51�Թ�

To the delighted worshipers, Cody Goodfellow, here a Most Exalted Hierophant, delivered a sermon that started with growled mentions of “doom-engines, black and red,” “great hammers of the scouring” and so on.

We are moving into the present moment with Instructor No. 5 or the Hierophant.

I stood motionless under my hierophant’s touch.

“It would do,” I affirmed with some disdain, “perfectly well. I have a woman’s heart, but not where you are concerned; for you I have only a comrade’s constancy; a fellow-soldier’s frankness, fidelity, fraternity, if you like; a neophyte’s respect and submission to his hierophant: nothing more—don’t fear.”

But a successful heist leads to catastrophic complications when Sancia receives warning that an ancient, impossibly powerful scriver is en route to Tevanne — a hierophant, one of the original creators of their magic technology.