Sins of the Mother

Zacham found Brother Arlethan in the little office he had in the warehouse. The withered old monk engendered mixed feelings in the boy. Most of the time it was all right, but some times he scared Zacham and the boy was never certain why; it was just a gut-feeling so he never brought it up to the adults, who would probably brush it off as a childish worry. Zacham hovered in the door with the note in his hands. Arlethan was alone, his nearly bald head with just a thin fringe of hair around the base glinted redly in the lamplight. He stretched his claw-like, gnarled fingers toward Zacham and a chill ran down the boy's spine.

"You have something for me?"

Zacham nodded. "Note from Becca."

"Well come here, boy. Give it to me. I'm not going to eat you."

The cleric's voice had an oily kindness that made the boy uncomfortable; left him feeling like a mouse being coaxed from its hole by a large cat. Zacham swallowed and crossed the room, holding the note at arm's length before him.

Arlethan took it and Zacham retreated. "Stop. Wait. I may want to pen a reply for you to take back."

Zacham halted, but did not offer to come closer, and he watched Arlethan read the note. When the monk finished, he nodded at the door. Zacham spun, darting out.

Arlethan rose and took his cloak down from the rack near the door. He walked downstairs to the narrow alley that ran between the warehouse and the Cock and Boar, opening on the courtyard quad. As he neared the back door, he paused. He could hear a warning hum in his ears and taste the acridness of the ward before he encountered it. The shaman's wards were back: That meant he could not enter the building — it also meant that Josiah had returned. The shaman's wards were keyed to keep Arlethan from any building that Josiah was in at the moment. He cursed softly, and then turned back. If Josiah was back, then Aejys must be also. He would have to get Becca to come to him.

"Because my old bones ache, of course," he smiled then. For nearly twenty years the Kwaklahmyn shaman, Branch, had blocked him from reaching Josiah, but eventually his Waejontori master would contact him again and perhaps he would know how to get past them. It had never mattered much before; after all, Arlethan Dinger had burned the magic out of Josiah when he was a boy, eliminating him as a threat. But there were rumors that the magic had somehow come back. Dinger's primary task, set him nearly thirty years ago, had been primarily to destroy all the lifemages of the coast and secondarily to find and destroy the entire Abelard lineage. Josiah was the last of the Abelard blood.

GODWAR CENTRAL

Sins of the Mother