As he entered the sanctum to find it crowded with older members of the order, the first sense of disquiet came to him.
Yet nothing was how it felt, for it proved they called him over his mastery in auguries. They needed him to read the signs for them. He began to breathe easier, until they revealed what the problem was.
A new feeling of disquiet came, this time laced with fear. For not a moment did he doubt their claims.
“Singing stones?” he whispered.
Silence answered him; they waited to hear how he would reason it out.
He glanced around the chamber, gaze lingering on the smoking candles, before saying, “According to our history, the singing of the stones has never happened here, only on the world we left behind.” He paused and frowned at the tapestry behind the gathering and then added, “And that was a long time ago.”
“We are aware. We also believe we may have inadvertently brought the gift with us,” an old, reed-thin man said.
Khunrath shook his head. “And it shows two hundred years later?”
“Something has awakened it,” another said.
“Why?”
“Our current dilemma,” a third man said with a thin smile.
Khunrath sucked at his teeth and knew he dared not question more. “What is it you want of me?”
“You have used stones in auguries, we hear tell,” the thin man said.
Ah. Khunrath dipped his head. “I shall, of course, do my best to aid the Brotherhood.”
“Excellent,” the man with the thin smile murmured. “You do us proud. We have chipped flakes from the site of the stones; we would like you to use those.”
A few furtive glances among the older priests told him they were not enchanted with the idea, but whether it was the use of actual singing flakes, or his own involvement, he could not tell.
“When would you like me to do this?”
“Now,” a fourth stated.
Khunrath’s brows rose, but he nodded. “By your will. I assume you have the flakes with you?”
A fifth moved in the rear of the gathering. He was younger than his colleagues and also had more compassion for people. Khunrath had dealt with him before - his name was Xtin. He moved forward clutching a leather drawstring bag and when he reached Khunrath he handed it over.
There was sympathy in his gaze and he returned to his seat without speaking.
Khunrath hefted the bag. Light. He bent his head over it, but did not open it. “I trust you understand auguries are temperamental. I may see nothing or I may see something I cannot explain.”
“We know, “Xtin murmured from the back. “Khunrath, we do not expect a miracle; all we ask is what you see. At this stage every clue is helpful.”
The singing stones foretold of the inundation on that other world, and auguries and science confirmed it. If stones were singing here on Luvanor, fear was it would foretell of a new extinction level disaster, one that - again - could be planned against.
Khunrath nodded and drew the bag open. The ability to hear the stones was, he suddenly knew with certainty, an ability that belonged to the defunct royal line. He was called here for a reason other than his prowess with auguries, and auguries with stones in particular.
It was a strange situation to be in. He wanted to succeed in the reading, but was afraid of what it meant to himself. He was also afraid of the spectre of disaster.
Swallowing on a dry throat, he moved into a meditative pose and shook the bag. In that act, he froze. He heard, distinctly, the chimes of a melody.
“What is it?” Xtin asked.
“They sing,” came the hushed answer. He did not see the more significant looks passing between the gathered.
“Do they say anything?” the man with the thin smile asked.
“No,” Khunrath breathed, “just music.”
He shook the bag once more, but now they were silent. Drawing a breath he tipped it over. Grey, speckled flakes akin to flint rocks tumbled out and landed haphazardly on the stone floor. There were exactly fourteen, he noticed. His uncle, bless him, told him how important the number fourteen was. A magical quantity of and for magic. It was something he should not know and thus he did not react.
Instead he bent over the disorderly tumble before him and felt rather than saw how the rest craned closer.
Augury lay in seeing an image in the haphazardness of thrown objects, and this was decidedly random. He stared at the flakes, but no image came forth. He stared at them some more, feeling the bated breath quality of the silence before him. Nothing … but, all gods, the flakes were talking to him!
He did not understand how stones of Luvanor could do this, or why his blood should hear, but it was pure, beautiful music to his ears, the words dancing in his mind. He sat a long time, listening, pretending to study the array before him.
Were he to reveal the depth of his involvement, it would mean his death. The royal line would cease.
His hand came out and moved the flakes. His hand rested there, covering them. Such was the sign to the watcher an image had come.
Khunrath looked up. “A city. I see a city built with the stone under my hand.”
Silence. Frowns.
“Is there more?” Xtin asked.
If he said more they would know he had heard or ‘seen’ beyond his known abilities. He shook his head. “I see a massive city, Brother Xtin, that is all.”
Collective sighs greeted his claim. Then, “Oldar said the same thing.” Oldar was a magician sequestered in the mountains. His uncle mentioned him several times years ago. Oldar had to be a very old man by now.
“Oldar also said it was to replace this city,” another man said. He had not spoken before. “And he said …”
“Yes, yes,” the thin one interrupted. “Khunrath, we thank you for your help. You may go now.”
Dismissed before he could hear more. He rose, bowed low and left as an obedient priest of the Brotherhood should.
“What now?” Xtin asked in the silence after his leaving.
“We need to bind him to this task. We need his blood to know the whole picture,” the old, reed-thin man whispered. “But how?”
THEY DID NOT HAVE to find the how, for Khunrath gave it to them.
The morning after the augury anxious priests burst into the sanctum with news of Khunrath half alive on the border of the northern forest, bleeding amid lichen and rocks saying strange things. The core of the Brotherhood thought they understood. The stones called to the blood and poor Khunrath had no clue what was happening to him.
They hastened to the site and it was where the stones began to vibrate and then make unearthly music four months ago.
Xtin bent to him first. “Khunrath, can you hear me?” There were cuts and grazes on the man and his robes were torn as if he had been running wild in the forest.
Khunrath gargled.
The older man swore. His name, Khunrath would soon know, was Xavier. “They called to him. Poor man, and he does not know why. Get him up and to the healers.”
“No! The music speaks!” Khunrath screamed.
Xavier glanced around. Too many witnesses. The priests, and a host of curious from the city. “Clear the area!”
Within minutes a wide band of open space formed between the curious and the more curious situation in the crumpled man on the ground.
Xavier kneeled. “Khunrath, can you hear me? What does the music say?”
“Huge city, must start build today … war, defence, new races, must build forever … start today!” Khunrath mumbled as if unwilling and afraid.
“War?” Xavier repeated.
“New races?” another whispered.
“They come and we must be ready,” Khunrath gasped. “We must delve into the mountain … escape routes, big city, big walls, big stairs …”
“Can you see the city?” Xavier asked.
“Yes! Pictures in my head, plans … and the Plateau must be empty!”
“Why?”
“To must
er our armies, do you not understand? Extinction without armies, without city in the mountain … blood on the rocks, needs my blood …”
“Why does it need your blood?”
“Sacrifice … sacrifice for images, gives drawings, plans …”
Khunrath passed out. It was genuine unconscious; for he bled a little more than was generally safe.
Xavier looked. “He is bound and what he says rings true. Get him to the healers right away.”
THUS IT WAS THAT the Great Plateau was emptied of all signs of the first city, other than the Brotherhood Temple and the buildings necessary to house those contracted to build a new one.
Luvans were angered by the onset of abrupt change and even more angered by the lack of explanation. Grumbles over the tyrannical behaviour of the Brotherhood were heard, but they were deaf to the growing dissention.
Khunrath, for his part, stoked those fires, even as he gave of himself to the raising of a city. The stones continued to sing to him, yet he never revealed more than what was necessary to see it come to pass.
Block by block, it began. Foundations at the foot of the steep slope of a majestic mountain, the foundations for a massive stairway. Then came the foundations for the first tier. A gargantuan hole grew in the mountainside as rock was delved from within to build without. It was a twofold strategy; the rock was necessary and so were the growing spaces inside the mountain. As the outer city was raised, thus the inner one was delved.
It took two years to remove Luvans from the plateau; it took four to do the stairway. It took another ten to level the first tier and close to eighty to finish the tiers to the point where the outer city met the inner. There a huge portico was erected, and enormous arches, manifold, entered the mountain.
Khunrath married a woman from Kantar’s desert region and had six sons, and he taught them the ways of magic, the secrets of the bloodline, and left the kind of wealth they could not spend in five hundred years of trying.
They heard the stones sing and never revealed their truth to the Brotherhood.
Khunrath died before the outer city reach the inner, but died knowing the time approached when the royal line would reassume the reins of rulership.
IT TOOK A FURTHER two hundred years to finish the city.
It took most of the wealth of Luvanor to complete it. It cost many lives. It cost the Brotherhood much in status and trust, and yet at no time was building stopped. The stones continued singing and it sang of danger, war, new races and extinction.
Khunrath’s six sons had sons and daughters of their own, and they, too, continued the line. The wealth of the secret royals grew apace, and a strange fatalistic patience gripped every member of the blood.
They were prepared to sacrifice the status of their blood for a future where the blood would step forth to claim and tame the fairest of all cities.
THE DAY CAME WHEN the last door was hung, the final window latch screwed in, the last tile grouted and the final shine given.
Three hundred years later, the shell of a city was ready.
Every sign of the builders was removed from the plateau and new grass was laid into the scars left by three centuries of trampling. The Temple remained, an edifice made minute by what it faced. A new Temple awaited within the mighty walls; the symbolic move would commence once the city was consecrated.
All that remained to complete the long labour were trees, flowers, the flow of water. And people, their furniture, their animals, their laughter and their hearts.
Hundreds of thousands crowded the Great Plateau in awe of a mighty city.
In the forefront were the ordered ranks of ten thousand priests, and five thousand magicians.
Dispersed among the crowd there were the royals. Dispossessed in year 40, they were now ready to stand forth. They were wealthy and they were many. They had chosen their king, generation after generation, mostly eldest son to eldest son.
They numbered over five hundred and were no doubt secretly recorded in the Brotherhood’s lists, which had to be a cause for concern for the esteemed brothers. Concern over their number, at the least, if not for what they potentially knew of the royal line. The Brotherhood was about to be shocked out of their dusty frocks.
It was Year 420 and the fairest of cities was ready to live.
The stones ceased singing, for it had achieved its goal, and a new way would soon supersede it.
Chapter 22
Telepathy; a distant feeling, and not to be confused with mind communication
Clairvoyance; a clear seeing - a seer is expert in this art
~ Titania Dictionary
GABRIEL GAZED UPON THE city that was part of a mountain.
It was beautiful, bathed in the gold of afternoon sunshine, appearing both new and as ancient as time. That, he saw years ago, was due to the inherent properties within the stone itself. He squinted and saw trees towering from among homes, heard the fresh tinkling of fountains, saw riotous colour vying for supremacy in window boxes and upon roof gardens, heard the sound of laughter - and the far off clash of swords - and smelled the varied aromas of dinners upon stoves and hearths.
He smiled. That vision lay around the corner of the day, and it was his to do.
If it were left to the Brotherhood to fill the city, it would stagnate in laws and rules of misplaced morality. Colour would be overlooked, trees would be the kind that bore fruit, not purely for the joy of decoration and shade in the heat of summer, and laughter would go underground. That was not right. That could never be right.
His gaze lowered to Valentin, present leader of the order of priests and magicians, and noticed a rolled scroll in the man’s hands. Valentin was a powerful man with fifteen thousand under his direct command, and he was powerful in his own right, being an accomplished magician and a notable orator. He could stir people by the power of his voice alone.
Valentin would not be easy to cow, but he, Gabriel, had prepared for this moment his entire life and had three hundred years of patient blood to aid him. He also had the entire royal family, without exception, to support him. They had prepared for this occasion, never complaining. And - in this his greatest strength - he would have the people of Luvanor behind him. Luvans had had enough and more of the Brotherhood.
Valentin was unrolling the parchment. It was time.
Gabriel stepped through the throng and it parted as if folk saw something wonderful in him.
Five hundred other royals surged forward unobtrusively, men, women and children, the youngest child two months old.
The crowd felt the movement and breathless anticipation grew. There was no apparent reason and yet they knew change was in the offing.
Valentin was a tall man with full beard and red hair. He was pale of skin, aesthetic almost, as if more of the spirit than the physical, but all Luvans bore that resemblance. He was not set apart by the colour of his skin, only by the power of his position and talents.
Gabriel was as tall, his hair black, straight and long. It shone as he moved purposefully forward and trailed him as he vacated a space. Many a woman threw him an admiring glance.
Valentin lifted the scroll and opened his mouth …
“The consecration of this wondrous city should be spoken by one of royal blood,” Gabriel’s voice sang out over the heads of the priests between him and their leader.
Valentin jerked around.
“After all, Valentin, it was royal blood that envisioned and planned the city we behold before us. And it was royal blood that was sacrificed to the stones.”
There was silence.
Gabriel came to rest before a dumbstruck Valentin and put his back to the city. His blue eyes caught, held and challenged the amber ones flaring at him.
“Who are you?” Valentin demanded.
Gabriel smiled and as he spoke again his extended family broke through the ordered ranks to array behind him as an honour guard.
“You know who I am, priest, for I am on your secret list. However, for the benefit of the crowd
…”
“No!” Valentin hissed.
Gabriel raised his voice and it carried on wings to every ear and into every heart, “I am Gabriel, direct in descent from Tunian by virtue of the male line! I am the rightful ruler of Luvanor!”
Again the silence.
“Luvans! This is your king speaking! Long has the royal line been subjugated and long has it awaited this day to reclaim its true heritage, but I tell you now we did not forget! We did not die out! We did not fade into obscurity! We were not idle …”
The waves of sound drowned him out. Wave upon wave of acclaim. Roars, shouts, screams, questions, good tidings, relief and joy, and in that lay understanding change had already begun.
“You cannot do this!” Valentin whispered.
“I just have,” Gabriel smiled. He reached out to snatch the scroll from the priest’s hands and a moment later it disintegrated. He smiled at the man’s astonishment and spoke into his ear. “Do not cross me, Valentin, for I am no boy and I am not a mere man. I have the secret remedies and until yesterday I heard the stones speak … oh, did you not know? They are silent now, for the city is risen.”
Valentin took a pace back. “This is not over, upstart.”
“No doubt you and yours will attempt certain ploys. Do so at your peril, priest, for in this moment, this singular moment, I shall extend the brotherhood a hand in friendship. We could co-exist peaceably and learn from each other, or we could part now in enmity and your kind will become outcast.”
“You cannot hold the rabble long, Gabriel!”
Gabriel shrugged and gestured over his shoulder. “A new city, fair and clean, a new beginning. I shall invite artists of every persuasion, families that desire to raise their children in harmony and fill the streets with love and joy. Travellers will be made welcome and Luvans will know they are respected, needed, loved and cherished. They are no rabble, and I do not seek to hold them. They are free and they will come freely.”
Neither man realised the crowd had fallen silent and heard the heart’s wish of the long patient blood.
Lore of Sanctum Omnibus Page 24