He rolled it up. "It is only fair that if you test me, I test you, too, Sister."
"It is only fair that if there are people starving in the streets, you should starve, too, but I am not seeing you doing it. Do not try my patience, I said."
She took a vial from the pocket of her apron, the liquid stinging as she applied it to the scratch on his wrist. Her touch was light, precise, and completely devoid of feeling. Her long black hair almost blended with the darkness, candlelight flickering against the white skin of her face, accentuating the stiffness of her jaw and the lines on her cheeks and forehead. She was young, perhaps only a few years older than him, but she had lines like a woman much older.
He silently rolled the sleeve back down as she pulled away the alcohol-drenched cloth, and she silently took his hand and switched the candle off. A candle that flickered instead of emitting a steady glow—it meant that even here, in the Fireheart, fire was unstable. There must be irony in that, but Dominick did not feel like laughing.
She opened the Inner Door and they walked inside the Healers' Passage proper, where no candles or fireswitches adorned the wall, where darkness had the density of ink, and he had to walk hand-in-hand with her because she knew which way the path lay and he did not.
There was irony in that, too, and foolishly, he realized it only a few moments before she let go of him and quickly stepped away, far enough that he could not reach her without making a few steps by himself. He was not such a fool. There were slopes and loose stones in this place, and worse things.
"I am assuming you want your information, Sister," he said in a voice calmer than he felt. "You could have just asked."
"And I could simply go away now, leaving you here at the mercy of what haunts this cursed abode. There are many "could"-s and "could-have"-s in this world. Dwelling on them is useless, Brother. Speak."
"If it is useless, why do you dwell on the thought that Gabriel Flint could be untrustworthy? And I am sure you do not trust me; Master knows what "could"-s you are building around that even now."
She was silent for a while. She appeared to actually think over what he had said, unlike most of the Order of the Mother crowd, most of whom had already demonstrated that if they had the capacity to think, it was unused and rusted. But this should not be a problem. Their not thinking must be good both for themselves and for him. If all they knew was how to follow, there must be a way to make them follow him and bring them to the right path, where they were supposed to follow. And yet ...
"Dominick, there are some "could"-s and "could-have"-s that dwelling on only makes worse, and I do hope that, trustworthy or not, you never learn it the hard way." Her voice was strained, almost a whisper, but only for a moment. "Enough of that," she then said, sharply. "Now speak."
"Gabriel Flint is a member of the Science Guild himself," Dominick carefully said. The man had only told them he had a way to check what would transpire at the gathering. "He joined roughly seventy days ago—which, as you know, is about the same time he came to Mierber and joined the Order of the Mother."
"Do those in the Science Guild regard him well?"
"They do. You know of that game that has been popular since last year—Stratagem? The Science Guild seem currently obsessed with it and have been so since about the time our Mister Flint joined, and he is the game master."
"A game." She could have spat the word. "This is what these people would still do when the world is falling apart—play games. But why is he doing this? He certainly did not tell us that he was one of them."
"I do not yet know his reasons." But he had his doubts. Still, she asked nothing of Science, so Dominick told her nothing himself.
"The nobles have started taking their guards with them to the Fireheart," he said, instead. "I have been there only twice before, and that to the Second Temple, but during those times I saw almost no guards. Now most nobles seem to have at least one."
"So, they feel it, after all, games or not—but no puny guards will help them in what there is to come." He could not see her and could not read her mind, but still he felt her tension. "It is their fault that Mierenthia is dying, these leeches who do nothing and care for nothing, abusing the land they are supposed to protect. Their fault, and Bers' and Mentors' ..."
"Protecting and abusing are not opposites. They can exist together."
He should not have said that. He should have let her point and curse and rant until she was either trapped in anger or too tired, both cases meaning that she would have been less able to think, and less difficult to deal with. Why had he interrupted her with a point that might do exactly the opposite and make her think further? In the name of the Master and all the right paths, how many mistakes was he going to make today!?
The darkness, impenetrable as it was, pressed harder at him as he clenched a fist over his dagger; seemed to make it more difficult for him to breathe. Or perhaps it was not the darkness. The dagger felt smooth and cool in his hand, but it was a sense of fake security, for a weapon could not help him here and now. The darkness was dense enough for the woman to just slip away unharmed if threatened; alternatively, if he killed her without warning, he would be trapped.
The dagger could not have truly helped him before that, in the Fireheart, either, for the man had seemed too good a fighter to be overtaken easily and without noise. And had the man been weak and clumsy, Dominick still could not have afforded to kill him. That man alive had his own reasons to keep chance encounters secret, but too many things might be stirred too fast by the murder of a High Lord.
The High Lord of the House of Qynnsent. He had her, which was why Dominick was here. And the harsh, silent woman a few steps away from him in the darkness, had once, like Calia, been her friend.
He had met Katrina for the first time and Calia for the second upon his second finding of the Order of the Mother. It was easier, this time; he needed no Gerard or Gabriel Flint to guide him. He simply went to the Steel Factory's vicinity seven days after he had been there before, and walked alone amidst debris and abandonment until he found a stairway leading down. Inside a small enclosed room with bare stone walls, he found people.
There were only about ten of them there, faces turning sharply towards him as he entered, the place of must and dust and sadness. Gerard was quick to unsheathe his knife, but then sat gripping it without making a motion to attack, and Calia watched Dominick with apprehension smudged with what might have been a tiny glint of hope.
These two were sitting on the floor, as were all the others, and some of them shifted, dragging their limbs away, letting him pass to one of the room's ends.
It might be a trap, and perhaps it was, but not in the way he would have expected. He stood staring, not even realizing when exactly he had stopped, at the atrocity propped against the bare, time-smoothed wall. It, too, seemed to be staring at him, its eyes hard and non-living.
It was a statue, crudely shaped out of stone by someone who obviously did not know much about stonework. Its head was small and disproportional, its features twisted and gross, and its body was almost no body at all, but a giant, bloated torso with short feeble limbs with no hint of hands and feet, let alone fingers and toes. There were flowers sprawled over what supposedly were the shoulders and spread arms of the perversion—little wilting flowers that, unlike in Balkaene, were rare in Mierber and were most often either feared or treasured.
"You fools."
He felt their uneasiness, their doubt, without even turning to look at their worthless selves. Once again he had disturbed their space, that tiny place in their tiny minds that held their fake little peace.
They did not know if they should heed the Mentor, who was a familiar authority, or if they should heed their absent leaders—or if they should look up to whatever it was that right now stood before him. Worthless, they were. But if they were worthless, why was he here? Why did he care for bringing them back to the right path? Did the right path need reprobates and fools? "Bring them back," Maxim had said, but wh
at if Maxim, unerring Maxim, had this time erred?
So, he had started doubting Maxim as well, and he did not know where this would lead. For, once he had waded in the muck of doubt and nagging fears, how far could he go or how deep could he sink? It was like wading in a marsh, like in Balkaene, where such treacherous places did not always brandish Ber fences and Ber power to protect the innocent and stupid.
"Never go near a marsh," Balkaene peasants knew, but not all heeded this. Besides, marshes sometimes sprung overnight where no marshes had been before, and a human could walk into one without even knowing. Blatnitsi—marsh dwellers, those Bessove who dwelt in muddy, tricky water and stole quintessences—were to blame, superstition mongers said, and whatever the truth was, some peasants learned the hard way.
Blatnitsi and marshes could await Dominick in the true Mentor's Dark Forest, too, and the thing before him felt like one. Like something foul.
Doubt. And doubt again. Those fools behind him did not know which way to lean, but was he truly better than them if he wondered, too—if he doubted whether he should lead them at all?
"Did you plant the flowers? Did you water them?" He turned towards them now, angry, and most cringed upon his voice. He had no right to doubt that. If he did not lead them, if he let them walk alone, if he let them go where they would choose and do what they would do, Master knew what they would do to the world.
Or perhaps even the Master knew not.
One woman did not cringe, however. She exchanged a glance with the man who was sitting beside her, and they both stood and came closer.
"I did." She met Dominick's eyes without a flinch, hers cold and hard like frozen water. Her face looked rigid, lines crisscrossing the pale skin and the shadows beneath her eyes, and she looked tired, as if she had been sick, but she stood straight and moved with a stern, angry precision. "I planted them, I watered them. What is your point in asking?"
For a moment Dominick was lost for words. This was not the reply he had expected from any of them. He had wanted to shock them and teach them like Maxim had once shocked and taught a little peasant boy, but they were not peasant boys. They had surprised him. Words and deeds that had worked for him once upon a time would not necessarily work for them, and he was at a loss.
He did not know how to lead. He knew how to drive—drive humans like a Balkaene herder would drive sheep or cattle. Humans, like cattle, did not know what was good for them and the world, and a Mentor with a whip made them walk on the right path, whether or not they wanted to. But those had been humans who at least knew that it was good for them to be driven, while these here had strayed too far from the path. These, he had to make follow, and he did not know how.
He stared at the woman; he did not know if she had the right to pick flowers she had raised herself so that she could adorn this monstrosity. He only knew it would have been wrong if she had not made an effort, if she did not produce but just went through the world and took what came in her way and consequences be damned—
Wait, she was wrong, anyway, because she had adorned the monstrosity, no matter the flowers' source. He did not need to think about all these other issues, because this first, most important issue should decide the question before he even got to the other issues; he did not need to try to apply Maxim's thoughts and teachings to these people, or to figure out his own. Adorning this statue, worshiping this statue, was wrong, and a year ago this would have been all that mattered to Mentor Dominick. Apparently not any more, and it confused him and made him even angrier.
"What is this abomination?"
The woman strode towards him, her mouth thin and her eyes angry, stopping only when her face was centimeters away from his. The man tagged along, but did not quite meet Dominick's eyes.
"Take these words back." That from the woman.
"Why should I?"
The woman looked at him as if she had been slapped, and then, despite the man's attempt to grab her arm, she raised her hand and slapped Dominick. He let her. He was not sure why, at first. He could have gripped her hand as it flew towards his cheek; he could have even broken it. Yet, he stood still. Then, he simply looked at her.
"Finished, Sister? Or would you like the other cheek, too?"
Then, he knew why he had done it and he wondered at himself for not knowing earlier. This was exactly the right thing to do with someone like her. Anything violent, any retaliation on his part would have acknowledged this hysteric woman as an opponent and her feeble slap as an act of importance. Let her slap him again if she wished. Let her look like a fool once again—like even a bigger fool than those who were sitting on the floor, staring.
She watched him, her eyes full of hatred, but did not strike again.
He took a breath. "This is a genuine question, madam. Answer me if you would please."
She was not such a great fool. She understood her position, and his. There was new doubt in the eyes of some of those who were sitting on the floor, and she, like Dominick, might have known that they wondered. A Mentor was supposed to be kind and benevolent, whip and all, and here he was, not striking back when he had been so abruptly struck. A Mentor was a guardian, he was above the trifling fits of temper of humans, even if directed at him (when it was at him as a person and not as a Mentor, blurry as that line was). At least, a Mentor was supposed to be; at least, he was. There might have been respect on some of those weary faces. There might have even been some grudging, momentary, respect written on hers.
Her stare was still violent, but her voice was quiet. "If you genuinely do not know, Brother, if you genuinely want to know, you should not load your question with insult. You stand before a representation, a manifestation of the Pregnant Mother, a depiction of the Lady of Water found in a holy cave, of her who was abused and desecrated but who still lives on. Show respect."
In the name of the blessed Master, these people were mad. He could not stop himself; he turned to stare at the statue. It made sense now that he knew it. This ... this thing was not some inept sculptor's pretense for art. It was much, much more evil than that.
They had found something in a cave. People could get into caves, of course. At least in rustic places they could, for the Bers could not put protection and Ber Stations everywhere. Yet, most people, even reprobates, would think twice before getting inside Mierenthia itself. Even reprobates would think twice before letting this tainted world chew and swallow their quintessences and spit out—what?
The Lady of Water, a fake personage from the watery, rustic province of Dobria. Dominick knew the basics of the aberrant tales and beliefs she was a part of, as he knew many others, even if some of them he had only learned after leaving Balkaene. A Mentor, who waded through dirty minds and dirty thoughts as a daily job, received some formal training of the recurring filth he might find inside them.
He had whipped the Dobria Lady concept out of minds himself—and other "Lady," "Mother," even "Goddess" concepts; concepts from other rustic places, brought by other worthless peasants, it was a popular aberrant image. This here, however, was different from peasants' and common citizens' mind babble. It was wrong, wrong, so very wrong ...
He turned back, glaring at the woman.
"And if you genuinely want to answer my question, Sister, you should do just that, and not tell me what I should or should not respect."
He did not know what else to say; he needed time to compose himself. The dead eyes of the thing behind him seemed to bear into his skull. It was wrong, even for reprobates. They had found something in a cave, and worshiped it without knowing what it was at all. Fools, they should know that it was not because of a whim that Bers put fences and Stations throughout the world. The world needed protection from things such as this, and more than that, the world seemed to need protection from humans and their folly.
These here had stamped a Dobrian aberrant tale on this statue and yet adorned it with flowers according to the customs of Balkaene. Master knew what other rustic habits they had gathered and from where, mixing
them cluelessly in a patchwork of stories that may or may not belong together. Flowers had meaning in the mountains, green hills, and meadows of Balkaene, and that water woman must have had meaning in river-drenched Dobria. Yet, these things did not have the same meanings in Mierber, especially lumped together on an old, ugly statue.
Belong together? Meaning? Dominick wondered at himself yet again. These stories and beliefs did not belong together—they did not belong anywhere—because all of them should not exist.
The woman was silent before Dominick's face, and the man was silent and uneasy. So were all those sitting behind, but for Calia, who watched him with some kind of confused fervor. Fools. Stories had power. Thoughts had power, which was why Mentors suffered in order to shepherd the thoughts of those who did not know how to think for themselves. And here these people were, still not knowing how to think, but jumping into thoughts and stories they knew nothing about, mixing them, clueless of all dangers that lurked and awaited fools just like them. Master knew what doors this could open and to what Edges it could lead—or what Edges it could bring.
But it would not, for Dominick was here. To keep the Edges away and to bring the lost ones back.
The woman was trembling now, and the man put an arm around her.
"There are some things that each of us owes respect, Brother." His voice was quiet and his eyes were kind and sad. "A mother is one of them." The woman closed her own eyes for a moment, and the man sighed. "A life-giver deserves respect, always, for the miracle of conception and childbirth—for a woman's greatest blessing and her reason to exist in this world. It is a blessing and a reason, Brother, that you and I can never possess or even comprehend. Please, you are here, you found the way, whatever your past honors or transgressions. Please show respect to the Pregnant Mother, she who gives life to Mierenthia itself."
"A woman's reason to exist in this world?" Dominick was, in a way, astounded. "Brother, have you, per chance, dug out not only your statue from that cave, but beliefs a few centuries old?"
The Makers of Light Page 25
