Strife & Valor: Book II of The Rorke Burningsoul Saga by Regina Watts (red queen ebook .TXT) 📕

For some reason, when imagining this moment, I had imagined massaging the truth somehow, or perhaps outright lying to save face—but I could not look Father Fortisto in the eyes and do such a thing, no more than I could lie to anyone and still think of Weltyr without shame or fear.

Besides…Father Fortisto was among the most gentle-hearted of the priests in the Temple, and, I would wager, the most gentle-hearted of the priests in Weltyr’s entire church. He listened to me with an open heart and mind, no trace of judgement in his face as I described my time of slavery (sparing certain details, of course, such as my willingness, and the particular uses my mistress had for me) and my flight out of the Nightlands. As I went on, though, attempting to explain about Branwen, he paused.

“What was it you were saying about that ring?”

“Some trinket,” I assured him. “An idol. Magical, perhaps, but ultimately the ring’s importance is as a kind of tribal fetish by which the durrow choose their next queen. I must get it back for the woman helping me with all of this, as she sacrificed it to protect my life—but only once the matter of the Scepter is seen to.”

Stroking his beard again, the old man waved his free hand and said, “Continue.”

I did—after explaining Branwen and our time in Soot, I summed it all up. “Hildolfr and Grimalkin must have come here if they are headed to Rhineland with the Scepter. I aim to stop them before they can get anywhere close, but if they board the airship, I’ll be in real trouble.”

“Don’t want to end up in the brig for starting a fight on the ship,” he agreed thoughtfully, his eyes distant. “Do you know to whom they intend to sell the artifact? Did the girl, Branwen, say anything about it?”

I shook my head ‘no.’ “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t know…she’s tight-lipped, Branwen. Seeing as she betrayed me once, I wouldn’t put it past her to withhold information or lie to me again. But…”

For a moment I thought of telling him about Gundrygia and the week I lost to a few hours of her passion, but the clock of my soul ticked steadily on. Unable to soften the gravity of my voice, I told him firmly, “The simplest solution is to catch them before they can board, and get the Scepter from them by hook or by crook.”

“I agree wholeheartedly,” said the old man, nodding. “Well, come on—let’s see what we can find with the runes. Sometimes, that’s all we need, but if we have to go deeper I can always see about consulting the Wyrd.”

Fortisto pushed himself from the desk and made his slow way around it, stopping by a board set in the corner nearest the door. After rifling through a collection of maps poorly filed in a nearby rack, he came up with a map of Skythorn that he smoothed into place in the board. To contain all of the city the map was less than detailed, but it would serve our purpose for divination. I rose from my seat to watch as he picked from a shelf above his head the bone container that had captivated me as a young man. He it twisted open, his hand sliding within to rifle through the carved pieces.

“This isn’t a time for use of the seidr?”

“No, my boy…the seidr is used for drawing forth the future. Divining the present is another matter entirely, and far less extraordinary. Excuse me.”

The priest knelt before the board, the container pressed to his forehead. I stepped back to give him space, deliberately turning the attention of my ears away from the contents of his prayer. The Temple Fathers were good men, and good teachers—but, as I had been taught in the battle lessons of the Order, not every method of connection to the Wandering God was meant for every man. Still fewer women. Certain extraordinarily ascetic nuns and women who died in the name of the faith had been granted powers acknowledged to be from Weltyr, but such powers had occurred to them only at peaks of great suffering, and only without their full comprehension.

Yet there was Valeria with her dreams, and that ring with its capacity for extraordinarily perceptive insights among other powers unknown to me—all said to be from Roserpine.

Fortisto threw the runes across the map of Skythorn. As he pondered with the tip of a wand he used to probe them about, I asked, “Is it possible, sire, that Weltyr’s lesser emanations may transmit valid divinatory information in the same way as the All-Father in his purest form?”

Pausing his contemplation, wand frozen mid-prod, kindly Fortisto looked up at me with surprise but twinkling, almost mischievous interest. “Well, now that is a very interesting question! One that not many members of the Order think to ask…or many priests, for that matter.”

“You don’t seem ill-disposed to it, Father.”

“I’m not, of course…in fact, I should think that most of the priests who dwell here in the rectory hall are rather more open to the notion that other gods are, as you say, lesser emanations of Weltyr.”

“I would have thought it to be the opposite case.”

“Only those closest to the master may understand how much his property encompasses. There are two ways to look at the gods revered by heathens in our world. One is controversial. The purpose of the Order, as you were taught, is to stamp out seditious and heretical behavior, and to complete tasks abroad in the name of the Lord. Most members of the Order of Weltyr, therefore—along with most clergy not blessed with interest or insight—believe that all other gods are inherently false, dangerous constructions that must be destroyed. I, personally, do not always believe that to be the case.”

Fortisto resumed studying the cryptic messages of the runes. While he read, he spoke absently. My attention wandered to the sound of a raven’s hoarse croaking upon the balcony of some