Three of his men stood beside him, holding up torches to drive back the mist that had swollen suddenly from the ground, a night-crawling fog that surrounded the stones. Light flashed within the stone ring. A chill wind stung his lips. A perfect crystal flake of snow spiraled down on the last of the wind and dissolved on his boot. Mist still clung about the stones.
“Shall we go up, my lord, and look for her?” asked one of his men.
“No. She is gone.”
He tucked the cloth into his belt and called for his horse. Mounted, he took the baby back into the crook of his arm and, with his entourage around him, began the slow descent of the hill. The baby did not cry, but its eyes were open, and it stared at the heavens, or at its father, or at the dragon banner. Who could tell?
A breeze swelled out from the stones, and mist rolled down over the ruins from the height of the hill, swathing the crumbling buildings in a sudden thick fog and hiding the moon. The men picked their way carefully, men on foot grabbing hold of horses’ harnesses, the rest calling out to each other, marking distance by the sound of their voices.
“You are better off without a woman like that,” said the old soldier suddenly to the prince in the tone of a man who has the right to give advice. “The church would never have accepted her. And she has power over the ways of nature which it were better not to meddle with.” The dragon banner hung limp, sodden with the weight of the fog, as if this unnatural mist was trying to drag the banner down.
But the prince did not reply. He kept his gaze on the torches surrounding him, like watch fires, light thrown against the gloom.
A ring of seven candles, light thrown against the gloom.
Watchers stared into a mist that rose from a huge block of obsidian set in their midst. Their faces were hidden by darkness.
In the mist they saw tiny figures, a young nobleman carrying an infant, ringed by his faithful followers. Slowly these figures descended through a fortress, seen half as ruins, half as the ghost of the fortress that was once whole. The tiny figures walked through walls as if they were air, for they were air, and it was only the memory of what was once there, in the minds of some few of the watchers, that created the ghostly walls, the suggestion of the past built anew.
“We must kill the child,” said one of the watchers as the mist faded, sinking into the black stone. With it faded the image of the prince and his retinue.
“The child is too well protected,” said a second.
“We must attempt it, for they intend to shatter the world itself.”
The first among the watchers shifted, and the others, who had been whispering among themselves, stilled into an uncanny silence.
“It is never wise to seek only to destroy,” said she who sat first among them. Her voice was rich and deep. “That way lies ruin only. That way lies darkness.”
“Then what?” demanded the first speaker. He shrugged impatiently. Candlelight glinted off his white hair.
“Just as the Enemy turns the faithful from the Path of Light toward the Abyss, so can unbelievers be turned away from their error to see the promise of the Chamber of Light. We must counter the power given into the hands of this unwitting child with power of our own.”
“There is this difference,” said the second speaker, “that while we know our opponents exist, they do not know of us.”
“Or so we believe,” said the first man. He sat stiffly, a man of action unaccustomed to long stillnesses.
“We must trust to Our Lord and Lady,” said the woman, and the rest nodded and murmured agreement.
The only light given to their circle was that flickering from the candles, bright flames throwing sharp glints on the surface of the obsidian altar, and that from the stars above and the round, still globe of the moon. Great blocks of shadow surrounded them, an entourage of giants.
Beyond, wind muttered through the open shells of buildings, unseen but felt, the last relics of a great empire lost long ago to fire and sword and blood and magic. The ruins ended at a shoreline as abruptly as if a knife had sheared them off. Surf hissed and swelled at the verge. Sand got caught up on the wind and swirled up from the shore into the circle, catching on tongues and in the folds of cloaks.
One of the watchers shivered and tugged a hood hard down over her hair. “It’s a fool’s errand,” this one said. “They are stronger than we are, here and in their own country.”
“Then we must reach for powers that are greater still,” said she who sat first among them.
They responded to her words with expectant silence.
“I will make the sacrifice,” she continued. “I alone. They wish to sunder the world while we desire only to bring it closer to the Chamber of Light toward which all our souls strive. If they bring one agent into the world, then we must bring another. Of ourselves we cannot defeat them.”
