worn from age and handling.
And it led to a silver door at the end of a lead-lined hallway.
I wondered what lay behind the silver door. I thought of the Battery, and that strange grassland, and the foreign skies over both.
I decided I didn’t want to find out where that door led, because once it closed behind us, I knew it would never ever open again.
Darla squeezed my hand.
“So, you’re ready for tomorrow?”
“I’m ready.” A long column of bowmen ran past. “If anyone hostile shows up, I figure they’ll go after Carris. But stick close to Tamar all the same.”
“I will.”
And that was all we said.
I hear that a comet appeared in the north that night, hanging over the Brown like a flag, or a shroud. The canyons of downtown don’t leave much of the sky visible, these days. We never saw the thing.
But they saw the comet from the walls. Oh yes, they did.
Hundreds fled at the sight of it, on foot, taking to the woods and risking the bogs and the snakes and the haints, as Mama Hog called them.
But only hundreds. If the comet was a trick of the sorcerers from Prince, it was largely a wasted effort.
Not so much because so few fled, but because so few remained at all.
We left the store well after Curfew. I helped shutter the windows and bar the doors. The ladies looked back at the little place as we left, and only Martha took the trouble to hide her tears.
We all knew. We all felt it.
Whatever the dawn brought, Rannit would never be the same.
“What?”
“I tell ye plain. Ye are not seein’ Miss Tomas this morn’, and no amount o’ bluster is going to change that.”
Mary’s eyes blazed. Her hands were on her hips. The ladle she gripped in her right hand was heavy enough to swing, and I didn’t think her choice of it was entirely an accident.
I considered and rejected just picking her diminutive body up and moving her to the side.
“This is not a real wedding, dammit.”
“It’ll be real bad luck to them what is havin’ a real wedding,” said Mary. “And don’t you be dismissing my beliefs.”
I forced a deep breath. “Fine. Wonderful. Look. What if I wear a blindfold? What if I just speak to her through the damned door? Will your beliefs allow me that much?”
“They would,” said Martha Hoobin, who emerged from the rear of the house with a rare smug grin. “But you’re a mite late, Mister Markhat. Miss Tomas left for the Church half an hour ago. I suspect she is there now. See if you can sweet-talk your way past them Church soldiers, will ye?”
I was dressed, which was fortunate, because rather than speak words I would sooner or later regret I just jammed my ridiculous groom’s top hat tight on my fresh-shaven head and stomped out the door.
I did let it slam behind me.
The soldiers leaped to attention.
“Stay here, lads. If trouble starts, hide behind that pair of banshees.”
A pair of “Aye, Captains” were spoken at my back.
I found my borrowed carriage waiting at the curb. My driver leaped down and made a big show of opening the door for me.
I managed a gruff thanks and settled in for the ride.
The hand cannon rode heavy at my waist. The barrel of the thing poked out from beneath my fancy jacket and I knew Darla would have a fit at the way it ruined the lines of the suit, but that would serve as her penance for sneaking out just to assuage some backwoods wedding superstition.
The day was turning out clear and brisk. The sky was a cheery blue we hadn’t seen in weeks. The few trails of smoke that remained were rising straight up before thinning out to nothing against the rising sun.
The Army was up and moving. Wagonloads of cannon shot rattled past, their contents no longer hidden by tarps or canvases.
Neither side had time for any last-minute surprises.
Wherthmore’s sooty domes rose up shortly, not quite glinting in the sun. I saw a carriage ahead of us stop and disgorge the female half of a wedding party, which scampered away up the steps. Another carriage did the same.
Then my turn arrived. A kid in bright red Church clothes opened my door and gestured for me to step out.
“Be welcome on this most blessed of days,” he began in a breathless monotone. “May the Angel Galaheil herself shade you with her mighty wings of eternal blessing-”
“Sure, kid, sure, Angels and blessings all around.” I flipped a coin into his palm, and he made it vanish with a grin. “Seen a groom show up looking sick, with a bandage on his head?”
“Maybe I did, Mister.”
I climbed out of the carriage and sent it rolling on its way.
Another coin did a magic trick by appearing in my hand and vanishing into his pocket.
“How long ago?”
“First light. Way too early. We let him in anyway. Afraid he might pass out on the steps waiting. He’s in with the other victims.”
“Victims. Ha ha. What a humorous lad you are.”
“You bring groomsmen, Mister?”
“They’ll be along any minute now. Why don’t you show me to this gathering place of grooms. Sounds like a place a man can get a drink.”
“Not today. Old Father Wickens is in charge today.” The kid looked around. “But if a man wants a drink anyway, a man could find a flask of good Aimish whiskey hid in the firewood later, if a man had another half a crown.”
“Half a crown my ass. Here’s a silver. I don’t find a flask in the firewood I tell Father Wickens one of his altar boys has taken a fancy to sin.”
The kid grinned. A silver was still too much but you never know when you might need a sharp pair of eyes later on.
“Silver it is.” We reached the door and a pair of red masks, and the kid snapped to attention.
“A groom seeks the blessing of the Holy Church,” he said to the masks.
“Be welcome in this Holy Place,” intoned one.
“May Angels damn you to an eternity in deepest Hell,” said the other. “Apostate devil.”
I winked. “Nice to see you too.”
I breezed past the masks, and followed the wide-eyed kid deep into the bowels of the Church.
As it turns out, the bowels of the Church are furnished pretty well.
Nothing like Avalante, of course. The halfdead either have an eye for decoration or are careful to employ those who do. Sure, dark is the active motif, but they don’t overdo it.
Wherthmore, on the other hand, had different ideas of what to hang on walls.
First, it had to contain an image of a saint. I don’t read Church, so I don’t know who was being depicted, but the halos made it easy for guess who was who. Angels wore wings and wielded mighty swords. Saints bore halos and appeared to be in the final stages of acute constipation.
Had the renderings not been worked in pure gold, I’d have found them comical in their lack of artistic execution.
Occupying space between the banners and the flags and the murals and the paintings were swords. Or daggers. Or lances, or standards, or maces, or any of the other usual items employed in the distribution of holy
