“Excuse me, but are you Priestess Saleria of Katan?” a middle-aged woman asked, interrupting Saleria’s next bite of the latest version of pasta, a dish she had learned came from a land called Guchere.
Setting down her fork, Saleria nodded. “Yes, I am. How may I help you?”
“I’ve a message from Priestess Orana Niel,” the brunette in the sunset tabard stated, and handed over a rolled up piece of paper. An oddly rolled up piece, for it had been pinched at alternating angles, which made it look something like a cross between a bit of honeycomb and a chewed-up stick. At the Keeper’s odd stare, the servant gestured at it. “She explained to me that this is the easiest way to conceal a message without using a spell, because she said once it’s been rolled up and pinched, you can’t get it to roll up perfectly a second time. You can see I haven’t peeked at it, milady.”
“Yes, I can see that. I just didn’t know why it had been rolled up like this,” Saleria told her, taking the scroll from the Convocation servant. She peeled open a layer and a half, then tried to rewrap it . . . and failed. “How clever . . . It really can’t be rewrapped, can it?”
The older woman grinned. “I’ve been delivering those half the day, now. Everyone’s been amazed by the trick of it. Have a good supper, milady.”
“And you, when you get to it,” Saleria replied, more of her attention on unscrolling the sheet of paper. The message, when she got to it, made her eyes widen. Neatly penned in Katani lettering, its content was alarming.
Aradin Teral has been harassed by someone named Deacon Shanno. They are now under arrest, if unharmed. Goddess Kata in Her wisdom has decided to let things stand for now. She said this would teach “the young man” a lesson in humility, and something about “ride the wave,” whatever that means.
Yours, Orana Niel.
Dear Kata! Saleria thought, alarmed. Aradin, arrested? And to be taught a lesson in humility?
A voice laughed inside her head. Not Jinga’s, but Kata’s. Normally serene, the Goddess chuckled in Saleria’s mind. (Not the Witch, Keeper, but the deacon-child, who in his arrogance does not understand what he attempts to wield. Here, let Us show you . . .)
Blinking, Saleria swayed and clutched at the dining table, anchoring her sense of balance as the world shifted. She knew she was still seated in the dining hall somewhere under the mountains of Nightfall Isle, but her sense of sight and sound showed a completely different scene, of leaving her body behind to fly high over a broad island, then a vast span of water, chasing the sun like a spell-flung skylark.
Her mind relaxing into Kata’s control, Saleria blinked as the width of Katan itself streaked rapidly past, until she alighted on a curving, interwoven branch of the Bower itself, in a spot which allowed her to peer down at a familiar blond man.
Deacon Shanno, oblivious of the bird’s-eye view which Saleria now had of him, picked up a flask from one of Aradin’s tables, sniffed at the contents, made a face, and set it back down again. “Poncy fellow. Smells like a perfume shop in half these bottles. The other half like a child that’s been rolling in the grass . . .
“I think I shall have to get rid of all of this,” he decided, fluttering his hands at the collection of tables interspersed between sap pools and altars. “Cluttering up a holy sanctuary with alchemical equipment? Blasphemy!” Shanno asserted. Then he cleared his throat and tried again, this time with less volume, but a deeper tone. “Blasphemy.” He attempted it a third time, testing out yet another way of emphasizing it. “Blasphemy . . . blasphemous. Hm. I’ll have to work on that.”
He turned in place, squinting up at the vines as they slowly oozed and dripped around him. Saleria almost held her breath, for he looked like he was about to step backward into a pale amethyst sap-pool which Aradin had identified as concentrated fecundity—in other words, perfect for lust potions, conception potions, and even contraception potions, if treated just right alchemically. Unfortunately, he noticed it before anything could happen. Shanno gave the puddle a bemused look, then stepped away.
“No, no, this is all wrong! Why would the seat of power be dripping with . . . goo?” Shanno muttered in disgust.
Tentatively, he reached out to touch a sap-slick vine, the one which Aradin Teral had used to show how it caused a sugarcane plant to grow faster than natural. Nothing happened, other than that he got the slightly sticky stuff on his fingers. Stooping, Shanno scrubbed it off on a bit of moss. From the way he immediately straightened and moved on, Saleria assumed he did not see the moss quiver, then thicken.