Storm Warning

endure past that moment,' he replied. 'There was a sizable number, though not a majority, who believed that the alliance had never been a good idea. But then the army of the Empire appeared, already well into Hardorn, and heading for Karse and Valdemar.'

Rubrik snorted mirthlessly. 'Indeed. An unpleasant surprise for all concerned.'

The sky to the east showed a hint of color; sunrise would be spectacular—which did not presage a very pleasant ride today. A colorful sunrise, at least in Karse, meant that there would be storms during the day. There was no reason to think that the weather had changed just because he was across a border.

'We knew of the Empire, of course, but probably no more than you,' Ulrich said after a moment. 'Some had even dismissed the power of the Emperor and the size of the armies he controlled as nothing more than myth or exaggeration. But then—there he was, or rather, there his army was, even bigger than all the stories had claimed. Suddenly there was nothing standing between us and an Empire fabled for gobbling up entire countries. We had nothing that could stop them—except, perhaps, our own resourcefulness, our God—and that insignificant, inconvenient little alliance with Valdemar.'

'Which probably didn't seem so insignificant or nearly so inconvenient, all things considered, when troop estimates came in,' Rubrik replied. And if there was a hint of smugness in his voice, well, Karal could hardly blame him.

'There was another side to all of this that you probably had no hint of,' Ulrich said, after another moment of thought. 'And that is what the appearance of the Empire did for Her Holiness' credibility.'

Ulrich nodded at his secretary, and Karal couldn't resist the invitation to have a word of his own in the discussion. 'She'd been saying all along that Vkandis was warning her of an even greater peril to come,' he offered proudly. 'There weren't too many people who believed her, Son of the Sun or not, except Ulrich and a few other Priests.'

He stopped then, afraid he might have overstepped himself, but the look Ulrich gave him was approving rather than the opposite. 'Precisely. Now she showed that she was a true prophet, for no one could have predicted that the Empire would take an interest in Hardorn—and everything beyond it, one presumes. There is not a soul in Karse who doubts her now.'

Well, that wasn't quite true, but it was near enough.

'Now our people as a whole are somewhat—bewildered,' Ulrich concluded. 'They are having some difficulty with the various changes she has decreed, but it is obvious even to the worst of her detractors that she knows, in the broadest sense of the word, what must be done to save us. It is very clear that if her instructions—or rather, the instructions of Vkandis, as passed to her—are not followed, Karse will not survive the attentions of the Empire. For the people, it is a difficult time. For those of us who believed in Solaris and in our land and God, it is a time of vindication.'

'Interesting,' Rubrik replied, softly. 'I hope you won't mind if I think all this over for a while.'

'Be my guest,' Ulrich told him, with a hint of a smile. 'I believe you might be having just as much difficulty with some of this as some Karsites I could mention.'

Rubrik gave him an oblique look but did not reply. Karal felt immensely cheered. It looked as if his mentor had given the Valdemaran more to chew on than he had reckoned possible. Karal had the feeling that the Valdemaran, for the first time, actually believed that Solaris truly was the Son of the Sun, and not just another power-hungry Priest. The Valdemarans would have been perfectly willing to deal with another False Son—provided he (or she) set policies that benefited Valdemar. Karal was not so naive as to think otherwise. But a ruler with the true power of the One God behind her—now that was another proposition altogether.

Seeing Vkandis as something other than an empty vessel or a puppet for the Priests to manipulate was something Karal guessed Rubrik had not been prepared to deal with.

One point scored for us, he thought with satisfaction, and settled into the ride.

Rubrik inevitably came back with more questions, of course, but they were not about the political situation in Karse, but rather, about Ulrich himself. Gradually Karal came to see the pattern to those questions. Rubrik was trying to discover what the envoy himself was made of, the kind of man that the Valdemaran government would be dealing with—and just how much trust Solaris placed in the hands of that envoy.

It was sometimes hard to tell what Rubrik was thinking, but Karal judged that on the whole he was satisfied—and rather surprised to be satisfied. Whatever he had been expecting, it had not been a pair like Karal and his master.

Karal found it amusing to speculate on what he might have been expecting. An oily, professional politician like the last False Son had been, interested only in power and prestige? An ascetic, like Ophela, with no personal interests whatsoever, blind and deaf to anything other than God and Karse?

Throughout the morning, storm clouds had threatened to unleash another torrent; by the time they stopped at an inn for a meal at noon, it was obvious that they were going to ride right down the throat of another storm like the one yesterday.