“The Matria sends her regrets,” the woman announced. Speaking to them all. Wisps of pale hair misted about the edges of her coif, giving her face an ethereal appearance. “She won’t be able to attend tonight.”
Again the Regent bowed, this time in acknowledgment of her message. “Will you do the honors?” he said. Indicating the speaker’s platform at the front of the platform.
“In her name,” she agreed, and stepped up on to it.
A hush fell over the crowd, as one by one the people closest to the stand realized that an Important Moment was about to take place. It spread across the great lawn like a wave, heads turning one by one as voices died down, to gaze upon the spectacle. The robed woman held out her hands as if in welcoming, and waited. At last—when the silence that greeted her was absolute, the aura of anticipation almost tangible—she began to speak.
“Praised be the One God, Creator of Earth and Erna. Praised be the Holy Progenitor of mankind, whose Will gave us life and whose Faith gives us strength, whose Hand protects us from the faeborn. Praised be the Lord our One Protector, who in His infinite Wisdom protects us from the damned. Praised be His covenant with our ancestors, which decreed that for so long as we serve His Will, so long as we keep His Law, this land and the seas and the sky and all that is between them shall be ours to cultivate. As it was for our forebears on Earth, as it shall be forever for our children. Amen.”
And the crowd murmured, Amen.
Very neat, Damien thought. Despising himself for his cynicism, even as his brain analyzed the facts. In other words, this is God’s show and nothing - not your fears and not the fae - is going to spoil it. A specific targeting of mob faith to the issue at hand. Nicely done. He remembered the robed figures on Toshida’s ship, and suddenly understood what they’d been doing there. A timely blessing on each cannon, on the ammo, on the act of ignition . . . so that the soldiers believed, with all the passion of religious fervor and on every level of their being, that the cannon would work exactly as planned. These people knew the Prophet’s theories, all right. And had taken them one step further than the Prophet ever did. Damien wondered if those selfsame prayers would abort a “natural” misfire. Hell . . . was anything really “natural” on this world?
And then, without warning, the fireworks began. Explosion after explosion split the night in rapid succession, leaving the visitors no time to catch their breath between them. Artificial stars burst into life across the darkening sky, blossoms and streamers and spirals of them, diamonds and spheres and waterfalls of stars that lit the sky like a second Core. As if that spectacle was not enough, the fog captured the light of each starburst and reflected it across the city, illuminating the crowd with wave after wave of eerie color, like the light of a second sun. And through it all, though band after band of shooting stars expired in darkness just above their heads, not one drop of fire touched the earth. Not one gleaming bit swooped low to singe flesh. Not one person in the crowd seemed to quail at the thought that it might. It was a grand symphony of creation, not only of light but of faith. Damien found himself overcome by awe. Not at the display itself—miraculous as it seemed—but at the people who had gathered to watch it. At their utter confidence in the technology they had tamed. Men and women who gazed at the sky without fear, without awe, merely a measured appreciation of the night’s entertainment. And if they broke into applause now and then, it was for the lights, for their makers, and not for the faith that had made this night possible.
They take it for granted, he thought. The concept was so alien it made his head spin. Across nine-tenths of this world such a display would be all but impossible, and yet to them it’s just one more night’s entertainment. Had he ever even imagined such a thing? Had anyone? His ancestors had dreamed of resculpting this world to suit Earth’s parameters, but did they really understood what that meant? No more than Damien had, and he had devoted his life to that subject. But this was it, here and now, the essence of Earth incarnate: not only science, not just technology, but a life founded in utter confidence, in the absolute surety of things and people—a faith in physical causality so deeply rooted that it was given no thought at all. Just lived.
He shut his eyes, trembling. This was his faith. Not the mapping of a world, not the workings of a steam engine, not even the half-dozen warning shots that had been fired across their bow. This confidence in the common people. This utter joy, and the abandon it engendered. This innocence, and the freedom it implied . . .
I’ve worked for this all my life . . . and I would work a dozen lifetimes more, if that time were given to me, and die willingly a thousand times over if it would bring Erna one step closer to this kind of unity.
It ended. Sometime. He watched it through eyes that were brimming with tears—of joy, of faith, of humility. The entire sky was filled with light, with stars, whose combined glare lit the city brighter than a sun . . . and then it was over. The last sparks died. The mist gave up its colors and faded into the night, a mere veil between man and the stars. And Damien felt himself breathe steadily at last.
“Well?” It was the Regent’s voice from beside him, measured and even but with just a trace of tension. “What did you think?”
He met the man’s eyes and thought, The question’s not casual, any more than this “celebration” was. He meant to communicate something, and he has. “Rarely have I been so impressed,” he told Toshida. Using his tone and manner to make it clear that the answer was no more lightly stated than the question had been; this night had shaken his soul to its roots. Toshida nodded his approval, and might have spoken to Damien again had it not been for the Glory’s captain, who chose that moment to come up beside him and shake his hand and declare that in all his travels—which had been many and various, he assured him—he had never seen a public display to rival tonight’s fireshow. Then he was pushed aside by another of the travelers, who in turn gave way to Rasya (and was that flirtation in her eyes?), and Damien watched them take their turns one after another until it was clear that the Regent was well and truly occupied for at least an hour.
Unnoticed, he made his way to the back stairs and descended from the reviewing platform. The Regent’s Manor loomed behind him, and he skirted its carefully sculpted lawns by Domina’s moonlight, searching for a road that would take him where he wanted to go without running into a thousand tourists. At last he found it, a narrow path whose entrance was masked by hedges. He made his way along it to the north, trying to remember the layout of the city. A few people passed by him—teenage couples arm in arm, a group of loud-voiced men, a family of five with two children walking and one, the youngest, slung over his father’s shoulder—but for the most part the narrow street was quiet, an unlikely conduit for the thousands that would be heading home after the night’s celebration.
And at last he came to the building he sought. It stood in the center of an immense circular lawn, whose manicured gardens and precisely aligned trees all drew one’s attention to its gleaming portals, its Revivalist grandeur. He knew from the maps he had seen that this building stood at the true center of Mercia, that though other buildings might rival it in physical grandeur its geographic position made it clear that it was the life and the soul of that miraculous city.