A voice from the back of the wrecked hall cheered, “Yes!”
“Preposterous!” a fat woman in satin snarled, and a silken-cloaked man beside her protested, “How can we trust them?”
Another voice called, “It’s our only chance!”
In the great hall the Ferenzi nobility squabbled among themselves. A number gathered around the canopied throne, harassing the half-asleep High King Magorian. And as is the way with half-breed mages, no matter how they may seem to be accepted into polite society, Corinna Halfelven’s murder was not officially protested. The High Wizard Oderic felt suddenly bent with age.
“The plans of evil are cunning,” he whispered, watching the hall full of milling people: how they forgot and turned their backs on the strange orc warriors, how they tolerated in that smashed audience chamber the presence of Darkness Incarnate.
“You think you got problems.” The orc field marshal dropped his pipe-weed cigar and crushed it under one heavy boot. His pit-deep eyes gleamed at Oderic.
“I got two of them on my back. Not that he’s much, compared to Her. I can hack it. And She may be well out to lunch, but yours is out to lunch, dinner, and breakfast the following day…”
Oderic brushed pipe-weed ash from his tweed jacket, his piercing blue gaze searching out the High King Magorian. Ashnak and the High Wizard Oderic exchanged the kind of glance that ensues between the servants of masters who are, for one reason or another, somewhat unpredictable.
Ashnak added, “And I got you Light guys on my back and my marines getting chewed up in the boonies. Bitchin’, ain’t it?”
The emergency backup magical spells cut in, and the Assembly Rooms’ lights whirred into action. Small magics began to mend the drapes, reglaze the windows, and replenish the buffet table. Halfling servants brought ladies their fans, gloves, and cantrips from the cloakrooms.
Oderic took a deep breath. All certainties gone, he ventured to say, “Sir orc, you have some plan for combating this monstrous menace that we face?”
“Oh, sure.” The orc buffed a brass-capped tusk with his gnarled knuckle. His eyes gleamed. “But, plans later. First—we’ve got an election to hold. Chahkamnit, we’re all done here, bring her in.”
A strange whup-whup-whup sounded beyond the windows. The High Wizard Oderic walked forward to see what devilish engine was settling down outside the palace.
“An election,” the wizard mused. “Elections can be won, sir orc. But they can also be lost. What chance can the Lord of Evil possibly stand of winning the hearts and minds of the free peoples of the south?”
5
The Inland Sea and the Western Ocean are kept from joining, at their most adjacent point, by a ribbon of land and the mountain chain known as The Spine. The road through The Spine’s magnificent peaks runs from Herethlion to the south, with only one settlement of any consequence at which to break a journey or hold a battle.
Towards the end of an afternoon, a sizable crowd in woollen tunics and fur leggings surrounded a covered wagon parked in the main square of Spine Gap. Those inhabitants of the town who did not hear the thumping drums and tinkling bells were swiftly informed by their neighbours and arrived hurriedly, panting, in case they should miss it. A large number of the town’s motley population, composed mostly of poor labourers and elderly females, herded themselves into the space between the town hall and the tavern.
“Keep an eye on the town hall,” the halfling Will Brandiman whispered from inside the wagon. “We don’t want the councillors over here.”
“They’re richer,” Ned Brandiman pointed out.
“They’re smarter. That’s how they got to be rich in the first place. What I always say,” Will remarked, “is that robbing the poor is easier.”
“It’s the Holy One’s mission!” a female dwarf cried, wiping the remains of her tea from her beard.
“My brethren!” Will Brandiman let down the backboard at the rear of the wagon and emerged onto the platform it made. Above him a banner read Mission of Light—Souls Saved—A Refusal of Credit Often Offends.
The assembled dwarves, frost giants, half-elves, and Men of the town of Spine Gap gazed up at him. A frost giant rumbled, “Amen!”
“My sisters!” The Reverend William Brandiman threw out his arms in a benevolent, all-embracing gesture, smiling with gleaming white teeth. He wore a tightly buttoned black doublet and breeches and a small white collar devoid of lace; his dyed black hair was slicked back from his brow. His eyes blazed down upon the crowd. “You poor sinners! I truly believe you do not know how you suffer. My heart goes out to you!”
Another halfling stomped out from behind the curtain that closed off the covered part of the wagon. She hitched up the skirts of her red robe. The nun’s habit, whip, and spiked belt marked her as one of the Little Sisters of Mortification. A red wimple covered her hair, disclosing only a round face to which lip-paint, eye-paint, and rouge had been added with a hand more enthusiastic than skillful.
“Brother, brother,” Ned Brandiman rebuked in a rich contralto, adjusting his wimple. “You have not yet told these good people who we are.”
Will swept his oiled hair back from his brow with his fingers, and then brought his hands palms together in front of him. “True, Mother Edwina, true. Know then, you good people of Spine Gap—for I know, despite everything, that you must be good people—who it is that speaks to you. I am the Reverend William Aloysius Brandiman, of the Mission of the Holy One. This, my sister, is the good Abbess Edwina. We have come to bring you the Light!”
“Don’t need no light,” a somewhat obtuse hill troll remarked from the front row of the crowd. “Sun’s still up.”
A number of heads turned to the west to confirm that the sun was, indeed, still visible. The peaks and high flanks of the Spine Mountains themselves blocked the view to north and south.
“I mean the Light of Virtue.” The Reverend William Brandiman bared his teeth in a dazzling smile. “I mean that Light without which we are all lost!”
Several mail-shirted dwarves in the crowd cried, “Amen, brother!”
“Oh, I feel the sin!” the good Abbess Edwina cried. She took a tambourine from behind her back and struck it to emphasise her words. “I feel the sin!”
Ting!
“I feel the misery of those sunk in depravity, striving to escape, yet not knowing which way to turn!”
Clash!
Two or three female Men in woollen gowns clapped their hands to the tambourine.
“I hear the voices of souls crying out, save me! save me! Crying save me before it is too late!”
Ting! Clang!
A raffish-looking male Man wiped his beard on his sleeve. “If it’s too late already, I’m going back in the tavern before Old Joss closes up for the night.”
A half-elf shushed him.
“Ah, my son, you may wish to do so.” The Reverend Brandiman oiled his way across the small platform and stood beaming down at the Man. “But your soul says, ‘That tavern is a place of sin and depravity, where Men gamble and lose the honest money they make at their labour, where the drink is served watered, the bar-maids have foul diseases, and no one dares complain for fear of violent retaliation.’”
The Man scratched his lice-ridden hair.