Chapter 17

The second day after the death of Alin, Porter and Gilly were resting around a small fire they had lit in a grove of twisted trees. The wind was a soft breeze but it was enough to steal the heat from any exposed part of their bodies. Despite the cold, Gilly was sitting with her coat in her lap, sealing the hole from the arrow with needle and thread. Porter was trying to keep his mind away from the unanswerable questions and avoid falling into his bad habit of turning inward and ignoring the outside world.

He slapped his hips in frustration as he rose to pace the area. Kanji growled at the noise that disrupted her catnap, laying her head back down when she received no response. Porter felt something in his pocket when he hit his thighs and he remembered the piece of parchment that he had found on the dead priest. He pried it out of pants.

“What are you holding?” Gilly asked.

Porter held it up. “Something I pulled off one of the dead priests. I forgot about it until just now.”

The fire was not enough light, so Porter flicked a blue flame from his fingertip after he laid out the pressed parchment that was also rolled.

“Son of a bitch!” he cursed as he studied the document.

“What is it?” Gilly asked with a tremulous voice.

“The first half of the page is a map, an accurate, concise, well-marked map of the area. I recognize the mountain ridges, the trails, and especially the meadow where the zoyanestra live.”

Gilly’s eyes were big and round. “I thought we had the only map.”

“We do,” Porter said. “We have the only map in the library of Sky House, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t another document repository somewhere in that fortress. Surely there are plenty of hidden or forgotten rooms in its depths.”

He took a deep breath. “However we are overlooking the obvious. These men were priests. The map could have easily been copied from archives in Timisoara.”

Gilly put down her sewing. “No, that isn’t possible. We fled from Sky House and headed due east. How could the priesthood in Timisoara know that we left and that we were traveling east?”

Porter considered her words for a moment and looked back down at the parchment. He sucked in his cheeks with surprise.

“What?” Gilly said.

“The bottom of the page is a description of the three of us, an accurate description. The text doesn’t give our names but clearly this is Alin and you.”

He handed the map to her. She produced her own flame and scanned the page. “This is bad,” she said. She handed the parchment back to Porter like it was poisonous.

Porter had an obvious question. “Can priests read?”

“Most are trained. The monastery in Timisoara has classrooms but not every member of the priesthood studies there,” Gilly said, dredging the information from her memory.

Gilly bit off the end of the thread and examined her handiwork. She could have just zapped it with a prick of Blue but some habits die hard. She had been taught to sew as a little girl and was trained to bite the thread when the last knot was secure. She did not even notice but Porter did.

He brought out the map from Sky House and compared the two. “The priest’s map is more accurate than our map is. These lines indicate trails heading east and close to the shrine we are seeking. There are no indications of shrines on the priest’s map but even so, it’s a better guide.”

He folded the parchment and placed it between the covers of his map for protection. “We’ll keep both. However we have a bigger problem. There is a connection between Sky House and the Priests of Purity.”

“Impossible,” Gilly said.

“Spy?” Porter suggested and she shook her head in denial.

Porter tried again. “Collaborationist?”

Gilly cocked her head and considered the idea. “Possibly, but I doubt it.”

“Desperate dogmatist of the Blue Hand?” Porter said.

“Maybe so,” Gilly said, confirming his idea.

Porter grinned but there was no mirth behind it. “If that is so, that makes you and I official iconoclasts of the order of the Blue Hand. Congratulations.”

“I-cono-what?”

“Iconoclast: anti-dogmatists, people who actively oppose the established order of a religion or belief system,” he said.

“What is congratulatory about being an iconoclast?” Gilly said with confusion.

Porter waved off her question. “I was being facetious. Another definition of the word is ‘a dead, former member of the group.’”

Gilly looked steamed. “How can you make light at a time like this. You make me so angry when you act so contradictory.”

“Gilly, I’m sorry,” Porter said. “I’m trying to lighten the deadly seriousness of the moment. It is a poor attempt to deflect some of my fear, that’s all; Alin was much better at sarcasm than I’ll ever be.

“Anyway, we are off track. Granted that the priesthood is dedicated to killing any Blue Hand they can find, this was no ordinary expedition to kill three people. Between the dorgast, this map, and six well-equipped people, someone or ones spent a lot of money to slay us. Why?”

“Because you are the spaceman?” Gilly said but dismissed it herself. “You have been missing for more than six months; you are old news. Ciprian did not care when you first showed up, why would he care when you left? To the priesthood, you are just another Blue Hand.”

Gilly slipped back on her coat and stood up. “I know the reason,” she said as she paced the fire. Porter continued sitting in silence.

“The only connection between Sky House and the Priesthood in which they would cooperate is the shrines. If the shrines are connected to the Blue, the priesthood would destroy it without hesitation and the elders of Sky House would want the shrines to disappear as well, for whatever reason.”

Porter looked up at her. “If you are right, then Sky House knows what we are doing and where we are going.”

Gilly’s eyes went wide with revelation. “The Elders let us out of Sky House because their plan was to chase us out and let the priesthood do their dirty work for them.”

Porter nodded. “They allowed us to leave because they couldn’t attack us openly before the entire population of Sky House.”

Gilly sat down in a heap and sobbed. “Alin paid with his life for their treachery.”

Porter walked over and gathered her up in his arms. He rocked her gently like a parent comforting a small child. She cried with great gasps. Even Kanji was moved and she drew near and licked the tears streaming down her face. Gilly wrapped her arm around the cat’s neck and held tightly. Kanji cooperated.

Finally the tears stopped and Gilly released her hold on both Porter and Kanji to wipe the wet off of her face. As Porter watched her, he held back an exclamation of surprise that she was able to hug much less touch the wastecat. She had not stroked Kanji’s fur since their first night alone in the woods when they were fleeing Timisoara. The night was extraordinary in many ways.

“Pardon my base concerns,” Porter said. “Is my nose really that big?”

“What?” Gilly looked exasperated all over again.

“The description on the map read that I have a big nose. Excuse my vanity but I never had anyone tell me I had a large nozzle on my face.”

“It is just right for your face,” she said as she kissed him on the tip of his nose. “Now yank your ‘nozzle’ out of your butt crack and let’s figure out what we need to do.”

“It’s a small butt crack,” Porter proudly pointed out, but Gilly refused to rise to the challenge. “Who can we trust? To whom can we turn?”

Gilly thought hard on that one. “I trust Teodor and Mirela with my life. However, they are in Timisoara, if they survived that night of assassinations. No one from Sky House has gone near the city since we fled and returned to report. I thought that no one had gone to the city. Now I’m wise enough to mistrust everything they told me.”

Porter digested her opinion and said, “I trust Captain Tyver and his squad. I trust Zeb. Do you not trust anyone else in Sky House? You had many friends or so it seemed to me.”

Gilly cast her eyes down. “I’ve been gone too long serving Teodor to maintain strong friendships. They are still friends but they no longer confide in me. In truth I suppose they are only acquaintances. Alin was the only one who knew my heart besides you. All of the positions I took did not earn me any new friends either. I’m sure you understand.

“Blessed Blue, Porter: did I lead Alin to his death? Am I responsible for his death?”

Porter cupped her chin and turned her face to him. “I’ve asked myself the same question with every plod of hamox hooves for the last two days. The same bargaining ‘if only’s.’ If only I had called out a warning seconds sooner; if only I had paid attention to the tingling warning sooner. All of these thoughts are just wasted. Alin died because someone in Sky House betrayed him. All of our good intentions, all of our best deeds and words could not have stopped that monster from ripping Alin from our lives. We did not know they would send someone to murder us; we could not know they feared us so thoroughly.”

Gilly looked ready to cry again. “I want him back, here, with us. I want to lash out and castrate the bastards who did this to him, who took him from us.”

Porter released her face from his stroking hand. “Then we finish the quest. We are not far if the new map is accurate.”

“We’re so alone, Porter,” Gilly said. Her lament brought tears to his eyes.

“Really? I’ve felt that way most of the time since I landed on this planet but not now. I’ve never felt so close to another person in my entire life as I do at this moment,” Porter said before thinking.

Gilly blinked and then blinked again. “You say the most important things in the most convoluted way possible; it drives me crazy. I love you, too.”

Gilly curled into his chest and closed her eyes with a sigh. Sometime in the middle of the night, they stretched out side by side and returned to their slumber.