Finder's Bane - Kate Novak [66]
"I would prefer to drink to the return of the finder's stone to Finder's priests," he said, holding up his goblet.
"Then I will drink to the resurrection of Lord Bane," Walinda replied.
They sipped from their drinks. The liquid was mead, old and mellow.
"Is there nothing to which we can both drink?" Walinda asked demurely.
"I don't think we have all that much in common," Joel said, laying his left hand on the railing.
"I know," Walinda said "We can toast our escape from the Temple in the Sky."
Joel lowered his eyes with embarrassment.
"It's all right, Poppin," the priestess said, laying her right hand on his left. "I forgive you for abandoning me."
"Are Banites allowed to forgive?" Joel asked in mock surprise.
Walinda lowered her eyes as if she'd truly been chastised, then looked back up at the Rebel Bard. "Perhaps I should have said I understand that you were not at fault. My lord came to my rescue in this ship. He found a way to make it fly. His power grows with my faith," she said.
Recalling Jedidiah's explanation of the spelljammer, Joel replied, "Actually, any spellcaster, priest or mage, can make this ship fly."
Walinda's eyes half closed in anger.
"Your lord didn't tell you that?" Joel asked. "Well, you are just a slave," he added, relishing the chance to make her feel less exalted.
Walinda winced as if she'd been cut. She looked back up at Joel, a sly smile on her face. She slid her right hand up from his fingers into the cuff of his sleeve and squeezed his wrist. "See? We do have something in common. You want to degrade me."
Startled by the priestess's words and the gleam in the her eyes, Joel pulled his arm away from her grasp and looked away, into the night sky. He couldn't think of a safe reply that was either honest or sensible.
"You remind me of myself," Walinda said, "before I met my god. I did not know my purpose. I could command a legion and break any man in interrogation. I could heal soldiers who had earned Bane's grace and raise the dead. I had so many duties, yet my worship seemed to have no purpose. Now I know fully why I am a priestess. I serve Bane. I am his servant, his slave. It is the sweetest knowledge imaginable. There is nothing greater I can be."
Walinda took a sip from her goblet, then continued "You are a priest of Finder. You recreate art, search for new meaning in every variation, use your art to bring about change."
Joel looked back at Walinda with surprise.
"Yes," the priestess said. "You see, I understand something of the tenets of your faith as well as the old priest understands ours. But there is something that transcends the tenets of our separate faiths, something that I have, but so far you can only long for. You do not believe that your service has meaning. Are you just another whisper to Finder? Does he send you your spells automatically, without thinking, in that careless manner the gods sometimes have? If another were to take your place, if you were to become something besides a priest, would it make any difference?"
Joel sipped at the mead, wondering if it was really possible that this woman could have felt all the things that he had. Perhaps, he thought, she's just used some magic trinket to read my thoughts.
"If you heard his voice say your name and command you, as I heard Lord Bane's," Walinda whispered, "then you would know your purpose, and your heart would question nothing." The priestess leaned against Joel. The bard could smell the rose perfume in her hair and the spicy incense that clung to her velvet gown. She laid her hand on his neck. Her hand was very warm. She stroked his shoulder with the tips of her fingernails. Exhausted as the bard was from days of fleeing in the rough countryside, the woman's touch was quite relaxing.
"See," the priestess whispered, "you do want to be a slave."
Joel sighed softly. Then her words connected in his brain. He pulled away from her hand and stepped bad