Ruby Guardian (24 page)

not care. Grandmother Hetta was who she needed to speak to right then, and the quicker she got home, the quicker they could begin to figure out how to find and save Xaphira. But as she walked, the pain in her head grew worse, and Emriana felt herself on the verge of passing out more than once. She didn’t think she could make the journey all the way back home as woozy as she felt.

The temple, she decided, massaging her skull. It’s closer than home, and some of Vambran’s or Uncle Kovrim’s friends will help me.

As Emriana entered the temple district and drew near the Temple of Waukeen, she saw that a crowd had gathered. She limped closer, reaching the fringes of the throng, and began to try to find a way through the people, hoping she could find a priest she knew. As polite and patient as she tried to be, though, everyone around her gave her cold or contemptuous stares.

Finally, a hawk-nosed woman with severe, beady eyes elbowed the girl, pushing her back a step.

“Know your place, girl,” the woman said. “We all want a better look at the new high priest, but this is as close as any of us are going to get, so stop shoving.”

The meaning of the woman’s words hit her fully. “The new high priest?” she asked. “What happened to Grand Syndar Midelli?”

The hawk-nosed woman gave her a baleful stare. “Haven’t you heard?” she snapped. “The Grand Syndar is dead.”

“Dead?” she repeated, stunned.

The woman nodded and sniffed. “Aye, he passed last night, they say, though he had been ill for more than that, they say.”

Emriana felt the ground tilting beneath her feet as the news sank in. She wondered if everyone at home knew, yet. “Have they named a successor?”

“Where have you been hiding, child?” the woman

asked, shaking her head in consternation. “What do you think we’re all doing here? They’re about to announce it now.” With a final shake of her head, the unpleasant woman turned away, refocusing her attention toward the front of the temple.

At that moment, a hush fell over the crowd, followed by an excited murmur as a line of high priests began to file out the front doors of the temple and onto the steps. They were all dressed in their most lavish finery, and they took up positions in rows along the steps, creating a dazzling display of the finest white cloth, sparkling gems of amber and ruby, and plenty of polished gold. The last priest to appear, dressed most magnificently of all and wearing a miter upon his head, waddled in a familiar way due to his considerable girth.

Grand Trabbar Lavant.

Oh, Waukeen, Emriana thought, sitting down right in the plaza. Not this. Not now.

The girl had to draw several deep, slow breaths to gain her equilibrium back. Lavant was the new Grand Syndar of the entire temple. It didn’t seem possible for the news to get any worse. She had to let the family know, but first, she needed desperately to find someone, anyone, within the temple who could help her. Otherwise, she would never make it back to the estate.

“Please excuse me,” Emriana said, trying once more to weave her way through the crowd.

“I told you to know your place, girl,” the hawk-nosed woman said, shoving Emriana back once more. “Now stop pushing.”

“But I want to go inside,” the girl said, not understanding why they were being so rude to her. “I didn’t mean to shove.”

“Inside?” the woman said incredulously. “Looking and smelling like that?” Then the woman began to

laugh, a high-pitched cackling that was harsh to Emriana’s ears. Several other people gathered about joined in. “You know the Waukeenars don’t let street waifs like you in their midst. You’ve got to have coin to spend in order to walk the golden halls.” The harsh woman shook her head bemusedly. “Inside,” she chuckled, turning away again.

As Emriana looked down at her bedraggled appearance, she felt tears beginning to well up. Her clothes were ruined, torn in several places. They were soiled with odiferous gunk from the alley the previous evening. Her hair, normally so shiny black, hung limply and smelled of rotting fish. She realized just how badly she smelled by the way the people around her gave her a step or two of clearance. No one was going to believe she was Arrabaran nobility looking like that. But the only way to prove otherwise was to either clean herself up or find someone who knew and could vouch for her, neither of which she could do in her condition.

Feeling defeated, Emriana staggered to one side of the plaza and sank down in the shade of a vender’s awning, too tired to even look at what he was selling.

The man who owned the cart, a fat fellow with black, bushy hair and huge, flaring mustaches, eyed her curiously then began to frown. “You can’t sit there,” he said, shaking a single pudgy finger in her direction. “You’ll drive away the paying customers.”

Emriana nodded and dug out her coin purse, surprised to find it still tucked in a sash at her waist. “Water,” she said, her voice little more than a croak, handing the man a silver coin. “Please,” she added, hoping her politeness would smooth things over for the fellow.

When he spied the silver glint in her hand the man’s expression lightened considerably. “Of course,”

he said, helping Emriana to sit up and get more comfortable before snatching up his own belt cup and pouring out a serving of water from a pitcher on his cart. He handed the cup to Emriana, who took it and began to drink thirstily. It tasted of mint and was cool as it went down. The girl hadn’t realized how thirsty she was until she began quenching it.

After she finished off a second serving, she sighed and looked up at the man gratefully. “Thank you,” she said, feeling better. “What are you selling?”

“Why, hot honeycakes, of course,” he said and brought one down for her to smell. “Another silver will get you two,” he said, eagerly eyeing the girl’s coin purse, which she still clutched in her lap. When Emriana nodded and began to retrieve another silver coin, the man produced a pair of fresh, hot pastries that had been soaked in honey. He set them on a narrow wooden plank, like a shingle, and handed the whole thing to Emriana.

She sat in the shade of the cart’s awning and devoured the cakes, then paid for another two cups of water after she was done. After swallowing the last of her drink, she handed the cup back to the man and smiled at him. Feeling much better, Emriana climbed to her feet again. Deciding that the temple was too difficult to navigate with the crowd, she turned for home once again.

Grandmother Hetta needs to know, she reasoned. We have to find a way to stop this madness.

Emriana could not run, having only one boot on her feet, but she walked as fast as she was able, out of the temple district and into the neighborhood where the Matrell estate was located. She arrived there nearly an hour after she had been at the temple and pushed past the guards manning the front gate, who stared at her dumbfounded. She didn’t care. She hurried up the front path toward the house.

Bursting through the front door, she began calling for her grandmother. A servant met Emriana near the entrance to the house, and the look on the woman’s face made Emriana pull up in abject fear.

“What is it?” the girl demanded, taking the servant by the shoulders. “What happened?” They already know about Xaphira, Emriana thought. The news of her death beat me home. She felt her stomach flutter at the possibility and swallowed hard, afraid to hear the revelation.

“Oh, Miss Emriana, it’s terrible,” the servant said, a girl named Liezl who worked in the kitchens. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for what? Liezl, what on Toril happened?” Emriana said, wanting to shake the fool servant.

“It’s Mistress Hetta,” Liezl said, her voice barely a whisper.

The blood pounded in Emriana’s ears. Her legs threatened to give way once more. She couldn’t breathe.

Oh, no. No!

Emriana released the poor girl in front of her and ran to the central room of the house, the main hall. From there, she intended to dash toward the wing where her grandmother’s rooms were, but she saw the crowd gathered in the sitting room. She skidded to a stop and changed direction, coming up behind another servant, a man who worked in the gardens, whose name she didn’t even know. She pushed past him.

Hetta Matrell had been laid in state in the middle of the sitting room.

“No!” Emriana sobbed, rushing into the room. “Hetta!” she said as she stumbled up next to the table where her grandmother had been arranged. All around her, Emriana could hear the gasps of the people in the room, but she ignored them. “No!” she sobbed again,

burying her face against her grandmother’s. “It’s not true!” she cried, willing her grandmother to still be alive. “Please!”

“Oh, I’m afraid it’s very true,” came a man’s voice from the other side of the room. It was a voice that made Emriana’s blood run cold. She raised her head and looked, tears streaking her cheeks.

In the far corner, a sickening smile upon his face, stood Grozier Talricci.

• • •

“And thus, we mark Mikolo Midelli’s passing not in sorrow, but in celebration of his life, his leadership, and his accomplishments,” Grand Syndar Lavant said, his voice echoing throughout the grand hall of the Temple of Waukeen. Standing where he was at the great altar, both the acoustics of the chamber and permanent magical enhancements allowed the entire audience to hear him clearly. He was dressed in very formal robes of state, a flowing outfit of cream-colored silk with brocaded gold and maroon highlights, and the whole thing was woven with rubies and yellow sapphires. A great miter sat atop his head, a stiff, almost conical thing of deep red, highlighted with solid gold and ruby decorations, glinting in the light of thousands of candles.

In front of the Grand Syndar, lying within a great gold sarcophagus encrusted with hundreds of gems of every imaginable hue, was the body of Mikolo Midelli, the previous Grand Syndar. He had been dressed in his own finest robes of office, an outfit that rivaled Lavant’s, who loomed over him, speaking of the man in his most eloquent and gracious tones.

Pilos wanted to clamp his hands over his ears. He could not stand to listen to the fat, arrogant man who had been named as the successor Grand Syndar to

the temple. Not when he knew of the political maneuvering, the wrangling of votes, of support, that had taken place the night before, prior to Midelli’s death. Earlier that morning, before the public ceremony on the front steps that proclaimed him Grand Syndar to the world, the council of high priests had assembled, with all other clergy in attendance. They had barely given Mikolo’s body time to grow cold before they were nominating Lavant for the position. Of course, there had been others who had coveted the rank, and their names were mentioned in the great council chambers as well, but Pilos knew it was a foregone conclusion, even if many of the other clergy members sitting in audience did not.

As the roll had been called and Lavant had garnered the necessary votes to be raised to Grand Syndar, the priests filling the council chamber had given the man thunderous applause. Pilos could not. He had sat there, feeling sickened and listening dully while Lavant revealed his first edicts. The man had the audacity to begin using the weight of his office right then and there, before the temple had even given the old Grand Syndar a proper, respectful send-off.

Of course, Lavant had waved away his brashness in the trappings of dire necessity, for he spoke of the coming of war in the east, of divinations that all of Chondath would be engulfed in the ravages of conflict if the temple did not act. It was all so necessary, Lavant had explained, that they begin preparing for the coming eventualities he had foreseen. Thus, he had begged their indulgence to allow him to commence running the affairs of the temple immediately, rather than waiting the traditional grace period while the previous Grand Syndar lay in state.

What Lavant had described was a very different temple than the one Pilos had known to that point. The rotund leader was taking them in a decidedly

more militant, aggressive direction than the temple had seen in many years. Pilos wondered just what Mikolo would have thought of such changes. He wondered what Waukeen thought of them, returning his attention to the moment.

“Even during those years of our Lady’s absence,” Lavant was saying, “Mikolo Midelli was resolute, devout, never faltering in his belief and faith. He did not turn his back on the Merchant’s Friend to bathe in the holiness of other gods. He sought to continue Waukeen’s teachings, even when Waukeen could not walk among his flock herself.”

That’s a dangerous thing to be saying, Pilos thought in mild surprise. He’s all but naming Mikolo as a surrogate god. What does that say about those who shifted their allegiance to Lliira when Waukeen went missing? How many of the clergy is he alienating?

As if to punctuate the Abreeant’s concerns, numerous priests sitting around him began to shift in their seats uncomfortably or grumble among themselves.

“He will be missed,” Lavant said, “but his works will live on in the glory of the temple for generations to come.”

There was a pause, and Pilos wondered if the Grand Syndar was finished with his eulogy. What came next surprised and angered him.

“Mikolo Midelli’s time at the helm of the temple was a time of peace. It was a time of prosperity. Those days are gone, and we move now into a new era—a time of danger, of the shadow of war.”

He’s giving an acceptance speech! Pilos silently fumed. He’s actually going to stand there and talk about himself during the man’s wake! Pilos wanted to throw something, and he was shocked by his own vehemence, his own outrage. He wondered if he was not seeing things properly, seeing them as Waukeen

perhaps did. The thought made him strangely sad, imagining that his own thinking might be so out of alignment with that of his goddess.

“But war can also be a time of prosperity,” Lavant continued, “and I humbly endeavor to seek that prosperity in my own ministrations to the temple.”

No, Pilos thought, shaking his head, Waukeen has never taught us to prosper through the cultivation of war.

Grand Syndar Lavant droned on for several more minutes, but Pilos lost interest in the new temple leader’s words. Instead, he bided his time on happier memories, recollections of the time he had enjoyed serving Mikolo. He would miss the old man, but Pilos realized he wasn’t saddened so much by the spiritual leader’s passing as he was by being left behind. The young Abreeant felt some pangs of jealousy, for he knew that Mikolo was finding true gratification in Brightwater for all of his years of loyal dedication to Waukeen. There was a small part of Pilos that wished—no, aspired, he decided—to find himself by Mikolo’s side there someday. And though he wished to live out a long and full life in Waukeen’s service, the chance to rise to that higher spirituality that he knew would come after his death was one he eagerly awaited.