Robert Hughes - The Prophet of Lamath

Bronwynn and Rosha flanked Pelmen as he walked forward, Rosha watching the crowd of blue-robed figures menacingly, Bronwynn focusing intently on Serphimera and mentally listing all the flaws she could find in the woman’s storied beauty. There were not many. This fact made Bronwynn frown.

Serphimera waited demurely for Pelmen to reach her, then her lips parted in a coy smile. “I have heard much of you. Prophet.”

“And I of you, my Lady,” Pelmen replied quietly.

“I am the Priestess Serphimera,” she announced, her voice loud enough to signal that she wanted silence from the crowd. The people settled down to listen.

“So I have been told,” Pelmen said, again quietly. His voice had long been trained to project to all parts of a vast theater. But he didn’t use that booming voice now, for he had chosen not to play to the crowd. This lady he faced attracted him, and he sought behind her sparkling eyes for the woman at the heart of the Priestess. Perhaps*she had come to speak to the crowds. Pelmen was determined to speak with her alone.

“They tell me you do mighty wonders.” She smiled, arching an eyebrow in inquiry. “Is that true?”

“The Power works,”

Pelmen muttered. “Not I.”

“I do no such signs,” she proclaimed, walking away from him and then turning back to look.

She had widened the space between them to force him to raise his voice. “However, I am frequently credited with miracles. It seems the Lord Dragon has richly blessed Lamath in these days.” She gazed at him, hungry to hear his reaction.

Pelmen closed the gap between them again, a move she had not expected. “It is not the doings of the dragon, my Lady,” he murmured. “It is the blessing of the Power.” Serphimera laughed nervously, sharply, and stepped away again. “What power do you speak of? There is no power save that which issues from the Lord Dragon!”

“It is the Power that empowers me, my lady,” Pelmen responded, again closing the space between them.

Then he whispered with intensity, “There is nothing to this worship of the dragon. You need to understand that.”

Serphimera’s mouth fell open in shock; then she screamed in her loudest voice, “I have a word on you! The Lord Dragon has told me you are against him! I hear now from you that it is true!” The crowd responded with gasps of surprise, and Pelmen was forced finally to play to them.

“When have you spoken with the dragon?” he demanded loudly.

“I have never spoken with the Lord Dragon. It is always he who speaks through me!”

“I have spoken with the dragon, face to face!” Pelmen added another “to face” in his mind, remembering that strange conversation as he gave the crowd time to react. “And I have news that all Lamath needs to hear.” The crowd responded with silence. Pelmen took a deep breath. “The dragon is divided!” Scarcely could a more inflammatory phrase be uttered in Lamath. The crowd was of mixed conviction; sprinkled through it was a liberal quantity of Divisionists. These now leapt to their feet crying, “Yes!” Pelmen’s sentence was a watchword of their faith. Divisionists believed that while it was obvious that the Lord Dragon was only one, he needed to be viewed as being of a double personality, one good and one bad. This explained the presence of evil in the world without slipping into heresies of dualism.

“No!” cried out the orthodox Coalescents in the assembly, who believed the dragon could not be viewed as either one or two but had to be viewed as a coalescence of both one and two. Thus the universe was held in tension. These were far in the majority, and the meeting would swiftly have resulted in a hundred different fistfights had not Pelmen summoned all the reserves in that powerfully trained voice and bellowed, “Sit down!” The words came like a thunderclap—so loud in fact that Pelmen was even a bit surprised himself. He glanced over at Serphimera. The woman’s face was purple with rage. She was speechless at this heresy.

There was no turning back now, Pelmen reasoned.

He would add to his heresy a heavy helping of blasphemy. “When I say the dragon is divided I say not that the Lord is in two parts. I say that the dragon is in two parts, and” that he battles with himself! And I say that the dragon is not the Lord!” He had violated the basic tenet of the Dragonfaith. Theologically, Pelmen had cut his own throat. The cries and curses and shouts that greeted his declaration gave warning that there were many in the crowd who would be pleased to slit his windpipe physically, as well.

“Let me save the Lord this trouble!” one burly, blue-robed figure shouted as he leapt forward, arms outstretched to grab Pelmen by the throat and throttle him where he stood. But the cultist was met in midair by Rosha. As the man hit the ground, Rosha was jerking up his own blue gown and pulling out his blade.

“Hold!” he shouted, sword ready to thrust toward any quarter. Would-be attackers jumped back, and Rosha pointed the tip at the burly man’s face and stammered, “P-p-perhaps you had b-best g-get back.” The man looked up into the young man’s face, confused and emboldened by the stutter. But there was no mistaking the intent of the youth’s eyes.

The fellow scooped his robes up around his knees and slipped back into the crowd.

“Yes, hold!” Serphimera cried, sweeping one arm dramatically over her head and drawing all eyes again to her. “For I have had a vision of this Prophet. I know his end!” The crowd gave a great roar of approval, and then settled back to listen to the Priestess pronounce doom upon this charlatan. Pelmen turned to gaze at the woman, whose eyes now were as hard as emerald gemstones and just as shockingly green.

“I have seen you, Prophet!” she cried. “And I know your death! In a vision, in a dream, the Lord Dragon revealed to me the act to seal your life. You will battle him, and you will fail, and you who scorn the Lord and profane that robe you wear, you he will tear in twain!” Pelmen felt dazed. The roaring of the crowd around him, so common and so manageable when he was but a player, now robbed him of his senses and very nearly from one of my chief generals!”

Talith snapped. “Get to the front and send Joss back to me.” Rolan-Keshi jabbed his heels angrily into his horse’s flanks, and started up the hill. Talith turned to Tahli-Damen. “And what do you want, merchant?”

“My Lord, the dragon will not wait all day—”

“Why won’t he? He has waited thus far.”

“Yes, he has, my Lord, but—”

“I am the King, Tahli-Damen. Kings do not cater to the time schedules of anyone save themselves.”

“But, my Lord—”

“I have tolerated your unsought advice ever since we left the palace, merchant, but I have grown tired of your insistence that you are the only one who knows how to deal with this dragon. Now, I will treat with Vicia-Heinox—through you, of course—whenever I deem it—” Talith’s eyes caught sight of something beyond Tahli-Damen’s shoulders, and his words froze on his lips. The young merchant understood immediately, even before he heard the leathery flapping above him.

Instinctively he ducked, and fell off his horse in the process.

King Talith was greeted by the sight of one dragon head staring in at him from the left-hand side of the litter, and another peering at him from the right. He finally found his voice. “Tahli-Damen?” he asked quietly. “Tahli-Damen, would you please come talk to this dragon?” The two heads moved in for a closer look, and Talith scooted down, attempting to hide under the cushions. “Tahli-Damen? Are you down there?” he called, peeking over the edge of the litter.

“So this is the mighty King of Chaomonous,” Vicia snorted.