Midnight Quest

by Honor Raconteur

  “Feel it?” Clari parroted in disbelief, her green eyes wide in her face. “I can see it! A mantle of power just settled around your shoulders. It’s so blinding white, a blind person couldn’t miss it!”

  “True, because even I can tell it’s there,” Jewel reinforced with several adamant nods. “What did you just do?”

  “I struck a bargain, I did,” he informed her with a crooked smile.

  “Struck a bargain,” Clari repeated in a tone that indicated she was waiting for the punch line of a joke. “Struck a bargain with a god?”

  Jewel heaved a resigned sigh. “That’s nothing. I was actually there when he argued with a goddess in person. And he won. I don’t put bargaining past him. Alright, Rialt. What were the terms?”

  He did no answer immediately, but instead reached out to cradle her face in his palm. She startled a little at the unexpected touch, but a slight smile tugged at her mouth as she leaned into the caress. “I will serve as your armsman all the days of your life,” he answered simply, “but in return, you will be able to live in Ramath.”

  Everyone stared at Rialt as if he had either grown another head or they were afraid lightning would strike him at any moment. A startled, half-laugh tumbled from Jewel’s lips. “I know you didn’t want me to return to Thornock, but…”

  “Herself agreed,” Rialt assured her with immense satisfaction.

  Chizeld was the first to get past his surprise and laughed outright, nearly doubling over with the force of it. “Always heard Ramathans more stubborn than mountains,” he choked out after a minute. “But Rialt can teach mountains a few tricks.” Managing to get hold of his mirth, he added more seriously, “Rialt, only way for Jewel to not return to Thornock is if recalled as Priestess of Ramath.”

  Jewel brightened instantly. “That’s true. Oh, thank all of the gods! I don’t have to go back and deal with those thrice-cursed ministers.” She let go of Rialt’s arm only to fling herself at him and hug him tightly. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Rialt hugged her back with a silly smile teasing his lips up. (Fortunately for his reputation as a tough warrior, the beard mostly camouflaged this.)

  “Um.” Clari held up a finger to get their attention. “I have the feeling that, once again, I’ve missed something.”

  “You certainly have,” Sarvell agreed with a dark look in the direction of faraway Thornock. “You know how Belthain likes to dictate edicts to the rest of Evard and use the barrier as leverage to make everyone else comply? Well, the way they managed that is—”

  Rialt only listened with a half an ear as they continued for the town center once again. This time, however, Jewel wrapped an arm through his and fell into step with him, beaming so brightly as to appear a second sun. Bortonor trotted along at her other side, eyeing Rialt suspiciously. But since Jewel had reached out first, the dog did no protest his mistress’s wish.

  By the time that Clari had been caught up on recent events they had reached the town center. At high noon, the town square had quite a bit of traffic going in every possible direction. Of course, most of the traffic had business with the selection of stores on all sides—bookstore, general store, clothing, grocery, etc. At least half of the traffic, however, came from the Town Hall that sat squarely in the middle of the square.

  “Clari,” Jewel turned to the right, where the other priestess walked. “You said that you grew up here?”

  “Well, generally. Very generally. My childhood home is here, but ever since I could run, my father has been taking me on hunting trips. I’ve spent most of my life wandering around Woodmanse Forest, really.” She gave an unconcerned shrug. “Why do you ask?”

  “Is there a particular procedure you follow to put an issue before the town?” Jewel lowered her voice to a more conspiratorial tone. “Despite what I said back there, I have no idea how to do that.”

  Clari’s eyes widened and she slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle laugh. “So it was a bluff. Oh my. And you looked so innocent saying all of that.”

  “She be a chicane,” Rialt agreed readily.

  Without pause, Clari slipped into a Ramathan accent. “Eh, she be that.” When Rialt choked at the precise mimicry, she flashed him a quick smile before dropping the accent. “There is a way to put forth an issue and it’s actually quite easy. All we need to do is go inside the Hall. There is a table there, just inside the door, that has a record book on it. We’ll write down what issue we want to discuss, who’s putting it forth, and that’s that. All we have to do then is wait until 6 o’clock. That’s when all town business is discussed.”

  “Easy enough,” Chizeld approved. “But doing so will undo hard work earlier to evade the attention of the watchers.”

  “Mayhap no,” Rialt ventured slowly, thinking everything through. “If Clari is the one to write the issue down and address it, it should no catch their attention.”

  “I give it fair odds of working,” Sarvell seconded with a wry shrug. “Those two seem particularly lazy. If it doesn’t directly involve Jewel, I don’t think they’re going to pay any attention.”

  When they started actually moving the crystal, they were bound to take notice, and everything they did now was only buying them a little time. If they moved fast enough, they could leave the area before Thornock could send people after them. Everyone recognized this but no one said it aloud.

  “Priestess Hahn will go write down issue?” Chizeld asked. “The rest go to good restaurant for lunch.”

  Sarvell clapped an approving hand onto his shoulder. “Sound plan. Clari, is that little café across the street a good place?”

  “I like it well enough,” she answered easily.

  “Then we’ll meet you there.”

  ~*~*~*~

  When the party arrived at the Hall for the appointed time it seemed to be filled almost to the rafters with people. Jewel could hear the murmur of many voices overlapping as they approached the building, but she didn’t realize how packed the place had become until they actually tried to clear the doors. It took Rialt, Sarvell and Chizeld acting as a vanguard to break a trail inside that didn’t end in the first two feet. Bortonor let out little warning growls here and there as people got too close to Jewel, which won her some space as well, but still—the press of bodies was amazing. The smell inside overwhelmed her, too. Her nose kept picking up little wafts of sun, dirt, dust, metal, smoke, and food that indicated every possible profession had a representative here tonight.

  “Clari.” Jewel had to raise her voice just to be heard. “Is it normally like this?”

  “I’ve never seen it like this,” the other girl responded, sounding flabbergasted. “Word must have gotten out, somehow, about what we wanted to say.”

  Jewel couldn’t decide if this response from the town was a positive or negative sign. She really hoped that Thornock’s spies hadn’t picked up on this and were hiding somewhere in the crowd.

  “WOULD CLARION HAHN COME FORWARD!” a deep, male voice boomed out. The voice had a recognized ring of authority to it—the entire room fell silent almost instantly.

  “Well, Judge, I would!” Clari called back. “But I can’t get up there!”

  “Clari,” the Judge’s voice called back, “We know you got elbows. Use ‘em!”

  Several people chuckled at this, but the banter between the two apparently worked, as Jewel could hear people shuffling and moving good-naturedly aside to give them room to pass.

  Clari grabbed Jewel’s hand and pulled her closer. “Jewel, do I dare introduce you or not? I mean…I wasn’t expecting this…”

  Jewel hadn’t either, but perhaps she should have. Regardless, there were so many people in this crowd that had already taken note of a blind woman with a dog that even if the spies weren’t in this crowd, they’d hear about it. Their time of avoiding trouble would come to an end by early morning, at the latest. So she reached up and patted Clari on the shoulder. “It’s pointless to keep hiding. I’ll speak with you.”

  “
Alright.” Clari turned and led her forward and up on a slightly raised dais. “Can you all hear me?” Muttered consents came from the crowd. “Good! The woman next to me is Jewel Jomadd, the High Priestess of Thornock. She’s come here on very specific orders from Elahandra—to find every missing crystal and put it back in place.”

  “Why?” a voice from the distant back wanted to know. “Past few months, the barrier’s been up!”

  “The barrier will fail in the near future,” Jewel answered in the loudest voice she could muster. Her throat felt stretched from the novel experience of yelling. “You must understand, the crystal in Thornock just doesn’t have the energy to keep going. It must be charged with its sister crystals, and to do that, we must find all of the crystals and put them back in place.”

  A wave of muttered comments and muted questions flowed through the room. Jewel strained her ears, but she couldn’t pick up enough specific commentary to understand what was being said. All she heard were tones of concern and unease.

  “What this woman isn’t telling you,” Braun’s voice came from the door, growing in power as he forced his way to the front, “is that this crystal of theirs is buried in my vineyard! And that in order to get it out, they’ll be cutting down the sweetest patch of my grapes. Our grapes!”

  The responsive wave this time came like a roar of noise. Jewel instinctively flinched from it, feeling oppressive force closing in on all sides.

  From beside her, Clari growled, “Oh for the love of—MASTER BRAUN! I’ve told you again and again that we will do everything in our power to not trample on those grapes. Anything covering the crystal is going to have to be cut away, that’s unavoidable. But we have to move that crystal!”

  “And lose all of those grapes?” someone in front of Jewel demanded incredulously. “Those are the best producing vines in the area!”

  “Which would you rather do, forfeit a couple of cases of wine or your lives?” Clari snapped back, the wooden floor creaking as she shifted back and forth. “Don’t you understand me? The barrier is failing. There is nothing we can do to prevent it unless that crystal, all of the crystals, are in their proper places!”

  Many people responded to that, all at once, but Jewel couldn’t distinguish one from another. She didn’t need to, though. It all boiled down to the same sentiment: find some other way. Jewel lifted her head to the heavens and resisted the urge to bang a few hardheaded heads together.

  The sound of two quick thuds, which reminded Jewel remarkably of someone that had just quickly climbed on top of a table, and then Clarion’s voice came out strong and clear over the muttering. “I am Clarion Hahn! You all know me as a huntsman. I have been bringing meat, furs and news to you for many years, just as my father did! I’ve been reporting signs of Daath scouts for the past two years, and we’ve all talked about what that could mean.

  “But we know what it means! It means that Daath is tired of throwing themselves at Ramath and being defeated generation after generation. They want results, they want to conquer and they know that if they simply march further south, to Bryn, they can have that victory! We are not soldiers—we’ve never needed to be! Ramath has always guarded our northern border even when Thornock’s ministers have denied us the safety of the barrier.”

  Her voice stayed loud, but now it was more pleading. “That barrier won’t even be an option soon. It’s failing. The High Priestess of Thornock is standing at my feet, and she tells me that it simply doesn’t have the energy to sustain a barrier anymore. We need our crystal back in place. We won’t be able to protect ourselves without it.”

  “Then simply connect the crystal where it lays,” Braun argued.

  “We can’t,” Jewel refuted, praying for patience. “It must be in directional alignment with the other crystals.”

  “Merchants, let me put this to you in more mathematical terms: thirty-five feet of mature vines or the whole vineyard. Which would you rather forfeit?” In this room of heated tones and flaring tempers, Sarvell’s cool logic sliced through in a moment.

  “You’re exaggerating—”

  “No, little man, I wish he were.” Rialt’s deep voice rumbled to every corner of the room without any effort on his part. “I stand before you as a seasoned commander that has been battling the Daath since I was waist high. Your huntsman speaks golden truth. If you be seeing Daath scouts now, there will be troops heading your direction before spring thaws.”

  Rialt’s words had more of an affect than almost anything else said. After all, the Ramath were considered to be the authority on the Daath. If a Ramathan said that invasion was imminent, then…

  “Well,” the Judge said in slow, measured tones behind them. “For my part, I think I’d rather avoid fighting the Daath. Anyone in the mood to fight a losing war? No? Then I think a majority has been reached. Priestess Hahn, Priestess Jomadd, you have permission to move that crystal.”

  “Judge!” Braun protested in a penetrating near-whine.

  “Oh hush, man, you won’t even really feel the loss. You own half the land around here anyway. I’m not about to let your profit margin interfere with our lives. Now. Priestesses…what can we do to help?”

  Jewel turned to smile in his general direction. “Two dozen volunteers with sharp axes would do nicely, sir.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Clari joined them for dinner that night, partially to plan out how to move the crystal the next day, but in part so that Chizeld and Jewel could train her as much as possible. As no one particularly wanted to move far from their awaiting beds, they voted unanimously to simply have dinner at the inn.

  The crowd in the main taproom seemed a sizeable one. In between the different wafts of divine scents carrying from the kitchen, Jewel could pick up traces of earth, metal, sweat and that distinctive smell of human from all around her. The amount of sound generated from many people moving about and conversing told her that most of the chairs had occupants.

  “We’re getting a lot of curious looks,” Sarvell commented after their food had been set in front of them.

  “Are we?” Jewel cocked her head, straining to hear any comments made about them. The muted din of sound was such that she couldn’t really pick out more than bits and pieces. “No one’s approaching us, though.”

  “Bet that will no last the night,” Rialt grumbled under his breath.

  Clari gave a soft, amused chuckle. “You can’t blame them for their curiosity. I mean, in this area, you don’t just charge in like we’ve done. It usually takes several weeks of debate before we get any kind of decision.” She paused for a moment before adding in a puzzled tone, “I’m not sure why that worked as well as it did.”

  “Oh, Elahandra leaned on him,” Jewel answered casually.

  “Leaned on?” Chizeld repeated, as if doubting his own ears.

  “I’ve seen her do it before,” Jewel responded, a resigned smile tugging at her lips. “When something very important needs to be done quickly, she’ll step in for a moment and lean on the people involved to be more helpful. Not making decisions for them, you understand, but encouraging them to be more receptive. The Judge, I think, was getting a little divine guidance.”

  Clari processed this for a moment before asking, “I don’t suppose she’ll help me re-build the Order here, then?”

  “Oh, she probably will,” Jewel assured her.

  “Eh, no doubt,” Rialt agreed readily. “Herself be the meddlesome sort.”

  That, to Jewel’s mind, was a vast understatement.

  “Priestess Hahn, when did Elahandra issue call?” Chizeld asked. His words were accompanied by a clink, as if he’d set his cup down while speaking.

  “Well, it’s been seven days. For some strange reason, she woke me up in the dead of night to ask me.” Clari added this detail in a sour voice.

  “Eh, lass, we ken,” Rialt consoled her with an equally sour tone. “She called us that way as well.”

  “It’s because we’re the most receptive at night, while we’re
sleeping,” Jewel explained calmly although she had to bite back a smile. “We’re not distracted by daily tasks then, so she has a better chance of having our undivided attention.”

  “Herself be a prankster at heart, that be why, and you will no convince me otherwise.”

  Jewel spread a hand, palm up, in a small shrug. “And that.”

  Every man at the table grumbled. Clari just snorted. “I believe it. Anyway, why do you ask, Chizeld?”

  “Keeper of Records,” he explained. “When possible, gather firsthand accounts of callings and doings of priestesses. More accurate that way.”

  “Wait,” Sarvell requested, “I’m a little confused. Chizeld, I thought you were the priestess’s personal guardsman?”

  “Yes, that too,” Chizeld answered steadily. “Other tasks in Order that must be done as well. Since priestess usually not in constant danger, all guardsman have two duties. The pay is well earned that way.”

  “Makes sense,” Rialt allowed. “Military works the same way. Usually one job does no fill a man’s time the way it should, so we all juggled multiple duties.”

  “Hmmm… I’ll keep that in mind when I start looking for men to call into the Order. Alright, how do we move that crystal tomorrow?”

  Sarvell answered slowly, “Well, when we moved the crystal in Ramath, the hardest part was actually cutting it free. It had been covered in vines as well. Once it’s free, you should be able to just drag it into place.”

  “Where is the proper place, anyway?” Chizeld asked both priestesses. “With that size, crystal couldn’t have been moved far.”

  “You’d be surprised.” Jewel shook her head in renewed aggravation. “The Ramathan crystal had tumbled quite some distance away. It took several hours to drag it back up that hill. Clari, you said you found the original spot?”

  “Yes, and it’s actually not that far off. Eight hundred strides up to the top of the hill, maybe.”

  Jewel sank back in relief. Oh good, that wasn’t far at all. Maybe this wouldn’t be the battle she’d half-dreaded. “Is there enough room between the vineyard’s rows that we can squeeze the crystal through?”