In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

Her gaze sought the heckler, and perhaps it found him, because she paused for a moment with a fixed stare, then smiled just a little as a bully might, seeing his prey flinch. The man had by this time moved so that his body was hidden to Sanglant’s line of sight.

“What matters to the story I tell you tonight is that the belief in the Circle of Unity and the Word of the blessed Daisan spread outward on the architecture of the old Dariyan Empire.”

“More than that!” interposed Sister Elsebet indignantly.

“Ai, God! Spare us these interruptions! I’m still scratching!” cried the wit.

Sanglant sighed.

Sister Elsebet stepped forward and glared her audience into silence. “None of us can speak as if this war is ended.”

“Which war is that?” asked Liath. “I thought I was speaking of a war.”

Elsebet pounded her staff twice on the ground. “I will listen, but I will not remain silent on this matter. I pray you, Your Majesty!”

He was caught, and he knew it as well as the cleric did. “Go on, Sister. What is it you must say?”

“That the woman has knowledge of sorcery and history I can see, and perhaps respect. But the war that afflicts those of us who live within the Circle of Unity is never ending. It is impossible to speak of the blessed Daisan without speaking as well of those who have sought to corrupt his holy teachings.”

“Have we time for this?” Sanglant asked Liath.

A foolish question. She was interested, and entertained. She could go on in this vein for hours. “You speak of heresy, Sister Elsebet, do you not?”

“As must we all! Alas!”

“Then I pray you, educate us.”

Once offered, quickly taken. Sister Elsebet did not strike Sanglant as a fussy, troublesome woman, nor had he in their brief acquaintance been given any reason to believe she was one of Hugh’s adherents.

“Go on,” he said, giving her permission.

She came forward. Liath did not, in fact, make way or give up her own place standing on a conveniently situated rock that elevated her a bit above the rest, but she did drop her chin and, between one breath and the next, efface herself. The shift was astonishing. Sanglant had never seen her do such a thing before, as if she doused the radiance that made her blaze. Before, she must command the gaze; now, she was only a woman standing on a rock listening as a cleric spoke of the holy truth that sustained them.

“This is the truth! Heed me! Many heresies have troubled the church since the living body of the blessed Daisan was lifted up into the Chamber of Light. But in these dark days there are two we must guard against most assiduously.

“The first is known as the Redemptio. This is the belief that the blessed Daisan was martyred by the Empress Thaissania, She of the Mask. That only after his death by flaying and his supposed resurrection did he ascend to the Chamber of Light. This heresy was eventually squelched and forbidden. As it deserved!

“The second, and greater, heresy concerns the constitution of the blessed Daisan himself. The elders of the church ruled that the blessed Daisan was no different than any other human, claiming only a divine soul made up of pure light trapped in a mortal body admixed with darkness. The adherents of the greater heresy claim otherwise and declared that the blessed Daisan alone among humankind was half divine and half mortal. In the year 499, the Emperor of Arethousa turned his back on the skopos in Darre and abandoned the truth because of his belief in this half divinity. So was the holy word of the blessed Daisan wounded by the Enemy’s sharp arrows.”

She drew the Circle at her chest and turned to bow to Sanglant.

“How does this affect the tale?” he asked.

“Heresy must affect us all,” retorted Sister Elsebet. “Right belief is what sustains us! It would be a greater tempest even than the one we suffered in Aosta should these heretical beliefs take hold and drown the foundation on which all our lives rest! On what we and the church mothers know to be true! Perhaps this tempest is not merely the playing out of an ancient sorcery but a warning sent to us by God!”

He looked at Liath.

She lifted her chin, squared her shoulders, made herself visible again, the center of attention. Yet this was not the charisma that allows a commander to lead men to their death in battle. This was, purely, control over the unnatural fire that burned within her.

“It may be, Sister Elsebet,” she agreed without any evidence of insincerity. “Yet I know this. The land of the Ashioi returned to Earth because those who wove the sorcery in ancient days did not understand fully the consequence of what they did. The land returned because it could not do otherwise. It was bound as if in a great circle, necessarily returning to the place it started.”

“Indeed,” agreed the cleric stoutly. “For this same reason the church mothers have always disapproved of sorcery.”

“Yes, so it was. Sorcery was restricted by the church in two separate rulings. Certain of the magical arts were allowed to be taught under the supervision of the church, but others were condemned, specifically those that related to foreseeing the future and controlling the weather as well as knowledge of the mathematical properties of the stars and planets. In truth, although this was unknown to the church councils that condemned them, these were the very arts used in ancient days to weave the spell that cast the Ashioi into exile.”

Elsebet nodded, as if her point was now proven. She did not step aside. Liath kept talking.

“‘Between the Bwr invasion and the troubled church, the creaking edifice of the old empire at last collapsed.”’