She hoisted her old laundry basket and took the road weaving in the direction of the cathedral’s fleches, opposite the road Bowaen and Del took.
The soothing, meditative sound of chanting and murmured prayers blended with the smell of sage smoke which greeted her inside the cathedral. Kalea sucked in a long whiff and sighed at the pleasure of its familiar ambience. Though she’d seen it before, she paused to gawk again at the magnificent soaring ceilings and frescoes and stained glass windows adorning the huge nave. Five vestals from some other convent knelt at the altar, heads bowed. Their habits were close enough to the one she left behind. She glanced at the old clothes she wore, a laywoman’s clothes. She’d also left her old novice tabard at the Hallowill convent along with any other item that might remind her, or Dorhen, that she would’ve once chosen the convent life. When she found him, she’d prefer he not be reminded of the life she had boasted about being more important than his love and patience.
Small sections of pews were roped off for the rich’s use. The poor laypeople were kneeling on the marble floor, and Kalea joined them. She’d prayed this way six years ago too. Without missing a beat, her mind’s voice went into a Sovereign Creator and all the rest of the practiced prayers she’d memorized.
She hadn’t seen Dorhen or any hint of him since she had entered town, not that she knew what hints to look for after he had been snatched up in the night by sorcerers. Their red-jeweled gloves were her solitary clue. Now that she’d made it here, she could take as long to find him as needed. Until then, she’d pray for him, for his well-being, and also plead for help in finding him. She’d also ask for lodging in the cathedral in exchange for work. Between whatever duties they assigned her, she’d go out and look for Dorhen in town.
“Newcomers, please kneel for your daily blessing,” the priest said, and all the laypeople around her stood and filed toward the rail before the altar. She did the same. The daily blessing was a sip of sacred wine and a small prayer the priest said over their heads.
They all filed in at the altar’s base with their knees upon a long, straw cushion, worn and flattened from years of regular use. The priest’s murmuring voice echoed from the front of the line; Kalea filed in at the end, giving her longer to bow her head and continue her personal prayers for Dorhen and her sisters’ well-being.
…but, my Creator, I must say there’s an issue I haven’t spoken to You about. I took my vows to be a vestal, and then immediately changed my mind and ran away from the convent. I hope someday I can redeem myself. I hope You can understand why I did it… Maybe You understand better than I do…
She sighed, and her mind’s voice went silent. So much had happened, and she couldn’t find the time to process it. Many tears waited to be shed. This past day, she’d walked numbly behind Bowaen and his apprentice. In order to get through each harrowing day, she had stuffed it all into a mental wardrobe in order to push on. Is that what life had been like for Dorhen after his house burned down?
The murmuring grew louder. A few people away, the priest slid a stone bowl across the polished wooden blessing rail. The bowl put off a dense stink. The people weren’t drinking from it. In fact, it didn’t have wine in it; each person placed their fingers in the bowl and drew them out covered in syrupy red gunk. Blood. While their fingers rested immersed, the priest touched their heads with his open palm. He wore a red glove. A stone embedded on the palm side of it twinkled when he took his hand away.
A red glove with jewels. He only wore one of them. She’d never heard of a custom of dipping fingers in a bowl of blood!
When he reached the person on her left with the noxious bowl, the man obediently dipped his fingers in as the priest slurred through the blessing which was supposed to accompany a sip of wine. The blood flared with a soft light and went dark again.
The priest leaned in. “Child of the Creator, you are special, I see. Please accompany Brother Josset to the prayer room for a blessed conference.” The man did as he was asked, following another priest through a door leading to the back rooms.
The priest with the bowl smiled at Kalea. She rose to hurry away, but he snatched her hand, leaning over the rail.
“Where are you going, child?” he asked, and she didn’t answer. She hesitated, looking back at him. “Don’t be afraid. Please kneel and receive your blessing. This bowl is filled with the Creator’s sacred wine.”
That’s not wine! She wanted to say it out loud, but her mouth had dried up.
Another attending priest approached from behind, his body heat radiating against her back. With the other priest’s arrival, the commanding priest released her hand.
“Don’t make a scene now, child. The One Creator implores you to partake in his sacred ritual.”
Kalea swallowed air for lack of saliva. Still standing, she reached one hand toward the bowl. The smell it emitted made her nauseous. Her hand shook, and she couldn’t make it move any faster than a hovering cloud in the sky.
“Come on now.” The priest smiled at her, but an air of impatience appeared in his eyes. His crow’s feet deepened. “Hurry, please.”
Kalea’s hand passed under the bowl’s rim, toward the blood. The dark red surface rippled. The rippling intensified the farther she reached.
The priest squinted deeper, his smile relaxed. The blood’s surface waved softly in all directions—away from her touch.
“Why’s it doing that?” she asked, but he didn’t answer.
The bottom of the bowl became visible as the blood climbed its sides, a little spilling out onto the rail to escape her touch. What was this strange liquid?
When Kalea’s middle finger landed on the bowl’s surface, no blood remained to soil it. She looked up for some kind of explanation, even in the form of a facial expression, only to find the priest’s face utterly astonished. What did it mean? Why didn’t it glow like the last person who put their hand in? Why was it doing anything when she dipped her hand?
The blood flowed up the sides in soft ripples away from her hand, which began to tremble. She shook her head and yanked her hand away. The liquid relaxed, falling back into a natural pool in the bowl’s cavity. She pulled her hand to her bosom and rubbed it with the other.
The priest stared hard at her and the soft-hearted, priestly nature left his voice. “I think you should come with me, miss.”
She shook her head. “Sorry, I have to go.”
When she attempted to sidestep away from the crowding priest behind her, he grabbed both of her arms.
“No!” She kicked her feet and lifted both of them off the ground in his strong hold. She put her feet back on the floor, and he dragged her toward the door the other man had disappeared through after he made the blood glow.
“Please don’t worry about her,” the priest said to the small collection of people kneeling on the floor to pray. “The Creator knows what’s best for her, and she will soon see for herself. Carry on.”
He closed the door behind them when the second priest dragged her through the door, now hugging his thick arms around her.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer. She let out a scream.
He carried her past a section lined with ordinary-looking offices and into a descending corridor. A steep set of stairs took them into the bowels of the cathedral.
“Let me go!”
Her screaming was finally answered by other people’s screams, and she stopped to listen in shock. A collection of disgusting smells mingled in the atmosphere. The ceiling hung low over a large area sectioned off by pillars with tarps strung between them. He dragged her past corners where men in red hoods lounged, some smoking, some sleeping. Others walked around dressed as priests, doing menial chores like stoking a fire under a huge boiling cauldron. Someone else was throwing large objects into the steaming pot.
Stretching her neck to see around a tarp, she saw through a crevice a large pile of bloody objects. She squinted, unable to guess what she was looking at. Whatever it was, the smell
was horrendous, like something dead.
The dark ambience of the underground world was combated by various fires, an effect that teased her eyes with irregular bouts of deep shadows and bright lights. A raging fireplace highlighted a table full of glass bottles and herbs among some supplementary candles. A priest moved about the table after removing a big iron kettle from the fire. He wore another red hood and removed it to wipe his glistening head, briefly noticing as Kalea was pulled through.
The priest who had brought her here now held both of her wrists in one huge hand, dragging her behind him. She leaned back in an attempt to counter his pull, but it was useless.
Through an archway, a dark, narrow corridor wound around like a big circle. Once in a while, an occupied room with a candle or two came around the bend, showing more priests or red-hooded sorcerers at work with instruments, bottles, fires, or heavy books.
A particular room was put on display when her priest paused to let another enter its locked door. The other priest was leading a shirtless man into the room to join a large collection of other grimy shirtless people, men and women, all wearing ropes around their necks like the first.
“Hey, dunces!” the other priest yelled. “Here’s another dunce to join your dunce party. Go easy on ‘im, won’t ya?”
He barked a laugh and pushed the new one into the crowd. They all continued standing, making no reaction. They did nothing beyond stand. They didn’t sit, talk, scream, or struggle. They stood as a crowd, staring into oblivion, their eyes dull and unblinking. The additional shirtless man joined them without a struggle; his rope leash dangled down by his belly like the others’.
At this point, Kalea’s priest was pulling her onward through the corridor. When she stretched her neck to see more, one of the other shirtless males made her shriek and jerk free.
“Dorhen! Oh, my Creator—Dorhen!”
She ran, arms out toward the one to the side, facing away from the door. He had cropped, shoulder-length hair like Dorhen’s, and his height was right.
“Dorhen!” His name came out half a sob. She grabbed his arm and turned him around. He responded easily to her guidance. A scruffy face with a short, stubby nose and dead eyes greeted her. Though he was young and handsome like Dorhen, it wasn’t him. It wasn’t an elf either.
After a shocked hesitation, Kalea closed her mouth. A new kind of sob escaped her mouth, and a set of tears came too. It wasn’t him. The lifeless man offered nothing to her: no words, no expression, not even a blink. Perhaps it was better not to find Dorhen in this state. Who could say what was wrong with these people and how to help them? Finding Dorhen in this situation would be painful.
Her priest approached with a chuckle. “Found yourself a dunce ya like, girly? Too bad, they’re not for sale.”
He yanked her back toward the door. Just in case, she looked over the rest of them to make sure none of the others were Dorhen either. The door slammed and the lock click echoed behind her.
“What do you want with me?” she asked once they were in the dark again, a good way away from the dunces’ room.
He stopped, unlocked another door, and pushed her inside. No lifeless people stood in here. A table with a candle was at its center. A tiny window gaped high on the wall to provide more light. A red-hooded man sat at the table, scratching a quill along a sheet of paper. The smell of ink hung potent in this room’s atmosphere.
“Another one?” the man said after looking up from his papers. “Two in one day?”
Kalea’s priest began, “Yes, but…” He allowed her to stand on her own and closed the door. “This one is different.”
The man at the desk laced his fingers together. “Different how?”
“The blood… It separated at her touch.”
The other man’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
“I’ll leave you to it,” Kalea’s priest said, and made a hasty exit, leaving her standing before the red-hooded man’s quizzical expression. He pushed his hood back and dabbed his receding hairline with a handkerchief.
“So,” he said, returning his gaze to her. “The Creator’s wine separated.”
“That wasn’t wine. What are you people—?”
“Shut up,” he snapped. “I do the questioning. You answer to the utmost the truth as you know it. Every detail, you’ll tell me.”
Kalea darted her eyes around, her hands fidgeting by her skirt until one of her fingers grazed her washing bat. She’d left her basket in the nave upstairs, but she’d forgotten about the bat tied to her belt. He must’ve seen it, but showed no sign of concern.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Leah. I’m a washerwoman, sir.”
“I can tell.” His eyes dropped down her body and slid up it again.
She resisted touching the bat’s wood grains. She jumped when he stood up. As she reflexively turned around to regard the door, he lurched forward and grabbed her upper arm, pressing his fingers in deep.
“Don’t think about leaving. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
“What do you want with me?”
“Sit over there,” he said, and pointed to a stool in the corner. He pulled her over and slid the stool out. “Sit down.”
He strolled back to the door to lock it with a key from his belt. Returning to the desk, he lifted a large book off the pile on the floor and dropped it on the desk with a dusty slam.
“Separating liquid,” he mumbled as he thumbed through the pages. Lifting his head momentarily, he said to her, “Obviously, you won’t be able to explain what you did to the wine, but…” He sighed. “Well. In your life, has anything”—he twirled his hand around as his eyes rolled upward—“extraordinary ever happened to you?”
“No,” she said.
“Are you sure? Your quick answer and high tone implies lying.”
“When can I leave?”
He cleared his throat loudly. “Has anything special ever happened to you?”
What could she possibly say? A few agonizing moments passed before she could think of anything. “I’m told I’m mentally ill.”
He regarded her again, this time with an eyebrow quirked. “Elaborate.” He continued to peruse the pages as he waited for an answer.
“Um.” Her voice shook; she could hardly hear it anymore when she decided to begin loosening the string on her washing bat. Being so engrossed in the book left him vulnerable. Maybe with good aim and the right amount of force, she could knock him out. But if she stopped talking, he’d look at her again. He drummed his fingers on the table as he waited.
Her answer popped out. “I tend to talk to myself.”
“What do you mean?” He lifted his chin, but his eyes remained on the pages. Kalea almost abandoned the slow untying process.
“I don’t know.”
Say something to keep him satisfied! He couldn’t get too interested or too bored, or he might stop staring at the book. “I talked to myself a lot, and it annoyed my parents and they complained about my sanity.”
He sighed. “Do you hear a voice talking back?”
“Sure. I talk back to myself.”
He flipped the pages more rapidly. “So is it your voice or a different voice talking back?” His eyes shifted across the script as if he were looking for something specific.
“It’s a—a different voice. And also…also sometimes I have trouble tying my own kirtle. My hand coordination isn’t so good.” An image of Rose’s sweet smile flashed in her mind.
“But you said you were a washerwoman.”
Kalea coughed, wishing she could sock herself in the face. She needed a good lie, and Rose’s poor coordination had come to mind. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen any of her novice sisters in these underground corridors. Even though she had thought she’d seen Dorhen, he wasn’t here either.
“I’m a lot of trouble,” she went on. A loop came undone on her washing bat’s cord. A few more steps would free it, but she couldn’t let it fall and make noise. “And I was once caught looking
at a dirty book. I enjoy looking at that sort of thing.”
She snapped her hand away from the knot when he twisted around with a sneer. “I don’t care about your perversions—I want to know what extraordinary things you’ve seen or heard or done!”
“Sorry!” She dipped her head and cleared her throat.
He turned back around and flipped a few more pages. “Any special dreams ever come to you?”
Kalea’s throat went dry, and she croaked, “Dreams?”
“Yes, girl! Have you?”
“Um…sure.”
“What kind of dreams?”
“Um… Sex…dreams?”
He hissed and looked at the ceiling. “You’re lying, and I’m sick of it.”
Lying? That one wasn’t a lie.
“All you’re doing is agreeing to everything I say and giving me random responses!” He approached her. “Now look at this.” He raised his palm before her face to flash a yellow gem within his red leather glove. “I don’t have time for this nonsense, so I’ll give you a little treatment and deal with you later after you’ve had a nap. Look at the stone.”
Its bright, sudden flash blinded her for an instant. She pulled her face away and closed her eyes, releasing the bat from her belt. She swung blindly, refusing to look at the stone.
His scream filled the darkness. She opened her eyes again to find she’d aimed well. Her bat had hit the stone in his glove, and a small, tubular surge of wind rushed around his hand. As he stumbled close to the desk, the little tornado around his glove stirred papers into the air. Colored sparks flickered in the vortex.
He fumbled the glove off his hand, providing her the chance to smash him in the head. He stumbled backward, his gloved hand still humming and sparking. She swung again and got him in the face. Blood rushed over his mouth from his nostrils. She hit again, using the bat’s narrower edge to land a sharper hit. With one more whack, he was out, lying flat on the floor.
Kalea backed away from his active glove. Who knew what it could do in its disordered state? She pushed the desk against the wall with the window and used her bat to break the glass. More light flooded the room with the removal of the dirty pane. In a jittery panic, she knocked out the remaining shards to avoid any cuts. The possibility of someone walking in made her want to crawl through without regard for her skin.
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