The archbishop’s face darkened. “I? Weave magic in this sacred chamber? How dare you accuse me of such blasphemy.”
Her stomach clenched in a sick, terrible knot, but she stood firm. “Whether you intended to do so or not, Greatfather, you just wove a five-fold weave with that scepter. And I must insist that you undo it. Or give me the scepter, and I’ll undo it for you.”
He jerked the scepter back, well out of her reach. “You go too far, woman. Get yourself to the altar and beg the Bright Lord for forgiveness.” One steely hand clamped around her wrist and he yanked her towards the altar.
The touch of his skin on hers bombarded her senses with the fury of thoughts he was projecting. Ellysetta didn’t stop to think, she just plunged into his mind. Flinging open her senses, forging determination into an arrow of power, she forced past his deliberate barrage of thoughts and laid bare his mind.
Thoughts and memories assaulted her. Mama weeping, begging the archbishop for help to save her daughter’s soul. His determination, his certainty that magic was evil and must be destroyed. His burning zeal to forge the young Fey queen into a beacon of Light for the Fading Lands. But first, he must strip her soul of the Dark Lord’s magic. He must exorcise the demons from her soul.
A scraping groan of marble shifting on old, hidden tracks made Ellysetta’s heart clutch. She spun to face the altar as its massive white bulk rolled backwards and slid into a deep pocket behind the marble wall to reveal a small, dark chamber at the top of a secret stair.
Greatfather Tivrest grabbed her in a tight, unyielding grip as three men in the hooded scarlet robes of exorcists stepped from the darkness into the white light of the Solarus.
“No!” She fought to escape the archbishop’s surprisingly powerful grip.«Bel, Gaelen, help me!»Her Spirit weave dashed against the barriers enveloping the room and dissolved. She struggled furiously. Around the room, the flames in the sconces roared to life, leaping high, licking with angry, useless hunger at the marbled walls and ceiling.
The archbishop cried out, “She’s burning me!”
One of the exorcists leapt forward and threw a dark rope round her shoulders. She cried out in pain as the hot rush of her magic curdled into agony.Sel’dor. The rope was threaded with it. She struggled, trying to free herself from the archbishop and the rope.
The second exorcist threw back his hood, revealing a stern face. “That’s enough, girl,” he commanded. “I am Father Lucial Bellamy, head of the Order of Adelis. We’re not here to harm you. We’re here to save your soul. But we can’t have you endangering us all with your demonic powers.” He pulled a pair of black metal cuffs from one pocket and approached.
“Mama!” Ellysetta cast a frantic, pleading look over her shoulder. “Mama, get help!”
But instead of looking shocked, her mother stood weeping, hands clasped tightly together.
“Mama?” Realization dawned too late.
“Don’t fight them, kitling, please. Let them save your soul.”
Ellysetta turned desperate eyes to her best friend. “Selianne?”
“I—” Selianne glanced at Lauriana, who shook her head frantically and grabbed Selianne’s arm as if to stop her. When Selianne turned back, her face was set in a grim, fatalistic expression. “I’m sorry, Ellie. The Fey have bewitched you. This is for the best.”
The exorcist snapped thesel’doraround Ellysetta’s wrists. Pain drove her to her knees.
“The Mages no doubt still remember how an alliance of Fey and Celierians once defeated them,” Rain continued in the lull of silence, “and they will not want to make the same mistake twice. Why do you think they sent their ambassador to you with his offer?” He cast a long, sober glance around the chamber. “If they can convince you, our allies, that Fey magic and Fey might, which have always been used for good, are somehow more evil and threatening than the Eld; if they can convince you to accept their lies and false friendship and throw open your borders, you will soon find yourselves worshiping Seledorn and surrendering the souls of your children to the service of the Mages. They won’t have to raze a single village to conquer you.”
“Ridiculous fear mongering,” Sebourne sneered. “Fabrications void of any hope of reliable proof. You lied about Gaelen vel Serranis. You lied about the murders in the north. You’re lying about this as well. Your motive is obvious. Celieria has grown independent in your absence. We’ve become powerful in our own right. Your baseless claims and scare tactics are part of a pathetically transparent scheme to keep Celieria subservient to Fey power.”
Teleos surged to his feet. “You fool!” he cried. “Have you not listened to a word he’s said? We are in danger! The Fey do not lie! The enemy is at the gate, sharpening his blades!”
“The enemy,” Sebourne replied sharply, pointing a finger at Rain, “is right there! This Tairen Soul has already shown himselfwilling to break Celierian treaties, manipulate Celierian minds, and murder his allies.”
“Hear, hear, Sebourne,” Morvel applauded. “Celierians won’t cower in fear from Fey tales and bogey stories.”
Rain stared in disbelief at the men leading the opposition. Had they forgotten so much? Had the last few centuries of peace erased the hard-taught lessons of the past from mortal memory? Fire sparked in his eyes. “I stand before you, a living witness to the Mage Wars and to the vast, unrepentant evil of Eld, and you call me a liar and dismiss my warnings as Fey tales and bogey stories?”
Show them, Ellysetta had urged.Make them see Mage evil for themselves.
His fingers curled tight. He’d already failed her once. He would not fail her again. Magic gathered in a painful rush, burning his veins with its intensity. “Since I cannot make you listen, perhaps I can make you see. Behold! This is the past I remember, the past I lived.”
Rain swept out his hands. Light shot from his fingertips, undulating beams that formed a glowing, expanding mass. The sounds of battle rose. The smell of burnt flesh, fresh blood, magic, and human sweat. Long-dead men and women—Fey, Celierian, Elf, Danae—unfolded in vivid, masterfully created life.Shei’dalinsin flowing red veils worked beneath bright tents to save the wounded and weave peace upon the dying.
He could have simply immersed them all in the past, but he let his weave move slowly across the Council Chamber, enveloping the Celierian lords one by one until each of them stood on that ancient battlefield, every sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound re-created with breathtaking clarity. And as the Spirit weave took each lord, he poured into the man’s mind vivid memories of all the events leading up to Mage Wars: the Eld machinations, the subtle corruptions, all culminating in the shocking brutality of a royalassassination, Gaelen’s vengeance, and finally the ravaging ferocity of open war.
A blast of Mage Fire shook the earth. A score of pampered lordlings cringed in fear.
A fierce battle was under way. Several thousand Eld soldiers and two dozen Mages were defending a captured Celierian keep. Thick flows of dreadful magic rolled over the castle walls, forming a toxic, deadly mist that oozed across the battlefield towards the approaching army. Celierian soldiers shrieked as the mist enveloped them and their flesh literally fell from their bones. Armor tumbled in clattering heaps as the oozing, bloody bones of what had been men took one final, staggering step before crumpling in puddles of stinking slime. Not even the hungry demons howling across the battlefield would touch the foul soup that remained.
