Imorren could scarcely contain her fury. It was many years since she had known emotions, of any kind, so strong that she had had to struggle to master them, and the knowledge that such traits still lurked within her unsettled her profoundly, adding to her anger.
The room in which she sat, upright and still, was a coldly glittering place of polished white stone and elaborate crystal constructs. It was the Hall of Endings and Beginnings – the Chamber of the Ways – and it lay deep within the Vaskyros. Nine domes formed the ceiling, borne on carved walls and slender, many-sided columns that seemed at once to reach up in fearful praise and to hang like moonlit icicles. Rare, tinted crystals swept out intricate, abstract patterns over the entire Hall; patterns within patterns, endlessly, smaller and smaller, drawing the eye into unknowable depths. Full of subtle complexity they tumbled from the domes, down walls and columns, to spill across the floor like frozen tributaries to a silent ocean – an ocean which lapped, motionless at the feet of crystal towers whose surfaces and edges drew light from an unseen source to cut and shape yet more patterns. Jagged and bewildering symmetries formed in every direction.
To a mean-spirited man, it was merely a place that would demonstrate extravagant wealth, while a craftsman would fall silent in the presence of such ancient skills practised at their finest. But to Imorren, the Hall of Ways was, above all, the essence of her purpose; the place that all her will was focused upon and which in its turn, she believed, focused upon her such of His will as could reach into this realm. Eventually it would form the gleaming heart of the Way that would bring Him forth.
‘Learn all that is to be learned of these things,’ she had been told. ‘And make that which is without flaw.’ And thus she had striven to build. Yet the Hall was not perfect – nor ever could be, she knew. All was flawed in this mismade world, and would inevitably be so until He came again. But the paradox did not disturb her. ‘Your perfection will make good all blemish,’ He had said. ‘Trust in me.’
And she had. And been raised above all others as He had promised.
And now, rage had come upon her. Not the rage with which she had sworn vengeance on His enemies – pure and absolute, and which sustained her constantly – but a rage larded with pettiness and bitter gall, a manifestation of that grossness in her character that she had worked so relentlessly to excise. A manifestation of her humanity. Would she never be free from its cloying presence?
She sat for a long time in the stillness of the Hall before revelation suffused her; her anger was not a petty spasm but a timely reminder – perhaps a touch of His will reaching across the voids? Just as she struggled incessantly to grasp the deep mysteries of the Power and the crystals that would enable her to perfect this enclave and shape the Vaskyros about it, so she must ever struggle to master and understand the flaws inherent in mankind that she might use them to manipulate those whom she needed, while remaining unmarred by them herself.
Slowly she turned to look into a mirror mounted on the arm of her chair. There were few mirrors in the Vaskyros. Mirrors were dangerous, especially in the unseen but ever-present and resonant flickering of crystals. Capturing reality and folding it back upon itself, they could be random doorways to the worlds beyond. And that which was random was beyond control, and thus anathema.
Yet too, they were needed. Paradox again. For only through mirrors could those ways be made that stretched without end and were filled with the rushing of light to and from those places an infinity away which were ever beyond its reach.
She turned the mirror until her face was framed in it centrally. It was a beautiful face, showing nothing of her true nature and bearing none of the signs of the years that it should have. It was necessary that she be thus, she reasoned, only vaguely aware of another human frailty fluttering nearby – vanity. Black hair framed the slender, grey-eyed face, against the reflected pattern of the Chamber’s inexorable symmetry.
The glowering expression that had been there when she first entered the Chamber was gone and, as she stared at herself, a slight tautness about her jaw gradually faded. She righted the mirror, so that it faced its partner on the other arm of the chair, then spoke.
‘Enter, Rostan.’
Her voice was calm and measured and she spoke as though to someone immediately in front of her, but the Chamber carried the words through to the cause of her anger, standing outside at the centre of a circular entrance hall. Tall and lean, Rostan was dressed immaculately in the formal robes of his order and bearing his staff of office. Had he been dressed thus when he was abroad in the city, Pinnatte would not even have considered trying to steal his purse. Indeed, he would probably have crossed the road to avoid him.
Though he had been standing straight and immobile, as befitted his position, his leader’s voice drew him even straighter. The only other betrayal of his inner turmoil was a tightening of his grip about the staff, and a hesitant attempt by his other hand to check the perfect fall of his robes.
The two doors to the Chamber opened silently as he approached, and a crystal-etched pathway pointed him directly to the chair upon which Imorren sat. As he passed through the doorway he lowered his head, after the manner of a novice. It was an involuntary response rather than a wilful attempt to placate the Ailad. He knew well enough that Imorren was not one to be diverted from her concerns by a trivial show of respect. Fear it was that bent Rostan’s head, and a fear that grew with each footstep he took. At the end of the path, he knelt.
The coldness of the Hall was no pleasant contrast to the heat of the relentless summer searing the city. It was not a thing of temperature, it was of the spirit and the mind and, for Rostan, it chilled both now.
There was a long silence.
‘Look at me, Rostan.’
The softness of the voice served only to chill him further.
‘Look at me!’
Twice bidden! Rostan cursed himself and forced his eyes upwards. Such moisture as still softened his throat dried up as he tried to meet Imorren’s searching gaze and failed.
‘Ailad,’ he managed to say.
There was another long pause.
‘Kyroscreft, Rostan. Kyroscreft. How long is it since that word was last called out in the streets?’
Rostan swallowed. He was about to say simply, ‘Many years,’ but caught himself in time. ‘It had been many years, Ailad.’
‘Had, indeed, until?’
The look of regret on Rostan’s face was not feigned.
‘Until today, Ailad.’
‘Until today, Rostan. When you, the Highest of the Order, saw fit to pursue a petty thief through the streets like an aproned merchant after a stolen cheese.’ Despite herself, Imorren’s rage spat itself out. ‘Then you compounded your folly, first by using the Power to restrain him, and then by allowing him to escape.’
Aware that more was to follow, Rostan remained silent, fixing his eyes somewhere vaguely on Imorren’s face. Not for the first time he found it impossible even to imagine the time when they had been lovers – the time before she had become Ailad.
‘Is it not enough that we have continually to divert our energies from our true purpose by binding ourselves with alliances to other powers in this place?’ The gesture that accompanied this was slow and sweeping, yet it seemed to rend the air, so still had Imorren been. Reflected images of it moved silently about the Chamber like accusing fingers. ‘Is it not enough that we must waste our energies in feuding with yet others? Are we so secure in our position here that you should so cavalierly risk releasing the wild ignorance of the mob against us?’
‘I…’
Imorren’s eyes flashed, cleaving Rostan’s tongue to the roof of his mouth. He could not have said whether it was the force of her presence or whether she had subtly used the Power against him by way of a demonstration.
‘Granted, there have been times when it suited our ends to allow such civic strife – when diversions were needed to draw attention from other matters. But rarely. And in all cases, sacrifices have had to be made.’
She fixed his gaze with hers.
‘However, you do not need me to tell you of this. There must have been a reason for your conduct. For you to risk such a thing when we are so far along our way; when we are stronger in the city than we have ever been; when so few could reasonably expect to assail our influence.’
She fell silent and looked at him expectantly.
Rostan had been clinging to the hope that an admission of error might be sufficient to assuage Imorren’s anger, once he discovered that she had learned of his escapade. But by the same token, her learning of it meant that others had learned of it – and Imorren would put the discipline of the Order above all other things. Worse, far worse, he would have to tell her what he had done to Pinnatte. She obviously did not know about that.
Or did she?
What did she know?
She was impossible to read. And so sensitive! Even searching her face for clues might bring a rebuke down on him.
As would delay.
He would have to tell her everything, and as truthfully as possible. However dangerous that might be, anything else would be far more so.
He made no attempt to keep the fear from his voice or his manner. He would not have succeeded, and the attempt would have angered her further. He lowered his eyes.
‘I erred, Ailad. I conducted myself in a manner that was not fitting. I have no excuse.’
He tried not to cringe as he waited through the silence that followed. A small part of him told him to prepare to use the Power to defend himself, but he chased it from his mind, for fear that the slightest hint of defiance might show itself in his manner. Had he looked up he would have seen a flicker of uncertainty in Imorren’s eyes. She had not anticipated either so immediate or so abject a confession. Following in the wake of the uncertainty came clear suspicion. This was worse than she had thought.
For Rostan, the silence continued unbearably.
‘I did not ask for an excuse, Highest. Excuses are for novices and acolytes and lesser initiates – for those who have paid too high a price for a tint, or ill-cut a stone. You are above excuse. Her voice fell. ‘I asked you for your reason.’
The word, reason, hissed out, echoing about the Hall, from column to column, from crystal tower to crystal tower, magnifying, debating – judging. As the sounds, transformed, returned to him, it was as though the frozen ocean at his feet was suddenly thawed and about to engulf him. Rostan managed not to gibber, but the words he spoke were unknown to him until he spoke them.
‘I have no reason, Ailad. When the purse was snatched…’ He looked up and met her gaze again. ‘I felt such… fearful confusion. They were primary crystals and of a water and a size that’s found scarcely once in fifty years. Just to be near them was to feel the future opening up before us. And even as I felt them slip away from me, I felt also not only your anger and reproach, but that of the whole Brotherhood at my betrayal of their trust. The tireless working of those who had gathered the price of the stones, the work – our work – our holy work, set back perhaps for years. For a moment, I was indeed reduced to the state of a clumsy novice.’
Even in his terror, Rostan had sufficient control to avoid mentioning the fact that it had been Imorren who suggested they transport the crystals in this casual manner rather than in a heavily escorted coach. ‘One purse in a crowd. Where best to hide a book but in a library?’ she had said. She had even allowed herself a hint of a smile as she had echoed the thieves’ dictum, ‘No one will steal a Kyrosdyn’s purse. But a coach and escort could bring larger predators on to the streets.’
Rostan snatched at the implication of this memory.
‘Then it occurred to me that a deeper matter might be afoot than the random snatching of a purse. Had the thief perhaps been sent by Barran himself? With all due respect to the man, he is a consummate opportunist and quite ruthless, and more than capable of stealing back something he had just sold to us.’ He began to warm to his tale. ‘And he has skilled cutters in his pay. Unthinkable though it might be to us, the crystals could be…’ He hesitated. To cut such stones would indeed be unthinkable; even the idea of it disturbed him. He forced himself to continue. ‘The crystals could be cut to make many smaller ones, which in their turn could be sold to us.’
‘I am aware of Barran’s character,’ Imorren said. ‘But he has a keen grasp of reality. Don’t compound your folly by maligning a man who has always traded honestly with us.’
‘It was a fleeting impression, Ailad, joined almost immediately by others which pointed to Barran’s rivals as being the culprits.’ He had his excuse! He could barely keep the relief from his voice. He might yet survive this encounter. Until…
What did she know?
He went on hastily, loath to think ahead. ‘It was this that made me pursue him, even when the purse had been recovered. I wanted to question him, to bring him here so that the truth could be discovered. Knowledge of whoever had laid the plot could be nothing other than valuable, either as a lever against Barran or as a token to buy his future loyalty.’
There was another silence. As was her way, when she spoke, Imorren offered nothing that he could support himself with.
‘But you did none of these things. The thief escaped you, humiliating the Brotherhood in the process – and you know what that might cost us. And we know nothing of his motives. Was he just a fool in the wrong place at the wrong time, or was he indeed a tool of weightier foes?’ She leaned forward slightly, and Rostan heard again the murmuring of the seas at his feet as she said, ‘And you used the Power like a carnival fraudster, causing the word Kyroscreft to be loosed amid the herd.’
Rostan affected an expression of deep and puzzled concern as he bowed his head. Another inspiration was coming to him. ‘Strange circumstances seemed both to protect the man and to lead me to him, Ailad. Though he held the crystals for only a moment, their potency seemed to cling to him. It was such that I could feel their presence almost tangibly – hanging in the air. Run though he might, it would avail him nothing, I knew. He was joined to me – to us.’ Imorren’s eyes narrowed slightly and she turned her head slightly to one side. Rostan, eyes lowered, did not notice the movement. ‘And, indeed, I found him at the fountain in the square as easily as if I had agreed to meet him there.’ He paused uncertainly. ‘Yet too, he was able to oppose me. He resisted both voice and gesture.’ He moved his hand as he had in front of Pinnatte’s face. ‘And the crowd were drawn to him in some way.’ He shook his head then gave a guilty shrug. ‘When he threw off my guard, Gariak… and you know how powerful he is…’ Imorren made no acknowledgement. ‘When this… skinny bundle of rags tossed him aside so casually, I’ll swear I felt the Power being used.’ He looked up and held out a hand to forestall a protest. ‘It makes no sense, I know, but I felt something. And when he suddenly made to dash into the crowd, I reached out and held him before I realized fully what I was doing.’
He bowed his head again. He had almost convinced himself of the truth of the tale he was weaving. A conspirator both by instinct and training, he had naturally followed the safest path, lying only slightly, and making the rest of the story logically consistent.
But still the real enormity of what he had done had to be told.
‘And still he escaped.’
Imorren’s voice returned him to the present. He clung to it, pathetically grateful.
‘He must have been protected by someone. How else could he have taken back control of his voice and swayed the crowd?’
‘Do not question me, Rostan. You forget yourself.’
The cold rebuke made Rostan stiffen. He may have spun a plausible tale but even a hint of euphoria was premature. ‘Forgive me, Ailad,’ he said quickly.
Imorren looked down at him. He was lying, of course. Rostan had always had a spiteful disposition. Almost certainly it was this that had made him pursue the would-be thief. But he had had the wit to accept full responsibility and to make no mention of her contribution to the affair. And his tale had revealed some strange aspects to the incident. That the thief had tried to snatch the purse offered no puzzle. It was obviously a random event – Rostan, for some unfathomable reason, had not worn even the least sign of his calling, and the quality of his clothes would have marked him out as a rich man. Nor had there been any conspiracy. The thief, by throwing the purse back, had obviously been horrified when he realized what he had done. And Barran had a peculiar honesty – he set store by his word. In any event, he was too clear-sighted to risk stealing and re-selling the crystals. They might be worth a fortune, but Barran’s relationship with the Brotherhood was worth far more. And no one else could have known what was happening. Yet it was strange that a mere street thief could resist Rostan’s power. It was possible, that in his spleen, Rostan’s control had been poor, but even so…
She set the thoughts aside. They could be pursued at leisure. Nothing had come of the Kyroscreft cry and Rostan’s tale had confirmed the information which she had already received. But as he had been speaking, she had gradually become aware that something more serious had happened – something that she had not learned about and which he had not yet found the courage to confess to her.
She spoke slowly and softly. ‘Do you deserve my forgiveness, Highest?’
Rostan felt the words searching into him.
She knew!
She knew!
It took all of his control to prevent himself from gasping for breath, but he could do nothing about the sweat that appeared on his brow.
How could she…?
It didn’t matter. He must speak immediately. Delay now would surely damn him. As, probably, would confession. Yet it was all that was left to him.
‘I spoke as I did because I am adrift amid confusion and uncertainty, Ailad.’ He made no attempt to stop the tremor in his voice. ‘I do not know why I did what I did, save that I followed an inner calling. If I have erred, then I make no plea other than that, and will accept the wisdom of your judgement.’
The tautness in Imorren’s jaw that she had carefully relaxed before Rostan’s entry, returned. As did a look in her eyes that would have frozen the words in his mouth had he seen it.
‘There was a strangeness about the man, Ailad. Indeed, as I said, there was a strangeness about the whole affair. Trusted with such an errand, what could have made me act so recklessly? Why had the power of the crystals clung to him so? Why had he been drawn to me, and I to him? Why would I use the Power as I did? And how could he have opposed it?’ His voice became almost a whisper. ‘I knew the folly of what I was doing, even as I did it, but I could not stop myself. But, at the end, as I looked into his eyes – his defiant, mocking eyes – there was a certainty. Everything that had happened seemed suddenly to become part of a whole, a guiding. There had been a purpose to it. I knew. I was but a tool. I must play the part given me.’
In His name, what had this dolt done? All of Imorren’s considerable will was scarcely sufficient to prevent this roaring thought from being voiced. When, after a long pause, she spoke, it was with painful deliberation as she struggled to refrain from committing some atrocity against the man for his lingering telling. Whatever he had done, he was the strongest of the many props that sustained her, and to destroy him would be to injure herself and thus the Brotherhood. She managed to remain outwardly calm.
‘And now the certainty has become doubt?’ She commended herself on managing a hint of motherliness.
‘I Anointed him.’
As Rostan heard the dreaded words coming from his mouth, it seemed to him that all movement in the Hall ceased. His pounding heart and every part of his body were no more. Dust motes ceased their wavering journeys. The endless silent song of the crystals was stilled. Even the light passing through the air no longer moved for fear of what was to follow.
And Imorren too, for a timeless moment, seemed to have absorbed the cold heart of the Hall and become a pallid ice statue.
Then the movement returned, frenzied and panic-stricken, washing away from her in terror. Rostan, however, remained motionless, filled with the ancient knowledge of prey, that flight will but bring the predator down.
Imorren sat slowly back in her tall chair. With an unseeing gaze, she looked at her hands then rested them on the polished arms of the chair. Once again she was part of the many symmetries of the Hall.
Rostan, forcing himself to keep his eyes open, saw only the flickering remnants of this movement that the Hall’s myriad reflecting surfaces carried back to him through the shining floor. It was as though a cloud were gathering over him, or the shadow of a fearsome bird. He waited for Imorren to turn the Power against him.
As she surely must. And nothing he could do would protect him from it. Imorren’s skill with the Power was of a kind that he could not even aspire to.
But Imorren remained motionless. It was as if she were being held immobile by the remorseless patterning of the Hall.
And indeed, she did not move because she could not move, for Rostan’s revelation had unleashed two opposing aspects of her character and the conflict between them demanded her every resource.
Only minutes before, she had found herself in the grip of an anger she had long thought conquered, but that was as nothing compared to the emotions possessing her now. It was as though that anger had been the work of skirmishers from a far greater army lurking in ambush for her. Had Rostan drawn a knife and lunged at her, he could not have delivered her such a blow, so great was the shock of this assault.
Not since she had heard the terrible news of His dispatch from this world had she known such ferment. As the enormity of Rostan’s words impinged upon her, a black hatred surged up within her which, had it been given free rein, would have destroyed every last remnant of Rostan, and probably much of the Vaskyros, perhaps even herself. Out of the unknown darkness it had come, from a direction she did not even know existed, full-armed and terrible.
But even as it welled up, so had her appalled dismay that so much uncontrolled human savagery should still exist within her.
For a moment, it seemed that all she had achieved would be swept into nothingness, like smoke in the wind. But years of brutal self-discipline had provided her with other unknown resources, and before the destruction was unleashed she found that a colder, crueller rage had arisen to stay the onslaught.
To and fro the two forces swayed, a grim dynamic equilibrium: Imorren, greatest of all the Ailads of the Kyrosdyn, and Disciple of the One True Light, against the primitive frenzy of her own corrupted human origins. For a time that could not be measured, there was only turmoil and confusion, but slowly she became aware of a conscious thought hovering above the field, like a single silver star in a golden sky, bright and clear.
This is a testing!
He reaches across the unknown Ways, to test me yet!
As He must ever.
For there can be no perfection here until He returns, and even the soundest of vassals might be found wanting in the splendour of that time.
The screaming hatred faltered, and other thoughts rallied to her.
The Anointing was to be the culmination of her work here. The act that would open the Ways to His return. Yet too, it was a deed fraught with unknown perils, set as it was at the very limits of the Brotherhood’s knowledge. There was sufficient understanding to know that the consequences of failure could be terrible, and great doubts existed. When should it be? In what manner should it be done? And, not least, by whom and to whom? There was a presumption that one of the Kyrosdyn would be the Chosen, perhaps Imorren herself, but it was no more than that – a presumption. All calculations, all reasoning, failed before any of these conclusions could be made with certainty, dissipating themselves into regions of wild nonsense and seemingly confirming irrefutably that the only certainty was uncertainty. There was no understanding of the consequences of success, save that the Ways would in some manner be opened.
Yet Rostan had done this thing. Casually, in a market square brawl with a street thief. An individual who had fled, to hide in this vast city. He had applied the unguent which only he and she dared carry, and impressed it with the Power.
Hatred flared again, feeding on the fear she could scent rising from the form crouched at her feet. Brutally, she forced her mind to pursue its course.
Rostan was many things, but he was not a fool. He was the Highest of the Order and deservedly so, with skills, knowledge and ruthless ambition far above anyone else in the Brotherhood, save herself. It defied all his training, indeed all logic, that he should have done this thing in a fit of petulance.
But he had done it!
And he had lied about the reasons why he had done it. She could smell that too. She had not attained her present position without developing an unerring sense for prevaricators and liars. Perhaps hehad done the deed as an act of spleen. The idea did not invoke the response it would have done scarcely a dozen heartbeats earlier; the clamouring fury was abating as her mind gradually took control of the events. The only question to be asked was, what had caused such a complete loss of control in him?
Testing.
The word came to her again. She pondered it. It would be presumptuous to assume that He would test her alone, but…
What was the word Rostan had used?
Guiding!
Could it be that He had reached out from His distant, scattered fastnesses, to show us the way over the final abyss at the edge of which all our resources had foundered and where we had so long trembled?
She closed her eyes. It was as though she was once again at His feet, learning of the world that was to be when His enemies had been destroyed and He was once more free of the cold northern land in which He had been bound.
Another of Rostan’s words returned – certainty.
Yes. She felt it too. His hand was there. It was so.
It was so!
She opened her eyes and breathed in the splendour of the Hall which she had created. She was herself again. Very calm. There were only the merest rumblings of anger at the very edges of her mind. It had indeed been a testing. A grim trial, but she had been found whole.
She looked down at Rostan. Though he did not appear to be moving, she could feel his entire body quivering.
Like the heart of a crystal, she thought. The idea amused her.
Yet Rostan had been chosen to do the Anointing. What she would have perceived as a weakness, He in His wisdom had seen as the tool to begin the making of the Way. She was humbled. No calculation, no logic, no instinct, could have led her to such a conclusion.
Fleetingly the thought came to her, ‘Am I too being used?’ but she dashed it away. It was heretical. Her faith, above all, must be total.
‘Leave me, Rostan. I must ponder this.’
There was a brief pause while Rostan disbelievingly took in the words. Then relief overrode the questions bursting in upon him, and, with such dignity as he could muster, he rose, bowed and retreated silently from the Hall. It was an unsteady leaving, his legs were shaking so violently.
As the doors closed silently behind him, so the Hall became intact again. Imorren looked about her, moving her head slowly from side to side, taking in its rich and intricate perfection. Echoing the many patterns, details within details were beginning to unfold in her mind – consequence upon consequence. Rostan must not know of the honour that had been bestowed upon him, of course; he had always had a tendency to vanity and the thought would fire his ambition, perhaps even cause him to turn his eyes once again to her position. And that would mean his death, which would not be in the interests of the Brotherhood. He was too valuable an asset to be lightly cast aside. And too, who could say what further use He might find for him in due course? Rostan must know that he had erred but that, with redoubled effort, the damage could perhaps be repaired. That would be fitting.
The thief would have to be found, but that should present no problem. As time passed and the effects of the Anointing grew, even the dullest of novices would be able to find him.
But these were mere details. She looked at her hands as she had when Rostan had told her the fateful news. A cold smile lit her face. She could feel it all around her. The world was different now. As was she. Just as when she had heard the news of His defeat, and sworn her terrible oath of vengeance, so it was now. She had been renewed, re-forged, shown the way forward.
His time was near.