The Church of the Moon
She thought longingly of sun-baked sandstone, of water returned to the earth, of the broad sweep of a river glittering in the sun, pounding and churning at its banks. She thought too of warmth, the sort of warmth which seeped sticky through one’s clothes, pooled in sweat down the spine.
Nkemi looked at Ezrah as he spoke. “Honesty is at the heart of honor,” the Mugrobi said, simply. “And yet there are many ways to swim through the river of truth. I do not intend to reveal what we have seen today. It is not because I wish to protect you, Ezrah-shi, but because I know too much of what I do not know.”
Nkemi turned, looking back down the hallway, her small face drawing into a frown. She looked back at the Hoxian, then, straightening up once more. “I know Hox does not share Mugrobi’s emphasis on this sort of honor, but I believe you will return to the honored one, and do what you can to ease such pain. I have no wish to intrude on such efforts, though I hope also for your safety.”
Nkemi breathed, deeply, in and out; her voice was hoarse in her throat, but she went on, because there was much yet to say.
“These books and their knowledge are not a burden which I wish to take, when they rest already in glad hands,” Nkemi said, smiling at the young student, softer than before. She thought of Ezrah’s hand stretching out to the ghost’s and the look like enthusiasm on his face, but she thought also of the grim concentration as he drew the blade over his palm, and the heavy set of his shoulders these last steps of the journey.
“I do not think I share your hopes,” Nkemi went on, her gaze lowering to the bag hanging at Ezrah’s side, a little frown wrinkling her forehead once more. “All the same, I would be glad to know something of what it is we have found, guided by the mona in our ignorance.” Her gaze lifted back to Ezrah’s face, searching a moment more. She thought of the scratched nameplates, the ruined crypts, the locks and wards; she wondered what fears left them so.
Nkemi chose to smile, then; if it was tinged with a hint of something deeper, she chose to smile nonetheless. “Let us go outside,” the Mugrobi said. “I find I long very deeply to see the sky, and any drop of sunlight which remains.”
They left the crypt behind them; the candle Nkemi left on an altar to Hulali, with a whispered Mugrobi prayer. As they walked, she peeled the wax from her fingers and palm, slowly easing strips of it away, until all that was left on her hands was a residue, and the memory of heat.
Nkemi returned Ezrah’s heavy uniform coat to him before they went outside, for all that she still shivered, cold, in hers. She was clean enough beneath it, and the smears of the damp crypt below did not show so well on the dark green wool.
The doors opened; it was not so late as to be dark, in the twilight hour when the phosphor lanterns had not yet lit, but the sun had streaked low enough to show little of itself in the sky. Nkemi breathed in deep the cold winter air, shivering a little on the steps, and squinted up at the light above.
“It was an unexpected tour,” Nkemi concluded, after a moment, turning to smile at Ezrah. She bowed, deeply, on the steps of the church, and rose up once more. “I am very grateful.”