Neither altar nor throne stood at the far end, just a cluster of men in dark robes with cowls drawn up around their faces. Bareheaded young aspirants-in a brief moment of distraction, I wondered if they were so called here-circled the priests, banging gongs, shaking bells, and casting powders into the air.
More mummery, of the sort that irked me so. I checked the seating of my veil and trailed Septio toward his fellow priests.
One looked up at our approach. He lifted a hand. The leaping racket of the aspirants halted between one breath and the next, except for the faint ringing of the settling gongs. The other priests turned to stare.
They all wore masks woven from thin strips of leather, which covered their faces in ridges running from side to side. Again, mummery, but I had to admire the theater guising. At any distance, the robes would seem empty of all but shadows.
We worshipped the Lily Goddess bareheaded and barefaced, but perhaps these men felt a need to hide from their god. I knew I would if Blackblood had been my patron.
Septio stepped into their circle. He made a bow, which courtesy was returned by a series of nods from the masked priests. I tilted my own chin, which courtesy was returned not at all.
A lesser silver pool was set into the floor at their feet. This one shivered as the great one in the center of the hall had-except where it had been a strangely liquid silver showing nothing, an image was visible in this pool.
The god magic I had been expecting. I looked.
Skinless stood on cobbled stone before a whirling cloud of white dust. The Dancing Mistress lay curled on the ground beside it. I realized when I looked at her that the stones were flags, not cobbles. Skinless was very large.
The avatar seemed hesitant as well. Frightened, even.
I looked more closely at the dust. Or sand, perhaps, for it seemed I could spy coarseness. “What is it?” I asked quietly. “Salt?”
Septio made a small noise in his throat. “Yes.”
“Why would the avatar of a pain god fear pain? Especially when his own priests embrace it?”
“Pain is still pain.” Septio looked around at his fellow priests, then said something I did not follow. Their temple language, I assumed.
The one who had first acknowledged our coming nodded. Septio switched back to Petraean. “I must go bring the avatar to the god. The Pater Primus will pray for your teacher’s release. Another sacrifice will be offered in her place. This should be sufficient.”
“ Should be?”
His eyes met mine with a cool amusement. “When are the doings of gods ever certain?”
Septio passed out of the circle into the shadows at the back of the hall. I remained with the priests, who continued to ignore me. Instead we all watched the pool. In time, the salt storm collapsed to a swirl of pale crystals on the ground. Without turning his head, the avatar reached behind and grasped the Dancing Mistress’ ankle. He dragged her through the swirl to an iron door. There he banged his fist three times.
I was surprised to hear the echo of hammering from where Septio had just passed. None of the priests seemed troubled, so I held my tongue.
The door opened with a horrid creak I could hear all too readily. Of course, who would oil the hinges that closed such monsters out?
Visible in the pool, Septio stood in Skinless’ way. His face was also masked with the horizontal leather strips, and he held a narrow iron rod high in one hand, where the avatar could see it. I realized the hook on the end was bone. Which made a kind of sense, since I had already learned at great cost that this thing could not be touched or turned by ordinary weapons.
What froze my heart was that Septio’s other hand grasped the long blond hair of a nude boy who was covered with small red scabs. The boy’s eyes were shut and his mouth hung open.
Tapping Skinless with the rod, Septio turned and walked out of the view. He dragged the boy with him. The avatar followed, dragging the Dancing Mistress. I heard the footfalls from the darkness beyond us.
The temple language echoed loudly. Septio made some prayer or address to Blackblood. The words were harsh to my ears, a tongue fit for pain. A great, slow syllable rumbled in reply, from a voice so deep, I felt the sound in my ribs and gut.
Around me, the priests sighed. Then there was silence.
I waited for whatever came next. The small pool was now so much dead silver, no different from the large one at the center of the sanctuary. The priests still stood as if expecting more.
After a while, Septio walked out of the darkness. His hands were empty-no iron rod, no Dancing Mistress, nothing. My fingers slipped down to the haft of my knife. Where is she?
I must have growled, for when Septio slipped off his mask, he seemed surprised. He turned the leather over nervously within his grasp before looking up at me. “Your teacher lives,” he said quietly. “Can you find a healer of her people?”
“Yes. I would see her now.”
“No.” This was the one I had assumed to be the Pater Primus.
The other priests stepped away on business of their own as he stripped off his mask as well. Underneath was a slightly overfed face, skin shiny and pale in the northern fashion, his eyes hazel flecked with gold. Without the robes, he might just as easily have been a fruitier from the market.
“You are a great deal of trouble, young woman.” His voice was ordinary, too. No hint of the god’s nature possessed him now.
Keeping my veil in place, I answered, “The world is a great deal of trouble. I will see my teacher now.”
“Our black moon sacrifice was taken up.”
That did not seem to be an answer. I tried not to think about the boy, and what taken up might mean. “Where is she? Or shall I search for her myself?”
His hand twitched. “Do not go wandering in the shadows of this temple if you wish to leave as whole as you came in.”
“Then bring her out to me.”
“She cannot be moved yet,” Septio said beside me.
“I will not let you see her in any case,” the Pater Primus added. “Your path is different. I think you will have more dedication if you set your feet upon it now.”
“You hold her hostage.” My grip on the knife was firm, though in truth, I had no notion how to fight a temple full of priests. Especially as they’d inured themselves to pain.
“No. She will be bound over to Federo and the Interim Council, once she is ready to be moved.”
This was his house. There was little I could do but seethe. “Then I will be away, to speed her escape from your dungeons.” I itched to find the Tavernkeep and beg a healer of him. Later I might see if I could set fire to this temple.
The Pater Primus looked thoughtfully at Septio. “Is this one with us?”
“I will not be your enemy once my teacher is free.” In truth I wasn’t sure of that, but this was no moment to argue.
“She is with us,” Septio added. “For reasons of her own, not just because her hand has been forced.”
The Pater Primus turned back to me. “I hope you carry the old spells within you, girl, because one more blade in a woman’s hand will be as one more stalk of wheat before the scythe.”
“My blade reaches farther than you think,” I snapped. Then, to Septio: “Show me the way out.”
We walked back through the hall without further ceremony. “This is more than we have done for anyone before,” Septio said.
“I suppose I should thank you, but gratitude is not in me now. Not with your Pater Primus holding the Dancing Mistress so close, like a child hoarding a festival toy.” I thought on the boy again. “Besides that, we have traded life for life. I cannot feel so well about it.”
Instead of turning into the gallery from which we had entered, Septio led me to a tall set of doors that seemed oddly familiar. I realized this was the black-faced temple that the Dancing Mistress and I had passed by.