“It’s this strange weather,” he told himself repeatedly. “Too hot for the beginning of Yule season.”
It was too hot, strangely hot. And the air was thick with moisture, heavy and oppressive. The fresh breezes had seemingly been swallowed up by the heat. One hundred miles away at Kathay, so he had heard, the ocean lay flat and calm beneath the fiery sun, so calm that no ships could sail. They sat in the harbor, their captains cursing, their cargo rotting.
Mopping his forehead, Denubis tried to continue working diligently, translating the Disks of Mishakal into Solamnic. But his mind wandered. The words made him think of a tale he had heard some Solamnic knights discussing last night—a gruesome tale that Denubis kept trying to banish from his mind.
A knight named Soth had seduced a young elven cleric and then married her, bringing her home to his castle at Dargaard Keep as his bride. But this Soth had already been married, so the knights said, and there was more than one reason to believe that his first wife had met a most foul end.
The knights had sent a delegation to arrest Soth and hold him for trial, but Dargaard Keep, it was said, was now an armed fortress—Soth’s own loyal knights defending their lord. What made it particularly haunting was that the elven woman the lord had deceived remained with him, steadfast in her love and loyalty to the man, even though his guilt had been proven.
Denubis shuddered and tried to banish the thought. There! He made an error. This was hopeless! He started to lay the quill down again, then heard the door to the copying room opening. Hastily, he lifted the quill pen and began to write rapidly.
“Denubis,” said a soft, hesitant voice.
The cleric looked up. “Crysania, my dear,” he said, with a smile.
“Am I disturbing your work? I can come back—”
“No, no,” Denubis assured her. “I am glad to see you. Very glad.” This was quite true. Crysania had a way of making him feel calm and tranquil. Even his headache seemed to lessen. Leaving his high-backed writing stool, he found a chair for her and one for himself, then sat down near her, wondering why she had come.
As if in answer, Crysania looked around the still, peaceful room and smiled. “I like it here,” she said. “It’s so quiet and, well, private.” Her smile faded. “I sometimes get tired of... of so many people,” she said, her gaze going to the door that led to the main part of the Temple.
“Yes, it is quiet,” Denubis said. “Now, at any rate. It wasn’t so, in past years. When I first came, it was filled with scribes, translating the words of the gods into languages so that everyone could read them. But the Kingpriest didn’t think that was necessary and—one by one—they all left, finding more important things to do. Except me.” He sighed. “I guess I’m too old,” he added gently, apologetically. “I tried to think of something important to do, and I couldn’t. So I stayed here. No one seemed to mind... very much.”
He couldn’t help frowning slightly, remembering those long talks with Revered Son, Quarath, prodding and poking at him to make something of himself. Eventually, the higher cleric gave up, telling Denubis he was hopeless. So Denubis had returned to his work, sitting day after day in peaceful solitude, translating the scrolls and the books and sending them off to Solamnia where they sat, unread, in some great library.
“But, enough about me,” he added, seeing Crysania’s wan face. “What is the matter, my dear? Are you not feeling well? Forgive me, but I couldn’t help but notice, these past few weeks, how unhappy you’ve seemed.”
Crysania stared down at her hands in silence, then glanced back up at the cleric. “Denubis,” she began hesitantly, “do... do you think the church is... what it should be?”
That wasn’t at all what he had expected. She had more the look of a young girl deceived by a lover. “Why, of course, my dear,” Denubis said in some confusion.
“Really?” Lifting her gaze, she looked into his eyes with an intent stare that made Denubis pause. “You have been with the church for a long time, before the coming of the Kingpriest and Quar—his ministers. You talk about the old days. You have seen it change. Is it better?”
Denubis opened his mouth to say, certainly, yes, it was better. How could it be otherwise with such a good and holy man as the Kingpriest at its head? But Lady Crysania’s gray eyes were staring straight into his soul, he realized suddenly, feeling their searching, seeking gaze bringing light to all the dark corners where he had been hiding things—he knew—for years. He was reminded, uncomfortably, of Fistandantilus.
“I—well—of course—it’s just—” He was babbling and he knew it. Flushing, he fell silent. Crysania nodded gravely, as if she had expected the answer.
“No, it is better,” he said firmly, not wanting to see her young faith bruised, as his had been. Taking her hand, he leaned forward. “I’m just a middle-aged old man, my dear. And middle-aged old men don’t like change. That’s all. To us, everything was better in the old days. Why”—he chuckled—“even the water tasted better, it seems. I’m not used to modern ways. It’s hard for me to understand. The church is doing a world of good, my dear. It’s bringing order to the land and structure to society—”
“Whether society wants it or not,” Crysania muttered, but Denubis ignored her.
“It’s eradicating evil,” he continued, and suddenly the story of that knight—that Lord Soth—floated to the top of his mind, unbidden. He sank it hurriedly, but not before he had lost his place in his lecture. Lamely, he tried to pick it up again, but it was too late.
“Is it?” Lady Crysania was asking him. “Is it eradicating evil? Or are we like children, left alone in the house at night, who light candle after candle to keep away the darkness. We don’t see that the darkness has a purpose—though we may not understand it—and so, in our terror, we end up burning down the house!”
Denubis blinked, not understanding this at all; but Crysania continued, growing more and more restless as she talked. It was obvious, Denubis realized uncomfortably, that she had kept this pent up inside her for weeks.
“We don’t try to help those who have lost their way find it again! We turn our backs on them, calling them unworthy, or we get rid of them! Do you know”—she turned on Denubis—“that Quarath has proposed ridding the world of the ogre races?”
“But, my dear, ogres are, after all, a murderous, villainous lot—” Denubis ventured to protest feebly.
“Created by the gods, just as we were,” Crysania said. “Do we have the right, in our imperfect understanding of the great scheme of things, to destroy anything the gods created?”
“Even spiders?” Denubis asked wistfully, without thinking. Seeing her irritated expression, he smiled. “Never mind. The ramblings of an old man.”
“I came here, convinced that the church was everything good and true, and now I—I—” She put her head in her hands.
Denubis’s heart ached nearly as much as his head. Reaching out a trembling hand, he gently stroked the smooth, blue-black hair, comforting her as he would have comforted the daughter he never had.
“Don’t feel ashamed of your questioning, child,” he said, trying to forget that he had been feeling ashamed of his. “Go, talk to the Kingpriest. He will answer your doubts. He has more wisdom than I.”
Crysania looked up hopefully.
“Do you think—”
“Certainly.” Denubis smiled. “See him tonight, my dear. He will be holding audience. Do not be afraid. Such questions do not anger him.”
“Very well,” Crysania said, her face filled with resolve. “You are right. It’s been foolish of me to wrestle with this myself, without help. I’ll ask the Kingpriest. Surely, he can make this darkness light.”
Denubis smiled and rose to his feet as Crysania rose. Impulsively, she leaned over and kissed him gently on the cheek. “Thank you, my friend,” she said softly. “I’ll leave you to your work.”