Book 1 - The Tyranny of the Night Read Online Free PDF Page A

respect.
    For fifty years the usurpers in Brothe had been strong men. Principality by
principality, by persuasion or by bribe, they had gained the allegiances of the
lords of the Church and the Lords Temporal, so disdained by the Collegium.
    The Maysalean Heresy renounced all things worldly, power and property and the
pleasures of the flesh in particular.
    Long ago Brother Candle wore the name Charde ande Clairs and was a wealthy
merchant of Khaurene. Once his children were grown and married and had
established their own fives, the merchant foreswore the world of trade. As a
simple mendicant brother he set out in search of Perfect Enlightenment. His
wife, Margete, entered the Maysalean nunnery at Fleaumont, where she attained
Perfect status herself. Around Fleaumont Sister Probity was better known man her
former husband.
    The folk of St. Jeules ande Neuis welcomed the missionary heartily. His arrival
guaranteed a break from boredom. Even devout Brothen Episcopals embraced the
Perfect. The mendicant brothers were the news bringers of the back country. At a
time when the world was quickening with fears and alarums. In rumor of late, it
seemed every far land was boiling with conflicts.
    Almost out to the edge of imagination, a fanatic styling himself Indala al-Sul
Halaladin had overrun much of the Holy Lands, the region known as the Wells of
Ihrian. Al-Sul Halaladin served the Kaif of Qasr al-Zed, a man something like a
western Patriarch. With much more temporal power. He headed the al-Zhun Path of
al-Prama, the Faith. Al-Prama made no distinction between religious and mundane
leadership. Every ruler was responsible for both the secular and spiritual
welfare of his people.
    A few Praman rulers took that charge seriously.
    The Kaif of Qasr al-Zed was determined to remove all westerners from the Holy
Lands. His successes of a decade ago so disturbed the now-dead Usurper Patriarch
Clemency III that the false Patriarch called for a new crusade to recover the
holy places and strengthen up the small kingdoms and city states created by
crusaders in ages past.
    All this and much more Brother Candle explained to St. Jeules the first
evening of his stay. Most of it they had heard already, in garbled form. News
traversed the rural world slowly but it did travel. Those who were Viscesment
Episcopals were intimately familiar with the wickedness of the Brothen Usurper
Patriarch Clemency III and his successor, Sublime V. Bishop Serifs of nearby Antieux, sent out by Clemency
III to wean the peoples of the eastern Connec from
their allegiance to Immaculate II, and confirmed in his mission by Sublime V,
was hated with immense vigor by Maysaleans, all subspecies of Episcopals,
Devedians, Dainshaus, and the Connec's remaining handful of Pramans, of every
station and faction. Because the Bishop seemed to have decided that his main
mission was to deprive anyone who defied him of any hint of wealth. Wealth that,
somehow, always found its way into his personal control.
    Brother Candle was but one of numerous Perfect wandering the byways of the End
of Connec, gently witnessing their creed without speaking ill of either
Patriarch or anything Episcopal.
    He failed to mention, right away, that most of the Perfect would come to St.
Jeules after him.
    Brother Candle went on to talk about the sharp religious fighting beyond the
Verses Mountains, in Direcia, orchestrated by Peter of Navaya, who had married
Isabeth, younger sister of Duke Tormond IV of Khaurene, the overlord of the End
of Connec.
    Brother Candle also predicted a resumption of hostilities between Santerin and
Arnhand, partly because of dynastic disputes complicated by confused feudal
obligations, but also because Santerin was not satisfied with the disaster their
forces had visited upon Arnhand's at Themes in Tramaine last summer.
    Connectens cared little about the squabble between Santerin and Arnhand except
that it did keep Arnhand from taking an