From Across the Clouded Range

  #

  Far away from that remote village, a circle of five old men in heavy brown robes began to stir. The robes were rough wool and hung off the slight figures, but they were spotless and showed not a wrinkle. Their only adornments were wooden pendants that hung from their necks, lost except for the light they reflected from their polished surfaces. The men had clean-shaven faces worn by the ravages of time so that the sparse light that penetrated the room’s high windows etched deep shadows in their surfaces. Every eye was open, but they saw nothing. No movement could be detected beneath their robes – the men did not appear to breathe. The room that held them was equally still: not a whisper of breeze stirred the air, not even a fly disrupted the silence.

  Slowly, the men came out of the trance that held them. They looked haggard, as if they had aged many years in the last few minutes. They shook their heads in unison and brought their hands as one to their temples. They took a single deep breath, and each accepted a small cup of water from a silent young man. The attendants took exactly five steps to supply the water, handed the water to their masters over their left shoulders, and waited exactly seventeen heartbeats to retrieve the empty cups. As one, they returned to their places, each facing a separate wall in the pentagonal room.

  “The pattern has been set.” The oldest of the men broke the silence. His voice was soft and rasped as if he had not spoken in years. The act appeared to cause him pain. “You know what needs to be done, your Grace? You are prepared to see it through?”

  “There is no other way?” a man across from the first whispered. He was younger than the others and seemed less comfortable in his surroundings. But his robes were the finest, and his pendant was a work of high art.

  “Even if there is, the pattern has been chosen. Its weaving is already begun, and I see no other that can save us.”

  There was a long pause, but the conversation lingered in the room. “The signs are clear, your Grace. Even you have seen them,” a third man took up the argument. His voice was little more than a whisper. “We have done all we can. It is up to you to . . . .” The man trailed off as the first held up a hand in caution.

  “Your argument disrupts the Tapestry.” The first man’s voice was stronger but held no emotion, was used in a perfect monotone. “There are already too many doubts. Our power is not near what it was when the Church was strong.” The man stopped and fell back into his trance. The others did not move, did not breathe. “The Tapestry is already too tangled to read. No certainty can exist except that the Lawbreakers will return. Their power is far off, but it is growing. This pattern we strive to create is the only one I see that will allow the Order to survive.”

  “I will do my part,” the outsider sighed. “I will pull the weft as needed. The Church will do everything in its power to see this pattern through.”

  “Do not fail us, Xi Valati, or everything we know will be lost. The Order will fall.”

  Chapter 1