'Where are your manners, child? Close the door.'
Iuna jumped and turned back to the door, closing it. Tonight was already starting off badly.
'Come over here.' Mistress Kaestra sat at her desk, scribing something. She wore a sleeveless gown of simple white, with a small black circle over her left breast. Her salt-and-pepper hair was pulled back into a bun, making her harsh, angular face even starker. Piles of parchment covered her desk, and several stacks of books lay on the surrounding floor. Iuna moved silently to stand before her.
'I'm finished with my meal. You may remove the dishes.' Mistress Kaestra indicated a platter set on a nearby chair. Iuna could see a half-eaten serving of meat and vegetables covering the thick, ceramic plate that rested there. 'When you're done with that,' Mistress Kaestra continued, 'you can start moving the piles of finished parchment back to the library, and bring me some more blank pages.
'And need I remind you,' she added as Iuna started to walk away, 'to be very careful? These writings are to become the tenets of our faith. I was chosen by Entropy to pen them. It is the reason she has blessed me with the powers I have: a testimony to the validity of the words I record.' Iuna nodded solemnly, noting the strange gleam that flashed in Mistress Kaestra's eyes as she spoke.
Mistress Kaestra went back to her writing, seemingly dismissing Iuna from her thoughts as though she were no longer there. Iuna approached the chair with the platter and bent over to grasp it. Made of wrought silver with delicately inscribed lines that called to mind blooming flowers, it reminded Iuna of the tableware Libia used to carry from the kitchen to the dining room back home.
Distracted by memories, Iuna paid little heed to where she was stepping, and her foot caught on the base of one of the stacks of books as she turned. Iuna hopped forward, trying to regain her balance, but she was unable to compensate for the additional weight of the platter and fell forward. When she crashed to the ground, the dishes went flying off the silver tray with a clatter. The ceramic plate flipped end over end, spraying the remnants of food it held across a pile of freshly inked parchment.
'You clumsy imbecile!' Mistress Kaestra shrieked. She stood up behind her desk, bristling, her face a mask of unrestrained rage.
'I'm.. I'm sorry, Mistress. I'll clean it up right away. It'll be-'
'You will touch nothing. I cannot believe your incompetence. I thought having you as a personal slave would be of some benefit, but it is obvious Father was just being generous rather than sending you to the stake. You are useless. I am going to have to waste precious time training you, it seems. And your first lesson will be to learn the consequences of failure.' She came around the desk so fast that Iuna barely had time to get up on her hands and knees. Mistress Kaestra picked her up by the collar of her brown, woolen robe and slapped her. Sparkles of light danced before Iuna's eyes, and she staggered backward when Mistress Kaestra released her.
Her rage was not quenched so easily.
'Ruined! Do you know how long it took me to write this?' She stared at the stained parchment then turned back to Iuna and punched her in the stomach. Air whooshed out of Iuna's lungs, and she doubled over.
'I'm sorry, Mistress,' she cried. Tears welled in her eyes, and she started to sob. This wasn't how it was supposed to have turned out, Iuna thought as she gasped for breath. They were just supposed to take the governess and leave Papa and her alone. Instead Papa was dead now. Mistress Kaestra had almost gloated about it when she told Iuna last night.
Mistress Kaestra's fist slammed into the side of Iuna's head, and she fell to the floor. She lay there, curled up in a ball, whimpering. Mistress Kaestra stood over her, her chest heaving as she breathed heavily. Then her shadow moved away, but Iuna refused to open her eyes and look up. She wasn't sure she could even open the left one. She just wanted to sleep.
'When you're done feeling sorry for yourself,' Mistress Kaestra's cold voice called out from somewhere distant, 'you can get up and finish your chores.' Iuna wondered what would happen if she didn't. It was hard to keep awake, and her thoughts were fuzzy. She wondered if she was dying. Perhaps that wouldn't be so bad. She had never paid much attention to any of the lessons on religion that her many governesses had tried to teach her, but she thought there was some sort of life after death. Maybe she would get to see Papa. That would be wonderful; it certainly would be better than life as a slave to Mistress Kaestra. Anything would be better than that. Why, Iuna thought as she slipped into unconsciousness, she'd even rather have that Ythnel woman as a governess again than live like this.
The wind picked up as the night wore on. It wrapped around the temple in howling gusts, winding its way from off the bay, deeper into the swamp. The steady patter of raindrops beating against the bricks created a soothing counter-rhythm to the rise and fall of the wind's cries. It made it hard to stay awake. Several times, Kestus watched his companions nod off, only to start awake when their heads drooped to their chests. He seemed to be rubbing his eyes as much as he was staring at the tome in front of him.
For hours they had been pouring over the spell-books Kohtakah brought. They were rich with arcane lore, and Kestus quickly began reading through the texts, more interested in spells that would free them than divinations that would unlock the secrets of the werecrocodiles' artifacts.
Kestus looked up from his studies to gaze at the werecrocodile. He noted the subtle shift in his own thinking. The man was no longer Brother Crocodile to him. The revelation in the swamp had turned him into a stranger, an unknown, no longer an ally. Doubt had crept in and displaced the trust that had once been there.
Had he ever really known him? It wasn't the first time Kestus pondered the question. At first it had been an angry response to his feelings of betrayal, but this time Kestus turned the query over in his mind, examining it from different angles. Secrecy had been an integral part of the functioning of the society back in Luthcheq. How much did he really know any of his fellow mages?
This is not the same, Kestus argued with himself. And yet, Kohtakah had never worked against the goals of the society. He hadn't been the one to betray them to the Karanoks. Kestus snarled soundlessly as an image of Therescales sitting silently at the table, listening to their plans to free Ythnel, flashed through his thoughts. Kestus swore once more to himself that that man would pay for his crimes.
'Sounds like quite the storm brewing outside.' Muctos pushed back from the pages of the book lying in front of him and glanced nervously at the walls and ceiling of the vault.
'Been a while since we've had a real good one this winter,' Kestus replied. He stretched, scratched his backside, and strolled over to the doorway, where he leaned against the jamb. He had barely crossed his arms over his chest when he jerked upright, twirled around, and strode back to the table.
'Someone's coming.' The echoed sound of someone shuffling down the steps immediately followed his warning. Muctos and Kohtakah stopped what they were doing, and all three men peered ahead curiously.
A shadow appeared at the base of the stairs, growing in eerie coordination with the intensity of the wind outside. At the height of the howling crescendo, a man appeared. His receding hair was plastered to his scalp, and water dripped from his hooked nose. As the man entered the vault, Kestus could see tiny gashes laced his arms, and there were dark spots on his soaked tunic.
'The city is under attack,' the man said in a rush between panting breaths. 'Lord Mulkammu sent me down here to protect' An arrowhead burst through the man's chest before he could finish. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he toppled to the dirt floor. Kestus watched him fall then looked up to see Ythnel standing at the base of the stairs, a bow held up in her left hand, her right hand still poised at her shoulder where she released the bowstring.
'Come on! We don't have much time,' she shouted to them.
'Grab what you can,' Kestus ordered immediately. Muctos scooped up some wands while Kestus grabbed the book he was studying and the black orb that had first caught his attention upon entering the vault. As he turned to leave, his eyes locked with Kohtakah's. The werecreature was just standing there, his brow furrowed as though he were locked in some sort of great internal struggle.
'Are you coming?' Kestus asked. Kohtakah's eyes widened, surprised perhaps that Kestus had assumed that he wouldn't try to stop them, let alone made the offer. Kestus was a bit taken aback himself, but it had been a gut reaction, and even now he knew he wouldn't take it back even if he had the chance.
'We need to go. Now,' Ythnel insisted. It appeared that was enough to decide Kohtakah. He nodded at
Kestus and grabbed the staff of dark, twisted wood from where it rested on the rack against the left wall. Kestus followed, taking a torch from its sconce beside the vault door. Then they were running up the stairs and into the main chamber. Ythnel paused at the entrance to the temple, opening the door only partway and peering out into the night. Kestus came up next to her and glanced out.
