Bells of the Kingdom (Children of the Desert Book 3) (2 page)

Sio
Dernhain wasn’t particularly noted for his kindness, compassion, or patience.

Kolan looked at the blotchy copy line and grimaced. This was going to be a long day.

A thin, wavering shriek floated up from the courtyard. People began shouting. Kolan stood, then sat, then stood again. He made two steps toward the courtyard window, then retreated to the stool, clenching his hands in frustration.

Another of the Creeds came to mind:
Obedience to the gods requires a clean heart and a dedication to one’s given tasks. Seek not the chaos of the world outside, but be content with the inner truth and strength the gods will always give to those who truly seek it.

Kolan sighed deeply and picked up the quill. His next attempt only had four blotches, which counted in his mind as encouraging progress.

Outside, people shouted and bellowed. He resolutely shut his ears to everything and bent over his work.
Seek not the chaos of the world outside.

Two blotches. Maybe he could produce a clean line before the commotion died down, and sneak a look out the window as a reward.

The next line had so many blotches as to be nearly illegible.
Dedication to one’s given tasks.
He scowled at the paper and forced himself to slow down. Pay attention. Focus.
Dedication.

Each slight curve seemed to take forever, each loop an eternity of care.

Nothing existed except the quill, the paper, the ink, the motion.

He put the final stop at the end and sat back, blinking:
perfect.
He’d done it. Not a single smear or blot. He put the quill aside and looked toward the courtyard window, but didn’t climb from the stool. The air hung heavy and silent; whatever had happened, it had finished already. There wouldn’t be anything to see.

Seek not the chaos of the world outside.
He studied his copy line, compared it to the original; his version was distinctly clumsier. He reached for the quill, cleaned it carefully, then dipped it back into the ink and began again.

Some time later, Dernhain said, from a scant step behind him, “Not bad,
sannio.”

Kolan jerked, startled from a near-trance. He barely managed to avoid knocking the ink pot over, but the quill flew from his hand and clattered onto the floor.

Dernhain covered his broad face with one hand and sighed heavily as Kolan scrambled to retrieve the quill.

“Never mind,” he said in answer to Kolan’s stammered apologies.
“Sionno
Hagair wants to see you. Now.”

“Now?” Kolan looked down at his inkstained fingers.

“Now,” Dernhain said. “Hurry up. There’s someone in his office that wants to talk to you.”

Kolan stared, bewildered. Dernhain’s glare left no room for questions.

“Go!”

He ran.

Sionno
Hagair’s office always seemed, to Kolan, far too small to accommodate not only the man himself, but the massive piles of
stuff
that accumulated on the black oak desk. Bound books and piles of precious paper formed one thick tower; bags of mysterious powders and granular substances another tall, sloppy heap. One handwoven mesh bag held what had to be over a hundred glass balls, variously colored and sized.

Kolan tried to avoid looking at that bag. They
had
been his marbles, the only thing from home he’d been allowed to retain when he entered the novitiate.
Sio
Dernhain had objected that the small glass toys were far too valuable and constituted a novice holding unacceptable wealth;
sionno
Hagair, after some thought, and to Kolan’s everlasting gratitude, had firmly overridden Dernhain.

Seeing his marbles here still sent a dull, embarrassed ache through his chest. What had happened to
sionno
Arenin hadn’t been his
fault—
but he carried the guilt all the same.
Harm no living creature, from beetle to boy.

The tall man standing beside Hagair’s desk coughed and said, impatiently, “Well, boy?”

Kolan darted a quick, nervous glance at the Head Priest’s stern, unsmiling face. Hagair dipped his head in a barely visible nod, granting permission to speak. Kolan gulped and looked back at the tall stranger, who cut an imposing figure even in travel-stained clothing.

The man had introduced himself without waiting for
sionno
Hagair to do so. “Captain Kullag of Bright Bay,” he’d said curtly. “Here to investigate word of witches in Arason. Do you know any, boy?”

Kolan had opened his mouth, shut it again, and stared at Hagair’s desk to give himself time to think. At the captain’s impatient prompt, he gathered his wits and said, “No, Captain, I don’t.”

A quick glance at Hagair showed the man’s expression held the faintest hint of a frown, but the Head Priest made no open protest.

“I’m told you do,” Kullag said heavily. “I’m
assured
you do. By a friend of yours. Solian.”

Kolan shot the head priest another, more startled look. Hagair now looked thunderously grim.

“S-Solian?” Kolan stammered. “But he’s in Jion!”

“He was
supposed
to go to Jion,”
sionno
Hagair said. “Apparently he decided to travel south instead of north.”

“Solian told me of a witch you’re
familiar
with,” Kullag interrupted, insinuation heavy in his tone. “Ellemoa.”

Kolan felt color cresting into his face, betraying any blander statement he might have tried. Kullag nodded, his hard face creasing into a satisfied smirk.

“So you
do
know this witch,” Kullag said.

“Witch isn’t an accurate term, Captain, as I’ve already tried to explain,” Hagair said, scowling.

“Lake-born or witch, it all adds up the same for me,” Kullag retorted. “Under your own Church’s edict, she’s a damned creature, and I’m tasked to capture her and bring her to Bright Bay to face the holy judgment of the new
n’sion.”

“The edicts from Bright Bay don’t always apply to the northern branches, Captain,” Hagair said promptly. “We do have a certain autonomy—”

“Take that up with the
n’sion,”
Kullag said. “I’m doing the job given me by King and Church.” He turned a glare on Kolan. “Where is she?”

Gone, thank the gods.
“I don’t know, Captain,” Kolan said aloud, quite honestly. “I haven’t been allowed to leave the grounds since becoming a novice here. I haven’t seen her in—” He glanced at the Head Priest.

“Almost two years,”
sionno
Hagair supplied.

Kullag’s scowl now rivaled Dernhain at his most impatient. “Where does she
live,
boy?”

“Captain, the proper term is
sannio,”
Hagair said. “Novice.
Boy
is disrespectful.”

Kullag ignored the interruption, his attention fixed on Kolan.

Kolan gulped, his composure wavering. “I—I don’t know, Captain,” he said. He
couldn’t
tell this man where to find Ellemoa’s cottage. Even empty and abandoned, it was
hers.
And since nobody knew why the lake-born had left, there was nothing saying she mightn’t return one day.

She
wasn’t
a witch. She
wasn’t.

He tried not to think about flames dancing on the tips of her fingers without burning the flesh beneath, and kept his gaze stubbornly on the corner of the head priest’s desk.

“You don’t
know?”

“I always met her somewhere,” Kolan said, not looking up. A fine sweat broke out on his forehead, and he didn’t dare look at the head priest.
Seek not the chaos of the world outside. Dedication to one’s given tasks. Harm no living creature, from beetle to boy.

Lies harm one’s soul, each one a tiny rip, hard to mend, each one a scar forever.

He’d take the hurt of a lie if it protected Ellemoa from this man.

Hagair shifted his weight restlessly but once more made no open protest.

“I see,” the captain said, his tone black with disapproval and doubt. “Solian seemed quite certain that you would know how to guide us to her.”

Kolan’s heartbeat thudded in his ears.

“Captain,” the Head Priest cut in, “Solian exaggerates. He also lies. He seems to find it amusing. There’s a very good reason he was being sent to
Jion
for a long meditational retreat.”

Kolan’s gaze slid inexorably sideways to the bag of marbles.

“Since you seem to know Solian so well,”
sionno
Hagair continued, “perhaps you can tell me what happened to his companions? He was sent north with a senior priest,
sio
Ense, and another novice named Asrain. Did he happen to mention them at all?”

“Missing priests aren’t my concern,” Kullag snapped.
“Witches
are my concern. And Solian struck
me
as surprisingly trustworthy,
sionno.
All things considered. I’ve gotten quite
good
at spotting liars.”

Kolan could feel the captain’s glare boring into him.

“Not as good as you think, apparently,” the Head Priest said. “Since Kolan seems unable to help you, is there anything
else
I can do for you, Captain? It’s almost time for noon services.”

Kullag grunted. The air suddenly felt thick and dry; Kolan glanced up and found the two men glaring at one another with searing intensity.

“No,” Kullag said at last, and with the barest sketch of a bow turned and stormed from the room.

“Gods hold your soul gently, Captain,”
sionno
Hagair said without the least trace of irony. As the heavy tread of the captain’s booted feet faded along the hallway, he sighed again, rubbing his hands over his face.

“Sannio
Kolan, shut the door and sit down. Check that he’s really gone first.”

The hallway was empty. Kolan pushed the heavy wooden door shut, dread coiling in his stomach, and returned to perch on the single chair in front of the head priest’s desk.

“I’m sorry,
sionno,”
he said, deciding that he might as well get the scolding over with and receive his punishment allotment of Recitations.

To his surprise, Hagair grimaced and settled into his own rather sturdier chair without answering right away. At last he said, “There are gradations to morality in the real world that aren’t always covered in the Creeds, Kolan. You’ve just tripped over one of those, I’m afraid.”

Kolan glanced up, startled. “You’re not angry?”

“I’m furious. But not at you. You handled that very well.” Hagair pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then dropped his hand to the desk and looked at Kolan again. “Now you tell
me
the real truth.
Do
you know where she lives?”

“Yes,
sionno,”
Kolan said promptly. “But she’s gone, with all the other lake-born.” He caught himself and added, hastily, “Isn’t she?”

Hagair’s eyes creased as though he were restraining a smile.

“No,” he said. “She stayed behind when they left. I spoke to her once or twice in the following months.”

Kolan’s mouth dropped open. “But her cottage was emp-hhmmphm.” He bit his tongue and shut his eyes, feeling hot color flooding into his face again.

Hagair coughed a few times, then said, “I don’t know about that. I haven’t seen her in some time, myself. Perhaps she left and followed her people after all. I don’t know why she stayed, so I don’t know why she would leave.”

I know why she stayed,
Kolan thought dismally. He rubbed the fingertips of his right hand against the palm of his left without really thinking about it; glanced up to find the head priest watching him with a canny, perceptive stare.

“I think that perhaps if Ellemoa is indeed still in the area,” Hagair said in an abstracted, distant tone, “someone ought to warn her that this captain is hunting her. Don’t you think?”

Kolan nodded fervently and hoped that Hagair wouldn’t send
sio
Dernhain. Ellemoa would hide from most of the senior priests, and then there would be no warning given.

In fact, Kolan couldn’t think of
anyone
that Ellemoa, if she was still present,
wouldn’t
run from—except himself. He met Hagair’s mild gaze, watched the man’s right eyebrow arch slowly, and felt a jolt of breathless excitement slam through his stomach.

“Sionno?”
he said, hardly daring to believe the hint he saw before him. Novices
—sannio—
weren’t allowed to leave the grounds. Only junior priests
—siolle—
and above could leave the grounds. Was the head priest going to break
that
rule? Was this another one of the
gradations of morality
he’d mentioned?

“Sio Dernhain has you training as a scribe, I believe?” Hagair said. “Tedious work, that. Why don’t you take the afternoon off and take a walk to clear your mind,
siolle
Kolan?”

Kolan opened his mouth to correct the head priest, then stopped. He blinked once, then again, his eyes feeling larger each time. He thought his stomach might turn inside out from sheer excitement.
Siolle.
Hagair hadn’t said that by mistake. Kolan had just been promoted to junior priest.

Dedication.
The gods were rewarding him for his dedication.
Praise the Four, praise them loud.
He would be sure to sing with more attentiveness during the next service, to let them know his gratitude.