Emmis hesitated, then said, "I think you'd better consult the goddess."
Corinal scribbled another few words, then looked up from the book. "And what else did you want to ask me? If anything else is in Unniel's bailiwick, I might as well ask her everything at once."
"You can do that?"
"Of course!"
Emmis glanced at Ahan. "I had several other questions, actually, but I don't think any of them have anything to do with theurgy or sorcery."
Corinal also cast a glance at the guardsman, then grinned, his thinning beard seeming to spread itself wider as he did. "Would you like to drive Lord Ildirin mad with curiosity, then?"
"What?"
The theurgist turned the book to face Emmis, then handed him the quill. "Write your questions here," he said. "I'll sort them out and give you a price, and you won't need to say a word this fine soldier will hear."
Emmis looked from Corinal to Ahan.
"I won't stop you," Ahan said. "And I won't try to read it, because I can't read very well. But I'll tell Lord Ildirin about this, and he may not like it."
"Well, we'll have all the questions written down for him, won't we?" Corinal said. "He can come and pay me for them. Not for the answers, of course – you know the rules about customer privacy."
"I'll tell him some of the answers myself, if he wants them," Emmis said. "I want to know who the assassins I fought were, and where we can find them, and where the three Lumethan spies are…"
Corinal held up a hand. "Write it down!" he said. "Write it all down."
Emmis lifted the quill and looked at Ahan, who turned up an empty palm. "I won't stop you," he repeated.
Emmis nodded, dipped the quill in the ink, and began writing.
The list took a surprisingly long time. As soon as he had finished one question, he thought of another, and another.
After a few moments of watching his customer scribble, Corinal had picked up The Pursuit of the Shatra and resumed his interrupted reading.
Ahan simply sat and waited, and in his meditative silence looked more like a theurgist than did Corinal.
Chapter Seventeen
There was a sudden feeling of pressure, as if the air itself had become heavier; Emmis's ears ached. A golden light appeared in the crack beneath the door to the theurgist's inner chamber.
"It would seem the spell worked," Ahan remarked, startling Emmis. The guardsman was not in the habit of speaking unnecessarily, but he had volunteered this comment without any prompting at all.
"Not necessarily," Emmis said. "He made something happen, but it might not be the god he wanted."
"True." Ahan nodded.
Emmis could not think of anything more to say, so the two fell silent again, and sat waiting in Corinal's parlor – or rather, Emmis sat, and Ahan stood.
The strange pressure in the air persisted, as did the glow, though odd shadows sometimes moved in the golden light. Emmis was not sure whether he could hear faint voices through the door, or whether he was imagining it; he certainly couldn't make out any words. He was tempted to get up and put an ear to the closed door, but Ahan's presence deterred him, and the knowledge that there was probably a god or goddess on the other side, and that the deity would know he was there, was downright intimidating. From what little Emmis knew of the attitudes of the gods he didn't think the god would mind, but there was still something disturbing about the idea.
He and Corinal had, after some dickering, settled on five silver bits for any answers Unniel could provide to the long list of questions Emmis had written, regardless of how many that might be, so long as it was three or more. Two questions would cost four bits, and one would be just the three he had paid in advance.
Emmis would then have the option of paying Corinal to invoke another god to answer questions Unniel could not, and Corinal had therefore appended a final question to the list: "Which gods or goddesses may best be able to answer any of the questions above that you have not answered fully?"
Any other invocation would cost more; Emmis fully understood that. He patted the purse Lar had given him; he had quietly counted its contents while Corinal had been preparing to invoke Unniel, and knew that it held three rounds of gold. That ought to be enough for almost any god in the pantheon.
And they might need almost any god in the pantheon; Emmis had let himself be carried away by the opportunity, and had asked questions about assassins, Annis, Hagai, Neyam, Morkai, the Empire of Vond, Vond the Warlock, Lar, Lumeth of the Towers, Ashthasa, warlockry, warlocks, Lord Ildirin, Azradelle the Tomboy, Gita, his luggage, swords, cookery, kitchen supplies – he had never consulted a theurgist before and might never have the chance to consult one again, so he had gone a little overboard.
He wondered what Corinal thought of some of those questions; Emmis wondered just how much of a fool he had made of himself. He stared at the closed door, trying to imagine what was on the other side. What did Unniel look like? The traditional idols always showed goddesses as beautiful women, usually tall and thin and inhumanly perfect, but otherwise human in appearance. Was that right, though? He had heard that it was not, that goddesses were hard to look at, hard to see clearly; they were somehow both there and not there at the same time. The painters and sculptors had no way to represent them accurately, so they did their best to depict what they could see.
If he flung open that door, what would he see? A tall, glowing woman, or something else entirely? Why did the gods never appear in public? Why did theurgists work behind closed doors?
He should have put those questions on the list, he decided, with a wry grimace.
He realized, suddenly, that he did not know how long he had been staring at the closed door; something strange had happened to his sense of time. He turned and glanced at the curtained windows, and saw that no daylight was visible through them.
The voices he hadn't been sure he was hearing had stopped, and the pressure in the air was lessening; his ears were ringing.
Then the golden glow vanished, and he heard footsteps. He rose from his seat.
The door opened to reveal Corinal silhouetted in perfectly ordinary lamplight. He stepped out into the parlor, smiling wearily. A trickle of blood was seeping from one nostril into his beard; he held the book where Emmis had written his questions in one hand, and a sheaf of paper or parchment in the other.
"Well, that was interesting!" he said, a little too loudly. "I have never before had Unniel's company for so long. She found your list of questions rather challenging, I think." His voice cracked a little on the final phrase.
"Are you all right?" Emmis asked, suddenly concerned for the old man.
"Oh, I'll be fine," Corinal said, waving him away. "Let us just say that the presence of the divine can be wearing on us mere mortals."
Suddenly feeling guilty that he had apparently endangered the theurgist's health, and perhaps his life, for a few bits in silver, Emmis said, "Is there anything I can do for you?"
"You can step aside and let me sit down, my boy. I've been chatting with Unniel for fifty-odd years now, ever since I was an apprentice; I've nothing to fear from her." He grimaced. "However, I normally only speak with her for a few minutes at a time, no more than a quarter of an hour, while you, sir, with your infernal list, kept her occupied and in my study for half the afternoon."
"I'm sorry…"
"Don't be," Corinal interrupted, as he settled onto a chair. "It was most instructive!" He dropped the book on a table and lifted his sheaf of paper. "Let me tell you some of what she said, though I won't promise this is in any particular order."