The Temple of Doubt by Anne Boles Levy

Author:Anne Boles Levy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Published: 2015-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Nor shall you abide those who abandon faith; I am god, you shall follow only me.

—from Oblations 10, The Book of Unease

Our crafts drew toward a boat launch and a rickety dock near the tail end of Port Sapphire. A crowd began shouting and waving as they spotted us. Several healers in the blue smocks of the sick ward milled with constables in their yellow coats. Dockworkers scurried to pull our boats in, tying scarves around their noses and mouths to block the fingers of smoke that trailed us.

My boat went first so the Commander could leap out and give orders. He transformed what had been a loose mob into purposeful teams. At his direction, workmen pulled wounded and dead Feroxi out of their boats and loaded them onto a scow. They pulled Valeo up, too, and I thought I heard him moan. I watched until I could see only the soles of his muddy boots, the ones I’d stomped on. I kept watching for him until the crowds and smoke combined to block my view of much of anything. I choked back dry, scratchy sobs, my eyes watering freely.

Valeo had looked after me in the swamp until he needed looking after, and I couldn’t be sure those were only orders. I had to remind myself he was a bloodthirsty, lusty idiot with a bad shave. And he was dying. I suddenly had trouble breathing, and it wasn’t only the swamp fire to blame. I should flush in shame. The Gek were burning in their tree homes back there while I got all giddy about a man, even if he did have shoulders the width of the mainland and answered to “His Highness.”

I stood around not quite knowing what to do with myself, until I saw guards clambering from the boats with darts jutting from exposed skin. I waded into the crowd toward the first healer I saw. The Commander’s booming voice ordered my halt. I turned back. “The Gek poisoned them,” I said.

The healer brushed past me. “We’ll get them all,” the woman said. But she didn’t know the poison. I carefully pulled out the pin I’d saved and grabbed another healer’s sleeve, a man.

“Look, it’s a Gek poison.”

He squinted at the tiny point between my fingertips and the pinkish blot. “You know it?”

I shook my head.

The healer shrugged. “It’s not much use to us, even if you did. Nihil’s theurgy should get most of this solved. Thank you, though your weeds aren’t much help here.”

He hustled past as if I’d delayed him all day. Why did he treat me as if the poison were something I’d gathered? I stewed and pushed forward again, only to have the crowds press me back. More elbows and shoulders found their mark on my torso; I was being sidelined when that little pin could’ve meant saving someone’s life with the right herb-lore.

Everything I’d done out in the swamp didn’t matter at all to anyone here; I would always be the know-nothing, out of place and in the way.

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