Fnark, two days later, was larger than I’d imagined, large enough to have streets and visible industry—a pottery and warehouses along the river. The houses abutted each other, end to end, sharing roof tiles; church spires punctured the sky. We crossed the river on an arched stone bridge and passed the market square, where intrepid merchants clustered together under the thatched shelter like cattle under a pasture tree.
In this climate, I supposed, if you wouldn’t shop in the rain, you didn’t shop at all.
Along the river road north, toward the rising tablelands, stood a walled complex resembling a Ninysh-style palasho. As we passed its iron gates, I saw that it was a shrine—and no small roadside shrine, but an enormous complex. Within its walls was everything a pilgrim could want: dormitories, souvenir stalls, chapels, and eateries. Rain fell on empty tables outside.
The place looked abandoned; I felt my irritation rising again. “You said the earls would be here all week,” I said quietly to Rodya.
He shrugged. “They must be inside. We Samsamese are hardy, but thet don’t mean we stand around in the rain.”
Or maybe the earls had already gone home. If the meeting was of no fixed length, surely it sometimes ran short. I gritted my teeth and followed Hanse up the cobbled road toward the hulking church at the top of the hill.
We tied our horses and entered. The great church was empty but for a cluster of bedraggled pilgrims at the front, led in song by a priest. I knew the tune, a drinking song in Goredd, but it had very different lyrics here:
O faithless ignoramus, denier of Heaven
Sitting smugly upon a disbelieving bottom
O blatant person who disregards the scriptures
Standing confidently in a puddle of sin
There shall be smiting with lightning
And blood-soaked retribution
And heads kicked about like footballs
And much worse upon your wretched person
When Golden Abaster returns with judgment for you
And salvation in the form of flowers for the rest of us
Rodya was humming along; Hanse gravely removed his hat and placed it over his heart. Abdo leaned against a smooth pillar and closed his eyes.
The priest was surely the person to ask about whether we’d missed the earls. While he finished the service and administered St. Abaster’s blessing to the crowd, I drifted around the church. After Ninys, where the churches had been frothing with architectural froufrou, this plain church came almost as a shock. The Samsamese called their own doctrine austere, but I hadn’t realized doctrine could be reflected in decor. There were no statues, no pictures, no ornaments of any kind, only stone inscriptions in severe square lettering.
I read a few. Under this plate lie the mortal remains of St. Abaster, who will return in glory and … Ugh. More smiting. I didn’t care to be this near St. Abaster, even dead. Thus said St. Abaster: “Tolerate not the infidel, the unchaste woman, the permissive man, the dragon and his hideous spawn …” I didn’t read to the end of that one, but counted fifty-three intolerables in all.
There was one plaque I did read to the end, however, because it was short and the names—easily translated—caught my eye. The blessed are not exempt from judgment. St. Abaster righteously smote: St. Masha, St. Daan, St. Tarkus, St. Pandowdy, St. Yirtrudis.
St. Yirtrudis, my heretical psalter Saint, struck me first, but they weren’t all heretics in this list. St. Masha and St. Daan were known and commonly invoked in Goredd; they’d been lovers, two men, martyred by other Saints, but they’d retained their blessed status. St. Tarkus and St. Pandowdy, on the other hand, I had never heard of—although I’d named my most monstrous grotesque, the one I’d decided not to look for, Pandowdy.
Pandowdy was also a pudding my Ninysh stepmother made. An ugly, mushy, steamed monstrosity, all suet and raisins. Those raisins, slimy and swollen with brandy, had inspired me to name the monster after the dessert. How odd to think of a Saint with the same name.
Yirtrudis, though. Her inclusion here was strange to me. I knew so little about her that any new detail was interesting. I’d never heard Goreddis claim that St. Abaster had smote her, but then, we weren’t as into smiting as our neighbors, it seemed.
The last of the pilgrims received her portion of charcoal, another curious practice—these Samsamese were mysterious to me, for all that we prayed to the same Saints. Then the priest finally turned to us, his faint brows raised in mild surprise. Rodya and Hanse both knelt for and received his blessing. I held back, my arms folded.
“I had understood the Erlmyt would be held here,” I said in Goreddi, letting Rodya translate into Samsamese.
The priest grunted. “Not this year.”
I’d expected to hear You just missed them, although I’d fervently hoped for They’re here, but you didn’t look in the right place. I did not know what to make of this news at all. I blurted out, “Why not?”
He scowled deeply. “Do you want a blessing or not?”
Rodya leaped to his feet and actually drew his sword. In a church. I goggled at him.
“Answer her question,” he drawled. “She represents the Gorshya Queen.”
“I don’t care if she represents Heaven itself,” said the priest. “I have nothing to tell, except that half our yearly tithe comes from the Erlmyt, and we were given no notice and no explanation.”
My heart sank. Now how would I find the Librarian? Lars had suggested it could take months to scour the highlands, but we were due in Porphyry by midsummer. I couldn’t justify taking that much time to look for one man when there were seven ityasaari more easily found in Porphyry. We gathered Abdo, who had curled up in a ball at the base of the column, resting his head upon his folded arms, and stepped back out into the rain.
We stayed the night at the shrine’s dormitories, which were strictly separated by sex. Abdo was clearly unwell. I argued with the monks, insisting that he was a child and I was his guardian and had to stay close and take care of him. After much grumbling, the monks finally conceded, allowing us both to stay in the infirmary. We were the only ones there, or I’d have complained a great deal more.
Abdo flopped onto a cot with his clothes on, like a Goreddi would have. He didn’t change into his sleep tunic or wrap his sleep scarf around his head, like he normally did. I sat on the next cot, elbows on my knees, and watched him, worrying. His breathing evened out, and I thought he was asleep.
I closed my eyes, weary in my very soul.
I had never particularly felt like the Saints watched over me, but St. Abaster did seem to be dogging my footsteps on this journey, to my dismay. I was no great hand at scripture—I avoided most of it—but I knew every line written about my kind, thanks to the pamphlet Orma had made me. “Half human, all malevolence” was one of Abaster’s best. Or: “If a woman hath lain with the beast, beat her with a mallet until she miscarries or dies. Let it be both, lest her horrifying issue live to claw its way out, or the woman live to conceive evil again.”
“Darling old St. Abaster,” I muttered into my hands. “I love you, too.”
He smote people for that kind of sarcasm, said a voice in my head. It wasn’t Abdo’s voice, although I could feel, distinctly, that it came from Abdo’s avatar in my garden.
I looked up. Abdo’s eyes were open; his mouth quirked into a sly, familiar smile.
I gripped the edge of my cot, wrestling visceral horror. “Abdo said he’d escaped you,” I said, working to keep my voice steady.
Of course I let him think that, said Jannoula, making Abdo sit up. She stuck his scaly tongue in and out of his mouth. Feh. He really can’t talk. I thought he was exaggerating.
“He hasn’t been completely unaware of you,” I said, suddenly making sense of his ongoing preoccupation. He had been struggling with her.
Struggling alone. Why hadn’t he told me?
His mind is entirely different, she said. He has such facility with mind-fire. More than the others. She flexed his fingers and toes experimentally, frowning at the fingers that wouldn’t bend. A mighty mind trapped in a small, inadequate body.
“If he’s so mighty, how did your consciousness gain ascendancy?” I asked.
He has to sleep sometime. I’ve just been rifling through his memories, and it looks like you’ve reached a dead end today. You could use my help, said Jannoula.
“You’ve possessed him while he’s defenseless,” I said, my voice rising. “I don’t want this kind of help.”
Careful, he’ll wake up if you shout, or if I move him too violently. Abdo’s dark eyes looked at me sidelong as if to underscore that last word. Was that a threat?
I only want to help you find the others, dear sweet Seraphina, she said, her voice syrupy. You’re looking for Ingar, Earl of Gasten—the one you call the Librarian. You’d know his name if you could reach out to him properly. All you can do is watch, alas. It’s rather feeble.
I plastered on a smile. “I’m lucky to have you, then.”
Quite right, she said. He’s in Blystane, at the court of the Regent.
“What’s he doing there?” I asked. “And how do I know you’re not sending me on some wild-goose chase?”
Jann-Abdo scowled. Always so suspicious. Our goal is one and the same, Seraphina. Waste your time combing the bald hills, if you prefer, or else have the courtesy to take me at my word.
I saw her melt from Abdo’s face, replaced by a look of repugnance and horror. Oh no, he said, and it was him, wide awake. Oh gods, no.
I was at his side in an instant, sitting by him on the cot, my arms around him while he sobbed into my shoulder. I couldn’t … I didn’t …
“Why didn’t you tell me you were struggling with her?” I asked into his hair.
Because it was my own stupid fault, and because I thought I could get rid of her myself, and you’d never need to know.
There was nothing I could say to comfort him. I held him in silence as long as he would let me, my own tears falling on his dear head.