CHAPTER 13
Lattakay glistened in the silver moonlight. Cathan stood at the edge of Wentha’s terraced garden, looking out over the cliff at the glass statue of the Lightbringer. His heart twisted as his eyes turned again and again to the Bilstibo, sitting dark amid the harbor. For years he had avoided this place, afraid of what might happen when he and his sister met again. A foolish fear, he’d reasoned when the Kingpriest’s party left the Lordcity for the tourney. Nothing bad would happen.
Now Lord Tavarre lay dead, and so many others. The Knights of the Divine Hammer were in tatters. Beldinas … well, Beldinas’ failure was inexplicable.
Three days had passed since the bloodbath-three days of frustration, fury, and grief.
Cloths of mourning blue hung from Lattakay’s arches, fluttering in the sea breeze, honoring the fallen knights who lay in the city’s temple. Bands of wailing women roamed the streets, following Seldjuki custom as they stopped at crossroads and plazas to let out wild, warbling yells. Cathan had had little time to mourn, however. There were too many other things to be done. For the first day, he and his surviving men-for he was brevet commander of the order now, with the Grand Marshal and many other high-ranking knights slain-had worked tirelessly, keeping the fragile peace. The folk of Lattakay had come close to rioting that first night. Brawls had broken out as people tried to flee the arena’s island. The knights had all been tired and sore at heart, but they had done their duty, keeping folk from killing each other, then enforcing the curfew the Patriarch imposed to get people off the streets.
After the first day, there was no more trouble. Still, the knights did not rest. At Cathan’s command, they rode out of the city in small bands, searching for signs of the quasitas.
They came and went, armed for battle, scouring the hills for miles around, returning only so they could collapse at their barracks for a few hours of restless sleep-if they were lucky.
Nightmares plagued many in the Divine Hammer, dreams filled with flapping wings and the screams of lost friends. Some didn’t even bother trying. Sir Marto, for one, had refused to return to Lattakay, combing the wilds day and night, afraid to sleep.
Cathan did not dream of the battle or of the men who died. Instead, whenever he shut his eyes he found himself floating above Krynn, looking down upon Istar and its jeweled cities, shining in the night. Each night he watched as the burning hammer fell upon the land, striking with a thunderclap that left him sitting up in bed, sweat-soaked, listening to the thumping of his heart.
It had happened again tonight, and so he’d come out here to the gardens, knowing he would not have another moment of peaceful slumber before dawn. He leaned against the garden wall, quietly observing Lattakay, his thoughts a maelstrom. So distracted was he that he didn’t hear footsteps on the crushed-stone path until they were nearly upon him.
He whirled, his hand going to where Ebonbane should have been, grasping at air for a moment before he realized he’d left the blade in his chambers.
“Blossom,” he murmured.
Wentha stood beneath the drooping branches of a star-bloom tree, her face grave. In her hands she held a silver wine goblet. She extended it wordlessly, and Cathan took it.
“The dream again?” she asked as he drank.
He nodded. “It’s never been this bad,” he said. “I haven’t had a good night’s rest since-since-” He broke off, trembling.
“I know,” Wentha said. “Neither have I. Gods, Cathan, the tournament… It’s my fault this happened.”
Cathan started. “No!” he said sharply. Setting the goblet down on the wall, he took her hands in his. “Don’t say that. The only one to blame is whoever sent those creatures. You were trying to do something good, that’s all.”
She smiled, the same smile that had broken his heart again and again when they were children. She stepped into his arms, and he held her close, his eyes stinging with pain and affection.
“Find him,” she murmured, her voice breaking. “I want to see the person who did this suffer, as he made us suffer.”
“I’m doing what I can, Wentha.”
“Not all.”
He pulled back. She turned away from his white stare, but he saw the meaning in her face. “No,” he said. “Not the sorceress.”
“You’d be dead too, Cathan,” she retorted, “if it hadn’t been for her.”
He said nothing in reply, a frown creasing his face. What she said was true, but…
“Quit being stubborn,” Wentha pressed. “Ask her for help.”
“You don’t understand,” he said. “She’s a Red Robe. I’m sworn against magic. I’ve spent my entire life opposed to her kind.”
“She saved your life.”
He opened his mouth to argue more, but his heart wasn’t in it. Instead, he sighed. “If it will make you happy,” he said, “I’ll talk to her.”
“Happy?” she repeated, bitterly. “The only thing that would make me happy would be if I woke up and found this was all a bad dream.” With that, she turned and walked away, back up the terraces toward the manor. Cathan watched her disappear, then turned and looked out again over Lattakay. The fog was descending, making a smear of Solinari and hiding the harbor’s outer reaches. The arena hovered in a sea of gray, like some ghost, then the mists overtook it, and it was gone.
Scowling, he turned away from the city and headed up the path himself. He did not go into the house, however, but past it, through the manor’s gilded gates. Out in the city’s quiet streets, he turned north, toward the cathedral. There was one there, he knew, who would be awake as well.
The Lightbringer was in the worship hall, kneeling before the altar. He had spent much of the past several days there, praying to the god. Behind him lay the knights’ bodies, arrayed in full mail and grasping their weapons, which they would bear with them into the afterlife. They should have lain upon stone biers, but there weren’t enough to accommodate all of the dead, so the clerics had arrayed them on every surface, except for the altar itself: pews, buttresses, even some of the smaller shrines, cleared of candles and idols to make room. The spicy scent of the herbs and oils the priests had used to protect the knights’ flesh from rot hung heavy in the air as Cathan stepped through the tall, golden doors and genuflected toward the platinum triangle of Paladine.
He stood still for a moment, watching. Beldinas’s head was bowed, his hands pressed to his lips. His words were too soft to hear from across the worship hall, so Cathan didn’t bother to try. Instead, he made his way among the dead, pausing when he saw a face he recognized. Here was Sir Erias, the lines of pain that had creased his face carefully smoothed away; there, a white shroud covered Lord Barlan’s savaged remains; further on, Sir Pellidas. A dark stain marked his tabard where Marto, following the Karthayan custom, had poured a libation of wine upon him. In the candlelit room, it looked like blood.
Finally, he reached the bier at the head of the rest, and stopped, standing very still as he stared at Lord Tavarre. He barely recognized the Grand Marshal. But for the scars running across the body’s pallid cheek, he might have thought it another man.
“I never saw him at such peace,” said the Kingpriest’s musical voice. “Not even at court. He was always frowning or laughing, it seemed.”
Cathan glanced up. Beldinas walked toward him, hands clasped within his sleeves. The Miceram glittered on his brow. At first glance, he looked as he always had-but when Cathan looked closer, there was something different. Something about his eyes-they seemed darker, troubled.