Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [97]
“Perhaps talk to them, say a few words…. Let them know the Almin is with them,” suggested the Cardinal in mollifying tones.
The Bishop snorted, the explosive discharge so loud that it startled the Cardinal, already trembling with nervous dread. The Bishop was about to tell his minister what he thought of that idea when a hush fell over the people below, catching the attention of both men.
“Now what?” Vanya muttered, turning to look back through the crystal wall, the Cardinal hurrying to his side. “See?” The Bishop snorted again. “What did I tell you?”
Prince Garald had appeared above the crowd, riding upon a black swan. Accompanying him was Joram. At the first sight of the man in the white robes, a ripple of excitement ran through the multitude. The Bishop, pressed against the crystal wall, could hear their shouts.
“Angel of Death!” he repeated bitterly. He glanced at his quaking minister. “You want me to tell them the Almin is with them, Cardinal? Hah! They are being led by the Prince of Sorcerers, the devil incarnate, allied with a Dead man! He is marching them straight to their doom! And they, not content to follow like sheep, rush toward it, hurling themselves off the cliff!”
Pursing his lips angrily, the Bishop turned back to watch the scene outside his walls.
Prince Garald, descending from the swan’s back, walked onto a marble platform that floated in the air above the heads of the crowd. Throwing back the hood of his cloak, he stood bareheaded in the rain, holding up his hands to call for silence. Joram followed more slowly. He appeared uneasy, standing on the platforms rain-slick surface so far above the ground.
“Citizens of Thimhallan, listen to me!” Prince Garald cried.
The crowds shouting ceased, but the silence that replaced it was an angry silence, almost louder than the noise preceding it.
“I know,” Garald spoke to the silence. “I am your enemy. Say, rather, I WAS your enemy, for I am your enemy no longer!”
Vanya muttered something at this.
“Holiness?” asked the Cardinal, who didn’t catch it.
The Bishop, attending closely to the Prince’s words that could just barely be heard through the crystal walls, motioned irritably for his minister to keep quiet.
“You have all heard the rumors about the battle,” the Prince was saying. “You have heard about creatures of iron that can kill with a glance of their blazing eyes. You have heard of strange humans who carry death in their hands.”
The silence remained unbroken, but there was a shifting and rustling in the crowd as each man glanced at his neighbor, nodding in confirmation.
“It is all true,” Prince Garald continued in a low, grim voice. Low as it was, it could be heard quite plainly by the hushed crowd. It could be heard quite plainly by the Bishop and his Cardinal, standing in the Bishop’s chambers above them.
“It is true!” Garald raised his voice. “It is also true that Emperor Xavier is dead.”
Now the silence broke. The crowd cried out in anger, scowling and shaking their heads and occasionally their fists.
“If you don’t believe me,” Prince Garald called out, “look up there and you will see the truth!” He pointed—not to heaven as some supposed at first, but to Bishop Vanya.
Standing near the transparent wall, illuminated by the lights in his office, the Bishop was plainly visible to the crowd below Too late, he tried to move, but he could not. Although his left leg wasn’t paralyzed as was his arm, it was weak and he could not maneuver his great bulk about as easily as before. He could do nothing, therefore, except stand in his chambers, staring down at the people, his face contorted by an outer struggle to appear calm and an inner struggle with his fury. There was no mistaking the truth in the pallor of the man’s jowls, the sagging face, the writhing grimace of the mouth. The rain sliding down the wall made the Bishop appear as if he were melting. Glancing at one another, muttering, the people turned away from the Bishop to listen to the Prince.
“An enemy is out there,” Prince