“A commission for me?” Evalyn’s eyebrows furrowed.
“Why the scowl? You needed to visit the temple anyway,” Callum replied. “I just happened to meet with one of it’s priests who asked me to help organize their religious scrolls. There’s no rules in the Guild saying the Secretary can’t take on commissions, is there?”
“Well…no.” She glanced at her co-workers.
“Go,” Lineah nodded. “Patty can do your job while you’re gone. Right?”
Patty nodded enthusiastically.
Evalyn sighed.
Realistically, someone will have to take my place eventually. Patty is the best choice for the moment.
“Watch me draw up the contract,” Evalyn said to the girl. “I’ll explain as we go. Callum, I’ll need as many details as you know.”
An hour later, with Patty settled in behind Evalyn’s desk, the secretary left the Guild with the two Librarians.
Vincent stretched in the sun and excused himself.
“Since recruitment failed I suppose I’m stuck back in the stacks; so I might as well go home to my wife,” he said.
“I’ll call you if we get any information today,” Callum replied. “So don’t get too comfortable at home.”
Vincent waved and disappeared into the crowd.
Callum and Evalyn set off for the temple together.
_____
The pantheon temple of Root Hollow stood apart from the main cluster of buildings in the northern part of the city. Round, with squat grey stone walls and a domed room, the temple resembled other places of worship around the kingdom, on a smaller less impressive scale.
The stained glass windows cast a rainbow of color on the stone interior, bathing the many enshrined statues in colorful light. A thick fog incense wafted along the floor, stirred by their strides.
“Miss secretary, Mister Callum, thank you for coming.”
The Curate, an old gentleman draped in elegant robes befitting his station, greeted them with a smile. A censer swung slowly from a chain in his hands. The fog hanging on the floor poured from this source. The Curate hung the censer on a post as he approached and produced a handkerchief to wipe his hands before them for a handshake.
When Evalyn clasped his hand a strange look crossed his face and she pulled away on instinct.
The Curate smiled.
“I believe this is the first time you’ve been to my temple, Miss Secretary,” he said. “I appreciate your presence.”
Evalyn bristled despite the priestly man’s soothing words. She produced the contract and the Curate scanned over the pages.
“There’s nothing in here about payment,” he said as he finished looking it over.
“I wish to receive information for accepting this commission,” Evalyn replied. “The payment owed to the Guild will be determined after. If the information is good, I’ll charge you less.”
“I see,” the Curate smiled. “Then shall I show you the store room?”
____
The room they had been asked to sort was larger than Evalyn expected. In the basement of the temple proper, the room stretched to the size of the temple itself.
And it’s labyrinth of shelves were crammed from floor to ceiling with scrolls and tomes. The Curate offered them each a pair of gloves to protect the manuscripts before he gestured to a large stack of many crates.
“These are scrolls we received from the Lord’s Seat. We were informed that the contents pertained to gods from an older pantheon.”
“I don’t know,” the priest replied. He turned to Evalyn. “If you’re looking for information, there might be something useful in here for you.”
Evalyn’s eyes narrowed with suspicion as he held out his hand again.
“May I?”
She hesitated, then offered her hand for a handshake. The Curate shook his head.
“The other one.”
Callum’s head emerged from the crate of scrolls like a groundhog. His knowledge hungry expression sent chills crawling up Evalyn’s spine. Still, she held out her arm with the mark and the Curate placed his palm over it. A startled cry escaped Evalyn as the feeling of a hundred needles pricked the skin under his palm. The Curate’s eyes turned clouded, as if they grew cataracts.
“How interesting,” he said in a rough voice, almost as if he’d fallen asleep. “Your spirit is quite a mess.”
Evalyn gasped and looked over her shoulder at the Librarian watching closely. The greedy hunger in Callum’s eyes at the possibility of hearing Evaly’s secrets scared her. A cold, malicious aura rolled over her skin and her eyes flaired silver in panic.
Callum knew it was coming but could do nothing to defend himself.
“Leave!”
An overwhelming surge of visceral fear and dread infected Callum’s body as a will other than his own filled his body from within. It placed his consciousness inside a mental cage, and made him utterly helpless to fight back.
Callum’s body turned and ran from the room with all the urgency Evalyn demanded. Before his head had completely turned away he saw his panicked friend turn back to the Curate.
But she didn’t pull her arm free nor did she try to dominate the priest holding her.
Gotcha. He thought as he watched this foreign will pilot his body outside the pantheon temple and down the street. I guess I can’t be too offended. We aren’t that close afterall.
In the basement of the pantheon, Evalyn felt Callum’s conciousness move away from the temple, and she released her hold over him. The Curate stood still before her, waiting patiently for her attention.
“There are two of you within you, and yet, you are technically one. And yet you are not... How strange. Your power is immense and very old… but there is something more here. This mark…”
Evalyn swallowed hard.
“This is also a very old power. I’ve never felt either of these powers from the gods.”
“I got this mark about a month ago from a Divine Totem,” Evalyn said. “Another woman has the same mark.”
“Ah yes, I can feel that you are connected to someone.” The Curate nodded his head. “And she… is the one connected to a god. Hmmm.”
The stinging sensation intensified briefly, then Evalyn felt the phantom touch of Alice (wherever she was) rubbing the mark frantically to soothe it. The golden divine power connecting them responded to the prodding. For a moment, Evalyn caught a glimpse of the power inside Alice. It was like… being chained to the sun as it hurtled through space.
The stinging sensation eased.
“I would need to meet her in person to be sure, but I’m fairly certain this other woman is a Vessel.”
Gods no… A pit sank in Evalyn’s stomach. Not another one.
“Is there any way to break the bond between us?” The words came out before she thought. But they were, in a sense, her true feelings of panic regarding the situation.
She could not get involved with other Vessels. Blessings or curses of the gods be damned, Evalyn was tired of it all. She couldn’t even trust her own confusing feelings because of this damned Divine connection! How could she possibly trust her?
If Alice is a Vessel…
After all, Vessels had only ever manipulated her.
The Curate let go of her wrist and the stinging faded. Callum had returned to the doorway. A sheen of sweat coated his features and the closer he stepped into the room the more ill he looked. Though he was no longer dominated, his instincts all screamed in his head to run away from that place. To run away from Evalyn. He knew it was just a temporary symptom from what Evalyn explained of her power.
So he returned, because there was work to do.
“All bonds can be broken, but I can’t say I know the method for this,” The Curate replied.
“You don’t know what breaking your bond could do to Alice,” Callum warned.
A pained look crossed Evalyn’s face.
“I- You’re right…I shouldn’t be hasty.” She picked up a crate and found a comfortable spot at one of the long reading tables to begin going through its contents.
As they settled in and began to sort through the contents, Callum cast Evalyn a caution glance.
“Is there anything you’re willing to tell me about what happened?” he asked.
Evalyn unfurled a scroll that had cracked at the edges from age. Her now violet eyes scanned the contents, then she carefully rolled it shut and placed it with other scrolls marked “second pantheon”.
She pulled out and opened another.
“Alice might be a Vessel,” she said without looking at him.
“How can that be? The current pantheon all have Vessels. The Library has records on all of them.”
“The Curate said it feels like an older god,” Evalyn said. “He said these scrolls might have information but…” she rolled up the scroll in front of her and set it aside. “These are scrolls of the second and third pantheons and nothing stands out so far. Although we just started.”
A quiet rhythm settled in the store room as Evalyn read and sorted the scrolls in the crates and Callum took her sorted piles and navigated the labyrinth of shelves to put them away. They got about halfway through the job, when the Curate came down to inform them that it had gotten late.
Since they were outside the Guild, Callum and Evalyn dined together at a nice restaurant near the river and bid each other good night.
When Evalyn reached the guild it was already well past midnight and the Reception hall was empty except for Patty.
“Welcome back!” Patty said from Evalyn’s desk with a smile. With just the two of them, Evalyn allowed herself to smile. The sudden expression on her face took Patty by surprise.
“Did anything happen while I was away?” She asked.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Patty said. “No. Wait! I almost forgot Orbahn’s party called.”
Evalyn’s ears perked up and she hurried to her desk.
“Orbahn? Why?”
“Uh…” Patty rustled through the explosion of papers on the desk.
Evalyn had never noticed how her workload looked from the other side before.
I need to chat with Lineah it seems… she thought.
Patty produced the memo she wrote earlier in the day.
“Here! Looks like they found something really weird while looking for the reason behind the blocked water-flow. They’re requesting a Librarian’s assistance.” She handed the memo to Evalyn.
“Here’s all the details I could get.”