by Mike Shel
“Well, I bear neither of you ill will and only wish to converse. Won’t you take a seat? Almer, if you would.” The little man struck his cymbals together and waddled over to a pair of high-backed wooden chairs against the far wall. He dragged one across the stone floor with deliberately slow steps, the wooden legs screeching loudly along the slate floor all the way. He then repeated this performance with the other chair, so that two sat opposite the burgundy-robed priest. With an exaggerated smile, Almer mimed Auric and Sira walking to the chairs with his fingers, then clapped his buttocks with both hands.
“We’ll stand, Bishop,” said Auric. “I don’t think our visit will last long.” Almer threw up his hands and exhaled grandly, then took plodding steps, cymbals tinging with each footfall, until he stood again at the priest’s side.
“Very well,” said Derra, with the look of one trying his best not to take offense. “I really do wonder that you have had any success in this life, Sir Auric, if you always announce your emotions so nakedly. One would think subtlety a requisite quality for one who has dealings with the queen’s court and other institutions of importance.”
“Somehow I’ve managed.” Auric resisted the urge to ask about the cult’s spies, how their movements were tracked here to Ironwound, what they knew of the expedition’s purpose. The dark-eyed priest, with his knowing smile and villain’s beard, invited Auric’s antagonism; it almost demanded it.
“Apparently. At any rate, what we saw in some rather unpleasant goat entrails yesterday morning encouraged me to pursue this meeting.”
“Your counterpart in Serekirk last year informed me that you lot don’t waste your time digging through the guts of animals to glean the future.”
“Oh, my philosophy differs,” the priest said, pursing his lips. “Like all Timilis’s chosen, I delight in surprises, but I still do my best to keep ahead of events when I can. And you see, there is a fever in Ironwound.”
The word caused Auric’s heart to skip a beat. Was he referring to Agnes’s fever? Again, he resisted the urge to ask the priest questions. The cleric seemed to give Auric a few moments to take the bait before continuing.
“It is not the fever that usually afflicts the people of this city. Gold, silver, precious gems. Fortune seekers from all over the empire come to Ironwound to pursue golden dreams of wealth, to pan the cold mountain streams for specie. Would-be prospectors flock to the earldom for that purpose, and all pass through the Cathedral of Timilis, pursuing blessings, for luck in their endeavors. Oh, humankind—it is a glorious cornucopia of folly, is it not, Sir Auric? Well, we are very well acquainted with that fever. But you, sir, bring another kind of fever with you. It is an infection. A contagion.”
Why were the cleric’s words so distressing? Auric loathed cat-and-mouse games, but was uncertain who now played the predator and who the prey. He felt naked without the Djao blade at his hip. “What is it you want me to say, Bishop? Is there a point to your fever metaphor?”
“I’m not sure it’s a metaphor. You carry something with you, sir. An epidemic.”
“None of my people are diseased, sir. I assure you.”
“There are diseases of the body, and there are diseases of the mind—and soul, Auric Manteo.” The priest matched his gloved fingertips to one another before him and tilted his head, the entire gesture unnatural. “It is the latter you carry with you. A spiritual infection. A wise medicus quarantines the infected. If a farmer finds one of his cattle with signs of the pox, he does more than that. For the good of the herd.”
There was no mistaking the priest’s meaning. “You are suggesting that we need to be disposed of and thrown on the pyre, Bishop Derra?”
“That was exactly my first conclusion, Sir Auric, yes. For the good of the church and the good of the empire.”
“And since when does the clergy of Timilis concern itself with the welfare of anyone but themselves?” whispered Sira, though Auric sensed unease in her words. The bishop smiled, showing perfect white teeth.
“It may surprise you that I had to remind myself of that, Miss Edjani. Before considering my duties to my patron god, I ordered your deaths.”
Auric gripped the back of the chair Almer had set for him.
“Oh, please,” said the priest. He waved a hand and furrowed his brow beneath the brim of his pyramidal hat, sending its dangling beads swaying. “You have the look on your face of a boy told for the first time that the Fairy Queen of Summer is just a story! If my order stood, you’d be on a slab at Mictilin’s temple, not having a conversation with me. Unmerciful Fates, are you not a man of the world?”
“Some don’t think murder so simple a thing,” Sira said sourly.
“Gods, what could be simpler? A drop of poison, a blade slipped between ribs, a garrote round the throat. Baking a loaf of bread demands more planning, Sister Sira.”
“I am not your sister.”
Derra rolled his eyes. “Again! The centuries-old argument! When the gods revealed themselves to King Coryth the Revelator, was not my lord Timilis among them? Do we not serve the same pantheon, Miss Edjani?”
“You think you serve the pantheon?” Sira scoffed.
“Of course! I play my role, you play yours. We are both ecclesiasts, with our rituals and liturgies. Do you think I cover myself in sulfur powder for the joy of it?”
At least the stink is explained, thought Auric.
“It is my penance, for taking so rash an action as ordering you killed before contemplating what my Lord of Laughter desired. The Great God Timilis does not wish you harmed, apparently. Indeed, I am to speed you on your way.”
“What?”
“Yes!” Derra exclaimed, pointing at Auric. “That is the same face I made when the god spoke to me! It was a delicious surprise, believe me! But vexing as well. I can’t work out what you seek to accomplish, but whatever it is, you serve as agents of chaos, and my lord delights in that above all things.”
Derra rose slowly from his seat, and Auric was shocked to see that he was an exceptionally short man, no more than five feet tall—his voluminous robes had exaggerated his size. He reached into a hidden pocket and pulled out something small and brown. With a smile, he flicked it into the air with a thumb and it landed on the floor before them. It was a dingy copper penny and it danced for a few moments before coming to rest on the dark gray slate.
“This is your gift to us?” asked Auric. The priest sat back down.
“Oh, it is much more than it seems, agent of chaos. Have your sorcerer confirm this, the one who calls himself Qeelb. Yes, we know all about him as well. Little is hidden from us, save the purpose of your expedition. Really, you must tell me, Sir Auric. I cannot untangle the riddle and I fear it may drive me mad.”
Auric stared at the coin on the floor, his mind racing. It was plain the bishop knew many things he shouldn’t. It was folly to take what the man said at face value, but Auric knew he didn’t have the sort of devious mind to wrestle with someone like the bishop. It was no great leap to assume that the cult of Timilis would have his expedition followed, so at last he decided to give the bishop the cover story Pallas Rae had suggested before they set off from the Citadel. He looked the cleric directly in the eye.
“Very well, Bishop Derra. I will tell you this and no more. We head for the Great Oracle of Pember at Gnexes, there to seek guidance for the Syraeic League. As I’m sure you know, our numbers were devastated by the plague last year. We need aid to interpret certain portents and test the wisdom of possible directions we may take for our future.”
Derra frowned at Auric, then looked down to the coin lying on the stone floor. It vibrated, gently at first, then with greater agitation. It emitted a bright metallic chime and was still. The bishop’s eyes went from the coin to Auric: the cleric wore a grin of satisfaction. “An excellent demonstration of my gift’s efficacy, Sir Auric. It informs me that you have told me a lie, or a hal
f-truth of sorts, which is, of course, the most effective kind of lie. See you now that my gift is no small thing?” Almer rang his little cymbals.
Derra stood up again, using his black-gloved hands to wipe the sulfur residue from his mouth and moustache. “Well, I will trouble you no longer, Sir Auric. I have done my duty and wish to be rid of this goddamned powder polluting my vestments. Fuck my penance. I can bear the stink no longer.” He bowed formally, then made a circle in the air with his finger, once, twice, three times. “Blessings of wonder and surprise upon you. Good day, Sir Auric, Sister Sira. And say hello to that pretty daughter of yours, Saint Agnes the Slain.”
And with that, the diminutive Bishop of Timilis in Ironwound strode out of the room, Almer in his gold cap and patchwork clothing trailing behind him, sounding a playful chime of cymbals with every step the priest took.
26
The Convalescent
Agnes was troubled by fevered dreams. She knew that she faded in and out of the real world but couldn’t be certain which was which. It seemed Sira Edjani was her constant companion in both. The passage of time was impossible to judge. She spent what felt like an eternity lying on the waterlogged deck of a ship at sea, or perhaps it was the river barge, sometimes staring up at the sky, sometimes at a canvas tarp. She had visitors: Kennah, Chalca, her father, her mother, brother Tomas, Belech Potts, a man she had never met before, but whose praises Auric sang endlessly. All were worried for her, fussing over her, like she was some helpless little girl. There were times when she traversed a series of caves, leering skulls looking down on her from rough-carved niches, torchlight dancing with shadows on the walls. And toads everywhere—some clinging to the walls, others hopping across the floor in a great amphibian carpet. And then she was being carried up a mountain, all slate gray and cold, but the mountain had doors and staircases and windows and balconies. They carried her to the clouds and rested her body on one them, soft and welcoming and warm.
The first moment she was truly aware she no longer dreamed, Agnes found herself lying in a luxurious canopied feather bed, a velvety eiderdown blanket pulled up to her chin. Sira sat in a chair next to the bed, head bowed, eyes closed, lips moving in silent prayer. Agnes watched the cleric for several minutes, not wanting to interrupt her devotions, whatever or whoever they might be for. Finally, she found the voice to speak.
“Where am I, Sira?” Her throat was raspy and dry.
The priest, startled, looked up from her prayers and smiled a crooked smile, face brightening. “Praise our Blue Mother, Agnes Manteo wakes!” she sang. “You’re in a room at Saint Tayma’s Aerie, Agnes, in the city of Ironwound. This is the morning of our third day here.”
“What…the last I remember, we were aboard the Aretha Dell.”
“Yes. We were—”
“Attacked!” Agnes exclaimed, her memory returning. “Someone shouted ‘eels!’”
“River eels,” Sira explained. “It’s what they call the bandits who raid the barges at some bends of the Ironbell. You were wounded. Badly.”
At those words, spoken as calmly as the rest, a strange solemnity fell over the priest. Agnes became aware of a dull ache pulsating between her gut and her groin; it flared suddenly into something unbearable, and she cried out. Sira put a warm hand to her forehead, beaded with sweat, and started a new prayer. In seconds, the pain receded, until it was again no more than a dull ache. Sira offered a ceramic cup of chilled water. It felt like heaven going down her throat.
“Can I see the wound?” she asked as Sira set the cup down on a nightstand.
The priest smiled. “Belu has been good to you, Agnes, but it is still healing.”
“I want to see it.”
“Very well.” Sira pulled back the covers and Agnes found herself naked beneath them. Birdsong wafted in from the window, along with a cool breeze that brought goosebumps to her flesh. Sira helped her sit up a bit in bed. She looked down her body, past the curve of her breasts, her belly, and then saw it. A livid scar running about two inches above the dark mound of pubic hair. The scar was an angry purple, six or seven inches across. There was a tightness in her chest, a catch in her throat. This cut had been terrible, deep. She was looking upon what should have been a mortal wound.
“I’m lucky to be alive,” she said, her voice breathy.
“Belu is good,” said Sira, patting Agnes’s forehead with a damp cloth. The priest set the cloth down in a bowl and pulled the blanket back up over Agnes before she noticed she was getting cold. But wasn’t it the height of summer?
“Why do I feel so cold?”
“A fever, Agnes. It’s much better than it was, but it hasn’t yet left you.”
“How did I—”
“Qeelb and Kennah were mopping up our assailants in the bow. I happened upon your end of the battle just in time to call upon our Blue Mother for aid.”
“No. The wound. Who…cut me?”
“You don’t remember,” said Sira, a statement more than a question.
“It’s foggy.”
There was a knock on the door moments before it opened. Her father appeared in the doorway and his eyes went wide when he saw her.
“Agnes!”
“Yes, Father, I’m fine.” She made to sit up straighter in bed, winced at a knife of pain from her wound. He ran to her bedside and embraced her.
“Thank all good gods, Agnes!” he said, tears in his eyes. “We’ll release a flock of consecrated doves at the Festival of the Mother this fall, to show our gratitude!”
“Better to spend that money on fencing lessons for me,” she joked. “Maybe we won’t have to trouble the Blue Mother so if I improve my technique.”
Auric stepped back from the bed, the back of his hand against his mouth, as though someone had struck him.
“Agnes was just asking how she was wounded, Sir Auric,” said Sira, putting a gentling hand on her father’s arm. “She doesn’t recall all the details of the river eel attack.”
Her father cleared his throat, coughed. “Agnes…”
And then images flooded her mind: her father, wielding the Djao blade, cutting down uninvited boarders in a manic, bloodletting ballet of death. Beheading, disemboweling, cutting full-grown men in half. It had terrified her, his bloodlust, the way he ignored their pathetic attempts to surrender. She remembered her attempt to restrain him, to keep him from committing naked murder, and then…
“Agnes, I beg you…forgive me.”
She looked at her father’s haggard face, gray stubble, dark circles underneath his eyes. She noticed that his right hand trembled, reached down to his hip. The sword that had a name, Szaa’da’shaela, it wasn’t there. Her father looked so old in that moment—and fragile—teetering on a precipice. She was reminded of his drunken convalescence at the Citadel after Lenda and the rest were killed in the Barrowlands, how close he came to a sojourn on Saint Kenther. She felt pity now, a witness to his remorse. But there was anger, too. At his dependence—it was there, a part of him. She couldn’t say where the insight came from, but she felt it with iron certainty. Before she could stop herself, she said a word aloud.
“Weakness.”
“Agnes,” began Sira, imposing herself between her and her father.
“Don’t, Sira!” she said, sharp and sour. “That Djao blade, Papa. It preys on your weakness, your brokenness. You must be rid of it.”
Auric’s mouth dropped open and his brow furrowed.
“Agnes,” said Sira, trying again to intervene, “the sword is the only thing we have to accomplish our purpose. Without it—”
“I will wield it,” she said, surprising herself along with her father and the priest.
“No!” shouted Auric. He pointed a shaking finger at her. “It is my sword, Agnes, not yours! I bear the burden. And it aids me, it conquers this quaking, this brokenness you speak of. Without it we are lost.” Agnes watched
him catch himself and with obvious effort, his expression softened, and he held a hand to his heart. “But…when it is…accomplished, I promise you I will put the weapon down and not pick it up again. I swear, on the memory of your mother and Tomas.”
His burden? Was it that word? Was it because her father had invoked her dead mother and brother? She could see his unease, a kind of wildness dancing just behind his eyes. He tried to hide it from her, but it was there. Something was telling her to let this go, but the anger swelled in her breast and she couldn’t stop the words from spilling out of her mouth.
“You think you carry a burden, Father?” she asked with an icy calmness. “The burden I carry would break you into little pieces! Don’t lecture me about burdens.”
She imagined Lenda’s severed head smiling back at her, milky eyes closed, shaking back and forth as if disappointed in her. Her face burned with shame and she averted her eyes from her father, staring instead at the eiderdown blanket.
“What burden is that, Agnes?” said her father, his tone conciliatory rather than the anger she expected. “Is it the thing you and Pallas Rae hide from me? There’s no reason you should have to bear it alone.”
Agnes was readying a retort when another excruciating lance of pain exploded below her abdomen and she was crying out. Sira pushed Auric aside and had her warm hand again on Agnes’s forehead, muttering some sacred litany to dispel the pain. It seemed forever before the agony retreated, like a venomous spider withdrawing into a cave, waiting for another opportunity to pounce.
“Sir Auric,” said Sira, her voice gentle but firm, “Agnes needs her rest. Perhaps there are some other matters you can attend.”
Agnes saw the sorrow on her father’s face, the look of a man who had failed at some important task. He nodded, offered a weak smile. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Rest now, listen to Sira. We can talk about this later.”
He kissed her on her forehead, damp with sweat, and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
