Chapter Eighteen
The next day, Krais discovered just how badly Domo Galen had treated his brothers. Both Gayn and Foren moved with stiff limbs and sullen expressions, their welts and bruises—and even scabs on Gayn’s skin—testament to just how harshly the Disciplinarian believed his brothers should be punished. If he hadn’t had the Nightfallite Guardian’s warning cautioning him, Krais might have tried to comfort his brothers. Tried to intervene.
The fact that he could not—not without being the brother who betrayed humanity in all the wrong, uncontrollable ways—left him with a sour stomach for two days. He did not need a dream-warning from Menda not to interfere, though. Krais chose to be the brother working to save the whole world. His brothers had different choices to make.
The outlanders were suspicious of Krais coming to help them. Particularly the ones older than Krais himself. But they did accept when he offered to show Brothers Grell, Alger, Elcar, and an elderly fellow named Loker where the carefully guarded tomes on extradimensional and Veilway theory were located. Such things were restricted due to power and to politics and a host of other reasons; a poorly crafted Portal could destabilize, even explode, damaging the aether. Such things were not for the undertrained to examine.
Krais coaxed the librarians tending those tomes to make copies of the less dangerous books . . . and distracted those same librarians into looking the other way while the priests hastily scribbled a couple of extra spells into the blank pages at the back of each copied book. Nothing too helpful got into their hands, but it did give Krais a chance to work with Pelai and the other Guardians to plant carefully falsified information on how measurements by Mendhite mages—which he had “overheard” while working for the Elder Mage—had caused a cyclic rhythm to the disruptions in the aether. Those disruptive cycles would weaken first in specific locations at specific times of the year; he suggested pacing out each attempt at trying complex Portal attempts at six month intervals . . . and provided them with a set of false-planted notes found on the Library shelves on how they had just missed the previous window’s chance.
That suggestion came from one of the Guardians who kept their face wrapped up, Kelezam of Charong, just two nations to the west of Mendhi. Their face, because Krais had no idea if the Guardian was a him, a her, or a they, so it was best to assume they were a they until told otherwise. They seemed a clever mage, versed in strategy and tactics, possibly some sort of battle-mage. Guardian Kelezam pointed out that if they had a technical reason to do something at such-and-such time, in such-and-such place, and that paired that with an appropriate “discovered” prophecy, it would seem all the more true, all the more real and thus believable.
Once that particular research task was done, however, the proto-priests scattered, making it difficult for the eldest Puhon brother to track their movements and their progress. Oh, they thanked him, even came back to him every so often to ask for a little more help, to give a little bit of coaxing and a flash of that nice enameled white badge he wore so that specific librarians would stop fussing over outlanders trying to read more sensitive materials . . . but they did not stay long. They did not trust him. Krais could not blame them; deep trust only came with time.
The youths, however, took a shine to Krais. Namely on the third day. After hearing what one of them wanted to research, Krais led the quintet of outlanders plus his two brothers straight into the Hall of Tantric Magics. There, he showed a special pei-slii badge enameled in rainbow hues—given to him by Anya’thia for just such a use—to the librarians guarding the Restricted Archives. Those librarians cast spells on the outlanders; they exiled two of the outlander group from the archives for being “judged too immature to read such things,” but let three of them pass through, sending the other two packing to “go find something else to do.”
With Brothers Alger, Fran, and Steer—an odd name, considering it meant castrated bull in Mendhite—following in his wake, and with the lattermost fellow taking copious notes, Krais helped them to research several different ways on how to raise magical energies through sexual activities. He even helped them find a variation on scrying magics coupled to area-sensitive spells that would allow them to raise even more energy from those watching such activities, even if the watchers did not themselves participate. With his pei-slii-shaped monocle giving him the ability to look at pages that seemed like nothing more than a scribbled mess to the others, Krais found himself pressed to translate the more esoteric tomes. That meant pressed to give them just enough information to gain their trust without giving away too much delicate, dangerous knowledge.
All the talking he had to do dried out his throat. After the third coughing fit to try to clear away the tickles of dust invading his lungs, he declared a break to go fetch water from the drinking fountain by the nearest refreshing room. Foren went with them, muttering about how awfully dry the air felt. Brother Fran, coughing a bit as well, followed both Puhon brothers to the alcove. Krais gestured for the outlander to stay back however, to let his middle sibling drink first.
As soon as Foren slaked his thirst, he nodded to the two and headed back. The image hovering in front of his left eye, of an androgynous ex-Mekhanan named Rexei Longshanks, gestured in an impatient flip of her hands for Krais to speak up. “Do it now, while you can!”
Nodding, Krais touched Brother Fran’s shoulder just as the youth dipped his head to the water arcing up out of the faucet. “Don’t choke on the water,” he murmured, “but I have a message for a man who knows how strong a clip can be.”
Brother Fran sputtered and choked anyway. Coughing, he righted himself, looked around quickly, then turned the fountain back on. “That, ah,” he rasped, “is a fascinating statement. Odd and irrelevant, but fascinating. What does it have to do with me?”
“She says she remembers you,” Krais recited, while the ghostly overlay of the young woman in question nodded quickly. “She remembers what you offered to do . . . when you unlocked her collar six months ago.”
“Oh Gods,” Brother Fran breathed, clutching at the rim of the stone drinking basin, his body trembling for a moment. “She remembers me . . . You have no idea what that means to me.” Stiffening his limbs, he coughed to clear his throat, and asked quietly, “What do you need to know? And how do you know?”
Krais watched him dip his head to drink from the stream of water, and pitched his voice for Fran’s ears alone. Or rather, for Frankei’s ears. “My brothers are not to be trusted. They are working for the Brotherhood, I think out of budding friendship. I am working for She Who Remembers You, for the reasons you know. We need a list of all the things you’ve been researching. The things your brothers want and especially need to know. We need that information to figure out how to counter, neutralize, or redirect everything. And we need to figure out how to get a special prophecy to fall into their hands, to further direct them on where and when to go, in ways to our advantage, not theirs.”
Brother Fran nodded as he finished drinking. Moving back, he blotted the excess liquid from his lips and chin with the back of his hand, giving Krais room to move in for a drink of his own. “I can get that. The lists of spells . . . the lists of kingdoms that might possibly favor our needs . . . I’ve been ingratiating myself with the ones who are keeping track of such things—it helps that I learned how to do the special encoded writings of the Priest’s Guild. I even made a couple of spare copies of everything, but you’d need someone to translate it. Guildcode wasn’t shared with just anyone, even among my fellow priests. It’s half cryptography, half occultology, enchanted to obscure itself from unauthorized eyes. Translating it will take time.”
Hearing footsteps, Krais peeked over his shoulder, spotting his brother Gayn approaching. He quickly tapped the edge of his viewing lens and murmured cagily, indirectly, “This thing allows me to read almost any encrypted code, even some of the highly classified ones only our seniormost librarians can access. So if you have a special, highly restricted tome you want to read . . . I might be able to do it for you.”
“And you said you got that thing because you’re helping the, ah, Elder Mage?” Brother Fran asked, giving Gayn a brief nod in greeting.
“Tipa’thia—the prior Elder Mage—died abruptly, leaving certain needful things incomplete,” Krais said, moving back so his brother could drink from the spigot unobstructed. “The new Elder Mage, Pelai’thia, does not have the time to research what she needs herself, so she sends me to do it, knowing I am a strong mage. Mind you, she has zero need for Tantric spells, so I technically should not be here . . . but I remember what it was like to be your and Gayn’s ages, with all the drive and energy for that sort of thing. I’m not that old.”
Chuckling as he straightened, wiping his mouth, Gayn scoffed, “Of course, you get all the pleasure you want from being whipped by an Elder, these days.”
Flushing hotly, Krais glared at his brother. “If we weren’t trying to be decorous and respectful in case any librarians are watching, I’d kick your kilt for that. I love you, Gayn, but I’d kick you for it.”
“Penitents aren’t allowed to fight, remember?” Gayn countered. He reached up and flicked at the chain connected to the viewing lens. With his off-hand, since the outlanders had brought him a sling for his right arm to rest in while they worked, taking the pressure off the damaged joint. Krais moved out of his reach before he could touch it, making the youngest brother scowl for a moment. Only a moment, though; Gayne adopted a sly, almost loftly look. “Besides, while I am grateful for your help with my new friends, I’m also your little brother. I’m obligated by thousands of years and thousands of cultural traditions around the world to be a pain in your kilt.”
He flicked at the chain again, smirked when Krais gave ground again, stepping back to keep it out of reach, and swaggered off. The youngest Puhon limped as he did so, but he did try to swagger. Whatever Domo Galen did to him, beating his body each morning and each night, the youngest Puhon was not letting it beat his spirit down, too.
Watching him go, Krais felt a mix of pride and sorrow. Either Gayn or Foren would betray humanity, and the other would walk away from humanity.
Either way, I won’t be likely to see my brothers again.
“Okay, he’s gone,” he heard Rexei Longshanks say. “Back to Frankei. Tell him we need a list of all priesthood members, their original names and their known aliases. And see if there’s a way he can get images of each man’s appearance, so that we can have scrying images or sketches made, so that we’ll be able to keep track of them even if they decide to change names and methods and everything.”
That was an awful lot to convey in just a few murmurs. Rolling his eyes, Krais spoke under his breath, trying his best to condense it before any of the others came near and overheard.
He had exactly one window of opportunity for his plan. Seizing it while his brother Foren, oblivious to Gayn’s intentions, used the refreshing room at the house the Brotherhood rented, the youngest Puhon brother approached the leader of the group. Setting a scrap of paper on the flat table meant for dining, but which the outlanders used as their writing surface instead of a properly slanted desk, he met the gaze of Brother Elcar.
“What is this?” Elcar asked, picking up the paper to peer at the teardrop-shaped item and its scribbled loop.
“It’s a thing I want you to make,” Gayn said. “It’s a kind of viewing lens, on a silver chain. Make it as fast as you can, to the dimensions drawn on that page, which I made as exact as I can . . . and I will get you the real one to use. I can also get my hands on a badge I can use to get you whatever it is you’re really seeking . . . but while the badge is easily stolen, the viewing lens will be much more likely to be missed.”
Brother Elcar eyed him a long moment, looked at the drawing, then back at the Mendhite again. “And why should we craft something so expensive as a ruse? As a kind gesture on your part? I think not. What will you get out of it, Pwan Gain?”
“I want you to help me get my hands on the real viewing lens, because the kind of spell I want to find is encrypted too heavily for me to even see it without that lens,” Gayn told him and the other elders of the Broherhood. He pulled his arm out of his sling, hissing in pain from how the shifting forces put extra pressure on his nerves. He didn’t dare wear the sling in his Disciplinarian’s presence, so he had to leave it here each night. “My magics are currently suppressed. There is a spell—I’ve seen it listed in the Restricted Index—that will ease those suppressions. With that easing, I can use my magics to take the pressure off my arm with levitation and cushioning spells. With healing charms.
“This pain is driving me mad,” he added tersely, speaking the absolute truth. “And that bastard assigned to discipline me is bullying me. But I cannot take my complaints to his superiors, because everyone in the hierarchy above him sympathizes with my father, who ordered me beaten. Your Order is all about protecting those who are being bullied. Some of you say you want to learn physical fighting skills so you can protect yourselves that way, as well as with magic. Well, I want my magics back, so I can protect myself from these cruelties.”
He turned to show them his lash-striped skin, fresh scabs added to the older ones from where Domo Galen had scourged him. Movement in the shadows of the mid-hall resolved into the figure of his elder brother. Gayn froze, and Brother Elcar casually turned the paper over. Foren padded forward, approaching them, his gaze flicking from face to face.
“ . . . Well?” he finally asked. “Are you going to help my brother thwart his tormentor? Or is your Brotherhood a lie when it comes to claiming you’ll stand up for those who are bullied, regardless of their origins?”
Brother Elcar smiled slightly. It almost looked like a grimace, but then Foren’s demand probably tasted bitter. “We are many things, young man . . . but yes, we are willing to help you. We’ve seen reading lenses in the marketplace not too dissimilar from this one; Brother Loker knows some spells that will turn metal and glass malleable, allowing us to create this . . . pointed shape . . .
“As for why we’d help you . . . well, we do prefer to help each other against bullies, but it carries a strong risk of being denied access to the Great Library. Still . . . your brother is right. We are seeking highly restricted information . . . and oddly enough, what we seek also involves breaking through magics that otherwise would stop us, albeit not quite the same sort.”
“We have bullies of our own that we still have to deal with,” Brother Grell stated, confirming his words. “Bullies that are magically more powerful than all of us combined . . . which is why we were forced to go into exile. There is no way to win against them without a secret way to wedge open their defenses, and a way to crack them apart from the inside.”
“I don’t trust your eldest brother,” Brother Hando stated. He was the bald one with the long, gray-streaked beard, looking very much the outlander with it when everyone else in their Brotherhood had started sensibly shaving off the heat-catching strands from their chins days ago. “He seems sharp and clever. Will a fake version distract him from noticing it’s the wrong one?”
“If we work together to distract him, he won’t,” Foren said. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I don’t trust him, either. He seems happy with his punishments.”
“That’s because he’s a secret subservient at heart,” Gayn dismissed scathingly. “I’m not going to let others tell me what to do any longer. Are you, Brother?”
Foren stared at his sibling a long moment, a muscle working in his jaw. “ . . . It’s not right, how Domo Galen beats you. There is a line between punishment and torture, and he crosses it every night. Anything I can do to thwart him . . . I will do it, for you.”
Gayn looked back at Elcar and the others. “Family Day. It’s in just a few more days, or we can wait a week more. One of us can get our hands on the access brooch and the necklace, swap that out—I can get my hand on my mother’s access brooch, which is slightly different, close enough to not notice at a mere glance if we use that one to swap it out—and then we can distract Krais, keep him busy, while the other hurries you through the pertinent archives.”
“There are only a fraction of librarians on duty on a Family Day,” Foren added. “It’ll be easiest to bluff our way past the watchers. Especially since we’ll have the badge. He keeps it in his kilt pouch. It’s the viewing lens on that necklace that he’d notice most, if it were missing for long. But if we swap them out, then keep him busy and away from anywhere he’d use it, the one not keeping him busy can hurry to find what both of us need.”
“How will you swap it out without any magic?” Brother Alger asked.
“We’ll think of something,” Foren muttered, exchanging a worried look with his sibling. Without their magic, they’d have a hard time doing it.
“ . . . It’s been getting progressively hotter, the last few days,” Brother Fran pointed out, speaking up. “Several of us were talking about wading into the lakes on the Library grounds . . . or is that a blasphemy? Surely he’d have to take it off, maybe put it in his pouch and set that on the shore, in order to cool off with a bit of swimming? You could offer to take turns guarding each other’s things,” the lanky outlander added.
“Yeah, that sounds good,” Brother Alger agreed. “I’d trust my brothers to watch something important. Wouldn’t he?”
Foren nodded. “We’ll have to go to luncheon for Family Day, spend a few hours, but midafternoon, we could come back. And it’s not a blasphemy to swim in the waters. It’s just not done on the other days of the week because it’s not seen as very dignified.”
“We’ll make an afternoon picnic of it,” Brother Grell offered. “We can claim you’re becoming a part of our family, and invite you to dine with us.”
“Make it breakfast,” Gayn suggested. “That gives us more time to search and distract our brother. If it gets any hotter, the heat of afternoon will make no one want to move . . . and that heat will drive those whose cooling charms in their homes have failed into the various halls of the Great Library. Morning will be cooler and more suitable for a picnic.”
Fran nodded. “That would give us more opportunities to return the borrowed monocle, too, since if you come back in the late afternoon to do more research, we could go swimming again.”
“That’s assuming it turns hot enough to risk wading around so informally,” Brother Elcar said. “What if the weather cools, or it rains?”
Foren shrugged. “It’s summer, and it’ll be a Family Day. We’ll go swimming anyway.”
“You’ll need to do the swimming and the distracting,” Brother Alger told Foren. “Brother Gayn’s arm will make it hard for him to do any swimming or other activities for long.”
“Then we’re set,” Gayn stated, pleased with how things were turning out. “There are risks . . . but I think they can be managed. And as soon as I can loosen the bindings holding my magics back, I’ll be a lot happier.”
Brother Grell rose and cupped his shoulder. “We will do what we can to help you, Brother Gayn. You have already been punished more than enough by the others Gods, with your injury. Alshai’s compassion urges us not to let you suffer for much longer . . . and Nurem’s wisdom reminds us that sometimes just because something is lawful does not always make it right.”
Satisfied he would get the help he needed—and fairly certain they were not aware of his plans for vengeance, though he had only vague ideas for right now—Gayn nodded in gratitude. “Thank you. Unfortunately, my brother and I must go now, if we are not to be late and provoke more brutalities.”
“Nurem bless you both,” Brother Elcar replied.
Nodding, Gayn turned and left, cradling his arm. Touching his back briefly in silent comfort and support, Foren joined him. They might fight from time to time, but his middle brother was a solid kinsman. He just didn’t need to know everything Gayn intended to view with that special viewing lens.
Unlike the Elder Disciplinarian’s home, which had rooms for punishing people, extra garden space, extra room for guests, but which did not sit attached to that hierarchy’s administration buildings, the residence of the Guardian sat connected between the Mage Hall, with all of its offices, workrooms, craftrooms, and so forth, and the Temple proper. That ensured the Guardian never had to brave the worst of monsoon wind and rain just to get to the Fountain chamber.
Instead of a ground-floor atrium, a clever rooftop garden had been built, similar to the one above the residence floor of her parents’ bakery, scattered with potted herbs and hosting the family’s spirit trees. This garden stretched in table-styled bed after planting bed across the flat roof, with an arbor of flowering vines to serve as a sort of atrium wall around the edges. Pelai’s personal spirit tree sat in a matching trellis-covered gazebo in the center. That gazebo frame had broad, cushion-lined benches around the perimeter, benches on which Pelai and Krais had both decided to lounge.
While it was cooler inside than outside, the air just smelled better out here. That, and no one dared come here at night without permission, since this rooftop garden was considered personal, private space. Reserved solely for the Elder Mage and his or her family to use, save for just a few hours each morning for the building’s gardeners to come up and tend.
Which made the approach of footsteps and the clearing of a throat rather unusual.
“Elder Mage?” the white-clad young woman asked hesitantly, stopping just outside the gazebo so that she could peer inside without broaching the visual privacy of its trellis-edged walls. “I would not interrupt, but . . . there is an outlander gentleman down below. He is rather insistent on seeing Puhon Krais immediately.”
Pelai pushed up onto her elbows, and cast Krais a bemused look. He in turn sat up, his body sore and protesting from hauling around chests and bags and boxes of books over the last few hours, on top of a long day of walking around the Great Library’s halls. “An outlander?” he asked. “Curly brown hair?”
The apprentice mage nodded. “Yes. He says his name is Brother Fran. He gave me this . . . paper . . . to give to you. I cast spells on it to see if it is harmful, but . . . while it contains no magic I can tell, neither is it anything that makes sense.”
Rising, Krais crossed to her and held out his hand. She passed it to him, and he pulled his viewing lens out of his vest. Fitting it to his eye, he waited ten seconds for the magic to take hold . . . and blinked as red lettering swarmed up out of he swirling mess of black lines on the simple off-white page. The words hidden in the tangled overlay sent alternating waves of icy shock and hot anger washing through his frame. Breathing deep, Krais crossed to Pelai, and let her have a chance to study it, too.
When she finished, he gave her a significant look. Almost anyone else looking at it would have seen a tangled scribble of interwoven lines. She needed the tattoo the Elder Librarian had given her to read it. He needed his monocle. The viewing lens Anya’thia had threatened him with death if he lost.
The viewing lens his own brothers planned to steal from him in order to steal knowledge from the Restricted Archives. In specific, some of the very same spells the Elder Librarian had asked him if he would ever try to steal, after being given the ability to read the sort of carefully encrypted words that were not the kind that most people could see and speak aloud. An echo of his Goddess speaking to him from that moment during the Convocation wafted through his mind right now.
. . . The sight is different from the sound
Spoken words aren’t what scrolls show . . .
The young lady looked between the two of them, waiting for an answer. Finally, she said, “Well? Should I bring him up here, or take you down to where he waits?”
Pelai eyed Krais, and gestured at him, giving him permission to handle the matter.
“Please go back and tell him I will have a reply in the morning. Thank you,” he added politely.
“Of course. Anything else?” she asked.
“Just thank him for this message, let him know I understand what it means, and reassure the outlander that I will have a reply for him in the morning,” Krais repeated.
“Of course. Goodnight, Pelai’thia. Goodnight . . . Krais.” She flashed him a tiny smile, bowed, and left.
Rather than return to his own side of the air-cooled gazebo, surrounded by the pleasant scents of a dozen different flowering plants, Krais crossed to where Pelai still lounged. Ever since her official investiture, she had taken to wearing a comfortable cotton taga most of the time. White, of course, belted in gilded black with her matching bracers still firmly laced in place. She had removed her boots earlier, letting Purrsus nuzzle and rub his face all over them, and had donned simple toe-strapped salaps for the walk to the roof garden.
So had Krais, donning an old pair of salaps since neither of them had expected to go anywhere this late at night. One of the reed-woven sandals accidentally fell off when he sat down by her thighs and crossed his ankles. He debated toeing after it, but left it on the wooden slats of the gazebo floor for the time being.
After a while, he finally said, “So. It begins.”
Pelai snorted at that, and smacked him in a light thwap of the backs of her knuckles against the back of his arm, the closest part she could reach. “It began when that first idiot, the Aian mage Torven or whatever, decided he was going to try to take over the Tower’s source of power. It began when those idiots in Mekhana chose to seek out a stupid source of power that would end with the world invaded and ruined.
“It began when . . . well, when you and your brothers stupidly decided it would be okay to commit crimes against other nations,” she added, softening her tone. Pushing upright, she cupped his shoulder in sympathy. “It began when you decided you were wrong, and each time you decided you would oppose them. Krais . . . whatever we are handed is our fate, yes, but what we choose to do with it is our destiny. And you have been making good choices. Your brothers . . . well, they have the right to make their own choices, good or bad. But we need to consult with Master Kerric about whether or not this is something that will disrupt the future, based on each possibility for whatever we might consider doing about it.”
He nodded, forced to concede her point. “I know. I know. I have to let them . . . make their mistakes. Accept the consequences for their acts. Send them . . . send them into exile. Father . . . is going to shit whole books over this,” he added crudely, scrubbing at his face with both palms. “Pardon my language . . .”
“Shit books?” Pelai asked, amused by the vulgarity. “How big of books, do you think? Little paper novels of fanciful, fictional tales? Or much bigger tomes, like exchequery-sized ledgers?”
Dragging his hands off his face, he parted his arms, his palms sketching a space nearly a yard wide, then half again as long. “The Registry sized ones.”
That made her chuckle. Leaning forward against him, Pelai hugged Krais. “This is a real mess, isn’t it . . . But what was that your prophecy poem said?”
Drawing in a deep breath, Krais ordered his thoughts, then recited from memory.
“Hush, little Guardian; stand your ground.
Wisdom faked will try to know.
The sight is different from the sound.
Spoken words aren’t what scrolls show.”
“No, no, not that part,” Pelai dismissed. “I mean, that part is important, but . . . umm.. Love, not hate, is what must grow. That’s the part I’m thinking about.”
“If they do this, they’re breaking the law, Pelai. Do I show them love by trying to get them locked up? Or do I try to help them escape . . . and get punished for it, or sent into exile, too?” he asked, turning to look at her. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“Pff,” she scoffed. “You’re a part of the Guardians of Destiny poem, and we’re three for three so far on it being a love prophecy . . . as well as a warning against a dire global fate.” At his arched brow, she said, “Kerric fell in love with Myal, the Painted Lady to his Master of the Tower. Saleria was the Keeper of the Grove, and Aradin Teral the Witch helping her. They’re happily married, now. Alonnen clearly has his Rexei, and they make such a cute boyish couple together . . . And I? I have you. My Painted Lord, standing by my side.”
He grunted at that. “Some bargain. I—ow!” he hissed, quickly cupping his hand over the nipple she had pinched through his vest. “Dammit! . . . Was that a punishment, or an attempt at arousal?
“Yes. Would you like to retaliate?” she purred, leaning into him and nipping at his bottom lip with her own.
As much as Krais wanted to make love to her—and planned to make love to her, here in the gazebo of her rooftop atrium—he pulled back and pressed his finger to her lips. “Bookmark that,” he ordered. “We need to go see Anya’thia. I am not about to let the viewing lens be ‘borrowed’ by my brothers without her permission.”
Sighing, Pelai sat back, giving him the freedom to rise so that she could follow. “I’ll bet she’s getting sick of us. Maybe at the end of each day of late, she soothes herself with dire mutterings about how we should be bothering Nalai’thia, or Hala’thia, or Sandu’thio . . .”
“Outlanders do not typically come to Mendham to talk with the Elder Citizen or the Elder Craftsman,” Krais reminded her. “They come for the Great Library, and that means Anya’thia has to deal with all the headaches of it.” Removing his finger, he added, “At least we are helping her to manage some of it . . . even as we deliver some of it.”
“Well, we’d better go now. I know she stays up to read, but I’m not sure how late, each night,” Pelai said. “Her residence is on the far side of the Temple—“
He booped her on the nose, a light tap that made her blink. “Or we could just use your ability to tap into the scrying mirrors of the Tower, and link to her and to Guardian Kerric. The one with the mirror where he can tell if what decisions we’re discussing will have a positive or a negative impact on the world a year from now?”
She groaned at that, and dropped her forehead against his shoulder. “I’m tired of floating faces . . . ! If we do that, then I want to go down to the Fountain Hall. It’s also more private down there, since no one can eavesdrop.”
“Then we’ll go down to the Fountain Hall,” he agreed. He waited for her to move away from his shoulder first. She felt too good, leaning on him for comfort, for Krais to want to move. She felt too right, leaning on him.
“And we’ll need to bring Anya’thia, too,” she muttered, not yet moving.
“I know . . . and we really do have to move, in case she’s headed for bed as we speak.”
“Ugh! I swear, if I’m anywhere near these demon-cuddling idiots when they start their next round of summonings, I will pick up said demon and flog them with it!” she muttered with dire vindictiveness. “I just wanted to have a nice, peaceful transition to being the next Elder Mage, not this mess!”
Chuckling, he wrapped his arm around her, hugged her to him, kissed her beautiful tattooed brow, and shook his head. “Too late. You’ll just have to deal with it. But I promise I will help you.”
“Good. You’re mine, now. I’m keeping you after your two months are up.” Kissing his cheek, she finally moved away, just enough to rise and brush down the folds of her taga. “I miss my black leathers. It’s too hot for leather, even white leather with cooling charms, but I miss them. Do you think she’ll be offended if we arrive wearing cheap salaps instead of nicer sandals?”
“How would I know?” Krais reminded her, taking her hand and twining their fingers together, an act they could only do up here in privacy. “I haven’t been around her for most of the last year.”
“You’re right. It’s late, it’s hot, I’m cranky, and she will just have to put up with it. Let’s go,” she added, pointing at the Temple wall rising on the east side of the rooftop garden. “There’s a doorway that serves as a shortcut to the main floor of the Temple through there, in the middle of the arbor walkway. I saw it my first summer apprenticing under Tipa’thia, and I know its rune-lock has been enchanted to accept my hand, same as all the others . . .”
Family Day donned hot and humid, the sticky, sweaty feel to the air just perfect for lounging around in comfortable, cool water for as long as possible. The initial theft of the necklace and the brooch passed without a problem, and Gayn had an excellent excuse about needing to go see one of the Healers to check on whether or not a spell had been researched that could cure his arm . . . but Gayn did not return right away. Neither did Brother Fran, who had offered to escort Gayn in case he felt faint—the perfect excuse on several levels, since he was the only youth in the group who could write in the special code the older priests used.
Foren stepped up his efforts to make sure he had his eldest brother’s undivided attention, and the other younger members of the Order of the Traveling Brotherhood also did their best to distract him from noticing the swap. They certainly tried their best when he donned the fake necklace to make sure he wasn’t given enough time to actually look at it before dropping it safely down inside his vest top. The chain was a little short, the shape a little off . . . but Krais knew it was the fake, so those detail differences did not actually alarm him.
The group even offered to walk the two brothers to their family’s home in the heart of the Disciplinarian part of the Temple grounds. They weren’t bad company, though as more and more time passed in listening to them, the more Krais realized these young men had very little respect for women. Not that they said a lot of crude things about women—a few—but it was more that they just didn’t seem to think anyone female was worth mentioning with any real respect.
They certainly did not refer to Pelai’thia with any respect; they just said, “ . . . that girl assigned to punish you.” Girl. That word burned in his ears. The idiots made it sound as if Pelai were younger than the youngest of them, the still baby-cheeked Brother Dor, almost still a child at just sixteen years of age, rather than a stable, experienced, lively, but clearly fully mature thirty-one, almost thirty-two.
The implications of that endemic level of distain when paired with Brother Steer’s insistence on researching sex magics were disquietening. Krais hoped privately he had not just sentenced some poor woman—or group of women—to be used as a power source. Perhaps even abused, solely for the sake of greedy sexual energy raising. To do so with no consideration for her actual wants and needs, or for her reality as a human being? That would be horrible. Women deserved to be treated as people, not just as some sort of magic-generating thing.
Just as their group of twelve outlanders and the two Puhon brothers reached the front entrance to the Elder Disciplinarian’s stately home, a dozen black-clad figures stepped into view. Some emerged from behind bushes in the garden areas lining the paths and courtyards. Others stepped out from behind the various buildings, or emerged from various shadowed doorways into the bright noon light.
Two dozen tattooed figures in brown leathers carved with the government pei-slii emerged with them. Half of them carried strung and knocked bows. For the moment, those arrows stayed aimed at the ground, but he had no doubt they would be snapped up and loosed at the group in a heartbeat if anyone provoked the soldiers of the Mendhite Army. Krais also knew that it would not likely be himself or his brother peppered with the ranged weapons. Not as the soldiers’ first choice of targets. Not at the very threshold of his father’s home.
Brother Alger turned around slowly, his pale outlander face turning a bit paler—a difficult trick, considering he had a little bit of a sunburn from playing around in one of the garden ponds. “Uh . . . what is this all about? Is . . . is something wrong? Uh . . . Crays? Forn? Do you know what . . . ?”
A voice cleared. It belonged to a fellow in a brown army war-kilt with three pei-slii filled in on his breastplate in gilded paint. “Well. Here we are. The remainder of the Order of the Traveling Brotherhood—the others are being rounded up as we speak,” he added. “I am Akim Jodo Belak—my rank is third up in the Hierarchy of the Army of Mendhi. Not a very high rank, I’ll admit, but I am here in cooperation with the Hierarchy of the Disciplinarians . . . and the Hierarchy of Mages . . . and the Hierarchy of the Great Library. Whose trust members of your Order have violated this day.”
That was what had happened to delay Gayn, Krais realized. The original plan had been to let Gayn return, have Frankei deliver slightly altered copies of all the information found, and then catch the elders of the Brotherhood ink-handed with restricted writings in their possession, after the Brothers had been given enough time to study the prophesies that would help guide them to be in the right place at the right time for their defeat. Perhaps even time for the ex-priests to gather up their things and disperse.
Since his part in all of this was to pretend to be the unwitting fool, Krais had no idea how much of that had taken place. So when the sergeant commanded them to kneel, he lowered himself to the sun-hot cobblestones, tucking the edge of his red kilt under his knees to protect them somewhat from the rough surface and its heat. Since he wore sandals, his toes felt a little scorched, but he breathed deep, reassured himself this was not a sexy sort of pain, and settled down to wait.
The front entrance to his family’s home opened. A fellow who looked remarkably like Akim Jodo emerged, that librarian kinsman of his. After him came Anya’thia, her calf-length gown swirling around her legs, the powder blue taga long enough to shield most of her from the heat of the sun, thin enough to let a breeze pass through. After her came . . . his mother. Librarian Karei looked very angry, her mouth set in a tight line, one hand clenching the cord of the belt cinching her knee-length taga as if it were the handle of a flogger she longed to use on the males kneeling before her.
Oh. Right. Mother is going to dive even deeper into being a gendered knowledgist because of this. Only because the situation was serious did Krais refrain from rolling his eyes. How dare males abuse the sacred covenant of restricted access to restricted information, and on and on and on . . .
Behind her emerged Pelai’thia in a mix of white and black, boots, belt, and bracers dyed dark, kilt and vest bleached bright, all of it gilded all over with her rank. After her emerged the Second Mage, Koret, clad in a pristine white taga that fell to his knees, pleated both at the shoulders and the waist, almost heavily enough to be a kilt. And finally, Domo Galen, Doma Belaria . . . and Dagan’thio at the rear. All clad in various levels of gold-touched black.
“My own sons,” Dagan’thio growled. He opened his mouth to say more, but his wife beat him to it.
“How dare you?!” she yelled, marching up between the outlanders to spit her words in Krais and Foren’s faces. “Shaming your father, shaming your mother, shaming your ancestry! I cannot believe I gave birth to you!”
Krais flinched. So did his middle brother.
“Thank you, Librarian Karei,” Anya’thia stated, cutting across her tirade before it could go further than that. “Resume your place. This is my purview.”
Choking on her rage, face so flushed with it that the red almost overpowered the tan, Aldis Karei stiffly turned and marched back to her husband’s side. He glared with her at their offspring, though from the occasional look he gave the Elder Librarian, he resented her for asserting her authority over his wayward sons.
“—Krais didn’t know!” Foren blurted out, before falling silent again.