hundreds of acolytes, priests, worshipers, and servants, but in point of fact he’d wandered the worm-haunted wooden hallways and galleries with their peeling murals for the better part of a day before locating anyone.
“You’re not the chandler,” the old man had said on first spotting Horn. He’d spoken Kyrie, the common language of traders and slaves all along these waters, but with an accent reminiscent of the hieratical tongues of distant Khappas.
“No,” Horn replied. “I am a seeker of wisdom.”
The old man squinted, taking in Horn’s scars, motley head of fire-scarred hair, and ropy muscles. “Looks like you haven’t found it yet, or you’d have learned to stay out of trouble.” He wheezed with asthmatic laughter at his own wit.
Horn shrugged. His skin was less tortured than his host’s. “Trouble finds me. I end it, one way or another.”
Another snort from the old man. Then: “We have wisdom in great supply here. Libraries full of it, scrolls stacked a hundred high. Were you looking for any particular sort of wisdom?”
Ignoring the sneer in the old man’s voice, Horn carefully offered the answer he’d been working through for weeks, months even, since embarking on this particular journey. “I have gained power and lost purpose as I have traveled through my life. I come to you seeking direction, which is, of course, the cardinal characteristic of the wind.”
“Actually, the wind mostly just blows,” the old man muttered. “It cares not for direction.”
“Yet here is where you stand against the wind and watch the world,” Horn replied.
Something gleamed in the old man’s eyes. “Our secrets are not so secret, are they?”
“You are the rumor in a dozen ports, and the whisper in half a hundred more.” That was almost true.
“Come, then. I will show you our world-watching. Then you can decide if you really wish to ask for direction here.”
“The ship on which I hired passage will not be back for at least three weeks,” Horn said. “I may as well learn something in the meantime.”
“A practical man, I see.”
At nearly forty years of age, Horn hoped he’d learned something from life. He followed without comment.
The temple’s paucity of acolytes and servants showed in the dust and grime lining the hallways. Elaborate doorways carved from teak or mahogany punctuated their progress. Their friezes were cracked and split from a lack of polishing. Red pillars lining the corridors were fading to a dusky melon color, streaked with smoke. Most of the lamps were not only unlit, but also in obvious disrepair.
It was like seeing a great lady of some earlier generation reduced to face paint and ill-fitting dresses. Horn could appreciate what this temple had once been, and might someday be again if it found patrons and worshipers.
Eventually they arrived at an enormous open space that rose through all the nine stories of the temple. It was like a high, wooden cave. Each level had a railing carved and painted to represent old battles between gods and monsters, though these were now as cracked and faded as everything else. Five stories below, at the bottom, the floor was occupied by an enormous map.
Horn stared down at it. He realized he was seeing the Starfall Sea at the center of the map, but there were countries and waters beyond its borders that he’d never known of. It was magnificently detailed, as if he looked down upon the world itself.
That thought made him consider how the hairs on his neck prickled. Slowly, Horn realized he was looking down upon the world itself, at least in a sense.
“The wind sees everything, sooner or later,” the old man said softly beside him. “It carries word and deed across rivers and mountains and oceans.”
Breath stuttered in Horn’s throat. “Here, you listen to the songs it sings.”
“Listen and take note.”
He studied the map. “That is not a work of hand, is it?”
“Prayer and study and ancient miracles bound into place.” The old man grasped Horn’s arm with a grip of iron. “Far greater men than you have come to steal the secrets of how we do this thing.”
“I come to steal nothing. Only to ask.” Horn had the distinct impression that if he looked hard enough, he’d find the Lost Island, and the Temple of Winds, and a great gallery with two men looking down.
He could see every place he’d ever be able to reach in his lifetime. That thought made Horn feel very small indeed.
After a while, the old man spoke again. “Most don’t want to see what lies before them.”
“I have fought,” Horn said distantly. “Fought with sword and spell. I have been the red knight of slaughter. I have called down fire upon my enemies. I have killed half a hundred men, countless orcs and goblins, and dozens of stranger enemies. I can magic the fish from their shadowed realms alongside the riverbanks, and I can face down an army if I find it needful. I know what lies behind me. Seeing what lies before can guide my steps in new paths.”
“Or the oldest ones.” Another grip of the arm, this more of a friendly tug. “Come with me. It’s nearly time to eat. You stay here too long, you will lose yourself in the map.”
A dozen monks gathered in a corner of what had once been an enormous refectory. The kitchens beyond were dark and quiet, their great clay ovens with the dragon mouths long gone cold, or even cracked. Iron pots hung like the helmets of ogres in those old shadows.
These men had made a stew in a warming fireplace in the dining area itself. They gathered around the one surviving table from what must have once been scores of tables. All were as old or older than Horn’s guide, and all shared the man’s hard-used air. They seemed more like veteran warriors than elderly clerics.
His appearance caused no comment at all. Clearly they’d known he was here. Some signal passed silently between them? Or perhaps just the wisdom of anyone who knows his own house well.
Horn took a bowl, shallow and oblong with tiny feet beneath, then followed his old man’s example of scooping out a ladle or two of the stew, along with a piece of flatbread still steaming from its own little pot-oven in the fire. Each monk had brought his own spoon, so Horn just slurped from the bowl.
A minute or two later, he realized that all the bowls were the tops of skulls, carefully sealed and lacquered. No one else seemed to care, so Horn kept his own counsel. The dead did not worry him overmuch. Besides which, he had not killed the people whose heads these were. They would not haunt him.
They ate in silence, except for the occasional grunt or raised eyebrow. Horn got the impression of a conversation taking place. One that had long since transcended the need for words. He maintained his own silence out of politeness as well as a sense of caution.
As the bowls were set aside, one by one the monks came to sit before Horn. Each spent a few minutes studying his face from a close distance. A quiet staring, intense, strange. As if his future were being read from the bones beneath his skin.
After their study, the monks one by one nodded at him, then nodded at his guide, then drifted off into the dusty shadows of the Temple of Winds.
Finally only Horn and his monk remained together in the refectory. He felt a distinct sense of abandonment. Like a ship drawn up on a beach, left to woodworms and dry rot. Or, indeed, this building.
“Paths,” the old man finally said. Shrewd calculation crossed his face. Horn was certain that was a deliberate display.
Finally, Horn spoke up for himself. “I had purpose once.”
“You would do better to petition the Raven Queen”
Horn shrugged. “Where would I find Raven Queen? With her demense in Lethrna, she cannot be found ensconced within a temple, or in the mumbling prayers of priests.”
The monk nodded. “Fair enough. But neither does the wind care for your purpose and your future. As soon inquire of the tides, or seek wisdom among the rocks.”
“People do those things.”
“Are they any wiser for it?”
He had to laugh. “I have seen little so far in my life to lead me to believe that people are any wiser for anything.”
