The God-Touched Man Page 13

  “No, I’m not sure,” Hodestis said, climbing over the seat, “but if they do, I’ll still be so weak we’ll be justified in asking for shelter for a day. So you’ll have time to do whatever you intend to do.”

  “Yes, what do we intend to do? I don’t think we ever decided who was to distract and who to steal,” Piercy said to Ayane, who guided her horse closer to the wagon. Behind him, Hodestis was murmuring softly enough Piercy couldn’t make out the command words.

  “I know the way the monastery is built, and you have the silver tongue, so I should steal and you should distract.”

  “And I think you should once again be a princess traveling with your tutor and your bodyguard, as we do not wish to present you as an evil magician.”

  “According to the map, there is a city about four miles north of here called Kemelen. We could be traveling there and have lost our way. I think that is believable.”

  “Agreed. I sincerely hope the God will know we mean him no disrespect.” Piercy urged the horse faster. “I admit to a certain amount of trepidation about how rapidly nightfall is approaching.”

  “We will just have to be especially convincing and cunning,” Ayane said.

  “Or we could wait for sunrise and mitigate the risk.”

  “Do you have no bravery in your soul?”

  “Do you have no common sense in yours?”

  “I think I’m going to throw up,” Hodestis said, and leaned far over the side of the wagon, retching and gagging. The smell of vomit tinged the air and was then swept away by a chill breeze. Hodestis leaned back on one of the grain sacks and wiped his forehead, which had gone sweaty. His fair skin was tinged with green around his mouth and his hands were shaking.

  “That is an extremely effective spell,” Piercy said.

  “I know. It looks worse than it is.”

  “It looks terrible,” said Ayane. “We should not allow him to suffer longer than he must,” she told Piercy.

  “We will only have one chance at this. I am not averse to taking risks, but there is no reason to take unnecessary ones. Let us see where we stand when we enter the monastery, and plan further then.”

  “Agreed,” Ayane said, though she was still scowling. Then she pointed at a dark blotch against the mountainous background, and said, “There it is.”

  Another thirty minutes brought them to the door of the monastery, just as the sun dipped below the distant horizon. Ayane’s description had led Piercy to expect a low, flat-roofed building somewhat higher in the center. Instead, a collection of spires of varying, asymmetrical heights much like the ones on Cath’s temple in Belicath rose from the roof, stark black and reflecting not even the little light from the sunset. The walls were windowless and inclined slightly outward, giving the impression that the weight of the spires was pressing down so hard on the pentagon’s base it was bowing outward.

  The spires, and the blackness, combined with the emptiness of the moors surrounding them, made Piercy think of some ancient prison, confining the worst criminals the world had ever seen. The front door was a pair of steel-barred blackwood doors that nearly reached the first roofs and looked to Piercy as if they hadn’t moved in a century, and then only to admit more vicious prisoners. It was fortunate it wasn’t a prison, because Piercy was having trouble coming up with ways to enter it that didn’t involve being asked in by the forbidding front door.

  In the center of the monastery, a spire taller and fatter than the others rose high above the moorlands. Glass windows near its point winked at them in the last of the sunlight. “I did not realize that was what you meant by ‘second story,’” Piercy said to Ayane, who was staring up at it with the complete lack of expression Piercy now knew meant she was thinking hard.

  “It is not,” she replied. “This is not how they build them in our day. And who knows how old this monastery is? But it does not change anything, except that we cannot guarantee the necklace is in that room. It is still the first place I will look.”

  Hodestis groaned, then sat up quickly to vomit again. “I suggest we knock,” Piercy said, and climbed down from the wagon to do so. Rapping his knuckles against the hard, thick wood seemed pointless, and there was no knocker, so in the end he whacked the door a few times with the hawk head of his stick and stepped back to wait. The wind hooting across the moorlands as it flew toward the distant mountains and the sound of Hodestis retching again were all that broke the silence. Piercy looked at Ayane, who’d put the hood of the velvet cloak up against the persistent wind. She shrugged. Piercy knocked again. “I would almost believe this place is inhabited only by ghosts, were it not for Mr. Hodestis’s extensive research,” he said.

  A sharp crack came from the door, startling both of them. A line Piercy had believed to be part of the door’s grain widened, revealing a much smaller door set into the forbidding black one. Piercy took a step back to avoid it and put on a winning smile which faltered when the woman opening the door didn’t look up at him. She blended in well with her surroundings, in her black gown with sleeves that fell over her hands and her black hood and cowl that concealed her face. “You have need?” she said in a surprisingly intelligible accent. She sounded unexpectedly young.

  “Our companion is ill and we ask shelter for the night,” Piercy said.

  “Wait here,” the woman said and disappeared, leaving the door open. Piercy took a few furtive steps forward, but couldn’t see past the threshold however he craned his head. A minute later, the woman reappeared with a man and another woman, identically clothed down to the concealing cowl. “Welcome,” the first woman said. “Enter and be sheltered by the God’s all-encompassing hand.”

  Piercy and Ayane helped Hodestis out of the wagon and into the hands of the man, who was taller even than Piercy and lifted Hodestis into his arms with ease. The women took the reins of the horses and led them away. “We will care for them,” the first woman said when Piercy began to protest. “Go in and rest. There is nothing to fear in Cath’s place.”

  Piercy stepped back to allow Ayane to enter first, then had to duck his head to pass through the small door. Beyond that was a short passage, no more than fifteen feet long, built of black palm-sized bricks that gleamed as if they were damp. It opened on a corridor with walls of the same unsettling bricks that extended out of sight in both directions, its roof supported by arches like a series of open mouths . It was wide enough they could comfortably drive the wagon down the middle of it, assuming it could fit through the door. The walls weren’t the matte black of the foreboding spires, but the lack of windows and the scant light coming from the tiny torches along the walls made it feel cave-like, damp and chill and smelling of fungus.

  Piercy removed his hat and waited a few seconds. Once his eyes had fully adjusted to the dimness, he scrambled to catch up to Ayane and the giant ascetic cradling Hodestis in his arms like a limp long-limbed baby. He passed a closed door, then another, then the giant put Hodestis over his shoulder as if he were an actual baby and opened a door on the left.

  “Here,” he said, his tenor voice flattened by the stones of the wall. Piercy and Ayane followed him into the room, which had a pair of ordinary beds—Piercy had been half-expecting mats on the floor and no pillows—and a cupboard and no other furnishings. The rug, surprisingly, was quite colorful and looked entirely out of place against the plainness of the furniture.

  The man laid Hodestis gently on the bed and straightened his limbs. His hands were large and hairy, but he felt behind Hodestis’s ears and peered at his eyes and down his throat with unexpected delicacy. “How long has he been ill?” he asked. He, too, spoke clearly enough that it was easy for Piercy to understand him.

  “He took ill about four hours ago,” Piercy said. “We were headed to Kemelen, but I think we’ve lost our way.”

  “You are not so far off,” the man said. “Wait here, please.”

  Once he was gone, and the door was shut behind him, Ayane said, “That is one step taken successfully.”

  �
��Will you be able to find the necklace?” Hodestis whispered. He looked greener than before in the dim light of the torch on the back wall.

  “Of course,” Piercy said. “We will just wait until sunrise—”

  “If we wait until sunrise, and they have cured Mr. Hodestis, they will expect us to leave,” Ayane said. “We must act now.”

  “There is a much greater risk with the monastery awake. We can invent a reason not to leave immediately. Mr. Hodestis might cast another spell on himself.”

  “I don’t want to be sick again,” Hodestis said. “I didn’t realize it would be this miserable.”

  “Do you trust in my abilities or not?” Ayane demanded.

  Piercy sighed. “Very well. I shall express a desire to worship with the ascetics and keep them preoccupied answering my questions. Return here with the necklace and we will simply walk out of this monastery in the morning. Unless you are spotted, in which case we will flee into the night and pray we are not struck down by the God.”

  “I will not be spotted,” said Ayane. At that moment the large man entered the room bearing a tarnished silver cup.

  “Help him sit, please,” he said. Piercy knelt beside the bed and helped Hodestis into a sitting position. The man guided the cup to his lips, said, “You must drink it all,” and Hodestis swallowed, gagged, and managed to down the contents without spilling more than a few drops down his chin. The ascetic mopped Hodestis’s face with his sleeve, not showing any disgust at doing so, not that Piercy could see beyond his hood.

  “He will sleep now,” he said, once Piercy had helped Hodestis lie down again. “You may stay with him, and we will find the lady a room.”

  “Our thanks,” Piercy said, “but if you don’t mind, I would like to join in worship tonight. We have been far—”

  The big man gasped and stumbled backward, pointing. Piercy turned to see Ayane had lowered her hood and was looking at the man in some puzzlement. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  The light from the torch illuminated the man’s face. He was heavily bearded and his eyes were wide with shock. “You!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “You have come!”

  “I do not understand,” Ayane said. “Who do you think I am?”

  The man’s hand was shaking. “The one foretold,” he said. “You are Cath’s prophet. You are our doom.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Ayane took half a step backward. Piercy said, “You are mistaken, sir. This is Princess Ayane of Santerre. We are her traveling companions.”

  “Of course that’s what you’d believe,” the ascetic said. “The foretelling says ‘The prophet does not know his calling, nor does she declare her name.’”

  “I believe I have just told you her name,” Piercy said. The expression on the man’s face was unnerving. He looked like someone on the brink of an ecstatic fit. “She is no prophet.”

  “She bears Cath’s black visage. There is no mistaking it.”

  “My face is hardly black,” Ayane said. There was an edge to her voice Piercy knew meant she was working up to being angry, which usually led to violence.

  “It is a small difference. You will come with me,” he said to Ayane, extending his hand. She crossed her arms across her chest and scowled at him.

  “I suppose it’s too late to pretend I don’t speak Dalanese,” she said in Santerran.

  “Well past time. What should we do?”

  The man closed his eyes and pressed his palms together, lifting them toward the ceiling. “O God,” he said in a loud voice the stones absorbed, “I praise you for allowing me to be the first to acknowledge your prophet! Bless me with your wisdom!”

  “This is absurd,” Ayane said. In Dalanese, she said, “I truly am not your prophet. You will blaspheme if you worship me.”

  “Oh, no, my prophet,” the man said, sounding dismayed. “You are Cath’s voice. It would be like worshiping the God’s finger and completely irreverent.” He took hold of Ayane’s wrist. “We must hear our doom.”

  Ayane broke his grip effortlessly and stepped out of his reach. “Do not lay hands on me,” she told him. To Piercy, she said in Santerran, “I see the beginnings of a new plan.”

  “You cannot possibly think pretending to be a prophet of Cath is a good idea. We are not entirely certain he will look with favor on our taking the necklace. Usurping his authority, whatever it is these people expect from his prophet, could result in the kind of attention the Gods reserve for the vilest sinners and those who wear stripes with paisley.”

  “I could very well be the actual prophet. We certainly carry a message of doom, even though Mr. Hodestis insists we can’t tell them. Maybe this is our opportunity to save the monastery.”

  “No, don’t start prophesying now!” the ascetic exclaimed. “You must wait until everyone can hear it. Until the ritual.”

  “On second thought, I don’t like the sound of ‘ritual,’” Ayane said.

  “No, you are correct, this is our best chance,” Piercy said. “The entire monastery will no doubt want to witness your prophecy. I will be able to move freely and rapidly. I think you should accept your destiny, o prophet.”

  “You aren’t as funny as you think you are,” Ayane said. “Make something up to explain why I’ve changed my mind. And let’s do this quickly.”

  “I see we cannot conceal our purpose from God’s servant,” Piercy said to the ascetic. “The prophet has come to speak your doom. She wishes to see the prime immediately.”

  “I knew it could not be false,” the ascetic said. “I apologize for touching you, o prophet, that was wrong of me. Please, come with me.”

  Piercy followed Ayane out the door only to be brought up short by the ascetic. “No one who is not a servant of Cath can witness the ritual,” he said. “Though we’re all very grateful you brought her to us.”

  “I am her bodyguard,” Piercy said, drawing himself up to his full height so he wouldn’t feel quite so overshadowed by the enormous man, “and it is my sworn duty to escort her to the doors of the sanctum. Of course I will not interfere in the ritual, but neither will you interfere with what the God has tasked me with.”

  The man drew back. “All right,” he said, sounding cowed, and Piercy with some relief followed him and Ayane down the black corridor. Drafts carried the wet, bitter smell of old stone to Piercy’s nose, and he groped for a handkerchief before remembering he wasn’t carrying one. It was even colder within the monastery than it had been on the moors, and Piercy envied the ascetic his wide-sleeved woolen robe and shrouding hood.

  Ayane drew her velvet cloak more closely about herself; she must miss Santerre, with its warm, wet climate and sunny coasts. When this was all over, he was going to insist on holiday leave for at least a few days. Maybe he could visit Santerre. Maybe Ayane will show you her country, he thought, and it was such an intriguing idea he almost missed the turn off the main hallway.

  It was little more than a hole in the wall, and Piercy had to duck to go through it. The passage beyond was barely taller than the hole, and narrow enough that he could extend both arms and nearly brush the walls on either side with his fingertips. Sweet incense wafted through the corridor, overriding the bitter smell of the stone, and if he closed his eyes he could imagine himself in the grand cathedral in Rainoth. Though that cathedral had never been as cold as this place was.

  The corridor, while no better lit than the main passage, was dimly blue rather than golden with firelight. After a few feet, Piercy passed a square opening set deep in the stones of the wall through which moonlight shone. He stopped to glance through it, then took a closer look in astonishment.

  A forest glade spread out before him, stippled with shadows cast by the leaves. Beneath the trees stood several men and women dressed in close-fitting black shirts and full skirts that fell to their ankles, revealing their bare feet. They were all moving in some kind of dance, though no two were doing the same steps, and they were all dances Piercy was unfamiliar with. None of them acknowledged each oth
er, none of them seemed aware of anything beyond their ritual movements. The only sound came from the wind swishing the leaves back and forth and, more distantly, the cry of a bird, long and mournful.

  Piercy hurried to catch up to the others. “What is that, beyond the walls?” he said.

  The ascetic looked back over his shoulder, but didn’t slow his pace. “That is the Garden of the Third Dream-Land,” he said. “Our re-creation of the Pleasant Fields. We pray for the souls of those who are still growing after death, that they’ll find their way onward.”

  “They are dancing,” Ayane said, peering through the next window they passed.

  “They’re performing a ritual resembling the actions of everyday life. Washing clothes, cooking food, riding a horse, things like that. The things the souls in the Pleasant Fields are caught in. We perform those actions for them so they can see they must grow beyond what’s comfortable. The Garden on the other side is less pleasant; it’s the Darklands, where souls suffer punishment for their misdeeds until they’ve fully made amends. You might not want to look.”

  Piercy resolutely kept his eyes on the ascetic’s back, though he could just glimpse Ayane taking a long look through those windows. Typical, that she would do what she’d been warned against. “It makes one wonder where one’s soul will land, after death,” he said.

  “You should live the best life you can, and let Cath make that decision,” the ascetic said. “No one should fear death. Unless you fall into the Maelstrom, there is always hope. Please, go ahead of me into the sanctum. I’ll fetch the prime.”

  Piercy and Ayane moved forward as directed, out of the low-ceilinged passage and into a domed room that rose far above what Piercy remembered seeing from the outside. The black-surfaced path they stepped onto circled the room and crunched under their feet, though Piercy couldn’t see any grit or gravel. Beyond the path were circular pews of some dark wood, unpadded, bisected—or could you call it that when they were divided into five sections?—by more paths made of the same unexpectedly gritty stone. “Is this as you remember?” Piercy said in Santerran.