by Jean Johnson
(Isn’t saying that tugging on the shirt-tail of our divine neighbor, Fate?) Teral asked Aradin.
(Fine. If it happens, I’ll try to be ready for whatever “it” is,) he sighed.
“Now, where were we?” Lanneraun asked rhetorically. “Ah, yes, the huntsman’s wedding . . .”
Aradin quickly held up one hand, the other going to his still-sore stomach muscles. He chuckled lightly, but even that much was motivation to quit. “Please, have mercy, Brother Prelate; I don’t think my stomach can take much more mirth. That, and it’s past midafternoon. I’ll need to hurry to make my pre-dusk rounds. With Her Holiness at the Convocation, maintaining the safety of the Grove is up to me in her absence.”
“Ah, well . . . it’s so nice to have an appreciative audience who hasn’t heard my tales before. But I do understand the call of one’s duty. May Kata and Jinga bless you in your tending of the Grove, Brother Aradin,” Lanneraun stated, rising to his feet with a little effort; but only a little.
Rising as well, Aradin clasped hands with him. “I do look forward to hearing the rest of your tales another day. Gods bless you, too. I’ll go let myself out.”
Nodding, Lanneraun waved him off, moving from his visiting chairs to the seat behind his desk. Aradin turned left as he exited the room. There was a side door he could use that would avoid the main sanctuary, one that would get him closer to the Keeper’s home by a full city block. As he passed the next door, he could hear Deacon Shanno speaking.
“What do you mean, she’s busy? I need to speak to Lady Apista immediately!” the deacon asserted.
An unfamiliar voice spoke in an apologetic tone, but by that point Aradin was well past the doorway and couldn’t hear the exact words. Mindful of the passing time, he hurried out the side door. Between Aradin and Teral, the two of them could control and use up the flow of two thirds of the Grove’s rift-energies without having to visit each locus tree. But with Saleria absent, her rift’s magic would have to be gathered and used up the old-fashioned way, which meant walking the outer wall to empower its wards.
THIRTEEN
Her quarters for the Convocation were sparse, little more than a stone platform and a pallet for the bed, two blankets, a heating rune, a modest table for a nightstand, and a shorter version that could serve as a stool. It didn’t even have a door, just a curtain made out of a tapestry with some hastily stitched runes along the edge for privacy. The sunset-liveried servant who brought her to the chamber apologized profusely for the lack of amenities, showed her how to operate the crystalline strips of the ceiling for lighting and the metal rune set into one of the walls for heating, and promised everything would be vastly superior at the next Convocation.
The woman showed her the refreshing room, which would have to be shared between her quarters and three others—at least it had a wooden door for true privacy, plus a bathing tub as well as the usual facilities—and the stack of strange, loop-covered fabric that made up the Nightfall version of toweling cloths, then left Saleria to find some rest for the night. The room wasn’t bare-walled; it had been carved in a forest motif, with suncrystals grown in such a way that they formed softly glowing clouds overhead when the control-rune by the door was set for daylight, and became tiny pinpoints of stars when she touched the rune for turning them off.
It was just enough light to see her way out to the corridor, which was lit a little brighter by softly glowing moons set at intervals among the overhead stars. Whoever had grown the crystals had possessed an artisan’s touch. Setting the suncrystals in her bedchamber to be nothing but stars for eight hours, Saleria stripped down to a tunic and undershorts for sleeping clothes. It felt like she was camping in a silhouetted forest, or perhaps in the Grove as it should have been. A comforting thought.
The suncrystals brightening eight hours later woke her from her slumber. Grumbling to herself over how hard the pallets were in the novices’ hall, Saleria slapped her pillow over her head. Voices in the corridor added to the thought she was back in the training temple, until she heard someone laughing and calling out in a foreign language. Eyes popping open, she pulled the pillow from her head and looked around the room.
Convocation! Not the old teaching temple . . . All the Gods and Goddesses are here! Scrambling out of bed, she snatched up her backpack, wrapped a blanket around herself for decency, and hurried to the refreshing room. And had to wait a few minutes until a priestess in an odd red-and-orange-streaked gown came out. The dark-skinned woman smiled at her, bowed with a hand over her chest, and swept the other at the room she had just vacated.
“Thank you so much! Gods bless you,” Saleria told her, slipping inside.
“Ongi etorria,” the woman replied.
Saleria had no idea what that meant, other than that it sounded friendly. Shutting the door, she breathed in the warm, moist air and hurried to make sure there was still enough heat in the spell for the faucets. Plenty of heat, actually. She made a fast bath, grateful to see someone had brought in linen toweling cloths of the kind she was used to, plus jars of soft soap. Trying one of the nubbly cloths spoiled her for the plain-woven ones, though. There was just one clean towel available, with the rest tossed into a laundry bin.
When she emerged, freshly dressed in a proper priest’s gown with her hair braided back out of the way, she met a tabard-clad woman pushing a hovering sled covered in bins and cleaning supplies. The woman greeted her in heavily accented Katani and slipped into the refreshing room to tend to it. Returning to her room, Saleria found a pair of men and a second woman inside, all servants. The men were unbinding a feather-stuffed mattress to lay on top of the stripped bed, while the woman was sweeping the floor. A stack of sheets and nicer-quality blankets than the previous ones waited on the stool, and a chest sat next to it, the lid opened to reveal colorful layers of fabric.
“I’ll take that, milady,” the woman stated, setting aside her broom so she could relieve Saleria of the wool blanket. “Everyone has been donating something for the comfort of all the holy representatives at the Convocation. Your quarters are being made more comfortable by the generosity of the family Michan. Bobran of Michan, his husband Severth, and their two adopted sons, Goffer and Farathan.”
“Ah—his husband?” Saleria asked, blinking.
“Yes, husband, because the government of Nightfall doesn’t care what genders are paired in marriage,” the woman told her. “So long as we’re all productive citizens and good people, we are welcome here.” She eyed the Keeper of the Grove. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you, Priestess of Katan?”
“Well, no. No,” she stated more firmly. “Kata and Jinga have said that same-gender marriages are acceptable. I was just a little surprised, is all. Please let the family Michan know how much I appreciate their generosity, and their warm welcome. May all the Gods bless them for their kindnesses, including the Patrons of Katan.”
The servant smiled warmly at her. “I will be happy to let them know that, Holiness. Oh, you should have a door within the next two days. We can craft them from wood easily enough, but the latching mechanisms take a little more time. Your name will be written on a card on the door so that you can recognize it, along with your nation, and the symbols for Kata and Jinga, the eight altar tetragrams.”
Bemused, Saleria thanked her, tucked her pack under the nightstand table, and took herself out into the maze of corridors. She got lost twice, the second time thanks to muddled directions from one of the servants, but eventually found her way back to the familiar territory near the amphitheater. One of the chambers had been set aside as a great banqueting hall, with tables and benches for dining, and more tables without benches laden with different kinds of food. Some of it hot, some of it cold, some of it fresh, some of it preserved . . . most of it was familiar, though there were a few unfamiliar items. One in particular, a strange dish filled with pale strips of some sort of boiled flour-paste and slathered in a creamy cheese sauce dotted with shr
imp, proved quite tasty.
No sooner had she settled at one of the dining tables than a familiar black-robed figure stopped next to her, turned, and sat with her back to the table. “Good morning, Keeper of the Grove,” Witch Orana said, smiling at Saleria over her shoulder. “And how are you faring on this second day of the Convocation?”
“Oh, fine, thank you. Ah . . . are you really over two hundred years old?” Saleria asked, saying the first thing that flew into her head.
Ora nodded. “When you’re cursed—under false accusations—by the mages of Fortuna, it takes the will of the Gods to overturn it . . . but for reasons known only unto Them, They have chosen to keep my Guide and me alive for the full thousand years of our so-called punishment. I did manage to barter a lack of aging out of them, but it’s a very long story. How about your story? How is the Grove doing?”
“I left Aradin and . . . I left Aradin Teral in charge of it, and I have confidence they’ll keep it well,” Saleria told the Witch, correcting herself. “Part of me wants to go home and tell my people all I have seen, and said, and received in reply. But a larger part of me knows my duty is to stay here and continue to witness the Convocation. If anyone were to have a concern regarding Katan, or its citizens, or even our Gods, then it is my duty to remain on hand.”
“Well, if you have any messages for him, Niel and I now have the time to deliver them. Or if you need something from home,” Orana said helpfully. “The laundry services are working now, though I’m told they’re still gathering enough baskets for collecting it. I suspect in three days this place will be ruthlessly organized. I quite approve of how well everything is pulling together, despite its suddenness.”
“Yes, I’m rather impressed by the changes between yesterday and today,” Saleria admitted. “I look forward to seeing what will be here by the end of our stay.”
“I think I should go have a word with His Holiness of the Moonlands,” Orana murmured. “It would be an appropriate act of kindness for his nation to lend the ingredients for enough Ultra Tongue for each nation’s representative to have a drink. Don’t you think?”
Ultra Tongue . . . Ultra . . . oh, the translation potion! Saleria nodded. “That would be wonderful. Someone spoke to me this morning, a woman in bright red and orange robes, but I couldn’t understand a word of it other than her tone, and I’m sure she felt the same about the greeting I gave her.”
“I’ll see to it, then. Oh, Guardian Dominor wanted to let you know that the Fountainways are blocked by the Gateway of Heaven. He’s tried everything he could think of to connect with the others, but all he gets is interference from the sheer energy involved,” Orana told her.
“Well, that makes the kind offers to transport goods and messages from you and your fellow Witches all the more important, doesn’t it?” Saleria pointed out.
“True,” Ora chuckled. “Have a good breakfast. I’m actually off to bed, myself. I’ve been up all night listening to the ongoing petitions. Even at roughly an hour to the priest, it’s still going to take a bit of time to get through all of them. Dominor told me you were going to be recording all of it in scrying crystals. Niel and I look forward to seeing it all . . . but for now, we are very tired.”
“Sleep well—Dark Ana watch over you,” Saleria added. From the smile the other priestess gave her, it seemed to be the right thing to say. One of these days, she thought, watching the black-robed, blonde-braided woman move off, I will learn the full of her story. But for now, if I don’t eat, my food will grow cold. It may be freely given by these Nightfallers, but it shouldn’t be wasted.
Folding her hands together, Saleria gathered her thoughts and her energies, and carefully reworded her normal breakfast prayer. Gods of all nations, please share the blessing of this food with not only myself, but with the bounteous lands that produced it, the skillful hands that plucked and prepared it, and may the energy it gives me as I eat it this morning in turn permit me to give my energies back to the world at large today . . .
* * *
Being a morning person, Aradin chose to walk the Grove wall before breakfast, rather than after. Despite the fact that two thirds of the magic was now controlled rather than rolling around the place from locus tree to locus tree in slow, mutation-inducing surges, it still had to go somewhere. Aradin and Teral could use the power from the northern and southern tree-rifts to begin making changes to the warped plants and animals, turning them docile and obedient, but not the eastern one.
The power of Saleria’s locus tree was nowhere near as wild as it had been. It was not, however, under the Witch’s control, either Host or Guide. That meant the eastern stretch of the wall and the side-paths nearest the middle tree had to be tended warily as well as carefully. Aradin considered it an invigorating, appetite-building task.
Breakfast, however, did not await him in the Keeper’s house when he returned. Instead, teal-clad men seized Aradin the moment he entered through the back door, clasped metal cuffs around both of his wrists with ominous clacks, and dragged him to the Keeper’s study . . . where a rather smug-looking Deacon Shanno, seated in Saleria’s chair, was staring down a red-faced Daranen.
“And I’m telling you that parchment was signed by all four Gods!” the scribe growled. He thumped his fist on the desk. “You have no right to interfere with what the Gods in Their infinite wisdom have decreed!”
“So you say,” Shanno drawled, picking up the paper with its glowing runes. He tensed his muscles, attempting to tear it. It didn’t budge. His smug look faded a little, and he tensed and tried again. A third time, and he crumpled up the paper, tossing it on the desk in disgust. “Cheap theatrics! Some sort of anti-tampering spell, no doubt.”
(I don’t like the looks of this,) Teral told him, as both Guide and Host watched the paper uncrumple itself, smoothing out as flat as if it had never been creased.
(Go tell Saleria what that blond brat is trying to do,) Aradin ordered. (I’ll be fine on my own. They don’t dare harm me, in case it is the truth. I’ll be demanding a Truth Stone to swear it, too.)
(You do that, but be careful. I’ll have her bring up the matter with Kata and Jinga directly, if I have to.) A step back, and Teral vanished from his Host’s Doorway.
“You cannot tear what the Gods have signed, Deacon,” Aradin stated calmly. “And it is signed by the Gods Kata, Jinga, Darkhan, and Dark Ana. Bring me a Truth Stone, and I will prove my declaration true.”
Shanno sneered at that. “The words of a foreigner are near-useless!”
“A Truth Stone is a Truth Stone,” Aradin countered. “Or a Truth Wand, for that matter. I know they exist in Katan.”
“You can swear all you like that the Gods signed this . . . thing,” Shanno retorted, flicking a finger at the sheet. “Unless the Gods Themselves swear it, then for all we know, you have been tricked or deluded into believing it was Their hand, when it was in reality crafted by that power-thieving braggart who now tries to call himself our king!”
Aradin had no clue what he was talking about, though he had a fairly shrewd idea for why. “Deacon Shanno, your hunger for power has caused you to suffer from delusions. I come here at the will of my Gods, with no falsehood or pretense, to be the assistant to Keeper Saleria. Her Gods, your Gods, have accepted my presence.”
“Well, if that’s so, then why don’t we just ask the Keeper herself?” Shanno offered mock-reasonably. He made a show of looking around the room, then shrugged. “Oh dear, it seems she’s nowhere to be found. For all we know, you are the unwitting, unknowing distraction manipulated into coming to Groveham by hidden strings so that the rebels of the so-called kingdom of Nightfall could kidnap Her Holiness.”
Aradin blinked. The younger man’s logic was convoluted, absurd . . . and very, very hard to disprove via Truth Stone. “You are delusional, Shanno of the family Lorwethen. There’s no other word for it in your language. Delusional,” he repeated. He looked at the gu
ards holding him, clad in the imperial blue-green uniform of Katan. “I’ll bet he wouldn’t even take Keeper Saleria’s word once she returns that I am here with her permission as Keeper of the Grove.”
“So you say,” the stern-faced guard on his left said. He lifted his square chin at Shanno. “And he says otherwise. Given that the rebellious Nightfallers have overthrown the true King of Katan . . . I find myself disinclined to believe the word of any foreigner right now.”
“Then fetch me a Truth Stone, or a trusted equivalent,” Aradin said, staring over Shanno’s head. “I have the right under the Laws of God and Man to be questioned by spell. If my words are true, then I am innocent of any wrongdoing, and must be set free.”
“I think we should wait for the questioning until Holy Keeper Saleria has returned from . . . well, wherever,” Shanno offered lightly, flicking one hand vaguely. “That way we can question all parties involved.”
“I told you, she went to the Convocation of Gods and Man, to stand as the holy representative of the Katani people before your God Jinga and your Goddess Kata,” Aradin repeated patiently. “They have roughly two hundred and fifty priests and priestesses representing the three hundred–plus Gods and Goddesses of all the nations in the world. It may take her a couple of weeks to return.”
“So you are deliberately obstructing justice?” the guard on his right asked.
“No!” The situation was getting ridiculous. “I am willing to abide by the Laws of God and Man, which grant me the right to speak the truth and have it gauged by true spell. Either bring forth your Truth Stone and present your accusations in a lawful manner, or let me go.”
“Sounds to me like he’s resisting arrest,” Shanno drawled.
“I am not!” Now he wished Teral were still with him, so he could alert his Guide to this new twist.
“What is your name?” the guard on the right asked him.
