Joesai was awed when he watched “uncle” o’Tghalie take measurements and transform the numbers by elaborate computation during a mere pause and holding of the breath. But uncle was not a man who rested happy with mysteries, and one cloudy night he showed Joesai how to “throw the bones”, a system he had devised so that a non-mathematician might calculate with reasonable accuracy. It was based on the weird principle that multiplications could magically be transformed into additions and back again. Joesai was so delighted by this trick that one morning he brought the bones with him and set them up behind Teenae’s head so that she wouldn’t see what he was doing. He had her give him multiplications to perform which he was able to do correctly, to her amazement.
Joesai learned some facts about astronomy that he had never known before. Once he was speculating with Teenae’s uncle about a philosophical point Oelita had made in a pamphlet. God behaved like a stone. Joesai was convinced that, since God wasn’t a stone, there should be some way of pointing up the difference.
Uncle brightened perceptibly and dragged Joesai down to the library to pore over soiled books of calculations. God’s orbit was indeed predictable to a high degree of accuracy, but there had been two anomalies. The orbit had changed twice with no known cause since it had been under observation. No other celestial objects ever did that.
Joesai remembered Oelita’s crystal and what Teenae had said about it. He was sure that it was only a piece of glass, but what if it really was one of Kathein’s crystals? The enigma of the Silent God was the most fascinating of Geta’s puzzles and it might well be worth a major effort to look into this piece of the riddle. He hadn’t thought about Oelita for a while. He had been preoccupied with the astonishing revelation of Mnankrei intentions the night of the silo firebombing. He was now planning a probe into northern waters. But perhaps while the men took the ship north, he could make a quick return expedition to the south and find out more about that crystal.
He rounded up two little o’Tghalie girls who were pestering their mothers at the paper mill and took them out so that they might show him the source of the mill’s clay. That became a pleasant high day spent molding clay models of the houses around Oelita’s residence from memory and telling tales to his wide-eyed companions.
Oelita’s house, he recalled, was perched on a hill with an easily defended back and no access to the front at all, or so it seemed — except to a man like Joesai, to whom the scaling of sheer stone walls was a minor climbing trick that required only a hammer and iron-reed spikes. He could station two spies with flags on two select rooftops and break in with a very low probability of discovery. Teenae he had already quizzed in detail about the interior. She knew exactly where the crystal was kept. The foray into Sorrow should be a quick in-and-out affair. After his disasters there, he wasn’t really willing to linger.
Simultaneously he planned a cautious reconnaissance up north while his two tiny o’Tghalie counselors climbed his shoulders and pulled at his ears and hair with clay-slick hands.
“I’ll feed you to the Mnankrei,” he said nasally as one of the girls pinched his nose and held on.
“I’ll stew you in ca-ca!” retorted the girl while the other giggled.
Joesai rose to his full height and tucked the girls under his arms. “Off to the sea we go.”
“Why the sea? I’m hungry.”
“The sea is where the cannibal sea priests are! They’re hungry!”
The girls began to squeal and wriggle, but he got them to the rocky ledge where swimmers went, tossed them into the water and gave them a bath so he wouldn’t have to return them to their mothers full of clay. “Let me show you my little sailboat.”
He had acquired a swift three-man vessel for the trip south, and so the larger ship would go north under the command of Raimin. Later they would reunite for a more daring raid against the Mnankrei. Joesai was anxious to bring back to Teenae her pair of boots but was wary of pitting his sailing skills against those of a seasoned Mnankrei priest. He watched the naked girls play in the tiny vessel. He was not yet sure of a strategy. Sinking wheat-laden boats headed south was appealing, but such a tactic was a double-bladed dagger since it meant starvation for those who did not receive the wheat. Judgmental errors of that magnitude tended to annoy Aesoe. How would Aesoe think? He would steal the wheat and reship it. Joesai laughed.
“Come along,” he said to his two clean girls.
“Catch us!”
A sudden storm nearly wrecked his too-small vessel on its way to Sorrow, delaying them a full day and smashing three of Eiemeni’s ribs. A much-sobered Joesai debarked for his brief mission. He wore a faint makeup that emphasized unnatural lines in his facial cicatrice so that recognition would be more difficult, but there was little chance of discovery in their covert route to Oelita’s residence. Strangely they found only one man guarding her place, at the rear. Breaking in via the frontal wall was easier than expected.
A quick search showed that much rearrangement had occurred since Teenae had been here. The crystal was gone. Nor was there time for a destructive search. Joesai had no intention of alerting the outside guard, and so when his flagmen signaled the all clear, he retreated down the wall leaving his iron-reed spikes in place.
The three men regrouped in the street, moving not as fast as they might have because of Eiemeni’s ribs. Stormwinds were still lashing them but they preferred the miserable weather because the clouds and rain and fog shrouded them and gave them an excuse to hide their faces behind wraps. Few villagers were abroad.
“We’ll have to find out where she is.”
“That’ll be days. We aren’t equipped.”
“She’s probably not in town or her place would be better guarded.”
“I’ll find out.” Joesai was thinking of several inns where he might pick up some information but one with a small wheat stalk carved into its door struck him as ideal. He reconnoitered the streets for the best escape paths, and entered, dripping, holding his cloak close about him. He ordered a hot mead and when it came spoke casually to the barkeep. “Any more news of Oelita?”
“She’s still in the tower.” The voice caught. It was upset.
Joesai allowed himself a quick sip of mead while he digested that. The Stgal had picked her up. They would kill her. Incredible. “A rough place to be,” he muttered.
By the time he was out on the street again, he had decided what they would do. He looked at Rae and Eiemeni. “Rae, you’re the strongest. Get back to that God’s bane of a boat of ours and bring the spy’s-eye. Eiemeni, I want you to lay out a path from the Temple tower that just fades into the town. Take your time. Learn every stone. I’ll have to go to the Temple for some information. We’ll meet at Five Cross, or if that gets too prickly, the Eighth Marker at the waterfront. I’ll try to be back by the third highnode of God. If I’m not, wait for highnode of the next Orbit.”
The Temple was lightly attended. Joesai had his choice of courtesans. He picked a small girl he knew was new to town, a pretty Nolar girl, probably a runaway. He asked for a quiet game of kol in one of the more expensive booths. Privacy was important after that silo-bombing fiasco. The girl played a creditable game. She was eager to please and he began a conversation with her, slowly.
Part of him was not comfortable trying to charm information out of such a lovely youth, but another part of him was long used to inducing people to tell him what he wanted to know. The secret was to start them talking about what interested them, then get their speech level up to a chatter and listen.