Soulkeeper Page 13

  That hectic summer paled compared to the numbers streaming into her church in Low Dock begging for aid.

  “Please, find a place to sit,” she told a father holding two kids in his arms. She saw no sign of the mother. “I’ll be with you when I can.”

  Adria honestly had no idea where they would find room. An average sermon saw fifty to sixty people at most inside. By her last count, over one hundred refugees currently huddled in pews, against walls, or in any other available open space. Adria prayed to the Sisters that she and Sena were worthy of their trust. She tried to hurry down the aisle but a man on the edge of a pew reached out and grabbed the sleeve of her dress.

  “Is Faithkeeper Sena here?” the frightened man asked. Adria narrowed her eyes. This man was a local, not a refugee like the others. Joshua, if she recalled correctly.

  “She is, as am I,” Adria said. “Is there something you need?”

  His eyes vibrated like a deer aware of a hunter’s presence.

  “I, um, I just wish to talk to her. Only a moment, I promise.”

  Adria clenched her jaw behind her mask.

  “If you seek comfort, seek it elsewhere for today. Right now the physical needs outweigh the spiritual.”

  Joshua looked appalled.

  “I have attended every one of Faithkeeper Sena’s sermons since she arrived. I deserve a chance to—”

  “You deserve nothing,” Adria snapped. “Have you a home with a roof over your head?”

  “I… yes, I do, but…”

  “These people don’t. Return to yours while we worry about giving them theirs.”

  Joshua stormed out of the church, his neck as red as a rose bloom.

  Could have handled that better, thought Adria.

  Consoling the populace was not her forte. Mindkeepers were the quiet, studious members of the church, their faces hidden with masks and their time spent poring over books. Adria had memorized Lyra’s Devotions and the Five Canons and could argue with the sharpest of minds why Vikar Seigmar’s mournful writings bore greater wisdom than the uninspired rambling sermons of King Woadthyn the First. She wrote sermons, she studied history, and she traversed like a ghost through her part of the city learning its people, its difficulties, and its greatest needs. In her case, it had been an appalling lack of medical care for anyone in Low Dock, resulting in her spending countless hours researching herbal cures and basic procedures normally reserved for apothecaries. All this collected knowledge and skill was a vital asset to Sena, her assigned Faithkeeper.

  Faithkeepers were in every way the opposite of Mindkeepers. Instead of dull garb and masks, they wore pristine white suits to stand out among a crowd. While Mindkeepers wrote the sermons for the ninth-day services, the Faithkeepers bellowed them out with thunder and zeal. Sena dined with donors, attended family gatherings to bless the feasts, and provided comforting shoulders to people during their daily tribulations. Faithkeepers were often the most well-known and beloved members of a neighborhood, and there were dozens of streets throughout Londheim named after them.

  This was just fine with Adria. She did not desire recognition or praise. Adria was the mysterious woman behind the mask willing to dive her hands into the blood and shit to get things done. People might confess their dreams and heartaches to Faithkeepers, but they confessed their sins and flaws to the Mindkeepers. Adria firmly believed it was the latter that allowed real healing to begin.

  The doors swung open, and two more women stepped inside. Blood stained their sleeves and trousers. They’d need attention, bandages, and yet another empty place to lay their bodies down. All things Adria was sorely lacking. The first creeping scratch of panic bored into her chest.

  I can’t handle this, Adria thought, turning in place in search of the church’s Faithkeeper. No one can.

  Finding Faithkeeper Sena was always a simple task. Her midnight skin was a stark contrast to the blinding white of her trousers, shirt, vest, and jacket. The woman looked no less exhausted than Adria. Puffy circles surrounded her bronze eyes. Sweat stains marked the collar and arms of her shirt. Her jacket and vest lay on the floor, two babes sleeping atop them. The Faithkeeper’s triangle-and-rising-sun pendant of Alma, goddess of the dawn, hung from around her neck. Her head was shaved, a fact Adria was jealous of as she adjusted the sweaty mask covering her own face. It mattered not that it was a crisp fall evening; with so many people crammed into one building the heat radiated off every surface.

  “Faithkeeper, might I have a moment?” Adria asked as she stopped at the end of a cramped pew.

  Sena smiled and kissed the foreheads of the praying couple who knelt facing their little spot on one of many long pews. “Lyra bless you,” she whispered softly as she put an arm around each man, careful not to interrupt their prayer. How the woman could still smile and act calm amid all the chaos was a mystery to Adria.

  Sena walked sideways through the cramped pews, her expression nothing but pleasantness as she approached.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  Adria dropped her voice a little, wishing it weren’t so loud inside the church. It was hard to hold a private conversation when the coughing, crying, praying, and arguing rumbled from every corner.

  “This is beyond our capabilities,” she said. “Go to the cathedral and beg for aid from Vikar Caria. I lack every herb imaginable, I’m almost out of bandages, and some of these people don’t even have proper clothes on their backs. Please, even a handful of novices would help tremendously.”

  “If the Vikar of the Dawn will send aid, then she will send aid,” Sena said. “I’m not leaving where I’m needed to beg my superior to do her job.”

  “You know damn well Low Dock is the furthest thing from the Vikars’ minds.”

  “And you know damn well that I don’t agree,” Sena said, her smile never wavering. In public Sena was all pleasantries and comfort, but in private she bore a willpower as sharp and stubborn as Adria’s. Anyone who thought to intimidate the pleasant woman was quickly disabused of such a notion. “Vikar Thaddeus may treat Low Dock like it does not exist, but Caria has always been generous to me. She will remember, and she will send what aid she can. For now, our church has enough food and blankets to last the night. When morning comes, and I am certain our flock is cared for, then I shall go to my Vikar and ask.”

  Adria was glad her mask kept her glare hidden from the rest of the populace. The last thing they needed was the tired, hungry, and frightened scattered throughout the church to see their caretakers fighting.

  “So be it,” Adria said. “I shall assist with what limited resources are still available to us.”

  “You focus too much on resources we or the rest of the church possesses,” Sena said. “There are others who may help, don’t forget.”

  The idea slapped Adria with its obviousness.

  “Will you be fine without me for an hour?” she asked.

  Sena winked.

  “This isn’t my first season of strife,” she said. “And it’s not yours, either. Be swift.”

  Adria slipped out the church doors, put her back to the street, and tugged off her mask. She gasped as the cold air brushed her sweaty skin like a divine kiss. Too many people. Too many needs. Adria preferred her one-on-one sessions in people’s homes. Combined with her mask, it was the perfect mixture of intimacy and distance. This veritable tide of humanity begging for aid? What could she do for all of them?

  You could help them, you know, a fearless part of her whispered in the back of her mind. Just pray. See if it happens again.

  The temptation squirmed inside her chest. There were many, many types of prayers within Lyra’s Devotions. Some asked for rain. Some asked for food. She imagined kneeling in the center of the people, and bread appearing in her hands where none was before. They’d marvel and praise her name. They’d feel the goddess’s love. They’d know it in their bellies.

  Adria banished the prideful daydream as she slid her mask back over her face. No, even if she could work those
miracles, she would perform those prayers in secret. The keepers of the holy scripts and shapers of the divine message were not meant to be praised and beloved by the populace. There was a reason she wore her mask, and it wasn’t just to hide away her emotions. She almost ducked into an isolated alley and prayed for the bread anyway, just to see. Something, perhaps fear of failure, perhaps fear of success, kept her from doing so.

  “It’s time to help people,” Adria whispered. “And you’ll do it the old-fashioned way.”

  The people of Low Dock were some of the poorest, overworked, and undersheltered of all of Londheim. Despite having little to give, they were also the most ready to help others of similar circumstances.

  “Dearest child of Alma,” Adria said as the first door of the first house opened to her. “Have you room beneath your roof to shelter a family in need?”

  Adria returned with the setting of the sun. The chaos inside the church had settled down, helped in part by the eleven homes that had volunteered to shelter children and the elderly. Candles burned in evenly spaced candelabras hanging from the walls, casting long shadows so that even those crammed in the center of the pews could feel a sense of privacy. Adria heard soft weeping and the complaints of upset children as she walked the center aisle, but compared to earlier in the day the church was as quiet as a cave.

  Faithkeeper Sena wasn’t near her lectern or visible walking the pews. Retired for the night, Adria guessed. The far left end of the church had two doors side by side. Larger churches often separated the keepers’ living quarters from the worship hall, but neither Adria or Sena had that luxury. Each door led to their respective office and bedroom. Adria gently knocked on the Faithkeeper’s and waited. After a minute of no response she knocked again.

  Gone, then, she decided. Hopefully Vikar Caria will listen to Sena’s requests and remember that even Low Dock deserves a fair share of aid.

  She returned to the lectern and sat with her back against it. Her head thudded against the wood. Every muscle in her body ached, and her voice was hoarse from addressing nonstop prayers, complaints, and requests. This would be the easiest day, she knew, and that made her dread the coming weeks all the more. Today the hearts of Londheim’s people would be open to the plight of the refugees. They’d welcome and give and stand alongside strangers like brothers, but once the hard times came, the inevitable famine and overcrowding, the refugees would be outsiders once more.

  Adria wanted nothing more than to go to bed, but it’d be negligent of her to do so while Faithkeeper Sena was still absent. Drawing in a deep breath of resolve, she rose to her feet and began a long, winding circle through the dark church. She said nothing to the families. If they requested aid, she would give it. Until then, she would let them be.

  Halfway through her circle, the sight of a sleeping man curled up on the floor between the final two pews gave her pause. She squinted in the candlelight and leaned closer, and upon recognizing him, she gave his shoulders a shake.

  “Oh, hey, Adria,” Tommy said as he stirred. Sleepiness mixed with excitement, so that his smile looked incomparably goofy. It made her love him all the more. “I was wondering when you’d get back.”

  Adria held her finger to her lips.

  Follow me, she mouthed.

  Tommy more clattered to his feet than stood, a tattered blanket wrapped around his shoulders and chest. Adria led him out the door and to the side of the church. Her brother-in-law shivered and pulled his blanket tighter around him.

  “It’s so cold out here,” he said.

  “I find it’s too warm in there,” Adria said. She pulled off her mask so the chill air might blow across her sweaty face and neck. “How did the questioning go?”

  “As I expected,” Tommy said with a shrug. “A lot of vague questions and no patience for any detailed answers. I thought that, being one of the Wise, they’d be more interested in what I had to say over the average Jack or Harry. Turns out that’s not the case, though I don’t think they believed I was a member of the Wise. It’s the age, I know it. Society sneers at the young and beardless.”

  “Did you tell them about your new… abilities?”

  Tommy shook his head, and he honestly looked upset.

  “No. They didn’t even ask. I was near the back of the line, and truth be told, they looked ready to be done with all of this by the time I had my turn. It wasn’t a few minutes before they ordered me to keep my mouth shut and seek shelter in my designated district.”

  Relief swept through Adria’s chest. Spells and rituals were considered blasphemous by the Keeping Church, the activities of heretical Ravencallers who (according to greatly exaggerated legends) dressed in black feather costumes and beak masks, killed innocents, and feasted upon the power of their soul come the reaping hour. Their name had been given because of their disposal of the dead, for instead of burning or burying, they strung up soulless corpses to be devoured by the ravens. Now that the crawling mountain had arrived at Londheim the church’s opinion on magic might change, but for Tommy’s sake, the less they were aware of him, the better.

  “Try to keep all this spellcasting stuff to yourself for now, all right?” she asked. “Everyone’s frightened and confused, and I’d hate for people to react poorly to your abilities.”

  Tommy frowned.

  “You’re asking a butterfly to close its wings and pretend it’s a caterpillar. I’m not happy about this, but if you insist, I will try my best.”

  “Thank you.” She lovingly put a hand on the side of his face and smiled. “Good thing you were assigned here, right?”

  “No I wasn’t. They tried to squirrel me away in some church on the north side of town. Like I’d put up with that. I came here once no one was paying me any attention.”

  Up north meant one of the wealthier churches, Riverside District maybe or even the old cathedral in Sisters’ Way. Most would die to stay there instead of in her cramped, shoddy edifice down in Low Dock.

  “There’s no reason for you to stay here,” she said. “Why aren’t you at Devin’s house? He has plenty of room for you.”

  “He never offered.”

  “I’m offering for him.”

  “What if he gets mad?”

  Adria tilted her head and reminded herself to be patient. Tommy’s mind did not work like other people’s minds.

  “Tommy,” she said slowly, “You’re homeless, and you’re family. Devin will be mad if you don’t stay at his house.”

  “If you insist,” he said. Excitement immediately replaced his resistance. “I will get to see Puffy more often. I’ve been dying to ask it questions about who and what it is.”

  “See, there’s always a bright side to things,” she said, a sentiment she didn’t quite share in her exhaustion but knowing that her brother-in-law needed to hear it. “Do you remember where he lives?”

  “Seven-Five Sermon Lane. I’m bad at a lot of things, Adria, but dates and places aren’t one of them.”

  “Head there now,” she said. “I’ll try to visit when things calm down.”

  “You better,” Tommy said. He looked to the nighttime street. “Is it, um, is it safe to walk there now it’s, you know, dark?”

  Adria forgot that not everyone shared her comfortable familiarity with Low Dock’s winding streets and its downtrodden people.

  “If you’re nervous, go in the morning,” she said. “Your little spot between the pews will suffice for tonight.”

  “Good night, then,” Tommy said. He opened up his blanket enough to give her a hug. “And thanks for being here.”

  Adria gladly returned the hug. “I’m happy you’re here, too,” she said softly. “Londheim would be a sadder place without you.”

  Tommy blushed and wordlessly ducked inside the church. Adria remained outside, slowly twirling her mask in her hands. Her fingers traced the dividing line between the black and white halves. Too often she did not feel like herself without that comforting distance separating her from those she conversed with. Tommy w
as one of the few with whom she could. She needed more people like that in her life, she decided. Now more than ever. With so many dead, and many more suffering and soon to join them, it’d be tempting to sink all the way behind the porcelain so none of the pain could reach her.

  The rhythmic sound of metal hitting stone stirred her from her thoughts. A lone man approached from down the street. With every other step his cane clacked against the cobbles. The cane alone would have identified him to Adria, but the tightly fitted black vest and jacket signifying a Vikar of the church confirmed it.

  “Vikar Thaddeus,” she said, bowing low with her hands clasped to her chest. “Is there something amiss?”

  Thaddeus Prymm leaned on his cane and peered at her through his spectacles. He was the oldest of the three Vikars in Londheim, but in her opinion his mind was the sharpest. His hat drooped to one side atop his thick gray hair. A silver sun at the top right corner of a downward pointing triangle hung from two chains about his neck. The pendant was the symbol of Lyra, goddess of the day and patron of the Mindkeepers. Adria wore a similar pendant underneath her thick robes.

  “Must there be something amiss for me to visit one of my churches?” the Vikar of the Day asked.

  “In Low Dock?” Adria said. “Most often, yes.”

  “A stain upon my soul, then,” he said. “How are you, Adria?”

  “Do you wish the polite version or the real version?”

  “Whichever is closer to the truth.”

  Adria laughed even as a few tears swelled up in her eyes.

  “I feel like shit, Vikar. I’ve not had a day this long and tiring since seminary. Knowing that the days are about to get longer and harder only makes me that much more goddess-damned tired.”

  Thaddeus smiled at her.

  “I see you share a bit of your brother’s foul mouth,” he said.

  “I’m just the amateur,” she said. “He’s the expert at cursing up a storm to make the Goddesses blush.”

  Though Thaddeus was West Orismund’s Vikar of the Day, and therefore responsible for all their Mindkeepers, Adria knew him on a fairly personal level. The nearest library of any worth was the Grand Archive nestled into the enormous construct that was the Londheim Cathedral of the Sacred Mother. Adria trekked there often to prepare Faithkeeper Sena’s sermons. The Vikar was a devoted scholar himself, and over the past few years she’d developed a friendship with the elderly man during long discussions over tea in one of the archive’s many reading rooms.