Child of Flame

In the larger chamber, six people remained. Laoina looked relieved to see them, and she fell in beside Adica at once. Two Fingers spoke to each of his tribespeople in turn, a complicated and intimate phrasing that made Laoina shake her head in bewilderment.

Hani stepped up beside Alain. “In this way, the Hallowed One says good-bye to his family.”

So it was. Two Fingers was taking his leave: a hand on a brow, a low string of instructions, the touching of two foreheads, like a kiss or a meeting of minds.

Last of all, Hehoyanah clasped hands with him. She had the kind of sharp pride that makes the expression seem naked, as though all veils between the inner fire and the outer mask had been torn away. Kneeling, she bowed her head to receive a blessing from him. Then she rose and crossed to Adica. She held up both hands, palms out, and Adica pressed her own palms against hers. The other woman’s hands were shorter and stubbier, but they looked strong enough to wring the neck of any young man crass enough to insult her. She, too, had missing fingers and the same kind of raggedly-healed scar.

“So do we walk together,” said the young woman. “I will know you when the time comes, Adica.”

“May your gods and your people bless you for what is to come, Hehoyanah.”

“There is but one God,” retorted Hehoyanah, “who dwells in all places and is never seen.”

“Tsst!” muttered Laoina at the same time as Hani grimaced, as one might when an otherwise tolerable kinsman starts in for the tenth time about the hunt where he single-handedly killed an aurochs. “How can one know of a god who can’t be seen, and has no dwelling place?”

“I pray you,” said Alain, stepping forward in astonishment. Only when they all stared at him, puzzled, did he realize that he’d slipped back into Wendish. With difficulty he groped for words in the language of the White Deer people. “Know you of the God who is two made one?”

“God is only one!” Hehoyanah objected. “God is not of flesh but of spirit.”

Two Fingers chopped through this discussion with a brisk gesture. “So speaks the one whose face must be veiled, for she has looked upon God’s spirit, and the radiance of the Holy One still shines in her face too brightly for mortal eyes. This is not the time, Daughter, for such talk as this.”

“If I do not speak, then it is as if I am worshiping the idols myself!”

“By this means am I rewarded for sending you to dwell among a foreign people! Daughter, you will obey me in this. I do as the gods command me, and as necessity makes plain. My task is to rid humankind of the Cursed Ones. If all humankind falls under the lash of the Cursed Ones, then what can your god say to us and how may your god rescue us then?”

“God rescues those who believe,” Hehoyanah retorted.

“Do what you have pledged, Daughter, for I have given you my teaching in return for your obedience. If I return, and you live, then you may do as you think right, because then I will not be here to argue with you. Come.”

He walked out of the chamber, down the tunnel. Adica and Laoina followed him.

Alain hung back, beckoning to Hani. “I ask you, friend, if you will tell her that I know of the God she speaks of. She is not alone in believing.”

Hani looked at him strangely. “Has this god walked so far as the White Deer tribe?”

“God do not walk.”

“Then how comes the god to the north? How can the god live both in the desert and in the frozen wasteland?”

“How comes the sun to the north? If the sun can shine everywhere, then it is easy for God’s presence to shine everywhere as well.”

“Huh,” Hani grunted, thinking it over but not looking convinced.

Rage whined, padding after Adica. Yet Alain could not bear to go without letting Hehoyanah know that she was not alone. “Please tell her I know this God. This God is mine, too.” He drew the circle at his chest, the remembered motion coming easily to his fingers.

Hehoyanah gasped out loud. She spoke impassioned words, to which Hani replied, and her face transformed for a moment into a blinding smile. She bent to touch one of Alain’s feet, and with that hand touched her own heart and her own forehead, bowing as though to give him obeisance.

As common folk had once bowed before him, when he was heir to the county of Lavas.

He recoiled, stumbling up against rock. “Nay, I pray you,” he said in Wendish, “do not give honor to one who deserves no honor. None of that old life is left to me. It’s a sin to grasp for that which was forbidden to me, which was never mine to take.”