by Shannon Page
“I do wonder, sometimes, if the power will leave me after I have healed him.” The healer sounded pensive. “Or if this will always be my life now.”
By the time they emerged from the Census Taker’s wild estate and returned to streets lined in shuttered shopfronts and dark houses, Sian’s limping had grown noticeably worse. Arian wondered why she hadn’t just healed herself of this small pain. She was trying to decide whether it would be rude to ask her this when three black-robed priests stepped into their path from an alley just ahead of them.
“Halt!” the foremost of them commanded.
Fright coursed like lightning through Arian’s entire body, freezing her in place. Sian yanked at her from behind, trying to pull her into flight, but the priests were too fast. The leader reached out and grabbed Arian’s arm, pulling it so hard she feared it might be injured, while the two behind him dashed past her to catch Sian as she turned to flee. Arian began to struggle now, unable to believe that this was happening — after all they had come through — but her captor just clamped down even harder on her wrist, wrenching her off balance with a single hand.
“Let us go!” Arian yelled, pulling against his grip. “What right have you to —”
With his other hand, the priest cuffed her sharply across the face, knocking her to the cobblestones. Arian reeled with shock; never, in all her life had she imagined … had anybody dared … It took a moment for the pain even to register.
“Stop it!” Sian yelled, thrashing in the arms of her own captors. “Don’t hurt her!” She kicked her sandals off and twisted around, jabbing her bare foot at the shin of one of the priests. He howled, and must have loosened his grip on her arm, for she spun and thrust the heel of her hand against his chin with a wordless cry.
The priest opened his mouth in silent astonishment, and fell to the ground, gasping and clutching at his chest for some reason.
Sian’s remaining captor threw her face-down on the ground with terrible force, crushing one of her hands against the gravel with his booted foot, while falling atop her back and trying to pin her other hand beneath his knee. “Father Lod, it’s her!” he shouted. “I think she’s killed Poden!”
Ridiculous, Arian thought in half-abstracted rage. Anyone can see he’s moving still.
The sound of running steps drew nearer. Arian turned her head to see an older priest coming toward them from somewhere nearby — Father Lod? — flanked by two younger, stronger priests — initiates, perhaps. Do they always come in threes? Arian wondered, struggling to regain possession of herself through her still-rebounding shock, and dawning despair.
“He’s not dead!” Sian yelled. “I have killed no one!”
“Bind her hands, fool!” snarled the older priest. “Don’t let them touch your flesh!”
Donning gloves as they ran, the two young priests with Lod raced to grab Sian’s arms while the first man kept her pinned in place, then deftly tied her hands behind her back with rope.
“Don’t let this one get away either,” Lod said, casting a sidelong glance at Arian as he strode by. “She may be useful.”
Arian’s attacker yanked her to her feet, holding her tightly by both wrists now.
The priests tying Sian brought out more rope to truss her with, eyeing her warily, clearly aware of the power her hands could wield.
“Sian Kattë, at last,” Lod spat, glaring down at her. He nodded toward Arian. “Is she another fraud like you? Some disciple of yours perhaps?”
“No!” Sian cried. “Leave her alone, she’s done nothing! She is no one.”
Lod gave Sian an ugly smile. “I think not.” He turned to the priests. “Bind her as well. Better safe than sorry, as we’ve learned to our great cost.”
“Let her go!” Sian screamed. “Take me — just let her go!”
Do they know me too? Arian wondered fearfully. Is Duon to have his revenge here on this darkened street, un-witnessed? They had shown no sign they knew her, so far. Their attention seemed focused on Sian Kattë. “My lady,” Arian choked out in the deferential tones of a terrified maid. “Oh, please, my lady …” Please don’t lose your head and give me away now, healer, she thought, as the priests tied her own hands behind her back.
“Be strong, Freda,” Sian said, still glaring at Lod.
Thank all the gods. Again, Arian thought. Sian understood. But how had they been found like this? Had someone betrayed them, or had they just been impossibly unlucky? Did the gods of Alizar hate her after all for her disbelief? Where had their runner-cart gone? When, exactly, had all this fallen so terribly apart?
“Well, well. Domina Kattë,” Lod growled when they had both been bound, “what a lot of trouble and embarrassment you have caused our order.” Arian could see him struggling to retrieve an air of icy calm. “And for what? Did you think you could elude us forever?”
“When my cousin, the Census Taker, hears of this —” Sian started, but Lod cut her off.
“Your dear cousin is the one who warned us, just this afternoon, that you might be found nearby his hall this evening,” Lod answered with clear satisfaction. “It seems your distinguished family has cut you loose. And who could blame them, really?”
Maronne! Arian thought, biting her lip to keep from crying out. She’d left her dearest friend locked in the serpent’s lair, with no way out now. Oh, Viktor, what have I done? Her husband and Hivat had warned her, but she had refused to listen. Yet should she not have tried to save her son? Oh, Maronne. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry …
“But don’t think that’s going to make me over-confident again,” Lod continued, all his satisfaction seeming vanished now. “I know the threat of pain or injury means nothing to you. Not even starvation was intimidating, was it? But I’ve a hunch that you have other weaknesses.” He lurched over to grab Arian’s hair, yanking her head around by it.
Arian yelped, more in surprise than pain, stumbling in a tenuous attempt to stay upright. Only Lod’s fist in her hair kept her from falling.
“Stop it, stop it!” shouted Sian. “I’ll go with you, just don’t hurt her!”
“That’s what I thought.” Lod smiled unpleasantly. “And what I mean to make quite sure of, this time.” He let go of Arian’s hair and elbowed her hard, in the ribs. She buckled and fell to the ground with an oof, unable to use her bound hands to catch herself. Her face had hardly hit the stones before Lod kicked her in the side. Arian heard a rib snap just before the pain hit. She screamed; Lod stepped away, beckoning to his young companions. “Nothing fatal, please.”
The first priest leaned down to punch her in the face, slamming her head back onto the cobblestones. Arian felt blood begin to fill her nose and mouth, choking her screams as a second priest joined in, paying particular attention to her broken rib. Soon it had siblings. She heard Sian screaming too now, but only faintly as all sensation grew remote, and Arian … fell away. Inside.
She found herself detached somehow, watching the whole scene from high above. On a nearby rooftop, maybe? Oh look, those priests are beating some poor woman in the street. How terrible. Why is no one helping? … all that screaming …
She was still in her body too — remotely. It wasn’t really hers, though. Not anymore. Her face felt made of bone, unfeeling even as she felt it pummeled mercilessly. Her hands were tied; her legs did not obey her, though she still struggled with some vague notion of defending herself, or of fleeing. Ultimately, though, there was nothing she could do, except bear the blows.
And then they stopped. Arian came back to herself sobbing in a ball on the ground. Pain filled her, everywhere; every breath a stab wound in her sides. Blood flowed into the mud.
Sian still screamed, somewhere nearby. “Stop! Stop!” She had been screaming the whole time. How could such things happen on a public street, and no one come to save them, or even to investigate? Was Alizar that broken? … Yes, she thought. Clearly. As broken as herself. It must have been for some time now. How had she failed to notice sooner …?
As Ari
an lay gasping for each painful breath, struggling for coherent thought, a righteous anger began boiling up inside her to displace the stunned disbelief, wrapping around the pain like a fiery lover. These gods-damned priests … who feel entitled to beat me on the street; to kill my son! If they let her live; if they made that mistake; she would see their temple burned to the ground, every last offertory hall and stained-glass window and shred of altar cloth … If she could but live!
“All right, then,” she heard a disembodied voice say somewhere above her. A voice she intended to remember — and to silence utterly. Someday. Somehow. “Heal her, if you wish to.”
Arian recoiled at the touch of someone’s hands on her broken body, though they seemed soft and gentle now. She could not abide the thought of being touched again. By anyone.
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” Sian crooned, even as she gathered Arian up closer.
Arian gasped, flooded with sensations for which she had no language. She cried out as her cracked bones began to throb and shift. Her cries were echoed by Sian, who gripped her tighter now. Convulsively. It wasn’t pain, exactly. Nothing like the pain she had just known, at least, but neither was it pleasure. It was … disintegration. Disassembly. Both stretching and compression; an earthquake through her body, and the tearing of a cloud. And then, as suddenly, it became euphoric! Disorienting ecstasy! A wave of pure, erotic pleasure rolled through her body as the healer’s touch brought first upheaval, then relief to all her wounds at once. Arian wanted to weep and laugh and scream. She buried her face in the other woman’s lush silks, wishing she could put her arms around her … kiss her, reach past the clothes to run her hands across Sian’s skin … Then this vast erotic urge winked out as suddenly, and Arian fell back, resting on the ground as Sian collapsed beside her.
“Oh,” Arian whispered, sensing something just beyond her reach — a glimpse — elusive. A shadow veering toward her, too large to encompass — and something else sprang loose inside her, falling away like the ruptured fragments of some suffocating corset. A voice, almost too small to hear. Her mind nearly caught it, like a dream half-remembered. Her heart swelled with joy, then clenched with frustration as it eluded her again. Arian sighed deeply at the loss, then realized it hadn’t hurt to do so. Incredulous, she rolled gingerly, one way, then the other, testing her ribs; but no, the pain was gone. She has healed me, Arian thought. She has really done it. I am mended. I am whole!
And not just physically. She knew this now, as she knew Sian was there beside her.
“Get them up,” snapped Lod’s voice above her. Arian cringed anew, but the young priest bending over her just jerked her to her feet this time, then pulled Sian up to stand, trembling, beside her.
“You will come quietly now?” Lod asked Sian. “No tricks this time?”
“Yes,” Sian whispered, tears streaming down her face. “There was no call for that.”
“Oh, but there was. You had to understand that we are not the helpless fools we were before. I have allowed you to soothe your friend’s discomfort. I am not unkind. But, should there be any hint of trouble, whatsoever — here or after we’ve returned you to the temple — we will not hesitate to beat her again. And again, if necessary. We’ll even kill her if we must.”
Sian just glared at him.
“Bind her again,” Lod ordered. “And bring the cart.”
A minute later, Lod’s two priests returned, leading a small ox-cart. The priests frog-marched Sian over to it, lifted her in, then tied the loose end of her rope leash firmly to its side, forcing her into a half-reclined position that looked torturous to Arian. Then they came for her, and did the same, tying her bound hands to the cart’s opposite side before setting off.
As the cart rumbled away, leaving the nearly attained waterfront behind, Sian caught Arian’s eye. “Are you all right?” she whispered. “Physically, I mean.”
Arian nodded. “Changed, I think. Somehow. But … less afraid, if that does not sound …”
“No. That’s how it feels to me as well.”
The cart rolled on through Cutter’s dark and empty streets, priests arrayed around them, keeping lookout. Arian kept marveling at the sensations inside her, as the truth continued to sink in. … This healer’s power is real. There is at least one god left in Alizar. And … it did not hate her, Arian knew now.
“I am sorry, Arian,” Sian whispered.
“Freda,” Arian whispered back. “And I … am not so sorry now. Not anymore.”
The all-too-familiar dungeon of Temple Mishrah-Khote was quite a step down from Escotte’s gilded cage. Not that Sian wanted to go back there, even now. Not really. Going forward might have been quite nice … Not all of it pleasant, the young priest of her new god had warned. And right you are again, she thought grimly.
“I’m hungry,” Arian said, sitting beside her in near darkness on their single pallet of moldy straw. “Quite extraordinarily hungry. I wish we’d eaten more of that delicious food your cousin sent up.”
Sian turned to look at Arian curiously. “You sound a lot like me now. It’s always worst after I heal someone.” She had never really stayed with anyone she’d healed after it was done. Did they … catch some of whatever burned in her? “Perhaps they’ll feed you,” she added, trying to ignore her the growing protests of her own stomach. “Me, they like to starve, here. It’s the only way they’ve found to hurt me. For very long at least.”
“But why should they so want to?” Arian asked. “That’s what I cannot understand. It would make perfect sense for them to hate me — if they found out who I was.” She had informed Sian by now of all the trouble she’d been making for the temple’s leaders recently, revealing one more reason why no one must realize who she was if it could be avoided. “But what can you have done to them — or anyone — to justify hatred like Lod’s?”
Sian shrugged. “I am a spiritual fraud, of course. The worst of all crimes, it seems.”
“But you are so clearly not!” Arian protested. “From all I’ve seen, you are the only one here who is not!”
“Well, that might be the problem then,” Sian said dryly. “Ugly women never like a mirror, do they?”
Arian was silent for a moment. “Not even pretty women sometimes,” she said quietly. “I have no great wish to look too closely just now.”
Sian wondered what she meant by that, exactly, but just couldn’t find the energy to ask. Lod and his anointed thugs had dumped them here nearly an hour ago. They had whispered back and forth since then, about what might happen next, and what exactly might have gone wrong at her cousin’s house. Escotte had so often seemed such a self-absorbed and rather silly man to Sian, but Arian had told her frightening tales of the man that confirmed the true intelligence and ruthless power he hid behind that mask.
“I wonder how long he’d suspected,” Sian said.
“I still can’t see where we went wrong.”
“Well, I know one thing we did wrong. I would have healed Assidua, not sent her home with an upset stomach.”
Arian groaned. “How could we have been so dense?” She shook her head. “But that can’t have been the reason, if he informed the temple this afternoon.” She gave a quiet laugh. “Perhaps that third bottle of wine was … premature.”
Sian remained impressed with Arian’s calm and poise, wondering if such qualities were inborn or just trained into those raised to rule. She doubted she’d have been so calm herself if she had come so suddenly to this from such a lofty place in life. Not with a dying child waiting somewhere just beyond her reach …
“How sick is Konrad?” Sian asked. “Will he … survive this delay?”
“He’s been ill for months,” Arian sighed. “And grown far worse in just the past few weeks. I have no sure way of knowing whether he’s still living now.” She drew a trembling breath. “When Viktor and I discovered the plot against us, we began to suspect these ‘healing’ priests of poisoning our son …”
Sian turned to gape at her.
“Surely, not even these —”
“We’ve just thrown them all out of the Factorate House,” Arian went on. “So, perhaps he’ll have a better chance now, or even improve a little … But I cannot know.” She turned to Sian in the gloom. “You do see why I must remain ‘Freda’ until we get out of here.” She looked down at her knotted hands. “If we ever do.”
“We may not be as helpless as we seem,” Sian murmured very softly. “Not all the priests here are so … unsympathetic.”
“Is that how you escaped, the last time? Did someone here help you?”
Sian bit her lower lip, realizing that she might already have said more than was wise. “It is better, maybe, that you don’t know.” She did not say, in case you’re tortured again, and forced to tell, but Arian’s sudden stillness in the dark beside her made it clear she didn’t have to.
The sound of a heavy door opening and closing again echoed down the hallway. “Maybe that’s food,” Sian said, not quite convincingly, she feared.
The familiar clink of keys outside their door was followed by the screech of rusty hinges, and a wincing flare of firelight from the hallway, through which came several large, well-armored men bearing torches to light up their cell. Behind them came a tall, stern priest, in black robes made of shimmering brocade rather than the normal rough-spun hemp and cotton. Heavy ropes of polished jet and alabaster bead hung elegantly from around his neck and shoulders. There was a belt of silver links around his waist, with opals set into its buckle. Arian turned instantly away to cower behind her hood, playing the humble, frightened maid, Sian assumed.
The burly guards closed ranks before the priest, clearly there to safeguard this important person from such a dangerous grandmother. Then again, Sian had just used her gift to disable one of their henchmen, so perhaps she couldn’t fault their caution.