Quest

by Shannah Jay

  One of the Sisters looked round quickly, ready to place another Compulsion upon this wayward and ungrateful young woman if she did anything to disrupt the rest of the ceremony.

  But Katia had come to her senses. The thought of her grandfather’s humiliation if she brought shame upon the way he had raised her stiffened her spine, as did the years of training in the ways of the God. It was beyond imagining that anyone could ever want to refuse this, the greatest of honours. Katia’s lips curved into a parody of a smile.

  The Sister guided her towards the wagon. There were some frowns when it was seen that Katia was not dancing the ritual steps, merely stumbling along between the Sisters. Children continued to throw their flowers at her feet and adults called out, ‘Remember Danak in your prayers.’

  Someone helped her up into the wagon and a soft voice indicated where she should stand and told her to wave until they were out of sight of the townsfolk. She still couldn’t move freely and her vision was blurred with tears.

  ‘They are doubly blessed who do not have the conceit to aspire to our Brother’s service,’ said one of the Sisters loudly, and the townsfolk nearest nodded to one another as they repeated the words ‘doubly blessed’.

  Then the wagon jerked forward and the huge grey deleff who pulled it settled immediately into their steady walk, a walk which would devour hundreds of kloms and which would separate Katia for ever from her grandfather and home. She blinked the tears away and strained around for one last glimpse of him. Didn’t he even want to say farewell to her?

  Sinking down onto the wooden bench she bowed her head in anguish.

  Hidden behind a tree, Kensin watched them go. The God had accepted his unorthodox way of raising the child, and for that he was glad and proud. But he had lost his little Katia, and that was a sorrow deep in his heart. For a moment, even his loyal spirit rebelled. Was he to lose everyone he loved? Wife, child, grandchild - all gone before their time. How could the God ask so much of him?

  Then he squared his shoulders and prepared to endure. And what supported him most in his personal pain was the knowledge of how important the Sisterhood was to the world in the struggle against Discord, the evil generated by Those of the Serpent. For Kensin had seen them and their unclean ways with his own eyes when taking the five-yearly tribute from the High Alder to Kelandrak. They must be stopped, at whatever cost. The Lord Claimant of Kelandrak was wrong, so wrong to allow them to build a shrine. Was he, too, turning away from their Brother the God?

  * * *

  While Kensin walked back alone through the wildwoods, Katia sat inside the swaying wagon, her eyes downcast.

  It was so large that she could keep her distance from the others who’d been chosen. The beautiful painted canvas sides QUEST Shannah Jay 7

  were rolled up to let the fresh air in, and the green light of the forest filtered down around them. She’d seen the previous year how the provisions and camping equipment were stowed neatly in the rear compartments.

  One Sister sat on the high bench at the front, though the deleff needed no guidance. They simply walked in and out of their harness themselves. At any other time, Katia would have been fascinated by the great draught beasts used for all long-distance travel, but just now she couldn’t see beyond her own anguish.

  After a while one of the Sisters turned and asked, ‘Are you all right, Katia?’ and she choked out a ‘Yes, Illustrious Sister.’

  ‘Best leave her be,’ said the other Sister. ‘Sometimes it’s a shock to them.’ She turned to stare at Katia. ‘What were your kinfolk doing to let you offer yourself so unprepared, child?’

  Katia drew a deep breath. One must respond when a Sister asked a question. ‘No one thought I could possibly be called to serve the God, Illustrious Sister,’ she managed to whisper.

  ‘It is for the God our Brother, to choose, not for others to decide for him.’ Then the stern face softened. ‘Take heart, child. It’s a richly satisfying life in the Sisterhood.’

  The thought of living inside a great stone temple in a city crowded with people filled Katia with sheer panic, but she managed to hold it back. What was the point? She was trapped now.

  * * *

  After two days on the road they arrived at another small town for another Festival of Choosing. Before the ceremony began, Katia stayed close to the wagon and refused to be drawn into conversation with the townsfolk; afterwards, as they rolled away down the narrow mountain road, she drew her misery around herself like a cloak and even the Sisters left her in peace.

  By the end of ten days, they had left the High Alder completely and were winding across grey-green grassy uplands where herds of meat nerids grazed and the herders were already settled in their tented summer camps. The landscape was alien and bare to the eyes of a girl raised on the borders of the wildwoods, and Katia sat uneasily, feeling totally vulnerable as the great wagons rumbled along rutted tracks beneath a vast blue sky.

  One day she plucked up the courage to ask, ‘Where exactly are we going, Illustrious Sisters?’

  ‘Far away, child.’

  ‘But where?’

  ‘To one of the great temples. You must undergo years of training before you can take your place in the Sisterhood.’

  ‘We’re going to a city,’ Katia whispered, her worst fears confirmed.

  ‘Where else do they build temples?’

  Katia swallowed hard. Kensin had told her about the city of Kelandrak, with its dirty crowded streets, its constant noise and its Shrines of the Serpent. How would she bear to live among such things?

  Whenever they made camp, Katia took her share of the chores without being bidden, but still the knot of misery inside her did not loosen or the desolate look leave her eyes. The other girls eventually decided that she was just too stupid to bother with. They were still in a state of wild euphoria at being called to serve their Brother the God.

  Nothing seemed to dampen their joy, but their high spirits grated on Katia’s nerves.

  They travelled for several weeks, taking part in so many Festivals of Choosing that Katia lost count. Every now and then they would meet another great temple wagon at a prearranged spot. Each time some of the girls would be exchanged, for the novices were always scattered widely, and could never return to their families, or even to their own claims. In this way Katia was passed from one wagon to another and travelled ever south through several of the Twelve Claims.

  The first city that she saw was Kelandrak, but its details passed almost unnoticed during her early acute stage of misery. The only thing that really registered was her first glimpse of a Shrine of the Serpent and its guardian Servants QUEST Shannah Jay 8

  with their black robes and serpent staffs. The twin wooden poles at the shrine’s entrance bore the black and gold triangular banners of the Serpent. The snakes that wound up the poles were so realistic that even though one of the girls whispered that they were only carved wood, Katia could hardly believe it.

  She had heard tell of such places, but had never seen one. They were not permitted in the High Alder. She shrank back in horror from the evil she could feel emanating from the shrine and gasped in outrage as the men standing outside it dared to sneer openly at the occupants of the temple wagon.

  The next claim was Garshlian, with its river-borne commerce, so strange a place that even Katia forgot herself for long enough to marvel at the great barges that plied along the wide slow rivers. The river families spent their whole lives on the water, one of the Sisters told them.

  After that came the plains of Netheron, with their huge herds of milk and meat nerids, and their equally plump farmers and herders who lived in painted wooden houses set in circles in cosy little villages.

  Once in a while they would meet a family of traders, the only others to travel the land in wagons drawn by deleff, though traders’ wagons were not so marvellously carved and their canopies were much simpler. They would stop briefly to exchange news with each trader family. A few times they stopped unexpectedly. One of the S
isters in this new wagon was a healer and people came to beg her help for someone seriously ill.

  When they came to the Claim of Setheron they kept away from settlements, travelling along remote tracks and keeping out of sight in the daytime. This seemed to Katia to set the final seal of horror on these months of misery.

  In Setheron, Those of the Serpent were strongest of all and the Sisterhood was scorned, its very existence threatened, and Festivals of Choosings strictly forbidden.

  What sort of depravity drove folk to attack the Sisters who healed them when they were sick and who interpreted for them the wishes of the God their Brother? Katia wondered. In the High Alder, no one would have believed this possible and they would have cried out against such heresy tainting their land, even given their lives to prevent it, if they had to.

  The Sisters exchanged worried glances sometimes when Katia seemed unwilling to join in the tale-telling and singing, or when she performed poorly in the preliminary training exercises.

  ‘No wonder they’re sending her to Temple Tenebrak,’ said one Sister after a particularly fraught session which had ended with Katia in tears yet again. ‘I’ve never seen a novice so unhappy.’

  ‘Yes, but Cheral will know how to deal with her. There’s no Novice Mistress to equal our Sister in Tenebrak.’

  They exchanged grins. Cheral’s sharp tongue was a byword in the Sisterhood, yet those she had trained remained fond of her ever afterwards.

  So Katia was exchanged again and found herself among another group of strange girls, one of three wagonloads now travelling together on the last stage of their journey. She couldn’t help noticing how lush the fields and woods of the Claim of Tenebron were. Tenebron, first of all the claims, the history books said. Tenebron, the place of beginnings.

  Even here Those of the Serpent had gained a foothold, the new Sisters admitted over the camp fire, but their shrines were few and had had little effect upon the life of the Sisterhood.

  When the wagons entered the ancient city of Tenebrak, Katia was relieved to see no sign of black robes or serpent staffs in the streets, only cheering crowds in brightly-coloured festival garments, who greeted them and showered flower petals in the path of the proudly-smiling girls.

  Katia couldn’t return their smiles. Tallest of the novices, very thin now, with dark-circled eyes, she let the flowers strike her body and fall to the floor of the wagon unheeded. Her green eyes were feverishly bright, like jewels in her pale face, and her dark hair cascaded to her waist unbraided.

  Not until they were entering the huge grey mass of Temple Tenebrak itself, did Katia stir. She raised her eyes to the high walls that were about to swallow her up and shuddered visibly as the tall bronze gates clanged shut behind them. The other girls had to push her from the wagon, for she seemed unable to move.

  QUEST Shannah Jay 9

  When the Novice Mistress bustled out to take charge of the new girls, one of the Sisters whispered in her ear for a moment, and as Cheral’s shrewd eyes flickered over Katia, she nodded in acknowledgment before leading the girls into the temple where they would live for the next few years.

  First, Cheral took them into the Hall of the God for their welcoming ceremony. The Sisters and older novices were all waiting, arrayed in ceremonial robes and headdresses. This was a time of rejoicing. Their singing was of such piercing sweetness that it brought tears to Katia’s eyes, and their dancing was more graceful than she would have believed possible.

  Then the Circle formed, and for the first time the newcomers took part in a Gathering, that mystical communion of Sisters with their Brother the God. As its peace and joy washed over them, even Katia’s grinding misery abated for a few precious minutes.

  Afterwards Herra, the Elder Sister, went to the foot of the legendary Statue of the God and spoke kind words of welcome. Behind her, the strange forms carved into the stone showed the wondering novices the Seven Manifestations of the God their Brother, whom he had sent down among them. To the rear of the statue was a darkness that twisted your eyes in another direction, however hard you tried to look at it.

  Katia stared at the Elder Sister, who had been heard of even as far away as the High Alder. An awesome person, Herra, and famous throughout the land, for she was over two hundred years old and wise, they said, beyond belief.

  But today Katia could not help noticing how tired Herra looked, how dreadfully bone-weary, and her welcome speech was brief.

  Ceremonial over, Cheral showed the novices the long, narrow dormitories where their cohort would live, then the hall where everyone ate and the day-chambers in which they would meet to learn and practise the Disciplines. By now Katia was not the only girl drooping with weariness, so the Novice Mistress hurried them into the bathing chambers, fed them a light meal and sent them to bed.

  ‘That one is going to be a problem,’ Cheral thought to herself as she walked briskly down to the Sisters’ chambers afterwards, ‘or ninety years have taught me nothing about novices.’

  But she soon forgot Katia in her worry over the Elder Sister, who was failing daily. Herra, who had lived longer than any other Sister in their long history must soon risk another Renewal of her ageing body, and they all feared to lose her. Indeed, we cannot survive without her, thought Cheral for the hundredth time. And even with Herra’s skills and wisdom, who knows if our Sisterhood will survive? Those of the Serpent grow ever stronger, even in Tenebrak.

  She shivered and forced her thoughts into more cheerful avenues. It was not for her to doubt their Brother’s power and wisdom.

  Cheral watched over the Elder Sister’s health like a fussy grandmother during the next month or two, for she was one of the few who dared to chide Herra and scold her into resting. The Novice Mistress was herself becoming something of a figure in the Sisterhood, though she scorned to pay attention to that. What were a mere hundred and sixty years of life, compared to over two hundred and thirty? What were her mundane Gifts, compared to those of Herra?

  Cheral knew better than anyone that she had never demonstrated any exceptional Gifts; she just excelled in supervising the everyday tasks without which no community could exist, and also in first-stage training of novices.

  Such Gifts as she had were in the small things in life, not prophecy and healing. Well, and why not? Such things were as necessary as the more exotic Gifts and powers.

  During the next few weeks Cheral worried because she could not give Katia’s cohort as much attention as usual.

  But there were so many things to do and so few Sisters to do them nowadays, and Herra must come first. Without Herra, their world would be lost to the evil spread by Those of the Serpent.

  #####

  Chapter 2: HERRA - THE PROPHECY

  QUEST Shannah Jay 10

  The wind sobbed around the fretted stonework of Temple Tenebrak and shook showers of petals from the garlands hanging by the gate. In the novices' quarters Katia shivered and huddled under the thin coverlet, which was all each girl was allowed. At home when the wind shrieked around the houses like this, they called it demon's weather. She had used the expression when they were getting ready for the final Gathering of the day, and the other girls had laughed at her. They were always laughing at her country ways here in Tenebrak. Kelandra Clod, some of them called her, though only when the Novice Mistress was out of earshot.

  Katia had stopped telling them that she didn't come from Kelandra. Why bother, when most of them had never even heard of the High Alder? Why, oh why, had she been chosen? She muffled a sob in the pillow and curled into a tight ball on the hard mattress. Who wanted to wear a long grey novice's gown that tripped you up if you tried to run? Who wanted to live enclosed by thick stone walls, even if they were beautifully carved? One real flower was more beautiful than a hundred stone ones! And who wanted to spend long hours indoors learning the Disciplines and the temple rituals, when they could be outside in the lush green beauty of the wildwoods? She stuffed the side of her hand into her mouth to stifle another sob. She mustn’t
wake the others.

  In the small chamber behind the statue of the God, the Elder Sister of Temple Tenebrak was also wakeful. Since her last Renewal a few months previously, Herra needed very little sleep, so she often took the night watch. In spite of her great age, her short russet hair showed no grey and her limbs were almost as supple as a girl's. She sat comfortably cross-legged on the mat, her blue robe spread around her, outstretched palms resting easily on her knees in the position seemly to one who listens to the God. In her headband, one kushlan flower gleamed silver-white and its delicate perfume wafted around her every time she moved her head.

  In front of her, on a low table, stood the farspeaker which their Brother, in his new Manifestation, had sent down to Temple Tenebrak. This strange box showed them pictures of many wonderful things, as well as pictures of this Manifestation of the God himself. Herra was a little disappointed at his appearance, if truth be told. She had dreamed of beings with great golden wings, like the Lord Terraccalliss, who had been the Second Manifestation of their Brother. Instead, she found herself speaking to a young man, not even particularly good-looking, and dressed in the most ugly garments she had ever seen.

  The farspeaker began to hiss and Herra focused all her attention on it. At first her Brother didn’t tell her what he wanted. He showed her some pictures instead, and told her to speak her thoughts about them aloud. As she did this, she automatically memorised every detail of what she saw, to review later at her leisure. 'A birth chamber . . . In Setherak . . . The High Lady, is it not?' She gasped and stretched out a hand. 'Brother, what are they doing to her?

  Brother, stop them, or she will die!'

  The image vanished, and another scene took its place. 'Another birth chamber . . . Peneron . . . The High Lady again . . . Brother, stop them! They're killing her, too! Why do you not stop them?'

  When he spoke, his voice was bitter. 'I can't stop them, Herra. I'm too far away. Can your Sisters help?'

  She rocked to and fro in anguish. 'We can't get there in time. Both High Ladies are dying now!'