The Temple of Doubt

by Anne Boles Levy

  Her words rang in my ears as we hiked north, beyond the end of the marsh, toward one of Mami’s favorite spots for herb gathering. We hit solid ground lush with every sort of blossom and berry. It felt like a crime trampling the intricate floral lacework underfoot or swatting away tapestries of spider silk. I did know what to look for and when it was ready for harvesting, be it blossom or berry or root or stalk. Mami had made sure of that.

  To her own mother, this simple act of rooting around and plucking things had been sacred in its way. It could be its own Temple of the Wild, or Ward Fens, with its sanctuary of prickly grass and swaying palms. But what good was all that knowing if my grandmother hadn’t used it for anything? If all this herb-lore was mine to gather and guard, it would have to go to good use, too. I thought of the girls who singled me out in school for mocking. Yes, them, too. The guards who’d ransacked our home. Valeo. Oh, by all three moons! How much I wanted to help him. If I prayed to Nihil for Sami’s magic to work, would it help? Would it hurt? Was there any way to know?

  S’ami—could I ever bring myself to come to his aid? Yes, S’ami, even. I couldn’t imagine withholding so much as a cup of tea from the man, even if handing it to him made me cringe. That’s how I’d been raised. That’s who I was.

  But there would be no more sick, weak Valeos someday, not if there was some way to help it. Someday, the Temple would have to value what Mami and I did. Somehow.

  Such thoughts helped me tap a reserve of strength even as I resisted the temptation to eat everything I plucked. I was famished. We pulled up swamp root with small spades and plucked callousvine leaf. My fingertips smarted from sweet nettles, my eyes burned from onion weed. I wrestled thick hydrocanth pods out of their tough bromeliads with all the solemnity of Sabbath prayers. I trimmed stalks and separated vines from tree trunks with a knife I kept in our boat.

  When I was with Mami like this, I was no longer the overly tall, awkward girl with the permanently skinned knees. These wiry arms could lift a wooden pole to harvest citrine from a treetop or grapple a palm root out of the muck. These scarred fingers could sift the tiniest stamens from flowers smaller than my pinky nail without losing a single one. And these long, twiggy legs seldom tired even on a day like today that had seen so much violence and turmoil. I didn’t have the soft, padded figure that I’d been told men liked, but what I had, I used.

  We plodded through a thin stand of trees until we came to a clearing where we knew moonblooms sometimes grew. We were lucky: the ground swelled with the prickly succulent, its fist-sized, pale flowers tightly bound until the sun went down. Each fat petal was packed with nectar that settled tummies, eased fevers, and cured a dozen other complaints. More than a few lives had been saved with moonbloom. It fetched a high price among those brave enough to trade in such things. Finding it’s rare, and keeping it secret is rarer. I’d have been thrilled at our discovery even if I hadn’t been newly convinced it was about as holy as something in nature could be.

  I pulled out the pin again. Most of the poison had rubbed off. There was only a dab of magenta at the very end. I tugged at Mami’s sleeve and showed it to her.

  “What do you suppose it is?”

  She bent and took a closer look. “I didn’t think to grab anything, Hadara. That’s very clever of you. That bright color comes from a salamander, if I remember correctly.”

  “A salamander?”

  She nodded. “Those little purply salamanders that skittle everywhere? Their skin has some sort of odd toxin. The Gek make some sort of dream drug from it, but it mixes badly with Feroxi blood, it would seem.”

  A dream drug? Such things are extra banned by the Temple. The Temple teaches we’re not supposed to dream unless Nihil scrambles our sleeping thoughts himself. Strange the Gek would want such a power for themselves.

  Mami glanced around at the moonblooms. “Well, look where we’ve landed. Never mind poisonous salamanders, we’ve got a cash crop to pick. I shall dream of the new slippers I plan to buy.”

  We dug up the shallow root balls by hand for repotting, stuffing our satchels until we couldn’t fit so much as another stem. My arms were scratched and bleeding from the effort.

  It took until after dark to get back to our canoe. The Gek girl lay there, more obviously sleeping instead of unconscious. We loaded up and paddled our way home through byways and shortcuts to our peninsula clear on the opposite side of the city, too tired for more talk. The muscles in my arms knotted until I thought I’d no longer be able to lift them. Inside, however, my mind floated along on Mami’s explanations to some far shore where my life was starting to make sense and my choice to follow her began to feel wiser, even fated. I felt light, airy, even happy.

  My mood didn’t even lift at the sight of Babba pacing the boardwalk, my sisters sitting cross-legged on our small dock. They spotted us at once, jumping up and waving enthusiastically in the dim torchlight. Babba stopped pacing, his relief obvious even in shadow.

  Mami and I picked up our pace, paddling forcefully with a last burst of energy. My arms felt ready to drop from their sockets.

  “We’re alright!” Mami shouted.

  “Mami!” screamed Rishi. And then she kept repeating it: “Mami! Mami!”

  Babba stood over us, his face dark, as we moored the canoe and unloaded. Our neighbors and friends had already gone home, and stars twinkled where clouds of smoke had begun to dissipate.

  My sisters hugged Mami, then me, then each other, then Mami again.

  “I’m so happy you’re back,” Amaniel said to me. She’d been crying, and so had Rishi. “We heard only bad news. The swamp and the fire and that many of the guards had died. But no one knew anything about you and Mami.”

  Mami glanced around. “Where is everyone? I’d think at least your sisters would’ve stayed with you, Rim.”

  “I sent them home,” Babba said. “Their fretting wasn’t helping anyone.”

  That was Babba—he hated all that female crying stuff. I felt the same, mostly. Sometimes I wondered if I wasn’t secretly the son he’d never had, but one who liked dresses and long hair.

  Babba took one look at our full satchels and began fuming. “You didn’t.”

  “I have no stores,” said Mami. She gave him a pleading look, but Babba wasn’t in a mood to stop.

  “With the entire Temple out stomping around, you had to pluck your Nihil-blasted flowers,” Babba said. “With me at home thinking you dead, you did this.”

  He snatched up a sack and undid the string. The next moment, the bag was upside down and its contents dumped in the canal. Mami grabbed the next sack as Babba reached for it, and a tug of war ensued.

  Amaniel gasped. “Mami, but the guards are everywhere!”

  “Will Mami get arrested?” asked Rishi, starting a fresh round of wailing.

  Babba turned to my sisters. “Take Rishi inside. Everything will be fine, girls. Just go.”

  After another few sobs from both, Amaniel carried Rishi into our house. As soon as the door had shut, Babba ripped the bag from Mami’s hand. But Mami was unfazed.

  “The Ward won’t like that when they come calling,” Mami said.

  “Did they order this?” Babba’s voice sounded skeptical. “Is this suddenly the kind of thing the Temple of Doubt comes all this way for?”

  “No. But they will. They have sick men and some queer demon that messes with everything the Azwans do. The priests will be furious if I can’t help them.”

  Father’s eyes roamed to the Gek panting in the canoe bottom. She’d been hidden in the canoe’s dark bottom, and all but invisible as she lay there, unmoving.

  Babba let go of the sack, and it plopped into Mami’s lap. “The demon. I can’t even think about that. By Nihil’s eleven incarnations, you’ll end up like your mother, Lia. I’ll be fishing your body out of a canal. And Hadara’s, too. The two of you are filthy. You look like witches. You smell like witches.”

  “Rimonil, love, you don’t know what witches smell like.”

&n
bsp; “Like a sewage canal.”

  Mami’s shoulders sagged. “Please, love, I’d like a bath, some supper, some tea.”

  Babba’s jaw worked back and forth in muted fury. He pointed to the Gek. “Dare I ask what heathen beast that is.”

  I piped up. “The shaman’s daughter. She’s orphaned. She’s important.”

  “I know what a shaman is,” he said. “And it’s of no use to me. She goes.”

  Mami shook her head. “Hadara wants this. The Gek child stays.”

  “Who makes the rules in this family?”

  Mami scowled at him. “You just tossed away pea-tea leaves it took a quarter turn to pick. The Gek stays.”

  “And just what makes you think . . .”

  “I’m still alive, that’s what makes me think.”

  “Lia.” He scowled.

  “Rimonil.” She flashed a lopsided, wicked grin.

  That was it. Mami won. Whenever they got to the name part of the argument, it was over. I could’ve danced in relief. I’d be missing those pea-tea leaves in the morning, though. Pea tea was like my personal wake-up horn. At least Mami had defended the rest of our haul.

  She handed the Gek up to Babba, who gingerly adjusted the creature in his arms. He carried his load easily enough up to the house, shaking his head the entire way. After we’d downed a bowl of reheated beans and scrubbed off at the bathhouse, dousing ourselves with whatever remained of the day’s hot water, Mami and I went home and slept, lulled by warm blankets and soft pillows. I slept all through morning prayers and so missed the first rumors of the natural girl, the Azwan’s favorite, with her odd new pet.

  There is a Valley of Spite where resentment roots in the barren soil, its pods frothing seeds that latch onto the frailest breeze, infecting the unwary with its whispers of discontent.

  —from “The Fall of B’Nai,” Verisimilitudes 13, The Book of Unease

  A scream sounded outside near the hearth. Our door, newly repaired since the Feroxi raid, crashed open again. Amaniel tripped over the doorway, screaming and pointing outside.

  “That, that thing is eating insects!”

  I sat up in bed. Broad daylight streamed in from beyond the mangled door. The stench of charred wood and soot hit me at once, but what I noticed was Amaniel standing over me wearing a dress of mine. My nicest dress! It was flowing and bright, and I’d only just finished embroidering it. Ocean waves tripped along the hemlines, with silvery fish darting between the folds and around the arms.

  “That’s my dress,” I said.

  “Did you hear me? It’s eating bugs.”

  “Where’s your school uniform . . .”

  “It’s. Eating. Bugs!”

  I pulled a loose robe over my nightdress. Whatever was out there obviously had to be handled. This wasn’t the more pleasant part of being designated the nature-loving child in the family. Amaniel got praise for sitting in a hot classroom without fainting, and I got to chase away swamp rats and birds or whatever was foraging at our hearth.

  Mami was on the patio with Rishi repotting yesterday’s haul of moonblooms. Other herbs had been bundled and hung upside down from a drying rack, and a pile lay at Rishi’s feet, looking far less fresh than when I’d picked them. We’d been too tired to prepare them the night before. I breathed deeply. The charred smell hung in the air, but there was no trace of smoke from the swamp’s fiery end.

  Amaniel trailed behind me. “It’s in our oven. With bugs.”

  “I got the bugs part. What’s in the oven?”

  Rishi waved and blew me a good-morning kiss. “The Gek. I named it Bugsy. It likes beetle larvae. There’s lots in with the swamp roots.”

  Sure enough, the Gek girl had wedged herself in an empty clay oven propped beside the hearth. I kneeled and took a closer look. She was wide-awake and fully recovered, her skin a ruddy color to match the red clay of the oven. Her round eyes peered out and blinked translucent eyelids; then they rotated at opposite angles to study me and take in Amaniel, who hovered behind me. A croak escaped the Gek’s open mouth.

  Bright day, I gestured. You alright?

  She nodded. She was old enough to have learned some hand language, at least.

  Amaniel leaned in. “I hope you’re telling it to go away.”

  “I’m telling her no such thing.”

  “It’s disgusting.” Amaniel folded her arms over her chest. “It peed in the canal.”

  “Will you shut up?” I returned to the Gek. Do you have a name?

  She held up fingers and motioned. Shaman-spawn. Only Shaman is dead.

  She whimpered. Tears gathered in the corners of her bulbous green eyes.

  I didn’t know how much she knew of her home.

  Many of your people are dead. The swamp burned.

  The whimpers became wails and then sobs, the Gek spreading slender fingers over her face and weeping. I tried to reach in and hug her, but she withdrew, hissing and signaling. Only drabskins destroy nests.

  “What’s it saying?” Amaniel peered over my shoulder. “Is it leaving?”

  I motioned hastily to the Gek. Come out when you’re ready. We aren’t the kind of drabskins who hurt.

  I whipped around to Amaniel. “She has nowhere to go. And get out of my dress, or I will cut you apart and let the Gek gnaw your thieving bones.”

  Amaniel grinned. “Not if you want my help.”

  “Help for what? Being a useless, inhospitable thief?”

  Mami cut us off. “That’s enough, girls. Amaniel, you’d promised me Hadara wouldn’t mind.”

  Amaniel’s grin faded. “Well, she won’t. Eventually.”

  I put my hands on my hips and waited for Mami to straighten this all out. She patted a spot beside her, and I plunked down, feeling out of sorts and sour. “So why am I giving her permission to steal my best dress?”

  “You’re not. Amaniel is, however, going to make it up to both of us, since she fibbed to me.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  Mami chuckled. “And to think your father wanted boys. He’d miss all this fun.”

  “Not funny.”

  Mami’s face grew serious. “They closed the whole Ward.”

  That grounded me again. There were bigger goings-on than larcenous sisters.

  “The demon? Did they destroy it?” I asked. A new hope rose within me.

  Mami shook her head.

  A million details came rushing back. We were alive, so, obviously, the end of the world hadn’t come, but there was no one at our hearth besides my family. The gossiping relatives had stayed away.

  “Any news at all?” I asked. “About the demon, about the poison, anything?”

  “Not yet,” Mami said. “By evening, I expect.”

  I couldn’t sit here and wait for news to come to me. “Maybe they’ll know something on the wharf. That is, if you can spare me.”

  Mami seemed to read my thoughts. “We already have it worked out. Rishi can help me. Amaniel’s going with you. Listen to her. She knows how to get past the priests better than you.”

  If that was designed to make me feel better about my missing clothes, it didn’t. I made a face at Amaniel and slipped on a dress to nearly rival the one she wore. It covered me chastely from elbows to mid-calf, with just enough showing for a few anklets that jingled cheerily when I walked. The top hugged my narrow waist before flaring out at my hips, which was about the best I could do with my stringy shape. I’d sewn the dress from aqua-colored broadcloth with wide umber and orange meanders that had taken many six-days to stitch. That should impress the priests more than any uniform. We both knotted our hair beneath lacy headscarves, draping them loosely behind our ears as we did on the Sabbath. A pair of dangly earrings later, and I felt like I could impress Nihil himself. If we didn’t learn anything, it wouldn’t be because anyone snubbed us.

  After all, the last time any of these guards had seen me, I’d been a mud-soaked mess. That wasn’t the real me. I wanted them to know that. More importantly, I had to remind my
self of that. What did it mean to be civilized? Scriptures taught us that magic, belief in the supernatural, faith in Nihil, lifted us from the lowest, meanest creature that crawled. And that creature wasn’t going to be me. I needed to be someone the guards, at least, would accept.

  I tucked a stray curl into place and grabbed Amaniel’s hand.

  A few twists and turns of the boardwalk connected us to a stretch of mainland and the cobblestone square by Ward Sapphire’s wide gates. Feroxi guards armed from top to bottom patrolled every handwidth of it. Sentries paced by the gates and beyond, far into the grassy courtyard and all the way to the Ward’s magnificent carved doors. Archers roamed atop walls and roofs. They carried bows as tall as themselves and long, fat quivers of arrows.

  A guard near us grunted, and we stopped. Amaniel bowed, and I followed, holding my right hand to my dress top and with my left hand lifting a corner of my skirt. It required some choreography, and Amaniel pulled it off gracefully. The guard directed his attention to her.

  “Move along, mistress. This part of the city is closed today.”

  “Nihil’s theurgy upon you, Pious Sentry of the Temple,” she said. “We come but seeking news of the Azwan’s great deeds.”

  The scowling guard didn’t bother with the proper response to her salutations. “There is none. Move along.”

  Amaniel bowed again and turned to leave. Since when did she give up so easily?

  “Wait,” I said. I found a spear tip against my chest. That wasn’t the reaction I wanted, but I couldn’t go back without knowing at least one thing. “Valeo. His Highness. He’s a first guardsman?”

  The spear lifted to my throat. I’d caught the man’s attention, but probably Valeo wasn’t worth being beheaded over. I wasn’t even sure what Valeo looked like under his clunky helmet. I ought to go home and not worry about a short-tempered half-Feroxi with grabby hands. Who’d defended my life, more than once. Who was fiercer than a mash cat. And made sure I wasn’t left behind in a burning swamp. And, and—I didn’t know what else. Everything else.