Shadow Over Kiriath by Karen Hancock Read Free Book Online

here? To be conformed to my image and so become a true witness of my Father’s power and grace?”
    Of course I am, my Lord.
    “Consider well. The road ahead will be more difficult than anything you have yet faced, though its blessings are beyond anything you can imagine. Is this what you want?”
    Abramm hesitated. More difficult than what I’ve already experienced?
    “And gloriously better. But the choice is yours.”
    And if I choose not to go forward?
    “Then, for a time things will go easier for you.”
    Abramm looked over the hall filled with people staring back at him, at Trap in the front row, Philip beside him, then their father and mother. Across the aisle from Trap, the Mataians glared more fiercely than ever, the fire from their amulets lighting up eyes clogged with the curd of the sarotis. Sarotis? How can they have sarotis? They are not Terstan! But the thought was lost as he saw straight through their skulls to brains entwined and squeezed by ropes of scarlet fire. He felt their pain, their bondage, their misery . . . and their rock-hard resolution to fight him, no matter what.
    His gaze lifted to the people in the stairstepping ranks of pews behind them. His people. His calling. His realm.
    My Lord, I owe you everything. I am nothing without you, as you have shown me yet again. Whatever you will for me, that is what I want.
    “Very well, then.”
    At that moment, as if he had realized his chance was slipping away, High Father Bonafil leaped to his feet, jabbed an arm at Abramm, and shouted out his denunciation. He had not even finished speaking when the Light rushed through Abramm in a great storm of power. Every piece of the regalia blazed with it, and all around him men flinched back in awe. Except in that front row, where Bonafil’s Mataian brethren had leaped up beside their leader, originally to support him in his denunciation but now to flee screaming up the long aisle.
    As they disappeared beneath the balcony, the orb swelled in Abramm’s hand, brightening to an unendurable brilliance that exploded in a firework of white sparks. They sailed out in every direction, drifting down over the vast audience: tiny stars of life for those who saw and knew and wanted. . . .
    Their light grew brighter, filling all his vision and expanding his awareness. Multiple images assailed him: a great army beneath the combined banners of Chesedh and Kiriath; a woman veiled in white, facing him, the Light flowing strongly through their clasped hands; a dark cave filled with the rush of churning waves and a pungent salt-seaweed aroma; a pair of Esurhite galleys moored in the cove below Graymeer’s Fortress, dark-tunicked soldiers racing out of the opening at the cliff base to board them as shouts rang out from the ramparts above; more galleys streamed away from a cluster of fog-veiled islands to the south; while to the north, a great dark cloud alive with baleful flickerings hung low over the borderlands and crept slowly southward. . . .
    He focused on the woman but could not see her face through the veil. Then a shadow passing over them drew his gaze upward to where soared a massive dragon so huge it seemed impossible the thing could hold itself in the air. Its golden eye fixed upon him as it wheeled majestically against a fogbound sky, and he shuddered with the cold dispassion of its regard. Perhaps one day it would come for him, if he became troublesome enough. . . . But not today.
    At the end of its circuit, it veered away, long wings flapping languidly as it disappeared into the southern distance.
    The vision faded, and he stood again in the Hall of Kings, upon the very granite where his namesake Avramm had been crowned. He stared at the people before him, all of whom were on their feet. Their eyes were wide, their mouths agape. He could see the Light reflecting in their faces and off the gold Receiving Throne atop its dais before him, and even off the struts of a ceiling suddenly free of shadows. It was Eidon’s