Desert Rising (19 page)

The Crone was shocked. Her own Mother Superior would barely be able to channel that kind of power, and she was the most skilled of her acolytes. That a mere riding master could channel her goddess's power and not be burned-­out meant Aryn's acolytes had been trained far better than she'd ever imagined. And Aryn's forces might be more powerful than Ivanha's greater numbers.

The Herald smiled at the shock on her and the Templar's faces. “Oh yes. We work with our deity far more than you do, both as healers and in the everyday. Aryn is wise to your duplicity and is tired of maintaining the façade that she approves of what you do. Now she wants some answers.”

“Then what is this about? Don't waste my time,” the Templar sneered insolently.

A cold wind rolled against the Crone's back, and she shivered convulsively as the Herald's face turned inhuman—­the eyes red, the mouth a snarl. Her voice was a cross between a hiss and a wail. “The girl in the warehouse was mine!” Aryn growled from inside the Herald's body.

The Crone tried to compose herself, unnerved by the deity's presence even after all these years. She steeled herself for her own deity's arrival.

The Herald's face twisted as Aryn spoke again through her. “I healed her as a baby, and her family was mine, they tithed to me. When you cast them down and made them Forsaken, you took what was mine and hid it from my sight! My messengers tell me what I suspected. You are casting innocents from our protection without justification. You take far more from our followers than what should be yours, Voras, and you will pay for such presumption.”

The papers in front of the Templar flared and became ashes. Voras entered his Voice, and the Templar's own lips twisted in a scornful sneer. “You don't see what is front of your eyes, Aryn. That's why you'll always be left with the dregs.”

“That girl was innocent, Voras. You forced her family out of house and home, and from my sight and my protection. You overtax our ­people. I want to know what you think you are doing, Voras. Where is the money? And what do you intend to do with the Forsaken?”

The Crone found herself breaking out with a cold sweat as Parasu took over the Tribune. Parasu's voice was one out of the murkiest depths, of the darkest shadows. “Aryn has a valid point. You are overstepping the bounds the One has set for us. There must be a reckoning.”

The Crone held on to the table, bracing herself for what she knew must come. She was trained for this; she could survive the possession as other acolytes could not. But on uneasy nights, Ivanha was what woke her up screaming.

Voras sneered at the other two deities. “And who will do it? You can threaten me with the One, but I know better. You value your independence too much to have it curtailed by the One. You may have powerful acolytes, but a bunch of clerics and healers are no match for my armies—­not with Ivanha on my side.”

The Crone's body stiffened at the mention of her deity, as naming her called her to the gathering. The Crone's scream was silent as she was pushed deep into her body, desperately clawing for a hold as Ivanha's indomitable will shoved her soul mercilessly aside. The Crone hung on, the barest thread connecting her to her body.

“You presume too much, my love,” Ivanha crooned, her voice low and lovely. “You assume I am on your side.”

He gazed at her contemptuously. “As though raising the taxes wasn't your idea,” he said.

“What are you building your treasury for?” Parasu's cold voice demanded.

Voras stood silent, but Ivanha laughed. “War, of course. What else would he need money and men for? And we will have all the riches of the desert at our command.”

Voras swore at her and threw a firebolt in her direction. She deflected it easily, and a chair burst into flames. Parasu gestured, and the flames went out, the wood soaked with water.

“War? War against the desert? Is that right?” Aryn sneered. “You are running a fool's game, Voras, and you are stealing my ­people, my worshippers, to do it. You will give me the money you stole.”

“Come and take it,” Voras growled. Aryn gathered power to her, and Voras did the same, the air crackling between them.

“This is useless,” Parasu told them coldly. “You cannot defeat each other. You can only destroy your Voices, and that would be counterproductive.”

The deities backed down, and the energy dissipated.

Parasu continued. “Voras, we cannot force you to return what was stolen. But you will demote your leaders, recall the Knight from every temple, calling them back here for retraining in the laws of the One. Lesser, more obedient men will take over.”

“If I don't?”

“They will be slaughtered. You have two weeks.”

Deep in her body, the Crone shuddered. It was horrible to see how expendable humans were to the deities.

“Aryn and Parasu do not support this folly in the desert and will aid the opposition if you continue on this path. Ivanha, you would be wise to reconsider your alliance with Voras. So Parasu has spoken.”

As his deity left him, the Tribune slumped over the table as though his body had no bones.

“So Aryn agrees.”

The Herald slid down the wall to crumple on the floor.

“Voras complies.”

The Templar joined the Herald on the floor.

“What a mess,” Ivanha commented coolly, and the Crone's body became her own, drained of energy. The Crone reveled in the freedom of her own mind even as her head slammed against the table.

The door opened, and footsteps rushed in. The Crone could see acolytes tending to Parasu and Aryn. Soon she heard the voice of her Mother Superior and felt her hands lifting her head. A strong liquor flooded her mouth, burning as she swallowed but reviving her somewhat. She was able to hold her head up enough to watch the Herald being supported out of the room by her Ranger and Cantor. At least this time the deities had been kind enough to call their supporters in. Last time, the mouthpieces had lain on the floor for hours before being discovered.

She stood, and the Mother Superior supported her on one side. They staggered though the corridor. She was glad it was late, and there were no pilgrims to see her weakness. The Counselor of the One stood in the doorway of the One's Temple and watched silently as they went past. The Crone was glad to enter Ivanha's Temple, away from those assessing eyes. Her acolytes cried out at her condition and pampered and fussed and helped her to bed. Tomorrow, she would get her direct orders from her goddess. Tonight, she would sleep heavily in her soft bed, hoping not to dream of the darkness that waited if her deity pushed her out.

 

Chapter 11

T
HE MOOD AR
OUND
the Temple was somber, even weeks after the commotion. The pledge class had talked for hours after the funnel swept the warehouse into the desert, wondering about Kadar's possible involvement.

“I heard he stabbed the pervert right in the heart,” Joaquil had whispered.

“Not with a blunt blade, he didn't,” Dani had answered. “But I heard he broke the man's arm and threatened his life.”

Sulis's riding lessons were canceled for a week after the funnel. When Aggie came back, she looked ten years older.

She shook her head at Sulis's shocked inquiries. “Being an acolyte for Aryn isn't all pleasure riding, Sulis,” she said bluntly. “I serve her, and she takes what she needs.”

A week later, Lasha reported that she'd seen the Crone carried back to her altar after the Curia, and after-­vesper silence was broken for a night as the girls whispered about what might have happened. The Mother Superior was grim-­faced, and Sulis and her group didn't dare meet for a week after, as word came back that all Knights of Voras had been called back to the main Temple for training and been replaced with lesser acolytes. Even Dani had been shocked speechless by that development. The Knights of Voras, similarly to the Mother Superiors of Ivanha, the twinned Rangers and Cantors of Aryn, and the Magistrates of Parasu, were the heads of their orders in the outlying temples. The fact that Voras had recalled all his outlying commanders seemed a punishment to the deity rather than something he might have chosen willingly. Even the older acolytes were starting to suspect a rift between the four deities.

“There hasn't been a war between the deities in generations,” Jonas whispered to Sulis in geography class.

“Is that what you think is happening?” Sulis whispered back—­but not quietly enough. She was reprimanded harshly for whispering in class and had to stay behind to write lines.

“The teachers certainly are cranky these days,” she told Alannah at dinner, and Alannah nodded.

“I was yelled at today by the Mother for smiling inappropriately,” she replied.

The tension seemed to ease as the weeks passed, and Sulis and her group began meeting again with an urgency and purpose they hadn't had before.

Sulis asked Sandy whether he thought a rift was forming among the deities.

“You may not have heard the stories of the wars between the deities,” he told her, “but we grew up listening to them. It doesn't pay to be an acolyte on the wrong side of the battle when a war comes. We're expendable to them. They can't kill each other; but they can kill all the followers of an opposing deity just to win. I wouldn't want to be under Voras and Ivanha now. There's no doubt Voras is on the wrong side of the One, and I like being alive.”

Sandy then gleefully put a powerful
geas
on Sulis that left her unable to ask more questions until she broke it. They were all getting more used to working with one another, and the twins in particular were learning to use their bond for additional strength. They could now even break a
geas
on the other twin. Sulis, impressed with their abilities, began reaching out with her mind in the night, questing for her own twin. One night she found him in a state of emotion that—­when she probed, feeling alarmed—­made her withdraw rather quickly, blushing. It seemed that either things with Farrah were coming along nicely, or Kadar was seeking comfort elsewhere.

She heard that Kadar had rejoined training and was also taking lessons with Aggie in the afternoons. The weather turned cooler as mid-­winter settled in. Illian was too far south to get snow or really cold weather, but Sulis switched to longer, woolen robes.

Sulis graduated from her remedial courses, with grudging approval from Ivanha's acolyte, and began attending classes on diplomacy with Jonas and the rest of her pledge class. The diplomacy course was taught by an acolyte of Voras, who called on Sulis anytime he mentioned the customs of the desert. He was constantly urging her to open up and tell the others about her home.

“You belong to the Temple now,” he told her. “Other loyalties must be set aside.”

“He just wants to know how to get there,” Sulis complained bitterly to Jonas after one class where the man had mentioned her desert heritage ceaselessly, trying to make her feel guilty. “It's not like he wants to know what our customs are. I'd gladly tell him. He just wants to destroy us and make us a part of his empire.”

They began other lessons as well: introductions to the different philosophies of the deities, each taught by one of their acolytes, and lessons on how pledges should conduct themselves in Temple rituals and special events.

“They're trying to prepare us for our pledging ceremony in the spring,” Luella commented at one of their secret meetings. “I'm glad, but all these extra classes make it awfully hard to get out to the blacksmith as I'd like to.”

“What do you think happens when you pledge?” Dani asked the others.

“Well, one of the acolytes of Ivanha . . . You know how they're playing nice to us all of a sudden?” Lasha said. The others nodded. Acolytes of all the deities had begun courting the pledges in anticipation of the spring event. “Well, she said it's pretty simple. You dress in white and go into the temple of the One alone, and the four Voices of the deities are waiting. You say the words of the ceremony, kneel, then open your mind the way the Counselor is teaching us. The deities do the rest.”

The group exchanged glances.

“So that's where we do our thing and block the ones we don't want, isn't it?” Shane asked, for once speaking before his twin.

Sulis shrugged. “I think so. I've never done this before either. Maybe we won't need to block them so much as believe really hard in the deity we want. I can't imagine that we could hold out against a determined deity. They could smash through our barriers like they weren't there.”

“The Counselor of the One will be there to shield us from exactly such a thing's happening,” Alannah told them. “If you can't open to a deity, then you are simply put back in next year's pledge class. Forced bonding can destroy a pledge's mind.”

They shivered, thinking about it, and began working harder.

Parasu seemed to be waking to the situation around him, as Aryn had. After mid-­winter passed, his Tribune ordered that something be done about the bandits on the road to Trebue, giving the Templar a hard deadline. Jonas came to a meeting white-­faced, saying he had heard screaming between the Templar and Tribune, and the Templar had refused to send his men out to stop the bandits. Tension prevailed in the Temple as scholars of Parasu faced hostility and threats from soldiers of Voras. Scholars coming back from the stables were beaten by soldiers, but only once; the soldiers in question experienced nightmares of drowning and woke with their clothing drenched in swamp water. The soldiers kept a wary distance from the scholars after that.

The deadline passed and the standoff ended when Aryn's Ranger rode out, traveling through a late winter cold snap with a group of couriers and guards and came back with the main pack of bandits, driven ahead of Aryn's acolytes by bows and dogs.

The next day, their trial began, and ­people from Trebue flocked to Illian to watch. Jonas sat in on the trial, squished into a corner, and reported back to the group of pledges what he had heard.

Things also became difficult at the stables. Soldier trainees suddenly began attempting to scare the horses while Aryn's acolytes were riding, in petty revenge for Aryn usurping Voras's role by capturing the bandits. Aggie, her lips a tight line of anger, told Sulis she was afraid they would attempt to harm the animals if this went on much longer. She banished Voras's soldiers from the training yard although she allowed Severin and his group of paying students to continue.

The pledges still met to practice, in spite of all the tension in the Temple. So far, the pledges had been left out of the harassment, but they walked around in groups anyway, nervous that they might accidentally get in the way of retribution planned for someone else. The courtyard of Parasu was even more deserted than usual, so they felt safe there.

Jonas appeared at midmeal and sat beside Lasha and Sulis, taking a break from the trial to tell the others that the arguments had been closed and now the judges had to deliberate. “Geography's been canceled for this week. Our Scholar is on the judicature.” At their baffled looks, he explained. “If the crimes just took place in Illian, the Magistrate would decide the case. But the Tribune is calling this a crime against the entire Territory since they robbed ­people all across the North. So they've convened a five-­person judicature, made up of scholars from different areas, so the whole Territory is represented.”

“And I'll bet you wish you were in that room with them,” Lasha teased.

He blushed. “Someday I will be,” he said quietly.

“And there won't be a better judge in the court,” Sulis said warmly. She found she enjoyed all her classmates once she started working with them, but Jonas, Lasha, and Alannah were still her closest companions, and the only ­people who knew the truth about her background and her family.

Their small circle of friends was working together now, each of them pushing one another to do more. Jonas was sitting in on every judgment he could, to understand the inner workings of Parasu's temple. Alannah was working on her shielding with the group, and meditating more and more in the Temple of the One. Lasha and Sulis spent as much time as possible at the healing halls and around the couriers of Aryn. Sulis personally disliked the healing halls, which were located outside the temple proper in one of the poorer districts. Sulis had never been comfortable with the sick and dying moaning around her, but Lasha seemed to have a talent for charming sick children, so the healers could work more easily.

Lasha brightened. “Why don't we go to the healing halls?” she asked Sulis and Jonas as the trio finished eating. “Last time I could almost feel what the healer was doing. I think I'm beginning to know what Aryn's touch feels like.”

“We could go to the stables,” Sulis suggested, thinking maybe she could catch sight of Kadar. They'd managed to get notes back and forth through Jonas since he was in trade-­law class with Kadar, but the one meeting was all they'd had since she was paired. The weather was warming just a little now, so outdoor riding was more pleasant for her southern bones. Lasha grimaced. Lasha disliked horses as much as Sulis disliked sick ­people.

“You were there earlier today. And your brother's probably left already. C'mon, you know I can't go to the healing halls without you.”

The basic restrictions on pledges stated that, unless they were going to a class, they had to gain permission from a ranking acolyte to leave the Temple. Also, pledges could only go in groups of two or more if an acolyte did not accompany them.

Sulis nodded reluctantly. Lasha looked at Jonas, who shook his head. “You know I can't go there without getting queasy.”

“Where's Alannah?” Sulis asked.

“With Counselor Elida,” Jonas replied.

“Again?”

“She's learning more defensive stuff she can try on us, studying mind clearing. She's better at it than the rest of the class, so the Counselor is teaching her some extra tricks.”

Sulis nodded. Though she was stronger in many ways than Alannah—­able to repel even the Counselor from her mind and set up almost unbreakable barriers—­Alannah shone with the ability to maintain a focused channel of energy and sustain it for long periods of time. She had a patience and gentleness Sulis lacked.

“Let's go find the Ranger and get to the healers,” Lasha urged.

They'd found out weeks ago that if they wanted permission to go to the healers or stables in their free time, they needed to avoid the Mother Superior of Ivanha, who would frown and find some sewing task that needed doing. They'd avoided all of Voras's acolytes since Sulis's incident with the Templar. The Magistrate of Parasu was better but still grilled the girls on where exactly they were going and what they planned to do. The Ranger and Cantor of Aryn, on the other hand, were more than thrilled with the interest the girls paid to Aryn's works and would always try to find a healer whom they could shadow for the day.

Lasha led the way to Aryn's temple. It was easy to spot the Ranger—­her height and pure white hair were a beacon in the crowd. She had her back to them, so they walked through the packed room to her. Lasha stopped suddenly and took a step back, and Sulis peered past her to see why.

The Ranger was in a conference with her counterpart, the Cantor, and with Aryn's Voice, the Herald.

They started to back away, but the Cantor saw them and smiled encouragingly. At his smile, the Herald and Ranger turned.

“What is it . . . ah, Lasha and Sulis,” the Ranger said with a smile. “Herald, these are the two pledges I was telling you about. Healer Chani has spoken much of Lasha's ability in the sickroom.”

Lasha turned pink with pleasure at being named in front of the Herald, who smiled at her.

“Aryn has noticed your efforts,” she told Lasha, who smiled and ducked her head. The Herald looked past Lasha at Sulis and nodded a greeting to her as well.

“Did you two want something?” the Ranger asked.

Lasha nodded. “We wished permission to go to the healer halls this afternoon. Scholar Jantis is in judicature, so we don't have lessons.”

The Ranger nodded. “You have permission as long as you stay together, are back by last meal, and don't stray from the road.”

They nodded and bowed to her, backing up.

“Did you hear that?” Lasha squeaked as they headed for the door. “Healer Chani spoke of me. Aryn noticed me! I might have a chance of escaping Ivanha after all.”