Rift in the Races (92 page)

“Ugh,” he uttered aloud as he thought about heading into that religious tempest. He spent a few more moments trying to think of some other way, trying to concoct an excuse that he could convince himself to believe, but he could not. In the end, he knew avoiding the unpleasant was no better way of accomplishing his aims than the obfuscation and fantasy he was about to face was a way of fixing anything. So he set himself to the task.

Several hours later, he jumped down from Taot’s back, just outside of the city, in his usual place, choosing the dragon as conveyance over teleporting directly given the added security across the land. Her Majesty’s mages watched everything now and all laws were enforced, sometimes harshly. He offered to send the creature back to his lair with a teleportation spell, but Taot had seen a herd of wild horses forty measures back and was intent on having a meal of one or two of them. Altin cringed a little at the image the dragon sent him in describing that, but he wished his reptilian friend the best and then set off on his way to the city gates.

He was still unhappy about the task that brought him there, but his spirits had lifted some by the fact that at least Kettle’s willow powder had done its work. At least his headache was gone. And who knew, maybe the priests would be happy that the stone’s rightful owner had come to claim it and they’d hand it right over, easy as spitting in the street. Perhaps he’d be ridding them of a headache of their own. One just never knew how a thing was going to turn out until it was done, and rarely was anything as good or bad as expected.

He made his way through town, dodging oxcarts and the trample of guardsmen’s feet—and there were many now, the patrols increased with the return of the orcish threat. He ignored the occasional stares and gapes sent his way by star-struck passersby, and eventually found himself in the Church Quarter and the religious center of the community. The first thing he noticed were the black pits and streaks of ash everywhere. Literally everywhere. No matter where he looked, on every building, every statue, every tree, there were burn marks and holes dug out by lightning strikes that had raged there for two full weeks and a day.

Several temples were completely destroyed, but all had damage to a greater or lesser degree. Workmen crawled over them all now like termites upon so many jumbled logs, patching and repairing what could be patched and repaired, rebuilding what was beyond that. He saw a huge scaffold built across the front of the Temple of Hestra, which had been completely decimated by the storm. Men worked steadily rebuilding the marble columns, raising them like soldiers being resurrected and put back in a line. The creak of the workmen’s’ ropes and the bending strain upon their cranes and scaffolds made Altin realize how much harder things could be when there weren’t enough magicians around. The incredible number of transmuters conscripted to work on
Citadel
had not come without some consequence to the cities and towns around Kurr. Still, by the look of it, the blank laborers were making a good job of it, and they seemed happy to have the work, most of them singing as they set about their tasks. The rebuilding would take longer, but it would get done, and perhaps a few blank families would be better fed through the remainder of the winter months.

He followed the damage and the flow of laborers into the heart of the quarter until he came to the Temple of Anvilwrath, god of the forge, maker of lightning and keeper of the keen edge, the crushing blow and the piercing point. This temple, and the temple dedicated to the goddess Mercy across the way, were the only two that had already been completely repaired. He knew why Mercy’s shrine had been fixed, or perhaps even spared, but the newness of the entire façade fronting the temple to the five-armed god, Anvilwrath, suggested a form of evidence that this one had not been spared at all. It looked a lot like guilt to Altin’s eyes. And though he was not a religious man, he knew well enough that the type of spell that had done this much and this kind of damage was just the sort of thing most likely to have been cast by a devotee of Anvilwrath. Who else would try to control that much lightning, that much power?

He stopped at the bottom of the temple steps and stared up at it. Whatever damage it had sustained was already completely rebuilt, and there were no workmen about. It was pristine, newly so. He looked through the gapped teeth of the temple’s massive fluted columns, three of which were completely new, their sandy color not quite a perfect match to the rest, lacking exposure to time and the elements. Altin could see the massive marble figure of Anvilwrath inside, his five huge arms, his massive chest, his shoulders so wide a team of horses four abreast could pull a war wagon across without fear of falling off the edge.

Altin sucked in a long breath and resigned himself to what was to come, beginning with the supplicant ritual, required for respectful approach to the temple. He bent at the first step and, making a fist, made the ceremonial hammer gesture, striking the bottom stair. He might not believe in the power of the gods much anymore, but he wasn’t so certain of himself that he would flout them in this place and, at the very least, not where the priests could see and call him a blasphemer or worse.

He repeated the gesture up each of the first five steps, once for each of Anvilwrath’s charges: forge, lightning, edge, blow and point. Then he ran up the rest and went inside. It was dark, only half of the braziers burning, which made the back of the temple seem lost and impenetrable.

At the far end of an arcade near the west wall was a door that would lead to the clerics’ offices. He made his way straight to it. Inside, he was greeted by a young woman, barely past her teens, in rust-colored vestments of fine-spun wool and wearing a long copper chain around her neck from which hung a spearhead medallion made of copper too. She stood as if waiting for him in the center of the marble corridor.

“Sir Altin Meade,” she said as he came in, though he’d never met the woman in his life. “I’m surprised it took you so long to arrive.”

He inclined his head politely, if barely. “I see my visit was anticipated.”

“It has been for quite some time,” she said, giving him a long look that made him feel uncomfortable. “I am Klovis, priestess of the Spear. High Priestess Maul has been waiting for you.” She turned abruptly and walked toward the end of the corridor.

Altin followed, swallowing hard as he went. This was not what he’d been hoping for, though a lot like what he’d been dreading.

The priestess led him down a flight of stairs and through several more corridors until he was certain he would never find his way out again. They passed endless busts and statuary emplaced in niches along the walls. They passed paintings and small, delicately woven tapestries, all of which showed Anvilwrath at work or at war. At first they were impressive, but as they continued on, Altin stopped noticing them and began to wonder if he were being led into a trap. He had less faith in the priesthood than he did in the military. At least the military had rules about imprisonment and torture, albeit often enforced with extreme leniency. But the Church was an organization of utmost secrecy. And it was, in some ways, beyond the reach of the Queen and her laws. It wasn’t that the War Queen didn’t have the force to fight the Church or any of its component devotees, but doing so would rend the nation she had finally solidified, breaking it back into a thousand warring factions—again. So she had to let them mainly alone, though they represented an ever-present thorn in her side, if not quite an outright threat to power. Even they recognized the good that had come of the Queen’s lasting peace. At least most of them.

Klovis brought him down one last flight of stairs and, after only a few twists and turns, they came to a plain wooden door. Frankly, Altin had expected something far more extravagant. Something regal and immense. This door might as easily have opened onto a wine cellar as the rooms of a high priestess of Anvilwrath.

The door swung open before Klovis had time to raise her hand to it, and the command “leave us” came through the opening before the young priestess had time to say a word. She turned without the slightest air of having been offended at such summary dismissal, perfectly aware of her place.

“Come in, Sir Altin. And, please, have a seat.”

High Priestess Maul was not as old as Altin expected her to be. Wings of gray swept up from her temples into a raven mass of shimmering hair held together atop her head by iron combs that were as conspicuous in their size as they were in the raw black of the iron itself, but the flesh around her eyes and lips remained youthful, neither lined by the parching winds of time. It was the same for her sinuous hands, and as Altin sat in the chair she indicated for him, he noted the flash of steel rings on each of her fingers as well. Runes cut into the polished metal, which he read reflexively, revealed that each ring could transform into a razor-sharp war claw. He had no doubt the woman, whose shoulders were toned and visible through the teardrop openings in her rust-colored robes, was more than capable of using such weapons well.

“Would you like some tea?” she asked. “Some wine, or perhaps a pint of stout? If there is any advantage to being High Priestess, it is that I have the best ale on Prosperion brought to me as befits the first among the Nails of Anvilwrath in Leekant.”

“No, thank you, High Priestess. I’m fine.” He shifted in the chair, though it was comfortable enough. “I’d like to get on with this, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course.” She steepled her fingers and stared at him for a time.

He made a point of not shifting in the chair again.

“You’ve come looking for the stone,” she said. It wasn’t a question. She already knew. Nobody did divination better than the Church.

“It is mine,” he said. “If you’ve found it, I am grateful, and I welcome its rightful return.”

She smiled, a patient one, the sort one saves for a well-played move in a game of chess. “I’m afraid Anvilwrath has other plans for it.”

Altin nodded, his mouth tight. Her move was equally well played. He knew better than to get into an argument of faith. She claimed to speak for a god. Nothing he could say would sway her from that automated position of that sort of authority. He was only a man.

“It is mine by rights. Anvilwrath is the god of justice. Is his hammer not the singular icon of it across Kurr?”

“It is,” she agreed, smiling again. “Although not singular. Many see the royal scepter in similar light. I expect you do that more than the other.”

He had to focus to prevent his lips from twitching.

She watched him for a while, her smile fading as she studied him. Eventually the smile came back. “You’re not what I thought you’d be,” she said at last. “I think I might come to like you very well in time. They told me you were impulsive and rash.”

“I am.”

“But you are not uncontrollable.”

“I am not out of control, if that’s what you mean.”

She watched him some more.

He wanted to stand up and bark at her to get on with it, but he knew that’s just what she was waiting for. He had to force himself not to glance about the room impatiently.

They stared at each other unblinking for what seemed an eternity. The woman might be a High Priestess, and Altin didn’t doubt it had taken determination rivaling his own to achieve such a lofty post, perhaps more, but he damned sure wasn’t going to give her what she wanted, whatever it was. So he waited. The longer she sat there, the greater the risk of her looking like the foolish one. What benefit to bring him down here only to sit in silence? At some point she would have to act. She’d forced her own hand by having Klovis standing there waiting for him with a cryptic greeting when he arrived.

Altin could wait.

Finally his patience paid off, and she leaned forward, putting her arms upon her neatly cluttered desk. “Very well,” she said, moving a sheet of parchment from one stack to another as if she’d needed to. Altin could tell she was irritated and buying time. She made a show of studying another sheet before moving that one to the other stack as well. “What is it and how does it work? I won’t bother you with bribes because I’ve been told you have recently succeeded to all of the late Master Tytamon’s holdings and wealth. And I do, with all my heart, extend my deepest sympathies for your loss. It must have been … it must be, crushing. I am sorry.”

“It is. And I have no idea how it works,” he said.

“But what does it do?”

“Surely you have guessed at it by now. The whole quarter is a wreck.”

“Yes, it amplifies power in some way. But how?”

“I don’t know how.”

“You are lying.”

“Not really,” he said, holding her gaze steadily. “I know that it amplifies power, just as you do. But I honestly cannot tell you how it works. You can divine yourself until you are blue in the face, scour my dreams, try to read my thoughts as you will, but you won’t find an answer because I don’t have one. It just works.”

She squinted at him as if he were something written on the head of a pin. “You’re hiding something.”

“Do what you have to do to verify the truth of it then. Get on with it. I genuinely do not know how it works.” He was bluffing, but only to a degree. He could tell her that it softened the mana, but in truth, he didn’t know how or why. It was a technicality, but one that he could live with, given the circumstance. He knew there were probably diviners somewhere beyond these four walls already watching him anyway. Looking into him for truth. He had it. He focused on it, was comfortable in it.