The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

As her voice flowed on, the stars crept along their fixed paths across the heavens. Later, after the moon rose, the watchers slept, all except the Bright One and the hidden woman, who ventured outside, heavily veiled. These two spoke in quiet voices far into the night, and now and again held their faces close to the flames of a campfire, as if staring within.

Toward dawn, the veiled woman climbed back inside her cage as the camp roused. By torchlight and moonlight men and horses made ready to depart. The Bright One wove threads of starlight into the stones, and one by one the visitors crossed through the brilliant gateway and vanished.

Last of all, the Bright One turned, there at the verge.

“Who are you waiting for?” she asked. Then she was gone.

The blazing threads frayed and collapsed in a shower of sparks. Dust eddied around the base of the stones before settling. Shadows faded. The peaks dazzled as the sun crested the eastern heights and its light caught the blinding white snow fields. On one of those heights a cliff of snow calved loose and roared downslope in a tumble that shook the valley as a white haze rose off the mountain. The avalanche of snow and ice roared and boomed and at length slowed, gentled, and came to rest, still so high above the tree line that it was impossible to see any change in the shape of the mountain itself. The cloud of snow and ice sparkled and sank.

A leaf drifted in on the breath of the avalanche, spinning and dancing, at play among the stones, but although the daimone chased it, the leaf was a dead thing, its spirit fled, and it could give no companionship to one who was lonely.

awn as the sun rose the dead stones sparked and spit out a stumbling collection of mortal beasts, some on two legs and others on four, a confusing starburst of colors and heat and voices. It raced down on the wind to investigate, curling around the newcomers. None saw it; they were blind. Only there was one they kept enclosed in a little house on wheels, and this one had power to see both what lay above and what lay below and when it insinuated itself through a crack the creature spoke to it, so it fled.

It fled, but there remained a greater threat. The Bright One, child of flame, had returned, the one who had brought the conflagration down upon them. It concealed itself in the boughs of an apple tree, too frightened to approach the creature with a heart of flame yet so curious it wished to see what was going on. In the end apprehension mastered it, and it fled to the hut where it had in times before slept alongside the familiar presence of the one it longed for.

There it hid until nightfall, venturing out when darkness might hide it from mortal eyes, but the Bright One and her retinue still inhabited the valley, and it feared they meant to stay and perhaps even to call the elder cousins down upon them all again in a terrible, incandescent bloom.

“That is the River of Heaven,” the Bright One was saying to an audience of eight shivering souls seated by the stones beside the remains of a dying fire. “See how the Serpent is swimming across it.”

“It’s so bright!”

“Those are the souls of the dead, streaming upward to the Chamber of Light. Or so the church says.”

“What else could it be?”

“The ancient writers had many explanations. Look there! Mok still resides in the Unicorn. There is Jedu—that red star—rising with the Penitent. I do not see the Red Mage or Somorhas. The moon hasn’t risen yet, if it means to rise at all. The mountains block part of our view, as well. As the hours pass, we’ll look for the other wandering planets, but already I can guess that about four to six months have passed since we left the east.”

“How can you guess that?”

“It isn’t really a guess. The planets wander along the ecliptic in a regular pattern. Mok spends about one year in each house, Jedu from one to two months or as many as six months if it is in retrograde—”

Two voices spoke, overlapping. “You’ve lost me!”

“What is ‘retrograde’?”

A ripple of laughter raced around the cluster of seated figures. The Bright One stood and went to lean against the wagon. Its door stood open, a stick propped against it to hold it wide, and a figure stirred, hidden behind a curtain of beads, peering outward.

“Nay,” said the Bright One as she brushed fingers over the beaded curtain. “I’m going too fast. Let me start at the beginning. We stand on the Earth, which is a sphere. Earth lies at the center of the universe, so the scholars claim, which is also a sphere. But I wonder—nay, never mind that now. The Earth is encircled by the seven planetary spheres and by the outermost sphere, that of the fixed stars. Beyond that lies the Chamber of Light.”

As her voice flowed on, the stars crept along their fixed paths across the heavens. Later, after the moon rose, the watchers slept, all except the Bright One and the hidden woman, who ventured outside, heavily veiled. These two spoke in quiet voices far into the night, and now and again held their faces close to the flames of a campfire, as if staring within.

Toward dawn, the veiled woman climbed back inside her cage as the camp roused. By torchlight and moonlight men and horses made ready to depart. The Bright One wove threads of starlight into the stones, and one by one the visitors crossed through the brilliant gateway and vanished.

Last of all, the Bright One turned, there at the verge.

“Who are you waiting for?” she asked. Then she was gone.

The blazing threads frayed and collapsed in a shower of sparks. Dust eddied around the base of the stones before settling. Shadows faded. The peaks dazzled as the sun crested the eastern heights and its light caught the blinding white snow fields. On one of those heights a cliff of snow calved loose and roared downslope in a tumble that shook the valley as a white haze rose off the mountain. The avalanche of snow and ice roared and boomed and at length slowed, gentled, and came to rest, still so high above the tree line that it was impossible to see any change in the shape of the mountain itself. The cloud of snow and ice sparkled and sank.

A leaf drifted in on the breath of the avalanche, spinning and dancing, at play among the stones, but although the daimone chased it, the leaf was a dead thing, its spirit fled, and it could give no companionship to one who was lonely.

Who are you waiting for? the Bright One had asked it, but only the wind moaning through the stones answered.

“Who? Who?”

3

“YOUR Excellency, we’ve had word that the honored presbyter and his party arrive today.”