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A.R.Yngve DARC AGES Book Three _________________________ |
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Chapter 22
"What are you doing here?" Tharlos snapped, angry and anxious at once; he glared at his mother who stood in his doorway, anxious to come inside. "Are you hiding a radio receiver in there, Tharlos?" "I don't have to answer you," he said, instantly regressing to a sulking boy, acting ten years below his age. This always happened, he reflected. And always she got her way, in the end. "What have you been hearing, that I should not hear?" she demanded. "The security of the state is threatened," he replied, blocking the doorway. "I must stay informed. It is none of your concern." She made a face of overwhelming worry, and pleaded in a disturbing, unnatural tone: "But you are my security of state, my concern! I live only for your safety!" Tharlos felt a growing onrush of panic. He was deprived of sleep; she was drunk again; and he had just heard Darc broadcast an impassioned speech in defense of the Lepers. Tharlos's cult followers were demanding more time and attention than his military endeavors would allow for -- and he had a piercing headache. The last thing he needed was his mother's smothering, lurking presence. Her long-fingered hand darted out to touch him; Tharlos reeled back and tried to shut the door in her face. She hysterically pressed on. "Don't do this to me, Tharlos! You're all I have left in this world!" she wailed. "Go back to your useless husband!" he shouted, and thought: What does it take to make you go away? Is there anyone in the world who could help me against you? Finally, he managed to lock the door; she kept pounding on it, wailing pathetically. Tharlos pressed his palms against his ears, but he could still hear her obsessive litany, still feel the headache. His cranium was on the verge of bursting, and his limbs ached for sleep. Killing her was a tempting option, and all too easily accomplished -- but this was the wrong time. His parents' demise had to be plotted with care, and he was much too busy planning the alliance against Darc. He had to wait; he had to endure this living hell just a little more. Tharlos sank down with his back to the door, rocking his head from side to side -- descending into a delirium that he mistook for sleep, but was in fact madness. His mother kept wailing for hours on end. The formal ruler of the city, Lord Migam Pasko, was blissful where he slept; he had found another, safer delirium in a bottle. |
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A baptism of a newborn child was to take place in the cathedral of Damon City, next morning at Mass. The attending families had not yet arrived to the cathedral's front portal, when a verger made a shocking discovery. On the wall of a nearby house, someone had painted a message in huge, mocking letters during the night:
DOES THE GODDESS LOVE LEPERS TOO? The verger alerted the head verger. The head verger alerted the priestesses, who in turn alerted the high-priestess. Inu took the stairs up to a parapet high above the street, and looked down at the wall painting below. She turned to the head verger. "Remove it," she said. "At once." The head verger bowed lightly, and replied: "I took the liberty of ordering that earlier, Your Holiness." They looked down over the parapet, and saw a crew of vergers and novices rushing across the street, pulling carts loaded with draperies and canvases. Working at a frenzied pace, they began to nail the sheets over the graffiti. Just as the first crowds of churchgoers began to appear on the plaza before the cathedral, the word LEPERS had been covered from sight. Inu caught a movement in the corner of her eye. She shifted her gaze across the plaza, and glimpsed window shutters slamming shut. It was too late. The word had been seen, and would spread. Inu pulled her red cloak tighter around her shoulders, shuddering in the icy mist. She thought about Darc, perhaps in a clearer way than she had before: Are you still my Singing King? Is this what you want of me? Will the heavenly reunion end in the desecration of the Church? I don't want ugliness to slink into my beautiful cathedral! I will never let a Leper inside these doors! Never, never. O Goddess, you are not as strong in me as you should be... The high-priestess walked off to the stairs and down, to perform her duties. When faith faltered, there was always ritual to fall back on. And as she had foreseen, the word spread; and spread, and continued to spread. An irreversible tide of change had begun, that would continue long after Darc was gone. |
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