The chapel was dark. Gladdy, the servant woman, had extinguished the candles hours ago, and the night was ink, stars and moon obscured by clouds. The two moved as quietly as they could, though neither was particularly adept at moving in silence. To Dienna, their footfalls might have been as loud as a beating drum. She was nervous, yet elated. There was something odd about that drunken old priest, indeed, and they had been sitting idle in the chapel for far too long.
Meredith was close behind her as she climbed the steep, narrow stairs leading up to Flavus’ room in the attic. As they ascended, she thought she could hear voices. She frowned. When she came near the top, Dienna paused and crouched down, motioning for Meredith to do the same. There was no door separating the staircase from the room, and Dienna wanted to remain out of sight. The voices were coming from the room's far side. One voice belonged, unmistakably, to Flavus. The other, though, seemed to be a woman’s voice.
“She is still detained?” the voice was saying.
Flavus returned shakily, “Yes, yes Chosen Mother, they are here still.”
“Very good,” the woman replied. “Those imbecile elves I sent to claim them lost their trail some time ago, but my ogres are only a day’s ride away from Drelwood. They should arrive soon enough.”
Dienna jumped as Meredith pinched her leg.
Ar-ti-ma the darker girl mouthed.
Dienna nodded, anger and betrayal hot in her stomach. Yet, if Artima herself were here in Drelwood, she doubted she would be in Flavus’ bedchamber. No, the woman herself was not here—she had sent ogres after them, like she said—but her voice was somehow in the room nevertheless.
Cautiously, Dienna crept up a few more stairs, just enough to see above the trapdoor and into the room beyond. Flavus’ back was to them. The fat old priest was cowering and shaking in front of—Dienna nearly gasped aloud—at the far end of the attic chamber, where before Dienna had seen the chapel's beautiful, circular stained glass window, she now saw Artima’s face, huge and distorted. The design of the stained glass was still apparent, the jagged leaded edges turning Artima’s coldly beautiful face into something hideous and deformed. If not for those fierce, dark brown eyes, Dienna might not have recognized her image superimposed on the fragments of glass.
“And do you have any news for me, Flavus? About what I seek?” Artima was now asking. It was surreal to see her mouth move within the glass. It reminded Dienna of watching her mother make shadow puppets for them as children; how the shadows would take the form of the whatever they were cast on—the flat surface of the wall, the ceiling, the furniture of their room—changing and distorting.
“I-I am afraid not, Chosen Mother,” he replied in a shaking voice. “I have a most advanced catalog of texts at my disposal, and not one of them fits the description that you have provided.”
“Then we must hope that the Darpentuses will have it,” Artima returned with some bitterness. “The Keeper is out of our grasps, for the time being. Do not lose the daughter. I have not yet had the pleasure of interviewing the son, but I am sure he is as stupid as he appears.”
“Yes, Chosen Mother,” Flavus replied.
Dienna shivered, excited to hear that Sonder was accounted for, presumably Artima's prisoner at the Godskeep, but also disturbed by his being interviewed by the sorceress. She wished desperately that she understood what they were talking about. Artima was looking for something, apparently, and Flavus was helping her search using his ancient library...but to what end?
Meredith shifted next to her, drawing Dienna's attention back to the conversation taking place before them.
“What shall I have the ogres do with the acolyte girl?” Flavus was asking.
“She is not to be harmed,” Artima replied coolly. “Cormin Hauvish, my second-in-command and most devout disciple, has a certain interest in our acolyte friend. I know that certain…perks were promised by others in return for your aid,” Artima's face took on a sour aspect, clearly disgusted, “but I must ask, on Cormin’s behalf, that you leave the girl alone.”
Whatever Flavus’s response to this request was, Dienna never knew, for next to her, Meredith gave an involuntary yelp of rage.
“Flavus,” Artima said almost lazily, “I believe you are being spied upon.”
The old priest whirled around so quickly that his ragged hair spun around and nearly hit him in the face.
“Who’s there? Who is it? Gladdy?” he called out, confused and afraid. “Damn it, I need light, I can’t see.”
“Izhaak!” Artima’s voice spat out the word of magic, and suddenly the old attic was brighter than day. Every nook and cranny was illuminated; there was nowhere to hide. Flavus saw them, and he advanced with a terrifying growl at the two girls, who were still standing in the recess of the open trap door. Dienna felt paralyzed, trapped as Artima’s giant, dark, distorted eyes locked with her own.
“Well, we seem to have found the trouble,” Artima said calmly as Flavus crept nearer. “I imagine you heard quite a bit of our conversation, Dienna Darpentus, but no matter.” She smirked, “You aren’t going anywhere. Stand aside Flavus.”
She spoke words that Dienna could not understand, words that seemed to resonate in Dienna's skull, and Dienna felt her body being lifted violently in the air, Meredith at her side. Helplessly, the two writhed and kicked at the air as Artima guided them slowly to her awful face.
“Foul witch!” Dienna cursed. “You dare to call yourself Chosen Mother! You dare blaspheme against the gods! Let us go! Or the wrath of the Three will be upon you!”
Artima laughed, full of derision, “The wrath of the Three has already fallen upon your own household, young Darpentus! They have taken away your precious Godskeep and have granted it to me, as the new home for the child of almighty Dartos, where we will cultivate the New Way and purge the world of all its wickedness! Do not speak to me of the wrath of the gods.”
Dienna and Meredith glided closer and closer to the face in the stained glass window. Dienna struggled still, wriggling and writhing and willing her body to be released from the spell. They were within an arm's length of the window now, Artima's face impossibly large in front of them. Dienna wondered what would happen when they made contact with the glass surface. Whatever it was, it would be painful. Dienna winced.
Suddenly, there came a deafening crash, and the windowed shattered. Dienna covered her face with her arms just in time as a million tiny shards, each showing Artima’s face shouting in rage, cascaded to the floor in an avalanche of sparkling light. The girls fell to the floor. The room was once again in darkness, rain from the storm outside falling steadily through the hole left by the shattered stained glass window. Dienna could feel cuts on her skin, mostly on her forearms, from where the glass had sliced her, but was otherwise unharmed. She looked to her friend. Her scarf had fallen out of her hair, and there was a gash of blood across one cheek, but that was all.
Meredith gave her a questioning look, “What happened?” she said. “What broke the spell?”
“I don’t know,” Dienna replied. Perhaps the gods had come to her aid, she thought wildly. She looked around, but saw only old Flavus standing behind them, clutching the top of a broken bottle of wine in his bloodied hand.
“Did you…break the window?” Dienna asked, astonished and disgusted by the man.
“I have sinned too much,” he replied bitterly. It was the only time Dienna had seen him look even remotely intimidating. He continued in the same tone, “You do not have much time. She has ogres less than a day’s ride from here. You had better go. Now!”
His voice cracked on the last syllable, and he began shaking violently. Dienna was about to protest, but Meredith grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back to the trapdoor. The two ran down the stairs, through the chapel, and to their room. Wordlessly, they grabbed their possessions, and made for the chapel door.
As they hurried their way through the church’s courtyard, Dienna felt fear, fear such as she had never known before. She had seen other priests supporting Artima at the Sunset Ceremony, and, like a fool, she had thought that they were the only traitors among her order. How many more priests across Dorneldia had been in Artima's fold? How long had they been working for her? Why hadn’t she known about any of this? Had her father known? Dienna felt her heart sink.
“Where do we go now?” Dienna asked. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded uncharacteristically small. It was raining in earnest, and the chapel courtyard was dark and foreboding and the branches of its trees whipped about in the wind.
Meredith was silent for a moment. The rain was starting to drip down her face in a steady stream.
“We’ll find that wizard,” she said. “Endrick.”
Dienna opened her mouth to protest, when she heard an agonized cry coming from the chapel above, followed by an immense clap of thunder that she could feel deep in her chest. She did not envy what would happen to Flavus when Artima's ogres arrived.
“Fine,” Dienna agreed. “We'll find the wizard. What other choice do we have?”
Meredith smiled grimly, “None. Let's go.” She turned and led the way from the chapel courtyard, Flavus' peals of terror echoing on the wind.
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