Ahead, a lesser carriage drawn by three greys harnessed in troika carried Mahael, Morag, and Ronal Rurik, preceded by a troop of mounted Circassian guards in full array. Kelson’s honor guard of Haldane cavalry followed directly behind Liam’s state carriage, with Morgan and Dhugal at their head. The others of the Gwynedd delegation had gone ahead to Hagia Iób with an earlier procession of other official observers.
The Avenue du Saint Constantine was lined with hundreds of Liam’s cheering subjects, kept in order by cordons of the city guard. Many waved kerchiefs or pennons of tawny silk, and some of the women cast flowers under the horses’ hooves.
At the quay before the plaza fronting the Cathedral of Saint Constantine, state caïques were assembled to convey the investing party upriver. Liam’s was white, with a gold-fringed canopy of purple damask stretched over a dais erected amidships, bordered with silver roundels bearing black Furstáni harts. As the state carriage drew up at quayside, fourteen pairs of oars rose in salute, in the hands of as many pairs of Truvorski oarsmen clad in pure white livery. Young girls in white gowns and with wreaths of flowers in their hair sang a song of welcome and cast rose petals and sweet herbs upon the fine Lorsöli carpet that liveried servants unrolled to the very door of the carriage.
Teymuraz jumped down from his step on the right and turned to open the carriage door as Kelson and Branyng also dismounted. In order to preserve their alignment for the Moving Ward, Mátyás was obliged to come through the carriage from the left, following Liam into the brilliant sunlight.
An even more joyous roar erupted from the waiting crowd as the padishah and his Moving Ward headed toward the gangway, treading on a perfumed carpet of flowers. Amid the splendor of the four Wards, the young king presented a contrast of utter simplicity and innocence as they boarded the caïque, his long, high-collared coat all of pure white wool save for the black Furstáni hart emblazoned on his breast and a fringed black silk sash bound several times around his narrow waist.
Bareheaded, the sun casting red glints in his dark hair, Liam made his way to the chair of state set beneath the canopy and took his place, looking neither left nor right. The Pillars of the Realm settled on stools below and around him. As the caïque pulled away from the quay, the swish of the oars provided lighter counterpoint to the solemn beat of the master’s drum, echoed by the shimmering bells that marked the pace for the lesser escort vessels.
All too soon for Kelson’s tastes, they arrived at Torenthály. There, a smaller but no less vocal crowd waited to greet them: those privileged to keep vigil outside Hagia Iób during killijálay. As the young padishah disembarked, surrounded by his Moving Wards, white-clad maidens again cast flowers in his path as he made his stately way to the restive white steed awaiting him, its golden bridle held by two sons of dukes, snowy plumes adorning its headstall.
As before, the animal quieted at once, as it came within the calming sphere of the Moving Ward surrounding its master, lowering its head and standing motionless while a third ducal son abased himself alongside to provide a mounting step. As the padishah settled into the golden saddle and gathered up the fringed golden reins, the crowd fell silent, dropping to their knees. Simultaneously, an emphatic shimmer of tiny golden bells accompanied the approach of eight proud Steppe lords moving smoothly into position around the perimeter of the Moving Ward, each bearing a gilded frame on which were mounted the source of the sound. Their purple robes had more bells sewn along the hems and trailing sleeves, and their tall black hats were likewise festooned with fine golden chains bearing bells.
They shook their hand-bells to set the cadence as the procession began moving slowly up the cobbled Avenue des Rois, in audible underlining of the shiver of power surrounding the investing party. Even as part of the source of that power, and having practiced the maneuver, Kelson felt a frisson of excitement as he walked in his appointed place behind Liam’s steed. His Haldane lancers followed him on foot, led by Morgan and Dhugal. Ahead, men bearing the bright silk banners of all the provinces of Torenth led the procession toward its rendezvous with killijálay.
The Patriarch Alpheios was waiting before the door of Hagia Iób to receive them, attended by the twelve Metropolitans of the Holy Synod of Torenth, who stood six to either side, each man a blaze of golden vestments in the brilliant sunlight, each crowned with the rounded golden miter of Eastern usage, each with cross and panagia upon his breast and staff in hand.
As Liam alighted from his steed and relaxed the Moving Ward, allowing the animal to be led away—and giving those maintaining the Moving Ward a brief respite—Alpheios came to embrace him in the kiss of peace. In turn, the Metropolitans made him reverence, followed by the Grand Vizier, who welcomed Liam-Lajos in the name of the people of Torenth and bent to kiss the hem of his garment. Also on hand was Count Berrhones, staff of office in hand, who began deftly directing all but the immediate investing party and clergy to their places within, while servants changed the outdoor footwear of Liam and the Pillars of the Realm for soft slippers of embroidered felt.
Kelson kept his focus close as he watched Mahael make his way into the church with Morag and Ronal Rurik, followed by the rest of the state guests and Kelson’s personal retainers. Morgan and Dhugal gave him glances that conveyed wariness and support as they passed. Arilan looked solemn, Azim serenely unperturbed. Kelson prayed for discernment and strength as Liam pulled the energies of his Pillars back into focus and again raised the milky dome of the Moving Ward.
At this signal, Count Berrhones rendered three measured raps with the heel of his great staff of office. Then, accompanied by three clear notes from Iób’s Complaint, in a loft high above the great nave, the Metropolitans began to process into the church in two lines, led by four deacons swinging heavy, fuming censers and followed by Liam within the Moving Ward. Patriarch Alpheios brought up the rear, attended by two chaplains, his rich basso beginning the sonorous introit that signalled the start of killijálay.
“Doxa en hypsistos Theo, kai epi gis irini, en anthropis evdokia. . . .” Glory be to Thee, Who hast shown forth the light, glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, good will toward men. . . .
A choir of male voices took up the hymn, the rich harmony mingling with the rising clouds of sweet incense as the Moving Ward passed through the vestibule and into the church. Inside, the bearers of the banners of Torenth, who had entered by side doors, now lowered their banners before the padishah’s feet as a precious carpet over which he trod. Beneath the great dome, where lay the tomb of Furstán—today draped in a heavy pall of royal purple—those privileged to witness killijálay were ranged in ordered rows, well back from the tomb itself.
The Metropolitans passed beyond the tomb to stand before the iconostasis, flanking a golden chair of state set before the royal doors. From Kelson’s perspective, the holy icons behind the Twelve seemed to gaze over their shoulders in mute and somber witness to what was about to transpire, almost animated by the flicker of lamplight on the gilt and jewels adorning them. Mahael and Morag had taken places before stools set to either side of the state chair, in token of their regent status, with Ronal Rurik standing behind his mother.
Watching carefully as he and his fellow Pillars approached the purple-draped tomb, Kelson slowed his pace to let the Moving Ward elongate and expand to compass it. Branyng skirted the tomb to the right, Liam passing to the left, Mátyás and Teymuraz moving slightly outward. Kelson stopped an arm-span from the head of the tomb, and Branyng came to a halt perhaps twice that distance from its foot. Kelson knew that Alpheios and his two chaplains stood directly behind him, just outside the Moving Ward.
As Liam and the other three Pillars made deep obeisance in the Eastern manner, in token of the Divine Presence acknowledged behind the iconostasis, Kelson bowed and crossed himself in a more familiar and restrained sign of respect. When the others had straightened, they turned as one to face the tomb, and Liam lowered the Ward to admit Alpheios, the dome of its power receding to a shimmering line of silver
delineating their circle.
From behind, the patriarch passed Kelson on the left to pause halfway along the length of the tomb, bearing across his two hands a magnificent girdle studded with diamonds. This he raised in a gesture of oblation and respect, while the choir sang a short alleluia. Then he laid it across the foot of the purple pall and retreated to a position between Kelson and the tomb’s head, where he again raised his hands.
“Lajos ho Phourstanos,” he chanted, “thou hast been consecrated to thine office in thy youth, with the girding of the sword. Take now the girdle of thy rank and station, and prepare to take up thine inheritance, rendering due homage to great Phourstanos, in whose name thou shalt reign.”
With Alpheios blocking his view, Kelson could see little of what was happening beyond the sweep of purple pall, but he knew that Liam was prostrating himself at the foot of the tomb. Thus far, the ceremony was largely symbolic, reiterating ritual performed at the time of Liam’s girding nearly five years before. While the choir intoned another hymn—and while mostly disconnected from the others holding the Ward in temporary abeyance—Kelson reviewed the expected flow of action from this point forward, knowing that the real danger would come a little later, when even he did not know fully just how his own role would develop. As part of the Ward—and within its sphere, even though it was diminished—he was psychically blind to Morgan and Dhugal and other would-be allies outside the Ward. He could break it, if need be, but to break it was to halt Liam’s full empowering—and that, he dared not do.
At least he was free to think about it all, so long as the Ward was lowered. He glanced at Mátyás surreptitiously, counting himself safe enough for now, while shielded behind Alpheios, but Liam’s youngest uncle had closed his eyes, apparently deep in meditation, and Kelson dared not probe in his direction.
The hymn ended. Liam rose and took up the diamond-studded girdle from the foot of the tomb, lifting it in salute to his ancestor Furstán. A beam of sunlight lancing downward from the dome high above caught the stones and turned the girdle into a blaze of rainbow fire in Liam’s hands. He bowed his head as he clasped it about his waist, after which Alpheios again raised his arms in exhortation.
“Bring now the Sword of Furstán, that his servant may take up his inheritance in the service of his people!”
His declaration evoked a single clear note from Iób’s Complaint and a shimmer of bells from the Steppe lords. In response, the doors to the great church slammed back and six burly Albani guards slowly entered the nave, bearing upon a long purple cushion a great scimitar, more than half the height of a man. Its scabbard was inlaid with turquoise and lapis lazuli, and studded here and there with pearls and more precious stones: ruby and emerald and sapphire.
Lifting their burden above the tomb as they passed three to either side, the men laid its cushion upon the royal purple, the weapon’s hilt toward Liam and its point toward the patriarch. Then they deftly eased the scabbard from the blade, being careful not to touch the latter, before laying the scabbard along the south side of the tomb and retreating from the church. Beyond Liam, his mother and Mahael had entered the precincts of the Ward while the deed was done, followed by Ronal Rurik, and now stood flanking Liam, with Morag in the north and Mahael in the south, the young prince behind. As the four deacons moved into position just beyond each of the four Pillars of the Realm, again swinging their censers, Holy Alpheios once more raised his arms.
“Now, in truth, begins the heart of killijálay. Now shall the servant of God, Lajos ho Phourstanos, take up his inheritance. Let us give honor to the Four Holy Ones as we invoke their protection!”
Liam crossed his arms upon his breast and bowed his head, as did his mother and uncle and brother. Kelson could feel the young king seizing the strands of power offered by the four Pillars, beginning to twine of them a far more powerful Ward than hitherto, and he yielded his share willingly, raising his arms to either side and bowing his head.
“I call upon the Holy Michaél,” Alpheios intoned, from somewhere within a great silence that seemed to press inward from the edges of the Ward, focused on the sword upon the tomb. “May he stand with us in joy and gladness at this killijálay, to sanctify his servant, Lajos ho Phourstanos.”
Kelson heard Teymuraz gasp, but dared not lift his eyes to look.
“Also do I call upon the Holy Gabriél, to stand with his holy brethren, and upon the Holy Ouriél . . .”
Kelson hardly heard the rest of the patriarch’s invocation, for a chill finger had brushed his spine, from beyond the confines of the Ward yet close at hand; an eerie whisper of benison and strength that enfolded him in an embrace that was both feather-light and definite. Finally daring to lift his gaze, he had an impression of mighty forms towering beyond each of his co-Pillars, almost-visible echoes of the Quarter Lords whose presence Alpheios was invoking, at once both familiar and alien. He, too, gasped with the wonder of it, hard-pressed to keep himself focused as a rainbow iridescence began to play over the arched dome of the Ward.
“Deathless Phourstanos, grant now to thy descendant that grace with which to grasp thy glory, that he may worthily wield thy power for his people.”
Alpheios himself seemed suddenly to grow larger, though it was no physical largeness—and from Kelson’s position behind the patriarch, and overshadowed by what he readily accepted as some manifestation of the archangel Gabriel, he could not be certain what was happening. Only dimly, from far outside the Ward, he thought he heard a collective gasp.
He knew what was meant to happen. He could feel Liam’s defenses dropping away as the boy lifted both hands to reach out for the sword of Furstán and its power—sensed the flicker in Liam’s concentration as Mahael and Morag laid their hands on his shoulders. For Morag, the gesture was but mime, for she had shared no part of Furstán’s magic, but Mahael’s focus was tight-coiled, in preparation either to give back his share of Furstán’s might or to try seizing it all for himself.
Right up until that flicker of decision when it happened, Kelson kept hoping that Mahael would back down, would not attempt the treachery of which Mátyás had warned. But then power erupted from Mahael with staggering force, backed by Branyng and Teymuraz, but that bit off-focus because Mátyás was not supporting the attack.
Even so, it was enough to drive Morag to her knees and to strike young Ronal Rurik senseless. In that same instant, the boundaries of the Ward darkened, as if a curtain of starry night had been drawn over the proceedings, hiding from outside view what now unfolded.
That first attack buffeted Kelson almost past recovery, even though he had been expecting it; but immediately he found himself bolstered by Mátyás, who quickly bore Morag into his protection and began diverting their combined energy to Liam’s defense. Alpheios, too, added his power to the protection of the young king, physically sheltering in the shadow of great Furstán’s tomb.
Liam strained his hands toward the hilt of the sword of Furstán but could not quite touch it, shakily balanced between warding off Mahael’s treacherous assault and keeping himself sufficiently open and focused to channel and receive the power his attackers were struggling to wrest away. The domed space within the Ward howled with a wind like a hurricane, though without physical manifestation, and ghostly flames roared above them in an unseen holocaust that threatened to consume not only bodies but souls.
From Mahael came a fresh onslaught of elemental force, part of the power of Furstán, with which he sought to rip the rest of it from his young nephew—demon lightning and a firestorm of shrieking power that scoured at every chink of potential weakness. From Branyng came the potent reinforcement of elemental Fire. Airy energies under the bidding of Teymuraz shifted and roiled, their focus uncertain.
But Mátyás stood firm upon the solid bedrock of elemental Earth, a steady bulwark from which to summon forth the molten energies deep in the earth’s core and tap the wellsprings of supernal water in Kelson’s wielding—augmented by Kelson’s Haldane magic—a geysering outpouring of
power to inundate the unseen conflagration and slowly quench it.
Branyng was the first to falter and then to crumple with a mortal cry, utterly spent, though Mahael himself backed deftly into his place in the East and surged even stronger, as if that had been his intention all along. Morag, as she drank in renewal from Mátyás’s bolstering energy and began to regain her own equilibrium, soon sensed quite clearly what was happening and joined her focus to that of Mátyás and Kelson.
Fury flared from Mahael—rage at Mátyás’s refusal to support him; it staggered Mátyás to one knee, but he did not falter. Behind the raging storm of Mahael’s anger and power, Teymuraz could not be seen. But as the energies surged and ebbed and balances shifted in the struggle, Liam at last found sufficient focus to seize the sword of Furstán.
The sudden surge of power channelled through the sword convulsed his body, wrenching a groan from his lips as he shuddered in both pain and ecstasy, hugging the hilt of the great scimitar to his breast as he fought to bind and tame the power that was his destiny.
In an eternal instant outside time, it was done. With a cry of triumph, Liam turned his face heavenward, lifting high the sword of Furstán, symbol of the Furstán power, thrusting it toward the dome above them.
In that instant, Teymuraz’s support came slamming into the link held by Mátyás and Kelson, bending his strength to fuse with Morag’s and then with theirs as, directed by Mátyás, they turned their combined strength on Mahael. The force of that onslaught bore him to the floor and smothered his power, pinning him helpless, even as Liam found his focus and sent visible confirmation of his empowering aloft in a beam of purplish light that pierced the top of the Ward sphere and splashed against the inside of Holy Iób’s blue dome in a coruscating display of rainbow brilliance.
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