Some time later, the taproom’s servant came, took up the coins, and cleared away Qahuar Em’s drink. Cithrin looked up at her.
“Your usual?”
Cithrin shook her head. Everything from her throat down to her belly felt solid as stone. She lifted her hand, surprised to find her soft cap still there. She pulled it off, let down her hair, and held the silver-and-lapis pin up. It seemed almost to glow with its own light in the gloom. The servant girl blinked at it.
“That’s very beautiful,” she said.
“Take it,” Cithrin said. “Bring me what you think it’s worth.”
“Magistra?”
“Fortified wine. Farmer’s beer. I don’t care. Just bring it.”
Geder
The high priest-Basrahip or possibly the Basrahip, it was hard to tell-leaned back on his leather-and-iron stool. His thick, powerful fingers rubbed at his forehead. Around them, the candles flickered and hissed, their smoke filling the room with the smell of burning fat. Geder licked his lips.
“My first tutor was a Tralgu,” he said.
Basrahip pursed his lips, considered Geder, and shook his wide head. No. Geder swallowed his delight and tried again.
“I learned to swim at the seashore.”
The broad head shook slowly. No.
“I had a favorite dog when I was young. A hunting beast named Mo.”
The high priest’s smile was beatific. His teeth seemed almost unnaturally wide. He pointed a thick finger at Geder’s chest.
“Yes,” he said.
Geder clapped his hands and laughed. It wasn’t the first time the high priest had made the demonstration, but it was always a source of amazement. No matter what the lie, no matter what voice Geder told it in, how he held his body or changed the pitch of his voice, the huge man knew which words were false and which true. He never guessed incorrectly.
“And it’s really a goddess that lets you do this?” Geder said. “Because I never came across a reference to that. The Righteous Servant was supposed to have been something Morade created, like the thirteen races and the dragon’s roads.”
“No. We were here before the dragons. When the great web was strung and the stars hung upon it, the goddess was present. The Sinir Kushku is her gift to the faithful. When the great collapse came, the dragons were fearful of her power. They fought against each other, each wishing the friendship and patronage of the Sinir Kushku for himself. The great Morade pretended an alliance, but the goddess knew when treachery came into his heart. She guided us here, where we might be safe, far from the world and its struggles, to wait until the time came for our return.”
“This is totally unlike any account I ever read,” Geder said.
“Do you doubt me?” Basrahip asked, his voice low and gentle and with the strange throbbing that seemed to inflect all his speech.
“Not at all,” Geder said. “I’m amazed! A whole era before the dragons? It’s something no one has written about. Not that I’ve ever seen.”
Outside the small stone room, the stars glittered in the sky and the crescent moon lit the cascade of stones. In the darkness, Geder could almost imagine the great stone dragon above the temple wall moving, turning its head. The odd green crickets that infested the temple sang in shuddering chorus. Geder wrapped his arms around his legs, grinning.
“I cannot tell you how pleased I am that I found this place,” Geder said.
“You are an honored man of a great nation,” the high priest said. “I am pleased that you have come so far to find our humble temple.”
Geder waved the comment away, embarrassed. It had taken the better part of a day to explain that, while he was nobility, prince was a particular title where he came from, and couldn’t be applied so widely. He’d spent most of his life being called lord and my lord, and even though it meant the same thing, honored man of a great nation left him self-conscious.
Basrahip rose and stretched as, in the distance, a harsh voice screeched out the call to night prayer. Gerder expected Basrahip to make his excuses and hurry out to lead the priests in their rituals. Instead, he paused in the doorway, candles casting shadows over his eyes.
“Tell me, Lord Geder. What was it you most hoped to find here?”
“Well, I wanted to see if I could find the Sinir mountains and some source material about the Righteous Servant for a speculative essay I’m drafting up.”
“This is what you most hoped to find?”
“Yes,” Geder said. “It is.”
“And now that you have found it, it will be enough?”
“Of course,” Geder said.
The big man’s gaze locked on him, and Geder felt a blush rising in his neck and cheeks. Basrahip waited for what seemed half a day, then shook his head.
“No,” he said gently. “No, there is something else.”
The days since Geder’s arrival at the temple had been astounding and rich and unnerving as a dream. For two full days from morning until nightfall, he had stood in the great court between the temple itself and the gated wall. A dozen pale-robed priests with long hair and full beards sat around him as he drew maps and tried to summarize centuries of history. Often when they asked questions of him, he had to admit his ignorance. How had the borders of Asterilhold and Northcoast been set? Who claimed the islands south of Birancour and west of Lyoneia? Why were the Firstblood centered in Antea, the Cinnae in Princip C’Annalde, and the Timzinae in Elassae when Tralgu and Dartinae had no particular homeland? Why were the Timzinae called bugs, the Kurtadam clickers, and the Jasuru pennies? What names were the Firstblood known by, and by whom were they hated?
They seemed particularly intrigued by the Timzinae. Geder prided himself on knowing a great deal. Having his limits exposed was humbling, but the thirst the olive-skinned men had for every scrap of information made it bearable. Every story and anecdote he gave them, they were fascinated by.
He found himself telling them his own past. His life as a boy in Rivenhalm. His father and the court in Camnipol. The Vanai campaign and how it ended and the mercenary attack on Camnipol, traveling the Keshet.
When the sun grew too hot to bear, the priests brought out a huge half-tent of stretched leather and wide wooden beams that shaded Geder and rose behind him like a gigantic hand. They hauled out wide-mouthed ceramic pots of damp sand that kept the buried gourds of water cool. Geder chewed lengths of dried goat meat spiced with salt and cinnamon, talking until his throat was hoarse. They stopped as the sun slid behind the peaks, answering the harsh, barking call. Geder’s servants made camp for him there and slept on the ground beside him. And then, on the third day when he was certain his voice would fail him, Basrahip-the Basrahip-came to him and motioned that he should follow. The huge man led him up stone stairways worked smooth as glass by generations of leather-shod feet, through the wide passage as much cave mouth as corridor.
He had expected carved stone, but Geder didn’t see any sign that the halls had been touched by hammer and chisel. They might have grown this way, as if the mountains had known they would be home to these men. Lanterns of paper and parchment sat in alcoves and spilled their light over the floors and across the curved ceilings. The air smelled rich with something Geder couldn’t quite identify, part manure and part spice. The air was so hot it stifled. He trotted through the twists and turns until the passage widened and the high priest stepped aside.
The great chamber was taller than twenty men standing one atop the other. The ceiling was lost in darkness more profound than night. And towering above them, the carved statue of a huge spider covered in beaten gold and lit by a hundred torches. Fifty men at least knelt at its base, all of them turned toward Geder, their hands folded on their shoulders. Geder stood, his mouth slack. No king in the world could boast a grander spectacle.
“The goddess,” Basrahip had said, and his voice had echoed through the space, filling it. “Mistress of truth and unbroken ruler of the world. We are blessed by her presence.”