eBook scanned & proofed by Binwiped 11-16-02 [v1.0]
“I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came and went — and came, and brought no day . . .”
— Darkness, by Lord Byron
The short, stocky Ibisian general motioned for his aides to step up to the balcony. “Look closely,” he told them as they stood next to the Mediwevan deputato. “Here’s true barbarism.”
Below the balcony, a parade of penitents filled the rain-slicked streets.
“These are ascetics from Monta Ignazio, General Sulay,” the deputato stuttered. His teeth were chattering. He had never been closer to his country’s savage, unwelcome guests than he was now.
The methane lanterns in the room hissed.
“They whip themselves,” Bar-Woten said. He was a lean, well-muscled man in his middle thirties, with one gray eye and a black patch. His nose hooked sharply.
The penitents had gathered from leagues around for the night march through Mediweva’s capital, Madreghb. Men, women, and children dressed in brown sacks, black and white clerical robes, or the red of deacons and priests swung leather cats against their backs, the strands weighted to age and devotion. Beneath cloth tatters their flesh was raw as ground meat.
