The Black Wall

PROLOGUE THE TRIAL “Guilty.” The Grace’s word reverberated through the Hall. The Grace of Fom, an angular, thin woman with hair and eyes the color of unpolished iron, waited for the echo of her verdict to die before continuing. “General Albertus Mann, you are condemned to the Pit for public viewing until dead, for sedition, treason, and the murder of Cardinal Prast Vimr. Do you have any words before you are stricken from the Books of Heaven?” Mann, despite his condemnation, felt unexpected relief. The verdict and sentence were, of course, inevitable. Despite its ultimate success, his expedition to the Black Wall, and the valley hidden within it, had been a disaster from the moment he and his ridiculous army had embarked on the three steamships bound for Valez’Mui. He looked around the cathedral at the center of Wise Hall, Seat of the Grace. On buttressed marble walls two-hundred hands high tapestries draped, depicting images of the Tidal Works, steamships, the thirteen harbor towers, and other glories of Fom, including several of Wise Hall, which he had always found redundant. The Grace stood at the pulpit. Behind her rose a stained glass window from floor to ceiling—a cacophony of light and color depicting the Eighteen Levels of Heaven, from the Heaven of Stone at the bottom to the Heaven of Light at the top, represented by the sun with the crescent Eye above, embracing it in its half-circle. The seal of the Church of N’narad. Eighteen Heavens that no longer held a place for him. No matter, he thought. He’d stopped believing in Heaven long before he’d sunk a knife into the back of Vimr’s skull. What could he say? He was guilty of killing Cardinal Vimr. Guilty of so much more. “Nothing, Grace,” he said, voice soft and even, despite his shaking hands. The Grace only gave a slight, sad nod. Mann let the guards lead him away.