Dreams of the Oracle

Chapter 28

Ashur stared at the three men across from him. For a time none of them spoke a word. The man with blue eyes sat staring back at Ashur and puffing his pipe. The man with dark eyes was also staring at Ashur, his arms folded across his chest. The third man was staring at the floor, his blue green eyes seemed to have grown slightly greener since the card game.

"What is your plan?" asked Ashur impatiently.

"Ashur," said the man with blue eyes, "did your father ever tell you the stories of the Caelestors?"

Ashur blinked, "What?"

"The Caelestors of old. Have you heard their stories?"

"Some of them, what does--?"

"—Just wait. Now the legends say that they drove the Great Evils from the land, but they didn't do it alone did they?"

Ashur stared at the man before him. Cassandra was in the clutches of the Rashakas and this man was talking about fairy tales?

"No, they didn't," continued the blue eyed man, "They had regular men as well. Soldiers with no magical abilities. It was these men that showed us how to kill the remnants of the Great Evils after the Caelestors were dead and gone. Yet these were not ordinary men. Esariel the Maimed, the Archcaelestor--"

"—What does this have to do with my sister and getting her back?"

The man with blue eyes puffed his pipe for a moment. Then he continued,

"Esariel the Maimed said that though these men had no magical abilities they were not ordinary men. He said an ordinary man cannot kill a demon. He decreed that his army could not be made of ordinary men," he paused to puff his pipe.

Ashur glowered at the man before him. He looked at the other two men. Frustration welled up inside him. Then he suddenly realized that he had heard this story before.

"So Esariel devised a way to..."

Ashur looked at the three men. They all were staring at him intently. The details of the story flashed through his mind.

"...test his soldiers so that his army would be made up of men who were greater..."

Ashur felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Why was this man telling the story? Barring the idea that the man was an idiot why was he reciting this story?

"...he said that unqualified soldiers were murderers, they were the murderers of the men who relied on them to be above the ordinary..."

He looked at the three men again. You have to watch every angle. They had seated themselves so that all three of them were facing the door. Which meant...

Which meant that his back was to the door.

He was exposed. He suddenly looked at the three men before him in alarm.

He was exposed and they knew it.

He almost didn't make it. He had felt someone behind him almost the same moment that he had realized he was exposed. He threw himself from his chair and spun around. A young man dressed in black was standing right behind where Ashur had been. The young man's nose and mouth were covered and he held a dagger in one hand.

Ashur, realizing that the three men who had tried to dupe him were now behind him, leaped to one side and dropped into a fighting stance in the middle of the tavern. His would be assassin began moving towards him. His cloth wrapped feet were soundless as he glided across the dirty wooden floor. Ashur watched him move and realized with sinking clarity that this man was a master.