Well of the Damned

Chapter 42





Cirang awoke to the rattle and clang of metal, followed by the creak of the cellar hatch opening. She leaped to her feet and pulled the bag of powder from her boot.

A robed figure climbed down the ladder carrying a flickering candle. The hood and veil had been pushed back to reveal the fresh face of a young girl, perhaps sixteen, probably the one who’d been filling the cups at the sacramental font. Her white robe had not even a single cuff band, indicating she’d only recently taken her vows.

The girl reached the bottom of the ladder and took a step forward before stopping short. She gasped. “Who—who are you? What are you doing here?”

Cirang’s gaze was drawn to the rounded bump of her belly beneath the robe. She smirked. The nun’s story was a cliche — unchaste, unwed, unwanted, and now unloved except by her god. “I’m First Royal Guard Cirang Deathsblade. What’s your name, Doma?” The girl probably hadn’t been conferred the title of Doma yet, but Cirang had found that overstating respect, even falsely, was more disarming than showing the proper level of deference.

“Altais, named for the dragon’s head constellation.”

“I need your real name, not your acolyte name. I have a message.” She tapped a little powder into her left palm.

“Oh! Is it from Dafid? Please tell me.”

Cirang gestured at the woman’s swollen belly. “I’m sure you can understand the personal nature of the message. Tell me your name so I don’t reveal secrets meant for another.”

“It’s Marita. Marita Sorae.”

“Marita, yeh. You’re the one. I need to tell you this...” Cirang lifted her hand and blew the powder into the nun’s face.

The girl staggered and darted out both hands, one still holding the candle, to steady herself. Cirang took the candle from her, turned to set it on the crate, and then stepped in with her left foot and threw a right punch, twisting her hips to drive more power into the blow. She felt the pain in her knuckles as they met the flesh and bone of the girl’s left cheek.

The acolyte’s head snapped back, and her feet flew out from under her. She landed hard on her back with a grunt.

Cirang fell to her knees atop the girl, grabbed her head and twisted. When she didn’t hear the crack she was expecting, she did it twice more, and then pressed her forearm across the soft throat until there was no pulse. The last thing she wanted was to have to use her knife and get blood on the acolyte’s clean robe. Or the final death shit and piss, for that matter. She quickly pulled the girl’s robe and shift off to keep them from getting soiled.

Damn it, she thought, clutching her injured side. She really needed to rest for a few days to give her body a chance to heal.

She looked down into the staring eyes and gaping mouth, smirking. “I’m Altais now, named for the dragon’s head.” After taking a moment to catch her breath, she dragged the naked body to the corner, thinking she could use the darkness of night to find a place to hide it.

The temple’s bells tolled twelve times, the last chime for the night. Soon the bell-ringer would find his bed, and the temple would be dark and quiet.

Cirang removed her sword, mail, and clothes, changed her wound’s dressing, and pulled on the acolyte’s shift and robe. She pulled the lace veil down over her face, placed the hood atop her head and looked at herself in the sliver of mirror. Though she was confident she couldn’t be identified, she wasn’t pregnant. She thought about wadding up her own clothes to make a false belly, but she didn’t have a way to strap it to her abdomen. Well, she had bloody rags. If someone asked, she could say she miscarried.

She took the candle and waterskin, and climbed the ladder.

The temple was dark. The candles on the altar had been extinguished. Cirang stood in the doorway and listened for someone moving about. All was quiet.

She went up the steps of the dais, cursing softly when she stepped on the hem of her robe and tripped. Because Asti-nayas didn’t strike her down for cursing in the temple, she made a rude gesture at the statue and laughed. “Nasty-Eyes, hah! You’re a weak, pitiful god unworthy of all this adulation.” Standing before the font, she raised the candle to get a better look at the embodiment of Asti-nayas.

The granite statue was about twice the height of a man, with amazing detail on its angular face and slender hands, down to the ridges on the knuckles and line of cuticle at the base of each fingernail. The gold skull cap atop the smooth head was reputed to provide the means for Asti-nayas to energize the statue with His holy power, thus blessing the water in which it stood.

That gold cap would buy her passage to Nilmaria and then some.

A stone ledge atop the font’s retaining wall was about the width of a hand and roughly the height of her knee.

She set the waterskin on the floor and the candle on the edge of the font. With one foot on the ledge, she placed her other foot on the knee of the granite god, grasped its elbow, and tried to step up. Her higher foot slipped off the smooth knee and splashed down into the water, wetting her boot and the bottom of her robe. “Shit!” Now that the sole of her boot was wet, she couldn’t get purchase on the god’s knee at all. She tried switching legs, but her left leg wasn’t as strong because of the injury to her hip. The hat was out of reach unless she used the cellar’s ladder. First things first.

She climbed back down and picked up the waterskin. The pious people of Ambryce would soon commune with their god in a way they’d never imagined.

She uncorked the skin and emptied its contents into the sacramental font. The sound of the water falling into the font reminded her she needed to piss. She couldn’t wait to hand cups to worshipers the next day and then watch their faces when they drank the water of the enlightened, changing their lives forever.

When the waterskin was empty, she replaced the cork and put it back into her bag. She lifted her robe and the shift underneath and sat on the edge of the font. As she let more water trickle into the font, she wondered how long Kinshield would stay in Ambryce searching for her.

News of the twice-blessed water at this temple would spread quickly, and if the king were still here, he would know where to find her. Perhaps she should have waited until he was gone, but it was too late now. With the help of some indebted worshipers, she could trick him into riding to some faraway city, like Keyes, leaving her free to return to the site of the landslide to fill a few dozen skins. She could travel to other cities, negotiating with High Clerics across the country for their temple to become so blessed by their esteemed god. Soon, it wouldn’t be a blessing from Asti-nayas but from Altais, a god in her own right.