“The goddess gave it to me,” he shortened the story. “It marks me as her champion.”
Kestrel studied a tableful of priests who sat on the far side of the room. There were four of them sitting with a pair of women, all drinking from a pair of large stone wine bottles that they passed around liberally. The entire party was clearly drunk, as they laughed and swayed unsteadily on their benches.
Just as a canvas sack of food arrived at the table, a pair from the table got up and began to stagger towards the door with slow, careful steps.
Hiram stood to go, but Kestrel reached and pulled him back. “Let’s wait a moment. Give them time to get a little ahead of us,” he nodded slightly.
“Are you going to?” Hiram turned pale.
Kestrel closed his eyes and nodded. “Okay,” he whispered as the door closed behind the two who had left. “Let’s go.”
They left the restaurant and saw the other couple walking in the direction opposite that from which Kestrel and Hiram had come. Kestrel led the way as the two stalkers quietly approached the drunken pair in front. The priest and the woman were oblivious to anyone behind them.
“You knock the woman down and I’ll take the priest,” Kestrel whispered in Hiram’s ear, as he placed the bag of food down on the sidewalk. The road was dark and deserted.
He didn’t wait to hear Hiram’s agreement, but dove forward and tackled the priest hard. The drunken man toppled forward easily and rolled away from Kestrel, who scrambled after his target, then punched the man hard in the head, knocking him unconscious as he heard Hiram struggle with the woman behind him.
He turned and saw the woman and Hiram tussling, rolling into the street, and the woman took the upper position, then to Kestrel’s horror she pulled a knife from her clothing, and he sprinted forward to knock the blade from her hand as she raised the weapon over her head. He grappled with the woman and heaved her off of Hiram, then pressed her to the ground, at which point she went still beneath him as she passed out.
“I’m sorry Kestrel,” Hiram apologized as he sat up. “I’m just not good at these things. I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“I can tell,” Kestrel said with a straight face. “Never mind; let’s drag them both into this alley and get them undressed.”
“You’re not going to kill them?” Hiram asked.
“No,” Kestrel answered scornfully. “We’re going to get what we want. There’s no reason to murder them.” He pulled the priest by the arms into the dark alley way, where he removed the man’s robes, and his garments beneath the robe as well, leaving the man drunk and naked. He turned to Hiram, and saw that the man was competently manipulating the intricate under clothes the woman wore.
“You must be pretty experienced with women if you can get those things off that easily,” Kestrel commented.
Hiram made no reply, but stood up, his arms full of the clothing. “What do you want these for, anyway?”
“Moorin needs something more to wear than what she’s in now,” Kestrel answered. He picked up the sack of food, and placed it atop the pile of robes he held in his hands. “Let’s get back to the room,” he said.
Together they scurried through the streets of the city, and bolted up the stairs of their residence to their room, where they found Hierodule and Moorin waiting within.
“What took you so long?” Hierodule asked immediately, as soon as the door to the room was closed.
“We found a priest and a woman, so we took their clothes,” Kestrel flopped the clothes forward off the top of the bag of food he carried, so that the cloth spilled forth across Hierodule’s bed.
“You killed them already?” Hierodule asked, incredulously.
“No, we didn’t kill them,” Hiram answered. “We fought them and left them unconscious. Well, Kestrel fought them,” the man amended his comments as he dropped the feminine clothing upon Moorin’s bed.
“Kestrel, what are these things?” Moorin asked as she extricated a lacy item and held it widespread with both hands. “What are you expecting me to do?” she dropped the flimsy piece of material.
“Kestrel was worried that you would be cold, so he wanted to bring the clothes from the woman,” Hiram answered immediately. “He was thinking about you. I don’t think he really understood what kinds of things the woman was wearing.”
Moorin seemed to accept the explanation, as Hierodule pulled the robe out of the pile on her bed. “Here, put this on,” she shoved it towards Kestrel. “The rest of this can be given to Moorin, to keep her warm,” she indicated.
“Now, when you enter the temple, you’ll be able to enter just like everyone else, in through the main entrance. But you’ll need to cut over to your left, to a small door, where you can tell them you’re a pilgrim from the temple in Nebrask, where the shipping canal goes around the falls in the river.
“They’re going to test you,” Hierodule said earnestly. “Most real priests laugh at the questions and ignore them, but since you’re supposed to be a hick from the country, you ought to take them seriously. They’ll challenge you with a series of ritual questions, and you need to know the answers. The exchange,” she explained, “is:
“Where do the roots of the tree of life run?
“They run deeper than life itself.
“What do the tree roots seek?
“They seek the water of life.
“What must we do?
We must deny the water to the tree, and drink deeply from it ourselves.
“And after that you’ll be allowed to enter the sanctorias, the parts of the temple that aren’t open to the public. You ask the priests for directions and claim that you wish to participate in hostiam sollemnem. They’ll assign a guide to you, and the two of you will walk deep into the temple to find a room.
“So,” Hierodule concluded, “then you just take care of the sacrifice and sneak around looking for this relic you want to find. I can’t tell you where it is or what kind of guard it will have.”
Kestrel picked up the robe. “What should I tell the guide to get away when I need to?” he asked casually. “Tell him I need to go reflect privately?”
“The Hostiam sollemnem is a ritual of sacrifice. The temple has requirements,” she said, “you have to prove you are dedicated to the purposes of the temple, and you must release the energy of the victim to Ashcrayss.
“The temple takes many things from us all. Some of us are killed to meet their requirements. Others only wish they would be murdered; the temple forces every family to contribute one female to serve for a year in the temple,” Hierodule added with a touch of bitterness, a sadness that seemed to have been worn down by the troubles of her period of service. “I volunteered when they came to our family, so that my sister wouldn’t be taken.” Her eyes shifted for a second to Hiram, then looked back at Kestrel, who sat in pale shock.
“If there are no more questions, you might as well get started,” she clearly intended to say no more about the business of her role as a priestess.
Kestrel pulled the robe on over his clothes. He started to put on his weapons. “You’re not allowed to take those into the temple,” Hierodule warned.
“Will I be searched?” he asked longingly, wanting to be able to take weapons along with him.
“Perhaps,” Hierodule said absently, as she studied him. “I think you could hide a knife under the robe and not be detected.”
Kestrel slide Lucretia into the back of his pants, then smoothed his robes. “I guess I’m ready to go,” he told the others in the room.
Moorin stood and walked over to him. “Be careful Kestrel. Be very careful; I know how much you can do and how much you’ve accomplished, all the impossible things.” Their eyes were locked on one another, looking intently at each other for long seconds, until Moorin looked away.
He stared at her, and his heart swelled with desire and pain and fear. He switched to the elven language. “Moorin, I have to know – are you willing to wait for me, to consider me, to give
me a chance to be your soul mate? Not because I’m here to save you, but because your heart feels love for me?”
“Kestrel,” she answered in the same language. “We were going over this the last time we saw each other, back in Seafare, before you left and before I was taken. You asked me then, and I told you then that we both had to be honorable people, to respect our hearts and respect our commitments. I meant it.
“But after you were left, I did ask Ruelin to delay our wedding indefinitely,” she said. “And he agreed.
“I don’t want to give you false hope, and I don’t want you to think I value you less than you deserve,” she told Kestrel as they looked at one another again.
“’Value’ is a fine word, but it is not the same as ‘love,’” he said in a soft, sad tone.
“Not yet,” Moorin said as softly. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Be careful. Come back safely. Let us talk of this further when this journey takes its next step.”
Kestrel stepped away from her, aware of the scrutiny of the two siblings in the room.
“Kestrel, I will walk with you to the temple and wait there for you if you wish,” Hiram offered.
Kestrel started to say no, then looked at the man, and saw a look of concern in his eyes. “Come along,” he told his companion. “It’ll be good to have a friendly face on the way there.
“Rest and take it easy,” he told Hierodule. “I hope I’ll be back soon.”
“I hope so too, Lord Kestrel; I hope so too,” she said, then watched him leave the room.
Kestrel immediately pulled the hood of his cowl up over his head to hide the color of his eyes, and he and Hiram walked through the streets towards the temple that Kestrel had seen dominating its portion of the skyline before sunset.
“Are you and the elven beauty betrothed to one another?” Hiram asked.
“No,” Kestrel answered, not wanting to dwell on the ambiguity that had tainted his departure from Moorin. It had evidently been easy to see if Hiram had sensed it without even understanding the language the two elves had spoken.
“Is your sister still in Lakeview?” he asked, determined to immediately change the topic.
“No, she’s right where we left her in the boarding room,” Hiram answered in a confused tone.
“I meant your other sister,” Kestrel said.
“Oh, she’s back in Lakeview, yes. I hope she’s still safe,” Hiram corrected himself.
They walked on to the vicinity of the temple, where Kestrel stopped abruptly as they came in sight of the main gate to the complex, a wide opening with an arched entry and bright torches casting lurid beams of light outward. “This is as far as you need to come, Hiram. Go back to the women and protect them. Run errands and make sure they have food and supplies. If I’m not back within three days, try to get all three of you on a ship back to Lakeview, and see if you can get on a ship to someplace else – maybe Southern Shore or Grainary, so you can try to get a ship to someplace safe like Seafare or Graylee.”
Kestrel feared that if his mission failed, if he did not retrieve the water skin of Decimindion, there would eventually be no place safe from the Viathin conquest, but he did not put his fears into words.
“You’ll come back Kestrel, I know you will,” Hiram said stoutly. He moved forward and surprised Kestrel by wrapping the faux priest in a tight hug. “Good luck, and thank you for all you’ve already done for us.”
Kestrel hugged the thin man back just as tightly, happy to find such affection from his new friend, then broke the clinch, and turned towards the temple.
Chapter 12 – A Sacrificial Change
The foot traffic headed towards the temple entrance was light, and Kestrel easily joined the pedestrians who walked atop the shiny cobblestones that paved the street aimed towards the temple. He felt nervous. He was trying to pretend to be something that he was not, something that he felt no desire to ever be, a pretension that stretched further beyond his morals than his role as a spy had ever required.
He was sure that news of the attack on the palace and the release of Moorin would have undoubtedly reached the temple, and the guard would therefore be doubled. He would face a formidable defense that he would have to try to breach, while not really knowing where he was going within the temple in search of the water skin.
Worst of all, every step he took towards the temple oppressed him by seeming to squeeze and twist and torment the power of the deities that was within his own soul. He felt his powers being both crushed and called by the god of the temple, Ashcrayss. He felt a slight sense of disorientation from the energy’s unsettled state, and he forced himself to focus his attention as he entered the gate.
To his left Kestrel saw a pair of dim green lanterns glowing, the sign of the doorway Hierodule had told him to seek. He stopped, trying to confirm his memory of the phrases Hierodule had taught him, then cut in front of the other pilgrims on his way towards the beginning of the dangerous role he was about to play.
“I’ve come from the temple at Nebrask,” Kestrel said. “I wish to complete the hostiam sollemnem,” he swore a mental promise to himself to figure out how to avoid taking his role to its conclusion.
“Hey,” an elderly priest who sat on a stool shouted towards a window, “we’ve got a country priest here for the big time.
“Is this your first visit?” he spoke directly to Kestrel as a pair of other priests hung their heads out the windows.
“Yes,” Kestrel said simply, keeping his hood up and his face turned away from the light.
“Can you tell me where the roots of the tree of life run?” the doorkeeper asked Kestrel.
He thought for a moment. “They run deeper than life itself.”
“And what do the tree roots seek?” the priest asked Kestrel.
“They seek the water of life,” that answer was the easy one; it was obvious that tree roots wanted water.
“What must we do?” the priest asked the next question in the series.
“We must deny the water to the tree, and drink deeply from it ourselves,” Kestrel replied. It was evidently a suitable answer, for the door swung open behind the man on the stool.
“Make it special,” one of the men in the window snickered.
“You know, real special,” the other one laughed, while Kestrel wondered how any soul could laugh within the oppressive aura of the temple.
“Are you boys thinking about the green room?” the gatekeeper asked.
“Exactly!” they both answered in unison.
“So be it,” the man before Kestrel said with a grin. “This is surely divine inspiration. Follow these men to the green room, for a ritual that you will never forget!”
Kestrel sensed some cruel joke that was about to be played, as he walked cautiously through the doorway and inside the privileged back hall precincts of the great temple of Ashcrayss. One of the men came around a corner from the office with the window, holding two lanterns, one of which he gave to Kestrel.
“Follow me,” he ordered, and Kestrel silently strolled alongside the slow moving man who took him through a bewildering maze of passages and staircases, sometimes left, sometimes right, but usually upward.
“Is there anything exciting happening here tonight? Anything I can see after the hostiam sollemnem?” Kestrel asked.
His guide stopped in front of a green door. “If you get out of here in time, come to the ceremonial platform on the top of the roof. We’ll do something extraordinary there, something that will bring great favor upon us from Ashcrayss.
“But I doubt you’ll finish with this one in time for all that,” the man gave a laugh. “She’s all yours and you’re all hers until the act is complete,” he said, and then turned and walked back in the direction he had come from.
Kestrel stood and listened intently, but heard no sound from within the room. He hesitated and looked up and down the hall, but saw no one, so he timidly knocked on the door. He waited for several moments, then knocked again, but still heard no answe
r.
He realized there was no real reason for him to even bother to enter the room. He had no desire to enter, and no intention of doing what the priests presumed. He could more easily move on to try to carry out his larcenous intentions if he simply ignored making any excuses and began his next steps.
“Come in, please,” he heard a feminine voice speak in a low and sultry timbre from the opposite side of the door just then. He felt his palms grow sweaty, and he stood still, indecisive. He considered the possibility that if he walked away, the woman within might come out to look for him, and might alert the priests to look for him as well.
“Hello? Don’t turn shy now,” the voice called, and Kestrel slowly turned the handle to the door, and stepped inside the room. One hand held his lantern, while the other crept around to his back, moved by an instinct that made the hair on the nape of his neck rise, a feeling that this encounter was going to be something out of the ordinary.
He closed the door behind him as he held the lantern up, and then looked in disbelief and confusion at the simple room before him. There was a single bedframe with a mattress, and part of a bed pan sticking out from underneath. But on top of the bed, illuminated by the flickering light of Kestrel’s lantern, with two legs tied to the bed, stood a goat.
Kestrel stared at the animal. He looked around the room for the woman whose voice he had heard, but there was no place to hide, nothing behind which anyone could conceal themselves. The goat’s baleful green eyes were staring directly at Kestrel, intently watching him as he surveyed it.
“Well, lady goat, it’s been a pleasure to meet you,” Kestrel said. “I’ll be going now.” He turned to open the door handle behind him.
“What? Leaving so soon sir priest?” the woman’s voice spoke again, and Kestrel turned to see that where the goat had stood, there now lounged a voluptuous woman, lying on the bed with both her legs tied to the bedposts. “Can’t I entertain you?” she asked as he stared in shock.
The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 05 - Journey to Uniontown Page 18
