The Divine Defender VII

Andante Hemispherous (III)

The rays of the sun and crowing of cocks in a distant coop concerted to wake Kaleen each morning. She threw back the light blanket she kept and climbed gingerly off the top bunk. Andante had her back turned and slept facing the wall. Kaleen crept out of the bed and out of her room, into the deserted halls. Hers was the last room in the second floor hallway in the stone dorm. Down the hall every door was still locked. Kaleen ambled downstairs to the outer hall of the first floor, which was open to the grounds by numerous archways.

Kaleen marched down the stone plate steps that formed a path around the back of the dormitories. The grounds were very still without the noisy, cheerful Cherubim practicing atop the stone court of the training grounds. Kaleen saw nobody on her way.

A very slight decline toward the edge of the forest led her to a series of pools cut in stone for the use of the Seraphim and Cherubim. They had been recently filled with water and herbs, and there was a strong, sweet scent about them. The whole scene was quite serene. Kaleen carefully pulled off her gown, left it on a rack, and descended the stone steps into the pool. The water was cool and sent a chill through her, but this was expected. She needed the jolt. Laying back on the edge of the pool, sinking until the water covered her up to the nose, Kaleen closed her eyes and delighted in the calm.

On the way back to the dormitory, she found her discarded volume of Climdale, and though she pitied it, she found herself agreeing with Andante as to its literary merits and did not retrieve it. There were open-shouldered gowns out and about now and breakfast had been served. A number of outdoor tables held pots full of dal, a thick lentil soup, and callaloo or vegetable dishes of various kinds, and many flat loaves of amaranth bread. On the end of table opposite the food stood a statue of Rashine, the life-giving sea-wolf, his form depicted was waving and fluid as the pool of water below his paws.

The statue was a basin for washing. There was a long line of sisters washing their faces and hands at the statue to consecrate their bodies, before picking a large, flat plate and taking what they wanted from the rest of the table. Kaleen always bathed early, so she did not partake of the basin. She moved along the table, using the spoon provided with each dish to fill her plate with oily vegetables, porridge, and two red loaves. She took a small cup of dal and placed it on her plate, along with a cup of nectar and a wooden spoon.

Having thus foraged, Kaleen looked for a place to sit, and finding Andante beneath a tree near the training grounds, she thought it would be proper to sit near her. Kaleen thought Andante would be dreadful company, but she did not want to be seen publically ignoring or spurning her new roommate. She sat directly beside Andante and began to eat.

“Where did you go off to so early?” Andante asked. “I hate waking alone.”

“To bathe.” Kaleen said. “And you’d best get used to it. I’m early to rise.”

“It’s good to have initiative, but,” Andante punctuated the conjunction, “Initiative can go too far if it causes you to spend time unwisely, towards self-prescribed burdens.”

Kaleen’s ears drooped. “What are you even saying?”

As if to not answer, Anda dipped her flatbread in dal and took a bite of it.

Shanti accommodated herself at Kaleen’s side, with a plate altogether very large for her size, and began to eat as well. Her little shoulder length bob was wrapped behind her head in a bun and her gown clung to her sweat-soaked skin. She had probably come from helping out in the kitchens – Kaleen knew Shanti to be very helpful to the older sisters and to the mothers in the convent. Through a spoonful of lentils and a cheekful of nectar, Shanti said, “Shisther Baleen, Moffur Eh-ka ish debesting sure appendage dafter fetbast.” This eerie statement lingered in the air through another spoonful and a bite of cauliflower, before it was repeated in a more common language. “Mother Leyka wants to see you after eating; you too Sister Hemispherous. I’m supposed to lead you there.”

“Sister Hemispherous!” Andante repeated the words in an offended tone, as though she had been called Sister one too many times already, the Cheurubim’s being that last.

Shanti shrank as though she’d inadvertently referred to a princess as a slut.

“Never mind her, Shanti,” Kaleen said, “She’s unique.”

Andante raised her hand to proselytize. “How can you spell out the word ‘unique’ as though a curse? This is a society of individuals! There is no true unison in homogeny. Kali, Shanti, cease hiding behind titles and niceties, and let your hearts touch mine! If you feel my heartbeat, I know we will understand one another.”

Now Shanti appeared quite frightened. Andante leaned over Kaleen’s lap, and pressed on the teenage girl’s shoulders, squeezing lightly. Kaleen raised a spoonful of vegetables to her mouth and dwelt upon the nutty taste of the oil, increasingly straining to ignore the girlish cries of the Cherubim and her roommate’s protestations and harassment.

After a noisy breakfast the trio traveled toward the church tower, a grand structure that rose like a cyclone, with waves of steel spiraling up toward a flat sun disk. The tower steps were a grueling climb. The interior bore the myths of Rashine etched on the walls and ceiling – how Rashine saved King Volg during the Intolerable War, how he tasked him with building a nation, how he gave him the freedom to either rule or ruin his people. The tower was taller than any other building in the convent and upon its sun disk the Mothers congregated apart from the Seraphim, in the open air and under the hot Sargasso sun.

Mother Leyka stood directly before the landing to the tower top, greeting the girls. Behind her were the grave, gray-haired Mother Auris, whose age hardly showed on her face, and the large, brawny Mother Nall whose arms and legs were twice as thick as Kaleen’s.

Already among them were two Seraphim with whom Kaleen was not acquainted.

The Mothers turned solemnly toward the newcomers, except Leyka, whose manner was full of energy and whose face seemed to glow. “Kaleen, I think you know why you’ve been called here.” She said, failing to hide any excitement in her voice.