“Damn,” he said, the word coming out of his mouth without him meaning it to.
And there was the disappointed look. “Curses,” Priest said, “are the crutch of a m—”
“Man crippled within his own mind,” Chall interrupted, rolling his eyes. “Yes, I seem to remember that little nugget of wisdom.” Hard not to when he’d spent five years hearing it practically every day, along with a few hundred other empty platitudes that the man wielded arguably with even more skill than he did his fists.
“Ah sarcasm,” the older man said, nodding as if he’d expected as much, “ever the shield of the unvirtuous against wisdom.”
“Speaking of unvirtuous,” Chall said, glancing at Maeve, “now that we’ve found our conscience, do you think we could stop by a tavern? I’ve got a mighty thirst.”
He expected to get a rise out of the man—at least, hoped to, knowing it was childish but hoping it just the same. Instead, the older man only smiled, walking toward him and, in a moment, he was wrapping Chall into a tight hug. “It is good to see you again, Challadius.”
Chall hated being preached at, hated being called “Challadius,” also, a name far too pompous, too assuming for him. But to his surprise, he found that he did not hate the hug so much found that, in fact, he had missed the man. “It’s good to see you too,” he mumbled.
Priest let him go, smiling widely, then turned to Maeve, taking her hand and giving it a gentle kiss that was in no way flirtatious or strange but which seemed completely natural even given that he was no nobleman but a priest in a dirty robe, and they stood not in a ballroom but in a back alley currently littered with the unconscious forms of three young men. “Maeve. I see that the years have stolen none of your beauty but have, instead, served only to enhance it.”
Chall watched her smile widely and wondered how the old man always seemed able, even now, after so long, to so easily elicit such an expression from the woman who smiled so rarely while he himself generally only managed to get an angry scowl and a curse.
“And I see that you have lost none of your talents,” she said, eyeing him then turning her gaze meaningfully to the three unconscious figures.
Priest looked ashamed at that, wincing as he stared at the men. “Would that I had. Violence, after all, is the—”
“Weapon of the unwise?” Chall guessed. “Tool of the asshole?”
Priest smiled humoringly. “Not untrue, perhaps, though not how I would have said it. I would have said instead that violence is the last recourse of men who have failed to find wisdom.”
“Damn,” Chall said, “so close.”
“Still,” the old man went on in a musing tone, “the goddess teaches that exercise is good for the heart and the soul, and a wise man will not allow his body, the letter upon which his life is writ, to fall into…” He paused, turning to regard Chall, and Chall didn’t think he imagined the way the man’s mouth quirked up at one corner in the hint of a smile. “Shall we say, disrepair?”
Chall thought then, as he had so many years ago, that beneath the pompous, arrogant and downright haughty exterior, the priest was also a bit of an asshole. “I like the robe,” he said. “What color is that—mud brown?”
Priest grinned, not put off or angry at all, the bastard. “I believe so, though not so extravagant as your trousers, I’m afraid.”
Maeve burst out a laugh at that, and Chall frowned. Maybe more than just a bit of an asshole after all.
“Anyway, Valden,” the woman said, her voice growing somber, “to answer your question, Chall had the vision less than a week ago and—”
“Wait,” Chall said, “Valden?”
They turned to him, Priest with a smile, Maeve a frown. “Do you mean to tell me that after all the time we spent together you don’t even know his name?”
“Of course I know his name!” Chall said, feeling a touch defensive. “Why, it’s Prie—” He cut off, frowning. “Oh. Right.”
“Unbelievable,” Maeve said.
Chall felt his face heat. “Look, it’s not my fault. I didn’t know the man actually had a name. For all I know, he gave it up with all the rest to join his cul—I mean church. You know, handed it over along with his dick and his joy—the two, in my experience, being closely linked.”
“Chall,” she said wearily, “do you really have to be such a pri—”
“Please, Maeve,” Priest said, holding up a hand, “there is no need. Yes, Chall, to answer your question I have a name, though it is true that most prefer simply to call me Priest. As for the rest…I respect your opinion, but I am curious—you, I believe, have given up nothing, have joined no ‘cult’ as I believe you meant to say. Would you say, then, that you are happy?”
“Ask me once I’ve had a drink—assuming, of course, that this city of yours actually has any ale and has anybody to serve it, that is if they aren’t busy lecturing each other on how to take a shit virtuously or wipe their asses wisely.”
Not his best jest, perhaps, but certainly not his worst. Priest, though, did not grow frustrated or annoyed or angry, only tilted his head back and roared with a hearty, warming laugh like that of a loving grandfather. “Ah, Challadius, but I have missed your wit.”
Despite the fact that most of the time he would have enjoyed strangling the man—or at least getting him shit-faced drunk and finding a scribe to record it—Chall found his face flushing with
