Their destination resembled any other residence in the Knots—red adobe scaffolded with kirikil bones, nestled low to the ground to keep out the heat. A pair of priests, a man and a woman, waited outside.
Like Jacen, they wore black robes and identical silver medallions: two concentric circles graven with six notches.
The man, Brother Ramun Taoro, was fat and sturdy with a shaved head. He didn’t bother to lower his voice as he said, “He’d better be sober for this.”
His peer, a reedy woman with chin-length red hair, jabbed him in the shoulder to shut him up. Sister Hesaya Jinaan conveyed her annoyance in a deeply professional manner, which made it worse.
“You’re late,” she said. “This must be your new novitiate.” Jacen gestured at the girl. “This is Nines.”
She stiffened at the nickname.
“Welcome,” said Hesaya. “May the Six bless your training.”
Taoro was scrutinizing Ninety-Nine as if struggling to discern an obvious defect that would make her suited to Jacen’s service. “You and I will assist while Sister Jinaan performs the mental excision. Brother Kheris will guide you as heobserves.”
Though he should not have been surprised, Jacen winced. “Protocol requires three priests for an exorcism.”
Taoro raised his eyebrows. “Astute observation.”
“My report suggests this demon is a primitive one,” said Hesaya, more diplomatically. “It’s a good opportunity for a new novitiate.”
Ninety-Nine seemed less confident, but neither did she try to argue.
She stared at the dirt, avoiding eye contact.
A thin man shuffled out of the house. He cast about a suspicious glance, then said something to Hesaya in rapid Zal, too quiet for Jacen to catch.
For the purpose of communicating with the denizens of the Knots, many of whom spoke only the old languages, Hesaya had been allowed to learn Zal. To learn—but not to speak freely, unless she had no other choice. She addressed the man in Standard, the gods’ tongue. “We’re here to perform the rite. Nothing more.”
The man pursed his lips and nodded, making it clear he understood. “I am called Natok,” he said in heavily accented Standard. “Come this way.”
Jacen lingered behind to tell his novitiate, “The Knots are like this. Some families wouldn’t let the Church in at all, given the choice. They’re desperate when they come to us, and it isn’t personal. Meet them with respect and they’ll show you the same.” He hesitated, and added, “I’m sorry about the nickname. If there’s something you’d rather I?—”
“No,” she said. “I like it. It sounds more like a real name.”
She didn’t have another one. Acolytes’ given names were erased along with their memories at the start of their training, to be returned when the Church deemed them worthy.
The girl seemed mortified at having interrupted Jacen, but he smiled. “Nines, then.”
He saw her fight not to smile back, and some forgotten corner of his heart began to warm.
Inside, the domed living area was lit by high, sliver-thin windows letting in the fading daylight. A mother and daughter huddled in a corner. They were typically Zal—olive-skinned with red-black hair and russet eyes, dressed in unassuming dark clothes. A tattered banner hung on one wall, black with a woven red glyph: an inverted triangular spiral, likely denoting one of the three long-abandoned cities of the canyon deep.
Beneath the banner was a cot, on which a small boy lay very still, hands and wrists bound with cactus-fiber rope. He couldn’t have been older than eight. This possession was in its early stages; the host still could have passed for an ordinary child.
“This is my son, Ciro,” Natok said. “He started behaving strangely . . . two days ago. Yesterday he set a fire. Now he cannot speak.” His face grew taut. “Every day I check my equipment. How could I miss this?”
Brother Taoro set a heavy, reassuring hand on the man’s shoulder. “Demons can be adept at hiding, and this is why our order exists. Have no fear—we will excise this one, too.”
Natok nodded meekly. He wouldn’t look Taoro in the eye, but that was to be expected. A telepathic priest’s white irises, long since drained of natural color as their extradimensional senses developed, tended to unsettle most people.
“You said he started a fire?” said Hesaya, as she examined the boy. “How?”
The question seemed to confuse Natok. “I did not see.”
Hesaya checked the boy’s pulse, then his pupils. She stood back. To an untrained observer, she would not appear to be doing anything at all, but Jacen quietly prompted Nines, “What is the first stage of exorcism?”
“Assessment,” said the girl. “She’s examining his mind. Searching for the demon.” Her dark grey eyes, still barely flecked with white, narrowed on the boy. “I don’t sense anything.”
