Destiny: Child of the Sky

62

Blesser of Bethe Corbair was a patient man. He had always been so. Even in the days before the Taking, in the time prior to becoming the host of the demon, Lanacan Orlando had been a patient man. Not suited by temperament or position to fight for dominance with Mousa or Griswold, he had instead chosen the path of long-suffering, humble service in the hope that the Patriarch would see the depth of his commitment to the All-God and to the Patriarch himself. Instead, the years passed; he repeatedly accepted the Patriarch’s sincere thanks for taking on the most onerous of tasks, loyally serving as the healer to the festering wounded of the armies, the low-life populations of Bethe Corbair and the farming villages of the Krevensfield Plain, while the power and prestige were routinely reserved for the more assertive and combative benisons. Lanacan waited for the Patriarch, a soft-spoken man with a distaste for strife, to ultimately reward him for all his good works, his mild manner, but it never came to pass. His only thanks for all that patience was the Patriarch’s good opinion.

When finally Lanacan Orlando made his deal with the demon, he discovered that it, too, was patient. Unlike most of the others of its race, intent on mayhem and chaos at all costs, lusting for power and the friction of destruction, the F’dor that took him on, came into him like breath, remaining in his lungs like heavy vapor, clinging thickly to his blood, had a long worldview, a plan it was willing to wait to implement until all the pieces were in place. Over the years, as he grew more and more demonic, it seemed as if the F’dor’s avarice might have even been tempered somewhat by the patience he had possessed before it possessed him.

Now, spring was coming. He stood in the thin snow of the Krevensfield Plain, the anger from being thwarted at such an important juncture still unabated, growing more fierce and furious, like a spreading fire, by the moment. The Patriarch had died in Tyrian, not in Sepulvarta. He had died without a successor, and, more important, without the Ring. Had he remained in Sepulvarta, where he had spent his entire life since investiture, the benison would have been the one to comfort him in his remaining days. To ease his transition from life to death, in Orlando’s own time. To make sure all the pieces were in place for Orlando’s ascension as the new Patriarch, which would give him the chance to crown his thrall King of Roland.

Well, no matter, he thought, trying to quell the screaming voice that burned in his ear. He has the armies.

Now, Tristan Steward, he whispered into the wind. Regin.

He waited until the command caught the west wind, then turned to his livery driver and the soldiers who served as his escort and smiled beneficently.

“Well, gentlemen, we are but a day from home. I can almost hear the sweet music of the bells of Bethe Corbair on the wind; shall we saddle up, then, and be off?”

Cristan Steward swung open the door just as McVickers, the new knight marshal of the united army of Roland, was preparing to knock.

“Come in, McVickers,” he said thickly. The soldier stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. He stood at attention, waiting for the prince to speak, but Tristan merely returned to his desk and the enormous pile of parchment documents he had been paging through. After a few moments, McVickers spoke.

“What can I do to be of service, m’lord?”

“You can stand there quietly while I get the maps together, McVickers.” The prince’s voice dripped with venom. The soldier inhaled deeply and remained at attention.

Finally Tristan found what he wanted. He spread the sheets out on the long table near the window and gestured impatiently to McVickers. The soldier came and stood by his side. He stared down at the maps that the prince was arranging on the table. Finally he spoke.

—i

“Canrif, m’lord?”

“Yes,” Tristan answered, smoothing the corner of an ancient map that was attempting to reroll itself. “The Bolglands.”

“Sir?”

Steward’s eyes glittered impatiently. “What is it you don’t understand, McVickers? I’ve summoned Stephen Navarne and asked him to bring from his museum the drawings of the internal tunnels and mountain passes that were built in the Cymrian times; I doubt there has been much structural revision. Most of the changes will have been to the outer defenses, to the outposts and perhaps in the field tunnels known as the breastworks.”

“I—I don’t understand, m’lord.” McVickers stammered as the enormity of what the prince was contemplating began to dawn on him. “You—you aren’t planning to—attack the Bolglands, are you, sir?”

The madness in Tristan’s eyes shone brighter than the morning light outside the library window. He had been in a rage of sick disappointment ever since the coronation, when the Patriarch’s untimely demise had caused a panic, and thereby prevented him from the private audience with the new Lirin queen he had been craving with anticipation. He had been forced to leave immediately with the benisons and the other provincial leaders, to return to Sepulvarta for the funeral. Rhapsody had not attended; she had already said her goodbyes.

But at least she was now ensconced in Tyrian.

Out of the Bolglands.

Out of harm’s way.

“Yes, McVickers,” he said darkly. “Yes, I am. It’s only a shell at this point, anyway; a plague of some sort has destroyed the army and most of the populace. Those Bolg that remain must be contained to ensure that the disease does not spread to Roland. Now gather your generals, and begin a muster. I want to leave as soon as all the provinces have sent their soldiers, when the last troops arrive from Yarim two months hence.”

McVickers nodded, feeling the weight of an executioner on his neck as he did.

“Yes, m’lord.”

The sheer scope of the cathedral, its massive domed ceiling overarching a hall the length and breadth of several city streets, only served to unnerve Achmed even more.

He had surprised Grunthor to the point of speechlessness when the Bolg king announced that he wanted to stay near the basilica of the Star for a few moments after the benisons had left, along with the weeping faithful, as night fell on the conclusion of the funeral rites for the Patriarch. Lanacan Orlando, who had passed up the service itself to remain behind in the Patriarch’s manse, comforting the grief-stricken abbot and ordinates, had already departed to return to Bethe Corbair. His coterie had headed north toward the crossroads of the trans-Orlandan thoroughfare, the roadway built in Cymrian times bisecting Roland from the seacoast to the edge of the Teeth. Achmed reasoned they could catch up with him easily by traveling overland. You know why he stayed in the rectory? Achmed had asked. Binding more thralls?

That, and he can’t go into the basilica. It’s blessed ground. The giant Sergeant-Major stood, still befuddled, at the back door in the dark vestibule near the entrance to the nave, the largest part of the basilica, where the faithful stood or sat during services. He kicked his toe through the debris left behind from the funeral, scattered feathers that had been used in the ceremony by the congregation to help speed the Patriarch’s soul to the Light, soiled with mudfilth from the soles of ten thousand feet amid a sea of candle drippings and torn flower petals. Idly he wondered if any of the ashes from the Patriarch’s body, set alight on the great brazier that had been erected on the altar, were mixed in with the grime that marred the beautifully crafted mosaics on the floor beneath his boots.

Achmed looked over his shoulder for the fifth time, assuring himself that he was indeed still alone in the vast cathedral, then reluctantly made his way down one of the main aisles to the sanctuary where the pyre-altar stood atop a platform above a great number of stairs. Outside the cathedral the bells of the enormous tower known as the Spire were tolling the endless death knell. When he reached the foot of the stairs he stopped, then cleared his throat nervously in the haze of smoke that still hung heavy in the air.

“I hate priests,” he said aloud, his eyes fixed on the coals that had gone dark after being doused with holy water. He stared at the funeral brazier, from which a tendril of smoke rose questioningly.

Achmed rubbed the back of his neck as he spoke in the direction of the smoldering pile of brush and ash.

“I came to say that—I regret the way things came to pass,” he said quietly. “I would have avoided it if there was any other way.”

The cathedral echoed with silence except for the reverberations from the endlessly tolling bells.

“Your death saved her life. Though we never met, given the choice, I think you would have wanted it that way, too.”

A sudden wave of discomfort flooded Achmed; he turned rapidly on his heel and hurried back down the aisle toward the shadowy vestibule. When he was almost at the end he turned once more to where the altar was now enveloped in darkness. “Bye, Father,” he said.