Now Anna saw it, too.

East, the country broke suddenly from normal ground into a ragged, rocky plain whose brownish-red surfaces bled an ominous color into the milky sky. Nothing grew there at all. It was a wasteland of rock.

“That’s not proper land,” muttered scarred John. “That’s demon work, that is.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” said Theodore, “never in all the stories of the eastern frontier, and I’ve been a soldier for fifteen years and fought in Dalmiaka with the Emperor Henry and the good queen.” He glanced at Hugh. “As she was then.”

Hugh had not heard him. He, too, stared at this wilderness with the barest of smiles. “This is the power that killed Anne,” he said.

“What is it, my lord?” asked the captain. “Is it the Enemy’s work?”

” ‘There will come to you a great calamity. The rivers will run uphill and the wind will become as a whirlpool. The mountains will become the sea and the sea become mountains. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood.’ “

Every man there looked up at the cloudy heavens as if seeking the hidden sun.

” All that is lost will be reborn on this Earth,’ ” he added.

They stared, hesitant to go forward.

Theodore broke their silence. “What’s that, my lord?” he said, pointing east into the wasteland of rock. “I thought I saw an animal moving out there.”

Hugh shook his head. “How can any creature traverse that? We’ll have to move down toward the sea.”

Although they did this, and although it was just possible to keep moving east by sticking to the strand, they rode anyway always with one eye twisted toward desolation. It was so cheerless and barren and frightening that Anna wept.

3

HE came with his entourage of treacherous Arethousans from whose lips fell lies, false jewels each one, because their ears had heard nothing but the teachings of the Patriarch, the apostate whose stubborn greed broke apart the True Church.

Adelheid’s soldiers waited in ranks beside the gate and along the avenues. Servants swarmed like galla, each dressed in what best clothing they could muster. All must appear formidable, the court of queen and empress. The court of the skopos, the only true intermediary between God and humankind.

Adelheid did not rise to greet him as his retinue reached the court before the audience hall. She sent Lady Lavinia outside to escort him in, while Captain Falco hurried inside to report.

“This must be, indeed, the fabled one-eyed general, Lord Alexandras.”

“The one we heard tales of when we marched in Dalmiaka?”

“The same, so it appears. It’s said he became a lord by winning many victories for the emperor, who rewarded him with a noble wife and a fine title. He rides a handsome chestnut gelding and has a string of equally fine mounts, all chestnut. That suggests a man with vanity in his disposition.”

“Well observed, Captain.”