of the nearby gully just as the Dark Company opened fire on them with bow and arbalest. The sergeant was one of the first to fall, amid screaming men and rearing steeds. Two Lancers made it almost to their attackers before the temple cats fell on them with raking claws and fangs like steel boning knives.