Zollocco: A Novel of Another Universe (19 page)

The first thing I had to do was to fill this with water, creating a small moat. The Spring Room pool was connected to the moat by a dam set in the building wall. The dam opened and closed like a window in the wall. While the moat filled, I sat with my bare feet in it and yawned. Watering had to be done early in the morning, otherwise the vegetation would be cooked by the sun steamed water. The moat filled, I walked along the narrow path to the pole in the garden, which had the switch for the sprinkling system. I sneezed at the sweet perfumes of the garden, braced myself, and flicked the switch. I was immediately drenched. This was why most people hated to water. I shivered for a moment. And this was only the first of three switches that released the water from the over-head reeds. After I had turned on all of the switches, I went over to the wall to get the hose coiled under a berry vine. I turned on the hose's faucet, blinking as water ran into my eyes. I then emerged from the sprinkling roofed section of the garden into the dawn-lit open portion. Although underground waters fed these plants, they still needed to be hosed. So I hosed, a fairly time-consuming task.

A group of women came up the garden path. Most of them were about eighteen, nineteen years old. They were led by a woman in her fifties and three old crones. I set down the hose, and went to turn off the sprinkling system so they could enter the building without getting wet. The older woman was tall, and looked like she was made of wires. Unlike the girls who wore their hair braided in a coil like a crown round their heads, her hair flowed freely about her shoulders in thick wavy clumps. Although her face bore only a few lines, her hair was completely gray. She moved slowly and sedately in her voluminous chemise-like garment, as though she were balancing her head on her shoulders and any rushed movement might cause her head to roll right off her neck. Her hands she held aloft like little fluttering ornaments.

"Today is the first day of these girls' rite of passage into womanhood," she said, as the girls followed the old ladies down into the Kiva. "Please, no men or children are to enter the well house until the water has dried from the paths." Her voice was quite arresting because it was high and sweet, belying her age with its youthful timber.

I nodded, and turned the water system back on. No wonder the man who was supposed to help me had not shown up. With only one person watering, the women would have twice as long for their rite. I began to fill the perforated buckets set in the outer garden ground. I had filled four of them when I realized two small faces were peering at me from the other side of the vegetation.

"Good morning!" I called.
The two boys giggled. I had used the wrong dialect. "Will you let us in?" they called.
"No," I said.
"Ah, come on."
"No."
"Look, we'll give you this." One of the boys held up a

soggy and bruised piece of fruit in his muddy little hand. "No thanks." I smiled at the bucket I was filling. "Hey, you little brats, get out of there!" It was the man

who was supposed to help me water. The two boys fled in terror.
"Soft wind," I said, this time using the correct salutation.
The man stared at me balefully. I had only met with him once before, but he gave me the creeps.
"They in there?" he jabbed his index finger towards the well
house.
I was glad I had the hose in my hands. "The women? Yes."
"I was told not to water today."
"They asked me not to let any children or men by." "I bet they did."
I remained silent. He continued to stare at me balefully. "Women's rites. They make me sick," he said.
"Men have theirs."
"Not like this."
"Yes--"
"Not till we're old, real old. We don't learn to combat the desert until we are old."
“Combat”; that word was alien to my Blue Dawn ears. Forest life does not "combat", it compliments. It balances.
"You wish to combat the desert?"
He clenched his hands into fists, "Yes!"
"Do women combat the desert?"
"No, they…they just walk into it."
"And the old men?"
"They can't walk, they just hobble."
"Old men and girls, do you see a--"
"You are trying to trick me. That is what old men and women always, always do! Anyone who has been out there! They laugh at me! You laugh at me! Well, I am going to listen to their rite! I am going to find out!"
He clambered through the garden towards the well house and me.
I raised the nozzle of the hose and put my thumb over the spout. The resulting forceful stream got him in the chest. He was furious and charged towards the door again. Frightened, I aimed the water at his face and called for help. He stopped advancing and ran away from the water, but again he lumbered towards the door. I blasted him in the face again, and screamed for help.
Two men appeared and grabbed him. The women, I saw, had rushed to the doorway of the well house.
"What is going on here?" demanded the older woman, her hands fluttering up to rest on the doorjamb. "Did he try to get in?"
The man began to scream obscenities.
"You two men," said the woman, "I leave him to you. He has tried to rob these girls of their womanhood. You men must decide what to do with him because you would have lost these girls as wives had he succeeded in invading their woman's rite."
The man gave one last attempt at a struggle. I gave him another blast of water. This subdued him, and the two men led him away.
Watching him go the woman said, "Sun blighted man, his mind has always shifted without reason, like the sands." She shook her head sadly, a minute movement which caused her gray hair to billow out.
"What will happen to him?" I asked.
"The Shaman will probably make medicine for him out of the moss that grows beside the Artesian well."
"That will cure him?"
"Yes, but if it doesn't, he will be exiled." With this, she and the group of girls disappeared into the well house.
I finished the watering, and changed back into my own clothing. Before leaving the gardens, I sat on a beach in the middle garden in order to let the two suns dry my hair. The pickers arrived and began their work. One young man, whose age I guessed to be about twenty-one years old (I still tended to think in years), brought me the basket of food that was my watering pay.
"Here is your basket," he said, "the men have decided you will be paid five meals instead of three for keeping the crazy man from destroying the girls' womanhood. One of the girls, Essillem, is my fiancée. I wouldn't have been able to marry her if you hadn't protected the mystery. I would like you to keep the basket also. I made the basket, and am free to give it to you instead of giving it to the town."
What was proper etiquette, I wondered. I decided a Blue Dawn Response would serve. "So honored even the leaves rustle with thanks."
"A Priestess! So, the Forests wish for our marriage. Now our parents will stop trying to prevent our wedding!" Seeing my confusion, the young man explained, "Our parents do not want us to marry, so they delayed Essillem's passage into womanhood for a pregnancy. Here in Oasis we believe the Forests send the Holy Ones to shade Imenkapur from the sand winds of destruction. Our parents' hot tempers will be buffeted by this news."
"What reason do they give for not wanting you to marry?"
"They say we are too young."
I cocked my head to the side. Most places that followed Forest rule had the custom of people marrying no younger than thirty pregnancies. The reason was to ensure that children would be reared by adults, not adolescents. "Perhaps they fear you will have a family right away."
"A family right away? Essillem and I do not want to have children for seven pregnancies at least. We are working to reclaim more of the desert so the town's borders can be extended. We do not believe anyone should have more children here until that is accomplished. The town simply can not maintain too many more people without expansion."
"You have said this to your parents?"
"Why no, actually. We assumed they knew it from the work we do."
I smiled, seeing that the fellow realized what he needed to do. He ran off, still in his white gardening clothes. I lugged the basket of just picked vegetables back to the single room I rented. I sat down on my bed and looked into the mirror above my tiled sink. In a few days, these girls who were going through the womanhood rite would be going out into the desert. The children and men were terrified of the desert, and yet the women and old men were not. What was going on?
Once, on one of my first days here, I had seen a solitary old man returning from the desert and climb through one of the small town wall doors. Several other old doddering fellows awaited him and poked and cackled at him good-naturedly. The few white hairs the old guy had were wind blown, and he had the light pink of a slight burn on his very long nose.
"Did you find the place?" a particularly stooped figure of wrinkles asked.
"I sure did," replied the old guy from the desert.
"Your son-in-law is having a fit," said another of the old geezers, who had hair growing out of his ears.
All the old men gasped and gasped in an effort to laugh heartily. A scrawny old gent with huge ears said, "He's terrified that new baby boy of his is going to roast to a crisp in the heat of the sun." Then the big-eared old man laughed so hard that he had a huge fit of coughing. The coughing ended with a loud rumble of sinuses, and then he spat a vast, wet, yellow wad into the sand.
"We'll distract him somehow when it's time for you to take the baby out to the desert to name it."
The old geezers all nodded, wiped the laughter from their eyes, and hobbled towards the well house. I thought this conversation very strange because from what I had heard, there was good reason to be afraid of the desert. The desert was said to be totally barren. Nothing at all was able to live there. The sun shone so intensely hot it would sizzle your skin. The lightest breeze would lace you with ripping sand. The sand would burn through your shoes, and its brightness would blind your eyes. Tumbleweeds would pursue you, and if they caught you, would cover your body in bloody punctures with their poisoned nettles.
I picked up the basket of food, carried it through the doorway, and down the hall to the kitchen the family I rented my room from let me share. I was going to find out for myself about this desert. As soon as I ate, I would go out there. About an hour later, I was threading my way through the narrow streets. Each house was surrounded by its sweet smelling garden, and on each roof grew green, gold, and red reeds. The people were a vital element in this desert ecosystem. Without the maintenance of the town wall and without the care for the town gardens and well house, this oasis would be covered in sand. I climbed up one of the staircases set in the town wall. At the apex of the stairs I stopped. The desert was spread out before me, ageless in its huge expanse. I carefully stepped down the stairs built into the outer side of the wall. The last step was onto the desert sand.
I walked far out. It was hot. The town looked the size of the eye in a needle. Now I doubted the intelligence of this venture; I listened for sand-bearing winds. Oddly, a cool breeze came. Encouraged I strolled not allowing frightening thoughts to disturb me. The sun's brilliance was less sharp. The sand felt soft. I took off my clumpy boots and socks. The sand was cool on my toes. The breeze wrapped and unwrapped the soft golden sand neatly around my ankles as I stepped. My prints formed a collage of my wandering path. Tumbleweeds scattered from the dunes, tinkling faintly like music boxes as they turned by me. The sun hung low, ripe, and full.
Ahead of me a mirage was forming. I had never seen one before. I wasn't close enough to make out what the mirage was. I hurried toward it, forgetful of how distant the town now was. The closer I drew to the mirage the more I felt incredulous of what I thought I was seeing. The mirage, completely detailed and shimmering like life in the melon air, was a human being---a young man. He was short, a bit shorter than I, with ringlets upon ringlets upon ringlets of very black hair. His eyes were huge, and set widely apart. The eyes, fringed with magnificently long black lashes, were so deeply brown they were almost black. The mouth, well shaped and well placed, was twisted in a teasing grin. He wore a pair of cutoffs and carried a guitar case. His chest was well muscled with just the right amount of sexy, black, curly hair.
In my astonishment at finding so realistic a mirage, I placed my hand on the mirage's hand. It was just a mirage. I was drawing my hand away when I realized the image of the hand was moving with mine. Was I feeling a set of fingers? To my amazement, the mirage's hand drew out into the air, followed by its arm. The foot lifted to take a step. The whole mirage seemed to shift, and I realized the man had stepped out of the mirage.
I stood with mouth agape as the young man set his guitar case in the sand with an operatic flourish. Then he proceeded to strut back and forth while bellowing in loud bass an aria. He turned and delivered, complete with operatic gestures, the final heartrending portion of the aria. He sang all of the words in the Opera Dialect backwards. My amazement suspended for a moment, I applauded his grand bow. Then I stared at him again. His legs were too short for his body, just enough to be funny without being ugly, and he was quite skinny. He stood with his head cocked to the side, his face serious, his eyes flashing with laughter, and every now and again his mouth twitched in its effort to suppress a grin.
"Hi, my name is," he pointed at himself and mouthed the syllables carefully, "Artoin." He nodded seriously at me.
I said to him, "I'm taking a walk, would you like to walk with me?"
Artoin nodded, "There are some things I could show you."
I gave him one of my warmest man-catching smiles. What was there to see besides sand? I laughed to myself.
As we walked, Artoin told me that he was learning acupressure, and how to tell a person's personality and health from their face.
"Everything in the face says something. The color of the eyes," he looked into my eyes very studiously, "their shape, the set of their face." He gently tapped the outer corner of my right eye. "Everything tells something. The nose, the lips..." His eyes slid down my nose to my lips.
I found myself gazing at his lips.
"The shape of the lips, their fullness, all of it, all of it tells."
I was flirting with a mirage! Ahead of us, I thought I saw
something tall against the horizon. "It's a tree!"
Artoin smiled, "Yes, you wouldn't expect one here in the middle of the desert, would you?"
"Is it a mirage?"
"It's as real as I am."
The tree was a very full, very lush weeping willow. Fitted like a sandal at the foot of the willow was a pool. I knelt and dipped my hands into the water. The water rippled in concentric circles, forming a mar in the otherwise perfect reflection of Artoin and myself. I looked at the willow, the pool, and Artoin. So, this was the secret of the desert.
"The pool always reflects perfectly whatever overlooks it," said Artoin. I looked at the lovely reflected image of the tree's light-green leaves. "How can the tree exist here in the middle of the desert?"
"The pool evaporates during day and the willow absorbs the moisture. At dusk, the pool is completely empty. Then the willow begins to weep, and the water falls back into the pool. At dawn, the pool is completely refilled so the pool is never stale, the willow never dry."
We sat in the shade of the lonely willow and ate some of its delicious bark. I had some berries in my pocket, and we ate those, too. The pool held our image clearly, except when we disturbed its tranquil surface to get a drink. Somehow, I didn't expect Artoin to have a reflection.
But
, I giggled to myself;
he's a mirage, not a vampire.
Dusk came, and the pool was a dark empty basin. We moved away from the tree so we wouldn't get wet. The night sky opened above us.
"What are you looking for in the sky?"
I had been looking intently up at the infinity above me for an edge of the Milky Way. That would be the closest I could ever hope to see of Earth. "My home," I answered.
"You are looking for an illusion. Why do that when you have a reality within your reach?" I turned over and went to sleep with Artoin's arm around my waist. Saemunsil rustled in my dreams.
The next morning the pool was full. We swam in it and ate some of the willow's bark.
"We're going to have to go back soon," Artoin called as he splashed.
"Go back?"
"When the sun reaches its zenith I have to step back into the mirage."
This was sudden news to me. It hadn't occurred to me he might become a mirage again. I stopped eating the bark I was chewing. My throat constricted. My eyes itched. Artoin came up to me, his comically skinny form dripping wet. He slipped his hands around my waist and gently kissed me.
"I've got to step into the heat waves and disappear, but I existed here in this world for awhile. I sang, I swam; I ate bark. All of this I did because you gave me this. You are my whole life. I love you. No one had said that to me in a very long time. I had feared I would never hear it again. I put my arms around his neck and burst into tears. He held me for a long while, occasionally rubbing at his eyes, but mostly tenderly rubbing my back and wiping the tears from my eyes with his broad thumbs. All of a sudden, I saw the sun was very high in the sky.
Frightened, I asked, "What happens if you don't make it back to the mirage in time?"
Artoin looked at the sun, and then at me, "I would burst into flame and burn until I became a sheaf of charred cinder."
"We'd better hurry then!"
We set off. The tree disappeared behind us. The town was nowhere in sight. At last we came to a place where the heat waves rippled like a stream in the air.
"This is it. Now listen to me," Artoin said earnestly grasping my arms firmly, "To get back to the town, keep the sun on your left, and the noon-star on your right."
"Sun left, noon-star right."
"Yes," Artoin nodded, "you must remember that; if you stray from the directions the dessert will become dangerous to you. As long as you keep the sun to the left and the noon-start to your right you will be under my protection and will be safe."
We looked at one another and then hugged.
"In seventy pregnancies, if you are still alive, come back to this spot if you can find it. That will be the next time, and the last time, I will have a chance to come to this world for you, but I will always love you." Artoin kissed me sweetly and stepped into the mirage, just as the sun reached its zenith. The mirage lingered a moment, Artoin's large black eyes glittering solemnly at me. He raised his hand in a mournful farewell, and then the mirage faded completely away.
"Artoin!" I rushed to where he had just been standing, but nothing except desert was there.
The sun was high, and the sand spread for miles around me. I placed the sun to my left,the noon-star to my right, and walked. Keeping the appropriate bearings of my celestial guides while I trudged along, I mulled over the happenings of my desert quest and what they must signify. I felt I had found the answers I sought concerning the mystery of the desert and its connection to the rite of womanhood. But whom did the old men free from a mirage? Maybe they found no one; maybe they simply found the Willow and the Pool and baptized their infant grandchildren in the magical water. These reflections served to ease the dreary length of my march.
As I walked, the town slowly took form before me. I stumbled over something half buried in the sand---it was my boots and socks. I shook the sand out of them and put them on. I was glad to have found them. The sand had been growing hotter and hotter, burning my feet. Boots laced, I got to my feet again and refocused my attention on the distant town. I walked steadily towards it. For a moment, the long adobe wall shimmered. Was it about to fade too? But no, I was resting my hand on the base of the staircase and looking up at the blue, rich sky. At the top of the wall, I looked out across the desert. The hot air shimmered; the sand lay gold and vast; the sun and the noon-star promised to set soon. I turned, and looked out over the town. I would leave again. To stay in the town would be to plague myself with the thought of Artoin. I clambered down the steps and moved towards the well house.
Old men in sagging, wrinkled clothes, smiled knowingly as though they could possibly share in my knowledge of the desert. Middle-aged and younger men, reaping their roof lawn reeds, weaving their mats, noticed, acknowledged, and feared the portend of my sunburnt nose and cheeks, hands and arms. I made my way to the well house. I took a bright red apple from the white floral design on a blue bowl. Earth, a large blue bowl with white floating across it like floral mists, was out of reach for me now. Who was I to be, and where was I to live in the numerous planets of Imenkapur?
The exuberant green growth of the well house gardens provided a stark contrast to the stretch of the pale yellow sands that had just surrounded me. I smelled what I expected, life, and the enticing aromas of food. Each and every mealtime food was available at the well house. The town believed the starvation of one meant the hunger of all and so food was available to anyone. I entered the Spring Room and helped myself to a huge portion of sweetreed bread, fresh vegetables, and pea soup. I sat down at a small poolside table.
Who was this entering though? He, too, helped himself at the community food table and surveyed the room for a table. He was old, but didn't wear the beard and long hair of the older men of this community. He wore the robe of the Blue Dawn, with a long purple belt about his waist. This was no Holy time. Had he been requested to give a blessing at the rite of womanhood? Maybe I should speak to him. I stood, gathered up my shyness and told it not to interfere, and walked over to the now seated old Blue Dawn Priest. His deep-cut crows feet stretched all the way down his cheeks to his jaw line. The quintuple creases of his brow extended, circuitous, round his face. Sharply chiseled lines connected his nose to his mouth, and his mouth was set off by a multitude of parenthetical lines. When his eyes looked about in observation or contemplation, and when his mouth moved in speech the effect was that of the rippling of lake water after a stone has been cast in it. Thick snow-white hair framed his face. His eyes glittered with vitality beneath white tufted eyebrows. His was the most beautiful and interesting face I had ever seen. He looked up at me and smiled sadly.
Encouraged, I said, "I, ah, I found a sister of Saemunsil standing alone in the desert. She remembered me to the Forest of my Dawn. Now, I return to town and find Saemunsil has another Friend riding these desert winds."
The Priest started, his eyes brimmed a moment at hearing the formal greeting. Then he smiled again. "A sister in the desert? Methinks thee rode the winds of a dream. I greet with pleasure the Friend from Elsewhere."
I broke into a light sweat. Had the whole experience been an illusion? What was the illusion he was referring to? Artoin? Earth? The Forests knew, of course, that I was from "Elsewhere" but They would never tell. The Forests knew what would happen to me if humans ever found out where I was from.
"Elsewhere?" I managed to squeak from my painfully tightened throat.
"If thou met the desert Willow, thou wert not in Imenkapur when the news was given. Thou wert elsewhere," replied the old man. He patted the seat next to him. I sat.
"Friend," I said, "only the town's women and old men know of the Willow. Today is no Holy day, and yet thou dost wear thy robe. The Blue Dawn members do not wear a belt with their robes, but thou dost. This belt of thine methinks I have seen but once before. What does it mean? What is this mention of news? Saemunsil rustled in my dreams last night, but news I remember not. Who art thou?"
"In life we speak..." since I wasn't wearing my robe, the old man was seeking to verify if I was of the Blue Dawn by looking for the completion of the Blue Dawn Responses.
"In death we listen."
"The tree of Divinity..."
"Sprouts fertile, as a beautiful bud, through us all."
"So wisdom is gained..."
By now, he was sure who I was, but he enjoyed reciting the passages, and I enjoyed replying. "And shared among us as from root to leaf and back again."
"Friend from Elsewhere, Member of the Blue Dawn, I am a Friend entwined in the Realm of Circle. The news is one of the entwined in the Realm of Circle has given pause to listen. During this time of ninety-nine, the Forests are soon to request a Member of the Blue Dawn to become entwined in the Realm of Circle. Thou art, therefore, to speak for Grace."
"I know nothing of the Realm of Circle, and therefore do not understand thy meaning," I said.
The white tufted eyebrows of the old Priest rose, "Surely thou hast heard stories of a Secret Sect possessing great magical powers?"
"No, I have not."
"I am surprised," mused the old man sadly, "many a child goes to sleep at night imagining himself a member of this most hallowed, most secret, and most powerful Sect. It is said that the one hundred members found within the Realm of Circle can transport a woman or man through the power of their minds without the need of any mechanical apparatus. It is said that those within the Realm of Circle speak with ease the Remembered Tongue and so can converse with the Forests Themselves. It is said that those within the Realm of Circle can heal with a touch, or fly through the air, or break the chains of bondage."
I smiled at the old Priest. "And none of these stories are true."
"On the contrary," said the old Priest, "they are all true."
"What is meant by the `time of ninety-nine'?" I asked. The old Priest drew a long breath, "Our number which should
stand at a complete one hundred, has fallen short by one. We needs must find our new member."
"So the `time of ninety-nine' means there are only ninety-nine of you," I commented.
"Ah, it is not so simple as that. Usually the one who leaves the Realm and the one who enters are well aware of the fact, and a simple ceremony is performed to bid farewell to the departing member and herald a welcome to the arriving in such a way that the Realm of Circle is not broken. No such ceremony has occurred. All unexpectedly, the Realm of Circle has been broken by the grievous loss of a priest. This abrupt disruption of the Realm means the continued health and harmony of Imenkapur may fall into disease and discord if the fullness of the Realm of Circle is not recast. Already the first malignant seeds are evident---the Toelakhan engages in the trade of human zitam, and the many worlds close their eyes to the fact of this slavery. Soon other forms of corruption will be over-looked, and then the body of human affairs will fall into a putrid decay."
I was intrigued that the priest would light upon a subject of personal importance to me. "Friend of my Dawn, surely the human zitam trade, vile though it be, is not so terribly important to the continued balance of Imenkapur. There are, after all, only seven of them and they must have ways of freeing themselves of their bondage."
The old Priest studied me, the deep gouged lines of his face expanding and contracting the ridges of his skin with the tenor of his thoughts, "Young priestess, human beings can not be made into playthings; thou dost know this. It makes it worse for those Listed as zitam that there are so few of them when the Toelakhan and their willing buyers are so many. How can these seven hope to truly escape? While they are listed as zitam, they will be hunted down if they flee, hunted down not just as run-away toys, but also as symbols of the wild the Toelakhan wishes to control and disrupt. The zitam trade is a symptom of a disassociation with the part of human existence that is Nature-Wise. These symptoms have a way of quickly escalating into a malignant blight upon humanity. The people of Imenkapur have suffered the ravages of this enough in the past. The Realm of Circle was cast to protect us all from its reoccurrence."
The old Priest offered me a slice of his bread and I accepted it.
I asked, "Thou art looking for members of the Blue Dawn to enter this Realm of Circle?"
"Yes."
"Why only the Blue Dawn? Why not the other Sects and Orders?"
"While all entwined within the Realm belong to the Blue Dawn Sect many within the Realm do also belong to other Sects or Orders. However, all are members of the Blue Dawn for the work of the Realm requires the psychic talents of those who have basked in the Blue Light of Saemunsil's teaching and do perceive the Divine Reality where past, present, and future are one."
I was pleased that I was at last learning what the Realm of Circle was. But I sensed that something bothered the old Priest. I hoped that by keeping him talking he would at some point say what his inner unhappiness was about, and by saying, be relieved. "Thou didst mention that I should speak for Grace; what didst thou mean?"
The old Priest swept his long, elegant fingers through his hair.
"Simply that if thou dost aspire to enter the Realm of Circle, thou must tell me of thy desire and what thou hast done to merit thy ambition. Also, thou must needs meditate upon thy desire to become entwined, and upon thy good works so that lpernia may consider granting thy desire."
I responded, "The Forests would not grant that I be entwined for I have made my living through theft. Such Grace cannot be bestowed on me. Thou hast been so kind to explain so many things to me of which I have been ignorant that I imagine the one lost to the Realm of Circle must have been likewise kind and patient. Methinks thou dost grieve for the one who hast so unexpectedly departed both thy Realm of Circle and the realm of the living."
The old Priest turned his face away, "Thou must needs speak for Grace. The Realm of Circle must be made complete again."
I felt the rustle of Saemunsil in my soul, like a gentle reminder of a covenant to be kept. I gently laid a hand on the old man's arm to comfort him. "I can not speak. Since I can not, I shall spend five days robed and silent in honor of the one who, in death, does listen." The old Priest turned back towards me and gripped my hand.
"The one who listens now was my grandchild. I have spoken to many Blue Dawn holy folk in this time of ninety-nine. All those to whom I have spoken are eager to put on their robes and speak for Grace. Thou art the first who is willing to wear a silent robe of compassion."