Janyn ended up sleeping on the floor, because by the time they were actually done at the church it was two past midnight and the inns were locked up for the night. Tera had offered him the bed, on the theory that it was her fault he didn't have a room for the night, but he'd declined.
"I'm the hunter," he told her. "I'm used to roughing it in the wilderness, so I'll get more rest than you would on the floor." She'd accepted that as true, though Janyn wasn't entirely sure of it, given Tera's ability to ignore personal discomfort when she had something else in mind.
Still, he slept like a log, surprisingly untroubled by dreams of burning-eyed shadows or of Zio, who reminded Janyn somewhat of a living shadow himself. Perhaps it was hope that had cleared his spirit, hope born in the fact that the creature had a name and that they had a way to fight it, even if--to him--that way was as intangible and strange as the shadow itself. Or maybe it was just being out of Morova, with its petty hatreds and lurking fears, of not being in the eye of the emotional storm that had possessed the people there--not the least of whom was his own client.
Late to bed meant late rising, even for Tera; it was well past midmorning before they'd awakened, breakfasted, and begun their search through Kadary's markets for the items Tera would need for the ritual. Some of these were easy to locate, but others proved to be trickier, and after a couple of hours Janyn's temper was starting to suffer.
"What's the point of all this, anyway?" he finally gave up and complained when the sixth straight shop had been out of sion dust.
"We need these ingredients to exorcize Brent, to disperse the evil power that animates his hatred as the darkside," Tera replied, giving him the kind of dubious look one saves for the mentally defective. "I thought you understood that."
"No--I mean, yes, I do, but that's not what I meant. I mean, why is all this ritual necessary? When I use a technique, I concentrate for a moment, say a word, and it's done. Whatever arts your religion has taught you seem to work the same way, to judge by last night."
"The mindblast I used on Crain and his thugs? Yes, that is correct. The ritual is quite different."
"Yes, I gathered. How?"
"You're asking for an education on the nature of magical theory now, in the middle of a job?"
"Yes, damn it, I am. This makes no sense to me, none of it. I have no idea why I'm carrying sacks of herbs and chemicals and general bric-a-brac. All I know is that you're following the instructions found in some old book written by a lunatic."
"That is so, but I did explain that those instructions were a logical progression from the research I'd done on my own."
Janyn sighed.
"None of which made any sense to me. None of which makes any sense to me. I'm lost, here, stumbling blindly in the dark."
"I'm not," she said.
"I've only known you for two days," he replied bluntly. She stared at him, her expression enigmatic. Was she angry at being doubted, or at his recalcitrance to follow and therefore the delay he was causing?
"Lord Zio spoke truly," she said. "Though your heart is righteous, you have no faith. Sit down."
She gestured towards a gurgling fountain which depicted a warrior with a spear fighting a sea monster. The spear had impaled the serpent-like beast and its head was thrown back, bellowing in pain or fury while water sprayed from its open jaws. Janyn sat on the stone lip of the fountain and set the bags at his feet. Tera settled herself next to him.
"The power of magic," she stated without preamble, "comes from within ourselves. Espers could tap into that energy and use it in a variety of ways. However, just as even the strongest man cannot lift certain heavy loads, so too were there things for which an Esper needed more energy than he or she carried inside themselves. For this, they invented rituals. The art of ritual magic is to capture energies from the environment and store them, like calling upon extra laborers when one is not enough. Every part of the ritual, the incantations used, the symbols, the particular ingredients, are designed to harmonize with this purpose.
"Techniques do this as well, only the process is simple and elegant and is limited to the amount of power ordinary magic could tap anyway. Thus you might think of ritual magic as a kind of enhanced technique, designed to do things an ordinary technique cannot."
Her wide gray eyes looked searchingly at him. Behind their backs, water splashed into the fountain's pool.
"Is that enough for you to understand?"
"Probably enough, but it's enough that I doubt I'll understand any more," Janyn admitted. He bent, picked up the bags, and got to his feet. "I've made you wait long enough." He paused, then said simply, "Thank you."
Tera shook her head as she rose.
"It is my duty, nothing more. For the unworthy to fall is unfortunate, but in the end natural. For a righteous soul to step off the path solely for a lack of faith is a true tragedy." It wasn't a dig or a slap at him; she said it so earnestly, with a hint of sorrow, that Janyn felt stirrings of guilt for doubting her.
He sighed heavily. It was true; he did lack faith. He'd had it once, but it had been taken from him, stolen by force. The memories of that theft had crashed through his head in Zio's presence, as if somehow summoned up by the dark-clothed prophet's presence. Was that how and why the memories had called to him? As a counter to what he'd felt, what he'd feared inside Zio's church? And what had that been, anyway? Something as dark and ominous as it had seemed? Or was it just his soul recognizing a force alien to it and retreating from the implications?
Janyn thought about, a lot, while he and Tera finished the shopping. The magistrate made it easy for him; her conversation was quick and purely businesslike, without personal chatter. He still hadn't gotten anywhere, though, by the time Tera's Ryuka took them back to Morova.
In their absence, it seemed that Trevor Paul had done his part. A watchman--the same one from Tyrell's house--had Brent's door under guard, and more than likely a second man was in the garden. The sergeant himself was waiting with Brent in the same office where Janyn had first met his client.
"You!" Brent exploded when Janyn entered. "Where have you been? I hired you to protect me, and this imbecile of a sergeant has me under house arrest! He's been babbling about demons and shadows and who knows what else!"
"Sergeant Paul is keeping you here for your own protection, as well as for that of others," Tera stated. "Since your guilt in this matter is unconscious, it did not seem just to imprison you in a cell, but it was necessary for you to be held."
"Held? Why, damn it?"
"Because if you fled the village we would have to track you down in order to exorcize the darkside from your soul, and in the meantime more people might die."
"Exorcize?" Paul exclaimed. "Then you've found the answer?"
"Yes."
"What is this nonsense?" Brent bellowed. "Exorcism? What are you accusing me of?"
"Sit down and try to control yourself," Janyn snapped at him. "Maybe if you'd been any better at that, none of this would have happened and five people wouldn't be dead!"
Trembling with emotion, the merchant gave way as Janyn advanced into the room. Brent dropped back into his chair.
"As for any of this being nonsense, Sergeant Paul may not have been on hand last night, but I was. I saw a creature made of shadow wearing your face carve up Ned Crain like a piece of meat. I crossed swords with the thing and was nearly killed by it! Saya Lake is in a cell, scared out of her wits because she got a glimpse of that thing the night it killed her master! Tera calls the monster a darkside; stripped of all the fancy theory it's your hatred come to life and killing people that you're angry at."
"Wait a minute," the sergeant interrupted. "You didn't tell me that you recognized Brent's face on that thing last night!"
"That was my doing," Tera answered for Janyn. "I thought it best that you, and more importantly your men, not know that the darkside was tied to Brent until we had located the solution to the problem."
Paul glared at her.
"You mean, you didn't want us to hang him out of superstitious fear," he called a spade a spade.
"Yes."
"Can't say I blame you."
"What are you people talking about?" Brent shouted. "Are you all mad?"
"Can't you see when you're getting off easy?" Janyn snapped at him. "Nine out of ten local guards would just execute you and be done with it, even though Tera claims you're not purposely causing the darkside to kill. So instead of screaming and complaining, why don't you sit down, shut up, and thank your lucky stars that the law here actually cares about the fine details of guilt or innocence and had the good judgment to call in an expert who might actually be able to destroy the monster!"
Brent looked with wide, shaken eyes from one face to another. He found no relief from Janyn's fury; Tera's implacable hardness offered no sympathy for a man who refused to accept the truth, and as for Paul, well, Janyn was right. The sergeant had seen Morova's mercantile order shattered in a matter of days. Whatever their sins, Tyrell, Prentiss, and even Crain had been part of the village's settled existence. One by one they'd been ripped away savagely, a horror visited upon the people of Morova until it was at last revealed that the horror was just that, a perversion in the natural order.
No, there would be no sympathy from Trevor Paul, either.
"T-this 'exorcism'...you really believe that it will end this for good?"
Tera nodded firmly.
"The darkside is not a sentient creature. It is merely power, a 'clot' if you will, of darkness that has taken root in your soul and takes its shape from what it finds there. The exorcism will remove and disperse that power so that it has no guiding force to direct it and so the hatred within you can no longer act despite your will." She glanced at the window. "It is almost dark. Once nightfall is upon us, we can begin, but I shall prepare things now."
"Do you need to be any special place?" Janyn asked.
"No, this room will be large enough. Mr. Brent must be present, of course, but anywhere I can draw the appropriate patterns will do."
Janyn set the satchel in which they'd packed the various reagents down on a table, and Tera began to unpack things. A copper brazier on a thin-legged tripod went in the center of the floor, and Tera put in carefully measured amounts of herbs and powders, checking her notes as she did so. When that was done, she began tracing out a symbol on the floor, an eight-pointed star made by two overlapping squares, ringed by a circle. She sketched the pattern in chalk on the stone floor first, then outlined each square and the circle in a different kind of jewel dust--amethyst, diamond, and sion. At each point where the gem trails met she placed a thin white candle. These would burn for no more than an hour each, so clearly the exorcism was not meant as an all-night affair.
The men watched her with varying reactions as she worked. Brent followed her every move with a wide-eyed stare, trembling in his seat. Paul's lip was slightly curled, a shade of the disbelief he'd shown the night before at the Red Dog. Even Janyn had to admit that he had his doubts; there was such a contrast between the methodical precision with which Tera made her preparations and the absurdity of what she did. The difference was, unlike the sergeant, Janyn had actually seen the living shadow, had crossed swords with it. He had proof, of a kind, that the absurdity, the madness was real.
For Brent, the terror was still for himself, for his own death. For Paul, it was still rooted in the unknown. For Janyn, it was of something very real and tangible, and as he was rapidly learning, sometimes the fears one imagines are not worse than the reality.
"Very well," Tera announced, one she was through checking her preparations against her notes for the second time. "Janyn, do you know the Foi technique?"
"Yes."
"Excellent; please light the brazier. It needs to be ignited by power, not artificial means."
He wondered what she'd have done if he didn't have the technique, then realized the answer was obvious. Foi was among the most common of all techniques; by the simple law of averages there would be at least a half-dozen Morovans who could use it and she had the legal authority to summon them. Keeping the amount of power under tight control, Janyn held his hand above the brazier and called forth heat to set the brazier's contents alight. The flame roared up in a sudden burst, then settled down in seconds to a slow, gradual smolder releasing wisps of scented smoke.
"Thank you; I'm ready to begin. Brent, please stand there, opposite me. Janyn, Sergeant Paul, please remain outside the circle while the exorcism is proceeding."
They all followed her directions, the faint glow from the brazier painting their shadows weirdly across the office walls. As if instinctually, Janyn and Paul chose to stand next to one another, on Tera's side of the brazier. Safety in numbers.
Tera took a spill from the fireplace, touched it to the brazier, and then lit the candles so that glittering points of light covered the floor. She then took her place, pressed her palms together, and began to chant.