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THE TEMPLE
RAEDALUS
“MOTHER SHEPHERD!”
Raedalus opened his eyes from prayer, turning to see a blade protruding from the Mother Shepherd’s stomach, the hilt clutched in her hands. He reached out to grasp her as her knees buckled.
“What has happened?” Raedalus’s eyes darted around in panic, seeking the arm that must have thrown the dagger.
“I am sorry. She took it from me before I noticed.” Kantula held the Mother Shepherd from the other side.
“What?” Raedalus looked to the Mother Shepherd’s face.
“It is as it should be, Raedalus.” Junari reached forth a bloodied hand to touch his cheek. “A sacrifice for the fire.”
Raedalus did not understand. The Mother Shepherd had stabbed herself? As a sacrifice? Her eyes wavered and dimmed. He turned to the city, watching in terrified astonishment as the fires that once consumed the streets fluttered out of existence while his beloved Junari faded from life in his arms.
Raedalus and Kantula lowered Junari to the stones of the walkway atop the wall as her eyes slid shut.
“Help me.” Raedalus clutched at the dagger hilt, pulling it from Junari’s motionless chest, blood dripping from the blade.
“Let me see.” Bon-Tao pushed Raedalus aside as he knelt beside Junari, tearing the fabric, widening the hole where the blade had penetrated the robes. Blood stained the white cloth and covered his hands as he sought the wound. His fingers hovered, trembling, above Junari’s flesh.
“Impossible.” Bon-Tao fell back from Junari, holding his bloodied hand before him as though defending against some unseen aggressor. “A trick? The Sight?”
“What? What is wrong?” Raedalus leaned forward and pulled the cloth away from where Junari’s wound should have been. Instead of a gaping divide of flesh, he found smooth brown skin coated in blood.
“All praise to the Goddess.” Kantula bowed her head as Junari’s chest once more expanded with air.
“The Goddess preserves.” Jupterus knelt to the ground.
“Thank you, Goddess Moaratana.” Raedalus lowered his head in prayer as he grasped Junari’s hand. “Thank you for sparing our Shepherd and your prophet. Thank you.”
Raedalus ignored the tears falling from his cheeks to mingle and dilute the blood drying on Junari’s hands. He watched her chest rise and fall with each breath. He closed his eyes, praying silently in gratitude. The Mother Shepherd had offered her life in exchange for the lives of the city’s citizens, and Moaratana had taken that life to quench the flames. But the Great Goddess, in her infinite generosity, had returned that sacrificial offering.
“The fires?”
Raedalus opened his eyes to find Junari’s looking into his own, her face filled with concern.
“The fires are gone, Mother Shepherd.” Raedalus clung to Junari’s hand. “The Goddess accepted your offering and gave you back to us.”
Junari placed a hand to the spot on her stomach where the dagger blade had pierced through skin and muscle to stab her heart. She blinked in wonder, looking at her blood-caked fingers as though questioning whether they could be hers.
“Commander.”
Raedalus turned his head to find that two hands of soldiers had joined them at the top of the wall. Bon-Tao lowered his hands and pushed himself to his feet. He still appeared dazed by the recently transpired events. The leader of the newly arrived soldiers saluted Bon-Tao with a fist to his chest.
“Yes, soldier?” Bon-Tao wiped the blood from his palms across the sides of his breeches.
“I am sent by the Circle of Elders.” The soldier glanced to the bloodied form of Junari as she sat upright. “You are ordered to bring the heretics to the Circle Tower for an immediate audience with the elders. They face accusations of Dark Sight.” The soldier looked to the plumes of smoke still rising from the neighborhood beneath the wall. “I am to accompany you for protection.”
“Thank you, soldier.” Bon-Tao nodded to the younger man and turned to extend a hand to Junari. “It seems you and your goddess will be called to answer for the results of your prayers.”
Raedalus scrambled to help Junari to her feet, although she little needed it with the assistance of Bon-Tao’s strong arm. He took the sash from his robes and helped her tie it around her middle, covering the torn and bloodied fabric.
“Thank you, Raedalus.” Junari patted his hand and smiled at him, her eyes alight as he had seen only when waking from the deep trances in which the Goddess granted her the sacred scriptures. She turned from him and stared out to the fire-gutted streets of the city inside the wall, her smile fading as the corners of her mouth drew down in anguish. She wiped her eyes and looked to Commander Bon-Tao.
“Thank you for helping us.” Junari looked up to the commander’s face. “I am sorry about your men.”
Bon-Tao nodded to her, then spun on his heel and gestured with his arm.
“We should go.”
The walk to the Circle Tower took place in silence, Bon-Tao leading the way, followed by Junari with Raedalus at her side, Jupterus and Kantula close behind, and the double hand of city soldiers bringing up the rear. They walked westward along the wall until Commander Bon-Tao chose a set of stairs to descend. Once on street level, he commandeered a covered wagon, asking Junari, Raedalus, and their two guards to lie in the back. Raedalus began to protest the indignity of the Mother Shepherd traveling like a cask of wine, but Junari readily agreed. As the commander pointed out, it would be best if they remained unseen while traversing the city streets, especially considering that smoke still hovered above more than one of its neighborhoods.
When they arrived at the Circle Tower, Commander Bon-Tao quickly spirited them inside, using a servant entrance to avoid catching the attention of passersby. He led them up a wide, winding staircase that spiraled up the outer wall of the tower, leading to the great audience chamber of the Circle of Elders on the top level. As Raedalus climbed the stairs behind Junari, he tried to take the spiral staircase as an omen of good fortune, but had trouble believing the coincidence presaged a peaceful resolution to the conflict toward which they walked.
The fires brought down by the Mother Shepherd’s prayers had likely killed dozens and destroyed several blocks of city buildings, casting hundreds if not thousands out of their homes. The Circle of Elders would hold her to account for the severity of the Goddess’s protective wrath. They could as easily order the Mother Shepherd’s execution as well as her banishment. Raedalus could not see a path forward that did not end with the pilgrims being forced from the valley unless further prayers to the Goddess provided protection from expulsion. However, Raedalus had recently seen how the Goddess might reply to petitions for her hand to touch the world and the fee she might require for her intercession to cease. Had he known what would be demanded to stop the fires, he would have gladly turned the dagger blade upon his own heart to spare Junari. The Goddess would not likely have returned him to life in a miracle of healing, but better his sacrifice than for Junari to suffer even a moment of pain.
Bon-Tao pushed open two tall doors at the top of the stairs and ushered them into a large, circular room with high, slender windows of yellow-aged glass set into the walls at regular intervals around the chamber. Nine bulky wooden chairs sat on raised stone daises before each window, the light outlining the men who occupied each. Raedalus noted Kuth-Von sitting in the chair directly opposite the entrance, a place of primacy among equals. Two men stood on either side of his chair. One wore the red robes of the Ketolin sect while the other wore the green mantle of the Zatolin sect. Kam-Djen priests, present to witness the proceedings.
Bon-Tao led Junari and Raedalus to the center of the chamber; Kantula, Jupterus, and the soldiers remained outside the room. As he stopped, Bon-Tao lowered himself to one knee and bowed his head.
“I bring the
pilgrims as requested.” Bon-Tao raised his head but remained kneeling.
“Stand, Commander.” Kuth-Von’s words echoed up to the domed ceiling, the scenes of battles from the city’s history painted there seeming to increase the sound of his voice as it returned to the floor. “Remain here. We may wish to add your testimony to the proceedings.”
Testimony. As Raedalus feared. They were on trial. He glanced to Junari beside him. He expected apprehension or defiance, but she appeared unconcerned with their presence before the Circle of Elders, her face calm, her eyes staring steadily at Kuth-Von. Raedalus held none of the Mother Shepherd’s confidence. He quelled the churning of his stomach and glanced around the room at the other elders. All men of various ethnic origin, they ranged in age from forty to well beyond seventy. He had done his best to learn the names of the elders in studying about the city, but could not match faces to titles. He looked back to Kuth-Von, knowing that as the Speaker, the head of the headless Circle, the man would determine their fate more than anyone else in the chamber.
“You stand before the Circle of Elders accused of starting a fire that has ravaged our city and killed many of its citizens.” Kuth-Von’s expression remained inscrutable, suspended between indifference and condemnation.
“Who makes this accusation?” Junari spoke evenly, her voice filling the room without reverberating from the smooth marble walls.
“The people of the city.” Kuth-Von looked southward. “Those who claim you used Dark Sight to set the people and their dwellings aflame.”
“I do not possess The Sight.” Junari glanced to Raedalus briefly. “Nor do my companions.”
“How then do you explain a firestorm rising up of its own accord to engulf our people and our streets?” Kuth-Von leaned forward, his tone ringing with annoyance.
“Prayer.” Junari let the lone word linger in the air, adding no other to accompany it.
“Am I to believe that you prayed to burn our city?” Kuth-Von’s tone shifted from exasperation to disbelief.
“I prayed for protection and wrath against our attackers,” Junari said. “The Goddess Moaratana chose fire as her shelter and sword.”
“Heresy!” The Ketolin priest, tall and slender, stepped forward, looking as though he might rush to strangle Junari with his own hands.
Raedalus moved closer to Junari, noting Commander Bon-Tao tensing at their side. Kuth-Von waved a hand at the angry priest and the man halted. The Zatolin priest looked as though he, too, might leap forward, but remained silent.
“You claim you were attacked?” Kuth-Von looked back to Junari.
“Yes, Speaker.” Junari nodded her head. Raedalus noted the way she intoned Kuth-Von’s title, making it sound as though she addressed a zhan. “We were stopped in our carriage by a crowd of men and women who wished to seek our protection as pilgrims. As I addressed them and promised them sanctuary, the new pilgrims were attacked by their fellow citizens with knives and shovels and clubs. I saw women hacked down by men with axes and cleavers. I witnessed men fall to hand-fashioned spears. I watched unarmed men and women slaughtered for their faith, rivers of their blood running into the gutters of the street. I prayed to my goddess, Moaratana, in anger and fear, asking for her protection, begging for her wrath against those who would kill us. The fire rose to touch wood and cloth and savaged our attackers with flame.”
“Heretic,” the Ketolin priest fumed from beside Kuth-Von’s chair. “She admits to starting the fire.”
“You cannot claim our goddess does not exist and yet blame her for the flames she brings down upon your fanatics.” Raedalus jabbed a finger at the priest. He had sensed Junari about to respond to the priest’s accusations and leapt to speak first. If they were to have any chance of surviving this trial, Junari could not be seen to argue with the Kam-Djen priests. He, however, could easily fill that role.
“The flames should be brought down upon you.” Anger twisted the Ketolin priest’s lips. “A pyre to cleanse the valley of your darkness.”
“Enough.” Kuth-Von glared at the Ketolin priest until the man looked down and away. The Speaker passed his gaze back to Junari. “Even if you speak the truth, that the people of our city rose against you and citizens who wish to join you, you cannot deny that the flames did not stop with your attackers.”
“I cannot.” Junari lowered her eyes.
“Then you accept responsibility for the fire and the deaths and the damage it caused, regardless of how it came into being?” Kuth-Von raised a quizzical eyebrow at Junari.
“I do.” Junari lifted her eyes.
Raedalus cursed beneath his breath. This approach would fail. He should have taken time to coach her on the possible tactics to use with the Circle of Elders while they rode in the back of the covered wagon. He had been so overwhelmed by watching her die, seeing the flames extinguished with her life, and her miraculous return unscarred, that he had not fulfilled his duty to her. He had lain next to her, thinking more of the smell of her hair and the feel of her body pressed close to his own than of the means of their salvation from a threat more dangerous than men with axes and carpentry tools.
“Mother Shepherd, do not…” Raedalus whispered to Junari, but she placed a hand on his arm to silence him.
“I am responsible for this tragedy that befell your city.” Junari raised her voice, turning to catch the eyes of the elders seated near Kuth-Von. “I prayed without wisdom and my goddess granted my foolish prayers. And for this foolishness, she required a sacrifice. As my actions brought the fire and death to your streets, I made that sacrifice of myself. I took a dagger and thrust it into my heart, dying to preserve your city and your people. Only with my death were the flames extinguished.”
“Lies. Heretic lies,” the Ketolin priest shouted as he shook his head.
“Does she speak the truth?” Kuth-Von directed his question to Commander Bon-Tao.
Raedalus held his breath as the commander looked first to Junari, then to the elders before replying to Kuth-Von.
“She does.” Bon-Tao stared at Kuth-Von. “We were attacked in the streets. The innocent were killed. She did pray to her goddess, and the flames did come. I also watched her plunge the dagger into her heart. I saw the flames cease as she bled and her heart stopped. I inspected her wound myself and found it absent. She died, and she came back unscathed by the blade that killed her.”
“Dark Sight tricks!” The Ketolin priest thrust an accusatory finger toward Junari and Raedalus before turning it to Bon-Tao. “Or he’s a heretic liar as well. Let us put him to the Questioner. We’ll soon hear the truth from his lips.”
“There will be no questioning of our most decorated commander.” Kuth-Von let the venom in his voice silence the bilious priest’s interjection. “If he says he witnessed something miraculous, I will take his word. We have all seen extraordinary things these past months.”
A spark of hope kindled within Raedalus’s heart. If Kuth-Von could be convinced that the fire had not been intentional, that the Mother Shepherd had offered her own life to stop it, they might have room to bargain for release. He did not see how they could still hope for asylum in the valley beyond the city walls, but they could always return to the border road and try to negotiate safe passage from the Tanshen zhan, as unlikely as that seemed. If necessary, they could travel back all the way to Punderra or Juparti and down to the southern coast, attempting to secure ships from one of the trade towns there. It would add a year to their journey, but better that than lose most or all of their pilgrims in a battle with the Tanjii army. They could barely defend themselves against bands of bandits, and certainly not trained soldiers. And, as they had seen, to call for the Goddess’s protection could just as easily result in the annihilation of the entire city as the safeguarding of the pilgrim flock.
“You have spoken, and a witness has corroborated your tale.” Kuth-Von sat straight in his chair, assuming an official posture. “The Circle has listened, and now we shall pass judgment. The punishment for the crime
you are accused of is…”
“Wait.” The volume and tone of Junari’s voice silenced Kuth-Von.
“You wish to make further testimony?” Kuth-Von did not appear accustomed to being interrupted.
“I wish to make the Circle of Elders an offer that may resolve this situation favorably for all parties.” Junari turned as she spoke, making sure each of the elders could see her face.
Raedalus swallowed, feeling his gut clench, the back of his throat burning. What offer could Junari have in mind? What concessions might she hope to bargain from the Circle of Elders? Was she creating an offer in the moment, or had she been considering this since their experience atop the wall? Why had she not confided in him? Why had he not taken the time to counsel her when he had the opportunity?
“You spoke to me, Speaker Kuth-Von, of the game koris, of the placement of blocks on the board, of players using strategy and wits to upend luck.” Junari stepped away from Raedalus to stand alone before Kuth-Von and the Circle of Elders. “What you failed to realize is that there is now an unseen player on the board. Two of that player’s stones are here in this chamber with you while nearlya thousand gather in the valley beyond your city walls. Thousands more trudge along roads and across fields and through forests on their way to join the game. As I have seen myself today, this unseen player can be ruthless and unpredictable.”
“You do not believe in my goddess, even when faced with the silence of your own.” Junari turned to the Ketolin priest, her voice gentle. “My goddess touches the world, moves her pieces, changes the lines upon the board. I cannot predict what she will do in response to my prayers. I can only try to pray with wisdom in beseeching her assistance. Today, I failed, but I have learned from that failure. We must all learn from that misstep or risk the Goddess’s wrath.”
“Are you threatening this Circle and this city with vengeance from your dark god?” One of the elders spoke, a weighty man with more flesh filling his seat than any two of his fellow elders.
The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1) Page 41