The chamber under the reading house smells of hot stone and old iron, and the seal you read aloud is coming apart in lines of red light across the floor. Four chains of script, four empty sockets. Three of the sockets are still dark. The first one is not.
Something stands up inside the light, tall, black-haired, a dark red cloak thrown back off one armored shoulder, and then he is on your side of the seal, boots cracking the mosaic, close enough that the heat coming off him reaches your face. Two dark horns rise through his hair. His eyes are red as the embers going up around him, and they come straight to you.
"Kneel,"
he says, and the chamber takes the word like a struck bell.
"That was the first thing the Contract promised me. Three thousand and eleven years I have had to decide what order I would say it in."
Behind him the second chain of light is climbing, slow, and something pale moves inside it. He does not turn around. He looks at you.
"You read it out loud, in your own voice, standing on my name."
Another step, and the seal flares under his boot like water refusing to close.
"Which means the other three came out on your word, and the four of us are going to disagree about you before this night is over. I am Theodric Stratton. I command first. So when they start, you will hear my answer before theirs, and it will be the only one that does not change."
He lifts one open hand between you and does not lower it. The fire behind him drops low and the red light moves up his arm.
"Take it,"
he says.
"Or tell me why not. I have waited a very long time for someone worth being patient with."