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the city. Now the Avestines were
confined to their Quarter, and the practice of human sacrifice had been abolished.
Or so Davril had thought.
    He stood atop the pyramid with the
sun beating down on him, Alyssa just behind him to his left, Sareth behind him
to his right, and the three high priests of the three most prominent sects of
the Flame before him—center among them Father Elimhas, the High Priest of
Asqrit. Davril stared out over the gathering of a half a million Sedremerans—all
that would fit in the space—and forced himself to smile. Lines of elephants
marched down the aisle with performers leaping from back to back, juggling rods
of fire, with the band playing in the background and fountains jetting scented
green water two hundred feet in the air . . .
    It was magical, and he hated every
second of it. Already the doom the Patron’s wrath had implied was beginning. Shadows
were rising in the streets at night, red mists boiling up from the caves,
townspeople going missing, and sometimes the earth would shake, just slightly,
as if promising worse to come.
    Davril accepted the Crown when it
was presented to him by the combined priests of Behara, Asqrit and Illyria, the gods of sky, sun and stars, but at that
exact moment thunder cracked, and a furious rain began to fall, unnaturally
warm and heavy.
    And sticky.
    “Dear gods!” said Sareth, Davril’s
sister. “It’s raining blood . . .”
    Davril shared a look with Alyssa,
whom he had married the week before, but she, after a startled gasp, looked
away. Blood trickled down the side of her face and stained her gorgeous gown.
    Below, the people screamed and
scattered. Elimhas, High Priest of Asqrit, led the other priests in prayer.
“May the Jewel of the Sun protect us,” he said.
    Spitting blood, Davril said, “I’m
afraid this is just the beginning.”

 
 
 

 
 
 
 
    Chapter
3

 
    “Tell me,” Davril said.
    Below him gladiators fought on the
sand floor of the Arena. Sunlight flashed on ringing blades, and the crowd
screamed in response. Vendors marched up and down the aisles, selling candies
and sesame-covered roast mutton. The air smelled of food, dust and blood. Davril
perched in his special balcony at the head of the Arena, and the imperial flag
waved behind him; against a golden background, a great bird, the ever-burning
phoenix, clutched a writhing snake in its talons.
    Qasan Ulesme, a senator and
Davril’s friend since boyhood, reclined next to him. Far fewer people had
attended the events in the Arena than normal, and the empty seats cut at Davril
like a knife, glaring reminders of the difficult times that had befallen the
city.
    He tried to ignore the strange
warbling of the Lerumites; the fish-priests were about their rituals, and they
could be heard even over the clash of blades and shouts of the combatants.
    “The night mists are still rising in
my quarter, my lord,” said Qasan, who was tall and lean, with black, curly hair
and lively hazel eyes. Sareth had always had a certain fondness for him, Davril
knew, and he had lately wondered if it might turn into more than that. She was ready. Qasan was clearly not. Though
a few years Davril’s senior, he hadn’t had his fill of sampling the opposite
sex, and Davril didn’t know if he ever would. Sareth would be miserable if she
wedded him now. “They strike at unpredictable spots,” he went on, “and when men
become surrounded by the mists, they go mad and set upon each other. Some change . Change and disappear into the
mists.”
    “Then it’s the same,” Davril said.
“What of the curfew?”
    “It seems to have helped. Fewer
people have gone missing since they aren’t out on the streets to be taken. But
I fear the mist is learning.”
    “ Learning ?”
    “Well, whatever power has set it on
us is learning, rather. The mist has started to come earlier, during daylight,
when there are still people to be taken. It doesn’t stay for long, though, as
if the sun burns it