by R. J. Larson
© 2012 by R. J. Larson
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-7002-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Wes Youssi/M80 Design
Cover photography by Steve Gardner, PixelWorks Studio
To Jerry
Your steadfast faith and encouragement
never cease to amaze me.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Character List
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28
29 30 31 32
Acknowledgments
Discussion Questions
About the Author
An excerpt from Judge
Back Cover
Character List
Ela Roeh El-ah Roe-eh Prophet of Parne
Kalme Roeh Call-may Roe-eh Ela’s mother
Dan Roeh Dan Roe-eh Ela’s father
Tzana Roeh Tsaw-nah Roe-eh Ela’s sister
Kien Lantec (Lan Tek) Kee-en Lan-tek Ambassador from the Tracelands
Tek An Tek An King of Istgard
Tek Lara Tek Lar-ah A cousin to the king of Istgard
Tsir Aun Sir Awn Istgardian commander
Ket Behl Ket Bell Istgardian judge
Piln Pilln Istgardian clerk
Ter Ter, as in Grrr! Warden
Syb Sib Warden’s wife
Tek Sia Tek See-ah King Tek An’s sister
Jon Thel Jon Thell A Traceland commander
Beka Thel Bek-ah Thell Jon Thel’s wife, Kien’s sister
Rade Lantec Raid Lan-tek Kien’s father
Ara Lantec Are-ah Lan-tek Rade Lantec’s wife, Kien’s mother
1
Tarnished snow sifted through the air, clinging to Ela Roeh’s skin the instant she stepped outside. Warm snow.
Impossible.
She rubbed at the flakes on her bare forearm and watched them smear across her brown flesh like menacing shadows. Ashes. What was burning?
Unnerved, Ela scanned the plain mud-plastered stone houses honeycombed around the wide public square. Houses built one atop another within a vast, irregular, protective curtain wall, sheltering the city of Parne. Mud and stone wouldn’t burn, but the timbered interiors could. She’d seen it happen before, the thick dark smoke suffocating its helpless victims.
No, none of the houses were smoldering. Nor was Parne’s crown, the temple. Good. A blessing.
A gust of wind brushed her face with more ashes. Ela tasted the harsh metallic bitterness and frowned. If none of Parne’s homes were burning, then the ashes were puzzling indeed, because they must have come from a great distance. Parne, Ela remained convinced, was the most isolated city-state in existence. “Infinite . . .”
She stopped. Why pray about ashes without first learning their source? But perhaps she shouldn’t wait, especially when those ashes were interfering with little things, like her ability to see and breathe. Really, she needed to cover herself. The ashes were clinging to her like living creatures, scuttling bugs determined to cause misery. Ela shuddered, imagining insects scurrying over her skin. Why hadn’t she grabbed her mantle before deciding to take a walk?
Ela stepped back inside her family’s home, a stark uneven box of a residence, exactly like every other home in Parne. Useful. Basic. Never changing from one generation to the next. Just like Parne’s citizens. She snatched her thin brown mantle and called to her mother, “I’m going up to the wall! It’s snowing ashes.”
“What?” One dark eyebrow raised in disbelief, Kalme looked up from her work space by the low-domed plastered oven, but she continued to fan the oven’s coals to a sullen red glow.
“It’s snowing ashes,” Ela repeated. “I’m going up to the wall to look for the fire.”
“A house is on fire?” Kalme’s eyes widened with the question, and she lowered her fan.
“No. The fire isn’t here in Parne. But it must be huge if ashes are falling from so far away.”
Kalme exhaled and resumed fanning. “Find your father and Tzana,” she ordered. “Don’t visit with Amar and his friends.”
Don’t create a scandal, Ela. She could almost hear the unspoken words.
“I won’t,” she promised her mother. Actually, Amar hadn’t even been in her thoughts until Kalme mentioned his name. Why think of Amar at all? Ela was only supposed to marry him. Eventually.
Sarcasm helped nothing, Ela reminded herself. At least she hadn’t snapped back at Kalme disrespectfully. Surely this was a sign of her growing maturity. Perhaps.
“Oh!” Kalme called out a parting order. “Bring more vinewood for the oven when you return. I’m running low.”
“Yes, Mother.” Ela took a deep breath, pulled the corner of her mantle across her nose and mouth, and then stepped out into the ash-laden public square. By now the dark flakes were descending thick and fast. Eyes stinging, Ela squinted and padded toward the stone steps built into the city’s converged walls, leading up to Parne’s rooftops, which rimmed the city’s protective outer wall. There would be no running up these steps today. The ashes powdered the stones and her bare feet, denying her steady footing on the steps’ surfaces.
“Ela!” a husky voice hailed her, then coughed. Amar.
Though tall, lanky, and dark-curled, like every other young man in Parne, Amar still managed to make her insides flutter. Just a little. Shielding his face with the corner of his cloak, Amar charged up the steps, slipped, and hammered a knee on the stones. Ela winced, but Amar shrugged off the injury, ignoring the shreds of dangling flesh and the blood oozing from a blackened scrape just below his kneecap. “Are you going up to the wall?”
“I’m not supposed to speak to you,” she told him through the edge of her mantle.
“Good. I’m not supposed to acknowledge that you even breathe.” His brown eyes crinkled with a cloak-concealed grin, and he took the last few steps up to meet her. Face to face now, he murmured through the fabric, “But I’m ignoring the rules today. I want to become acquainted with my wife.”
Amar was the sort who needed a bit of a challenge. And right now, Ela was impatient enough to offer him one. “Wife? We’re not even betrothed. So you mustn’t presume my time is yours.”
“That’ll change in two weeks. Until then . . .” He slid his free hand inside Ela’s mantle. His fingertips glided up her bare arm, making her shiver.
Ela shook him off and hurried up the steps to the rooftops. Stone pavings traced the sturdiest and least obtrusive public paths across Parne’s terraced roofs. Mindful of her duty to evade
Amar, Ela chose the most direct path to the city’s broad wall walk. The ashfall was more scattered here, but new flakes clung to Ela, seeming to seek her deliberately.
Of course, she was entirely too fanciful. Why would ash flakes seek her deliberately? If Father could hear her thoughts, he would point out that ashes were without reason and unable to recognize her, or anyone else.
But where was Father? And Tzana? Ela stepped onto the wall walk, scanning its uneven contours and landings, hoping to see her father. There. Beside the northern lookout’s shelter—a slender stone cupola wide enough for only one man, the lookout, who was sensibly sheltered inside.
“Father!” Ela’s voice was so muffled beneath the ash-laden folds of her mantle that she doubted he would hear. But Dan Roeh was nothing if not acute. He turned immediately, his thin tanned face weathered, his expression grim. Nestled in the crook of his arm, Ela’s fragile little sister, Tzana, peered at Ela over the edge of their father’s patriarchal cloak.
Ashes crowned Tzana’s wisp-thin black curls like a bleak benediction, muting their normal shimmer and wringing Ela’s heart. Tzana looked like a tiny, dark, wrinkle-faced lamb, hushed with fear. What had the men been saying to frighten her? Squinting, Ela faced north and saw the source of the ashes. Smoke towered black above the crests of the wild borderlands that separated Parne from its neighboring countries. Surely an entire city had to be ablaze to create such massive billows above the clouds.
“Infinite,” she murmured, “what is happening?”
Ela’s question was rhetorical, no answer expected. But a whisper permeated her thoughts.
Close your eyes.
“What?” She gasped through her mantle, captivated, recognizing the Infinite’s voice—hearing it as if He’d leaned over her shoulder and whispered into her ear.
Close your eyes and you will see.
She obeyed.
A vision slammed into Ela’s mind. She reeled through the image against her will, comprehending the scene as if she stood in the midst of it. Countless homes ablaze, crackling with heat. Children wailing. Women kneeling on bloodied soil, screaming as their husbands fought for their lives, hopelessly outmatched by soldiers clad in thick square-plated armor. Soldiers who wielded gigantic swords. Ela inhaled, almost gagging at the stench of burning flesh as soldiers set fire to screaming, dying men.
Helpless as any of the wailing women, Ela watched one of the bleeding men collapse. She felt his anguish for his family, his terror as the malevolent grinning soldier raised his killing sword one last time.
This is butchery, dishonorable and unjustified. . . . As the Infinite’s voice whispered through the vision, Ela gripped her head and cried out in agony. The combined force of the words, the odors, the image, and its torrents of emotion were overwhelming her senses. “Stop!”
“Ela!”
Someone was shaking her. She returned to herself, shocked to realize she was sprawled on the ash-strewn walkway. Still alive. But her head hurt so badly she wanted to retch. Dry-mouthed, she shut her eyes again and whispered, “Infinite, what was that? No, please! Don’t answer!” She recoiled at her stupidity and trembled, scared the answer’s force would destroy her.
No answer. Tranquil darkness enveloped her instead—a blessed relief. Ela went limp on the stones.
Someone shook Ela again. She finally opened her eyes and looked up into her father’s face. Dan Roeh was staring at her, openmouthed, his expression a mix of fear and outrage. “What is wrong with you?” he demanded. “Get up!”
“Yes, sir.” He was yelling at her because she had collapsed? Could she stand? Ela hardly knew. And by the look on her father’s face, she could only presume she’d gone mad. Or . . . at least she must seem mad. But she couldn’t be mad because the vision, the voice, and the emotions had been horribly real.
So agonizing that she didn’t want to experience them again. Please, no.
Her father hesitated, then blurted the question Ela wished he’d asked first. “Are you well?”
“Yes.” Now that the voice, the storm of emotions, and the vision had ceased, yes. She was only dazed. And alarmingly queasy. “Sorry. I don’t quite know what happened.” It was the truth. And she was afraid to petition the Infinite for details. Grit scraped between her teeth as she spoke. She longed to spit. She needed a drink of water.
“Ela? Are you listening to me? Take your sister home.”
Ela pushed herself to her knees, eye to eye with Tzana, who now stood on the walkway, her small face puckered with old-woman concern.
“Want me to help you up?” Tzana squeaked, offering a tiny arthritic hand.
“Thank you,” Ela mumbled, giving her little sister two fingers to hold, then dragging herself to her feet on her own wavering strength. She dared to look at her father again. He turned away. Amar, however, was staring at her oddly. Ela gave him an embarrassed half smile, then headed for the roof paths with Tzana skittering ahead of her, showing unusual liveliness. “Tzana, slow down. You’ll slip in the ashes and break a bone.”
“I won’t,” Tzana called back over her shoulder, not arguing but stating something she clearly regarded to be a fact.
Still dazed, Ela forced down her nausea and tried to gather her fragmented thoughts. Those poor families in her vision. She wished she could have saved those dying men. She longed to hold the children. To console their mothers. Tears slid down Ela’s face, dripping black with ashes as she grieved. What had happened to those women and children?
They are now prisoners, the Infinite informed her. Those who have survived are slaves.
Dreading the impact of another vision, Ela braced herself and waited. But only the voice permeated her thoughts this time. And the voice was tolerable. More than tolerable. The Infinite’s voice was compelling beyond any she’d ever heard. As it should be. Could she expect anything less from the Creator? No. And yet. And yet . . .
Why should she expect anything from Him at all?
She yanked the edge of her mantle over her nose and mouth again, then whispered, “Infinite? I’m no one special. Why are you telling me this?”
Because I know you will listen. Now follow your sister.
Tzana? Ela looked around, suddenly realizing she had stopped halfway down the stone steps. How had that happened? She didn’t even remember leaving the terraces. “Tzana!”
The ashes were thinning now, but Ela still had to squint to see, her eyes felt so raw. Tzana was already at the base of the steps, poised in the open public square like a tiny dark-feathered bird. A listening bird. “Tzana!”
Tzana fluttered a hand at her. But instead of waiting for Ela, she crossed a corner of the public square and stopped before an ancient stone house. A tomb house.
What did Tzana think she was doing?
Deliberately, Tzana placed both hands on the tomb house’s door and leaned forward, pushing it open.
“No! Tzana, stop!” Ela hurried down the remaining steps as quickly as the ashes and her own wobbly legs allowed. Tzana knew better than to violate the sanctity of a tomb house, didn’t she? Tomb houses were dead. Plastered memorials honoring the names of the families who had once inhabited them. But sacrilege wasn’t the worst part of Tzana’s offense.
This wasn’t an ordinary tomb house.
By now, other citizens of Parne were stopping to stare in obvious shock as Tzana scooted through the door, which should not have opened so easily. The traditional plastered seals alone should have been too hard for Tzana to force apart. “Tzana!”
Ela reached the doorway and paused, summoning her courage. This was the tomb of Parne’s last prophet, Eshtmoh. Inspiration for countless terrors whispered by the children of Parne for more than seventy years. Eshtmoh the prophet had defeated monsters with mere words. Had foretold catastrophic droughts. Predicted assassinations, diseases, disasters of every kind. An Istgardian king had died of terror at the sight of him, and it had taken an entire army to finally bring Eshtmoh down to an early grave.
All true prophet
s died young. This was fact. Parne’s elders could recite the name of each ancient prophet and the gruesome details of his death. At the end of a traditional recitation, the elder would shake his head, looking wise, saying, “A silver-haired prophet has failed.”
“You’d best get that imp outta there!” someone scolded.
Matron Prill, a neighbor whose home rested above the Roehs’ to the east, was shaking her ash-dusted topknotted head, her fists on her hips. “Wait until I tell your parents.”
“I’ll tell them first.” Ela stepped into the broken doorway. How dare Matron Prill call Tzana an imp! Didn’t she have a speck of compassion for Tzana’s incurable aging condition? Why couldn’t she, and everyone else in Parne, realize that Tzana was a blessing, not a sign that the Roehs were cursed? Poor Tzana—a tiny, wispy-haired old woman-girl before age ten.
An old woman-girl who was breaking down doors.
Ela stared at the door’s timbers, wondering how her little sister had managed to demolish them. The door’s wood was obviously still sound, yet Tzana was so fragile she often had to be carried through the city. “Infinite . . . ?” No. Please don’t answer.
But how, as she lived and breathed, had Tzana managed such a feat?
Ela forced herself to call into the shadows. Her voice came out in a mere squeak. “Tzana?”
“Here!” Tzana sounded breathless. Thrilled.
Moving forward, her eyes adjusting to the gloom, Ela saw her little sister standing beside a massive clay rectangle plastered to the floor. Was that the prophet’s sarcophagus? Ela stepped closer. Vinewood had grown up through the stone floor, twining thick over the tomb, as if protecting Eshtmoh’s resting place. One particular branch of the vinewood was paler than the others. A bit straighter. It glowed oddly in the darkness, and Tzana clasped it in her small hands. Lifting it.
“Tzana, what are you doing? We have to leave now. Put that down!”
“But it’s not mine,” Tzana protested, her innocent voice filling the stark tomb house. She faced the doorway’s slanting light and smiled at Ela. “It’s for you.”
