Chris Pierson - Sacred Fire

“Come on, lads,” he coaxed. “If one of you doesn’t fight me, we’ll have a melee instead.”

The young knights groaned. Mass melees always meant plenty of work for the knighthood’s Mishakite healers afterward. They were good training, though; Tithian remembered many such battles from his youth, and no one-on-one duel could prepare anybody for having allies and enemies all around. He fixed his men with a steel-blue glare.

“Well?”

Still the others hesitated, and Tithian almost spat out of annoyance. Things hadn’t been this in the old days, the days of now-legendary men like Tavarre of Luciel, and Marto of Falthana, and … and many, many others. But most of those heroes were dead now, casualties of the war against sorcery, and this was what remained-mostly the younger sons of nobles and merchant lords, sent into service so they wouldn’t burden their families. The burning zeal of the Hammer’s early days had faded to a flicker.

“Very well,” the Grand Marshal said, making no effort to hide his disappointment. “Arm yourselves and form your sides. North and west barracks against south and-now what’s the matter?”

A commotion had broken out behind the crowd, in the direction of the castle’s main gates. The knights were murmuring and shifting, getting out of someone’s way. Tithian caught flashes of white: a priest from the Temple. His annoyance grew-he’d never had a great deal of use for the holy church, even if he was the head of its military wing. More often than not, a visit from the clergy meant sending his men to fight, and die, in some far-flung region of the empire.

But then his eyebrows rose as Lady Elsa stepped through the crowd. He tried to remember the last time a First Daughter-or any Revered Daughter-had come to the Hammerhall. He couldn’t think of a single occasion.

His men bowed, and Tithian signed the triangle. He knelt to no one, save the Kingpriest himself. “ Efisa ,” he said. “What brings you into these hills?”

“Lord Tithian,” Elsa replied. “I come at the behest of the Lightbringer.”

A mutter ran through the knights. Tithian silenced them with a gesture, though he felt his insides clench. Usually, the Kingpriest sent summonses with one of the young acolytes who served as the Temple’s couriers. This was indeed unusual.

“What does His Holiness wish of me?” he asked.

Two minutes later, he was on horseback, riding out through the Hammerhall’s barbican beside the First Daughter’s chariot. The melee would have to wait for another time.

No one knew when gray sails had become a sign of ill luck, or even why. It was a superstition older than the empire itself, its origins lost to history. The fact remained, however, that Istarans believed gray sails brought disaster, and not without good reason; the last time a vessel sailed into the Lordcity’s port under such colors, the Kingpriest, Giusecchio the Fat, had perished by an assassin’s blade the very same day. That had been nearly a century and a half ago, and in that time no ship-not even those from the western realms, which held no such beliefs-had raised a gray sail within Istar’s harbor.

No ship, that is, until today.

The crowds were thick at the wharves by the time the vessel pulled up to the Lordcity’s marble jetties. They shouted vituperations and forked their fingers at the sailors who jumped over the gunwales to make fast the mooring lines, and would have rushed out onto the docks had the Divine Hammer not been there to restrain them. Lord Tithian’s men locked shields to hold the mob back, swords drawn to warn the more zealous agitators. All around them voices called out curses, or invoked the Lightbringer to protect them from the doom-bringing ship.

Then, as suddenly as if some calamity had struck them all dead, the crowds fell silent. A figure appeared at the prow of the ship, clad in a gown as ashen as the sails: a tall, regal woman of some fifty summers, her golden hair now running to silver. She had been beautiful once, but age had hardened her face, turning once-laughing eyes to glittering stones, and freezing her mouth in a dour pinch. A blue X-the Seldjuki sign for widowhood-adorned her forehead, and she wore no other adornment: no bracelets or necklaces, no rings on her fingers or dangling from her ears. She leaned on a short staff of gray wood, with an ivory handle carved to resemble a dragon’s wing. The sailors lowered a ramp, bowing low as she stepped up to its edge and swept the crowd with the severest of stares.

“ Prubo broudon ,” someone in the crowd murmured, signing the triangle. Others quickly picked up the call, turning their eyes away from her gaze.

The Lady Who Weeps.

Wentha MarSevrin did not, in fact, weep, though tears often glistened in her eyes. She had earned the name many years ago, and to many its origin was as obscure as the fear of gray sails. To most, she was a figure of legend: the first Istaran to feel the healing power of the Lightbringer, whose touch had saved her from plague. Beldinas had cured thousands of the afflicted since, but Wentha had always held a special place at the imperial court, even after she married and moved to the city of Lattakay, far to the east. There, she had built the Udenso , an enormous statue of bronze and glass, built to resemble the Kingpriest-only to see it fall to ruin in the first days of the holy war between the church and the Orders of High Sorcery. In the years since that war she had not once returned to the Lordcity.

Everyone knew why that was, but no one would speak of it. There were some names it was not wise to speak aloud.

Lord Tithian strode down the pier, his mail jingling with each measured step. His eyes flicked to the other members of the Weeping Lady’s entourage, standing just behind her, but mostly they remained fixed on Wentha. She studied his face a moment, then smiled-a sad look, with no joy in it.

“I had heard you were Grand Marshal now,” she said, as Tithian hurried up the ramp to take her arm. She kissed his cheek graciously. “It is good to see you.”

“And you, Efisa ,” he replied, keeping his voice low as he escorted her. “But why have you come? And why fly that sail?”

He waved his hand, and she smiled again as she followed the gesture. “Gray is my color now, Tithian,” she replied. “And the curse upon it is nonsense-talk for the wine-shops, at best. In fact, the news I bring should be enough to disprove it.”

“News, milady? Of what sort?”

“Of the sort the Kingpriest must hear,” she said, “and none before him. Even you, my old friend.”

He studied her hard, but her face remained a mystery. At length, he shrugged. “Of course. The court awaits you, Efisa .”

They walked on together, away from the gray-sailed ship, their eyes turning uphill to the shining Temple.

The crystal dome of the Hall of Audience buzzed with the drone of voices in the room below. Word had spread of the gray ship’s arrival, and the place had filled with courtiers, all of them jostling for a glimpse of the Weeping Lady. Powdered and perfumed, clad in robes of rich velvet and shimmering silk, the nobles, high clerics, and merchant-princes of Istar whispered to one another of what her coming might portend. Like the commoners at the docks, few considered it a good thing.

Roses hung about the Hall, mimicking its walls. These were shaped of layers of lacquered wood, lovingly carved to resemble wine-dark petals that unfurled upward to cup the dome. Golden censers stood about the room, issuing threads of sweet, heavy smoke, and white tapers flickered on platinum candelabra, though the crystal above shone as bright as day. The floor was silver-veined marble, polished gleaming-bright, wide enough that it took several minutes to cross the Hall at a suitably respectful pace. At one end it gave way to a mosaic, crafted of lapis and turquoise tesserae to resemble flowing water. This pooled around a dais of pure white stone, atop which stood the golden, satin-cushioned throne of the Kingpriest.