Blindfolded, Djola was not distracted by luxury or other power-spells. Passing through the frosty metalwork of Hezram’s Dream Gates, his skin prickled at cold conjure. He zigzagged over the stone altar square to the sundial courtyard. Lines of crystals marked the sun’s transit across the sky. Whether Djola could see them or not, rainbow spirits from the crystals danced across his white robes. They were tricksters, playful one moment, deadly another. Djola’s heart thundered in his ears as he praised the crossroads gods and strode over sharp facets poking his boots.

Nestled below jagged cliffs just beyond Rainbow Square was the only temple to the supreme god and his gang of minions outside of Arkhys City. This spirit house guarded the mouth of the Amethyst River. Water for all green lands in this region flowed a thousand leagues from Ice Mountain to the Salty Sea—a perfect site for reckoning fire.

The stench of boiling blood and oil hung in the air. How did anybody get used to that? Tapping a crossover rhythm on the bottom step to the temple, a call to death and new life, he proclaimed, “I will bring your spirit hall down. Come to the sundial courtyard and witness defeat.” He loosed a stiff wind to carry his words and awaken Hezram, once a carnival witchdoctor of dreams, now risen to high priest of Ice Mountain and, according to Grain’s last letter, a candidate for Azizi’s Council. Hezram had risen as far as Djola had fallen. Everyone in the city awakened to Djola’s words echoing in the streets. Nobody believed their ears. Only a man wishing death would wield a weapon or weapon-spell inside the citadel’s Dream Gates. Unafraid, folks abandoned cool cellars to go witness the miracle of god striking down foolishness.

Djola waited patiently for his audience who no doubt saw themselves as good citizens of the Empire. Few men were evil in their own minds, but Djola saw Holy City dwellers as bloodsucking demons destroying green lands. He savored their last breaths. The terror he was about to unleash would force everyone in the Empire and beyond to heed his words and change.

As feet stampeded through the Dream Gates, Djola called up an image of the spirit house in his mind’s eye. Cathedral tree columns rose five hundred feet, anchoring glass walls and forming archways to the glory of the supreme god. The skulls of martyred saints leered at him from massive porticos. The flags of rich merchants and thief-lords fluttered on iron spires. Water rumbled through culverts and dams to the Amethyst River. The teeth of supposed traitors rattled in glass jars. Djola’s teeth could have been there. Tree oil and transgressor blood bubbled and coagulated in iron pots—food for power-spells and dream conjure.

Djola’s audience reached the stone altar square with a roar.

“Every midsummer, savages and fools come to curse the festival.”