“Oh, well said!” cried Cassian. “A poetic general! A philosophical soldier!”
“Enough with the jests,” snapped Michael. “General, you must take it in your hand.”
The calm gaze transferred itself to the monk.
“Why?”
For a moment, the raptor glare manifested itself. But only for a moment. Uncertainly, Michael lowered his head.
“I do not know why. The truth? You must do it because my friend Anthony Cassian said you must. And of all men that I have ever known, he is the wisest. Even if he is a cursed churchman.”
Belisarius regarded the bishop.
“Why then, Cassian?”
The bishop gazed down at the thing in his palm, the jewel that was not a jewel, the gem without weight, the crystal without sharpness, the thing with so many facets—and, he thought, so many more forming and reforming—that it seemed as round as the perfect sphere of ancient Greek dreams.
Anthony shrugged. “I cannot answer your question. But I know it is true.”
The bishop motioned toward the seated monk.
“It first came to Michael, five days ago, in his cave in the desert. He took the thing in his hand and was transported into visions.”
Belisarius stared at the monk. Antonina, hesitantly, asked: “And you do not think it is witchcraft?”
Michael of Macedonia shook his head.
“I am certain that it is not a thing of Satan. I cannot explain why, not in words spoken by men. I have—felt the thing. Lived with it, for two days, in my mind. While I lay unconscious to the world.”
He frowned. “Strange, really. It seemed but a moment to me, at the time.”
He shook his head again.
“I do not know what it is, but of this much I am sure. I found not a trace of evil in it, anywhere. It is true, the visions which came to me were terrible, horrible beyond description. But there were other visions, as well, visions which I cannot remember clearly. They remain in my mind like a dream you can’t recall. Dreams of things beyond imagining.”
He slumped back in his chair. “I believe it to be a message from God, Antonina. Belisarius. But I am not certain. And I certainly can’t prove it.”
Belisarius looked at the bishop.
“And what do you think, Anthony?” He gestured at the thing. “Have you—?”
The bishop nodded. “Yes, Belisarius. After Michael brought the thing to me, last night, and asked me for advice, I took it in my own hand. And I, too, was then plunged into vision. Horrible visions, like Michael’s. But where two days seemed but a moment to him, the few minutes in which I was lost to the world seemed like eternity to me, and I was never seized by a paroxysm.”
Michael of Macedonia suddenly laughed.
“Leave it to the wordiest man in creation to withstand a torrent like a rock!” he cried. He laughed again, almost gaily.
“But for just an instant, when he returned from his vision, I witnessed a true miracle! Anthony Cassian, Bishop of Aleppo, silent.”
Cassian grinned. “It’s true. I was positively struck dumb! I don’t know what I expected when I took up the—thing—but certainly not what came to me, not even after Michael’s warning. I sooner would have expected a unicorn! Or a seraph! Or a walking, wondrous creature made of lapis lazuli and beaten silver by the emperor’s smiths, or—”
“A very brief miracle,” snorted Michael. Cassian’s mouth snapped shut.
Belisarius and Antonina grinned. The bishop’s only known vice was that he was perhaps the most talkative man in the world.
But the grins faded soon enough.
“And what were your visions, Anthony?” asked Belisarius.
The bishop waved the question aside. “I will describe them later, Belisarius. But not now.”
He stared down at the palm of his hand. The thing resting there coruscated inner fluxes too complex to follow.
“I do not think the—message—is meant for me. Or for Michael. I think it is meant for you. Whatever the thing is, Belisarius, it is an omen of catastrophe. But there is something else, lurking within. I sensed it when I took the thing in my own hand. Sensed it, and sensed it truly. A—a purpose, let us say, which is somehow aimed against that disaster. A purpose which requires you, I think, to speak.”