“And they know you’re looking for it too, so they’re trailing anyone wearing Iomedae’s sigil in the hope that we’ll lead them to it?” Keren surmised.
“That’s basically the shape of it. Expect to be followed. Trust no one who asks you about your business here, or who cozies up to you for any reason. If you identify the spies watching you, do not engage them; leave that to us. Your position is strategic, so let’s keep our advantage for now. And for your own sake, the less you know, the more honestly you can claim to know nothing.”
Keren and Zae exchanged a glance. Keren recalled the random woman in the Coins who had corrected their guide, and wondered how random that had truly been. Had that been another agent keeping tabs on the first? If so, then Tezryn’s demise would already be known to the rest of them. She related this to Yenna. “Should we still go about our business?”
“Yes, absolutely. We’re following up on many rumors and leads; you can aid us best by continuing as you’ve begun: if they consider you involved, you’ll be a helpful distraction, leading them down dead alleys.”
Keren winced at her phrasing, but only nodded. “Let them follow us, and don’t engage.”
Yenna didn’t seem to notice Keren’s wince. “These people are not afraid to die, and they have a variety of poisonous defenses they employ to take their enemies out with them. If cornered, they might explode, or dissolve to acid, or spread virulent disease.”
“Tezryn used no such defenses.”
“Theirs is a highly compartmentalized order, with different cells having specific functions. The agent you met was likely supposed to sound out whether you were informed and report back, not to take your life.”
“She’s right,” Zae said, nodding slowly. “She said she was going to torture it out of you, which means she had to take us alive … or leave us alive. Promising us to those ghouls was supposed to frighten us into talking. We were ghoul-food only if we didn’t know anything.”
They shared a few moments of uncomfortable silence. Keren didn’t feel she needed more time in which to contemplate the various possible means of her own messy demise, but if Yenna had wanted to impress upon her the importance of not setting out on her own personal undead-hunting mission, she had succeeded. “Thank you for the warning, priestess. I will do my best not to engage.”
“Good.” Yenna rose to her feet. “Settle into your lodgings and report to your training sessions tomorrow as planned. Keep an eye out for people watching you, but don’t acknowledge them. If you have any further incidents like today’s, report them directly to me.”
Keren rose as well. “Yes, ma’am. We’ll help you recover the artifact however we can.”
“Let’s not overreach. We have our top investigators on the chase. Just do your best to not get killed, Crusader.”
4
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
ZAE
Once Yenna left, the acolytes provided Keren and Zae with provisions and maps, and they made their way back down the main hall of the vast cathedral. At the cobblestones just outside, however, Keren let out a startled cry and fell to her knees.
Zae rushed to Keren’s side. “Keren? What is it? Keren!”
The knight didn’t seem to notice her there. She stared into the distance, tears glinting brightly in her eyes. Zae scanned their surroundings for shadowy foes, then hurried to check Keren’s back and arms for projectiles.
“Don’t worry, miss.” The dwarf who had admitted them into the church joined her at Keren’s other side and rested a knowing hand on her shoulder. “Happens all the time.”
Keren, oblivious to them, pulled her sword and knelt more deliberately, bowing over it in prayer. When Zae met the guard’s eye again, he jerked forward and up with his chin.
Ahead, mere blocks away, a gigantic white glacier of a temple rose to a single spire’s point far above them. Zae suddenly had a hundred questions all at once for the two guards, but decided to start with the most practical one.
“We haven’t formally met. I’m Sister Zae of Brigh, and my dog is Appleslayer. And you?”
The grizzled dwarf bowed smoothly, without as much as a creak from his armor. “Sword Knight Barent Arjun. My companion is Corin Elias.”
“Sword Knight Arjun, this large edifice that has my companion speechless is…?”
“That’s the Starstone Cathedral. Raised by the great god Aroden himself at the founding of Absalom, and where our own Lady Iomedae ascended to her godhood.”
“And … you said many people do this? With the falling, and the praying, and the tears?”
“Usually more tears than this, but yes.”
“All right. So, here’s my question.” She stepped around Keren and put both her hands on her beloved’s shoulders. When Keren was aware enough of the gnome to meet her eyes, Zae continued. “How could you possibly have missed this when we came in?”
Barent’s smile was gentle, and his own glance toward the cathedral was full of reverence. “More easily than you might think. Just give your knight a minute and she’ll be fine.”
Keren’s wide eyes seemed to offer their agreement. Reluctantly, Zae eased back a few steps. She and Barent rejoined at the doorway, watching in companionable silence.
It was several minutes, all told, before Keren sighed, wiped her eyes on her cloak, and got to her feet. “I was so focused on delivering the body, and finding the church, and what might happen next … I guess I was barely aware of anything else.”
Corin, the human guard, smiled. “It’s more common than not. Don’t worry yourself over it. If I may, I recommend going up to the edge and letting yourself be awed a few moments more. Get it out of the way now, so that it doesn’t strike you at an inconvenient moment.”
Keren bowed her thanks, and Appleslayer, recognizing Keren’s bow as a gesture which signaled that they were soon to be departing, came to attention and wagged his plumed tail.
Zae settled herself in Apple’s saddle and they started off. The gnome waited until they were around the corner from the church, following Yenna’s map, before speaking. “Do you want to pass by the cathedral now, like they suggested?”
Keren shook her head. “I think I want to get where we’re going and have a long bath.”
“I know that look. It’s the one that means your brains are full.”
Keren grinned wanly. “More full than I expected. I mean, Iomedae was a Knight of Ozem before she ascended. She trained at Overwatch, just as I did. She walked the streets of Vigil, same as I have my whole life. So why is it that being here, walking the streets she walked and seeing the sites of her holy acts, is so much different? All right, that’s the place where she ascended to godhood. That’s pretty overwhelming. But to me, when I’ve slept in her barracks and trained in her yards?”
“Because it’s new?” Zae offered. “Those things have always been landmarks for you. These things represent a part of her life you’ve never traced before. Besides, in Vigil she was a mortal. After Absalom, she was a god. Don’t you think that’s going to feel a little different to you?”
Keren didn’t answer, dipping her eyes as if the map was suddenly fascinating. “I think we turn here.”
When Keren evaded a question like that, it was never wise to press her on it until she was ready, so Zae tried to come up with something else to say in the meantime. Their path led them out of the Ascendant Court and into the winding streets of a more residential area. Row houses stood gleaming like ladies at a ball, in contrast to the tired, leaning buildings they’d seen on the outskirts of the Coins. “That whole thing about where they’re housing us—what Tezryn said—that was a lie?”
“I think so. There is a Foreign Quarter, but it’s on the other side of the city. We’re on the border of the Merchants’ Quarter, which is where the Clockwork Cathedral is. It looks like it’ll be a convenient location for both of us.”
“The order doesn’t house their visitors near the church?”
“That’s what I expected, too. Maybe
it’s cheaper out here.”
Zae glanced around. “Maybe with all that’s going on, they want us to be away from interested eyes. Like the ones a block back—did you see them?”
Keren shook her head. “If they want us to be decoys, hiding us away from interested eyes doesn’t make sense. And I did see those eyes, but I think they were just interested because they were children and you’re a gnome riding a dog with a saddle.”
Zae had to concede that this was possible.
“Here, I think this is our street.”
A crescent of stone row houses huddled together around a cobbled courtyard, sharing their side walls in common. At the courtyard’s center was a lumpy bronze statue of, as near as Zae could tell, a precarious tower of overripe oranges. To add indignity, the statue turned out to be a fountain. Zae dismounted, wincing.
“What is it?” Keren asked. “Do you sense evil?”
“No … but I think I’ve just detected ugly.”
Keren and Appleslayer went ahead with the keys while Zae examined the fountain. No angle of viewing improved its odd visage, which Zae was surprised to find mildly reassuring. She might have been obligated to feel ashamed if the sculpture had resolved into the likeness of someone famous or important.
Delaying also gave Zae the opportunity to scout out the neighbors. One elderly woman across the street came to her window and parted the curtains, watching Keren unlock the door. A young man with long braids paused in the sweeping of his family’s stoop to do the same, canting his head like an interested little bird.
Zae supposed Keren’s wisdom might still hold true. These were probably just people who lived here, as naturally curious about strangers as Zae was about them.
She dipped her fingers in the fountain’s cool water. “Public artwork always enhances a neighborhood, don’t you think?” she asked the boy with the broom.
“If you call that art, you’re touched in the head,” he answered.
“I’ve been accused of worse.”
The boy looked confused but didn’t offer any further conversation, so neither did Zae. She found herself wondering again what made the missing artifact so important, but there were more immediate things needing her attention. Drying her fingers on her breeches, she went off to help Keren unpack.
Inside, the flat reminded Zae of a home she’d briefly occupied in Wispil, though scaled up to human size. The front room was spacious and rectangular, with a hearth built into the left-hand wall, a dining table pleasingly centered, and a parlor to the right. Straight through, past the table, was an archway with a rounded-top door, currently open to a single bedroom. Appleslayer had already made himself at home under the table, resting with his front legs extended in front of him on the floor and his tail thumping eagerly, as if waiting for his dinner.
“Cozy, isn’t it?” Zae asked him. He responded to her voice with a pleased whuff.
“Impressive,” Keren answered from the doorway. “I was expecting barracks, or a dormitory. This is very generous. I certainly wasn’t expecting this much privacy.”
Zae glanced meaningfully toward the front window. “Yes … if you can call it that.” She shook herself and joined Keren in the bedroom, climbing up on the bed to act the squire and help Keren out of her breastplate. “The neighbors are curious about us. I hope the last guests of Iomedae to lodge here weren’t drunk and destructive, with wild parties all night.”
Once her torso and arms were free of the armor, Keren stretched. She unbuckled one leg while Zae started on the other. “No, Justice, Honor, and Order usually aren’t rowdy neighbors.” She sat heavily and patted a bare patch of quilt beside her, but Appleslayer leapt into the invited spot before Zae could take it.
“It looked like Justice, Honor, and Order were about to get rowdy this morning, when Veena wouldn’t tell you anything.”
Keren sobered and answered with a sigh. “Well.”
“Well nothing. Talk to me. What was that about?”
Her knight frowned. “Something’s going on, Veena knew it, and all I asked was to be sent into it prepared. How do I best serve honor and order: by keeping my mouth shut and honoring my superiors’ orders even when it feels wrong, or by pointing it out when their orders aren’t the best way to promote the edicts we serve?” Keren caught herself; Zae could practically see her shutting off the flow of words. “I’m sorry. I’m being petulant now. I just get so frustrated because I feel like I should be doing both those things at once.”
This was not the first time they’d had this particular conversation. It had been the source of Keren’s desire to transfer to Absalom in the first place. “No, it’s fair to be frustrated. It feels like no one else around you has the same conflict of faith, between what you’re ordered to do and what you feel is best, and you wonder if it means there’s something wrong with you.”
Keren nodded dully.
“I understand,” Zae said, “but have you considered Veena’s perspective?”
“That I’ve got to go into situations unprepared, to harden me enough to eventually send other people into situations unprepared?”
“No, that you’ve got to learn why people are sent into situations unprepared, so that you can eventually make decisions about whether to prepare people or not.”
“All right. Why did she send us unprepared?”
“Because Veena knows you and believes in you, your intelligence, and your judgment. She knew you’d be able to handle yourself. You wouldn’t have been able to fake that level of confusion. She knew you were safer knowing nothing and getting sent to the weak ghouls by someone who underestimated you, than knowing something and getting led right to the interrogators who would have been convinced that if you knew a little bit, you knew more.”
“But—”
“Your Auntie Veena used you as a decoy because she trusted you, not because she didn’t.”
Keren rubbed her forehead. “I know that, on some level. It just doesn’t resonate inside me. It feels like everything I survive without information just reinforces that it’s all right to give me orders instead of information. I’ve been showing them what I’m made of all my life, but all they see is that I haven’t died yet.”
“Well, you’re here now, so that’s all about to change.”
“All?”
“Not the not-having-died-yet part,” Zae hastened to add.
That, finally, brought Keren a smile.
5
ALIVE AND TICKING
ZAE
Zae woke before Keren, as always, and crept out of the bedroom with the leather roll that contained her holy gears. These were the polished bronze cogs and tools with which she prayed to the goddess of clockwork and artifice.
Never having been formally educated in engineering—or anything else—she wasn’t sure which spells to prepare for her first day of schooling. She used her best judgment, and with each spell she ticked her fingernail down another tooth of the gear she wore as a pendant. Delaying poison was always handy. Mending objects. Healing wounds. Detecting undead, if the previous day had been any guide. But what else?
She kept her healing kit in a square canvas satchel that had started its life as a gambeson. Its sturdy fabric and hard padding made it an ideal carryall for small vials. Each vial of potion, tonic, and spell component was fitted individually into an impression molded to its shape, and secured with a loop of canvas. A beltlike closure made each loop adjustable and easy to open in a hurry, but unlikely to come undone on its own. The bottles themselves were mostly opaque, coded by color and etched with runes and symbols that Zae could recognize by feel. Additional compartments held cutting tools, bandages, and other surgical instruments. Some were the traditional sort, like scalpels and suturing thread; others were her own inventions, or tools that, though originally improvised out of need and desperation, had thereafter made themselves indispensable.
By the time Keren was awake, Zae was dressed in her best leather breeches and long, brass-buttoned brown leather coat, with a whit
e ruffled shirt peeking out between the lapels. She brushed her blue curls back and secured them with a comb, then made sure her satchel held her goggles and the acceptance letter.
“Have fun at clock school,” Keren offered, and Zae beamed widely.
“You have fun at Iomedae school. And Apple, too. Train him to do fantastic things.”
Keren touched Zae’s nose with her fingertip, then tugged lightly on the ring pierced through the gnome’s lower lip. “He’ll be juggling on horseback by the time you get home tonight.”
The way to the Clockwork Cathedral seemed straightforward, but Zae wasn’t going there directly. The school was divided into cognates—student-run informal organizations that generally gathered their members around a particular theme. Based on her interests, a cognate had been suggested for her. She wanted to construct medical devices, and to her surprise, she wasn’t alone. The healing cognate went by the name “Alive and Ticking,” and was headquartered a few blocks from the cathedral in a shuttered old tea shop called Green and Gold, in the Merchants’ Quarter. Its faded sign showed leaves in both its signature colors, with a twin-spouted teapot pouring water over both of them at once.
The door opened smoothly at Zae’s push, without the foreboding creaks she expected from the rickety-looking entrance. Her entrance triggered the faint chime of a bell.
For all that the shop looked long-abandoned, Zae couldn’t spot any dust. Everything seemed to be deliberately placed, and she wondered how many of the teapots and tins contained clockwork toys—or traps. Her fingers twitched toward them, but when the door closed behind her with a second faraway chime, a glint of light at her feet drew her attention away. A thin glowing silvery trail had appeared beneath her boots and now wound its way between the shelves to create a path.
Pathfinder Tales--Gears of Faith Page 4
