The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“Brother Marcus!”

The ruins of Kartiako rose as ragged shadows along a distant hillside before Marcus’ tense figure blocked the view.

“I am here.”

The heavens turned. Night crept westward across the Earth although they were by now drowned in darkness, marching on through the early night hours toward midnight. So it was true, he thought, heaven and Earth stretched those threads out, and out, until they were as thin as a length of hair. It was true that the Earth and the heavens were spheres, for otherwise night would come all at once and at the same time in each place but instead the heavens turned and the stars rose above the horizon first in the uttermost east and later as night crept westward over the Earth.

The rents opened wider as the threads pulled taut.

Arnulf the Younger had decreed that any family willing to risk the long journey east to the marchlands, there to farm rich upland country never before touched by a plow, would be freed of the yoke of lady’s and lord’s service, owing allegiance only to the regnant of Wendar. Most people stayed put: everyone knew that the marchlands were hard, dangerous country, close to the barbarians, where you were as likely to die in a Quman raid or have your daughters raped by Salavii or be eaten by griffins and lions as you were to prosper. His grandmother had packed up her household without looking back once.

His grandmother had understood the way of the world. She had journeyed east because she had hated the yoke of servitude more than she had feared danger and hardship. Now, for the first time since his captivity among the Quman, he was truly her grandson. Her heir.

“Ah,” said Hugh, more breath than word.

At the hazy western horizon, still tinged with a fading gold, bright Somorhas winked briefly before heaven’s wheel dragged her under. Mok, the Empress of Bounty, shone high in the southwest, on the cusp between the Penitent and the Healer.

“There,” said Hugh, and there Zacharias saw, rising as the wheel turned, the cluster of seven stars known as the “Crown.”

Tonight the Crown of Stars would crown the heavens.

I pray you, Old Ones, give me strength.

You are strong, Grandson. Do as we have taught you.

Zacharias felt Hugh’s chest against his own back, as close as that of a lover, but when the presbyter’s hand closed on his elbow his grip was iron, the chain by which he bound his servants to his will. He held Zacharias’ hand, and thus the staff, steady.

“Now you will weave as I have taught you, Brother Zacharias. With this spell you will see into the heart of the God’s creation itself if you do as you are bid. This, I promise.”

Zacharias grunted; he had many sounds left to him, but without a tongue few of them made words. The Old Ones understood him nonetheless. They had offered him strength—and with strength came the opportunity to avenge Hathui’s betrayal. He quieted his mind as Hugh began the chant.

“Matthias guide me, Mark protect me, Johanna free me, Lucia aid me, Marian purify me, Peter heal me, Thecla be my witness always, that the Lady shall be my shield and the Lord shall be my sword.”

The staff caught the thread of the Crown of Stars and bound it into the circle of stones, and as stars rose and others set Hugh directed his arm so the staff wove these strands into a net that dazzled his eye and throbbed through his body.

Or was that the ground itself trembling? The moon set. Night passed more quickly than he had imagined once they were enveloped within the web of the spell, pulled one way as heaven’s wheel strained at the stones, as each ply drew taut and, before it could snap, was directed elsewhere to spin the pattern on into a new configuration.

There were rents in the sky, huge gaps, like tears in a tent wall through which a man might glimpse the world beyond.

He sees the ladder of the heavens reaching from the Earth high up into the sky, glimmering in a rainbow of colors, rose, silver, azure, amber, amethyst, malachite, and blue-white fire burning so hot that he cannot look at it directly. Disquiet assails him. The ladder is empty. All the aetherical daimones who once ascended and descended from Earth to the heavens and back again are absent. Or fled.

They have fled the power of the weaving. For an instant he quails. He shrinks. Fear swells. Then he recalls Hathui and the voice of the Old Ones. He is Brother. He is Grandson. He will act. He will be strong.

“Sister Meriam!” said Hugh.

An answering voice thrummed within the web of the spell; he glimpsed her frail form, supported by her granddaughter, in the midst of a wasteland of sand and shattering sky. He felt her body beside his, although he knew it for illusion.

“I am here. I am here.”

“Brother Marcus!”

The ruins of Kartiako rose as ragged shadows along a distant hillside before Marcus’ tense figure blocked the view.

“I am here.”

The heavens turned. Night crept westward across the Earth although they were by now drowned in darkness, marching on through the early night hours toward midnight. So it was true, he thought, heaven and Earth stretched those threads out, and out, until they were as thin as a length of hair. It was true that the Earth and the heavens were spheres, for otherwise night would come all at once and at the same time in each place but instead the heavens turned and the stars rose above the horizon first in the uttermost east and later as night crept westward over the Earth.

The rents opened wider as the threads pulled taut.