“Talquist had his troops murder the acolytes who had witnessed his treachery—the fire you heard tell of was deliberately set. Then he had all the soldiers who assisted in this horrific undertaking killed as well, except for his trusted captain of the guard. Had we not remained in hiding, doubtless we would be dead ourselves.
“We came to you as soon as we could, seeking our benison, and his wisdom, but your guards tell us he has returned already to Sorbold.”
The Patriarch nodded. “Indeed; upon receiving the news from Talquist’s messenger, he offered his prayers, then left immediately to return to Jierna’sid. He should arrive today, or on the morrow at the latest.”
Despair came into Lasarys’s eyes. “He is walking into a trap, then. There is no time to interdict him, and now that he is back inside the borders of Sorbold, any message that is sent to him would be intercepted by Talquist.” His forehead ran with sweat. “I fear he is a dead man.”
Constantin shook his head. “Not as of this morning,” he said, turning away from the priests and staring at the altar, over which hung the silver star. “I could sense the offering of prayers that he submitted on behalf of his congregation; Sorbold is a vast nation with many faithful, and if he had not been able to attend to his duties in the Chain of Prayer, it would have been immediately noticeable.”
“It is only a matter of time, Your Grace,” said the sexton sadly. “Talquist is obsessed, but calculating. The power of the artifact he found on the Skeleton Coast gives him a sense not only of power but invulnerability. He has plans, vast and sinister plans that exceed my understanding, and for all that he assumed the façade of the reluctant merchant summoned by the Scales to leadership, I swear to you that his intent, and his ability to realize that intent, have been in place for many years.”
The Patriarch did not turn to meet Lasarys’s eye.
“You are right about that,” he said in a voice that seemed far away. He stood in silent contemplation, his gaze fixed on the silver star above the altar. Finally he turned to the sexton of Lianta’ar.
“Gregory, take these men into your care,” he said. “I grant them sanctuary here. Find places for them in the priory, but take care not to reveal their names to anyone. We will have a renaming ceremony tomorrow, so that they cannot be hunted.” His searing blue eyes fixed on the priests of Sorbold.
“Whatever roads you have traveled in your lives until now, whatever footprints you have left in the sand between this place and the place from whence you have come, must now be erased. Talquist is a monster; I have known this for more than a lifetime. It is not for your safety alone that I command this. Your lives are secondary. If he discovers that you are here, the holy city itself is in jeopardy from his wrath.”
Lasarys began to shake, as did Gregory.
“Surely he will not attack Sepulvarta?” the sexton of Lianta’ar said; his harsh voice had lost its knife’s edge, and had taken on the tone of a frightened child. Such a violation was unimaginable.
The Patriarch’s voice hardened, taking on a menacing, almost silky edge.
“I assure you, Gregory, not only will he, but he is planning to. It is not the presence of these men that will bring it about, we are on the doorstep between Sorbold and Roland. He will barely pause to wipe his feet on the mat of Sepulvarta on his way to the inner continent.”
“But—” gasped Gregory, “Your Grace, that is—that is unimaginable. To attack, to destroy a holy city—”
“In order to hold anything holy, one has to have a fear for one’s soul,” said the Patriarch. “Talquist is utterly without one. Before he is done, the world itself will be torn asunder. And we will be among the first to be crushed under his heel. It is already far too late to stop him.”
The priests stood, unable to move, as the door opened and the Patriarch left the chapel, taking whatever warmth had been in the room as he went.
Constantin waited, unseen, until the last of the doors of the basilica of Lianta’ar had been locked and bolted for the night, before he emerged from the sacristy and slowly made his way up the circular rise of stairs that led to the altar.
The light of the star shone down through the windows in the ceiling of the basilica, bathing the altar and most of the inner sanctuary in a silver light. As he ascended the stairs in that light, Constantin had the dreamy sensation of following a shaft of moonlight into the heavens.
This holy place, this citadel of a dead star that had fallen in another time, was one of the few places in the world he had ever felt peace. Something in the ethereal glow reminded him of another place, a realm between worlds, life and death, where his old life had ended and his new one began.
Born of an unknown Cymrian mother whose face he still remembered, even though they had shared life for only the space of one breath, fathered by a demon, his early existence had been one of cherished violence and artful bloodshed. Constantin had been, a few short years before in the counted time of the material world, a gladiator in the arenas of Sorbold, a merciless killing machine himself, until he had been rescued and taken to the realm that he was now recalling, a place of dreams known as the domain of the Lord and Lady Rowan, a place beyond the Veil of Hoen, the Old Cymrian word for joy. Those entities, the manifestation of healing dreams and peaceful death, had taught him much; time in their world passed in the blink of an eye as it was counted in the material world. Gone from sight only a few short months, he had aged a lifetime, had studied, been steeped in wisdom, and come to realize that the ignominy of his birth was not a stain but a badge of honor. He had set about being worthy of it when the Scales chose him and elevated him to the Patriarchy.
The sickening irony of his life’s story twisted his viscera now. He thought back to the words he had spoken to the Lord Cymrian and the king of the Firbolg upon hearing of Talquist’s elevation to Emperor.
You could not have brought me worse news.
Why? the king of the Bolg had demanded. Tell us why.
His answer echoed in the darkest recesses of his mind.
Talquist is a merchant in only the kindest usage of the word. He is a slave trader of the most brutal order, the secret scion of a fleet of pirate ships, which trade in human booty, selling the able-bodied into the mines, or worse, the arenas, using the rest as raw materials for other goods, like candles rendered from the flesh of the old, bone meal from the very young. Thousands have met their deaths in the arenas of Sorbold; I cannot even fathom how many more have found it in the mines, or the salt beds, or at the bottom of the sea. He is a monster with a gentleman’s smile and a common touch, but a monster all the same.
And yet the Scales confirmed him, the Lord Cymrian insisted. I witnessed it myself.
As he reached the top step, Constantin thought about the incredulous expression in the eyes of the Bolg king, a man whose previous life had no doubt held much of the same sort of experiences as his own. Why did you not say something before you left? King Achmed had demanded. If you knew this was a potential outcome of the selection process, why did you not intervene?
The bands of platinum that edged the altar were gleaming brilliantly. His own reply reverberated in his head, nauseating him.
Because it is not for me to decry the Scales. They are what confirmed me to my position in the first place. How could I decree their wisdom to be faulty without invoking a paradox? Besides, to acknowledge my past in the arena would be to open the realm of the Rowans to scrutiny that would not be welcome there. And finally, he was not the only man with blood on his hands who was in the running. If I were to decry everyone I thought unfit to be Emperor, Sorbold would be a leaderless state.