by Mel Odom
She turned at once to apologize because many adults in the church were short-tempered with children. Children got chosen a lot by Dien-Ap-Sten for healing and miracles, and most of the adults didn’t feel they deserved it.
“I’m sorry,” Meridor said, looking up. She froze when she saw the monstrous face above her.
The man was tall and big, but that was somewhat hidden beneath the simple woolen traveling cloak he wore. His clothing was old and patched, showing signs of hard usage and covered over with road dust and grit. The frayed kerchief at his neck was tied by a sailor’s knot that Uncle Ramais had showed her. The man stood like a shadow carved out of the crowd.
But the most horrible thing about him was his face. It was blackened from burning, the skin crisp and ridged as it had pulled together from the heat. Fine, thin cracks showed in the burned areas, and flecks of blood ran down his face like sweat. Most of the damage was on the left side of his face and looked like an eclipse of the moon. There had been one of those the night Mikel and Dannis had been born.
“It’s all right, girl,” the man said in a hoarse voice.
“Does it hurt?” Meridor asked. Then she clapped a hand over her mouth when she remembered that many adults didn’t like being asked questions, especially about things they probably didn’t want to talk about.
A small smile formed on the man’s cracked and blistered mouth. New blood flecks appeared on his burned cheek, and pain shone in his eyes. “All the time,” he answered.
“Are you here hoping to get healed?” Meridor asked, since he seemed to be open to questions.
“No.” The man shook his head, and the movement caused the hood of his traveling cloak to shift, baring his head a little and revealing the gnarled stubble of burned hair that poked through the blackened skin.
“Then why are you here?”
“I came to see this Way of Dreams that I had heard so much about.”
“It’s been here a long time. Have you been here before?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
The burned man glanced down at her. “You’re a curious child.”
“Yes. I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s not.” The man stared at the stone snake as the drums boomed, the cymbals clashed, and the pipes continued their writhing melodies. “Those were your brothers?”
“Yes. Mikel and Dannis. They’re conjoined.” Meridor stumbled over the word a little. It just didn’t sound right. Even after all the years of having to tell other people about her brothers, she still couldn’t say it right all the time.
“Do you believe they’re abominations?”
“No.” Meridor sighed. “They’re just unhappy and in pain.”
The boys’ screams tore through the cathedral again. Atop the stone snake, Master Sayes showed no sign of stopping the ritual.
“They sound like they’re in pain now.”
“Yes.” Meridor worried about her brothers as she always did when they were out of her sight. She spent so much time taking care of them, how could she not be worried?
“You’ve seen others healed?” the burned man asked.
“Yes. Lots.” Meridor watched the undulations of the stone snake. Were Mikel and Dannis walking the Way of Dreams now? Or were they just trapped inside the snake while truly terrible things happened to them?
“What have you seen?” the man asked.
“I’ve seen the crippled made whole, the blind made to see, and all kinds of diseases healed.”
“I was told that Dien-Ap-Sten usually picks children to heal.”
Meridor nodded.
“A lot of adults don’t like that,” the burned man said. “I heard them talking in the taverns in town and on the ship that brought me here.”
Meridor nodded again. She had seen people get into fights in Bramwell while discussing such things. She was determined not to argue or point out that there were a lot of sick kids in the city.
“Why do you think Dien-Ap-Sten picks children most of the time?” the burned man asked.
“I don’t know.”
The burned man grinned as he watched the stone snake. Blood wept from his upper lip and threaded through his white teeth and over the blistered flesh of his pink lips. “Because they are impressionable and because they can believe more than an adult, girl. Show an adult a miracle, and he or she will reach for logical conclusions for why it happened. But the heart of a child . . . by the Light, you can win the heart of a child forever.”
Meridor didn’t completely understand what the man was talking about, but she didn’t let it bother her. She’d already discovered that there were things about adults that she didn’t understand, and things about adults that she wasn’t meant to understand, and things that she understood but wasn’t supposed to act as if she understood.
Abruptly, Master Sayes ordered silence in the cathedral. The musical instruments stopped playing at once, and the hoarse shouts of the crowd died away.
Once when she had been there, Meridor remembered, a group of rowdy men hadn’t stopped making noise as Master Sayes had ordered. They’d been drunk and argumentative, and they had said bad things about the church. Master Sayes’s warriors had forced their way through the crowd, sought them out, and killed them. Some said that they had killed two innocent men as well, but people stopped talking about that by the next meeting.
Silence echoed in the massive cathedral and made Meridor feel smaller than ever. She clasped her hands and fretted over Mikel and Dannis. Would the Way of Dreams simply tear off one of their heads, killing one of them to make a whole child out of what was left? That was a truly horrible thought, and Meridor wished it would leave her mind. But it would have been even worse, she supposed, if Dien-Ap-Sten had asked her da or ma to decide which child lived and which child died.
Then the power filled the cathedral.
Meridor recognized it from the other times she had experienced it. It vibrated through her body, shaking even the teeth in her head, and it made her all mixed up and somehow excited inside.
The burned man lifted his arm, the one with the hand that was completely blackened by whatever had cooked him. Crimson threads crisscrossed the cooked flesh as he worked his fingers. Flesh split open over one knuckle, revealing the pink flesh and the white bone beneath.
But as Meridor watched, the hand started to heal. Scabs formed over the breaks, then flaked away to reveal whole flesh again. However, the new flesh was still crisp, burned black. She glanced up at the burned man and saw that even the cracks in his face had healed somewhat.
Taking down his hand, the burned man gazed at it as if surprised. “By the Light,” he whispered.
“Dien-Ap-Sten can heal you,” Meridor said. It felt good to offer the man hope. Da always said hope was the best thing a man could wish for when dealing with fate and bad luck. “You should start coming to church here. Perhaps one day the snake will pick you.”
The burned man smiled and shook his head beneath the hood of his traveling cloak. “I would not be allowed to seek healing here, girl.” Crimson leaked down his cracked face again. “In fact, I’m surprised that I wasn’t killed outright when I tried to enter this building.”
That sounded strange. Meridor had never heard anyone speak like that.
With a sigh that sounded like a bellows blast she’d heard at the blacksmith’s shop, the snake’s huge lower jaw dropped open. Smoke and embers belched from the snake’s belly.
Meridor stood on her tiptoes, waiting anxiously. When Mikel and Dannis had entered the snake, she’d never thought that she might not see them again. Or even that she might not see one of them again.
A boy stepped through the opening of the snake’s mouth on two good legs. He gazed out at the crowd fearfully, trying in vain to hide.
Dannis! Meridor’s heart leapt with happiness, but it plunged in the next moment when she realized that Mikel, little Mikel who loved her sock puppet shows, was gone. Before her first tears had time
to leave her eyes or do more than blur her vision, she saw her other little brother step out from behind Dannis. Mikel! They both live! And they are both whole!
Da whooped with joy, and Ma cried out, praising Dien-Ap-Sten for all to hear. The crowd burst loose with their joy and excitement, but Meridor couldn’t help thinking that it was because having Mikel and Dannis returned meant that another would soon be selected to journey down the Way of Dreams.
Da rushed forward and took her brothers from the fiery maw of the stone snake. Even as he pulled them into an embrace, joined by Ma, movement at Meridor’s side drew her attention to the burned man.
She watched as everything seemed to slow down, and she could hear her heartbeat thunder in her ears. The burned man whipped his traveling cloak back to reveal the hand crossbow he held there. The curved bow rested on a frame no longer than Meridor’s forearm. He brought the small weapon up in his good hand, extended it, and squeezed the trigger. The quarrel leapt from the crossbow’s grooved track and sped across the cathedral.
Tracking the quarrel’s flight, Meridor saw the fletched shaft take Master Sayes high in the chest and knock him backward. The Wayfinder plunged from the snake’s neck, disappearing from sight. Screams split the cathedral as Meridor’s senses sped up again.
“Someone has killed Master Sayes!” a man’s voice yelled.
“Find him!” another yelled. “Find that damned assassin!”
“It came from over there!” a man yelled.
In disbelief, Meridor stood frozen as cathedral guards and robed acolytes plunged into the crowd brandishing weapons and torches. She turned to look for the burned man, only to find him gone. He’d taken his leave during the confusion, probably brushing by people who were only now realizing what he had done.
Altough the cathedral guards worked quickly, there were too many people inside the building to organize a pursuit. But one man fleeing through people determined to get out of the way of the menacing guards moved rapidly. She never saw him escape.
One of the acolytes stopped beside Meridor. The acolyte held his torch high and shoved people away, revealing the abandoned hand crossbow on the floor.
“Here!” the acolyte yelled. “The weapon is here.”
Guards rushed over to join him.
“Who saw this man?” a burly guard demanded.
“It was a man,” a woman in the nearby crowd said. “A stranger. He was talking to that girl.” She pointed at Meridor.
The guard fixed Meridor with his harsh gaze. “You know the man who did this, girl?”
Meridor tried to speak but couldn’t.
Da strode forward to protect her, she knew that he did, but one of the guards swung his sword hilt into her da’s stomach and dropped him to his knees. The guard grabbed the back of her da’s head by the hair and yanked his head back, baring his throat for the knife that he held.
“Talk, girl,” the guard said.
Meridor knew the men were afraid as well as angry. Perhaps Dien-Ap-Sten would take vengeance against them for allowing something terrible to happen to Master Sayes.
“Do you know the man who did this?” the burly guard repeated.
Shaking her head, Meridor said, “No. I only talked to him.”
“But you got a good look at him?”
“Yes. He had a burned face. He was scared to come in here. He said Dien-Ap-Sten might know him, but he came anyway.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Another guard rushed up to the burly one. “Master Sayes lives,” the guard reported.
“Thank Dien-Ap-Sten,” the burly guard said. “I would not have wanted to go where the Way of Dreams would have taken me if Master Sayes had died.” He gave a description of the assassin, adding that a man with a burned face should be easy enough to find. Then he turned his attention back to Meridor, keeping a painful grip on her arm. “Come along, girl. You’re coming with me. We’re going to talk to Master Sayes.”
Meridor tried to escape. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to Master Sayes. But she couldn’t escape the grip the guard had on her arm as he dragged her through the crowd.
SIXTEEN
“I’m tellin’ ye, I’ve seen it with me own two eyes, I have,” old Sahyir said, looking mightily offended. He was sixty if he was a day, lean and whipcord tough, with a cottony white beard and his hair pulled back into a ponytail. Shell earrings hung from both ears. Scars showed on his face and hands and arms. He wore tarred breeches and a shirt to stand against the spray that carried across the still-primitive harbor. Darrick sat on a crate that was part of the cargo he’d been hired to help transport from the caravel out in the bay to the warehouse on the shoreline of Seeker’s Point. It was the first good paying work he’d had in three days, and he’d begun to think he was going to have to crew out on a ship to keep meals coming and a roof over his head. Shipping out wasn’t something he looked forward to. The sea held too many memories. He reached into the worn leather bag he carried and took out a piece of cheddar cheese and two apples.
“I have trouble believing the part about the stone snake gulping people down, I do,” Darrick admitted. He used his small belt knife to cut wedges from the half-circle of cheese and to cut the apples into quarters, expertly slicing the cores away. He gave Sahyir one of the cheese wedges and one of the sliced apples. Tossing the apple cores over the side of the barge attracted the small perch that lived along the harbor and fed on refuse from the ships, warehouses, and street sewers. They kissed the top of the water with hungry mouths.
“I seen it, Darrick,” the old man insisted. “Seen a man that couldn’t use his legs pull himself into that snake’s gullet, an’ then come up an’ walk outta there on his own two legs again. Healthy as a horse, he was. It was right something to see.”
Darrick chewed a piece of cheese as he shook his head. “Healers can do that. Potions can do that. I’ve even seen enchanted weapons that could help a man heal faster. There is nothing special about healing. The Zakarum Church does it from time to time.”
“But those all come for a price,” Sahyir argued. “Healers an’ potions an’ enchanted weapons, why, they’re all well an’ good for a man what’s got the gold or the strength to get ’em. And churches? Don’t get me started. Churches dote on them that put big donations in the coffers, or them what’s got the king’s favor. Churches keep an eye on the hands what feed ’em, I says. But I ask ye, what about the common, ordinary folk like ye and me? Who’s gonna take care of us?”
Gazing across the sea, feeling the wind rush through his hair and against his face, the chill of it biting into his flesh in spite of his own tarred clothing, Darrick looked at the small village that clung tenaciously to the rocky land of the cove. “We take care of ourselves,” he said. “Just like we always have.” He and the old man had been friends for months, sharing an easy companionship.
Seeker’s Point was a small town just south of the barbarian tribes’ territories. In the past, the village had been a supply fort for traders, whalers, and seal hunters who had trekked through the frozen north. Little more than a hundred years ago, a merchant house had posted an army there meant to chase off the marauding barbarian pirates who hunted the area without fear of the Westmarch Navy. A bounty had been placed on the heads of the barbarians, and for a time the mercenary army had collected from the trading house.
Then some of the barbarian tribes had united and laid siege to the village. The trading house hadn’t been able to resupply or ship the mercenaries out. During the course of one winter, the mercenaries and all those who had lived with them had been killed to the last person. It had taken more than forty years for a few fur traders to reestablish themselves in the area, and only then because they traded favorably with the barbarians and brought them goods they couldn’t get on their own with any dependability.
Houses and buildings dotted the steep mountains that surrounded the cove. Pockets of unimproved land and forest stood tall and proud between some of the hous
es and buildings. The village slowly eroded those patches, though, taking the timber for buildings and for heat, but baring several of those places only revealed the jagged, gap-toothed, rocky soil beneath. Nothing could be built in those places.
“Why didn’t you stay in Bramwell?” Darrick asked. He bit into the apple, finding it sweet and tart.
Sahyir waved the thought away. “Why, even before they up an’ had all this religious business success, Bramwell wasn’t for the likes of me.”
“Why?”
Snorting, Sahyir said, “Why, it’s too busy there is why. A man gets to wanderin’ around them streets—all in a tizzy and a bother—an’ he’s like to meet hisself comin’ and goin’.”
Despite the melancholy mood that usually stayed with him, Darrick smiled. Bramwell was a lot larger than Seeker’s Point, but it paled in comparison with Westmarch. “You’ve never been to Westmarch, have you?”
“Once,” Sahyir answered. “Only once. I made a mistake of signing on with a cargo freighter needin’ a hand. I was a young strappin’ pup like yerself, thought I wasn’t afeard of nothin’. So I signed on. Got to Westmarch harbor and looked out over that hell-spawned place. We was at anchorage for six days, we was. An’ never once durin’ that time did I leave that ship.”
“You didn’t? Why?”
“Because I figured I’d never find my way back to the ship I was on.”
Darrick laughed.
Sahyir scowled at him and looked put out. “’Tweren’t funny, ye bilge rat. There’s men what went ashore there that didn’t come back.”
“I meant no offense,” Darrick said. “It’s just that after making that trip down to Westmarch and through the bad weather that usually marks the gulf, I can’t imagine anyone not leaving the ship when they had a chance.”
“Only far enough to buy a wineskin from the local tavern and get a change of victuals from time to time,” Sahyir said. “But the only reason I brought up Bramwell today was because I was talkin’ to a man I met last night, an’ I thought ye might be interested in what he had to say.”