The sun broke through the clouds. The moon turned her gaze from night and looked upon the mortal realm. And they, the monarchs of the sky, shone their lights from east and west, joining within that mighty House.
Once more the Songs of the Spheres were heard in that realm. Lumé and Hymlumé sang, and the voices of the stars above rained down upon mortal ears. It was a bigger sound than the whole of that world, and the people fell to their knees.
“Do you hear?” cried the Smallman. He stood upon the doorstep of that mighty House, small and weak, and the power of the weapon he bore was all the greater for his weakness. “Do you hear, my people? Do you hear the Songs of the Song Giver?”
The people fell upon their faces and then rose up again, for the Songs of the Spheres filled them with a greatness. They saw the heavens opened. They looked up and saw worlds beyond their world, life beyond their lives, and they wept with joy.
For the first time in centuries of mortal years, men, women, children, young and old, opened their mouths and joined their voices with those of the sun and the moon. Songs poured from their throats, from their hearts, from their upraised hands. Songs of hope, songs of joy, songs of truth victorious. And the Smallman stood in that doorway and looked out upon the ragged throng. He saw that as they sang, they were clothed in riches far beyond the rags of their slavery.
His eyes filled with tears and his heart broke with love.
“Do you hear?” he whispered, and though none near could discern his words in the thunder of the swelling music, the one to whom he spoke did. “My people know the Songs once more. They see the rivers roaring; they hear the anthem of the skies. They hear the stars, and they proclaim with them the glory of the One Who Names Them.”
The people declared before the worlds: “We are frail; we are dust; we are bound in dirt. But we hear the Sphere Songs rising!”
The goblins, fleeing through the darkness below, stopped up their ears and screamed, falling over each other to escape that for which they had vainly sought.
3
THERE WAS NO CROWN, for the North Country had never before had a king.
But they took the seat of Earl Ferox and placed it at the eastern door of the House of Lights. Upon it they set the Smallman and placed the shield of Gaheris in his hand. One by one, the gathered earls—as broken as slaves, though their liberated spirits shone anew behind their eyes—took up their own shields and placed them at the feet of the man who was now their sovereign. And they swore oaths of allegiance, pledging their swords in service and protection; their new king, in turn, pledged his life for theirs.
Before the hugeness of that ancient House, the dwarf son of Ferox looked smaller still. Yet, Alistair thought, it was his weakness that brought the earls to their knees before him. They knew that he was king not by right of might nor even by their will. He was established by a Power far greater, a Power they must now acknowledge as the Songs of the Spheres still echoed in their hearts and the remnant light of Asha glowed from the lantern high in the rafters of the House.
The Smallman sat with Halisa across his knees and Ferox’s shield leaning against him. It was Earl Aiven who stood before those gathered and, holding out his arms, declared for all to hear: “Long live Florien Ferox-son, King of the North Country!”
“Long live King Florien!” the people cried, and the earls raised what weapons they had recovered from the goblins, and the women, servant and lady alike, waved rags like banners.
Alistair bore no weapon. He stood at the back of the throng near the ruinous outer walls of Gaheris. The House of Lights, its disguise dropped away, rose in majestic glory above the river, and Alistair wondered why he had been unable to see it before.
“You’d have to open your eyes,” he whispered with a wry smile.
He saw all now with a clarity beyond understanding. He saw the whispered councils of the earls at last brought to light, united in a kingdom none had ever fully expected. And under such a king!
“You have a look about you,” said Eanrin, appearing suddenly at Alistair’s elbow, “like you’re trying to think. A strained, exhausted sort of look. After such an effort, I do hope you intend to share.”
Alistair grinned at the cat-man, feeling the strangeness of his scarred face as muscles with which he was no longer familiar moved. “I was thinking,” he said, “how unreal this is. How like the Faerie tales the Chronicler—that is, King Florien—once made me read.”