Angus Wells - The Kingdoms 03 by The Way Beneath (v1.1) Page B

billows
across a cerulean backdrop that mirrored the reemergent sun.
                 Gerat
stood at the threshold of the balcony, studying the sparkle of rain on the
rooftops, unaware that her slippers rested in the puddle left by the storm.
Equally unaware as she turned away that she left a trail of dark footprints
across the rosewood boards, leading from the portal to the desk on which sat
Alaria’s Text and several other volumes of carefully bound parchment. She
settled herself in the high-backed chair, smoothing strands of glossy black
hair into place with an absentminded gesture as she returned to her studies,
not quite sure what it was she sought in the ancient volumes.
                 The
Text she now knew almost by heart, able to quote Alaria’s enigmatic words with
a facility to match Sister Lavia’s, but what intrigued her was its possible
correlation with other, mostly earlier, writings of the Sorority’s visionaries.
Those of Sister Qualle were of particular interest, plucked from the oldest
shelves of the library by the diligence of the acolytes she had entrusted with
the research. She turned the pages of that tome now, wondering who had scribed
for the illiterate Sister, and what they had made of her seemingly meaningless
ramblings. The original document had long crumbled into dust and what she held
was a copy of a copy, and thus possibly subject to alterations, but even so it
seemed to her that Sister Qualle had preceded Alaria in her warning of Ashar’s
interventions in the affairs of the Kingdoms. Lavia, she knew, disagreed, as
did Jara, and by common consent those two were the finest antique scholars in
living memory; yet she was unable to rid herself of that doubt that nagged at
the edges of her mind, that conviction that the fight was not ended with the
Messenger’s defeat but merely held in abeyance.
                 She
turned the ancient pages carefully, smoothing each one as sunlight filled her
chamber again, the slightly musty odor of the vellum joined now by the fresher
perfume of rain-washed air, the inking seeming to glow in the radiance of the
afternoon. A frown drew lines across her forehead as she studied the archaic
language, her lips shaping words no longer in common usage, her blue gaze darkening
as she found the passage she wanted—or had hoped not to find, she was not sure
which.
                 She
read it slowly, then again, faster, and then a third time slowly, each time the
meaning remained unchanged and her frown grew deeper. She pushed the tone aside
and reached for Alaria’s Text, her long index finger tracing a passage already
marked with the indentation of her nail, then returned to Qualle’s words.
                 The
sun still shone when finally she looked up, and the sky was still blue, but
Gerat’s gaze was somber and sighted not on the heavens but on the words burning
within her mind. For long moments she sat staring blindly at the rectangle
framed by the balcony door, then she rose to her feet, pacing across the
chamber to throw open the door and call for an acolyte.
                 A
gangly girl in a pale blue gown answered the Paramount Sister’s summons,
listening carefully to her instructions before scurrying like an eager puppy to
do her bidding. Gerat returned to her desk and once more read Qualle’s words,
then closed both that and Alaria’s Text, folding the two books against her
bosom as she quit the chamber and made her way through the corridors to a room
furnished with a single large table and five plain chairs. Two walls were of
blank stone, the others windowed so that sunlight filled the recesses,
burnishing the oak of the table’s top to a lustrous glow. It fell on the
straw-colored hair of the young woman who sat facing the door, lending a
honeyed glow to her tanned skin, and on the untidy brown strands of the homely
woman seated beside her.
                 Gerat
nodded a greeting and