Free The Legend of Broken by Caleb Carr

you will hear lies there, Sentek—though not all who speak them will be liars.”
    Arnem frowns, growing less patient and more relaxed. “Ah. Riddles. For a moment, I thought we might actually avoid them.”
    “Mad or taunting, his words are treasonous,” Niksar says; then he scolds, “Be careful what you say, old fool, or we must arrest you.”
    “The Bane are the cause of your summons.” The old man raises his staff from the ground. “This, I believe, can be stated with certainty.”
    “There’s no prescience in that,” Arnem says, affecting carefree laughter. “You’ve likely heard the screaming on the Plain.” The sentek resumes his march. “Why Kafra should have chosen to number those wretched little beings among his creations, I’ll never—”
    Arnem and Niksar have not gone a dozen paces before the old man declares, “It was not any god who created the Bane, Sixt Arnem—we of Broken bear that responsibility!”
    The two officers quickly retrace several of their steps. “Stop it,” Arnem tells the old man urgently. “
Now.
Whatever your madness, we are soldiers of the Talons, and there are things that we cannot hear—”
    Arnem suddenly ceases to speak, as his eyes go wider. The old man’s face is still nothing but a strange mask of misfortune—but his robe … Something about the faded silver and black, and the fine cut—something about the robe looks disturbingly yet inexplicably familiar.
    “You do not remember me—do you, Sentek?” the old man asks.
    “Should I?” Arnem asks.
    His mouth curling, the old man replies, “No longer. And not yet …”
    Arnem tries to smile. “More riddles? Well, if that’s all you offer—”
    “I have given you what I have to offer, Sentek,” the old man says, raising his staff a few inches higher. “If you go to the Sacristy tonight, you shall hear lies; but not all who speak them will be liars. And it will be your task to determine who disgraces that allegedly exalted chamber.”
    Rage flushing his cheeks, Niksar can no longer contain himself: “We should kill you here,” he declares, a hand to his sword. “You speak one heresy after another!”
    The old man only smiles again, looking at Niksar. “That has been said,” he replies, raising the hem of his robe with his free arm.
“Before …”
    In the dimness of the avenue, with Moonlight playing off water that flows quietly in the gutter, Arnem and Niksar can see that the old man’s left leg is far darker than his right; but it is only when the agèd arm taps the staff against that left limb, producing a hollow knock, that the two men guess the truth. The old man smiles at their horror, and continues to tap the wood strapped to the stump of his thigh.
    “The
Denep-stahla
!” † Niksar whispers.
    “The young linnet knows his rituals,” the old man answers, dropping the hem of his robe. He continues to tap his staff against the makeshift lower leg, producing a sound that is more muted, but no less dreadful, than that which preceded it.
    Arnem’s gaze does not leave that leg: for the sight has brought with it understanding of his earlier uneasiness, as well as memories of his own days as a linnet, when he was part of more than a few escort parties that accompanied the priests of Broken to the Cat’s Paw river, where they performed, where they still perform, their sacred, bloody rites of punishment and exile. Although a post of honor, it was not a commission to which Arnem was suited, and he did not hold it long—long enough, however, to plant the seeds of his doubts about the faith of Kafra.
    At length, he looks the old man in the eye again. “Have we met before?”
    “You will remember my name at the appropriate time, Sentek,” the cripple answers.
    “And how did you escape the Wood?”
    Again the agèd lips curl grimly. “The unholy are often cunning. But should you not be concerned about something else?” The old man pauses, but Arnem says nothing. “I am
here,
Sentek—is