Chapter

22

The neophyte priestess wa s registered as Countess Jelindel dek Mediesar when she signed the register of the Great Temple of Verity in Arcadia. She swore to abide by the laws and regulations of the priestesses. Then, having laid claim to her dead family’s title and being ratified by the temple geneologist, she formally renounced the title of countess. The renunciation of a noble family or title allowed her to be admitted as a neophyte of the Verital Priestesses.

Payment for the seven years of study that stretched before her was not guaranteed, but her entrance fee was provided by an unknown sponsor. It was decided by the entrance committee that Jelindel would teach the other students Siluvian kick-fist and basic fencing as a means of working her way through the temple’s school for priest-esses. Times were difficult with wars going on to the north, and it was felt that many of the priestesses might have to go about their work unescorted in times soon to come.

After the tutors saw her entrance exam results they thought that she might need only four years.

‘You have mage Adept abilities rated at a marginal level 9,’ noted the Dean of Human Powers. ‘Have you been given a name by a high Adept in enchantment or a band in martial studies?’

A priestess with a truth charm flickering about her ears sat beside the Dean, ready to catch any conscious lies. Jelindel was about to say no in all honesty, then she remembered an incident that was deeply etched in her mind.

‘Yes,’ she declared, and the priestess with the truth charm remained silent.

‘Have you accepted it as your truename?’

‘Yes,’ Jelindel answered again in all truth.

Renouncing worldly wealth was not particularly hard, as Jelindel had very few possessions in the first place. She was taken to the tailor and fitted out with robes and beaded slippers in exchange for the tunic, trousers and sheepskin that had served her so long. She was allowed to keep the few things in her saddlebags after they had been taken away and inspected.

‘I have to return to Hamaria now,’ Kelricka said as they walked back to the student dormitories. ‘The Preceptor of Skelt has annihilated the Hamarian army at Lindfol and I have to organise the evacuation of our temples.’

‘I could help,’ Jelindel suggested.

‘No, your place is here. Now then, the older girls may try to perform some sort of initiation ceremony, if you know what I mean.’

‘No, I don’t,’ Jelindel confessed.

‘It is a sort of … humiliation to put you in your place. The daughters of nobility often have a lot to learn when they first come here.’

They stopped at the door to the dormitory wing and embraced for a moment. When Jelindel entered, she was carrying only the books she had signed out from the library a half hour before and a kit bag.

Beyond the door were a dozen girls wearing cowls and seniority sashes. The door was pushed shut behind her.

‘Neophyte, you are to be taught your place and the rules,’ declared one of the anonymous seniors.

‘My place is room 37B, and I have memorised the rule book,’ Jelindel replied calmly.

Jelindel’s reaction was not the usual bluster or cowering that the initiators encountered from young noblewomen. In fact there was a certain confidence about her that set them on edge.

‘There are rules that are not written down, neophyte!’ snapped the senior. ‘You will not be able to go running to your big brother to fight your battles in here.’

‘I couldn’t anyway,’ Jelindel replied. ‘I killed him last year.’

The senior made an odd choking sound.

‘You – you killed your brother?’

‘He was a lindrak.’ Jelindel paused at her error. Maybe not a lindrak as such, but certainly of their making, she reasoned. ‘And I don’t like lindraks.’

‘You killed a lindrak?’ sneered a senior who had said nothing so far. ‘Tell us how.’

‘With a word of ensnarement.’

Suddenly the first senior’s voice filled with confidence again. Only an Adept 9 could even begin to use that sort of dangerous magic, everyone knew that. ‘Prove it,’ she said after a derisive snort.

Zimak’s image flared in Jelindel’s mind. If only the girl had chosen a challenge other than ‘prove it’, Jelindel might have kept her patience better.

Her binding word lashed out to wrap about the senior’s legs and she fell with a scream of terror, bound from her calves to her thighs by writhing blue coils.

After holding her for ten heartbeats the coils vanished back into Jelindel’s mouth.

The girl clawed her way backwards on the floor as Jelindel approached and the others backed away in an expanding arc.

‘Ser – servitor, take her bag, show her to her room,’ the senior stammered.

A girl without a cowl came forward and offered her hand for Jelindel’s bag. They walked away down the corridor together.

‘And what is your name?’ asked Jelindel as they went. ‘Mine is Jelindel.’

‘I – I am Metriele,’ quavered the terrified girl, who was no less than Jelindel’s age.

‘No need to be afraid,’ said Jelindel. ‘I only bite when cornered.’

They climbed a flight of stone stairs.

‘Did you really kill your brother?’ Metriele now asked in wonder rather than fear.

‘It was self-defence, mostly,’ Jelindel replied. ‘My brother betrayed the rest of my family to assassins, but I escaped and lived alone as a boy scribe in a market. I learned magical and mundane weapons, how to cook, sew and wash clothes, and even how to pretend to shave my face. Eventually I fell in with two youths who …’ They stopped in front of a door with 37B on it. ‘Metriele, we have many years ahead of us. Perhaps we could save my story for later?’