The benison smiled. “Of course. And now, if you would be so kind as to have your guards escort me to Terreanfor, I must offer my prayers for the souls of the departed holy men, and for the nation of Sorbold. You may wish to arrange for several watches, as the service will be quite lengthy; I must intone the blessing for each of the lost, and, as you know, a great number of priests were lost. And this is a very large nation.”
“Of course. Consider it done, Your Grace.” Talquist signaled to the captain of the guard. “Escort His Grace to the Earth Basilica, and make certain that he is uninterrupted in his prayers. No one is to enter the basilica without my express permission.” The guard nodded and withdrew.
“Thank you, my son,” said Nielash Mousa as the soldiers took up formation around him. “May your actions be returned to you a hundredfold.”
He bowed slightly and walked away, both men fully understanding the intention in each of their words.
45
The regiment of guards followed the Blesser of Sorbold on the long walk to Night Mountain within which Terreanfor was secreted, through a wide pass in the dry mountains that seemed to go on forever.
Finally at midday they reached the single entrance to the basilica, a lowlying door carved into the mountain, an overhanging ledge assuring that sunlight was not let inside. Beside the opening was a large, flat ceremonial stone; the benison signaled to two of the guards, one of whom had been grudgingly enlisted to carry a golden symbol of the sun atop a long pole, the other of whom was bearing a flask of holy oil. These tasks were traditionally performed by priests of Terreanfor, so the guards had little choice but to undertake them now.
The benison ignored their obvious consternation and ugly expressions, freezing his own aspect into a mask of serenity. He gestured to the first of the soldiers to come forward and place the golden symbol on the stone, which he quickly did, then stepped away, as if he feared proximity would yield divine retribution. The benison then reached for the oil, which he poured onto the golden symbols; he stood back to wait for the sun to kindle the oil into the only kind of fire that would be allowed into the basilica in shielded lanterns of cold light.
While the benison waited, he watched bemusedly from beneath his hood the growing boredom and irritation of the guards. Interesting that you can stand watch in a mountain pass or a field column for days on end without losing focus, but a few moments at the feet of the All-God makes you nervous to the point of dereliction of duty, he mused. Well, we will try not to keep you waiting too long.
When finally the sun overhead sparked a flame, Nielash Mousa transferred the fire reverently into a small ceremonial lantern; he was lighting it for tradition’s sake only. Having been all but raised in Terreanfor, he could find his way around the basilica in the dark with his eyes closed.
Once the wick had kindled, he turned to the guards.
“Thank you for your assistance, my sons,” he said graciously. “Now I will be undertaking my prayers and burial rituals; since that will take much longer than your watch here, I bid you goodbye.”
The soldiers nodded and walked away, taking up their positions at the door of the basilica. The benison ducked below the overhang, uttered the words of opening, and entered the basilica, closing the doors slowly and quietly behind him.
Immediately he could hear the song of the Earth ringing in the depths of the basilica, the slow, melodic timbre of the world’s beating heart. It was a sound that resonated in his soul, and had done so from the first moment he had become aware of it; its timbre was so deep, its tune so subtle, that until he had spent many years in the depths of Terreanfor, he did not even know it existed. Now it was immediately recognizable, like the voice of his mother, calling to him from her heart.
At last, alone in his beloved sanctuary, the benison broke down. He fell to his knees just beyond the doorway and wept, mourning the men who had served tirelessly with the same love of the dark earth, who had prayed beside him and stood vigil over this last enclave of one of the Creator’s Paints, the primordial element from which the world itself was made.
The Earth wept along in unison.
Finally, when he could weep no more, Nielash Mousa rose slowly, with the hesitance of age, and descended the passageway leading to the basilica proper.
Down here in the interior of the Earth cathedral, the dry, stony exterior, dead from contact with the heat of the upworld, quickly gave way to the fresh, cool scent of moist, living earth. The heat of the Sorbold desert dissipated, replaced by colder air, heavy with life. The lamp in the benison’s hand reflected off the smooth walls, trim and clean, gloriously colored in random swirls and stripes of deep, rich brown, gold and vermilion, green and purple, the hues of life that made their way up from the primordial world and bloomed on its surface in the form of flowers and wheat, grass and grapes, and all the outer signs that deep below the crust, the Earth was alive.
The noise of the upworld faded away, leaving nothing but silence and the resonating song of the Earth, growing louder with each step he took deeper into the basilica. He followed the song under the high archway that was the entrance to the Antechamber of the Sisters, which housed altars to three of the other primordial elements. Within that vast circular chamber were alcoves containing a vent to a flamewell from the center of the Earth honoring the element of fire, a bubbling stream to honor Water, and a captured gust of wind that eternally praised the element of Air. The fourth Sister, the element of Ether, could be found deeper within the basilica, where no light of any kind was allowed, in the glowing rocks and organisms that contained its cold light, light left over from the birth of the universe.
The benison doused his lantern, plunging the antechamber into appropriate darkness.
Through the outer sanctum, beneath the gargantuan columns of Living Stone fashioned in the shapes of tall trees filled with earthen birds, past the towering statues of elephants and tirabouri, gazelles and lions, through the archway guarded by titanic soldiers, one of which, to his horror, was missing, the benison made his way quickly to the inner sanctum, the holy altar of elemental earth. He could hear the song of it emanating in the darkness, singing a dirge so painful that it brought him to tears again.
The basilica, his basilica, had been ravaged.
Never again, he thought, shaking his head as he bowed low before the altar. Never again.
In his ears the words of the Patriarch were still ringing.
Nielash Mousa, tarry. Safeguard Terreanfor.
I understand, Your Grace, he whispered again.
His eyes dry, his expression resolute, the benison began to chant, opening his mind and the elemental altar to the petitions the congregation of Sorbold had directed toward it. When the rite of receiving was concluded, he began the rite of sending, directing those petitions along the Chain of Prayer toward Sepulvarta, where the Patriarch would offer them to the All-God.
Once his offering was finished, the benison began the rituals of burial, the rites for the dead. For each of the acolytes that was murdered in the manse he bowed five times over the altar of Living Stone and intoned the blessing.
Oh our mother the Earth, who waits for us beneath the everlasting sky, shelter us, sustain us, give us rest.
Finally, when the last of his priestly duties was finished, he walked through the inner sanctum, up the wide, dark stone stairs to the base of the burial tomb of Sorbold’s emperors. Less than a year before he had performed the funerals of the Dowager Empress and her son, Crown Prince Vyshla, who had been taken by death within an hour of one another. It had not occurred to him at the time that they might have been murdered; now the sickening realization of how it may have come to pass added to the nausea of the rest of Talquist’s crimes.