Omer Nitty never returned to salus.
Ciamon arrived early the next morning to wait for him. He’d lost Omer in the cheering crowd at Temple Square. The noise of a city rejoicing drowned out Epoch’s whispers well into the night. The Grand Duke’s arrival filled the streets with music and the halls with gossip. Ciamon had had to stuff his ears with salted cotton to get any sleep at all.
“You’re here. Rejoice,” said Archmage Diamondhands. She stood by her usual place at the Blessed’s altar, a new book in her hands, thicker than the ordinary prayer book. “Did you count the boats today?”
“Only one worth counting, Archmage,” Ciamon answered, careful to keep his voice neutral and manner calm. Omer’s gesture had him on edge.
He’d never admit it to anyone but the Blessed, but it shamed him to think the older mage knew something he didn’t. As an ear in Gruffydd’s house, he’d prided himself on knowing who came and went from the lord’s study. He prided himself on always having a horse saddled at just the right time to catch sight of spies and secret visitors. Something so important as an imperial state visit shouldn’t have slipped past him.
“You are distracted.” Diamonhands snapped her book shut, jarring Ciamon out of his brooding. Her steely eyes fixed him where he was -- at salus, at prayer.
Ciamon readied himself, surrendering his crescent to the salt bowl on the altar. He stripped down to his trousers and folded his palla with one eye on his watch and the other on the mirrors. When Omer arrived, he would stomp on the man’s shadow to get an explanation from him. Had the slit-throat gesture been a warning or a threat?
Minutes ticked by. More penitents filled the room, bleary-eyed and sallow from a night spent celebrating. The smell of alcohol and the anise seed chews mages gnawed on to hide it filled the heated salus. The Great Dome forbid mages to imbibe alcohol on all but the highest holy days, but Ciamon guessed a few indulged the temptation. It wasn’t every day that the Emperor of Bocce sent a grandson to the Dome.
But Omer never showed. When Diamondhands clapped both hands together to begin, the hungover mages winced and Ciamon felt his own stomach turn over in dismay. Shit-heel must be gone for good…
“Look at yourselves,” said Diamondhands. She took up her paces between the lines of penitents, studying each of them with her steely eyes until they settled into the starting pose. “Take a long, good look. Feel the ground under your feet. Is it different? Are you different? There’s been a change.”
She stopped by Noemi, positioned behind Ciamon in the rows. The archmage leaned close and murmured something to her. Ciamon watched Noemi’s face in the mirror, trying to guess whether Omer had paid her a visit as well. Whatever Diamondhands said to her brought a bit of color into her cheeks.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Arms out and to the sides,” said Diamondhands. Her voice took on the Speaker’s tone and Ciamon felt the air stir with whatever spell the archmage Wove into her words. “A great visitor comes to Nymaut. Son of the son of the son of God. Three times removed from divinity. Drop the left arm down along the leg. Right arm high… Ask of yourself: What does this mean? Something? Nothing?”
Ciamon’s back protested as the first stretches tugged at the tightened muscle. He turned his eyes from Noemi’s reflection and studied his own, wondering if it would look different today. Somehow it seemed he could hear his watch ticking from where it sat atop his folded palla. As the ache of ritual drowned out his thoughts, the clicking of the gears somehow sounded like rocks tumbling from a very high cliff… Exhaustion caught up to him quickly as the prayers of the body wrung the sin from his flesh in rivulets of sweat. His many deaths stalked the edges of his awareness as black spots appeared in his vision.
And time kept pelting him with the maddening noise.
Three years. It’s been three years since I came back.
The thought intruded as he bent toward the floor for Inverted Mountain. Blood rushed into his ears, and Ciamon counted out time with each heartbeat. Beatrice would be nineteen. Griff and King Anryniel would both be twenty-one. The tan-coated filly he’d delivered in Gruffydd’s stables would be ready for her first rides…
While I am still here, doing nothing.
The door to the salus burst open, sending a gust of hot morning air through the room. Ciamon nearly toppled sideways at the sudden noise. He caught himself with a knee braced on one elbow, both hands splayed across the floor. The penitent next to him was not so lucky, tumbling to the ground in a heap of limbs.
“Ho, there! Steady… Excuse me, Leigh, I don’t mean to interrupt,” boomed the voice of Archmage Journey.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck…”
More than a few curses peppered the room. Even Diamondhands seemed to swear with her eyes as she glared at her colleague. The Great Dome’s official speaker leaned halfway into the room, still dressed in the red sackcloth robe he’d welcomed the Grand Duke in. His dyed-black fringe of hair blended into the white lower layers from where the skull had flattened it.
“And yet, you do. And still you continue,” Diamondhands said in her ordinary, blunt manner. “What resolves this lapse in truth, Brother Journey?”
“A matter of timing, only,” Journey soothed. His bug-eyed gaze swept the room, pausing briefly on Noemi and then Ciamon in turn. “Are they busy?”
Diamondhands made a small, disapproving sound in her throat. The penitents lying at her feet shifted, uncomfortable with the apparent argument between archmages playing out over their prone forms. The archmages spent much of their time together, closeted in the offices above the Rotunda. It was rare to see them speaking together outside of court, let alone arguing.
“Debatable,” Diamondhands answered at last. “There’s a quarter hour left for prayer. Perhaps one will find salvation before the day is out.”
“Let’s see if we can speed that up… Kojan. Kaltevuus -- you are Called. Gather your things and come with me,” Archmage Journey said.
Saved from fainting, Ciamon took his time buttoning up his cassock and arranging his palla over his shoulders. He tugged the sleeves to coax the fabric away from his sweaty armpits. Damp and uncomfortable, he fell into step behind Archmage Journey, keeping his steps slow to stave off unsteadiness. Watch and crescent swung from his belt as he followed Archmage Journey out from beneath the painted Hell ceiling.