The Tyranny of the Night

35. With the Direcian Combine: Cold Spring

The winter was long and bitter but not inconvenient for the combined forces of Direcia, Platadura, and the Connec. They did little but stay warm and get to know the people of Calzir. They saw no fighting.

Brother Candle did not feel he was part of a real war. He had become part of the court round King Peter, in the castle al-Negesi, atop an eminence from which, on a clear day, the hills where al-Khazen lay could be discerned. Peter felt no need to move closer. The Pramans were unable to overawe the forces already facing them.

Brother Candle understood. Peter had tripled his territories at no cost. He had created – and continued to create – a network of personal relationships with foreign nobles and people like Brother Candle, Bishop LeCroes, Michael Carhart, and Tember Remak. The lack of danger, other than from the passage on winter seas, had lured the curious from Direcia and the End of Connec. Duke Tormond and his sister spent a month on Shippen, she enjoying her husband and he learning more about the world and the men who would stand beside him in the dark times to come. Tormond was impressed by how much Count Raymone Garete had matured.

"We'll go home come spring," Bishop LeCroes predicted. "This war is over. It's just a matter of the Pramans figuring that out and laying down their arms."

If Lucidia and Dreanger did not send reinforcements.

Brother Candle doubted the Praman world would blaze with passion for a countercrusade in Calzir. Not when wealthier and more romantic little kingdoms in Direcia were being devoured by King Peter's Reconquest to resounding indifference across the remainder of the Realm of Peace.

Brother Candle was enjoying a leisurely breakfast. Bishop LeCroes stopped to say, "Loafing season may be over. Something major is happening at al-Khazen." His voice was so strained Brother Candle went looking for a high place.

He used his elbows more than was appropriate for a Perfect. Everyone had gotten there before him, equally curious. When he got a good look in the right direction he saw what looked like a tower of black smoke rising from a huge fire a long way away. Only … It looked more like a small but intensely ferocious thunderstorm. "What is it?"

"The Night gone mad. Trying to devour itself. It was much gaudier when it wasn't as light out."

King Peter, Count Raymone, and a few others in a higher turret were engaged in an animated discussion.

Brother Candle had a sense of portent. The world was about to change again. Chances were, the change would not be for the better.

Peter and his cronies sent riders to find out what was happening. And couriers to alert the various garrisons that something was afoot. Inasmuch as nobody to the east was inclined to keep their overseas allies posted.

Brother Candle had little sense of the Instrumentalities of the Night. Those who did, like Michael Carhart, assured him that rural Calzir had been sucked clean of every minor spirit. The forces gathered at al-Khazen had drawn them in. The Calziran sorcerers were a mystery. The Patriarch's forces included numerous members of the Collegium. No one knew what dark forces had been marshaled on behalf of the Grail Empire.

As time fled forward Brother Candle increasingly felt his world growing colder – for any whose philosophies did not match those of they who were convinced that they ought to rule the world.

Brother Candle told Michael Carhart and Tember Remak, "I can feel the ice coming to the Connec."

They understood. Life was about to become less attractive for Maysaleans and pagans, Devedians and Dainshaus, Terliagan Pramans, and even those Episcopate daring enough to favor the Patriarch of Viscesment.

But none of them had an imagination dark enough, bleak enough, pessimistic enough, to guess how dreadful the future could become.