Grayshade, page 11
In any case I found nothing, and with the slightest pressure opened the door, which quietly pivoted inward on its hinges to reveal the room beyond. I took one last look around before entering and closing the door behind me.
I had entered from the rear of the room, obviously the Chapel’s sanctum, and took a moment to look around. It was clearly the largest room inside the building—in fact, it probably was most of the building in itself—which wasn’t saying much. It was no bigger than one of the small, secondary sanctuaries used for daily prayers in Argoth’s Cathedral, and considerably less grand, even in the materials of which it was made: mostly wood, and only a bit of stone here and there. Even the ceiling, its warped and cracked criss-cross rafters holding a few threadbare tapestries covered with faded religious symbols (two hands folded in prayer seemed to be a popular motif), was low and relatively unimpressive. Two rows of short wooden benches, split by a center aisle, ran from the opposite end of the room, where a set of wooden double doors stood closed, the main square of the Church District beyond them. On this side of the room, near where I stood, was a small, wooden pulpit looking dangerously overloaded beneath the weight of a massive book, its pages yellowed and curling with age. A faintly musty smell pervaded the silent air.
I took a few steps forward, choosing my path over the creaky wooden floor with caution. Nothing stirred, but as I drew even with the pulpit something in the air changed, and I stopped, my hand reaching for the hilt of my cucuri almost unconsciously. I saw nothing as my gaze swept the room, and the space was quiet. Yet something about this room felt odd . . . somehow disconnected, separate from reality. I waited for several long moments, straining to hear any sound, but all remained still.
Stop overreacting, I told myself, and focus on why you’re here. It was reasonable advice, as far as it went—except I was here to eliminate a target, and unless they were an inanimate object, that target wasn’t here . . . or anywhere else I had seen within the Chapel, for that matter. There was no room for a second floor within the building, and no obvious set of stairs leading downward either. Normally I would simply have assumed the target was elsewhere, but Jant’s letter had specifically instructed me to find what I was looking for here, and Jant was supremely precise in his orders—especially these orders. Which meant that I was missing something, somewhere.
I started slowly walking down the center aisle, scanning the floor in front of me and carefully inspecting each row of benches. I stopped when I reached the double doors, trying to decide if I should risk opening them, but it didn’t take me long to discard the idea. Anyone passing by would be surprised to see me, or perhaps anyone, emerging from Varda’s Chapel, and that might get me involved in something messily public, especially if it was a guard patrol. Besides, the doors weren’t going to lead anywhere but outside; I doubted Varda’s followers would use the same kind of craft twice in the same building.
Instead, I turned left and slowly walked to the corner of the room, scanning the walls from floor to ceiling as I went. It took me the better part of ten minutes to walk the full perimeter in this fashion, but it was the only way I could be sure I had gone over every inch of ground. But nothing, other than the same vaguely unsettled feeling I had experienced ever since entering the room, stood out, and as I reached the doors again after completing the perimeter I began to wonder if I had somehow infiltrated the wrong building. Maybe Varda had two chapels in Cohrelle, and I had broken into the wrong one . . . perhaps even a decoy of some kind. But Jant hadn’t specified a building, and I had never heard of any other one than this.
This is ridiculous; Jant’s playing you for a fool. Here you are, wandering around old, deserted chapels with only benches and books for company, and—
I blinked. Books.
I walked back up the center aisle to the wooden pulpit, circling around it as I looked at the heavy tome it bore. It was open to roughly the middle of the book, and I glanced at the faded text, one line in large letters running across both pages:
Betyfgh ght efboa lpgrtwfdebvcm tiu nmw lrif srmgtx.
I frowned. I understood a few other languages passably well—all of Argoth’s Acolytes were taught a code used only by the Service, and I could muddle my way through a couple dialects from outside Cohrelle. But I was no linguistic scholar, and this was all gibberish, the meaningless babble of an infant.
Feeling incredibly foolish, I quietly recited the phrase. It sounded even more ridiculous than it looked. I reached for the page to turn it, but as my fingers brushed the edge of the paper it crumbled, dusty fragments falling to the floor beneath. The book obviously hadn’t been moved, or even touched, in ages, and that either meant I was looking in the wrong place or missing something—again.
I puzzled out the phrase again, read it backward and forward, tried reading every second word, then every second letter . . . yet nothing happened. I wondered what would happen if I reported to Jant that I had been unable to carry out my mission because I’d wasted too much time reading nonsense lines from a book too old to move or use, and smiled at the image in spite of my annoyance, saying the phrase again in an ironic drawl.
I glanced at the line one more time as I got ready to turn away and stopped. It looked the same, but something had changed, at first almost imperceptibly; I couldn’t tell if the words had changed into a language I understood, or if my mind had finally fit the letters into a recognizable pattern, but as I stared down at the book I read:
Patience and careful contemplation are the keys to wisdom.
I looked up startled, half-expecting to see Caoesthenes in front of me with that pleased smile he always had when I finally got through a difficult lesson, but the room was empty. Yet something else had changed too, and as I waited and pondered, I suddenly realized the difference: the unreal feeling of disconnectedness had vanished, and somehow the room felt newer, less suffused with age.
And as I looked around, I saw more. The rafters above were no longer warped, but straight and strong; the tapestries were bright and colorful, as if they had only recently been sewn and hung on the walls. The musty smell had vanished. And as I looked down again at the book, I saw the binding was new, the pages crisp and white.
Suddenly I spoke, almost by instinct: “Patience and careful contemplation,” I said, calmly and quietly. Nothing seemed to change, but as I turned around I saw the door through which I had first entered the room was open, flickering light spilling out from it.
I drew my cucuri and took a few silent steps to the edge of the door, putting my back against the wall to the left of the opening and turning my head to listen. I heard only one, very familiar sound: the crackling of wood in a fire.
A fire in the hallway?
Cautiously I inched away from the opening and turned toward it, lowering myself to one knee. I listened again but heard nothing new, and after a few seconds, I slowly tilted my head past the edge of the door frame.
The hallway was gone. In its place was a small room, carpeted and lined with bookshelves on one side and paintings on the other. Against the far wall was a fireplace, a cheerful fire burning in the hearth; on the mantelpiece above the fire, carved in wood, was the same image of two hands clasped in prayer. Two low-backed chairs sat in front of the fire. And sitting in the chair to the left, facing away from the door, was the room’s lone inhabitant. I watched the back of their curly-haired head intently for several minutes; they neither moved nor spoke, but I could hear the sound of soft breathing.
Asleep.
I shook my head. Varda’s defenses had been clever, but not clever enough for her followers to be this unprepared. I let my gaze slip from them momentarily and scanned the door’s opening. As I had expected, I saw nothing. Regular traps seemed to be unlikely for Varda’s followers, if my experience so far was any guide; they put their stock in not being found in the first place, and given what I had encountered, that was a reasonable approach. Yet confidence breeds complacency, and as I slid my cucuri from its sheath and passed the blade through the opening, I shook my head again. Not even a guard on hand. Perhaps Varda’s followers couldn’t imagine being a target, at least of Argoth’s Service.
Satisfied that there were no other hidden traps awaiting me, I silently entered the room. It would take me only two steps to reach the chair, and only one second for my blade to eliminate my target. But as my foot stepped onto the carpet, the head moved.
“Hello,” a surprisingly high voice said, and I froze in my tracks. And as the person in the chair stood and turned to face me, my mouth almost dropped open.
“Welcome to Varda’s inner sanctum,” they said with a bright smile as I stared at them in shock.
The leader of Varda’s church—and the target I had been sent to kill—was a child.
CHAPTER EIGHT
-
We stood like that for several long moments, me staring at the black-haired child as they smiled easily back at me. They were wearing a tunic and pants of simple gray cloth, and their face, slightly rounded with smooth brown skin, was calm and open.
“Welcome,” they said again. Their voice was high but steady and pleasant . . . perhaps even a bit musical. Unless this was some elaborate trick, I hadn’t misjudged the age; they couldn’t be more than ten at the most, perhaps younger.
“Please, have a seat,” they said, indicating the empty chair next to them. “It doesn’t have a cushion, but it’s comfortable enough.” I neither spoke nor moved, my eyes fixed on their face. But the smile didn’t waver. “You did a good job getting here,” they went on after a moment. “Most people don’t get into the Chapel, still fewer into the sanctum. For you to get to my room is impressive. How did you manage it?”
I stifled the urge to laugh at the absurdity of the question—as if I would tell my mark how I had gotten through their defenses to reach them—but their eyes remained open, their expression frank. What are you waiting for, you fool? I thought. They’re unguarded; kill them now, before the situation changes.
But just as with Lady Ashenza, I found myself hesitating. For one thing, I wanted to know how they had sensed my presence in the room.
“Oh, that’s easy,” they said. “Varda’s followers can always feel the presence of others. Well, most of them can; those that can’t usually don’t stay in the church very long.”
I blinked. I hadn’t asked my question out loud.
Their grin widened. “Are you worried I’m reading your mind?” They shook their head in seeming amusement, not malice. “I’m not a fortune-teller, you know. No one can really read people’s thoughts—well, not that I’ve ever heard of, anyway. But I can sense what you’re feeling.” They giggled, several short high-pitched laughs in quick succession. “It’s pretty easy, actually, if you’ve got the talent . . . and practice it, of course. My teachers tell me I have to practice more, but sometimes it’s hard not to want a rest.”
I raised my head a little, my hand still on the hilt of my cucuri. In a second they would be dead, and a second later I’d be out the door. It was exactly to avoid this kind of indecision why Caoesthenes had reminded me that marks should never be allowed to speak. Or no—actually, he reminded me I had been trained this way, though he actually hadn’t chastised me for questioning the method. Was he trying to warn me against letting people like this sway me from my path, or encouraging me to make my own judgments?
The child tilted their head to the side. “You know, there’s no harm in sitting and talking with someone. I like learning about other people, don’t you?” And turning their back to me, they sat down again in their chair, folding their hands behind their head in a curiously adult way, as if they had just asked a friend to bring them a glass of water.
I rubbed the back of my neck bemusedly and considered. A week before I would never have done this; indeed, a week before I would never have allowed the child to speak in the first place. But things were different now, and if I couldn’t make up my own mind, I was going to be useless both to the Service and myself.
Cautiously, I walked around the side of the empty chair and stood by it. The child turned their head to look at me, the same mildly amused expression on their face. “You might be more comfortable sitting,” they said, but when I didn’t move they shrugged unconcernedly and turned back to the fire.
I decided the time had come to risk breaking my silence. “Who are you?”
“Caron,” they said promptly, looking at me. “My name is Caron. What’s your name?” Again I held back my urge to laugh; here we were, a young child and the Acolyte sent to kill them, talking like strangers exchanging pleasantries on the street.
“My name isn’t important,” I replied.
“Of course it is,” they said. “Names are part of who we are. Knowing your name helps me know more about you.”
“And you want to know more about me so you can find out how I managed to get in here?” I asked with a small smile.
“No,” they replied, looking slightly puzzled. “Just because I want to know more about you.”
I narrowed my eyes slightly as I studied them, but there wasn’t a trace of deception on their face.
“You’re wondering if I’m telling the truth,” they said after a moment. “You must have had a lot of people lie to you before.”
I couldn’t resist a chuckle at that. “Most people lie, at least part of the time.”
“I’ve heard that,” they said seriously. “That’s too bad—it makes life so much more difficult. Especially if you lose track of the stories you’ve told. My teachers tell me stories can trap people in them. I used to think that was just something they liked to say, but now I think I’m starting to understand what they meant.”
They leaned toward me a little, their face earnest. “If it helps, I promise not to tell anyone your name. If that would make you feel better.”
I looked at them again, starting to become suspicious that this was some sort of elaborate joke, but again saw only a frank openness. I considered for a moment, then decided if they had enough power to harm me solely with my name, I wasn’t likely to succeed in killing them through normal methods anyway. In that case I would need other information first. “Grayshade,” I said, studying them for a reaction. “Grayshade is my name.”
“Grayshade,” they said, rolling the name around in their mouth as if they were tasting an unfamiliar flavor. “That’s an interesting name. Much more interesting than mine, in fact.”
“It’s the only one I use,” I replied, “and the only one I know.”
They nodded. “I’m glad to meet you.”
I raised an eyebrow and looked around the room. “Do you . . . live here?”
Caron laughed. “Of course. Well, not in this room, exactly. Close by.”
“Somewhere else in the building, then.”
“Yes, though it’s not a very large building, you know.” They laughed again. “Well, obviously you know, since you got here.”
I shrugged. “I suppose. Though I don’t know exactly where ‘here’ is.”
Caron tilted their head for a moment before their eyes widened in understanding. “Oh, yes, the Chapel does look different in the Cloud, I guess. I don’t know; it’s been years since I’ve been there. But my teachers tell me it’s almost like a different world.”
“The Cloud?” I asked.
“Well, yes . . . ” They trailed off as they saw my confused expression. “You mean you don’t know?”
I shook my head.
“My teachers always say I forget how different things are outside of the Chapel. I guess they’re right.” Caron put their chin in their hand, reminding me for a moment of Jant, and looked into the fire. “Varda teaches us that most of the world is an illusion—an unreality created by what we wish to believe rather than what is. Self-doubt, lies, pretense, betrayal; all these things cover our vision, make it difficult to see. All put together, they form the Cloud.” They looked up at me and smiled. “That is the world in which you live, Grayshade.”
“It seems clear enough to me,” I said with all the confidence I could muster.
“It usually does to people who live in it,” they replied. “That’s the problem.”
Something struck me about that, but I was in no position to think more about it now. “So this world—the one you say is the real one. Did I cross through a portal to get here?”
Caron laughed. “No. It’s not really a different world, even though we sometimes think about it that way. The Cloud isn’t a different place from reality; it just covers reality, makes it seem different. What did Varda’s Chapel look like to you from the outside?”
“Old and decrepit,” I said. “And deserted.”
Caron grinned. “Ah, so that’s what it looks like in the Cloud. In reality, it looks like this.” They gestured around themselves, then stood and turned.
I followed them as they entered the main sanctum and pointed to the bright tapestries, the straight rafters, the new book. “Or this. And even though there isn’t anyone here now, we usually have many of Varda’s followers at worship or dealing with tasks around the Chapel. They’re away for the festival, so it’s just me, but normally it’s pretty busy.”
“So you’re alone,” I said, keeping my voice even.
They turned to face me. “Yes,” they replied. “But that’s a funny thing to ask. Are you glad I’m alone?”
My face remained still, but inwardly I started. Tread carefully.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “But you’re a sensate, then. It must be a useful talent to be able to read the minds of others.”
They smiled. “As I told you, I can’t read minds—but I can pick up on feelings, emotions, sometimes intentions. And I can sense physical presence, too, once in a while, just like all of Varda’s followers. My teachers tell me I’ll be able to do it all the time when I’m fully trained.”
“Who are these teachers?” I asked. “Are they at this . . . festival?”
They looked at me, grin widening. “You really are from the Cloud, aren’t you?” they said, then immediately became serious. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to mock you. But I don’t have the chance to talk to people who live in the Cloud very much, and I’m probably not very good at it.”
