Children of Fire (5 page)

“Summon the doctor!” he ordered one of the guards as he knelt down beside the bed and grasped her hand, placing his other palm on her forehead.

“She's burning up! Open the windows!”

Rianna clenched her eyes shut and moaned as another contraction tore through her, clutching desperately onto Drake's hand until it passed. When she opened her eyes again she saw the drapes had been pulled aside and the shutters thrown wide to reveal the Burning Moon, now hanging low in the gray sky of the predawn.

Against her will, her mind's eye conjured up the final gruesome image that haunted her dreams: the King's broken body at the manticore's feet beneath that same blood-red moon. The vision was shredded by the next wave of contractions, the pain driving everything else to the fringes of her awareness.

Yet even as she fought to bring her son into the world, Rianna she knew she would never see her husband again.

Nazir the Righteous, forty-third Pontiff of the Order of the Crown, didn't move when the visitor entered his chamber. He remained kneeling on his prayer mat, a worn cloth garment so thin it did nothing to ward off the chill seeping up into the Pontiff's body from the stone floor. His hands rested palms down upon his thighs, the customary position when meditating. Apart from the mat there were no other furnishings or ornamentations in the room; as befitted a man of true religious conviction the Pontiff's chamber was a small, undecorated cell within the Monastery where he slept, ate, and prayed.

There was no need to look up with his blind eyes to recognize the woman who had come to interrupt his meditations; as with all members of the Order, Nazir's mystical second sight gave him a complete awareness of the physical world around him.

“The prisoner has spoken?” he asked in a calm voice.

“I always make them speak,” Yasmin replied.

Nazir nodded in acknowledgment of what was a mere statement of fact.

Yasmin was a tall woman; taller, even, than most of the men in the Monastery. She was a far cry from the little girl who had been taken away from her parents nearly twenty years ago during the early days of the Purge.

“The heretic has confessed her sins,” she continued.

She spoke with cold disinterest, her words a stark contrast with the burning passion of her holy devotion. All who served the will of the True Gods were fervent in their belief, but Yasmin's piety bordered on the fanatical. She had submitted to the initiation ritual within a year of her arrival at the Monastery, willingly giving up her natural sight for the sake of her convictions. A few years later, at the age of only twelve, she had joined the Inquisitors—the youngest to ever be granted the honor.

Even then, the Pontiff remembered, she had been fierce in her zealotry. It was customary for Inquisitors to shave their heads. Yasmin, however, was not content merely to shear off her long, dark locks. Once her scalp was bare she had doused it with boiling water, permanently scarring and discoloring the flesh so that her hair would never grow again.

The disfigurement, combined with her height and her sharp, angular features, gave her a terrifying appearance … all the better to serve the will of the True Gods in her chosen role. She had risen quickly through the ranks of her sect. Not yet thirty years of age, she was already the Prime Inquisitor's right hand, and the inevitable successor to the position when the old man passed away.

One day,
Nazir thought,
she may even become Pontiff.

“During her confession, she revealed the name of her leader,” Yasmin continued, unaware of his train of thought.

The old man felt a surge of triumphant exultation at her words, though when he spoke his voice was calm. “Who does she name as the false prophet?”

“Ezra,” the Inquisitor proclaimed, the single name causing the kneeling man's head to involuntarily tilt up toward her voice.

A scowl crossed Nazir's face. Ezra was one of the Order's oldest and most respected members, as well as one of the Pontiff's most trusted advisers.

“Is it possible the heretic is lying?” he asked.

“The Gods have given me the power to see through lies,” Yasmin responded, making no effort to conceal the haughty pride in her voice.

Her arrogance was unbecoming in one sworn to act only as an instrument of divine will, but the Pontiff knew her words were true.

“Ezra's dedication to the cause has always been suspect,” Yasmin added. “Was he not the one who urged you to abandon our crusade to eradicate Chaos from the Southlands?”

Ezra's voice had been among the loudest of those who counseled a course of appeasement rather than continued bloodshed in the final days of the Purge. Yet there had been wisdom behind his words—the Order would have risked losing everything had they entered into a war with the Free Cities. The Pontiff understood the need for moderates like Ezra to temper the fiery zeal of fanatics like Yasmin; something the Inquisitor had yet to grasp.

“Reluctance to push the Southlands into war is one thing,” Nazir pointed out, hoping to educate the younger woman. “Spreading blasphemy and consorting with wizards is quite another.”

Yasmin made no reply. For all her passion, she knew when to keep her words in check; she was not one to hurl speeches like storm-tossed waves against the immovable cliffs. Nazir was well aware she preferred action to discussion.

With a weary sigh, the Pontiff rose to his feet. “Summon Ezra,” he said. “We will question him together.”

“Ezra has fled,” Yasmin replied. “I discovered his absence when I went to confront him with these accusations.”

Nazir fought to keep the scowl from his face. By the ancient rites of the Order Yasmin was entitled to act on the information gained during her interrogation, but it was customary to inform the Pontiff first.

Yet this was not the time to take her to task for such a minor transgression. Ezra's flight had confirmed his guilt as readily as a confession drawn from the rack or scalding irons.

“No one can remember seeing him since the heretic's arrival,” Yasmin added.

It had taken the Inquisitor two days to wring a confession from her prisoner. With that much of a head start, Ezra would soon be beyond the Pontiff's reach.

There was only one way to stop him.

“Leave this to me,” Nazir said, dismissing his underling with a curt nod.

Ezra walked with a stoop to his shoulders; he was past eighty and he had already covered many score miles. Despite this he moved with a steady gait, surprisingly quick for a man of his age. He headed due north, never turning his head from his bearing, though this did not prevent his mystical awareness from watching for signs of pursuit from the south.

The burning sun beat down on his shaved scalp, a relentless heat that had transformed the farthest reaches of the Southern Desert into a barren waste devoid of all life.

To the north the monotony of the dunes was broken by the occasional oasis; thorny brushes and small, twisted cacti pushed up through crystal sands, struggling to survive. In the north, insects fed on the pulp and moisture of these stunted plants. Small lizards emerged at night to feed on the insects, then burrowed beneath the parched earth to escape the savage heat of the days. The northern reaches teemed with life.

But here in the south no creature could endure. So the old man walked utterly alone, his footsteps in the sand trailing far behind him to mark his progress. His destination was two more full days' march away. And still the sun beat mercilessly down.

The old monk barely noticed, for he was one of the Order. Six centuries ago his brethren had built their holy Monastery in the Southern Desert as a symbol of their detachment from the political strife and the mundane events of the Southlands and its people; they served a higher purpose. But the location had also been chosen as a sign of the Order's strength. The same power that gave them the ability to prophesize the future and to see without eyes allowed them to survive where no other creature could.

The Monastery represented the triumph of mental discipline imposed upon the physical realities of the world, and the monks of the Order were the manifestations of that triumph. Like all who served the will of the True Gods, Ezra was able to channel the power within himself to shield his physical body from the deadly effects of the blazing sun. He could sustain himself for weeks without food or water, and he had needed only the briefest of rests during his long trek.

Even so, a mount would have been quicker. But a mount required sustenance. Gathering supplies for the journey would have attracted attention; it might have aroused suspicions. It wasn't uncommon for Pilgrims to leave the Monastery in the service of the True Gods, but Ezra himself hadn't left the black walls in many years. His preparations would have been noticed. And so he had slipped away quietly into the vastness of the dunes, hoping to lose himself in the desert before the Pontiff realized he was gone.

It was inevitable the young woman Yasmin had captured would expose him. Her belief in Ezra's cause was strong and pure, but no amount of faith could withstand the tortures of the Inquisitors for more than a few days. Which was why she—like all of Ezra's followers save a precious few—knew only his name and no other. She could point the finger at him, not at any other of her fellow conspirators.

He pitied her: After her confession she would be burned alive at the stake. Nazir was not known for mercy or forgiveness. But there was nothing the venerable monk could do to help her now; she was beyond his reach. The movement she served, however, must continue. The cause of Ezra and his followers was of far greater import than any one life.

And so the old monk pressed ever onward, leaving the Monastery and the Order farther and farther behind.

Nazir moved quickly down the narrow staircase at the back of the Great Library. The folds of his loose-fitting robe swished softly as his bare feet pattered down the steps, descending into the deepest bowels of the Monastery. The Pontiff moved with a haste brought about not by desperation, but rather by surety of purpose, pausing only when he reached the heavy iron door at the bottom of the stairs.

There was great risk in what he was about to do, but Ezra's flight left him little recourse. For the crime of heresy the old monk's life was forfeit, along with the lives of all those who followed him in his blasphemy. And there was only one way the Pontiff could discover who else was working with him.

The archway of the door at the bottom of the stairs was etched with runes of warding, the door itself inscribed with powerful symbols barring entrance. Nazir barely noticed the magical safeguards. The glyphs were meant to keep others out; their magic was not meant to be unleashed against him. From within his robes he pulled out a large iron key, then used it to turn the lock.

The portal opened slowly, its hinges groaning beneath the ponderous weight. The small room beyond was shrouded in total darkness, though the lack of light mattered little to his blind but all-seeing eyes. The chamber was bare except for a small pedestal set against the far wall, atop which sat a simple iron crown. A thick layer of dust covered the floor; none but the Pontiff was permitted access to this sealed chamber, and Nazir hadn't been here for many years. Not since the days of the Purge.

But a time of crisis was upon them. For the past month the Oracles here in the isolation of the Monastery—separated from their brethren stationed in the Southland courts by fifty leagues of harsh, unforgiving desert—had shared a terrifying vision. A dark and dangerous power had been unleashed upon the mortal world: a child born under the Blood Moon; a child spawned in the fires of Chaos, its identity shrouded by smoke and flame. Some saw the child as male, others female. Some claimed it bore the features and complexion of an Islander; some claimed it was the spawn of the Danaan in the North Forest; others said the child was descended from Southland stock.

Such uncertainty was to be expected. The visions of the Oracles were themselves manifestations of Chaos; the details were meant to breed confusion among the faithful. But the true meaning of the augury was undeniable. It foretold the weakening of the Legacy; a warning that the Destroyer was about to return to the mortal world, reborn in human form. A prophecy confirmed by the manifestation of the Blood Moon earlier this month.

Nazir had summoned his wisest and most trusted advisers to discuss the visions, and decide on a course of action. They had debated what must be done long into the night, how they could find and stop this child, how best they could preserve and protect the Legacy. And throughout their debates, the Pontiff never suspected a traitor sat at his right hand.

The Purge had not completely snuffed out the Heresy of the Burning Savior. The Pontiff was well aware that some among the Order, particularly the young and headstrong, believed that the Legacy would one day fail. Misled by false prophecies, they imagined the salvation of the mortal world rested in the hands of a child schooled in the arts of Chaos magic, rather than in the endurance of the ancient spell of the True Gods.

Their belief defied the most fundamental tenets of the Order's teachings; it was an abomination to those who followed the will of the True Gods. Chaos can never be controlled; it can only be contained.

Nazir had thought that those at the heart of the movement had perished in the flames of the Purge. But if Ezra was one of the heretics—if he was, in fact, their leader—then how many others among the Order had been befouled by these profane teachings?

Not willing to dwell on such a question now, the Pontiff stepped through the rune-covered door and locked it behind him, sealing himself inside the room. Small clouds of dust stirred up as he crossed the floor to kneel reverently before the pedestal. He began a series of rhythmic breathing exercises to cleanse his mind. He had to set aside the urgency of his mission. He had to free himself from the anger of betrayal so his thoughts could be at peace. Unless his will was pure and focused he dared not use the Crown.

The holy Talisman had been bestowed upon the Order by the True Gods, a weapon to aid them in their never-ending battle to defend the Legacy. But it was a weapon of great and terrible power. If the Pontiff's will faltered—if the carefully constructed defenses that held the Crown's power in check failed—the weapon would be turned against them and Chaos would be unleashed to wreak havoc upon the mortal world.

Nazir knelt for several minutes, still as the black stone walls of the Monastery while he gathered his strength and courage for the coming ordeal. When he was finally ready he rose to his feet, steeling himself. Moving as if in a trance he reached out, a mortal about to touch the divine. Slowly, carefully, he lifted the Crown from its pedestal and placed it atop his own head.

His mind exploded with a rush of sight and sound. Night, day, darkness, light, heat, cold, fear, anger, joy: The thoughts, sensations, and emotions of every living creature in the mortal world bombarded him, overwhelming him, devouring him. His own consciousness was swallowed whole, drowned beneath an ocean of omnipresence.