Chapter Eighty-Nine. The Worst Truth.
Eighty-Nine
The Worst Truth.
We’re on foot outside of the village wall, having circled around to the rear where we got free of the moat. In fact, we’re in the clearing where Julion gave me his clothes and tendered his request, not all that far from the road where Merc stole our gelding.
Who died peacefully under a realm tree, just as I foresaw.
I want to go straight east, and I can tell by his stiff body language Merc still wants to take us somewhere, anywhere, else. Neither of us is saying a word. We’ve both spoken our pieces, found no agreement, and yet the newest arrangement between us hasn’t changed.
Whither I go, goes he.
And yet I’m terrified that he has a point. What if I get to the court and Julion must make an example of me? My reputation does precede me, even though I kept my face hidden.
It brought the Kingdom of the East’s prince to me, didn’t it?
“I think these two need some water,” Merc says. “Is there a stream nearby?”
I try to remember where we are, in woods I have known all my life.
“There is a pond over that—” As I swing my arm around, I wish there was a place I could go for some clarification. “—way.”
“Let us go then.”
“I’ll meet you there,” I murmur as I remove my pack and kneel down. “Can you take Lavante?”
“Yes, but be careful with that compass.”
“What do you mean?”
Merc shrugs as he starts to walk off with the horses. “You’re assuming the energy it reads is always the good kind.”
“It hasn’t been wrong yet,” I grit out as he disappears into the forest.
The tension between us is not helping, and yet I want to run up to him to argue the point. If it weren’t for the compass’s guidance, getting around that fog would have been impossible—
The instrument’s top pops off as soon as I bring it out of its satchel, and the dial is already spinning under the magical map, as if there is an urgency to its message.
And then it stops. The orientation is north and slightly west—which is not where Prosperitus is located. In fact, there’s nothing but more woods there, for as far as the eye can see. Or cannot see, as the case may be—
“Fates,” I whisper as I realize where it wants me to go.
Closing the compass up, I hesitate for a moment, and as I consider the suggested course, I’m reluctant and doubtful. But all choices seem fraught.
Navigating through the branches and winding around the occasional boulder, I search for carcasses, and when I smell a bank of rancid sweetness on the breeze, I know that whole herds have been slaughtered.
Whether they’re sacrifices in the name of mistaken purification or the result of demons, it doesn’t matter.
Aren’t they the same thing, in a way?
As I break out onto a small sandy beach, I find Merc standing next to the drinking horses with his hands on his hips and his troubled eyes staring out over the still water of the oval pond.
The sun is still high enough to top the crowns of the trees that grow on its opposite shore, and the rays are beautiful as they stripe their way over, seemingly in supplication to Merc.
His weapons are on him, his long hair flowing down his back.
And always that planted stance of his, as if he’s ready to fight.
“You look like you want to take a swim,” I say.
He stares over his shoulder, his face a mask. Yet he smiles. “And you look beautiful in this light.”
Flushing, I push at my hair, which I have left down and loose. “I, ah, I want to go check and see if the Sooths are alive. Their temple is not far. Will you wait here? They’re recluses and may not even let me in. I don’t even know why I’m going.”
But I’m sure they most certainly will not grant a man who looks like Merc any audience.
“Yes, I’ll stay here.” He turns back to the water. “There’s enough daylight to get us to Prosperitus, but not much to spare. Be as quick as you can.”
“I won’t be long. I just … have to know whether the Sooths were burned down, too.” I hesitate. “You should have that swim. You look like … well, I won’t be long.”
Merc nods like he’s lost in his own thoughts. Yet as I turn away, he says, “Do you have a weapon?”
I push my hand into Julion’s pocket and feel the smooth, sharp contours of the crystal blade given to me by a noble outlaw. “Yes.”
“Good. Keep smart, and if you need me, I can be to you in a moment.”
“Okay.”
The trees are dense, and I fight my way through them, ducking and bending, crunching on the leaves that have fallen already.
It doesn’t escape me that there are the beginnings of the black blight here and there, and evidence of the black flakes I saw when I found the dragon, when we passed the Fulcrum today.
The contamination is spreading, the Dark King growing more powerful.
It’s a while before I see the telltale red roof of the temple, and much to my relief, the structure has remained untouched behind its wall.
The building is two-storied and about the size of Thale’s establishment.
It has no windows, in keeping with the Sooths’ belief that they must remain free of outside influence, and there’s a little extension out to one side, like a short hall that pierces its protective barrier.
I’ve heard that’s where people go to ask for help: No one is allowed inside the temple itself, but they will grant you an audience of conversation there, if they choose, with them staying behind their screening.
Underfoot, the ground cover crunches, and I can tell as I close in that my presence has registered because the smoke drifting out of their chimney changes from black to white. Perhaps it’s the noise I’m making. Maybe it’s some other monitoring I can’t begin to guess at.
White smoke means they will see me. And the fact that I’m going to them, when I’ve never respected the so-called truths they pronounce, is not lost on me.
Any port in my storm of confusion, I suppose.
Rounding my way to the querent door, I slide a panel back and step into a cool, dark space. For a split second, I can’t catch my breath from suffocation, especially as I contemplate shutting myself in here. But this is how it goes, I guess?
I slide the panel back into place and then I sit down on the bench—
A bell rings, my weight triggering the thing, and when I hear footsteps on the far side of what I guess is a thin wall, my heart jumps. In fear. With hope. In sadness.
I’m like a lightning rod attracting all manner of bolts.
In my head, I practice what I’ll say and just come up with jumbles. I’m not even sure why I’m here, and explaining my presence with “my magic compass told me to come” isn’t going to help.
And then nothing happens. There are no more footfalls or voices. No welcome of any kind.
As I continue to wait, I wonder if some of them haven’t abandoned the facility. They’re so close to my village—
There is a sliding noise and a thump, and suddenly the glow of a lantern, diffused through a metal screen of symbols—as well as a person draped in red from the crown of their head past their shoulders.
I’m reminded of the oculus and the Queen who didn’t only refuse to see me, she refused to be the warrior all of us need.
And then I’m not thinking about anything except the presence on the other side. It’s the strangest thing … it feels not like a whoever-it-is, but a what.
When I’m not addressed, I clear my throat. “I … ah, I am from the village. But I wasn’t there when…”
“I know who you are.” The voice is female, and surprisingly melodic for the power that seems to pulse out of the form. “And I know everything about you.”
Tightening my hands on the lip of the wooden bench, I whisper, “Everything?”
“Yes. And you wish to be advised where you must go. I am to tell you that it is here. You are where you need to be.”
Frustration makes me fidget. “Well, yes. I suppose I must be here right at this moment to get advice. But I need to know where I go next—”
“Your village, you just went there.” The voice is so soft and hypnotic. “And your heart is broken.”
“Yes.” But come on, that’s no revelation. “And what I need to know is what I should do next—”
“It shall be broken further.”
Dropping my head, I resist the urge to yell. “I don’t see how that’s possible after I saw all those people who were sacrificed for nothing—”
“That is not how they died.”
I look at the delicate weave of the screen. “Yes, it was. I saw with my own eyes what was done to my village in the name of purification. They were slaughtered, in their homes, and everything was set afire—”
“We know. We heard the screams, and smelled the smoke.”
Fury licks into my gut, and I shake my head. “And you did nothing? Maybe if you’d gone out there, you could have stopped them. You who are here, in your little sequestered temple, who are supposed to be giving advice from some sacred source, could have actually done something for once!”
Getting to my feet, I turn away. “This was a waste of my time—”
“If you walk out that door, you will not get what you came for.”
“I’ll figure out for myself where to go next—”
“You came for the truth, not for direction.”
Something in the tone of her voice stills me and I turn around. In a bitter voice, I toss back, “I know my truth, it’s advice I need—”
“The villagers were not killed for purification.”
I throw up my hands. “I saw the symbols, drawn in the blood of the innocent, all around the ruins of where I have lived my life. Do not try to argue with the carnage I just walked through—”
“And what did that symbol look like.”
The fact that the Sooth remains so calm infuriates me further. That she asks such a stupid rhetorical question makes me positively volcanic.
“It’s the joining of S and P. Salvatore ute Protecficitrae,” I snap at her. “In the old tongue, Salvation and Protection. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“That is not the meaning of that symbol,” the Sooth says evenly. “And you have come here to find out its truth.”
“I know the truth.”
“No, you do not. Now sit down, and receive what you seek.”