by Guy Antibes
“Indeed,” Wissem said.
Pol wondered if the priest knew the relics in the walls surrounding the cylinder were fake. “I can look from the balcony sometime?”
Wissem smiled and ruffled Pol’s hair. “Anytime you are between duties. All you need is your orange robe.”
He went on ahead, probably expecting Pol to dutifully follow, which he did. They walked to a stairway and then down to a basement area lit with magician lights.
“New acolyte,” Wissem said to another priest sitting behind a counter reading a novel. Pol got his hair ruffled again. “See you around Cissert.”
Pol gave the man the paper that the priest upstairs had given him. He showed Pol what was on the paper. Pol laughed along with the priest when he saw a stick figure holding a broom along with a crude approximation of the Demron symbol above his head.
The priest nodded at Pol. “You’ll need a sense of humor around here. Everybody is a jokester. Wissem, who showed you the way, does his share, but he’s a bit better than the rest of us. Since you are both Terilanders, he might give you some tips.”
Pol thought that might be the case, but the priests’ looseness made him smile. These men were quite different from the self-important monks he knew at the Tesna Monastery.
“Stand away from the counter.”
Pol did as the priest asked and raised his arms.
“Do you want to wear those boots? They look well broken-in.”
Pol shrugged his shoulders. “Sure.”
“I’ll give you an extra robe, then.” The priest stacked two robes on the counter and a thin red book. “Name?”
“Pol Cissert” Pol spelled it for him. “These are the scriptures?”
The priest nodded. “Along with the rules. Read them well.” He scribbled on a paper and showed Pol that it had writing on it. “Oh, you can read?”
“I can do okay.”
The priest tossed a thicker well-worn book on the stack. “That is a dictionary. Learn it, and then give it back. Understand?” The man gave Pol an exaggerated smile. “Fourth floor has the acolyte’s barracks. You do know you won’t be paid for the first six months?”
Pol shrugged. “I can make do if I have a place to eat and sleep.”
“Good.”
Pol looked at the slip of paper, and it actually had real writing on it. He nodded to the priest and climbed up five flights of stairs and stood in front of a young priest sitting behind an old, old desk.
“Pol Cissert. I’m a new acolyte.” He held his new robes and books with one hand and balanced them while he laid the paper on the desk.
“Cissert, eh?” The monk wrote Pol’s name on a register. “Can you do magic?”
“A little. I noticed the basement was lit with magician lights.”
“You can make those?”
Pol nodded. “And a few other things.”
“Why wasn’t that mentioned on this?”
“No one asked, I guess,” Pol said, trying to act a bit naive.
The priest grunted. “Cell number 8 down that hallway.” The priest pointed to his left.
Pol wondered if there would be a cell number 8, but indeed there was. He didn’t see a lock on the door. Pol’s purse held only a few Gekelmaran coins, anyway. He stashed the books on a shelf that ran the width of his bed. The room was so narrow there wasn’t space for a chair, only a nightstand with two shelves. He placed one robe on one shelf and put on the other. He walked back to the front desk with his scriptures in hand.
“Where do I go now?”
“On the fifth floor there is a walkway to the cathedral. Take that. There is another in the basement. Walk down the stairs in the cathedral and see the duty priest at the bottom. Give him this.”
Pol took the folded paper and opened it. Another stick figure holding a broom, but this one had a few wavy lines coming from its fingers.
He thought they might be a little more creative. He showed it to the priest. “I’ve already been given one of these.”
The young man glared at Pol. “The duty priest can’t read.”
Pol look deflated. “Oh. I’ll go right now.”
“Please do.”
Pol walked up the stairs to the fifth level. The surroundings were much better. He strolled through the halls and noticed much nicer cells on this level. The walkway was fully enclosed with windows on the side that didn’t look out on the square.
Pol stood at the top of the stairs and used his locator sense. No one inhabited the top floor at the present time. There were a few priests on the fourth floor. From the spacing of the people, there seemed to be cells on that floor, too. There was a large conference room on the third floor. No one was inside, but Pol located a space behind a tapestry of Demron wearing his pointed hat and blessing some farmers. He slipped in and found a peephole into the conference room. He would have to always check to see if anything was going on in the conference room when he passed.
The second floor must have offices with some of the blue dots moving around, while others were still. He descended to the first floor and found a monk standing at a counter.
“I am Cissert and have come to serve,” he said.
“I am Dorrok, and I am serving.” He held out his hand for the paper. If the man couldn’t read, it didn’t affect his thinking.
“Ah, you get cleaning duty, and all for the greater glory of Demron.”
Pol nodded. “For the greater glory of Demron.”
Dorrok spied the scriptures. “You can leave those here while you work and read it on your breaks. He pushed over a pencil. “Make your mark inside.”
Pol wrote his name on the inside cover and gave the pencil back.
“Now what do I do?”
“Read your scriptures on that bench until one of the senior priests walks past. We have to test magicians who come here.”
“What can I expect?”
“Do I look like a magician?”
“I’m not sure that anyone looks like a magician. They are just regular people, aren’t they?”
Dorrok shrugged. “It’s strange that a Terilander would have magical talent. Few of you possess any magical talent at all.”
“I’m not from Teriland, and my parents aren’t either.”
“Suit yourself. You’re just trying to move up in the hierarchy at the expense of those of us who have no talent. It won’t get you out of any cleaning, mind you. The first three years is all grunt work.”
Dorrok snorted and went back to whatever he was doing, and to Pol, it looked like Dorrok was drawing naughty pictures on a piece of paper.
A number of priests passed. Dorrok stopped one of them. “New man. Says he has magic.”
“We’ll see,” the priest said. He stopped to look at Pol, who stood up. “Come with me.”
They walked up to the second floor and through a door. Desks filled the first room, but doors lined two sides.
The man opened one of the doors with a simple key. “Inside, please.”
Pol walked in and stood by one of two chairs facing an ancient desk made of thick wood, stained red.
“What can you do?”
Pol didn’t quite know how to respond, so he shrugged his shoulders. “I can make a magician’s light.”
“Show me.”
Pol produced a small, but bright blue light.
“You weren’t lying.”
“Why should I, sir?”
“Magic gets you a few extra opportunities in the priesthood. You’ve been trained. A raw magician doesn’t understand order well enough to produce a light.”
“Order?”
“You might have learned it as ‘tweaking’? That is a popular term used.”
Pol tried to look more at ease. “Tweaking the pattern,” he said. Pol was tempted to show this priest something, but he didn’t look as much of a jokester as some of the other priests he had met.
“Right. What else can you do?”
“I can move things, but large items drain me. A retired Se
eker from Eastril taught me to locate.”
“What is that?”
“I can see people as dots and see them move around.”
“What good does that do? All you have to do is open your eyes.”
“On the other side of walls? It’s hard to pick up animals, but I can locate large ones. It’s helpful when hunting.”
“What is there to hunt around here?”
“The Seeker used to hunt men.”
The priest looked alarmed. Pol broke into laughter. “Scared you, didn’t I?”
That brought a weary look from Pol’s interrogator. “You’ll fit in just fine in the cathedral.”
~
Despite demonstrating his magical talent, Pol was sent back to Dorrok. “I’m all finished. Now can I get to work?”
Pol grinned at the priest, who looked even more tired than Pol’s magic tester.
“I’m giving you stair duty, something that you should know. Grab a mop and a bucket. You mop your way from the top of these stairs to the bottom every night. You won’t get anything to eat until after you’ve done your work.”
“Where do I eat?” Pol said.
“Second floor in the Annex.”
“Annex?”
“The building where your cell is.” Dorrok put his hand over his eyes as if the brief conversation taxed him.
“Oh. The Annex. Where do I get my mop and bucket?”
“Basement.” Dorrok pointed to the stairs that went down.
Pol descended to the basement. He enjoyed bantering with Dorrok. He could imagine a worse life, if he was an idle sort of person.
He met another young acolyte. This one had pimples all over his face.
“I’m Pol Cissert.”
“Venit. You just come on?”
Pol nodded.
“What do I do until night? I’m tasked for stair duty.”
Venit shook his head. “That is the worse duty in the cathedral. Make sure you eat first, or all of the food will be gone.”
“Dorrok said I couldn’t have a meal until I was done.”
Venit laughed. “Dorrok is a dry one. You’ll get used to his humor. All the guys here fancy themselves jokesters.”
“Are you a jokester?” Pol asked.
“I’m not very good, but I’m learning.” Venit grinned.
“What do I do until I mop the stairs?”
Venit shrugged. “Read your scriptures. They gave you the real ones, didn’t they? Little red book?”
Pol nodded. “I also showed them my magic.”
“You’re a magician? They won’t have you in the cathedral for very long. Magicians and swordsmen get put on special duty.”
Pol saw the pattern. “Cathedral guards?”
Venit nodded. “The best fighting force in Gekelmar. We like to call them the Gekelmar Goons.” Venit laughed to himself. They call themselves the Defenders of Demron.”
“Goons is better, until I become one,” Pol said.
“You don’t have a problem fighting?”
“As long it’s the right cause, and I can’t think of a better one that to fight for Demron.”
“Right.” Venit said, looking skeptical.
Pol didn’t like that. That looked like the Goons weren’t fighting for Demron alone. He climbed up to the first floor and found a bench underneath one of the square windows that peppered the walls of the cathedral.
The red scriptures didn’t quite match the copy that Shira bought. There weren’t any basic doctrinal differences, but he couldn’t find all of the inane platitudes that made up most of the brown scriptures. Pol read about the purpose of Demron’s slumber and that he would rise again.
It was plain that the priesthood was strictly an all-male organization. That didn’t bother Pol since the sexes had monasteries and nunneries in the Empire, but then that was for practical social issues rather than a total ban on one or the other sex.
The rest was the kind of ‘do right, follow orders’ that made up the core of a lot of religions in the Empire. He did read the section on the Defenders of Demron, the military unit of the priesthood. They were to protect the interests of the priesthood, but Pol didn’t see any mention of helping the congregation.
He could see the Defenders, the Gekelmar Goons, as Venit joked, being abused by the leaders of the priesthood without violating the strictures of the red book. Pol added the Defenders of Demron to his pattern of the priesthood, and his quick analysis told him that they were a force similar to the Pontifer’s Hounds.
Pol didn’t note the requirement of taking an oath or anything that would make his departure from the priesthood heresy.
“Cissert.” Dorrok called to Pol from across the cathedral.
Pol closed the book and walked over to the priest.
“You will be a messenger during the day, until you are called to do something else.”
That something else meant being drafted into the Goons, Pol thought.
“Report to Priest Wissem on the second floor. He asked for you specifically. I suppose because you are countrymen.”
“I’m not from Teriland,” Pol said.
“Neither is Wissem. He’s from Bossom, just like you said you were.”
Pol nodded, quite speechless from the revelation. Wissem had purposely spoken with a broken accent. He shook his head and smiled. Pol considered himself to have a decent sense of humor, but nothing prepared him for the Demron priests, and he categorized Wissem’s testing as deception.
He found Wissem at a desk in the open section.
“Cissert here to help. I live to serve,” Pol said.
Wissem grinned. “Sounds like some kind of oath. Have a seat.”
Pol took the single hard chair at the side of Wissem’s desk.
“What do you know about the treasure hunters?”
“Not much. There is a Cave of Demron somewhere in the Penchappy Mountains. People have been searching for years and haven’t found it.” Pol shrugged. “Probably a tale.”
“It’s not a tale,” Wissem said. “We think we have found it.” Wissem shook his head. “I find it hard to believe myself. You know all of the relics around the resting place are phony.”
“I suspected as much,” Pol said. “I wondered why there would be relics when the sleeping chamber is sealed?”
“How do you know it’s sealed?” Wissem asked. From the priest’s posture, he was intrigued by Pol’s comment.
Pol had gone too far from his country bumpkin role, but he had known smart enough country bumpkins at Deftnis.
“From the little bit I could see of the clothes, there is no dust and the cloth is intact. If the chamber wasn’t sealed, the face would be covered in dust and the cloth would be in shreds.”
Wissem nodded. “You’re a smart little Terilander.”
“I’m not from Teriland.”
“Well you’re not from Bossom, since that is where I’m from.”
Pol was forewarned, so he just shrugged. “You don’t speak Bossomian very well,” Pol said in the Bossom language.
“It was all a —“ Pol didn’t know the word Wissem used.
“I don’t know what it all was,” Pol said. “I’m not familiar with the word you used.”
Wissem smiled. “I used a miner’s curse word.” He ruffled Pol’s hair. “You’re okay, but your father didn’t work the mines, or you would have heard that word all the time.”
“My father died young and my mother had to raise me. We didn’t really live in a mining town, but in a village on the edge of the badlands, still not far from the foothills.”
“Badlands?”
“That’s what the people in the village called the terrain at the northern edge of Bossom.”
“That makes sense,” Wissem said. He looked intently at Pol. “You are more that what you seem.”
“I’ve been told that before,” Pol said, and that comment was definitely true. “I’ve also been told that I’m too smart for my own good, but when you’re in a farming community,
too smart is a relative term.” Pol struggled to get that out in proper Bossomian.
“Enough with the Bossomian. I’m convinced. There are enough border settlements that profess secularism, but worship Demron.”
Pol nodded, but kept his mouth shut.
“Here is the dispatch. We’ll be working together from now on. I only work in the afternoons. I assume you can write?”
“My Terilan isn’t perfect, but I can make do.”
“You speak it well enough.”
Pol nodded again. He expected he’d be doing a lot of that for the next while. “Fifth floor in the annex, Office Number 4. Just slip it under the door if it isn’t open.”
Pol looked up and down the stairs on the third level and slipped in the little alcove. He didn’t locate anyone in the conference room, but wanted to check it out. A priest was coming down the stairs, so Pol waited for him to pass before he ran up to the fifth level.
The office was closed, so Pol slipped the message under the door and returned to Wissem.
“Where did you go?” Wissem asked.
“Up and down the stairs.”
“I asked a priest if he met you and he said he didn’t.”
“I wandered around the cells on the fourth level,” Pol said. “I didn’t take long.”
“Oh.”
That seemed to placate Wissem. Pol didn’t have the latitude that he’d had in other places. He hoped he’d be out of the cathedral before a week passed.
“You didn’t read the message?”
“Was I supposed to?”
Wissem shifted his gaze away from Pol. “No. Not at all.”
Pol sat down. “What do I deliver next?”
“This goes to Office Three on the fourth cathedral floor. It’s opposite from the cells.”
Pol delivered the message and didn’t read it either. He spent the rest of the afternoon trudging up and down the stairs. He recognized that he could get some exercise in, so he began to run up and down the steps.
He returned from his last message and found the second floor empty. Pol restrained from looking through Wissem’s desk. If there were an alcove for spying so blatantly along the corridor, then he wouldn’t put it past the priests to have spy holes looking at him right now.
His stomach rumbled, so Pol walked down to the basement, crossed underneath the pavement to the Annex, and entered the commissary on the second floor. He spotted Venit eating by himself, so Pol walked through a buffet line and sat down in front of the acolyte.
