The Tainted One
Paladin Selena Koren knelt at the altar, head bowed, eyes squeezed shut. Her gloved fingers clenched the crossbar of her sword. A shaft of sunlight from the circular window fell over her, illuminating the gold of her hair, the blue of the sapphire in the pommel of her sword, the silver stitching of her Aluren overtunic. A brilliant slant of light that carried with it all of the summer’s intense heat.
Selena shivered. Always shivered.
Her shoulders burned and hours on the wooden planking bruised her knees, but she did not rise. Outside the small sanctuary’s thin clapboard walls, the ocean crashed, roaring and subsiding, louder and louder as the high tide came in. Within, a salty draft swirled gritty sand over the planking and groaned in the eaves. She listened for the Two-Faced God’s voice in those whispers or the rumble of the sea.
“Please,” she whispered. “What must I do?”
The blackness behind her closed eyes shifted and morphed. A pier jutted out over mist-laden water. The night was deep but stars and a crescent moon shed silvery light. Everything was aglow: the pier, the water; even the mist glittered faintly, and so thick Selena couldn’t see anything but the pier, the water, and the light.
An orange light hovered over the water in the distance, like a small, fiery sun.
If I could just reach it…
Selena walked faster, then ran. The pier stretched out under her feet, on and on, and the light grew no closer. The mist thickened and stole her breath with sudden chill. She felt each particle like a pinprick on her skin—like glass dust—cutting her, biting her with icy teeth and filling her lungs until it felt as though she were drowning. Stiffened limbs slowed her until she fell. She raised her head with creaking tendons and a jaw clenched shut. The orange light, like a small, fiery sun, hung within reach; hung impossibly far away.
Biting pain encased her hands. She looked down. A molten silver puddle of ice spread beneath her knees. The biting agony of her flesh freezing, locking her to the pier, brought a scream to her lips but she hadn’t the breath. The mist thickened, gripped her in a frigid embrace, obscuring everything until there was only it, and she, and the cold that seemed to emanate from her very bones. A voice as old as oceans and just as deep, spoke and she knew from where it came.
From the hole over her heart.
From the icy chasm of her god-blasted chest.
The wound.
Find me, said the voice.
Selena’s eyes flew open and she gasped. The cold mist and the ice encasing her to the pier were gone. She was back in the chapel, clinging to the crossbar of her sword with both hands as a shiver wracked her hard enough to make her chainmail creak.
Find me…
“I’m trying, O god,” she whispered, her lips struggling to form the words.
Find me, the voice said, but the real message behind the simple words was clear: Find the light or die. These words resounded in her mind like a clanging bell of a lighthouse warning a ship it had come too close to the rocks that would rip it apart and send it to the Deeps.
Selena set down her sword and stood on creaking knees. Her small ampulla hung from the right side of her belt, opposite her sword’s scabbard, but the sanctuary had its own bowl of ocean water. She took off one leather glove and dipped her hand into the two-handled bowl on the altar. Unable to feel heat of any kind, the faint tingles on her skin meant the water was warm, having sat in the slant of summer sun all day. The moon was not yet visible, but with her other hand, Selena reached for the sky beyond the sanctuary’s clapboard roof exactly where the moon hid, and spoke the sacred word.
“Illuria.”
An orange glow emanated from her submerged palm, tinting the water as the setting sun does to the ocean along the horizon. She laid her hand, still glowing orange and dripping seawater onto the thick, blue wool of her overtunic. The stiffness and ache in her shoulder vanished. She touched the left shoulder and the muscles loosened there too. Before the healing glow faded altogether—and before she could change her mind—she laid her hand over her heart.
The cold draft was tangible on her bare wet hand, blowing faintly through the soft linen of her undershirt, her chainmail vest, her overtunic. She found the crescent moon shape of the hole in her chest, and pressed hard, as if she could push the healing light inside it.
“Illuria,” she said with the same beseeching tone that colored her prayers.
The glow faded to nothing. Her shoulders felt strong and free of pain as if she hadn’t spent the last few hours in unmoving prostration to the Two-Faced God. The wound remained, a hollow chasm of endless cold bored into the very core of her being by the god’s wrath. She let her hand drop and bowed her head.
Selena had spent the last few weeks sailing about the lesser islands of the archipelago, watching the orange glow of her magic ease pain and lift the pallor of illness from the inhabitants. She prayed to the Shining face of the Two-Faced god to heal these people as she had so many others during the last five years, and her prayers were always answered. For everyone but herself.
A voice came at the door, soft and hesitant. “Paladin Koren?”
Selena gave a start and turned, wiping her eyes quickly. “Good afternoon, abbot.”
An older man, portly, his skin weathered from salt and spray, leaned against the doorway. Sweat darkened his plain sackcloth robes under his arms and down his chest. From a pocket, he withdrew a letter written on a rich vellum not found on this tiny island and held it to her, his expression soft with kindness.
“My deepest pardons for interrupting your meditations, but a peliteryx has come from the Moon Temple for you. Just arrived here, though our man at the birdhouse says it looks to have been chasing you around the islands these last weeks.”
Selena took the parchment. It looked to be one copy of a letter, wrinkled and wanting to scroll itself, as if it had been rolled in and out of peliteryx pouches more than once. She noted with a pounding heart the other names in the address.
Justarch Yuri Osten, House of Rights and Laws, Isle Parish
Admiral Archer Crane, Alliance Admiralty, Citadel
Paladin Selena Koren, Moon Temple of the Aluren, Isle Lillomet
This issue hereby gives notice that a congress of the above-named Alliance allies and authorities will convene on the 5th of Setilix, NDE, in the Vestibule of the Moon Temple, noontime. Her Reverence Celestine Pollis, Reverent Taliah Ka-Mat-Al, and Reverent Gerus Hannak presiding.
This assembly is classified as High Security. All attendants will adhere to the bylaws of the New Dawn Era treaties and use proper discretion upon penalty of death.
H.R. Celestine
18th of Agout, NDE
Selena felt the blood drain from her face. The 5th of Setilix. “Two day’s time,” she breathed.
“Paladin?”
“I am called back to Isle Lillomet.” She strove to keep her voice even. “I must depart immediately. Tonight.”
“Of course, of course,” the abbot said. “I’ll tell the harbormaster to ready your ship.”
“There’s no time. I’ll go myself.” Selena took up her sword from the planked floor. The sapphire glinted in the twilight hues.
“A thing of beauty,” the abbot said with a nod at her weapon.
“An unfortunate necessity.” Selena sheathed it with a snap. “Thank you for the use of your sanctuary this afternoon.”
“Not at all.” The abbot smiled. “We are indebted to you. Hilda Youn’s baby is hale and hearty once more when all had seemed lost two nights ago. And we were certain young Tylan would never walk again, and now the boy doesn’t even suffer a limp. You truly have the god’s ear in every way…” His words trailed, as did his gaze, which flitted to the place over her heart where the wound lay, and then to the ground.
“Not in every way.” She smiled gently. “You know who I am?”
He nodded.
“And yet you have been so kind to me. To the Tainted One…”
The abbot met her eye and spoke in a low voice. “That name is ill-spoken and unbefitting. There are so few Aluren left in the Temple and none who make the healing pilgrimages anymore. But for you.” He bowed his head. “You are always welcome.”
Selena felt hot tears sting her eyes. Such courtesy towards her was rare.
They stepped out of the sanctuary and onto the path. It snaked down before them, to the beach. Sage scrub lined the path on both sides, permeating the air with a dusty green scent. They started down the path and a shadow fell over them both.
The abbot fell back and clutched his sackcloth. “My poor heart…”
A Vai’Ensai glared down at them from a height of seven spans, his eyes starkly human in a face that more closely resembled the dragons of old. His scaled gray skin appeared silvery in the dying sunlight, though it didn’t gleam so bright as his immense broad sword. He kept the weapon strapped to his back, between his wing and the tangle of exposed bone and scarred flesh that marked where its pair had been. Selena could almost see the abbot bite back the word “dragonman” to say Ilior’s name instead.
“Master Ilior. …”
Ilior’s voice was as two stones grinding together. “Sorry to startle, abbot.”
“We are called back to Isle Lillomet,” Selena told Ilior. “If you would hurry to the inn and collect my belongings, I’ll meet you at the ship.”
“At once.” Ilior loped down the path, his lone wing furled tight to his scarred back.
To the abbot, Selena said, “Would you please have your man send a peliteryx to the Temple? Let them know I only just received their letter and will arrive on Lillomet tomorrow morning—tides, winds, and luck permitting.”
“Of course.”
“Hear and be Heard, abbot.”
He took her hand, shocking her with his willingness to touch her. His hand felt damp and calloused and wonderful. She fought the urge to grab it and hold on. He’s the same age my father would have been…
“And to you, Paladin. Hear and be Heard.” He smiled sadly. “I pray that you will be.”
Selena met Ilior on the deck of the Silver Wind, the hundred-span schooner the Temple reserved for Paladins on their healing missions. There had once been a small fleet of ships for such a purpose. Now there was one. With the bustle of the crew scurrying to obey Captain Wymer’s orders behind them, Selena drew Ilior to the portside of the main deck.
“It’s an Alliance meeting,” Selena said in a low voice. “One of the Justarchs and the Admiral are to attend.”
“Trouble?”
“I don’t know. But I’m afraid.”
She watched the sun sink behind the Calling Sea. It seemed as if burning embers floated atop the deep blue expanse. In the west, Isle Lillomet was a distant shape looming in the fading light, while the dozens of smaller islands scattered before it were bathed in ochre hues. The air smelled thick and salty, and though she could not feel it, she knew the summer heat had not yet left the Western Watch. It was there, on the faces of the crew that were flush and sweaty, and in Ilior beside her, who needed the heat to keep his cool reptilian blood warm. But winter would come, taking the heat with it. Soon. She laid a hand over the cold draft in her chest.
Ilior saw the gesture. “You submitted another petition to drink from the God’s Tears, did you not? Perhaps this time it has been granted.”
“If that were true, there’d be no reason to include the Admiral or a Justarch.”
“What then?”
“War, I fear. The rumors have been growing louder.” Selena’s heart thudded against her chest. “And if it is another war, the only reason to include me in any council is because they want me to Summon again. But I will not. I will not.”
Ilior’s heavy arm went around her shoulders and she sagged against him.
“I’m tired, Ilior. When I think of enduring another winter with the wound…”
“We’ll sail to one of the meridian island as we did last year. That helped, yes?”
“It did,” she said, not adding that tropical heat was like a candle standing against a bitter, chill wind.
Ilior looked down at her, his brown eyes—the most human part of him—narrowed slightly. “That is what you call a half-truth, is it not? It helped, but not enough.” He shook his horned head and spat over the side. “And one sip from the God’s Tears might close your wound…”
“Or it might not,” Selena said. “The God’s Tears is ultimate healing from the god. My wound is the god’s punishment. The Temple likely still feels it’s not their place to undo one with the other.”
Ilior snorted his disgust.
Selena smiled reassuringly up at him. “The Two-Faced God has not forsaken me,” she said. “I have hope. If I lose that, it will not matter where I spend my winters.”
At dawn, the Silver Wind was only a few leagues out from Isle Lillomet. The isle where she’d spent the last week was one of many that spilled out of the archipelago of the four big islands that dominated the Western Watch, and not far from Lillomet. She had intended to sail among more of these small outer islands for a fortnight at least, to tend those who needed the god’s healing magic, and to keep away from the Moon Temple for as long as possible. Both pleased the High Reverent Celestine, Selena thought with a pang.
I am not welcome in my own Temple.
It made her official summons even more confusing.
The sun was high in a clear sky when Isle Lillomet drew near. The city hugged the coast, white marble gleaming on the eastern end, multi-colored homes and shops of clapboard on the west. Old King’s Harbor churned with skiffs and trawlers but Captain Wymer navigated the busy port swiftly, to a section of the docks reserved for the Temple. The berths were empty but for the High Reverent’s ceremonial barge, rusted and in want of barnacle scraping. The schooner dropped anchor and the captain provided a skiff and a man to row it to take Selena and Ilior to the docks. There, a young man swathed in the blue and silver of an Aluren adherent was waiting.
“I’m Lanik Thrakill, Paladin,” he said as Ilior helped Selena step off. “Her Reverence sent me to escort you to the Moon Temple.” He offered Ilior a smooth smile, seeming unperturbed by the Vai’Ensai’s imposing stature.
Selena had never seen the adherent before and her heart lightened for it. A new adherent. So rare, so few. He was a young, handsome fellow with dark hair and striking blue eyes, like chips of sky-colored glass. His tunic was plain and bore none of the elaborate stitching of a higher-ranking adherent.
“I haven’t been gone from Lillomet so very long that I’ve forgotten the way to the Moon Temple,” Selena told him with a smile. “You are new?”
“I am. Just arrived two nights past, though I’d Heard the god ages ago.” Lanik smiled though it didn’t touch his eyes. “It’s taken me quite awhile to find my way here, and now that I have, I am pleased Her Reverence has already entrusted me with such important tasks. She insisted that I escort you. A formality, I’m sure, but it gives me pleasure to extend the courtesy.”
“Your courtesy is appreciated,” Selena said. “And rare.”
“Unlike some of our brethren, Paladin Koren, I harbor no such reservations about being in your presence.” Lanik inclined his head in a bow, but his eyes went to the place on her chest where her wound hid.
Ilior snorted behind them and Selena cleared her throat as a flush colored her neck and ears. She felt it, not as heat, but as an uncomfortable, stinging tingle.
“I meant,” she said tightly, “with our ranks so low as of late, there are few adherents left to extend courtesy to the Paladins. Few Paladins left, for that matter.
“A grievous situation.” Lanik smiled brightly. “Shall we?”
Narrow, winding streets, flanked on either side by stone-and-brick homes led them to the Temple. Flowers colored window ledges in bursts of color, adding their scents to the air that was laced with odors of oil and fish and the remnants of the morning’s baking. Folk out on the street ceased their chatter to watch our small procession—Ilior in particular—wend their way up the hill to the Temple. Lanik led the way and Selena had to quicken her pace to match his long strides.
The cobblestone street snaked up the hill, and when it reached the top, the homes and shops that crowded the way were exchanged for wide expanses of green grasses. Fountains of white marble burbled amid stands of flowers. The cobbles became a smooth, paved walk that led to the immense silver temple that glowed molten in the sunlight. Men in fine suits and women with light dresses and wide-brimmed hats strolled among the walks. As they drew nearer to the Moon Temple, the grass-lined paths should have been busy with adherents, from acolytes to Paladins, but there were none. The Temple stood apart from the hustle and bustle of the city, as if it were waiting for a return to the former glory that its majestic appearance warranted.
The three stepped out of the noonday heat and into the cool of the Temple’s atrium. Insects flitted among the wide-leafed plants, and the fountains burbled but the foliage was browned and sparse. The atrium was open to the sky but tall trees offered shade and shelter from the sun. Selena’s skin lost the faint tingle that signified heat was present. Though it couldn’t have been more than a few degrees cooler within, her skin broke out in gooseflesh and she shivered.
“We’ve been gone a fortnight and yet it looks so much worse,” Selena murmured to Ilior.
He nodded. “They are dying.”
We, the Aluren, are dying, she thought.
“Here I must take my leave,” Lanik said with a short bow. “I will meet you here on the morrow, after first light, to escort you to the Vestibule.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Selena said. “I’ve lived here since I was eight years old. I can find my way.”
“I have no doubts, Paladin,” Lanik replied, “but the High Reverent insists upon it. Formalities.” He smiled again. “Tomorrow then?”
Selena nodded. Celestine was making a show of normalcy and strength when there was neither. “Very well. Tomorrow.”
When he was gone, she felt the weight of Ilior’s glance on her. “You don’t need an escort,” he said bitterly. “You’re no stranger. This is your home.”
Selena sighed. “The Temple feels less and less like my home every time I return.”