Reign of Shadows - Deborah Chester [20]
Caelan knew no way to make this old man understand. “It isn’t Rieschelhold,” he said. “It’s me. I belong elsewhere, in another kind of life. I was not meant to be a healer.”
“You were born,” the Elder said gravely, “to be nothing else.”
He waited, but Caelan faced him without flinching.
At last the Elder bowed his head. “Very well. I expel you now from Rieschelhold, that you can cause no more harm to the other novices by example or by deed, that you can spread your evil influence no longer within these walls, that you can never again commit blasphemous acts to disrupt our harmony. In this expulsion, I pity your father, for the son he has, for the son he must again deal with.”
Caelan realized he’d been holding his breath. He let it out now, hardly able to believe his ears. Jubilation lifted like skyrockets. Was this all there was to expulsion? What a relief. He barely held back a grin.
The Elder picked up the scrolls from his desk and threw them on the fire. The parchment caught, sending up sparks and curling into black cinders as the fire ate through it eagerly.
He looked past Caelan at the proctors. “Prepare him.”
The proctor opened the door. One of them beckoned to Caelan. He rushed out, grinning broadly now, almost skipping with joy. All he had to do now was gather his belongings. They were few enough. A pair of soft traveling boots, fur-lined for winter. His thick cloak. A book of music and his flute. A drawing made for him by his sister Lea. A smooth, fist-sized stone of marble which he’d gathered in Ornselag at the seashore when his mother still lived. These things had been taken by the purser upon his admittance, locked away for the day on which he would leave.
That day had finally come. He couldn’t believe it.
But as he stepped out of Elder Sobna’s office, he heard a bell start ringing, a deep somber bell he’d never heard before.
At the foot of the stairs, the same servant waited for them. But instead of leading them to the door, the man pointed at a narrow hallway.
Caelan’s high spirits dropped. “What now?” he asked suspiciously. “Where are you taking me? I just want to get my things, then go.”
The proctors shoved him down the hallway and into a tiny room containing only a tin basin and a stool. There was no heat and no window. Only a small, face-sized hole cut high in the door provided any kind of dim illumination.
Caelan took in these details with one glance as he spun around. “But why do I—”
One of the proctors drove him back with its staff. “You will remain here until you are prepared.”
“No!” Caelan shouted. “It’s a trick! You won’t purify me. Do you hear? You won’t—”
But they slammed the door, bolting him into the gloom.
Chapter Four
OUON BELL TOLLED ominously over the silent expanse of Rieschelhold, its deep, sonorous voice echoing across the courtyard, orchard, buildings, and snowy forest beyond. Ouon Bell rang seldom; it was the bell of death and tragedy. It began tolling at midday, when Caelan was led from the house of the Elder, and it did not stop.
The sky remained slate gray. Intermittent snowflakes fell. Ushered by the proctors, all the students assembled in somber silence in the courtyard. Big-eyed, the young novices in their short indigo robes stamped their feet and blew on their hands to keep warm. The taller disciples—gangly and awkward in their long cyan robes—looked frightened or grave. The most advanced, the healers, marched along in gray robes trimmed with pale fur, their expressions blank within severance. White-faced and nervous, the serfs clustered at the rear. The proctors moved back and forth among the assembly until not a sound could be heard, not a rustle, not a throat being cleared in the crowd. Only the soft sigh of the falling snow and the low peals of the bell broke the silence.
The masters,