“Vk is waiting with the pebafri outside the temple.” Dante studied the wood carvings on the wall. “This place is a lot different from the other temple.”
Regi attempted to see the world through Dante's eyes. This was the temple he had grown up in. During his Mother's Years when he had accompanied her to her temple obligations, this had been his benchmark for normal. Like every Kowri, he had visited the other temples during the appropriate celebrations and ceremonies, but he judged them all against the growing season temple and, for the most part, had found them lacking.
Despite that, he could see similarities. The wide entrance allowed supplicants to approach the temple. Guards stood in the pronaos, acting as guides. There were enough gods thatsomeone might require assistance appealing to the correct one or identifying the best offering for their sacred animal.
Each of the temples had curving hallways with arched niches every few steps where supplicants could leave offerings, and each had a guarded sanctuary entrance where acolytes stood to prevent any foolish young Kowri from entering the enclave where sacred animals gathered.
He tried to look at it through Dante's eyes and see the differences instead. The warm browns and vivid greens of the growing season temple welcomed in a way the harsh white granite and stark blue decorations of the cold-season temple never had. Here, honey-brown trellises were attached to dark stone, giving a home to flowering vines. In other places, metal planters antiqued in bronze tones and greened copper were fastened to cream stone walls. A month or two earlier, the temple would have been a riot of colors as various blossoms competed for the attention of pollinating insects. But right now only the infinite shades of green broke up the light and dark dirt colors.
To call the temples different revealed a certain emphasis on color or decoration rather than function or form. No doubt Ean would find that interesting.
“Why is the council meeting here?” Dante asked.
That was a more complex answer than Regi wanted to confront, but he gave the least emotionally fraught answer. “Matters of great import are typically addressed in the temple of the highest ranking exalted. For us to meet here implies that a new exalted who has served longer than Nawr has arrived on planet.”
“Is that a positive or negative development?”
“That depends entirely on who the exalted is.”
“They haven't told you?” Dante’s expression would have appeared to express confusion on a Kowri face, but Regi suspected the lifted arch over the eye indicated concern.
“I have not asked.”
“Why not?” Now the muscles pulled that part of the forehead with its line of fur down closer to the eyes.
Regi looked away from Dante and watched a single gibuks crawl up the wall toward a copper-green and excrement-brown planter. “I fear I will not like the answer.”
“Have they brought someone in to rig the trial against Ter?” Dante’s voice grew louder, and as they were standing at the door of the office rather than inside, the sound traveled. A guard at the far end of the hallway stiffened but did not turn toward them.
Rig. The translation matrix provided an image of ropes and cables attached to a complex system that shifted between huge lengths of cloth and complex cogs and cracks in cliffs. Regi understood it to be a complex mechanical system used to exert control over something larger. A trial could not have literal rigging, so perhaps he referenced a person brought in to manage the flow of information and order of speakers. In which case, it might be fair to metaphorically compare the new arrival as rigging. “The part that causes me distress is the potential that the person as rigging in this trial is my mother.”
Dante stared at him, his eyes wider than normal. “Your mother?”
“As an exalted, she would have been privy to the reports of my arrival, and the length of time we have been here is roughly equivalent to how long it would take to travel from the third-tier worlds where my mother practices midwifery. That combined with her senior position within the temple structure and our change of venue would suggest it is a possibility.”
Dante stared at him for a long time. “Are you unhappy about this possibility?”
“Would you be displeased at learning the success or failure of your endeavors would be dependent upon your absent parent returning?”
“Oh, I'd be fucking furious,” said Dante.
Regi hoped the juxtaposition of copulation and anger was more Ter-like application of a bodily function to language. “I'm not furious, but I am concerned. My mother is not an exception when it comes to my people’s xenophobia.”
“She hated that you moved to the Coalition, didn't she?”
“She thought I was ungrateful and would regret my decision.”
“And have you?” Dante leaned against the wall, one side of his hip canted much higher than the other.
Had anyone else asked, Regi would have given them a quick and incomplete answer. But this was Dante. “Perhaps sometimes,” he admitted. “Particularly in the beginning. However, I have since learned to appreciate the Coalition and I have not found cause to regret leaving the Empire in many years.”
“Then that's what you tell her. If she comes in and tries to do the mom thing and make you feel guilty about leaving your people, you tell her you don't regret it.”
Regi studied Dante. His answer fell into the category of naïve; however, it appeared he wanted Regi to accept the advice literally. “And if that reflects poorly on Ter’s case?” he asked.
Dante winced. Evidently he did understand the conundrum. Regi might be willing to confront his mother and her unrealistic expectations for his loyalty. He might be willing to confront one more xenophobic exalted who tried to dismiss outsiders as little more than barbarians and animals. But the idea of confronting both those individuals in one was enough to makehim wish to avoid consciousness until the time had passed for any confrontation at all.
And perhaps he was being paranoid. Perhaps Gimi a’Onidba had forgotten the name of the exalted who had caused this change of venue. And yet, Regi could not convince himself that that was possible. She was too fond of discussing potential strategies for addressing the prejudices in other Kowri. No. It was far more likely Gimi a’Onidba suspected he would be displeased enough that she would rather avoid the topic than rile him.
