The Mother of God

1010 A.D.
The Realm of Wyn Avuqua

The Wyn Avuquain vanguard lead the company through pastures and recently harvested farmland to the gate. They are slow. Banners emblazoned with the Eye of Thi whorl in high breezes above the gates. Watchers from the tower, sentinels and archers cast skeptical, vigilant faces. Torches punctuate the platforms down the wall-line eastward. Glancing up Loche thinks he can see bent bows in the narrow arrow slits.

He and Julia ride alongside Vincale.

“Why is it that you aid us?” Loche asks.

“You travel with immortals, do you not?” the Captain of Wyn Avuqua replies. “We know that you come from a time out of our reckoning—of that, we do not fully understand. It does not frighten us. Our kind have lived through ages of the Earth, and there is very little in life that we fear. Time we do not fear. You and yours that travel upon it, we do not fear.”

“You have met others like us?”

“Travelers from distant centuries? Yes, there have been a few. Some have sworn to the City and the Queen, and have joined us. They have cast off their former lives of future memory. Many have found a home here in this place, in this time—a home and sanctuary closer to their living souls than any on Endale. Wyn Avuqua is a homecoming to the itonel.” He gestures to Corey and William as an example. Both are silent and captured within a trancelike joy. Even Julia, her back pressed against him, seems airy and elevated somehow. Loche wonders if she is finally feeling some relief from the consistent Rathinalya she has been forced to endure since Edwin’s fall into the sea. Vincale smiles, “And those that become one with the City—they take up their holy burden and guard the doors against the Godrethion.” His tone darkens, “Others have been slain. Gavress,” he whispers and places his hand over his chest. “Three that I can name have retired to faraway islands away from man. So yes, there are others. Yet you are human…”

Vincale twists in his saddle and casts a long look at Edwin. He says, “And I daresay, there have been none like…like this boy.” Edwin’s cheeks shine with a smile, and a sudden, single flash of glitter in his oval sockets. Vincale shudders looking ahead at the approaching gate. “None like he…ag, ag. Nay, I know not what this means. The Templar must know—the Queen will bring the truth of this frightening turn…”

Templar, Queen, truth, Loche grapples. “Templar?” Loche puzzles. He turns to William. “Knights Templar?”

“Not a whit,” William says. “The Order you are referring to is still a century or more away from forming. No, Vincale is not speaking of that Templar. The word you’re hearing is accurate enough, however, to describe the ministers of the four Wyn Avuquain households. They indeed occupy and work in the temple, Tiris Avu. The Elliqui word is Tircan. It means temple minister. I dare say that it may one day inspire the medieval Latin templaris.”

As they near the bridge to the gate Loche asks Vincale, “How did you know to come to us—to rescue us?”

“William Greenhame sent his summons with the Aevas. William Greenhame then entered the Godrethion horde to find you.”

“The Aevas?”

“The people of Earth’s heart,” Vincale replies. “This is their homeland, too. They have been here for centuries beyond count, and they are our friends, and our hosts.” As the gates open to receive them, the captain says. “But we knew of your peril before William Greenhame’s message arrived.”

Standing just behind the threshold of the opening iron doors, a formation of men and women wait to receive the visitors. Their garments are made with heavy woven cloth of ivory white and brown. Well-fitting and shapely, the lines are cut to resemble ivy vines and leaves with elegant curves at the sleeves and mantles of green. Some wear long broad swords at their sides. But the three figures dressed in black, standing at the center of the gathering, are as anomalous to the surrounding environment as Loche himself feels. One extraordinarily large man with dark eyes and an angular face stands behind two women.

Vincale says, “These travelers are like you, I expect. They arrived at our gates just before William Greenhame’s message. With their word and William’s summons, the Queen sent me to your aid. All three are Itonalya…” Loche feels his lungs suddenly starving for air upon seeing the trio. “One boasts a claim never before heard in any known memory of our people.”

“What claim?” Loche asks.

As the horses enter into the City, Vincale halts the company and nods to the receiving contingent, and then he gestures to one of the women in black.

“She claims to be the mother of God.”

A moment later, Edwin is crying out, “Mommy! Mommy!” William lowers him to the cobbled road and the little boy bursts toward a kneeling, arms wide, Helen Newirth.