"The Kaif of al-Halambra reckons it part of his kaifate. But in name only. He's occupied elsewhere, too. Sonsa and Platadura are the leading players there. No one else cares. There isn't much of value there."

"Except to sorcerers, apparently."

"True. It's a throwback land. The pagan presence is strong. It's been ages since anyone bothered to slaughter them so the survivors turn to the Church for salvation."

Piper Hecht enjoyed Principate Delari's cynical attitude. But he made a face. His own purported homeland had a long history of murdering the pagans of the Grand Marshes.

Delari ignored that. "We'll try to dig out the connection between Rudenes Schneidel and the attacks on you."

"Colonel Ghort plans to send a man to Viscesment."

"Tell him to be careful. Pagan sorcerers have cruel habits."

"I know the man he'll send. He served with us in the Connec. He'll treasure caution like it's his secret name."

"Good. See Consent. Arrange his rebirthing ceremony. We're coming up on Heron's Day. That evening would be perfect for it." Heron had been a fanatic Dainshau religious monitor, fierce in his suppression of the Chaldarean sacrilege – and barely tolerant of the Devedian – before suffering a dramatic, overnight conversion. Heron credited the Apparition of the Well of Atonement for showing him the way.

The Apparitions of the Wells were critical, if minor, entities in the narrow Dainshau pantheon.

"That should do. I'll let him know."

Delari smiled a small smile that Hecht would not understand until later. He said, "That's enough of that. Come walk with me, Piper."

Hecht thought they were headed for the baths. He did not mind, after being on the road – though he resented spending the time. Chasing adventure just left him that much farther down the unconquerable mountain of his work as a military bureaucrat.

Delari forged on through the baths and regions beyond, which Hecht had not known existed. Delari took flights of stairs downward and down, into depths known only in rumor even inside the Palace.

Brothens were sure that the Chiaro Palace sat atop catacombs that descended a mile into the earth. They believed that all the major structures associated with the Patriarchy were connected by tunnels, including those on islands in the Teragi River, the Krois Palace and the Castella dollas Pontellas of the Brotherhood of War.

The Principates Hecht dealt with regularly never confirmed nor denied the rumors. The Collegium savored the mystery surrounding them. Even the outright lies. They left rivals and enemies unsure.

Hecht asked no questions. If Delari meant to confuse him so he could not find his way again, he would fail. Sha-lug were trained to remember under much more distracted and stressful conditions.

"Just in through here."

Hecht took three steps, halted, astounded. He faced an empty space as vast as the basilica where the Patriarch celebrated holy days with the Collegium and bishops. The ceiling arched eighty feet above the floor. There were no pillars other than those supporting the balcony on which Hecht stood, twenty feet above the chamber floor. Wooden catwalks crisscrossed the chamber, at the level of the balcony. The vast chamber appeared to have been carved out of limestone bedrock.

The Collegium was supposed to be a conglomeration of powerful sorcerers. Piper Hecht had seen little evidence of that, though the old men of the Church had made a small effort during the Calziran pirate incursion a few years ago. Here, though, he saw proof enough for him.

The hall was round. It was three hundred feet across. It was lighted bright as day by some witch light that made his amulet turn icy cold.

There were a dozen monks and nuns on the floor. The monks belonged to one of the orders sworn to silence. Hecht knew little about nuns.

They moved along narrow aisles between long, wide tables. Delari explained, "This is a relief map of the known world sliced into strips so the geographers can make adjustments when new information comes in."

When Hecht moved thirty yards to his left the map came together. It had to be the most accurate map ever, at least within a thousand miles of Brothe. "This must have taken ages to put together."

"I was a boy the first time I saw it. That was sixty-four years ago. I was apprenticed to Cloven Februaran, about to move up to probationary journeyman." Cloven Februaran was a legendary Collegium sorcerer, renowned as a recluse. So reclusive did he become in later years that it was not commonly known when he died. If he did. He would be over a hundred twenty now.

"The Cloven Februaran?" Hecht murmured. Awed. "The Ninth Unknown?" Despite his withdrawn, secretive nature, Februaran was rumored to have stalked the worst of Brothe by night. Which might have been true. No one knew what the man looked like.

"He was called that sometimes. Because he was the ninth man chosen to manage this project. Each Unknown was handpicked by his predecessor. Each kept his role secret. Well, mostly. I haven't done that well. You could call me the Eleventh Unknown. I may be the last. I haven't found a worthy successor. Grade would have done. But neither Clemency nor Concordia were interested in adding another apolitical member to the Collegium. And Sublime is beyond hope."

Muniero Delari felt unappreciated amongst his own kind. He continued. "New Principals include fewer and fewer scholars. They're either political animals or cretins who buy their robes. Or both. None of this will matter after I go, anyway. Probably. The end of the world won't dally once I do."

Hecht admitted, "I have no idea what you're talking about. Or what's going on down there."

"It's a map of the world. Ever less exact as you stray farther from Brothe. Our priests, legates, and missionaries send news of changes in their areas. Those people down there translate the reports into physical representations. So we track what's happening in the physical world."

"Which would be?"

"What everyone is talking about, now. What the First Unknown suspected when he started the project two hundred years ago. The world is turning colder. The wells of power are drying up. Even the Wells of Ihrian have slowed. Sea levels are falling. The ice is advancing. Both of those are happening fast.

"In my lifetime the Mother Sea has fallen nine feet. It's fallen thirteen since the project began. Beyond Hypraxium and the Antal Land Bridges the Negrine has fallen even more. The inland seas farther east are shrinking, too. While ice piles up in the mountains beyond." Delari pointed as he spoke.

"A thousand years ago the Old Brothen Empire had a hundred thousand slaves permanently raising and reinforcing the Escarp Gibr al-Tar because the storms on Ocean were throwing up waves that topped it sometimes and threatened a breakthrough. Imagine the disaster that would be."

The surface of the Mother Sea lay hundreds of feet below that of Ocean. If Ocean broke the Escarp thousands of cities and towns, with millions of people and countless acres of farmland, vineyards, and orchards, would be obliterated. And the water would, no doubt, then overtop the Antal Land Bridges and flood the Negrine basin, too. And the surface level of the Negrine lay a hundred feet below that of the Mother Sea.

It would be the end of civilization.

Delari shrugged. "They succeeded. So now, instead of drowning, civilization appears destined to freeze. Come."

The old man shuffled onto the nearest catwalk. From overhead the layout looked more like a map. Except that it was three-dimensional. Delari said, "The vertical dimension is exaggerated. Otherwise, the contrast wouldn't be obvious."

"This is all hugely impressive, sir, but I don't see the point."

"Planning was the point, originally. So our people could survive. If we had forward-looking leaders able to see the true long term."