Richard Byers - The Reaver

In a murky sort of way, she could even sense Kymas resisting the urge to order her to retreat lest he appear weak. Taking care to mask her own thoughts, she smiled at his predicament, and then one of the golden doors opened.

People caught their breaths and craned for a better view, but groaned and slumped with disappointment when a grown woman in gold and blue came out.

She raised her hands for silence. “We of the temple understand why you’re here,” she called. “You want to see the boy from the marketplace. But he’s conferring with the hierophant, and after that, he’ll need to rest. So there’s no point standing in the rain. Go home. We hope the lad can speak to you tomorrow.”

Some folk shouted angry retorts. Ignoring them, the sunlady gave the crowd a perfunctory blessing by sweeping her hand through an arc, then went back inside. Afterward, some people did indeed turn to leave, but others stubbornly stayed put.

Very good , said Kymas, conversing mind to mind. That verifies the rumor. The Chosen is in the temple. We’ve caught up with him at last .

And all it took, Umara reflected, was working six oarsmen to death, whereupon the senior wizard turned the corpses into zombies and made them row some more. She told herself the end justified the means, but something about it was still distasteful.

What do we do now? she asked.

We go in and fetch him, of course. Well, to be precise, you do. I’ll meet you as soon as you exit, and we’ll take him to the galley together .

With a twinge of sardonic amusement, she supposed the dangerous solo task was her just reward for secretly laughing at her superior’s inability to tread on sacred ground.

Hundreds of years old-it had begun life as Morningstar Haven, a house of worship devoted to Lathander-the temple of Amaunator was a treasure trove of stained glass windows and skylights. Of late, Niseus Zoporos rarely noticed them without experiencing a pang of sadness at the memory of how brightly they once shined.

Perhaps they were the reason he heard the start of the chanting despite the thick stone walls: “Show us the boy! Show us the boy! Show us the boy!”

A small man with a balding crown and bushy gray eyebrows, Randal Sweetgrove, First Sunlord of Westgate, sat with his collection of sundials, hourglasses, calendar stones, shadow clocks, candle clocks, and dripping clepsydras arrayed behind him. He’d been smiling at Stedd, who was sitting on the other side of his desk, but he scowled at the noise from outside. “I thought I told Miri to send those people home.”

“She tried,” Niseus said from his station by the door. “Some went. Some didn’t.”

“I can talk to them,” said Stedd, meanwhile beginning the process of squirming out of an ornate chair that was rather too deep for him. “I feel better now, and the waveservants won’t be able to get me with Sir Niseus and the other guards protecting me.”

“Please, rest,” Randal said. “There’ll be time for speeches later.”

“But I told you,” said the boy as he completed the process of planting his feet on the floor, “I have to deliver Lathander’s message and keep traveling toward Sapra. So really, I shouldn’t waste time.”

“Sit back down!” the sunlord snapped.

Stedd didn’t resume his seat, but he did falter in surprise.

“I’m not your enemy, son,” Randal continued, “quite the contrary, and sitting here talking to you, I’ve weighed your words carefully in the hope of discovering that your notions aren’t heretical after all, just awkwardly expressed.”

Stedd shook his head. “Heretical?”

“Yes, and to my regret, after giving them a fair hearing, I can interpret them no other way. The sun god didn’t change from one incarnation to another only to revert to his previous persona a mere century later. The cycle takes millennia. It always has and always will. It can never vary because it reflects the order Amaunator embodies above all else.”

“You’re wrong,” said the boy. “Lathander came back because we need him.”

“Lad, I started my priestly training when I was as young as you are now. I’ve spent forty-five years contemplating the mysteries. Don’t you see how foolish, how insolent it is to claim you understand them better than I do?”

“I understand how it could seem that way,” Stedd replied with bitter disappointment in his voice, “and if it makes you angry, I’m sorry. But I still have to do what Lathander wants. I thought you’d help me, but if you don’t want to, I’ll go.”

“Niseus,” said the sunlord, “block the door.”

To thwart and intimidate a mere child who’d come here willingly at a temple knight’s invitation? It seemed like dishonorable behavior to say the least. But Niseus had sworn an oath of obedience, and he sidestepped to place himself in front of the exit.

“Let me out!” said Stedd.

“It will be all right,” Niseus replied. He hoped that was true.

Stedd pivoted and evidently spotted the smaller door in the back wall amid all the water clocks and such. He started to scramble around Randal’s desk.

The First Sunlord rattled off an invocation and swept his hand through the arc that symbolized the sun’s daily passage across the sky. Stedd’s muscles clenched into rigid immobility, and he pitched off balance and fell.

Randal looked to Niseus. “The paralysis won’t last long,” the high priest said. “Put the boy where he can’t get up to mischief. Lock him up with his hands tied and his mouth gagged.”

As predicted, Stedd’s muscles unlocked before Niseus finished securing him, but the boy didn’t offer any resistance. He plainly possessed his share of courage, but even so, this unexpected reversal, arriving just when he imagined he’d found friends and sanctuary, had hammered the fight out of him.

Niseus tramped back through the temple to Randal’s study. “It’s done.”

The sunlord sighed. “I take it you disapprove.”

“Explain why it was necessary.”

“Where to begin … with the obvious, I suppose. Do you think the boy’s right about our god, and I’m wrong?”

“Of course not, Saer. But if you’d seen the piles of vegetables in the marketplace and the way all the people were looking at him-”

“Creating food out of thin air is fairly basic clerical magic. If you recall, you’ve seen me do it.”

I never saw you create that much, Niseus thought, but his instincts warned him that saying so would only irritate his superior. “Then are you saying the boy really is channeling the divine?”

“He’s made contact with something. It isn’t necessarily the god we worship, and even if it is, that doesn’t mean he isn’t confused about the nature of what he’s experiencing. The higher powers are mysterious. If they weren’t, the world wouldn’t need priests.”

Niseus frowned. “All right. I see that. But does it mean we had to deal with him so harshly?”

“Considering that he refused to cooperate, yes. We live in harsh times, and a time when people can’t even see the sun. Do you think we can afford to let some illiterate farm boy wander around preaching nonsense and possibly produce a full-blown schism among the faithful?”

“I suppose not. But what do we do instead? Keep him here and teach him to believe what he ought to believe? Train him to be a true sunlord?”

Randal grimaced. “That could be seen as the waste of an opportunity.”

Niseus felt a pang of foreboding. “How so?”

“The church of Umberlee is becoming far and away the most powerful faith in Westgate. You and I can wish it were otherwise, but wishing won’t change the reality. The day may soon come when the prosperity, the dignity, indeed, the very survival of other temples depends on reaching an accommodation with Whitecap Hall.”