When Marool was eight, her second oldest sister was dowered in by a wealthy family, followed by the next oldest sister, and so on each year until Marool was almost fourteen. At that point she became the only child left in the house except for Mayelan, the heiress, who had not yet found a man who was both willing to dower out and rich enough to tempt Stella and Margon. With the other daughters gone, family attention, long distracted, turned in Marool’s direction. There was, her parents felt, no point in keeping her as a family member. Since she had been allowed to run rather wild, she would need some work before she could be offered for dower. They decided to hire a team of Hagger trainers to clean her up and teach her to behave in a civilized manner. If that didn’t work out, they would offer her for Temple Service.
Rooly, as she called herself, was informed of these plans, at which point the resentment she had been stoking since she was in the nursery was ignited. There was a good deal of it to burn, and burn it did, with a sullen, consuming flame. She had been just another girl in an establishment where a son was desperately wanted. She was a disappointment. Well, so were they.
On her fourteenth birthday, Marool was reintroduced to her mother, who at first frowned at this dark changeling, trying to recall her name, and who then tried, during the ride to the Temple, to come up with a description of Marool that would appeal to the Hags. Many, many girls were picked for Temple Service; sometimes an only daughter was picked. Stella Rikajor, however, had thus far lost none of her daughters to the Temple, nor had her mother before her. The Rikajor family supported the Temple lavishly, and their generosity had been kept in mind.
Stella decided she would be honest about Marool and simply ask the Hags for a favor. While Stella was about this business, Marool herself slipped away into the Sanctuary to ask a few innocent-seeming questions. By the time she was rejoined by her disappointed mother—the Hags had not been responsive to Stella’s needs—Marool had the information she needed.
The following morning, Marool returned to the Temple alone. Though she was not supposed to leave the Mantelby mansion, she had sneaked into town often enough to know the way.
“I want to see the directory of Hagions,” she said to the two Hags on duty, D’Jevier and Onsofruct. Both were taken aback by this request from one so young and so unprepossessing in appearance. Marool was, in truth, very unkempt and disheveled, though, as D’Jevier remarked later, her manner forbade any motherly attempt to either kempt or hevel her. D’Jevier was not unkindly, and though she felt some antipathy toward the girl, she made herself be generous.
“What are you seeking, Marool? Perhaps it is something I can help you with?”
Marool sneered. “Unless you’re one of eight sisters, you can help me with nothing, Madam. It is my right to see the directory of Hagions.”
The cousins, though nettled at her manner, were rather intrigued by the request. The girl confronting them was bristling with anger, every tangle on end, like a burr-bit cat, puffed up out of all good sense. Very well, the Hags thought, sharing a knowing glance. Let her peruse the directory of Hagions. She would soon weary of it.
They went into the Temple proper. The seating area sloped down to an oval dais with a curved back wall against which stood the three effigies of the Hagions, marmoreal images four times the height of a woman, each the likeness of robes draped around a female figure, but with only an emptiness inside. The robe to the left shaped a slender form, the robe to the center a stouter one, the robe to the right was somewhat slumped, as though the one who wore it was aged. Where the faces might have shown beneath the hoods or where hands might have protruded from sleeves were only vacancies. Before each image were cushions to kneel upon, and at the center, as though at the focus of a dozen pairs of invisible eyes, stood a low lectern with a kneeling bench. Upon the lectern lay the directory of Hagions, the names of all the female deities ever worshipped by mankind, each with an account of her characteristics and rites.