Марк Энтони - The Cataclysm

He paused, waited until the crowd hushed.

“Jealousy!” he breathed in a stage whisper that carried clearly through the chill air. “They were jealous! Jealous of a man more godly than the gods themselves! They were jealous and afraid that he might challenge them. And so he might have! And he would have won!”

The crowd roared its approval, with an undercurrent of anger frightening to hear.

“But, though he is gone,” continued the man, clasping his hands in pious grief, “some of us have vowed to carry on, to keep his memory alive. Yes,” he cried, raising his fist to heaven. “We defy you, gods! We are not afraid! Drop a fiery mountain on us if you dare!”

Michael stirred restlessly, opened his mouth.

“Are you mad?” Nikol whispered. “You’ll get us killed!” Taking hold of his medallion, she tucked it down the front of his blue robes, hiding it from sight.

Michael sighed, kept silent.

No one else in the crowd saw them. All eyes were on the speaker.

“Lord Palanthas sides with us,” the man cried. “He would agree to pass our laws, for he knows they are right and just, but he is prevented from doing so by that old man in there!” Again he pointed at the columned building behind him.

“Then we’ll pass the laws and enforce them ourselves!” shouted a voice from the crowd, who, by the quickness of his response, obviously had been waiting for a cue. “Read us your laws, Revered Son. Let us hear them.”

“Yes, read us the laws!” The crowd picked up the shout, turned it into a chant.

“I will, good citizens,” said the squint-eyed speaker. He drew forth a scroll from the bosom of robes that were rich and snowy white—a marked contrast to the worn and shabby clothing of those who hung upon his every word.

“First: no elf, dwarf, kender, gnome, or anyone with so much as a drop of blood of any of these races is to be allowed in the city. Any now residing here will be expelled. Any caught here in the future will be put to death.”

The people looked at each other, muttered their approval.

“Second: any wizard or wizardess, witch or warlock, apprentice mage, sorcerer or sorceress”—the man ran out of breath, paused to catch it—“caught within these city walls will be put to death.”

This met with nods and shrugs and even some incredulous laughter, as though such an occurrence was almost beyond the realm of possibility. Palanthas had divested itself of such evil long ago, though at a heavy cost.

“Third” all Knights of Solamnia—”

Boos and hisses and angry shouts interrupted the speaker. He smiled in satisfaction and raised his voice to be heard above the uproar.

“All Knights of Solamnia or any member of a knight’s family found henceforth within the city limits shall be expelled!”

A loud cheer.

“All lands and goods and properties of said Knights of Solamnia shall be confiscated and turned over to the people!”

An even louder cheer.

Now it was Nikol who flushed in anger and seemed about to speak.

“Are you mad?” Michael whispered, wrapping her cloak more closely about the telltale breastplate, twitching the folds over the sword in its antique silver sheath, decorated with kingfisher and crown.

The two drew back to stand in the shadows of a large, spreading oak.

“Fourth: the library will be razed to the ground! All the books and scrolls and the lies that they contain will be burned!”

The speaker snapped his own scroll shut. Leaning toward the crowd, he made a sweeping gesture with his arm, as if he would scoop them up and send them in a surging tide toward destruction. The mob shouted its agreement and made a tentative movement toward the steps of the ancient library.

No one came out from the library. No defender appeared in the doorway. The building itself, the weight of years, its age and veneration and dignity, spoke a silent, eloquent defense and daunted the crowd.

Those in the front ranks seemed unwilling to proceed, fell back to let those behind come forth if they wanted. Those behind, finding themselves about to become those in front, had second thoughts, with the result that the mob began to mill about aimlessly at the foot of the library stairs. Some shouted threats; others threw rotten eggs and vegetables at the venerable structure. No one wanted to go any nearer.

The speaker gazed at them with a grim face, realized that the time was not propitious. He stepped down from his platform and was immediately surrounded by people, who cried out for his blessing or reached out to touch him reverently or held up their children for him to kiss.

“In the name of the Kingpriest,” he said humbly, moving from one to another. “In the name of the Kingpriest.”

“What is this mockery?” Michael gasped, appalled, no longer able to keep quiet. “I can’t believe this! Haven’t they learned? This is worse, far worse—”

“Hush!” Nikol hissed and dragged him even farther back into the shadows.

The speaker moved through the crowd, handling the people skillfully, giving them what they wanted, yet subtly ridding himself of them. A small retinue, led by the man who had asked the speaker to read the laws, formed a circle around the Revered Son and managed to extricate him from the press. He and his henchmen emerged near where Michael and Nikol stood, hidden by the trees.

Some of the mob continued to surge sluggishly about the library steps, but most grew bored and wandered off to the taverns or whatever other amusements could cheer their dreary existence.

“You had them eating out of your hand, Revered Son. Why didn’t you urge them on?”

“Because now is not the time,” the Revered Son answered complacently. “Let them go to their friends and neighbors and tell what they have heard this day. We’ll have a hundred times more people than this at our next rally and a hundred times a hundred more after that. In the meantime, we’ll whip up their fear and their hatred.

“Remember that half-elf baker we talked to yesterday, the stubborn one, who refused to leave the city? See to it that his loaves make a few people sick. Use this.” The Revered Son handed over a small glass vial. “Let me know who’s taken ill. I’ll be around to ‘heal’ them.”

One of the henchmen, taking the vial, looked at it dubiously. The Revered Son regarded him with some impatience. “The effects wear off naturally after a while, but these ignorant peasants don’t know that. They’ll think I’ve performed a miracle.”

The man pocketed the vial. “What about the library?”

“We’ll hold another rally in front of it day after tomorrow, after we’ve had time to stir up trouble. If you could get me one of those books, the one with the lies about the Kingpriest—”

The man nodded, shrugged. “Nothing to it. That fool old man, Astinus, lets anyone read ’em.”

“Excellent. I’ll read it aloud to the crowd. That should seal the library’s fate and the old man’s. He’s been the main one opposing my takeover of the city’s government. Once he’s out of the way, I’ll have no trouble with that namby-pamby Lord Palanthas.

“Now, tonight,” continued the Revered Son, “I want you and the others in the taverns, spreading stories about that knight, the one that was god-cursed—”

“Soth.”

“Yes, Lord Soth.”

Nikol sucked in her breath softly. Michael caught hold of her hand, squeezed it, counseling silence.

“I’m not certain we should rely on that story to drive the mob to attack the knights, Revered Son. There’s more than one tale about him going around.”

“What’s the other?” the speaker asked sharply.

“That he was forewarned about the Cataclysm. He was riding to Istar, planning to try to stop the Kingpriest—”