Call of the Colossus: An epic fantasy novel (The Mindstream Chronicles Book 2) (10 page)

The bottom of the robe was changing color from purple to red, the red seeping upward as if she were standing in a pool of dye.

Or blood.

This was exactly what had happened when she’d stabbed Elder Sonnis with Korlan’s sword and dragged him through the ’twixt. Her robe had turned red.

Two bells clanged, signaling the disciples and novices were free to enter the dining hall for the evening meal.

She would catch hell for this. Her only options were to wear the reddening robe to supper or put the borrowed clothes back on. She could wear one of her own garments, but having not been washed in some time, their stench wouldn’t do her any favors. Wearing the red would be bold, but it would be honest. She was the Gatekeeper, after all, and everyone knew it. She would have to face the stares and whispers sooner or later. Might as well wear the red and walk in with her head held high rather than try to slink into the room unnoticed. Red it was, then.

By the time she arrived, the dining room was full of chattering young people wearing purple and blue hooded robes. In the past, a few elders and adepts mingled with the adepts and novices, whether because they were delayed by their duties and missed the first bell or because they wanted to give the younger members an opportunity to talk to them in a more informal setting. Now, there were only purple and blue robes, the green and yellow conspicuously absent.

She remembered how difficult it had been at first to pick out her two new acquaintances, Gilon and Adriel, from the sea of bald heads, but after a time, she stopped noticing their similarities and started seeing the differences in the faces—the eyebrow shapes and colors, the size and placement of eyes, the noses and mouths. The set of their shoulders certainly helped, for some sat self-confidently upright with square shoulders, while others hunched over, shoulders rounded and slumped, their eyes darting here and there. Had Jora been one of those timid ones? She had. She was certain of it.

Now seeing them gathering in groups at the various tables scattered across the room made her feel more alone than ever. Gilon was dead. Adriel and the other novices would probably shun her. Bastin would avoid her except to fulfill her duties as Jora’s instructor. Nobody wanted to be friends with the one who’d turned her elder into a worm.

A hush fell over the room as people noticed her standing there. Those who hadn’t yet sat down stopped where they were, trays of food in hand. Every face turned toward her, every pair of eyes taking in her red robe, every mouth agape.

Jora’s entire body trembled with the desire to flee, but she didn’t. She forced a shallow smile onto her face as she scanned the room, searching for a familiar—and friendly—face.

“Jora!” Adriel stood and clambered over the bench where she’d been sitting, hands on the shoulders of those next to her. She rushed over with a warm smile, her arms opening for an embrace.

The relief Jora felt was like a flood, gushing down her cheeks as she clutched Adriel tightly. A friend. Thank the challenger, she had a friend among all the gawkers.

“Come sit with us,” Adriel said as she pulled back. Jora hurriedly wiped the tears away. “Aww, don’t cry, dove. You’re among friends here.”

If only the adepts and elders felt the same way. Adriel hooked her arm in Jora’s and led her back to her table, where most everyone watched with curious or eager expressions.

“Hello, Jora,” a young novice said as she passed. Others soon joined in, greeting her by name. Someone patted her shoulder.

Jora returned the smiles and greetings, honestly surprised and a bit bewildered at the friendliness of her former colleagues. She supposed that if they were being forced to face her every day, they might as well make the best of it.
Don’t piss off the Gatekeeper. She might turn you into a worm.

“Get your tray and come join us,” Adriel said as she climbed back over the bench in front of her place. “We’ll make room for you.”

“I’ll fetch you a bowl,” said another novice, a girl Jora had seen around but hadn’t yet met.

“Oh, no,” she replied. “Thank you for the offer, but I’ll get it myself.”

Jora went through the serving line, loading her bowl with a scoop of everything and setting a pair of biscuits on her tray. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she feasted her eyes and her nose on all the meats and vegetables and potatoes and rice dishes. Her bowl was twice as full as she’d normally filled it when she carried her tray to the table, but she planned to eat every last morsel and probably be hungry for more.

An empty space had been created for her across from Adriel between two novices. She set the tray down and then started the awkward process of stepping over the bench without kicking anyone.

“Sorry about your family,” said Lita, a young disciple in Elder Tornal’s hierarchy, sitting to Adriel’s left. “It’s so awful.” Jora nodded her acceptance of the offered condolence. “We all wanted to attend your trial, but there wasn’t enough room for most of the disciples.”

“Yeah, and none at all for the novices,” Adriel said with a wry grin. “At least disciples got to draw straws for a seat.”

“So the king pardoned you?” asked another disciple at the end of the table. The face was familiar but not the name. “That’s what Bastin said.”

She cleared her throat. “Yes, that’s right.”

“Pardoned?” someone asked. The word rippled across the room. In fact, people at other tables had paused their own conversations to listen, many turned on their benches to face her.

“After Gerios announced the verdict, Princess Rivva arrived.” The way they watched her with eager faces and wide eyes made Jora blush. Never before had she commanded so much attention at one time. It was at the same time terrifying and gratifying. For the first time in her life, she felt important. “She swept in like a brilliant, beautiful storm and whisked me away in her carriage to the palace.”

“Whoa,” someone said.

“You got to go into the palace?” another murmured.

“I did,” Jora said. She looked around at the faces at her table, trying to ignore the dozens of other eyes on her. “But I spent the last ten days in a prison cell and dreaded going before the king smelling like a sewer. The princess was kind enough to let me bathe and loan me some clothes to wear.”

Most of them chuckled.

“What was it like?”

“It was gorgeous beyond words,” she said. It felt good to be listened to for once, to be validated by so much attention, to have others regard her highly. Though she avoided questions pertaining to the subject of her conversation with King Yaphet, she told her story of traveling in the princess’s carriage, walking through the palace, and meeting the king, embellishing here and there for effect. She had the room captivated, and she liked it, standing out in her red robe among the blue and purple.

After supper, Adriel invited her back to her room down the hall from Jora’s. Jora started to pull the stool out from the dressing table, but Adriel bade her sit on the cushioned lounge chair while she perched on the stool herself. “I heard some really awful stories about Elder Sonnis,” she said. “I think a lot of the novices and disciples are glad he’s gone.”

“What kind of awful things?”

“Well, after Elder Sonnis died, two of his disciples were tasked with packing up his office. They found a letter he’d penned to Captain Kyear that included the text of a message to be dispatched to the soldiers from Kaild still serving in the Legion, informing them of what happened---your brother and cousins, among them.”

Jora felt her face warm. “What did it say?”

“He suggested they blame the attack on Mangendan assassins.”

“No!”

“Yes. That was the worst of it, but there were other things.”

Jora nodded. She’d worried about what the Legion would tell her brother and cousins, Tearna’s husband and Briana’s, and all the other men from Kaild who were looking forward to going home to their families. Now that the truth had come out in her trial, she supposed the Legion would have to tell the truth. That or concoct another lie.

“He was so full of himself, you know?” Adriel said. “Despite the rules against fraternization between members of the Order, he was constantly pursuing the new girls.”

“He was slimy. That’s probably why he turned into a worm.”

Adriel giggled. “You didn’t pick that form for him?”

“No,” Jora said with a snort. “I’m not sure what determines the kind of ally they become, but the way they die has something to do with it. Boden was killed in the forest, and he became tree-like. Zokor was killed in the water, and he became a fish-lizard creature.” She pursed her lips and thought back to Sonnis’s death. “I dragged him through the ’twixt, so maybe that’s why he became a worm.” She sometimes wondered what the assassin she thought of as Mouse Ears had become. Another tree-like one? Something else entirely?

“I like your first explanation better,” Adriel said with a grin.

“What ever happened to Disciple Gafna?”

“They didn’t tell you?”

Jora shook her head.

“She was executed a few days ago for Gilon’s murder.”

Jora breathed her relief. She hated to think the Justice Bureau had let Gafna walk free. “Good. Beheaded?”

Adriel nodded. “It was so gruesome. I wish I hadn’t gone to watch. I never liked Gafna, but the memory of it lingers in my mind. I’d just as soon forget it.”

Jora thought of the charred bodies and the smell of burning flesh in Kaild. “I understand, believe me.”

Jora slept hard that night, her first night of true rest in about two weeks. She intended to awaken before the sunrise to experience the changing of the tones after an agonizingly long time apart from the Spirit Stone, but the sun was already over the horizon when a series of hard knocks made their way through the dense fog of sleep. She sat up with a start, wrapped the now-violet novices’ robe around herself, and opened the door.

An enforcer stood in the hallway holding her flute. He said nothing, simply held it out to her, and she accepted it with a whispered “Thank you” before shutting the door again.

She caressed its wood and held it against her heart. Never had she thought she would worship an object the way she did the flute. They’d been through a lot together, and she thought of it as more than simply a musical instrument. It was a dear friend.

I hope Sundancer hasn
’
t given up on me
, she thought
.

Then came another knock at the door, lighter this time. It was Disciple Bastin, looking conciliatory. She was in her floor-length blue robe, hood down to show her bald head. “Hello, Jora. Welcome back.” She picked up the pitcher of hot water that had been delivered sometime that morning and offered it to her.

“Thanks, Bastin. I apologize for oversleeping.” She set the pitcher on her dressing table. It was a good thing she’d shaved her head the previous evening. The water was barely warm, and she preferred a hot shave.

Bastin looked down at Jora’s feet, at the purple robe turning red bit by bit. The red seeped up the fabric, reaching her knees, then her hips. “That’s… remarkable.”

“I’m afraid I can’t stop it,” Jora said. “It fades back to purple when I take it off.”

“Is that the robe you were wearing when…” Bastin licked her lips. “You know.”

“When I turned Elder Sonnis into a worm? You can say it.” The last thing Jora wanted was everyone tiptoeing around what she’d done. It was best to talk about it openly to get past the awkwardness. “But to answer your question, no. This is a brand new one, given to me last night.”

“Elder Devarla’s not going to be pleased.”

“There’s nothing I can do about it.”

Bastin tried to hide a smile, the first one Jora had ever seen. The girl was only about fifteen years old, but she was one of the nippers, as Adriel called them—children given up to the Order at a young age because their parents were too frightened of their Mindstreaming power. They tended to have underdeveloped social skills and little humor.

“Ooh, look,” Jora said, pointing to Bastin’s mouth. “It really does exist.”

The remnants of the smile disappeared as she held out a text book. “I’m supposed to pick up where you left off in your lessons.”

Jora took the book and sighed, her jest unacknowledged. Probably uncomprehended.

“We should go over what you remember, so I’ll know which chapters to assign for your next lesson.”

“All right. Shall we do it here?” Jora gestured to the comfortable reclining chair near the window, inviting Bastin to sit.

“I have a hearing to Observe. Let’s meet at ten o’clock.”

Jora agreed, and the disciple left. Ten o’clock would give her time to visit Sundancer, if she hurried.

She took a quick sponge bath, dressed, and hurried downstairs. The second bell must certainly have rung by this time, but she’d eaten a big enough supper the previous night that she could go until the midday meal before feeling hungry again.

As she hurried downstairs and outside, dashing along the covered walkway between the buildings, Truth Sayers of all ranks paused to stare at her in the red robe. They would have to get used to it, and she would have to get used to their stares, because that was how it was going to be.