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

were separated from
the Light, subject to the Tyranny of the Night Some would cling to the Wheel of
Life forever, never attaining Perfection, never rejoining the One.
    The End of Connec had been tamed for fifteen hundred years. Yet minor spirits of
wood and field and stream abounded, lurking, abetted by the Ashars and their
like, doing mischief where they dared. Maysaleans considered all the
Instrumentalities of the Night, great or small, to be concrete evidence of their
creed's first principle.
    The Heresy was a gentle creed. Traditionalists found its social notions more
disturbing than its religious absurdities. In a time when senior churchmen lived
more grandly than princes, the Maysaleans preached—and lived—lives of poverty
and service. Their property ideals were communal, as had been
    those of the Founders of the Church. Their attitudes toward the sacraments
were relaxed, particularly as regarded marriage. Though the Perfect abstained
from the pleasures of the flesh. If one yielded to their temptation one fell
from Perfection.
    There were not many young Perfect.
    Old Juie Sachs, the carpenter, told Brother Candle, "Sounds like a slow curse
upon the world you got there, Master."
    Puzzled, the Perfect said, "Please explain."
    "It's a mathematical thing. If only the best people become Perfect and escape
the world, then, each time one does, the world will get a little darker."
    Jhean, the carpenter's son, said, "Maybe that's why the permanent snows get
deeper and the winters get longer and colder. Maybe it don't have nothing to do
with the wells of power."
    Brother Candle was a fine missionary. When he explained the Maysalean Heresy it
sounded obvious and inarguable. He had won countless converts. It was a harsh
world even in good times. That made it easy to assert that life was a toy of
darkness rather than a gift of light.
    "We inspire the will to do good works by doing good works. The soul of the
newborn does not bring with it the burden of sin accumulated in its previous
life. In the beginning we stand equal before the Light, a book not yet written."
    That did not answer the question posed, however. And now he was on difficult
doctrinal ground. There were several points of view on the clean slate.
    "Life starts as a blank tablet," he said. "Character is created and written each
day. Meaning that there will always be more good people coming up."
    That was an idea difficult to embrace. Common sense said some souls were so
black that they could not become better if they went around the Wheel a million
times. Even devoted Episcopals offered Sublime and the Bishop of Antieux as
examples. The Bishop had taken ecclesiastical corruption into previously unknown
realms.
    One of the young men announced, "There's another Perfect on the way."
    The old men in St. Jeules' little church eyed Brother Candle. It was time for
him to tell them why he had come to their village. "All the Perfect who can are going to gather here. They'll come by the
most remote and obscure byways."
    The announcement caused no stir of excitement.
    "We won't presume upon your charity. We'll pay for food and drink. And we'll
help in the fields."
    Someone asked, "How many Perfect Masters are there?"
    "Forty-five," Brother Candle replied, though he had no real idea. "But they
won't all come. Most are too far away."
    The Maysalean Heresy did well wherever the Church was its most corrupt or
oppressive. The ugliest accusations retailed by the Episcopal priesthood
convinced no one that the Perfect were evil or out to harvest souls for the
Adversary. Nor could the Church obscure the fact that most of the Perfect had
been successful men before they donned the white robe.
    So the bishops and priests of the Brothen rite peddled tales of devil worship
and sexual license in secret, remote places. Credulous folk in cities and
foreign places willingly believed anything wicked of anyone different. And
neither accusation was an outright