It had stormed all day in Deynaport. Perhaps owing to the gloomy weather, few worshipers had come to the temple. This had given Sarka far too much time to worry about what Tayo had revealed to her. If the holy book were truly in the Bone Palace in the Opal Realm, there was no way Sarka could hope to retrieve it herself.
Would Tayo agree to help her? Could his treachery to Kogoren extend that far?
And there was the other matter. It should not have surprised Sarka that, having offended Kogoren and brought down her wrath upon the Annari, she had offended the God of the Crescent, as well. She wondered how powerful a god this Jalea was.
What uneasy truce had Lord Atai struck to defend her, and why?
Sarka's lonely contemplation had been undisturbed. She spent part of the day tidying in the temple as Konn worked on Atai's God-Song in their living quarters. He poked his head out in the late afternoon to tell her he was going to his bed, complaining of a headache. Sarka had nothing left to do-there was nothing more to mend and nothing left to clean-so, reluctant to disturb Konn, she spent the rainy day wandering from one side of the temple to another, wracking her brain for next steps in her journey.
How would she get the God-Song? How?
Perhaps she would be forced to choose another way.
Night fell at last. Sarka had only lit a couple of candles to keep her company in the gloaming. Now, she went to blow them out, preparing to take herself to bed for what she knew would be a sleepless night.
As she drew breath to blow out the first candle, she heard a knock at the door. It was well past the time when petitioners would come. Her first thought-illogical, but immediate-was of danger.
Could it be one of the Beloved?
Could it be Lord Jalea?
Sarka shook the thoughts away. She knew that Tayo and the others could not cross the threshold. As for the God of the Crescent, he would not come seeking her in Atai's temple-would he? It was a supplicant, desperate for solace; it had to be. He or she would be disappointed to find the temple empty of any supernatural shoulders to cry on.
She took the wooden bar off of the door and opened it a crack, peeking out to see who was on the other side.
She shut it again at once. Bewildered, Sarka stared at the closed door, wondering if she had gone mad.
The man on the other side knocked again. "Let me in, woman!" he cried.
Sarka opened the door a second time. "What are you doing here?"
"Wonderful to see you too," said Ro. He stood shivering on the threshold He wore his ash-walker's scarf, but the rainfall was his only cloak.
The patter of the rain falling onto the cobbles outside was the only sound for a moment as Sarka grasped for a response. At last, she stepped aside. "It is. I mean, it is wonderful to see you, Ro."
Ro stepped inside. Sarka closed the door behind him, watching him shake his limbs and wipe the rain off his face with a weary brush of his palm. Then he looked at her, dripping onto the wooden floor. His smile was a flash of white in the gloom, his voice a sigh of relief. "I made it."
"How?"
"By boat, woman-what do you think? When I heard from the Annari that you had crossed the sea, I couldn't believe it. They said you'd made it all the way to Deynaport on The Crescent. I never expected...I thought you would die."
The blood drained from Sarka's face. "The Annari. You saw them?"
"One of their ships, aye. I was still holed up in Horn Harbor with my damned foot." He shook the foot he had wounded, displaying a new set of boots. "Better now, but it got ugly for a while. Couldn't strike out for home 'til it was healed. The Jewelwave came into harbor before I left. Their captain had met Etza in Maidenport and heard the tale off her. I'm lucky I was still there when they docked."
He paused, looking her up and down, and shook his head with a smile. "Sarka. You made it. I made it, too. By the Mother's frigid womb, I still don't know how you did it. I barely survived."
"You were followed."
"Yes. You know better than anyone. But it wasn't what I expected. The first night and the second, I lay awake for hours with this-this crushing pain in my head. It was torture. I thought my skull would split open. On the third night, it appeared. He appeared."
"Did he attack you?"
"He did. It frightened me clean out of my wits. I did not comport myself as bravely as I might have hoped." Ro smiled with rueful humor. "All right, all right-I panicked. Prattled like a fool. Somewhere in there, I told him I was coming for you. That's...when he let me go."
Sarka put her hands over her face. "Ro, no. What did you promise him?"
"Nothing! I said I was coming for you, that's all. And he-Karsa was his name-he said Tayo had told him about you. Do you know that name?"
"You should have stayed in Kogoren."
Ro did not challenge her evasion. He changed subjects just as quickly. "Have you seen the trees? The plants? It's almost like Kogoren was before the Cataclysm. I had a sweet roll off a baker's cart yesterday and I thought I would die. Sarka-"
She took her hands away from her face. "Ro! Shut up! You should never have come." He opened his mouth to interject, but she cut him off. "Etza is dead. She and her whole crew. They're dead for bringing me across the ocean. The Beloved gave chase and drove them to their deaths. Now-"
"What?"
"-the ship you came in on, where is it? Still at harbor?"
"No," he said. His words were slow as what she'd told him sank in. "I've been here for two days. I didn't expect to find you at all. It's a huge city...but Karsa told me where you were..."
"Ro, they're going to die. All of them. They're probably already dead. There's no way to save them if they're out at sea."
Ro stared at her for a moment. What she said seemed to have taken the wind out of him. He backed up a few paces, set his back against the wall, and slid down to sit on the floor.
"Tayo tried to drive me mad. I convinced him to let me go if I'd free him. He did. He let me go, and I came ashore, and not long after that I was looking at dozens of the Annari lying dead on the beach. Driven mad and drowned. Ro, the same is going to happen to the Annari who brought you to Galdren. They're going to die."
"They can't do that. The Annari are not under Kogoren's dominion."
Sarka did not reply; a thought had struck her, a desperate thought. She dropped the door bar, flung the door open, and rushed out into the rainy night. As an afterthought, she pulled up the hood of her robe over her hair as she sloshed barefooted across the cobbles. "Tayo!"
"Sarka!" Ro called.
"Tayo!"
He appeared before her, difficult to see through the rain that fell right through his form; his pale hair floated around his face, unaffected by the downpour. Then, another ghostly form appeared behind him. Sarka shrank back, but it wasn't Caol; this one was younger, a Beloved she had not seen before.
"Who is that?" she asked.
Ro had come up behind her. He answered her question when he said, "Karsa? You came back."
Sarka did not have time to focus on Karsa-it was enough to know that he was not an immediate danger. She said, "Tayo, please. I need your help."
"The God-Song is beyond my reach," Tayo said. He had guessed what she planned to ask him.
"No. Not that. Something else. This idiot-" and she elbowed Ro in the ribs- "chased me across the sea, and that idiot-" and she pointed at Karsa, who cocked his head- "allowed him to, and now the Annari are in danger."
Tayo blinked at her, not seeming to understand what this had to do with him.
"Please," she said. The image of the Crescent God's figurehead, the only face she had for the stranger, flashed through her mind. The image of Etza's corpse was not far behind it. "You have to help them. You have to go to the ship and help them. Somehow. They'll die."
"I will not leave you," Tayo said. "I must keep watch."
"I don't care. You have to go and protect them. I'll stay in the temple. None of you can enter there, can you?"
"Atai is not our god; we cannot pass into his sanctuary."
"Then go! Go, and I'll stay inside-but please, Tayo, you must help them."
Tayo narrowed his eyes at her. "I do not care about the Annari."
"I do."
The two Beloved stared at the two humans for a few seconds, and then they exchanged a glance. A second later, Tayo flickered and disappeared, followed by the younger Beloved. In an instant, Sarka and Ro stood alone on the street.
Ro took her elbow. "Alright-I don't understand what's going on, but I understand this much: if your otherworldly strong-man is leaving, you need to get back inside."