Revival, Part II

Sevris woke from a fuzzy, uneasy sleep, unsure when he saw his strange surroundings if he were truly awake or still dreaming.  Without thinking, he tried to sit up, then hissed at the pain that shot through his gut.

"Awake now, are you?" a feminine voice called out in accented Common tongue.  As a pretty young woman in the unmistakable garb of a Mulhorandi cleric entered the room, Sevris's memories of the past day suddenly came rushing back.

"Gennard Kolzig -- he's all right, isn't he?" he asked anxiously.  He thought he had cut two of the bandits down, but what if more had come back after he fell?

"That is the merchant?"  At Sevris's slight nod, the girl smiled.  "Yes, he's completely fine."  Her eyes rolled upwards, as she tried to recall something.  "I think he said he was going to come see you today... I don't remember well," she said a bit sheepishly.

Sevris let out a sigh of relief, then winced again as the rise and fall of his chest twinged his injuries.

"Very dutiful of you to ask," the girl said with a grin.  "Hmm, it still hurts?  Maybe we need to do another Healing...  I'll have to speak with Lady Vala.  Are you hungry?  Thirsty?"

He couldn't fathom eating right now, but his mouth was parched, and tasted of blood, besides.  "Thirsty..."  He had barely said the word before the girl turned to the small table near the door and poured a glass of water.  When she brought it back to him, however, there was a slender piece of reed in it.  He looked at her for an explanation.

"You probably shouldn't sit up right now," the girl said matter-of-factly, holding the glass near his head and positioning the reed near his lips.  He finally got the idea, and cautiously tried to sip through the hollow stalk.  It gave the water a slightly woody taste, but worked well enough.  He drank most of the contents of the glass, more slowly than he would have liked, then sighed, his thirst quenched.  "Thank you, Lady...?"

The girl laughed.  "Oh, I'm no great Lady!  I'm just barely out of novitiate.  My name is Nenet."  She gave a Mulhorandi curtsey, a crossing of the legs and a slight bending at the waist, before turning to place the water glass back on the table.  "Now, unless you need anything else right this minute, I'd better go find Lady Vala and tell her you're awake."

"Ah -- just a question.  How long have I been here?"  There was no window in the tiny room, and Sevris had no idea what time of day it was, let alone which day it was.

"Just overnight," Nenet said with a reassuring grin.  "You haven't missed too much."  She turned to leave, but a moment later, backed into the room again to make way for a slightly older priestess to enter.

This woman wore a white gown of a much finer material than Nenet's, so fine as to be nearly transparent, and Sevris averted his eyes slightly.  He had been warned that the Mulhorandi had a very different dress code than he was used to, and he had seen both men and women going about bare-chested as he had escorted Kolzig through the city, but somehow, what he could almost see through the priestess's gown was more tantalizing than what was completely exposed. Perhaps it was mystique, or perhaps it was the woman herself.

She was, Sevris noted with surprise, not Mulan at all.  Her skin was even paler than his (though, of course, he was outside most of the time, while she likely remained in the temple), nothing at all like the natives' golden brown tone, and her long, wavy black hair seemed lighter and finer than the thick, heavy locks of the Mulhorandi.  Although she wore few distinguishing ornaments at the moment (and he truly wouldn't know what to look for, anyway), she seemed to radiate authority.  Why would a foreigner be a high-ranking cleric in a Mulhorandi temple?  They were a very insular people, and their pantheon was completely separate from the rest of Faerûn's.

Or was it?  Something nagged at the back of his mind, but he turned his attention back towards the two women, who were now conferring in rapid Mulhorandi.  After a moment, the older cleric approached the bed.

"Nenet says you are still in pain?"  Her voice, too, had a certain peremptory ring to it, as if she were quite used to her questions being answered promptly and in full.  Sevris swallowed rather self-consciously.

"Yes, Lady, some...  When I try to move--"

"Ah.  May I take a look?"  There was nothing unfriendly in her manner, but nothing particularly warm, either -- she seemed purely professional.

"That's fine," the man replied, somewhat nonplussed.  He tried to think of cold, mundane things like arms and armor as her hands ghosted over his abdomen.  Female healers were troublesome that way -- and worse, most of them expected the natural reaction, and even found it funny.

The priestess, though, did not show any sign of amusement.  She closed her eyes, her hands resting flat on Sevris's belly, and began to chant softly.  The sound of her voice was more familiar in song; perhaps he had heard her, dimly, during his earlier healing session?  It was a rich voice, he thought, an elegant contralto well-suited to both command and oratory.  Even in quiet prayer, she seemed impossible to ignore.

He glanced at Nenet, who was watching her superior intently like a proper subordinate, perhaps hoping to learn something.  Her expression held nothing but respect and a hint of awe for the more senior priestess.  She must have felt Sevris's eyes on her, because she met his gaze and gave him an encouraging smile.

He returned the smile somewhat uncertainly, and looked at the senior priestess again.  With a sudden shock, he finally noticed the finely pointed tips of her ears poking out from her hair.  His first thought was of an elf, but her physique was human, and her ears didn't seem to be quite the right shape for a half-elf.  Then he remembered that there were many, many Planetouched in Mulhorand, more than in any other land in Faerûn.  It was entirely possible that she was an aasimar; maybe that was why she seemed foreign and yet had a high rank.  But again, which of the Mulhorandi gods would have joined an outsider in such a union, or at the least, would have engendered a child who looked so remarkably different?

His attention diverted, Sevris hadn't noticed the healing spell slowly taking effect, but he suddenly realized that felt undeniably better.  He didn't dare move, though, until the priestess's song came to an end, and she pulled her hands away.  She regarded him steadily with violet eyes.  "Is that an improvement?"

Cautiously, the man tried to prop himself up, and when that didn't give him more than a small twinge of pain, he slowly sat all the way up with no trouble worth noting.  "Very much so, Lady, thank you," he said with real gratitude.

She nodded as if that were only to be expected.  "I would still recommend that you stay here for at least another day," she said briskly, resettling her bangle bracelets from where they had slid up her arms, "and take in some good nourishment to replenish what your body is spending to heal.  I or another senior cleric will check on you again later."  She gave him a formal bow, then exited the room before Sevris could put together a coherent response.

He stared after her a long moment, momentarily at a loss for words.  Nenet grinned knowingly at his expression.

"Is she always so...?"

"Lady Vala has a great many responsibilities from day to day," the novice explained as she glanced around the room, looking for anything that needed attention.  "She is our best healer, but she doesn't have much time for it, you see."

Sevris shook his head.  "I can understand that, of course.  But I mean... her manner... She's somewhat..."  He faltered, not wanting to offer insult.

But Nenet seemed to get the gist of it.  She smiled sadly.  "The Lady has a soul of steel.  That's why she was sent to us, you see."

A soul of steel... Not something usually attributed to a woman, let alone a priestess of a goddess of pleasure!  Sevris shook his head, looking to the novice for further explanation.  "Sent to you?"

Nenet pursed her lips, clearly considering what she could -- or should -- say.  Finally, she sat on the edge of Sevris's bed and looked at him seriously.  "This is common knowledge among the clerics here, so I don't think I will get in trouble for telling you..."

Ah, some sort of deeply personal thing.  Of course.  The guardsman nodded solemnly to show his understanding.

"Well... When the Lady was younger, she served Bast in a different land, where she is called Sharess."

That solved the puzzle that had been nagging Sevris's subconscious.  Bast, alone of all the Mulhorandi deities, was worshipped in other parts of Faerûn, as the goddess Sharess, who he was familiar with.  He hadn't realized that the clergy served so... interchangeably, though.  

Nenet was looking up to see if Sevris was following along, so he nodded for her to continue. "She was in the last year of her novitiate, and betrothed to a young man she had known since childhood.  He was escorting her to a remote temple when the two of them were attacked on the road by common bandits."

"Ah..."  Sevris knew from plenty of personal experience that that sort of encounter could end in any number of bad ways, especially for a pretty girl.

The novice met his eyes and nodded slightly.  "Her betrothed was a guardsman like yourself, and he managed to kill three of the bandits before the rest fled... But he was gravely wounded, and Lady Vala, still so young, did not have the skills to heal such mortal injuries.  He had saved her, but she could not save him." She bowed her head for a moment in respectful mourning.  "Afterwards, she devoted herself not only to the healing arts, but to smiting magic, as well, so that as a priestess, she would no longer be utterly defenseless.  That sort of specialty is... a little unusual, for Bast's clerics, but that is why she was sent here, you see."

Sevris could understand now why Nenet said the older priestess had a "soul of steel".  Instead of breaking under such a tragedy, she was forged, instead.  But sometimes blades forged for sharpness are too brittle, he thought silently.  Out loud, he asked, "She was sent here because of her... offensive skills?"

Nenet smiled slightly, the hard part of her tale over.  "There has been trouble in Mulhorandi as of late, with the churches of Sobek and Set.  We are a small church, perhaps the smallest, and maybe they considered us easy prey..."

"Ah.  So Lady Vala was sent here to help defend you?"  Now her presence here made a great deal more sense.

"Exactly so," the novice said with a smile.  "And she's been amazing.  She almost," the girl dropped her voice to a dramatic whisper, "smote one of the high priests of Set dead with one spell.  The elders said that she didn't hit with her full power, because she felt that it wasn't her place to execute a high priest!"  She leaned back, eyes wide for emphasis.  "And that was before she was made our high priestess.  Since she was elevated, no one's dared to challenge her openly."

Sevris's own eyes widened in respectful wonder.  Clearly, Lady Vala was a great asset to the temple of Bast, and as an aasimar (or so he guessed), perhaps even chosen of the goddess herself.  Or at the very least, touched by the Smiling Lady who led her to this foreign place.  It must have been a very difficult path, though, he thought, working through a personal tragedy and trying to manage a small religious war in a land of strangers.

"Truly, she must have a soul of steel, as you say," he said finally, causing the novice to beam in satisfaction.  She seemed proud and admiring of her high priestess, which was an appropriate attitude for a junior cleric, Sevris thought.  Perhaps this generation of novices would sprout more tactically-minded priestesses like Lady Vala, which could only be good for the temple.

"She really is amazing," Nenet repeated, before hopping up from the bed and smoothing the slight dimple she had made in the covers.  "And you'd best listen to whatever she advises about healing matters."  She pointed imperiously at him.  "So that's another day of rest.  We can't really stop you from leaving, but Lady Vala gets annoyed if her instructions are ignored, and believe me, you want to avoid that at all costs."

Sevris nodded slightly in agreement.  He could just imagine the High Priestess giving him a dressing-down that would make his ears burn in shame if he did anything to negate her healing.  For that matter, it would be rather disrespectful to throw away her effort with an overly hasty re-injury.  "Of course."

Just then, a distinct gurgling noise emanated from his newly-healed abdomen.  Come to think of it, he did feel hungry now, in a way he hadn't before this latest round of healing.  Perhaps the pain had been masking it before, or maybe his guts just hadn't been functioning correctly until now.

Nenet grinned.  "Ooh, I'd better go find you some breakfast.  No solid food for you today, I'm afraid, but our cook does wonderful things with broth.  I'll be right back." She laughed at Sevris's grimace before leaving the room at a trot; he hoped she wouldn't run into someone, at that pace.

Another day of rest, eh?  I suppose I could tolerate being surrounded by pretty girls for another day or so...  The guardsman grinned slightly to himself.  He was no womanizer, but he certainly could appreciate beauty when he saw it... and he had seen plenty so far this morning.  I suppose I had better stay in the Lady's good graces, though...

Truth be told, though, he found the thought of the High Priestess being angry with him more intriguing than worrying.