by Jean Johnson
“I choose this cheese simply because I like the way Maryam, the maker, flavors it with stout. Other than that, it is just cheese—and like any other cheese, either you will like it, or you will not. There is nothing holy about it,” Saleria finished dryly.
Behind her, Maryam chuckled. “Not the stout-soaked, no, it’s quite solid . . . but the emmentha cheese has lots of holes in it!”
Caught off guard, Saleria broke down into a laugh. Catching her breath after a few moments, she grinned over her shoulder at the older woman. “That’s not quite the same sort of ‘holy’ . . . but you’re quite right, there are a lot of holes in that one. Tasty holes, too.” Looking back at the middle-aged couple, she addressed the visitors again. “I swear to you, at this moment I am just another woman enjoying the marketplace, the same as you, or her, or that elderly lady over there.”
The man merely frowned at her, but the woman craned her neck to look in the directions Saleria pointed. He persisted. “We came here to see the Sacred Grove. But everyone says we cannot go into the Grove, and that we must be content with being near it. If you are its Keeper, then you are Sacred as well. Why should we not worship you as the next-nearest thing?”
Saleria shook her head and tried not to damn the young deacon in her thoughts for this trouble. “I am just one servant in a long line of servants; my job is to tend the unruly plants within the Grove, and to pray on behalf of all the written petitions I receive, not to be worshipped. Worship Kata. Worship Jinga. They are worthy of your admiration, your faith, and your love for Them. You can go to the cathedral and go up to the viewing balcony, if you wish to see the Grove. But ever since the Shattering of Aiar, which warped the aethers and ruined the great Portals, the Grove has been too dangerous even for a moderately powered mage to enter, never mind gentle souls such as yourselves.
“Dealing with it is my task, and my holiness begins and ends within the walls of the Grove. Out here, I am simply another priestess, for all my fancy titles. Now, if you will excuse me, this perfectly ordinary priestess is hungry for perfectly ordinary cheese—”
“Oy!” Maryam protested, scowling at her. “It is not ordinary cheese! It is very fine cheese.”
Saleria smiled and rolled her eyes. “—and I am going to purchase her fine but otherwise perfectly ordinary cheese in order to sate a perfectly ordinary, normal sense of hunger. May the God and Goddess bless you, and I hope you enjoy your stay in Groveham.”
They continued to watch her as she turned back to the dairy farmer. Saleria purchased a small wheel of it, tucked it into the string bag she had brought, and moved on to the next stall. Thankfully, that last couple didn’t follow her. Saleria made a few more purchases, wandered the market stalls and the shops that ringed the square, then finally found her erstwhile new assistant still haggling over several vials in the glazier’s shop. Both he and the glass merchant, Denisor, glanced up at her arrival.
Denisor smiled and waved briefly, Aradin lifted his chin in greeting, and the two men concluded their bartering. The last of the vials went into the straw-padded crate on the counter, more straw was piled on top, and a lid was settled overall. Sealing it with a spell, Aradin lifted the crate to the ground and swept the folds of his Witchcloak around it, making the crate vanish in that odd, seemingly magicless way of his. The glass merchant blinked, then shook it off and looked at her.
“And what can I do for you, Your Holiness? A bit of glass for your home?” Denisor asked her.
“I’m here to see him, actually,” Saleria said, nodding at the foreigner. “Have you everything you need, Aradin?”
“I could use a few more things, but I have enough to start,” he told her. He nodded at the merchant and held open the front door for Saleria. “I can come back for the rest tomorrow. You said earlier that you attend to the last tree right before your evening walk?”
“Yes. I use the energies siphoned from it to strengthen the wardings on the Grove wall, so that hopefully nothing can escape while I rest overnight,” she said. “You are welcome to join me in my evening rounds, since you’ve behaved well so far.”
“I would like that. Will we be visiting the Bower?” Aradin asked her, taking no offense at her words. He knew they stemmed from the protective nature of her job.
She nodded. “We can, if we go now.”
“Then let’s do that,” he agreed, smiling at her.
Unaccountably, Saleria felt her cheeks heat. There shouldn’t be any reason for her to blush just because a man smiled at her, but he did smile at her, and she did blush. Swallowing, she turned away, hoping he hadn’t noticed.
(Adorable,) Teral observed. (Did you see how her cheeks turned pink?)
He wasn’t the only one. Aradin kept smiling as he followed the Guardian of the Grove. (Indeed. Do you think it’d be wrong to mix our quest with some pleasure, now that it looks like we’ll be working with her on more than just the Convocation problem?)
(From the way Priestess Tenathe tried to get me into bed with her, at least some of their priesthood doesn’t have any issues with chastity or celibacy,) Teral pointed out. (But a single blush does not make a fully welcomed attraction, either.)
(I’m just glad you didn’t take Tenathe up on that offer,) Aradin muttered mentally. (Older women are fine, but when she went on that rant against the people of Nightfall, that would’ve been awkward, trying to extract either of us from her affections as well as denying her the position of representing Katan.)
(Affections had nothing to do with it,) Teral chuckled. (More like plain old lust, if you ask me.)
(So to speak,) Aradin amended dryly. (I do want to ask her, but I’m not sure what the right timing of it should be.)
(Opportunities can present themselves, but sometimes a man has to simply seize a good enough moment and make a gentle inquiry. I suggest in private, though,) Teral cautioned him.
(Private-private, or will you be around?) Aradin joked lightly. He had to dodge around a clutch of elderly women coming from a side street, which forced him to hurry to catch up with their hostess.
(Well, I’d like to know the results,) Teral said, his mental tone the equivalent of a wry shrug. (But if you want me to leave, I can. I believe it should be nighttime in Darkhana by now, so I could always go meet up with the others in the Dark.)
(I don’t mean to kick you out,) Aradin said, mindful of his Guide’s rights and needs.
(I know, but we can report that we finally have a potential priestess to represent the Katani people. Or rather, I can first query the Dark on my way to the gathering to see if she is the best match, now that we have a candidate again,) his Guide offered. (With the previous potential candidate, Tenathe didn’t know about the people of Nightfall and the Katani king’s opposition to their efforts when I first asked if she thought she could be a representative of her people to the Gods, but the moment she threw her fit, that parameter changed everything. This one does know . . . more or less.)
(Let me ask her formally before you go,) Aradin said. Clearing his throat, he spoke quietly, pitching his voice for Saleria’s ears as they turned the corner toward her home. “Saleria . . . the country which has the potential for the thing I mentioned . . . they are considered a foe by your nation’s king. Would that make you hesitate to represent your people, if in doing so your very presence helped them succeed in their task?”
“What, the Convocation?” she asked, not catching on that he wanted to speak about the subject obliquely in public.
“Shh,” he said. “But yes.”
“Why should I want to stop it?” she asked, giving him a puzzled look. “Such a thing should be celebrated, encouraged, and assisted back into being.”
(Promising . . . Go on,) Teral nudged him.
“Well, your king wishes it to be done by his own people, rather than outlanders,” he confessed.
Frowning softly at that, Saleria considered his words. She c
onsidered them all the way into the Keeper’s house, and beyond. Only when she had shut the Grove door did she respond, by asking a question. “Who has the better chance of pulling it off the soonest? Katan, or this other land?”
“Nightfall. Technically, it is a part of Katan that has rebelled and broken away from your Empire, and they are determined to prove their independence by hosting the Convocation, with all the Gods and Goddesses of the world as their Patrons,” Aradin told her, and braced himself for her reaction.
“You sound very confident about that,” Saleria stated. Her tone was merely thoughtful.
“They have the cooperation of the Witches in gathering the Names of all the Gods and Goddesses.”
Folding her arms, Saleria studied him thoughtfully. She did have the gossip Councillor Thannig had given her, but she wasn’t going to blindly trust Aradin . . . or Teral . . . on what the dual Witch knew. “How do you know all this? As far as I know, the only Nightfall I’ve heard of is a small island on the eastern side of the continent—a continent which is the entire Empire of Katan—and if it is some other Nightfall, then it would be much farther away. So. How can you know all this? How do you know they’re trying to resurrect the Convocation?”
(That’s not so promising,) Teral observed, (but go on.)
Aradin suppressed the urge to roll his eyes at his Guide. Teral wasn’t the person standing in front of him, after all. “One of our fellow Witches ended up in the city of Menomon, which lies well outside the bounds of your empire. While there, they heard of a request for the Scroll of Living Glory by the people of Nightfall, which contains details on how to re-invoke the Convocation of the Gods. They—the Witch pairing—asked questions of the Dark, and determined that the people of Nightfall, which is indeed the former Katani island in question, have the best chance at succeeding. Not the only chance, but the best, as circumstances currently stand.
“The people on Nightfall do seem to be in a state of rebellion against your empire,” he continued. “I don’t know all the details, but it seems they have Rung the Bell in proper ritual form to make themselves a new, independent kingdom, have been answered with a holy crown . . . and apparently intend to manifest all the Gods and Goddesses as their official Patron Deities.”
She knew about a city of Menomon, though thanks to Guardian Sheren’s misfortunes a little while ago, the Fountainways between there and here had been closed while the older mage recovered. Aradin’s words only confirmed what Saleria knew. What little she knew, technically, since until now her world had revolved predominantly around the Grove, the village, and all the petitions received. But now we have a piece of Katan breaking away and trying to restart the Convocation. “How ambitious of them.”
Aradin shrugged and clasped his hands lightly together. “There is enough ambiguity in the Dark’s reply to put the end result in some small shadow of doubt, but less so than for any other nation about which we have queried. At the moment, they have the best chance . . . if perhaps not the only chance. So. What is your opinion of that?”
Saleria knew what he was really trying to ask. He wanted to know if she would try to sabotage their efforts—an absurdity from this far away—or try to wrest control, or stop it from happening, or whatever. She didn’t care for any of those things, however. “I guess I’d say good luck to them, and may Kata and Jinga bless their attempt.”
He frowned, taken aback by her light reply. “You honestly don’t object?”
“It occurred to me, as we were walking through the house just now, that if my king wanted to do it, he’d probably want to invoke the Convocation here.” Spreading her hands, she indicated the carefully spell-warded patch of flagstones that kept the Grove-warped plants away from the entrance to her home. “This is the holiest spot in all of Katan, and it is utterly unsuited for a meeting of Gods and Mankind. Even if you can wrest a miracle antidote from your dripping magic-sap experiments and somehow leech the excess spell-saps from the soil of the Grove, it will still take far too much time. Years’ worth of time.
“I may not be a Hortimancer, but even I can guess that much,” Saleria told him. “If these Nightfallers have Rung the Bell to demand Divine Patronage, and if they seek to reconvene the Convocation of Gods and Man . . . then the two events are probably tied together, which means they have less than a year and a day to do so,” she added. “That is far sooner than anything this Empire could put together, I am sure.”
“Possibly yes, possibly no . . . since with enough magic and effort, just about anything is possible . . . but probably they couldn’t,” Aradin agreed.
“Probably not, no. It would be far better for the whole world to have the Convocation of Gods and Man restored and resumed, regardless of who hosts it, than to let the world continue to suffer from its lack. And . . .” She hesitated, bit her bottom lip, then confessed with a touch of distress, “And my own prayers to Kata and Jinga about healing the Grove have gone unanswered all this time . . .
“Maybe, just maybe, if They appear in person at the Convocation, and if I can represent our people before Them, then maybe I can get a straight answer out of Them as to why they’ve let this place . . . fester!” Sweeping her arm out, she indicated the wilderness within the encircling walls. “That is far more important than who hosts the return of the Gods. All kingdoms will be welcome once it resumes, and that is all that matters.”
(I think now is not the time to point out that those kingdoms who misbehave toward the host kingdom can be excluded from the next one,) Teral murmured quietly.
(Ah, but not from the first one,) Aradin countered. (They all have to be represented at the first one, all the active kingdoms with duly manifested Patron Deities. I remember reading that in one of your scrolls on the matter, and it’s the reason why we have Witches lurking within reasonable snatching range of Mekhanan priests. . . . I do think she’s the one, Teral. Or an incredibly good actress, but I’ll bet it’s the former, not the latter.)
(I’ll verify it with the Dark, but I don’t believe she’s acting, either,) his Guide murmured. (Be careful with yourself while I’m gone. You won’t have me watching out of the corners of your eyes.)
“Right,” Aradin murmured, answering both his Guide and his hostess.
The feeling of Teral slipping out of his Doorway and into the Dark that lay behind it was like a cold winter draft in a fire-warmed room. He was used to the sensation, the way it prickled across his skin, but it always helped to have a distraction until the goose bumps went away. He gestured at the tool shed that contained her assortment of pruning and collecting staves.
“Shall we each grab a staff and head for the Bower, then? The sooner I learn how you tend the Grove, the sooner I can learn how to substitute for you when you go off to represent the people of Katan.”
Saleria nodded and opened the stout, weathered door.
FIVE
In reverse order of her morning treks, which usually ended with a visit to the northern tree, Saleria’s first destination at the end of her day was the southern locus. Today also involved a nasty mass of spiderwebs apparently grown by cloverleaf-covered . . . things . . . which scuttled this way and that, avoiding the slashings of their staves. Forced to use spell-summoned fire to bring the confrontation to an end, Saleria stared grimly at the charred section of wild-grown garden. It wasn’t large, not more than a couple strides in diameter, but it did make a black and ugly stain on an otherwise verdant view.
“I hate this part of my job,” she muttered quietly. Not with any force behind it, magical or emotional, but simply as an unpleasant fact. One which she was resigned to by now.
Aradin did not like the sound of that. He thought about it for a moment, then the blond priest-mage asked, “May I say something which could be construed as potentially sacrilegious? No offense is meant, of course, but as an outlander . . . sometimes we can see things more clearly. From a certain point of view.”
Saleria
shrugged, her gaze still on the patch of scorched plants and earth. “Say what you will.”
Gently, Aradin asked her, “. . . Wouldn’t it be easier to burn all of it down and replant from scratch? Save the locus trees, of course. I mean, the land is what is holy, where your God and Goddess were wed. Somehow, I don’t think these unnatural amalgamations of plant and animal were what They intended for Their Keepers to maintain. Or for that sap to literally soak uncontrolled magics deep into the ground.”
He was right. His words were a sacrilege. Except Saleria could see his point all too well. “I would not advise suggesting that to anyone else, Witch-priest, or you would find yourself cursed and reviled. But . . . it isn’t something I haven’t already considered myself. That’s why I hate this part of my job. It would be easier just to remove all of this through scorching and burning and starting anew . . . though I hadn’t realized the magical sap was the source of the energies seeping into the land. But we’d just have the same problems in a few months or a few years.”
Her gaze shifted beyond the blackened ground to a delicate little ground-plant with doubled, conjoined blossoms that together looked like a heart shape, with a little extra bit dangling below. It was called bleeding heart, and while the normal plant filled the forest floors to the south with subtle perfumes, dark leaves, and shades of pink for blooms, the version that now existed here in the Grove had become something more.
“But there are useful plants here,” she stated. Stepping over the burnt bits, she muttered a skin-warding charm and plucked a trio of stems, each of a different hue. Carrying them back to him, she held one of them up, careful to not breathe too deeply. “This one, the peachy-yellow . . . here, inhale its scent.”
Wary, but willing to trust her, Aradin leaned close to the half-dozen flowers dangling from the stem, and inhaled. The first impression of his cautious whiff was the typical flowery scent. In the next moment, however, a grin curved his lips, and a ticklish sensation bubbled up from his lungs. It emerged as a spill of laughter, a slightly giddy sense of chuckling happiness. Except there was no reason for him to laugh like that. Blinking, Aradin stared at her. “What the . . . ?”
