Her mother already sent word to the surrounding villages that as many stonemasons as could be found would be needed by the goddess in Providence to begin repairs. In the meantime, there was rubble to clear, and then the heretic progeny itself to dispose of. It sprawled on their beach, a gelatinous lump contaminating their waters.
It was the physical reminder of what happened to the temple, but all Rowan could think of was what happened to her, and the woman who she saw in the dungeon. The woman with her face.
From the remaining battlements, Rowan watched the temple servants trekking down the beach to begin that unhappy task. Luckily, the wind blew away from the beach and carried the stench from the temples
“What a waste.” The soft voice made Rowan flinch, but it was her mother who stood behind her, her cloak wrapped around her. “Nothing there to be used for Serey’s glory.” She walked over and leaned against the stone next to her daughter. “Remember when you were young and cried over a dead bird we couldn’t use?”
Rowan nodded with a faint smile. “You said there are some things meant only for the dirt.”
“I am glad you are not one of them,” Gentian said, pushing her grey and auburn hair back under her hood. “I was so worried when I saw you fall like that.” She patted her hand. “You are too precious, too fragile to me, Rowan, you should not put yourself in so much danger.”
“It is my job,” she muttered back. “It is what you trained me for.”
Her mother grabbed hold of her shoulder and turned her around. “No, I trained you to protect yourself in this world. I hoped more…but…well if that is the best you can do then there it is.”
Swallowing hard on her own failings, Rowan nodded unable to meet her mother’s eye.
“Now I must go downstairs.” Gentian kissed her on the top of her head. “The Hathorian deputation is arriving, not the best timing, but we have to make that deal. I suppose they will be impressed at the way we repelled Serey’s enemies.” Without waiting for an answer she turned and disappeared.
Blinking back tears, Rowan waited for a moment and then went back down to the kitchen and her work.
Everywhere was movement and concentration, thanks to the rebuilding and the deputation.
"The timing of those heretics," one of the servants sweeping up dust and rocks from the stairs complained to her neighbor as Rowan passed. "Couldn't they choose another day?"
Rowan was fully aware she should correct the maid, and maybe even alert Michl, the priest in charge of the lay servants. However, as much as she believed in Serey, she did not care overly much for Michl, as he was known to strip the skin off the back of his underlings for far less.
She moved past the infraction and deeper into the kitchen, where Tagier was waiting. She was scrubbing at the battered wooden surface of the kitchen table. Watching her friend, Rowan realized something terrifying: there was now a difference between them, a crack between them. It was all thanks to that woman in the dungeon, and despite her fears, she needed to have some answers.
Tapping Tagier on the shoulder, she jerked her head to a more private corner of the kitchen. The other priest frowned, so there must have been an odd expression on her face.
“I need your help,” Rowan began, and paused for Tagier to ask questions. Her friend did not, just stared. “Here’s the thing of it,” she began the lie slowly, "when the progeny attacked and I fell, I saw someone I thought I might have met once."
"In the flesh dungeons?" Tagier's eyes grew wide. "How can that be?"
"A friend I had in the village...when I was a child." The words just slipped out of her, and Rowan realized the deception was coming far too smoothly from her all of a sudden. Now she was on a runaway course, barreling down a hill like a sled on a slippery slope. Tagier hadn't known her back then, so she couldn't very well catch her out. Rowan took her friend's hand. "I need to see if I was right. I was hoping you could help me get down there so I can check?"
Tagier tilted her head and looked at her askance. "And why exactly can't you ask your mother?"
Oh, the lies were piling up now—and her friend was so honest with her about her own past and heritage. "She didn't exactly like this girl." When Tagier's eyebrows drew together, Rowan found new levels of skill in lying. "She was most definitely a good and faithful believer in Serey, so I wouldn't just want to leave her down there...if it was her, that is." She kept her eyes locked with Tagier's.
A long moment of uncertainty passed, and then mercifully Tagier nodded. "Of course you can't. Let me think about it a moment..."
Tagier's smile was genuine, and Rowan knew her friend—who loved to indulge in a good bit of temple gossip—was already warming to the conspiracy. She couldn't know it was something far stranger and potentially more dangerous than just a possible childhood friend.
Clicking her fingers together, Tagier said, "You could take the food delivery down at midday? Ichi usually does it, but she's been feeling sick this last day or two, so you could offer to do it for her." She glanced over her shoulder at the bustle of the kitchen. "The sister usually has her hood and mask on down there anyway, since the smell is pretty bad if you're not used to it like the blood workers are."
Rowan felt tears spring to her eyes, though she couldn't identify if they were ones of gratitude or fear. Perhaps she'd been hoping Tagier would spot the deception and warn her from going down there. Now they were on the path, she really had no choice but to follow it.
"Ichi!" Tagier called, spotting the narrow frame of their fellow priestess near the table where the trenchers of food for prisoners were being laid out. It was a once a day job that did not truly display the wonders the kitchen could produce. "Stay here," Tagier whispered, "you make her nervous."
Rowan gave a slight shrug and stepped back into the shadows. It was hard not to be hurt by those words, because she knew it was nothing to do with being the daughter of Gentian, Stonekeeper. Ichi was among those who saw her performance at mid-winter two years ago. Though Rowan could not remember anything of what happened, her mother repeated in a quiet, calm voice the sorry spectacle of her pointing out the clergy who would die in the coming year.
Prophecy was a talent no god-fearing child of Serey could possibly have. If it had not been for her mother she would likely have been stoned to death out on the beach, far from the love of their goddess.
Rowan swallowed hard and turned her face to the wall when Ichi looked in her general direction. The cook's face twisted up like she smelled something foul. Coming from a woman who served in the chambers of flesh that really put Rowan in her place.
After a moment, Tagier came bustling over, carrying a stack of trenchers, and with a grin on her face. "I told her," she whispered, "you wanted to experience the chambers because you were thinking of asking for a transfer there."
Rowan shuddered as she took what Tagier handed her. "As if I would do any such thing...but thank you."
Her friend handed her one of the thick leather masks hanging by the door down into the pits.
Tagier paused after she pulled up Rowan's hood, and tilted her head to one side. "I could come with you if you wanted..."
"No need," Rowan said, her voice coming out muffled and strained through the mesh of the mask. "This girl, she is already shamed enough. If it is her at all..."
Tagier folded her hands into her sleeves. "I understand shame all too well. Go, see if it is her and if there is anything to be done if it is."
Carefully balancing the trenchers in one hand, Rowan took a lantern in the other and went to the door that lay in the center of the temple. It was guarded by a huge man dressed in the dark cloak of the Stonekeeper guard; those particular priests who answered to only Gentian.
It was foolish, but Rowan found her mouth quite dry as she walked up to him. He couldn't see her under her hood, and even if he had the worst she would have faced was a dressing down from her mother, yet her heart threatened to leap out of her chest, and she almost dropped the trenchers at his feet.
&nb
sp; The guardsman's grey eyes watched her and made neither comment, nor moved to help her. He simply unlocked the door, swung it open and stood aside for her to pass. In that case the rituals of the temple stood her in good stead.
Holding the lantern out before her, Rowan carefully walked down the spiral stairs, into the darkness of the pits. It was the place the temple priests and priestesses never went, and her escape from it after the attack was blunted by fear. Rowan raced so quickly up the stairs she recalled nothing of the place.
Those who worked below might be part of the brotherhood of Serey, and work for her aims, but they were still apart from the rest. Above was prayer, contemplation, and finely created manuscripts that showed the culture and beauty of their religion. Below was the bloody business of conquest, where the homunculi and progeny were birthed in death.
She was reminded of that as the howls and screams filtered up from below, and for a moment, Rowan almost lost her nerve. Stopping on the stairs, precarious as that position was, she had to close her eyes. These were real howls, of real people. She should have preferred them to the demented ramblings of the shadow people who haunted her throughout her life.
It would be sensible to turn back, bang on the door, hustle to the kitchen, and give Ichi back her charges. Tagier would be surprised, but she could spin some story as she already had to her about being mistaken. It would be one final lie in a day of them, but she would be able to go on about her life.
As pretty as that sounded, standing on the stair caught between those two possibilities, Rowan knew she could not give up. Something happened to her when she saw the woman with her own face. Something sparked between them, and the ghost standing in among all the scavengers only served to remind her of that.
As frightened as Rowan was, she would not be able to forget that moment. Pressing her lips together and raising the lantern higher, she continued to descend.
The cries grew louder and louder, until she could make out strangled words among them. Most were cries to heathen gods, but others were calls to absent mothers and betrayed lovers. She swallowed hard and was relieved to finally see a break of sunlight to her left.
She stepped from the stairs and saw again from the inside the damage the heathen progeny had done to the temple. Somehow without the monstrous creation looming above it, the rent in the wall was more terrifying. Certainly there was not enough time to appreciate that when she fell.
As Rowan examined the gap in the stone that went thirty feet down the face of her home, she marveled at how she survived such a tumble. Lost in the debris, it was some kind of miracle she was not killed.
"The sin of pride," she whispered to herself, as she placed the plates down by the door, and moved towards where she had landed. Mortals were forever assuming they were special, beloved, and she knew there was no place for that in the temple. Instead, she must concentrate on finding that woman, and discovering if she had in fact been only a hallucination.
Rowan eventually found the spot where the captive had been—and was immediately disappointed. As she stood there in the middle of the room, with the wind from the sea blowing through the broken wall, Rowan saw she was completely alone; all of the cells around her were empty. The prisoners must have been moved elsewhere, and 'elsewhere' in the flesh pit could only mean one thing: they were transferred deeper down.
And yet, as she stood there, she trembled a little.
"It must have been a dream," Rowan said to herself, even as she found herself peering into the dark corners of the cells. It was a foolish hope, but perhaps there was one there that could confirm it.
This was it. Rowan stopped suddenly still as if her feet were nailed to the ground. Her hand locked around the iron bars, and she completely understood she was wrong; it had not been madness, or the result of a rock striking her in the head when she fell. The woman had been there, they touched, and she had exactly the same face as Rowan.
In the tiny shaft of sunlight that came through the gap, something was illuminated in the cell, something that most definitely was not there before. It was not the prisoner, but it was alive. Nothing should be alive in that desolate place, and most especially nothing like this.
Biting her lip, her hand trembling, Rowan reached out, and grasped hold of the rose. It was bright red, almost gleaming in the sunlight, full of life. The bush it sprung from was healthy, and as tall as Rowan's own hip. On it flowered three perfect blooms. Each spread open, each with a gold center.
"Impossible." Rowan inhaled the smell, as thick and redolent of high summer as anything she had ever smelt. The bush and the flowers were completely out of place, and most assuredly had not been down here when she fell. Rowan had been in shock, but she was fairly certain she would have noticed such a beautiful plant in so a dire situation.
She crouched down and looked on the flowers again; three blood-red blooms. Then she remembered in that flash what happened between them. Darkness and light, and something bridging the gap between them both. Yet this plant looked nothing out of the ordinary, except for where it was growing.
Hesitantly she reached through the bars and plucked all of the flowers. Perhaps part of her had been expecting—if not hoping—they would not be real. When she grasped the stem, the curved thorns dug into her finger. Rowan let out a gasp of pain, even as she noticed that the blood on her skin was the same color as the roses.
She sucked her fingertips and thought, kneeling there, as the sounds of human and animal pain echoed up from below. Her blood tasted sharp and bitter, and she knew the woman was as real as the roses. Somehow they were connected.
There was nothing to be done about it. She had to defy her mother, go against her training, and find where the prisoner had been taken. She had no choice but to go deeper into the pits and seek answers. The very idea made her tremble, the roses shaking a little in her grasp.
Bravery, Rowan read once in the book of her goddess, was not the absence of fear, it was going on in the face of it. She tilted her chin, even if a few tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.
She would find those answers, and see what all of it meant. She just hoped neither the strangely punctured man nor her mother would be waiting for her in the shadows.
Chapter Eight
The New Maker in Town
Amaranth spent a long time planning, thinking, dreaming of her escape, and in every one of those scenarios, she knew reaching the wilds before dawn was essential.
What she never imagined were the savage beasts of the wild, and the cunning use the pit drivers made of them. Amaranth cursed her stupidity and lack of imagination. She'd been foolish to think it would be easier out of the pits.
As the first rays of daylight slanted through the top of the offal pit and illuminated them still hard at work, she flinched. Daybreak was not their friend. Glancing up, the square of bright blue sky seemed a long way off—maybe even further away than yesterday morning. They'd been concentrating so hard on finding the right bits for what they needed the hours hadn't mattered.
"Amaranth?" Fleabane's voice was a tiny, rough squeak. "Are you ready?"
She turned to see her fellow escapee kneeling in the gore, bent over the creature they stitched painfully together by moonlight. Somehow, the young woman's narrow form seemed even frailer when outlined in blood. The stench at least subsided from Amaranth's awareness, becoming not nearly as important as their task.
As the rays of the sun reached them, the girls stared down at their creations; a pair of guardians that would protect them in the wild. Most of the parts were taken from the fresh wild dog corpses, but Amaranth added the cobbled hide of some unknown beast she found in the offal pit as well. That durable skin would give them extra toughness should it come to a fight—which she suspected it would.
From the smashed heads of two large cats, Amaranth had Fleabane tore free the curving saber teeth and jammed them into the mouths of the wild dogs. Stitching them in challenged both their skills and patience, but together they managed it.
Now it was done, and their two creations lay on their sides, nothing but stitches and dead meat.
Amaranth wondered idly if that was how her arm looked when it was first attached to another. The circumstances must have been different; a rich young woman glad to get a new arm instead of a guardian stitched together from thrown aside parts.
She clenched her eyes shut, willing her imagination to quiet. It was merely the molding of the meat, but there was so much more to it than stitchers and hacking up flesh.
Swallowing hard, Amaranth opened her eyes and shared a look with Fleabane. "I'm going into that place, but if I don't come back this time, then you get out of here and run as best you can. Promise..."
Fleabane stared back at her, her jaw tight and her hands clenched. She jerked her head in a gesture her fellow escapee took as an acceptance of the terms. It would have to do because she had to concentrate on the task before her.
It was as fine balance, the middle road between life and death. Amaranth felt the pull of both in her time, and knew one would burn her out and the other would break her. Yet, at that stage she didn't have much to lose. It was risk or return to the pit. That wasn't an option.
After she wiped futilely at the guts and gore stuck to her body, she slid down and laid her body against the length of the larger beast. It was cold and smelled rank, but Amaranth shoved away those observations, instead closing her eyes and wrapping her arms around her creation.
Everything faded away; Fleabane, their peril, and the horror of the place. All Amaranth saw against the inside of her eyelids was the wild. The beast once ran, powerful and dangerous. He was a master of the fells, he and his pack. When he threw back his head and howled, all the world trembled. He could race the moon and devour it whole.
Amaranth wrapped herself around that feeling before reaching out for the others. He was huge, a beast of the warm sun. So large and looming no one would dare attack. His skin repelled even the spears of man.
Immortal Progeny (Fragile Gods Book 1) Page 8