by Dave Dickie
The brunette gave me an equally blinding smile and added, “I’m Taite, also at your service. I would be happy to provide anything in my power that would make you feel comfortable.”
The blond came around the desk, swaying gently, her silk dress hugging her in a way that made it impossible to look away. She had a leather belt with gold thread worked into decorative patterns running through it that had been hidden by the desk. The dress ended at her knees, showing off a very nice set of legs and a pair of sandals with medium length heels and thin straps laced up her ankles. She took my hands in hers, looking up with clear blue eyes. I could smell some kind of flowery, exotic perfume that made it hard to think. “Anything you want, you need but ask,” she said again, perfect white teeth behind soft, red lips.
If she hit me any harder with her sex-kitten act I was going to need treatment from a physicker for blunt trauma.
I knew a glamour when I saw it. That didn’t make it easy to ignore. But knowing that I was being played helped. I gently removed my hands from hers. “Thank you. I’ve been invited to dinner, but I must admit I do not know by who. I have the invitation here. If you’d be so kind as to have someone escort me to the table, that would be all I ask.”
She pouted for a second, then laughed and gave me a real smile that was more attractive than the seductive one she’d been using. “No need for the card. You are expected. And after dinner, if you find yourself free, the offer still stands.” I wondered about that for a moment. The Sambhal temple was known for its willingness to provide pleasure in all its forms, but there was a practical side to the god business. You wanted temple services, there was a tithe to pay, and it was typically negotiated up front. I wonder how it worked for something like this. Pure professional curiosity, you understand.
My thoughts were interrupted by a voice from the staircase. “Master Driktend. So kind of you to visit us.” I looked up and above me on the staircase was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Sariel was a ten out of ten. This woman broke the scale. Unlike Sariel, however, it wasn’t an earthly beauty. This was a woman you put on a pedestal. A woman you worshipped. She flowed down the staircase, wearing the same kind of almost translucent silk dress as Sariel, a pastel yellow instead of blue and longer, almost brushing the floor. She had the belt as well, but with the gold weave in much more intricate patterns. I tucked away the question of whether the belt was some kind of indication of rank in a corner of my mind and just let her presence wash over me. When she reached the bottom of the stairs and held out her hand, I took it in mine, bowed, and kissed it. I probably could have avoided doing that if I’d had a major heart attack right at that moment. Otherwise, I was helpless. Her perfume was more subtle than Sariel’s, sandalwood instead of flowers, and I looked up into her blue-green eyes, level with my own, and felt like I was drowning. There were glamours and there were glamours, and this one didn’t leave room to think about how you were being played, just gratitude that you were.
“Chikal Ouscyra.” she introduced herself. I knew a little about the religion, enough to know Chikal was an honorific, not a first name, and if I remembered correctly, it made her the head of the Sambhal order in Bythe. “But please call me Tessa. We do not stand on formality here.”
“Gur Driktend,” I said, although she clearly already knew my name. “At your service, Tessa, and I swear that, should you turn the volume down on your glamour a bit so I can think, I will remain your dedicated servant even without it.” Which might have been a little blunt, but was the best I could do, because it really was next to impossible to think with those eyes staring into my own, a candle flame to a moth, leaving nothing but the desire to be consumed. She smiled and did not seem offended, although my guess was that she would handle any situation with grace and beauty, revealing little about what she really thought. Suddenly I found I could blink again, which I did, several times.
“I am sorry I did not have the pleasure of meeting you during your last visit,” she said, which was kind of frightening given it was a few years ago and had lasted all of two minutes. Either Sambhal mojo extended to a god-provided prescience or this place had a pretty amazing set of records and an equally amazing ability to find them. “I’m afraid your dinner companion has been delayed slightly. If it would please you, I would be honored to help fill the time until his arrival.” And the strange thing was that I believed that she thought it would be an honor.
“There is nothing that would please me more,” I answered, and kissed the back of her hand again. She gave me another of those enigmatic smiles.
“This way,” she said, turning to lead me up the staircase.
“Mistress!” called out Sariel, sounding shocked.
Tessa turned back. “Ah, yes. My apologies, sorcery and weapons are not allowed in the temple. If you would be so kind as to surrender them to Sariel, she will guard them carefully and return them to you on your departure.”
Damn. They must have a detect sorcery built into the room. I pulled out the lighting stone and handed it to Sariel.
“The daggers and throwing stars too, please.”
Double damn. The throwing stars were razor sharp and made from obsidian, difficult to detect with a spell. I pulled the two stilettos and four stars, the latter built into small pockets in my belt, and handed them over. Tessa continued to look at me expectantly. I pulled the boot knife from my right boot and the small dirk from my left sleeve and added them to the pile. Those also had no metal. I’d been in situations where people were expecting me to be carrying weapons and had them overlooked. Sambhal seemed to be a very thorough god.
Tessa thanked me, with complete sincerity or a very convincing proximity to it, and took me up one of the staircases. At the top, a long corridor lined with marble statues of heroic-looking men and slim, attractive women lead deeper into the temple. The ceiling was wood, the walls brown and dark green, which made the statues shine as if they were lit from within. I wondered if they were statues of real people, famous people I should know, but if they were I didn’t recognize them. Glow disks, one of the simplest of sorcerous artifacts, a small mana pool and a light spell, lit the interior in a soft white light. There were a lot of them.
It smelled of money.
She turned back to me. “The dining area is down the hall, but I thought we would use a sitting room.”
I nodded. “Certainly.” She touched one of the walls in a spot that didn’t look any different from any other location along the corridor, but a section swung open on invisible hinges. I was beginning to wonder if I was out of my depth. Correction: I knew I was out of my depth, but I wasn’t sure how far. A Silver Ring from Grafton Hold with a mysterious invitation and no explanation was bad enough. The head priestess of the local Sambhal temple? Whatever was going on had to be big, and the players had resources at their fingertips that I could only dream about. What could they possibly need from me? But the only way to find out the rules to the game was to play, so I followed her through the door. Even with the glamour toned down, I would have followed her anywhere she was willing to lead me.
We were in another, shorter corridor, this one with honest doors spaced every twenty feet or so. She opened the first one we came to and led me in. It was a modest room, arranged a bit oddly, big felt-lined chairs and couches turned to face a section of the room with nothing but a bare pale wooden floor and an empty wall. There were tapestries on the other walls and rugs on the floor, all of them large abstract things that were pleasing to the eye but not meant to distract from whatever or whoever would be in front of the crowd. Tessa saw my confusion. “It is a music room. Acolytes perform for guests in rooms like this one. This one is for a quartet.” She sat down. Her dress had slitted sides up to the hip that showed off her legs when she crossed them, which was very distracting. I moved one of the other chairs to face her more directly, trying to hide my confusion, but she smiled, letting me know it hadn’t worked. “Tell me, Mister Driktend…”
I interrupted her. “Please, Tessa,
call me Gur. I don’t stand on formality either.”
She nodded. “Gur, then. Tell me, Gur, what do you know about the temple?”
I frowned. “In truth, not much. I assume it’s a standard Sambhal temple. I’ve heard the stories.” I shrugged. “The god, or demon, of wine, women and song.”
She pursed her lips. “Blunt. I like that.” She leaned back, and her silk dress tightened around her breasts and hips. I was pretty sure she knew that as she continued along. “I know most people think of Sambhal temples as high priced brothels dressed in religion.”
Clearly, I wasn’t the only one being blunt. But again, I had that feeling that she was adapting to the situation, adapting to me. A chameleon that could make anyone feel like they were talking to a kindred spirit. I resolved to be careful and assume nothing was as it seemed. As soon as I could stop staring at her legs. “The reality is much more interesting. Sambhal is a temple of pleasure for all of the senses. Touch and sex is a part of that package, certainly, but so is music, so is food. So is poetry. The temple has a number of women and men that are masters of those fields, and we prize those skills more than pure physical attractiveness.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Except, perhaps, for the ones that welcome people at the door?”
“Oh, no, not at all. Taite is actually a very accomplished harpist. Sariel is studying painting and art. They are both junior acolytes, but we try to put the up-and-comers at the door. They need to be able to impress guests at an intellectual level as well as a physical one.”
I had certainly been impressed, although they had zeroed in on the sexual end of things with me. But then, I’m not much for music and know next to nothing about art. I answered thoughtfully, “Beauty and brains. Is that part of the Sambhal package?” I felt like I was being a bit casual with her god, but it didn’t seem to faze her.
“In fact, it is. You see, we’re not even really about pleasure. We’re really about perfection. Physical, mental, and spiritual.” I wasn’t sure I could really buy into spiritually-perfect prostitutes, and perhaps she saw the doubt in my eyes, because she went a little colder. “Gur, don’t be so parochial. Sex is a dirty word because of a variety of factors, mostly having to do with the side effects, procreation and disease transmission.” I almost laughed. Procreation as a side effect of sex. But I could see where she was going. “Servants of Sambhal are protected from all that. Physical beauty is just part of the package, and why not share it?”
“Share it at a cost, you mean.”
Her turn to shrug. “Girl’s got to make a living. So does the temple.”
I thought about that for a moment. Certainly every other temple in Bythe did the same, trading their god’s mojo for money or favors. Maybe I was being a bit close-minded. A topic for a time when I wasn’t so preoccupied. “I’ll think about it. The real question, I have to admit, is why the head of the temple is explaining all this to a commoner,” I said.
“We are both commoners,” she said. Which was true to some extent; you either belonged to one of the houses and had a voice in Kethem’s politics, or you didn’t belong to a house, and you didn’t. She could have been the head of the entire order and it wouldn’t have mattered. Not on paper, at least. But influence people that do have a voice and you have a suddenly grey area. The head of a temple would have a significant amount of sway, and I thought it was likely that Tessa had more than most. She cocked her head and eyed me quizzically. “And, while I am sure you have guessed that this meeting has something to do with your upcoming dinner conversation, I must say you are a unique and fascinating individual.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” I said, smiling to show it was a joke.
She seemed amused. “Let me finish my little tale, and then we will see how far flattery will take me. Your attitude about sex reflects the common view of most Kethemers. And, in truth, other pleasures have similar biases against them in the population at large. Even the benign ones. So another, and perhaps the most important part of the Sambhal package is that we are very, very good at keeping secrets.”
I nodded, waiting. She clearly wasn’t done.
“When we accept someone into the order - and that takes a very special candidate, we are one of the most restrictive orders in Kethem - the acolyte accepts a geas from Sambhal. That geas prevents them from discussing anything that happens in the temple with anyone outside the order. It’s central to our…” she paused for a moment, looking for the right word. “Our business. Our clients must know that nothing they do inside the walls will ever come back to haunt them.”
I nodded again, but this time I couldn’t see where she was going with the conversation, and she saw it and continued. “The best way to keep a secret is not to know it. We provide those services as well. Private meetings, private conversations, private deals. The geas prevents us from violating that trust, from listening in. It is as central a tenant as not discussing our more direct interactions with the client.”
I frowned. “And?”
She looked surprised. “Isn’t it obvious? We cannot listen in, and we must ensure no one else does as well. So the only one who will be privy to what you discuss this evening is you. I want you to tell me everything you hear this evening. You can name your price.”
Chapter Three
Sariel was leading me down the first hallway I’d been in, summoned by Tessa with some signal I hadn’t noticed, backtracking from the music room but turning right toward the far end of the hallway instead of the entrance. My head was spinning a little. I’d sidestepped Tessa’s offer by suggesting that I needed to know what the dinner topic was in order to know what it was worth. If Tessa knew anything about it, she wasn’t letting on, but it seemed like the right play, like she could accept that I wanted bargaining chips. It seemed strange that she didn’t realize I was in the same situation she was. Confidentiality was a given in my business.
On the other hand, whoever I was meeting wasn’t a client. At least not yet.
The entire setup had me on edge. Tessa could not listen in because of her god’s intervention, rules, geas, or some other aspect of the god business I didn’t know about. But she could try to bribe me to give her the information? Where did that stop? Could she threaten someone, torture someone? Torture me? I could sense there was some kind of line there, but I had no idea where it was drawn or how close she’d be willing to get to it. Or if she would cross it, and what the consequences would be if she did.
Sariel was swaying gracefully from side to side in front of me. Her dress was cut very low in back, showing off her flawless skin. It was a struggle not to stare at her. I forced myself to look up and pay attention to the surroundings. The end of the corridor opened onto a large balcony that stretched around a circular room with a domed ceiling. More of the sorcery-lit candelabras hung from the ceiling. Below I could see tables set with fine white linen tablecloths, sparkling silverware, and cut crystal glassware. There were also patrons, not enough to fill the place, but more than I expected given the grand sum of zero I’d seen since entering the temple. Many were in masks, some meant to hide the features of the wearer, others more decorative. Along the wall, on the balcony level and on the ground level, a series of heavy drapes hung from the ceiling at regular intervals. Some were drawn back and I could see they covered entrances to small alcoves just large enough to accommodate a table and chairs for two to four people with the same dinner setup as the tables in the larger room. While I watched, someone guided a couple to one, an older man in a full mask and dark, formal clothing, and much younger woman wearing a mask that didn’t conceal much of anything and clothes to suit.
Sariel saw me looking around and could tell I was curious about the patrons. Even with the masks and nondescript clothing you could feel a wave of arrogance radiating off them. I gestured at them with my chin. “Mostly Holders?”
She gave me a half grin, wry and a little bitter. She said, “Money, power, privilege. What Sambhal temple wouldn’t welcome them with open arms?” I
looked in her blue eyes and saw some kind of ancient pain there, a hard little nut she had built a wall around like an oyster covering an irritating grain of sand with a hard pearl coating. The pearl was pretty. What she had buried somewhere deep in her soul, not so much. I wondered what her story was. Not that most commoners didn’t have one or two or a few hundred. Including me.
“Why didn’t I see any of them at the entrance?” I asked.
“They come through the side entrances, the ones in the shops,” she explained. “Anyone who’s a regular patron has an assigned door that will open for them. Or, if they don’t want a regular pattern, they can request a random door, and their invitation will indicate which one to use on the date it’s active. All of the side doors lead to reception areas, where an acolyte will guide them to their table.”
