Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 1 (2 page)

Neither a door nor a wispy shimmering of air, it looked like an arbor, a lush flowering vine grown over an arch. She smelled snow and felt the cold sting of a winter wind beyond. Without hesitation she stepped through and left the world of humankind behind.

Prince Henry, heir to the kingdoms of Wendar and Varre, watched Alia walk away from him, up into the ring of stones. He steeled his face, his heart, his whole body, and when the mist rose and covered her, he simply tightened his hand on the scrap of cloth she had left behind that contained all he had left of her: her blood.

Three of his men stood beside him, holding up torches to drive back the mist that had swollen suddenly from the ground, a night-crawling fog that surrounded the stones. Light flashed within the stone ring. A chill wind stung his lips. A perfect crystal flake of snow spiraled down on the last of the wind and dissolved on his boot.

Mist still clung about the stones.

"Shall we go up, my lord, and look for her?" asked one of his men. "No. She is gone."

He tucked the cloth into his belt and called for his horse. Mounted, he took the baby back into the crook of his arm and, with his entourage around him, began the slow descent of the hill. The baby did not cry, but its eyes were open, and it stared at the heavens, or at its father, or at the dragon banner. Who could tell?

A breeze swelled out from the stones, and mist rolled down over the ruins from the height of the hill, swathing the crumbling buildings in a sudden thick fog and hiding the moon. The men picked their way carefully, men on foot grabbing hold of horses' harnesses, the rest calling out to each other, marking distance by the sound of their voices.

"You are better off without a woman like that," said the old soldier suddenly to the prince in the tone of a man who has the right to give advice. "The church would never have accepted her. And she has power over the ways of nature which it were better not to meddle with." The dragon banner hung limp, sodden with the weight of the fog, as if this unnatural mist was trying to drag the banner down.

But the prince did not reply. He kept his gaze on the torches surrounding him, like watch fires, light thrown against the gloom.

A ring of seven candles, light thrown against the gloom.

Watchers stared into a mist that rose from a huge block of obsidian set in their midst. Their faces were hidden by darkness.

In the mist they saw tiny figures, a young nobleman carrying an infant, ringed by his faithful followers. Slowly these figures descended through a fortress, seen half as ruins, half as the ghost of the fortress that was once whole. The tiny figures walked through walls as if they were air, for they
were
air, and it was only the memory of what was once there, in the minds of some few of the watchers, that created the ghostly walls, the suggestion of the past built anew.

"We must kill the child," said one of the watchers as the mist faded, sinking into the black stone. With it faded the image of the prince and his retinue.

"The child is too well protected," said a second. "We must attempt it, for they intend to shatter the world itself."

The first among the watchers shifted, and the others, who had been whispering among themselves, stilled into an uncanny silence.

"It is never wise to seek only to destroy," said she who sat first among them. Her voice was rich and deep. "That way lies ruin only. That way lies darkness."

"Then what?" demanded the first speaker. He shrugged impatiently. Candlelight glinted off his white hair.

"Just as the Enemy turns the faithful from the Path of Light toward the Abyss, so can unbelievers be turned away from their error to see the promise of the Chamber of Light. We must counter the power given into the hands of this unwitting child with power of our own."

"There is this difference." said the second speaker, "that while we know our opponents exist, they do not know of us."

"Or so we believe," said the first man. He sat stiffly, a man of action unaccustomed to long stillnesses.

"We must trust to Our Lord and Lady," said the woman, and the rest nodded and murmured agreement.

The only light given to their circle was that flickering from the candles, bright flames throwing sharp glints on the surface of the obsidian altar, and that from the stars above and the round, still globe of the moon. Great blocks of shadow surrounded them, an entourage of giants.

Beyond, wind muttered through the open shells of buildings, unseen but felt, the last relics of a great empire lost long ago to fire and sword and blood and magic. The ruins ended at a shoreline as abruptly as if a knife had sheared them off. Surf hissed and swelled at the verge. Sand got caught up on the wind and swirled up from the shore into the circle, catching on tongues and in the folds of cloaks. One of the watchers shivered and tugged a hood hard down over her hair. "It's a fool's errand," this one said. "They are stronger than we are, here and in their own country."

"Then we must reach for powers that are greater still," said she who sat first among them.

They responded to her words with expectant silence.

"I will make the sacrifice," she continued. "I alone. They wish to sunder the world while we desire only to bring it closer to the Chamber of Light toward which all our souls strive. If they bring one agent into the world, then we must bring another. Of ourselves we cannot defeat them."

One by one they bowed their heads, acquiescing to her judgment, until only one man remained, head unbowed. He rested a hand on the woman's shoulder and spoke. "You will not be alone."

In this way they considered in silence. The great ruins lay around them, echoing their silence, the skeleton of a city unattended by ghost walls or visions of past grandeur. Sand skirled up the streets, spattering against stone, grain by grain erasing the vast murals that adorned the long walls. But where the walls marched out to the sea, where the knife-edge cut them clean, the shadow form of the old city mingled with the waves, the memory of what once had been
—not drowned by the sea but utterly gone.

Stars wheeled above on their endless round.

The candles illuminated the gleaming surface of the obsidian altar. In its black depths an image of the distant ring of stones, far to the north, still stood, and the last torches borne by the prince's retinue flickered and faded into nothing as they passed beyond view.

A STORM FROM THE SEA

When winter turned to spring and the village deacon sang the mass in honor of St. Thecla's witnessing of the Ekstasis of the blessed Daisan, it came
time to prepare the boats for the sailing season and the
summer's journeying to other ports.

Alain had tarred his father's boat in the autumn; now he examined the hull, crawling beneath the boat where it had wintered on the beach on a bed of logs. The old boat had weathered the winter well, but one plank was loose. He fastened the plank with a willow treenail, stuffing sheep's wool greased with tar into the gap and driving the nail home onto a grommet also made of wool. Otherwise the boat was sound. After Holy Week his father would load the boat with casks of oil and with quernstones brought in from nearby quarries and finished in workshops in the village.

But Alain would not be going with him, though he had begged to be given the chance, just this one season.

He turned, hearing laughter from up the strand where the road ran in to the village. He wiped his hands on a rag and waited for his father to finish speaking with the other Osna merchants who had come down to examine their boats, to make ready for the voyage out now that Holy Week had ended.

"Come, son," said Henri after he had looked over the boat. "Your aunt has prepared a fine feast and then we'll pray for good weather at the midnight bell."

They walked back to Osna village in silence. Henri was a broad-shouldered man, not very tall, his brown hair shot through with silver. Henri spent most of the year away, visiting ports all up and down the coast, and during the winter he sat in his quiet way in his sister Bel's workshop and built chairs and benches and tables. He spoke little, and when he did speak did so in a soft voice quite unlike his sister's, who, everyone joked, could intimidate a wolf with her sharp tongue.

-Alain had darker hair and was certainly taller, lanky enough that he was likely to grow more just as certain spring days are likely to bring squalls and sudden bursts of rain. As usual, Alain did not quite know what to say to his father, but this day as they walked along the sandy path he tried, one more time, to change his father's mind. "Mien sailed with you the year he turned sixteen, even
before
he spent his year in the count's service! Why can't I go this year?"

"It can't be. I swore to the deacon at Lavas Holding when you were just a new babe come into the world that I would give you to the church. That is the only reason she let me foster you."

"If I must take vows and spend the rest of my life within the monastery walls, then why can't I have just one season with you to see the world? I don't want to be like Brother Gilles
—"

"Brother Gilles is a good man," said Henri sharply. "Yes, he is, but he hasn't set foot off monastery lands since the day he entered as a child of seven! It isn't right you condemn me to that. At least one season with you would give me something to remember."

"Brother Gilles and his fellow monks are content enough."

"I'm not Brother Gilles!"

"We have spoken of this before, Alain. You are of age now and promised to the church. All will pass as Our Lord and Lady have decreed. It is not for you or me to question their judgment."

By the way Henri set his mouth, Alain knew that his father would not reply to any further argument. Furious, he strode ahead, his longer strides taking him out in front of his father, though it was rude. Just one season! One season to see something of the world, to see distant ports and unfamiliar coastlines, to speak with men from other towns, from other lands, to see something of the strange lands the deacon spoke of when she read the lessons and saints' lives of fraters
—the wandering priests—who brought the Holy Word of the Unities to barbarous lands. Why was that so much to ask? He crossed through the livestock palisade and by the time he reached Aunt Bel's longhouse, his mood was thoroughly foul.

Aunt Bel stood in the garden examining her newly planted parsley and horseradish. She straightened, measuring him, and shook her head. "There's water to fetch before feasting," she said.

"That's Julien's job today."

"Julien is mending sail, and I'll ask you not to question me, child. Do as you're told. Don't argue with your father, Alain. You know he's the stubbornest man in the village."

"He's not my father!" shouted Alain.

For that he got a sharp slap in the face, delivered with all the force of thirty years of kneading bread and chopping wood behind it. It brought a red stain to his cheek and silence to his lips.

"Never speak so again of the man who raised you. Now, go on."

He went, because no one dared argue with Bel, elder sister of Henri the merchant and mother of eight children, of whom five still lived.

He sat at the evening's feast in silence and went in silence to the church. The moon was full, and its pale light filtered in through the new glass window which the merchants and householders of Osna had bought for the village church. But with moonlight and candlelight there was illumination enough to see the walls, whitewashing over timber, painted with the huge murals depicting the life of the blessed Daisan and the deeds of the glorious saints and martyrs.

The deacon raised her hands in the blessing and began to sing the liturgy.

"Blessed is the Country of the Mother and Father of Life, and of the Holy Word revealed within the Circle of Unity, now and ever and unto ages of ages." "Amen," he murmured with the congregation. "In peace let us pray to Our Lord and Lady." "Kyrie eleison."
Lord have mercy.
He clasped his hands and tried to pay attention as the deacon circled the church, pacing out the stations marking the blessed Daisan's life and ministry, bringing to the faithful the Holy Word granted him by the grace of the Lord and Lady. "Kyria eleison."
Lady have mercy.

On the walls stark pictures stood out brightly in the light cast by torches. There, the blessed Daisan at the fire where first he encountered the vision of the Circle of Unity. And again, the blessed Daisan with his followers refusing to kneel and worship before the Dariyan Empress Thaissania, she of the mask. The seven miracles, each one depicted with loving detail. And last, the blessed Daisan dead at the Hearth from which his spirit was lifted up through the seven spheres to the Chamber of Light, while his great disciple St. Thecla wept below, her tears feeding the sanctified cup.