The light that was beginning to form around the base of the mast solidified and descended in a gleaming column, encircling the Patriarch.
In one final step of the chant, Constantin raised the pitch and intensity one last time.
From across the continent, where the spires of the other four basilicas dedicated to the three elements that had been born in this world—earth, air, and fire—had been realigned, beams of similar radiance shot through the sky, connecting to the ray that was emanating forth from the mast atop Abbat Mythlinis.
The four rays of light converged over the central southern point of the continent, the enormous Spire that stood on the hilltop across from the basilica dedicated to the element of ether, starlight, the only element to be born before the world itself was born, according to the Creation myth of the faithful.
Too distant to see, the Patriarch could nonetheless feel and hear the song of the Spire as the piece of the star atop it joined in the chorus of praise.
Uniting the five elements from elevations across the Middle Continent.
Light of intense radiance began to pour forth from the Patriarch’s eyes.
In the harbor, the sea waves roared.
The flames in the few torches that had been kept lit leapt and crackled.
The packed sand on the harbor beach trembled and split, leaving great fissures in the ground.
The winds picked up, whipping even more furiously than they had been in the course of the rainstorm.
And, for the briefest of moments, the cloud-riven sky cleared, and the stars shone down on the embattled and ash-covered land.
As the ground of each of the basilicas was resanctified, returned to its Blessed state.
From the doorway of the basilica, one of the soldiers fired a crossbow bolt into the column of light at the Patriarch.
It passed through the light and fell to the floor on the other end of the basilica, clinking impotently.
* * *
The Sorbold soldiers froze.
In the center of the basilica, a tall robed and hooded figure was standing astride the fountain beneath a cone of light that filled the dark, cavernous cathedral with intense blue radiance. Its robes were blowing about it in a spinning wind that was whipping down from the spire atop the building.
“Wha—what is happening in here?” Nince murmured.
Jirunt raised his crossbow and pointed. “Step out of there and get on the ground,” he demanded in the harsh Sorbold tongue.
The figure said nothing, but the light that had been shining from its eyes dimmed gradually until it winked out.
Around them, the light blazing in the long, thick blocks of glass and in through the portholes atop the walls faded as well, leaving only the pale, blue-green glow of the churning sea beyond.
The wind that had been circling in cyclonic ferocity a moment before diminished down to a gentle circling breeze beneath the mast. It flapped the robes of the figure, snapping the material of its cloak around it.
* * *
“On the ground!” Jirunt screamed.
The figure did not move.
Jirunt fired the crossbow again.
The bolt did not fall to the ground, but seemed to disappear into the figure’s robes.
Jirunt drew his sword and strode up the aisle to the fountain at the center of the basilica and the figure standing behind it. Nince drew as well and trotted in step behind him.
“Orlandan scum—” the Sorbold soldier snarled as he charged.
* * *
When the connection to the Chain of Prayer was complete, the light diminished and winked out, leaving the Patriarch empty and bereft.
Just in time to absorb a crossbow bolt in the forearm.
The power of all of the prayers on the continent channeled up through the mast and tied to the other elemental basilicas had made him ethereal, formless while he was sending the power of the supplications up the Chain, so when the first bolt soared through him, it passed through and fell, harmless, to the ground.
The second, however, pierced his forearm.
Constantin blinked; otherwise he did not react.
But there was something about the injury, something reminiscent of his days, long ago, in the gladiatorial arenas of Sorbold, that made his blood run differently than it had since his time in the realm of the Rowans, the place where he had learned to let go of his past sins and the life he had known.
The sting of the bolt was minimal; though he had lived the equivalent of six hundred years behind the Veil of Hoen, there was enough Cymrian blood in his veins from his unknown mother to have maintained the muscle tone, the strong constitution that had been both his birthright and the result of his gladiatorial training. In his day, he had been a champion in the arena exactly for those reasons, had been able to press on when injured even to the point of death, so nothing as minuscule as the muscle damage and blood loss from a bolt injury even threw off his balance.
The sky-blue eyes narrowed.
Constantin inhaled.
The air that came into his lungs felt different from what he had been breathing in the throes of religious ecstasy a moment before: the sweet, rich air of spiritual renewal, of unconditional acceptance, not just of him, but of every one of the faithful.
This next breath of air was thinner, and had the smell of the arena in his sinuses, perhaps also in his imagination, but the next breath carried with it the smell of blood and sand, the constant scent and feel of the arena floor.
His eyes beneath his pilgrim’s hood sighted keenly on the men charging down the aisle at him, armed with swords, and his muscles tensed, as they had so many times in combat.
He did not move.
The first opponent was slightly ahead and heavier, his age-old battle sense told him. The fire of anger was in the man’s eyes and muscles, while the one behind him was a follower, more than a little afraid.
Constantin waited.
Then, when the two Sorbold soldiers were within two body lengths of him, the Patriarch’s muscle memory of his years in the arena snapped to life.
With the graceful movement of a discus thrower, the former gladiator bent to the ground and swept up two armfuls of sand and pebbles, detritus from the fountainbed where the spewing stream of ocean water had deposited it over time. Like the sand of the arena floor, it was good material for blinding, and with a long horizontal sweep of his arm he hurled it directly into the faces of the Sorbolds, stunning them and throwing them off balance.
With molten anger rising up inside him from a place of memory he had long buried, Constantin seized the first man’s sword arm that was swinging wildly in the air above him and dragged the weapon deeply across his throat, tossing his bleeding corpse to the ground like parchment paper.
The second man, having been behind a few steps, had just enough time to see the arm of the Patriarch, a crossbow bolt embedded in the forearm, cross his throat as he was seized and twisted in one flipping motion like a rag doll. He heard the crunching snap of his own neck as he fell to the floor, broken and paralyzed, choking on his own blood.
The world dimmed quickly in the darkness of the temple into the black of oblivion, leaving only one last thought in his vanishing consciousness—what just happened?
* * *
Constantin stood, suddenly winded.
The rage that had caused his teeth to clench to the point of soreness drained out of him like water off a slanted roof; it ran across his burning shoulders to his arms and down off of them, rushing off his hands and dissipating into the night air of the cavernous building.
He looked around; save for the broken bodies on the floor at his feet and the sound of the churning of the waves, there was no sound or sight other than heavy darkness.
He took the shaft of the bolt in his arm in his fist and, bracing his foot against the fountain edge, pulled it from his forearm, tearing a vast hole in the muscle. Then he tossed the bolt aside and wrapped the fingers of his hand with the Ring of Wisdom around the gushing
wound and willed it to heal, a test of his connection to the All-God.
The ring, its positive and negative markings within a clear stone, gleamed in the darkness of the basilica.
Beneath his fingers, the bleeding wound glowed warm, then cooled again.
Then the ring returned to its normal state.
Constantin examined his forearm; it was whole.
He exhaled deeply, then put the broken bolt in the folds of the jerkin the second man wore and hoisted both bodies over his shoulders, carrying them out into the streets of the basilica.
As he passed through the door with the dead men slung over his shoulders, he turned one last time and looked up at the mast of the basilica of Abbat Mythlinis.
Salt spray and wind were spinning down into the cathedral from the slits in the spire, just as they had been when he had entered.
But now, the ground was warm and solid, and the light of the waves of the sea battering the glass blocks gleamed blue, brightening the floor of the place.
Blessed ground.
He allowed a small smile to cross his lips, then walked steadily through the entry doors with his burden, closed them behind him, and carried the bodies to the wreckage of the manse, where he dumped them unceremoniously in the ash amid the skeletons.
Then he turned and made his way in the direction of Sepulvarta, the City of Reason, through the battering wind of the rainy night.
NAVARNE CITY
Gwydion Navarne drew his camp blanket up closer to his neck, covering his up-ear. He had spent each night since the battle’s end after his return from Haguefort encamped with the soldiers of his regiment, billeting in a tent of the same modest manufacture as those his lowest-rank soldiers occupied. He was grateful for the privacy of his solitude, because the moaning and shuddering groans from the wounded that continued, unsated by day’s end and uncomforted with night’s arrival, left him shuddering in a most unregal manner.
Constantin had departed for Avonderre a sennight before, leaving the young duke in charge of a dying city. Or, more accurately, it was a city of dying men and women, Orlandan and Sorbold, some of Cymrian descent, more not, tended to by the injured and those that had escaped injury of the body, all of whom were moving among their suffering fellow humans, ghostlike and hollow-eyed from lack of sleep.
The images that haunted Gwydion’s dreams now were no longer the memories of what he had seen in his family’s keep. Rather, they were the recollections of the battle for Navarne, the pitting of Ashe’s forces of the Cymrian Alliance against the invading tide of desert dwellers and Icemen from the Hintervold, all grimly intent on taking or holding the citadel on the eastern edge of the Great Forest.
And for all that Gwydion had been struck with a terror that had not consumed him in his first experience with warfare in the farming settlement Anborn had converted into an armored garrison, what had really terrified him was watching the man who had stood in Anborn’s stead in Navarne.
The Patriarch of Sepulvarta.
Disturbing as the seventeen-year-old found war in general, the sight of Constantin in battle was so unsettling that he could hardly bring himself to close his eyes at night.
The Patriarch, whom Gwydion had met on a few occasions prior to his “surrender” at the gate of Navarne’s encampment, had always been a man of religious bearing, often garbed in the robes of a simple pilgrim, with a sense of peace in his aspect.
So the sight of him, armored in nothing more than a mail shirt and armed with a spear and a sword, fighting in brutal hand-to-hand combat, had shaken the youth to his core.
There was something almost obscene in the beauty of Constantin’s battle movements, his thunderous strides as he approached the enemy, sweeping men from their feet with the spear and stepping on their throats as he dispatched them rapidly. Gwydion, alone among both the defenders of the Alliance and the attackers from the north and south, was aware of the Patriarch’s past in the gladiatorial arenas of Sorbold, had understood his insistence that he would lead the fighting on the ground while others manned the walls or the ramparts with missile weapons, arms that he had never used.
The sight of the holy man, his teeth bared in hatred, tearing men limb from limb in the blood-splashed streets was something Gwydion feared would never leave his mind.
So when the aide-de-camp arrived to wake him, informing him that the Patriarch had returned to the capital, Gwydion had come forth from his tent shaking and covered with sweat, having been woken from a nightmare in which the Patriarch had been putting everyone in the city to the sword.
He swallowed his terror and followed the soldier to the citadel’s central courtyard.
Gwydion was relieved to see the religious leader in the dim light of the campfires and torch stalks; Constantin’s face was visible, his hood down, and the serenity that had been the hallmark of his aspect before the war had returned. His eyes, searing blue in the colors of the Cymrian dynasties, sighted on Gwydion, and he walked away from the captain who had been addressing him before the man was even finished with his report.
“Young Navarne,” he said, approaching Gwydion, “come with me.”
“Yes sir,” Gwydion said eagerly. “Where are we going?”
“To wrest Sepulvarta from her kidnappers.”
Return from Across the Sea
38
VLANE, MANOSSE
By the time Ashe returned to the harbor in Vlane, the fleet had indeed assembled, every magnificent warship, each merchant and passenger vessel equipped with ballistae and catapults, the great smoking braziers amidships being stoked with the makings of a substance called Rancid Fire, a type of coal that was almost impossible to put out. The sailors and soldiers of Manosse had received the harbormaster’s summons and had responded with surprising alacrity; now the wharf, which routinely docked over a thousand ships in a day’s time, was crackling with excitement, anger, and energy.
Ashe was amazed.
He followed the harbormaster, who was waiting for him at the pier, to the ship that had been selected for him to captain, a two-masted brigantine sailing under the flag of Manosse, but with a secondary banner in his own colors and with the symbol of the Cymrian Alliance proudly displayed.
On the stern, the name Valiant was proudly displayed.
“A good thought,” he had said to the harbormaster, who smiled.
“We’re keeping a secondary billet here for defense, but everything else is going with you, m’lord,” the man said pleasantly, though there were obvious signs of concern in the wrinkles around his eyes.
He piped Ashe aboard and saluted him, then disappeared into the noise of the growing crowd on the docks.
Ashe greeted the first mate, a Manossian man of mixed human and Lirin blood named Stavos, and was quickly briefed on the crew and the headings. Then, while the crew finished loading and running the rope check, he went to the prow of the ship and looked off into the distance, at the eastern edge of the harbor and the open sea beyond.
And, for the briefest of moments, allowed himself to revel in the memory from two years back again, an earlier moment from the same trip he had recalled upon arriving in Manosse that morning.
He thought back to the elaborate surprise he had contrived for Rhapsody upon realizing that, in spite of trekking across the world inside its depths and through its heart, she had still never seen the sea. He had arranged for a visit to Avonderre, her first, and had taken her out to the harbor to the quay, where a beautiful ship was moored, and had offered her a tour of the vessel, which she eagerly accepted.
He closed his eyes again, remembering the joy on her face, her hands over her mouth, as she stood at the prow trying to quell her excitement as she looked west, just as he was now looking east out of the harbor that had been their destination. That joy had exploded into a palpable thrill when he told her they were sailing to Manosse, all packed and ready; her reaction had been so effervescent that he had felt it physically, from the roots of his hair to the heels of his feet.
 
; He had taken her aloft on the mast once they were out on the open sea, the dragon cherishing her excitement as if it were the greatest wonder in the world. After holding her, cradling her against his chest in the crow’s nest, pointing out pods of accompanying dolphins and breaching whales, the ocean spilling over the horizon under the welkin of a sky more full of stars than she had ever seen, and the aurora borealis coloring the northern heavens, she had turned and given him a lingering kiss of grateful joy tinged with the salt of tears that he could still taste if he recalled it.
That night, he had held her tenderly again in the beautifully outfitted cabin belowdecks, steadying her in the rocking of the ship, luxuriating in the afterglow of passionate lovemaking that was still sparkling from her exhilaration. With his eyes closed now, he could still hear the words she had whispered to him then when their lips had finally parted.
Sam?
Yes, my love?
Now I can see you even more clearly.
He had smiled at her in the dark of the cabin. Really?
Abovedeck, I mean. With the ocean all around you, I can more fully see the power of the element of water in you; your steadiness, your consistency, but also your ever-changing mood; your strength, your depth. I understand you so much more deeply now that I’ve seen the sea. Thank you for showing it to me.
He had sighed in her arms and rested his lips on her cheek, his forehead against her temple. Wrapping his body and his life around her, for her sole protection, the desire and commitment to keep her safe ringing happily through his heart.
Will you bring me here again? When we are ready to have children, can you bring me here, for at least one of their conceptions? Make love with me as we just did, so that the sea will always be part of him or her?
Anything, he had whispered. Anything you ever want. Anything.
The memory faded as he choked on the fear that rose to take its place.
Because she was not safe. For all he knew, she was not even alive.
He grasped the rail, steadying himself against the ire of the wyrm churning within him.