In a large courtyard at the city’s heart-and Nathaniel knew instinctively that this city boasted more people than Temperance-people had gathered for a massive market. The Shedashee were well represented, with tribes he recognized from the east, and those he had dim knowledge of from tales. He even recognized symbols of tribes that no longer existed, which marked the vision as having taken place a long time ago.
In and among the Shedashee, moving between traders, laughing as did people in Temperance as they strolled the streets, were a golden people. Taller than the Shedashee and more slender, with golden hair and golden flesh, they appeared so achingly beautiful that they made Nathaniel weep with desire. Men and women alike wore broad girdles decorated with jewels and golden buttons. Pectorals of gold, worked with lapis and turquoise flashed in the sun. Nathaniel saw not a single weapon among them.
The golden people named themselves Noragah in his mind. They treated with the Shedashee fairly and happily. As the market day ended, the Shedashee retreated to the forests, and the vision vanished in a long night, which passed in an eyeblink. When it returned, the Noragah still strode among the Shedashee, but the Twilight People were not there as friends. They had been enslaved and their bonds appeared fashioned from the same magick that rose in wondrous fountains.
Fountains which now had become fouled and oily, stinking of rotting flesh. Noragah lashed out with magick, killing Shedashee, torturing the land. They forced it to produce food quickly, as had Deacon Stone, but the Noragah never bothered to harvest it. They would let it rot in the fields, then use magick to raise another crop. As they had enslaved the Shedashee, so they enslaved the very world in which they lived.
Nathaniel tried to pull back from the city, for he could feel the evil pulsing from its heart. Fight as he could, however, the city held him. He did not want to watch, but he recognized the need.
Winged demons followed their masters, doing their bidding and inflicting cruelty on slaves for pure amusement. And though this cruelty entertained the Noragah for a while, it was not long enough. Cities raised armies of the bat-winged demons, and the behemoth which had come after Kamiskwa in the Temple. There must have been rules to their wars, but Nathaniel could not bear to study them long enough to learn. If score was kept, if points were earned, it seemed they went for the most spectacular and torturous methods of destroying an army.
One of the Noragah tired of the game as quickly as Nathaniel. He removed his army from sport and used it to conquer his neighbors. From cities hidden in forests and plains across the continent, rainbows of energy arced through the sky and flooded the valley. The Noragah of that valley grew prosperous. Other Noragah sent their daughters as tribute and accepted sons as governors.
And all around, the land sickened and died. What had been lush and green, turned grey. Swaths of forest burned or blew over. The earth became so exhausted that even more magick could not make it fruitful. So the Noragah began killing the Shedashee and irrigating the fields with their blood. Whole tribes vanished to slake the earth’s thirst and yet even that was not enough.
So the leader of the Noragah wove great magicks which would allow him to tap the blood of the land, running hot and deep. He wanted to raise stone rivers and cover the face of the earth with molten rock, to make it anew.
And he would have succeeded, save for the coming of the dragons.
Chapter Thirty-three
16 June 1767 Strake House Temperance Bay, Mystria
Ian Rathfield leaned heavily on a stout walking stick in the parlor and smiled as Catherine Strake ushered Bishop Bumble into the room. “So good to see you again, your Grace,” Ian said.
“I have been remiss in failing to visit before this.” The round man clapped his hands. “Please, you should not have risen. Sit down.”
Ian eased himself into a chair. Catherine busied herself adjusting cushions and raised his cast foot onto an ottoman. “Thank you, Catherine.”
“My pleasure, Ian.” She straightened up. “I shall bring tea, then leave the two of you to your business.”
“Most kind, Mrs. Strake. And perhaps some of those cakes my wife sent along, on a plate. Do save some for yourself and your daughter.” Bumble smiled. “Where is little Miranda?”
“She is at Prince Haven. It was thought best she stay there so she would not disturb Colonel Rathfield during his convalescence.”
Ian chuckled. “By all reports she has been very helpful with Becca Green. She is mature beyond her years, is Miranda.”
“And a blessing upon this house and the next, I see.” Bumble clasped his hands together in his lap as Catherine swept out of the room. “I apologize for only having sent Mr. Beecher to visit you, but there has been a great deal of work to be done in anticipation.”
Ian’s eyes narrowed. “I must have missed something. Anticipation of…?”
“Of putting Ezekiel Fire on trial for heresy.”
“Really.” Ian’s flesh tightened. “I must say, Bishop, that I do not remember anything out of the ordinary. No bloody sacrifices, no obscene rituals.”
“One could hardly expect they would reveal the same to outsiders.” The older man cocked his head to the side. “Still, the Happy Valley community practiced plural marriage, worshipped golden tablets, and was made up of people willing to sacrifice themselves and their children, and did so beyond the borders of Crown-sanctioned holdings. This also placed him outside the jurisdiction of the Church. He had no bishop above him and belonged to no established diocese.”
Ian winced as he lifted and resettled his leg. “I don’t wish to argue with you, but I believe there are a number of colonial villages in the west in which plural marriage is practiced. I sincerely doubt all of them are formally part of a diocese.”
Bumble raised his hands. “There may have to be allowances for what some people do in innocence. Whereas, Ezekiel Fire chose a murderer and notorious drunkard as his lieutenant.”
“We were told that Rufus Branch had not touched a drop of alcohol in years.”
“Believe me, Colonel, I do not fault you nor anyone else for being deceived by Fire.” The man turned. “Mrs. Strake, you really shouldn’t have.”
Catherine returned with a silver service in hand and set the tray down on a small table. She poured through a strainer for each man, adding two spoonfuls of sugar for the cleric. She handed Ian his tea, strong and black.
Bumble looked up. “You don’t take sugar or milk, Colonel?”
Catherine answered for him. “Colonel Rathfield developed a taste for his tea without adulterations in the field. One cannot always be certain to get milk and sugar on the march.”
Bumble stirred quietly. “Yes, ghastly thing, being on the march. I joined them, you know, going to Anvil Lake. Mud to my waist, biting bugs, profanity, all quite horrible.”
Catherine plated a small cake and offered it to Ian. “To say nothing of the actual fighting, your Grace?”
“Yes, of course. As your husband might know, Mrs. Strake, or the Colonel here.”
Ian watched Catherine stiffen and leaned forward. “Catherine, if you would not mind. That cushion. I promise, it will be the last I bother you.”