But he never really felt worthy of the title. He missed Pelmen and longed to see him again. The longing to be near his absent friend had caused him to choose this cell tfor his private residence.
Here they had spent their most fruitful hours together when he, Rosha, and Bronwynn had been imprisoned with Pelmen by the command of the Priestess, Serphimera. As they’d awaited Pelmen’s certain execution, the real Prophet had taught him to read the weird runes in which the ancient book had been written. it. The ancient book! It sat on a simple table near the small, j?v barred window. The sun streamed in upon it, throwing the: table’s shadow on the straw-covered floor. The day was cloudy and, as the clouds passed overhead, the light around the table seemed to dim, then brighten, then dim again.
“My faith is like that,” Erri murmured honestly. For though he was now the most respected religious leader in Lamath, there were times when the Power seemed very remote. He had learned to tolerate silence from the Power. He hadn’t learned to tolerate faithlessness from himself.
He roused himself out of his ruminations and looked at the cluttered desk before him. This and the table of the book were the only additions he had made to the cell and they were its only furnishings.
The desk was a necessary addition, for it seemed these days his life was filled with paperwork sending and receiving messages from the vizier of the King, answering requests for sky faith initiates to come educate new masses of the population, appointing supervisors of new work, authorizing the destruction of dragon statues all coming or going on paper. Sometimes his old sailor’s tongue grew exceptionally salty as he reviled the absent Pelmen for sticking him with this responsibility. But he usually meant it all in good-natured aggravation, for Pelmen had been right about Erri’s gifts. Erri had spent his life on the sea, but in his heart he had ever been a man of letters. It irked him, though, that he had to spend so much time writing, and so little reading! From where he sat, his sharp eyes could see the dust settling on the book’s ornate cover!
He was also a man of action. He’d been first mate too long to shirk a duty when he saw one. He’d quickly learned that the King was as dependable as any of the host of captains he’d served under that is, not very. He had met the King only once, when he returned from Dragonsgate with the news of Vicia-Heinox’ death, and he remembered that the man had trembled throughout the interview. The vizier had explained later that Erri was the first person the King had seen in over three years. It seemed the man was scared to death of people.
Asher, the Chieftain of Defense, had run the country in the King’s place. But Asher had been killed by the dragon. Erri had seen the need and accepted the responsibility. All of Lamath had been turned upside down in the turmoil. Erri set about righting it again.
One of the first orders of business had been the smashing of the dragon statues. He’d marched from one end of Lamath to the other, leading a troop of idol-smashers who destroyed every symbol of the old Dragonfaith that they could find. His light blue robe, the color of the sky, had caused Lamathians to term this reformation movement the sky faith Erri agreed to the term, so long as it was made dear that he and the others clad in sky blue did not worship the sky, as those of the earlier religion had worshiped the dragon.
This destruction was not accomplished without incident. There were occasional clashes between skyfaithers and those of the old order followers of Serphimera, who signaled their allegiance with dark blue gowns. Erri was hard pressed to prevent bloodshed at one point he’d only stopped it by clubbing his own people over the head with the book.
His gracious treatment of those who held other views seemed to contradict his image as a statue-smasher, but soon it began to dominate Lamath’s conversation about him.
Erri sighed and looked over at the door. Though his love and tolerance had carried the day at last, he hadn’t prevented the disappearance of Serphimera. That woman had traveled through the land as quickly as he had, rallying the surviving unionists with a new theology. He’d heard it everywhere. “The dragon is us! We are the dragon!” What it meant, exactly, he couldn’t fathom. He hoped Pelmen would pop back around sometime soon to fill him in.
But mostly he hoped Serpbimera would be found. Though he’d tried, Erri couldn’t be everywhere at once. Though he’d beaten his sky-clad followers off one day, he’d been somewhere else the next, and religionists of both light and dark hues had clashed and wrestled and bled. The tales of intolerance made. him weep. The stories of persecutions made him rage. In the name of the Power, people had killed people, and Erri learned during long, bitter nights of mourning that he couldn’t reform a nation in a moment. By the time the dust had settled, Serphimera had disappeared. Murdered, he wondered? Imprisoned in the basement of some so-called believer? Erri sighed.
He heard a flutter of wings at the window, and glanced up in time to see a blue blur dart into his cell and settle onto the cover of the book. “Here now! You can’t do that!” he shouted, pointed toward the bird, and it obligingly left the book and shot over to perch on his extended finger, Well. I guess that means you’re for me.” Erri raised his finger and peered under the creature, looking for a message on the flyer’s legs. “Where’s your letter? Did you lose it?” The bird just looked at him, and Erri shook his head. “Probably wasn’t properly tied on. Go on with you,” he ordered, and he tossed the bird toward the window. The blue-flyer circled the cell, and came back to land on Erri’s shoulder. “I said, go on” the former sailor growled, and he pulled the little bird off its perch and marched to the window. He tossed it out the bars, and returned to his stack of work. A moment later it was back again, settling comfortably onto his head. “What’s your problem, bird?” Erri roared, and he started to grab the flyer again. Then it registered. “Oh!” he nodded. “You’re from Pelmen!”
He let the creature maintain its perch in his graying locks and concentrated, trying to read the thoughts Pelmen had placed in its little mind. He cleared all other concerns away, and waited…
It took only a moment for the flyer to rid itself of its mental burden.
Its mind erased, it swooped out the window, seeking some seeds and some sleep. It left a perplexed Prophet in its wake.
Erri thought for only a moment, then he sprinted for his door, hurled it open, and shouted, “Send me Naquin!”
Then he walked back to the book, and fingered its ornate covering. He said nothing he was trying to cull the salt out of his speech but his thoughts were dark and angry. The picture of Rosha, bound and hooded, infuriated him, and the mention of Serphimera deepened his fears. He tilted his head back to glance at the beams of light that illuminated the dancing dust. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he muttered. The book felt reassuring under his palm.
“Prophet?” someone called from the door.
“Come in, my friend.” A gaunt skyfaither entered the room, and stood humbly before him. “Don’t do that,” Erri said, waving his arms toward the piles of straw. “Drop on the straw, sit on the floor, but don’t stand there looking at me so formally.” As be watched the initiate find a seat, Erri chuckled and added, “If I’d wanted formality, Naquin, I would have moved into your place to begin with.”
Naquin smiled piously. “You would have found it terribly boring, I did.”
“That’s why you took to the drinking?”