Her heart beat wildly as she looked about. Perhaps she’d knocked it off the table in her sleep-but no, it wasn’t on the floor either. Which meant either she’d gotten up and didn’t remember, or-
Or someone else had been in the room.
Palado, me scelfud on ludrasfe catmas, she prayed silently as she rose from her bed, the marble floor cold against her bare feet Paladine, deliver me from lurkers in the dark.
“H-hello?” she stammered, glancing about the shadow-cloaked room. “Is anyone there?”
She could call for help. A guard might hear her-or might not She needed to do something besides stand and shiver. Quietly, she crept to the window and glanced out but saw nothing strange-except the moon, shining full where it had no right to be. Her whole body tense, she pulled the casement shut, then latched it carefully. Maybe I didn’t do that before, she thought Maybe I forgot, and the window blew open while-
“Hello yourself.”
She whirled, crying out. The monk sitting on the corner of her bed jumped up, letting out a yelp of his own.
Dista shrank back, goggling at him. He was short, barely taller than a dwarf, and spectacularly huge-three hundred pounds, at least, his white habit spread like a tent on his massive frame. What hair there was on his tonsured head was silver. His eyes were small and brown in his pink, jowly face. He looked as incapable of stealth as a man could be-yet where had he come from?
“Huma’s hammer!” he exclaimed, putting a sausage-fingered hand to his brow. “You scared the Abyss out of me. You’re lucky I didn’t keel over from fright, Efisa-you’d need at least ten strong men to carry me out of here.” He chortled, slapping his belly.
The First Daughter stared, confused. “Who are you?”
“Oh, no one important,” he answered, still smiling. “Just a messenger. Call me Brother Jendle-it’s as good a name as any.”
She could only stand there, blinking at him. He seemed no threat-how could he, when the effort of merely standing seemed enough to bead his face with sweat?-but still…
“You are the First Daughter of Paladine, aren’t you?” the fat monk asked, squinting at her. “Or did I get the wrong room?”
“I-no, you didn’t-” Ilista said, then stopped. “What?”
“Oh, dear.” Jendle clucked his tongue, waddling over to pat her hand. “Mind’s addled, is it? Poor lass. Well, I’ll give you the message anyway. Have to, you see. Hold still.”
Ilista tried to draw back, but she reacted slowly, and he was adder-quick, his hand darting forward to clasp her wrist like a manacle. She drew a sharp breath, and suddenly the room unraveled around her. Everything-the bed, the open window, even Brother Jendle-frayed and swirled, then vanished, becoming another place.
She stood on a clifftop among the hills, a cold wind gusting in her face. She heard the song of bluefinches, smelled the scent of fresh rain. In the distance loomed the walls of a city, all but lost in a pall of fog. Beyond its walls, many miles off, towering mountains limned the horizon. Grass grew in tufts from the hill’s rocky soil, and plane trees towered above. In the far distance stood a cottage-a herdsman’s or charcoal burner’s, probably, its chimney smoking. The clifftop was a peaceful place, a spot where one might lie in the summertime, guessing the shapes of scudding clouds.
All at once, the peace shattered. The birdsong ceased, and a distant rumbling rose from down in the valley. She looked, following the noise, and caught her breath. Dust rose among the hills, a great brown cloud that smudged the sky. It grew as she watched, and soon there were thousands of soldiers marching in unison, armor and weapons flashing in the sun. They moved swiftly toward her, devouring the ground with long, relentless strides. She peered at the army, wondering whose it was, yet already knowing in a way, long before she saw the blue cloaks, the bronze helmets, the falcon-and-triangle banners fluttering over the soldiers’ heads. It was the imperial army, marching at last, at the behest of Kurnos.
Kingpriest Kurnos.
“Stop!” she cried, rushing to the cliffs edge.
The slope was too sheer, though, the gravel that covered it too loose to descend. She could only watch as the army came on, inexorably, coming closer… filling the valley…
Something happened, then, in the corner of her eye. She couldn’t see what it was at first, but when she looked harder, there was something coming out of the west, where the misty city stood. Craning to see, she fought to see what it was… then, all at once, she saw a figure of shining light, like silver in full sunshine. She could not make out anything of the man at the glow’s heart, for every time she tried to look through the shining glare, it stung her eyes and she had to turn away. The sight was beautiful and terrible, and she began to weep without knowing why.
The soldiers in the valley saw the shining figure too. They slowed at its approach… stopped… then broke and ran, casting swords and banners aside. In what seemed only a few moments, they had fled the valley altogether, until only the figure remained, gleaming brighter than the sun.
After the army was gone the shining figure seemed to nod to itself for a moment, glanced around as if searching for something, then turned toward the clifftop where Ilista stood and looked directly at her. She caught her breath, staring back as it raised its lambent hands toward her.
“Efisa,” it spoke, and the world vanished in a burst of blinding white.
When she could see again, Ilista stood in her bedchamber once more, exactly where she had been when Brother Jendle touched her. Of the fat monk, though, there was no sign.
She heard a sound-a dry scraping, like metal being dragged over stone, coming from behind her. She whirled-and saw, for just an eyeblink, the slender tip of a tail slithering out her open window. It was serpentine and pointed, covered with scales that shimmered like silver in the starlight. Like silver… or platinum.
Her mouth dropping open, Ilista sprinted toward the casement. As she ran, though, she caught her foot on the edge of an intricate Dravinish rug, and suddenly she was pitching forward, arms flinging outward, falling…
Ilista woke in bed, her stomach a chasm.
It took a moment for the world to stop spinning. When it did, though, she looked to the table nearby. The taper was still there, as she’d left it, bathed in red moonlight, not silver. She sighed. It had been a dream, nothing more, doubtless brought on by her own worries over Kurnos’s eagerness to attack Taol. There had been no fat monk, no army, no figure of light. And certainly, no platinum tail, sliding out… sliding out…
Out her window.
She sat up suddenly, knowing what the chill in the room meant even before she turned to look out toward the gardens. The window stood open, curtains fluttering in the breeze.
Chapter Three
In all of Ansalon, three libraries ranked above all others. The greatest was the Library of Gilean in Palanthas, a vast hall of lore dedicated to the God of the Book. Legend had it that a copy of every text ever set to parchment or papyrus-or even clay tablet-rested somewhere in its halls under the care of a select order of monks led by the renowned Astinus the Undying. Second-largest-with one hundred thousand tomes, a fraction of the Palanthian library’s size-was the Scriptorium of Khrystann, in distant Tarsis, which ran beneath the streets of that bustling seaport and was nearly as renowned as the white-winged ships that sailed from its harbor.
The third was the Sacred Chancery in the Great Temple itself. It stood in a wing to the north of the basilica, five storeys tall, its windows made of crystal the color of honey, so that even the moons’ light looked like sunset within its halls. It was a labyrinth, and even the scribes and scholars who toiled within had been known to get lost now and again. The shelves reached up and up its high walls, with woven baskets on winches giving access to the topmost levels. There were no frescoes or mosaics within its halls, no sculptures or tapestries, not even decorative plants. There were only the books, the great mahogany desks where the copyists worked, and the god’s platinum triangle hung on the end of every shelf.