The Stone of the Stars

by Alison Baird

  “Aren’t you coming in too?” she asked, shrinking back a little.

  He shook his head. “I want to get back down to the city before nightfall. Go on,” he urged her. “The Academy girls will all be inside. Their head prefect is a tall girl with chestnut-colored hair, Arianlyn’s her name. She’s a good sort, and will look after you. I met her the last time I was on shore leave, when I came to ask about your letter, and I got to know her quite well. As well as the nuns would let me, that is.”

  Ailia offered him a faint smile. “I wondered how you knew so much about this place.”

  He grinned. “Say hello to her for me.” She looked small and vulnerable, he thought, with her big eyes wide and fearful and her hair pulled severely back from her pale face. He thought of what might lie ahead for her, and it made him pause. “Ailia—there’s something I want you to remember.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s about Great Island,” he said. “People here say it changes everyone who lives on it: that a little of its granite gets into our souls, and that’s why Islanders are so hard and grim and obstinate. So they think, anyway, but there’s more truth to it than they know. The fact is the Island makes us strong, as strong as stone; and that’s why we can weather things that other folk can’t. Soft earth can be blown or washed away, but rock endures. Never forget that.” It was with an effort that he made himself turn and walk away down the corridor. As he went he whistled a jaunty tune, as much for his own comfort as for hers.

  Ailia gazed after him until he turned the corner and vanished from her sight. Feeling terribly alone, she went up to the great heavy doors, pushed one open, and entered the chapel. Rows of young men and women were seated inside, and a few raised their bowed heads to stare at her. But she scarcely saw them. The chapel itself held all her attention at once.

  It was, of course, nowhere near as large and imposing as the High Temple in Raimar, but it had a beauty and majesty all its own. To Ailia it seemed as though she stood in a forest—if a forest could be made of stone. Great columns like the trunks of century-old trees reared up around her, branching at their tops into majestic vaults and a stone foliage of intricate traceries. Angels soared like birds among those branches, caught by the sculptor in the frozen instant of spread-winged flight. Directly ahead lay the sanctuary, where the Sacred Fire burned: the eternal flame of the Faith that was never allowed to die, but was kept perpetually alight by the priests. The brazier stood on an altar of marble; beyond reared the crenellated ramparts of a carved stone screen, and in this was set the sacred portal, through which only an ordained cleric could pass. For worshippers the curtained door represented the limits of human knowledge, and the forbidden sanctum beyond the mystery of the Divine. Upon the marble battlements stood bronze figures of angels in knightly armor. The largest angel, she knew, must be Saint Athariel, patron of the monastic order that had once included the Paladins. At his feet Modrian-Valdur—a coiling bat-winged shape, half man, half dragon—seemed to topple from the ramparts as his assault on Heaven was repulsed. As Ailia gazed up at the statues a bell rang out clear and pure from the chapel tower high above.

  This was no reconstruction, but the original chapel of Haldarion, spared out of reverence by Brannar Andarion’s men during the siege of the keep: here the knight-priests had come to worship alongside their brother monks, gazing on the figure of the warrior angel who was their divine model. Now the scholars of the modern Academy attended services in the chapel, together with the monks and the little boys from the monastery orphanage. The boys’ choir sang the opening hymn of the service as she walked into the main aisle: she could not see them at first, in their minstrel’s gallery immediately above and behind her. Their pure high voices seemed to come down to her from the vaulted ceiling, as if from the mouths of the stone host hovering there.

  Overwhelmed, she seated herself in a pew to drink it all in. Presently the hymn ended, another bell chimed silverly behind the sacred portal; the crimson curtains parted, and a procession of clerics entered the sanctuary. To Ailia’s awed eyes they seemed more like otherworldly creatures than living men. All but one were clad in the gray hooded habits of monks. The last man’s robe was white, the alb of an ordained priest. He must be the chaplain, though he looked very young: in his early twenties, she guessed. When the monks had filed into their pews he went and stood by the altar, where the light from the Sacred Fire fell on him. Ailia gazed at him with wondering eyes. He was handsome—no, more, he was beautiful: a word that she had never before thought of applying to a man. His face was clean-shaven, his eyes a deep blue, and his hair blond—not flaxen but gold-blond, with the hard bright gleam of the metal it suggested. As he stood there the fire gave to his fair skin a warm alabaster glow, haloed his hair, and lent a lambency to his eyes so that they blazed like the blue core of a candle-flame. And the same artist who had cast the bronze archangel’s idealized features might have shaped his face.

  Ailia gazed at him, entranced. Then he moved away again, and the moment was past; but though it had scarcely encompassed two heartbeats, she knew that in her memory it would live forever. Long after the clerics had concluded their liturgy and retreated through the curtained door she sat there in a state of bliss. That was an angel she had seen, without a doubt: a mortal one, but an angel nonetheless. For angels were messengers, and this one had come to her as the emissary of a realm of beauty, a larger world than she had ever dreamed existed.

  The other worshippers filed out of the chapel, and Ailia, coming back to herself, hastily rose and fell in behind the female students as they walked out into the hall. What a lot of them there were, all talking at once! And what fine clothing they had on! Ailia was wearing one of the postulant’s gowns her mother had sewn for her. It conformed to the nuns’ specifications, white in color with long tight sleeves, confining bodice, and voluminous, ankle-length skirt. But it had been hastily made of the cheapest cloth available: beside the other girls’ more expensive gowns of white satin or brocade it looked shabby. And they all wore their hair down, in curls or braids tied with ribands. Did young Maurainian girls not wear their hair up, then? She felt gauche and provincial, and recalled suddenly what Jaimon had told her: as a rule, only daughters of wealthy families got into the Academy.

  The other girls fell silent, seeing Ailia behind them. A chestnut-haired girl turned toward her. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for the head prefect,” Ailia answered, overcome with shyness.

  “I’m Arianlyn Rivers,” the other replied. “What was it you wanted exactly?”

  “I—I’m a new student,” she stammered. “I’m Jaimon Seaman’s cousin.”

  There was an incredulous outburst as the girls eyed her.

  “Did she say she’s a student?”

  “Whose cousin?”

  “What’s your name?” demanded a thin, dark-haired girl.

  “Ailia Shipwright,” she answered.

  “What an odd name,” observed another girl, a pretty blonde whose hair fell in silken curls about her shoulders. “Where are you from?”

  “Great Island.”

  The girl looked blank.

  “One of the Colonies, Belina,” the dark-haired girl told her. “They name themselves after their fathers’ occupations in places like that.”

  “You don’t say? How terribly quaint!”

  “I’ve heard of Great Island. Is it still a penal colony, then?” another girl asked.

  “What!” Ailia exclaimed, indignant. “Of course it isn’t! It hasn’t been for ages—” Then she saw from the girl’s gleaming eyes that the question had merely been a taunt.

  “Well, Lorelyn,” said the dark-haired one, turning to a tall girl with long flaxen braids, “here’s another refugee to keep you company.”

  “I suppose you had to win a scholarship to come here?” suggested another girl.

  “That’s right,” Ailia acknowledged.

  “That explains it, then,” said the other, with a knowing look at her co
mpanions. Ailia squirmed at her tone, feeling rustic and poor, and horribly out of place.

  The girl named Lorelyn took a sudden stride forward, her long braids swinging. “All right, you lot, that’s enough!” she ordered in a ringing voice, glaring at the other girls. “Leave her alone!”

  There were some sniggers, but no more comments. “Well,” said Arianlyn awkwardly, “back to the convent, everyone: it’s nearly dinnertime. Look, there’s Sister Faith waiting in the hall for us. Ailia, you come along with me, and tell me how your cousin is.” She spoke in a kindly tone, such as one might use for a very small child; but there was no reply. Turning, she saw that Ailia was gone.

  The Island girl had fled down the hall as soon as the other girls shifted their attention to the nun. Her brief happiness had completely evaporated, replaced by a miasma of doubt and anguish. Why did I come here? I don’t belong—I never shall! That’s what Jaimon was trying to warn me about. If I stay here they will eat me alive. Another voice inside her spoke of enduring rock and the Island’s honor, but it was faint and quailing as she remembered the girls’ knifing eyes. I can’t go back to that. I can’t—I can’t— Ahead of her the corridor came to an abrupt end in another set of high oaken doors. Not caring where they led, wanting only to put some physical barrier between herself and the source of her misery, Ailia pushed one door open and ran inside, slamming it behind her. For a moment she leaned against it, breathing hard, her eyes half shut. Then they flew wide open. Staring at the scene before her, she gave a soft low cry of amazement.

  This room was huge, at least as large as the chapel: and it was filled with books—filled with them. Books old and new, from small cloth-covered volumes to great tomes bound in calfskin, occupied wooden shelves that ran all the way around the walls. In the center of the room were more tall shelves arranged in rows, and long study tables scattered with volumes carelessly set aside by students hastening to dinner. The shaded lamps on the tables shed a muted golden glow over the whole chamber. It was the Academy library: she was standing in the very midst of all the knowledge in the world. No one else was in the room, as it was now the dinner hour. Even the librarian was absent, a curt notice on his desk announcing his return in half an hour. She had the place entirely to herself.

  She darted forward, snatching up books from the tables. Why, here was Dainar’s War of Heaven! She opened the heavy brass-bound cover, flipped through the yellowed pages with their dark old woodcuts: and there before her eyes the great-winged angels flew, and held court in paradise, and battled with evil demons among the clouds. She glanced at another book, then pounced on it in turn. The complete poems of the Bard of Blyssion—at last! And there beside it was Bendulus’s Bestiary. Her father had a copy, but this was a rare early edition with hand-painted illustrations. Strange beasts pranced across its pages in full and glorious color: dragons, unicorns, lion-bodied sphinxes with the heads of women.

  She ran to the shelves. There was a copy of Galdiman’s Theogony, and The Annotated Apocrypha, and the Chronicles of the Seven Kingdoms. Books that she had never heard of, others she had encountered only as tantalizing titles referred to in other works: here, at her fingertips. She piled them up gluttonously in her arms. There was a Grammatica Elensia, for students of the old Elei tongue. And what was this small leather-bound book, here on the corner of a shelf? She pulled it out, releasing a puff of dust. Its cover was embossed with a gilded dragon rampant, but there was no title. Shifting the stack of books to her left arm, she opened the cover with her thumb to read the title page. But there was a picture opposite the page that momentarily distracted her: a woodcut of robed people dancing in a woodland grove beneath a great shining star.

  She headed for a study table, poring over the picture as she walked. And so it was that she did not see the two men in front of her until she ran full-tilt into one of them. She recoiled, the books tumbling from her arms onto the floor.

  “Oh—I’m sorry!” she apologized as she knelt to pick up the scattered volumes.

  The man she had collided with looked annoyed. He was middle-aged and nondescript, black-haired and blunt-featured; she might have taken him for one of the Academy magisters, only he was not wearing the long black gown of a scholar. Behind him stood another man of far more remarkable appearance, young and tall with skin that gleamed in the lamplight like polished mahogany. Looking at him, she was reminded of her father’s wooden Mohara mask gazing inscrutably from the kitchen wall.

  “Where is the Jana scroll?” demanded the middle-aged man abruptly. “I cannot find it.” He spoke with the faintest trace of an accent.

  “I beg your pardon?” Ailia asked, still stacking books.

  “Come, you must know where it is,” the man said with undisguised irritation. “You reshelve the items, obviously, as well as dust them.”

  He thinks I’m a servant, thought Ailia, humiliated anew. “I’m a student,” she corrected, with as much pride as her groveling posture would allow.

  The man raised a disbelieving eyebrow, but continued. “Even so, you must surely know of this famous scroll. It was brought to the Royal Academy barely a month ago from the Archipelagoes of Kaan.”

  Ailia rose, struggling to balance the tottering pile of books in her arms. “I’m new here. I don’t know where anything is.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. His dark-skinned companion stood silent and still behind him, a tall, intimidating presence. All at once Ailia was aware of the stillness of the great half-lit chamber, of the maze of corridors that must separate her from the refectory where the Academy’s inhabitants were now gathered.

  “You’ve been instructed not to speak of it,” said the man in a soft low voice, “haven’t you?” He advanced upon her and she automatically stepped back, still clutching the books. “But of course, I understand: the document is very valuable, your magisters are right to be cautious. But it is all right.” He gave a slight bow, his hand to his chest. “My name is Medalar Hyron. I too am a scholar.”

  “You are?” Ailia backed into one of the study tables. Unable to retreat any farther, she held the books before her like a shield and asked, “Then why don’t you ask the magisters? I’m sure they’d be glad to help a scholar.”

  The man’s heavy face darkened, and for a wild instant she thought he was going to hit her. He opened his mouth again, but before he could speak another voice cut in.

  “May I be of assistance?” it asked.

  He whirled around; his companion was already staring at the doorway. A blond young man in a priest’s white robe stood there, looking in at them with a slight frown on his face. Ailia gaped at him. Wasn’t this her “angel” from the chapel? It almost startled her to see that he was real—that he could enter ordinary rooms and move among ordinary mortals like any flesh-and-blood man. How long had he been standing there, watching them?

  “I am Father Damion Athariel, chaplain to the Academy,” the angel said, coming forward into the room. “I’m sorry, but I must tell you the library is closed after the dinner hour. If you wouldn’t mind coming back tomorrow . . . ?”

  For an instant the dark-haired man seemed about to argue; then he shrugged his shoulders. “But of course,” he replied in a smooth voice, turning to the other man, who had stood like a statue all this time, not saying a word. “Come, Jomar. We will return another day.” He strode out the door, followed by his silent companion.

  “Were those men bothering you?” the angel asked Ailia.

  She shook her head, speechless.

  “Did they say why they were here?” he persisted.

  Ailia found her tongue. “They were looking for something, the man said. The scroll of . . . of Jana.”

  The angel gave a little exclamation under his breath. He went to a little low door in the wall that she had not noticed before, marked “Archives.” Taking a key from a bundle that hung from his cincture, he unlocked the door and stepped inside. When he came out again he was holding a box of carved wood in one hand. He set it down on a study-desk, r
emoved the lid, and took from it a roll of parchment. For a long moment he gazed down at this, looking like the Angel of the Apocalypse with the scroll of revelation in his hand, and seeming deep in thought.

  “I had better put this someplace safe,” he muttered at last, as if to himself. He placed the scroll back in the box. Then he saw Ailia setting her books down and edging toward the doors. “You needn’t go,” he told her.

  “But—you said the library’s closed,” she said.

  “Only to people from outside the Academy,” he explained, “not to the students. It is your library, after all.”

  With that, he headed out the door, the box tucked under his arm. The treasure trove of books was once more hers to explore in blissful solitude. But Ailia remained rooted to the spot, gazing after the young priest. Now she knew his name: and it was beautiful, she thought, as beautiful as he was. So great was her delight at this discovery that, without thinking, she spoke the name out loud.

  “Damion Athariel!”

  4

  The Eve of the Dead

  “WHAT IF THERE REALLY is a Star Stone?” Damion mused aloud.

  He was standing at one of the windows of the receiving room, looking out at the High Temple. It dominated Raimar’s central plaza with its grand pillared portico and triumphant dome, its snow-white marble and gold leaf brilliant even in the mellow autumn sunlight: the chief of the houses of Aan, One God of the One Faith. Beneath that golden dome, deep within the inner shrine it sheltered, burned the Sacred Flame: the original and eternal flame, from which the holy fires of all other temples of the Faith had been lit. The Maurainian prophet Orendyl (so the scriptures said) had seen a thunderbolt strike this spot, and on drawing near had heard a divine voice speak to him from out of the flames. Obeying its command, he had founded a new faith that spread along with the Heaven-lit fire that inspired it. For he never allowed that fire to die out, but constructed over it a little shrine to keep off rain and snow; after his death his followers had kept it burning, and so had their descendants in turn. For nearly three thousand years now it had burned unceasingly, while a continuous traffic of pilgrims came to light votive tapers from its flames. Five hundred years ago the High Temple was built over the shrine, to house and protect it in turn. In addition to its grand façade, the Supreme Patriarch’s palace and other administrative buildings surrounded the plaza with their own imposing architecture. In the plaza’s center a bronze colossus stood on a towering pedestal, one arm raised skyward: Orendyl, drawing the attention of mortal men to God. During storms thunderbolts sometimes struck this statue, linking the hand of the prophet to Heaven with a bond of fire. It was a place of power, this, the hub of the greatest religion in the world: the place from which holy edicts, pardons, and dispensations emanated like the rays of the sun.