Allta’s voice dipped, though for the moment no one stood near them on the pier. “That the Vigil here on the southern continent means to quarantine themselves from the north. No one is allowed into the interior unless they’ve first been delved and found free of the Darkwater’s poison. They’re checking each traveler for a vault.”
He nodded. His own thoughts ran in that direction, though he’d included possible complications with the Merum order’s upheaval. “What is your other theory?”
Allta waited for a passerby who would have had no chance at overhearing their conversation unless they were gifted to wander away. It might have been Pellin’s imagination or the angle of the southern sun, but in that moment Allta appeared wan, almost colorless. When he made the sign of the intersecting arcs on his forehead, Pellin gaped.
“Speak, Allta.”
His guard came to a stop. Pellin stood with him, waiting.
“My time with the Vigil dates back only a decade, Eldest,” Allta said.
“I know that,” Pellin responded, his voice sharper than he wished.
Something of discipline or habit reasserted itself, and Allta’s stoic demeanor returned. “I don’t know how well Cesla knows the southern continent.”
As if someone had opened the veins on his legs, Pellin felt his blood draining away from his face and the world spun, but this was a familiar fear.
“Eldest, did you tell them Cesla was alive?”
Like an errant bolt from a crossbow that magically finds a single chink in the armor, Allta’s question pierced him, but this too was known to him. “Without the scrying stones, I had to send word by messenger out of Cynestol. I sent a flock of colm messenger birds as well. I don’t think Cesla has come here.”
“Eldest, the forest and the desert are common, both are guarded by the Vigil. Even if Cesla didn’t come himself—”
“He could have sent dwimor.” Pellin held up his hands. “Yes, I know. There is nothing for it but to get to the Vigil here and submit ourselves to inspection.” He stopped to address Mark. “From this point on, you and Elieve must stay as close to me and Allta as possible. Do not leave our sides for an instant. If the Vigil here should delve her before they delve the rest of us, she’ll be put to death before we’re afforded the opportunity to explain why she might be important.”
Mark nodded. “Yes, Eldest, but wouldn’t we notice them?”
Pellin shook his head. “The relationship between the southern Vigil and the church here is more formalized than ours, but they still operate in secret. If merchants are being vetted before they’re allowed onto the caravan routes, they won’t know why. An incidental brush is enough to delve them and check for a vault.”
“How do we find them?” Mark asked. “This city is about to explode.”
“Most of them are known to me, as I am known to them,” Pellin said. “My presence will be noted, especially now.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew the emblem that signified his standing within the Merum order, the only order formally recognized by the church on the southern continent. “This should suffice to get their attention. Then we need only wait until I am recognized.”
They threaded their way through the streets of Erimos, working toward the wall that enclosed it, isolating merchants and travelers alike from the rest of the continent. Everywhere he looked, he saw the effects of the quarantine. Pellin lifted a silent prayer that the crowd would be free of dwimor. In the congestion, one of the assassins could kill all of them with ease.
He shook his head at the foolishness that surrounded him. Everywhere his gaze fell, Pellin could see evidence of a city fit to burst. Tempers flared more than once in the heat, and daggers flashed, providing a temporary space for combatants that lasted only until one of them withdrew or died.
“Join hands,” Pellin yelled above the din. “Allta, lead us!”
His guard pulled the four of them through the crowd by main strength, his gift forcing others aside as the breadth of his shoulders cleared a momentary gap through which Pellin, Mark, and Elieve followed. A thousand yards later, Pellin caught sight of the gates that separated Erimos from the overland trade routes.
A hundred yards shy of the gates, the traffic and press of people had been cut off as if it had never been. A double cordon of guards separated the crowd from the area around the gate, and church functionaries stood at the apex of the arc, directing those caravan masters forward who’d been permitted to pass through. Armed guards searched each cart and wagon as if hunting for the emperor’s killer, even going so far as to draw swords and stab through goods and produce to the anger and angst of the factors standing by.
“Him.” Pellin pointed to one of the church functionaries dressed in the blue of deep water under sunlight. “That’s the man we need to see.”
Allta nodded, but Mark shook his head. “How can you tell, Eldest?”
He pointed to the hem of the man’s vestments. “The One Church, as they call it, follows a different liturgical calendar than the Merum. Their colors are different as well. See the three horizontal black bands on his hem? They signify him as an interpreter of the liturgy. One band means the wearer is a patera, equivalent to a priest in the Merum tradition. Two bands denote a cardinalio. The three bands on that man’s hem means he has the authority to interpret the liturgy according to the time in which they live. In the southern church, only those with four bands, those referred to as revelators, carry a higher rank.”
“Why do they wear the rank on the hem?” Mark asked him. “It’s pretty easy to miss.”
“Not if that’s where your gaze is directed,” Pellin said. “The southern church never split, lad. Their hold on the continent is absolute, and they brook no insolence to the faith. The emperor serves
