“Speak it out for me,” she said curtly.

“Yadovír claims to have tried to save Kalún from the Gumiren. It’s made him into a bit of a hero with exactly the kind of people who are most sympathetic with the traitors. If you imprison Yadovír…”

“I could have a full-blown rebellion on my hands.” She sighed again, then felt disgusted with herself for it. “He’s an odd one, that Yadovír. Do you remember how my father invited him to the palace to witness the execution? Well, I caught him staring at me with the strangest look. Adoration, but contempt also. It unnerved me. Caused me to shudder physically. He noticed, and his face changed so quickly into open malice and hatred that I was afraid for my life, for a second.”

“He wouldn’t have dared to do anything. Not with all the—”

“Of course not, Elder. That’s not what I mean. But I think him capable of exactly the sort of treachery that got Kalún killed. Only he wouldn’t die. Too good with words.”

Elder Pahomy said nothing. His expression gave nothing away either. To her own surprise, she was grateful for it. She didn’t need someone to coddle her. She needed to be decisive. On her own.

“Do you know?” She smiled at him. “I think I need the spectacle of this funeral as much as the people do.”

Elder Pahomy smiled. It was a gentle, fatherly smile, a rare gift from the old warrior. She felt warm. Now I’m ready, she thought.

Soon the Temple began to fill with people. They were silent, even sullen, though nearly everyone seemed to find comfort in the serene beauty of the redbarks and the whispering intimacy of the aspens, still orange-clad despite full winter.

The great bells exploded in cacophony, all of them ringing at once, the kind of peal usually reserved for weddings and the births of new children to the Dar. She hoped it would raise a dormant half-hope in the hearts of those assembled. The very rocks seemed to sing aloud in welcome to the bodies of the last great men of Vasyllia. Clerics robed in purple trimmed with gold—vestments crafted in the likeness of ancient Vasylli armor—entered the Temple in rows and began to sing. The hymn was fierce and olden, in a dialect not spoken any more save in certain Temple ceremonies. The curious martens and foxes amid the trees stopped and harked to the song, laden with the grace of the ages. Behind them came the coffin-bearers—lightning-white against the profusion of dark furs worn by the people. Then, the singing and the ringing ceased in a single thunderous chord that threatened to topple all the assembled to the ground with its force, just as the two bodies were placed on a bier in the midst of the Temple.

The master bell tolled its velvety call forty times. Sabíana saw the bell in her mind, an ancient relic of old Vasyllia, made in a time when the art of pouring great bells was not lost. It was adorned with reliefs of legendary beasts too old to be named, with deeds of heroes raised to the rank of demigods, some of whom were still remembered in the songs of blind Bayan, Dar Antomír’s ancient verse-weaver who still lived in a high chamber in the palace.

The final toll rang, then continued to pass through the crowd like a rising tide. Sabíana followed it, surrounded by her guard, many of whose tears streamed down their beards. She took her place by the bier, and the clerics surrounded her and the bier before beginning the lament. Sabíana felt the blood rush to her face as the bass voices among the priests took the drone, deepening the sound of the singing into eternity. She wanted to weep with the men, but forced her face to remain as stone.

Acolytes lit and scented censers, and the smoke rose to accompany the chant offered on behalf of the fallen Voyevoda of Vasyllia and the greatest Dar of their time. Slowly, with each new hymn sung by the weeping warriors and the priests, the nightmare of Otchigen’s fate, though not fading completely from memory, molded itself into a hopeful longing for his eternal rest. If any man deserved to find lasting peace, it was he, for he had suffered the ultimate ignominy and pain.

Soon all the people, their voices cracking in the cold, the steam from their speaking merging with the smoke of the censers, joined in the final lament.

Peace eternal to your servants

In your halls, O Adonais

Grant this.

Sabíana took a torch from one of the warriors and lit the biers herself. She paused, savoring the hunger of the flames, forcing the spectacle to imprint itself on the back of her eyes. This is what will happen to us if we do not prevail, she thought.

She turned to look at the people. Seeing them made her realize how right she had been to burn these two—inseparable in life, as in death—in the same ceremony. It was as she hoped. There was a calm acceptance of the burden of what it meant to live—to carry on the work that others, so much greater than we, have started, but not finished. I can mold this, she said to herself.

“My people, go in peace!” Sabíana said in almost a whisper, but her voice carried well. “Rejoice as is meet for the passing of our father Dar Antomír, but be mindful of our constant danger. Sleep not the sleep of the unprepared. Any day the call to battle will sound, and though it be in the dead of night, may your sword-hands be not found empty.”

As if on cue, the bells accompanied her last word with a thunderous ovation. Many eyes glimmered, ever so slightly, with hope that had been dead only hours before.

“Highness,” said Rogdai a bit behind her. A loud thump indicated he had fallen on one knee. He was doing that a lot more these days, and every day a more worshipful look came over his face as he watched her. Poor man. She turned and nodded to him, half-smiling the graciousness she didn’t feel in her heart.

“There is something I believe you would like to see,” he said, his voice slightly tremulous. But it wasn’t fear in his voice, not this time.

Yadovír saw Sabíana take Rogdai’s arm and walk back to the palace. Even now, there was a fresh pain from the wound she had inflicted on him. A small part of him still wished that he could tell her everything in the hope of seeing her eyes light up with hope. It was only a small part of him, though, and it was drowned out by the hatred that glowed like white metal in his chest. That part of him was disgusted to see how many of the warriors had been moved by the funeral and were now obviously Sabíana’s men. Many of them now worshiped the ground she walked on.

“Don’t worry, my rat,” a slithery voice sounded in his head. “Let them have their moment. It will not be long now.”

Rogdai led Sabíana to one of the many open-air cloisters of the upper level of the palace. The snow was eldritch under the nearly full moon. In the center of the cloister, adorned with the remnant of trailing vines and asters still in bloom, stood one of the palace’s many small bell towers. It was built over an enclosed pool of spring water blessed by the Sirin, as the tales told. It was also said, Sabíana remembered, that this particular tower’s bells quietly rang on their own some mornings, beating melodies that no bell ringer knew any more.

They entered the white chamber of the spring through a low, crumbling doorway. The room was covered in a series of panels, framed in gold. Each panel contained an ancient fresco of a king, a queen, an ascetic, a saint, or a hero. They all wore the flowing robes of Lassar’s time, painted in a flat, abstract style with exaggerated poses and over-large eyes. The colors of the robes were still bright. Sabíana realized they must have been made of crushed precious stones--the most expensive kind of paint, used only on the most sacred icons. Some of the panels were so old that the faces looked intentionally rubbed out. Perhaps they had been, it occurred to her. Nothing was impossible any more.

Even in winter, the spring was not frozen. She knelt before the pool and dipped her face in the water three times, then took the silver flagon and drank.

“In here, my lady,” said Rogdai, indicating a blank wall behind the pool.

“There is nothing there, Rogdai,” she said, confused.

“That is what I thought as well,” he said.

She followed. As it turned out, there was a faint outline in the wall—a low doorway hidden by age and cracked mortar. She was sure no one had opened it in generations. Rogdai took a candle from the many stands in the chamber and pushed at the door, which creaked as it lurched open.

Ahead was a stairway leading down into another chamber, apparently hewn from the mountain itself. Rogdai walked in first and raised the candle, and golden light bounced off the walls. Sabíana had the feeling that she breathed gold. The walls were gilded in more panels containing even brighter and more ornate icons. These were all of hermits, notable for their floor-length beards and hair-shirts. Some of them were completely naked—the ultimate sign of renunciation of decadence. Sabíana remembered from her studies that this kind of chapel was common in the outliers. In Vasyllia, icons of kings and queens were preferred to those of ascetic men and women of the wilds.

There was a low table at the end of the semi-circular altar, and the back wall was covered in florid text, the gold paint as bright as though the brush were applied only yesterday.

“This place must be hundreds of years old,” Sabíana whispered.

Rogdai was on his knees, his head bent. She began to read the text aloud.

“Thus saith the Most High King, the Unknown Father, the Artist of the High and the Low. I will make my covenant with Lassar of the Vasylli, to be binding on his children, and his children’s children until the final fading. Upon this people I appoint a sacred duty—to protect and ward the Three Cities, with all lands appertaining to them, or to die in their sworn duty.

“For duty faithfully rendered, great shall be the measure of my recompense. I shall make this race glorious among men, and the grace of my power shall flow through them as a river of Living Water. For failure in duty bound, terrible shall be the wrath of my reckoning. Their seed shall be wiped from the earth, and they shall be cursed to the darkness eternal.

“Yet if they endure the war that never ends, they shall have peace in a place of sanctuary beyond the endless ages.”

“O Adonais,” whispered Sabíana, trembling. “How foolish have we been.”

Around the text, smaller icons of great kings of old were rendered in astonishing detail, barely tarnished with age. It struck her that if the figures came out from the walls and spoke to her, she would not be surprised. For the first time in her life, the Covenant, Adonais, and all of the old stories were no longer fairy tales, but had become painful reality.

“You feel it too, do you not, Rogdai? The terrible abyss of time in those words, especially when read aloud. We forget so easily…” A thought struck her. “We must read this aloud at my coronation. We must pledge, as a people, to renew our commitment to the Covenant. We must seek for the last help we have left.”

And then she knew what she must do, and she began to weep.

The warrior came to the edge of the forest. There, in a clearing, he saw the hut standing on chicken feet. “Hut, hut! Turn with your back to the forest, with your front to me.” It turned. He stepped forward, but stopped in fear. A river of fire appeared between him and the hut. The hag stood at the doorway, leering at him. “I can give you what you want!” she cackled. “But you’ll have to brave the baptism of fire.”

The warrior jumped in…

“The Tale of Alienna the Wise and the Deathless One”

(Old Tales, Book II)

Chapter 29