Gara put Arshes' practice sword beside his own on the rack, swearing to himself at his own blundering ineloquence. He grabbed the Murasume leaning against the interior wall of the shed and strapped it to his back, never far from it when he did not know what the future might bring. He stalked out into the courtyard to see where she had gone. She was half way to the castle doors. There were too many people loitering about for him to call for her to wait. Even if he'd had the courage to do so.
A cry came from the gates. The watch guard at the tower was gesturing down excitedly for the gatesmen to open the gates. Arshes paused on the steps. Gara took a step towards the gates, wary of what was causing such furor. The gates swung open and riders thundered in. A great cluster of horses and men. He caught of glimpse of Kiro and a moment of hope flared up. Had they found something? There were riders among them that were not uniformed Sta-Veron militia. There were the robes of priests among them. Gods, had they ferreted out Angelo's men?
He pushed forward through the press of bodies trying to get close to the incoming party. Trying to see who the prisoners were. There was an old woman huddled on the saddle before one of the guards, her wrinkled face twisted in fear. A holy swordsman in tunic and symbol of the goddess Eno Marta. Two priests. A young one and -- Gods. Gara swore soundly, shoving forward to grab hold of the bit of the high priest, Geo Note's horse. The animal tried to shy away and Gara put his strength into hold its head still. He glared up at the priest, who's hands were bound to the saddle as were those of his two men. He had a cut -- not a new one by the crusted blood -- on his temple. A bruise under one eye. He stared down at Gara with decisive brown eyes, not flinching a bit when one of the guards cried out that they'd captured men of the enemy.
"What the hell are you doing here, old man?" Gara demanded, and slapped a man away that tried to pull Geo Note from the saddle as his men were being dragged from theirs. Gara slipped a blade from his belt and cut the ropes binding the priest and the man climbed stiffly down on his own and stood before Gara rubbing his wrists.
"I've come to find my daughter."
"Your daughter?" Gara had to laugh at that. "You're a little late, don't you think? Should have entertained concern a long while back."
"I am not asking for your approval, Ninja Master."
"Whose then?" Arshes came up behind Gara, a deadlier presence by far.
"I've come to find my daughter and to speak with Dark Schneider."
Gara laughed. Kiro had come up, warily looking between them. "You know this man?" he asked. "Are his claims true?"
"That he's Yoko's father? Yes." Gara admitted. "As to what else he claims - that remains to be seen. Don't trust them just yet."
Kiro nodded. He signaled to his men and the younger priest and the holysword were hustled towards the castle. The old woman escorted at a more sedate pace by a guardsman who seemed as ready to steady her step as prevent her escape. Gara lifted a brow at Kiro and the captain shrugged.
"A woman that old, to have survived the journey over the mountains -- such endurance is respected in the north."
"Who is she?"
"She was with them."
Gara swept a hand towards the castle, indicating Geo Note should proceed him. The priest lifted his head resolutely and started walking. Then hesitated in his stride.
Schneider stood in the door way, a look of cold outrage on his face.
"Shit." Gara muttered, stepping forward and wrapping his fingers about the priest's arm. "Just keep walking." He suggested. "And pray to your gods that he's in a better mood than he has been the last few days."
"I doubt it." Arshes said softly from behind him. And on that, they were in complete agreement.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing coming here?" Schneider had Geo Note by the front of his robes, half dragging the priest off his feet. The other priest made little sounds of protest in the hands of two guards. The holysword stood rigid with a blade at his throat. Schneider wanted to blast Geo Note so bad the heat simmered in the air around them. How dare he come here? How dare he bring his holier than thou self anywhere near Schneider after what he had participated in. He had stood with the rest of those self-righteous bastards in Meta-Rikan and condemned him at the word of the Prophet and then piled sin upon sin and promised Yoko to the monster.
"What the fuck made you think I wouldn't erase you from the face of the earth?"
"I came to see Yoko." Geo Note did not struggle against the grip. "I came to find my daughter."
"Well you can't see her." Schneider snarled. "She doesn't want to see you. You gave up any claim to her when you promised her to Him!"
"I didn't know." Geo Note's voice broke just a little. "I didn't know then, what I do now."
"You can die with the knowledge then."
The whole of the hall was hushed in fearful silence. They were all blurred faces to Schneider in his fury. All he could see was Geo Note, who had stymied him time after time. Manipulated him. Betrayed him. Betrayed Yoko.
"This is her father? This is the lady's father?" A voice from the outside reached him. The house keeper had started forward and been caught by Arshes' hand. The woman's eyes were round with concern. "Maybe he can help her, my lord."
He did not want to think that Geo Note could while he couldn't.
"Help her?" The Priest repeated the words. "By the goddess, what is wrong with Yoko?"
Schneider glared at Keitlan. At the desperately hopeful look in the woman's eyes. At the frozen faces scattered about the great hall. "Damn you." He hissed and thrust the priest away from him so hard the man stumbled and went down, catching his fall on a hand and a hip. Not a weak man, Geo Note. Or an easily intimated one. He rose, straightening his robes and matched Schneider's glare.
"Where is Yoko? What's happened to her?"
Schneider drew a breath in disgust and whirled, stabbing a finger at Keitlan, who backed up just a little at his damning stare. "You seem to think he'll help. You tell him." He stalked past her, brushing by Gara and Arshes, who parted to make room for him to go. To flee. To retreat. He seethed at what he had been reduced to. Afraid to hear the words recited -- afraid to see the horror on the face of someone else who loved her. Afraid most of all that it wouldn't make a bit of difference when it came right down to it.
But he slunk back anyway, out of desperate curiosity, when Keitlan and Gara had taken the priest to Yoko's room. Stood in the doorway while Gara sat by the fire with his daughter, talking softly, hold her hands. She seemed to know him. She smiled at him and spoke about the baby and trivial things like the warming weather and the tapestries she had purchased for the walls and how nice everyone was to her here. She wouldn't acknowledge that her home had ever been elsewhere. There were certain names her eyes went blank at the mention of.
The Great Priest left after a long while, meeting Schneider's eyes warily as he passed. Keitlan was in the hallway. Gara leaned against the wall further down, his head down as if he were dozing.
"I had begun to suspect --" Geo Note said in a low, trembling voice. "- - that he was not all he said -- but never that he could do this. May the goddess forgive me, but if I could kill him with my own hands, I would."
"That pleasure will be mine." Schneider growled.
The priest sighed, cast one look over his shoulder at Yoko, then said. "Is there somewhere we might talk -- peacefully?"
"It depends on what you have to say. And at whose behest you came."
"I came of my own accord -- but unofficially I carry other news."
Schneider waved a hand carelessly. "Down in the hall then. But be warned, my patience is worn thin and I'm not in the mood for your holier than thou assumptions. I'd just as soon see you burn as listen to your worthless opinions."
"You won't receive any. Not today."
Gara pushed off from the wall and proceeded them down the hall. The tables before the hearth accommodated them, and Geo Note's priest and guard, Kiro and a few of his men, Arshes and the curious old woman who had come with the priest's party. Schneider had hardly looked at her, but as he diffidently took a seat at the head of the table she caught his attention. Her small, sunken black eyes were fixed on him intently. The distinctive wrinkles of her face and the sunken cant of her cheeks were familiar. He leaned forward, amazed to discover the old hedge witch from Thrax's compound at the edge of the Great forest.
"You? What are you doing here?"
"You remember me do you?" She cackled softly. "I would have thought one such as I to be below your notice, my lord."
He lifted a brow.
"The charm wore off. Thrax figured out what had been done and who had made it. He was less than pleased. I had resigned myself to being burned at the stake when this generous priest and his people happened by and saved me from that fate. It seemed we had an acquaintance or two in common."
"Oh well, it was a good charm while it lasted. What's your name, old woman?"
"Ayntha"
He nodded, accepting it and her. "You are welcomed here not as an enemy."
"If I might be so bold, great lord, this priest is not here as one either."
Schneider's lips tightened. He waved her to silence and she humbly bowed her head in regard of the command.
"So what do you have to say for yourself, Geo Note? Any excuses for what you did?"
"Nothing I did was conceived with anything but the good of Yoko and my people at heart. Like everyone else I believed the Prophet was the man he claimed to be. I believed the god spoke through him."
"Gullible fool. You at least should have known better. You were ready to give Yoko to him against her will. You knew she didn't want it."
"She was beyond rational at the time. I believed she needed a guidance that I could not give her. The Prophet offered his suit. It seemed reasonable."
"He's a mind witch, old man. He can make you think slitting your own throat is reasonable if that's what he wants."
"I -- recognize that now. A priest of his -- a man who used to worship the goddess, confessed a guilt to me. He confessed that a messenger of my daughter's sent to find ninja master Gara -- intercepted by the Prophet's men. That the Prophet himself -- killed him. I took this information to the king, but the rally and cry for the Prophet's safe return is so strong that all of Meta-Rikan -- indeed all of the southern cities are in tumult. If we denounce him now the infrastructure of the whole church of the One God will crumble. The south may very well be reduced to civil war."
"So Larz is going to sit there and do nothing?" Schneider snapped, disgusted. "That fucking little coward."
"What can he do? There are only hints that the Prophet is darker of nature than he led us to believe. Nothing blatant. Nothing to make the people understand that they've been led astray. Anything he's done could conceivably be explained away as strident means of opposing you -- who have evidenced repeatedly that you are a threat to the peace of the people of the south. Politically he is at an impasse until more evidence against the prophet can be found."
"Politics! My politics on the matter are find Angelo and blow him off the face of the earth. I could care less what the sniveling religious minded people of the south think."
"Which is why you never wanted to be king -- just conqueror. You couldn't have handled the responsibility of ruling a people. Too boring." Gara noted quietly. "But, he's got a point. Somebody's got to think about keeping the south together."
Schneider glared at the ninja master.
"Larz did not send me here." Geo Note said. "But unofficially I bring with me his inquiry as to the standing of the Southern Alliance's relationship with the North."
"How the hell should I know?" Schneider snarled. "I don't rule the North. Kall-Su does -- but oh, the Prophet who you're all pussyfooting around denouncing has him holed away somewhere. So I guess the south's standing with the North is up in the air. Now, the South's standing with me is damned unstable - just for your information. Next time I see Larz I'm going to do something violent and probably lethal. Any more questions about relationships and what not?"
Geo Note's countenance zeroed out blankly. A weary priest's expression of extreme patience in the face of illogical adversity. Carefully, slowly he said. "We have taken a demon into our midst. A worse evil than you ever were, because we accepted him with all of our hearts and gave him our souls for the keeping. That is not an easy mistake to accept. Not for kings or common men - or priests. There are those who will not accept it at all. What we face may be a holy war. Goddess help me, but I would gladly give my life to avoid such an atrocity. But if it cannot be avoided, then support from the north -- from the lands who are not embroiled in the religion of the One God - may well be what keeps the south from toppling into chaos."
"Let it topple." Schneider hissed. "I'm done with it."
"No." Arshes' soft voice trailed his last word like an echo. "If it comes to that -- to avoid such bloodshed again -- I will lend my support to stop it. There are too many orphans already."
"I too." Gara said.
Schneider stared at the both of them sullenly. Outnumbered by those closest to him. All he needed was Yoko to come downstairs and declare him a stubborn fool.
"I don't care. I don't care what you do, as long as no one stands between me and Angelo. They can make a martyr out of him for all I care. Call him Saint Angelo the tragically misunderstood. But I will take out you, Geo Note and Larz and every religious zealot in the south that stands between me and the Prophet if I have to."
They walked down the dirt road to the church on holy day, he and mother, she holding his hand in hers. She had on her best dress, the one she wore to church or village festivities. She looked so beautiful. The village women were jealous of her. Kall understood that, even with a child's naive perception. They envied her beauty and her grace and the fact that she was the daughter of the village's religious leader. So they talked about her behind her back. They ostracized her from their social circles and never let her forget her sin. All because of him. Grandfather and that other priest had told him that. Made him understand that damning fact. To have shared her body with a demon was one thing but to have carried its seed and birthed it's child was another. She was forever blackened.
They pointed at her -- at them, when they entered the church and walked down the aisle to take a seat on the first pew. Grandfather always insisted they sit in front on holy day, where he could see them, where the congregation could see that his sinner daughter and her unholy get were actively attempting at redemption.
He didn't want to come today. He was terrified to come today, though there was no avoiding it. He didn't know why. It was no different than any other holy day. Grandfather would sermonize and preach and condemn all the sins of the physical flesh and the people would nod and chant the appropriate prayers to cleanse their souls of the week's transgressions and that would be that. Except that the prayers never seemed to be enough for Kall. Grandfather said they would never be enough. And the new priest, the one with the terrifying eyes seconded this opinion. It was because of the new priest he was afraid to come to holy day. He was afraid Grandfather would let him preach and that the man would single Kall out of the crowd and denounce him personally.
The only way to save her soul is his death. Those words would not leave his head. Those words beat a tempo in the back of his mind. He didn't want to die. But he didn't want to hurt mother either. He needed someone to tell him what to do, but there was no one other than mother than did not despise him.
"I love you Kall." Mother bent over to whisper against his ear. He looked up at her in surprise that she should speak during the sermon to mention it. "I'm the only one who'll ever love you. All the rest of them just want to use you, sweetling. But they don't love you like I do."
He stared, wide eyed. Grandfather's words blared in the background. The voice of the congregation was a chorus of well worn prayers.
"But you need to be good. You need to be very good." The congregation echoed her words. Grandfather did. He blinked, disoriented. "You've got to strive towards forgiveness to help lesson the stain on my soul. To wash away the sin. I don't want to die and burn in hell because of you, my love."
Tears welled up in her eyes. She reached out her arms and pulled him close and all he could do was hang limply in her grasp, traumatized by her words. Someone pulled him out of her arms and thrust him to his knees at the foot of the alter. The other priest stood over him, demanding he beg the god for absolution. He could hear mother crying behind him. His own throat closed up and he couldn't utter the words. The priest hit him. A back handed slap that knocked him over onto the wood floor. His head cracked against it.
Stone floor. Not wood. His vision wavered. The dream clouded with reality. The priest was still there, hovering over him. There was a great alter, but the church was wrong. There were no faithful congregation. No grandfather. No mother. He looked for on the pews behind him but they were empty. Tears gathered on his lashes and he blinked them away, furious and devastated at once. He could not remember coming here, to this dark and oppressing temple in the Place Without Windows. He could not remember falling asleep to dream or when he had not been asleep or awake for that matter. It blurred together so seamlessly he thought he might have lost his mind entirely. Only the anger, despair, hurt that the Prophet had dragged his mother into his dreams - that she denounced him in them for the destruction of her soul made him come out of the daze.
He swung around, glaring. "You beast! Leave her out of it."
Angelo stood impassively. "Beast? Am I only half a human?"
"You're not even that." He cried. He could not stop shaking. He could not stop the images in his head.
"Submit to the mercy of the High God. Beg for his forgiveness so that your wretched soul might be salvaged."
"No." Kall shook his head desperately. "The gods have no mercy. They have no interest. Its only men like you who use their name to control the naive."
Angelo kicked him hard enough to knock his hands out from under him and he curled to protect himself from the further blows. Despite his spinning head he tried to call up power. Any power. He didn't care what responded or what it did as long as it interceded in this humiliation. Something did come. But it was like throwing dart, blindfolded and drunk with no idea where the target was.
A crack of energy. The Prophet cried out, more in surprise than hurt and held up his arm as something snaked across the room, recoiled of a warded wall and hit the great symbol of the High God that rested atop the alter. That was apparently not warded. It cracked down the middle, bits and chunks of it crumbling to fall on the podium below. Angelo cried out in rage and the next blow that hit him was arcane. A giant hand might have picked him up and tossed him like a rag doll across the room. He hit a column and rebounded, slumped to the floor bonelessly, only half aware of Angelo's shrieks of incrimination.
It hurt. His body cried out in protest of the treatment and his mind half drifted to that place where mother and grandfather stood in the church. Someone yanked him up. Not Angelo. Bigger, stronger hands. Sinakha registered in his vision. Harsh, impassive face, even in the presence of his master's wraith.
"How dare you!! How dare you!!" Angelo was screaming, all of his serenity and his superior contempt turned to frothing rage. "No forgiveness for this. None!!" he cried.
Sinakha slammed him face forward against a column. Grabbed one wrist then went around and caught the other one and held him pressed there from the other side with an unshakable grip.
Then Angelo lashed him with something from behind. It cut through shirt and skin with a stinging agony that traveled the length of his body. It hit again and he threw his head back, coming out of the stupor hitting the column had thrown him into. He couldn't see what it was the Prophet wielded. He wasn't certain he wanted to. It burned like fire and stung like ice and all the while Angelo was screeching words like Demonspawn and devil and wretched malefactor. Sinner. Sinner. Sinner.
He fought against Sinakha's strength frantically, writhing to escape the torment. He couldn't breath from it. It stole the air from his lungs and filled them with fire. He didn't know where he got the breath to scream. But he did. He incoherently begged for it to stop. And that seemed to do nothing but drive Angelo to further fits of violence. It wasn't until he was whimpering, almost mindless from it, that the lash - the whip - whatever it was evaporated into thin air out of Angelo's hand and the Prophet came up behind him, caught a handful of hair and pulled his head back so far he thought his neck would snap. He had no strength to fight against it. Angelo could break his neck right now if he wanted and it would be a welcome release.
The Prophet's breath was hot against his cheek, the man's body pressing into the fire the whipping had made of Kall's back.
"You shouldn't have done that. You'll be punished for that."
Hadn't he been? The Prophet was trembling. The fanatical rage was still in his eyes, but there was something else. A thrill over the power, the pain, the supplication for mercy that had been ignored - that bordered on lust. Like the smell of fear excited him.
Kall made a little sound of dismay and shut his eyes, wanting to find a hole somewhere and crawl into it. Even the nightmares seemed preferable to this.
Angelo let go of him. Sinakha released his wrists and he had no stamina to support his own weight. He slid down the column, slumping to his side on the floor. Darkness and light swam before his vision. He wanted desperately to go to the darkness. His back pulsed with agony. It felt as if every inch of skin had been stripped off. His shirt was wet, he could feel the wetness seeping around his ribs.
"Shall we start again?" The Prophet said, in control of his emotions once more. His face back to placid serenity.
Kall blinked up at him dazedly. Angelo strode back towards the alter. Sinakha bent down, grabbed his arm and dragged him along in his wake. Blood smeared the floor behind him. He cried out in pain, grayed out from it only to find himself in a heap before the alter when he came back to his senses.
"Recite the invocation of forgiveness. You know the words. He may not heed you the first time, but you can appeal again and again and maybe one time you might be heard."
He wouldn't come out of it. Lily stood uncertainly, her fingers on the edge of the thick door and wondered what she ought to do. She was risking everything coming here. Having anything to do with the Master's new obsession would be the death of her if he found out. But he had turned into almost an obsession with her as well. He spoke to her. He looked at her as if she were not an object, even though she knew he had seen the slave mark on her hand. He wanted to know who she was. No one had ever cared before. She wouldn't tell him, because she was ashamed to admit that she didn't know if Lily was her real name. It was the one her first master had called her, but she seemed to recall something else. Something plainer, more fitting for the daughter of starving peasants.
She knew his name. She had heard the master say it. She whispered it to herself in the shadows. Kall-Su. He was so so much better than she was. She knew that. Even though he was as much a prisoner here as she was, he was something to reckon with in the world outside, because no ordinary man would hold the master's attention so fully. An ordinary man would not have fought against the master's wishes. Not for long at any rate.
But something was wrong now. Something was broken. There was the dark stain of blood over his clothing. He lay half on his side, his head tucked up beneath one arm -- silent and unmoving. Barely breathing. He made no response when she called out. So she hesitantly approached and touched his shoulder. She felt as if she were overstepping her bounds with even that small contact. But nothing. She saw his back through the shreds of the shirt and made a little moaning sound of pity. She had seen men beaten before and this was as bad as the worst she had witnessed. He must have angered the master terribly. But not enough to kill him. She had seen men killed for little more than being in the wrong place when the master was in one of his moods.
She crouched and tentatively touched his shoulder again, calling his name softly, biting her lip when he did not respond. His fingers clutched the bed covers, as if trying to anchor to something to keep from being swept uncontrollable away. Lily backed away, until her shoulders touched the wall, then slid down to kneel, staring at him.
She thought of a song she knew that had always pleased her last master. He had always said she had a touch of healing magic in her voice, but had never explained how or why. He ought to have known, being a wizard, but she never inquired, superstitious of such things herself. She had never healed a thing in her life, but she had soothed and calmed with her voice. So she sat against the wall and sang the song, her voice a sweet, drifting melody in the dank confines of the cell. She finished it and started another, voice pitched low so it would not carry to far into the hall. It became more a thing she did for herself than him. It had been so long since she had voiced anything but the hymns the master insisted she sing. It felt good to sing of springtime and true love and a sailor's bawdy adventure with a sheepherder's daughter.
His fingers tightened on the sheets. His lashes fluttered slowly and she caught her breath, frozen on a high note. He shifted his arm slightly to look at her and his eyes turned almost violet with the pain the motion caused him. He shuddered and she bit her lip. She did not know what to do now.
"I'm sorry." She whispered.
He didn't say anything. Just shut his eyes and pulled his arm back down to cover his face. There was a difference to his eyes, that went beyond the pain. Something abjectly disconsolate. Had the master broken that part of him that rebelled and broke the code of silence in that place? If he had, then she would be thrust back into endless silence. Endless isolation. And she would eventually lose her mind.