“About the Advent, the gods, dragons, the whole lot of it. Much of our history didn’t sit right with her.”
Niven sniffed. “That’s not surprising. She is Bazira, after all. It would be like the Bazira to scoff at Aluren history.”
“It wasn’t Aluren history she questioned, young sir, but her own faith too. The Shadow as well as the Shining face of the god.”
“She was an apostate?” Selena asked.
Byric scrubbed windpaint out of his beard. “Not by my reckoning. She never did come out and say she eschewed the Two-Faced God but she sure did like talking about other…possibilities.” He sighed with longing. “And I did so enjoy the talks, even if I didn’t see things the same way she did. I do believe she appreciated me as well, as she could knock her ideas off me to see how they sounded.”
“Tell me more about her theories,” Selena said. “Why was she so interested in the Advent?”
“I don’t know for certain what set her on that course. Her being Bazira and all, I would have thought she’d be full of regard for the Shadow face.”
“Captain Tunney said she came here to proselytize but soon lost the heart for it.”
“Aye, mayhap she was sent by her people to make converts. But she must have known she wasn’t going to have any luck turning those who could never be turned. Respect for both faces of the god is as ingrained in the Nanokari tradition as long and deep as this here cavern and she knew it. She landed on Nanokar with only half a mind to her task. Her real love was this library. She knew of it too, and before the ship that brought her was out of dock, she was in here, searching and talking and asking questions I hadn’t the answers to.”
Selena bit her lip, tasting windpaint, and exchanged glances with Niven. “If she had doubts about her faith twenty years ago, how far from the Shadow face might she be now?”
“Remember it wasn’t just her own faith she doubted,” Byric said. “She questioned the whole Advent and the history just after the Breaking, where the order of events is mucked up and obscured. Here.” He rose and went to a shelf along the wall where Captain Tunney sat in a chair, snoring under his hat. The librarian pulled out a book, a thinner tome than the illuminated manuscript
“Now, this book is much older than most any here, so my pardons, but I’ll handle it myself.”
“Of course,” Selena said.
Byric handled the book as though it were a baby bird; its pages were brittle and cracked with age.
“This is a collection of fairy and folktales. It was compiled during the Age of Legends, but the stories themselves were likely written at the time of the Breaking.” He found the story he was looking for. “A tale of a girl who was grievously betrayed by her brother and who took her own life out of sorrow for the treachery. The storyteller writes that this betrayal hearkens back to something called the First Betrayal wherein—” Byric read from the text—”the majestic protectors were foully betrayed by their monstrous kin before they ascended to a holy plane.’”
“The First Betrayal?” Selena asked. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” Byric said. “And neither did Accora, though she was most taken with that phrase. That, and the bit about ‘majestic protectors’ and a ‘holy plane.’”
“Why was she interested in that particular story?”
“It was an additional piece of evidence, so to speak, for the notions that were brewing in her mind. Like I said, she arrived on Isle Nanokar with questions.”
“What kind of questions?” Julian asked.
“Well, for instance, there were four gods that came to Lunos in the Advent.” He ticked them off with his fingers: “Shaizan of the Ho Sun people; Wor’ri of the druids down in the Emerald Isles; Oshkat, the war god of the Zak’reth; and our Two-Faced God who rules the rest.
“Now, Shaizan and Oshkat are considered male, whilst Wor’ri is called a ‘she’ by her devoted. But the Two-Faced God? It has no gender. It doesn’t even have a name. Certainly, we have names for each half of its face: Bazira and Aluren. But it doesn’t bear its own, nor do we ascribe to it a male or female persona. Accora wanted to know why not.”
“Why, the answer is common knowledge, at least among the Aluren,” Niven said. “It’s because the god has no such distinction. It exists in an elevated state where human concepts such as male and female have no bearing. It is more than human. We can’t begin to classify it with our base terms, nor should we.”
“Aye, and that’s what I learned in my youth as well,” Byric told Niven, “though I’ve never heard it spoken of as eloquently as you have, young sir.”
“But Accora didn’t buy it?” Julian asked.
“She did not,” Byric agreed. “She believed that answer was too simple and too—pardons, Master Niven, her words not mine—willfully ignorant of the obvious.”
“And what was so obvious to her?” Selena asked.
“That the gods were the ‘majestic protectors’ named in the story; humans who ‘ascended to a holy plane.’” He shifted his bulk in his seat. “Further, that these humans had names: Oshkat, Shaizan, Wor’ri, Aluren and Bazira.”
“Blasphemous tripe!” Niven cried, causing Tunney—in the corner—to snort in his sleep and smack his lips before settling again. “I am affronted to hear my god—or even the lesser gods— spoken of in such a base manner.”
“Aye, it made me nervous,” Byric said. “I almost expected the tides to come pouring in to drown us both, but Accora had no such qualms. She was as sharp of tongue as she was sharp of mind. She spent most of her time here trying to discover if her theory was correct. But alas, this library is not so large. There are no other tales or histories that date so close to the Breaking as to be useful to her. I’m surprised that she hadn’t turned up in the library in the Guild’s academy, and that you seek her out in these parts after so long.”
“A Bazira adherent would not be allowed to sail the Western Watch, let alone step foot on one of its islands,” Niven stated crossly. “She’d be in custody already, I’m sure.”
“I’m not,” Byric said. “My pardons, young sir, but Accora was not merely an adherent, but a Reverent for the Shadow face. I could practically smell the ice in her. And she was smart. Whip smart. She…adapts. She learned the dialect, she wore the windpaint. She even learned what she could about whaling. By the time she left here, she could have passed for a Nanokari.” He shook his head. “These radical ideas of hers are twenty years old. I’d be surprised if she still considered herself a Bazira and I’d be shocked if she didn’t use her skill at disguise to hide from her own dark brethren.” He met Selena’s eye. “As I said, I don’t meddle in Temple affairs, and I wish you luck on your endeavor. But please consider that your prey may not be as dangerous as you might believe.”