Sublime is beyond hope.'
Muniero Delari felt unappreciated amongst his own kind. He continued. 'New Principals include fewer and fewer scholars. They're either political animals or cretins who buy their robes. Or both. None of this will matter after I go, anyway. Probably. The end of the world won't dally once I do.'
Hecht admitted, 'I have no idea what you're talking about. Or what's going on down there.'
'It's a map of the world. Ever less exact as you stray farther from Brothe. Our priests, legates, and missionaries send news of changes in their areas. Those people down there translate the reports into physical representations. So we track what's happening in the physical world.'
'Which would be?'
'What everyone is talking about, now. What the First Unknown suspected when he started the project two hundred years ago. The world is turning colder. The wells of power are drying up. Even the Wells of Ihrian have slowed. Sea levels are falling. The ice is advancing. Both of those are happening fast.
'In my lifetime the Mother Sea has fallen nine feet. It's fallen thirteen since the project began. Beyond Hypraxium and the Antal Land Bridges the Negrine has fallen even more. The inland seas farther east are shrinking, too. While ice piles up in the mountains beyond.' Delari pointed as he spoke.
'A thousand years ago the Old Brothen Empire had a hundred thousand slaves permanently raising and reinforcing the Escarp Gibr al-Tar because the storms on Ocean were throwing up waves that topped it sometimes and threatened a breakthrough. Imagine the disaster that would be.'
The surface of the Mother Sea lay hundreds of feet below that of Ocean. If Ocean broke the Escarp thousands of cities and towns, with millions of people and countless acres of farmland, vineyards, and orchards, would be obliterated. And the water would, no doubt, then overtop the Antal Land Bridges and flood the Negrine basin, too. And the surface level of the Negrine lay a hundred feet below that of the Mother Sea.
It would be the end of civilization.
Delari shrugged. 'They succeeded. So now, instead of drowning, civilization appears destined to freeze. Come.'
The old man shuffled onto the nearest catwalk. From overhead the layout looked more like a map. Except that it was three-dimensional. Delari said, 'The vertical dimension is exaggerated. Otherwise, the contrast wouldn't be obvious.'
'This is all hugely impressive, sir, but I don't see the point.'
'Planning was the point, originally. So our people could survive. If we had forward-looking leaders able to see the true long term.'
The progression of change was not obvious to Hecht. The despair harrying the edges of the world required no trained eye, however. The entire north, down to the Shallow Sea, was buried under ice. The Shallow Sea itself showed only scattered pools of open water, suggesting leaks of power from the underwater wells common there and in the Andorayan Sea. The Ormo Strait, despite vicious tidal bores, had become an icy bridge. Elsewhere, wherever there were mountains, there were permanent accumulations of snow. Areas exposed by the dropping sea levels were a sickly gray in color. Some, along the northwest coast, were extensive.
Delari said, 'Overall, they're way behind reports. This represents the situation at the end of last winter.'
'Planning, you say?'
'The advancing ice is pushing whole peoples ahead of it. The ice might explain Tsistimed the Golden and the Hu'n-tai At. When their grasslands could no longer support their herds they had to move somewhere else.'
'So you're trying to predict where problems will pop up in time to do something useful.'
'Yes. Though there doesn't seem to be much point to the project, now. Sublime isn't interested in anything but his own delusions. He'll still be ranting about crusades when the ice comes over the city wall.'
'It can't happen that fast, can it?'
'No. It won't get here for generations. Which is good, Sublime being mortal. My hopes aren't high, though. My predecessors couldn't interest the Patriarchs much, either.'
'Some of that isn't natural. Are they markers of some kind?'
'Yes. Supernatural phenomena are part of the landscape. So are power leaks. And anything else somebody wanted to track.'
Hecht looked south of the Mother Sea, at the Realm of Peace. The Praman Conquest. The Principal's project had not gotten perfect reports out of the Praman world. But the details were better than anyone over there would like.
Changes were smaller there. So far. There were no fields of ice or snow. But the deserts were shrinking because of increased rainfalls.
'Enough for now,' Delari said. 'I just wanted you to know this resource is here.'
Hecht knew he had missed something important to the old man. To do with the map? With the Night? Or had he hoped to find Hecht armed with some talent he was unaware of himself?
'We'll revisit later. You must be behind in your work.'
The Principate took a stairwell directly to his own apartment. And made the climb without killing himself.
Hecht headed for the Castella dollas Pontellas. Principal Delari still looked mildly disappointed.
Anna brought the children to Tltus Consent's conversion ceremony. Over Hecht's objections. Pella might behave like the street creature he was. Vali would irritate people by not responding when they told her how pretty she was.
His dread was misplaced. Anna had tamed the boy. She cleaned and polished and dressed Pella till he whimpered. She had him convinced that the end of the world would taste sweeter than what would come down if he embarrassed the Captain-General.
His final assignment was to stick with Vali and explain that she was mute. Vali was expected to bow and curtsy at appropriate moments.
'You stop fussing, Piper,' Anna told Hecht in the coach. They'll be fine. Worry about yourself. What do you have to do?'
Hecht had only a vague notion of his part in the ceremony.
'How come they's all them soldiers?' Pella wanted to know as they neared the Delari family's city residence. It was modest by the standards of the Principate's class. Contingents from the Brotherhood of War, the City Regiment, and Hecht's own small in-town Patriarchal guards company filled the street. Most wore formal parade costume. But a few remained in mufti, there for trouble instead of show-
'In case the Deves try to keep Titus from converting.'
They won't commit murder over it,' Anna said. 'One more time. What do you do?'
Until only a short time ago Hecht had had no idea how a conversion ceremony went. It was similar to a child's confirmation.
He rehearsed it aloud as the coach came to a stop.
Anna said, 'You've got it.' She told the children, 'He's never done this before.'
Hecht grunted. 'Where I come from they baptize babies when they're born because so many die. And conversions usually happen at sword's point, blessed by the nearest sober priest.'
Pella said, 'I don't think I'd like Duarnenia, sir.'
'Me neither. That's why I left. Watch that puddle. Those shoes cost a fortune.'
'Piper!'
'I can't help it, honey. I grew up poor.'
Anna's schooling proved adequate. Principate Delari, as Consent's sponsor, required nothing of Hecht but a ritual attest to the excellent character of the candidate.
There was little pomp and circumstance. A few questions and responses, a 'Who presents this man?' and the remarks about what a good fellow he was, followed by a ritual laying on of hands by the Bruglioni and Arniena Principates, then Bronte Doneto, and Titus Consent became an Episcopal Chaldarean of considerable stature.
Consent seemed appropriately excited. Hecht did note that Noe and the children did not go through the ceremony. Though, as Consent's wife, Noe would be whatever Titus decided. The children were not old enough for baptism and confirmation, the way those were handled locally.
Hecht shook Consent's hand. 'I admire your courage, Lieutenant.' He presented the customary baptismal gift
