The Conciege
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(THOB) Chapter 131: Much Worse
🕑 Added 2024-01-08 04:20:25 +0000 UTCMidday saw Ezril walking the cathedral. He started at the building that housed him and his brothers a few hours before high noon, covered a mile around the Bishop’s mansion, then past the stables, sparing Shade no attention, and through the chapel of his ordination. Now he walked towards the exit. Salem’s words from last night peeling at his thoughts with every step.
If killing a priest was punishable by death, didn’t that make killing multiple priests a matter of importance? If it was, wouldn’t the conclave convene to take a decision? If they exist, he reminded himself. But Salem wasn’t one to voice out idle speculations. He might not see much in their existence, but there was something his brother was seeing that—by the life of him—he wasn’t.
He stopped at the massive gate. It was wide enough that when open on both sides the king’s cavalcade could march in without disruption. That was if twelve men rode side by side. Beyond it the capital bustled about with its business. Unlike the church’s, not just anyone was allowed into the gates. It would take a special position for one not ordained to cross the threshold.
The priests flanking it on both sides were there for the purpose of keeping the citizens out. If a person walked up without an appointment or some royal pass, they would be turned back. And if they refused, death would come swiftly before they thought to consider their actions.
There Ezril stood, watching the citizens. A few more steps differentiated priests from the rest of the realm. But this was not the life he chose. It was Takan’ and Darvi’s, but not his. His was beyond the gates, to the far reaches of the realms, and then beyond it. For now, he was a simple visitor, simply stopping by till it was time to move on. Nothing kept him from leaving, no such rules were given, and no such obligations required it of him. Still, he turned around.
“Father Ezril Vi Antari Urden.”
Ezril stopped. There was no threat, or command. It was a simple use of his name, mentioned in simple observation, and yet, all his muscles stiffened in response and his chest ached from bruises long healed.
“Are you going to turn around and face me, or am I going to have to put one in you and see if you still remember your lessons?”
Hands raised to his chest Ezril rubbed away at a phantom bruise. The owner of the voice had been responsible for a few things in his past, mostly inflicting pain with arrows with dull points designed not to pierce but still carry the piercing pain. He turned around and cracked a genuine smile.
“Priestess Ellenel.”
Even somewhere past her thirtieth decade she could easily pass for a younger woman. Ellenel stood within the gates, clad in the war vestments of a priestess. Her red hair was held up in a tight bun and it reminded him of the embers of a dying flame, an undulation of orange and red. Freckles stained her cheeks and her pink lips were held in a thin line so tight he could barely make out all of it. But what drew his attention was her stance. Legs spread with her toes pointed in his direction, she held her torso half turned so she could train a drawn bow on him. It was the worst stance possible, something she’d taught them against in the earliest days learning the bow. The notched arrow was without doubt, not a dull tipped one. If she decided to let it loose, it would certainly draw blood.
His smile faltered. “Priestess Ellenel.” He raised his hands to show he was unarmed. “If that strikes me, I will bleed.”
She shrugged. “If this strikes you, it means you’ve forgotten your training.”
“Please, priestess, we don’t have to do—”
She loosed the arrow.
Ezril slipped his foot back and the arrow struck the stone floor, snapping at the impact. But it wasn’t over. He moved on reflex, taking another step back. Stretching the distance between them, he leaned further away, his left hand rising to his right shoulder to grab an arrow that would have impaled him there. Then he ducked, dropping to a squat. Another arrow whizzed past and he rose. He looked behind him, unable to track it.
“Sister!” he chided, returning his attention to her.
Ellenel had her bow held down in one hand, and covered her mouth with the other, eyes wide in shock.
“That could’ve hurt someone you didn’t train,” he finished.
Her shoulders shook in suppressed laughter and he shook his head.
“I’m so sorry,” she said between her fingers. “I had no idea you’d dodge that one.” Then leaning to the side to look past him, she slid the hand an inch from her mouth. “Do you think anyone got hurt?”
He listened for sounds. “No screams, shouts, or cries,” he told her. “I’d say it’s all good.”
But by the gods, how could she be so reckless. The woman who’d instructed him was more mature than this. Yes, but the woman in the Elken forest was not. When the realization dawned on him, he smiled. The woman before him wasn’t priestess Ellenel of the church, at least not in this moment. This was just Ellenel, the woman who he’d met amongst the Sarks.
He smiled at her as she tiptoed towards him. “You shouldn’t be firing arrows out in the open so randomly.”
She smacked him on the shoulder, then sized him up with her gaze. “I taught you to catch, not dodge.”
“Well,” he shrugged, “Felvan taught me to dodge.”
“I don’t think that’s what he had in mind when he taught it to you.”
“And I don’t think shooting his disciple was what he had in mind when he taught you.”
Ellenel looked at him in thought, he’d outgrown her by a few inches in just two years and she was forced to look up.
“What?” he asked.
At this point they were already walking deeper into the compound. So being shorter than he was, she reached up behind him and smacked him on the head. “Your respect for your elders is slipping.”
He rubbed his head, not that it hurt. “I fear for the new brothers under your care.”
“I don’t have any.”
“What do you mean you don’t have any?”
She shrugged. “I mean I don’t teach at the seminary anymore.”
He turned to her, aghast. “Why?”
Smiling up at him, she pinched his cheek and pulled. “Because the church called me back. Now I’m practicing with my fellow priestesses.”
“When was this?” he asked.
She puckered her lips in thought. “About a year ago,” she answered after a moment. “So here we are,” she continued. “The church’s first bow and the seminary’s first bow, in the same place, at the same time.”
It was ironic when he thought about it. Once, she had been his teacher, showing him skills he couldn’t dream to use. Not long into his pastoral year he had loosened two arrows in one draw, just as he’d once seen her do. Now, the bow was as much a part of him as his hand. Now, they were considered equals, so to speak.
They’d walked a while, the missing arrow long forgotten, before he realized they were headed straight for the Bishop’s mansion.
She’d come in unescorted from the gate, which meant she had a pass of some sort. He doubted it was a royal pass. But it had to be a pass. An appointment perhaps.
“Why are you here, Sister?” he asked.
“I have a message for the Archbishop.”
He hadn’t known the envoy from the church was still around. He’d thought them gone after the meeting. Now he wondered if the king and his entourage were still in the cathedral somewhere. Unlikely. They attend graver matters than the church, he reasoned. Perhaps it has to do with the Broken. Word travels fast. Hoping to gain some knowledge, he probed.
“I hope it’s nothing too dire.”
Ellenel shook her head. “Not something the seminary need concern itself with. Just some missing sisters.”
So not of the Broken. This was good. He didn’t see the need to panic any who needn’t be panicked.
Wait! Sisters?
“What sisters?” he asked.
The priestess adjusted her bow on her shoulder. “Just some sisters coming from a mission they were sent on.”
“Sent on where?” Ezril could feel a dread creeping in.
Ellenel eyed him warily. “West.”
That was where the first tower was, one of the realm’s two protected borders.
“The first tower?”
Ellenel’s gaze narrowed in worry. “What is it Ezril? I don’t like the way you sound.”
He couldn’t keep his worry from his voice, and he didn’t care to. “Please Sister,” he begged. “This is important to me.” He took her by the shoulders. “What are their names?”
“Sister Alanna,” she answered, “and priestess…”
He didn’t hear her last word. He didn’t need to. Something in him cracked. Missing, not dead, he told himself. It was the only thing that kept him on his feet when Ellenel eased his hands from her shoulders.
“What’s wrong, Ezril?”
He heard the genuine worry in her voice but couldn’t bring himself to care. Everything around him grew unfocused, he found he couldn’t even make out Ellenel’s face in front of him. When he opened his mouth, he was shocked to find he could still form words.
“Please, if it’s not too much to ask, can you tell me what happened?”
“You knew one of them?”
He shook his head. “I know the both of them.”
Lenaria and Alanna, missing. If they were together, then they’d be going through mutual torture. He smiled, despite himself.
“Oh,” Ellenel said. Her surprise was of little import to him.
“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked. He could at least make out her face now. “If it’s not too much to ask.”
“Not at all. They were scheduled to arrive over a week ago but after two days passed, the church sent out a group. Four days ago, we got news that they had been ambushed. Their carriage destroyed and the two horses with individual riders slain, no doubt one of them belonged to the priestess.”
It did. Ezril could remember watching Lenaria mount a solitary horse.
“All the nuns and sisters were slaughtered,” she continued. “At first, we thought the both of them had escaped the ambush, somehow survived it, then two days ago, we received word from our sisters inGreen Horn of rumors of two nuns in the hands of the Venin guild. Now, I know you knew them, Ezril. Maybe you were close with them, but this is the Venin guild we are talking about, they have their hand in everything vile. Although there is no proof of it, it is known.” She took his face in both hands and tilted it down so she could look him in the eye. “Leave this to the church, it is a matter of the church and if it is too much, we will ask the seminary for help. Nothing is more important to us than one of our own. Do you understand?”
He nodded dimly.
“Ezril?”
He barely heard his name as she led him towards a wall. He followed without restraint, sluggish along the path.
“Sit here,” she instructed, easing him unto a bench he hadn’t known was there. “This is something I must deliver to the Arch-bishop. And it seems I must hurry.”
She left him then, hurrying along the stone floor. Her movement seemed more troubled than when she’d come in.
He didn’t stop her.
Lenaria and Alanna were in the hands of the Venin guild. He could only imagine what would become of them. His mind fell back to memories of Olbi’s sister and how they had used her. That wouldn’t be the fate of Lenaria, maybe Alanna, but not her. For that to happen, they would need to be conscious, and he couldn’t see a conscious Lenaria being used like that.
“… and there are those who would seek to kill me for religious reasons.”
Lenaria’s words creased his mind. At first, he thought to discard them, but he had come to learn that with his childhood friend, things he’d once thought implausible were not. Then he remembered something he’d heard, a rumor of how the Venin guild was a residue of the long destroyed animus guild. If what he’d learned of his brother’s tale during the test of speech was correct, then the animus guild would have been of heathen practices, worshipping one or more of many gods. Which meant it wouldn’t be far-fetched to assume the Venin guild had such doctrine. No. Lenaria won’t be used like Olbi’s sister.
Her fate was much worse.
