When she reached the bottom, sweating and cursing whoever had invented the rope ladder, one of the divines, his rust-red hair falling in a long tail to the middle of his back, had approached Kalanath and stood a few feet from him, his hands pressed palms-together in front of his chest. “Lord,” he said in Meiric, “welcome home. I am Banu Sarvejvaan. We are honored by your presence.”
“Thank you,” Kalanath said in the same language. “Though I’m not sure why this couldn’t wait until morning.”
The divine, Banu, bowed his head low. “We are an honor guard for someone who did not wish to wait to greet you,” he said, gesturing at the palanquin.
Sienne, standing next to Kalanath, saw him swallow. “Who…?” he said, but even Sienne could guess the answer.
The black-haired divine parted the palanquin’s curtains, and a woman stepped out. Her red hair was cropped as short as Kalanath’s, but even without that detail, the resemblance was uncanny. Kalanath took an involuntary step forward, and said, “Mother.”
7
“Oh, my dear,” the woman said, reaching out to Kalanath. Kalanath hesitated, then with a few quick steps caught the woman up in his arms. Sienne found herself blinking back tears and wiped them away. Kalanath said something Sienne couldn’t hear, and the woman laughed, sounding as though she were crying at the same time.
Eventually, Kalanath let her go, but remained at her side, holding her hand. It hadn’t been obvious how very small she was until she stood next to her son, who wasn’t a tall man, but towered over her. She had the same calm presence Sienne was used to seeing in her friend Octavian, a divine of Kitane and someone obviously touched by the avatar. She also looked far too young to be the mother of someone Kalanath’s age, which made Sienne wonder for the first time how young the temples allowed women to become madhis, sacred vessels for God’s presence.
“Mother, these are my friends,” Kalanath said, guiding her to stand near them. He spoke in clearly articulated Fellic, enunciating even more carefully than he usually did. “Alaric, Sienne, Dianthe, and Perrin. We are companions.”
Kalanath’s mother bowed her head briefly. “It good is, it is that Kalanath has friends,” she said in heavily accented Fellic. “Thank you. Please to me call Manisha.”
“We’re glad to see you reunited. Together,” Alaric amended when a look of puzzlement crossed her face at “reunited.”
“Kalanath has fought beside us often,” Sienne said in Meiric. “He has saved our lives.”
Manisha’s face brightened. “You speak Meiric very well.”
“Sienne studied languages in Rafellin,” Kalanath said. “I’m afraid the others don’t speak it at all.”
“There are enough divines who speak Fellic, I’m sure they won’t have any trouble communicating,” Manisha said. “I’m sorry we disturbed your rest, but I couldn’t bear to wait until morning.”
“I feel the same,” Kalanath said, and hugged her again, making her cry once more.
Alaric’s hand fell on Sienne’s shoulder. “What are they saying?” he murmured.
“Just greetings. Introductions.” Sienne felt awkward witnessing this reunion, so long delayed. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing that required witnesses. She noted with some satisfaction that the divines looked as uncomfortable as she felt.
Finally, Manisha wiped her eyes and said, “We do not know you have friends. The temple will make room.”
“Oh, we couldn’t impose,” Dianthe began.
Manisha shook her head. “Not impose,” she said. “We owe you. They will make room.” Her words had the finality of someone pronouncing a great doom. Sienne caught the glances the divines gave each other and concluded the temple would not find it easy to “make room.” That satisfied her too. Maybe the ones who’d hurt Kalanath weren’t in power anymore, but he’d been in unnecessary exile for five years and she felt that was due some consideration.
Manisha climbed into the palanquin without assistance and gestured to the black-haired divine to tie the curtains back. “Manisha, it’s not seemly,” he protested.
“I don’t care about seemly. I want to see my son.” She glared at the man, who, to Sienne’s surprise, didn’t look cowed. Instead, he smiled, an expression of startling tenderness that came and went so swiftly Sienne doubted having seen it, and fastened the drapes to leave the palanquin open on one side. “Walk with me,” she told Kalanath.
“We will go to the temple,” Kalanath said to the others. “The divines walk before and after, as an honor.”
“They don’t have you ride?” Dianthe asked.
“It is for the madhis to ride, as God’s vessels. We are not God, but Her servants, so we walk.” Kalanath gestured. “I mean the we that belongs to the temple. I do not know why I think myself one of them. Because I am not.”
“In a sense, we are all God’s servants,” Perrin said. “Lead on. I find myself curious about this temple.”
The divine Banu bowed to Manisha, then strode to the head of the palanquin and said a few words to the bearers. They lifted the palanquin smoothly, as if they had one of Perrin’s mind-linking blessings, and set off down the docks. The bells made a sweetly musical sound that almost made sense as a melody. Sienne trailed a few steps behind Kalanath, who walked next to his mother. Alaric walked beside Sienne. “Tired?” he asked in a low voice.
“I’m too excited to be tired. Excited and a little worried. They aren’t expecting us.”
“Yes, and I hate not knowing what to expect from them. But we could hardly let Kalanath go alone, and take rooms in the city.”
“No.” Sienne breathed in the warm, damp air. “This place even smells foreign. Exotic.” The docks were quiet at this hour, with only one other ship unloading its cargo a few piers away, but the still air hummed with the distant sounds of the city. The scent of cedar and cinnamon and something else Sienne didn’t recognize overlaid the ordinary smells of the docks, warm, wet wood and bitter tar and the constant salt air. Even the lanterns were different: fire rather than magic, true, but the lantern glass had a reddish tinge to it that gave the light an orange glow Rafellish lights lacked. Sienne gazed at a lamp burning above a sign that read HARBOR MASTER and silently wished Talvanus a safe journey.
The divines guided the palanquin through darkened streets Sienne would have called slums if they’d been in Fioretti. Despite their location, they didn’t speed up, which was fortunate because the procession was already traveling at a rapid pace. She guessed people in Chirantan were as reluctant to assault a divine as anywhere else, and a madhi even less so. The divines certainly didn’t behave as if they were worried.
Sienne eyed the falling-down huts, the gaping holes where doors should have been, and gasped when she saw eyes looking back at her. In the next instant, they were gone, but she edged closer to Alaric anyway. There was no reason to think they might be attacked, but she’d been a scrapper long enough to know one didn’t take chances.
The huts became sturdier as they walked, and gained doors and fresher paint. A stray dog, thin enough its ribs were visible, trotted out from between two of them and shied at seeing the procession pass. One of the divines peeled away from the pack and approached it, holding out his hand. The dog whined and sniffed it, and then Sienne was past and afraid to turn and watch further, in case she stumbled and fell. Shortly, the divine trotted past and took up his position again. Strange, but nothing she could investigate.
She fell to watching the black-haired divine, who walked just ahead of Kalanath, his left hand resting on the palanquin’s roof. He was tall and muscular and looked more like a warrior than a divine. A temple nirana, perhaps? He, unlike the others, was alert to the possibility of an attack, his eyes constantly scanning his surroundings. And yet he wasn’t easily spooked; when a pair of birds winged past overhead, calling to each other in high, croaking tones, he didn’t flinch at all.
The road opened up ahead of them, wide enough to allow three palanquins to travel side by side, so abruptly it fe
lt like entering another city. All Sienne could see of her surroundings were high, pale walls and doors outlined with dark mosaic tiles that were shades of gold and orange in the light of the flambeaux and the occasional tinted flame of hanging lanterns. Arches rose overhead, crossing the wide street, and Sienne heard the rushing sound of flowing water that grew louder every time they passed beneath an arch. No one was abroad at this hour but them. It felt like a dream world, as if all the people were hovering just out of sight, ready to emerge when the divines were gone.
Ahead, a larger building became visible, its domed roof a white bubble against the black sky. Torches burned around the building’s square foundation, illuminating the many arched doorways leading to its interior. Sitting atop the dome was a short tower open to the sky where a bonfire burned with a strange blue-tinted light. Sienne was sure it wasn’t magic even from this distance, but she didn’t know what else might cause the effect—tainted wood, perhaps?
The bearers brought the palanquin to one of these doors, and the black-haired divine helped Manisha to stand. Manisha extended her hand to Kalanath. “Come with me.”
“This is the temple,” Kalanath said to the others. “I think they will find us room.”
Sienne followed Kalanath and Manisha, resisting the urge to take Alaric’s hand. If they were actually walking into a trap, he’d need his hands free. The divines hadn’t insisted the companions disarm, which meant…what? That the temple trusted them? Or that the divines had resources for defending themselves that the companions couldn’t fight? It left Sienne wondering, again, what kind of place they’d come to.
She heard water again, this time the bubbling sound of a fountain, as they came through the doorway into a lush garden that smelled of green growing things. The fountain sat at its center, spraying water high into the air that caught the torchlight and sparkled like tinted diamonds. Benches surrounded the fountain and were placed here and there elsewhere in the garden. It would be beautiful to sit in, cool and shady in the heat of true summer.
Manisha skirted the garden and led the way around it to a pillared, covered walkway that ran along three sides of the garden courtyard. Her feet, Sienne realized, were bare. Another reason she couldn’t have walked. Her feet made no noise against the stone of the walkway. Sienne cast a last glance at the garden as they went through an archway and proceeded deeper into the temple.
She lost track of where she was as they took turn after turn. Was it intentional? Not to deceive specifically them—she didn’t think Manisha would bring them all this way just to deceive them now—but on the part of the temple’s builders. Would there be a need to keep enemies confused if they infiltrated this far? It reminded her of how little she knew about Omeira. The rakhyans weren’t always comfortable allies, but she’d thought that enmity didn’t extend to the temples. Maybe she was wrong.
They took another turn, and the hall ended at a room big enough to hold all of them comfortably, including the six divines, who’d kept pace with them. The room was empty of furniture except for a padded kneeler against one wall beneath a large stained glass window. Two torches burned on opposite walls, barely illuminating the window, and Sienne couldn’t make out its subject. A man, his red hair streaked with white, knelt facing the window, which put his back to them. He raised his head when they entered, but didn’t rise.
“Chakhran,” Manisha said, “I have returned.”
“I saw it in vision,” the man said. He stood and turned, and Sienne held in a gasp. His eyelids were sunken, clearly empty, and a long scar from the crest of his cheekbone to his jaw dragged down his mouth on the left side. “Kalanath Oushikdali. Welcome home.” He bowed, his arms spread to the sides and his head lowered.
Kalanath looked profoundly uncomfortable. “Chakhran,” he said. “I don’t wish to be rude, but this is not my home.”
“We can argue semantics later. We are simply very grateful you have chosen to return.” Chakhran straightened, turning his head as if listening. “You have friends, not Omeirans,” he said in unaccented Fellic. “They, I have seen as well. Be welcome, friends of Kalanath.”
“Thank you,” Alaric said.
Chakhran smiled. “You do not trust us. That is reasonable. We have done nothing to earn your trust. Allow us to host you this night, and we will discuss further in the morning your reasons for coming to Chirantan.”
A mutter went up from the divines. Manisha said, “There are guest places, yes?”
“Indeed,” Chakhran said. “Banu, take our guests to the visitors’ chambers. Ghrita, stay. I would speak with you before you retire.”
“I will stay with my friends,” Kalanath said.
Manisha made a pained noise. “You don’t have to,” she began.
“I’m not comfortable being on my own here, Mother,” Kalanath said. “Just for tonight.”
“It’s not an insult, Manisha,” the black-haired divine said, touching her hand.
Manisha nodded. “Tomorrow, then. We will have breakfast together.”
“Of course,” Kalanath said, hugging her once more.
Banu gestured to Alaric. “This way,” he said, surprising Sienne with his sudden acquisition of Fellic, and led them back through the door and into the maze of twisty passages. This time, it ended at a sparsely decorated room that reminded Sienne of their sitting room in Fioretti, though the two couldn’t be more dissimilar in décor. It was furnished with chairs and a couple of long, low sofas with strangely curving backs, a table surrounded by cushions, and two mirrors that reflected one another’s images into infinity.
Three doors led off the room, and Banu opened one of them to reveal two thick pallets on the floor, each big enough to hold three people, piled high with blankets and more cushions. “Be welcome,” he said in his soft tenor, almost high enough to be a woman’s voice. “Food will be brought in the morning.” He bowed, the slightest inclination of his head, and left.
Alaric set his bags down in one corner of the bedroom, and Sienne quickly followed suit. “This is nice,” she said.
“Pretty enough,” Alaric said. “Are there enough beds?”
The other two doors led to bedrooms with two pallets each. Dianthe sank onto one and began removing her boots. “Finally, I won’t keep the rest of you up with my snoring,” she said. “I’m suddenly very tired.”
“As am I,” Perrin said. “Tired enough that even my curiosity about this place is blunted.”
“Sleep, then, and we’ll see what the morning brings,” Alaric said.
The pallet was as comfortable as a mattress, though it felt odd having the ceiling so far away. Sienne snuggled up to Alaric and said, “You don’t really think we’re in danger here, do you?”
“No. But I’m reserving judgment until we learn what they want from Kalanath.” Alaric put his arms around her and drew her close. “And I wonder about that black-haired divine.”
“You mean, how he’s acting like Manisha’s lover? Do they let madhis have lovers?”
“I wouldn’t know. I just don’t want Kalanath upset.”
“Me neither.” Sienne yawned. “More things to find out in the morning.”
The windows in the bedchambers were covered, not letting in any light, but Sienne woke to some internal signal that told her dawn had come. A little fumbling revealed a long cord that shifted wooden shutters and let her see the morning sky. It looked just the same as the one over Fioretti. Maybe there was symbolism in that, but she didn’t care enough to ferret it out.
She left Alaric sleeping and went barefoot into the sitting room, where the pale light of dawn filtered through two windows high in the ceiling. The room smelled dusty, as if it weren’t often used. She explored the space—it didn’t take long—and opened the main door to see if morning made any difference to her being able to tell where in the temple they were. It didn’t.
She closed the door and went back to Alaric’s side, sliding in next to him and lying on her back, staring up at the distant ceiling. There were pictu
res painted on it, a garden scene with animals of every kind and a few Sienne was sure were mythical. No people, which wasn’t unusual. She’d learned in school that Omeirans didn’t go in for depicting people in their art.
Beside her, Alaric stirred. “That door doesn’t have a lock on it, does it?” he murmured.
“I don’t think I’d be comfortable having sex in a temple, even if it did.”
Alaric slid his hand beneath her shirt, stroking her skin. “If Kalanath is right, they have sex here all the time. It’s a holy act.”
“Only for the madhis.” She rolled on her side to face him and traced the outline of his eyebrow and cheek. “I wonder how old Manisha is.”
“Meaning, how young do they start? I’m trying not to be judgmental.”
“Me, too.”
Alaric kissed her. “Just so you know I wanted to, because you’re beautiful and desirable, and I love sharing your bed.”
“Mmm. Now I’m wondering about the possibility of barring that door.”
The sound of the outer door opening made them both freeze. Alaric smiled and kissed her again, lightly this time. “Breakfast,” he said as the smells of hot bread and cheese and an unfamiliar aroma wafted through their door. He rolled to his feet and gave Sienne a hand up before opening the door.
In the outer room, two women with trays were arranging food on the low table, under Manisha’s watchful eye. Sienne wasn’t sure if she was supposed to bow to the madhi, so she settled for a respectful nod. Manisha returned the gesture. “You are together,” she said, gesturing at Alaric.
“We are,” Sienne said, feeling unexpectedly defensive, though Manisha’s words hadn’t sounded critical.
“He’s the biggest man I’ve ever seen, and the palest. Where is he from?”
“Ansorja.”
“Astonishing.” In Fellic, she said, “I am sorry to speak wrong. In Meiric, I mean. My Fellic is not good, but I will try.”
Sands of Memory Page 9
