The last Aud closed the door. The Rocaan stood in the center of the room, beaming like a child on his naming day. His sash was weighted with tiny swords and scrolls. More had been stuck in his biretta, which sat on the table beside him. He clasped his hands in front of himself and turned so that he could see all of the Elders.
“I am probably going to offend some of you,” he said, “and if that’s so, please forgive me. Please understand that I think all of you have value, and that you all serve, in some way, God’s purpose. The evaluation I will give this afternoon reflects my opinion and not that of the Church itself.”
Tel’s mouth was dry. Did that mean the Rocaan knew about him? Was he going to reveal Tel for who he was and then test the other Elders to make certain that they were not Fey? He rubbed his thumbs together, glad the nervous movement was hidden behind his back.
“I am leaving when we are through here and heading to the kirk on Daisy Stream for an important spiritual meeting. I am taking with me three of you whom I know to be strongest in their belief. This does not mean that the rest of you do not have faith, but merely that yours is not as pure as I need on this mission.” He smiled, and the smile was sad. “Mine is not as pure as I need, either, but there is nothing I can do about that because I am needed on this trip.”
“Can you tell us what this is about?” Porciluna asked. His posture hadn’t changed, but the tension in his body had grown. Despite his outward appearance of calm, Porciluna was extremely competitive. Andre had fallen victim to that competitiveness more than once. For that reason Tel had stayed as far away from Porciluna as possible.
“Matthias and I have discussed whether or not to tell you the details of this spiritual matter,” the Rocaan said, “and we have decided not to. The matter is not open to debate. If we succeed, you shall know it, and if we fail, you shall know it. Until then it is better that you are as ignorant as possible.”
Tel stopped twisting his thumbs together. A spiritual matter was not about him. This was something different, something he didn’t need to care about. The others did, though. They leaned forward, watching the Rocaan closely, as if everything depended on his next few words.
“I am taking with me Timothy, Reece, and Andre.”
Tel started. Andre was one of the great believers? Andre seemed to have pure faith, but couldn’t the Rocaan sense that something was different? Wasn’t faith something that could be felt?
The other Elders stirred at this news. Some set their mouths tightly, their anger apparent. Others looked down as if they were ashamed of their lack of belief. The Rocaan didn’t seem to notice.
“The Auds are packing your belongings even as we speak. When this meeting is through, we shall finish a few things here and leave.”
Tel was numb. The Auds were going through his things. They might pack poison instead of his fake holy water. He would have to be extremely careful.
“The rest of you will go about your daily business and say nothing of this trip to anyone. You will have to juggle the Sacrament schedule, but that should not be a problem.”
The Rocaan paused and looked at all of them, as if seeing for the first time their reactions. “I find you all to be very good men, and worthy of being this country’s spiritual leader. But I can choose only one of you to succeed me.”
Everyone in the room stirred except Tel and Matthias. Tel held himself rigidly. If the Rocaan picked Andre, Tel’s problems would be solved, quickly and easily.
“I should have done this years ago, many years ago, given my age. I did not, probably out of pride and a bit of arrogance, the belief that I would live forever. I should have done this formally a year ago, when the Fey arrived and any of us could have died in an instant.”
He paused, then glanced at all of them one at a time. When he was finished, he said, “Matthias will be our next Rocaan.”
Porciluna looked at Matthias. Vaughn did as well. Tel went cold. Of course the Rocaan would choose Matthias to follow him. It made perfect sense. He had already given Matthias the secret to holy water. He would teach him the other secrets as well.
A rumble went through the room as it dawned on the other Elders that what they feared had finally come true. For the first time in their religious careers, they had been passed over. Linus made an odd groan and pushed his chair back.
The Rocaan raised his hand, and all sound stopped. “I will not justify my choice to you except to say that Matthias seems to have God’s Ear. He will remain my choice throughout the rest of my days. I don’t want any of you to think I made this decision hastily because I am worried about this trip.”
“Well, I’m worried,” Porciluna said. Vaughn and Ilim looked at him as if he were crazy. Matthias watched it all with an amused expression on his face. “If you four die on this trip, you’re saying we’ll be led by a nonbeliever and none of us will keep the faith.”
“You misunderstand me, Porciluna,” the Rocaan said, keeping his hand up as if to stop other protests. “A person cannot become Elder without faith. But I need pure faith to come with me. I’m afraid that I believe the people who remain have faith tainted by other things.”
“Other things?” Eirman asked. His question sounded particularly sharp. Tel remembered hearing that he and the Rocaan had had words just a few days before.
“Ambition,” Matthias said, stepping in before the Rocaan could answer the question. “Greed, or in my case, a belief in the power of knowledge versus the sanctity of faith.”
The Rocaan shot Matthias a grateful smile. “I do not consider myself pure of faith. I was not, even when I became Rocaan. Pureness of faith has its own drawbacks, one of which is a startling naïveté in worldly matters. A Rocaan needs to understand the world as well as God.”
There was enough greed, ambition, and anger in the room to light a dozen Dream Riders’ imaginations. Tel didn’t care about the petty politics of the Church. He wanted out of the room. He wanted to be able to check his possessions before the group left.
“I thought you weren’t going to defend your decision,” Tel said.
The Rocaan glanced his way, and a slight frown creased his forehead. With some surprise Tel realized that the Rocaan was wondering what had prompted the outburst. Tel made himself smile.
“The choice of a Rocaan is, after all, a matter of faith,” he added.
“Good point,” Timothy said.
The silence in the room was as thick as the sound had been. Tel could feel the stress in his back. The Rocaan glanced around, only the nervous twitch of his right hand showing his discomfort over the whole proceeding.
“We have duties,” the Rocaan said. “If any of you have questions about your own future, I will answer them when I return. Until then do your best, and remember that we will all be rewarded in the Absorption.”
The others stood. Matthias didn’t move from his post near the fireplace, and neither did Tel, preferring to wait until the others had gone before he left. He didn’t want to risk bumping against any of them.
Despite the odd packing problems, he was relieved to be leaving this place. He wouldn’t have to worry about each move knocking something over and killing him. He would be outdoors again, walking, and feeling the air on his face. It had been over a year since he’d left Jahn.
He was halfway across the room himself before he realized that this could be more than a temporary respite. For the first time since he had become Andre, he would have a moment alone with the Rocaan. At night, near Daisy Stream, he would be able to attack the Rocaan and take over his form long enough to learn the secret to the poison. Then he would return to Shadowlands a hero, and the Fey would conquer this Isle easily, as they had been meant to do. An elation he hadn’t felt in a long time filled him.
The long, dark night of defeat was almost over. He was nearly home.
EIGHTY-TWO
Nicholas felt as if he were running to his father over each small thing. He and his father had talked about the Fey prisoner, the cats, and the mysterious bones. No
w Nicholas was climbing to the War Room again. He hated that room, even though his father seemed to be spending more and more time in it, pacing, thinking, and staring at maps. Nicholas still saw the spot in the corner where Stephen—or the thing that had passed for Stephen—had melted into a hideous, unrecognizable mass.
Two guards stood at the door to the War Room, arms crossed. More guards had been at the entrances to the tower below. Nicholas had refused the guards his father had assigned to him. He wasn’t certain if having guards was such a good idea. He was afraid it made the Fey’s access to him that much easier. Yet not having guards was also difficult. No one protected him from the surprise attack.
He nodded to them as he grabbed the doorknob. The guards nodded back. Then Nicholas pushed the door open.
New maps covered the walls, and the room shone with polish. Someone had cleaned the stains off the floor long ago, but Nicholas still saw them. This was the place where he had grown up, where he had learned that even if he loved someone, love did not mean he could trust. He missed that easy faith in the people around him. Its loss made him feel lonely.
His father was sitting at the head of the table, staring at a scrolled list that seemed to extend forever. When he saw Nicholas, he smiled and waved a hand, indicating that Nicholas should close the door. Nicholas did.
“Do you realize,” his father said, “that we have lost over a thousand lives in the skirmishes since the invasion? And those are just the official lives. They don’t count women or children or men who stayed home to defend their families. Only the men who worked as guards or volunteered to defend an area. And it doesn’t count the people in the invasion.”
“I don’t know why you’re torturing yourself with that,” Nicholas asked with a touch of impatience. “We’re at war.”
Something in Nicholas’s tone must have alerted his father. He let go of the scroll, and it rolled on its own. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” Nicholas said. He stopped at the edge of the table. The room smelled faintly of ink and parchment. “I was hoping you could tell me. Has the Rocaan told you of any plans to leave Jahn?”
“No,” his father said. “I haven’t spoken to him in a day or so, but I’m sure he would have told me.”
“Well, he hasn’t,” Nicholas said. “I was riding near the bridge tonight when I saw his entourage cross. I spoke to an Aud. The Rocaan and three Elders are headed to Daisy Stream.”
“Some kind of ceremony?”
“In the past maybe. But not now. The road to Daisy Stream leads them past the Fey encampment.”
His father rolled up the scroll and tied a ribbon around it, placing it on the table behind him. “Why didn’t you speak to the Rocaan?”
“I tried. The Rocaan and the Elders won’t speak to anyone until they return.”
“And they knew it was you?”
“Yes.” And that was the strangest thing. The Rocaan’s entourage had not stopped for him.
His father let out a breath and leaned back in his chair. It squeaked under his weight.
“Their determination and secrecy bother me,” Nicholas said. His father’s silence was not the reaction he had expected. “Combine that with the problems in the Tabernacle with the bones and the blood, and we have a serious problem. The Rocaan makes our holy water. If he dies or it gets contaminated—”
“I understand the problems, Nicholas,” his father snapped. He ran a hand through his long blond hair. “I take it you came straight to me.”
“Yes,” Nicholas said.
“We could send someone to the Tabernacle, but it would take too long.” His father frowned. “We’ll send a contingent of guards to follow them and see if anything’s wrong.”
“I already sent the guards,” Nicholas said. He was trembling, although he didn’t want to show it. This was the first time he had taken action without his father’s permission.
“You what?”
Nicholas swallowed. “There wasn’t time to contact anyone and get permission. So I found Monte, explained that I needed guards, and sent them after the Rocaan.”
“To do what, if I might ask?”
Nicholas ignored the sarcasm. “To keep an eye on him, in case something happens.”
His father leaned back and rubbed his jaw reflectively. He took a deep breath. “It is what I would have ordered.”
“I know,” Nicholas said.
“What I don’t understand is why you were in such a hurry to see me, if you had already taken action.”
“I want to go with them as well.”
His father stared at him for a long moment, his expression unreadable. “Why?”
“Because I think something is going to happen, and I want to be there.”
“What would you do there?”
Nicholas shrugged. He couldn’t tell his father he was tired of indecision. It was his father’s indecision that bothered Nicholas. He wanted to go with the Rocaan because he felt that the Rocaan had a purpose. “I would be able to report back here, probably much more clearly than any of the guards could.”
His father shook his head. “Your first instinct was right. This is not a place for you. The Rocaan is a smart man. If this is his doing, then it might be a simple ceremony. He has said in the past he does not like being held hostage to the Fey. If it is not, the guards will inform us. I don’t want you in the middle of this.”
“Like it or not, Father,” Nicholas said, “I am in the middle of this. I fought during the invasion beside kitchen staff, I sat next to a Fey in this very room, and I suspect I’ve seen even more. Trying to protect me won’t accomplish the job. Either I die or I don’t.”
His father’s cheeks flushed. “It’s not that simple. You’re the heir. If something happens to me, this country needs you.”
Nicholas sighed and sat down. He knew his father would say that, and he really had no argument against it. Fey leaders fought beside their men, but Islanders were not Fey. “Father,” he said, “I would like to know what the Rocaan is doing because he is doing something. And it’s time. We can’t let these Fey stay on our lands. They have too many tricks, and someday they’ll outsmart us. We have only one advantage. They have several.”
“I’ve thought of this,” his father said. “But I have no ideas. We can’t let them through the Stone Guardians. They’ll just get reinforcements. The Fey prisoner told me a lot, and I have him attempting something that might help us, but I don’t know if I can trust him to work for us. And now the Rocaan, the source of holy water, has left the city. Each change leaves me more and more unnerved. More and more confused. I take an action, and I wonder if I’ve gone far enough. Then I take another action, and I think I may have gone too far. I am not prepared for this kind of leadership, Nicholas. Nothing in our history teaches the kind of thinking a man needs to fight an invasion. Internal dissent, yes, but an invasion—“ he shook his head.
Nicholas stared at him. He knew his father was having trouble with all of the changes, but he had never thought of him as weak. The evidence was becoming clearer and clearer, though. Alexander was failing to act, to press any advantage that the Islanders had. And someday the Islanders would no longer have an advantage.
“We have two choices,” Nicholas said. “Either we fight them and defeat them completely—kill them all—or we somehow learn to live with them. This halfway stuff where occasional skirmishes break out, and people die, is not going to work for much longer. We’ve already had one Fey come over to our side. How many Islanders will they convince to go over to theirs?”
His father looked stricken. He had obviously not thought of that. He glanced at the scroll, tied in red ribbon, then back at Nicholas. “What would you suggest?”
“We go into their Shadowlands with the strongest force we can gather, get them to open up, and throw all the holy water we can inside. It might not kill them, but it might.”
His father shook his head. He had argued against this once before in front of all the advisers, worry
ing that the supply of holy water would disappear and the Islanders would have gained nothing. Nicholas had thought then that his father’s argument was faulty.
“We even have a way in,” Nicholas said. “Lord Stowe introduced me to a boy yesterday who was one of the prisoners the Fey held. His father is still inside. He might be able to get us into the Shadowlands, just enough that we could make this plan work.”
His father stroked his chin. His eyes held a sadness that had been growing all year. “Even if we can talk the Rocaan into making enough holy water,” Alexander said, “we still would not be certain we have all the Fey. They don’t all look like us. Some are tiny wisps, and others shape-change, and still others duplicate themselves into us.”
Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey Page 67