With a sigh he turned round and headed back.
* * * *
High above the retreating Vredech, eyes wide and fixed on the boiling darkness overhead, Cassraw staggered relentlessly forward, his shoes muddied and scuffed, his cassock torn. In between rasping breaths he implored, ‘I am coming, Lord. I am coming. Have mercy on the weakness of Your faithful servant. Do not desert me.’
The darkness seemed to be reaching down towards him, listening.
A silence enfolded him.
Then a voice answered his prayer.
Chapter 2
Dowinne was pacing fretfully from room to room. An unease had been growing on her all day. It was probably the weather, she tried to convince herself, taking her cue from the grim clouds that were steadily building up over the town. But even as this thought came to her, she dismissed it. Whatever was troubling her was deeper by far than any pending storm.
It was not in Dowinne’s nature to tolerate difficulties with equanimity and, from time to time, she gritted her teeth and bared them in anger and frustration as she strode about the house. Until she caught sight of her image grimacing out at her from a mirror: it seemed to be snarling at her for this exposure of her inner feelings and she straightened up hastily and forced her face into a bewitching smile.
Something behind the image seemed to be mocking her. She moved again to the window. The Haven Parish Meeting House at Troidmallos was a well-appointed one, and the living quarters were excellent. As they should be, Dowinne thought. This was far from the poky, down-at-heel Meeting House they had begun with, way out in the wilds, ten years ago, and Cassraw’s appointment to it so young was no small achievement. Yet…
Yet it wasn’t enough.