King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

Below, light flared with an orange heat, as if new wood or some other unknowable element had been thrown on the fire. Lackling sobbed outright, and his piteous half-formed terror cut Alain to the heart.

“I must try to help him!” He pulled away but Agius caught him again. The hounds, dragging him toward the ruins, jumped back and Sorrow sank his teeth into Agius’ robe, but still the frater did not let go of Alain or even cry out in pain.

“Let go!” Horrified, Alain cuffed Sorrow and, caught up in pulling Sorrow off the frater and in keeping Rage from bolting down into the ruins or attacking the frater as well, he noticed too late when the wind turned and the hounds stilled abruptly, unnaturally.

The smell of smoke and a whiff of something else, herbs, something unclean, wafted up from the stones. There came suddenly a horrible gurgling scream and with it a thin scent like flesh burning. Agius’ hand tightened on Alain’s arm. The hounds, ignoring Agius now, closed ranks in front of Alain, pressing him back as if they, too, meant to stop him from running forward.

“Witness,” whispered Agius. “As St. Thecla witnessed the Passion of the blessed Daisan, so must you and I witness this suffering.” It was obscene to listen to Agius speak so composedly while below, out of Alain’s reach, Lackling was being tortured, murdered, sacrificed in place of the Eika prince. And for what?

Wind gusted. Rain spattered down, drumming across the ruins in a sudden slap of cold air; then all was still … utterly still, except for a haze of smoke rising from the altar house. Uncannily still, except for the thin reed voice that sounded as if it was buried under rock, and a tiny mewling, like a kitten’s, so soft Alain could not understand how he could hear it. But of the normal scuffles and whispers of wind and night birds and the many small animals of forest and glade, there was no sign, as if all had vanished or been struck dumb.

Agius let go of Alain and he knelt, bowing his head. “It is a sign,” he whispered, “that I should go out and preach the true word of His Passion, which was His suffering and sacrifice, and of His redemption.”

A smell rose out of the ruins like the breath of the forge, hot and stinging. The hairs rose on Alain’s arms, on the nape of his neck. Agius lifted his head. The hounds whined and slunk back, cowering, against Alain’s legs.

Alain felt a presence—many presences—at his back. A shimmer ran through the air like the wind made visible. He heard the biscop speak strong words he did not recognize, only that they must be words of power. Below, in weirdly elegant harmony with her voice, sang the formless, hopeless whimpering that was no longer quite human. Alain wept, but he did not move. He had condemned Lackling and was now powerless to save him.

The stench of burning iron filled the air. Shapes less black than night’s darkness filtered past him, shades slipping through the night. They touched him, shuddering out and away, his human body an obstacle to their passage. They wore not human shapes, nor the humanlike shapes of the dead Dariyan princes, the elves who were the elder sisters and brothers of humankind. They wore no shape at all, truly, but that of rushes blown in the breeze that sweeps the lakeshore, bending and swaying and straightening. They seemed otherwise oblivious to him, to the hounds, to the frater, who stared gaping and silent after them.

Down they went, their substance passing through the stones as if the stones were no substance to them. Up they crept from the stream. In they came from all sides.

“Strong blood will attract the spirits and put them under my control.”

They pressed in upon the altar house and, with a whuff like a candle snuffed out, the lanterns all went out. But the glow still shone from within, brighter, until it, too, was shadowed and veiled by the shades called by blood and magic. Until Alain could see nothing but darkness, swallowing the center of the ruins, and hear nothing but the biscop’s voice.

A thin bubbling wail. Then silence. And at last, in the far distance, the faint sound of bells. The hounds collapsed to the ground and lay there, like helpless pups, whimpering.

Alain shook, weeping. The moon came out from behind clouds he had not seen cover the sky, to reveal the silent, empty ruins. The wind began, and at once clouds scudded in to cover the moon and the stars. Rain fell, at first a mist and then harder, until he was soaked and any trace of scent or sound was lost. He stood until he was drenched, seeking, listening, but he saw nothing and no one.

Lackling was dead.

4

AT last the squall passed.

From the altar house there was no sign of movement or life.

“I hope they’re all dead!” said Alain with a vehemence that startled him. He had never known he could hate.

Agius rose stiffly to his feet. “Come, Brother,” he said. “There is nothing we can do now except remember what we have seen, pray it never happens again, and testify where it may do some good.”

“Shouldn’t we go down, see if Lackling—?”

“If the biscop still stands within, guessing we have witnessed all, do you think she would hesitate to kill us? Martyrdom is an honorable profession, my friend, but not if it is lost and forgotten.”

He began to walk up the path, into the forest.

“What were they?” Alain whispered.

Agius stopped and turned to face him. “I do not know.”

“Did you know she meant to do this?”

“That she is a sorcerer? It is known within the church that Biscop Antonia and her adherents differ with the skopos on the place of sorcery within the church. That she might herself indulge in the use of sorcerous knowledge is surely to be expected.”

“That she meant, tonight, to … to … ?” He could not form words to describe the horrible thing that had happened.

“The Holy Days are times of great power, Alain. What else is sorcery but the knowledge of the power that lies at rest in the earth and in the heavens, and the means and will to bind and shape it to your own use?”