by Jane Merkley
Clutching his thin arm inside his thick wool robe, she led him through the center of the sound. The singing followed him the deeper they went into the temple, and because he could not see, he imagined angels were singing to him as he walked.
The priestess stopped. Three gentle taps echoed dully on a wooden door. The door creaked open a moment later and Herten felt the pull of her arm as she fell forward in a bow. Herten followed the motion.
“Good Priest Chalyn, Good Priest Herten is here from Niesh to join your company.”
“Oh, gladness!” exclaimed a voice Herten knew well beyond the doorway before him. “Come in my friend, come in!”
The priestess released her arm from Herten’s and her bare feet pattered away.
Herten knew this chamber well and found his accustomed cotton-stuffed chair and relaxed his sore bones into it.
“What can I get you to drink, Good Priest?” The voice was from a young boy that Herten did not know. Herten guessed his age to be about fifteen or sixteen.
“Some cider, if you will. Thank you.” The boy’s movements away were cloaked by the thick rug. Within a moment, there was a gentle thunk on the table next to him as a mug was set down.
“Thank you, lad.”
“You are welcome, Good Priest.” A rustle of clothing notified Herten that the boy had bowed before leaving.
Chalyn provided an equally sincere, “thank you,” and then proceeded to gulp whatever beverage the lad had brought him.
Herten held the cider in his hands. The mug’s warmth tingled his cold fingers. He inhaled the sharp tang of orange and cinnamon before taking a slow, deep draw. It warmed all the way into his belly.
“Now that the important tasks are satisfied,” spoke Chalyn from across the rug with a gentle belch, “what brings your grace to my home, Pathius?”
Herten set his mug back on the table, carful to set it away from the edge, and leaned back in his chair. Sleep would be most appreciated when the time for it came. “My priestess has received insight of Gildeon’s fall.”
“Really?” Chalyn’s tone was curious but not surprised. “Enlighten me.”
Pathius Herten relayed every detail he could recall from Miraha’s vision, leaving nothing out so the two of them could study the whole of the meaning.
“So we believe he did not fall, but followed Huilian onto the world.”
The chair across from Herten groaned. The priest must have leaned back. “I am most glad to hear this.”
The rug in front of Herten whispered with gentle pressure. “Please help yourself to cheese and cranberry tarts,” said the boy. “I will place them beside your mug.”
“Thank you, lad.” Herten was pleased with the boy. A humble holiness radiated from him and brought a balm of comfort to the old priest who had much to worry over at this present time. The boy whispered away again.
“Who is this pleasant boy you have employed, Jurdon? His disposition is of much holiness.”
A deep chuckle somewhere across from him preceded Chalyn’s response. “You will know soon enough, Good Priest, if you still believe. But this vision from your priestess could revive the peoples’ faith knowing their god did not abandon them on a whim.”
“That is our hope if this vision could be verified to mean what we hope it means. It would be worse to give the people false hope.”
“I can tell you with affirmation that it does mean what you hope it means!” Joy and elation erupted in Jurdon Chalyn’s voice.
“But what did you mean about this boy of yours, that I will know soon enough if I still believe?”
“He is not my boy, Pathius. I am his. And so are you – as is everyone. But you are not prepared for the answer yet; you will not believe if I simply tell you.”
“I do not understand.”
There was a long pause from across the rug. “I know that you will. How soon, that is dependent on you. But you are weary. Rest well tonight, think upon the lad, and wake with an answer.”
“Would you like to discuss more about this vision?” The idea of bed and sleep tempted Herten, but it was a mortal weakness far below the immortal importance of why he was here.
“Soon, the matter of the vision will answer itself, Good Friend. And I saw how your face brightened at the thought of bed!” Chalyn chuckled.
“It is true, but then these days I’ve started to brighten at the thought of sleep ten minutes after I wake!”
They both chuckled at the truth of it. A gentle bell tinkled outside the door. Within a moment, there was a knock. The door opened. “Jesimay,” said Jurdon, “please take Priest Herten to his room. Make sure his needs are met and provide him with a meal both now and in the morning.”
“Yes, Holy Priest.”
Herten stood, and now had a moment to ponder Chalyn’s strange words concerning the lad. A tiny arm slid inside his own. He followed the prompting pull out of the chamber. He was taken to another room down the hall and was directed to a chair, a small table, and last to the bed. The priestess moved his arm upward to where he felt a cord hanging from the ceiling above the bed.
“Pull this cord if you need anything,” said her pleasant voice. Herten imagined her with honey colored hair. “Someone is always here to help.”
“Thank you, Holy Priestess.”
“I will bring your meal in and set it on the table.” That familiar sound of rustling clothes as she bowed and then the click of the door.
Herten wished to stay up and pray because the curiosity generated by Chalyn about the boy energized its secret, but he was so weary and knew his days of traveling to Ryre were approaching his last. He wanted to pray about this mystery, ponder it in his dreams, and then wake with an answer. But he could not bring his weary bones to kneel on the stone floor with any hopes of rising again. So he laid on the bed and prayed that Gildeon, wherever he might be, would not find him blasphemous for his failure to kneel. But he was overcome with a sense of peace which encouraged him to rest and be prepared to pray on the morrow.
Herten did not argue. He fell asleep with his sandals on.
Herten woke from the sounds of the usual morning bustle inside the temple. Voices chimed along the hallways outside his door and whispered in the halls. Spring tingled his nostrils as it wafted in through his open window. It was a warming chill, so it must barely be sunrise.
He thought of the lad in Chalyn’s chamber but could not figure out the mystery or the strangeness of Chalyn desiring him to discover it. He worried a moment that he should have prayed the night prior before resting his mortal mind, but he was overcome with that same sense of peace and patience and so quieted his worry.
He answered a gentle knock on his door and was greeted with a sizzling smell of ham and buttered vegetables, still hissing from the steam. “Breakfast, Good Priest.” It sounded like the priestess from last night.
“Thank you, sweet Daughter of Gildeon.” He could almost feel her blush at the rare compliment given sparingly among the temples.
He moved to the table with the platter in his hands, bumping his toes into the leg of the chair. Forcing a smile at the irritation, he sat and finished the wonderful meal and then rose, the morning hymns growing in fervor and vibrating through the stone halls. He’d always loved hymns, especially sung by females whose voices he was sure reached clear to Velmashyn.
He followed the singing, the song growing in strength as he approached the temple center. He paused at the threshold and soaked in the sound. The highest of female voices sliced like a knife and stilled him. Scuffles on the floor and tiny baby whimpers declared that it was Temple Day and the locals had gathered to worship. Since Gildeon’s Fall sixteen years ago, attendance was rare in Niesh and he couldn’t imagine it would be different here; what use was there praying to a god who had fallen from glory? But still some hoped and knew that that could not be the final answer, that something much more marvelous had happened and they just had to be patient and wait for it to manifest itself.
Herten felt warmth on
his shoulder and right cheek and realized he must be standing in a beam of sunrise streaming in from the windows.
The hymn captivated him, and he was saddened when they finished. He closed his eyes and prayed that he would receive insight about the lad. His mind was at peace but still no answer came. He felt that he needed to visit the lad again, to hold his hand and see if touch could answer what sight alone could not.
He knocked on Chalyn’s door and the lad answered with his cheerful voice and pleasant disposition. He sat Herten down and as he started to ask if he could bring Herten drink, Herten grabbed the boy’s hand with both of his own and pressed the boy’s fingers into his bowed forehead. Something familiar stirred within Herten.
“I know you,” Herten said. “Who are you?”
“I cannot tell you, Good Priest.” Herten could feel the lad’s smile in his tone. “Because you will not believe. You must discover on your own to be fully converted.”
Was this a lad speaking, or a man?
Herten left again, bothered about the familiarity surrounding the boy and not being able to place it. Was it the voice, the touch, or the holy disposition surrounding the lad that stirred excited recognition inside him?
He went back into his room and accompanied his prayer with fast. At first he was skeptical to adhere to Chalyn’s earnest plea, but now he was filled with a sense of urgency to know as soon as possible.
Herten prayed all day. He finally climbed into bed, his knees stone-sore, and thought he could not sleep from how his brain was wracked with questions and wonder. But he slept. And he had never in his life slept so well.
Herten woke.
And he knew.
Panic rushed through him and he sat up in bed, anxiously wondering why it had taken him so long. Had his own faith dimed so much that he could not see what was clearly in front of him?
He jumped from bed as if thirty years were suddenly shaved from him, his heart racing at the earned knowledge of what this all meant and would mean. He fled the room, hoping he was not too late. Knowing the way to Chalyn’s chamber, he knocked a little too anxiously on the door, worried that he had failed the test.
The lad opened the door. “Good morning,” the lad greeted as if trying to contain his own zeal shining behind Herten’s blind eyes. “How can I serve you, Good Priest?”
“Nay,” said Herten. “How may I serve thee?”
And Priest Herten bowed before Gildeon.
Soul Sick
The soul inside her roared with hunger. She didn’t know why it hadn’t killed her yet.
The soul yearned, crying to the rest of it elsewhere. Right now, Lorn’s skin felt cool and light; a pleasant change. Her bed was beneath a bared window that was open into the night. She opened her eyes and her stomach wrenched. Whether from sickness from the drought the ranger administered to her or that she was still alive and in reality… she couldn’t tell a difference. For the sake of something she could not name, she cried.
Are they my own tears? Or do you own their right, too?
The voices beyond her door reminded her of life.
She rubbed her face with dirty palms and got up to look better out the window.
Cold… cold and still dark. She cried even harder.
She was terribly hungry, but wanted to starve herself so she could die. But that thing, that thing inside of her made her eat the bread and water by the door because it still wanted to live.
Then the voice came.
“Forlorn… I can feel you close…”
Lorn shrieked. The soul inside of her rejoiced and wanted to find a way to escape out the window and follow the voice. Though Lorn was mad with desperation to rid this soul that was not hers, she was even madder with a frenzy not to let Huilian have it back. He’s told her what he would do with it.
She threw her body at the door, shrieking and pounding against it.
“Let me out! He’s going to find me!”
“Shut up!” a deep voice called from the other side.
Lorn shrieked and pounded harder.
“Alright, bitch. I warned you.”
The door opened outwardly. Lorn threw her body at it, opening it wide. With a giant kick, she heeled the ranger in the stomach. He doubled over with a grunt.
She vaulted over him and pelted down the hallway. The soul screamed at her to go the other way.
“You may control my heart and mind, Huilian, but you cannot control my feet!”
She felt the soul move inside her, shifting under her skin.
The ranger groaned to his feet. “Jaryd! That bitch you brought in ran out of her cell. Go get her.”
Seemingly out of nowhere, a hand clinched a handful of Lorn’s dark flying hair. She screamed from pain and fell back. The ranger who had sedated her earlier was reaching his arm around her to bury the needle in her again.
“Are you in here? I think I see you. You look so lovely. Haven’t seen you for sixteen years…”
“He’s here!” Lorn shrieked hysterically. Leaving a handful of her hair in the ranger’s fist, she tore down the hall at a maddened speed.
The door to the jail was locked. Lorn rammed her body into it, crying. The rangers were laughing and she heard footsteps approaching.
But she felt Huilian close, close enough that his soul inside her was responding to his presence and she felt that familiar burn of an immortal power surge through her.
She stomped a foot onto the door. Fragments of wood around the handle sprayed outward as the door swung violently open. The rangers who were approaching stopped and watched dumbfounded. Lorn ran through and up the stairs.
She didn’t know where she was going. Only to get away. She made it outside and was just leaving the boundaries of the town when a horse approached from behind. She was coming to a cliff that rose above Anglmar Bay when a rope was thrown around her. With a powerful tug, Lorn was yanked off her feet.
The soul inside of her rippled angrily. Huilian was still close. Lorn stood, grabbed the rope, and pulled.
Jaryd had tied the rope around his waist and gasped in surprise as he was pulled from the horse. Still not understanding what was giving her this abnormal strength, Jaryd sprung to his feet and charged her. He didn’t expect her to jump off the cliff.
He threw himself backward to the ground and braced for when the rope would pull tight, but he had nothing to brace against and with a violent jerk, he shouted all the way over the edge.
He watched the cliff rise away and braced as he hit the water. He fought his head over the surface again and took in a desperate breath. He felt a powerful jerk on the rope and found the female trying to swim away. He caught up and grabbed her, his fist ready to bury the ring needle into her neck. But she twisted around and directed his fist into his chest.
The sting of the needle surprised him, and within a second he was unconscious and started to sink below the surface.
Lorn was untying the rope from around her with every intention of letting the man drown, but as the soul inside her chuckled with pleasure at these thoughts, she swiftly grabbed the sinking ranger and pulled him up again. Kicking back, she swam toward the shoreline.
Despite how desperately he wanted to become conscious again, his eyes opened slowly, his thought process dragging across his mind as if he had to lug them around.
The drug had never been administered to him before. He gave it to his detainees all the time, not wondering how it worked but that it did. Horses thundered inside his skull and vomit churned in his gut, but he was too weak to roll over to release it. The longer he fluttered his eyes, the closer to coherency he arrived. Finally, he was able to breathe at a normal pace.
He was laying in a shallow alcove, just deep enough to stay out of the water and sunlight. But by tell of the water stains on the rock walls, the surf rose frequently. He didn’t know how long he’d been laying there. It was still day light and he felt damp but not wet.
The girl was sleeping fitfully, her breathing sporadic and heavy. He inched tow
ard her and touched her.
She sprung up like a rabbit and darted to the opposite end of the alcove, eyeing him venomously.
“Girl,” he motioned, “come here.”
Her eyes fixed unblinking at him, making him feel stupid.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“You tried to hurt me.”
“You disobeyed an order. You fought. I used minimal force necessary.”
“I didn’t fight you.”
Jaryd blinked. “Yes, you did.”
“No I didn’t! It wasn’t me!” She dropped to her knees and sobbed. “I tried not to! He wouldn’t let me!”
Jaryd warbled to his feet, still unsteady, but wasn’t about to be caught on the ground around this unstable maniac. Then she ran at him, stumbling into him so he almost fell over, and began pulling at his clothes, screaming.
“Rip him out of me! Rip him out!”
He grabbed her arms. “Stop!”
Like a wet blanket, she buckled and began to cry. Even while wondering what sort of sickness had possessed her mind, he knelt beside her, laying her gently in the sand.
He looked out of the alcove. There was still enough shoreline for him to walk out and find a way to climb the cliff walls. She was obviously mental. He might even do her a favor by letting her drown. Would do the town a favor, that was for sure. Though, he still couldn’t figure out how she busted the cuffs on Fangbor and broke the door at the jail, however, he knew mental subjects were known to have abnormal strength.
All of a sudden the girl sat up. “Are you here?” she asked, her eyes fixed toward the other end of the alcove.
Jaryd created more distance between them. She continued to stare unblinkingly forward with an expression that was contorted into something Jaryd was afraid to be so near to. She broke into tears again, hugging her knees.
Jaryd turned around to walk out, throwing a glance over his shoulder every other step in case she came up from behind and attacked him.