Sacrifice: The First Book of the Fey (7 page)

You ask us to give our lives to the Holy One,
she’d said, her voice quivering,
and in return He will give us peace and joy. I have devoted my life to the Holy One since I was a little girl, and
I have known no peace and no joy. You must help me, Religious Sir, before I turn my back on the Sword forever.

His words for her then had sounded lame, even to his own ears:
You must believe, and the peace and joy will come to you, sister.

Only now he understood her despair. Perhaps no one received peace and joy in this lifetime. Most died before they achieved it, and the very old seemed discontented and angry with life. Or perhaps the Auds and the Elders had misunderstood the Words from the beginning. Perhaps peace and joy came after death. Or perhaps, as he feared in the pit of his soul, peace and joy came only to those Absorbed.

There had not been an Absorption since the Roca.

The chill in his knees had spread through his thighs into his groin. Little shivers ran through him, but he would stay until he felt he had somehow touched the Holy One.

His neck was cramping. Outside, the rain beat harder on the tapestries. Maybe the Officiate who had blessed him as a Danite had been right:
We must
offer ourselves, failings and all, to the Holy One. The Holy One brings both joy and sorrow to the Ear of God. But you must remember that sorrow is our burden, and God has made no promises to alleviate the pains of the flesh.

The smoke from the incense had grown thick and cloying. The Rocaan coughed, then wiped his hands against his robe. The kneeling cushion was so wet, the dampness was creeping into the fibers of his own garment.

At what point would God allow suffering to end and piety to be achieved? The Rocaan was an old man by any standard. Someday the chill would become permanent, and he would die frail and ill. All men died, and no requests to the Holy One changed that. Even Roca had died in a way, when he’d been Absorbed, all those centuries ago.

He thought he heard voices in the wind, and the creaks and groans of large ships. The Rocaan sighed. Daylight was coming too quickly. He had not yet made peace with his God. The groanings continued, combined with the slap-slap-slap of waves against a hull. Soon he would hear the longshoremen arguing about the best place to pull cargo ashore, and he would no longer be able to concentrate on the still, small voice within.

Longshoremen. The Rocaan paused, thoughts of the Holy One forgotten. He had been speaking with the Elders about the problems with the sea-going community, how half of them were out of work now that the trading with the Nye had ceased. The longshoremen, in particular, were affected.

He stood, his legs shaking beneath the thin, damp robe. The voices were soft, not the usual shouts and curses that interrupted his moments of worship. He gripped the altar to maintain his balance, then waded back to the window and pulled the tapestry aside.

The rain still fell heavily, and within an instant his face was drenched, water dripping down the inside of his robe. The darkness seemed heavier than it had been before. He placed his hands on the wet stone sill and leaned out, gazing upward. He saw nothing more than the individual drops illuminated by his small candle. The clouds were thick. No light could pierce them. The wind was blowing from the west, guiding any ship in the Cardidas to Jahn with great ease. The creaks of the wood were louder now. He looked, but no matter how much he squinted, he could not see any ships or their lanterns.

His hands were growing numb, and he could no longer feel his feet. If there was a ship below, and its captain glanced up, he would see the Rocaan peering out the window like a common schoolboy. Somehow that thought filled the Rocaan with alarm.

He let the tapestry fall, and as he did, he heard a sound he had not heard since he’d been a boy, fishing with his father. The ululating cry of a man signaling to his mates without words. A cry designed to be a call of the wild, although it sounded like no creature the Rocaan had ever heard. Some kind of prearranged signal that required a prearranged action. A cargo ship’s captain would not do that.

The Rocaan grabbed his candle and placed it outside the door, careful to set it away from the trickle that had invaded the hall. Then he went back into the room and closed the door after himself, waiting until his eyes adjusted to the blackness before making his way to the window again.

This time he tied the tapestry back and stared at the river below. He heard splashes, and more soft voices, although no matter how hard he concentrated, he could not understand their words. He squinted until finally he could see the outlines of the masts, dozens of them, disappearing into the distance like a ghostly invasion force.

He would have heard had there been a fleet coming to Blue Isle. He would have assigned Auds to minister to their needs, Danites to see to their faith, Officiates to give them contact with the organized Church—and, if they were important enough, an Elder or two to begin political relations. This was different. How different he did not know. He needed the advice of someone else. Someone he could trust. Someone who would look with a clear eye.

He left the tapestry open and went from the room. It felt odd to walk on dead feet. As he bent over to pick up the candle, he noted that his skin was blue. He could not spend any more time in that room this morning. Surely God did not require a man to lose his feet in pursuit of a Blessing. He climbed the stairs, using the wall for support now more than ever, finding that numb feet could not properly judge stair height. When he reached the hallway, he handed his candle to one of the guards.

“Get Elder Matthias for me, and quickly,” he said. Then he let himself into his chambers.

As per his instructions, someone had lit his daily fire and placed a tray beside the hearth. He glanced at the warm milk, freshly squeezed from one of the goats housed in the yard, and instead took a small bite of the roll the servants baked every morning. The bread was still hot and doughy in the middle, just the way he liked it. Then he pulled off his robe, leaving it in the middle of the floor, and slipped on the plush red velvet robe of his office, basking in its softness and warmth. He sat on the flagstones and extended his feet toward the fire. A slight needles-and-pins feeling changed almost instantly to deep, agonizing pain as his feet thawed. He grabbed them, startled by the cold flesh on top and the hot flesh on the bottom, and squeezed, as if the pressure would make the pain go away.

At that moment someone knocked on his door.

He sighed; then he backed away from the fire, eased himself into his chair, and put his feet on the ground. He wiped his eyes, swallowed, and, ignoring the pain, called, “Welcome!”

The door opened and Matthias entered, already natty in his pressed black. The robe whispered as he walked. The only concession he had made to the earliness was that he was not wearing his sash or biretta. But his hair was combed and his face already clean shaven.

“I hope, Holy Sir, that nothing amiss has happened,” Matthias said, his tone matter-of-fact instead of questioning.

“I certainly hope so as well,” the Rocaan said, gritting his teeth. The pain was coming in a steady ache, marred by sharp stabs. “I would like you to go down to my worship room, look out the window, and tell me what you see.”

Matthias cocked his head. He was young, the youngest of all the Elders, his skin still unlined and taut. “And what, exactly, am I looking for?”

“I will tell you when you return, since I do not want to influence you. And perhaps, by the time you get down there, what I want you to see will be gone, so do not worry if you fail to see anything at all.”

Matthias frowned and clasped his hands in front of his robe. The black robe of an Elder was also made of velvet. The higher authorities in the Church seemed to believe that ranking members should live in comfort. Whenever the Rocaan thought of changing that, he remembered that he would have to give up his soft bed, his morning fire, and his sweets.

Matthias did not look as if he were going to move.

“And one more thing,” the Rocaan said, mostly to spur Matthias on, “do not bring a light into the room. I’m afraid you’ll have to stumble around in the dark.”

“All right.” Matthias bowed his head. He backed out of the room slowly.

The Rocaan waited until the door closed before allowing a moan to leave his lips. The pain was easing, but it had been excruciating during his conversation with Matthias. Only the toes continued to hurt. He eased one foot up and massaged it, then the other, noting with pleasure that the blue had left the skin, replaced with healthy red. No toe had an unnatural whiteness, which he had feared. He had seen too many Danites lose flesh to that wintry color.

He took another bite of his roll, then drank some of the milk. Even as the pain left, he felt unsettled. He had not completed his morning ritual. But, if the truth be told, he had not achieved the sense of peace he sought for a long, long time. This intrusion had simply been a little more startling.

He leaned his head back, then heard footsteps in the corridor. They had more urgency than they had had before. The knock, even though he expected it, was sharp and frightening. No vision, then. He had seen ships.

“Come,” he said.

Matthias was already halfway into the room. He closed the door tightly, then hurried down the small flight of stairs. “Ships,” he said. “I saw ships. Dozens of them. Should I send for the head of the Port Guild?”

The Rocaan rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. The pain in his feet was gone, but a headache had started above his eyes. “Before you go, tell me what you saw.”

“It took a moment, in the darkness,” Matthias said. “That floor is damned wet in there.”

“It’s the rain,” the Rocaan said tiredly.

“Then I saw masts, and if I looked carefully, I saw the ships themselves. They’re not Nyeian. I’ve never seen them before. And it was quiet except for low voices.”

“What were they saying?”

“I couldn’t make it out.”

“Neither could I.” The Rocaan let his hand drop. He opened his eyes. Matthias’s face was flushed, his eyes sparkling with the excitement. The Rocaan sighed. “I think you must go to the King.”

“Holy Sir?”

A thread of irritation ran through the Rocaan. Did he have to explain everything? Matthias was sharp. He should have figured the problem out already. “The ships are unknown, Matthias,” the Rocaan said. “They are not planned for. I suspect our visitors are uninvited.”

Matthias shook his head. “That’s impossible. No one can get to Blue Isle’s shores without guidance.”

“Someone had to once,” the Rocaan said, “or we would not be here.”

Matthias took a step backward, then sat in the armchair near the bed as if he needed something to support his weight. “What would anyone want with Blue Isle?”

The question was soft, almost rhetorical, but the Rocaan chose to answer it. “We are one of the richest countries in the world. To ignore us would be foolish.”

Matthias looked at the Rocaan, his gaze piercing. “You know who this is.”

“I have a suspicion,” the Rocaan said. “Nye has shared our waters for centuries and still needed help to arrive at Blue Isle’s shores. Occasionally other seafaring folk have tried to come to Blue Isle, only to wreck on the Stone Guardians or be savaged by the current. But there is a group that has never tried to attack us before, and now they hold Nye.”

“The Fey,” Matthias breathed.

“Just so,” the Rocaan said. He sounded calmer than he felt. “And if the tales we have heard are true, they are vicious. You must go to the King, and quickly.”

Matthias nodded and stood. He hurried toward the stairs and then stopped. “Even if it is the Fey, we’ll be able to defeat them, won’t we?”

“With God’s help,” the Rocaan said. He folded his hands across his bulging stomach. Matthias scurried from the room, apparently satisfied with the Rocaan’s answer.

But the Rocaan wasn’t. He looked at the closed door. “No, Matthias,” he said softly, as if he hadn’t answered the question before. “They are soldiers and we are farmers, and we shall be slaughtered before we have a chance to learn how to defend ourselves.”