"Come on, Rory," Zorian said. He caught Roridan by the arm and started to pull him away. Others were speaking, and he stopped. "No, I am going with him --"
"I don't need a guard," Rory protested.
Zorian looked into his face. "Yes, you do. And also anyone around you. Are you going to try to argue with me?"
Rory considered it for a moment and gave up. So, apparently, did the Queens, and Rory had just enough sense left to bow on his way out.
The entire group walked away in silence, all the others glancing his way, though they might have been looking at Zorian. Rory wasn't sure anymore.
The walk through the castle gave him time to think. He considered sending for Jamison and Keltrina to join them as well but then thought they might do better on other work for a while. Gathering other information.
He said nothing.
They went up to the archive, a vast room halfway up the tower. Even the Temple of Eket had nothing to compare to this collection.
"I will die happy here," Rory decided.
Zorian laughed first and the others afterward. They sorted out their work areas. Rory and Zorian took a place by a window that overlooked the bay. It helped Rory to see things look so calm and only a few fleeting clouds out at sea.
Rory began laying out the papers he'd brought all the way on this long, confusing journey. Zorian watched the window as the others gathered their own reports and sorted them ... and it was the quietest time Rory had experienced since he'd been told the king was dead.
Soon the work of copying the code to letters became automatic. Rory did not try to read them as words yet. Instead, he worked through into the late afternoon, hoping to have enough to make some sense of it and not have to go back to translate more. His mind had started to work on other plans as well. They would need to compare work soon, primarily names and locations.
"Food, Rory," Zorian said with a tap on his arm. "And don't you dare tell me you aren't hungry."
He had been about to say something of the sort but changed his mind when Zorian looked him in the face.
They crossed to the larger table where food already waited. Someone must have thought they had an army up here.
They talked and discussed Temples, including that of Eket. There had been no word on that place since he left. That was likely Pyrida's work, but he hoped it didn't mean anything wrong for those he had served with for the last few years.
"We've been told the Gods are on the move. I need to go back to the Eket temple to see what I can learn. I mistrust that Pyrida turned up amid this trouble. Have any of you seen comments about the Temple of Eket?"
"A few comments in passing," Ragkin said.
"And we've heard nothing at all," Mellie added. She sat aside her cup of tea and frowned. "Not even from the Queen's aunt, who retired to the High Post Temple of Aien. That bothers me. I will go ask the Queen if there is a reason for this. If I get courageous, I might even ask the Goddess."
Rory hoped she didn't have to go that far. The Goddess had seemed off-kilter if such a term could apply to such a being. Rory had only experienced one brief moment with Eket at his initiation, as though the God had noticed him as an individual. Even that brief encounter had been seared into his memory.
Learn and be free.
That was the message Eket had given to him. Now Rory suspected he knew what it meant, so many years later. He had learned all he could; now it was time to be free of the temple and do what he could.
He explained it to the others. "It doesn't mean leaving Eket behind, and his contact with the temple is rarely noticeable. But he gave me a message, and it's time I take it to heart and do what I was meant to do."
"Which is?" Zorian asked.
"I have yet to get that far in figuring things out. First, I would like a look through these archives. They must have some older works on the Gods."
"An entire section," Mellie said with a smile. "It is good to see someone willing to do some research."
"I could live in this room ... at another time. I just need to find some links to what is happening now. None of this is normal. What is bringing all these armies together to fight ... what?"
"Atria had been our thoughts," Ragkin said. "They've been acting beyond even odd the last year, and we think they have some war of their own brewing across the sea. They may have brought a curse down on themselves, though. The snow there never ends. I went as close as I dared to check out the situation and couldn't get more than a mile inside the territory."
"Giant, cursed snow storms," Jamison repeated. "Another factor to add to the trouble."
"We can stop here," Zorian added. "Let us not invite any others in."
Everyone agreed, and Meggie left laden with all their 'good lucks' as she went out the door.
The others went to work while Rory set out to find something helpful in the archive. He let himself wander, expecting Eket to show him the way. Up one aisle and down another, noting a few things he wanted to read later.
Zorian found him. "I believe we are about to get hit by serious weather."
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