Where Serpents Strike (Children of the Falls Vol. 1) (51 page)

Khalous, Pick, and Stoneman lined up along
the walls of the crypt with the boys during the ceremony. They all
stood with pale hands clasped over dark mourning robes, heads bowed
in respect. The high collars of the priestly garments made her
brothers look mature and dignified, Dana thought. She realized how
much they had a grown up over the last few years, boys becoming
men, taller and stronger.

“We’re getting kicked out, aren’t we?”
whispered Nash as the priests offered songs of mourning.

“I don’t know,” she whispered back.

“That dog Gravis has hated Khalous since the
moment we first got here,” Clint muttered. “He’ll have his way
now.”

“Quiet!” whispered Brayden.

Later that afternoon as Dana was helping the
kitchen staff prepare for the evening meal she saw Gravis retreat
to the duktori’s office in a private section of the chapel. There
he summoned the other head priests for a closed-door meeting that
lasted long into the night.

Dana finished her evening chores in the
chapel. She hurried across the road to the dormitory, eager to make
it to her bed before night’s incoming chill sank through to her
bones. She washed her face and hands in a bowl of lavender scented
water, slipped into a cozy nightgown, and huddled under the
blankets of her small cot.

She lay in the darkness and the silence for
a long time with an unsettled mind, wishing for sleep, but finding
none.

“Things are going to change, aren’t they?”
came Nairnah’s petite voice from the cot next to her.

“Yes,” Dana whispered.

“Are they still awake?”

Dana peeled back the blankets to her bed and
tiptoed across the cold floorboards to the window. The chapel’s
office torches were dark.

“No.”

She hurried back to her cot, the cold of the
wooden floorboards nipping at her feet. She jumped into bed with an
audible shiver.

Nairnah’s cot creaked as she slipped off her
mattress, patted the two step gap to Dana’s bed, and climbed up
alongside her. Dana lifted her blankets to make room for the girl’s
small form and then the two of them hunkered down against the chill
like they had done many nights before.

“I’m scared,” Nairnah whispered.

“Scared about what?”

“I feel like we’re being abandoned again.
First on Aberdour, now here.”

“Don’t worry. Even if Gravis makes us leave,
Khalous will be with us. He’s—”

“I mean by the Allgod.”

Dana went silent.

“They say he abandoned Aberdour, that the
kingdoms of Edhen got so wicked he had to leave. What if, because
we’re from Edhen, he’s abandoning us all over again?”

Dana hated the girl’s question as much as
she hated the answer she wanted to give, but she wouldn’t crush
Nairnah’s hopes. If the girl wanted to have faith in some distant
deity that was up to her, and Dana wasn’t about to take it
away.

“I don’t know,” she managed to say.

Nairnah looked up at her. “Will you pray
with me?”

Dana’s insides pinched. “No.” When she
feared she had upset Nairnah, she added, “but you can.”

After a moment, Nairnah curled her head down
and began praying in Efferousian, just like Dana had heard the
priests of Halus Gis do many times. She prayed for help, for
protection, and asked for the Allgod’s care and mercy. Her tiny
voice rose to Dana’s ears, half muffled by the blankets that hugged
them.

The following morning came rumors that
Gravis was sending a messenger to the duktori of a neighboring
monastery. He was being summoned to help nurse Halus Gis through
this time of loss and to appoint a new leader.

Until the duktori arrived or sent
instructions, Gravis was in charge. Already his leadership was
casting a cheerless rigidity over the grounds that did nothing to
ease the heartache of those mourning Bendrosi’s loss. He ordered
every building in the monastery sterilized, cleaned from top to
bottom, and put through a rigorous inspection to help prevent the
spread of any infection. He became controlling and more
contemptuous of the refugees of Aberdour.

After just a few days Dana couldn’t stand
the sight of him.

She decided to spend the afternoon riding
Meikia, one of the monastery’s draft horses. The massive beast was
bigger than any horse Dana had ever ridden, with the curve of its
back standing well over her head. The horse had always terrified
her, but fear, it seemed, was the only antidote to her despondent
spirit.

“Easy boy,” she said as she climbed the
stepladder to the horse’s back.

Broderick was shoveling out one of the
stalls in the barn when he noticed Dana mounting Meikia. “What are
you riding him for?” he asked.

“Because I want to,” she said.

“Your legs barely fit around him. Bareback
won’t be very comfort—”

Dana charged through the barn doors, down
the dusty road, and over the bridge leading onto the southeast
hills.

Riding Mekia was like riding thunder. She
felt like a mere speck upon his back. She let her anger at Gravis
and her fear of the unknown strip away her inhibitions, which
pushed her to ride harder and journey further from the monastery
than she ever had before. Mekia never seemed to tire. In fact, when
Dana finally pulled the horse to a stop in the distant fields, he
seemed excited and energized and ready for more.

She wheeled him around and rode him just as
hard back toward the monastery, his hooves echoing the furious
pulsing of her heart as they pounded like drums across the
land.

On the southeast hills overlooking Halus
Gis, Dana slowed the horse to a walk so she could take in the view.
The stone monastery, with its many roofs and chapel spire, cut a
sharp silhouette across the darkening cobalt sky.

She brought Mekia to a stop when she noticed
Ariella crouching in the grass up ahead. The woman appeared as
little more than a shadow as she bowed to her face, rose up and
stretched her hands to the sky. Her face was darkened by smears of
dirt and the sleeves of her mourning robes hung in shredded tatters
off her shoulders.

“Ariella?” Dana asked.

The woman gasped and stood up straight, her
hand going to her chest. “Dana? You frightened me, child.”

“I’ve interrupt something important,” Dana
said. “I’m terribly sorry. I’ll leave you in peace.”

Ariella sighed and rubbed her head. “No, no.
It’s all right. I was simply saying goodbye in a very old
fashion.”

All around her were clumps of tall grass and
veiny field roots, spatters of dirt flung in all directions leaving
a bare patch of dark soil upon which Ariella sat. She got to her
feet, not bothering to brush off the filthy pleats of her
skirt.

“Ages ago,” Ariella explained, “Efferousian
priests would say goodbye in this manner to bless the soil over the
buried body of the deceased. Their tears were considered a gift to
the earth to honor the dead.”

Ariella bowed her head and remained still in
silent prayer while Dana pondered the mystery surrounding the
custom. She thought the sentiment was a sweet one, but odd
nonetheless.

“Kintiere grant us mercy in our grief,”
Ariella prayed. “Welcome my brother in The After.”

She turned to Dana, a strange look of
serenity upon her teary face. “What are you doing out so late,
child?”

Dana slid off Mekia’s mountainous back and
gave the horse a rub and a pat. “I needed to get away from
Gravis.”

“You are not the first I’ve heard say
that.”

“Does he have to be so… obnoxious?”

“He means well.”

Dana walked with Ariella through the tall
grass of the field back to the monastery.

“I’ve never heard it called that before,”
Dana said. “The After.”

“Efferousians call it
morporium
. It
means ‘the life after,’ a general term, of course.”

“Stelldoma?”

“That’s where Kintiere, the Allgod lives,
yes. In Stelldoma, which is part of The After. It’s known as the
Otherworld on Edhen.”

“In the common tongue, yes,” Dana said. “The
priests have another name for it, but I don’t remember what it
is.”

“Neevah.”

“Right.”

They crossed the small wooden bridge leading
into the southern gate of Halus Gis. Mekia’s hooves thumped like
war drums on the thick wooden beams.

“You don’t believe in the Allgod do you?”
Ariella asked.

Dana was surprised by the woman’s
insightfulness. For the first time she wondered if perhaps her
distaste for the religion of Halus Gis had not been as veiled as
she’d hoped.

“I don’t really know what I believe. I don’t
think I’ve ever doubted his existence, but, like many on Edhen, I
believe he has abandoned us. That’s why Edhen has become so evil.
The Allgod has left. And I–I…” but she couldn’t finish her
sentence.

“You what?”

Dana stopped and turned to face Ariella. “I
hate him.”

“What makes you think he’s abandoned you?”
Ariella asked. Her tone was calm and non-confrontational, but the
question still made Dana squirm. She had never verbalized her
thoughts toward the Allgod before, and doing so made her feel like
she was betraying everything she had ever been taught.

“They say he left Edhen when the Immortal
Crown was broken. He gave up on us, and just… just left.”

“What is the Immortal Crown?” she asked.

Dana looked at her in stunned silence.
“You’ve never heard the story of the Crown?”

“You forget, I am not a native of your land.
I’ve lived there most of my life, but I wasn’t raised learning your
histories.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Dana paused a
moment to recollect her history lessons on Edhen’s first high
kings. “Brynlee remembers this stuff better than I do, but I know
the Immortal Crown was created by High King Vala Hull about five
hundred years ago. He was the greatest high king Edhen ever had.
Some said he was a wizard, the first and only wizard to ever become
high king, but others say he was an emissary of the Allgod himself
sent to bring light and peace to the people. Before he died, Vala
Hull pulled from the earth a rare gem called a regenstern.”

“A wizard’s gem. I’ve heard of those
before.”

“Valla Hull imbued the gem with prosperity
and wisdom and placed it in the Crown. Any high king who wore the
crown immediately prospered in everything he did. When the high
king was blessed, the kingdom was blessed. There was wealth and
prosperity and harmony.” She paused to clear her throat. “There was
one condition though. As long as the high king ruled with
generosity, selflessness, and love, the qualities within the
regenstern were passed onto him and his people. But if he ruled
selfishly, or was motivated by personal greed, anger, or revenge,
the power of the Immortal Crown diminished.”

“So how did it break?” Ariella asked as they
passed by the lay servants’ dormitory.

Dana shrugged. “From what I remember it
started with High King Eachann Vardoth, who ruled three hundred
years after Vala Hull. The city of Perth came under attack, and
Eachann’s daughter was murdered. In his grief he revisited
punishment on his enemies a hundred times. He became violent and
sorrowful and bitter.”

They meandered past the dorms. Dana became
aware of the sleeping souls in the houses around them and lowered
her voice before she continued.

“They say the Immortal Crown broke, not in a
literal way, but that it’s power diminished. And nothing was the
same after that. Wars increased. Disease spread. Famines.
Wickedness. It’s like the Allgod’s hand of blessing went away.”

Ariella stopped in front of the barn and
turned to face Dana. “I can not speak to the motivations of the
Allgod, he has his reasons for all that he does and allows, but in
all my personal experience with him I’ve learned one thing: he
never moves, Dana. We may move, but he is always firm.”

Fidgeting with Mekia’s reins, Dana looked at
her feet. “I wish I could believe that.”

Ariella smiled and gave her a hug. “You know
what I admire most about you, child?”

Dana found it hard to believe that there was
anything about herself for anyone to admire, least of all a former
nun. Curious, she asked, “What?”

“You never stop thinking.”

The barn door creaked and Dana looked with
Ariella to see Khalous stepping out into the moonlight.

“Ariella?” he asked, looking from the
dirtied hem of her dress to the brown smears on her face. “Are
you—”

“I’m all right, my love,” she said.

Khalous cleared his throat and looked at
Dana. “Where have you been?”

She dropped her head. “I was out riding.
Forgive me. I should’ve told—”

“Put the horse away and then come with
me.”

His bleak tone made Dana nervous.

She bid Ariella a goodnight and then, with
flutters in her chest, returned Mekia to his stall.

In the loft above she could hear the snores
of her brothers and their comrades.

She found Khalous outside in the communal
garden, leaning against a fencepost, his bearded chin tipped
skyward toward the stars.

“You wanted to see me?” she said.

“I’ve spoken with Gravis. We’re leaving in
two days.”

Her heart sank. She shut her eyes and grit
her teeth. “That bastard.” Her words slipped out in a whisper. “Why
can’t he see the value in what you’re teaching us? Didn’t you tell
him? Didn’t you explain to him that if someone doesn’t stand up to
the Black King—”

“Keep your voice down,” Khalous said. His
tone was all business, even downright scornful. “The decision to
leave was mine, not the prior’s.”

Dana closed her mouth, stunned.

Khalous folded his arms across his thick
chest and said, “You will not be coming with us.”

His words hit her like a blow from Mekia’s
hindquarters. “What?” she breathed.

“I’m taking the boys to the city of Thalmia.
It’s a long journey, but I have an old friend there who may be
willing to give us asylum.”