Kerish talked all the way to the temple. Forollkin smiled and nodded, and sometimes let his attention wander as they passed freshly completed huts and storehouses or clusters of new tents.
The heart of the growing city was the temple of Zeldin. It was small and built of wood begged from Ellerinonn, but the craftsmen among the exiles were already adorning it with carvings and tapestries. Every noon Zeldin was worshipped here in the same service that had once been celebrated in all the great temples of the Nine Cities. Viroc was burnt now, and Ephaan harboured the enemy fleet; Joze struggled to pay its tribute to Oraz; Hildimarn was deserted; the cities of the north suffered Zyrindella's tyranny and Galkis itself was no longer golden, yet the people of the Empire still praised the Gentle God.
As he joined the cheerful crowd assembling on the grass in front of the temple, Forollkin thought of the Inner Palace and its stifling rituals. His son would never veil his face from his people, never learn to fear the ceremony of Presentation, never, by him, be taught to trust in Zeldin.
"How can I trust?" Forollkin had so often cried to Kelinda. "Kerish trusted in Zeldin and trusted in his quest, but he didn't come back. I wasn't certain about anything, but I'm alive and have so much, while he never came back."
She had asked him once if he really believed that his brother was dead and he had answered her honestly.
"I don't know. There was a day, years ago in Viroc, when I was sure that I had lost him, but sometimes he seems so close ... I just don't know."
The priest, a fugitive from Hildimarn, came out of the temple and read to the crowd from The Book of Prophecy. Then he spoke for several minutes on the place of Zeldin in the Circle of Time.
"Zeldin gives us our choices, watches us choose and knows the result of what we choose, but never think that because Zeldin sees our future, we have no part in making it."
Standing at the front of the crowd between his wife and son, Forollkin hardly listened. Nor did he join in the thanksgiving hymn.
"O Lady of the Stars, you have cleansed us with your tears.Kerish's pure treble rose unselfconsciously above the crowd. Perhaps he had inherited his namesake's voice as well as his eyes. Looking into those eyes, Forollkin sometimes found it difficult to believe that this was his son.
"O Lord of Gentleness, you have broken us with your smile, to show us that we are not whole."
After the final prayer, food was brought out and shared. The King of Ellerinonn, who had watched the service from a distance, came over to greet Forollkin. They exchanged news but, as usual, there was a coolness between them. When the exiles had arrived in Ellerinonn, a few months after Elmandis's death, Forollkin had asked Ellandellore over and over again if he knew what had happened to Kerish-lo-Taan.
"The Prince has completed his quest."
The sorceror had repeated those words a dozen times since, but he would not say how he knew.
Forollkin watched the sorceror squat down beside Kerish and politely refuse a share of the boy's honey cake.
"Will you take me back with you to Tir-Rinnon and show me how to be a king?"
"When you're older," promised Ellandellore unwisely.
"How much older?" demanded Kerish. "When I'm seven?"
The sorceror looked helplessly at Kelinda.
"When you're nine," she said firmly.
"That's a long time," muttered Kerish. "Still, I'll remember. When I'm nine I'm going to Tir-Rinnon to learn to be a king."
"You like to plan your life, don't you?" said the sorceror. "What will you be doing when you're ten, or twelve or eighteen?"
"When I'm eighteen, I'm going to Galkis to look for uncle Kerish. What does a jungle look like? Is it like your orchards?"
"No." Ellandellore's voice shook a little. "No, much thicker and wilder."
"I shall like that."
Kerish hugged the sorcerer goodbye and watched him walk down the path towards the white beach and the black boat that would take him home to Ellerinonn.
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