A heartbeat behind him, another man came through the door. He was taller than the sexton of Lianta’ar by almost a head, was dressed in silver robes emblazoned with the same star that hung over the altar, and on his hand was a simple platinum ring in which a clear oval stone had been set.
His hair was streaked gray and silver with age, though there was still enough white-blond hue to it to hint of what it must have looked like in his youth. His beard was long, curled slightly at the ends, and his eyes were clear and blue as the cloudless summer sky. Immediately the three priests threw themselves on the ground at his feet.
The Patriarch signaled for Gregory to close the door, then gestured somewhat impatiently at the prone holy men.
“Do get up,” he said in a gruff, commanding voice. “It displeases me greatly to see my ordinates groveling on the floor.”
The two acolytes helped Lasarys rise. The elderly sexton was shaking, his face white with fear. Long ago he had had the privilege of watching the then Patriarch, who was almost never seen by anyone, celebrate the investiture of Nielash Mousa, the man who now served as the Blesser of Sorbold. The Patriarch at the time had been a frail man with the same thin fringe of hair that now decorated Gregory’s almost bald pate, whose aged frame seemed bowed by the weight of his own robes.
This new Patriarch, Constantin, who had been invested only a few years ago, was vastly different from that man. While he had obviously lived many years, he carried himself the way an old man who had been an athlete or soldier would. His shoulders were broad and unbowed, and there was a regal aspect to his bearing, almost an arrogance, though there was no trace of any such haughtiness in his face.
In his role as sexton Lasarys had assisted his benison, Nielash Mousa, on the two occasions that the Patriarch had made a state visit to Sorbold. The first was his own investiture, where he had stepped forth, anonymous, out of the crowd in the square of Jierna’sid and presented himself, when all other contenders had been rejected by the Scales, as a candidate for the office he now held. He had been confirmed; the Scales had held him high against the brilliant blue of the dome of the sky. It was a sight Lasarys knew he would never forget. And just before those same Scales had confirmed Talquist as the new emperor, the Patriarch had come to Jierna’sid again, to bury the Dowager Empress and her son, the Crown Prince Vyshla, who had died moments apart on the same night.
The Patriarch raised his hand in blessing, and the priests bowed respectfully, making the appropriate countersign. Then the Patriarch motioned to the benches, and hesitantly the priests went back to them and sat down again.
“I am somewhat surprised to see you alive, I must admit; word came from Sorbold a few days ago that all the acolytes and the sexton of Terreanfor had perished in a terrible fire at the manse outside of Night Mountain. The Blesser of Sorbold left our meetings and returned home at once, so since in fact you survived the conflagration, I wonder why you are not back in Jierna’sid, helping to arrange for the burial rites. Tell me, Lasarys, why you chose to come here, and pray as you did.”
Slowly the sexton rose and walked over to the Patriarch, then knelt at his feet.
“May the Creator smite me into ash if my tongue proclaims anything but the truth,” he said haltingly. “Your Grace, these two men will bear witness to what I am about to tell you. Talquist, regent emperor of Sorbold, is purposefully despoiling and defiling the holiest places of our homeland, especially the holy basilica of Terreanfor.”
The Patriarch’s eyes narrowed, and his brow blackened visibly.
“Despoiling how?” he demanded.
“At his command,” said Lasarys, the flush of shame reddening his wrinkled cheeks. “And with my unwilling assistance.”
The Patriarch inhaled deeply, his blue eyes blazing with cold fire, but said nothing, waiting for the sexton to continue.
“Many years ago, Talquist was an acolyte in my stewardship,” Lasarys continued, his back straight but his voice trembling. “He was a fickle young man, serving in training to become a priest, not because he had heard a calling from the All-God, but because he needed information about a puzzle that was bedeviling him ceaselessly. He had found an item buried in the sands of the Skeleton Coast, a shell or scale of a sort, tattered around the edges and violet in color. It had the engraving of a throne on its surface, along with runes that I could never read. He was studying with me in the hope that somewhere in the depths of our holy scripture, somewhere in the practices of the faith, he would find clues about this object. When he discovered there was nothing about it to be found in his study, he left the temple and did not return until decades later, when he was looking to be confirmed as emperor.”
The Patriarch’s aspect grew more intense.
“It was my understanding that Talquist had become emperor reluctantly, that the Scales themselves had weighed in favor of the mercantile over the army and the nobility, and selected Talquist before a large coterie of witnesses, visiting heads of state and Sorbolds alike.”
The sexton swallowed hard.
“It was made to appear that way, Your Grace,” he said nervously, “because that was how Talquist wanted it. He had returned to Terreanfor just a few days before the death of the Dowager Empress and the Crown Prince, seeking a small piece of Living Stone from the basilica.” He winced at the horror on the Patriarch’s face. “He told me that if I did not harvest such a piece of stone, he would take the basilica and use it without regard to its needs. He had studied the basilica intensely when he was training with me, and so knew that there was a secret entrance to Terreanfor. If he were to occupy the basilica, his guards could effectively hold the army at bay until he had virtually destroyed it.” Lasarys’s mouth was suddenly dry, an indictment of his silence and at the guilt in his own heart for the darker reasons he was leaving out of the explanation.
“So I agreed, though it broke my heart. I found a place where there was stone that did not take on the form of a plant or animal, and, after praying for forgiveness, harvested the stone and gave it to Talquist.”
“And what did he do with it?” the Patriarch asked, his voice going suddenly soft.
“He used it to rig the Weighing, I presume; I was not there when he did it,” Lasarys said sadly. “But that is not the greatest heresy, Your Grace.”
The Patriarch’s eyes opened wider, but he remained silent.
Lasarys glanced over his shoulder at the faces of the two young acolytes; the men were pale as milk, their aspects grim.
“Once he was vested as regent emperor, he gave me the command that the acolytes were to harvest one of the titanic stone statues of the warriors from the basilica.”
“From the ceremonial archway?”
“Yes. He insisted that the entire statue be taken, sliced from its base and brought to the Place of Weight at Jierna Tal. The sacrifice badly injured the spirit of the basilica; I could feel it suffering each moment that the statue was being—” Overcome, the elderly priest broke down, weeping.
“Tell me the rest,” the Patriarch commanded.
“The statue, which was chosen because of the sheer volume of its elemental earth, was placed on one of the weighing plates of the scales. Some sort of pathetic creature, which looked like it was composed partly of human flesh, partly of pale jellyfish, was placed in the other. Through manipulation of the violet artifact, there was a terrible flash of light, and the creature disintegrated. Then the statue of living earth stood erect. Truly that was the most terrifying sight I have ever witnessed.”
“Where is it now?” Constantin asked. His voice was calm, but the hand on which he wore his ring was trembling now.
Lasarys shook his head. “I know not, Your Grace. The statue—it was capable of a crude form of ambulation. It stumbled off into the desert, destroying anything in its path. It tore the sword from its hand that had been part of the original statue, and that sword crumbled into dry dust, as the statue may have done as well. We saw no sign of it when we ventured into the desert on our way to see you.