The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

The blood and viscera of stricken dragons rains down on the humans desperately and uselessly taking shelter against seven stones, burning flesh into rock. A sandstorm buries the oasis where the desert people have camped, trees flattened under the blast of the wind. The lion women race ahead of the storm wave but, in the end, they too are buried beneath a mountain of sand. Gales scatter the tents of the Horse people, winds so strong that what is not flattened outright is flung heavenward and tossed back to earth like so much chaff. All the trees for leagues around Queen’s Grave erupt into flame, and White Deer villagers fall, dying, where arrows and war had spared them. Ai, God, where are Maklos and Agalleos? Hani and Dorren?

Where is Kel?

They are all dead.

Is this the means by which the sorcerers hoped to bring peace? Did they really know what they were doing? Can it be possible they understood what would happen?

“Adica can’t have known. She’d never have agreed to lend herself to so much destruction if she’d known.”

He has to believe it is true.

But he will always wonder if she knew and, knowing, acted with the others anyway, knowing the cost. Did they really hate the Cursed Ones so much?

“It was all for nothing. They’re still here. I’ve seen them.”

Ghost shapes, more shadow than substance, walk the interstices between Earth and the Other Side, caught forever betwixt and between. Those Cursed Ones who did not stand in their homeland when it was torn out of the earth were pulled outward with it; they exist not entirely on Earth and yet not severed from it, as all that comes of earth is bound to earth.

Yet isn’t it true that no full-blooded Cursed One walks the same soil as humankind now? Didn’t the human sorcerers get what they wanted? Isn’t Earth free of the Cursed Ones?

“We can never know peace,” he cries, turning to the men who have flocked around him. He has to make them understand. “What is bound to earth will return to earth. The suffering isn’t over. The cataclysm will happen again when that which was torn asunder returns to its original place.”

“Thank the Lady, Father,” says the infirmarian as the gathered brothers let a new figure through. “You’ve come.”

The abbot is a young man, vigorous and handsome, son of a noble house. He has a sarcastic eye and a gleam of humor in his expression, but he sobers quickly as he examines Alain and the placid but menacing hounds. The portly infirmarian keeps a light touch on Alain’s wrist, nothing harsh, ready to grab him if he bolts.

“It’s a wanderer, Father Ortulfus,” says the infirmarian. His fingers flutter along Alain’s skin. Like the bee, he seems to be probing, but he hasn’t stung yet.

“Another one?” The abbot has wildly blue eyes and pale hair, northern coloring. Adica’s people were darker, stockier, black-haired. “I’ve never seen so many wanderers on the roads as this summer. Is he a heretic?”

“Not so we’ve noticed, Father,” says one of the monks nervously “He’s babbling about the end times. He’s right out of his mind.”

“Hush, Adso,” scolds the infirmarian before he addresses the abbot. The calm words slip from his mouth smoothly. “He’s not violent, just troubled.” He turns to regard Alain with compassion. “Here, now, son. You’ll not be running away, will you? Don’t think you’ll come to any harm among us. We’ve a bed you can sleep in, and porridge, and work to keep your hands busy. That will ease your mind out of these fancies. You’ll find healing here.”

o;Hush, friend.”

Voices speak all around him, a chorus close by and yet utterly distant, because his grief has not moved them to stand beside him in their hearts. “Those are big dogs,” mutters one.

“Monsters,” agrees another. “Think you they’ll bite?”

“Here comes Brother Infirmarian.”

A portly man presses forward through the throng and bravely, if cautiously, approaches. Rage and Sorrow sit.

“Come, lad,” he says, kneeling beside Alain. “You’re safe here. What is your name? Where have you come from?”

“Ai, God. So many dead. No more death, please God. No more killing.”

“What have you seen, Son?”, asks the monk kindly.

So much suffering. It all spills out in a rush of words, unbidden. Once started, he has to go to the end, just as the spell wove itself to completion, unstoppable once it had been threaded into the loom.

The caves in which Horn’s people have sheltered flood with steaming water, trapping the dead and the dying in the blind dark. A storm of earth and debris buries Shu-Sha’s palace. Halfway up the Screaming Rocks, Shevros falls beneath a massive avalanche. Waves obliterate a string of peaceful villages along the shores of Falling-down’s island. Children scream helplessly for their parents as they flail in the surging water.

The blood and viscera of stricken dragons rains down on the humans desperately and uselessly taking shelter against seven stones, burning flesh into rock. A sandstorm buries the oasis where the desert people have camped, trees flattened under the blast of the wind. The lion women race ahead of the storm wave but, in the end, they too are buried beneath a mountain of sand. Gales scatter the tents of the Horse people, winds so strong that what is not flattened outright is flung heavenward and tossed back to earth like so much chaff. All the trees for leagues around Queen’s Grave erupt into flame, and White Deer villagers fall, dying, where arrows and war had spared them. Ai, God, where are Maklos and Agalleos? Hani and Dorren?

Where is Kel?

They are all dead.