Cleansing Fire
Chapter 20: Sacrifice

Dim torchlight flickered over the dusty grey flagstones, smoke curling to sit like a malevolent cloud against the ceiling. Their boots clicking against the floor, the seven Brothers walked briskly downward, ignoring the discomfort of the cold winter night. They would have to be quick here – any extended activity drew the Jakori and they were barely holding out as it was. Even this far down had been explored though they could never hope to replace the Well without knowing exactly where it was. What tapestries there had once been were now hanging in tatters and there were no torches left in the sconces arrayed at regular intervals. The invaders had stripped the Academy of everything valuable, hoarding it in the Great Hall, which they used as their base of operations.

Balden had needed to be quite ingenious to stay out of their clutches. It had helped that the Guard had rallied around him. As the next in command after Triman, he had automatically assumed the Stewardship. There was not much left to rule at present but that would soon change.

He saw the end of the corridor finally, and the last flight of stairs before they would be confronted by the immensity of the Well. He knew the process they must take off by heart but he couldn’t help running over it in his mind, listing all that he had learned about the Well, wanting to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything.

The Well of Souls was more than fifteen thousand years old and had been the original reason for the Academy having been built here. Not even the old stewards had known that the Well existed or that this whole collection of Initiates was really nothing but a complicated smokescreen devised to keep the Well safe from prying eyes. A means to summon banished beings, not even the books that Balden had managed to get his hands on over the years had known when exactly the well was built. It had taken him years of painstaking effort to devise his plan and to figure out how the Well worked.

Balden knew for a fact that nobody had been down this particular corridor for at least a hundred and fifty years. He and his associates were the first and most likely the last for another hundred and fifty years if all went well. Everything he had done had been in preparation for this, his whole life’s work was coming to a conclusion.

He knew from the maps that he had studied that the corridor started to slope sharply downward from this point, carrying on for several hundred meters before coming to an abrupt halt. No pictures had ever been made of the Well so he could only imagine what it would look like. In his mind it was impressive – he could only hope it lived up to his expectations.

They arrived at the flight of stairs and Balden started down, not checking to see if the others were still following him. He knew they would, they knew they could not disobey his orders.

He smirked to himself as he heard their boots clicking on the steps behind him, the soft swishing of their thick cloaks masking the sound a little. They were now more than three hundred meters below the surface of the land and it was at last beginning to grow warmer. He had expected the Well to be giving out some sort of heat but nothing on this scale. Knowing the size of the chamber they were about to enter, it was incredible that it could be generating enough heat to be felt this far away.

They came to the foot of the stairs and he stopped in disbelief. Even the images in his mind had been inadequate when describing the majesty of the Well of Souls. The entire chamber must have been several thousand meters around and with no bottom that he could see. They had come out on a small platform etched into the rock of the wall, quite near the top of the chamber. Gems glittered all across the cavern, reflecting the dim light of the torches they carried until the walls glowed with a strange and ruddy light. It took him a moment to gather himself and turn to face the others. They had not been as prepared as he had – that much was obvious by the slack look on their faces.

He snapped his fingers in a peremptory gesture and without hesitating, they pushed their burden to the front. Clothed now in rags but bound head and foot by sturdy ropes, Ioshi’s eyes were wide with fright. A trickle of blood still moved down his chin, showing that he had struggled to avoid his captors. No matter. He had wanted to use the Channel but since they had failed to replace her yet, Ioshi would do.

He gestured again and the struggling boy was pushed forward by the solid wall of Brothers behind him. His gag was removed and his head pulled back as he was forced to his knees.

Immediately, he fell to begging and pleading, asking why he was being treated this way, wailing that Balden had promised to protect him. Some of the Brothers behind him laughed softly to themselves, taking pleasure in the pain of this innocent. Balden felt no such pleasure – this was a necessary sacrifice and nothing more. A means to an end. He had learned to distance himself from his kills early on in his life. It made it so much easier to be shocked and outraged when he learned of their deaths from the Guard.

He brought the boy’s chin up and, still ignoring the fervent words coming from his mouth, unsheathed the long, curved knife at his waist. He held it carefully in front of Ioshi’s eyes and slowly guided it across his own arm, then the arm of the sacrifice. The boy squealed and some of the Brothers moved to quiet him. Balden gestured to them to fall back and they obeyed – what did it matter if the boy made noise here? There was nobody within hundreds of meters to hear him.

Stepping closer, he gestured for the Brothers holding the boy to pull his head further back. He leaned over his face, looking down. It was always better if they could see you.