“I use what I need. And these healing spells take a lot of power,” Nora said. The pain was lessening, but every cell of the flesh and bone of her finger still seemed to be vibrating with uncomfortable energy.
Aruendiel snorted. “Yes, if you want to heal someone immediately. Miracle cures take a lot of magic. Your patients would be better off with less magic and slower healing.”
“Well, what would happen if I did use too much magic?”
“You saw what happened to your finger. Her spell didn’t stop working when it should have.” Aruendiel gave her pinkie a gentle pull. “Bend it,” he directed. “Straighten it. Again. Good. Good.
“An excess of magic can also be dangerous for the magician,” he added, taking Nora’s hand again and regarding it with a craftsman’s critical eye. With his thumb, he rubbed the fine pink scar at the base of her little finger. Her finger tingled, but in a different way this time.
“One can develop a taste for strong magic, as for strong wine,” he said. “It can be just as intoxicating.”
“I use only what I need.” Nora pulled her hand back slowly, made a fist, opened it again. “Thank you for fixing my finger,” she said, looking up at him. In the wavering illumination he had conjured, both light and shadow flickered across his battered features. “It seems to be fine, as good as new.” To her own ears, her words sounded wistful. Nora frowned.
Aruendiel nodded brusquely, as though to signify that the result of the procedure was no surprise to him. “It’s well that your finger is mended before we leave. The fewer distractions we have on our journey, the better.”
“Leave?” Nora asked. He did not sound as though he were joking. “Journey?”
“We leave tonight.”
“But what about Sisoaneer?”
He did not pick up on the precise meaning of her question—or chose not to answer it. “There is a ceremony at the temple, is there not? She will be distracted.”
“I’m supposed to be at that ceremony, too,” Nora pointed out. “But—you’re just going to leave Sisoaneer?” He gave a curt nod. “Have you quarreled with her?” she asked.
“Of course. We have done nothing but quarrel.”
Nora stared at him. Aruendiel went on: “She is as mad as ever, and worse, and she’s still angry about what she calls my betrayal, not to mention the one hundred and thirty-six years of neglect that followed. I lost count of the years, but she did not.”
This was welcome and interesting news, although Nora also found herself slightly chilled by the savagery in Aruendiel’s tone. “Why does she think you betrayed her?” she asked.
“I left her for a time, to settle matters of my own, and when I came back, she was gone. And I did not spend all the years since searching for her, as she would have liked. I believed she was dead, or that she did not wish for me to find her.”
“But you did come back for her—here, now.”
“I came for you,” he said. “To ascertain that you were safe.”
It was what she wanted to hear, but again, his answer was not quite satisfactory. Nora lifted empty hands in a half shrug. “And you found me, all fine except for this finger. Which left you free to occupy yourself with Siso—”
“On the contrary, I found you in the service of a barbarian religion, completely reliant on the power of a jealous madwoman who has nursed a grudge against me for a century. You and I have both been in peril from the moment we arrived in Erchkaii, except you were unaware of it. She could kill either of us in an instant, or”—he hesitated—“or do other kinds of damage. Not to mention that you have been practicing complex magic that you barely understand on helpless invalids. I have been as diplomatic as possible to protect both of us.
“But I have played the flatterer long enough,” he added. “I spent seven years as a servant to that woman—and now, not another day, not another hour.”
“Diplomatic? Is that what you call it?” Despite a strong urge to slap him—punch him—Nora laughed aloud. “Aruendiel, you are absolutely no good at flattery. I’ve seen you manage courtesy, yes, but not flattery. Either she saw through you right away, or you weren’t just flattering her.”
Under lifted brows, Aruendiel’s eyes widened slightly. He looked at Nora with rueful respect. “It was necessary to be—persuasive. I once had some talent for pleasing women. I thought to make it useful again, whatever little remained.”
With a tightly knotted smile, he added: “And an old man, a dead man, must take his pleasures where he finds them.”
Inwardly Nora winced at hearing her own words, but she would not let him see any sign of weakness. “Well, you found them all right, didn’t you.”
“Not as I would have chosen,” he said with some sharpness, and then in a quieter tone: “Not at all.”
“None of this is what I wanted, either.” Again, the words sounded sadder than she intended.
A silence began to grow between them, until Nora broke it: “Well, if I leave with you, what happens to me afterwards?” She frowned up at him. “Where do I go then?”
The question seemed to startle him. “Why, you would go to a place that is safe, and pleasing to you,” he said, with some hesitation. “We can talk of that later. If you do not wish to remain in my—”
“Blessed Lady, there you are!” Uliverat’s voice floated toward them, and at a little distance, her round face gleamed in the lantern light. “And our distinguished visitor. Are you coming to Falis Woana?”
Aruendiel cursed under his breath. Nora glanced down. Only a faint, broken curve remained of the circle that he had drawn with the timestone.
“We are out of time,” he said softly into her ear. “I will turn her into a sparrow—or better yet, a fish in the river—so that she cannot give the alarm, and we will leave now.”
A rabbit, Nora thought, and was ashamed.
“They’re waiting for me,” she said quietly. “She will expect me to be there. If I’m not there, they’ll know something’s wrong.”
Aruendiel pressed his lips together, considering. “How long will it take?”
“I’m going to pardon someone. It won’t take much time, they told me.”
He scowled. “Be quick, then. And be careful. Leave the temple as soon as you can. I will find you.”
Nora nodded, trying to look relaxed, confident, and unconspiratorial in front of Uliverat. Before she headed down the path, she looked at Aruendiel again. “Why do you call Sisoaneer a madwoman?” she asked in a low voice.
He smiled thinly. “Her name is Olenan. She used to pretend sometimes that she was a goddess, for a game. Now she believes that she is one. Make haste, Blessed Lady, make haste.”
Chapter 23
Oasme was waiting for them just inside the temple door. “Blessed Lady,” he said, bowing, and Nora marveled privately at the shades of meaning that he could convey with only those two words. There was just enough of an edge in his voice to let her know that while she had not arrived late, she was not as early as he would have preferred.
“What do I need to do?” Nora asked, peering past him into the sanctuary. At a distance she could hear Yaioni chanting. She could see little except the dark crowd of worshippers and, beyond them, a splash of candlelight on the composed smile and the stony gaze of the goddess’s statue.
But she is not a goddess, Nora thought.
Oasme began telling her how they would process through the temple, Lemoes and Uliverat and himself in front of Nora, and which chant they would sing.
Nora listened distractedly. Of course she’s not a goddess, she thought. I knew it all along, it’s so obvious. She’s too—real. Too human. I saw that. But somehow I stopped seeing it. I must have wanted to believe, Nora marveled. Just like my mom, only a different kind of god. Would I have done any of this—worn a maran, said all those prayers—if I didn’t have some secret wish for something?
Oasme was still talking. The Ghaki king’s emissaries would bow to Nora as she approached, he explained. It was important that she return the obeisance, but she should not bend as deeply as they did. The Ghaki king must not be encouraged to believe that Erchkaii considered itself to be under his direct dominion.
Nora murmured her agreement, trying to estimate how many minutes this whole affair would last. When she left, she would walk toward the hospital—that would be quite natural, and Aruendiel could meet her en route.
“—then you will pray to the goddess for guidance. ‘Let me know what is pleasing to you, let me deliver your mercy—’”
Nora knew the prayer; she had recited it before. But she would never need to remember it again after this night. She was not really High Priestess now, Nora reflected, if she ever had been. She was just performing a role for a few more minutes. Twenty minutes, say. Half an hour at most.
“—then the prisoner you free will lie down in front of you, and you will say, ‘Go in freedom and praise the loving justice of Sisoaneer all of your life.’”
“And is that the end?” she asked.
“He will pledge to serve the goddess for the rest of his life,” Oasme said. “And you will accept his pledge—”
Lemoes was lighting the tall tapers that he and the others would carry. The light spilled into his serious young face. She smiled at him and looked quickly away. How would he feel if he knew that his beloved goddess was—what? A magician, a human woman. It would be a disappointment for him, probably. He was young, he’d get over it. Or, he might not even believe Nora if she told him the truth about Sisoaneer. He had true faith, which was both lovely and dangerous.
“—and then we will exit, singing,” Oasme finished.
Nora realized that she had missed the name of the final hymn but figured that she would pick it up when the time came.
Now Lemoes started forward with his taper. Oasme followed, then Nora. The crowd parted with a slow shuffling of feet as the small procession moved toward Sisoaneer’s statue.
“The sun’s favorite,” Oasme sang, and the worshippers chorused, “The sun’s favorite.”
“The night’s daughter.”
“The night’s daughter.”
“She delivers us—”
“She delivers us—”
“—from suffering.”
“—from suffering.”
I’ll never have to do this again, Nora thought.
“In the darkness—”
“In the darkness—”
“—she protects us.”
“—she protects us.”
“Do not fear.”
“Do not fear.”
“You are not alone.”
“You are not alone.”
Yaioni stood at one side, her eyebrows arched, elegant and aloof. The half-dozen men in red-and-black robes over armor were obviously the Ghaki king’s emissaries. They stared at Nora, expressionless behind dark beards. A stout, hawk-nosed man with a broad jeweled collar stepped forward and spoke to her in heavily accented Ors.
“Blessed Lady, holy favorite, pure chalice of power,” he said, and then there was more along those lines. Will I miss this part? Nora wondered, and then decided: not really. The Ghaki emissaries bowed from the waist in unison. Nora drew herself up and very gently inclined her head, as instructed. She hoped that Oasme was satisfied with her performance. It would be her farewell gift to him.
Now the Ghaki king’s chief emissary was saying something about the offering he had brought on behalf of his lord. Nora couldn’t follow all of his murky Ors, but she grasped that all had been done in accordance with ancient custom and that the king prayed for great Sisoaneer’s favor. A few sentences came in clearly. “We offer these men to the Queen of Power, who gives life and takes it away. May she bless the king’s justice.”
Two of the emissaries stepped to one side, and for the first time, Nora noticed the men in chains. Two of them, in white robes, face down, kneeling, polished steel shackles linking their wrists. Their heads were shaved. When one of the prisoners lifted his head, she thought at first that he was wearing a mask. No, their faces had been painted black, a rough red streak drawn down the middle.
Nora turned her head very slightly, meaning to catch Oasme’s eye. He materialized just behind her shoulder. “I thought there was only going to be one,” she breathed.
“You only pardon one of them,” he said, close to her ear.
“What about the other?”
“You choose the one who lives.”
The chief emissary was staring at her, some kind of disapproving calculation in his narrowed eyes. Her surprise must have been obvious.
“What happens to the other?” she asked again, loudly enough so that the emissary probably heard her.
“Now you pray,” Oasme hissed sternly. “Like this: ‘Let me know what is pleasing—’ ”
Why am I here? Nora thought. If I had listened to Aruendiel, we would be miles away. Distractedly she groped her way through the prayer, following Oasme’s prompts.
Both prisoners had raised their heads and were scrutinizing her. She wondered if either sensed her unease. The greasy paint covering their faces was meant to make them look identical, she guessed, but it could not disguise their individuality. The burlier man was older, deep lines carved into his face. The other had sleepy-lidded eyes that gave him an air of mild astonishment at the dire predicament in which he found himself.
She came to the end of the prayer. A strained silence took over, broken only by rustles and coughs in the crowd. They were waiting for Nora: the worshippers, the emissaries, the prisoners, everyone.
“What did they do, the criminals?” she whispered to Oasme.
“You’re not supposed to know,” he whispered back.
“I need to know.”
She felt rather than heard Oasme suppress a sigh. “The one on the left beat and robbed a neighbor and his wife, and violated the daughter, and killed all three; the young one murdered an admiral and several other officers in the course of committing piracy, theft, and rebellion,” he said.
The new information did not make her choice easier. “Did they have trials?” she asked. “Do we know if they are really guilty?”
Her hesitation seemed to have emboldened the prisoners. They stared at her. The sleepy-looking one widened his eyes imploringly. The burly man tried a smile that Nora thought might crack his jaw.
“That is the Ghaki king’s affair, not yours,” Oasme said. “Just pray to the goddess and pardon one, Blessed Lady. Go on!” He joggled her arm. “ ‘Let me know what is pleasing—’”
Nora repeated the words after him, raising her voice. Would Sisoaneer—Olenan—send her some kind of sign? Nothing was forthcoming. When she had finished the invocation, she closed her eyes for an instant. She wished that there really was a goddess she could pray to.
She opened her eyes. “That one,” she said to Oasme, pointing to the young pirate. Immediately two of the armored men dragged him forward, then dropped him facedown on the floor in front of Nora, his chained arms extended before him. She had forgotten the formula for the pardon, but once again Oasme prompted her.
The pirate responded in an arcane, salt-tinged argot, pledging his service to the goddess and adding a very long compliment to the lovely and discerning priestess who had freed him from a shameful death. Under different circumstances, Nora might have enjoyed being described as seal-eyed and mackerel-slim, but not now; she wished that he would finish already, so that she would not have to stand facing the other prisoner she had not saved from a shameful death.
She made herself meet the second man’s eyes, briefly. Under the stark colors of the face paint, he suddenly looked hollowed out. She reminded herself that he was a murderer who had brought his fate upon himself. The reflection did not make her feel better. She won
dered how much longer he had to live.
The pirate seemed to be coming to the end of his endless expression of gratitude, but not quickly enough. “I accept your service,” Nora said loudly, cutting him off. “Welcome to Erchkaii. You will, um—well, someone will instruct you in your duties.” She turned to Oasme. “Now, we leave?” she whispered.
“Now you strike the condemned prisoner,” he said in a hushed voice.
She wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly. “What?”
He took something from Lemoes and handed it to her. It was heavy. A piece of polished granite, bigger than her fist, attached to a shaft of wood. Because the thing looked so primitive, it took her a moment to recognize it as a weapon.
“You will hit him with this,” Oasme said. “In the head.”
The wooden handle had the smoothness of long use. Nora hefted the thing awkwardly. It weighed twelve or fifteen pounds, at least. One side of the granite head narrowed to a sharp, brown-stained edge. An ax. Not again. Did they know?
“But I can’t,” she said. “I mean, I’m not supposed to kill him myself, am I?”
The prisoner she had freed was gone now; she couldn’t see where. The guards dragged the condemned man forward.
“You don’t have to kill him yourself,” Oasme said firmly. “Just tap it against his temple. Try to draw a little blood. It’s part of the ceremony. The Ghaki king’s soldiers will execute him later.”
“You didn’t tell me about this bit,” Nora said. Stay calm, she reminded herself. A few more minutes, and she would leave the mad, dank gloom of this temple for the last time.
“I did mention it. Did you not hear me?” Oasme allowed himself to look indignant, the corners of his mouth drawn down.
They were no longer whispering. “You glossed over it, then,” she said. “Why don’t you do it, if it’s so important?” She offered him the stone ax.
“It is your responsibility.”
“I don’t want any part of it.”
Murmurs were beginning to flow among the congregants. Some of the worshippers were close enough to hear what was going on. The lead Ghaki emissary said something to one of his lieutenants, shaking his head.
How to Talk to a Goddess and Other Lessons in Real Magic Page 31