Bernardin leaned in close to Brother Candle. "Machinations are afoot. We'll win the victory yet. But you really do have to make the needful moves. Now."

Brother Candle understood. Without grasping specifics. He silenced Socia before she could get her back up. Then he asked for what specifics and directions Amberchelle could provide.

The minority peoples of Antieux showed no reluctance to leave. Which surprised Brother Candle. He was puzzled, too, by the fact that Count Raymone would send away people with the fiercest reasons to resist Brothen Episcopal invaders.

The Count's lady and her spiritual adviser, accompanied by the Perfect of Antieux, led the way. The column stretched for miles. Many of Antieux's leading families were sending their children to relatives in Sheavenalle or Castreresone, or safety even farther away.

Moving the children made sense. They were mouths that would need feeding. The bodies attached would not contribute much to the city's defense.

Country folk were preparing for war, too. Valuables and edibles were being moved into the city or fortifications nearby. Or into hiding in the hills. This county had been invaded several times in recent years. These survivors would not make it easy for the next wave.

Brother Candle could not convince himself that resistance made sense. Despite all the disorder, members of the Society continued to filter into the Connec, pressing the cause of the Brothen Church. They grew increasingly extreme as they failed to whip the land into line. Duke Tormond issued regular proclamations favoring Sublime's cause, now, but no one paid attention. The assumption was that he would change his mind the instant the Brothen Church stopped twisting his arm.

Even agents of the Society doubted Duke Tormond's sincerity.

Beyond his failure to suppress heresy, the Society found fault in his failure to suppress the followers of Immaculate II. His failure to persecute those who attacked or defended themselves against Brothen Episcopal agents. Not that that mattered much, anymore. News out of Viscesment made it pretty clear that Sublime had brought the long struggle with the legitimate line of Patriarchs to a conclusion favorable to the Brothen house. But there was still his failure to return properties seized from corrupt clerics, his fortification of churches, and his employment of Deves and heretics in the instrumentalities of the state. On and on and on. No genius was needed to see that the Duke would never fulfill the demands placed upon him.

The Socia Rault solution might be Tormond IV's only salvation.

The Devedian and Dainshau families left the column not far west of Antieux. They headed south for Sheavenalle. The Chaldarean refugees continued eastward on the ancient road, toward Castreresone. That road made plain how heavily age lay on the Connec. Brothen legionaries had built it fifteen hundred years ago. The bridges dated from that era, too, yet needed little maintenance even now. As the name implied, Castreresone was once the site of an Imperial regional military headquarters. Its walls rested on foundations laid down by legionary engineers.

'Time lies heavy in this land," the Perfect told Socia.

She was not impressed. She was too young for the deeps of time to mean anything. Whatever happened before she was born was ancient history. But she did admit, "It is kind of creepy out here." She looked back at Bernardin Amberchelle, whose party followed close behind. Some uncomfortable people were traveling with the Count's cousin.

Brother Candle felt uneasy when he considered Amberchelle's band, too. He did not know those men. Had not seen them around Antieux. Bernardin said they were lesser nobles, like the Raults, who had been driven out of their homes up near Viscesment. None were Seekers After Light. And they used a dialect that did not sound Connecten.

Socia added, "I'll be glad when we get out of the country." Which seemed a remarkable thing for a country girl to say.

Her comment crystallized the unease the Perfect had felt lor days. This southern Connecten countryside was distinctly uncomfortable. For no reason that was obvious. And that was new. He had wandered this land for decades without feeling anything like this.

His thoughts drifted back to the woods above Caron ande Lette. Rook. There were rumors suggesting the return of other ancient Instrumentalities. Something in the sea. Things of the Night in the darkness. But always hearsay.

Still, the sheer number of reports suggested that the hideous and horrible were creeping forth from the graves that had held them so long.

A city seemed a good place to be, then.

The road west followed the north bank of the Laur, which ran east, back whence they had come, then southeast to Sheavenalle and the Mother Sea. Traffic had passed this way, on riverbank and water, since before men learned to remember by writing things down.

The Laur, navigable to Castreresone and beyond, boasted dozens of boats and barges of shallow draft, some under sail, some driven by sweeps. Brother Candle told Socia, "I've often thought if my life had gone different I might've become a barger."

"Didn't you have tummy troubles going over to Shippen und back?"

"The open sea is something else entirely. Only a lunatic would subject himself to that as a way of life."

"I learn something weird about you every day."

"You should be learning something new and weird and wonderful about something every day, child."

Their path to Khaurene last year had passed thirty miles north of Castreresone. That storied city had been the seat of the governors of the Old Imperial province of Closer Endonensis. Khaurene had been the capital of Nether Endonensis.

Closer Endonensis had been fruitful and pacific and there-tore much favored by the Brothen emperors.

Castreresone was an impressive sight. Some called it the White City. The limestone sheathing its walls was nearly as pale as marble. And those walls, though set on ancient foundations, were the most modern and best maintained in the Connec. Improvements were under way now, the outer curtain being heightened, machicolations being added at key points, roofing being installed over the wall walks. New curtain walls with D-shape mural towers were under construction around two wealthy suburbs that had come into being during the last century.

Castreresone held an odd place in the feudal order of the End of Connec. Its overlord could claim suzerainty over most all Connecten coastal territories from Terliaga to the delta of the Dechear River, excepting those fiefs belonging directly to the Dukes of Khaurene. Such as Sheavenalle. But there was no fixed family of lords in Castreresone. Traditionally, the city belonged to the Duke of Khaurene's heir. Tormond IV had no declared successor. So Castreresone was held by an uncle, Roger Shale, who was actually younger than Tormond. A Maysalean who never married, Roger Shale had no legal heirs. His niece Isabeth was his designated successor.

Roger Shale was nothing like Tormond. He was energetic, efficient, and organized. He had kept order locally during the recent troubles. But he had no power in the broader affairs of the Connec. He spent his energies making Castreresone the best protected city in the End of Connec.

Brother Candle said, "Weird and wonderful. I don't know about that. But I can say this: This quiet, beautiful city is much nearer being the soul of the Connecten nation than is Khaurene, Antieux, or the Altai." The Altai being that part of the Connec, center north, that was most mountainous and most inclined toward heresy. Many Seekers had taken refuge there already. The Altaien population as a whole were convinced that they were the only "true Connectens."

The column from the east first spied Castreresone in the early morning light. The white walls shone. The road went down to a bridge over the Laur wide enough for eight men to march abreast. On the south bank the road traversed half a mile and rose a hundred feet to approach the acre of flat, open killing ground in front of the huge, complicated barbican that guarded the main entrance to the White City. Black wreaths hung on the wall, sad memorial to events in Viscesment.