SIX
The ceilings on the first level of the manor house were more than fifty feet high at the edges of each room, with vaults in the main chambers soaring much higher. Servants directed the gurnetz carrying Carillia’s bier to a large room on the east side of the great hall. A series of narrow floor-to-ceiling windows crowded the east wall. They were paired with equally tall mirrors on the west wall, making the chamber extremely bright, and making it look much larger than it actually was. The room was vast, even without the illusory aid of the mirrors, 400 feet long and nearly 300 wide, without a single interior column to hold the vaulted ceiling. At a quick glance, Silvas saw that the keep of the Glade would fit inside this one room without difficulty. And this was not the largest room the visitors had seen in the palace. The great hall was nearly twice as large.
Once Carillia’s bier was in position, in the precise center of the chamber, servants came to show the visitors to their rooms. Silvas and Maria were to be quartered in the manor house. Bosc, Koshka, and the gurnetz were shown to a secondary building, back near the stables, where the establishment’s “lesser” servants were quartered. Bay, of course, was shown to the stables with the other horses. Satin and Velvet finally consented to part from Carillia. They followed Silvas and Maria.
Argus conducted Silvas and Maria to a suite on the second floor of the palace, up a wide, freestanding staircase that coiled from side to side. There were several landings along the way, each equipped with cushioned benches so that weary climbers could rest before they continued.
“My father will be with you shortly,” Argus told Silvas and Maria when he finally left them.
“I never dreamed that any place could be as grand as this,” Maria said when she and Silvas were finally alone.
She walked around the three-room suite, her eyes taking in every detail of the luxurious furnishings. Satin and Velvet walked with her before taking up positions in the sitting room and curling up on the floor. Even the chamber pot was made of solid gold.
“Self-adornment,” Silvas said in unusually clipped tones. “A show to awe lesser beings. Vanity and fear.”
“What do gods have to fear, save each other?” Maria asked.
“Much, it seems, from the way they surround themselves with walls and towers and moats as well as glitter and extravaganza. What if a day came when no one in our world gave them any religions to flatter themselves with?”
“I’d think they could find amusement enough on their own,” Maria said.
“I wonder.” Silvas took a cursory look around the suite, then went to a chair and sat. He leaned back and looked at the ceiling. Up here, above the public halls, the rooms were on a more human scale, opulent but without the sense of overbearing size. The only unusual feature about this room, other than ornamentation, was a small round skylight set precisely in the center of the ceiling. A shaft of sunlight shone through at a slight angle, partially covering a corresponding circle of carved onyx set in the floor.
“Will we become as they are?” Maria asked, looking down into Silvas’s eyes. He shuddered visibly.
“I don’t think we could. I certainly hope not.”
“Seeing the way they live and act may be our best protection against that.” Maria sat on his lap, and they hugged—seeking reassurance from each other, not passion. Nothing about the palace or the Shining City inspired them to passion. For all its luxury, Mikel’s palace seemed a cold and heartless place, as sterile as a crypt.
“When I first saw the Shining City today, I wondered that Carillia had given it up for me.” Silvas held on to Maria as if she were a lifeline. “Now, I see that it wouldn’t be a difficult place at all to leave, for anyone who had a heart, any sensitivity at all.”
“Carillia had both of those, in full measure,” Maria said. She felt no sense of being in competition with Carillia.
“I wonder now that anyone who came from a place like this could ever turn out as fine as she was,” Silvas said. “The difficulties she must have faced in breaking free!”
There were tears in Silvas’s eyes when he buried his face against Maria’s breasts. She held him and stroked his hair, waiting for him to control his emotion.
There was a peremptory knock at the door, and Mikel strode in without waiting for an invitation. Satin and Velvet sat up, on alert, but they made no other move.
The Unseen Lord of the White Brotherhood was dressed simply in the same sort of loose clothing that Silvas favored, long shirt over baggy trousers. Instead of boots, though, Mikel wore slippers ornamented with gold and rubies. He came into the room and took a quick look around, a master surveying his domain.
Maria was graceful as she stood and turned to face Mikel. Silvas stood as soon as Maria was off of his lap. There was no trace of distress left on his face. Silvas put a hand against Maria’s back and guided her closer to Mikel.
“I think you should know Maria,” Silvas said. “She shares Carillia’s final gift with me.”
The news obviously caught Mikel unawares. His face went blank, then he frowned as he stared more closely at Maria. Finally, he lifted his gaze to Silvas’s face.
“Are you saying what you seem to be saying?” Mikel’s voice was a grumble that showed no hint of possible pleasure in the news.
“I am saying that Carillia gave her final gift to the two of us, together,” Silvas said evenly.
Mikel looked Maria over again, closely, clearly attempting to evaluate her against different standards. Maria inspected Mikel the same way, a conscious mimicry that he could not miss—and obviously did not appreciate. Maria stared at him with precisely the same intensity as he stared at her, and for precisely the same length of time.
“I am certain my sister thought she had her reasons,” Mikel said when he finally finished his staring. His tone suggested that he could never conceive what those reasons might have been.
“I understand why she gave her gift to you,” he added, meeting Silvas’s eyes to make sure that the wizard understood what he was not saying as well as what he was: I don’t approve, but I understand why she gave herself to you; I neither approve nor understand why this girl was included.
“I think I understand,” Silvas replied, his voice growing softer, his tones bland. It doesn’t matter at all whether or not you understand.
“Perchance you are right,” Mikel said, responding to both the spoken and unspoken messages. His voice was neutral now, as if the subject had ceased to interest him. “Servants are bringing food for you. We will gather to say our farewells to Carillia when the sun is directly overhead.”
Silvas glanced at the sun’s beam showing through the skylight again, finally understanding its purpose. The shaft of light was much closer to filling the onyx circle on the floor. He also understood that the day was much longer in the land of the gods than it was on the mortal plane. There had already been enough hours in this day to bring it near sunset.
Silvas turned to Mikel and nodded. “We’ll be there.”
Mikel nodded once and left.
The room no longer contained only Carillia, but the hall was so immense that it still felt nearly empty when Silvas and Maria returned with the two cats. Satin and Velvet pawed their way out to Carillia’s bier, as if to reassure themselves that she was still there, then they took up positions flanking Silvas and Maria. No seating had been provided. Those who gathered for this final ceremony for Carillia stood—gods, goddesses, demigods, and the most favored of the mortal residents of the Shining City. Silvas and Maria could readily identify the most important attendees, and they could classify most of the others.
Each of the gods and goddesses attracted a group of lesser beings—dependents, relatives, and honored retainers—as entourage. The groups kept themselves separated. By gauging the distance and interactions between one group and another, it was possible to estimate the political winds within the Citadel. Even as outsiders, Silvas and Maria could catch at least the main trends, though both recognized that they were certainly missing the nuances. Politics among the gods could be quite subtle at times.
Gavrien, the musician, held sway in the farthest corner. His entourage was the largest of those who had come for this ceremony. Gavrien had been one of Mikel’s closest supporters in the White Brotherhood. His relationship to the Christian faith went back to biblical times, when he and Mikel had contented themselves with occasional appearances as archangels. Gavrien had been the first of Carillia’ssiblings to arrive for the vigil, entering the chamber even before Silvas and Maria. And as soon as Carillia’s heirs took up their positions, Gavrien came to them—alone.
“I was closer to her than any of the others,” he said without bothering to introduce himself. His voice carried more bitterness than sorrow. He stared at Silvas’s eyes—if not with hostility, at least with no undue civility.
“Carillia never spoke of her relatives, not even of you and your music,” Silvas replied, as neutrally as possible.
For a moment more, the two stared at each other. Then, with the slightest nod of his head, Gavrien turned and went back to his entourage.
Gioia, the huntress, twin to Gavrien, took up her position closer to the center of the room, within a few dozen yards of Carillia, full in the light of all of the windows. Gioia wore the guise of an intense yet sensuous woman, small and dark. She had few companions around her, but those who were, stayed extremely close to their mistress. Several times during the vigil, Silvas turned toward her. Each time, Gioia was staring at him. When Silvas met her stare, she held it for a moment, then turned away without acknowledging him. Her alliance with Mikel had had nothing to do with religion.
Barreth stood on the side of the room fairly near the exit, where everyone who came or went would have to pass him. Barreth liked being a god of war. He had played that role for countless tribes and peoples through time. A particular joy for him seemed to be to bring different tribes and people who both worshiped him together to fight each other, lending his support first to one side and then to the other, forcing them to clash until one or both was destroyed. The followers who stood with him were all armed and armored, the only ones in the hall who were. They had provided much of the White Brotherhood’s might in the recent conflict.
Desmanic was known as an outsider, even among his siblings. The White Brotherhood was the only one of their coalitions that he had ever supported, and then only marginally. He had been the last to commit to the cause—and the first to walk away. He had taken no part in the great battle. He had never taken part in any of the battles of the others, and only once had he even felt the need to fight in his own defense. Generally, he contented himself with a self-imposed exile—as had Carillia. Except for extremely rare visits to the Shining City, such as this one, Desmanic kepthis activities and whereabouts concealed from his brothers and sisters.
Maentus the Sage, known as the wisest of the gods, stood alone, closer to the main door than Barreth even, with only one companion. He too had remained aloof from the fighting, as had Sonolorem, who stood now with a few close adherents, all dressed in orange robes. Maentus was the oldest. His days of glory had come and gone, and he showed no displeasure at their passing. The Greek philosophers had been the culmination of his interest in the mortal world. When their sway had weakened, he had retreated to an almost hermit-like existence in his palace in the Citadel. Sonolorem had wandered far afield, to Cathay and India. He was a rare visitor to the halls of the Citadel.
Vilariema, known to the Greeks as Aphrodite and to the Romans as Venus, surrounded herself with sensuous women to emphasize that even the most beautiful of mortal or semidivine women could not begin to compete with her own beauty. When she entered the room, she walked first to the center, to look down on the body of Carillia, long her competitor, as if to reassure herself that Carillia were truly dead. Vilariema had also stood apart from the fighting between the White Brotherhood and the Blue Rose. She delighted in causing feuds, not in fighting them.
Mikel was the last of the gods to enter the room. A half dozen of his children, including Argus, preceded him. More followed along with a large contingent of other demigods and mortals, enough to finally give the room some feeling of being occupied.
The other four surviving gods and goddesses of the original twenty would not be attending this gathering. The lone survivor of the five who had backed the Blue Rose feared to come, in case Mikel and his allies felt like wringing their last bit of vengeance on him. Three others who had taken no part in the fighting would also stand aloof from this final scene of that confrontation.
Beginning with Mikel, the gods spoke. The victory had, temporarily at least, made him preeminent among them. There was little sense of ceremony about any of the speeches. These gods felt little need for ritual among themselves. The remarks were generally brief, and scarcely memorable. They spoke of themselves or of Carillia. They spoke of the others who had died in the great battle just finished:
Ornavius, who had also fought for the White Brotherhood; and the four who had died fighting against it. Those other dead had been destroyed so completely that there had been nothing left to hold ceremony over. References to feuding among the brothers and sisters were minimal and veiled. Equally cryptic were remarks about powers higher than their own, about what might almost amount to a religion for these gods. Certainly, they acknowledged some power or force that gave minimal constraints to their activities.
Silvas followed those remarks with the greatest of interest.
There were only passing references to Silvas and Maria, the barest acknowledgment of their presence and of the gift that Carillia had chosen to bestow. There was nothing that might be construed as welcome in any of the remarks.
Although none of the gods spoke for long, there were lengthy silences between their addresses. Still, the unnaturally long afternoon seemed to pass quickly. By sunset, the room was virtually dark. But darkness was no barrier to any but the mortals in the assembly, and their comfort was far from the thoughts of Carillia’s siblings. No torches or candles were lit.
When darkness was complete, outside as well as in, the vaulted ceiling of the room started to glow with a pale green luminescence, drawing the eyes of everyone below. The ceiling gradually turned into a transparent dome, allowing everyone to see the stars above. For a few minutes, there was only the peaceful view of a clear and starry night.
Then one star exploded, and the room became as light as day. One dying star eclipsed all of the rest of the stars. The glow spread outward while it seemed to race toward the watchers, ranging through all of the colors of the rainbow. When the initial glow of the supernova faded, Carillia’s body was no longer in the room. It had been consumed in the distant explosion, carried off to wherever dead gods went.
This is Carillia’s memorial, Silvas thought, ignoring the awareness in his mind that the dying star was equally to mark the deaths of all of the divines who had perished in the battle for Mecq.
As the glow continued to fade, servants finally brought torches to light the room.
“A banquet has been prepared,” Mikel announced.
The banquet hall was a room on the west side of the palace that was virtually a mirror image of the room where Carillia had been honored. The cloth that covered the sixty-yard-long table was a single sheet of the finest linen, edged and decorated with embroidery of gold and silver. The tableware was gold and electrum. Precious stones decorated goblets and platters. The food was excellent and rare, the wines exquisite.
The table talk was animated, and occasionally heated, especially among the gods and goddesses near the head of the table. Silvas and Maria were seated at the “low” end of that group, as if only under protest. They were mostly excluded from the conversation. But they had each other, and fine food and wine, to keep them from feeling the full force of their exclusion. Silvas had expected no better treatment. Maria felt a certain relief: exclusion was better than open hostility.
Sweet fruits were served finally as dessert. Two hours and more had passed since the start of the feast. Near the head of the table, Barreth stood and pushed his chair back so forcefully that it tipped over. He had consumed prodigious quantities of wine. He swayed as he stood. Maentus reached out and tried to get Barreth to sit again, but Barreth shook off his brother’s arm and growled a harsh reply. Slowly, he walked along the line of diners until he stood directly across from Silvas and Maria. He raised an accusing finger toward them.
“You two don’t belong here among us. You are abominations, a bastardization of our noble race. We will not tolerate this cancer long.” Then he stormed out of the room.