Chapter Four
Foren hated the kneeling. Not so much when he’d done it on that felted mat, but here on the hard granite floor of the Index Hall? He couldn’t even lessen the burden with the twitch of a muscle, the activation of a tattoo to cushion his flesh and bone from the unyielding stone. With Gayn and Krais both gone, he had nothing to occupy his time but staring at Domo Anso’s kilt as the Disciplinarian searched through files to prove some stupid point of cataloguing.
The older male was supposed to be attending to Foren’s disciplining. After the Second Disciplinarian left, however, Domo Anso and Domo Galen had gone right back to their arguing over the cataloguing of the Thelaiza Technique. Foren vaguely remembered it from his training days, some sort of behavioral alteration method, using sounds associated with tangible rewards to retrain penitents, until the sound alone could correct the behavior. Rather like how animal handlers trained their charges with whistles or clicks or barked commands mixed with treats and tribulations. Embarrassing, to think of it being applied to him.
Clearing his throat when the two men took a break from the current ledger books being examined, he asked, “Domo Anso . . . may I use the refreshing room? And get a drink of water?”
There were rules about such things, even for Hierarchy-disappointing penitents.
“I think we’ll be here a few more minutes,” Domo Galen murmured. The thinner of the two Disciplinarians, he had more white hairs among the black on his scalp than Anso, but his had been cropped short.
Domo Anso nodded, his gray-shot braid sliding along his shoulder. Meatier in shape, the Disciplinarian in charge of the middle Puhon brother stood like he should have been on the deck of a ship plying the waters around the many islands of southeastern Mendhi. Strong, stable, and unmoving. His fingers, however callused, handled the pagers of the index ledger he examined with a delicate touch. “You may go and refresh yourself. You must return promptly. If we have moved on before you return, you will have to find us . . . and your first punishment will be doubled.
“If you fail to return in a reasonable amount of time, I will drag you back here by your own magics,” Domo Anso added.
As if Foren could forget how the old man had a metaphysical leash on his life-energies. Rising, he bowed, backed up, and turned to orient himself in the Hall. All of the various Library buildings—the ones housing actual books and scrolls and other forms of written records—had constant low-level illumination thanks to tediously grown suncrystals laced through the ceilings and pillars. Those crystals only partially lit the rows upon rows of sturdy shelving lining the hall in neat, orderly formations, to keep from sun-fading the many scrolls and tomes.
Still, enough light fell down on the slanted desks standing like flattened rooflines between each set of shelves that one could write on a complementary chalkboard with a bit of chalk from one of the bins on the tops of the desks, as Domo Anso and Domo Galen were doing.
Individual lightglobes and mage-lamps of different origins and manufacturing methods sat in brackets spaced every two vertical supports along the rows of shelving, but those only lit when a book had been removed from the shelf, and shut off when all books were returned. The color they turned also had special meanings, making them part of the security system as well as the organization system; apprentice librarians could see in an instant if a book was out of order, missing . . . or damaged. An entire cadre of junior Disciplinarians stood duty in the various Library buildings, ready to act at a librarian’s command—Mendhite horror stories included a thousand and ten tales of different ways to be punished for damaging a precious book, after all.
Bronze frames clipped to the shelving held strips of paper at various points, describing what subjects could be found within the indices stored on those shelves. These particular books might look like tomes and scrolls filled with precious information, but every single one was merely a ledger holding the location of another book or scroll, or even just a folder of associated papers. Which explained the plain covers of the tomes.
The undyed runes carved onto their leather surfaces linked them all together, Foren knew. He had no interest in being a librarian, but growing up on the Temple grounds, he had learned about the processes used. One went to the approximately right section in the Index Hall for the subject at hand, and checked the Subject Ledger, which indicated the categories that a particular subject—such as Thalaiza Technique—fell into, along with volume numbers on where to find more information. Then one went to that section in the local stacks, and looked for the book or books, yet more ledgers, listing the actual tomes and page numbers where the subject in question appeared, along with which building and row and set of shelves where the book currently could be found.
The Master Scrolls could have been faster to use, because it contained all of that information in a magically interlinked heading, but there were only five of them. At least, here in the Index Hall. There was always one Master Scroll in any Library building containing books. But they were only ever used by senior librarians, who sat on tall, padded stools in front of the great scrolls, made out of entire scores of cowhides scraped into parchment, carefully shaped, enchanted, and stitched together.
Since the nearest refreshing rooms he knew of lay on the other side of the Index Hall, that meant crossing three of the long queues of petitioners waiting to consult the Master Scrolls. They stood lined up in the sort of untidy clusters that always formed, chatting with each other. It killed the time, he knew, awaiting their turn at asking the librarians for help in finding exactly what they needed to know. Foren muttered apologies as he cut through the first line in his path, but found his way blocked by a large knot of foreigners in the second line.
Such clusters were not unusual. The Great Library of Mendham was probably the most visited place in the entire span of the world, with scholars, historians, teachers, mages, craftsmen, even ambassadors making the effort to journey to its many halls from all the corners of the world. Such an undertaking was not easy these days, not with the magic underlying mirror-Gates damaged and shortened in how far they could span a particular patch of land. Certainly, the Portals of old were nothing more than a memory of centuries past. A how-to memory filed properly under Transportation Methods, subheading Magically Assisted Transportation, sub-subheading Portals and Gates, of course.
This second line had a cluster of foreigners with motley collection of clothes being worn, but a sort of similarity in their faces. Pale-skinned, square-jawed but oval-headed, not Mendhite round. Eyes that ranged from hazel to green, not just shades of brown. Hair that was brown—where it wasn’t gray, white, or balding—but not a proper dark brown, and definitely curly, not straight or wavy. Clothes that were made from very travel-worn materials, including a faded, crushed velvet for the robes of two of the older gentlemen. As for their ages, a half dozen youths, a handful of men of young to middling age, and some graybeards made up the mix.
Permanent dirt stained their clothes, the kind where no amount of scrubbing or spellcasting could remove those deeply embedded muddy stains from along the ragged hems. A newer garment here or there did show among the dozen or so figures, but the majority of it looked to be outlander clothes. Such as the trousers under the robes that hung open, not sensible air-cooled kilts. The main concession to the heat of Mendhi seemed to be a lack of sleeves among most of them. The armholes had been stitched neat, some displaying more needle skills than others.
A few—the middle aged to older ones—had thread-of-copper stitching in something that looked vaguely like thermal runes, no doubt in an attempt to invoke cooling energies. And of course, all of them were shorter than Foren, or even most Mendhites, though Foren stood on the tall side of things. Unfortunately, these short foreigners just stood there, muttering amongst themselves about Gate magics and shielding spells and something about petitioning for something, he didn’t know what. They certainly didn’t part and make way for him, though he stood there pointedly. Giving up, Foren spoke aloud, trying to curb his impatience.
“Pardon me. Please move.” Foren didn’t have to worry that they didn’t understand him. Even if he didn’t have the pale blue of a translation tattoo from his right eye to his right ear, and down to the right side of his throat, he could see that each of them had a hand-carved amulet strung on a cord around their necks, marked with the runes of a translation spell.
A couple of them looked his way, and one of the youths spoke arrogantly. “The back of the line is down there, sir. You look like a local. You should know that.”
Foren frowned and pointed past them. “Yes, but the refreshing room is over there, and you are blocking my path to it. I am in a hurry.”
“Refreshing room?” one of the men in his late twenties asked, perking up at that. “Where? Show me! Make way for him, all of you!” the man ordered, shooing the others out of Foren’s way with flicks of his hand, though he chuckled at the humor in his commands. “The man is in a hurry for a reason, and so am I!”
With that, Foren found himself ushered across the middle line, and through the more loosely queued far line. The other fellow eyed him as they walked among the shelves. “You’re a native fellow, right? A Painted Warrior? Do you work for the Library?”
“Yes, yes, and no, but I do work for the Hierarchy.” When not being punished unfairly, Foren thought sourly. Though technically he had not yet been punished, other than his aching knees. It felt good to walk, at least.
“So then you still know some of the ins and outs of the Library. Excellent—I am Brother Grell, of the Order of the Traveling Brotherhood,” the fellow added, offering his hand. “Thank you for showing me to the refreshing room. What is your name?”
Bemused but grateful for the courtesy, Foren clasped hands with him briefly. “I am Puhon Foren. Welcome to Mendhi.” He pointed up at a permanently embedded set of basalt symbols on the pale granite walls of the Index Hall. “That symbol up there means refreshing rooms are located here. There are three entrances,” he added as they cleared the last row of library shelves in the way. “Males to the left, females to the right, and everyone else in the middle.”
Brother Grell snorted. “There isn’t anything else. The Gods made males in Their image, and then They made females from the scraps of the leftovers, and that was that!”
Foren rolled his eyes. Outlanders had some very strange ideas, sometimes. Especially outlander beliefs where their religion hadn’t had access to thousands of years of speculation and discussion on such subjects. Worse, the fellow seemed to be unaware that females actually came first in the world—how else could there be babies being born without females to bear them?
“I take it you are unaware of those born differently?” Foren asked dryly, approaching the refreshing room choices. Grell shook his head, and Foren gestured at the signs. “Well, they do exist, and they have existed since before even the First God, Fate, was born. Fate has always had no gender and all genders, all at once, simultaneously, for many thousands of years. Some people are born with the physical signs of both genders, placing them in a category between. Some are born with that same mix-of-genders feeling inside their skin, like they are more akin to Fate in the shape of their spirit than they are to anything about their body that seems solidly male or solidly female. Some, of course, are born with the spirit of one and the body of the other, blessed to understand multiple views of gender, while others don’t feel they have a gender at all. I take it you feel solidly male, Brother Grell?”
“Very much so,” the outlander asserted. He changed the subject when they entered the room beyond, muttering, “I will never get used to these trench seats that have no privacy screens. I’m taking a cubicle for privacy, if you don’t mind.”
“As you like,” Foren replied, unconcerned. Outlanders could get so fussy about things that were natural and normal.
His own business took only a little time. Washing his tattooed hands at one of the sinks when he finished, Foren cupped them once they were clean and drank from his palms to slake the thirst that had grown in the last several hours. He hadn’t gotten much sleep, and he took a moment to scrub his face, too, in order to try to refresh some energy back into his body. By the time he finished wiping the water from his cheeks, the outlander stood beside him at the next sink, scrubbing his hands with the soap provided.
“Right. Back we go,” Grell stated. He eyed Foren, and offered a wry smile. “If you’d be willing to guide me, that is. We turned a couple times in the stacks, and I’d be deeply grateful for the escort by someone who knows the way.”
Foren debated brushing off the stranger. Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, he gestured sharply. “Come, then. I am here with others, and they will move on if I do not return promptly.”
“Of course, of course; your time is valuable, as is your attention. You honor me with both,” Brother Grell added in flattery. “That you add your expertise in this setting only adds to my debt to you. Now . . . if I could ask one last question . . . “
Since they still had several lengths of bookcases to go, Foren sighed and nodded. “Ask.”
“How exactly do these Master Scroll queries work? I’ll need to know so I can look up . . . what . . . No?” Grell asked, eyeing Foren’s shaking head.
“No,” the middle Puhon brother confirmed. “Only senior-ranked mage-librarians are allowed to manipulate the Master Scrolls. Doing so requires having the authorization spells, and the magic to empower the searches. You just go to the master librarian, state as clearly as you can what you are looking for—use lots of different words for the same thing if you’re not completely sure which word to use—and then write down whatever they tell you. All librarians have translation tattoos to assist in understanding you, but you must speak clearly of what you seek.
“Once you have it in writing, you just look for the shelving numbers and letters on the ends of each stack of shelves,” Foren added, gesturing at the placards and their arrows. “And then check each shelf for the exact section, and then you look for the exact book.”
“So what we’ll find will be on these shelves?” Grell asked, dubious. “I know the Great Library is supposed to be huge, but this place seems . . . small. Compared to its reputation, I mean.”
Foren chuckled; it always amused him when foreigners thought this was all there was to the Great Library. Reaching the third line and slipping between two clusters of waiting visitors, he shook his head. “There are many buildings here in the Great Library of Mendham. This one literally just tells you where to go. If you do not wish to wait forever in line,” he added, gesturing at the second line they approached, “then you can attempt to find the right section by topic . . . which sometimes is not intuitive.”
“It isn’t?” Grell asked, confused.
“If you wanted to find a book on how to tie different kinds of knots, and when to use them, you might try to find how to make cordage and rope, under crafted materials, since such things are used to tie those knots. But you could also end up looking under Transportation,” Foren explained, from recent personal experience. “Sailing requires understanding how to tie many kinds of knots. Construction would be another possible subject. Either way, once you find the subject you want, you look for the section’s master ledger to look up your topic again, then you get to look for the specific numbered ledger on the specific shelf, and then you will be able to find all the entries on exactly which building or buildings to go to in search of what you came to Mendham to find. In the case of my example, you would be looking for books with instructions and illustrations on how to tie various kinds of knots, and how to use them appropriately.”
The outlander male eyed all the books and scrolls on all the shelves, visible through the three lines snaking through the center of the building. “So then what are the scrolls for? Are they also ledgers?”
“They keep track of the oldest books, and most of the loose papers,” Foren explained. He edged his way between Grell’s companions. “Everything is organized by its subject, its age—as in how long ago it was written—by its author if known, its subcategory, and so forth. It is all organized according to the Mendhite alphabet after that point. Now, excuse me, I do have to get back. My companions are waiting.”
“Of course, of course—thank you for your assistance, Pwan Foren,” Brother Grell added.
“Puhon,” Foren asserted, frowning. “It’s pronounced Puhon.”
Grell tried a couple of times. He did not get it right, and finally just shrugged. “My apologies—may I simply call you Foren? You, of course, may call me Grell, if you like.”
Impatient to get back, Foren nodded curtly. “May you find what you seek in the Library, Grell. Have a good day.”
Thankfully, the two domos still stood in the same section of the shelves as before. Smothering a yawn as he approached, Foren halted at a spot where Domo Anso would be able to see him and debated whether or not he should kneel.
“Do you find the library boring, Penitent Foren?” the Disciplinarian asked dryly, his gaze on the tome in his hands, but his awareness of his surroundings acute. “You yawned.”
“I served as the nightwatch mage on board our ship, Domo. I have not slept in nearly a full day,” Foren replied.
“I saw you talking with a cluster of foreigners,” Domo Galen stated, proving he, too, had stayed aware of his surroundings. “I do not recall Domo Anso giving you permission to speak to them.”
“Domo Anso did not give me an order to stay silent, either,” Foren returned, irritated that the other man would dare suggest that. “I am not your penitent to be Disciplined, Domo Galen, and you have not gauged my sins with your tattoos. One of them requested to know where the refreshing rooms were located. It made sense to assist them.”
Domo Anso gave him a quelling look, and a command. “Kneel, Puhon Foren . . . and be quiet. You may speak when spoken to, or speak when there is a clear need. Above all . . . be respectful toward those who did pass the Godess’ test. As you did not.”
Annoyed, Foren reluctantly lowered himself to his knees on the age-worn stone of the Index Hall floor. Resitance would bring on that smothering feeling of his magics being harder-repressed by his Disciplinarian. And as far as punishments went, being made to merely kneel—with no admonition to hold a particular pose for any set length of time—was mild. Obedience to such a mild thing would help reduce the chances of anything worse happening to him.
The way Domo Galen snuck speculative, thoughtful little looks at him every now and again unsettled the middle Puhon brother, though.
Pelai still had yet to assess him. Her Disciplinarian tattoos had the ability to assess his soul, to mark his body—in her eyesight only—with runes suggesting how best to punish Puhon Krais for his various sins. Combined with lectures on proper behavior and retraining methods, it usually convinced criminal mages to behave. Or at least to toe the line in their behavior.
Krais’ behavior confused her. As an agent of the Hierarchy, a highly trained Painted Warrior and mage, he had been sent on many missions by his father and the other Elders. The Hierarchy had a pool of around two to three hundred Painted Warriors of different strengths and abilities to call upon. They could be sent to travel throughout Mendhi, its neighbors, and even the world at large.
Tasks ranged wildly: escorting envoys to and from other lands, acquiring rare manuscripts, witnessing world events known about in advance, even carrying lists of questions to authorities in the hopes of securing written instructions or histories or methods for whatever subjects where the Great Library held only gaps, not a fullness of information. Sometimes they worked in conjunction with the Elder Commander and the Disciplinarians to bring criminals to justice.
Sometimes the Painted Warriors called themselves Painted Hounds in jest, for all the many times they had been told to “fetch.”
All three Puhon brothers had done a wide variety of these things. But all throughout those tasks, all three brothers remained arrogant souls who looked down upon others. Who chafed at having to work for anyone less than an actual Elder of the Hierarchy. Being the sons of a long-standing Elder, this was understandable. Borderline rude and inappropriately prideful, but understandable. They showed impatience, they showed arrogance, they showed pride and defended against any slight or insult immediately.
She knew she had to assess the eldest fully before the day ended, but his patience, his restraint, his immediate compliance to all of her requests—save for one brief slip when they had visited the Healers—confused her. Krais knelt where and when she told him to, followed when she commanded, stayed quiet while she tended to the tasks of organization and overwatch required of the Second Disciplinarian. He ate without complaint the food placed before him in the hall where her fellow Disciplinarians ate the meals that were part of their wages . . .
He didn’t even ask when she was going to assess him, or how she intended to punish him, or anything. As if it did not matter to him. That bothered her. If Krais did not fear being disciplined . . . how would she be able to reach into him to correct any flaws? More to the point, how can I be seen punishing him? His father is going to throw a fit if I do not do so publicly in some way, but by the rules of Discipline, I must not do so arbitrarily. There must always be a valid reason.
Thankfully, knowing Dagan’thio’s schedule, she managed to avoid his father for the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon. However, the Elder Disciplinarian strolled into her office after the second hour past noon. Thumbs tucked into the belt of his leather kilt, he eyed his son, sitting patiently on the floor of the room in the corner, and frowned at Pelai.
“Aren’t you punishing him yet?” Dagan’thio demanded. He looked down his long, flat nose at her, nostrils flaring a little bit. “Are you failing to fulfil your duties?”
“Krais has often displayed impatience in the past . . . much like his brothers,” Pelai stated flatly, subtly implying that other members of the Puhon family counted as well. “I am testing his patience. I am also giving him time to think of everything I can and will do to him in due time. I appreciate your worry over his progress as my penitent, but he is your son. For the sake of your honor, and the sake of the law, you cannot have any say in how he is disciplined.”
Dagan’thio frowned at that, but merely looked around her office, with its neat scroll racks, bookshelves, and broad, flat table with a slanted, portable writing desk sitting in the middle before her. “Where are my other sons?”
She continued making notes for the Third Disciplinarian, Doma Belaria, who would become Second in Pelai’s place after Tipa’thia stepped down fully as Guardian. “They have been assigned to other Disciplinarians. Domo Anso has charge of Penitent Foren, and Doma Dulette has charge of Penitent Gayn. By assigning each one to their own Disciplinarian, this guarantees their punishments will be given thorough attention. I, of course, will personally see to the penance of Puhon Krais, the leader of the three and the brother put in charge of the mission that they failed, as promised.”
The Domo’thio grunted in reply. Hands on his hips, he stared down at his son, then looked around the room. A frown creased his aging brow. “You have removed your things?”
Pelai lifted her chin at a woven basket sitting on the floor near his son. “I am handing over the last of the tasks of being Second to Doma Belaria when she comes in tomorrow morning. I will always be a Disciplinarian, unless and until the Goddess takes my marks from me, but I am retiring from the Second’s rank. The Elder Mage is retiring formally over the next few days, and I am taking over her duties.
“When that happens . . . I will still be a Disciplinarian, but I will be your equal, and the Elder of Mages on the Hierarchy. It makes sense to make the transition now, while every detail can be managed properly, and not let anything get lost in the chaos of an abrupt death.”
He grunted again. Pacing over to peer into the basket—and not so coincidentally looming over his son—Dagan’thio eyed the small art objects, pottery figures, wooden carvings, and of course her personal taste in poetry scrolls that had hung on these walls for the last three years. “When will the powers of the Temple Fountain be transferred into your care?”
“They already are. I share joint Guardianship with Tipa’thia. She merely retains the title for the moment.” Pausing, Pelai added carefully, “It is a very fine parsing of the laws of the Hierarchy, as they are written. Many of us know how to get what we want without breaking any of the rules, after all.”
There, let him think I will heed his desires without actually saying I will punish his sons like he wants. Sure enough, her current superior smiled faintly but smugly at that. A flick of her gaze to his son showed Krais staring stonily across the room. Not meditatively, as before. He’s angry? With his father? Or with me, for implying I’m going to follow his father’s threats? . . . Either way, being ranted at for six months straight on how heavily he is to be punished would make anyone angry. I know Dagan’thio scry-called them many times on their Gods-elongated return journey.
“Very well, then. Continue to keep me up-to-date on my sons’ penances. Every detail,” Dagan’thio added as he strolled toward the door.
“I will follow the law, Dagan’thio. Be mindful that you do, too, and all will go well.” She made another note on her sheet of instructions for Belaria, but kept a peripheral awareness of the dark look the Elder sent her over his shoulder. He left, and she breathed deeply a couple of times, forcing her muscles to relax. Tension while writing did not help. A glance over at his son showed him slowly relaxing as well. No longer quite so angry, but not as peaceful as before.
Setting down her pen, Pelai rose, moved over behind him, and planted her hands on those muscular shoulders. Warm sun-brown skin, colored with tattoos both vivid and subtle, his hide-covered muscles that flexed a little under her pressure. But . . . she did not activate her Disciplinarian tattoos. Instead, she leaned down by his left ear and asked quietly, provocatively, “Why are you being so patient and tolerant, Puhon Krais? Why are you being so submissive to me?”
A muscle worked in his jaw.
“Without any struggle? Without even a token fight? You just . . . submit? Admitting I’m your superior?”
“I submit to a higher power,” he snapped, provoked. Then shut his mouth with a faint but audible snap.
An odd thing to say. She needed clarification “You submit to your father’s will? To have you harshly punished for failure?”
Even odder, he snorted, as if the idea of him submitting even to his own sire—as he had done for years, his only willing submission for many years—was now absurd. Interesting . . .
It couldn’t be the Hierarch he submitted to, currently the Elder Priest. Partisan though he was, even Pelai had heard about how Aleppo’thio had used the mirrors sent with the ships to grill the brothers, the ship crew members, and especially the priestess who had been picked by outsiders to represent the people of Mendhi at the Convocation of Gods and Man . . . anyone and everyone, gleaning for the least little scrap of information about the Convocation that he could find, and especially any mention of Menda Herself doing, well, anything.
Aleppo’thio’s idea of punishment would be to write down every single detail of all those Manifested Gods, especially the Goddess of Writing. Hardly a punishment, really. All three brothers had already done so, writing out their observations on their long, spell-assisted voyage around the world, delivering priests and priestesses home. Writing about how the Goddess Herself had spoken to them . . . and. . . . Wait, Gayn and Foren’s reports . . . didn’t Anya’thia remark on how little there was in what Krais wrote about the Goddess? She spoke to all three brothers, but he merely said that she spoke to him, and that it shook him to his core . . .
“Do you submit to your punishments because of the will of the Goddess Menda?” Pelai asked quietly . . . and received a brief little jerk of his head. A tiny, involuntary nod. Confirmation. Sighing, she pushed away from his shoulders, returning to her seat at her desk. “Well, that takes all the fun out of it . . .”
That provoked him, too. Turning his head to look at her, he asked in a tone almost low enough to be a growl, “This is fun to you?”
She almost answered him as an equal, since up until today, they had been essentially equals. Not Hierarchy Elders, but high-ranked all the same among their particular fields of work. But her door was open, and anyone could be lurking outside, listening. “I will answer your question later,” she merely said. “Be patient, and remain seated. When I have finished, we will go eat, then I will take you to a place where I can fully assess you for proper disciplining.”
Breathing deeply, he shifted his position on the floor, but said nothing.
Interesting indeed. The “old” Krais would have argued for getting a better answer than that. Whatever did Menda say to him to make him so compliant?
Goddess! When is she going to assess me, and get this over with? Trudging along in Doma Pelai’s wake, Krais felt free to glare at her back. Menda, I know I pledged to take my punishment without complaint, but I expected to be punished!
Expecting her to take the left fork on the garden path, he stumbled and had to catch up when he realized she headed right instead. Frowning in confusion, Krais found himself following her toward the buildings housing a variety of mid- to high-ranked denizens of the Temple staff. Those who came to serve with a legacy of wealth already in their backgrounds often stayed in homes elsewhere in the city, albeit usually ones located near the sprawling grounds. If they had poor backgrounds, the various priests, librarians, servants, and apprentices usually slept in the dormitories associated with each section of the Hierarchy . . . excepting the Elders for Agriculture, Craftsmen, and especially the Elder Citizen, who by law had to live among the people in a “modest” house with a “modest” budget for food, clothing, and furnishings.
Modest had deviated toward moderately decadent several generations ago. He had heard the current Elder Citizen, Sandu’thio, claim it was only fair because there were so many lavish palaces and mansions surrounding the Temple these days. But those lay outside the grounds. And of course, Anya’thia’s predecessor had pointed out back when Krais was young that the Temple grounds themselves were opulent and decadent for even the lowliest weed puller.
But he expected to be taken to one of the sparse, mostly undecorated, equipment-lined Discipline cottages off to the west. Cottages built on the southwest side of one of the larger semi-ornamental lakes dotting the grounds. Cottages with trees and hedges for privacy, and far enough away that most cries of pain would not disturb the rest of the Temple’s many tenants. Not to a row of living quarters overlooking the eastern side of the same lake.
Does questioning our destination count as a protest? Is this our final destination for the evening, or are we visiting someone? Delivering more orders and instructions? I thought I heard her mutter “done” before we left her study in the Hall of Discipline . . .
Soft crystals sprang into glowing life on the porch of the residence they approached, activated by spells that sensed their presence. Doma Pelai pressed her hand to a rune plate on the door for a few moments, then reached for the latch and opened it. More soft lighting dimly illuminated the broad corridor of the entry hall.
This was not a full formal domicile like the one his father occupied; no atrium garden met them beyond the entrance hall, though care had been taken to set up a tabletop garden with plants and a spell-driven waterfall sculpture that trickled pleasantly over and over from top to bottom and back again. The loudest sound greeting them, however, was not the gurgling water, but rather a strident, deeply offended, “Maaaau! Mrraaauu! Mauu! Maaa! Mahh! MIIAH!”
Calm, composed, stern Doma Pelai gasped and darted forward at the loud feline cries. “Oh, Goddess, Purrsus, I’m so sorry! I forgot to feed you!”
Stooping, she scooped up a beautiful Temple cat with sleek, pale silver fur shaded to black at nose, ears, paws, and tail. Wide sapphire blue eyes glared at her accusingly, ears and tail twitching while the cat continued to complain vociferously at the doma cradling it high on her chest. Pelai hurried off ahead of him without warning. Krais, feeling awkwardly forgotten, decided it would be wise to simply shut the front door and follow. Making sure the panel latched, he padded over the blue-tiled entry floor, noting the illustration scrolls hung on the walls, painted with flowers and branches to simulate the little garden courtyard most larger homes boasted.
He tried not to be too curious about the place. A guest parlor sat to the right, its door standing open, allowing him to glimpse the furniture inside. Lightglobes in wrought-iron brackets on the walls, three comfortably padded benches, and a low table, all carved from red padouk, all lined with cream and golden cushions, and all set in place to embrace the view of the southeast-facing windows. To the left, a hint of a writing study seen through the partially open door, also with a window facing the bushes and trees that gave the front of the residence some semblance of privacy from its neighbors.
Beyond the entry hall, where Pelai had vanished, lay the family gathering room, a larger place with a more casual array of furniture and windows up high on the southeast wall, admitting pink and purple hints of the last few glows of the vanished sun outside. Bookshelves lined the walls, and a staircase sat to the right, its bannister poles carved to resemble a thicket of trees, replete with intertwining limbs set with green vera wood for leaves. To the left, a hall led to points unknown, but probably to a refreshing room and perhaps another entrance to the formal writing hall.
Another open door, on the left, showed where the doma had gone: the kitchen. Krais approached it, since between the noises the pair were making and the fact that the glazed doors to the back patio were still shut, it was clear where she had gone. Sure enough, while her cat—Purrsus, if he had heard right—continued to meow and pace in agitation down by her feet, she dug around in a cupboard under her counter.
Krais blinked. He hadn’t noticed how, ah, nice her backside looked, before that moment. Intimidating in the leather-striped, pei-slii stamped kilt of a Disciplinarian, but . . . feminine. Very nice thighs, very nice calves in those tight-laced boots. . . . He’d forgotten how lovely she could be, in their years of semi-antagonism toward each other. Antagonism caused far more by his slavish devotion to his father than to anything she had ever done, he forced himself to admit. Antagonism that had kept them—or at least him—from seeing each other as fellow human beings. As ordinary people, despite having extraordinary powers.
Proof of just how ordinary she had become materialized when she placed a dish of what looked like flaked fish and shredded cheese on the floor for her cat to eat, turned—and choked on a shriek. All from catching sight of him standing patiently in the doorway. She blinked at him and clutched at the breastplate-like leather of her uniform vest, struggling to control her breathing. Down by her feet, her gat gnarmed quietly under its breath, eagerly eating the moist, stasis-preserved treat.
Krais cleared his throat. “I am sorry that the demands of having to discipline my brothers and I caused your pet to go unfed this morning.”