The Thousand Names

The general scowled. He had a face made for scowls, with bushy eyebrows and lips shadowed by a broad, drooping mustache. When he spoke, gold gleamed on his teeth.

No, he said. I would care to get this over with. Where are the damned priests?

The bell downstairs rang again, as if to answer this minor blasphemy. There was the sound of a considerable party on the steps, and then the priests of the Seraphic Council entered, all in a gaggle.

Jaffa had grown up knowing what a priest looked like?either an old man, bearded and fat, in gaudy green and purple robes, or else a woman demurely shrouded in silks. This new kind, these hard?eyed young men in spare black wraps, made him uncomfortable. There were no women among their number, demure or otherwise. Their leader was a younger man with close?cropped hair and a scar under one eye, who took a seat at the table opposite the general. His flock remained standing behind him.

I am Yatchik?dan?Rahksa, he said. Appointed by the Divine Hand to lead the Swords of Heaven and oversee the final cleansing of foreign taint from our land.

The name meant Angel of Victory, which Jaffa supposed was appropriate enough. The Divine Hand himself had started the fashion for taking the names of angels when he d called himself Vale?dan?Rahksa, the Angel of Vengeance. At the rate the Council was expanding, there would soon be a serious shortage of angels. Jaffa wondered what would happen when they ran out of manly, intimidating names and were reduced to naming themselves after the Angel of Sisterly Affection or the Angel of Small Crafts.

Khtoba bristled. That cleansing should have begun weeks ago. The cursed Vordanai were like a fruit in our hands, ripe for the plucking, but they were permitted to escape. Now the task of evicting them will cost many of the faithful their lives.

The truly faithful are always prepared to lay down their lives for the Redemption, the priest s