The Witch tipped his head, blinked, then shook it. When he spoke, she could tell it was Aradin back in control once more. His voice might have been deeper in this body, but his tone was lighter, less matured. “No, I did not.”
“I think the longest a mage-priest ever held this job was fifteen years. The shortest, just over two months . . . though that was mainly due to an unexpected death. Most of the rest of us last around ten years . . . and then . . . we’re done.” She flicked her fingers again in a dismissive gesture. “Exhausted, injured, stressed . . . At most, the Keepers who are so spent find their magics reduced and are forced to send for a replacement. I took on this position knowing full well the most I’d be able to do for years afterward would be to teach holy magic. I’d barely have enough to contain a single pupil’s mistakes, never mind enough for complex craftings and castings.
“I would take on an assistant, were I permitted one, but who could be as strong, as cautious, and as conscientious? Who would want to put up with . . . with rampaging marigolds, and giant rabid shrews? That was just this morning. Plus there are all the religious aspects, the duties and expectations, the obligations . . .” Saleria shook her head. “Then there is the responsibility of ensuring all the energies involved are kept safe, and not stolen, or warped, or used for untoward ends.” She looked at the man across from her, with his unshaven face and blond hair hiding that second, darker, bearded visage. “How could I trust a stranger?”
Her words were pointed, but Aradin had a counter for them. He braced one elbow on the arm of his chair, fingers laced together, and leaned forward. “Perhaps by taking the time to get to know the person who just might be able to help you? Then you—we—wouldn’t be strangers, now would we?”
A faint snerk sound snapped Saleria’s head to the side. She stared at her scribe, who sat with shoulders hunched and his teeth sunk into his bottom lip. At her dark look, Daranen shrugged and smiled. “He has you, there, Saleria. That would end the label of ‘stranger’ rather neatly.”
“Yes, but he implies that he would make me an adequate assistant. A foreign priest of a foreign God and Goddess, with unknown strengths and weaknesses, in the Sacred Grove of Jinga and Kata?” Saleria challenged her scribe. Challenged both of them, for she turned back to Aradin Teral and addressed him as well. “I’ll grant you that I am not one bound to secular politics, and that because of my office, I always have the needs of the Katani people held first and foremost in my mind and heart when I work, but I hold those needs in mind and heart. You do not. What sincere, deep-rooted interest in the welfare of the Katani people could you possibly hold?”
“We are pledged—Teral and I—to give aid and succor to all mortals everywhere, as Witch-priests. This includes the citizens of the Katani Empire, since from what I understand, none of your people are immortal,” Aradin stated dryly. “Bring out a Truth Wand, if you do not believe me. Pluck and knot a hair from my head. Should you prove to be the right holiness for the job, and we prove to be the right assistant to help manage things while you attended to the needs of your people at the Convocation, we would even bind ourselves in a carefully stated, mutually agreed upon mage-oath.
“We have already bound ourselves in other oaths to this task. The resurrection of the Convocation of Gods and Man is too important not to take every precaution and make every effort to ensure its success,” he told her. She made a soft, scoffing sound, not quite a snort. Aradin pulled out his biggest weapon. “It has already been prophesied, Holy Sister. It will happen. It is up to us mortals to ensure it happens in the best way possible for all who are involved . . . and as it is the Convocation, that means all the world’s people, Katan included.”
“By a foreign Seer, no doubt. One whom I have never heard about, so naturally I must take your word for it,” Saleria scorned.
“By a Katani Seer.” Aradin tucked his hands deep into his sleeves, rummaging in the Dark with Teral’s help. Where is it . . . where . . . ? (Teral, isn’t it among the loose scrolls in the leather sack?)
(No, I don’t think it’s in the sack. I think it’s in the brown chest with the roses carved on the lid,) Teral finally said. (It’s not one we’ve consulted recently, that’s for certain.)
Grimacing, Aradin stood and pulled his witchrobe around his body, moving two paces from the chair. “One more moment . . .”
As she watched, frowning in confusion, he tugged the deep hood of his robe down over his face and throat. Cut off from daylight by the spells woven into the holy cloth, he was free to reach into the Dark directly. With both his and Teral’s will focused on finding exactly what they wanted, it did not take long.