David Weber - How firm a foundation

“Maybe, if I’d been able to get here sooner, then… maybe,” Merlin said, holding her with implacable strength. “But I couldn’t. And Owl’s been monitoring, Ohlyvya. I don’t think we would’ve been able to save him even if I had been able to get here sooner. It’s only the nanotech keeping him alive now, and it’s burning out, using itself up.”

“Then why are you here?” she demanded, furious in her sorrow. “Why are you even here? ”

“Because Sharleyan and Cayleb and I love you,” he said. “And because I can at least give you this.”

She stared at him as he put his hands on her shoulders and very gently settled her back into her chair before he stood once more. He reached into his belt pouch and extracted a lightweight headset of silvery wire and gently adjusted it on Nahrmahn’s head. Nothing happened for a moment, but then the eye which had closed opened once more.

“Merlin?” Nahrmahn’s voice was stronger than it had been, clearer, and Merlin nodded.

“More of your magic?” Nahrmahn asked.

“No more ‘magic’ than the rest of me, Nahrmahn,” Merlin told him. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner.”

“I guess… when you’re a thousand years old… you tend to… lose track of time,” Nahrmahn managed, and Ohlyvya laughed through her tears, covering her mouth with both hands.

“It’s not much,” Merlin told her, his sapphire eyes deeper and darker than the sea, “but it’s all I can do right now.”

“What-?”

“The headset will keep his mind clear, and I programmed it to shut down the pain centers.” Merlin managed a smile of his own. “I don’t think you have much time, Ohlyvya, but the time you do have will be clear… and it will be yours.”

He touched her face very gently, then looked back down at Nahrmahn.

“It’s been an interesting trip, Nahrmahn,” he said, laying his hand on the dying prince’s shoulder. “And it’s been a privilege working with you. Thank you for everything you’ve done. But now, I think I’ll leave you with your wife. God bless, Nahrmahn. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to talk again someday.”

He squeezed Nahrmahn’s shoulder and looked at Ohlyvya.

“I’ll be out in the garden, listening, if you should need me,” he said gently, and vanished back through the window by which he’d arrived.

Ohlyvya Baytz looked after him for a moment, tearful eyes shining with gratitude, and then she turned back to her husband and reached for his hand once more. . V.

Plaza of Martyrs, The Temple, City of Zion, The Temple Lands

“Rhobair, you have to come,” Zahmsyn Trynair said flatly.

“No, Zahmsyn. Actually, I don’t.”

Rhobair Duchairn looked steadily back at the Chancellor. Trynair’s expression was an odd mixture of anxiety, frustration, distaste for what he himself was saying, and anger, but the Treasurer’s face was calm, his eyes almost-not quite, but almost- tranquil.

“This is not a time to be suggesting there’s division between us, Rhobair,” Trynair said.

“Anybody who’s worrying about whether or not there’s ‘division’ between me and Zhaspahr Clyntahn on this issue has either already figured out there is one, or he’s such a drooling idiot he probably can’t put on his own shoes without assistance!” Duchairn replied. “And, frankly, if someone does realize I’m… at odds, let’s say, with Zhaspahr Clyntahn over this… this ritualized butchery of his, that’s fine with me. Even The Book of Schueler reserves the full Punishment for genuine, unrepentant heretics, Zhamsyn-not for people who simply happen to have pissed Zhaspahr off by having the audacity to survive when he ordered them to lie down and die!”

He’d been wrong, Trynair realized. Duchairn’s eyes weren’t tranquil; they were those of a man who didn’t care any longer. A chill went through the Chancellor as he realized that, and he felt something altogether too much like panic fluttering somewhere inside his chest.

“You told Zhaspahr-and me-you wouldn’t oppose him on this if we wouldn’t oppose you on the matters that were important to you,” he said carefully.

“And I have no intention, to my shame, of openly opposing him. There are, however, limits to the stains I’m prepared to accept upon my soul. This is one of them. You and I both know any ‘confessions’ of heresy or blasphemy or-God help us all!-Shan-wei worship were gotten out of those men only by torture, and eight in ten of them died rather than perjure themselves to suit Zhaspahr’s purposes. Do you truly have any concept at all of the courage it took to defy that kind of savagery?! They may be schismatics, but they are not blasphemers, idolaters, or demon-worshippers, and they damned well haven’t sacrificed any children to Shan-wei, and you know that as well as I do! So if my refusal to participate in his vengeance upon men whose only true crime was to defeat his unprovoked attack on their families and their homeland incenses him so completely that he chooses to make our breach public, so be it.”

“Rhobair, you can’t survive if that happens. If he openly turns against you, denounces you, you’ll go exactly the same way these Charisians are about to!”

“I could be in worse company,” Duchairn said flatly, his voice cold. “In fact, I’m inclined to think I couldn’t be in better company. Unfortunately, I’m no longer as certain as I once was that my eternal destination is going to be the same as theirs. I can only pray it will.”

Trynair’s blood ran cold. He’d known Duchairn was becoming ever more embittered, ever more sickened, by Clyntahn’s policies, but this was the harshest, most unyielding denunciation of the Grand Inquisitor Duchairn had dared to voice even to him. And if the Treasurer really pushed this, if it did result in an open break between him and the Grand Inquisitor, Trynair knew which of them would survive. In some ways, that might almost be a relief, yet with Duchairn gone, the Chancellor would be alone against Clyntahn with only the effective nonentity of Allayn Maigwair as a potential ally. Which meant…

“Don’t say things like that!” he pled, waving both hands in calming motions. “I know you’re angry, and I know this whole thing makes you sick at heart, but if you push Zhaspahr far enough and you go down, there’ll be nobody left to oppose him even slightly.” The Chancellor grimaced, his expression more than half-ashamed. “ I won’t be able to, and I know it. Not now.”

“He has rather saddled the whirlwind for all of us to ride, hasn’t he?” Duchairn said sardonically. “Why did we let him get away with it, do you think?” His eyes suddenly stabbed the Chancellor to the heart. “Because the notion of doing what we knew was right didn’t matter enough for us to bestir ourselves out of our luxurious little lives? Because we didn’t give a single good goddamn about our responsibilities to Mother Church? Was that the reason, Zahmsyn?”

“Don’t you dare try that with me!” Trynair snapped. “Maybe that was the reason, but you were right there in the middle of it with the rest of us, Rhobair! You could’ve said ‘Stop!’ anytime you wanted to. Maybe it wouldn’t have accomplished anything, but you could have at least made the attempt, and you didn’t, did you? You didn’t even try! So now you’ve rediscovered your conscience. Fine! I’m happy for you! But don’t you take your newfound piety and try to cram it down my throat! You’re so fucking proud of how noble you’ve become? Well, that’s fine. But if you think you’re going to shame me into standing beside you when Zhaspahr decides to have you put to the Question to ‘prove’ you’re just as heretical as Samyl Wylsynn ever was, you’ve got another think coming!”