The Ruby Guardian

CHAPTER 12

It was the screaming of gulls so nearby that drew Emriana to consciousness, that and the sun beginning to burn her skin. She became aware of the fact that she was half in the water, for the rhythmic bobbing motion of the tide gently bounced her against something hard. Everything stank of fish.

The girl groaned and tried to open her eyes, but the brightness of the light hurt too much, so she just lay there for a long time, trying to remember what had happened, how she had come to be there. Everything was mind-numbingly fuzzy, though, and it hurt to think. Finally, a flash of memory from the night before, a vague sense of danger, jarred her more awake, and she tried to rise.

Emriana discovered that she was tangled in some discarded fishing netting that had been wrapped around a piling at the wharf. Somehow she wound up sitting in the mesh, as though it were a hammock, though her body was half submerged in the filthy water beneath the pier. The sun was canted at an odd angle, catching her face in just the right way so that, though she was actually beneath the wooden causeway, it shone directly on her.

Extracting herself from the ruined netting turned out to be harder than she would have imagined, for she was thoroughly tangled in it, and for a brief moment she wished she had one of her daggers. Then it all came flooding back, the memories of the alley and the carpet, of sinking to the bottom of the bay. She almost screamed right then and there. She stared around herself, wondering how she had managed to escape the confines of the rug and rise to the surface, and even more amazing was how she was able to work herself into the netting so that she wouldn't drown. She didn't remember any of it.

Carefully, the girl disentangled herself from the mesh and settled into the water. She then swam around to the end of the pier and found a partial ladder that she could use to climb up onto the surface of the platform. Once she was out of the water, she surveyed herself and discovered that she was missing one boot and that her left sleeve was torn almost completely off. Other than that, she seemed to be intact, though her head began to pound as she moved around. She cast one last look down into the water and thought she might barely be able to make out an elongated form, like that of a rolled up carpet, perhaps a dozen feet below the surface. The imagery made her shudder, and she was just about to turn away, when she saw a glint of movement.

She knelt down and stared, certain that she had seen a figure moving through the shallows beneath the pier, a slender and graceful form that was more human than fish. But there was nothing there when she looked again, though she remained there for several moments more. Wondering if she had imagined it, Emriana rose to her feet again and tried to figure out where she was.

In doing so, she failed to notice a head break the surface for a brief moment, with delicate features that were angular and tinted blue. Those features watched the girl stagger away for a step or two; then the head vanished beneath the surface once more.

It did not take Emriana long to navigate her way off the pier and onto dry land and before much longer, she began to see where she was. The section of Arrabar where she and Xaphira had ventured the night before was nearby, and even in the daylight, the girl thought better than to pass through there alone, especially in her condition. She knew she looked a sight, and she doubted she could put up much of a struggle should anyone decide to accost her. Even with the circuitous route she chose to follow, she drew more than a few strange looks from the early-morning shoppers and strollers who were out and about.

As she struggled up the hills upon which Arrabar had been built, working her way slowly from the dock area to the nicer part of town, Emriana tried to consider everything that had happened. Remembering that Xaphira had disappeared worried her greatly, and she pulled her pendant out and tried to contact her aunt again.

Again there was no reply for her efforts.

The thought that Aunt Xaphira was already dead nearly made the girl drop to her knees in the middle of the street, but she resisted the weakness in her legs and pushed on, determined to return home and let everyone know what had happened. She imagined what her mother would say about her wandering in after being out all night, but truthfully, Emriana did not care. Grandmother Hetta was who she needed to speak to right then, and the quicker she got home, the quicker they could begin to figure out how to find and save Xaphira. But as she walked, the pain in her head grew worse, and Emriana felt herself on the verge of passing out more than once. She didn't think she could make the journey all the way back home as woozy as she felt.

The temple, she decided, massaging her skull. It's closer than home, and some of Vambran's or Uncle Kovrim's friends will help me.

As Emriana entered the temple district and drew near the Temple of Waukeen, she saw that a crowd had gathered. She limped closer, reaching the fringes of the throng, and began to try to find a way through the people, hoping she could find a priest she knew. As polite and patient as she tried to be, though, everyone around her gave her cold or contemptuous stares.

Finally, a hawk-nosed woman with severe, beady eyes elbowed the girl, pushing her back a step.

"Know your place, girl," the woman said. "We all want a better look at the new high priest, but this is as close as any of us are going to get, so stop shoving."

The meaning of the woman's words hit her fully. "The new high priest?" she asked. "What happened to Grand Syndar Midelli?"

The hawk-nosed woman gave her a baleful stare. "Haven't you heard?" she snapped. "The Grand Syndar is dead."

"Dead?" she repeated, stunned.

The woman nodded and sniffed. "Aye, he passed last night, they say, though he had been ill for more than that, they say."

Emriana felt the ground tilting beneath her feet as the news sank in. She wondered if everyone at home knew, yet. "Have they named a successor?"

"Where have you been hiding, child?" the woman asked, shaking her head in consternation. "What do you think we're all doing here? They're about to announce it now." With a final shake of her head, the unpleasant woman turned away, refocusing her attention toward the front of the temple.

At that moment, a hush fell over the crowd, followed by an excited murmur as a line of high priests began to file out the front doors of the temple and onto the steps. They were all dressed in their most lavish finery, and they took up positions in rows along the steps, creating a dazzling display of the finest white cloth, sparkling gems of amber and ruby, and plenty of polished gold. The last priest to appear, dressed most magnificently of all and wearing a miter upon his head, waddled in a familiar way due to his considerable girth.

Grand Trabbar Lavant.

Oh, Waukeen, Emriana thought, sitting down right in the plaza. Not this. Not now.

The girl had to draw several deep, slow breaths to gain her equilibrium back. Lavant was the new Grand Syndar of the entire temple. It didn't seem possible for the news to get any worse. She had to let the family know, but first, she needed desperately to find someone, anyone, within the temple who could help her. Otherwise, she would never make it back to the estate.

"Please excuse me," Emriana said, trying once more to weave her way through the crowd.

"I told you to know your place, girl," the hawk-nosed woman said, shoving Emriana back once more. "Now stop pushing."

"But I want to go inside," the girl said, not understanding why they were being so rude to her. "I didn't mean to shove."

"Inside?" the woman said incredulously. "Looking and smelling like that?" Then the woman began to laugh, a high-pitched cackling that was harsh to Emriana's ears. Several other people gathered about joined in. "You know the Waukeenars don't let street waifs like you in their midst. You've got to have coin to spend in order to walk the golden halls." The harsh woman shook her head bemusedly. "Inside," she chuckled, turning away again.

As Emriana looked down at her bedraggled appearance, she felt tears beginning to well up. Her clothes were ruined, torn in several places. They were soiled with odiferous gunk from the alley the previous evening. Her hair, normally so shiny black, hung limply and smelled of rotting fish. She realized just how badly she smelled by the way the people around her gave her a step or two of clearance. No one was going to believe she was Arrabaran nobility looking like that. But the only way to prove otherwise was to either clean herself up or find someone who knew and could vouch for her, neither of which she could do in her condition.

Feeling defeated, Emriana staggered to one side of the plaza and sank down in the shade of a vender's awning, too tired to even look at what he was selling.

The man who owned the cart, a fat fellow with black, bushy hair and huge, flaring mustaches, eyed her curiously then began to frown. "You can't sit there," he said, shaking a single pudgy finger in her direction. "You'll drive away the paying customers."

Emriana nodded and dug out her coin purse, surprised to find it still tucked in a sash at her waist. "Water," she said, her voice little more than a croak, handing the man a silver coin. "Please," she added, hoping her politeness would smooth things over for the fellow.

When he spied the silver glint in her hand the man's expression lightened considerably. "Of course," he said, helping Emriana to sit up and get more comfortable before snatching up his own belt cup and pouring out a serving of water from a pitcher on his cart. He handed the cup to Emriana, who took it and began to drink thirstily. It tasted of mint and was cool as it went down. The girl hadn't realized how thirsty she was until she began quenching it.

After she finished off a second serving, she sighed and looked up at the man gratefully. "Thank you," she said, feeling better. "What are you selling?"

"Why, hot honeycakes, of course," he said and brought one down for her to smell. "Another silver will get you two," he said, eagerly eyeing the girl's coin purse, which she still clutched in her lap. When Emriana nodded and began to retrieve another silver coin, the man produced a pair of fresh, hot pastries that had been soaked in honey. He set them on a narrow wooden plank, like a shingle, and handed the whole thing to Emriana.

She sat in the shade of the cart's awning and devoured the cakes, then paid for another two cups of water after she was done. After swallowing the last of her drink, she handed the cup back to the man and smiled at him. Feeling much better, Emriana climbed to her feet again. Deciding that the temple was too difficult to navigate with the crowd, she turned for home once again.

Grandmother Hetta needs to know, she reasoned. We have to find a way to stop this madness.

Emriana could not run, having only one boot on her feet, but she walked as fast as she was able, out of the temple district and into the neighborhood where the Matrell estate was located. She arrived there nearly an hour after she had been at the temple and pushed past the guards manning the front gate, who stared at her dumbfounded. She didn't care. She hurried up the front path toward the house.

Bursting through the front door, she began calling for her grandmother. A servant met Emriana near the entrance to the house, and the look on the woman's face made Emriana pull up in abject fear.

"What is it?" the girl demanded, taking the servant by the shoulders. "What happened?" They already know about Xaphira, Emriana thought. The news of her death beat me home. She felt her stomach flutter at the possibility and swallowed hard, afraid to hear the revelation.

"Oh, Miss Emriana, it's terrible," the servant said, a girl named Liezl who worked in the kitchens. "I'm so sorry."

"Sorry for what? Liezl, what on Toril happened?" Emriana said, wanting to shake the fool servant.

"It's Mistress Hetta," Liezl said, her voice barely a whisper.

The blood pounded in Emriana's ears. Her legs threatened to give way once more. She couldn't breathe.

Oh, no. No!

Emriana released the poor girl in front of her and ran to the central room of the house, the main hall. From there, she intended to dash toward the wing where her grandmother's rooms were, but she saw the crowd gathered in the sitting room. She skidded to a stop and changed direction, coming up behind another servant, a man who worked in the gardens, whose name she didn't even know. She pushed past him.

Hetta Matrell had been laid in state in the middle of the sitting room.

"No!" Emriana sobbed, rushing into the room. "Hetta!" she said as she stumbled up next to the table where her grandmother had been arranged. All around her, Emriana could hear the gasps of the people in the room, but she ignored them. "No!" she sobbed again, burying her face against her grandmother's. "It's not true!" she cried, willing her grandmother to still be alive. "Please!"

"Oh, I'm afraid it's very true," came a man's voice from the other side of the room. It was a voice that made Emriana's blood run cold. She raised her head and looked, tears streaking her cheeks.

In the far corner, a sickening smile upon his face, stood Grozier Talricci.

"And thus, we mark Mikolo Midelli's passing not in sorrow, but in celebration of his life, his leadership, and his accomplishments," Grand Syndar Lavant said, his voice echoing throughout the grand hall of the Temple of Waukeen. Standing where he was at the great altar, both the acoustics of the chamber and permanent magical enhancements allowed the entire audience to hear him clearly. He was dressed in very formal robes of state, a flowing outfit of cream-colored silk with brocaded gold and maroon highlights, and the whole thing was woven with rubies and yellow sapphires. A great miter sat atop his head, a stiff, almost conical thing of deep red, highlighted with solid gold and ruby decorations, glinting in the light of thousands of candles.

In front of the Grand Syndar, lying within a great gold sarcophagus encrusted with hundreds of gems of every imaginable hue, was the body of Mikolo Midelli, the previous Grand Syndar. He had been dressed in his own finest robes of office, an outfit that rivaled Lavant's, who loomed over him, speaking of the man in his most eloquent and gracious tones.

Pilos wanted to clamp his hands over his ears. He could not stand to listen to the fat, arrogant man who had been named as the successor Grand Syndar to the temple. Not when he knew of the political maneuvering, the wrangling of votes, of support, that had taken place the night before, prior to Midelli's death. Earlier that morning, before the public ceremony on the front steps that proclaimed him Grand Syndar to the world, the council of high priests had assembled, with all other clergy in attendance. They had barely given Mikolo's body time to grow cold before they were nominating Lavant for the position. Of course, there had been others who had coveted the rank, and their names were mentioned in the great council chambers as well, but Pilos knew it was a foregone conclusion, even if many of the other clergy members sitting in audience did not.

As the roll had been called and Lavant had garnered the necessary votes to be raised to Grand Syndar, the priests filling the council chamber had given the man thunderous applause. Pilos could not. He had sat there, feeling sickened and listening dully while Lavant revealed his first edicts. The man had the audacity to begin using the weight of his office right then and there, before the temple had even given the old Grand Syndar a proper, respectful send-off.

Of course, Lavant had waved away his brashness in the trappings of dire necessity, for he spoke of the coming of war in the east, of divinations that all of Chondath would be engulfed in the ravages of conflict if the temple did not act. It was all so necessary, Lavant had explained, that they begin preparing for the coming eventualities he had foreseen. Thus, he had begged their indulgence to allow him to commence running the affairs of the temple immediately, rather than waiting the traditional grace period while the previous Grand Syndar lay in state.

What Lavant had described was a very different temple than the one Pilos had known to that point. The rotund leader was taking them in a decidedly more militant, aggressive direction than the temple had seen in many years. Pilos wondered just what Mikolo would have thought of such changes. He wondered what Waukeen thought of them, returning his attention to the moment.

"Even during those years of our Lady's absence," Lavant was saying, "Mikolo Midelli was resolute, devout, never faltering in his belief and faith. He did not turn his back on the Merchant's Friend to bathe in the holiness of other gods. He sought to continue Waukeen's teachings, even when Waukeen could not walk among his flock herself."

That's a dangerous thing to be saying, Pilos thought in mild surprise. He's all but naming Mikolo as a surrogate god. What does that say about those who shifted their allegiance to Lliira when Waukeen went missing? How many of the clergy is he alienating?

As if to punctuate the Abreeant's concerns, numerous priests sitting around him began to shift in their seats uncomfortably or grumble among themselves.

"He will be missed," Lavant said, "but his works will live on in the glory of the temple for generations to come."

There was a pause, and Pilos wondered if the Grand Syndar was finished with his eulogy. What came next surprised and angered him.

"Mikolo Midelli's time at the helm of the temple was a time of peace. It was a time of prosperity. Those days are gone, and we move now into a new era-a time of danger, of the shadow of war."

He's giving an acceptance speech! Pilos silently fumed. He's actually going to stand there and talk about himself during the man's wake! Pilos wanted to throw something, and he was shocked by his own vehemence, his own outrage. He wondered if he was not seeing things properly, seeing them as Waukeen perhaps did. The thought made him strangely sad, imagining that his own thinking might be so out of alignment with that of his goddess.

"But war can also be a time of prosperity," Lavant continued, "and I humbly endeavor to seek that prosperity in my own ministrations to the temple."

No, Pilos thought, shaking his head, Waukeen has never taught us to prosper through the cultivation of war.

Grand Syndar Lavant droned on for several more minutes, but Pilos lost interest in the new temple leader's words. Instead, he bided his time on happier memories, recollections of the time he had enjoyed serving Mikolo. He would miss the old man, but Pilos realized he wasn't saddened so much by the spiritual leader's passing as he was by being left behind. The young Abreeant felt some pangs of jealousy, for he knew that Mikolo was finding true gratification in Brightwater for all of his years of loyal dedication to Waukeen. There was a small part of Pilos that wished-no, aspired, he decided-to find himself by Mikolo's side there someday. And though he wished to live out a long and full life in Waukeen's service, the chance to rise to that higher spirituality that he knew would come after his death was one he eagerly awaited.

Suddenly, the speech was at an end, and Pilos could feel a pervasive sense of discomfort. He wondered if Lavant's pronouncements had ended with an expectation of applause, but none was forthcoming, if only because of the impropriety of it in the presence of the body resting before the altar. He looked around and noticed that many other members of the clergy seemed to be similarly disturbed, but no one said a thing.

At last, the audience that filled the great hall of the temple began to rise and make their way out into the sunlight of the day beyond, and musicians and a choir arrayed in the loft above began a somber, if cathartic, dirge. The music was gentle and rolling, and it filled the chamber and helped to muffle the quiet conversations that began to hum throughout the gathering.

Pilos would have liked to have moved closer to the dais and kneel before Midelli's sarcophagus, but the flow of the crowd would have made it nearly impossible. Lavant had never even offered the Abreeant a chance to mourn privately in the presence of the deceased Grand Syndar, and though he was disappointed, he was far from surprised. By the time he could have let the throngs of people move past, allowing him to slip up the center aisle and to the resting place of his departed leader, it would be too late. Already, the burial escort was gathering around the sarcophagus, preparing to place the lid on and bear the thing away to chambers deep in the bowels of the ground, below the temple.

Pilos would have to pay his last respects down there, later, when he could be alone.

Sighing, the young man made his way toward one side of the great hall and slipped into a corridor that would lead him back to his own room. There were few others about, for most of the other clergy members were still gathered in the main temple, conversing, no doubt discussing the various revelations of Lavant's speech. Those few who did cross Pilos's path gave him a knowing nod and smile, for they must have seen that his heart was still heavy with grief and disappointment.

He hurried to his room, shut the door behind himself, lit the lone lamp with a taper from the cinder pot, and slumped into the single straight-backed wooden chair that he normally used at his desk. Fatigue and sorrow washed over him, and for a long moment, Pilos let those feelings course through him, giving in to them and allowing himself a few moments of unbridled emotional release. He did not cry, though his eyes brimmed with tears more than once. It felt good just to let go of his pent-up sentiments.

When he began to feel somewhat better, Pilos decided to pray. Rising from his chair, the young man knelt on the oval carpet in the center of his floor and closed his eyes. He did not voice a specific prayer initially but instead just tried to find his center, his focus, and hoped that Waukeen might bless him with a modicum of her presence. He wanted to feel close to his goddess for a while, to let the cares and troubles of the past couple of days wash away in a gentle bathing of her radiance.

He wasn't sure when he first began to sense that he was not alone, but Pilos got a cold, prickly feeling on the back of his neck, as though someone had entered his room and was peering at him, looming over him from behind. He opened his eyes and turned, just to assure himself that it was his imagination, to prove to himself that his meditations had drawn him far enough away from his mortal being that his subconscious was playing tricks on him.

The apparition of Mikolo Midelli hovering there, but a pace behind him, caused a strangled cry to leap from Pilos's throat.

The ghostly form was barely discernible in the dim light of the single lamp, or perhaps, Pilos thought, it was visible only because of the dim light. The image of the deceased Grand Syndar was dressed as he had been the night of his illness, when Pilos had first come upon him. It hovered in the air, its edges insubstantial, and there were no feet visible that could touch the floor. The thing's body seemed to shine with an inner glow, a radiant beauty that was something out of a prayer, a lesson on the glory of Brightwater. But the face of Pilos's former leader and mentor did not radiate peace. No, Mikolo Midelli's ghost looked decidedly disturbed.

Pilos stifled his yelp and scrambled back, away from the apparition hovering in his room. He pressed his back against the far wall of his chamber, staring stupidly at the thing, wondering, as all who see such things do, if he was imagining the whole experience.

Perhaps it is a test, Pilos thought, an ordeal inflicted upon me by someone who wishes to know my heart.

"Pilos," the ghost said, and though it was Mikolo's voice, it sounded distant, faint. "Pilos, I need your help," it said.

"Who are you?" Pilos asked timidly, trying to determine some way of discerning whether the figure before him was real, imagined, or a conjuration of magic by someone with a terribly inappropriate sense of humor.

"Do you not know me?" The apparition asked, seemingly surprised. "Do you not recognize this face?"

"Yes, of course, but-" and Pilos felt foolish. Asking the ghost to prove to him that its identity was genuine seemed absurd. "I know you, but I do not know if you are real," he finished.

"Ah," the apparition said, nodding. "A reasonable concern." The ghost seemed to be deep in thought for a moment, and its features brightened. "The last time we spoke," it said, "we were walking in the garden."

Pilos nodded, swallowing.

"We were discussing the merits of generosity to the lame and mentally unsteady, and you asked if it weren't better to give coin to the soup kitchens, rather than to the beggars themselves, for you could not abide the thought that they would waste your donations on drink and carnal relations."

Pilos nodded again, beginning to feel overwhelmed. He and Mikolo had been alone during that conversation, and short of magical eavesdropping, no one else could have known that. "I remember," he said at last, hoarsely. "You told me that-"

"I told you that Waukeen found beauty in all coin changing hands, and even though you could not see the beneficence of it, the purveyor of drinks and the prostitute certainly did. All creatures thrive in an environment where coin is freely given and accepted, Pilos. Remember that."

Pilos nodded again, terrified. It really was Mikolo Midelli, hovering there in his chambers. "Why me?"

"Because I can see in your heart that which is also in mine," the apparition replied. "I know you will see the wisdom in crying out, in demanding greater scrutiny against Lavant's misguided rulership of the temple. You must take up a cause that I could not finish, Pilos."

"But Grand Syndar, I do not know what to do! No one will listen to a simple Abreeant. No one will value my words."

"Ah, but Pilos, you are trying to open the eyes of those who refuse to see. You must seek out others, beyond the temple. And it is they who need your aid, rather than you who need theirs."

"Others? But who, Grand Syndar?" Pilos had no idea what the ghost spoke of, nor how he could act on the apparition's instructions. "Who must I find?"

"Return to your home, Pilos. There you will find sympathetic ears. They will help you take up the call against Grand Syndar Lavant. There, you will find the path that must be followed." The ghost began to fade, and Pilos was terrified of being left alone in his room.

"Grand Syndar! Wait!" he cried out, but the glowing figure of his beloved leader was gone.