Roland Green: Knights of the Sword

Since Mishakal was supposed to be a rather chaste goddess, Darin decided in favor of her being clothed. He also decided that the carver had never seen a woman, clothed or not.

Then he knocked.

Two half-grown girls supporting an older man who limped but looked otherwise hale appeared in the doorway. “Bless you, Sirbones,” one of them said. “I don’t know what Father would have-oh!”

Darin stepped aside. The others scurried past, unable to take their eyes off his towering form. It was a while before he noticed a small man with a sleek and full head of silver hair standing in the doorway.

“Ah-you are Sirbones?”

“Oh. Yes. Hurvo warned me you were coming. He was not quite telling the truth about my being done with the villagers. However, I have worked on all the wounded as well as the regular sick. Kyloth was my last for the day, and for him it would take a greater healer than I to give him back his youthful pace. The one who healed his ankle the first time left some of the spell bound into the bone, which no doubt seemed a good idea at the time and might have been if the healing had been properly performed-”

Eventually Darin was able to get the priest’s attention, though not before he’d begun to feel as if he were listening to an elderly gnome recite his entire name. In fact, Sirbones did look rather like an oversized gnome, much as Hurvo resembled a large dwarf-had there been mixing of blood with more than elves around here in days not only long past but wholly forgotten?

A fine jest, if some of those in Dinsas who loathe nonhumans have themselves the blood of elves or gnomes, kender or dwarves!

However, a chief with men in need of healing has no time for jests, or for listening to the babble of clerics. A chief who has sworn not to harm priests-and knows that threats against them are as useless as threats against kender-also must be exceedingly patient.

Darin was sure that spring had turned to summer before Sirbones finally ran silent. The priest looked up at the towering figure before him and said, in an entirely different tone of voice, “How many men have you who need healing, and what are their hurts?”

Darin wasted no time gaping, the more so in that the roster of his wounded was always the first thing he rooted in his memory after a battle. He could have recited it drunk or dying, and now spoke swiftly.

Almost before he was aware that the priest had vanished, Sirbones reappeared, carrying his staff and a small bag. The staff seemed to be plain, polished wood, with a blue glass tip-except that the glass glowed, was faceted like a jewel, and seemed to have some tiny figure dancing within its blueness.

“Lead me to your men.”

“I must remain within the walls until we are done,” Darin said. He pulled out a ring and handed it to the cleric. It was silver, with a dolphin engraved upon it. Waydol had worn it upon the little finger of his left hand, until he gave it to Darin, who had just turned ten.

“This is a sign that you come with my permission, and your healing is lawful.” Darin tried to glower. “If it is not, and you live long enough in the face of my men’s wrath-”

“Of course, of course. A traveling man am I, and I have fared in far lands and with men less courteous than yourself. I remember once-”

Darin pointed at the gate and muttered a frantic prayer to various gods that Sirbones was not going to go maundering again.

By the time the prayer was finished, the cleric was gone.

* * * * *

Darin did not see the priest of Mishakal again until the next morning. When he and the men inside the village gathered the loot and their breakfasts and marched out, Sirbones had already finished with the wounded raiders. None of them were quite as fit as they had been before wounds, but all could fight and march.

“I wonder if that healer is weak, or not giving us his best,” Stalker said.

“Treachery is hard to believe in a priest of Mishakal,” Darin said, then made a gesture of aversion for good measure. “As for being weak or fumbling-anyone can suffer that fate. It is something beyond even healers.”

Stalker seemed about to reply, but then one of the raiders came up with a jug of spring water, into which he had mixed cider and crumbled herbs. It was a refreshing drink that not only killed Darin’s last thirst but made him aware of how long he had labored (it had hardly been worthy of the name “fighting”) since dawn.

Darin drew off his gauntlets, wrapped them in his cloak to make a rough pillow, lay down, and was almost instantly asleep.

He awoke to see Sirbones standing almost over him, so close that Darin could have grabbed an ankle and snatched the little priest off his feet. Then he heard the sound of wailing and lamenting from the village.

He leaped to his feet and rested a hand on his sword hilt. Actually drawing it might lead him to the wrong conclusion.

“Who is weeping, and why?”

“Oh, it is the folk of Dinsas. They grieve for themselves, and for me.”

“You?” Darin looked down at the priest. He seemed hale enough, but then with priests of Mishakal this could be an illusion.

Sirbones laughed. It was the laugh of a younger man than he had seemed to be last night. Darin also noticed for the first time that Sirbones seemed ready for traveling. He wore trousers and a loose coat, had a pack on his back and several pouches on a well-made belt, and had his healing staff slung across the pack and wore stout shoes instead of sandals on his feet. In one hand he carried a silver-headed walking stick.

“No. I am not sick or dead, and you are not talking to either a ghost or a carrier of plague. You are merely talking to one who wishes to continue his journey with you.”

The way Sirbones said “journey” seemed to give the word ritual significance. Darin remembered that each priest of Mishakal had to go wandering for a few years, as part of his priesthood. He supposed that he should be honored, and he would certainly be grateful if the priest continued to do good work and did not talk men to death as fast as he healed them.

“Indeed. What have the villagers to say to this?”

“Nothing.” Then Sirbones added hastily, “That is to say, they cannot go against my duties as a priest of Mishakal and the will of the goddess. They are not happy, however, and predict dire fates if I go with you into the Minotaur’s lair.”

“Waydol does not have a lair,” Darin said. “He lives in a hut overlooking the seashore, like a civilized being. Nor will he hurt you, unless you talk to him at the same length as you have talked to me.”

“Ah, that is a vice that comes when one has much of one’s own company,” Sirbones said. “But if one has no love for oneself, one is a poor healer, for one loves not others. Also, one’s own company is what one finds most often on one’s journey.”

“How long ago did you begin your journey, if that is a lawful question?”

“Certainly,” Sirbones said. “I left the Three Lakes Temple in Solamnia twenty-six years ago this summer.”

“How long were you on the journey before you returned to the temple?”

“I have yet to return, young giant. I found that the farther I stayed from temples, the more the goddess favored me. I have been in Dinsas a full three years, which is the longest I have stayed in one place since I left the temple. It was time for me to move on.”

Darin squatted. This brought his eyes almost to a level with Sirbones’s. “I am not sure that I should not take back the-our prizes from last night. If I cannot ask you to return-”

Sirbones shook his head emphatically. “You cannot. Nor are you bound by any oath to return the villagers’ wealth, which is but a fraction of what they possess. It would displease your men, and you will need their loyalty on the long journey home.