Sacred Fire

He stopped where he stood, staring as a big trader dressed in furs spoke with an effete Seldjuki lord clad in bright crimson silks and a broad-brimmed hat to ward the sun off his powdered face. The pair waved their arms and shook their heads, a dance found in every market in the world. They called each other thieves, then a bag of gold falcons dropped from the lord’s pudgy hand into the slaver’s callused one. They laughed together, and the trader waved to one of his men. The guard went to a chain of young boys-none looked older than fourteen summers-and at the Seldjuki’s direction, removed a thin, dusky-skinned lad from the line and stripped the mask off his face. The lord inspected the boy, checking biceps, eyes, and teeth, then nodded in satisfaction. The trader gave him an iron key, and they clasped arms, concluding the deal.

Cathan watched the swarthy boy as the Seldjuki led him away. What fate awaited him? Toil in some venture owned by the lord? Or would he be a house-slave, catering to his masters whims? The boy moved as if still chained to his fellows, shoulders hunched and face turned down toward his bare feet. Soon both of them were gone, melting into the crowds of the marketplace.

Sighing, Cathan ran a hand down his face. Already the fur-clad slaver was speaking with another customer, an elderly matron wearing a fortunes worth of jewelry. A girl house-slave stood beside her, her face sullen and joyless.

“What’s your pleasure?” growled a scratchy voice close by. Cathan turned, saw a man with a sapphire- studded eye-patch and a cape fringed with bright green feathers. “Say, you’re that Twice-Born, aren’t you? Are you looking to buy? Want a strong arm for protection, or maybe a girl for a lonely bed? How about a gladiator? I got that old Rockbreaker at the arena could whip into shape fair enough. What do you say ab-”

The next thing Cathan knew, the eye patched man was lying flat on the ground, swearing in several languages; blood streamed from the man’s broken nose, and Cathan’s own fist hurt like the Abyss. All around the marketplace, folk stopped in mid-conversation, staring as the slaver struggled to his feet-feathers falling from his ludicrous cloak-and skulked away. The slavers and their customers edged sway from Cathan, avoiding his eyes.

He stood still, glowering at them all, then turned and hurried away, across the market and down the street He didn’t walk with any conscious destination in mind, yet his feet carried him inward along the curving boulevards toward the Temple. The guards at the side gate nodded to him, then stepped aside as he swept through into the gardens, and the imperial manse behind it.

Idar was right: Something had to be done.

“No,” said Quarath, his face as imperturbable as ever. He rose from the velvet-cushioned chair where he’d been sitting, poring over a copy of Moriod’s Elegies of the Kinslayer War, and set the book aside. “I’m afraid you can’t go in, Twice-Born.”

Cathan stood in the center of the Kingpriest’s entry parlor, for a moment too furious to speak. He didn’t glance at the elf, watching him with his infuriatingly patient expression. He didn’t look at the tapestries on the walls, depicting the triumphs of the church over the dark gods’ cults, nor at the fresco of the platinum dragon on the ceiling, nor at the busts of the six gods of light-Solinari, the god of white magic, having been removed long ago- arrayed in the corner. He stared only at the tall, golden doors at the room’s far end. They were closed, and two knights stood before them, barring the way.

“You didn’t hear me,” Cathan said. “I didn’t ask to see the Kingpriest. I said must see him.”

Quarath smiled, indulgent, and spoke slowly, as though to a child. “That may be, Lord Cathan, but it is not your place to say what His Holiness does, or whom he sees. If you wish, I might try to arrange an audience for you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Cathan snapped, then shook his head and stepped forward.

The elf made a small signal. The knights moved, lowering their halberds. Cathan came up short, startled. Once, the men of the Divine Hammer had followed his commands. Now they watched him suspiciously, faces hidden behind the visors of their horned helms. He could sense their nervousness. He had surrendered Ebonbane at the manse’s doors; even without it, he might have been able to fight his way past the guards, though, into the Lightbringer’s chambers.

No, that would be stupid. Other guards would come, and he hadn’t come here to get arrested. With a dirty glare at Quarath, he pivoted on his heel and left the parlor, down the hall and down the stairs. Brother Flaro, the Kingpriest’s steward, gave him back his sword, and he buckled it on as he strode into the gardens again. He was angry, and his fury only kept building as he stood on the portico of the platinum-roofed palace. He wanted to throttle the elf, break his scrawny neck for keeping him from the Kingpriest, go back in and put Ebonbane to Quarath’s throat, threaten to kill him if he weren’t allowed in.

He did none of these things. With an effort that made him shake, he lifted his hand from his blade’s hilt. He looked out over the gardens, a riot of color and scents. Off to one side, the tops of many moonstone obelisks jutted up above the bushes: The Garden of Martyrs, where the names of the god-blessed dead were etched. Many more of the white cenotaphs had appeared during his exile, each bearing more names than he could count.

Before he knew he was doing it, he was striding toward the monuments. The crushed-crystal path crunched underfoot. He went to one obelisk in particular, and found the place where a name had been removed: two names, actually, chiseled away. Tithian’s had once been there, and his own as well, when the church had believed them dead at Losarcum. He touched the gap in the list of names, let out a slow breath, and leaned forward, his head butting against cool stone.

The ground rushed down, away from him …he saw his own body, leaning against the monument, a thing left lifeless as his spirit rose above the city. Istar gleamed in the sun, gold and silver and the colors of a hundred jewels. Above, the sky grew dark-not twilight, but a draining away of light. The stars glowed their cold sheen, diamonds and rubies scattered and indigo satin… and something else.

The hammer.

With a rush, he realized, the power of what was happening. He’d been keeping vigil in this garden, perhaps five steps from where his body was now, when the god first gave him the vision. It had felt real then, and it felt real now-no dream, but something more. Something he was meant to see.

I should he higher, he thought. I should he up among the moons, looking down on the world. That’s how the dream goes, how it’s always gone. I’ve never been so close to the ground before.

He could see the people, laity in the streets and wine-shops and markets, clerics on the paths and terraces of the Temple. He could see the knights sparring in the Hammerhall, and figures in the courtyard of his sister’s manor. He could see the slaves, and the men who bought and sold them.

Some were looking up now, gazing past him. He knew what they saw: the mass of fire and stone, more than a league across, shaped like a hammer of war. It trailed a tail of flame as it got closer, closer…

Cold horror dropped in his stomach, heavy and hard as stone. Gods, it was heading straight for Istar!

“Run!” he cried to the figures below.

He wanted to wave his arms, but they were back down in the Garden with the rest of his body. Everyone was staring at the hammer, pointing and bending close to talk excitedly with one another. He kept shouting at them, but they could no more hear him than see him. They only stared, and he knew that the empire was over, in Istar’s cities and towns and fortresses and abbeys, thousands-no, millions-of eyes were fixed on the stranger ablaze in the darkling sky.

Palado Calib, he thought. This isn’t right at all…

The hammer was close now, coming on with a speed he couldn’t imagine. Its trail of flame stretched across the sky. It made no sound at all-and so he heard the voices beneath him change, the wonder and awe rising to shrill terror.

The hammer streaked past, down, down toward the shining dome of the Temple.

Cool air rushed into his lungs, and he choked, falling first against the monument, then to his knees on the path. Around him, the world swung and spun, spun and swung … he retched, his breath hitching in his burning throat. When he was done, he rolled over and sat up, his back against the cenotaph’s foot.