"Arnhand, brother. Those people are all thieves."

"Arnhand has its hands full with Santerin."

"No one else has the manpower and moral flexibility. Consider helping make sure the conflict with Santerin stays hot."

"Why are we here?" Brother Candle asked.

"Because your peoples are the ones it's going to happen to if Sublime forces the issue. Father Clayto, here, has condemned Brothe though he's an adherent of the Brothen Patriarchy. Bishop LeCroes, though, is teetering."

Absurd. Brother Candle did not know the man but knew the name. LeCroes was Immaculate's bishop in Khaurene, where the Episcopal population favored the anti-Patriarch.

Father Clayto was critical of Brothe and what Brothe wanted to do in the Connec. For that he had received severe reprimands. Sublime had demoted him to a.s.sistant pastor in one of Khaurene's poorest parishes.

The righteous never go unpunished.

Tormond said, "I want to know where each of you will stand if Sublime does try to make war."

Michael Carhart said, "That man doesn't care about heresy or dissent Greed drives him. He means to plunder the Connec to finance a war against Calzir and another crusade into Suriet. The Holy Lands." Suriet being the name of the Holy Lands in Melhaic, a language spoken amongst the Wells of Ihrian and by the Devedians of the latest diaspora. "He's been trying to make forced loans from us in the Episcopal States. In Sonsa the Brotherhood of War tried to destroy and plunder the entire Devedian community."

In truth, whenever the Brothen Church gained power, laws controlling the activities of non-Chaldareans soon took effect. And those, invariably, worked to the detriment of the larger community.

The more educated people in most communities were non-Chaldareans because most Chaldareans of standing disdained literacy. If the Episcopal n.o.bility wanted something written or read, or if they needed accounts kept, they hired some slinking, greedy, hand-wringing Deve to do the job.

Brother Candle said, "You've heard rumors of the synod of the Perfect this spring?"

Several people nodded. The military man shook his head.

Bromer Candle continued, "The consensus was that all who follow the Path are required to resist evil actively, even to the extent of countering force with force. If the Patriarch-or anyone else-directly attacks any Seeker After Light for nothing more man the fact that his feet are on the Path, men the Seeker will be absolved of the taint of sin acquired by resisting evil."

Father Clayto asked, "Are you declaring war on the Church?"

"Don't be willfully ridiculous, Father. I said the synod believes that we're morally obligated to fight back if we're attacked. n.o.body will be given a dispensation to go to Brome to root Sublime out and hang him."

Michael Carhart said, "That's an entirely reasonable att.i.tude. The Devedian community will a.s.sume the same posture."

Famer Clayto snipped, "I suspect the Deves of Sonsa made a similar claim before committing their atrocities there."

Gently, Michael Carhart asked, "How many of those atrocities occurred outside Sonsa's Devedian quarter, Father? How many? Tell me, how many Chaldareans had their homes burned? Explain to me how it is that you people always find your way to the argument that us resisting rape, robbery, and murder is a crime against your G.o.d."

Duke Tormond stepped in. "Enough. I just want to know if your peoples will lie down should Sublime actually do something besides talk." Before anyone responded, he continued, "I've sent a deputation to Brothe. Another deputation. Though the first had no impact on Bishop Serifs's bad behavior and the second did nothing but bring back absurd demands. Sir Eardale was part of that mission. He had a good look at Firaldia, the Episcopal States, and Brothe." He p.r.o.nounced the soldier's name Eh-ahr-dah-lay. "Brothe itself has been demilitarized."

Brother Candle knew the name, if not the man. Sir Eardale Dunn hailed from Santerin, a minor n.o.ble banished for reasons known only to himself, his king, and presumably, Duke Tormond. He had been Tormond's leading soldier for two decades, never having had to fight a war. He was not well known outside Metrelieux.

Sir Eardale said, "Sublime's ability to undertake a significant military operation exists entirely inside his own imagination. He believes his own propaganda. G.o.d is on his side because he's the Patriarch."

Sir Eardale continued, "Sublime has no troops he could send out on a foreign adventure. Every man he can afford to keep is waiting for Johannes Blackboots to attack. Most of them keeping their boots on at night so they don't have to waste time getting started running if Hansel does strike.

"Meantime, I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you that the Emperor is interested in Calzir. Vondera Koterba, his puppet in Alameddine, is recruiting mercenaries, possibly with an eye to annexing Calzir."

Brother Candle took a moment to consider what he knew of Firaldia. Alameddine would be the Chaldarean kingdom that bordered Praman Calzir, on the north side of the Vaillarentiglia Mountains.

Sir Eardale stopped talking. He devoted himself to one of the large cups of coffee that Tormond himself had prepared while his marshal spoke. The Duke offered the drink all round. No one refused. Not even Brother Candle, who had not taken coffee for decades. "Oh, that's good," he confessed. "I'd forgotten. More than the pleasures of the flesh, the Adversary could use coffee to seduce mortal man."

The Duke asked, "Are we exercising ourselves about nothing? Is the Patriarch just a blowhard?"

Sir Eardale said, "He is, in great part. The problem and danger is that he doesn't know he is. He really thinks that all devout Chaldreans are spoiling for a war against everything non-Chaldarean. But he's wrong. Even the most devout Chaldareans just want to get on with their lives. In peace."

"What about us?" Tormond asked. "Is he likely to carry out his threats against the End of Connec? Can he?"

No one could answer that. Only Sir Eardale had seen what was happening in Brothe. His observation was, "You can't predict what a madman will do."

Father Clayto asked, "Does it matter if Sublime can carry out his threats? A better question is, will he try? I'm afraid that, unfortunately, the answer to that one might be yes."

The Duke asked, "Do you find all this amusing, Charde?"

"Yes. In an irreverent fashion. Though no less frightening, for all that." He explained how a Maysalean could see G.o.d as a cruel practical joker in this. Once he finished explaining, he asked, "How will the Emperor react if Sublime launches a crusade against the Connec?"

"Excellent question," Sir Eardale said. "We expect to take that up with the Emperor himself. He'll certainly be interested now that his soldiers have disposed of those a.s.sa.s.sins who wanted to kill Immaculate."

Brother Candle was intrigued by the incident at Viscesment. Immaculate's defenders must have been forewarned.

Dainshaukin were notoriously quiet and sternly withdrawn from everyday life. Within their own dwindling.communities they considered themselves an elder race, the first masters of the transition between the Age of the G.o.ds and the Age of Man. The Dainshau at the table showed a palm.

The Duke identified him. "Tember Remak wishes to speak."

The Dainshau said, "Tember Remak has a question. Where does the Collegium stand in this? Does the Patriarch have their support?"

"They elected him," Father Clayto said.

"That would be a function of bribery and political persuasion. That would mean nothing in the time of the Festival of Hungry Ghosts. We have seen no evidence that Sublime fronts for the Tyranny of the Night. He is a great bl.u.s.terer living in Bad Dog Village, not the sweet lord of Once Glance Great Fortune."

Though couched in unfamiliar terms from Dainshaukin parable, the questions were important. If the sorcerers of the Church did not support Sublime his ambitions would be curbed. In particular his intelligence efforts would suffer. Espionage was one area where an alliance with the Instrumentalities of the Night could be very profitable.

"Is there any way to know?" Tormond asked. He peered at Brother Candle.

Brother Candle replied, "Our familiarity with the night is considerably exaggerated, Your Lordship. The fact is, Seekers After Light reject the night when we pledge to follow the Path. That's why we're called Seekers After Light. Some of my colleagues here, though ... They probably do roast Chaldarean babies and run naked under the full moon with demons from the Pit." He could not keep a straight face. Father Clayto had denounced the Seekers After Light for those very things.

One by one, each religious leader denied any involvement with the Instrumentalities of the Night. Mostly with good humor.

"So we're blind," Tormond said. "So we have no choice but to sit here and take whatever Fate hands out."

That earned him a clutch of scowls. There was no "fate" involved in the Will of G.o.d.

Brother Candle said, "Isn't it always that way in the Connec? Time and fortune have been generous. Never compelling us to bend the knee to the tyranny of the night."

Brother Candle received scowls himself. There was no "fortune" in the Will of G.o.d, either.

It was a strange convocation. No one demanded war. Almost everyone pled for peace-while making it plain that there would be no acquiescence if Sublime chose to make war.

The gathering broke up before Brother Candle fully understood what was happening. He suspected that Tormond and Isabeth wanted it that way. The religious leadership was prepared to fight the agents of darkness and forces of oppression. Without Tormond himself having committed pa.s.sionately to any particular course.

Vacillation and procrastination were Tormond's best-known traits. In the slow-moving world of the Connec doing nothing often proved to be the best way of handling problems.

Brother Candle was sure today's troubles would not fade away. Unless G.o.d chose to introduce Sublime to heaven's reward early.

11. Great Sky Fortress, Realm of the G.o.ds

There was no time in the Hall of the Heroes. There was only horror without end.

s.h.a.got wakened and slept, wakened and slept, ten thousand times, or less, or more. Each time he wakened he found himself in the same place in the same black-and-white world filled with the same silently screaming dead.

This was not the Heroes' Hall of legend. There was no roistering. The Daughters of the All-Father, when they could be seen, looked more like Eaters of the Dead than Choosers of the Slain. They walked but looked more like crones who had starved to death than the voluptuous maidens of myth.

s.h.a.got never expected much of the Choosers of the Slain. Not even to see them, ever, fair or foul. Even so, he was disappointed in the Hall of the Heroes.

The dead heroes were heaped in there as though just dropped. Not even stacked. As they had died, faces contorted in agony, limbs missing, guts spilling, wounds open.

But there was no decay. There were no carrion bugs or birds. No worms. And no odor of death.

s.h.a.got sensed nothing to convince him that he had died and gone to heaven.

s.h.a.got did not spend much time awake but after a few decades of tiny slivers of consciousness, he concluded that a different destination had claimed him. Perhaps something as bleak and terrible as that burning pit those Southron girlie missionaries had insisted would be the destination of the wicked and those who did not believe in their weird G.o.d.

Not once did his view change. He saw nothing of his companions on the road, nor anything of the fake fishermen who had brought them here and then abandoned them. The Choosers of the Slain turned up once in a while, evidently bringing in new clients.

Only sleep kept insanity at bay. Vast sleep and the fact that he was not an imaginative man.

Then, on his ten-thousandth, or twenty-thousandth, or thirty-thousandth day of imprisonment in Paradise, s.h.a.got wakened from eternal fog to find his view of heaven changing.

He was being moved by the Choosers of the Slain. He caught glimpses of their shrunken-head shriveled faces as they carried him by supporting him under the armpits. His feet dragged. He tried to help. Feet and legs would not cooperate. They just slipped and flopped.

f Feeling began to return. He felt his heart try to beat, something he could not recall happening at any time since the boat. The Choosers' bony, hard fingers dug into his flesh. He felt the numbness and pain that spring up in muscles long unused.

He tried to speak.

Nothing but a gurgle emerged. But, at least, he was breathing again.

It was a long journey to wherever those horrid women dragged him.

His vision expanded and improved. He was able to lift his head for seconds at a time. He found himself being hauled into a part of the Great Sky Fortress that, despite vast emptiness, seemed more humanly comfortable. Not in the sense that it was anything like anywhere he had been before but because what he saw now fit in with what he had heard about the Eastern Emperor's palace at Hypraxium, from old-timers who had followed the amber route south to serve in the Emperor's lifeguard. That was something the old adventurers always mentioned. The unoccupied vastnesses of the Emperor's house.

s.h.a.got's hearing began to return. He wished it had not. The Choosers of the Slain argued bitterly in a tongue that sounded a lot like Andorayan. s.h.a.got understood about a third of what they said.

Ah! They used an ancient form of Andorayan.

Language had been a gift of the G.o.ds a long time ago. It stood to reason that that language would have been their own and that men would have corrupted it over time.

The Choosers of the Slain proved to be extremely negative minor G.o.ddesses. They were not happy about anything. They did not like s.h.a.got and his band, other members of which were being resurrected as well. They did not like their Father's plan. They did not like the Hall of Heroes. They did not like the dead. They did not like their lives. They were especially put out with their sister Arlensul. Her selfish behavior had gotten her exiled and her share of the work dumped onto her long-suffering sisters.

The Choosers were just plain not happy with anything.

They got to wherever they were going. They dropped s.h.a.got and went away. s.h.a.got found himself resting on what appeared to be a vast plain of an empty floor. He saw no bounds, no walls, just a gradual fading into foggy darkness starting an arrow's flight away. There were no columns to support the ceiling. If one existed. It was too far above to be seen.

Distant movement caught his eye.

The hideous pair dragged Svavar his way.

s.h.a.got heard something behind him. He found the strength to roll over.

His face was less than a foot from polished black granite. Polished black granite that had not been there just minutes ago.

Tiers of black granite went up and up and up almost forever.

Somewhere, at the very edge of hearing, singing went on, funereal choral stuff that made s.h.a.got's spine shudder with cold chills. What the h.e.l.l was wrong with those people?

s.h.a.got levered himself onto his hands and knees. That gave him a better view all around. The granite rose in one-yard steps and setbacks, only about twenty times. There were what might be thrones way up top.

Svavar groaned beside s.h.a.got.

There followed a time of no time, when time must have pa.s.sed because s.h.a.got discovered that dramatic changes had taken place between one moment and the next.

Finnboga, h.e.l.lgrim, and the Thorlakssons were there. They remained disoriented. Beyond them was Erief Erealsson. Erief looked exactly like what he was, a dead man erect only by virtue of some supernatural power. Hundreds of equally color-drained dead men formed behind him, rank upon rank, as far as the eye could see.

s.h.a.got did not greet his former captain. Erief exuded the same bleak creepiness s.h.a.got felt whenever he neared one of the ancient burial mounds found throughout Andoray. The haunted mounds. Mounds said to be filled with blood-starved undead who, if they broke their bonds and caught one of the living to drain, could reclaim life. For a short while.

s.h.a.got was a skeptic. He knew no one who had had a genuine encounter with a draug. He wanted to remain skeptical, too. But the Choosers of the Slain had been equally unreal. And these dead men had a hungry look in their eyes. Those that still had eyes.

One by one, his companions climbed to their feet No one spoke. They were not brilliant but they understood that this was a place where any word spoken might be the wrong word.

The Choosers of the Slain came forward. They were nightmares now. They looked more like the harpies of southern myth than the beautiful daughters of the great G.o.d of the north.

The chamber crackled. s.h.a.got's hair stood out. Lightning flashed. Thunder bellowed. s.h.a.got screamed. He recovered to find himself clinging to the top of the first granite tier, trying to remain upright. His equilibrium was gone.

The Choosers of the Slain were up top now, with a dozen more sublime beings. They were not ugly anymore. The G.o.ds all looked like they had just stepped out of the old stories. Each was good-looking. Each shed a golden glow of youth.

Excepting the one wearing the dark gray, with the eye-patch, the staff, and the long white hair. The one with the wicked, winged night thing riding his shoulder, unlike any raven that ever flew the skies of s.h.a.got's earth. That one G.o.d was not in a cheerful, playful, or youthful mood.

The Gray One spoke to one of his companions, a small, bent G.o.d who looked like he might be part dwarf. The small G.o.d nodded, floated down toward the heroes. s.h.a.got paid little attention, other than noting a vulpine calculation in the G.o.d's expression as he approached. s.h.a.got was far more interested in the several G.o.ddesses.

The bent G.o.d came to rest on the bottom step, in front of s.h.a.got. "Hi there, Hero. Ready to go to work? h.e.l.l. Who gives a peck of rat s.h.i.t if you are or you aren't? My half-idiot brother wants you. So he can tell you what your future is going to be.

s.h.a.got knew whom he faced, now. His name, in modern Andorayan, could be rendered several ways. Trickster. Liar. Deceiver. And, in a stretch, Traitor. s.h.a.got's a.n.a.lytical side always wondered why other G.o.ds did not exterminate him. Maybe by drowning him in a peck of rat s.h.i.t.