“Don’t attract attention,” she murmured. The Motherhood had only passed through Amalcross a handful of times, but Halla knew enough to stay out of their way. The last time, they had reduced the hostelkeeper’s wife to tears with their sharp questions, and the general feeling was that she had gotten off lightly. In a battle of wills between the Hanged Mother’s priests and the constables, no one believed that the constables would be able to keep the Motherhood from burning anyone they felt like burning.
Sarkis grumbled, pulling his cloak around his shoulders and slouching. As a disguise went, Halla had seen much better. There was simply no mistaking Sarkis for anything but a warrior, no matter what he was wearing.
Ah, well. People will probably be too busy staring at the frumpy woman with the big sword on her back to even notice him.
No one gave them any trouble. The inn that night was very full and both of them ended up sleeping in the stables alongside a dozen other travelers, which was at least warm, if not particularly private. Sarkis glared at anyone who came close to their spread cloaks. Halla just tried not to die from being poked to death by little jabby bits of straw.
The walls of the city were coming into view the next morning when Sarkis froze. “What is that?”
Halla followed his gaze. There was a wall, a few people, a gnole on some business of its own… “What’s what?”
“The striped creature.”
“Oh! That’s a gnole.”
“What is a gnole?”
“Errr…” Halla wasn’t sure how to explain. Gnoles were small, badger-like creatures that favored brightly colored clothing and did odd-jobs in cities. They had shown up in Anuket City and environs about fifteen years ago, and hardly anyone noticed them anymore. There was even a small burrow of them in Rutger’s Howe. Humans treated them with a sort of good-natured contempt, and the gnoles returned the favor. “Well, they look like that…they’re nice enough. I mean, they’re usually very polite. They show up and do work and keep things clean.”
“Are they dangerous?”
This was a complicated question. Halla had to think about it. “Are humans dangerous?”
“Very.”
“Then probably, yes. But I’ve never heard of a gnole attacking anybody. Or, I mean, I’ve heard of it, but usually from really drunk people who were probably attacked by their own feet, if you know what I mean, and tried to pin it on a gnole. They don’t bother anybody and they leave the world cleaner than it was, so most people don’t have a problem with them.”
Sarkis looked unconvinced. “We do not have them in the Weeping Lands.”
Halla privately thought they didn’t have a lot of things in the Weeping Lands, but it didn’t seem diplomatic to say so. “They migrated in years ago. We didn’t see them in the outlying towns much, but they were already in Archenhold by the time I moved here.” She considered for a bit. “Errr…have you not met non-human people before?”
“A few. The Thinnang—the rabbit folk—have a dwelling in the Weeping Lands. And one encounters a minotaur from time to time near the sea, of course.” He shrugged. “There are always stories of shapechangers and forest-folk, but I don’t know how many are true.”
“There’s rune in the Vagrant Hills,” said Halla. “At least there’s supposed to be. I’ve never seen one. Mostly, though, there’s gnoles.”
The gnole in question was long gone. The crowd had begun to grow thicker as they approached Archen’s Glory.
“A defensible city,” said Sarkis, eyeing Archen’s Glory with approval. “At least the core. The rest would be burned during a siege, of course.”
“Well, Archenhold’s right on Anuket’s doorstep,” said Halla, shrugging. “They have to maintain their independence or they’d get swallowed up. So they keep the city walls maintained and their standing army is no joke. Young men from Rutger’s Howe would go join up if they wanted to impress young women.”
“Did it?”
“Did it what?”
“Impress the young women.”
“I’m not sure. It didn’t impress me, anyway, when I was young.”
Sarkis actually laughed. Halla had grown to appreciate his laughter all the more for its rarity. “Wise girl. In the steading, they said the foolish girls sighed after warriors, but the smart ones married the farmers.”
“The steading?”
“Where I grew up.”
“In the Weeping Lands?”
“Yes.”
“What was it like?”
He appeared to consider this at some length, as they approached the outer city of Archen’s Glory. Brightly colored banners hung over the streets, flapping in the wind. The houses were no more than two stories high, which gave the outer city an oddly truncated appearance.
“It was…empty,” he said finally.
Halla looked at him, puzzled. “What was?”
“The steading.”
“Oh! Err…why was it empty?”
“All of the Weeping Lands is empty. The wind howls over the grass and you think you can see for a thousand miles. But you can’t. There are folds and hills and clefts in the earth. It is rotten with holes and old places.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Very much.”
Halla frowned, reaching behind her head to touch the hilt of the sword. “Do you need to go back? I mean, if you’re homesick, you should definitely—”
“I am not homesick.”
“Oh.”
The road they were on split into a dozen streets. Despite the earliness of the hour, stalls were already being set up along the streets and women carrying full water jugs streamed past.
“I’d be homesick,” said Halla.
“That does not surprise me.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to go back?”
Sarkis stopped so abruptly that Halla continued a pace or two past him before she realized he’d stopped. “Are you asking me to leave your service, lady?”
“What? No! I mean, if you want to go, I’d miss you, but…”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’d miss me.”
It didn’t sound like a question, but Halla plowed ahead anyway. “Yes! I mean, you’re very…uh…there.” She waved her hands in the general outline of his body. “Very there. I’d notice if you weren’t there.”
They paused in a large stone courtyard with a well. A pump stood to one side, with a tin cup on a chain beside it. Sarkis filled the cup and handed it to Halla before drinking himself.
“I will not go back to the Weeping Lands,” he said. “As long as I do not, then in my heart, they are all still there, still alive, unchanged. If I return, I will see what hundreds of years have wrought, and my heart will know that they are dead.”
Halla stared at him, her mouth open.
“I find that I would rather be an exile in my heart than the last survivor. Now where is your temple to your very sensible rat god?”
Halla pointed, then led the way when he fell into his accustomed guard position. She hardly knew what to say.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally.
She expected him to grunt, but he said, “As am I,” and that was all that needed to be said.
Chapter 21
The Temple of the White Rat stood near the edge of Archen’s Glory. It was a busy complex, not as ostentatious as the temples of the Forge or Dreaming God, but full of human activity. It was built of pale sandstone with sharply slanted rooftops. Arched doorways set around the main courtyard stood open and people streamed through the doors. Acolytes in white robes carried things from place to place, or escorted the faithful to those who could better serve their needs.
Despite the numbers, there was a pervasive air of calm and order, as if everyone knew where they were supposed to be and what they should be doing to make the system work smoothly.
It reminded Sarkis of nothing so much as a softly humming beehive.
He wondered if it contained a hidden sting as well.
Halla led the way, not to th
e nave but to a side door that looked like offices. A line of petitioners was already forming.
“We’re standing in line,” observed Sarkis.
“Well, yes. We’re petitioners.”
“I would think that we had priority.”
“We’re not that important. Are we?”
Sarkis looked over the other people in line. It did not seem likely that any of them were also enchanted swords.
“I suspect we may be a trifle more unusual than they are used to seeing.”
“Maybe, but we’re going to be polite.” She nudged him in the ribs. “Anyway, only one of us is getting any older and I don’t mind waiting.”
He stifled a sigh. “I might age outside the sword.”
“Oh! Really?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t spent that long outside it, all told.”
Halla looked suddenly worried. “Should I keep it sheathed more? I don’t want you to be aging for nothing.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s been…well, a long time since I ate and slept and walked about. It’s been good to remember what it’s like to be human.”
The woman in front of them looked over her shoulder and said “You can go ahead of me.”
Halla blinked. “Really?”
“Sir…ma’am…I’m here because my youngest needs to get out of the house and learn a trade. You two appear to be either enchanted or desperately insane. And in either case, I’d rather you weren’t standing behind me.”
“You’re very kind,” said Halla.
“And obviously very wise,” added Sarkis, bowing.
They ultimately stood in line for about twenty minutes. Three more people looked at the sword, or perhaps Sarkis’s expression, and suddenly decided that they’d rather have him dealt with sooner rather than later. They might have gotten past even sooner, but one of the men in line made the mistake of mentioning that he trained guard geese, and Halla peppered him with questions about guard geese until the acolytes came for him.
Eventually an acolyte ushered them through the stone arch and down a corridor.
The priest of the White Rat was a slender person with a pointed chin and long gray hair braided back from their face. Their vestments bore the slender silver stripe indicating the polite form of address. They beckoned, gestured to chairs, and said, “How may the Temple help you, friends?”
Halla sat down and said, “I’ve inherited a lot of money and a magic sword, and now my relatives want to force me to marry my cousin, so I ran away, but now I don’t know how to get back to get the money, or even if I can, and they’ve told everyone that I was kidnapped.”
“I…see.” The priest looked over at Sarkis. “And you are…?”
“The magic sword.”
The priest had a calm, reserved face but one eyebrow began to climb, very slowly, towards their hair.
“Uh, yes, this is Sarkis. He’s been trapped in a magic sword. He serves the wielder, which is me. I was trying to kill myself to get away from my relatives but I used his sword to do it and summoned him. This sword here.” She slung it off her back.
The other eyebrow joined its mate in the slow march toward the priest’s hairline. They steepled their fingers. “This is…quite a story. Could you start again from the beginning?”
She did. Sarkis watched the priest very obviously not asking questions until the end, when they asked only one.
“May I see the sword?”
“Oh, yes.” Halla laid it across the priest’s desk. “If you sheath it, he goes back in the sword. Here, I’ll show you. Sarkis?”
He nodded.
Halla untied the cords holding it open, and pushed the blade into the scabbard. Blue flame jittered around Sarkis as he vanished.
The priest fell back in their chair with their mouth open. Then they started to laugh. “Oh my! Oh, by the tail of God. Well done. If that’s an illusion, I’ve no idea how you did it.”
“It’s not,” said Halla. “Here, you draw it and…”
“May I? In case you are giving some signal that I cannot see…”
“Sure, go ahead.”
The priest drew the sword. Sarkis flickered into existence behind Halla’s shoulder.
The priest hastily sheathed it again and Sarkis vanished. They drew, saw the blue fire, sheathed.
After the fourth round of this, Sarkis reached out his hand and said, “Please stop. I’m getting dizzy.”
“Oh, yes. Apologies.” They sat back with a broad grin. “The sword summons you, then? Are you a demon or a djinn?”
“No,” said Sarkis. “I’m a man, or was when I went into the blade.”
“He went into the sword centuries ago to help fight a war,” said Halla. “By being a weapon. Now he’s stuck there.”
Sarkis rolled his eyes at this characterization. “It wasn’t quite like that…”
“How fascinating!” The priest shook their head, chuckling. “Gentlefolk, you are well above my pay grade, though I thank you for livening up my morning. I will take you to the bishop.”
Bishop Beartongue was a tall, muscular woman with short graying hair, wearing vestments. She listened to the priest’s murmured explanation, raised her own eyebrows, and beckoned Halla and Sarkis into her office.
Other than being larger and slightly more cluttered, her room was similar to the one that the priest had been in. The only major difference was a massive oak desk, over which the bishop stared at them.
“Zale has told me a story I can hardly believe,” she said, “but they are the least fanciful of priests. Suppose you start from the beginning?”
Halla started from the beginning again.
The bishop asked a great many questions, and not only about Sarkis and the sword. Alver’s family had no claim on her except by her former marriage? Halla was sincere in her desire not to marry her cousin?
“He has clammy hands,” said Halla.
“Avert!” said Beartongue, making a warding gesture. “We’ll say no more, then.” She continued the questions. Did Halla know the exact amount of Silas’s estate? As much as that? Fascinating. She had been trying to kill herself? Why? Did she wish to die otherwise? No? They had run then? Yes, understandably so.
She stopped the polite interrogation long enough to order food and drink brought in, and watched them eat with interest. Then she turned to Sarkis and went through an abbreviated version of the same tests the priest had done, sword sheathed and then unsheathed.
“Would you object terribly, Widow Halla, to leaving the room while I try this? Forgive my suspicion, I mean no offense, but this is so very unusual, and while you do not seem like a liar, I would be remiss in my service to the Rat if I did not take all precautions.”
“Oh no, go ahead.” Halla pushed her chair back. “Err…Sarkis? It’s okay with you, right?”
He nodded. He held the bishop’s eyes, though, while he said, “And now I mean no offense, but in the event that they try to steal the blade, lady, do not leave the Temple complex. As soon as they draw it again, I will find you. I will not be separated from my wielder except by her choice, Bishop.”
Beartongue inclined her head. “Fair and more than fair.”
Halla took an apple from the tray, stepped outside the room, and leaned against the wall.
She had time to finish most of the apple before the bishop called her back in. Sarkis was sitting in the chair where she had left him, but he had slid down in it, his hands folded together, studying the bishop with unreadable eyes.
“This is truly amazing,” Beartongue said. “We are used to artificers coming in from Anuket City, occasionally with marvels, to the occasional relic that someone claims is from the ancient civilizations, but you are something else entirely. A true work of magic.” She leaned back in her chair. “Wonderworkers who can do some small feat are one thing, but this…” She shook her head.
Sarkis said nothing.
“But you have come to us to solve a problem,” said Beartongue, as Halla sat, “not to have us gawk. S
o we have several options.”
She tapped her finger on the table. “First of all, the Temple of the White Rat, for a tithe, will arrange to help you retrieve your inheritance. It will cost you—oh—twenty percent, let us say, which includes arranging to sell your uncle’s house if you wish. I am honor-bound to tell you that you do not need us to do so, that legally the estate is yours and the only barrier is your husband’s relatives. But I also understand that family can be…” She pursed her lips. “…trying.”
Halla gave a single laugh that sounded high and hysterical in her own ears and clamped it down immediately. “Sorry.”
Sarkis reached out and took her hand.
Am I to be manhandled again?
It did not feel like manhandling. It felt like comfort, and that was a very strange thing to be taking from the touch of an enchanted sword. Had his hands always been so warm? She couldn’t remember. She looked down at their joined hands, his fingers dark bands across her pale skin. He rubbed his thumb gently across her palm and she glanced up at him, but his face was as hard and remote as ever.
“Mistress Halla?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Sorry. It’s been…well, a long week.”
“The Temple can make this easier for you.” Beartongue smiled. “Providing advocates is one of the Rat’s primary functions. We are very hard to bully.”
“I’d like that,” said Halla. “Err…very much.”
“There is also the separate matter of the sword.” She picked up the sword, drew it partway out. The steel made an almost silken noise against the scabbard. The etched words that Halla couldn’t read winked in the light.
The hand clasped in hers was suddenly gone as Beartongue clicked the sword into the scabbard.
“Now,” said the bishop quietly, “we are alone. You may speak freely, Halla. The White Rat is very old and nothing shocks Him any longer. Are you in danger?”
“Danger?” said Halla, baffled.
“Your enchanted companion,” said Beartongue. “Do you fear him? Has he harmed you? Does he have any hold over you? We can have you safely away, if you do not wish to stay in his company.”
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