The members of the expedition were so stunned to find a temple to Sho’Ash here in the middle of Serica that they said nothing. Valo Peli, Ashala, and Russu went in the back of the temple, where there were some old wooden chairs, and took their seats.
The priest continued: “I say the service in Kelten, as I was taught by my father. Once, we could read from the Holy Book, but no longer. The knowledge of reading the book was lost long ago. But we remember the words.”
The Keltens all knelt while the priest intoned the words of the service in a strange, half-singing fashion. At first it was hard to understand the old man’s words, though they knew what he should have been saying. But after a few minutes, Sandun became used to the strange accent, and he was suddenly transported back to the temple in Hepedion where he grew up, as the old, familiar words washed over him. The same words he had heard year after year. Suddenly he began to cry, though he could not have explained why. He didn’t look around to see if the others were equally affected. It was the most profoundly moving service Sandun had ever experienced.
At the end, the old man stood among them and held his hands out. Sir Ako took one hand, Padan took the other, and then they were all holding hands as the priest gave the farewell blessing.
“Go now with the blessing of Sho’Ash upon you. And remember this: when you are battling evil, Sho’Ash is watching you. Wherever you go, even to the ends of the earth, Sho’Ash has gone before you, and he lights your way.”
After they had walked around the room and talked to the old priest for a bit, they filed out of the temple. Before he left, Sandun broke one of the coin strings and gave the priest a heaping handful of copper coins.
On the way back to the embassy, they all became very talkative.
“That sure hits you right in the heart, doesn’t it?” said Padan.
Olef was concerned about the state of the temple. “It needs work. Repairs. Fixing up.”
Farrel agreed. “I took a look at his Holy Book. It’s in terrible shape, pages falling out, letters so faint as to be hardly seen any more.”
Gloval said that the statue needed major repairs. “I know something of wood. The statue of Sho’Ash is cracking. And I say it’s up to us to fix it.”
Sandun, still deeply moved by the service at the temple, said to them, “I’ve still got four more of these salt notes. Today, I’m going to give each of you a silver bar. And I’m going to allocate two of these coin strings to help repair the temple.” This announcement was greeted with smiles and thanks.
Inside the embassy courtyard, he handed out silver bars to each of the scouts and to Basil and Kagne. “Two for Sir Ako, and one for our translator, Ashala. And two for me. Spend it as you wish,” said Sandun, “but remember, as the Count of Torobeus said to me, ‘Small things from Serica fetch very high prices in the markets of Seopolis.’ I have some suggestions if anyone is curious.”
Shopping was on everyone’s mind now. With money in hand, they found their hearts filled with excitement at the thought of treasures from Serica. Lathe, Wiyat, and Gloval went off together, laughing as they walked out of the courtyard. Sandun suspected they were not looking to buy goods to trade, but that was their business.
He asked Scribe Renieth where he would go to buy fine Serica-glass. Renieth looked puzzled until Ashala explained. Then he nodded his head slowly.
“You are looking for Magerinken, the finest cups and vases. Times past, they were made at the old capital of Kemeklos, but now the best is created at Lakava. I can take you to merchants who sell only the highest quality.”
Neither Sir Ako nor Russu had much interest in shopping for Serica-glass, but everyone else followed Scribe Renieth to a small group of shops southwest of the palace. The cups, bowls, plates, and vases in these shops were magnificent. The shapes were graceful and clean; the colors were bright, including several shades that Sandun had never seen before in Serica-glass: a bright yellow and a deep blue. Any one of these would be worth a house or two in Hepedion. Padan, Farrel, and Damar happily spent their silver cats on small vases that looked strong enough to survive the journey back across the Tiralas.
But Scribe Renieth was dissatisfied. He picked the cups up and looked underneath them and then set them down with a frown. “This one hopes to find better,” he said outside the biggest shop. “One of my colleagues in the Ministry grew up in Tokolas; he might know something.”
Basil took Olef back to the embassy; she tired rapidly, as the baby was due soon, less than a month.
Ashala was so eager to see more choices, she practically begged Renieth to take her to more shops.
“Paper?” Renieth mused out loud, but not even Sandun wanted to see paper.
“Silk?” he offered up, and this was instantly approved.
The shops selling quality silk were close by, and soon enough they were shown bolts of fine silk in colors brighter and more varied than the flowers in the king’s garden. Silk came to Kelten across the great ocean from Buden. It was rare, and only great lords and high priests of the temple wore it on special occasions. In the Archipelago, people said the finest silk was made in Buden, but as Sandun looked at the weave of Serice silk and felt it between his fingers, he wondered if that was true. Unlike vases and cups made of Serica-glass, silk traveled well; it would survive any accident short of being soaked in water.
Prices were good. If the Keltens had brought silver across the Tiralas, they would have been able to buy Serica-glass or silk worth ten or even twenty times the weight of the silver bars they might have carried. Getting the treasures back home to Kelten undamaged would be no easy feat, but if it could be accomplished, money would no longer be a concern for any man who made the trip.
The next evening, after dinner, Scribe Renieth showed up with a letter in hand.
“This scribe now knows where to go. If you want to see Magerinken worthy of the name, follow me.”
Sandun, Ashala, Kagne, and Valo Peli accompanied Renieth out into the city. Just a few blocks away, he knocked at a gate set inside a high wall. The gate opened, and the scribe showed the doorkeeper the letter. The doorkeeper looked at them curiously as they followed Renieth inside. In the evening light, the building was like an enchanted palace. Willows trailed long branches over pools of still water. The main house at the center of the landscape was intricately carved in wood. An old woman came out to greet them, and even though her hair was white, she moved with elegance that suggested many years past, she was once one of the great beauties of the land. She called herself Lady Tihani.
That night, with just an oil lamp for illumination, Lady Tihani showed Sandun and the others the true meaning of Serica art. The colors of her cups and vases were rich and deep: blue like the sea at noon, yellow like yolk of an egg, red like a bead of blood. The objects she showed them had such a clarity of form that it seemed they were ideas made real, not crafted by man but brought into existence by sheer thought. Each one was unique and utterly itself and perfect.
“Would you like to purchase one of these?” she said to them, her thin voice perfectly clear though hardly more than a whisper.
Sandun didn’t think a chest full of silver would be enough to buy even the least of the art she had shown them. He looked at Renieth and then at Valo Peli.
Valo Peli said slowly, “This one wishes to inquire if the Lady Tihani was once the wife of Minister Irini?”
The woman smiled faintly and said “Second wife. Long ago.” She sighed and continued, “I retired here after his death. All his family are gone, save for me. Now I sell what is left and offer what I can to the Temple of Eston. Soon I will depart to my next life and forget all of this.” She waved her hand as though casting flower petals into the air.
Sandun put his two silver ingots onto the table. “This is all I have.”
Lady Tihani looked at him thoughtfully and placed a small red vase shaped like a teardrop, the size of a dove, int
o his hand. She collected his two silver bars and put them in a velvet-lined box that closed with a faint sibilance, like a wave retreating across the sand.
The days leading up to the dinner were busy. Basil worked on an elaborate map, using the finest paper, to present to Lord Vaina. Sandun bought a very elaborate box, similar to what the Lady Tihani had used the previous night and suitable for holding the glowing orbs. He placed the largest of the orbs in the box flanked by two lesser orbs, keeping two more in reserve. For a rainy day, he thought.
Sir Ako drilled the scouts on some combat exercises that would best show off their skills—mostly archery but with some hand-to-hand fighting and a few dramatic leaps added for good measure.
Sandun consulted with Scribe Renieth over the dinner arrangements and the food. He convinced Farrel to cook some beef, a favorite Kelten dish, for them. Farrel had often done the cooking on their long trip and more than once had complained about the lack of good spices for the meat.
“Now is your chance,” Sandun told him. “You can buy whatever spices you wish. Supervise the cooks and make sure they don’t overcook a good set of steaks, that’s all I ask.” Farrel’s sense of pride overcame his reluctance to cook for strangers, so he agreed.
Lastly, Sandun asked Renieth to get him some poor-quality local swords. He was certain that Lord Vaina would repeat his request to see the Piksie sword work its magic, and he thought that denying the request would be unfriendly. Scribe Renieth came back two days later with a soldier who placed three serviceable swords onto the dining room table.
Sandun brought one to his room; that evening, he told Ashala to hold the sword in two hands.
“You once asked if this was a magic sword,” he said. “It is. The Piksies called it ‘Copper Cutter,’ but it cuts through just about any metal. Watch.”
He aimed at the blade that Ashala held and cut through it with a stroke. The sheared-off section of the sword fell to the floor with a ringing clang. Ashala uttered a strangled yelp and hurriedly put the hilt of the sword on the ground as though it were going to shatter in her hands like a piece of broken glass.
“What’s going on in there?” Basil shouted from outside the room.
“All is well. Just testing the Piksie sword before tomorrow’s dinner.”
Sandun woke up early; the first dim light of a new day was filtering through the cracks around the wooden shutters. Ashala was peaceful, sleeping next to him, warm, comfortable. He smiled and stilled his impulse to leave the bed, to begin the day’s tasks. Instead, he lay quietly and enjoyed this pause in time, this brief lacuna. Happy—the word floated up to the surface of his thoughts. He was happy. Happy with the young woman beside him, happy in the well-made room he was living in, happy visiting the great city of Tokolas, in Serica.
Eighteen months before: a master at the archives, every day poring over old books and deeds, writing summaries of land sales. He hardly recognized that man. He had grown. To say his horizons had expanded understated the case. The realization came to him: he would never go back, not to that life. Yes, he would return to Kelten; obviously, there was no question on that. But return to the Archives? No, that life was over. He was free. Free to become something else, someone else.
The Philosopher wrote that everything had a telos, a purpose, a final goal. Since that time, the wise had debated: Did every man have a telos laid down on him at birth? Or did a man have the power to change his telos? Was man, unique among all other living things, free to choose his own goal? And did some men have a hidden telos, one that could only be discovered by doing many things, by investigating the boundaries of ability and desire? Opinion divided on this, and the temple, unhelpfully, taught that all three of these were true, depending on the man and the will of Sho’Ash.
Sandun believed that because Sho’Ash was opposed by a power nearly his equal, no destiny was assured and therefore, no telos set at birth was necessarily carried through to the end. He knew Kelten’s history well enough to know that many good men with good intentions had failed utterly in their designs. He could also recall the names of several evil men who had gained riches and power and lived for many years before their crimes had come to light. To his mind, Sho’Ash did not control a man’s destiny; therefore, no one did.
He tried to put thoughts aside and moved closer to the sleeping girl. He smelled her hair and listened to the faint sounds of the city waking up; cartwheels rumbled along the cobblestone street below. A line of white light appeared on the wall past Ashala’s bare arm. The sun was up—time to get started. Today was going to be a busy day.
Shortly after midday, a parade of men from the palace came over to inspect the building, the food, and the household staff. Several dozen guards stayed in the embassy, as did three other men, one of whom did not look like an official. Sandun recalled seeing him at the palace; then he had assumed the man was a servant. Now, in the light of the afternoon, it was clear that he was not one. His style of dress was unusual, with his arms bare up to his elbows; only laborers wore shirts like that. He wore several rings on both hands—also unusual. There was something disconcerting about the way he looked around at the people and things in the Kelten embassy—not quite contemptuously but as though he found them lacking in some essential quality.
After a few minutes observing the man, Sandun walked up to him and asked him what he did for the Lord of Kunhalvar. The man turned and studied Sandun intently. Sandun stared back, noticing that the man had the facial features of a Sogand. After an uncomfortable silence, the man spoke in a low voice. “You are correct. I do work for the Lord of Kunhalvar. I am a krasuth.”
“Krasuth?”
The man was about to answer and then seemed to change his mind. He put his hands close together, palms facing each other, and then drew them apart and rotated his palms to face out toward Sandun. Rapidly, a mist formed in front of the man, obscuring his face and body as if a fire had blown a thick smoke in front of him. As the man put his hand down, the mist cleared away into thin wisps that vanished in the warm afternoon air.
“Krasuth,” said the man with a hint of satisfaction. “You have many questions, which I will not answer. I serve the Lord of Kunhalvar, but my fraternity does not give away information lightly. We are not like the scholars of Serica.” With that, he walked off toward the dining room.
Apparently Sandun would get nothing more from the strange man. Figuring that Valo Peli was in his room contemplating his forthcoming offer to Lord Vaina, Sandun thought about not disturbing him but then decided that the scholar might welcome the interruption. Sandun knocked on his door. At a word, Sandun opened the door and found Valo Peli pacing in his room, visibly and uncharacteristically nervous.
Sandun closed the door behind him and said, “Did you know the Lord of Kunhalvar has a krasuth working for him?”
“No. No, I did not. If he has one, does he have two or three? They usually travel and work in groups. Rare to find just one.”
“You know something about them?”
Valo Peli snorted. “Hardly anything at all. They are very secretive. But they can create mists or fog and make a breeze where none was before. They seem to come from the north, but not all of them are Sogands. One story I heard was that the most powerful of the krasuth was able to…how to put it? Push aside arrows fired at him. It seems incredible but then, it’s all very mysterious. Tales about the krasuth go back hundreds of years, but I’ve only seen one—eight years ago, outside of Kemeklos. Very strange and unsettling experience that was. The Sogands treat them with great respect.”
Sandun shivered. Everyone in Kelten knew about the witches of Alteran. The witches’ mystical powers over fog and snow were just the sort of frightening stories that adults told children on winter nights before the great year-end festivals. He remembered hearing his father tell the story of brave King Labotas and his encounter with the White Witch of the North. That night, too scared to sleep, Sandun had stared
at the nearly full moon through his tiny window and imagined the White Witch coming down from the moon on a stairway of ice with her great black dragons beside her.
As he got older, he learned that Alteran was far from Kelten, north even beyond Thessagon, and since the people were unfriendly, few merchants from the Archipelago were willing to risk the icebergs just to be turned away from the docks by the grim folk of that land. Many of the educated men in Kelten didn’t believe the witches had any powers at all, while the temple claimed all witches were in league with the Black Terror.
Having seen the krasuth create mist out of the air, Sandun was now inclined to believe that the stories from Alteran might have had some truth in them after all. He wondered if the krasuth was a servant of the Black Terror. Somehow it didn’t seem so. If he were, wouldn’t he seem more evil?
With so many questions and no answers, Sandun put aside his worries and concentrated on preparations for the dinner.
In the late afternoon, as the sun was going down into an orange haze, Lord Vaina and his companions—General Erdis, General Kun, and a very pretty woman—arrived at their door on horseback. Lord Vaina introduced the woman, saying, “This is one of my wives. Her name is Eun. She is from Shila, so she doesn’t mind being around foreigners.”
Sandun knew next to nothing about Shila, and he had never met anyone from that land before. Looking at her, he saw that she was indeed very lovely but not very different from other beautiful women of Serica.
Before the dinner, Sir Ako had his scouts show off their martial skills with some very accurate shooting, at admittedly rather short range. Then they showed off some combat techniques with close fighting, using swords and shields. This attracted great attention from Lord Vaina and his two generals. The Keltens had been puzzled to learn that shields were rarely used by the Serice soldiers. Lord Vaina seemed to like what he saw and applauded with vigor after some good blows.
The Burning Tower Page 28