I know where you are, I whispered in my mind, since there might be listeners in the room. I don’t know how to get you out yet, but I’m working on it. Can you hear me?
But though I repeated my plea, and waited on my knees for nearly an hour, there was no answer.
I knew Madding was in that dark, sensationless place—the Empty—but I wasn’t sure where that was. For all I knew, only the Lights could open and close the way to it. Or perhaps only their scrivener-trained Nypri could. Figuring that out would be my next task.
The next morning I awoke at dawn, having slept fitfully on my cot. Already there was activity in the house. I could hear it through the door: people walking, brooms sweeping, casual chatter. I should have guessed that an organization of Itempans would start their day well before sunrise. More distantly, echoing through the corridors, I heard singing—the Lights’ wordless hymn, which was far more soothing and uplifting than the Lights themselves had turned out to be. Perhaps there was some sort of morning ceremony taking place. If that was the case, then it would be only a matter of time before they came for me. Trying to quell unease, I dressed in the clothes they’d given me, and waited.
Not long afterward, the lock on my room’s door opened and someone came in. “Jont?” I asked.
“No, it’s Hado again,” he said. My belly tightened, but I think I managed not to show my unease. There was something about this man that made me very uncomfortable. It was more than his participation in my kidnapping and forced assimilation into a cult; more than his veiled threat the night before. Sometimes I even thought I could see him, like a darker shadow etched against my vision. Mostly it was just the constant feeling, impossible to prove, that the face he showed me was just a veil, and behind it he was laughing at me.
“Sorry to disappoint you.” He had caught my unease, and predictably it seemed to amuse him. “Jont has cleaning duty in the mornings. Something you’ll become familiar with, too, eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“It’s traditional for a new initiate to be put on a work crew, but we’re still trying to figure out a placement that can accommodate your unique needs.”
I could not help bristling. “You mean that I’m blind? I can clean just fine, especially if you give me a walking stick.” Mine, to my lament, had been left behind on the street outside Madding’s house. I missed it like an old friend.
“No, Eru Shoth, I mean the fact that you’ll escape first chance you get.” I flinched, and he chuckled softly. “We don’t usually put guards on the work crews, but until we’re certain of your commitment to our way… Well, it would be foolish to leave you unsupervised.”
I drew in a deep breath, let it out. “I’m surprised you have no procedures for handling recruits like me, if kidnapping and coercion are your usual practice.”
“Believe it or not, most of our initiates are volunteers.” He moved past me, inspecting the room. I heard him pick up a candle holder from one of the wall sconces, perhaps noting that I’d blown out the candle early. I didn’t exactly need the light, and I’d never liked the idea of dying in my sleep from a fire. He continued. “We’ve done quite well at recruiting among certain groups—in particular, devout Itempan laity who are disaffected with the Order’s recent changes. I imagine we’ll do well in Nimaro when we start setting up a branch there.”
“Even in Nimaro, Master Hado, there are those who feel no need to worship Itempas in the same way as everyone else. No one forces them to do what they don’t want to.”
“Untrue,” he replied, which made me frown. “Before ten years ago, every mortal in the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms worshipped Itempas in the same way. Weekly offerings and services at a White Hall, monthly hours of service, lessons for children from three years to fifteen. Every holy day, all over the world, the same rituals were enacted and the same prayers chanted. Those who dissented…” He paused and turned to me, still radiating that cool amusement that I so hated about him. “Well. You tell me what happened to them, Lady. If there were so many dissenters in your land.”
I said nothing, in consternation, because it was a pointed dig at me: a Maroneh who had fled Nimaro first chance. Worse, he was right. My own father had loathed the White Halls and the rituals and the rigid adherence to tradition. Long ago, he’d told me, the Maroneh had had their own customs for worshipping Bright Itempas—special poetic forms and a holy book and priests who had been warrior-historians, not overseers. We’d even had our own language back then. All that changed when the Arameri came to power.
“You see,” said Hado. He could read my face like a book, and I hated him for it. “Itempas values order, not choice. That said”—he came over and took my hand, coaxing me up and letting me take his arm to be guided—“obviously it would be impractical to recruit many like you. We wouldn’t have done it if you weren’t so important to our cause.”
That didn’t sound good. “What exactly does that mean?”
“That instead of following the usual process of initiation, you will spend today with Lady Serymn and tomorrow with the Nypri. They’ll decide how best to proceed from there.” He patted my hand again, reminding me of his ungentle pats from the night before. Yes, this, too, was a warning. If I did not somehow please the Lights’ leaders, what would happen? Without even knowing why they wanted me, I could not guess. I ground my teeth, angry—but in truth, I was more afraid than angry. These people were powerful and mad, and that was never a good combination.
Hado walked me out of my room and began guiding me through the corridors, moving at an unhurried pace. I counted my steps for as long as I could, but there were too many twists and turns in the House of the Risen Sun; I kept losing count. The corridors here were all slightly curved, perhaps some function of building a house partially wrapped around a tree trunk. And because the House’s builders had been unable to extend the structure far from the trunk—I was no architect, but even I could see the folly in that—the House had been built narrow and high, with multiple levels and stair-connected sections, giving the whole place an oddly disjointed feel. Hardly a monument to the Bright Lord’s love of order.
Then again, perhaps this, too, was a disguise, like the New Lights’ carefully cultivated appearance of harmlessness. The Order of Itempas saw them as just another heretic cult. Would they feel the same if they knew this heretic cult had power enough to challenge the gods?
Hado said nothing while we walked, and neither did I in my preoccupation. I gauged his silence, trying to decide how much I dared ask. Finally I braved it. “Do you know what those… holes… are?”
“Holes?”
“The magic that was used to bring me here.” I shivered. “The Empty.”
“Ah, that. I don’t know, not exactly, but the Nypri was ranked Scrivener Honor Class within the Order of Itempas. That’s their highest designation.” He shrugged, jostling my hand on his arm. “I’m told he was even a candidate to become First Scrivener to the Arameri, though, of course, that ended when he defected from the Order.”
I let out a laugh in spite of myself. “So he married an Arameri fullblood and started his own religion to remind himself of what he almost had?”
Hado chuckled, too. “Not exactly, but I understand that mutual dissatisfaction is a factor in their collaboration. I imagine it isn’t a far step from mutual goals to mutual respect, and from there to love.”