The Power and the Glory

Book 1 Chapter XVI: Dress Rehearsal

In the midst of life, we are in death. -- Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None

There was only so much theoretical planning a person could do. Everything else had to be left up to chance, with the certainty that it wouldn't turn out at all in the way the planner expected.

Ilaran thought and thought about the steadily-nearing trial. He always called it that in his mind, grimly determined to never lose sight of his goal in all this. It was the first thing he thought of in the morning and the last thing he thought of at night. When he lay awake for hours he contemplated possible ways it could go wrong, and how he would salvage the situation if it did. It was the only thing on his mind during the day. At breakfast, dinnertime, and supper the idea of something going catastrophically awry preyed on him and turned his food to ash in his mouth. His endless plans and fears haunted him through every hour and every minute.

If he had still been in Tananerl someone would have noticed the toll it took on him. Kivoduin had been his most trusted friend for over eight hundred years. She would have seen the ever-darkening purple shadows under his eyes and his increasingly haggard expression. She would immediately have hunted up some relatively unimportant matter for him to deal with. Or insisted he leave the palace for a few hours. Anything that would distract him and stop him thinking about the same thing over and over and over. Even if Kivoduin wasn't there, the rest of his household knew the warning signs. They knew it was a very bad thing to leave Ilaran alone with his thoughts at times like this.

Here in Eldrin no one knew that. No one even knew him well enough to notice any real change in him. The servants he brought with him gave him worried looks and occasionally ventured to comment on how the city clearly didn't agree with him. When they were so far from home they didn't try to push the subject, especially not when he brushed off all their worries. The servants who already worked for the royal family never said anything at all. Even if they noticed the deterioration in his health and temper they decided it was none of their business.

After five days of never-ending headaches -- the sort of headaches that no painkillers could lessen -- and a queasy, twisting feeling in his stomach when he tried to eat, Ilaran himself had to admit something had to be done about this. If he was still in Tananerl he would have gone riding somewhere out in the grasslands around the capital city. For miles there was nothing in sight but hills, rivers, and birds wheeling overhead. Ever since he was a child he had found its emptiness was the perfect thing to clear his mind. But there was no similar place in Eldrin.

Now that Siarvin's manor was barred to him, he had nowhere else to go. All his mother's acquaintances in the city were either dead or had no reason to care anything about him. He hardly even remembered any of their names. So, with no other options, Ilaran took to long walks all over the city. He changed his distinctively Tananerlish clothes from unremarkable Saoridhian ones, and studiously avoided any colours that might attract disapproving attention. When he went out he blended in with all the crowds of people out and about. No one spared him a second glance. It was too noisy for his liking, but at least it distracted him from his thoughts.

It was on one of his wanderings around the city that he stumbled upon something very odd indeed.

The Day of Comets was one of the largest festivals in the Saoridhian calendar. As implied by the name it always coincided with a meteor shower clearly visible throughout most of the empire. According to myth the meteors were the messengers of the gods bringing good fortune to anyone who saw them. For weeks leading up to the festival people everywhere would crowd to get the best possible view of them. It wasn't unheard of for fights to break out over who stood where. All the main streets were so crowded that no one could get through unless willing to wait for hours. Naturally everyone who could began to use smaller side-streets instead. Ilaran, who preferred to avoid all crowds, stayed as far away from the busy city centre as he could. He wandered around the parks and visited the libraries that were generally almost empty at this time.