Song of Ashes

30: An Unfinished Blessing

As Sarka approached the Temple of Deyna, a stout woman stepped out. She wore a woven circlet over her flowing hair and was dressed in a long blue robe. The woman paused as their paths converged, saying, "Welcome to Our Lady's house." She folded her hands at her waist and inclined her head.

Sarka, unsure how to respond, nodded briefly in return. "Thank you." She glanced up at the facade of the building again. "Are you a...a priestess here?"

"The abbess. My name is Rella." Rella paused and gave a vague sort of smile, her eyes lingering on Sarka's scar.

Sarka ignored the question that was obvious in Rella's expression, puzzling over what the woman had called herself. What was an abbess? As she thought on this, there was a silence. Sarka had never been good at conversation, even with those she knew, but with strangers in a strange land, social interaction was uncharted territory.

It looked like the abbess expected something of Sarka; when she did not receive it, a frown twitched at the corners of her mouth. Rella made to move past Sarka. Jolted into action, Sarka clasped her hand over the closure of her satchel and said, "Madam, please-I wonder if you might need the assistance of a seamstress here at your temple."

Rella's assessing gaze moved from Sarka's tangled, disheveled curls down to her bruised throat, her faded, much-mended dress, her skinny legs. She did not appear to like what she saw. "You do not know much about Our Lady, do you?" asked the abbess, sidestepping Sarka's question.

Sarka frowned, but she removed the frown from her face with an effort and attempted a conciliatory tone. "I'm sorry, Lady Rel-"

"Abbess."

"Abbess...Rella. I'm not from this place. But I'm looking for work, and I'm talented. I would do great things for you and your goddess."

"So I thought. An outlander. From Sayoria?"

"No, madam."

"One of the Annari." Rella clicked her tongue. Her expression betrayed that she did not find much to like about the Annari.

"No. I'm from Kogoren."

Instantly, the expression of slight distaste on Rella's face changed, as if a dark cloud had passed over her features. The woman spat on the ground and made a warding gesture with her hands, tracing her first and second fingers in a straight line down her breastbone. "Kogoren," she echoed, and her voice was a gasp.

"I-"

"You are welcome to pray here, child. The goddess welcomes foreigners into her fold. But I'm afraid we have no work for you." Again, Rella's eyes were plainly fixed on Sarka's scarred face, as if the scars were a brand. They might as well have been: the brand of a woman from the cursed shores of the ashlands.

"I have an errand. Go with..." Rella half lifted her hand in some gesture of blessing, but she trailed off and turned away, the blessing unfinished.

Sarka stood on the steps for a moment, watching Rella hasten away along the street. Then, she turned back to the temple, feeling ill-at-ease. Without knowing why, she pushed open one of the huge wooden doors. She had been turned away from work, and she certainly did not want to pray...but she did want to see what such a place was like inside.

She had never been in any holy place before.

Sarka entered a high-ceilinged antechamber where the polished marble floor reflected a medallion of brilliant colors: the pool of light that filtered in through the round, colored-glass window Sarka had noticed from the street. Music from instruments she had never heard before came from somewhere beyond, threaded through with the clear tones of a human voice chanting words Sarka could not understand.

The walls were divided into panels, each a monumental painting. The paintings depicted a jumble of scenes, all of them chaos and nonsense to Sarka's heathen eyes. There was a golden-haired woman in each of the images: floating above a ship, standing on a mountain of gold, raising a golden rod above a scattering of men and women in the apparent throes of death. Sarka scrutinized this last image. One of the men held a bloody knife. One of the women had a forked tongue.

What kind of picture was this? It certainly wasn't pleasant to look upon.

Sarka half expected someone to come out to meet her, to ask her to go away, but no one did. After several minutes had passed and Sarka had gotten her fill of the confusing artwork, she went further into the temple.

Past the antechamber, a short hallway gave into an enormous room, a larger indoor space than any Sarka had ever seen. Along each side of it were tall columns supporting an upper balcony, each column embellished with a profusion of golden ferns. The ceiling was painted blue, sprinkled with gold and silver stars. Light shafted in through windows set around the recessed ceiling, glancing off the gold and silver and dazzling Sarka's eyes.

As Sarka took her first step into the gloriously appointed chamber, her foot fell on something hard. She looked down to see a rich purple carpet stretching from one end of the room to the other through rows of long, narrow cushions, where scattered supplicants knelt with their heads bowed. Sarka lifted her foot. She had stepped on a golden coin.

Following the carpet with her eyes, she saw that it was littered with coins in all shapes and sizes, some gold, some silver, some copper, and here or there a glittering jewel.

Sarka closed her eyes, shook her head, and opened her eyes again, trying to determine if what she saw was a dream. The flowers and bushes outside had struck her as gorgeous frivolities, but never in her life had she imagined a place of such ostentation, such extravagance.

At the far end of the room, atop a throne of blazing gold encrusted with a rainbow of jewels, was a woman in a long blue robe.

"Are you lost, child?"

The voice came from near at hand. Sarka spun around, her heart hammering with guilt. She felt now more than she ever had her crushing poverty, her hunger, her filth. The threadbare dress she wore barely held together enough to conceal her nakedness; her dirty fingernails and tangled hair were an affront to the opulence of this place. Her scars...

"Don't be frightened. Our Lady accepts all people here." It was another blue-clad woman wearing a robe like Rella's. This one's long hair was snowy white. "Go on. You may kneel and pray for Deyna's blessing: prosperity and abundance shall be yours when you turn your heart over without reservation."

Prosperity. She was a goddess of prosperity and wealth-no wonder she was the namesake of the rich port city of Galdren. Sarka clutched her satchel close to her side, feeling so exposed and inadequate that she could not frame a response to the kindly woman's invitation.

"Come, dear girl. Be welcome." The woman placed a gentle hand on Sarka's elbow.

"Are you an abbess?" Sarka asked. Whereas the old woman's voice had been soft in the vastness of the temple, Sarka's own sounded harsh and loud to her ears.

The woman bowed her head with a soft laugh. "No, child, just a priestess. But I have served Our Lady of Prosperity for nearly fifty years."

"And her-" Sarka gestured as discreetly as she could to the front of the temple, where the woman sat enthroned. She did not have the words for what she wanted to ask. "Is she the...queen priestess?"

The old priestess looked taken aback. Whereas Sarka's appearance and manners hadn't offended her, this question certainly seemed to.

"Why no, girl. That is the goddess," she said.