Storm Warning

could scarcely be seen. It had remained that way for a week, the flowers sending out a heady perfume. Ulrich and every other possessor of a flowering Staff had planted their Staffs in the various Temple meditation gardens, where they remained as flowering bushes, living reminders of the day of the miracles.

'But none of that would have gotten Solaris made Son of the Sun,' he continued. 'No woman had ever been named Son of the Sun, the very idea was absurd. No, if that had been all that happened, the Priests would have convened and elected a new Son, perhaps one a little more pious than the old one, but still—'

'It would have been business as usual,' Rubrik supplied, his ironic nod showing that he understood the situation all too well. 'So what did happen?'

'Another miracle. The last, and greatest of all. Silence hung over the entire Temple, for the worshipers were too stunned to cry out or even move. Then, before anyone could recover enough to say or do anything to break that silence, the golden statue of Vkandis began to move.' He closed his eyes to picture it again in his mind, and described the vivid memory as best he could. 'It moved exactly like a living man—there was nothing stilted or jerky about the way that it looked about, then stepped slowly down out of the niche behind the Altar. That convinced me it couldn't be some mechanical thing substituted for the real statue. I remember staring up at it, and thinking how much like a man it was—the skin moved properly over the muscles; the muscles rippled as it stepped over the Altar and stopped in front of Solaris. She was staring up at it, with that same enraptured expression on her face, even though most of the Priests were groveling and babbling out a litany of every sin they'd ever committed.'

That had been rather funny, actually. For some reason, it never occurred to him to be afraid of the image, and there were a few more, like Solaris and Ulrich, who actually seemed to be in a trance of ecstasy as they gazed upon it. The face of the statue wore a look of complete serenity, as it always had—yet there seemed to be a hint of good humor in the eyes, a ghost of a smile about the lips, as if Vkandis found the groveling Priests just as funny as Karal did.

'The statue took the Crown of Prophecy off its own head; once the Crown was in its hands, it shrank. It dwindled until it was small enough to fit a human. Then the statue bent down and placed the Crown on Solaris' head.'

The eyes of the image and of Solaris had met and locked. Something passed between them; Karal didn't know what it was, and on the whole, he would really rather not find out. I'm just not ready for the personal attentions of Vkandis. I would be very happy to stay with Ulrich and work researching the old Rites and never have Him notice me.

'Then the image went back to the pedestal behind the Altar; that was when the fire there on the Altar in front of it blazed up so quickly and so high we thought another lightning bolt had hit it. When the flames died down so we could see the niche again, the statue was exactly as it had been, except that it wasn't wearing the Crown anymore. Solaris was.'

'And you're sure that there was no trickery involved?' Rubrik persisted.

Karal nodded. 'Absolutely. It wasn't an illusion, or how would Solaris have gotten the Crown? It wasn't a mechanical device, because no mechanical could have moved as the statue did. And besides that, how would a mechanical creature make the Crown shrink like that? And Ulrich says it definitely wasn't human magic, or he would have known immediately; even without summoning demons, he's still one of the most powerful mages in the Priesthood. None of us have ever seen Solaris work any magic, before or since, except for the demon-summoning she was required to perform because she was a Black-robe. Ulrich says he doesn't see how any mage could have delivered a lightning strike like that, animate the statue, and light the First Fire and still be standing afterward. Even if she or a confederate, or even a number of conspirators, could have done all that with magic, there's still one question—how would she have gotten the Crown off the statue, and shrunk it down to fit her? The Crown wasn't just some piece of jewelry that had been made to fit the statue—it was part of the statue, part of the original casting. The Crown is part of the statue's head. It was deliberately cast that way to discourage thieves.'

'Huh.' Rubrik stared at the rain which was coming down in a solid sheet. Karal watched his expression very carefully, trying to guess his thoughts. 'Well,' he said, very slowly, 'I would have said that I didn't believe in miracles, if I hadn't seen one or two lately with my own eyes. Smallish ones, mind, compared to your moving statues and shrinking Crowns, but they definitely qualified.' He paused, and Karal had the sense that he was choosing his words with the utmost care. 'The Lady-Goddess of the Hawkbrothers and Shin'a'in seems to intervene now and then on behalf of her own people, so why not the Sunlord, right?'

Karal nodded cautiously. He wasn't entirely certain he ought to be agreeing to anything that compared Vkandis with some outlandish heathen Goddess—but Rubrik said he'd seen this Goddess working miracles....

Vkandis was supposed to have a Goddess-Consort in the oldest records, but she seemed to have gotten misplaced somewhere far back in the past. Or had the Priests in that far past been right to eliminate her?

This was getting more confusing by the moment. 'Goddess?' he replied weakly. 'What Goddess?'

Rubrik shook his head, and chuckled. 'Oh, this theology business is too much for a simple soul like me! Let me order us some dinner, and you tell me just what Solaris did once she had that crown on her head, all right?'

Karal agreed to that with relief. Rubrik summoned a serving-girl, who eyed Karal in a way that made him blush and wish secretly that he wasn't sharing a room with his master. He was only a novice; he hadn't taken any oaths yet, much less oaths of celibacy and chastity....

Rubrik must have ordered something that the kitchen already had prepared, for the girl returned with laden platters in short order. Karal's stomach growled as the aroma of hot sausage pie hit his nose. The scent was