Two Figs

The four major gods (well, five, after we’d promoted Celeres) all had a logical sort of sense to me. Ursus, the bear, blessed hunters and woodsmen- the wild. The horse god Cabellus claimed domain over war and soldiers. Teuthida claimed the sea and all the beasts within. Andrena… well, enough said about Andrena. All had other domains, of course. Truth and wisdom and patience, or whatever else their temples cared about at the moment. But at the core, they represented real people. Real places in the world.

That was why the Beetle had never appealed to me. Technically, the Temple of the Beetle ruled over insects, but all of the preaching from the Temple was about the future or the past, weird thoughts about time and souls. Nothing concrete.

This, however, was unusual even for them. The Temple of the Beetle had trees sometimes, and holy beetles, but I didn’t know of any order that communed with them like this.

Had I found a cult? I stared at my hand where a few beetles were crawling on it and tried not to flinch back. Horrible creatures with too many legs. And the feeling on my skin… it made the back of my neck crawl.

“Breaking and entering,” said Unnr, who was still partially covered in beetles. Her large glasses reflected the dim light of the room, the only thing new and sparkling within. I couldn’t see her eyes behind them. “Are you willing?”

Next to her, Vragi leaned in and gave an awkward laugh. “We don’t need to overwhelm our visitors all at once! Why don’t we go downstairs and have some nice soup?”

“What are we breaking into?” I finally pulled my hand out of her grasp.

She patted me on the shoulder. “Maybe Vragi is right. I’ll tell you over tea.”

I didn’t get rid of the feeling of beetles running over my skin until we were well down the stairs and out of the tree’s range. I watched as Unnr dabbled around in the kitchen, pouring some water into a kettle from a basin and putting it over a small boiler while whistling under her breath tunelessly. She still had a beetle on the side of her neck. She didn’t seem very bothered by it.

I had to figure out how bad this was. Were we going to all get eaten by beetles? “The Southern Temples…. aren’t like this.”

“Of course they aren’t,” she said. “They don’t understand the mind of the beetle like we do.”

With a whistle, the kettle boiled. I stared as she crushed what looked like bark into the bottom of a couple of rough clay cups without handles and pushed one over towards me. I cupped one and took a hesitant sip.

It was horrible.

“Finish it,” she told me. “You won’t regret it.”

I turned to look for Vragi, but he’d disappeared into the main room. I could hear some quiet conversation trickling out, an exclamation from Duran and a laugh from Apis. I was stuck with the beetle woman, then. Perfect.

I took another sip of the tea. It was still bad.

“Kat,” I started, “When did she-”

“Now that I have indulged in social niceties, we must decide if we can work together.” She cut me off before I could finish. “What do you know of the tides of the northern peninsula?”

I shook my head. She waved a hand. “No matter! I will educate you if necessary. You are a holy warrior, yes? You can cleanse those who are unworthy?”

“I can….” I hesitated. “My sword can remove ghosts.”

“Excellent.” As if that answered all of her questions, she reached into an upper cabinet and rummaged around, eventually emerging with a scroll. “What do you know of the Academies here?”

“Never came up for me.” I was a cook, not a northern academic.

“Mostly military schools,” she said. “At least, that’s what they claim.” She pushed a few empty bowls aside on the table in the center of the room and flattened the scroll, revealing a map. There was the peninsula of the north, depicted mostly by arrows that must have depicted currents. For a second, I was swayed by how far I was from home. The Capital wasn’t even on the map.

Then Unnr’s hand poked down, and I focused on where she was pointing instead. “We’re here,” she said. The label just said Clams.

The finger drew across the map, north, following the coastline. It paused briefly at another inlet. “One of ours left to investigate from this temple two months ago. She hasn’t been heard from since.” Another movement north, another pause. “This temple hasn’t checked in for a year and a half.” Another movement, this one west, towards a cluster of islands so far north I was surprised anyone could survive there. “These temples rarely checked in anyway. We stopped hearing from them seven years ago.”

A final stop. It was a craggy island, far from almost everything. Someone had drawn a sea serpent next to the coastline. “No one has heard anything from these temples since just after the war ended.”

She looked up at me afterwards expectantly. I just stared. “And?”

“It’s host to the largest Academy currently running,” Unnr said. “The Crags. When the war began, it was simply a staging area and drydock for ships in the summer when the seas were calmer. Right after the war ended, our temples started disappearing, and the The Crags grew. It can’t be a coincidence!” Her hand stabbed down on the map again, crinkling the parchment. “I think our Imagos are disappearing because they’ve learned too much. Clearly, the Beetle anticipated my needs and sent you here to help.”

“Actually,” I tried, but she was still talking.

“No one believes me, but the The Crags is responsible for it all! Why would they have such a large military presence, and only one ship? It’s preposterous. They must be doing something else to require such a large staff. It’s not hard to read purchase proposals, you know. They have an absurd amount of teaching staff for the children they teach.”

“Stop!”

Her mouth half-open, Unnr stared at me. She was breathing heavily. I still couldn’t see her eyes behind those ridiculous glasses.

“What if those Imagos just… quit?” When she started to speak, I held up a hand. “I mean, pay hasn’t been coming through consistently, has it? And the weather isn’t great. Isn’t it possible for them to just leave?”

She shook her head. “Not just temple staff. Imagos.”

I was missing something. Even though I didn’t even know if I wanted to help, I decided I might as well ask. “Why are Imagos so…”

“We’re all the same,” she said. She tapped her head. “We took the beetle. We are the beetle. What I know, they know. The same goes for them. They couldn’t just disappear unless something else was going on.”

Vragi had actually been telling the truth about her brain coming out of her nostrils? What was she even describing- some sort of temple hivemind?

That couldn’t be real, could it?

I took an involuntary step back. “I’m… taking a walk.”

“Please,” she said, as I pushed the back door open and got hit by a gust of cold wind. “We need you, Paladin. We must change this before it’s too late.”

Why, I asked Andrena, stalking around to avoid going back inside and speaking to Unnr, Do we always find strange people on these trips? Can you never intervene to have me meet someone normal? Helpful?

It happened in the blink of an eye. One moment, I was stalking up a hill, feet crunching intermittently on frozen grass and half-crusted over snow. The next, Andrena was walking next to me, insultingly graceful as I slipped angrily up.

I think that was actually quite informative, she said. They must be bold, to try and attack the Beetle. We must act quickly.

You think I should work with her?

Andrena actually stopped and laughed. It was difficult to see her in the falling snow. I wondered if I was just imagining her, exhausted as I was. Of course not! I couldn’t give two figs if the Beetle is captured. It would do it some good, to be humiliated.

You just said she had some good information.

You can take the map, she said. Waste no more time with the beetle girl that talks too much. She will undoubtedly weaken you.

What did the beetle do to you, exactly? I knew my own grudge, but it seemed unfair to put that on Unnr. Instead of responding, Andrena just disappeared. Classic. I was left to hike the rest of the way up myself. I should have brought a heavier jacket. By the time I was at the peak of the hill, the wind was gusting again, making me shiver.

Still. It was almost worth it, staring out at the view. Below me, the houses clustered together next to the ocean were almost picturesque. In all my life, I’d never imagined going this far north. Especially not in winter.

This was a new land. I didn’t know anything about the customs, about the government. I barely even knew where we were. Yes, it was a little bit exciting. But mostly it was scary. Would it be so bad, to get help from a local?

Except for the part where she’s clearly not all there. Is it worth the risk?

I watched the waves crashing for a few more minutes as the sun set. It was almost unfair for it to be this beautiful when it was also so cold. I almost wished I had brought up that horrible tea. At least it would have been something warm to hold.