Storm Warning - Mercedes Lackey [38]
Rubrik took all this in thoughtfully. “Solaris has made many changes, then?”
“Her Holiness certainly has! Mostly she has reversed changes that had been made by corrupt Priests seeking nothing more than power,” Karal corrected. He wasn’t certain why, but for some reason he felt that point needed to be absolutely clear. Solaris was not some kind of wild-eyed revolutionary, despite what her critics claimed; what she had done in the Temple thus far was restoration, not revolution. “Ulrich is not precisely certain how long things have been wrong, but we know that it has been several centuries at the least. True miracles ceased, and the illusions of miracles were substituted. The God-granted power of magic that should have been devoted to the well-being of Vkandis’ people and to His glory was perverted into the use of that power to bring temporal power and wealth to the temple and the Priests. And Vkandis is very real, not an imaginary God like some people have!”
Rubrik smiled, but not mockingly. “I know.”
Oddly enough, Karal believed him. “Ulrich believes we will know the date the corruption started when we learn just when the rank of Black-robe Priests was created. They were the heart and soul of the corruption.”
Lightning lashed the top of a tree not too far away; Karal winced at the thunder but enjoyed the atavistic thrill it sent up his spine. And I am glad to be in here, and not out there.
“I thought you said that Ulrich was a Black-robe,” Rubrik replied, slowly. “Your robes are still black, in fact.”
“He was,” Karal agreed. “His duty in the former days, according to the Writ and Rule, was to summon demons on the orders of the Son of the Sun and send them against the enemies of Karse. It was not a duty he took any pleasure in. He also frequently brought danger down on himself by refusing to counterfeit miracles.” He turned his head a little so that his eyes met Rubrik’s. “He showed me every counterfeit he knew, so that I would not be taken in by the tricks of the higher-ranked Priests,” he told the man, whose eyes widened at his serious tone. “And that alone might have gotten him burned had I betrayed him. Some of the tricks were so simple anyone who paid attention could have seen through them—but that’s the power of belief.”
He turned his attention back to the storm. There were other things Rubrik might do well to learn about Ulrich, but Karal would rather that it was his master who told the Valdemaran.
Besides, how could I tell him about the times that Ulrich returned from a summoning, troubled and heartsore—how he hinted that the definition of “enemies of Karse” was becoming broader and broader? No, that should come from my master and not from me. I do not want this Valdemaran to think that I am in the habit of betraying my mentor’s confidences.
“You said something about Solaris changing all that,” Rubrik ventured, after several long moments filled only by the boom of thunder and the pounding of rain on the roof. “Was that when she became the head of Vkandis’ religion?”
Karal nodded, and smiled a little. This was the part of the tale he really enjoyed. “That was what gave her the office, in fact. It was a miracle—a real one, and no fakery. I was there, I saw it myself. For that matter, so was Ulrich, and he is certainly an expert at spotting something that was not a God-produced miracle. I do not believe that there is any kind of fakery, either slight-of-hand and illusion, or magic masquerading as a miracle, that he cannot detect.”
It had been a very strange day to begin with; the day of the Fire Kindling Ceremony at Midwinter, when all the fires of Karse were relit from the ones ignited on the altars of Vkandis. It should have been bitter cold—
“It was the strangest Midwinter