“I am no threat to your city, but my goddess may be, and your god seems intent on remaining silent in her presence.” Junari turned to look at the jowly elder as he glared at her.
“Death is the sentence for treason against the Circle.” The Ketolin priest rocked on his feet with obvious enthusiasm for his proposed verdict.
“As I told Speaker Kuth-Von, my death will not affect my goddess nor her endeavors in this world.” Junari looked again to Kuth-Von, ignoring the Ketolin priest. “As I told you, I am but a vessel. Shatter my clay and another will be formed and filled with the Holy Fire of Moaratana to replace me. Kill a thousand prophets and a thousand more will arise. Yet, remember, each prophet will be different. I may be a weak vessel, others may prove too strong, some too porous, but all will pray for protection and seek the wrath of the Goddess against those who would destroy her chosen people.”
“You do threaten this Circle and the city.” Kuth-Von sounded more intrigued than offended by Junari’s words. “What move do you propose to establish harmony on the board?”
“You cannot listen to the extortion of this heretic, this Dark Sight demon.” The Ketolin priest shook his head in disbelief.
“You are here to witness the Circle’s debate, not to participate in it.” Kuth-Von turned to the Ketolin Priest. “Remain silent or be removed.” The Ketolin priest looked like he might explode from the attempt to keep his voice confined within his body.
Junari glanced toward Raedalus. His eyes held to her face, his heart chilled by her speech. He experienced a sense of wondrous elation rising within him at the danger of her words. He found his doubts and concerns melting before the heat of the Mother Shepherd’s righteousness. His faith in her confirmed and amplified his faith in the Goddess. As with the trances that manifested Moaratana’s voice in word and scripture, Raedalus sensed the presence of the Goddess herself, inhabiting Junari as she spoke to Kuth-Von and the Circle of Elders. Tears of awe welled in his eyes, but he ignored them as he listened.
“The pilgrims of Moaratana require transport to the Forbidden Realm.” Junari paused a moment before continuing. “As Speaker Kuth-Von suspected, and I have learned, the captains of your docks will not rent their vessels for such an unpredictable journey. Neither will your merchant bankers fund the purchase of ships without proper assurances to safeguard their investment. I propose that the treasury of the city of Tanjii offers assurances to the merchant bankers who will in turn provide my temple with the funds to purchase a fleet of ships to carry the pilgrims to the Forbidden Realm.”
“What?” The rotund elder moved anxiously in his seat. “What nonsense is she talking?” A murmur of voices arose among the Circle of Elders as they exchanged looks of astonishment and confusion.
“Please elaborate.” Kuth-Von gestured with an open hand to his fellow elders. “I fear some of the Circle members do not clearly see the import of your suggestion.”
“My proposal is simple and lays the larger weight of risk at my temple’s door.” Junari spun slowly as she spoke, conveying the nuance of her plan to the elders encircling her. “As I said, the merchant banks will loan us the coin to purchase a small fleet of ships. These ships will be crewed by the pilgrims themselves. The ships will set sail with the pilgrims, deposit them on the shores of the Forbidden Realm, and return to gather more pilgrims for subsequent journeys. Speaker Kuth-Von mentioned a deserted town along the coast nearby where the pilgrims can be stationed, freeing your valley from the camps. Pilgrims will arrive, spend coin on food and supplies, pay to be ferried to this town, and depart in temple-owned ships. Those ships will return with rare items from the Forbidden Realm, which will be sold to pay the debt to the merchant banks. If the ships return empty, the coin for the debt will be culled from the arriving pilgrims’ purses. The city’s treasury will be affected only if our ships fail to return from the Forbidden Realm to claim more pilgrims. Then, the city’s coin would pay the debts to the merchant bankers. Otherwise, the city’s only part in the bargain will be to collect the profit from so many travelers passing through her gates, and to assure that all pilgrims, whether from far off or from its own streets, will be safe while within its walls.”
“A fine arrangement if it were not for the fact that no ship has ever returned from the Forbidden Realm.” Kuth-Von leaned forward in his seat. “How can you hope to do what thousands have failed to accomplish for thousands of years?”
“You have seen the power of the Goddess Moaratana.” Junari raised her chin. “I have every faith that she will answer our prayers for protection in the Forbidden Realm as she has answered our prayers here.”
Kuth-Von tapped the arm of his chair with a long fingernail. He remained silent, all eyes of the room upon him.
Raedalus looked at the faces of the elders. They would mold their decision in this matter to Kuth-Von’s. If he voted against it, they would voice their disapproval. If he accepted it, they would champion the plan’s wisdom.
“What about the people who have died by fire this day or had their homes and shops burned to ash?” Kuth-Von narrowed his eyes at Junari.
“I cannot express in words the depth of my sorrow at the deaths caused by the fire of the Goddess.” Junari’s face twisted in obvious mental anguish. “I cannot bring back the dead the way the Goddess returned me to the living, but I can make restitution for the damage to the city and the loss of life. We will give coin to the families of those who have died and coin to rebuild what has been burned.”
Kuth-Von considered Junari’s words in silence for a long moment, his finger still tapping a steady rhythm on the arm of his chair.
“And if the Circle refuses to accept your proposal?” Kuth-Von’s finger fell still.
“I will pray,” Junari said. “For guidance or for protection or for vengeance as necessary.”
Kuth-Von looked to the battle scenes painted across the sky blue ceiling of the audience chamber dome. He seemed to find something there that made him smile. Raedalus raised his eyes, wondering what the Circle elder had glimpsed, what flaw he might have discerned in Junari’s plan. Had he seen an alignment of the game pieces that favored his side of the board? Had he intuited a means of playing against an unseen player? Or had he merely accepted a proposal that profited his city handsomely for doing little if anything other than speaking in its favor?
“I cannot speak for the Circle of Elders without a vote, but I believe there should be at least one requirement for the city to proceed with your suggested arrangement.” Kuth-Von’s thin smile faded. “When you depart, you must take all the heretics of Tanjii with you. Their presence creates discord, and our city has been wounded enough today by sectarian strife.”
“The temple of Moaratana will accept all pilgrims into its fold.” Junari bowed her head with her words.
Kuth-Von looked to the Zatolin priest to his left. Raedalus noticed the man nod, nearly imperceptibly.
“How shall we vote on this most curious proposal?” Kuth-Von looked to the Circle of Elders.
“You cannot possibly mean to consider the lying words of this woman and her dark false god.” The Ketolin priest turned to face Kuth-Von. The Speaker merely raised his hand for silence. The priest ground his teeth as he clamped his mouth shut. Kuth-Von turned his hand to the Circle members and raised it higher, indicating his vote.
Raedalus looked from face to face around the room, holding his breath, awaiting the individual responses, watching in elation as hand after hand, some grudgingly, some with lazy indifference, rose in acknowledgment of their assent. Raedalus sighed quietly as Kuth-Von’s voice brought his attention back to the head of the room.
“Your proposal is accepted under the terms you have defined.” Kuth-Von placed both hands on the arms of his chair. “You will be bound to it by your word and by your deed. Do not fail to adhere to the conditions set down between us. It would be unfortunate for all involved. Commander, please escort the prophet and her attendants back to the camp beyond the walls and begin making arrange
ments for their transport to the abandoned town of Tashi-Gano as quickly as possible.”
Junari bowed slightly to Kuth-Von before turning to follow Bon-Tao from the room. Raedalus hazarded a glance at the Zatolin priest before following Junari. He did not need to see the Ketolin priest again to know the man’s mind and interests. However, the Zatolin priest’s pointed silence, and the nod he gave Kuth-Von at the conclusion of the trial that Junari had somehow fashioned into a negotiation riled Raedalus’s curiosity. His curiosity would need to wait for satiation. There would be many more things to occupy his mind in the coming days.
Bon-Tao led them from the chamber and back down the curving stairs to the ground. Raedalus walked beside Junari.
“You were inspiring, Mother Shepherd.” Raedalus smiled broadly with pride in Junari’s accomplishment. “You have saved us again.”
“Another miracle of the Goddess.” Junari’s jaw tightened as she spoke. “We must hope it unfolds more perfectly than the other miracle today.”
“Indeed, must we all.” Bon-Tao’s voice rose from the stairs beneath them as they descended.
Raedalus did not let their caution overwhelm his elation. The pilgrims would face more trials, possibly greater adversities, but they would have the Mother Shepherd to lead them and she would have the Goddess Moaratana to guide her. And Raedalus would witness these new miracles as no other believer could. He smiled again.
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THE CARNIVAL
LEOTIN
BIRD CALLS and the buzzing of insects blended with the sound of horse hooves plodding against packed earth and the creak of wood as the covered wagon swayed from side to side. Leotin flicked the reins, urging the two horses hitched to his private wagon onward, up the rise of the hillside. He rubbed his neck where the sun warmed it, adjusting his wide-brimmed hat and wiping his brow.
“Are we close?”
Leotin looked askance at Palla, where she sat on the driver’s bench beside him, bouncing with the motion of the wagon.
“You have seen the map. You know as well as I.” Leotin touched the breast of his woolen jacket, the map folded in the secret pocket between the layers of cloth.
“Your map lacks any sort of scale.” Palla swatted at a large deer fly circling her head. “A finger width could be a day’s journey as easily as ten.”
“It is not as easy to make a map as you think.” Leotin tried to keep the tone of wounded pride from his voice. He had worked on that map for the better part of ten years. It probably held more value than anything else he possessed. And it held more value still for his benefactor. “Regardless, the towns and cities are all in the correct position as they relate to one another.”
“We passed the river last night.” Palla looked back over her shoulder as though judging the distance they had traveled since dawn.
“You complain a great deal for someone paid to travel the realm in comfort.” Leotin flicked the reins again as the horse began to slow near the apex of the hill.
“Comfort?” Palla clasped the seat to hold herself down as the wagon wheel hit a rut in the road.
“You could be walking rather than riding.” Leotin thrust his thumb toward the carnival folk trudging in a line behind the wagon.
“Hmmm.” Palla frowned, looking at her feet. She usually walked with the others, but had complained of a swollen ankle that morning, and Leotin had offered to let her ride with him. “I make observations. That you take them as criticism is your failing, not mine.”
“Observe that.” Leotin raised a finger to point as the wagon crested the hill. A tower of stone rose above an open plain, a small town sprawling around the walls of the squat castle — a gray beast crouched among a nest of wood and brick.
“I retract my observations.” Palla lifted a hand to shield her eyes as she stared at the castle and town.
“Castle Peda-Lan. Just as I said.” Leotin smiled and pulled back on the reins as the horses started down the hill toward the town. “A place to rest, perform a bit, and earn enough coin to make it to the next town. Maybe even find a few young men itching to see the realm to replace those louts Grandal and Tellin. Never had someone run off in the middle of nowhere. In cities and towns, yes. Not in the middle of a forest.”
“They never really accommodated themselves to the life of the carnival.” Palla stared at the horses’ rumps. “Probably they came across a bandit horde and joined up.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Leotin doubted the men had done any such thing. Palla and that pilgrim girl Ranna both stuck to the story that they had gone into the woods, found a swimming hole, bathed, and returned to camp. That several people saw Grandal and Tellin enter the woods confirmed nothing. Both women denied seeing the men. The three foreigners had tracked the men to the same pond Palla and Ranna described, but lost the trail. They said the two men simply disappeared. Leotin doubted that as well. He had waited as long as it seemed polite. He felt no loss to have the men gone from the carnival. They proved more nuisance than help in their time on the road. He didn’t know where they had gotten off to; he merely hoped he’d never see them again.
He did wonder if Palla and Ranna had something to do with the men’s absence, but if they did, he suspected the men deserved it. While Palla clearly did not hail from a merchant family as she claimed, and kept the bulk of her past a secret or painted it with lies, on the whole, he trusted her. She wasn’t the sort to murder men in the woods. Not without good reason.
“You’re right,” Leotin said. “Not up to the standards of this carnival. Too many men of caliber have run off to be pilgrims, though. Slims the choice of applicants. Wish we could trust the pilgrims to take their place. Suppose we could make do with them until we reach the coast. Would save on rations for the duration.”
“We could send the three foreigners hunting again. It worked once.” Palla looked back to where the odd trio of outlander creatures walked side by side at the rear of the carnival train.
“I agreed in desperation only.” Leotin frowned. He had miscalculated the amount of food on hand and the distance between towns. A mistake he rarely ever made. He suspected the official count of pilgrim heads did not match reality. “We can’t afford to anger some local lesser tahn by poaching his game. That is the sort of thing that gets a noose placed around one’s neck.”
“I don’t think we need to worry,” Palla said. “The town looks prosperous enough to support us for a day or two.”
“It goes without saying, but the last time I did not say it aloud, and you did not realize it went without saying.” Leotin lowered the register of his voice for emphasis.
“I know.” Palla smiled brightly. “When we meet the castle tahn, you speak and I smile.”
“You’re very good at smiling.” Leotin smiled at her, his lips curled in irony.
“You’re very good at talking.” Palla smiled back even more brightly than before.
“Impudence is the best way to find yourself left behind when we depart.” Leotin frowned. He often found himself thinking of Palla as the daughter he had never desired. He regularly considered the notion that she had not fled her family, but rather had been cast out in annoyance.
“I’d start my own carnival.” Palla raised her chin defiantly. “Palla’s Perpetual Pavilion.”
“Palla’s Perpetual Perdition, more like.” Leotin laughed at the thought of Palla leading a carnival. The girl had entirely too many scruples for such an endeavor.
“I think you should worry more about the pilgrims trying to sneak more of their brethren along with them when we leave.” Palla grimaced. “They’ve gotten much better at hiding them in the wagons. I found a boy in a barrel when we left that last town.”
“I’ll speak to them again.” Leotin tilted the brim of his hat down to shield against the sun as he looked at the approaching castle and town. A few farmers at the edge of the settlement sto
pped their chores and stared at the carnival procession slowly approaching down the hillside road. “Look. We’ve been noticed.”
The farmers waved with limp hands as they passed, and the townspeople looked on with bored curiosity, acknowledging them as more annoyance than potential entertainment. It did not surprise Leotin. Twenty years of war near the border between the Daeshen and Tanshen Dominions left the locals with little hope and little interest in hopefulness. For the first few years of the war, the people of towns like this had been excited for a respite from the constant battle, from the loss of loved ones conscripted to fight, or those who died caught between two armies. The longer the war proceeded, the harder Leotin and his carnival players needed to work in order to elicit a positive response from their prospective audiences. This town had changed hands at least six times that he knew of over the last two decades. No wonder they didn’t cheer when the carnival came to town. The people were worn down — blades held too long to the grindstone — no longer sharp, merely flat and edged.
While the carnival troupe lingered in the town, chatting with the residents, selling them on the show, Leotin and Palla proceeded to the castle to haggle with the local tahn for permission to perform in his burg. The three outlanders pulled their hoods above their heads and stayed out of sight. Best not to worry the locals by revealing their foreign nature. Better also to make the inhabitants pay for the privilege of looking upon such strange faces.
The tahn, Kang-Laau, a fat man with a balding head and a wife who looked much the same, greeted them at the iron-reinforced wooden gate of the castle. He proved unexpectedly interested in having a carnival on his lands. Usually, men at the top of the local hierarchy cared little for keeping their tenants and townspeople entertained. They typically worried more about how the carnival affected the loss of work in their fields by the farmers attending a play rather than plowing a furrow. Kang-Laau appeared more concerned with the notion that a carnival performance might increase his standing in the town. Leotin suspected the locals were unhappy with the tahn’s rule. It would not be the first time a town rose up against its tahn, especially during the years of war. Tahns who cooperated with enemy invaders often found themselves just as dead after an army retreated as if they had defended their town in the first place. Leotin noticed few armed men in the castle. Most men of age were probably conscripted to fight in the Daeshen army. Those who remained were hobbled by age or the loss of a limb.
The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1) Page 42