Oh. Mistress. There will be no Festival now. The purification will take weeks. The priests are distraught. The ceremonies have been moved to Nadam. Its only a minor holiday usually, when the bands break up for the off season, and the priests remind them to invoke the Daughter of Night in their prayers. The priests always say the reason she hasnt come yet is we havent prayed hard enough.

Was he going to dole it out in driblets forever? I guess no one of any religion would have spent much time explaining holidays and saints and such, though. Why are we still here, then? Why arent we headed south?

We came for more than the Festival. We had indeed. But how was I supposed to convince these men I was their messiah? Narayan kept the specifications to himself. How could the actress act without being told her role?

There was the trouble. Narayan believed I was the Daughter of Night. He wanted me to be. Which meant that he would not coach me if I asked. He expected me to know instinctively. And I did not have a clue.

The jamadars seemed disappointed and Narayan nervous. I was not living up to expectations and hopes, even if I had discovered that their temple had been profaned.

In a whisper, I asked, Am I expected to do holy deeds in a place no longer holy?

I dont know, Mistress, We have no guideposts. Its all in the hands of Kina. She will send an omen. Omens. Wonderful. I had had no chance to bone up on omens the cult considered significant. Crows were important, of course. Those men thought it wonderful that Taglian territory was infested by carrion birds. They thought that presaged the Year of the Skulls. But what else was significant?

Are comets important to you? I asked. In the north, last year, and once earlier, there were great comets. Did you see them down here?

No. Comets are bad omens.

They were for me.

They have been called Sword of Sheda, or Tongue of Sheda, Shedalinca, that shed the light of Sheda upon the world.

Sheda was an archaic form of the name of the chief Gunni god, one of whose titles was Lord of Lords of Light. I suspected the Deceiver cults beliefs had taken a left turn off the trunk of Gunni beliefs a few thousand years ago.

He said, The priests say Kina is weakest when a comet is in the sky, for then light rules heaven day and night.

But the moon...

The moon is the light of darkness. The moon belongs to Shadow, put up so Shadows creatures may hunt.