Raven's Shadow (Raven #1)(23)

Volis smiled. "I have not done so badly here. Your own family attends my meetings. In fact, I was on my way to consult with Bandor when you ran into me - and I couldn't resist the chance to have a Traveler to speak to. But the main reason I am here - instead of a really big city, like Korhadan, for instance - is Shadow's Fall. We feel that there are things on the old battlefield that might enlighten us."

Shadow's Fall? Seraph bit back her opinion of the stupidity of anyone who wanted to explore there. Doubtless the battlefield could educate this solsenti fool better than she.

Like Willon's shop and many of the buildings on the steeper slopes, the temple had been built into the mountain. The facade was raw timber and crude, except for the doors, which were smooth and oiled until they were almost black.

Volis ushered her inside, and Seraph had to stop in the threshold to allow her eyes to adjust from the brightness outside.

The room was a richly appointed antechamber that would have been more at home in a Sept's keep than in a village temple. Either the - what was it Volis had called it?  -  the Path of the Five was a rich church indeed, or the Sept owed its Elders a lot of favors.

"There are only three temples," said Volis, seeing her expression. "Two in Taela and this one. We intend this to be a place of pilgrimage."

"Shadow's Fall," said Seraph, "a place of pilgrimage."

"Where the Five triumphed over evil," said the priest, apparently oblivious to the doubt in her voice. "Come and see the refuge, where I hold services."

Seraph followed him through a tapestry-curtained entrance into a room like none she'd ever seen before.

The excavations were far more extensive than she had thought. The ceiling of the chamber soared overhead like an upside-down bowl. Near the edge it was a single handspan over the doorway, in the center of the room it rose three times the height of a tall man. The stone walls, floors, and ceiling were as smooth as polished marble.

This... this was built in the short season since the new Sept came to explore his inheritance?

The ceiling was painted a light sky-blue that darkened gradually to black on the walls. The light that illuminated the room seemed to emanate from that skylike ceiling. Magic, thought Seraph, solsenti magic. But her attention was on the figures that occupied the false firmament. Chasing each other endlessly around the perimeter of the ceiling were five life-sized birds painted with exquisite detail.

Volis was silent as she walked past him to the center of the room.

Lark, she thought, chills creeping down her spine. A cormorant's brilliant eyes invited her to play in the stormy winds. An owl glided on silent wings toward the black raven, who held a bright silver and ruby ring in its mouth, while next in line a falcon began its stoop. Together they circled the room, caught in endless flight.

In the center of the ceiling, twice as large as any other, a river eagle caught the winds and twisted its head to look down upon the room as if to examine its prey.

Each bird a representative of the six Orders of the Travelers.

"Behold the Five," said Volis softly in a language Seraph hadn't heard since the day her brother died. "Lark the healer, Cormorant who rules the weather, Owl of wisdom and memory, Raven the mage, Falcon the hunter. And above them all, trapped in darkness is the secret god, the lost god. You didn't know about the lost god, did you?"

"They are not gods," said Seraph in her tongue. Though, she remembered, in the old stories of before they Traveled, her people had believed that there were gods as he had described. But as the Old Wizards had grown in knowledge and power they had put those fallacies behind them.

As if she hadn't spoken, Volis pointed to the eagle. "I found him, in books so old they crumbled at my touch, in hints in ancient songs. For generations the Elders of the Path have worshiped only the Five - until I found the lost god."

"The Eagle?" said Seraph, caught between an urge to laugh at the idea of solsenti worshiping the Orders as gods, and distaste. Distaste won.

"The Eagle." He looked pleased. "My discovery led me to be honored by this appointment," he waved a hand to indicate the temple.

"Congratulations," said Seraph, because he seemed to expect her to say something of the sort. She glanced at the ceiling again and wondered what her father would have said if he'd seen it.

"I have gleaned some things," he said. "The Eagle is protected by the others, so that he can rescue them in some future time, when they are all at risk and the world hangs in the balance."

She'd taught Tier that song in translation, a child's tune to teach them about the Orders. Obviously the translation that Volis had happened upon had been less careful. He made it sound as if the Eagle's purpose as Guardian was for some single, predestined event.

Eagerly the young priest turned to Seraph and took her hands. "I see from your face that you know about the Eagle."

"We do not speak of the Eagle to outsiders," said Seraph.

"But I'm not an outsider," he said waving an impassioned hand at the ceiling. "I know about Travelers; I've spent my life studying them. Please, tell me what you know of the Eagle."

Seraph didn't suffer fools gladly - she certainly didn't aid and abet their stupidity. It was time to go home. "I am sorry," she said. "I have work awaiting me. Thank you for showing me around; the artwork is very good."