Chapter Fifteen #3
Instead of claiming the right of hospitality from the villagers, the Followers bypassed the little settlement and walked just beyond it, to where the houses petered out and a cobblestone path led to a small pool lined with bulrushes and large-fronded shrubs.
The pool was too uniform to be natural and must have been dug deliberately.
As the Followers prepared their evening meal, Mieka and I walked around its edge and found a large rock carved with the shapes of human bones, a spring gushing from it through the mouth of a skull.
A stone arch lay just beyond, seeming to mark the entrance to a gathering of standing stones, all as intricately carved as this first one.
“What is this?” Mieka asked in a hushed voice.
“A Plague shrine,” said the Priest. “We come across them, now and then, and once we have found one, we revisit it if we find ourselves near it again. To pay our respects.”
“Were these put up by the Temple?” asked Mieka.
They shook their head. “By mages, long gone. Some people think they are just memorials, and some think they were imbued with power at some point, in an attempt to keep the Plague at bay. No one knows for certain. If you look closely, you can see that the grooves are perfectly uniform—made by magic, not by human hand.”
The Priest returned to the rest of the group, and Mieka ran her hand over the carvings. The images of bones ran in rows, from the splayed bones of feet all the way up to skulls at the top of the stone, like a hundred skeletons had been taken apart and stacked neatly on top of one another.
“A powerful spell, to last so many years,” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “Mother would have loved to see it.”
“Really?”
“I think so. She was always interested in history—especially the history of mages and magic.”
“You miss her.”
“I do.” I touched the carving with the tips of my fingers. “She was all I had for so long. It is strange to think I might never see her again.”
“Don’t think like that,” said Mieka. “We will find something in Spire, I am sure of it.”
She ducked under the stone arch and went to investigate the standing stones, while I stayed behind to examine the bone carvings. They fascinated me. I laid my hand against one and fancied I felt an answering warmth against my palm.
I am coming to find you, Mother, I said silently. Wait for me.
When I went looking for Mieka, I found her sitting cross-legged in the grass before one of the standing stones, her eyes closed. I trod carefully on the already dew-damp evening grass, trying not to disturb her, but she turned and smiled at me.
“Did I ever tell you how I met Patrick?” she said.
“I don’t think so.” I sat beside her.
“He was part of the same organization as my father. They wanted to loosen restrictions on magic, get it out from under the purview of the Temple. He was very kind to me after my father …” She stopped, swallowed, and continued. “After he was hanged as a heretic.”
“Mieka …”
She put up a hand to stop me. We sat in silence for a moment, the dew soaking the hems of our skirts, the first evening darkness seeping into the sky like ink swirling in water.
“I am so sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t tell you.”
Mieka sighed, drawing her knees up and resting her chin on them. She shivered a little—perhaps just from the growing chill in the air.
“He believed in the old ways,” she said. “Like the Followers. There are many non-Followers that do. Obviously, we can’t be open about it.”
“We?”
She shrugged. “I don’t advertise it, but yes.
It’s hard to find others, now, because the Temple ferrets us out when it can, and we certainly can’t have gatherings.
Not often, anyway. And even when we can, there’s not much we can do.
There are so few of us and so many of them.
The only naysayers they will tolerate are the Followers—and then only because of the old agreements, and because they aren’t allowed to preach. ”
“But your father …”
“He thought we could do more. He was a mage. Hair, like you.” She pulled at one of her own tight black curls.
“I didn’t inherit it, although I look a lot like him.
He didn’t want to spend his life serving some rich lord or other, so he kept it quiet.
He was the one who told me that you don’t really need all those Temple-approved spells and books to wield magic—that you could do it on your own.
He didn’t like how the Temple favored their own mages over everyone else, either—barely even letting on that other kinds of magic exist. Anyway … ”
She glared straight ahead. “He was stupid. Trusted too many people. Started talking about doing something. Knowing my dad, he probably meant just writing a sternly worded letter or the like. But the Temple found out about it and branded him some kind of ringleader, and …”
Her voice trailed off.
“I’m so sorry,” I said inadequately. I wished I knew what to say.
I wished I’d had other friends before, so that I would know the right words in the right order to tell her how a pit opened in my stomach at the very thought, and how grateful I was that she had told me, and how useless I felt for being unable to help her in any way.
“It’s all right,” she said. “It was a long time ago. But I started working for Patrick not long after that because Dad didn’t leave me much, and I take any opportunity to screw over the Temple when I can. I’m careful, though. Not like he was.”
“And Zlata …?”
“She has her own story. Worse than mine. She understands.” Mieka looked up at me for the first time. “She’s a mage, too. Nails.”
I couldn’t suppress a shiver, remembering Milady. I thought back to the night I had last seen Zlata. I couldn’t remember if she had worn gloves inside—although perhaps she had nothing to conceal if she didn’t use her magic as often as Milady.
“She keeps it quiet,” said Mieka. “She spent a few years as mage to a rich family. She doesn’t talk about it much, but it wasn’t a good time. Unless you’re noble-born yourself, or high up in the Temple, it rarely is.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed. She seems so …”
“Seems so what?” said Mieka fiercely. “She’s the strongest person I know, and she would do anything—anything—for me, or for anyone she cares about.”
Chastened, I said, “I was just going to say that she seemed to hate mages.”
“Oh, she does. If she could rip out her nails and be done with them, she would. She tried that once, she told me. They grew right back. She keeps them painted with this colored polish she buys in the Undermarket, which helps to suppress them, so she doesn’t use them by accident.
” She sighed. “Zlata thinks I am foolish. She thinks the time of the old, free magic is gone for good, and we need to survive in a world where power is bought and sold.”
“And you don’t?”
She let out a long breath. “I would like to believe those days will come back. Eventually. Magic is more powerful than the Temple, or the king, or any one person who imagines they can control it. They might put a bridle on it for a time, but it will throw them off its back sooner or later.”
We sat there for a time, contemplating the stones, then wandered back to rejoin the Followers.
“Where’s Baldbeak?” wondered Mieka.
“I think he’s just enjoying being able to fly around freely for a while,” I said. But then Baldbeak came careening into the camp like a winged demon, cawing coarsely and flying so low overhead that many of the Followers had to duck.
They are coming! I heard his silent words between his harsh raven-cries. They are coming!
“They?” I called up to him. “How many?”
Many humans. A flock.
I had expected stealthy assassins in the dark, not an open attack.
I had not thought Ban Morin would dare to openly defy the Temple’s edict.
I ran to the Priest and opened my mouth to warn them, but just as I grabbed their arm, the first man stepped out of the shadows—clad in red leather, sword glinting.
More followed, all heavily armed. They fanned out, circling the camp.
Baldbeak landed heavily on my shoulder, and Mieka came up behind us, so close that I could feel the heat of her.
“We’re just here for the girl, Old One,” said the first man. I gathered he was the leader—the others hung back and looked to him as he spoke. I tried to stand tall, but my legs felt as substantial as two river reeds.
“Let me go to him,” I whispered.
The Priest placed their hand over mine. Where mine was sweating, theirs was smooth and dry. “They will not hurt us,” they said in a low voice. They patted my hand a little, comfortingly, then took a step forward.
“You know the Temple’s laws,” they said, their voice heavy with authority despite its softness. “And you know also that none may interfere with the Followers’ passage.”