Jay Lake - Green

“More fool you,” I told him quietly. “I was worried. Do you know what those bones were on his chest?”

“He said. Priests’ knuckles.” Septio grinned. I realized he was still as much an overgrown boy as he was a man. “I should like to see him try some tricks in our halls.”

“Did he?”

“No. He looked at the large scrying pond and called up a shadowed forest.” Despite his laughing demeanor, Septio grew very serious. “I have never seen an outsider do that. Even our priests have trouble with the pond.”

“The long puddle of quicksilver at the middle of your sanctuary?”

“Uh… yes.” He seemed surprised that I understood that secret.

“What of the Dancing Mistress?”

“When I took her from the god, I put her in the Hall of Masks. It is not so good a place for visitors, but also is sheltered from the

… eccentricities, I should say, of the divine. She was in no position to respond.”

“Why could I not go there?”

“I said, it is no place for visitors.”

My hands began to tremble. “You took the Rectifier within.”

“He is a spirit warrior of his people. And not human, besides. The eyeless faces would not trouble him. Even if they did, he would shed the disturbance as a teal sheds water.”

Eyeless faces. “So what is her state?”

“Her injuries are not life threatening, though she should spend a week or two abed, the Rectifier says. He fears far more for the state of her soulpath. He told me to imagine a human whose spirit has been shredded and scattered. Then the Tavernkeep arrived with a healer of his people, and a little mob besides. They seemed ready to fight. Her wounds were treated, and she was bathed in the manner of their people.”

I stopped walking, close enough to our destination that the smell of horses was rank in my nostrils. “I would see her before we set out on our journey.”

“The Pater Primus has forbidden it.”

The hair on my neck prickled. “He does not control me.”

“No, no,” Septio said. “He has sent word that the Dancing Mistress is to be kept under the protection of the Interim Council.”

I did not like that much, but I did not see an easy way around it without looking like a fool or, worse, a child. I had accepted a task from the Interim Council. Having the Dancing Mistress recovering under Federo’s watch might give them a chance to grow closer together, when their rift had been because of me. Following the path I already pursued was best for everyone.

Though it sounded good, I didn’t really believe that. Something was still wrong here. In that moment, I couldn’t say what with sufficient conviction to turn around and go back to the Textile Bourse with a demand to see her, and I was mistrustful of my suspicions.

Now I wish I had listened to myself, but at that time, I did not know my friends from my enemies. So I followed Septio into the ostlery and mounted a horse for distance for the first time in my life.

Whoever conceived of the horse as a form of transport must have been a man with no feet. Though I’d been educated in the details of harness and tack, presentation and points, and had sat atop a mincing mare trained within an inch of her life, that had all been at the Pomegranate Court, where the distance to be ridden was less than a stone’s throw, and everything was for the sake of appearance.

The substance of being perched high on the bony back of a cantankerous nag with poor digestion and a desire to put its head down every time it rushed toward the bottom of a slope was quite different. I sat far too tall for my sense of balance. The horse paid no mind to my efforts at control. Even with the leather trousers and boots the ostler had provided me, the pressures of the saddle raised aches in muscles of which I had never before been aware.

Septio laughed to see me stagger bowlegged as I dismounted at the end of our first afternoon’s ride. “My thighs shake a bit after riding over country,” he said with a grin, “but you have the Vitus dance.”

“If you hold still, I’ll be happy to kill you,” I growled.

Instead he unslung a blanket, then cleared some stones to lay it down. “Here. Lie flat a bit. I’ll care for the horses.”

I did as he said, and found myself most relieved not to be attempting the vertical for a while. My horse’s head swung over me as Septio turned it away. I swear the wretched beast was laughing. The aches would pass, I knew, for every part of my body had ached at some time. I was not so sure about the smell.

Give me a ship, any time, or the two feet with which I had been born.

Septio pulled loose the bags we’d found waiting for us at the ostlery, then unsaddled the horses. Once they were freed of their burdens, he watered them, brushed them, then staked them out to crop at the thick grass that grew along the edge of the stand of trees in which we camped. A stream just between the boles explained why the grove was here, in a rising valley with mostly low bushes and scrub grass.

I continued to lie still as Septio arranged our camp and made a fire. He drew a small packet from his satchel and shook some powder over the sticks and bracken. When he set a lucifer match to it, the fire flared like a war among the insects.

“What is that?”

“Much the same stuff that is used in pistols,” he told me. “Also festival crackers. It does not work so well when it is wet, but dry it is wonderful.”

“I did not realize that people carried that about.”

“Few do.” Septio grinned. “An amusement among the temples, though it has serious uses as well.”

He tended his fire a little while to make sure the flames were true. Once satisfied, he unpacked the saddlebags. I continued to watch him until he began wrestling with the problem of boiling some water.

Groaning, I sat up. “I will cook.”

“That is not only a woman’s duty.” He looked down at the small pan before him.

“Dolt, I’m good at it. You manage the horrid beasts, I’ll make dinner. We each have done our part that way, yes?”

He nodded.

Septio is not so bad, I thought a while later as I cut riverbank shallots into the developing stew. He was taking care of our situation.

“Tell me,” I said. “What did you mean about the sacrifice being taken up?” This was not an issue I wanted to visit too closely, but I could not just let it go.

“When people are very sick or injured…” His voice was slow, thoughtful. “When they are in great pain, and there is only poppy to be given them by the healers at the Temple of Caddyce, sometimes a family will bring their father or son to the Algeficic Temple.”

“Because of the pain?”

“Because of the pain. Instead of a suffering, a wasting of body and soul, it can become a sacrament. Some good may be found.” He idly rearranged the firewood as he spoke, choosing his words with care. “As I told you, pain is part of life. A god such as Blackblood guards many doors for the people. Those who worship him, as well as those who pretend he does not exist. Even those who have never heard of him.”

“So this man or boy suffers on your altar?”

“He suffers before the god arrives. Blackblood takes this up, takes him up. Sometimes…” Now I got a long, slow look, almost pleading. “Sometimes the pain is taken up, but the man or boy remains.”

I felt a chill down my spine as the drawing dusk stole the light around us. “What becomes of him then?”

“He lives to serve the temple.”

Ahh. Like the Bone Door on the alleyside of the temple of the Lily Goddess, only much more difficult to pass through. “As you did once,” I said, my voice very soft. My heart flooded with pity for him.

“As I did once.”

“Do you remember your family?”