The Hand of Chaos

18

The weesham[31] experienced an overwhelming sense of thankfulness as she approached the Cathedral of the Albedo.[32] It was not the beauty of the structure that touched her, though the cathedral was rightfully considered to be the most beautiful of any structure built by the elves on Arianus. Nor was she overly influenced by the awe and reverence most elves felt on approaching the repository for the souls of the elven royal families. The weesham was too frightened to notice the beauty, too bitter and unhappy to be reverent. She was thankful because she had, at last, reached a safe haven.

Clutching the small lapis and chalcedony box in her hand, she hastened up the coralite steps. Gold-gilt edges gleamed in the sunshine, seemed to shine on her path. She made her way around the octagon-shaped building until she came to the central door. As she walked, the weesham glanced more than once over her shoulder—a reflexive action, born of three days of terror. She should have realized that it was not possible for even the Unseen to trail her here, into this sacred precinct. But her fear made her incapable of rational thought. Fear had consumed her, like the delirium of a fever, made her see things that were not there, hear words that weren’t spoken. She blanched and trembled at the sight of her own shadow and, reaching the door, began beating on it with a clenched fist, rather than tapping softly and reverently as she was supposed to do.

The Keeper of the Door, whose exceptionally tall stature and thin, almost emaciated-looking form marked him as one of the Kenkari elves, jumped at the sound. Hastening to the door, he stared through the crystal panes and frowned. The Kenkari was accustomed to weesham—or geir, as they were less formally but more appropriately known[33]—arriving in various stages of grief. The stages ranged from the resigned, quiet grief of the elderly, who had lived with their charges since they were young, to the stiff-lipped grief of the soldier-weesham, who had seen their charges brought down by the war currently raging on Arianus, to the anguished grief of a weesham who has lost a child. The emotion of grief on the part of the weesham was acceptable, even laudable. But lately the Keeper of the Door had been seeing another emotion connected with grief, an emotion that was unacceptable—fear.

He saw the signs of fear in this geir, as he had seen the same signs in too many other weesham of late. The hasty pounding on the door, the distraught glances over the shoulder, the pale skin marred by gray smudges of sleepless nights. The Keeper solemnly and slowly opened the door, met the geir with grave mien, forced her to go through the ritual proceedings before she was permitted entry. The Kenkari, experienced in these matters, knew that the familiar words of the ritual, though it seemed tedious at the time, brought comfort to the grieving and the fearful.

“Please, let me in!” gasped the woman when the crystal door swung open on silent hinges.

The Keeper barred the way with his own slender body. He lifted his arms high. Folds of cloth, embroidered in silken threads of iridescent reds and yellows and oranges, surrounded by velvet black, simulated the wings of a butterfly. The elf seemed, in fact, to become a butterfly—his body the body of the insect that was sacred to the elves, the wings spreading on either side. The sight was dazzling to eye and mind and reassuring as well. The geir was immediately recalled to her duties; her training and teaching returned to her. Color came to her pallid checks, she remembered the proper way to introduce herself and, after a few moments, quit trembling.

She gave her name, her clan name,[34] and that of her charge. This last name she spoke with a choke in her voice and was forced to repeat it before the Keeper understood. He searched swiftly through the repositories of his memory, found the name filed there, among hundreds of others, and ascertained that the soul of this young princess rightly belonged in the cathedral. (Difficult to believe, but, in this degenerate age, there were those elves of common blood who attempted to insinuate their own plebeian ancestors into the cathedral. The Keeper of the Door—through his extensive knowledge of the royal family tree and its numerous offshoots, both legitimate and otherwise—discovered the imposters, made them prisoners, and turned them over to the Unseen Guard.) Now the Keeper was in no doubt and made his decision immediately. The young princess, a second cousin of the emperor on his father’s mother’s side, had been renowned for her beauty and intellect and spirit. She should have lived years longer, become a wife, mother, borne more such as herself to grace this world.

The Keeper said as much, when—the ritual ended—he admitted the geir into the cathedral, shut the crystal door behind her. He noticed, as he did so, that the woman almost wept with relief, but still glanced about her in terror.

“Yes,” replied the geir in a low voice, as if, even in this sanctuary, she was afraid to talk aloud, “my beautiful girl should have lived long. I should have sewed the sheets of her wedding bed, not the hem of her shroud!” Holding the box in her open palm, the geir—a woman of around forty years—smoothed its intricately carved lid with her hand and murmured some broken words of affection for the poor soul held within.

“What was it struck her down?” asked the Keeper solicitously. “The plague?”

“Would it were!” the geir cried bitterly. “That I could have borne.” She covered the box with her hand, as if she could still protect the one inside.

“It was murder.”

“Humans?” The Keeper was grim. “Or rebels?”

“And what would my lamb, a princess of the blood, be doing with either humans or the rebel scum![35]” the geir flashed, forgetting in her grief and anger that she was speaking to a superior.

The Keeper reminded her of her place with a look.

The geir lowered her eyes, caressed the box. “No, it was her own that killed her. Her own flesh and blood!”

“Come, woman, you’re hysterical,” stated the Keeper sternly. “What possible reason—”

“Because she was young and strong, her spirit is young and strong. Such qualities,” said the geir, tears trailing unheeded down her cheeks, “are more valuable to some in death than they are in life.”

“I cannot believe—”

“Then believe this.” The geir did the unthinkable. Reaching out her hand, she grasped hold of the Keeper’s wrist, drew him near to hear her low, horror-filled words. “My lamb and I always had a glass of hot negus before retiring.[36] We shared the drink that night. I thought it tasted odd, but I assumed that the wine was bad. Neither of us finished ours, but went to bed early. My lamb had been plagued with evil dreams...” The geir had to pause, to regain her composure.

“My lamb fell asleep almost immediately. I was puttering about the room, sorting her dear ribbons and laying out her dress for the morrow, when a strange feeling came over me. My hands and arms felt heavy, my tongue dry and swollen. It was all I could do to stagger to my bed. I fell instantly into a strange state. I was asleep, yet I wasn’t. I could see things, hear things, yet I could not respond. And thus, I saw them.”

The geir pressed the Keeper’s hand more tightly. He leaned close to hear her, yet was barely able to understand her words spoken fast and tight.

“I saw the night crawl through her window!”

The Keeper frowned, drew back.

“I know what you think,” the geir said. “That I was drunk or dreaming. But I swear it is the truth. I saw movement, dark shapes blotted out the window frame, crept over to the wall. Three of them. And for an instant they were holes of blackness against the wall. They stood still. And then they were the wall!

“But I could still see them move, though it was as if the wall itself were writhing. They slid to my lamb’s bed. I tried to scream, to cry out, but my voice made no sound. I was helpless. Helpless.”

The geir shuddered. “Then a pillow—one of my lamb’s silk embroidered pillows that she’d sewn with her own dear hands—rose up in the air, borne by unseen hands. They laid it over her face and... and pressed it down. My lamb struggled. Even in her sleep, she fought to live. The unseen hands held the pillow over her face until... until her struggles ceased. She lay back limp.

“Then I sensed one of them come over to me. There was nothing else visible, not even a face. Yet I knew one was near. A hand touched my shoulder and shook me.

“ ‘Your charge is dead, geir,’ a voice said. ‘Quickly, catch her soul.’

“The terrible drugged feeling left me. I screamed and sat up and reached for the evil creature, to hold him until I could summon the guards. But my hands passed through air. They had gone. They were no longer the walls, but the night. They fled.

“I ran to my lamb, but she was dead. Her heartbeat stilled, her life smothered out of her. They had not even given her a chance to free her own soul. I had to cut her.[37] Her smooth, pale skin. I had—”

The geir began to sob uncontrollably. She did not see the look on the Keeper’s face, did not see his forehead crease, his large eyes darken.

“You must have dreamed it, my dear,” was all he said to the woman.

“No,” she replied in hollow tones, her tears wept out. “I did not dream it, though that is what they would have me believe. And I’ve sensed them, following me. Everywhere I go. But that is nothing. I have no reason to live. I wanted only to tell someone. And they could not very well kill me before I fulfilled my duty, could they?”

She gave the box a last fond, grieving look, then placed it gently and reverently in the Keeper’s hand.

“Not when this is what they wanted.”

Turning, head bowed, she walked back through the crystal door. The Keeper held it open for her. He spoke a few comforting words, but they were empty of conviction and both the speaker and the hearer—if she heard them at all—knew it. Holding the lapis and chalcedony box in his hand, he watched the geir wend her way down the gilt-edged stairs and out onto the large and empty courtyard surrounding the cathedral. The sun shone brightly. The geir’s body cast a long shadow behind her.

The Keeper felt chilled. He watched closely until the woman had vanished beyond his sight. The box in his hand was still warm from the geir’s fast hold on it. Sighing, he turned away, rang a small silver gong that stood on a wall sconce near the door.

Another Kenkari, clad in the multicolored butterfly robes, drifted down the hall on silent, slippered feet.

“Take over my duties for me,” the Keeper commanded. “I must deliver this to the Aviary. Summon me if there is need.”

The Kenkari, the Keeper’s chief assistant, nodded and took up his place at the door, ready to receive the soul of any new arrival. Box in hand, the Keeper, his brow furrowed, left the great door and headed for the Aviary. The Cathedral of the Albedo is built in the shape of an octagon. Coralite, magically urged and pruned, swoops majestically up from the ground to form a high, steeply pitched dome. Crystal walls fill the space left between the coralite ribs, the crystal planes shine with blinding brilliance in the light of the sun, Solaris.

The crystal walls create an optical illusion, making it appear to the casual observer (who is never allowed very close) that he can see completely through the building from one side to the other. In reality, mirrored walls on the inside of the octagon reflect the interior walls of the outside. One outside cannot see inside, therefore, but those inside can see everything. The courtyard surrounding the cathedral is vast, empty of all objects. A caterpillar cannot cross it without being observed. Thus do the Kenkari keep their ancient mysteries safely guarded.

Within the octagon’s center is the Aviary. Located in a circle around the Aviary are rooms for study, rooms for meditation. Beneath the cathedral are the permanent living quarters of the Kenkari, the temporary living quarters for their apprentices, the weesham.

The Keeper turned his steps toward the Aviary.

The largest chamber in the cathedral, the Aviary is a beautiful place, filled with living trees and plants brought from all over the elven kingdom to be grown here. Precious water—in such short supply elsewhere in the land, due to the war with the Gegs—was freely dispensed in the Aviary, lavishly poured to maintain life in what was, ironically, a chamber for the dead. No singing birds flew in this Aviary. The only wings spread within its crystal walls were unseen, ephemeral—the wings of the souls of royal elves, caught, kept captive, forced to sing eternally their silent music for the good of the empire.

The Keeper paused outside the Aviary, looked within. It was truly beautiful. The trees and flowering plants grew lush here as nowhere else in the Mid Realms. The emperor’s garden was not as green as this, for even His Imperial Majesty’s water had been rationed.

The Aviary’s water flowed through pipes buried deep beneath the soil that had been brought, so legend had it, from the garden island of Hesthea, in the High Realms, now long since abandoned.[38] Other than being watered, the plants were given no further care, unless the dead tended them, which the Keeper sometimes liked to imagine that they did. The living were only rarely permitted to enter the Aviary. And that had not happened in the Keeper’s inordinately long lifetime, nor in any lifetime that any Kenkari could remember.

No wind blew in the enclosed chamber. No draft, not even a whisper of air could steal inside. Yet the Keeper saw the leaves of the trees flutter and stir, saw the rose petals tremble, saw flower stalks bend. The souls of the dead flitted among the green and living things. The Keeper watched a moment, then turned away. Once a place of peace and tranquillity and hope, the Aviary had come to take on a sinister sadness for him. He looked down at the box he held in his hand, and the dark lines in his thin face deepened. Hastening to the chapel that stood adjacent to the Aviary, he spoke the ritual prayer, then gently pushed open the ornately carved wooden door. Within the small room, the Keeper of the Book sat at a desk, writing in a large, leather-bound volume. It was her duty to record the name, lineage, and pertinent life-facts of all those who arrived in the small boxes. The body to the fire, the life to the book, the soul to the sky. That was how the ritual went. The Keeper of the Book, hearing someone enter, halted her writing. She looked up.

“One to be admitted,” said the Door, heavily.

The Book (titles were shortened, for convenience’ sake) nodded and rang a small silver gong that sat on her desk.

Another Kenkari, the Keeper of the Soul, entered from a side room. The Book rose respectfully to her feet. The Door bowed. Keeper of the Soul was the highest rank attainable among the Kenkari, A wizard of the Seventh House, the Kenkari who held this title was not only the most powerful of his clan, but also one of the most powerful elves in the empire. The Soul’s word, in times past, had been enough to bring kings to their knees. But now? The Door wondered.

The Soul held out his hand, reverently accepted the box. Turning, he laid the box upon the altar and knelt to begin his prayers. The Door told the maiden’s name and recited all he knew of the young woman’s lineage and history to the Book, who jotted down notes. She would record the details more fully, when she had time.

“So young,” said the Book, sighing. “What was the cause of death?” The Door licked dry lips. “Murder.”

The Book raised her eyes, stared at him, glanced over at the Soul. The Soul ceased his prayers, turned around.

“You sound certain this time.”

“There was a witness. The drug did not take complete hold. Our weesham has a taste for fine wine, it seems,” the Door added, with a twisted smile. “She knew bad from good and wouldn’t drink it.”

“Do they know?”

“The Unseen know everything,” said the Book in a low voice.

“She is being followed. They have been following her,” said the Door.

“Here?” The Soul’s eyes flared. “Not onto the sacred grounds.”

“No. As yet the emperor does not dare send them here.” The words as yet hung ominously in the air.

“He grows careless,” said the Soul.

“Or more bold,” suggested the Door.

“Or more desperate,” said the Book softly.

The Kenkari stared at one another. The Soul shook his head, passed a trembling hand through his white, wispy hair. “And now we know the truth.”

“We have long known it,” said the Door, but he said it quietly, and the Soul did not hear.

“The emperor is slaying his own kin for their souls, to aid him in his cause. The man fights two wars, three enemies: the rebels, the humans, the Gegs below. Ancient hatred and mistrust keeps these three groups divided, but what if something should happen and they should unite? That is what the emperor fears, that is what drives him to this madness.

“And it is madness,” said the Door. “He is decimating the royal line, lopping off its head, cutting out its heart. Who does he have slaughtered but the young, the strong, those whose souls cling most stubbornly to life. He hopes that these souls will add their strong voices to the holy voice of Krenka-Anris, give our wizards more magical power, strengthen the arms and wills of our soldiers.”

“Yet for whom does Krenka-Anris speak now?” asked the Soul. The Door and Book kept silent, neither daring to respond.

“We will ask,” said the Keeper of the Soul. He turned back to the altar. The Keeper of the Door and the Keeper of the Book knelt alongside, one to the Soul’s left, the other to his right. Above the altar, a pane of clear crystal permitted them to see within the Aviary. The Keeper of the Soul lifted a small bell from the altar, a bell made of gold, and rang it. The bell had no clapper, made no sound that living ears could hear. Only the dead could hear it, or so the Kenkari believed.

“Krenka-Anris, we call to you,” said the Keeper of the Soul, raising his arms in appeal. “Holy Priestess, who first knew the wonder of this magic, hear our prayer and come to give us counsel. Thus we pray:

The three knelt before the altar in profound silence, each waiting for the response. No word was spoken aloud. No flame flared suddenly on the altar. No shimmering vision appeared before them. But each heard the answer clearly in his or her own soul, as each heard the clang of the tongueless bell. Each rose up and stared at the others, faces pale, eyes wide, in confusion and disbelief.

“We have our answer,” said the Keeper of the Soul in awed and solemn tones.

“Do we?” whispered Door. “Who can understand it?”

“Other worlds. A gate of death that leads to life. A man who is dead but who is not dead. What are we to make of this?” asked Book.

“When the time is propitious, Krenka-Anris will make all known,” said the Soul, firmly, regaining his composure. “Until then, our way is clear. Keeper,” he said, speaking to the Door, “you know what to do.” The Keeper bowed in acquiescence to the Soul, knelt a final time before the altar, then left upon his duty. The Keeper of the Soul and the Keeper of the Book waited in the small room, listening with inheld breath and fast-beating hearts for the sound that neither had ever thought to hear.

It came—a hollow boom. Grillwork made of gold, fashioned in the form of butterflies, had been lowered into place. Delicate, lovely, fragile-seeming, the grille was imbued with magic that made it stronger than any iron portcullis that served the same function.

The great central door that led inside the Cathedral of the Albedo had been closed.