The Book of the Blessed

I loved it and embraced it as a wife.

I laid it down at your feet and you made it compete with me.”

Then spake Addiwak, the wise, all-knowing, to you, Oloreth;

“As for stone that appeared, falling next to you,

Which I caused to compete with you, this is Inkil and

you will love him, and embrace him as a wife.”

-From:The Song of Oloreth

Austin

When he was nine years old, Austin Buwa’s father called him into his offices and said, “You will not be going up north to learn the ways of the knights, or go to one of the Abbey schools. You will not be going to the Abbeys at all.”

Austin nodded to this, but said nothing more, and his father said, “Have you ever wondered why you do not go to the abbey school or why, though we have been inside of the basilicas, we have never worshiped in them?”

But Austin had not. He had never paid it any mind, and his father said, “Their religion is not our religion. The religion of their people is not the religion of our people. We are Zahem, originally of the Hale who were heathens before they were converted by the disciples of the Ard. But that teaching was imperfect, and so the Prophet Joses came and showed us the True Way, and so you will go south, to the home of my fathers and their fathers, into Zahem.”

Though his father’s voice had not changed, Austin heard a grandness, a superiority in the way he spoke of Zahem, and of the True Way.

“You will go to the Temple College and there, in the city of Nava, you will meet the woman who will be your wife. You will do what, living as far north, and isolated as we are, you have never done, which is attend the prayer services in the meeting houses and, in time, you will enter the Temple.”

“Is the Temple like a cathedral?” Austin asked.

“No,” his father said, shortly.

That summer he discussed with Audrey how he would be going south, and she said that her parents were sending her in two summers. Maybe they would meet.

“I will be waiting for you, though I wonder how much girls see boys.”

“I wonder that myself,” Audrey said.

In the heat of August, they began the journey which was a surprise to Austin because mostly he had traveled north and down hill into the valleys, but now he traveled into higher country, up and up to a vast open country, almost desolate. And they traveled many days under the sun.Here, all the people were as white as he, which was strange to him, and here there were several cities which possessed none of the tall cathedrals and minsters to which he was accustomed. Once he thought he saw one, but his mother said, “No, that is a temple.”

“Is it the Temple?”

“There is one very old temple,” his mother said, “But there is no THE Temple.”

“Is a temple different from a meeting house?” Austin asked.

“It is,” said his father, “because things happen there which can only happen there, the rituals and the rites, the ceremonies of which we cannot speak.”

“Marriages,” his mother said. “You will be married in the Temple. Indeed, you do not say a temple, but The Temple. All the Temples are The Temple.”

“And my wife will wear a long white dress,” Austin envisioned, “and she will have the long train, and they will walk her down the long aisle with incense and—”

“None of that foolishness,” his father said, shortly. “The Temple is nothing like that. Nothing at all.”

“It certainly isn’t,” his mother said, and he could not tell how she felt about this.

“You will be married in the great ritual of the Bequeathing, and then in the Hall of the Mirrors, where you will look upon your wife and all the eternities reflected upon each other and which shall be born from you.”

Austin had no idea what this meant, only that he saw the vision of himself in a great white dress with a trailing train under the high pillars of a great cathedral vanishing, and he wasn’t very happy about it.

“A CORONATION,” AUSTIN said, that night. “The day after tomorrow. The capes, the flowers, the ritual! Won’t it be marvelous? I wonder… I would very much like to go to the coronation dressed as a bride.”

His wife did not think he was joking. She knew him well. She said, “You cannot outshine the Prince.”

“If it was Anson it would be different,” Austin said. “He’s so wonderful. But Cedd is so tedious. No, I would love to wear a tight white gown, and a long veil, eyeliner and just a touch of a beard. Or maybe white tights and a codpiece. White boots with rhinestones! A veil.”

“If you stop talking about it for now and come to bed,” his wife said, “I promise that I will find you something lovely for the wedding.”

“Find me something lovely for tonight,” Austin said.

“Tonight? But it is time for bed.”

Austin frowned at his wife.

“I know what I promised you, but I want to experience the city tonight. Tonight, and then I am yours all day tomorrow.”

“Austin!”

She wondered why she should be hurt by this. After all, it wasn’t the first time he had promised her the night and then run away.

“My dear,” he came to her. “Please.”

He held her chin in his hand, and he was so beautiful. He was an extraordinary being, and this was one of the things she had signed onto marrying an extraordinary being.

“You will get to have this comfortable bed all to yourself.”

There was no pretending that, heading out this late, he would be back before morning.

Audrey opened her mouth to say what she didn’t want to say. She didn’t want to hear herself begging. There was no use in saying, “But I don’t want this bed empty. I want you in it.”

She said, “Very well then. But you must let me dress you, then.”

“I would have it no other way,” he told her.

Once, in one of the chapels, he’d seen an image of one of their old gods, the Young Lord of the Forest, and now Audrey dressed him in an olive green leotard like the forest in shadow, with green leaves applied to the thighs. His eyes were ringed in deep green kohl and ske placed on his head a small crown of antlers.

“You look like the Wild God himself,” she murmured, and she kissed him, puttng green blush on his cheeks. “You should even take the pipes. I hope you enchant all.”

She had no idea where he was going. He’d hardly had an idea himself. When he had come into Zahem ten years ago, he was surprised by the dourness of the school, by the dullness of everyone’s dressing. How tedious life seemed. It was never dull in Westrial where, ironically, he could be himself more than he had ever been in that dull country of his true people. In Zahem he had come into a dormitory noted not for its grimness, but for its blandness, very white walls, very white boys, hair perfectly combed, shirts perfectly pressed, right on time to prayer meetings. How different from tonight, when that lovely Pol had come, like a devil, whispering to him, undoing all of his plans to be with his wife that he might experience the pleasure he had known the night before all over again.

The palace was made of many apartments for royal visitors, and as Austin left his and entered the city, he was thrilled by the night life. The shops and businesses around Kingsboro were closed this late into the night, and the parks were dark now. As he crossed the bridge through the darkened park into the Everdeen District, he heard hoots, men calling to each other in the dark for sex or for drugs or for who knew what, possibly to make note of him, and he thrilled in terror. He was wrapped in a dark cloak, hiding his ostentatious costume. But he had no sword or pistol—could not fight anyway. As he made his way through the park, to the light, the thrill turned almost to complete terror and then melted away along with the trees as he approached quiet houses, the long high brick face of the hospital, and, across from it, the grammar school. Here the streets were empty, but blue with moonlight, and up the hill were the lights of the Everdeen, and humanity.

Suddenly, as Austin trudged up the hill, down the hill a horse came galloping, and Austin jumped out of its way. Cloak flying behind him came a man who made Austin wish he’d had the sense to take a carriage or a horse and then, leaping from the horse and tying it to a post before heading into the park, Austin saw clearly, for a moment, Lord Brandon Pem, as he removed his hood and headed into the darkness. The very park Austin could not wait to escape was Lord Pem’s destination.

He shook his head and moved on.