heat in his chest pulsed also in the hand bearing the Paladr. He opened his fist. The seed winked silver at him as it invaded the skin of his palm, burrowing deep, vanishing into his body.
He tried to pry it free but the Paladr was inexorable.
A few moments later, it was gone inside him.
Snedeker yelled, frenzied, but Bran couldn’t understand him.
The heat increased throughout his body, the change begun at his feet continuing. What had been his two legs fused into one; what had been his two arms split into many. Broad shiny green leaves sprouted from his elongating fingers and transformed into gnarled limbs, while sharp black thorns like small daggers erupted along what had been his forearms. Both Bran and Richard grew tall and broad, branching out into the night and into the ground, feeling the life force of the world and all it contained.
He could feel Richard fighting the transformation too, but the two were intertwined, the knight pulled into the magic that transformed Bran.
The glen disappeared as azure light suddenly flared around him, blinding Bran to the world. The heady darkness of rich earth was replaced by the feel of cold fire licking his body, entering his soul, as if he had been plunged into the deepest crystal-clear lake and the water had infiltrated his very pores.
Help me, he croaked. No one answered.
As despair born of uncertainty heightened, what had been his fingers suddenly grasped fiery blue steel, its strength resilient as it gave him inner strength, sharing with him a modicum of hope.
He gripped it tighter. It was solid and comforting.
It felt right.
It would always be there when he had need of it.
Comforting darkness cradled him, and he slept.
Standing next to Pope Clement XV, Cormac clutched a Bible over his red and white vestment as if it were a lifeline, fighting the anger threatening to overwhelm him.
The problem was he didn’t know if he wanted to be saved.
He wanted to laugh like a madman.
“To celebrate this solemn time, we are united in Christ, who died and too rose from the dead,’’ the pontiff said, his voice echoing in the low-ceiled tomb. ‘‘Cardinal Donato Javier Ramirez has now passed over from death to life through the blessings that he received in his association with Christ.’’
Cormac barely heard a word, the wheels of reprisal spinning. The closed coffin of Donato rested to the side of a hole chiseled into the rock far beneath St. Peter’s Basilica. Cormac could not take his eyes from it. The Bible favored by Donato lay on the casket, and baptismal water the Pope had sprinkled shined in the candlelight. The Vigilo were deep within Vatican Hill in a series of secret rooms few knew existed, below even the Sacred Grotto where more than ninety Popes and other distinguished dead lay interred. The funeral was the first Mass conducted in these depths during his Cardinalship and the proper forms were being witnessed.
The Pope conducted the private requiem, beginning with the Introit and orchestrating each rite with the respect Donato deserved.
Cormac hated that he couldn’t keep his oldest friend safe.
After an opening reading by Cardinal Villenza, Clement cleared his throat to read from the New Testament.
“‘Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God,’” Clement orated, his deep voice echoing, before looking at the members of the Vigilo. “In this letter to the Colossians, Paul reminds us all to renounce other worldly gods, maintain our focus on the work of the Lord, and deny evil that which takes our heart from Him. Cardinal Ramirez knew this better than anyone. He led a long life with the basic but fundamental insight of not only looking to Christ for salvation but protecting His flock from Annwn and those who would remove the focus of our faith.”
Clement began the Sanctus then. The Vigilo joined him like they had the previous prayers, their voices raised together.
The Cardinal Vicar welcomed the bit of solace the familiar chant gave.
With the appeal to God finished, Clement turned to Cormac. The Cardinal Vicar stepped forward and opened his Bible. The pages turned at once to the Gospel of Mark, bookmarked with the thick silken red ribbon. Tracing each