The Temple

by Jean Johnson

  “I’m sorry,” Grell apologized. “I don’t understand your culture.”

  “When you don’t understand something, it is often better to listen, watch, and observe than just open your mouth and speak,” Foren stated dryly. “I had to learn that lesson the hard way the first time I accompanied my elder brother on a mission to track down a rogue mage who had fled outkingdom, accidentally insulting those we had gone to in search of their help. But enough of that. I thank you for wanting to defend me. So . . . what exactly are you looking for today?”

  Grell wrinkled his narrow outlander nose. “Well . . . we’re the Traveling Brotherhood, you see. All of us so far are mages to some degree, though we’re beginning to attract non-mage followers. But as mages, we can’t even open up a simple mirror-Gate! Partially because we’re traveling constantly but also partially because such apertures have to be anchored in some sort of framework, most easily a mirror. But mirrors are not very portable. And for some reason, roughly six months ago the ability to open Gates of any sort or size has been greatly diminished.

  “So my research assignment is multifold: I am to seek out the cause of this diminishing; I am to see if there is any way of ending, neutralizing, overriding, or countering it; I am to find a way to create portable mirror-Gates . . . and because we sometimes want to travel to new lands, and not just wherever is within a mile or so of a scrying location, we want to see if there are spells that can take you to some place that has already been used for safe Gating, but is not known and linked to, yet,” Grell finished.

  Feeling his brows pinch together, Foren rubbed at them. “I’m hardly the best mage for that. I have no affinity for Portal magics, so I never researched much.”

  Grell gave him a sympathetic look, and clasped his shoulder in comfort. “But you do understand the Great Library system. I understand Gating and Portals, and you understand how to research information in this place.” A wry, cajoling smile curved the outlander’s pale lips. “Between the two of us, we might make a competent research mage. Yes?”

  Foren found himself chuckling at that. “Yes, we might. Though I warn you, I won’t be able to tell if a particular book is actually useful or if it’s just spouting gibberish. There should be Annotation Scrolls on most of the books at the end of each section, covering the truthfulness of what they contain, but that isn’t always available. It depends on whether or not that book was researched for veracity.”

  Chuckling, Grell patted him on the upper back. “Then you’ll just have to trust me if I say that I do understand the gibberish revolving around Portal magics . . . presuming I have all the right translation pendants. And if I don’t understand a particular author’s works . . . I’ll just have to trust you to know where to look for a hopefully better tome. Agreed?”

  Considering it would alleviate his boredom, Foren offered his hand. “Agreed.”

  Grinning, Grell clasped it. “Excellent! Oh, and part of the research will be a recommendation on where to research a really good luncheon. My treat, since I don’t know if you penitents get to have coin for spending. You’ll be treating me to supper after all, in a manner. So, where do we begin?”

  “In the section on Portals and Gates, of course,” Foren stated, since to him it was obvious where to begin their search. Orienting himself by looking around, he gauged their location and pointed at a set of stairs spiraling up around one of the larger load-bearing pillars. “We go up those stairs for two floors, then turn left, if I remember correctly.

  “There should be a sub-index listing the different sub-headings once we get there,” he added, “so you can narrow your search. I don’t know how much of it is inside the Restricted Section, but I do know it’s one of the few where you can actually access quite a lot if you can prove to the librarians you have the right kind of magical strength to try.”

  “Ah, yes, because if you try to open a translocational aperture and fail, you just waste personal energy. In a lot of potentially painful skin-burning heat if you’re strong, but untempered.”

  “Yes, so don’t expect me to be able to do it,” Foren stated dryly.

  The outlander clapped him on the shoulder again, a bit touchy, but not like Foren’s father, who tended to grip his son’s shoulders with bruising strength. Grell simply gripped for a bit, then patted twice and release. “Well, you’re in luck, Foe-renn, because I was quite good at opening mirror-Gates before the aether went wrong.”

  “Are all the mages in the Traveling Brotherhood required to be able to open Gates?” Foren asked, curious.

  “What? No, of course not. We explore all methods of travel,” Grell dismissed. “Speaking of which, we should probably travel now, as in from here to the section on how to travel swiftly.”

  It is better than standing around, bored, Foren admitted to himself, and led the foreigner through the Index Hall shelves to the stairs in the distance.

  Chapter Thirteen

  At the end of his morning’s search through the stacks, Krais brought a tray of food to the Elder Mage’s study just before luncheon was due to be served. Thassam Koret looked up from his work in the outer office and raised his gray-salted eyebrows. The smattering of age signs in his hair matched the band of white pei-slii edging the black-and-white plaid of his vest and kilt. “Any chance there’s a nibble on that tray for me?”

  “None, sorry,” Krais said. “There’s only just enough for the Elder and me.”

  “So what did you bring? Is it from the mages’ dining hall?” the aging Second Mage asked. “What are they serving today?”

  “It is. Braised riverbeast with fried lotus root, three-onion soup, and a crispy salad of peas, spinach, and water chestnuts in a sour cream sauce. Would you be willing to get the door for me, please?”

  “If it weren’t destined for my Elder, I’d steal that entire platter from you. I should take your share as my own, Penitent, and make you get more,” Koret added dryly, rising from his seat. “But I’ll just stretch my legs and open the door for you.”

  “I deeply appreciate it. Of course, while you’re up, you might as well stretch your legs all the way out to the dining hall,” Krais added dryly as the stripe-clad mage opened the door for him. “The scents of the riverbeast slow-cooking had everyone headed that way. I think I even saw a few in priestly tagae, hoping to sneak a meal from your hierarchy’s kitchens. You won’t want to be late.”

  “I’ll have to take my chances. As soon as I’ve summarized the latest reports, I’ll go.” With that, the Second Mage shut the door behind Krais, leaving him alone with the Elder Mage

  “Who was headed what way, to not miss what?” Pelai’thia asked, not looking up from what she was writing. She added in a mutter under her breath as Krais approached. “ . . . Whatever God in Heaven thought it would be amusing to link writing and bureaucracy together in piles of paperwork should be spanked by that new Nightfall Queen . . .”

  “Luncheon,” Krais announced. “Braised riverbeast, three-onion soup, fried lotus root, and crunchy salad.”

  She nodded along at the description, clearly still distracted, until he said crunchy salad. That snapped her head up. Pelai’thia stared at the tray in his hands like a young hawk brought a fresh kill by a parent, and then quickly lowered the slanted writing section of her desk to the flat position and shifted papers out of the way, all to make a clear spot for the tray, the human equivalent of hopping over and pouncing on the offered meal. “Sit, sit, eat! . . . You can tell me what sigils you found in the Restricted files. But first, food. I love crunchy salad!”

  “Duly noted,” he murmured, amused by her eagerness. Sitting down on a stool he drew over, he unslung his messenger satchel from his head, set it at his feet, and reached for the domes covering their meal. While Pelai helped herself from the communal platters, piling well over half the crunchy salad onto one of the provided plates, he passed her a cup of the succulent soup, and lifted his own cup’s worth. “Th
is is my favorite. Three-onion soup. The only thing better is to add those little dumpling wraps with meat inside.”

  “I prefer the broth version of that, not so many onions. If I’m having three-onion, it’s all onions; if I’m having dumpling wrap soup, it has to be just broth and dumplings,” she muttered. “And a couple of those green rings from the spring onion tops floating around, for a little crunch and bite.”

  “Do you cook much?” Krais asked, curious.

  Pelai shook her head. “I can cook, but I tend to have someone else do it. Though I always try to have a little something on hand. Sometimes I feel nausea in the mornings, but a little snack of crackers and cheese will cure it, or some fish paste on toasted bread.”

  Hearing that, Krais inhaled a bit of soup the wrong way. Coughing, eyes watering a little, he cleared his throat and rasped, “Fish pastes for breakfast doesn’t make you nauseated?”

  She shrugged. “So I’m weird. So what?”

  “So just don’t kiss me in the morning with fish paste breath,” Krais muttered.

  “Fine, I’ll kiss you before I eat any. So, do you cook?” she asked, curious.

  Krais nodded. “You have to learn how when you’re constantly traveling on assignment. We don’t always go where there are conveniently located towns or inns, or even a friendly peasant hut where we could buy a bowl of rice and peas. Gayn cooks really well, of the three of us; I often wondered what could’ve been if he wasn’t so devoted to following in Father’s footsteps. Foren and I can cook just fine; we can make things that are enjoyable as well as edible, but we’re not quite as good at picking out flavors that go together.”

  “What, and have a son who was a mere cook?” Pelai asked dryly. At his hard look, she relented. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Her apology dragged a sigh out of him. Rubbing his face, Krais shook his head, tired. “You don’t have to apologize. My father is arrogant, yes. He wants us to be exactly like him. But . . . we’re not. I’m sorry I ever tried.”

  “What about your mother?” Pelai asked, curious.

  “You mean, does she expect us to be like her?” Krais asked. At her nod, he shook his head. “She thinks being a librarian is a job for women, not for men.”

  That earned him a horrified look. “Your mother is a knowledgist? She’s one of those sub-varieties who want to restrict access by something as stupid as gender?”

  “No! No, not that,” Krais quickly defended his mother. “She’s all for men having access to knowledge; she’s not a radical knowledgist! She just. . . .thinks women are more levelheaded in temperament, and thus better suited for curating knowledge—and to be fair, Father’s not very levelheaded about certain subjects. Our punishment being one of them.”

  “That’s not an acceptable proof-of-reason for restricting men from doing anything,” Pelai told him. “Even if I do believe your father would not be evenhanded in handling the curation of sensitive information.”

  “Well, he would, and she does live with him, so she has a somewhat logically biased view,” Krais retorted. “And I’m not saying that this is what I believe, just what she believes. Mother went through the motions of letting us shadow her for possible apprenticeship, but it was clear she was more interested in her sons becoming Disciplinarians, or Painted Warriors, or anything else of the upper hierarchies than a librarian. And your family can’t be perfect,” he added tartly, still feeling defensive. “I’m certain your kin have their flaws, too. Everyone’s family does.”

  “The closest they ever got to that was expressing dismay and disbelief when I turned out to be a prime candidate for Disciplinarian studies,” Pelai stated. She dug into the sauce-soaked shredded meat on her plate. “When I told them how strong I’d tested as a mage, they had high hopes of me somehow miraculously being strong and skilled enough to be the next Elder Mage, and were disappointed just two weeks later when I came home and babbled about how I excited was by the chance to become a Disciplinarian. From the way my mother mourned over my choice of career path, you’d think I’d announced I was going to start flogging her. We had more than a few arguments over that when I was a teen.”

  “Yet now, ironically, you are the Elder Mage. How do they feel about that?” he asked her.

  “They’re going to be a little upset I didn’t rush home to announce it the moment I became Pelai’thia,” she confessed. “I’ll probably have to do all the Family Day dishes. By myself. By hand. No magic.”

  Krais arched a brow at her, a chunk of lotus root halfway to his lips. “Are you going to do the dishes by hand, no magic?”

  Pelai snorted. “No. I didn’t put my personal life on hold for the last three years, cramming to learn everything I needed to know to be the next Elder Mage, just to have to do things by hand. The Gods gave me magic, so I am going to use it. Responsibly, and respectfully, but these are my energies, and this is my body, and I have the right to choose which means I’ll use.”

  “Good for you. I support you,” Krais told her.

  That made her blink and eye him. “You know, nine months ago, I’d never have thought we’d be having a conversation like this—any sort of amicable discussion, really. Having you seem so agreeable was a bit strange. But you’re still you inside your head, in your thoughts, I can tell. You’re just not parroting your father’s words anymore. Or your mother’s, if you ever did.”

  “I know I did,” Krais dryly reassured her. “But I finally finished growing up on the voyage home. I’m finally to the point where I try to think before I speak—I said try, by the way. I never said I’ll completely succeed.”

  “Oh, well, in that case, I grant you leave to be merely human, and not a Patron Deity in disguise,” Pelai replied loftily, waving her hand limply in imitation of the Hierarch, Elder Priest Aleppo’thio, whenever the graying male gave some sort of benediction over his congregation.

  Krais snorted with laughter, not quite choking on his food, but almost. Clearing his mouth, he muttered, “Please, not while we’re eating?”

  Relenting, she dug into her food, and they ate in companionable silence for a while. When they were down to just scraps—and the last drops of crunchy salad sauce had been swiped up by her finger—Pelai sighed. “I need to get back to all these assignment reviews . . . I’m barely caught up to the Roadworks Mages. It’s summer, so at least there aren’t avalanches in the mountain passes to set watches for, but it is summer, so we have to coordinate with the Firewatch Mages . . .”

  “Doesn’t your Second Mage know a lot more of this?” he asked. “Shouldn’t he be doing it?”

  “Yes, because my primary focus is handling the Fountain, but as the new Elder Mage, I have to approve what Koret is doing, providing oversight and reassuring the mages in my hierarchy that I both know and value every aspect of our work. These are just the summaries of what’s happening across Mendhi,” she explained, tapping some of the papers set to the side of her desk on the flat section. “But before I can get back to that . . . what have you found in the archives?”

  Krais hauled his satchel up onto his kilted lap. “I took copious notes. . . .and . . . there, a summary of the fifteen sigils I researched this morning, replete with sketches. I have more detailed notes on everything, of course. It’s encrypted in Disciplinarian shorthand, which Father made us learn as young lads, to try to prep us for our tests.”

  He handed over five sheets of paper, and waited for her to read through them.

  Pelai did so, but from her slowly growing frown, not happily. “Krais . . . why did you copy all of these? I already have all of these marks! . . . Well, except for that one, I don’t have that one, at the end . . .”

  “You . . . ? Well, you didn’t tell me which ones you already had, you know,” he told her. “You just told me to go down and look up all the rare marks used by the Elder Mages in controlling the Fountain’s powers!”

  “I told you to l
ook up the ones I am missing,” she corrected, giving him a flat look.

  “And still, my point stands; you didn’t provide me with a list of the ones you do have!” Krais asserted. He stopped himself, held up one hand, pinched the bridge of his nose with the other, and breathed deep. “This is an argument we do not need to have. What we need is either for you to look for the missing sigils yourself—“

  “Krais, I don’t have the time for that,” Pelai’thia reminded him, tapping the scores of reports piled on her desk to emphasize her new position. “That’s why I’m sending you. And I can’t tell you what I don’t have because I don’t entirely know what I do and don’t have. I’d have to do the research myself. Even that Jodo fellow said there were runes that were defunct that I might never need . . . Tipa’thia was the one who knew in depth what was needed, not him, or even Anya’thia. These sigils aren’t for public knowledge, so I can’t ask anyone else, and I’m taking a risk in involving you, too. If it weren’t for the demon-summoners who are supposed to be arriving any day, I’d put it off until all of these bureaucratic details are handled. I’d say ‘stuff it’ to the bureaucracy, but there are rules I have to follow. Sending you is the closest I can get to a compromise while still doing my job.”

  “I know! As I was going to say,” he stressed, “or we need to have a way for me to be able to quickly and discreetly contact you across the distances between us,” Krais said. “So that I am literally your eyes and your ears. Like that scrying sharing thing you showed me with that other Guardian, only without having to touch each other to share visions. If I could show you what I’m looking at, you’d be able to tell me instantly if I’ve got the right sigil that needs to be researched. I cannot go bothering Jodo Dalek for everything. He knows what the possible ones are, but not the practical ones you need. Just like Tipa’thia was the only one who know, only you can decide that. Thus I must consult with you.”