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.
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“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.”
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