When the Heavens Fall by Marc Turner Page B

clothing, a rusted belt buckle, an empty scabbard, even the occasional coin.
    Amid the gloom, deeper shadows were congealing. When they brushed Parolla’s skin, her power rose in answer.
    â€œCurb yourself,” a voice said. “Within these walls sorcery is forbidden to all but the anointed.”
    Parolla halted. Footfalls approached, and an old man wearing gray robes shuffled into view. His eyes were filmed over in blindness, and the skin of his face and hands was covered in liver spots. His straggly white hair had been shaved at the left temple to reveal a tattoo of a snake. As Parolla peered at the serpent, its tongue flickered out.
    The priest must have sensed her attention, for he said, “It is a bedra cobra. Do you understand its significance, I wonder?”
    â€œI know something of Terenil customs—that is your tribe, is it not? The year of the snake was, what, thirty years ago?”
    â€œTwenty-eight.”
    Making the priest just a few years older than Parolla herself. “You display it like some badge of honor.”
    A cough shook the man’s skeletal frame. “And so it is. What better proof could there be of my devotion to the faith?”
    â€œAnd this is how you are rewarded for that devotion? Your body broken, your days cut short in return for a lifetime spent in your god’s service?”
    â€œ My god? Not yours?”
    â€œA slip of the tongue, sirrah .”
    The priest grunted. “My reward will come in the next life, as you well know.” He raised a palsied hand. “The surrender of this decaying flesh is a small price to pay for an eternity at the Lord’s right hand. Death is the one constant in our lives, the one certainty.” He turned his empty gaze on her. “Even for you, jezaba .”
    Parolla tensed. “You know me?”
    â€œI know what you are. How could I not? I am a priest of Shroud.”
    He was watching her intently, and she forced herself to take a breath. So what if he recognized her? There was no way he could know her true purpose here. “Then why, sirrah, ” she said, adding a note of steel to her voice, “have you not shown me the honor I am due?”
    The blind man was still for a few heartbeats before bowing his head a fraction. “Why are you here?”
    Parolla looked round. Blurred figures had gathered just beyond the limits of her vision, and she could hear their ragged breathing, sense their cold stares as a tension in the air. Had the priest summoned them as witnesses to their conversation? Better and better. She turned to the blind man. “I have heard tales of this temple on my travels. Pilgrims speak of it with awe, yet even their words fail to do justice to its majesty.”
    The priest started coughing again.
    â€œFrom the power in this place,” Parolla went on, “one would think the temple were newly sanctified. Yet I sense an unfamiliar taint to the death-magic that surrounds us.” It felt stronger here than it had outside the temple. And it appeared to be coming from … Parolla looked down at the floor. “Is there a crypt here?”
    â€œIt has been sealed off,” the blind man said. “Access is forbidden, by order of the high priest.”
    â€œForbidden? To me?”
    â€œTo all who are not anointed in the faith.”
    Parolla let the silence draw out. “Would you brand me as an outsider then, sirrah ?” she said at last, raising her voice to carry to those watching. “Am I no different to you than one of the unhallowed?”
    â€œOf course you are, but—”
    â€œThere is something in the crypt you do not wish me to see?” Then, before the priest could respond, “You think the faith holds any secrets from me? Or that I cannot be trusted to keep them, perhaps?”
    The blind man shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “That judgment is not mine to make.”
    â€œWhere is your mekra, then? I