To silence his growing disquiet about the man he'd grown to idolize, and to appease the gods he'd grown to revere, Hederick doubled his efforts to ferret out blas shy;phemy. He'd become experienced in entering houses without making a sound. Since the deaths of Kel'ta and the Synds, some Garlunders had developed the caution of locking their doors at night. But Hederick was small enough to wriggle through windows and openings that they never thought to block.
He mixed the macaba poison with ordinary basil or lemonwort stores. The stuff was nearly tasteless. The afflicted sinner would not detect it until it was too late, when he or she would suddenly go into violent paroxysms that allowed only a moment's conscious thought, spent most often on a desperate denial of death. Just a small amount of macaba would kill a victim, and the poison extinguished life so quickly that the sinner had no time to voice alarm.
It was perfect.
Four more people died that week. The villagers laid the blame on the witch, unseen since her arrival nearly a week before. For the moment, though, they feared her too much to assault her sanctuary.
Hederick continued his campaign of righteousness every night, sleeping only a few hours before each dawn. During the day, with Tarscenian, he studied Seeker creed and old Seeker parchments such as the Praxis. Each day thus found him newly aware of some fresh sin that the New Gods had as much as ordered him to stamp out. The villagers blithely violated divine laws-laws-as though they were mere suggestions on the part of jovial, indul shy;gent gods.
Hederick asserted as much to Tarscenian one day. "Look at Frideline Bacque," the boy said. "Just yesterday I saw her mix up a paste of oatmeal, commeal, and milk and apply it to her face to lighten her freckles. This she does although the Praxis, right here, declares bodily van shy;ity a sin."
He waited for the priest to leap to his feet and rush to confront the village woman, but Tarscenian only shrugged. "Hederick, she's nearly forty. She's only trying to win the heart of Peren Volen. If it's a sin, it's a harmless one. Anyway, I doubt Frideline has even heard of this par shy;ticular passage in the Praxis. Few in this village can read, and I've not gotten to that passage yet in evening devo shy;tions."
"That's an excuse?" Hederick raised his voice. "She's violating Seeker law! And isn't Peren Volen also to be chastised for enjoying the lengths to which Frideline goes to draw his attention? The whole village is laughing about it. Isn't every holy rule important? And what is a 'harmless sin,' anyway, Tarscenian?" Hederick was so overwrought that he had to pause for breath. His reddish brown hair was damp with sweat.
The skin beneath the priest's eyes was translucent and creased, his eyes bloodshot. Tarscenian sighed and took a sip of the mead that had been his near-constant compan shy;ion since Ancilla had arrived.
"Hederick," the Seeker priest said sadly, "it occurs to me that all the words of the Praxis cannot be equally important-or equally true. The document is hundreds of years old, lad. It's been copied many times by clerics of varying skill. How easy it would be for errors or miscon shy;ceptions to creep in!"
"Errors? In the Praxis?" Hederick's voice cracked. "You dare say that?"
Tarscenian's eyelids drooped. "I'm tired, lad. You always were one for rattling on unabated. Leave me."
Hederick pressed on, pulse racing. "But how could the New Gods permit errors to form in the Praxis, Tarscenian? Are you saying the gods are fallible? If the Seeker gods don't guard each word of their holy parchments, how am I, a beginner, to know if a particular phrase is correct or not? You must be wrong."
Hederick sat bolt upright and reached for the priest's sleeve. "Is this a trial of my faith? You're testing me, aren't you?" Hederick gazed hopefully at Tarscenian. It would be just like the priest to see how angry he could make Hederick, to measure his devotion to the Seekers. Heder shy;ick waited for Tarscenian to grin and slap him on the back.
But the priest only drained the rest of his mug.
"Tarscenian?"
"Leave me!" The priest refilled his mug, splashing mead on the rug. Tarscenian ignored the stain, although Seeker law clearly declared that one should maintain dis shy;cipline in one's surroundings as strictly as in one's thoughts and emotions.
"The Praxis advises caution in the use of spirits," Hederick remonstrated.
"That's for those of lesser standing," Tarscenian snapped. "The Praxis also orders us not to wear certain types of wool in certain seasons, which strikes me as something the New Gods, if they ever existed, shouldn't be wasting their precious time worrying about."
"If the New Gods existed-?" Hederick's heart pounded until he thought he'd expire on the spot.
Tarscenian drained the mug nonchalantly. "Take the damned parchment and go elsewhere to study it, lad. Your yammering is giving me a headache of ogrelike pro shy;portions." He limped to a chair and slumped into it, his back to Hederick, facing the wall.
Feeling betrayed and hurt, Hederick blindly did as ordered. He spent the rest of the day behind the paddock, huddled over the parchment. He examined each word, seeking holy guidance, wanting any error to be his, not Tarscenian's. So deeply was he absorbed in his studies, he even ignored the call to supper.
Hederick found the passage about the wearing of wool, and rejoiced that the New Gods cared about each small detail of their devotees' lives. He reviewed the parts about glorification of the body over the mind, and concluded that Frideline and Peren-and most of the occupants of Garlund-had committed far more sins than he'd previ shy;ously thought. He had great work before him.
Hederick probed the centuries-old, hand-lettered words of the Praxis until they swam before his eyes. Finally, just as the setting sun withdrew the last bit of light, he found a passage that both inspired and fright shy;ened him.
Allow not a caster of spells to live, the Praxis read. Magic corrupts and infects. Magic derives from the old, betrayer gods. Magic defiles even the most faithful, if suffered to continue. Magic, and belief in its use, is evil. Those who seek the New Gods have no need for magic.
Tarscenian had been different since Ancilla had arrived,
the boy thought as he remembered the priest's heavy drinking and irreverent words. Had Hederick's sister enchanted him from the very first? Hadn't she lured the priest, that first day, into using spellcasting, in the show of the dragon and human figurines? And didn't the witch hover like a rapacious bird within sight of Garlund even now? She'd spent ten years studying the arts of magic, ten years that should have been spent caring for him!
As though the thought came directly from Omalthea, Hederick suddenly knew where Tarscenian was spending his nights. Ancilla had tainted the priest. That meant Hed shy;erick was now the only true believer in a town of sinners. But what to do? Hederick vowed to pray until his gods sent him a sign of what course to take next.
And they did. A wondrous, holy, terrible sign.
* * * * *
It was past midnight in Garlund. For hours Hederick had been secreted in the grass on the prairie west of the village, praying to the New Gods and staring at the red moon until he could see it with his eyes closed.
At first he'd been conscious of every night whisper of the greenery around him. Prairie spiders, while only the size of his fist, built webs so strong and sticky that crea shy;tures as large as a dwarf had little chance of escape. Southlund ticks, while only the size of his thumb, could drain the blood from a grown deer in half a day, and they were fearfully difficult to dislodge. Earth elementals, dis shy;guised as hummocks, had been known to burst through the prairie soil and engulf whatever lay on the surface.