Under Fallen Stars - Mel Odom [54]
Jherek nodded.
"Stings your pride, doesn't it, lad?" an old man's voice croaked behind Jherek. "Taking things offered you is hard."
When he turned and saw the old man who'd addressed him, Jherek swallowed an angry retort. The young sailor couldn't guess how old the man was. Time had marched scores of hard years over him. The man's face sagged with thick wrinkles, and his fevered blue eyes peered up from gristled pits. A fringe of gray hair gnarled around his head. He wore deep scarlet robes that marked him as a priest. Both hands shook, whether from age or illness Jherek couldn't say, and provided him a precarious balance.
"Do you have something to say, lad?" the old man asked, his face stern in spite of the loose flesh on his face.
"Brother Cadiual," the first priest said, "what are you doing out of bed?" He sounded very concerned and walked over quickly to the old man's side. "I gave strict orders that you were not to be disturbed."
Jherek smelled the illness on the old man and breathed shallowly through his mouth to avoid it.
"I'm here doing Lathander's work," Cadiual snapped. "As I have ever done during my life."
"But you're not well."
"Ghauryn," the old man said in a hoarse whisper that stopped the other priest's objections immediately, "I was running this temple long before you ever suckled at your mother's breast. Ill not suffer your insubordination now."
The other priest nodded, taking a half-step back. "As you command and Lathander wills."
Cadiual eyed Jherek. "Who are you, boy?"
"I'm called Malorrie, a sailor from Velen."
The rheumy old eyes searched Jherek's face. "What brought you here?"
Jherek showed him the bandages and balms Ghauryn had given him. "I've got a wounded friend."
Cadiual waved the answer away in irritation. "No. Before that. What brought you to Baldur's Gate?"
"I came with a caravan from Athkatla."
"Yet you're not from Amn, and by your own professed statement, you're a sailor. What were you doing with a caravan?"
Jherek felt very uncomfortable, suddenly realizing he had the attention of many of the priests in the back room. "It was the only way I could get here."
"Again," the old man said in his cracking, hoarse voice. "Why did you choose to come here, at this time when the sea itself rises up against us?"
"I came because I wanted to learn more about myself."
"See," Ghauryn interrupted, "you've been under the influence of that fever again, Cadiual. He's given you your answer." He reached for the old man's shoulder.
Angrily, Cadiual swept his cane toward the other priest, making him step back again. He returned his attention to Jherek. "You came because you wanted to learn what about yourself?"
Jherek silently wished he'd never stepped foot into the temple of Lathander. He wished he could muster the ill manners it would take to simply walk away from the old man and his piercing gaze. "Where I should go from here."
"You were sent here, weren't you? By a divination that you couldn't possibly comprehend."
Jherek didn't reply, feeling that he was being the butt of some bit of humor he didn't understand. He tried to take a step and leave.
"You think I'm some foolish old man, don't you?" Cadiual said.
"No," Jherek answered politely. "I think perhaps you've got me confused with someone else."
"Nay. I was told long before you were born that you would one day find your way here. A sailor, I was told, shorn from the sea and bereft of home, a man hardly more than a boy who runs from the bloody shadow of his father. A boy seeking his future to outrun his past, who was needy, yet hated to take on any help from others. To accomplish his task, there was much help he'd have to take along the way. Learning to accept that would be only one of his lessons." He paused. "Though we think we live our lives alone, there is no one of us completely alone, boy. The gods overlook us all."
Astonishment froze Jherek in place. There was no way the priest could know all that, unless he truly was mad and his powers of divination were confused by his insanity.
"Still, there is one way to be certain."