“What part of the text are you up to?” Leba Mara asked.
“Digestive Tract.”
“Skip to the skeleton. Most folks don’t come in with stomach aches or diarrhea unless it’s bad. But bones? Even an achy bone’ll bring ‘em in every time.”
I nodded, making a mental note. Bones.
“Make sure you know it from cranium to phalanges, please.”
Phalanges. Fingers and toes! I knew those.
But what was a cranium? A head. Of course. I could slap my cranium. It obviously wasn’t working right if I didn’t recognize such an obvious word.
Leba Mara had already moved on. “Skin ailments. There’s a million, or maybe it just seems that way.”
The skin patients had been lined up along the benches. Leba Mara pointed out rashes, burns, blisters, warts, cheloid scars, and so much more, and my own skin itched and burned in sympathy.
It went on for half the day like this, me examining pus and blood and swelling that Leba Mara would then make shrink or even disappear with a wave of her totem. It’s not that I doubted her magic worked—but I knew the effects were temporary. Everyone knew. Leba Mara would be redoing these spells again tomorrow.
I didn’t dare air that idea, though, and focused instead on the gore and guts as we made our rounds. Odd that such sights didn’t make me feel queasy. Maybe that’s why she’d had me work as an orderly for a few six-days; it certainly had gotten me over the worst of things. Not much bothered me anymore, even before this morning. I’d not only seen it all, I’d emptied buckets of it.
“Well, you’ll never guess the time,” Leba Mara asked.
“Past high heat, I expect,” I said.
“Maybe so, but it’s also time for your …” and here she leaned in and whispered loudly, “Private Matter.”
And then she winked.
Sure enough, Valeo was standing all rigid and soldierly in the doorway. Heat washed over me.
“Would you excuse me, Leba Mara?” I asked.
“Take your time. It’s dinner anyway. Come back after.”
And then she strode off with a last wiggle of her wide hips, as if to mock me. “Private matter,” she muttered again, then laughed.
I shook my head as she walked off. Perhaps it was an unintended compliment that I’d hid my distress so well, she thought I was more prone to flirting than fretting.
Valeo waited outside the sick ward doors for me. He looked me up and down, but I’d made sure to take off my smock. I didn’t have anything gory or gross stuck to me.
“Thought I’d check on you,” he said, shifting uncomfortably. “You know, in case you … if this morning … I mean …”
“I know I took off rather quickly,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? I’m the one who should apologize. In fact …” he inhaled deeply and held it for a moment. “His Most Magical and Worthy Azwan, S’ami, Nihil’s Ear, has ordered me to apologize to you.”
The exhale was long, loud, and rather desperate sounding.
“Ordered. For showing me the truth? You’d accused me of being shallow. You could apologize for that. But never, ever for showing me the truth.”
“I have my orders.”
“Do I need to stomp all over your boots again?” I wasn’t really angry. If he hadn’t shown me those gallows, Widow Reezen would’ve died thinking she was alone. She hadn’t even known Babba was there, and she’d held him as a baby. “There is no apology needed. You wanted me to see it. I saw it. I don’t know what you thought I could do, but I’m trying to learn to save what people I can.”
“You’re thinking too small.”
“What?” Once again, the flush raced up my neck. How was he always able to do that to me?
“The Azwan says he felt a sharp spasm in Nihil’s theurgy around midday today. He is seeking an explanation.” Once again, I met Valeo’s searching stare, only this time, it was through the slits of his helmet.
I rubbed my palm on my dress again. Was it me? That was about the time Leba Mara and I had begun working together.
“I’ve no idea what that might mean,” I lied.
“He has asked me to inquire.”
“So you’re not actually here to check on me? You’re here under orders.”
“Hadara, I … yes. I have orders. But, I … I don’t want you to think I … I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”
How I hated his helmet. It hid his expressions, so I couldn’t read whatever it was he was hiding from me. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to pretend he was my friend any longer. There was no such thing as friendship with this man now. I would always see him with that bloody dagger in hand.
“You appear to have carried out your orders,” I said. “Thank you. You may go.”
I spun on my heels and headed back to the sick ward.
A spasm in Nihil’s theurgy? I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know how he’d known about the totem and the shock I’d gotten.
Was this the power S’ami thought I had?
I thought about that well into the evening until my shift ended. Leba Mara had decided my tutorial was over for the time being, and I promptly found myself with a mop and bucket again. That’s how it would be, she said. A little learning, a lot of work.
I didn’t mind. It gave me time to think. Once the horror of this morning had played itself out in my memory a few more times, I began recalling bits and pieces of what Reyhim had said. They’d recorded everything the soldiers had taken in their raids. I already knew it was all being held in a warehouse.
And that was key. I’m not a bureaucrat’s daughter for nothing. I know exactly how merchants keep their records. I’d seen it countless times.
I knew exactly what I needed to do.
But first, there was someone who apparently wanted to know a few things about me, and I wanted answers, too.
11
Ba’l replied; why would you care, Master, for the daughter of nomads?
She was also my daughter, I said, and so is her mother, who grieves. Her father is my son, who builds her pyre. I made Ba’l bring me his youngest son and sacrifice him, too, that Ba’l should know what the nomad felt for his daughter.
—from “Death of the Nomad’s Daughter,” Verisimilitudes 6, The Book of Unease
Only a nagging, breath-stealing desperation could have made me brave the network of leafy courtyards where the Azwans were staying. I’d never dared go around the back of the sanctuary and through the narrow alleys to the tiled staircases that spiraled up to spacious apartments with views far out to harbor and sea breezes that whistled through the eaves. I hugged my shawl and shivered, my chill owing more to a sudden case of nerves, not the mild weather.
It was the Sabbath, a full five days after the Widow Reezen’s death, which was the last day I’d spoken to Valeo. He’d kept his distance after that, nodding in my direction, and I answered with similarly curt nods. My thoughts whirled too quickly, but I’d forced myself to wait until a day when I knew even the Ward’s side alleys would be quiet.
I didn’t have to wait long.
S’ami was alone when he arrived, glancing over his shoulder as if expecting an ambush. He hustled me up a flight of steps, slid open a brightly painted doorway, and ushered me into a sunlit parlor as wide as my parents’ new patio, filled with a tidy array of floor cushions and low tables, plus several hefty trunks, the tops stacked with scrolls and books. I’d never seen so many books in one place and wondered why he’d bother lugging them across the sea—as surely that’s why the trunks were there.
I had to let the wonder of such riches settle on me until S’ami cleared his throat.
I whirled around, fearing I’d already upset him, but he had relaxed his stance and eyed me with simple curiosity. Earlier, I’d managed to sidle up to him after Sabbath prayers as others filed past on the way out. Could I see him? Urgently? He’d murmured to wait a full turn, meet him at his quarters, come alone.
So here I wa
s, swallowing back my jitters, saying nothing, my bravery seeping out the wide windows. They overlooked the courtyard where we’d just met and were open to the world. Only the sanctuary had real glass on its windows—every other place including this one had only slatted shutters for when it rained. Who could overhear us, in this place where what I had to say could cost me my life?
A heaviness settled on me, and a tinkling, buzzing feeling skittered across my skin in waves. The room went suddenly still, with even the distant sea and its breezes hushing. No sounds leaked through the windows. The room was silent, without so much as a bird twitter or leaf rustle from outside.
“Is that a spell? The quiet?” I asked.
S’ami cocked his head and held up his gold totem, the wisdom knot. “Fascinating. You can tell I cast a spell of muting just now? It’s a habit of mine. Privacy, of course.”
I nodded. I knew I needed to see him alone, but something else nagged at me. The first time I’d seen S’ami had been on a pier, when he’d publicly shamed me with this same magic. I hugged my arms to my chest and clamped my legs and backside tight, locking out the memory of that violation.
“I … I am not really comfortable being alone with you,” I said, looking away. Those books again. I could stare at the books and wonder, and not have to feel anything else. “That spell you cast at me on the pier that day…”
“Is irrelevant now,” he said. “Unless you want me to say I wouldn’t have cast it had I known you better, which is something I cannot say at all. However, I will work no magic on you now. This I promise.”
“Is it too much to ask for an apology?”
His face hardened. “Is that really what you came for?”
I shook my head, still avoiding eye contact, and headed for a floor cushion by the nearest table. I’d already lost my first skirmish of the day with him. I’d done better on my sickbed after I’d awakened from my ordeal at the altar, and that encounter was the one bringing me here today. I needed to ask him questions, and we’d forged an odd alliance, one that I was about to test.
I sidled behind a low table staring at a stack of books. S’ami seated himself across from me, and I began setting the books to one side. Was it ruder to touch the books or to not see my host? The indecision threatened to paralyze me, but he only leaned back and watched me impassively.
So I moved the books.
Then there was an inkwell and some pens, some blank parchment, and blotting paper. I nudged those aside, too, in case I elbowed it, or it got in his way, or anyone’s way, or a breeze lifted it. Anything, really. Anything to calm myself down and buy a moment or two to regain my courage.
My fingers trembled, and I reached for a jeweled carafe filled with water and pringlement leaves. I poured two cups and slid one toward him. He left it there and drummed his fingers on the table, clearly annoyed.
“Are you practicing to be a barmaid?” he asked. “Tell me why you’re here. If I need water, I’ll call a servant.”
“You invited me. If I had questions, I mean.”
“And do you?”
I nodded and stared into the cup I clutched to keep my fidgety hands at peace. The cup was wooden. I wondered why it wasn’t glass, like the carafe. I wondered why I was wondering that and why I didn’t just leave.
“I suppose I shall have to start,” S’ami said. “Because whatever it is you have to say is too terrible to broach?”
I squeezed my eyelids shut.
“And yet you trust me,” he continued, his tone thoughtful, not damning, as I’d expected. “After everything that has passed between us, you are here, trusting me with your honor, your secrets, possibly your life. What misery must have led you to this.”
I hung my head. I had no answer that felt true, and I couldn’t lie.
He sighed. “Well, this question of trust is in the air for both of us.”
My eyelids fluttered open in shock. “Trust … me? But, I don’t …”
He kept going. “Have you heard a voice in your head?”
“No.”
“Have your limbs moved without you wanting them to?”
“By Nihil! No.” I looked up. He was frowning.
“Do strange words pop out of your mouth?”
I rolled my eyes. “All the time!”
A corner of his mouth lifted into a sly grin, and it looked genuine enough. He slid over to a cushion next to me, his demeanor suddenly open and relaxed. “You really can’t master formalities, can you? Ah, well, that’s all I can glean from Scriptures. There was only one man, a giant, who was partially possessed.”
“May I ask what became of him?” If S’ami had dropped his usual vigilance over formalities, I was going to ask whatever I needed.
“It’s in Verisimilitudes, look it up.” He sipped from the glass I had poured, which I took for an unexpected sign that something approaching trust had passed between us. I could almost relax.
“I’m a horrible student.” I didn’t smile.
“I heard. Believe me.”
“I swear I’m not illiterate. In fact, I have a lot of knowledge.”
I eyed the piles of books with renewed envy. S’ami picked up a scroll that had strayed and plopped it back onto a stack.
“I didn’t say you were illiterate. But we’re not here to discuss your favorite poetry.”
“My apprenticeship.”
“Is there a problem with it?” He raised an eyebrow. “I’d heard only good reports so far.”
That meant he was checking up on me, which was all the encouragement I needed.
“Earlier this week, Leba Mara had me touch her hand while she spellcast. Her totem blasted out of reach, like a lightning bolt. You felt that?”
“Then you understand very little. Why should I care about a healer’s feeble ministrations?”
He was testing me. I sighed and closed my eyes again.
“In prayers today I could see your spellcasting,” I said. “You tossed out rainbow hues but all incandescent. Not like that first day you arrived on our pier. You were showing off then and wanted us to see your magic.”
“So how was this different?”
“I could see it forming, straight from when it first came from your mind, down to your fingertips, out your totem. It was like the threads on a loom, weaving and unweaving, only like lightning, too. As if you could control lightning, paint it colors, and send it out, humming and vibrating, to blanket us.”
I opened my eyes. S’ami was leaning forward, just finger widths from my face, poring over my every feature as if memorizing them. “Go on.”
“The high priest’s are beautiful, deep reds and ambers. He can do greens, too, but they’re muted, and he has trouble with blue. His blues are weak. Reyhim’s are pale, wobbly blues and grays, mostly slate. I could barely make them out except he was wearing white and it showed up against his robes.”
S’ami clasped my hands in his, turning them over and over, his voice terse. “Tell me you aren’t wearing gold today. No gold rings or bracelets or toe rings, anything.”
I tensed and yanked my hands back. His grip held firm, his palms moist and hot.
“The Ward confiscates gold,” I said.
“Of course it does. So no fool can teach himself to cast spells.”
“Azwan, what did I see?”
He dropped my hands and reached for my face, and I instinctively pulled away.
“Remain still,” he ordered.
His hands pressed hard against the side of my head, but I kept still and steady and made no threatening moves against this predator, even as he turned my face this way and that, the way Leba Mara checks a sore throat or black eye, except he kept his eyes locked on mine, and I kept my focus on not moving a muscle, the dread tamped down deep within me until I thought it would burst from my chest.
His voice rose. “I wanted you dead. I wanted this power for myself. The power of a god. That death throw was the strongest I’d ever cast. I stood over your body waiting for what was left of the demon
to pass to me. If only you hadn’t touched … ah, it’s no use.” His hands dropped to his lap. “My plan was no better than yours, who had no plan.”
I shriveled in place, shrinking into the cushions, head tucking behind a tower of books, my dread tightening into knots of tension in my fingers, my stomach, my every muscle. I ordered myself to stay calm and alert, as I did whenever I ventured into the swamp. That’s kept me alive more than once. I kept my voice gentle and singsong, barely above a whisper. Calm the beast, even in the man, so the saying goes. Inside, however, an entire acrobatic troupe tumbled in my stomach. I’d be lucky not to throw up on S’ami’s fine vestments, much as Leba Mara had once done to Reyhim.
But which was more frightening—S’ami’s despair or the demon remnants drifting inside me like dust?
“You can have it, whatever it is,” I said. “Take it. I don’t want anything to do with the Temple. I want no demon in me.”
“The star comes to you as you come to it.” For the first time since I’d met him, he hesitated. “That night at the altar, you talked of your dead grandmother, a heretic. I don’t think she had anything to do with this. Did the Gek even know of her? The Gek chose you. They were waiting for you to step forward and agree.”
“I didn’t agree,” I said. I hadn’t. How many times had I already told myself this? Did I even believe it anymore?
He was echoing what Bugsy had said—what I didn’t want to hear. I hadn’t agreed to this at all. The day we’d gone to the swamp and I’d found myself surrounded, I’d wanted whatever it was they’d found so that I could see it, too. I’d envisioned a conversation with it, mostly. I’d wanted answers. I still hadn’t gotten them, only more questions.
“You ordered them to bring what they’d found to you,” he said. “I saw you pounding out those hand signals.”
I thought about that. “Did the Gek or the demon choose me?”
S’ami paused for a long moment. “We’re not sure. We debated exactly that question, but we don’t know enough about those creatures or how they talked to the demon. Did you ask that Gek who lives with you?”
The Well of Prayers Page 9