But some of the watchmen refused to go out into the lightning-filled
darkness of this strange and foreign land at first. Then a new form of
thunder could be heard throughout the camp, the crack of whips as the
Captains of Fifty drove their fearful watchmen out of their tents to go
to their duty posts.
Si'Wren sat in her tent and fought hard not to cower or grovel before
the storm, and would have passed the entire night in prayer to the
Invisible God, had she not finally collapsed into an exhausted slumber
filled with tormented dreams and terrible, awful visions.
* * *
With the coming of the dawn, the world seemed a saner place again. The
sun rose, and the sky slowly brightened, and soon, except for a certain
sullenness in some faces, the soldiers were about their appointed tasks
almost as if nothing had happened. Si'Wren arose, and groomed her
horse, and saw to his provender. Only after she had taken care of the
glossy black stallion, whom she admired more than any horse in
existence, did she think of her own needs.
"Am I not," Emperor Euphrates said over a sumptuous breakfast, as he
sat gazing speculatively into the freshly fagoted flames of the
morning cooking fire, "Emperor Euphrates, ordained of a God who rules
even the lightning and sees fit occasionally to pass men through the
burning mantle, even as he struck down one of my subjects this past
night? And as Emperor, am I not able to do and command as I please,
that I might order a child to be passed through the fire, the better to
imitate and please this God?"
Si'Wren's eyes grew large in shock and alarm as she paused in preparing
her repast to look up at him suddenly.
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