The High Priest and the Idol Page 3

  “Thanks.”

  “When do you leave Lyremouth?”

  “As soon as they can get me passage on a ship bound for Serac. I’ll have a couple of witches in attendance, but it shouldn’t take more than a day or two to sort out.”

  “So you’ve got time to see what I’ve been working on?”

  “Of course.”

  Jemeryl smiled. Some things would never change. She was not surprised that the old woman was still actively pursuing her research. Iralin might be ancient, but she shared with Jemeryl a love of learning. Only death or senility was going to stop either of them from studying magic.

  *

  Tevi’s face and voice were distorted by Klara’s senses, but recognisable, once Jemeryl allowed for the softened bass and weird colours. “You’re going to Kradja?”

  “Yes. You’ve been there, haven’t you?”

  “Just the once. Make sure you visit the temple. It’s impressive. And camels—you ought to see them in the market. They’re weird. Desert sunsets, though. They beat the lot. They’re…” Tevi smiled wistfully. “I wish I was going with you.”

  “So do I.”

  “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.”

  “Talking is nice, but it’s no substitute for holding you close.”

  The conversation was revisiting familiar, painful ground. The journey to Lyremouth had taken Jemeryl a month. Kradja was as far away again. No matter how quickly she concluded her mission with Ciamon, she would not be back in Tevi’s arms until midsummer. Jemeryl was trying hard not to nurse her anger, since it could do no good, but there was no reason at all why Tevi could not have gone with her—no reason except for Alendy’s aversion to them being together. Jemeryl clamped down on the thought.

  “You know I’m not going to be able to contact you so often in future. The elemental forces in the sea will be hard to balance for more than a few minutes at a time.” As it was, Jemeryl could feel the strain of projecting her mind over the hundreds of miles. She would not be able to keep it up much longer, and the residual awareness of her body, back in the room at Lyremouth, was trying to claim her attention. She was required to deal with something. “I’ve got to go.”

  “All right.” Tevi looked sad. “Contact me whenever you can. I love you.”

  “I love you too, and I will. I promise.”

  Tevi blew a kiss, a gesture Jemeryl could not reciprocate as a magpie.

  “Bye.”

  Jemeryl loosened the bonds tying her mind in Klara’s body. The world bucked and surged. Her stomach contorted as if trying to turn itself inside out. After a few seconds the nausea retreated, only to be replaced by the pounding of a headache at the back of her skull.

  The pain faded although the pounding remained. Jemeryl clapped her hands over her ears. Her head felt far too big, then it shrank to the size of a pinhead before finally regaining its proper size and relationship to her neck. The world was back in place, and her body was again her own, with nothing worse than a tingle over her left eyebrow.

  Someone was at her door. This was the noise that had intruded on her awareness while she had been mind riding Klara. Filtered through the magpie senses, it had sounded like a mob trying to smash their way in, but was now only a polite tapping.

  Jemeryl took a last deep breath to steady herself and called, “Enter.”

  Both visitors wore a green amulet on their left wrist, inscribed with a pattern of oak leaves, marking them as middle-ranking witches. In style, the amulets were the same as the one on Jemeryl’s own wrist, although hers was black, as befitting a sorcerer. At the front was a blond man. His face had a firm jaw, full lips, and startling blue eyes. The woman behind him was taller, dark-haired, with high, chiselled cheekbones. They looked to be in their late twenties.

  The man spoke for them. “Madam Jemeryl?”

  “Yes?”

  “My name in Taedias, I’m adept in the sixth dimension. This is Gante”—the woman nodded in acknowledgement—“adept in the fifth. We will be accompanying you to Kradja. We’ve been sent to introduce ourselves and to tell you that passage to Serac has been arranged on a merchant ship, leaving at high tide tomorrow evening.”

  Gante nodded again, as if confirming that the information was correct, and then both witches stood rigidly in the doorway.

  “Thank you. That’s great.”

  “Is there anything you need us to do before then?” Taedias’s voice was without modulation. If he were an actor, describing his performance as wooden would be an insult to trees.

  “No. I’m all set to go.” Jemeryl gave a wide smile, hoping to put her new companions at their ease. It showed no sign of working.

  “We’ve arranged for a porter to carry your bags to the harbour.”

  “I can carry them my—” Jemeryl broke off. It did not matter. “Fine.”

  “We’ll be here after dinner tomorrow to escort you to the docks.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “No. See you then.” By now, Jemeryl’s smile was masking her clenched teeth.

  Taedias gave a formal bow, Gante nodded for a third time, and then the pair shuffled a retreat. After they had gone, Jemeryl sat, staring at the closed door in bemusement. Judging the two witches on such a brief first meeting would be unfair, although neither had impressed her with their intellect. However, it was impossible to miss that they were two of the most physically attractive people Jemeryl had seen around the Coven.

  She frowned. Surely Alendy had not handpicked them, in the hope she would fall for their good looks, start an affair with one or the other, and abandon Tevi. The idea was insulting. Alendy could not be that crass, could he?

  *

  Long before completing the journey, Jemeryl had formed the opinion that if Alendy had truly thought she might lose her heart to either witch, it went far beyond the realms of mere insult. Neither was someone she would want as a close friend, let alone anything else. If she combined their best personality traits together, between them they had the charm, wit, and incisiveness generally associated with a bowl of cold porridge.

  At least Gante was easy to ignore. Jemeryl had only once heard her string more than five words together, and this had been to explain that she did not like being rained on. Taedias went to the other extreme and said everything twice—three times if he himself was the subject of the remark. Jemeryl had come to think of him as Tedious, and was dreading that she would call him it by mistake.

  They were halfway across the desert, and he was complaining about the heat and the flies, in the same way he had complained about seasickness and the rough manners of sailors on the voyage, the price of beer when they landed in Serac, the poor state of the road over the Merlieu hills, and the inadequate plumbing at their lodging in Villenes. All of these were, needless to say, targeted solely at him, by a vindictive fate.

  He also had a headache. “It’s behind my eyes, you know, and flares out towards my ears.”

  “Um.” Jemeryl had one too. Could headaches be infectious?

  A shout rang out, far more interesting than Taedias moaning, even though Jemeryl had no idea what was said. In Serac, she had hired a team consisting of a couple of guides and a wagon crew, all of whom were from the district around Kradja. As a consequence of their work, the entire team could make themselves understood in a range of languages, including several dwarven dialects. Among themselves, the hired hands usually spoke in a sibilant language that Jemeryl thought belonged to the desert nomads.

  The shout had come from a guide who was scouting ahead and had stopped at the top of a low ridge. Jemeryl slowed her horse to get a translation from the driver of the supply wagon.

  “What is it?”

  The driver smiled broadly. “She can see the oasis we camp by tonight. We have made good time.”

  Before Jemeryl could say anything, Taedias piped up. “Great. I’m sure all the bouncing around is making my head worse. It’s starting to upset my eyes, though I
wasn’t going to say anything. You know I don’t like to complain.”

  Jemeryl bit back a string of replies. She knew of no such thing. Moreover, the power of suggestion was clearly at work. Her own headache was getting worse, and the light was behaving strangely, twisting in the sixth dimension and breaking into rainbows where it glinted off mica in the sand. In fact, the whole world seemed out of kilter, partly leaden, partly chaotic. Jemeryl had hoped to contact Tevi when they camped that evening, but it was not going to happen until she felt better.

  While they approached the oasis, Taedias continued to describe his symptoms in unwanted detail. Jemeryl just wished he would shut up. Apart from anything else, the commentary was unnecessary, since she was feeling exactly the same. Had they eaten something bad at lunch? In which case, why did the wagon driver look so cheery? Surely he would also be suffering, since he, and the rest of the team, had shared the meal.

  As an adept of the fifth dimension, Gante ought to have some skill as a healer. Currently she was at the rear of the group. Possibly she felt that being unable to see people’s faces relieved her of any obligation to communicate.

  Jemeryl dropped back to join her. “How are you feeling?”

  Gante wrinkled her nose. “Not good.”

  “Do you have a headache?”

  “Yes.”

  “How about the light? Does it seem odd?”

  Gante tried out several different shrugs, the medium in which she was at her most eloquent. “The light’s all right. But…”

  Jemeryl waited, yet nothing was forthcoming. Talking to the woman was like getting blood out of a miserly vampire. “But?”

  “My horse feels dead.”

  Jemeryl caught her lower lip in her teeth. It would make some sort of sense, if there were such a thing as a magical illness. The ungifted wagon driver was not bothered at all. Taedias was adept in the sixth dimension, which held the physical energies that bound the world together. Hence he was experiencing the malady in terms of light. Gante was adept in the fifth dimension, which held life forces, so she was noticing an effect in the animals around her. As a sorcerer, Jemeryl was able to perceive all dimensions, and was not only seeing changes in light and the horse she was riding, but time was also acting oddly. The minutes were tripping over themselves. But what sort of illness only targeted paranormal perception?

  Abruptly, they were at the oasis, then a hundred yards away, and finally back at the waterside. Time was definitely not running in a nice steady way. Jemeryl shook her head, hoping to clear it, and tried to focus on her surroundings, not that this helped. The palm trees lining the water were bleached of life. The still pool reflected the sky in a smeared kaleidoscope of colour. The sound of the wind over the sand was broken into a staccato rhythm as the seconds disintegrated.

  Jemeryl got down from her horse and stumbled to one of the palm trees. She sat with her back against the trunk, head held in her hands. What was wrong with her? She no longer felt so bad physically; even her headache had faded. But it was as if the illness now infected her surroundings rather than her body.

  Again, a shout claimed her attention, this time in a language she understood. Jemeryl took a deep breath and shoved herself to her feet. She was overreacting. She was not in pain, nor was she about to throw up or pass out. She needed to get a grip on herself.

  “Madam sorcerer,” one of the guides called again.

  “Yes?”

  “There are people approaching.”

  “So?” The oasis was a common campsite. It was not surprising if others wanted to stop there.

  “They have weapons.”

  “Ah.”

  This was more ominous. A group with drawn swards was unlikely to be honest traders, wanting to make camp for the night. The well-used oasis might be an obvious place for bandits to lie in wait.

  The ambushers were in for a surprise. Even in her current state, Jemeryl was sure she could cope with a gang of sword-wielding thugs. She hobbled over to the guide and squinted at the desert, struggling with the broken light. The approaching group must have numbered about twenty. If they were bandits, they were being very brazen about it, marching forward in a line, with no attempt to conceal themselves. Just for the sake of style, surely bandits would make some effort to skulk. The group clearly felt they had the right to claim the oasis, which might mean that they represented some legitimate power.

  Then Jemeryl’s vision cleared enough to see the red cloaks and gold helmets. The uniformed soldiers were now only a few dozen yards away. Abruptly, Jemeryl’s headache re-erupted in white-hot fury, imploding and sucking the world inside it. Her legs gave way. From a long way off, she heard someone scream. She did not think it was herself, although she could not be sure. And then, between one breath and the next, the headache vanished. The world snapped back into place—or parts of it did.

  Jemeryl found herself on her knees in the sand, surrounded by the new arrivals. One of them grasped her sleeve and yanked her left arm up, displaying the black sorcerer’s amulet on her wrist. Judging by the man’s manner, he was an officer, relaxed and confident, the only one not carrying a drawn sword.

  He let Jemeryl’s arm drop. “Our High Priest said the Coven would send someone soon. He was right. They’ve sent us a sorcerer. Or to be precise, someone who used to be a sorcerer.”

  Jemeryl stared up into the officer’s face. What he said was true. Already she had identified the bits of the world that had not returned. The universe had shrunk to four dimensions. Energy and life were contained only by height, depth, and length. Time was a simple linear progression. She could not grasp the energy tensors. She could not massage the auras of the bodies around her. She could not probe into the future. She was less than half what she had been. The world was devoid of magic.

  The officer’s triumphant smile broadened. “How does it feel to be a normal person?”

  Chapter Two—Equalitus in Ascendancy

  The town of Kradja grew from the desert. From a distance, only the huge dome of the temple carried the unmistakable stamp of a craftsman’s handiwork. The mud brick walls of the smaller buildings around it were the same colour as the sand, so that they might have been natural rock formations, sculpted by the wind. In the barren wilderness, the bright green fronds of palm trees seemed more out of place than the houses.

  The illusion of environmental harmony did not last once the party reached the busy streets. On the outskirts, the structures were crumbling hovels, patched with whatever the owners could scavenge. Nearer to the centre, the roads were lined with mansions, protected by iron gates and guards. Everywhere the acrid air was full of shouting and an overpowering medley of scents—spice and smoke, food and leather, unwashed bodies and refuse. The sounds and smells of humanity assaulted the senses.

  Or such senses as one had. After three days in her ungifted state, Jemeryl was still struggling to cope. She knew the horse she rode was alive because she could see it move and feel its warmth, but she could not trace its aura. She could not manipulate the life essence within it. Heat and light washed over her, gravity held her down, yet she could not reach into the sixth dimension and mould the forces to her will. The seconds flowed by, without complexity or option.

  Jemeryl looked up at the dome of the temple, getting ever nearer—the home of the famous oracle. Of all her paranormal senses, prophecy was the one she valued the least. In her opinion, it was too haphazard to be useful. The information it gave could only be trusted when nothing could alter the outcome. Knowing the inevitable was pointless. It never made anything any easier.

  Yet, perversely, worrying about the future was the thing that currently occupied Jemeryl’s thoughts the most. She did not know what had happened to her senses, but she so desperately wanted to believe that it was a question of when, not if, she would get them back.

  The worst of it was knowing that the other dimensions were still there. Everyone’s body extended across all seven dimensions. The ungifted were merely insensible to the higher three.
They blundered through them, blind and deaf, unable to manipulate what was in front of them. Now Jemeryl knew that she too was stumbling blind. She felt so utterly powerless. And yet, she was merely experiencing the world exactly the same way Tevi did, every day. How did Tevi bear it?

  The attitude of her captors only underlined her vulnerability. After the initial confrontation, they had made a conspicuous point of ignoring her. Even when giving directions, the words were directed at Jemeryl’s horse, rather than her. She had been told the High Priest would talk to her, but nothing else.

  The group clearly belonged to a military force. They referred to themselves as sentinels and gave their leader the title of sergeant. The High Priest featured in their conversations, as did the names Equalitus and Sefriall, but the little Jemeryl overheard added nothing to her knowledge beyond this.

  The two witches and Jemeryl had not been bound, as if to emphasise that they were not taken seriously as a threat, but they were watched closely enough to prevent any attempt at escape. Not that Jemeryl had any desire to. She needed to know more, and currently, the High Priest topped the list of people she wanted to talk to. His sentinels had expected the loss of magic. The High Priest was surely the one who could best explain the how and why of it.

  Jemeryl’s musing ended when her captors shepherded her and the others into a courtyard lined by stables. They were now so close to the temple that its shadow fell on them, a blessed relief from the burning sun. Most people in sight were soldiers, with helmets, swords, and long red cloaks.

  News of their arrival had been sent ahead when they reached the outskirts of Kradja, and more troops were awaiting them just outside the courtyard. The officer was distinguished by gold epaulettes on his shoulders and a plume on his helmet. Did this make him a captain?

  Once the prisoners were lined up, the new officer conferred briefly with the sergeant before raising his voice to a bark. “The local hirelings. They’re of no interest. They can go.”