INTERLUDE 8B: DEMONSWAY
“There is always a tension between the individual and the society in which they exist. Those to whom the individual is in ascent will break the society with paroxysmal frenzy. Those to whom the society is in ascent will strangle the individual with enforced stasis. Yet there can never be ascent. There can only be tension, the hunger for ascent. The compromise that leaves only ashes in the mouths of its makers. Can one exist upon this tension without being torn asunder? Can one subsist on ashes? The answer, as history all too often proves, is rarely yes.”
– from the ‘Magister’s Handbook’, Appendix IV
Oreltia leaned her back against one of the cold marble columns and tried in vain to control her breathing. The others would be here soon, at her invitation, and it wouldn’t be appropriate for her to appear ruffled. She was, however, and her body couldn’t take it, not like this. These were the sacred chambers beneath the altar, the shadows below the hill where only the amber mist provided illumination. Always before, the earthen scents and silence had sliced right through her frayed nerves, the honey light of the goddess healing mental wounds as well as physical. But tonight the self-deception was laid bare. Tonight the amber mist was foul – she’d feared at first it’d become poison – and the breath, the breath! It came as a painful seizing, a gasping rattle that threatened to topple her from dismay into despair.
I’m the High Healer. I should’ve known better.
She’d known – they’d all known, surely – that what they did on the thirteenth Moonday of nine-ninety-eight was illegal. Unholy. Against every tenet of the faith. And yet the conviction had been there, at the time, flowing strong through each of them. Mekesta was Mother (or Grandmother) to every soul, no matter its nature – even to Wythyldwyn. Even to the Mothers of the World, Urdaith and Tauremai, Lynastra and Daire. Her blood flowed in every vein. The darkness of the womb was the home to all, and in dying to darkness would all return. The mortal’s soul was half-demon from the outset.
So Oreltia had come to believe. It was impossible to say quite where it had come from – how the soul-sickness had first taken root. But the logic of it was simple. Illegal, unholy… but irrational? No, Oreltia would never accept that. Spreading diseases amongst the rich was a smart tactic, a secret kept by the Goddess of Secrets herself, and it’d paid dividends almost immediately, the temple’s coffers suddenly overflowing. Half the appointments were now being booked by patrons they’d seen only a month or two ago, and before they left they were being surreptitiously afflicted with yet more delayed-effect diseases. The energy for such evil acts couldn’t be channelled from the Maiden, of course – hence the prayer to the Lady of Darkness, on her dreadful midnight solstice. Hence the ritual that’d cursed the rings all their healers wore on the middle fingers of their right hands.
Hence Oreltia’s current predicament.
Faylena Seabreeze was the first to arrive. Her long, thick blond hair was still dirty-coloured rather than grey, her firm frame belying her age. The green eyes remained sharp, the brow almost unlined. Oreltia knew Faylena had a bit of a jowl hanging between her chin and neck, but it was easily covered with a scarf, as it had been tonight. Thankfully they’d barely exchanged their taut pleasantries when the final two of their doomed quartet arrived, Lady Ullton and Lady Bennerswent, the delicate half-elf-looking pair going barefoot over the soft earth of the chamber’s floor.
“Good thing you’re here,” Faylena slowly said to them in her deep voice, choosing her words with care and never taking her eyes off Oreltia. “Our chairman begins to panic.”
“What’s this?” Lady Ullton enquired, her cheery smile mirrored by the brightness of her eyes.
“Oreltia’s had a run-in with that waif –” Faylena began.
“Do you not think it would be better for you to let me tell it myself, Lena?”
Faylena shrugged and broke off. Her smile was cold, coming nowhere near her eyes.
“It’s her.” Oreltia took a deep breath. “Kanthyre Vael, the refugee from Miserdell… Don’t look at each other like that! You know that she slew the grandspawn of Ord Yset? You must understand – for all that she is second-grade, the girl has power!”
Oreltia sighed in frustration. Their scepticism was plain to read on their faces.
“I know she left us alone when she got here. She and Phanar of N’Lem were looking for a new residence, getting the lay of the land, exchanging rings…”
Oreltia felt her face twist in scorn. She’d always been a bit heavyset, even as a girl, but she never had half the paunch the outland cleric was carrying around. Nonetheless, Oreltia’s own Phanar had deserted her, long ago. Zeylis Copporn, her betrothed had been called, one of the Copporns of Westrise. Not senior-enough to stand to inherit much, but a scion of a rich house all the same. It all ended in heartbreak when he went chasing easier game, and from that day she’d known where she belonged. The Sisterhood.
“I don’t know if the Maiden sent her a vision, or something else spurred her on. However, last week Kanthyre visited one of the Sticktown temples, and evidently performed a series of miracles that cured almost everyone – everyone, you understand me? Even the brickblood sufferers.”
Now they were starting to get it, their eyes and lips parting in the other kind of disbelief – the scared kind.
“And before you ask, I’ve only just finished questioning the high priestess on duty at the time,” Oreltia continued. “No insights, no special tricks. Just the presence of the goddess. It exhausted the girl, but a second-ranker? Performing such healing?”
“What you’re suggesting –” Lady Ullton murmured.
“Please!” Oreltia snapped, raising her hand. The yellow jewel on her healer’s ring gleamed briefly, mockingly. “You’ll recall when she first came to visit us upon her arrival in the city, I mentioned my surprise that her appointment was so short, cursory. She did little more than quiz some of our junior Sisters on their training. Yet she stopped by this afternoon to discuss our ‘missions in the impoverished districts’, and her attitude was altogether different. She was harsh with me! Me! I’ve had several complaints from priestesses whose work was criticised and, in four cases, taken over by Kanthyre. Then…” She shuddered. “When she shook my hand – well –”
She relived the moment, the cleric’s firm, outland grasp on her hand. An ignoble, uncouth clutch that brought the girl’s skin into contact with the band about her middle finger…
The young Sister had stared back at her then, stared into the eyes of the High Healer, the holder of the most revered position in the entire Church. No fear in those cool eyes. But no love, either. Confusion, spades of it, and a trace of… disgust?
“Come now, Oreltia,” Lady Bennerswent murmured. “Are you certain this is not merely paranoia? I understand your concerns with regard to Sticktown –”
“You don’t!” Oreltia hissed. “This is a challenge, a warning! She knows what we are doing, and she positions herself to stop us, and when the axe is raised above your neck, even then you cannot see it!”
“What do you propose, then, High Healer?” Faylena asked.
Faylena’s coolness made Oreltia calm herself. It wouldn’t do to become overly-emotional. This was the time for rationality. A reasoned response – that was what they needed most.
“What do I propose?” She drew a deep breath. “To stop her first.”
Four words. Four simple words, at whose utterance the imagination was made real and the amber mist became caustic, burning her eyes, the inside of her mouth, nostrils – she exhaled the vile substance that was searing her lungs –
Choking, reeling, she clambered out of the chamber, the others spluttering as they followed. She couldn’t open her eyes, and was left groping her way out, listening to the sounds made by her fellows as they scrambled in her wake. Thankfully the path back to the tunnel was short, and as they reached the top of the slope the cold Mund air washed over them.
She opened her eyes a crack, and could see it ahead of her – the light of torches, and the darkness of night beyond.
Yet as they approached the end of the tunnel, still coughing and spluttering, Oreltia felt the wave of panic bear her under. Most of the other Sisters would be at the bottom of the grassy hill, resting and praying in the temple proper, and a few might have been at the top of the hill, performing a cleansing rite – but the Warden-Acolytes were just beyond the tunnel. The pair of guards would see the way their four leaders had been rejected by the goddess, the way contact with the holy mist had burned them.
No. This cannot happen.
Oreltia peered ahead with watery eyes, and waved her hands in anger at the two witnesses out there, screaming silently to Mekesta:
You cannot allow this!
It was hardly even a prayer, just four more soul-condemning words, issued in her mind as pure reflex; but the hand of the goddess, dark and divine, fell upon the hill, borne on a black wind.
On either side of the tunnel-entrance, two young, mace-armed Sisters stood guard at all hours, ensuring only those of sufficient rank entered the sacred space; Oreltia had passed the pair selected for tonight’s duty when she was on the way in. Now those two Sisters were suddenly crying out in panic, clutching their faces.
“I’m blind!” one of them whispered hoarsely, shrinking down to the ground. “Oh, Maiden, I’m blind!”
“Me too!” grunted the other; this one didn’t curl up on herself but instead started wheeling about, her arms extended. “Darkmage attack!” Her voice seemed to only get deeper and deeper as she tried to shout.
Oreltia exchanged a long, burning glance with her peers as they moved out of the tunnel.
Mekesta protects us, she thought, gulping in the cool night air, wiping her eyes.
“Dark… mage,” the second guard continued, rumbling the word as if feeling sick. She was slowing down in her frantic motions, face now twisted in pain.
“No… no, my dear ones,” Oreltia said in as soothing a tone as she could manage, stifling her coughing. “No, just a… a portent. A sign of Wythyldwyn’s displeasure. This Kanthyre –”
“High Healer!” The whispering guard recognised her voice. “O Exalted, heal me!”
Oreltia put her hand on the girl’s shoulder warmly – the four of them had recovered enough now…
“No,” came the sound of Faylena’s voice.
Oreltia turned in some surprise. She hadn’t heard Faylena speak with such harshness before.
But the words weren’t being directed at the girl. They were being directed at her.
Don’t try to heal them, she realised. That’s what Lena means. Let the curse run its course…
But whatever the four high priestesses expected to happen, it wasn’t this.
Instantaneous blindness. Deafness and muteness within a minute. Complete loss of motor control within two.
“Whatever are we to do with them?” Lady Bennerswent asked in a strangled voice.
“Wait,” Faylena said.
They watched.
After three minutes the girls were dead.
In silence, they continued to watch as Faylena commanded, each of them praying for the miracle to come to pass.
After five, the girls’ bodies and belongings were gone, transformed into threads of black matter that fluttered away on the breeze.
Oreltia caught one such shred of a Sister’s remains, squeezed the strange material until it burst into dry fragments of blood, staining her fingertips red.
“She killed them.” Lady Ullton sounded as though she were about to pass out, but she snapped to horrified attention when Oreltia glared at her. “She – the Mother, I mean, not you!”
She is scared of me, Oreltia realised.
“There was nothing else for it,” Faylena said softly, then cast Oreltia a sidelong glance. “That was a powerful hex. Did you make a promise to the Night? Without involving the rest of us?”
Faylena’s tone, challenging. No fear in those eyes either.
But no real reprimand.
Oreltia shrugged. “They had to die, and, yes, Ullton, I take full responsibility. I’ll enter it into the record that they didn’t show up for their duties tonight, and speak with their proctor about their absence in the morning. Two of them, friends, going missing together? The usual excuses will be given.”
“But – what of…?” Lady Bennerswent looked back at the tunnel behind them, the golden light floating there in the distance beneath the hill, like strands of frogspawn adrift in a pond.
“The Maiden has rejected us,” Lady Ullton said, quivering on the spot.
“Yet she accepts this harlot, this bride of a crude barbarian?” Oreltia didn’t bother to check her scorn. “Against all our tenets, Kanthyre dares lay with a man, yet her power remains. And we,” she gestured to the others in turn, “we curse the rings, and still the goddess does nothing. The light below the hill will accept us again. It’s Kanthyre – Kanthyre we must be rid of. Then everything will be okay again, I promise.”
Ullton looked every bit as dejected as Oreltia had felt when she first arrived in the sacred chambers, but, for her part, she was over it now. Ullton might’ve been broken by these events, but Faylena and Bennerswent seemed mostly unfazed – they nodded along as she explained her plan, and when she was done her peers gave her their agreement before departing for their dormitories.
All except Ullton, whose nod had come last, and wordlessly at that; a tacit confirmation that told Oreltia much.
Ullton won’t get in the way, she realised, watching her three peers make their separate ways down the hill. She won’t get in the way, but she still needs to die before this is over.
She kicked at the last bits of black, bloody material still clinging to the grass, then made her own way down the slope, heading for her bed.
She had no trouble falling asleep, but the dreams were so dark, so deep, that for minutes and minutes when she first awoke Oreltia was convinced she’d died and been reborn years later, into a world that made no sense, a world craving shape, and the touch of her athame would be its saviour, her knife’s edge existence’s salvation.
* * *
“She is coming.”
“But how do you know, Oreltia?”
She shrugged. It was three days later, and she’d seen much in her dreams since that first awakening, when Mekesta aided her in the slaying of the two guards. So much, in fact, she was having trouble separating past from future, imagination from prophecy.
She turned her head, let her eyes fall upon Faylena. The strong, vital-looking woman seemed far more ill at ease than was normal, despite their luscious surroundings. The two of them were sitting in comfortable chairs in a private lounge, looking out of the temple’s glass wall, flutes filled with orange-diluted wine in their fingers. It was an obscenely-warm afternoon for Yunara and the sun shone brilliantly across the grass, Joran’s glorious face beaming out across the city. The sky was cloudless sapphire blue. As was usual for such a nice day, many rich nobles and merchants had crawled out of their holes and were walking and talking, conducting their business conversations in the peaceful gardens before or after their healer appointments. Lots of the senior Sisters had taken their classes outdoors, and droves of lucky pupils were sitting in drifts of pink crystalblossom or on benches along the canals’ banks.
“So, did the Dark Lady send you a vision?” Faylena went on. “Was it a dream, its messages disguised? Or did she speak directly to you?”
Oreltia noted the bitterness in her rival’s tone; she turned and smiled knowingly.
“So your prayers haven’t been answered?” she asked sweetly.
Faylena frowned, and tipped her glass at her lips to hide her disappointment.
Oreltia laughed. “Oh, Lena, you do amuse me. Did you think Mother-Chaos would respond to you, when all you do is fret over your position, your hair,” she said the word with a lashing of contempt, “instead of looking at the big picture?”
“I do look at the big picture!” Faylena leaned forwards, the hunger in her eyes and voice drawing Oreltia out of her reverie with its intensity. “I was the one who supported you, when you killed the Sisters –“
“That really was the goddess, you know –“
“Stop it! And before we even created the ritual, it was me who brought in Bennerswent…”
Oreltia chuckled, hearing Faylena’s own derision made manifest. If there was one topic on which Oreltia and Faylena saw eye-to-eye, it was despising the highborn.
“Why won’t you let me in? Why do you insist on keeping me at arm’s-length, when all this is going on?”
“Because,” Oreltia took a sip of the citrus wine, “it irks you.”
“You’re damn right it irks me! If you’re willing to gamble our temple –“
“Our temple, our careers, are in no danger. I have assurances.” She set down her glass, folded her hands neatly in her lap and sighed. “You want my position, Lena, but what you really crave is ascendancy. Luckily, I’ve been shown a way for you to have it.”
Faylena’s lower lip started to wobble. “H-High Healer of Wythyldwyn, me?”
Oreltia shook her head firmly. “You’ll see.”
Her vision had shown Faylena consumed in black fire, coils of smoke lifting off into the sky. If that wasn’t ascendancy, she didn’t know what was. And it was a better end than Ullton and Bennerswent received. Theirs hadn’t been half as fast as Faylena’s would be – the Mother must have been feeling merciful towards her for some reason.
“Come on.” Oreltia got to her feet. “She’ll be here in a few minutes. Best we’re ready for her at the gates.”
They made their way out of the lounge and along the corridor towards the doors. The white-belted initiates all bowed deeply as they passed by, but the priests and high priests (with belts of silver and gold respectively) merely gave a humble head-nod, as was their right. The Temple of Compassion itself was mostly a one-floor structure, and so it didn’t require any stair-climbing to find those she sought. On her way into battle, Oreltia collected certain Sisters – those she knew to be dependable, those who would take her side in any argument. Sister Morrowost, chief augur. Priestess Xalior, treasurer. Lady Bhelios, High Priestess of Her Inviolable Arms, the shrine on Danamir Row. A simple gesture and smile was enough to invite their company, and she regarded them with satisfaction as they exchanged mystified glances with one another, Faylena alone keeping her eyes to herself.
Once the five of them were together, the air of superiority gathered tight about them, many of those they passed had jealousy written on their faces as they bowed their heads. Oreltia led them through the wide-open doors at the top of the entryway, out into the brilliant winter sunlight. It was every bit as warm as it looked from indoors, save for when the wind blew and she felt the shivers race deliciously up her spine. Chit-chatting about the weather, they descended the broad, low stair that took them to the path and then strolled along it, crossing the bridge and heading to the gates. Only briefly did one of them, Sister Morrowost, whisper about the rumours concerning the enigmatic deaths of two of the church-leaders in the last three days. Oreltia gave the answer by rote now: the magisters had gone away baffled and were apparently investigating potential darkmage involvement. Morrowost’s own prayers hadn’t availed her, despite her predilection for visions; the High Healer kept her face straight, but internally she shrilled in triumph:
Again, the Mother of Darkness defeats the Maiden of Light! Even here in these hallowed halls, she cannot see the slaughter of her children!
When they reached the great gateway with its latticework of silver bars depicting hundreds and hundreds of open hands, the Warden-Sister on duty bowed smartly. She directed her band of initiates with a series of crisp commands; the few common folk entering and leaving, rich men and women no doubt, were swiftly and politely shooed-aside, making space for the quintet of eminent Sisters to depart.
Oreltia crossed the threshold and stepped out beyond the shadows of the disused gatehouse, then halted her group there, not ten feet onto Dandelion Way, drawing some surprised looks from the Warden-Sister and her retinue just behind the delicate bars of the gate.
Some surprised looks from the nearby magisters, too, Oreltia noted. They were the ones to watch. They were outside her ability to control, and the Magisterium diviners who would later be tasked with finding out what happened here today would lend much credence to their observations and opinions.
Just have to make sure it looks right. Looks like Wythyldwyn’s doing.
Not that that should prove too difficult. Aside from the mist turning a bit caustic under the hill, there wasn’t a single indication Oreltia had been spurned by her chosen deity. She could still cleanse water, summon light, heal wounds… Once Kanthyre had been chastised, everything would go back to normal.
“If you’d pardon my asking,” Lady Bhelios said, looking square at her, elvish cheeks blooming with a soft blush, “High Healer, what in the name of Celestium are we doing here in the street?”
“The work of the goddess,” Faylena said at once, her tone fervent, her faith undeniable.
“Excommunication,” Oreltia gave her own answer, packaged up neatly in a single word.
“Excommunication?” Lady Bhelios’s lineless brow furrowed. “Of whom, pray tell?”
Oreltia pointed down the road. “Need you truly ask? The whore!”
Kanthyre was on her way, and she was in a dishevelled state; Oreltia was certain it wasn’t just her own bias making her misinterpret the sight before her. The outland cleric waddled with reluctance in every footfall, her cloak swishing side-to-side. The tangles of copper-orange hair hung limply on her shoulders, knotted and dark with perspiration; sweat was running freely down her forehead, her round cheeks. Every now and again Kanthyre pawed at her weary face with the cuff of one of her long sleeves, but it was no good; the gleaming rivulets sprang up again in seconds, tracing glistening lines across her skin. She looked truly miserable, exhausted, at the end of her rope.
The medallion of the Maiden at her neck was glowing faintly, however.
Troubling.
She only seemed to notice the five of them when she was ten yards away; she looked up, then almost stumbled, seeing them in the street in front of her.
Oreltia fought down the urge to grin.
“So!” she called. “The dell-dweller returns! Welcome, Sister Vael. What can we do for you today, dragonslayer?”
Kanthyre halted, and looked left and right. Oreltia and her renowned priestesses had already started to draw something of a crowd, watching from afar – then there were the gate-guards, the magisters…
Let’s see how you fare with an audience hanging on your every word, girl.
She wouldn’t even meet Oreltia’s eyes. “Ex… excommunication,” Kanthyre said through numb lips, staring down at the scintillating paving stones between her feet.
She heard me?
Oreltia wrinkled her nose. “Indeed, Sister Vael. First you must account for your transgressions. Breaking your vow of chastity –”
“A disgrace,” Lady Bhelios murmured.
“Obscenity!” Priestess Xalior snapped.
“– should be your primary concern,” Oreltia continued smoothly. “I understand that the dreamers of Yune were willing to perform the ceremony –”
“Blasphemers…”
“Revolting!”
“– but where is the contrition, Sister Vael? Where is your learning? Surely you knew that you should have removed your insignia the moment you turned to a man –”
The two sycophants behind her made almost identical choking sounds.
“– and yet you continued in your ministry regardless. This wilful recklessness alone has brought you to the Temple’s gates.”
Oreltia felt the weight of all the eyes on her. She forced a sweet smile onto her lips.
“Yet Wythyldwyn is not the Maiden of Compassion for naught! Give up the symbol of your power, and submit your marriage for dissolution. After a moon or two in acts of penitence – I’m sorry, what was that?” Kanthyre had spoken, too quiet, too meek to be heard under Oreltia’s tirade. “You’ll have to speak up, Sister, unless you wish to accompany me inside presently? We can talk in private, if you wish.”
“Th-this hurts, more than anything I’ve ever had to do.” Kanthyre finally met her eyes, and she saw the girl was barely holding back a flood of tears.
“I know, Sister.” Oreltia felt her smile become a smirk.
“It’s for the best,” Morrowost said softly, pityingly.
“No – I mean… excommunication.” Kanthyre gulped in air, then slowly drew her wet hair back behind her ears, clearing it from her face. “I’m afraid we can’t go inside. You can’t, anyway. Not anymore. Your – your authority’s revoked, Oreltia Overbrent. You are the High Healer of Wythyldwyn no longer.”
A chorus of laughter rang out.
“And who are you, to speak to the Exalted with such irreverence?” Lady Bhelios asked.
“The new High Healer,” the foreigner replied.
Laughter erupted once more, but Oreltia had had enough.
“Still your tongue, wench!” She pointed, arm outstretched, a single finger levelled at the girl like a sword in judgement. “I do not know how things were done in the dell of miseries which spawned you, but here in the heart of civilisation we have laws against sacrilege. Failure to recognise my station is not only a sin, parting you from the Maiden’s light, but also a crime, for which the watch themselves shall sanction you. Yet despite this, once more according to her will, I extend the hand of mercy for all to witness.” She stopped pointing, instead holding her palm face-up as though to reach across the street, beckon the cleric closer. “You are a stranger to our ways, a battle-priest of the wilderness. Come inside, confess, and find the peace you deserve in the Maiden’s warm, loving arms.”
Come inside. Confess. Find the peace you deserve in the grasp of the Mother’s cold, uncaring embrace.
“Very well.” Kanthyre’s voice and eyes were harder now, and she moved towards the gates. “As you say, Oreltia.”
There, again, that hateful recalcitrance, the smarmy ease of her familiarity. Oreltia would’ve struck her right then and there if not for the onlookers.
Still, she mused as she too turned to re-enter the temple, the watchers serve their purpose. None can doubt my fairness. And if she should disappear tonight, without a trace, what will the magisters say then? They shall have no evidence – Mekesta will see to that, swallowing it up in her darkness – and –
She froze. Kanthyre was on the other side of the threshold, framed against the green and silver of the grounds, the Warden-Sister hovering uncertainly just behind her.
Oreltia was on the outside, in the shadow of the gatehouse, and suddenly the wind blew long and cold, robbing the air of its wintry warmth. She was lifting her foot – she was trying to lift her foot – but the motion that would bring her striding forwards simply didn’t materialise. It was like trying to feed herself with her third hand – there was no muscle there, no limb to carry out the command.
As the instant became a second, became two seconds, she started to panic. Quickly she shifted her weight, tried the other leg.
Nothing.
They will notice! They –
“High Healer?” Sister Morrowost said dubiously from behind her.
“Yes,” Kanthyre answered. Voice like a diamond-edged blade.
Oreltia met the girl’s eyes, then looked away, her soul sliced by the contact.
She couldn’t look at Kanthyre. She shut her eyes instead, sensing the waves of bewilderment spreading over everyone present – why does the Exalted not proceed? what possesses her to let this upstart mock her so? – and she no longer cared. She felt the hatred in her soul rising, like gone-off milk in her gullet, like flames through a dry summer canopy – it was irresistible, its absence inconceivable –
“This is some spell!” she hissed. “A sorcerous shield!”
“You bearing her ill-will?” one of the nearby magisters asked, their confusion plain in their voice.
“I can’t see any shields, m’lady,” another said, more respectfully.
“Then black magic, some dark god’s doing,” Lady Bhelios intoned from behind Oreltia, quiet, implacable. “Arrest the girl at once.”
Oreltia still had her eyes closed, but the pulse of golden light that Kanthyre emitted wasn’t just some glamour, a snatch of illumination. It entered her heart, its purity making her reel. She’d forgotten what it was like, Wythyldwyn’s true power. She thought she knew, but she didn’t. Bit by bit, for months, maybe years, she’d watered down the potency of her faith, replacing it with mundane concerns, replacing it with…
The darkness.
“Can you do that?” Kanthyre asked gently. “Can you call on the goddess for us all to witness?”
Oreltia knew in that moment that she couldn’t. The light was gone from her now. Now she could only take light away, make them blind like her.
She was still screwing her eyes shut, so that she wouldn’t have to see their faces, the stupid looks of horror as they realised what was happening. The initiates with the Warden-Sister – the onlookers on the street – she could sense their disappointment in her.
I – don’t – care!
The moment Oreltia opened her mouth to speak, birth a tirade of scorching spite that would leave no room for doubt as to her new affiliation – it was then that Kanthyre chose to say the words some part of her had always been waiting to hear, cutting the former Exalted off before she could begin.
“Miss Overbrent. The survival of the church was never in question. Healing will always be needed. The Faith was never in danger. What was it that made you decide to fracture the Maiden’s blessings on the healer’s rings? Was it greed? Was it a desire for yet-greater eminence, having the ears of your rulers, stealing the secrets of princes? For what, Oreltia? For what exactly did you throw it all away?”
Oreltia screamed in frustration, opening her eyes at last. Her desire to cause this girl’s torment finally manifested as she flung out her hands, aiming them like weapons, clawing at the air with twisted fingers.
“Just die!” she shrieked.
The black fire from her dreams leapt up around Kanthyre’s feet, not a circle like the flames of sorcerers – it was a star, a huge star with thirteen points that sent the temple guards stumbling back in fright, and at its centre was the sweat-soaked white robe of the cleric.
The flickering tongues of darkness rose up – four feet, six, eight, ten – then closed in, falling down on the pretender like thirteen blades.
Yet when the black fire spent itself, splashing aside and petering out in the space of instants, Kanthyre remained. The amber light of the goddess was upon her, within her, suffusing her flesh, pouring out from her eyes.
Oreltia was forced to look away again.
A full fifty percent of those watching must’ve started running, yelling – the magisters had glyphstones in their hands, another was going for a wand – the initiates’ looks not those of disappointment and loss but of betrayal and fury –
“I stand on the sacred earth.” The cleric’s voice was solemn, self-assured. “Your goddess cannot harm me here –”
“Step forth, then! Contest me on even ground!”
Oreltia heard the words split her lips, felt the savage grin that accompanied them. She stepped back, inviting the upstart into Dandelion Way; she turned, a quick glance telling her that Morrowost, Xalior and Bhelios had deserted her. The trio had retreated into the crowd, just three more shocked onlookers now. But Faylena still had her back – Lena was still close by, her expression inscrutable –
Oreltia returned her gaze to Kanthyre only to stumble, seeing the gold-glowing cleric step out of the gateway towards her, pressing her back with sheer presence. The hair which had hung wet and limp now cascaded in ripples of warm wind. The lines of fatigue and doubt on the cleric’s face had been smoothed away, replaced by an expression of righteous resolve. In her hands were the glittering mace whose handle had gone unnoticed amongst the folds of her cloak, and her medallion with its chain wrapped about her fingers.
“The Starless will not save you,” Kanthyre shouted. The change that had come over her was terrifying. “They bear no love for their tools, and readily melt them down to make new ones once they break from wear. Reject this path before it is too late!”
“They may not save me,” Oreltia snarled, “but they will slay you regardless!”
She put out her hands once more, fingers like talons, and this time the black fire came crackling out from inside her, her spirit itself working as the conduit for the waves of hateful darkness that would reduce the Sister of Wythyldwyn to bloody cinders.
Yet Kanthyre merely put out her medallion and glanced aside, trusting to the shell of shining mist the holy symbol evoked to protect her.
It did. The black fire broke apart and fell smoking to the paving-stones, unable to penetrate the softly-stirring amber smear.
Oreltia gritted her teeth and redoubled her efforts, the hate flowing freely, oh so freely –
Why is she not even looking at me! she howled internally.
Faylena – it was to gaze at Faylena that Kanthyre was looking aside.
“Do you stand by her?” the cleric roared over the snapping and sputtering of darkness upon light.
Faylena merely smiled thinly.
“So be it,” Kanthyre said.
She raised the mace, and swung it at Oreltia, only the once.
Oreltia wasn’t even struck by it, not bodily – as far as she could see with her eyes, it merely swept in a downwards arc through the air in front of her. Yards away.
She didn’t feel anything, but the physical effect of the spiritual blow was far greater than she’d anticipated. It was as though she’d been knocked down by a carriage – one moment she was emanating gouts of searing shadow, confronting her enemy head-on –
The next she was flat on her back, staring up at that boastful blue sky.
Not one single muscle responded to her; every part of her body was unfamiliar, unresponsive territory. She heard the cries of terror receding, becoming cries of awe, cheers.
“What of you, Miss Seabreeze?” she caught the new High Healer saying. The form of address wasn’t lost on her, and wouldn’t be lost on Faylena either.
Then – it was the strangest thing. The sound of Oreltia’s colleague sighing.
“Fourteen years.” Faylena didn’t actually sound that frustrated, but it could be inferred. “Fourteen years, wasted. It was all about the power to you, wasn’t it, Oreltia? Money, authority, all of the bowing and scraping – how banal all of your amusements have seemed to me, down the years. I sculpted you, perfected you, only to see you break at a young girl’s displeasure! Ah, you never could’ve hoped to comprehend the Mother’s goals – you were a useful tool, nothing more. In that at least this girl speaks truth; your soul will go screaming through the shadowland, and once your journey’s done, once you come home, you will be put in the furnace. I’ll even visit, ensure your comfort personally.”
Oreltia didn’t see what happened next, but she could infer it all the same, given her dreams. She heard the rush of feet as Kanthyre strode forwards, the hollow hiss of the black flame as it consumed Faylena –
Consumed her, not to destroy her but to remove her –
And then the instigator of this whole debacle was gone.
In the aftermath of her rival’s unholy escape, Oreltia heard many voices: some addressed her, and she couldn’t reply, couldn’t even croak a response; many more spoke of her. The babbling only seemed to increase, bigger and bigger crowds gathering in what seemed to be seconds.
She lay there paralysed, looking up at the blue winter sky, and knew that she was hated. Knew that she was reviled. Knew that her name would go down in history as a black mark, one never to bestow upon your child unless it carried the curse, the curse of Mother-Chaos and the fallen priestess of Wythyldwyn who’d once borne it to her doom.
“What will they do with her?” Kanthyre was saying in a low voice.
I know what they’ll do with me…
“She is a cultist.” Morrowost’s voice was wavering on the cusp of tears. “I – they’ll behead her, for certain… If I had only seen –”
“If the Maiden had shown you in advance, you would’ve died like those who disappeared. You wouldn’t have been able to keep it secret – that’s not your way, is it? You’re Sandanya, right? She’s shown you to me.”
“Sister Sandanya Morrowost, yes… High Healer.”
“Don’t hold back your tears, Sandanya. You weep not for the demon, but for the spirit it consumed. All people are good. All people are corruptible. Oreltia was a person once, and could be again… As to my new position, well – consult with the goddess at your leisure. None of the faithful who do so will be left in any doubt. It’s your own new position that’s going to cause you some alarm.”
“My… my own…? But I never wanted –”
“That’s part of why you’re going to be a perfect fit, I think. There’s going to be a lot of changes around here, unfortunately, and you’re going to have to help me make them. I’ve the strangest notion we’re about to lose almost all of the church leadership in a single evening. I mean, by resignations, of course…”
Kanthyre must’ve indicated Priestess Xalior and Lady Bhelios, because the two burst into exclamations of outrage.
Oreltia caught the Warden-Sister at the gate saying to herself in a hushed voice, “Praise the Maiden.”
“We’re going to heal the sick, for free,” Kanthyre was continuing, “aid the champions in Incursions, no matter where they take place… And you can start by spreading the word immediately that your healer’s rings are hexed, and must be purified in seven-stage light before they’re used again…”
How foolish is this girl! Oreltia exulted from her back. She dares speak openly of this, in front of so many? Who will trust her Church now?
She longed to laugh.
“… The Sisterhood of Mund has fallen so low, it has harboured acolytes of the Cult of the Night – in its upper ranks – for decades. We have abandoned our ways. No longer. I intend to set up talks with the chief priests of the other gods, to take place soon. It’s time we put things right in this city.”
There was a great deal of semi-suspicious murmuring from the crowd, but after a few seconds those listening seemed to approve of the new High Healer’s little speech. Applause broke out, and prayers were spoken – then prayers became hymns, and someone even found a flute; within a matter of moments it sounded like there was an impromptu inauguration ceremony going on right there in the street.
Oreltia closed her eyes on the bitter sky, felt the tears streak down the sides of her head just over her ears. She couldn’t sob – she could hardly move – but she could still cry.
An unknown amount of time later – it might’ve only been a minute or two since Kanthyre swung the mace at her, or it might’ve been a century – her replacement leant her head down over Oreltia, sun-dried hair swishing across her nose and cheeks. She opened her eyes, to see the cleric’s face right there, regarding Oreltia with the same nervous, upset gaze she’d worn when she’d first waddled up the street towards them.
“Oreltia.” The girl spoke so softly, she suspected only the two of them could hear her. “Oreltia, move your eyes up and down for yes, side to side for no. Are you capable of whatever it is your friend did to escape?”
Oreltia just stared.
“I have no interest in being part of your death!”
Well you should’ve thought about that sooner!
She continued to stare, hoping her hatred came through in her gaze, hoping the twisted smile made it partially onto her lips.
From the look of increasing horror on Kanthyre’s features, she thought it did.
Oreltia Overbrent comforted herself with that thought, that last vision of the usurper’s face, as she was hurled with no concern for her dignity into a cart, her knees and lower legs left exposed. She comforted herself with it as she was slung into a spell-warded cell. She even found comfort in it when her neck was pressed painfully into the wooden slot, the axe raised high above her head, so high she couldn’t see it.
Then it fell, and her soul was sent on its way, screaming into the shadowland as Lena promised, all thoughts of comfort left behind within the severed head, rolling across the planks in the fierce glare of the sun.
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