Page 64 of Swordheart
Halla frowned, reaching behind her head to touch the hilt of the sword. “Do you need to go back? I mean, if you’re homesick, you should definitely—”
“I amnothomesick.”
“Oh.”
The road they were on split into a dozen streets. Despite the earliness of the hour, stalls were already being set up along the streets and women carrying full water jugs streamed past.
“I’dbe homesick,” said Halla.
“That does not surprise me.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to go back?”
Sarkis stopped so abruptly that Halla continued a pace or two past him before she realized he’d stopped. “Are you asking me to leave your service, lady?”
“What? No! I mean, if you want to go, I’d miss you, but…”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’d miss me.”
It didn’t sound like a question, but Halla plowed ahead anyway. “Yes! I mean, you’re very… uh… there.” She waved her hands in the general outline of his body. “Verythere.I’d notice if you weren’t there.”
They paused in a large stone courtyard with a well. A pump stood to one side, with a tin cup on a chain beside it. Sarkis filled the cup and handed it to Halla before drinking himself.
“I will not go back to the Weeping Lands,” he said. “As long as I do not, then in my heart, they are all still there, still alive, unchanged. If I return, I will see what hundreds of years have wrought, and my heart will know that they are dead.”
Halla stared at him, her mouth open.
“I find that I would rather be an exile in my heart than the last survivor. Now where is your temple to your very sensible rat god?”
Halla pointed, then led the way when he fell into his accustomed guard position. She hardly knew what to say.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally.
She expected him to grunt, but he said, “As am I,” and that was all that needed to be said.
CHAPTER 21
The Temple of the White Rat stood near the edge of Archon’s Glory. It was a busy complex, not as ostentatious as the temples of the Forge or Dreaming God, but full of human activity. It was built of pale sandstone with sharply slanted rooftops. Arched doorways set around the main courtyard stood open and people streamed through the doors. Acolytes in white robes carried things from place to place, or escorted the faithful to those who could better serve their needs.
Despite the numbers, there was a pervasive air of calm and order, as if everyone knew where they were supposed to be and what they should be doing to make the system work smoothly.
It reminded Sarkis of nothing so much as a softly humming beehive.
He wondered if it contained a hidden sting as well.
Halla led the way, not to the nave but to a side door that looked like offices. A line of petitioners was already forming.
“We’re standing in line,” observed Sarkis.
“Well, yes. We’re petitioners.”
“I would think that we had priority.”
“We’re not that important. Are we?”
Sarkis looked over the other people in line. It did not seem likely that any of them were also enchanted swords.
“I suspect we may be a trifle more unusual than they are used to seeing.”
