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By Root 2614 0

ways of vigilance at Pointe des Soeurs; the Azzallese are proud, and wary of the fact that the rocky promontory lies close by to the border of Kusheth. Even in times of peace, it is not unknown for the scions of Elua's Companions to skirmish among themselves. Blessed Elua, conceived of the blood of Yeshua ben Yosef and the tears of Mary Magdelene, nurtured in the womb of Earth, sought no dominion here, where he was welcomed open-armed after his long wanderings. He made this place his home, and Terre d'Ange it was called ever after in his honor. Love as thou wilt, he bade us; no more. It is another matter among his Companions— Azza, Naamah, Anael, Eisheth, Kushiel, Shemhazai and Camael—those fallen angels who secured his freedom and aided his passage, and who divided the realm betwixt them. Many gifts they gave us; and dissension, too. Only Cassiel took no part, remaining ever at Elua's side, the Perfect Companion.

They are gone, now, to the true Terre d'Ange-that-lies-beyond. Once, and once only, a peace was made betwixt the One God and Mother Earth, that it might be so. Only we, their scions, are left to bear out Blessed Elua's precept as best we might—but we are his descendants and our story continues. And this, then, was the tale that emerged, told first by Armand, who had been on night watch when it began.

"Lightning," said Armand of Trevalion, "such as I have never seen; blue-white and crackling, my lady, great jagged forks of it, all coming from a single cloud, some ten miles from the coast." He shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot be sure, in the dark, but it is in that direction the Three Sisters lie; I am as sure as any man can be that the cloud overlay them."

"Surely there is nothing so odd about a storm," Joscelin said mildly.

Armand shook his head. "I have seen storms, Messire Cassiline, natural and otherwise. This is my third turn of duty at Pointe des Soeurs. This was no storm, and I have never seen its like. It was a calm night, with the sky black as velvet and every star visible save where the cloud blotted them out. With each flash of lightning I could see the underbelly of the cloud, violet and black, shot with glimmers of gold. I stood on the parapet in the stillness of a spring night and watched it. Then I went to fetch the commander."

"He describes it truly," Evrilac Duré affirmed. "All around us was calm, but though the waves rippled and the insects sang at Pointe des Soeurs, we could see the skies split open and the seas in a fury about the Three Sisters." He folded his hands on the table. "I have seen many strange things, living on the Straits. No man or woman, Alban or D'Angeline, would deny it. Tides that defy the moon, currents that run backward, eddies and whirlpools and unbreaking waves. You yourself have seen the Face of the Waters, is it not so?"

"Yes." It is a thing, once seen, never forgotten.

"So it is told," Duré murmured. "But I have never seen the like of this, nor heard it spoken. For the better portion of the night it continued, striking ever faster as Armand and I watched from the parapet. Beautiful, it was; and terrifying. In the final moments before dawn there came one last burst, a flash so bright it fair washed the sky in blindness, and a great crack of thunder. And a voice, crying out; a man's voice, it seemed, but so vast it carried over sea and wave. A single cry." He fell silent a moment. "Then nothing."

"Woke the garrison, it did," the third man, Guillard, offered. "And me the first out the doors, with the sky greying in the east. I saw the wave come and break ashore, and what it left in its wake. Fish, eels, you name it; thousands, there were, flopping and dying on the stones. A great ring of a wave, like the ripple from a cast pebble." He shook his head. "All along the shore, as far as the eye could see, writhing and flopping. Never seen the like."

"So." I frowned. "You saw a cloud, and strange lightnings; then a wave, which brought many fish ashore. What of the isles? Did you attempt the Three Sisters?"

Trevalion's men exchanged glances, and Evrilac Duré's folded