Dishonour by Dee Carteri (simple e reader TXT) 📕

Cigal watched with envy as other birds came to feast on the plant he had created. To him, a bird scraping in the ground desperately for a scrap of forgotten food was far nobler than any knight on any quest to kill or die for his misguided beliefs. He was well-respected and honoured among many Seers, though he did not know it. To some he was a figure of utmost admiration, a man akin to Gaia in mind and spirit. Perhaps that was why Archdeacon Gelir had summoned him. The summons said little, other than to be at the Mother Temple within the month, and that this was a matter of grave importance. He was not a man used to travelling, and did not appreciate being pulled away from his studies and government in the last few months before the animals would sleep and the birds would leave. He also enjoyed the autumn feasts when he was called upon to bless the year's harvests. But to ignore a summons by so powerful a man would be nearing subordination and blasphemy. Cigal sighed and called for his horse. If he must leave, he might as well start on his journey now.

Cigal rode into the mountain valley that cradled the Mother Temple. The depression was formed by solid sandstone cliffs on three sides, one of which bore several shining waterfalls like bands of starlight trickling down into bubbling pools about the valley floor. The temple grounds were packed tight with dozens of gardens tended to by scores of gardeners. A brick and plant hedge surrounded the estate, adorned with every type of flower imaginable, all which bloomed at different times so that visitors to the temple might never say it was without beauty. Three great grey buildings, with flat roofs bearing gardens of the finest oaks and willows, provided shelter for the hundreds of gardeners, Seers and pilgrims that wished to visit the temple. The structures seemed to be assaulted on all sides by the utter beauty of life. The temple itself was cut into the solid rock of the cliff, it's entrance surrounding by an enormous façade of carvings and statues. The hall inside was three hundred feet long, fifty feet broad and thirty feet high. Some said it took almost two centuries to craft. But beyond the temple was an ancient corridor two miles long, its origins stretching to the time before time, when the Nameless Spirits walked the earth. At the end it opened into the Sanctuary, a dell surrounded by stone cliffs hundreds of feet high, yet sunlight still reached it. But in that gorge stood a tree of a species forgotten by men, whose flowers bloomed greater than the sunrise, whose leaves wore a brilliant green that shone with all life's vigour, whose fruits glowed with silvery magnificence in the twilight. The Willow of the Sunset, as it came to be called, was immersed in a grove of apple trees, but these were immortal trees that bloomed all year long, and whose flowers stretched from the trees to form a wall of pink garlands. The ivy on the cliff face was not of the hungry, greedy sort seen prying apart old buildings in desperation to feed water to browning leaves, but ordered vines that grew in parallel, whose leaves interwove to form a curtain of green, and golden thread hung from the stalks. Cigal had only been there once during his initiation into the Seerhood, when he sat on the soft brown earth covered in sweet golden green grass to reflect upon the wonder of Gaia. He remembered being given a draught from the impossibly clear pool along the east wall covered with large white lilies.

Over the years, several attempts had been made to locate the Sanctuary overland, and so see if any other such gardens existed nearby. All had failed, for an enchantment lay about this area of the mountains that confused and befuddled travelers, and led them to where they had come, or in endless circles. One such expedition did not surface for almost two months until they were found wandering through the mountains in western Sybürmia. It was said in bard's myth that a wizard by the name of Connalus fooled the enchantment with a cloak of sunset's light and snuck into the Sanctuary, stealing a single flower from the Willow of the Sunset to prove his love to the fair maiden Adran. However, he was so overcome by the flower's loveliness that it became dearer to him than even Adran. When the flower wilted, separated as it was from the Willow, Connalus was so overcome with guilt and sadness that he wasted away to nothing. The Seer Sunaus burned the dead flower and used the ash to brew the Tincture of Grief, the very same that was poured into the Demon Horde's well so that they were plunged into the depths of misery until Dathor and his troops could escape from the dead city of Ambur.

Cigal gave a document of license to the guards that stood steadfast at the gate to the temple complex. He continued on through the winding paths that he knew so well from his days as a novice. The only flowers that still bloomed were large and burgundy, and melted submissively into the overwhelming green of the surrounding foliage. The road soon divided, river-like, into a branching skein of intersecting pathways, many of which led only to a more beautiful or quiet area of the gardens. Most novices spent hours each day for years trying to mentally map out the valley. Still, many a Seer, in his wanderings, would come across an overlooked path that led to a peaceful copse of blossoming trees he had never seen before, or would stumble through a long-overgrown trail to find a serene pool unseen by the rest of the temple. Often, new paths were cut and others disappeared suspiciously. In Cigal's youth, one of his teachers became trapped for eight hours by a hedge of undergrowth that had mysteriously grown over one of the roads as the teacher was walking. Cigal and his friends had never openly been blamed, but it was unwise to ask that teacher or any of the gardeners for a favour ever again.
Cigal arrived a Archdeacon Gelir's residence, which included six rooms and a kitchen at the east end of the First Building. The doorwarden, showing him inside, informed him that Gelir had been summoned to Whiterift on urgent business, but had left two friends, Prior Bennar and a young Seer named Hadise, to keep his affairs in order.

He was led into a small writing room that was sparsely lit but had three windows that looked down on some desks against one wall. Occupying one was a thin pale man of about twenty years. He had long blonde hair and a beard, with large glassy eyes that were of such a dark shade of brown that they could easily be mistaken as black in the dim light. He also had a streamlined, aquiline face that could be called noble, and was on the whole a handsome man. The long fingers of his left hand flipped a cork endlessly, occasionally tapping it against the table as those with restless hands often did. He turned around, glanced at Cigal and turned to the doorwarden. "Well? Do you intend to, to introduce the visitor?"

The servant, obviously not at ease with taking orders from a Seer half his age, turned abrubtly, and, without apology, said, "Seer Hadise, this is Bishop Cigal, of the diocese of Newshire and Lix, in the duchy of Hitali.

Hadise glanced, surprised, at Cigal, then ordered, "That will be all."

As the servant left, Hadise gestured to the empty desk beside him. "Please, good Bishop, have a seat."

Cigal turned the chair to face him, then sat down. Hadise continued, "I apologize for the, as, er, indifferent welcome, but I didn't recognize you. Gelir spoke of, well, a man of, as, a, great wisdom. And you're, well-"

"Young?" suggested Cigal.

"Ah, well, I suppose so. Also, forgive me for saying so, I really mean no disrespect, but you're, how should I say, not really all that, ah, rich." He looked nervously at Cigal, then added, "Sorry."

Cigal laughed and then said. "Most knowledge can be bought, but almost all wisdom has to be learned. For example, what are you reading?"

Hadise held up his book and said nervously, "A, er, a poem. Like the bards write." Hadise had the strange trait of being unable to look someone in the eyes, and his vision was focused on the cork that he still bobbed around in his hand.

"Really? What's it about?"

"It's about the Blue Council." Cigal was shocked. The Blue Council was a group of powerful magi, a coven of eighteen men who wandered from country to country, lord to lord, starting wars and aiding peace. They were like Illumati, enlightened men somehow a little more than human, who were rarely seen but often heard of, who said little but did much. But far more importantly, they worshipped the elder god Polaris, who was well-known to be more in line with the heathen deity Lynoxi than the goodly Gaia.

Cigal asked, "They let you keep such a book here?"

"No, no, it's not like that. It was written by Seers, who objected to the Council when they first came." It was said that the first of the Blue Council came across the sea when the city of Ambur was conquered a second time. "They say that the Council carried plagues and famine to the land of Sybürmia, so that they could take over." Sybürmia, as was known at the time, was ruled by a man named Thordesh who openly acknowledged that he was a member of the Council. Moreover, in the last two hundred years at the least, every king of Sybürmia had magikal abilities. Some said that every one had been a member of the Blue Council. Some, like those who had evidently written Hadise's book, went as far as to claim that the country had once been conquered by the Blue Council, though where they had gotten an army was anyone's guess.

"Do you believe they caused the plagues?" asked Cigal.

Hadise whispered, though there was really no need in this secluded room whose windows faced an empty plaza. He whispered, "I think that, that the plagues were caused by the Lunath magi who were after them." He went on, "And, ah, I think that, well, the only reason they're kings is to fight those plagues."

Cigal slapped his knee, "So you see? You got the knowledge of where the Council came from, but the wisdom that they were not aggressors from yourself. Not that I agree with you, of course." Cigal spoke truthfully, for he had a completely different theory about the Council.

"Then it's not wisdom, it's just another opinion that even you don't believe."

Cigal turned serious, "My boy, any idea that ever meant anything started out as 'just another opinion.' All lore is simply logical guesses about the world. Have faith in yourself, Seer. You have just as much a chance of being right as anyone else."

The Bishop's expression changed. "So tell me, where's your friend Bennar? And more importantly, why did Gelir summon me?"

"Bennar's out teaching novices somewhere in, ah, the garden. And Gelir wanted you here, well, because, the king is dying."

Cigal looked puzzled. "How can I help that?"

"It's not the king, you fool! It's the Seerlord! He's, he?"

"What?" asked Cigal.

Hadise whispered. "He's gone mad."

"What do you mean?"

"He wants to go against Nesel, to side with Lakent. For peace. And most of the Seers are with