He sipped at his cup of wine, pleased to note that the trembling in his fingers had finally ceased. The eruption of power from Kurald Galain that had taken him so unawares had vanished, leaving little more than a vague unease that only slightly soured the taste of the wine. Strange disturbances these nights, — who could say their portent?
The High Priestess might have an idea or two, he suspected, although the punctuation of every statement from her never changed, now, did it? Half smiling, he sipped again at his drink.
Seerdomin frowned and sat back. ‘This is an assault I cannot survive,’ he pronounced. ‘The Jester’s deceit was well played, Spinnock. There was no anticipating that.’
‘Truly?’ Spinnock asked. ‘With these allies here?’
Seerdomin grimaced at the other two players, then grunted a sour laugh. ‘Ah, yes, I see your point. That kelyk takes their minds, I think.’
‘Sharpens, just so you know,’ said Garsten, licking his stained lips. ‘Although I’d swear, some nights it’s more potent than other times, wouldn’t you say so, Fuldit?’
‘Eh? Yah, s’pose so. When you gonna move den, Seerdomin? Eh? Resto, bring us another bottle!’
‘Perhaps,’ muttered Seerdomin, ‘it’s my mind that’s not sharp. I believe I must surrender.’
Spinnock said nothing, although he was disappointed — no, he was shaken. He could see a decent counter, had been assuming his opponent had seen it immediately, but had been busy seeking something better, something wilder. Other nights, Seerdomin’s talent would burst through at moments like these — a fearless gambit that seemed to pivot the world on this very tabletop.
Perhaps if I wait a little longer-
‘I yield,’ said Seerdomin.
Words uttered, a crisis pronounced.
‘Resto, bring us a pitcher, if you’d be so-’ Seerdomin got no further. He seemed to jolt back into his chair, as if an invisible hand had just slammed into his chest. His eyes were on the tavern door.
Spinnock twisted in his seat to see that strangers had arrived at the Scour. A young woman wearing a rough-woven russet robe, her hair cut short — shorter even than the High Priestess’s — yet the same midnight black. A pale face both soft and exquisite, eyes of deep brown, now searching through the gloom, finding at last the one she sought: Seerdomin. Behind her crowded others, all wearing little more than rags, their wan faces tight with something like panic.
The woman in the lead walked over.
Seerdomin sat like a man nailed to his chair. All colour had left his face a moment earlier, but now it was darkening, his eyes flaring with hard anger.
‘Benighted-’
‘This is my refuge,’ he said. ‘Leave. Now.’
‘We-’
‘“We”? Look at your followers, Priestess.’
She turned, in time to see the last of them rush out of the tavern door.
Seerdomin snorted.
Impressively, the young woman held her ground. The robe fell open — lacking a belt — and Spinnock Durav judged she was barely adolescent. A priestess? Ah, the Great Barrow, the Redeemer. ‘Benighted,’ she resumed, in a voice that few would find hard to listen to, indeed, at length, ‘I am not here for myself. Those who were with me insisted, and even if their courage failed them at the end, this makes their need no less valid.’
‘They came with demands,’ Seerdomin said. ‘They have no right, and they re shy;alized the truth of that as soon as they saw me. You should now do the same, and leave as they have.’
‘I must try-’
Seerdomin surged to his feet, suddenly enough to startle Garsten and Fuldit despite their addled senses, and both stared up wide-eyed and frightened.
The priestess did not even flinch. ‘I must try,’ she repeated, ‘for their sake, and for my own. We are beset in the camp-’
‘No,’ cut in Seerdomin. ‘You have no right.’
‘Please, will you just listen?’
The hard edge of those words clearly surprised Seerdomin. Garsten and Fuldit, collecting their tankards and bottles, quickly left the table.
Spinnock Durav rose, bowed slightly to both, and made for the exit. As he passed Resto — who stood motionless with a pitcher in his hand — he said under his breath, ‘On my tab, please — this entire night. Seerdomin will have no thought of you when he leaves.’
Resto blinked up at him, then nodded,
In the darkness opposite the Scour’s door, Spinnock Durav waited. He had half expected to see the pilgrims waiting outside, but the street was empty — they had fled indeed, at a run, probably all the way back to the camp. There was little spine in the followers of the Redeemer.
With at least one exception, he corrected himself as the priestess stepped outside.
Even from ten paces away, he saw her sag slightly, as if finding herself on suddenly watery legs. Tugging the robe tight round herself, she set off, three, four strides, then slowed and finally halted to turn and face Spinnock Durav.
Who came forward. ‘My pardon, Priestess,’ he said.
‘Your friend took that pitcher for himself,’ she said. ‘Expect a long night. If you have a care you can collect him in a few bells — I’d rather he not spend a senseless night lying on that filthy floor.’
‘I would have thought the possibility might please you,’ Spinnock said.
She frowned. ‘No. He is the Benighted.’
‘And what does that mean?’
She hesitated, then said, ‘Each day, until recently, he came to the Great Bar shy;row and knelt before it. Not to pray, not to deliver a trinket.’
Confused, Spinnock Durav asked, ‘What, then?’
‘He would rather that remain a secret, I suspect.’
‘Priestess, he is my friend. I see well his distress-’
‘And why does that bother you so? More than a friend might feel — I can sense that. Most friends might offer sympathy, even more, but within them remains the stone thought that they are thankful that they themselves do not share their friend’s plight. But that is not within you, not with this Seerdomin. No,’ she drew a step closer, eyes searching, ‘he answers a need, and so wounded as he now is, you begin to bleed.’
‘Mother Dark, woman!’
She retreated at his outburst and looked away. ‘I am sorry. Sir, the Benighted kneels before the Great Barrow and delivers unto the Redeemer the most precious gift of all. Company. Asking for nothing. He comes to relieve the Redeemer’s loneliness.’ She ran a hand back through her short hair. ‘I sought to tell him something, but he would not hear me.’
‘Can I-’
‘I doubt it. I tried to tell him what I am sensing from the Redeemer. Sir, your friend is missed.’ She sighed, turning away. ‘If all who worship did so without need. If all came to their saviour unmindful of that title and its burden, if they came as friends-’ she glanced back at him, ‘what would happen then, do you think? I wonder. .’
He watched her walk away, feeling humbled, too shaken to pursue, to root out the answers — the details — he needed most. To find out what he could do, for Seerdomin. For her.
For her?
Now, why should she matter? By the Abyss, what has she done to me?
And how in the Mother’s name can Seerdomin resist her?
How many women had there been? He had lost count. It would have been better, perhaps, if he’d at least once elected to share his gift of longevity. Better, yes, than watching those few who’d remained with him for any length of time lose all their beauty, surrendering their youth, until there was no choice but for Kallor to discard them, to lock them away, one by one, in some tower on some windswept knoll. What else could he have done? They hobbled into lives of misery, and that misery was an affront to his sensibilities. Too much bitterness, too much malice in those hot, ageing eyes ever fixing upon him. Did he not age as well? True, a year for them was but a heartbeat for Kallor, but see the lines of his face, see the slow wasting of muscle, the iron hue of his hair. .