Then it was gone, and he buried his face in his hands and moaned.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Father Stomald stared at the garments on his vicarage table while wagons creaked beyond his windows. Nioharqs dragged loads of rubble down Cragsend's streets, drovers shouted, and repair crew foremen bawled orders, but the men laboring within the church itself only whispered.

The youthful priest felt their fear, for their terror was graven in his mind, as well, and with it an even greater horror.

Mother Church had failed them. He had failed them, and he steeled his nerve and touched the bloodstained fabric once more. He was but the vicar of a small mountain village, but he'd made his pilgrimage to the Temple and served at the Command Hatch as High Priest Vroxhan intoned mass. He'd seen the Temple's magnificence and the Sanctum that housed God's Own Voice and marveled at the high priest's exquisite vestments, at their splendid fabric and shining gold braid, the glitter of their buttons... .

And all that splendor paled beside these bloodied garments, like a child's clumsy copy of reality.

He made himself lift the tunic, and its gleaming buttons flashed under the window's sunlight, trapping the sun's heart within the crowned glory of God's holy Starburst. But his breath hissed as he looked closer, for a strange, winged creature—a magnificent beast whose like he'd never imagined—erupted from the Star's heart to claim God's Crown... even as the demon had erupted from the flames as she advanced upon him.

He fought a hysterical urge to fling the garment away. Blasphemy! Blasphemy to deface those holiest of symbols! Yet that beast, that winged beast, like the winged badge of a Temple courier and yet unlike...

He forced calm upon his mind and examined the garment once more. Splendid as the buttons were, they were but ornaments, unlike those of High Priest Vroxhan's vestments. A quivering fingertip traced the invisible seal which had actually closed the tunic, and even now he could see no sign of how it worked.

When they'd first tried to strip the profaned fabric from the... the woman, the heretic or... or demon, or whatever she'd been...

His shoulders tensed, and he made them relax. When they'd tried to strip it from—her—they'd found no fastenings, and it had laughed at their sharpest blades. But then, with no real hope, he'd tugged—thus.

The cloth opened, and he licked his lips. It was uncanny. Impossible. Yet he held it in his hands. It was as real as his own flesh, and yet—

He opened the tunic wide once more, caressing the union of sleeve and shoulder, and bit his lip. He'd watched his own mother sew and done sewing enough of his own at seminary to know what he should find, yet there was no seam. The tunic was a single whole, perfect and indivisible, as if it had been woven in a single sitting and not pieced together, its only flaws the holes punched in it by musket balls... .

He went to his knees, folding his hands in prayer. Not even the fabled looms of Eswyn could have woven that fabric. Not the Temple's finest tailor could have formed it without thread or seam. No human hand could have wrought that magic closure.

They must have been demons. He told himself that fiercely, quivering with remembered terror before the thunder of the demon's voice. Yet there was an even greater terror at his heart, for the rolling majesty of that voice had crashed over him with the words of the Holy Tongue itself!

He moaned to the empty room, and the forbidden thought returned. He fought to reject it, but it hung in the corners of his mind, and he squeezed his eyes so tightly closed they ached as it whispered in the silence.

They'd come from the Valley of the Damned, and lightning had wracked the cloudless heavens above the Valley. They'd smitten Cragsend with fire and thunder. One of them, alone, had ripped the entire roof from his church. Another had shattered three heavy wagons. A third had blazed alive in the flames of Mother Church's holiest oils and laughed—laughed! And when the smoke had wisped away, Stomald had stared at bubbled sheets of glass, flashing like gems under the morning sun, where the smithy had burned to less than ash.

Yet with all that inconceivable power, they'd killed no one. No one. Not a man, woman, or child. Not even an animal! Not even the men who'd wounded and captured their fellow and intended to burn her alive... .

The Church taught love for one's fellows, but demons should have slain—not simply frightened helpless mortals from their paths! And no demon could endure the Holy Tongue, far less speak it with its own mouth!

He opened his eyes, stroking the tunic once more, recalling the beauty of the woman who'd worn it, and faced the thought he'd fought. They had not—could not—have been mortals, and that should have made them demons. But demons couldn't have spoken the Holy Tongue, and demons wouldn't have spared where they might have slain. And if no woman might wear the vestments of Mother Church, these were not those of Mother Church, but finer and more mystical than anything Man might make even for the glory of God.

He closed his eyes and trembled with a different fear, like sunshine after the tempest, mingling with his terror in glory-shot wonder. No woman might wear Mother Church's raiment, no, but there were other beings who might. Beings of supernal beauty who might enter even that accursed valley and smite its demonic powers with thunder more deadly than that of Hell itself. Beings who could speak the Holy Tongue... and would not speak another.

"Forgive me, Lord," he whispered into the sunlight streaming through his window. His eyes sparkled as he raised his hands to the light, and he stood, opening his arms to embrace its radiance.

"Forgive my ignorance, Lord! Let not Your wrath fall upon my flock, for it was my blindness, not theirs. They saw only with their fear, but I—I should have seen with my heart and understood!"

Harriet MacIntyre opened her eyes and winced as dim light burned into her brain. There was no pain, but she'd never felt so weak. Her sluggish thoughts were blurred, and vertigo and nausea washed through her.

She moaned, trying to move, and quivered with terror when she could not. A shape bent over her, and she blinked. Half her vision was a terrible boil of featureless glare and the other half wavered, like heat shimmer or light through a sheet of water. Tears of frustration trickled as she fought in vain to focus and felt the world slipping away once more.

"Harry?" A hand touched hers, lifted it. "Harry, can you hear me?"

Sean's rough-edged voice was raw with pain and worry. Worry for her, she realized muzzily, and her heart twisted at the exhaustion that filled it.

"Can you hear me?" he repeated gently, and she summoned all her strength to squeeze his hand. Once that grip would have crumpled steel; now her fingers barely twitched, but his hand tightened as he felt them move.

"You're in sickbay, Harry." His blurred shape came closer as he knelt by her bed, and a gentle hand touched her forehead. She felt his fingers tremble, and his voice fogged. "I know you can't move, sweetheart, but that's because the med section has your implants shut down. You're going to be all right." Her eyes slid shut once more, blotting out the confusion. "You're going to be all right," he repeated. "Do you understand, Harry?" The urgency in the words reached her, and she squeezed again. Her lips moved, and he leaned close, straining his enhanced hearing to the limit.

"Love... you... all... ."

His eyes burned as the thready whisper faded, but her breathing was slow and regular. He watched her for a long, silent moment, and then he laid her hand beside her, patted it once, and sank back in his chair.