“It does what I need.”
“Don’t see many of you folks this far south.”
“That’s true.” Corvyn smiled. “Not many from Helios get this far. Most just take a quick look at Los Santos and leave. But then we don’t see many of the White One’s faithful in Helios, either.”
“You’ll be staying just for the night then?”
“Just for the one night.” Corvyn extended his card.
“Poe … that’s an old name,” mused the innkeeper as he scanned the card and returned it. “Seems like it’s familiar, but I couldn’t say why.”
Corvyn ignored the implication that his skin was likely several shades too dark to be local. “It is an old name. It goes back a long ways.”
The innkeeper smiled professionally. “It’s slow right now. Any of the five rooms are available. Take whichever you please. If you’d like supper, we serve from five to seven. Café door is on the road side at the end.”
“I would, and thank you.” Corvyn paused. “I take it that you have some locals who occasionally eat here as well.”
“There are a few most nights, seeing as we’re the only place in twenty milles. Even the best cooks need a break at times.” The innkeeper paused, then added, “There’s a locker for bikes outside each room. Bears, you know.”
Corvyn hadn’t known, he realized surprisingly, and said, “Thank you.”
“We don’t see them often, but if they smell food, they can make a mess. Wouldn’t want to have one of them rip up your bike.”
Corvyn nodded, then turned and left the foyer, feeling the innkeeper’s eyes remain on him for a time. He looked briefly into each of the rooms, but they were close to identical, and, in the end, he took the one farthest from the inn foyer. After putting his things in the room and locking up the electrobike, he stood in the middle of the spare, clean, and nondescript chamber and called up the aether, searching first for the poetess.
She appeared standing behind a low stone wall, one that might be white, light gray, light pink, or even light blue, given the lighting, and looking out over what appeared to be a city. What city it might have been, Corvyn could not tell, save that it was unlikely to be Los Santos. She gestured, and the image vanished, although the oblong of the aether did not, indicating that she had both the awareness and power of at least a principality. It also indicated that she had recently been taught the ability to block aether imaging … or that she had known all along and had now chosen to do so.
He frowned. The first times he had called up her image, she had seemed unaware. The last time, she had turned the sheet holding verse so that he could no longer see it. This time …
Corvyn concentrated on the singer, and found … nothing.
“Interesting.” In fact, it was more than interesting, since it indicated that both were more than they initially had appeared, but there was little enough that he could do about it at the moment, nor was he so inclined. Not at the moment.
Rather than worry, he decided to walk down the path that led east from the small inn for his own reasons. Those reasons included a feeling that something of interest lay along or at the end of the path. Within fifty meters, greenery surrounded him. Thick undergrowth flanked the path under the canopy of much taller trees, some of which he recognized as maples.
He walked along the well-trod path toward what felt like a shrine, although what sort he wondered. A half mille farther east the path ended in a small clearing, which was anything but natural. The north side ended at a flat stone wall carved out of a rock outcropping that rose roughly four meters, and white stone tiles formed a pentagon some ten meters on a side. In the center of the pentagon stood a four-sided white stone obelisk three meters on each side at its base that rose some thirty meters, tall enough to be impressive, but lower than the ancient white pines that ringed the clearing. From the growth of the vegetation immediately around the space and the weathering of the stones, the pentagon had been there longer than the Redstone Inn.
Corvyn looked up, noting that tree branches overarched much of the clearing, and that the pink sky was visible only for about five meters on each side of the obelisk. Corvyn felt no active energy sources, although he had the feeling that there might be stored energy somewhere nearby.
There were no markers, no explanations, but Corvyn scarcely needed one, not considering the unmarked white obelisk. The original had vanished with the destruction of Old Earth-Eden, and its meaning had been far different from what the white obelisk had long since come to mean. He shook his head, then turned and walked back toward the inn.
An hour later, he stepped inside the café, faintly surprised that three of the nine tables were already occupied. Although he had half expected to see the tall innkeeper, the server was an older woman, also fair-skinned and blond, as was everyone in the café except Corvyn.
She smiled and said, “Any table that’s empty. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
He took a table for two against the wall, seating himself where he could view most of the other patrons. A young couple, dressed in tan leather jackets and plaid shirts, sat at a corner table, while two older couples in white shared a four-top. A family of sorts, also garbed in white, gathered around the large circular table, a man, two blond women of approximately the same age, and three children, whose ages, Corvyn estimated, ran from mandated attentive silence to polite comments.
The server returned before Corvyn had a chance to begin eavesdropping and offered a professional smile. “We’ve got two choices tonight. Old-style pot roast with potatoes, carrots, and onions or fried chicken, with mashed potatoes, white gravy, and kale.”
Since Corvyn had never cared much for fried chicken, he immediately said, “The pot roast.”
“We don’t have much variety in drinks, just ale and lager, either light or dark in either.”
“Pale ale, please.”
“You’ll like it. I’ll have your food out shortly.”
“Thank you.”
She hurried out to the kitchen.
Corvyn had thought to eavesdrop, but found he didn’t have to in order to listen to the two couples at the four-top.
“… don’t care what you say, Matt, there’s no way you can raise artichokes here. Besides, who’d eat ’em?”
“I would, for one. I get tired of pole beans and collards and kale.”
“… it takes forever to cook ’em, and they don’t much taste without oversalted butter…”
“Still say it’d be good to have a choice…”
“You’ll be the one picking and cooking ’em…”
Corvyn turned his attention, but not his eyes, to the much lower-pitched words being exchanged at the family table.
“… don’t stare … not polite,” murmured one of the women to the youngest child.
“… one of the dark ones?” whispered the older-looking boy.
“… could be from Helios, Marcion, Keifeng … few other villages … now eat your dinner.”
The couple in the corner ate without exchanging words.
Before that long, the server returned with a large mug of pale ale and a healthy platter of pot roast and the assorted vegetables.
Neither the pot roast nor the remaining conversations were terribly interesting, and Corvyn ate what he needed, drank all of the ale, and then retired to his rented chamber.
Were the raven’s wings once white,
just before the Fall of night?
21
By midmorning, Corvyn was milles and milles northeast of the Redstone Inn, moving along a section of the road that extended the length of a narrow valley between two forested hills that were high for the plateau of Heaven, but less than foothills in comparison to the Celestial Mountains far to the north. A certain sense of gloom came from the unending greenery, as well as the lack of vibrant colors … or odors. While he had slept well enough, and breakfast had been better than the dinner the night before, his thoughts kept going back to the two Valkyries and the white obelisk in the for
est east of the Redstone Inn.
The obelisk had been four-sided and not three-sided, and it had been set in the center of a regular pentagon, not a pentagram, although the central pentagon of a pentagram could also be regular. But the fact remained that it was a white obelisk, a symbol that had less than favorable memories and connotations for Corvyn. He couldn’t help wondering whether Jaweau knew. The fact that there were no energies surrounding it suggested that those who had erected it did not want to call any more attention to it than necessary.
Still the existence of the obelisk raised questions, one of which was just how many others were scattered through the hills and dales surrounding Los Santos. If there were others, Jaweau could not be totally unaware of them, and that raised certain questions, especially about the True Faith of Los Santos. Then, there were also other questions, such as those surrounding the abilities of both the singer and the poetess, and why they had appeared at the same time as had the black tridents.
Corvyn was still half pondering those and other questions when he began to sense the gathering of power even before the whirlwind came out of the north, a funnel darker than the night sky without the Pearls of Heaven. Above that blackness was a cloud of flame, infolding itself, with an amber brightness that rivaled that of the white sun at noon. As the funnel and the cloud swept over the lower ground to the left of the road, the conifers withered under the flame and turned to blackened shards.
Yet Corvyn could see that the trees behind the cloud were untouched, even as a wave of heat cascaded over him.
Sophisticated imagery, possibly reflected and/or directed off the shields of one of the Pearls of Heaven.
Lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, and four winged figures appeared, each with the shape of an androgynous human, one with the face of a man, one with the face of a lion, one with the countenance of a bison, and one with the head of a sun eagle.
Corvyn felt no change in the electric potential around him and none of the pressure changes that should have accompanied such an impressive display. Still … even what he was seeing, feeling, and hearing demanded a considerable amount of power … more than he would have wanted to spend … or pay for. He brought the electrobike to a halt and waited. Trying to deal with that power and sophisticated imagery while riding would only have been more difficult … and less effective.
“… you have been impudent and stiff-hearted … what you think to do is of the wicked, and I have laid a stumbling block before you. Any righteousness that you have done will be forgotten, and all the evils that you have done over the centuries shall be multiplied manifold in the minds of all creatures in Heaven, both now and forevermore.
“Can you not see this, raven of the night? Can you not recall when your plumage was of the rainbow? Can you not recall when the Light was yours, and you forsook it? Poor raven, see what I return to you.”
With a hiss and a flash, the image of the trident appeared on the paving stone two yards in front of the electrobike—the same image that had appeared on the stone wall of his study, cut into the stone itself and black deeper than the lightless night sky that Heaven had never seen, at least not since the Pearls of Heaven were strung. Then the glowing whirlwind and the dark funnel that had somehow been amber as well black vanished.
That image and the black flamed trident cut into the stone before Corvyn chilled him, because whoever, whatever, had projected the image and marshaled the power it took to focus it on a relatively isolated and remote road seemed to think that he was the source of the trident.
Or wanted you to think that the power believes you’re behind it.
But any hegemon or other power able to muster that much force should have known that the trident had never been the symbol of the raven. So why the deviousness? Why not a direct attack, rather than the charade? Unless the being behind it cannot muster that much power at a distance … or isn’t yet ready for such an attack.
None of the possibilities pleased him.
He studied the black-flamed trident once more. It appeared identical to the others. That did not bother him so much as the possibility that the power behind the trident might have access to the Eyes of Heaven … and might well gain access to the Lances of Heaven as well.
He shivered, despite the warmth of the day.
The raven claims no city’s sacred fire
but seeks the truth beyond desire.
22
By an hour past midafternoon, Corvyn had begun the descent into the southern reaches of the city proper of Los Santos, an expanse of white buildings and white streets, with the only visible darkness under the pink sky of day being rooftop solar collectors and the green of vegetation. Behind closed doors, though, there were more colors … and shadows, to which Jaweau, the White One, had never voiced public objection. While many of the various scattered dwellings and holdings Corvyn had passed in the Appalachian Hills displayed colors other than white, even that limited palette of colors had almost totally disappeared by the time he reached the clusters of homes on the outskirts of the city. In turn, the Appalachian Trail had become the Boulevard Sanctus, its center divided by a wide strip of perfect green grass and well-tended gardens. There might even have been flowers in those gardens in colors other than white, not that Corvyn had ever seen any in his infrequent but continuing visits.
Just as the colors were limited, so too were the fragrances, so that Los Santos seemed to have the faintest scent of electric fields and ozone, rather than odors of food, or flowers, or humanity, or even trees.
In passing, Corvyn reflected, as he had more than once over the long years, that although white light contained all colors, those who claimed the virtue of white light or whiteness seemed far too often to deny the colors embodied in the white light they exalted.
Unlike Helios, or the cities and towns he had so far visited since he departed to seek out what he could about the mysterious tridents, Los Santos boasted a profusion of modestly high structures. None challenged the Cathedral Los Santos, which dominated the low and perfectly circular hill in the center of the city. Shimmering white walls girded the hill itself, with no breaks except for the Avenue of Redemption, which extended from the Port of Hope on the Sanctus River due south to the cathedral, a thoroughfare even more impressive than the Boulevard Sanctus on which Corvyn traveled toward the center of the city, a city that had grown significantly since he last visited.
That also raised the question of what cities or villages of belief had shrunk to support such growth in the faithful of the White One, a question of lesser import than the matter of what aspect of the White Faith had changed enough to engender such added support. Or to what unspoken but inferred prejudices has the White One catered without seeming to?
Corvyn knew all too well that his cynicism might have been excessive at times, but he also knew that support for faiths, of whatever type and stripe, grew only when they promised something, and in Heaven, where the vast majority of material needs were met, the most likely avenue for gaining support was promising superiority of some sort.
Not only was Los Santos a sparklingly clean city, but there was also little crime. How could there have been? Every square millimeter of the city was under surveillance every moment … and each of those moments was analyzed and scrutinized by the quantum intelligences in the vast chambers beneath the great white cathedral. Only that which took place in the few shadows that did exist in the city escaped such scrutiny, and only if every trace remained in the nearly nonexistent shadows.
Since Jaweau would know exactly where Corvyn stayed, and since the cost of lodging was the least of Corvyn’s concerns, he directed the electrobike to the Domus Aurea, one of the premier lodgings near the cathedral, not just because of the closeness and the hotel’s two excellent restaurants, but also because of the irony of that name. That irony was likely lost to anyone but Jaweau, who would not raise the issue and thus resurrect it, for all that he believed in other resurrections.
A doorman clad in a spotless white coat, trimm
ed with the thinnest of gold piping, waited as Corvyn guided the electrobike into the covered portico. “Welcome to the Domus Aurea, honored sir.” The doorman’s voice was cheerful and welcoming, without a hint of condescension as he looked toward the antique-appearing electrobike.
Corvyn removed the two cases from the rear fenders and bestowed them on the bellman, who followed him to the reception counter, constructed of gleaming, gold-threaded white marble, presided over by a blond woman in white.
She took his card, then returned it almost instantly. “You have the Helios Suite, sir. Welcome back to Los Santos. Would you like reservations at the Garden at seven? Or perhaps the Paradise?”
“The Paradise this time, I think.”
“Very good. Enjoy your stay.”
As he followed the white-clad bellman to the lift, Corvyn found himself both amused and slightly concerned. Clearly, Jaweau’s surveillance and analysis systems had greatly improved since Corvyn’s last visit.
The Helios Suite was on the ninth floor of ten, and the highest floor for guest quarters, the tenth floor being reserved for the Paradise. Behind the white door were a spacious sitting room and an adjoining bedchamber. The sitting room faced north and offered a view of the city all the way to the Sanctus River. The suites facing west and looking toward the cathedral were for the faithful or for the heads of other Houses of the Decalivre, should they ever visit, although Corvyn was not aware that any such visits had ever occurred, at least not openly.
It was not all that long before dinner, and he immediately made preparations, including a long, hot shower, which, antique as it was, he much preferred to more modern methods of personal cleanliness. Slightly before seven, wearing a shimmering gray jacket and trousers, a darker gray shirt, and a much lighter gray cravat, he presented himself to the maître d’hôtel at the Paradise, who also wore a version of the white and gold livery of the staff.
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