Chapter 22 #2
The trip down the mountain usually takes us an hour, but this time we’re moving at inhuman speeds so fast we manage it in minutes.
Still not fast enough, a voice in my mind says, because the Order has still had time to work.
They’ve always had time to work.
What can one person do against a whole institution?
We’ll find out, I think grimly.
Because I’m not just a person.
I’m a sage.
And if they test me, they will feel the wrath of gods.
I feel the Sage of Compassion before I see her. Predictably, she’s in the market area—there’s a different set of evening stalls, apparently. Rather than issuing a proclamation—unless she’s already done that—she’s talking with just a single group of people from Crystal Hollow.
With Nomi at her side.
What in the—
“Priests stationed at both main ends of the street,” Zan murmurs.
It’s easy to see all of them: the priests in their unbroken black; Eraya in pristine white; the rest of the market full of color.
They don’t look like they belong here, but I don’t know if that starkness—that sharpness—will appeal to people who have to live with their magic not working. If that reliability will speak to them, even if it means giving up their color—if they will want to.
Of more immediate concern, Eraya is clearly leaving them as visible threats behind her while she works her sweet poison unhindered. But—
“Where’s Learned Mujin? He wouldn’t have let her come alone.”
“No,” Teren disagrees, “the Sage of Compassion often appears on her own—”
“No,” Zan cuts him off in turn. “That’s appearance only. She’s always monitored by a ranking priest.”
“Then he’s using her as a distraction for something,” I conclude grimly.
Zan turns into my neck and inhales deeply, then backs up as if steeling himself. “I’ll find out.”
Given how his instincts are riding him, can he really...
Oh. He’s gone totally blank, hasn’t he?
Shut himself down to function; now he’s taking himself away from me on purpose.
Now my own instincts scream at me, and I bite down the anger that rises.
The priesthood ruins fucking everything. I want to scream.
Teren turns to Zan. “Or this is bait, and you’re going to walk right into a trap.”
“I’ll find out,” Zan repeats.
Teren scowls, and I sympathize.
Zan is always too ready to sacrifice himself.
But when Zan looks at me, he just says, “You will handle the sage.”
No doubt; only trust. Even after my last disastrous showing.
It can’t go the same way this time.
Chasing the Order away isn’t enough; it matters how I get her to leave.
And it matters because there are more people at stake now.
At least I am used to performing for an audience, but so is she. And I may be rusty after five hundred years...
Or I may have the benefit of five hundred years of meditation that she does not.
I take a breath and nod to Zan. “Go.”
He starts to; stops.
Steps forward instead and kisses me, fiercely.
Then he goes.
Apparently even he can’t shut our connection down that much anymore. Good.
Okay. I can do this.
But Teren swears.
I turn to him. “You think Zan can’t handle himself?”
“I think he will sacrifice himself for us if he thinks he has to.”
That mirrors my own thoughts, but I say, “Zan trusted me. I will trust him. Now what in the hells is Nomi doing?”
Because I know she’s not helping Eraya on purpose, but it sure looks like it.
“I don’t know.” Teren frowns. “My guess is that Eraya wanted to talk to people and Nomi couldn’t refuse her outright, so instead she’s escorting her to make sure she doesn’t threaten anyone directly.”
But in practice that just gives Eraya space to work.
After our training, Nomi can probably feel what Eraya is doing with magic, even if she can’t see it—that golden light is subtle.
But Nomi can’t exactly tell people that they should be less compassionate or open to hearing other ideas, since they listened to our proposal.
I can see it, though.
And I can do something about it.
Some residents have already noticed us in the alley we entered through—I see some pointing and whispers. The priests were already standing at attention, but if I focus I can feel that their rage has intensified; they’ve noticed me, too.
With Crystal Hollow watching I can’t do anything big without revealing my own power, but clarity is among my strengths, especially after five hundred years.
And, always, wrath.
Wrath that the Order, that a sage, and a sage of compassion no less, would not let me have even this. Would not want people to have ice cream, let alone a means of sustaining themselves. That they could make people believe that they shouldn’t.
And that they would dare come here and try to subvert me.
I will teach them their error.
A few twists of my wrists, a turn that looks like nothing at all, and the glow around Eraya falters.
This is what makes her pause and turn to me as I stride confidently through the street toward her.
Ironic, that I cannot easily cross a street full of people on my own as a person, but as a sage it is nothing at all.
People watch Teren and I warily as we pass. Perhaps some are worried for us; more, I think, are worried about what I will do, and how it will affect them.
But I don’t know if they’re worried about what Eraya can do, and has been doing.
Just because Eraya’s power is less than it could be, in the service of people who’ve made her smaller, doesn’t mean that she can do no damage with how misguided she is, with her perversion of compassion.
I should have prepared better. In an individual duel of power, I can prevail against her easily, but I should have known she would be crafty enough to choose her own stage.
I can still make this into a duel, evening the playing field, but that’s not the same as turning it to my advantage.
As I close in on Eraya, she turns to face me fully with a smile. “Well met again, Yora. You seem so wrathful at the thought of me simply talking to people. Would you try to keep people away from me?”
All at once I realize what I need to do.
I may have underestimated Eraya, but she has also underestimated me.
When we last met, I was trying to avoid confrontation; to placate and preserve the status quo. So she thinks our conversation will go as well for her as the last one did, systematically unraveling my goals.
But this time, my goals are different. My resolve is different.
It won’t go the same way.
“I have no need to,” I tell Eraya calmly, coming to a stop a few spans away from her.
The entire courtyard is watching us.
“And yet, here you are, arriving to interrupt—”
“It is you who turned to speak to me,” I point out. “Though I do notice the courtyard is somewhat darker now. Does my presence intimidate you, Sage Eraya?”
You may be afraid of the sage, but the sage is afraid of me, is what I want our spectators to hear, with an addition of, And if you hadn’t noticed, she was working magic on you.
I don’t have to work magic via katas to use my wrath.
Didn’t I learn that at the town meeting? My words can convey my clarity, too.
I don’t have to be flashy to destroy Compassion’s influence.
Spectacle and drama have their uses—I know that well, and I’m making use of it, given our audience.
But Eraya chose the wrong field.
She believes that she can best me through small moments of compassion.
And she would be right, if she were more secure in her power.
But she hasn’t allowed herself to learn the true meaning of compassion, and it holds her back.
Maybe I didn’t give Nomi enough credit after all.
I think she’s the one who chose this field, and convinced Eraya to walk onto it.
I glance at her, and behind Eraya’s shoulder she raises her eyebrows at me as if to say, What took you so long?
Ha. I knew I liked her.
Oblivious to my thoughts, the Sage of Compassion says, “Of course I would be concerned by how your presence here would make people feel pressured into being less receptive, Yora.”
“Oh yes, as the person without the entire apparatus of the Order behind me, I’m clearly the source of pressure,” I drawl.
“You know you are, and so do they, or else you wouldn’t be here,” Eraya says calmly. “People deserve to know that there will be consequences to what they’re considering. So I thank you for showing up to remind them that if they work with you, they will always be subject to your judgment.”
A good effort.
But this time I’m not letting her control the narrative.
“I saw that Crystal Hollow had a need for ice, and I can help them fulfill it. Giving people what they need, and helping them get it for themselves, is, in fact, compassion, is it not?” I reply just as calmly. “It’s interesting that you of all people would try to keep that from them.”
“It’s not compassion when there are strings attached—”
I burst out laughing in her face.
Eraya gasps. “Surely you don’t mean to suggest that keeping people’s connections to the gods open is a constraint?”
Good effort, but not good enough.
“I think the fact that those connections have to pass through intermediaries that charge them tithes for the access is a constraint, yes,” I say dryly.
“The only reason that limiting the Order’s influence in their lives might close those connections is if you have created this problem.
Sages come from the same people as we all do. ”
I can practically feel the crowd looking between Teren at my back and the action in front of him.
Is Teren one of them or isn’t he?
Could I be one of them, too?
“Yes, and so do our priests and leaders,” Eraya fires back.
“And we have worked for generations to create the infrastructure and resources that enable us to help people, and now that Crystal Hollow finally has a chance to partake in that bounty, you would have them isolated from it? For your own benefit?”
That was better, except that she revealed her hand.
By phrasing it so passively, that Crystal Hollow has been given this chance, and not how or, you know by whom, tells me what she doesn’t want them to know.