oOo .. night-singer -v. 6- this phantom innocence

» Chapter 1 «

    Although it was High Noon, the temple was silent, and still.
    Or perhaps this was because it was High Noon. After all, those who frequented the Temple of Satarel worshipped after dark. What reason had they to wander under the sun?
    Well... With one exception.
    Valafar knelt before the statue of Satarel, head bowed and hands clasped in his lap. He wore a pair of loose black trousers and a square-necked linen tunic, and around his neck hung a long leather thong bearing a pendant of the moon, flat, but carved in great detail from bone.
    After several long minutes, he stood, pausing to look almost hesitantly into the face of the statue. Then, he took a deep breath and touched two fingers to his lips before pressing them gently, reverently to those of the statue. He closed his eyes, swallowing thickly, and forced himself to step backwards and away from his God’s likeness.
    As High Priest, it was his duty to clean the temple after a night of worship. With one last, longing look at Satarel’s statue, he bent and removed the blood-filled basin from its insert in the floor and set it down at the foot of the altar; custom demanded it be removed first, but the blood was disposed of afterward. Silently, he wiped up any stray drops of blood from the altar’s surface with a dirty brown rag which was then dropped into a small wooden box by the door leading into the temple’s back chambers. His robes were picked up and carried to the linen closet, where they were neatly folded and added to a stack of dirty clothing; he would wash them at the end of the week. On his way back out he grabbed a broom from another closet, and swept all the dirt they had brought in back outside and down the steps to the ground. He shook the broom out and then climbed the stairs and reentered the temple. After a brief look around to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, he returned the broom to its proper place, and on his way out a black vial was taken from the storage closet.
    He briefly stopped at the door leading to the Altar Room to pull on a pair of butter-soft leather walking boots. Then he picked up the old rag box before crossing to the altar, where he poured the remaining blood into the vial. As he stepped out into the sunlight he remembered he was going to need money if he wanted to buy more books, and had to dart back into his room to snatch his change purse.
    The Temple happened to be a good ten minute walk from the great city of Alda. The journey was a long and winding one across the moors, following a path worn down by both humans and animal passage, riddled with pocked of hollow ground just under the surface, small spans of marsh, and, perhaps the most dangerous of all...
    Wolves.
    It was little wonder no one ventured here but those who worshipped Satarel.
    Valafar, however, did not worry about these; he knew where the dangerous areas were, and the wolves would not be seen until twilight. He followed the path with an unconscious confidence born from familiarity.
    When the moors ended, the path briefly cut through a short finger of woods, and then Alda lay before him in all its dubious glory.
    He paused for a moment, closing his eyes to brace himself against the constant press of bodies he didn’t know against his own, and the rush of their emotions battering against the barriers of his admittedly weak Empathy. Taking a deep breath, he set off down the sharply sloping hill before making his way along the wall until he joined the throng of people waiting at the main gate. The road, wide enough for three full-sized wagons to pass in each direction without touching, was packed with people and wagons alike. Minstrels and bards, instrument cases slung over their shoulders. Merchants with carts of their wares. A band of gypsies in their canvas-covered wagons. A few wealthy nobles and their companies on fine horses.
    And, Valafar realized with dread, a small company of Knights of the Holy Word, irritably forcing their way through the crowd. They rode stiffly on massive battle steeds, decked out entirely in formal wear, the emblem of a blazing sun on everything both man and horse wore. They left behind them a wake of angry people, and one noble’s guard had to restrain him from attacking the Knights after being rudely shoved aside.
    Valafar bowed his head in a false display of reverence as the Knights passed, simply so that they could not see the disdain he held for them in his eyes.
    It would not do for them to discover his Faith.
    He was at the Guard Post when he was jostled from behind and the vial of blood slipped from his fingers.
    The sound of glass shattering brought everything to a halt.
    The Knights, who had been milling about in the courtyard, turned to see what had happened.
    Valafar let loose a strangled whimper—
    “What’s that?” one of the Knights demanded.
    —and collapsed, landing hard on his knees.
    “Blood!” was the guard’s shocked answer.
    He stared in horror at the blood splattered across the cobblestones, reaching out with violently trembling fingers.
    Someone was repeating something hysterically—
    “No, no, no, no, no—”
    “Arrest him!” the Knight shouted.
    It was him.
    He was speaking.
    Two guards appeared out of seemingly nowhere and grabbed him by the arms, dragging him to his feet.
    His chanting rose to a fever pitch, filled with horrible despair—
    “No, no, no, no—”
    “Witch,” someone hissed.
    —and a single tear rolled down his cheek, glittering the color of moonlight as it fell down to the earth.
    “NO!”

    What do I do?
    That was all that was currently running through Valafar’s mind.
    Spilling the blood of a Full Moon was one of the greatest offenses of the Moon Faith, punishable by banishment from all of Satarel’s temples.
    And he had done it.
    Valafar.
    The High Priest.
    He had failed his God.
    What do I do?
    A high, keening whine built up in the back of his throat, and he curled in upon himself.
    The stone floor was cold against his cheek, and a piece of old, dirty straw was digging into his forehead.
    The biggest reason he, at such a young age, had been made High Priest was his devotion to Satarel.
    And he had failed.
    What do I do?
    “Get up,” someone snapped.
    What do I do?
    He whimpered.
    “Get up!”
    Valafar barely felt the kick at his lack of response.
    What do I do?
    Impatient, the guard dragged him to his feet. He stumbled behind the guard as he was lead from his cell and through several dank corridors, blindly following the man as his mind rolled in turmoil.
    They would banish him from the Faith; there was no other choice, no other way. Satarel was not a forgiving god, and as such his followers were no more so. He would never be able to publicly—well, as publicly as Satarel’s worshippers could—worship his God, perform any of the rituals he so loved and had practiced since he was a child. By the age of nine he had begun to secretly worship the dark god, feeling a sense of kinship with his almost effeminate countenance, and Valafar had worshipped him for sixteen years. He had even run away from home, his parents being avid supporters of Nemamiah.
    With a growl, the guard shoved him into another stone room, and he stumbled, landing hard on his knees. The impact jarred knees already sore from falling outside, and he hissed, falling forward onto his hands. He stayed there, head bowed as he stared blankly at the pair of boots before him.
    “Well,” a dark voice sneered above him, “if it isn’t the moon-worshipping scum.”
    Valafar’s head snapped up, eyes flashing in anger. He met the glare of the Knight without flinching, baring his teeth in a lupine snarl. “Scum?” he whispered. “You call me scum? Simply because I worship a different god than you? How typical of a worshipper of Nemamiah.”
    Some dark emotion flickered across the man’s honey-brown eyes, and a scowl settled on his face. “How dare you speak to me like that?” he growled. “You’re not worth the air I breathe!”
    He lifted a sardonic eyebrow. “By all means, then,” Valafar said coldly, “stop breathing.”
    The remark earned him a backhand to the face, and his head snapped around so that he was looking at the wall. Gritting his teeth, he simmered, tongue probing the split in his lip that was slowly oozing blood. Fool! He could almost hear High Priest Shoshona scolding him. You know to curb your sharp tongue in the presence of a Sun Worshipper! Despite his mentor’s words, however, he couldn’t help but deliberately lap at the blood on his lip, just to further enrage the Knight.
    “Vile snake,” the blonde hissed.
    Valafar favored him with a derisive look. “Snakes are creatures of the sunlight, fool,” he said coldly. “Without it, they freeze.” Once again, he was backhanded, the sheer force behind it knocking him to his side on the floor. Valafar, you idiot! his mentor’s memory was shouting. How many times have I told you to still your sharp tongue around followers of Nemamiah? Ye gods, whatever did I do to deserve such a fool as a student?
    Cursing mentally, he moved to his hands and knees again, before standing shakily. He would not debase himself in such a manner before a Knight of the Holy Word. Reigning in his temper, he inhaled deeply before letting it out, raising his eyes to a point to just above the Knight’s left shoulder. “Why am I here?” he asked quietly.
    The Knight stared at him, seemingly unsettled by his sudden shift of demeanor. After a moment, he regained his wits, and growled again. “For questioning,” he snarled, “about the vial of blood you dropped.”
    He flinched at the reminder, the despair setting in once again, but he wrestled it into submission, unwilling to show such a weakness. Valafar said nothing.
    Aggravated by his lack of response, the Knight growled again and reached for him, fingers twisting in his hair and wrenching his head back as he stared into his eyes, scowl twisting his features into something vaguely resembling a violent storm. “Answer me, scum,” he hissed. The High Priest remained silent, staring impassively into smoldering brown eyes. The full force of his hatred slammed into Valafar’s shields, knocking his breath away, but he gritted his teeth and forced himself to ignore it.
    After a long moment of silence, the ghost of a smile curled the corners of his lips. “You forget, Master Knight,” he said quietly, “that in Alda there is no discrimination against those of different Faith.” Valafar’s smile widened at the stricken look on the Knight’s face, but it held no humor. “Alda is not like Helmus,” he continued, voice soft. “You cannot legally imprison me here because of my Faith.” Quirking an eyebrow, he delivered the final blow. “And aren’t worshippers of Nemamiah strict upholders of the law?”
    Snarling, the Knight threw him away, but he saw the tensing of the powerful muscles in his arms and knew to steady himself before he fell to the ground, finding a fierce satisfaction in the anger the Knight clearly felt at not succeeding in dominating him. Valafar calmly brushed the wrinkles out of his clothing and the dirt off of his trousers, before bending over to pluck the moon pendant from where it had fallen onto the floor. “Good day,” he said in parting, before turning and coolly making his way through the jail compound.
    As he left the building, he judged by the sun that it was late afternoon. He sighed, having hoped to be back at the temple by now, but as it was it looked like he wouldn’t be returning until after dark.
    He still had the books to buy, after all.

    During the day, the journey across the moors to the temple was dangerous enough. But after dark, it was multiplied largely.
    Valafar paused at the edge of the forest, looking out over the rolling hills of the moors, bathed by the light of the nearly full moon. In the distance, moonlight reflected brightly off of still, tepid swamp water, and cold wind sighed gustily through the tall rushes and grasses of the moor’s swamps. The silence was shattered by the lonely call of a wolf, immediately joined by echoing calls from the rest of the pack.
    Sighing, books in hand, he started down the path, keeping his eyes on the ground before him in a careful study of the landscape. There were many trick paths, branching off of the real one as it went around a sharp bend that made it seem to disappear; most of them led straight into peat bogs or the occasional tar pit, which would inevitably suck up whatever victim unintentionally stumbled into it. As he reached one of these points, the tall grass around him rustled softly, and turning the corner he stepped into the midst of a wolf pack.
    He didn’t even pause before carefully lowering himself to his knees and then his back, baring his stomach and throat to them in a sign of submission. The leader of the pack padded forward, almost silently, and paused at his head, leaning down to sniff his hair and face and neck before clamping his jaw around his jugular. Valafar shuddered slightly, but didn’t flinch away. Then the wolf proceeded to enthusiastically lick his face in an affectionate greeting and he moved back to his knees, smiling softly at the suddenly friendly wolves around him.
    Tumbling playfully over each other, the wolves demanded he pet and stroke each of them, heads gently butting under his chin or in the small of his back. He laughed, greeting each of them in turn. “Hello,” he whispered to the pack leader, staring into the pale blue eyes. “How has the pack been?” His answer was a yelp and a mischievous head butt that knocked him over, rear-first into the dirt, and he laughed, scratching behind the wolf’s ear. “I see,” Valafar said in response, chuckling. “That’s very good to know.” An inquisitive whine from his left—the alpha male’s brother—had him sighing impatiently. “I was imprisoned today, by a Knight of the Holy Word,” he answered, shaking his head. The pack growled, but he shrugged it off, bowing his head in shame. “It is my fault,” he whispered. “And I deserve far, far worse.” The alpha male nudged him gently with his nose, cold and wet, tilting his head in concern. “You will hate me,” Valafar warned, voice soft. The wolves seemed to scoff at that, but he shook his head. “Someone jostled me from behind; I dropped the vial of Full Moon blood,” he whispered. “It shattered.”
    All around him, the wolves fell still, and the air with which they watched him changed dramatically. He closed his eyes, feeling them burn with tears, and tilted his face up to the moon, despair washing over him as he remembered the splatter of blood on the dusty cobblestones. “I said that you would hate me,” the High Priest whispered, feeling his heart break.
    A cold nose against his neck made him jump, and he looked with wide eyes at the pack leader. “What?” he breathed, the breath hitching in his throat. The wolf made a low sound in the back of his throat, butting his head under his chin. Valafar stared at the wolves around him in awe. “I don’t—I don’t understand—Of course it’s my fault—” The look the wolves gave him could have set buildings ablaze. “Well, of course I realize you would know of such things better than I!” he cried indignantly. “I just—I don’t—Why?”
    The pack seemed to sigh in exasperation, and he flushed. “Oh, all right,” he grumbled, moving to his feet. “I’ll stop asking.” Valafar got the distinct impression that the wolves were laughing at him.
    Then, with a final yelp of farewell, they bounded off into the grass, howling to each other.
    Before continuing on his way back to the temple he called home, Valafar raised his eyes to the moon. Thank you, Lord Satarel, he said, a small prayer, for making these wonderful creatures yours, and for giving me the ability to understand them.

    He was exhausted by the time he reached the stairs leading up to the temple, and he made his way up them wearily, padding silently through the Altar Room, the darkness broken only by the moonlight tumbling through the hole above the altar. Stifling a yawn, he stumbled to the statue of Satarel, falling roughly to his knees—My knees will never heal after today, he thought sullenly—and said his final evening prayers, before forcing himself to his feet.
    This time, he couldn’t stop the explosive yawn, and staggered, fatigued, into the small room in the back of the temple he called his own, barely managing to strip out of his clothing before he collapsed onto the bed that was soaked in moonlight through the window.
    He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

    Valafar was a person who could truly be called alone.
    Though they shared similar beliefs, he and his acolytes never made an effort to spend time together outside of the Full Moon ritual. The only contact he made with others in Alda was perfunctory at best, simply a manner of communicating the prices of whatever items he was buying—or, after the Full Moon, selling—and never went beyond that. His only companions were the three wolf packs that called the moors their home; three wolf packs who only got along so well while sharing the same territory because the center of it was devoted to Satarel, the god who had made them his own, admiring their agility and beauty and, so Valafar liked to think, their loyalty. When one was as despised as Satarel, he theorized, loyalty was something to be craved, and greatly admired. The owls, the only other creatures of Satarel that lived on the moors, rarely spoke to him, and as such could not be considered companions.
    He had grown up ignored by his parents. Avid worshippers of Nemamiah, they had been ashamed that their son, so delicate, so weak, had taken more after Satarel in appearance than the god they worshipped, and had devoted as little attention to him as they possibly could without being reprimanded by the other members of their small little village of Ilhen. Because of this neglect, and the reason behind it, he had grown to hold a feeling of kinship with Satarel, and by the age of nine was worshipping him in secret. Unfortunately, his parents eventually discovered this, and he ran away from home at the age of thirteen, finally finding his way to the temple of Satarel that he currently called home. Valafar’s love of and devotion to Satarel had grown strong by then, and High Priest Shoshona took him under his wing without hesitation as a lowly Disciple.
    The only other human Valafar had ever thought he might love was Shoshona, though it was in a way that was by far more of a father-son love than anything else. It was Shoshona who truly taught him the ways and practices of the Moon Faith, and for that he loved him more than any other human. The other Disciples tended to look upon him with a strange sort of pity, one that he had never understood, and as such he avoided them unless absolutely necessary. Acolyte by the age of sixteen, he was an oddity among them, the youngest in their known history to ever reach such a high-ranking position. And the situation was made even worse when, less than a month after his twentieth birthday, High Priest Shoshona died of consumption, and Valafar was chosen as the new High Priest in a unanimous decision by the other Acolytes. Many of the Disciples, older than him and still holding the position for several years longer than he, had left to go to other temples, unable to bear the thought of being taught and instructed by someone younger than them. It had shamed Valafar, to see such prejudice and contempt in the ranks of the people he considered his own.
    Even now, having Disciples of his own to instruct, he was truly alone. They seemed to fear him, who at such a young age held the highest rank reachable in their Faith. The youngest of the Disciples couldn’t be less than seventeen, and though he had taught them for five years there still remained a great distance between them.
    Valafar had never attempted to bridge it.
    All he had ever needed was Satarel, and the knowledge that came with worshipping him.

[Prologue] | [Chapter 2]