Chapter Fifteen #2
“Ridiculous bird,” I said. I reached up to smooth the sparse feathers at the base of his beak, and he closed his scaly eyelids and crooned.
“Friend of yours?” inquired the Priest. “He is a handsome creature.”
Baldbeak preened. The Priest continued looking straight ahead. “Your … guardian seemed not best pleased at your leaving.”
“She certainly is not,” said Mieka under her breath.
My heart pounded with every step away from Milady’s estate, half expecting shouts or galloping hooves to sound behind us. The Followers’ reputation for inviolability, however, seemed to hold; no one dared interrupt our steady march.
The Priest of the Followers was delicate, bird-boned; their soft cap of hair barely concealed the pink of their scalp.
They rode on an elderly gray mule at the front of the Followers’ train, so still in the saddle that they could almost have been asleep.
If it weren’t for the slight gleam beneath their eyelids—also lashed with that near-white hair—I would have thought they really were asleep.
It was not difficult for the walkers to keep pace with the mules, as they plodded as slowly as they could get away with. There was an ease to the Followers, however, now that they were on the road again; a tension when still that lifted when in motion.
I just had to get far enough away, I told myself. Just far enough away that Ban Morin would not follow …
Foolish. Of course he would follow. Possibly Milady, also. I could never be far enough away. The most I could do was slip away from the Followers as soon as I could and make my way to Spire. Once I found out where it was.
I was glad to have Mieka with me, but I wondered reluctantly whether I should try to slip away from her as well. She would be safe enough with the Followers. I wanted to believe she was truly my friend, but she worked for Patrick, and as long as she was with me, he would be able to find me as well.
I had been walking in a dream, and now I collided with the rump of the mule in front, making it huff and stamp its hind leg. Baldbeak, who had been dozing on my shoulder, gave a startled croak.
“Sorry,” I said to the mule’s backside.
“Come and walk with me,” said the Priest. It was a gentle request, but even if I hadn’t wanted to obey, I had the feeling I would have been powerless to resist.
“Why did you really come with us today?” they asked.
I hesitated, unsure of how much to reveal. “I … I just needed to leave,” I said finally. “The people I was with—they were using me for their own purposes. I had to get away.”
The Priest nodded, their gaze steady and neutral.
“And there is somewhere I have to go,” I said. “Do you know of a monastery at Spire?”
“Yes. It is not more than two days’ ride from here.
One of the more famous monasteries, as it boasts the largest scriptorium in the kingdom.
All the best makers of books work there, creating all the most complex and powerful spellbooks.
” The Priest crooked an eyebrow at me. “But I thought you had a burning calling to become a Follower,” they said.
Their sleepy eyes were suddenly sharp as silver pins.
“Oh, yes,” I said, stumbling a little.
The Priest smiled at me. “You would not be the first to join us for your own reasons, nor will you be the last,” they said. “We are moving in the direction of Spire, but will turn aside on our own road. We can part ways then. I will let you know when we are near.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I bit my lip, wondering if they would ask further questions, but, blessedly, the Priest seemed content to ride in silence.
This band of Followers was a friendly, boisterous group, as they always seemed to be, and it felt more like a family party than pilgrims on a never-ending journey.
Mieka laughed and chatted with those around her, seemingly unconcerned, but I could not stop thinking about Ban Morin and Milady.
I knew there was no way they would have let us leave without someone trailing us, even if they dared not intervene as yet.
Just because I couldn’t see anyone didn’t mean that they weren’t there.
“Baldbeak,” I whispered. “Can you fly about a bit and see if anyone is following us?”
His eyes were sharper than mine, and he would have a better vantage point. He gave me an affectionate ear-nibble and pushed off, zig-zagging up into the canopy of trees.
“They wouldn’t dare attack in daylight,” murmured Mieka from beside me.
I gave a yelp. I had been deep in thought, and her words startled me.
“Jumpy, are we?” she said in amusement. “Probably just as well. We should try and separate from the Followers before nightfall. Makes sense to stick with them as long as we can, though. Safety in numbers, and all that.”
I had wondered where we would spend the night, and my aching feet were glad when we came to a small hamlet at the edge of a wood before sunset.
When the Followers stopped to rest, children poured out from the little houses to greet them.
There seemed to be few travelers on this road, and such a colorful group would surely be a novelty and a distraction.
I watched as the Priest performed a few little tricks for them, much like Patrick had when I first met him, clapping their palms together and opening them slowly.
Between them, an arc of light leaped, joining one palm to the other—white at first, then splitting into all the colors, before returning to white again.
The children bounced and applauded, talking excitedly.
One of them made a little spark himself—barely there, the tiniest little flash of light on his palm—and the others responded as if he had lit up the sky with lightning.
The Priest seemed just as delighted. This, too, reminded me a little of Patrick.
Their tricks had the same edge of joy to them, that sense of magic for magic’s sake.
The Priest caught my eye and smiled. “Little things,” they said. “But it pleases the children.”
“That was beautiful,” I said. I sat cross-legged beside them. This close, I could see the pink of their scalp gleaming through their dandelion-fine white hair. “Is that … an affinity?”
I was becoming more comfortable with the word and it no longer felt forbidden.
They seemed surprised. “Some call it that, yes,” they said. “What do you know of affinities? I thought they were no longer spoken of, let alone taught.”
I tipped my head back, drinking in the sunshine. My Hair floated gently about my face, just a little—the way a cat’s tail moves ever so slightly when it’s contented.
“Someone told me about them,” I said. “Just a little. I don’t really know much.
” I sighed. “And I spent my whole life watching my mother work with spellbooks and listened to her tell me that was the only way to wield magic safely. Then I find out that there are all these smaller magics, and anyone at all can use them, and they don’t need any kind of books or words to do so, and that no longer seems so bad …
And then I find out about bone magic. So I don’t know what to think.
If you told me now that someone could perform magic with their ears, I’d probably believe it. ”
The Priest plucked a small meadow flower from the grass by their sandals. “If power is a precious stone, then affinities are more like these little blooms; fragrant and lovely for a day, then fading into nothing.”
“What is the point of them, then?” I asked.
“You sound like the Temple,” said the Priest softly, and I flushed.
“It is all right,” they continued. “I know it is hard to grasp when all you have ever heard is that magic must be harnessed and focused, pointed towards some end or other. That is what you have been taught—what everyone is taught, now. It is hard for the Temple to understand that something could exist merely for pleasure or for beauty. Affinities—or modest magics, as they are sometimes called—do not always have a use.”
They twirled the stem of the flower between their thumb and forefinger, and the little blossom shone brighter and brighter, until it was almost too painful to look at, before fading back to its unremarkable dusty pink.
“It is like my embroidery,” I realized. “Mother always said there was no purpose to making things prettier. She only let me do it because I couldn’t read—otherwise she’d have had me working on her books all day and night, as she did.”
“Perhaps it has no purpose—not in the sense she meant, anyway. But what a dull world it would be without such things,” said the Priest.
For a moment we were silent. Then, “May I share with you some of our old teachings from the Plague times?” they said after a while.
I nodded. They began to recite, their voice becoming deeper and somehow ceremonial.
“The Temple would have us believe the dead rose because of bone-craft. I tell you: It was magic itself. Fettered too long, silenced too harshly, it burst its bonds. Magic is not ours. It is older than our books, our bones, even our gods. When forced into cages of ink and words, it sickens. When offered too much of the body, it devours. Left to run free, it flourishes—but seldom in ways men can predict. Magic demands respect, not mastery. The wise learn balance. Those who would command it as servant will find themselves, in time, commanded.”
They closed their eyes for a moment and tilted their face to the sun, then turned to me and smiled.
“Does that make sense to you, little daughter?” they said.
“Yes,” I replied. “I think so.”