At the Sign of Triumph (Safehold)

.I.

City of Zion,

The Temple Lands.

The Wednesday wind blowing sharply off Lake Pei spread the voices of Zion’s thousands upon thousands of bells all across the City of God on Safehold. They sang their ageless song of God’s love for His creation and His children on this, His day, and that song was more welcome than ever in these times of worry and despair. It promised His people comfort and ultimate victory, whatever temporary reverses His servants here in the world might suffer. It would be God’s Day, the highest holy day of the year, in only two more five-days, and the entire city was already bedecking streets and buildings with banners, spring flowers, and icons of the Archangels and Holy Martyrs while its hundreds of churches and cathedrals purified and reconsecrated themselves in anticipation of that joyous celebration. After April’s terrible news from the Gulf of Dohlar and May’s dreary, late-spring snows, His people needed that promise, that confirmation that they truly were His and that He would never forget them.

The wind spreading that joyous music across the city was brisk enough to strike a chill even in the bright June sunlight, but the picked bodyguard of Temple Guardsmen and agents inquisitor made a brave show as they waited on the immaculate, marble-faced quay consecrated to the Temple’s use, like an island of snow-white sanctity on the bustling Zion waterfront. Polished armor and the silver-plated heads of the halberds the Guard still carried on ceremonial occasions flashed back the sun, which gleamed less brilliantly from the burnished barrels of far more businesslike rifles and pistols. Banners snapped above them—Mother Church’s green-and-gold and the flame-badged purple of the Inquisition.

Wyllym Rayno had been scheduled to join them, but the Grand Inquisitor had decreed otherwise at the last minute. Probably, Rayno thought, watching through a parapet-mounted spyglass from the Temple Annex roof, because for all the pomp and ceremony, Zhaspahr Clyntahn was less than pleased with the man those guards were there to escort directly to his first audience. Rayno couldn’t be certain that was why his own agenda had been changed. He only knew his new instructions had been waiting when he’d emerged from the Temple side chapel dedicated to the Archangel Schueler after celebrating his own Wednesday mass. On the other hand, he did know it would have been like his superior to “send a message” to the Inquisitor General by deliberately changing Rayno’s itinerary to snub Edwyrds only after making certain the Inquisitor General had received his own copy of it. After all, if he hadn’t received his copy first, he wouldn’t have known he was being snubbed, would he?

Petty of Zhaspahr, but it does get his feelings across, doesn’t it? the archbishop mused, deflecting the spyglass from the bodyguards to the vessel still the better part of two miles out from the waterfront. Like so much else of the Temple, that spyglass was a holy relic, finer than anything mortal hands could make, with lenses that were water-clear and powerful. Now he turned the focusing knob until the boat leapt into crystalline clarity, only an arm’s length away despite the distance, and smiled as he saw spray bursting white on the purple-bannered schooner’s weather bow.

It must be chilly out there—among other things—in the boat bouncing in the steep, choppy waves. The thought amused him, since Inquisitor General Wylbyr’s vulnerability to motion sickness was well known and he wasn’t exactly basking in the esteem of the Inquisition’s adjutant at the moment, either.

Of course, Rayno thought, moving the spyglass slowly and delicately in hopes of finding a green-faced Edwyrds leaning over the lee rail, we’ll have to project all of that approval and brotherly love very publicly before we send him back. What I’d like to do is to replace him with someone with a clue, but that would mean someone who’d recognize the need to … moderate the enforcement of Zhaspahr’s directives, and that probably wouldn’t work out any better in the end. Somebody willing to do that might actually at least slow the bleeding, but he’d be lucky to last three five-days before Zhaspahr yanked him home to face the Punishment himself.

The frown that crossed the archbishop’s face was far more worried than he would have permitted himself in front of witnesses. Clyntahn was digging in ever more deeply on his demand that the least sign of heresy be immediately punished. He might still recognize the need to show at least some moderation here in Zion and in the Temple Lands generally, but even that was eroding as he became more and more determined to yield not a single inch more ground. And whatever he was willing to concede here, he insisted upon a complete crackdown on anything that even might be a sign of heresy in the portion of Siddarmark still occupied by Mother Church’s forces and even—or perhaps especially—in the Border States, where the looming threat of heretic invasion, with its suggestion that the heretics might actually be winning their blasphemous war, threatened the faith of Mother Church’s children.

Rayno could understand his need to do something to stop the heretics, yet their own agents inquisitor’s reports clearly indicated that the Inquisitor General’s repressiveness actually fueled Reformist fervor. Even some of those with no desire at all to become part of a heretical, schismatic church had begun to question whether God could truly approve of the Inquisition’s ferocity. There was a reason people even here, in Zion, whispered prayers every night that the Inquisition would at least … moderate its severity.

Yet Clyntahn refused—more adamantly than ever, in fact—to admit that too much severity was actually as bad—or worse—than too little firmness.

It was fear, Rayno thought. Clyntahn would never admit it—not in a thousand years—but that was the reason he refused to relent. The worm of fear ate its poisonous way deeper into the Grand Inquisitor’s heart with every passing day, and his response was to lash out at those whose weakness—whose failures—fed his fear and made it strong. It was a worm Wyllym Rayno was coming to know only too well, one he’d found hidden in his own heart.Yet there was a difference between his fear and Clyntahn’s. Rayno liked it no more than the next man, yet at least he was willing to acknowledge it was fear he felt. Clyntahn wasn’t, and he was building a bubble about himself—a bubble in which it was still permissible to discuss how the Inquisition might respond most effectively to its enemies, or even ways in which specific reverses might be addressed, but no underling dared to suggest Mother Church’s triumph over each and every one of those enemies might conceivably be anything but inevitable.

Whether the Grand Inquisitor would allow even Duchairn or Maigwair to discuss the military situation with anything like frankness at this point was an open question in Rayno’s mind. What wasn’t a question was that even if he would for the present, the time was coming when he no longer would, and what happened then?

We need a miracle, God, he thought, still gazing at the Inquisitor General’s approaching schooner, remembering the celebrants’ reverent, rumbling liturgical responses in the mass he’d celebrated. Treasuring the chanted scripture and the soaring harmonies of the hymns. On a day like this, a Wednesday when he was freshly come from God’s own Presence, when God’s Day loomed so close upon the calendar, he could truly believe miracles were possible. You’ve given enough of them to the heretics. Now we need You to give one to us. Something to show we truly are Your champions, that You haven’t deserted us. That—

He stiffened in shock, his eyes flaring wide, as the schooner disintegrated into a boil of fire and smoke that filled his field of view. He actually saw two of the men on deck, both Schuelerite under-priests, simply disappear as the blast of fury snatched them into its maw and devoured them.

He leapt back from the spyglass and the ball of flame was suddenly tiny with distance, but that distance did nothing to dispel his horror as he watched broken debris—debris he knew included the shredded flesh of the priests he’d seen vanish into that searing wall of flame—arc upwards in dreadful silence while the bells sang sweetly, sweetly behind him.

Just over nine seconds later, the explosion’s rumbling thunder rolled over that golden song like Shan-wei’s own curse.

* * *

Zhozuah Murphai watched the same column of fiery, spray-shot smoke. His waterfront-level vantage point was rather different from Archbishop Wyllym’s … and so was his reaction. The brisk wind began to twist the column into a shredding spiral, bending it so that it loomed towards Zion, standing up from the surface of Lake Pei in a sign visible to every citizen of the city, and satisfaction blazed within him like the heart of a star.

Ahrloh Mahkbyth had been bitterly disappointed when he learned Helm Cleaver wouldn’t be able to reach Wylbyr Edwyrds upon his arrival after all. Security was simply too tight for his people to penetrate—no doubt because of the record of successes the Fist of God and Dialydd Mab had already run up. Mahkbyth’s people might have been able to get to Edwyrds before he left Zion, but the odds were overwhelmingly against it. So Murphai had volunteered to see to that part of the mission. After all, a PICA, had no need to breathe. Given that, it had made far more sense for Murphai to attach the charge—an Owl-provided charge of explosives not even Sahndrah Lywys would be able to duplicate for decades—to the keel of Edwyrds’ schooner while it waited for Edwyrds’ canal boat at Brouhkamp, the capital of the Episcopate of Schueler on the far side of Lake Pei. He’d rather enjoyed the irony of planting the charge in the episcopate named for the Inquisition’s patron “archangel.”

He’d trudged across the bottom of Brouhkamp’s harbor to see to that minor detail two days earlier. The truth was that he could easily have delegated that task to one of Owl’s remotes if he’d so desired. But he’d witnessed entirely too much of Edwyrds’ bloody handiwork over the last two years to let anyone else plant that particular charge.

This afternoon, however, he was a mere spectator. He’d been sure to pick a good vantage point, well clear of the Temple but with an excellent view of the waterfront, while the other teams worked their ways into position. Nahrmahn and Owl had watched over them through the SNARCs, waiting until everyone was in place, and only then triggered the explosion through a SNARC relay.

In many ways, Murphai wished Mahkbyth could have been with him to share the moment. A man couldn’t have everything, though, and if Mahkbyth had been unhappy to lose that particular kill, the modifications he’d suggested to Murphai’s original plan more than compensated.

Besides, the ex-Guardsman wasn’t the spectator type. He was the sort of man who preferred to be more … hands-on.

Especially for some things.

* * *

Bishop Zakryah Ohygyns had just kissed his wife, hugged his children, collected his personal Guardsmen, and started back down his front walk to return to his office when he heard the explosion. Of course, he didn’t know it was an explosion; he simply knew it wasn’t a sound he should be hearing in Zion on a sunny Wednesday afternoon.

He also knew how bitterly his wife resented the hours he worked. In her opinion, a bishop of Mother Church ought to be able to spend at least an occasional Wednesday with his family. But, no! Not her husband! He had to race home from mass, bolt down Wednesday dinner, and then turn around and head straight back to the office. She would never dream of complaining, especially in the middle of a jihad. But this Jihad had been going on for years now. It was long past time the Inquisitor General found someone else to carry some of Ohygyns’ load, at least on Wednesdays, and the fact that she would never complain about it in so many words—and certainly never to anyone else—didn’t keep her from making her feelings abundantly clear to him. Nor did it keep him from feeling guilty. Yet there was nothing he could do about it until the Jihad was won.

Maybe then I can convince Archbishop Wyllym I’ve earned a vacation, he thought, stopping on the sidewalk, one foot on the carriage’s running board as he craned his neck, trying to decide where that thunder had come from on such a cloudless day. The six men of his protective detail stopped with him, as puzzled as he was, and the driver on the coach’s high seat half stood, as if he thought he could actually see its source from his higher vantage point.

Maybe we could take the kids to visit her brother in Malantor, his thought ran on even as he tried to determine what he’d heard. God knows the beaches are nicer—and a lot warmer—in Tahlryn Bay than they are on Lake Pei or Temple Bay! And it’s been years since we had a real family vacation. Besides, she has a point. The Writ itself says a man’s duty to his family comes—

“For our sisters!” a voice said.

Ohygyns was still turning towards it when the trio of Composition D-charged hand grenades, with Delthak Works proof marks, exploded. There were two survivors from the men clustered around the carriage.

Zakryah Ohygyns was not among them.

* * *

Father Mairydyth Tymyns looked up from his copy of the current Decrees of Schueler with a muttered oath. It was Wednesday, for Schueler’s sake! Surely on this day, of all days, a priest could spend a little time re-dedicating himself to his holy purpose without being disturbed?

“What’s all that racket, Zherohm?” he demanded irritably.

There was no answer, and he swore again as he laid the Decrees aside and pushed up out of his chair. It sounded like Zherohm Slokym had just dropped something in the vestibule, but that wasn’t like him. The grizzled, thick-shouldered monk had been with Tymyns for years now, and for all his muscular bulk, he was as sure-handed as he was reliable. He was also just as passionate as Tymyns himself about ferreting out heretics. They suited one another, and the monk served as Tymyns’ combination personal bodyguard and batman/valet, as well as the senior member of his detail in the field.

“Zherohm!” he said in a louder voice, then cocked his head as what sounded for all the world like a peal of thunder rattled the windows of the modest house the Order had assigned to him.

Now what? he wondered exasperatedly. It can’t be thunder—not on a day like this! But in that case—

CRAAACK!

His library door’s latch splintered under the straight, savage kick of a heavy boot. The door flew wide, slamming explosively back against the wall, and Zherohm Slokym hurtled in through the opening. But he hadn’t arrived in response to Tymyns’ summons. And he wasn’t going to be explaining anything, either—not with his throat slashed from ear to ear. He hit the floor with a dull, meaty thud, and blood spread in a thick, hot pool across the carpet.

Tymyns was still staring at the body, smelling the strong, coppery stench of blood and stunned into utter immobility, when more solid, muscular men charged into the room in Slokym’s wake and strong, angry hands seized him.

There were four of them, he realized. All of them were masked, and they wore aprons—the heavy, full-length aprons butchers wore. They ought to have looked ridiculous, a corner of his mind thought, but they didn’t. Not with the bright spatters those aprons had already intercepted when Slokym’s severed carotid sprayed blood.

Of course, that same corner thought. They wanted to keep Zherohm’s blood off their clothes. They’ll just take off the aprons and leave them behind when they blend into the crowds and simply walk away from—

His shock-numbed thought processes stuttered back into life as he realized what else those men had come to do, and he opened his mouth to cry out as two of the intruders wrenched his arms agonizingly behind him as expertly as any agent inquisitor. He writhed frantically, fighting to pull away, but a third man twisted his fingers in his hair, yanked his head back, and crammed a thick wad of cloth into his mouth.

The Schuelerite’s desperate, belated shout for help was muffled, smothered into inaudibility, and his eyes went huge with terror as the fourth man—the one with the bloody dagger in his hand—reached inside the bib of his apron and removed an envelope. He dropped it on Slokym’s body, and then that featureless, masked face turned towards Tymyns.

“We have a message for you from our sisters, Father,” Ahrloh Mahkbyth said coldly, and Tymyns gurgled frantically, bulging eyes pleading for the mercy he’d never shown another, as his head was wrenched even farther back, arching his throat for the knife.

* * *

“Of course it wasn’t the ‘Fist of God’!” Zhaspahr Clyntahn snapped, glaring around the council chamber. “How in Shan-wei’s name could it have been? That schooner belonged to the Inquisition! Its crew consisted entirely of agents inquisitor and Schuelerite lay brothers, all sworn to the Order, and Bishop Wylbyr’s personal guards went over it inch-by-inch before they ever allowed him to board!” The Grand Inquisitor’s jowls were dark, his eyes fiery. “Are you suggesting that somehow a pack of murderous fanatics got a bomb big enough to do that much damage past its entire crew and all of that security?!”

Rhobair Duchairn and Allayn Maigwair were careful not to look at one another. Zahmsyn Trynair, fortunately for him, was out of Zion on diplomatic business, although he’d undoubtedly have been sitting in his corner emulating a mouse if he hadn’t been.

“I’m telling you, this is just the lying bastards taking credit for something they had nothing to do with!”

Clyntahn slammed back in his chair, staring at them, and the crackling silence stretched out as his furious scowl dared them to disagree with him.

“I understand what you’re saying about the security around the Inquisitor General,” Maigwair said at last, his tone that of a man picking his words with extraordinary care. “And I’ll readily admit that I don’t see any way assassins could’ve gotten through it, either. But they obviously got to at least half a dozen other servants of the Inquisition right here in Zion, and something happened to Bishop Wylbyr, Zhaspahr. His boat blew up in plain sight of anyone on the waterfront, and the fact that he was returning to Zion was pretty widely known. Not only that, his escort was waiting down at the docks.” The captain general shook his head. “We can’t pretend he wasn’t aboard when the damned thing went up! And that means we need some sort of statement, some sort of explanation for how that could’ve happened if it wasn’t the ‘Fist of God.’”

“It was obviously an accident,” Clyntahn snapped, leaning forward again to slap one meaty palm on the conference table for emphasis. “For that matter, we don’t know for certain it was even the ‘Fist of God’—” the three words came out like a curse “—that murdered Ohygyns and the others!”

Maigwair couldn’t keep his eyes from rolling, and Clyntahn’s lips tightened.

“All right,” he grated. “I’ll grant you that that almost had to be the frigging terrorists. But it’s only a fluke those murders came so close to the explosion! I’ll admit it’s one hell of a coincidence—and the timing sucks—but that’s all it can be, damn it! They’re trying to make something that was pure serendipity look like it was all part of a single, coordinated operation because that will make them look so much more dangerous than they really are. But it couldn’t have been! They’re trying to take advantage of a completely separate accident!”

“An accident?” Maigwair repeated, and Clyntahn slapped the tabletop again, harder.

“Yes, damn it—an accident! The Inquisitor General’s guard detail had its own weapons along, which means they were carrying ammunition. Besides, the boat itself had cannon! There had to be powder and shot in its magazine for those, didn’t there? Obviously a spark must have set it off somehow!”

Maigwair’s jaw tightened, and Duchairn clamped his own teeth together, remembering another explosion, at a place called Sarkhan, which Clyntahn—and Wylbyr Edwyrds, for that matter—had flatly denied could have been a “coincidence.” And there’d been one hell of a lot more gunpowder aboard that canal barge to explain the accident, too. The “cannon” aboard Edwyrds’ pint-sized schooner had consisted of a total of six wolves: half-pound swivel guns, purely antipersonnel weapons that were effectively outsized smoothbore muskets. He had no idea how much powder it would have had in its magazine—he was pretty sure Maigwair did, which probably explained the incredulity the captain general couldn’t keep out of his eyes—but it certainly hadn’t been enough to produce that explosion. Divers had already confirmed that the schooner’s wreckage was spread over two hundred yards of lake bottom, and its midsection had simply disintegrated. The shattered bow and stern lay almost forty yards apart at the heart of the debris field, totally severed from one another. No powder supply for half a dozen wolves was going to accomplish that.

“I suspect quite a few people will find a spontaneous magazine explosion less believable than a successful assasination,” Maigwair said after a moment with what Duchairn privately thought was foolhardy courage. Clyntahn’s lips drew back, but the captain general continued before he could speak. “I’m not saying it couldn’t have happened that way, Zhaspahr. I’m just saying that even if it’s precisely what did happen, some people will find it difficult to accept.”

“And your point is?” Clyntahn demanded harshly.

“My point is that those who find it difficult to accept may begin to wonder if we’re not trying to sell them a falsified cover story because we’re afraid to admit what really happened.” Maigwair met the Grand Inquisitor’s glare steadily. “I’m not saying that’s what it is, Zhaspahr; I’m saying that’s what the more … fainthearted may think it is.”

“The Inquisition knows how to deal with ‘faintheartedness’!”

“I don’t doubt it, but dealing with it after the fact doesn’t strike me as the best approach, especially if we can be more … proactive. I’m only suggesting that there was already a great deal of concern in the city, especially after the news of Rhaigair Bay. And word of the other murderers has already spread all across Zion. Even if the terrorists hadn’t said a word, anyone who puts the explosion together with the obvious—and simultaneous—assassinations is going to leap to the conclusion that they were coordinated, part of the same terrorist attack. It’s only human nature to think that way unless it can be proven differently, Zhaspahr! My question is whether or not we want to give the appearance that we’re trying to deny something they’ll be naturally inclined to believe has to be the truth. Half of Zion was down on the lakefront, enjoying the first sunny Wednesday in over a month. They saw the explosion, and if anyone here in the city decides Mother Church is lying to them about something they saw with their own eyes, it could undermine the credibility of anything we tell them from here out. Especially if the heretics give them a different story, the way the terrorists are doing right this minute.”

Clyntahn started to snarl a response, but then, miraculously, he stopped himself. He braced the heels of his hands on the edge of the massive table, instead, thrusting himself fully back into his chair, and his expression was as ugly as Rhobair Duchairn had ever seen.

“So what d’you suggest we do?” he demanded after a long, smoldering moment.

“I’m afraid I’m suggesting that allowing the terrorists to claim credit for Bishop Wylbyr’s murder along with the others—even if we absolutely agree that they didn’t actually have a thing to do with it—may be the lesser of two evils.”

“I won’t give them the satisfaction!”

“Zhaspahr, they’re going to claim it, anyway. Langhorne! They already have! And there are some people in the city whose faith is weak enough they’ll believe that claim whatever anyone else tells them. So what’s your alternative? Even if we tell everyone it was gunpowder in the boat’s magazine—and even if they believe us—they’re going to wonder how it came to explode at exactly the right moment for the terrorists, and how that sort of explosion could inflict that much damage. And if they start wondering that, Zhaspahr, and if they decide it wasn’t the terrorists, it’s only a very short step to assigning credit to … a more than mortal agency helping the terrorists. Do we want them thinking it was demonic intervention? Demons working directly with the terrorists this close to Zion—barely two miles from the Temple itself?!”

This time the silence was deathly still, and Duchairn breathed a short, silent prayer for his fellow vicar as Clyntahn stared at him with pure murder in his eyes. Yet Maigwair refused to back down, and as the silence stretched out, Duchairn realized his argument might actually be getting through.

Because it’s a very pointed argument, isn’t it, Zhaspahr? the treasurer thought. You don’t like it, and it scares the shit out of you, but Allayn’s got one hell of a point! Especially since this isn’t the first time a “more than mortal agency” seems to’ve acted right in the heart of Zion. Don’t want to admit that to anyone, do you?

Clyntahn resolutely refused to confirm what had happened at St. Thyrmyn Prison, even now and even to the other two members of the Group of Three. For that matter, the Inquisition refused to acknowledge that anything had happened there. By now, though, Duchairn and Maigwair had confirmed that every single individual in the prison had mysteriously and suddenly died—confirmed it through multiple, independent sources both of them trusted implicitly. Worse, garbled versions of the same event had spread throughout the city, despite the Inquisition’s best efforts to stop them.

And now this.

Duchairn hadn’t yet officially seen the manifesto from the Fist of God which had gone up all across the city, obviously through the same mysterious avenue as those heretical broadsheets Clyntahn had never been able to stop. He wasn’t about to suggest he had seen that manifesto—or breathe one single word about those broadsheets—to Clyntahn at this moment, either. But whether or not he had any official knowledge, he’d already seen a copy, and he knew exactly what it had said:

To the Grand Fornicator:

Greetings! We thank you for summoning Bishop Wylbyr home so that we might send him along with Bishop Zakryah, Father Mairydyth, Brother Zherohm, Father Charlz, Sister Tyldah, and Brother Hahnz to render a long overdue accounting for their actions before God and the Archangels. We doubt they took pleasure at the final rendering of their accounts, yet their debts were only a tiny fragment of yours.

The Inquisition has much for which to atone before the Throne of Langhorne. Most grievously of all, it must answer for its willingness to serve the human-shaped corruption which profanes the office of Grand Inquisitor. Mother Church’s rod of correction was never created to become the whore of an arrogant, egotistical fornicator who sets his personal, unholy ambition above the will of God Himself. You have seen fit to torture, starve, and murder countless children of God in the name of that ambition, turned the Holy Inquisition into your accomplice in the service of that arrogance, and, in the process, become the greatest butcher since the War Against the Fallen itself.

The Fist of God has sworn to stop you, and we will neither halt, nor rest, nor pause until you pay the last, full measure of your debt to God and the Archangels whose true will you defile and pervert with every breath you draw.

You have chosen to torture and kill those dear to us—our sisters Zhorzhet and Marzho. They are only two more deaths among the millions whose blood stains your hands, and their souls are already with God. But unlike those other, nameless dead, Zhorzhet and Marzho have champions. They have avengers. We will not defile ourselves before God by lending ourselves to torture out of hate and love of cruelty, as you do, but we will balance the scale of justice as Schueler and Langhorne require, and so we begin by taking from you Wylbyr Edwyrds and the others struck down this day. We take them in recompense not only for our sisters, but for the millions of innocents Edwyrds has murdered in the Republic of Siddarmark and in the Border States in your service. In your service—never God’s!

We begin with these names, but we will not end here. In the fullness of time, we will come for you, as well, murderer of innocence. And know this: there is no threat you can levy, no bribe you can offer, no plea you can utter which will turn us from our purpose … and there is no place you can hide from us. Whatever lies you may tell, you know, as we do—as the inquisitors of St. Thyrmyn Prison learned—whose side God is truly on, and the day will come when He delivers you into our hand, as well.

No wonder Clyntahn wanted so desperately to deny the Fist of God’s involvement in Edwyrds’ assassination! Yet Maigwair was right. Perhaps some would believe his denial … but many, many more would not. Not with the other deaths associated with it. And when they rejected the truth of one claim, then the truth of every single fresh lie would become suspect.

They couldn’t prevent that from happening in the long term, whatever they did. Not unless the Charisians and their allies suffered a major reverse—or something that could be spun as a major reverse—to offset the endless chain of disasters which had befallen the forces of Mother Church. The City of Zion—the entire Church—had sunk deeper and deeper into what Duchairn could describe only as a “fortress mentality.” More and more of Mother Church’s children were hunkering down, hunching their shoulders under the lash of one defeat after another. They might endure those lashes without admitting open despair, even to themselves. Might even continue to believe victory was possible. But they no longer believed it was inevitable. They expected more defeats, more reverses, and more and more of them were coming to the view that stopping the “heretics” short of Zion itself would require the direct intervention of God and the Archangels.

He and Maigwair realized that; Clyntahn chose to deny it, yet he, too, had to know the truth deep inside.

But he’ll never admit it, the treasurer thought sinkingly. Never. He can’t—he literally can’t—because he knows the Fist of God is telling him the exact truth in at least one respect. After all the death, all the destruction, all the torture and murder handed out by the Inquisition in Mother Church’s name, her defeat—no, our defeat—can end only in his death. However fiercely he may deny that to others, he can no longer deny it to himself, because his millions of victims demand nothing less. And for all the faith he professes in God, he can no more divorce his own survival from the survival of Mother Church than he could bodily ascend to Heaven from the Temple’s dome. Whatever he may say, the entire world ends with his death, and it would never occur to him in a million years to sacrifice himself for anyone else, no matter what the Writ says. And since that’s the case, he has nothing to lose … and no reason not to pull the rest of the world down with him.

“All right,” Clyntahn said finally, and his voice was like crushed glass. “It wasn’t the ‘Fist of God,’ Allayn. Whatever else they may have done, this couldn’t have been them. But in this case—in this case—you may have a point. Perhaps it will be better to allow the lying sons-of-bitches’ claim to stand rather than give any credence to the possibility that they’re receiving demonic aid here in God’s own city. But there’s a difference between allowing it to stand and confirming it! The Inquisition’s official position on the cause of Bishop Wylbyr’s death will be silence. We will neither confirm nor deny that it was an act of murder, and if we’re asked, in the fullness of time, we’ll say only that it’s impossible for us to know exactly how that explosion occurred. We’ll concede that it could—could—have been the work of the same impious, bloody-handed assassins who struck down so many other blameless sons and daughters of God this day. But we’ll also point out that it might have been the spontaneous, accidental explosion of the boat’s magazines, instead, and that all the evidence available to us suggests that that’s precisely what it was. If that’s not going far enough, then fuck you!”

The final sentence came out in a venomous hiss, and Duchairn drew a deep breath. If he’d ever doubted for a moment that Allayn Maigwair was already a dead man in Zhaspahr Clyntahn’s eyes, he would have doubted no longer. Yet the captain general only nodded, and his own expression was calm, almost serene.

“Yes, Zhaspahr,” he said, “that’s enough to allay most of my concerns, for the moment, at least. It’s not perfect, but that’s my point. There isn’t a perfect reponse for this one. For that matter, there’s not even a good one. But that answer will stand, at least for a time—hopefully, until the Mighty Host achieves a significant victory. When that happens, when the heretics suffer a clear, unambiguous defeat—which will be even more disheartening to them and more enheartening to the Faithful, after this string of reverses—the internal dynamic here in Zion will change and the man in the street won’t be so damned inclined to think some bit of news is accurate only if it’s bad news.”

The Grand Inquisitor snarled something unprintable, shoved himself violently up out of his chair, and stalked out of the conference chamber like a thunder cloud.

Maigwair and Duchairn gave him a few seconds to storm down the hall, then stood rather more sedately and followed him out the door. Neither wanted to be too close on his heels, nor was either of them foolish enough to say anything where other ears might hear. But neither of them needed to, because both of them knew what Maigwair had really said, underneath all the spin needed to buy even that grudging, disgusted acceptance from Clyntahn.

It wasn’t a matter of “until’ the Mighty Host achieved a “significant victory.” It was a matter of “if” … and the chance that Earl Rainbow Waters could produce one looked more and more threadbare with every passing five-day.