CiS Chapter Seventeen
Nov. 26th, 2005 05:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cygna_himeIn which people shout some more, and the plot moves inexorably towards its conclusion. Damn, I need twice the time and space for this, I really do. Caveat: People use italics a lot when they're shouting. I am too lazy to HTML-ize this, so there are no italics in this. Hah hah. 2,422 words.
Stopping just short of 5,000 because the next chapter, being the climax, needs to be written all at one go. Considering I have two chapters two write and just over 5,000 words to do it in, I think I've done pretty well so far. *cheers self on*
Chapter Seventeen
There was a line outside of the temple door that stretched around the entire arm of the palace to the street. Corrin wondered idly what the nobles who lived there thought of all the poor coming down their quiet street to see the Priestess.
Bypassing the line, Maltar stalked up to the door as if there were no possibility he could be excluded. The other three followed, trying to look as self-possessed. Corrin felt he failed miserably. He had himself thrown too many people out of such buildings on Guard duty to have confidence in their ability to avoid the same fate.
The guards at the door barred Maltar from entering. “What business have you with the Priestess?” one asked.
“She wishes to see me,” said Maltar.
“She gave no orders saying so,” said the second guard.
“I know. She wishes to see me all the same. One of you take her this note, and you’ll see.” He handed the first guard a folded scrap of paper. The guard departed into the building, leaving his companion to try to keep the line in order on his own. Corrin felt sorry for the man. He knew the kind of duty you only got as punishment when he saw it.
After a very short wait, the first guard came out again. “The Priestess orders me to admit you,” he said. “If you’ll come with me, sir, I’ll show you the way.” Maltar walked in, but when Eluial, who was behind him, tried to follow, the guard barred her way. “Begging you pardon, lady, orders were to admit only the one.”
“Let it go,” Maltar said quickly. “I’ll get her to send for you.” He vanished into the palace-turned-temple. Corrin leaned against the stone wall and waited. The sun was warm, and the stone was comfortable. He was willing to wait.
***
They didn’t have to wait long; soon the guard came out again and gestured them in.
“Apologies for the wait, but you can’t be too careful. There’ve been some nasty types asking to see the Priestess.”
“Really?” said Lindau sympathetically. “That’s a pity. It must be hard for you to tell who to let in.”
“Oh, they don’t come in by the line,” said the guard. “That’s free for all, that is. No, the rough types try to get in straight off. That’s why we had to get the Priestess’s request to let you in. It’s as much as my life’s worth to let anyone bother the Priestess.”
He led them along a short but twisting hallway (Corrin recalled the winding corridors of the Center in Daritoll and wondered if all temples were built on a pattern) to a plain wooden door, which he opened.
“Your visitors, Priestess,” he announced and left.
The room was plain and severely decorated in dark wood. There was a row of wooden chairs, across two of which Maltar was sprawling, and opposite a small table a dark red couch.
A woman sat on the couch. When Corrin saw her, his breath caught in his throat. She was beautiful. He understood how people could say she could mesmerize anyone she wanted just by looking at them. It might well be the literal truth. Her dark hair fell straight past her bare shoulders, where it contrasted sharply with the pale, even brown of her skin, to brush her hips. When she looked up at them through dark lashes, her eyes were leaf-green.
Looking closer, eager to memorize every aspect of her looks, Corrin could see that she was Maltar’s sister. They had the same long, straight nose, and the same strong chin. But she was dark where he was fair, and the gentle curves of her body made it abundantly clear that she was not, by any stretch of the imagination, her brother. Corrin was just as glad that he didn’t have to do any talking, as he wasn’t sure he could form a coherent sentence.
“You’re Mal’s friends?” she asked without preamble.
Lindau smiled. “That depends on who you ask. I mean, I think I’m a friend of his, but I’m not sure he’d admit to it, even to you.”
Maltar’s sister chuckled. “That does sound like him. Mal, introduce us.”
“Yes, your Priestess-ship,” said Maltar sarcastically. “This is my sister, Annua Weuilvenno ne’Crole.” She stood and bowed politely. Corrin tried not to look at the way her chest moved when she did so.
“Annua, this is Lindau ne’Mirrha.”
Lindau bowed. “Nice to meet you. Maltar’s told us a lot about you.”
“Has he? I’ll have to return the favor.”
“Maltar, I think you’re in trouble,” said Lindau brightly.
“Aren’t I always? This is Corrin na’Prin.” Corrin bowed in silence. He still wasn’t sure of his voice. It had an embarrassing tendency to crack when he least wanted it to. Maltar got a look at his face. “An, you’ve got another one.”
Annua’s smile faded. “Spectacular. You get the honor of explaining things to him.”
Corrin decided to pretend he was deaf. At least that way he might not blush so ferociously.
“I’ll talk to him” said Maltar noncommittally. “And this…is Eluial Weuilvenno.”
Even in the midst of his embarrassment, Corrin could tell that everyone suddenly became absolutely silent. He wasn’t even sure if they were breathing. He knew he was holding his own breath, in anticipation for what was either going to be a violent scene or a demonstration of how little Annua was really like her brother.
She wasn’t that much unlike him. “Who?!” Annua grabbed at the medallion hanging from her neck. “How dare you come here?! Get out of my temple! And you,” she rounded on Maltar, “bringing her here! What were you thinking?!”
“I—it’s complicated—you see, An, we met on the road, or, well, we both met Lindau and Corrin at the same time, and since then I’ve been kind of stuck with her and she’s not that bad, really, and I did promise not to try and kill her so maybe you should too, and—“ Maltar was not good at explaining things, especially not to enraged younger sisters.
“Not try to kill her? Are you insane?! I’d rather get her before she gets me, thank you ever so!” The medallion clenched in her hand, Annua started muttering very fast under her breath. A red haze began to form around her, but before it could have any effect, Maltar leaped forward and caught her arm.
“Don’t! Please, little sister, just—just listen. Please?”
Annua looked at her brother for a long moment, in which the very wind seemed to die. Then she nodded curtly, and time began to move again. “If you insist. But I warn you, if she says anything about us, I’ll…”
“She won’t.” Maltar glared at Eluial. “She wouldn’t dream of saying anything, would she?”
“Of course not,” said Eluial, with as much dignity as she could muster. Being faced with what was presumably some kind of holy weapon had shaken even her calm. “I would never be so discourteous as to insult a kinswoman.”
“Are you saying we’re kin?” Annua said slowly, as if trying to understand something immensely complicated.
“Are we not? Your father was my brother; that makes us tolerably close kin, I think.”
“And you would acknowledge that?”
“I’m doing so now. Greetings, my kinswoman. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“We’ll see,” said Annua, but some of the hardness had left her face. “Now. This idiot,” she whacked Maltar affectionately on the head, “told me you wanted to talk to me about something important. What is it?”
“I think you’d better see exactly who’s doing the talking,” Lindau said. “Here we go.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the miniature staff. With a moment of concentration, it grew to its normal size and Lindau propped it against the chair. “There. Do you see?”
“Yes, I see,” Annua replied, eyeing the staff warily. “Just a moment.” She vanished into a back room. When she came back a minute later, the medallion was absent from her neck. “Kapuf can hear whatever is said in the presence of the medallion. Now he can neither hear me nor speak to me. You’re a priest?”
“Journeyman, so not quite. But I will be!”
Annua looked at Lindau. “Good disguise,” she said, raising her eyebrows.
“Oh. That.” Corrin thought it was typically Lindau to forget priests were supposed to be male. “Can you keep a secret?”
“I’ve kept all the other ones I’ve been told.”
“Sounds good enough to me. Well, it’s not a disguise.”
“You’re really a woman?”
“Real as real. How’d you get the priestess thing going? It’s just not fair; you’re all set up as high priestess of a brand-new god, and I spent four years bathing in the middle of the night so no one would see me.”
Annua laughed. “I got lucky. I was here when the new god showed up to change things.”
“About that…” Lindau actually paused to organize her thoughts, a phenomenon Corrin could not recall having witnessed before. “I don’t like this Kapuf of yours.”
“What’s not to like? You can’t tell me you prefer having to pretend to be a man, just to be taught how to sneer at those you consider ‘lowly’!”
“No, I don’t. Which is why I didn’t. I dressed as a man for four years to be taught how to help people who need it. Why, is it different here?”
“According to Maltar,” Corrin put in, “the priests around her don’t—didn’t—leave the Center very much. They were more the secluded types.”
“Sounds boring,” Lindau pronounced. “I’m glad it’s not like that in Daritoll. But that’s not the point. The point is, Kapuf is a god of darkness, isn’t that right?” Annua nodded. “There can only be one god of darkness in the world at one time. When Kapuf came here for good, Illre disappeared. And I don’t like that.”
Annua looked surprised. “I didn’t know that was how it worked. I see your point. You were for Illre?”
“I think I was going to be, and even if I hadn’t been, other people are who don’t deserve to have him taken away. I can’t let that happen,” she said flatly.
Corrin thought of the glimpse they had had of Master Drowen, driving himself to exhaustion in trying to reach his god. He might be dead of it for all they knew. And there would have to be others, leaving out the people who had been killed in Mintaino and on the roads. As far as he was concerned, Lindau had the right of it: something had attacked them for no reason, and it had to be stopped.
Annua nodded slowly. “I get what you mean, but I don’t see why I should care. What have these people ever done to me? I can change things in Norvord, make things better for all of us who were ignored. Why should these people matter more than that?”
“Because you don’t have to stop,” Lindau said sensibly. “You just have to stop letting the god use you to do it. I’m going to change a lot, but I’m not killing anyone.”
“It’s different,” said Annua.
“I don’t see how. You want to change things around here, make them better, which is all very well and good, but you’re going about it all the wrong way. You just have to do what you want no matter what they say. When they’ve shouted themselves hoarse, you’ll still be there.”
“You hope,” muttered Corrin.
“I know. They can’t get rid of me once I’m ordained. It’s against the rules. Whatever I do, I’m a priest.”
“You have less to change,” Annua argued. “You’re just a woman. I’m a half-breed woman. I have to make it possible for all of us to hold our heads up without getting them cut off. Kapuf can give me the power to do it. How is that wrong?”
“It’s wrong because you had to kill people to do it,” said Lindau. “Did you know your god didn’t only burn the Mintaino Center, but sent soldiers all the way to Partela to kill the journeymen? One of my friends at least is dead, because of your god. That’s not fair, and I’m not letting it go on.”
Annua’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know that. The king didn’t—Is it true?” She appealed to her brother.
He nodded. “That’s what they sent me away for. I was supposed to kill her. Just as well I failed, isn’t it?”
“You…failed?” she asked. “And they didn’t kill you?”
“We thought about it a few times,” Corrin admitted. “But there was too much going on to find a court, and anyway you can’t execute soldiers for following orders.”
Maltar bent over to his sister. “I can’t explain, because I don’t really understand it myself, but…it’s different over there, An. It’s better, especially for people like us.”
Annua looked at him very closely. “You think I should help her?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. It’ll be worth it. I promise.”
“That’s good enough for me.” Annua turned to Lindau, her eyes bright with interest. “Now. What are you going to do?”
“That depends on you,” she replied. “What do you usually do when you summon the other god?”
“There’s a ritual, to call on Kapuf. He puts his power and influence into King Arjom.”
Lindau looked up sharply from her examination of her staff. “Possession?”
“I don’t—think so. I hadn’t thought of it like that, but…that explains the way he’s been acting.”
Maltar looked like he wanted to say something, but Lindau beat him to it. “That gives him a weak point, when you’re doing the ritual. So, can we hide in this room where you do it?”
“If you can fold yourselves up. There are cupboards…”
The discussion went on into the evening, but in the end, they had a plan. The five agreed not to meet again before the morning. It would be too noticeable. If they each did their parts, it would work. It was their only chance.
Corrin slept only lightly. As he lay awake, he heard Lindau tossing and turning from the bed, where Eluial had insisted she sleep. Maltar was silent and motionless, but when Corrin looked at him, he found him lying with his arms behind his head, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling.
They were all thinking the same thing: Will it work? Will we survive?
| |
44,600 / 50,000 (89.2%) |
Stopping just short of 5,000 because the next chapter, being the climax, needs to be written all at one go. Considering I have two chapters two write and just over 5,000 words to do it in, I think I've done pretty well so far. *cheers self on*
Chapter Seventeen
There was a line outside of the temple door that stretched around the entire arm of the palace to the street. Corrin wondered idly what the nobles who lived there thought of all the poor coming down their quiet street to see the Priestess.
Bypassing the line, Maltar stalked up to the door as if there were no possibility he could be excluded. The other three followed, trying to look as self-possessed. Corrin felt he failed miserably. He had himself thrown too many people out of such buildings on Guard duty to have confidence in their ability to avoid the same fate.
The guards at the door barred Maltar from entering. “What business have you with the Priestess?” one asked.
“She wishes to see me,” said Maltar.
“She gave no orders saying so,” said the second guard.
“I know. She wishes to see me all the same. One of you take her this note, and you’ll see.” He handed the first guard a folded scrap of paper. The guard departed into the building, leaving his companion to try to keep the line in order on his own. Corrin felt sorry for the man. He knew the kind of duty you only got as punishment when he saw it.
After a very short wait, the first guard came out again. “The Priestess orders me to admit you,” he said. “If you’ll come with me, sir, I’ll show you the way.” Maltar walked in, but when Eluial, who was behind him, tried to follow, the guard barred her way. “Begging you pardon, lady, orders were to admit only the one.”
“Let it go,” Maltar said quickly. “I’ll get her to send for you.” He vanished into the palace-turned-temple. Corrin leaned against the stone wall and waited. The sun was warm, and the stone was comfortable. He was willing to wait.
***
They didn’t have to wait long; soon the guard came out again and gestured them in.
“Apologies for the wait, but you can’t be too careful. There’ve been some nasty types asking to see the Priestess.”
“Really?” said Lindau sympathetically. “That’s a pity. It must be hard for you to tell who to let in.”
“Oh, they don’t come in by the line,” said the guard. “That’s free for all, that is. No, the rough types try to get in straight off. That’s why we had to get the Priestess’s request to let you in. It’s as much as my life’s worth to let anyone bother the Priestess.”
He led them along a short but twisting hallway (Corrin recalled the winding corridors of the Center in Daritoll and wondered if all temples were built on a pattern) to a plain wooden door, which he opened.
“Your visitors, Priestess,” he announced and left.
The room was plain and severely decorated in dark wood. There was a row of wooden chairs, across two of which Maltar was sprawling, and opposite a small table a dark red couch.
A woman sat on the couch. When Corrin saw her, his breath caught in his throat. She was beautiful. He understood how people could say she could mesmerize anyone she wanted just by looking at them. It might well be the literal truth. Her dark hair fell straight past her bare shoulders, where it contrasted sharply with the pale, even brown of her skin, to brush her hips. When she looked up at them through dark lashes, her eyes were leaf-green.
Looking closer, eager to memorize every aspect of her looks, Corrin could see that she was Maltar’s sister. They had the same long, straight nose, and the same strong chin. But she was dark where he was fair, and the gentle curves of her body made it abundantly clear that she was not, by any stretch of the imagination, her brother. Corrin was just as glad that he didn’t have to do any talking, as he wasn’t sure he could form a coherent sentence.
“You’re Mal’s friends?” she asked without preamble.
Lindau smiled. “That depends on who you ask. I mean, I think I’m a friend of his, but I’m not sure he’d admit to it, even to you.”
Maltar’s sister chuckled. “That does sound like him. Mal, introduce us.”
“Yes, your Priestess-ship,” said Maltar sarcastically. “This is my sister, Annua Weuilvenno ne’Crole.” She stood and bowed politely. Corrin tried not to look at the way her chest moved when she did so.
“Annua, this is Lindau ne’Mirrha.”
Lindau bowed. “Nice to meet you. Maltar’s told us a lot about you.”
“Has he? I’ll have to return the favor.”
“Maltar, I think you’re in trouble,” said Lindau brightly.
“Aren’t I always? This is Corrin na’Prin.” Corrin bowed in silence. He still wasn’t sure of his voice. It had an embarrassing tendency to crack when he least wanted it to. Maltar got a look at his face. “An, you’ve got another one.”
Annua’s smile faded. “Spectacular. You get the honor of explaining things to him.”
Corrin decided to pretend he was deaf. At least that way he might not blush so ferociously.
“I’ll talk to him” said Maltar noncommittally. “And this…is Eluial Weuilvenno.”
Even in the midst of his embarrassment, Corrin could tell that everyone suddenly became absolutely silent. He wasn’t even sure if they were breathing. He knew he was holding his own breath, in anticipation for what was either going to be a violent scene or a demonstration of how little Annua was really like her brother.
She wasn’t that much unlike him. “Who?!” Annua grabbed at the medallion hanging from her neck. “How dare you come here?! Get out of my temple! And you,” she rounded on Maltar, “bringing her here! What were you thinking?!”
“I—it’s complicated—you see, An, we met on the road, or, well, we both met Lindau and Corrin at the same time, and since then I’ve been kind of stuck with her and she’s not that bad, really, and I did promise not to try and kill her so maybe you should too, and—“ Maltar was not good at explaining things, especially not to enraged younger sisters.
“Not try to kill her? Are you insane?! I’d rather get her before she gets me, thank you ever so!” The medallion clenched in her hand, Annua started muttering very fast under her breath. A red haze began to form around her, but before it could have any effect, Maltar leaped forward and caught her arm.
“Don’t! Please, little sister, just—just listen. Please?”
Annua looked at her brother for a long moment, in which the very wind seemed to die. Then she nodded curtly, and time began to move again. “If you insist. But I warn you, if she says anything about us, I’ll…”
“She won’t.” Maltar glared at Eluial. “She wouldn’t dream of saying anything, would she?”
“Of course not,” said Eluial, with as much dignity as she could muster. Being faced with what was presumably some kind of holy weapon had shaken even her calm. “I would never be so discourteous as to insult a kinswoman.”
“Are you saying we’re kin?” Annua said slowly, as if trying to understand something immensely complicated.
“Are we not? Your father was my brother; that makes us tolerably close kin, I think.”
“And you would acknowledge that?”
“I’m doing so now. Greetings, my kinswoman. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“We’ll see,” said Annua, but some of the hardness had left her face. “Now. This idiot,” she whacked Maltar affectionately on the head, “told me you wanted to talk to me about something important. What is it?”
“I think you’d better see exactly who’s doing the talking,” Lindau said. “Here we go.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the miniature staff. With a moment of concentration, it grew to its normal size and Lindau propped it against the chair. “There. Do you see?”
“Yes, I see,” Annua replied, eyeing the staff warily. “Just a moment.” She vanished into a back room. When she came back a minute later, the medallion was absent from her neck. “Kapuf can hear whatever is said in the presence of the medallion. Now he can neither hear me nor speak to me. You’re a priest?”
“Journeyman, so not quite. But I will be!”
Annua looked at Lindau. “Good disguise,” she said, raising her eyebrows.
“Oh. That.” Corrin thought it was typically Lindau to forget priests were supposed to be male. “Can you keep a secret?”
“I’ve kept all the other ones I’ve been told.”
“Sounds good enough to me. Well, it’s not a disguise.”
“You’re really a woman?”
“Real as real. How’d you get the priestess thing going? It’s just not fair; you’re all set up as high priestess of a brand-new god, and I spent four years bathing in the middle of the night so no one would see me.”
Annua laughed. “I got lucky. I was here when the new god showed up to change things.”
“About that…” Lindau actually paused to organize her thoughts, a phenomenon Corrin could not recall having witnessed before. “I don’t like this Kapuf of yours.”
“What’s not to like? You can’t tell me you prefer having to pretend to be a man, just to be taught how to sneer at those you consider ‘lowly’!”
“No, I don’t. Which is why I didn’t. I dressed as a man for four years to be taught how to help people who need it. Why, is it different here?”
“According to Maltar,” Corrin put in, “the priests around her don’t—didn’t—leave the Center very much. They were more the secluded types.”
“Sounds boring,” Lindau pronounced. “I’m glad it’s not like that in Daritoll. But that’s not the point. The point is, Kapuf is a god of darkness, isn’t that right?” Annua nodded. “There can only be one god of darkness in the world at one time. When Kapuf came here for good, Illre disappeared. And I don’t like that.”
Annua looked surprised. “I didn’t know that was how it worked. I see your point. You were for Illre?”
“I think I was going to be, and even if I hadn’t been, other people are who don’t deserve to have him taken away. I can’t let that happen,” she said flatly.
Corrin thought of the glimpse they had had of Master Drowen, driving himself to exhaustion in trying to reach his god. He might be dead of it for all they knew. And there would have to be others, leaving out the people who had been killed in Mintaino and on the roads. As far as he was concerned, Lindau had the right of it: something had attacked them for no reason, and it had to be stopped.
Annua nodded slowly. “I get what you mean, but I don’t see why I should care. What have these people ever done to me? I can change things in Norvord, make things better for all of us who were ignored. Why should these people matter more than that?”
“Because you don’t have to stop,” Lindau said sensibly. “You just have to stop letting the god use you to do it. I’m going to change a lot, but I’m not killing anyone.”
“It’s different,” said Annua.
“I don’t see how. You want to change things around here, make them better, which is all very well and good, but you’re going about it all the wrong way. You just have to do what you want no matter what they say. When they’ve shouted themselves hoarse, you’ll still be there.”
“You hope,” muttered Corrin.
“I know. They can’t get rid of me once I’m ordained. It’s against the rules. Whatever I do, I’m a priest.”
“You have less to change,” Annua argued. “You’re just a woman. I’m a half-breed woman. I have to make it possible for all of us to hold our heads up without getting them cut off. Kapuf can give me the power to do it. How is that wrong?”
“It’s wrong because you had to kill people to do it,” said Lindau. “Did you know your god didn’t only burn the Mintaino Center, but sent soldiers all the way to Partela to kill the journeymen? One of my friends at least is dead, because of your god. That’s not fair, and I’m not letting it go on.”
Annua’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know that. The king didn’t—Is it true?” She appealed to her brother.
He nodded. “That’s what they sent me away for. I was supposed to kill her. Just as well I failed, isn’t it?”
“You…failed?” she asked. “And they didn’t kill you?”
“We thought about it a few times,” Corrin admitted. “But there was too much going on to find a court, and anyway you can’t execute soldiers for following orders.”
Maltar bent over to his sister. “I can’t explain, because I don’t really understand it myself, but…it’s different over there, An. It’s better, especially for people like us.”
Annua looked at him very closely. “You think I should help her?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. It’ll be worth it. I promise.”
“That’s good enough for me.” Annua turned to Lindau, her eyes bright with interest. “Now. What are you going to do?”
“That depends on you,” she replied. “What do you usually do when you summon the other god?”
“There’s a ritual, to call on Kapuf. He puts his power and influence into King Arjom.”
Lindau looked up sharply from her examination of her staff. “Possession?”
“I don’t—think so. I hadn’t thought of it like that, but…that explains the way he’s been acting.”
Maltar looked like he wanted to say something, but Lindau beat him to it. “That gives him a weak point, when you’re doing the ritual. So, can we hide in this room where you do it?”
“If you can fold yourselves up. There are cupboards…”
The discussion went on into the evening, but in the end, they had a plan. The five agreed not to meet again before the morning. It would be too noticeable. If they each did their parts, it would work. It was their only chance.
Corrin slept only lightly. As he lay awake, he heard Lindau tossing and turning from the bed, where Eluial had insisted she sleep. Maltar was silent and motionless, but when Corrin looked at him, he found him lying with his arms behind his head, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling.
They were all thinking the same thing: Will it work? Will we survive?
