Stillbright

by Daniel M Ford

  He covered his sudden embarrassed distraction by having another sip of the wine, letting its dry and strong flavors fill his mouth.

  Cerisia gave him a moment’s quarter and, setting her wine down, laced her fingers under her chin to turn her attention to Torvul. “Mourmitnourthrukacshtorvul,” she said. “What brings one of your people into this new faith? And where is the rest of your caravan?”

  Torvul cleared his throat and met her gaze evenly. “I’ve no caravan. Not for years now.”

  She sat straighter in her chair, lips pursed faintly. “How does one of your folk lose their caravan? Surely you weren’t cast out. From what I know, that is a criminal punishment.”

  “I was,” Torvul replied bluntly. “Yet what you know of my kind, and our caravans, probably couldn’t fill this cup, Archioness—which, by the by, is sadly empty,” he added, lifting it and gesturing at the wine-bearer. “We’re a closemouthed folk, by and large, and what passes for crime among us might be quite different than among you and yours.” The servant moved around the table, smoothly pouring a fresh measure into Torvul’s cup.

  The dwarf sipped and smiled broadly. “That’s better. Now as to your first question, Archioness—I’m among this faith because this one here saved me from hanging,” Torvul said, grinning all the while, and then pointing with the rim of his cup to Allystaire.

  Cerisia laughed lightly and looked to Allystaire. “There’s a story to be told there, I’m sure. Stories sprout around you like mushrooms after a rain—of thieves bested, folk rescued, vile knights whose bodies are shattered by the force of your lance blow.”

  “Don’t forget the gravekling whose head he stove in weaponless,” Torvul rumbled. “Crushed it like you or I might a raw egg. That does make me hunger; is supper on its way?”

  That threw her once again, and so as Mol and Idgen Marte began trying to put a solid dent in their pitcher of beer, Cerisia recovered with a sip of wine before speaking to Torvul again. “Torvul— may I call you familiar in this way?” The alchemist nodded, and she went on. “I would be remiss if I did not ask. Just what gods do your people venerate? I have heard so little on the topic and all of it very confused and confusing—Braech? Fortune? Urdaran? I have heard it said you worship stone, but of course that is all nonsense.”

  “Not stone, but ores. Metal. And to a lesser extent, gems.”

  “Surely you do not worship gold?” Cerisia’s question echoed the thoughts rolling in Allystaire’s own head.

  “Well, I don’t. Anymore.” Torvul paused to let that sink in as he had a slightly more moderate sip of his wine. Then he pressed on.

  “And worship is probably the wrong word. Different ores embody different ideals that dwarfs strive to attain. Silver, for example. Soft and beautiful. A good silversmith can turn out work to rival any goldsmith, if only because he’s likely to get more practice. Silver, though, is more practical than gold, y’see? You can work it into things that are of some use, rather than things you just wish to stare at and polish once or twice a day. Makes good medicine, for example. Many dwarfs who venerate the spirits of silver—they want to do useful things in a beautiful way. Help their caravan and make it look better at the same time. Silver has a very feminine principle, I suppose, and I mean that as the highest compliment to the ladies at the table,” he added, running roughshod over the follow up questions Cerisia was clearly yearning to ask, and lifting his cup, so that everyone was obliged to follow suit.

  Allystaire was inwardly thankful for the excuse Torvul gave him to take another mouthful of wine, as well as the respite from Cerisia’s attention. Even with the way the priestess had thrown his thinking off, a part of him still pondered Torvul’s words. That was more lore about dwarfs than I think I have ever heard from him.

  A brief silence reigned till Mol stood up, gave a fractional nod of her head to excuse herself, and disappeared into the kitchen. “Be back with supper,” was all she offered by way of explanation.

  “Wherever did you find this girl?” Cerisia murmured, mingling admiration and disbelief. “One moment she is a child and the next she is an ancient sibyl.”

  “Well,” Allystaire began, letting one fingertip rest lightly on the base of his cup, “since you asked, I found her right here.” He gestured with his chin towards the newly erected wooden bar, with a rack of barrels behind it and a shelf full of smaller spirit casks bracketed to the wall above them. “In the cold well, with the village a smoking charnel house.”

  He couldn’t help but feel like a point had been scored when the Archioness’s back straightened and her eyes—which he was grateful he could only make out the shape and not the color of—blinked in confusion. “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “The village folk had been set upon by reavers—some taken, but many, especially those who resisted, slaughtered and burned upon the green. Mol’s father hid her in the cold well. I heard her cries as I rode into the village, following the smoke.” Allystaire shrugged, lifted his wine cup, and drank. When he set the cup down, Cerisia was still looking at him, puzzled.

  “Then how is the village peopled once more? How do buildings stand? Who came back?”

  “As many of the folk as were alive when Allystaire found them,” Mol said as she emerged from the kitchen, bearing a tray that looked too big for her, yet she managed it to the table and set it down without help. It bore two huge pies, the slits in their brown crusts releasing a wonderfully scented steam, a stack of simple wooden bowls, and a large spoon. “Beef and onion in ale gravy,” Mol said, pointing to one pie, “and hen and leek with prune,” she added, pointing to the other. “Mind the steam.”

  The girl picked up the spoon and held it out to the Archioness, who took it uncertainly, then decided to hand it off to the male servant at her left hand. Mol frowned, not bothering to hide the expression, and sat.

  “Are you so accustomed to being served that you cannot put food in your own bowl?” Mol waited till the servant was done putting delicate portions in Cerisia’s bowl, then took the spoon and ladled herself a sizable serving, holding the spoon out to Idgen Marte afterwards.

  “Part of the duty of my students is to attend me,” Cerisia noted, just barely keeping a defensive tone out of her words. “And to learn service and etiquette that way. I did so myself when I was younger. However, your words do make a point. Few of us should ever be so exalted so as not to serve. I did bring a few delicacies with me for the meal. Do you mind?”

  Mol shook her head, not speaking an answer aloud, for her mouth was full of steaming, savory pie. Allystaire’s was as well, having dished more of it up onto his bowl than anyone else at the table, though Torvul was a close second. He ignored the steaming heat with the aplomb of a man who’d often had cold food, and too little of it, but he did watch as Cerisia stood and went to her basket.

  Cold take me, it has been a long time, Allystaire thought, then lowered his face and tried to bury his thoughts in beef pie, blindly reaching into the bread basket and seizing a loaf to sop the ale and onion gravy. Beef’s good, he told himself. Maybe not as good as…

  His thoughts were interrupted as fingertips landed lightly on his shoulder. He glanced up and got an eyeful of the pale, smooth expanse of Cerisia’s neck as she placed a tiny bowl in front of him.

  “Fish roe,” she explained. “A luxury from my home.” Two other similar bowls had been placed upon the table. Allystaire reached for the one nearest him, though he paused and his shoulders tensed as soft, manicured fingertips just lightly brushed across the skin of his neck as Cerisia retreated to her own seat.

  The bowl was cool, light, and smooth to the touch. He held it closer to a lamp that descended from a crossbeam and saw the light shimmer across its surface. A miniature spoon was thrust into a mass of tiny black dots. “Is this made of—”

  “Nacre, yes,” she answered, anticipating his question. “Purists believe that anything else can spoil the flavo
r. Please do try some. It is only rarely transported this far inland.”

  “Well,” Allystaire said with a gentle shrug as he carefully set the bowl down, trying without much success to grasp the spoon between forefinger and thumb without looking like an oaf, “we do not see much in the way of saltwater fish in my home. But,” he added, finally getting a grip and coaxing some of the stuff into the shallow spot on the spoon, “an old campaigner never turns down food.”

  Idgen Marte had already eagerly put a spoonful into her mouth. Eyes closed, she savored it, tongue moving behind her cheeks. Allystaire plunged the spoonful into his mouth. The explosion of salt on his tongue and the half-liquid half-solid texture were welcome. Bit too delicate for a proper food, though, he thought, even as he chewed and swallowed.

  He inclined his head, gratefully, as he swallowed the last, jellied scraps. Cerisia smiled warmly and he felt her eyes linger on him as he turned his attention back to his meal.

  “From what I remember of Keersvast,” Idgen Marte said as she pushed the half-empty bowl of roe towards Mol, who eyed it uncertainly, “that much good quality roe could pay a small fisherman’s license and catch tax for a year.”

  “Perhaps with enough left over for a bribe or two as well,” Cerisia said, chuckling.

  The room suddenly chilled for Allystaire, as though a window were thrown open and the warmth sucked away. “That much?” An angry note thrummed through him as he spoke, deadening his voice. Questions abounded in his head. Was the right fish difficult to catch? How much profit could the man who caught it make? Why would a fisherman need to bribe anyone?

  The effect was noticeable. Cerisia turned to him, stiffened. Mol’s voice sounded in his head, a resounding, Do not!

  “Have I given offense, Lord Allystaire?” The Archioness’s voice was careful, teetering on a display of wounded affection.

  Allystaire swallowed a mouthful of pie and tried to choke down his anger with it. “Not at all, Cerisia,” he murmured, though how much conviction he managed to put in the words he did not know. “Simply raised questions.”

  “Questions we may explore another time,” Mol smoothly put in as her spoon clattered into an empty bowl, which she pondered a moment, before reaching for the serving spoon.

  Allystaire sopped his bowl clean with fresh bread, filled it again and emptied it the same, as the Archioness traded investigative gambits disguised as inanities with Idgen Marte, Mol, and Torvul. His mind still seethed, if more as a faint, glowing ember than a truly roaring furnace. The extravagance, he thought aimlessly. Does she think to buy us with luxuries? Has she any conception of what we are, what we do, whom we serve? Clearly she knows some, but how much?

  Finally, with the large pie plates more emptied than Allystaire might have expected, they all sat back, sated. Cups were refilled. Torvul produced a long sliver of polished bone and began to pick his teeth with it.

  Mol leaned forward in her chair, hands steepling beneath her chin.

  “We have shared meat, salt, and beer at table together now, Archioness. You are our guest, and entitled to all rights and protections of hospitality. I believe I am entitled to ask a question now.”

  Cerisia nodded gravely, a loose tendril of hair spilling forward onto her neck. “Of course, child.”

  Mol frowned at being called child, but let it pass, sitting straight up. “To what purpose have you come to the Mother’s people and Her Temple? What ends do you pursue by assailing the mysteries of Her Ordained with your subtle questions?”

  Cerisia smiled. “It is quite simple. The Arch-Council of Fortune’s Temple believes there is a very strong possibility that this Mother of whom you speak is, in point of fact, a newly discovered,” she paused, searching for a word, “facet of the Goddess Fortune Herself.”

  The explosion of angry noise nearly drove Cerisia out of her seat in fright, as Allystaire leapt to his feet, one balled fist pounding the table so hard that wine cups spilled and an empty nacre bowl flew off the table and shattered. He roared in a nearly wordless rage, uncertain and uncaring of precisely what he said.

  He was not the only one, either. Torvul leapt to his feet, as had Idgen Marte. The clatter of chairs falling and voices mingling in anger made any words indiscernible, though Cerisia tried to answer in her defense. Her male servant suddenly stepped in front of her chair and drew a knife from his belt.

  Allystaire’s hammer was halfway into his hands before he knew it, but Idgen Marte was, as she always had been, faster. Her arm was a blur and her blade moving in the air in the time it took for him to think of drawing steel.

  “Silence.”

  The single word that left Mol’s lips was not spoken at a volume or a pitch that should have cut through the noise, yet it did, carrying enormous power with it. Allystaire felt his own voice strangled into nothingness. He could breathe, yes, but he could make no sound. He saw, from the startled expressions on the faces of Fortune’s servants, that it had done the same to them. Idgen Marte frowned, but did not lower her blade.

  Mol remained seated, the only one to do so, and somehow a common peasant’s chair became a seat of office, occupied not by an eleven year-old child, but by a priestess of sober and powerful mien, her eyes practically flashing with radiant anger.

  “Put up your weapons and be seated.”

  Allystaire was back in his seat, hammer on his belt, without thinking about it.

  Cerisia’s two acolytes, for whom no chairs were provided, suddenly folded their legs under them upon the ground.

  Voice of the Mother, Allystaire thought in wonderment as silence spread throughout the room.

  “So like the Sea Dragon, the Mistress of Wealth would seek to make the Mother subordinate. To control Her, and we Her Servants—”

  “It is not about…” Cerisia spoke up, voiced meek and strained.

  “I did not give you leave to speak,” Mol suddenly snapped, leaning forward in her chair. “When I am finished you may respond.”

  Cerisia straightened in her own chair, skin drawing tight across her cheeks as her jaw quivered in what Allystaire estimated was her first display of genuine anger. She rallied herself somehow.

  “I will not be ordered about by a child—”

  “You are being ordered by the Voice of the Mother in the very place where the Mother woke in this world, where She spoke to me, the place where She and I are strongest. In this I will be obeyed. Test me at your peril.”

  The two priestesses locked eyes for but a moment. Anger and power radiated from Mol in waves that Allystaire could feel pressing against his senses. The two acolytes looked to one another. Allystaire saw the fake beggar’s hand move uncertainly towards his belt and tightened his fist reflexively. He thought to reach for his hammer, but his fingers brushed his iron-studded gloves. He pulled them free of his belt and laid them carefully on the table. He made sure the studs thudded dully and loudly against the wood.

  The man looked up, going half into a crouch, saw the gloves, lamplight flickering off the studs. Then he saw Allystaire’s huge, scarred knuckles clenched on the table behind them, and his eyes finally climbed to the paladin’s face.

  Allystaire reached for a glove and tugged it onto his right hand, flexing his fingers into a fist, then out and back again, leather creaking.

  The acolyte sat back down and folded his hands together in his lap.

  Meanwhile, Mol spoke. “Do you act out of simple fear of what the Mother’s rise might mean? Or is this a part of some longer game, some stratagem?”

  “Everything is part of a longer game,” Cerisia said, her voice slightly weary. “And to suggest that a tiny temple in a hinterland village where something is worshipped by three score peasants could be a threat to Fortune’s church is absurd. What I come offering is your only chance of survival.”

  “Explain,” Mol said, drawing her hands into her lap.

  “This is how T
emple politics work,” Cerisia began. “New cults spring up more often than you would think. Take this fad for worshipping the Elvish Green, as if any of the fools going to its rented Temples even understood what the concept even means. It will die off. In a year or two the dilettantes who run those Temples will lose interest, or their parents will cease to pay for it, and it will melt away.”

  Mol snorted. “No one is funding us in the first place, so it can hardly vanish.”

  “That’s part of your problem,” Cerisia replied. “Yet I digress. New gods, new goddesses—they arrive and they disappear. If they survive at all, it is because we absorb them. Fortune, Urdaran, and Braech are the godheads of this world. Their worship has gone unbroken, undaunted, as long as there are records. Other spirits might claim divinity, or have it claimed on their behalf, yet in the end they are shown to be aspects or servants of one of the true three.”

  Mol smiled. “Urdaran tells his flock to turn a blind eye, literally, to the suffering around them, to focus on a peace in the next world. The Mother demands that we work to alleviate suffering as we find it. Braech is merely strength calling to strength, all bluster and noise and lust. The Mother tells us that strength is often an accident of birth, that mercy and charity are no kind of sin. Fortune concerns Herself with the wealth of the world. How much do you believe the Mother cares for gold or gemmary? Can they be eaten? Planted? Used to comfort the weak or the dying or the oppressed?”

  As the rest of the room sat in rapt stillness, Cerisia raised a hand. “Fortune does not seek wealth for wealth’s sake, nor is the gain of it the end of those who serve Her. If it were, we would not count being miserly a sin—and we do. Wealth, treasure, power, riches, these things are as rivers, meant to flow towards all who mean to work along their banks. Perhaps,” she allowed, lowering her hand and adopting a reasonable tone, “it is that they have been damned up or diverted too long from too many. Perhaps this is why a new aspect of Fortune has arisen, demanding that they be freed up again.”