Orb and arrow, p.17
Orb and Arrow, page 17
Rodenis, in pale green, stood, and everyone was quiet. “We know why we are here. Begin,” was all she said and re-took her seat.
Brillar stood. She’d prepared a way to display the dimlock. Now, she put on gloves, cut the thongs on the silver tray, and put the dimlock on the silver stand—her mother’s and made for a necklace. Brillar had placed the dark cloth behind it, and the dimlock seemed to pulse with menace.
Miles away in a field, Elden brought Jez up sharply. “Brillar!” he breathed, then shook himself and turned back to the hunt.
There were mutters from the assembly. She let them look at it for a few moments, then began the story of how she had found Garnelden bound by the dimlock and searched him to see if he was lawfully held. She held up the pick and told what herbs and spell she had used on the lock. Holding up orb, powders, knife, everything that she had used to remove it, she explained how and when each was used. She explained how she wrapped each link of the dimlock in cwel skin to keep it from touching them. She stopped and answered questions at each point.
When she came to removing the pendant and Garnelden’s response, she stopped and bowed her head, overcome. The company was silent while she calmed herself. She added her forgetfulness that there might be an infection and fever and explained how it was cured. She told them about the profound healing sleep it had taken for him to gain strength. She told them about the herbs she used in stews to strengthen him. Then she stopped.
“This, I had yesterday,” she said, baring her arm, showing the crescent scar there, “after the merest touch of a link and with a healing mage ready with a spell.” There was a stir in the assembly. “Now watch.”
She re-gloved and removed the dimlock from the stand, replacing it with the chicken skin, then she put the dimlock on the skin. A stench came from the skin, and she removed the dimlock quickly, revealing that the skin was already marked by it. The collar, she placed back on the silver tray.
“The dimlock has only one purpose: To separate mage from mana and the world, sending him into a half-life, leaving him unable to cast a spell, unable to touch what burns him. Only another person can remove it. I removed it using the skills the Sisters taught me here and a cwel skin to protect us both, then I wrapped it and kept it in the foldbox. Now I ask that it be destroyed, for it is wholly and utterly evil.” She took her seat and sighed deeply, relaxing her shoulders.
There was silence when she sat, then everyone one was standing, clapping, shouting. Rodenis stood and took the dais, hands in the air to quiet the crowd.
“Silence!” Her voice carried over the din, but it was still some time before all settled. “All students are dismissed; yes, the senior students as well.” There was some grumbling, but they all filed from the hall. The teachers, scholars, and elders remained seated. Once the hall was cleared of students, Rodenis announced, “Discussion may now begin.”
First, they formed a line to get a closer look at the dimlock, probing it as it lay on silver. “Why silver?” was asked again and answered more than once. Healers asked to see the mark on her arm, so Brillar left it uncovered. Healing spells were offered, many strange to her, but the mark remained. Brothers probed the dimlock with muttered spells and were repulsed. “No,” she said, many times, “I don’t know how it was made.”
Rodenis was asked for the lore she had discovered. She had the texts in the hall and scholars from both Houses pored over them. There was information on the locking of the collar and its removal with a key but nothing on its making or unmaking. Some proposed that perhaps there had only ever been one such collar made long ago and the process forgotten, then the collar reused. That idea had some deep in thought. A Brother was dispatched to their Great House to have the more elderly scholars there review all the writings they had.
Brillar finally sealed the dimlock between the two silver trays. She handed them to an astonished Rodenis.
“I’ve kept it safe only because no one knew about it. Now everyone knows. I can’t take it up again; it’s for other hands now.”
Rodenis nodded agreement and left unaccompanied. “No one else should see where I put it,” she stated firmly.
As soon as the dimlock left the hall, Brillar felt something lift from her that she hadn’t known was there. Her eyes went to her mother who was waiting quietly. As a Senior Sister, she had never left the room. Suddenly, she began to laugh gladly, almost giddy, and her mother laughed with her. The others in the hall looked toward the sudden sounds and smiled.
Brillar breathed deeply and exhaled. “I hadn’t known how dark it was until it was gone. Senior Healer?” Her mother nodded. “Is it close to supper? I’m suddenly hungry.” There was more laughter at this. “If everyone will excuse us?” Brillar and her mother walked home, her dark green gown and her mother’s ocean blue shifting in the twilight.
The men had been back for some time and were enjoying wine on a terrace when they arrived. Elden looked at his glass and refused to raise his eyes.
“Welcome home, sweet,” said Prendar, kissing his wife, “and don’t the two of you look wonderful. Your afternoon must have agreed with you.” The women just glanced at each other and took wine from a tray.
“How was the hunt?” Darwa asked.
“Wait until you taste the linic hens,” Terol put in excitedly. “I took a cwel at a distance. I almost missed because Bright seemed to stumble a moment when Elden reined Jez in.” that got Elden a sharp glance, “but I hit him well, didn’t I, Father?”
“A fine shot, fine. But now I hear the cook calling.” He put his arm over his son’s shoulder as they went in.
Dinner started with a bowl of light chicken soup. “Cook said you took a chicken skin with you this morning.”
Brillar nearly choked on her soup.
“Something Rodenis wanted,” Darwa put in, getting a look from Elden. “Nothing important.”
To delay further discussion of her day, Brillar went directly to her room after dinner, leaving Elden to her mother.
“A word, Elden?” she asked when her daughter had left the table. They went to the sitting room where she poured a brandy for each of them and recounted the afternoon’s happenings.
“So they think that there may have been only one dimlock all this time? Over two thousand years, set aside, hidden, then re-found and used?”
“There isn’t any record of how to make them,” she answered, “and I would think that a skill like that would be recorded somewhere.”
“And a destruction,” Elden added darkly.
They finished their brandy and said no more that night.
***
The discussions in the Great House continued for well over a week. Finally, a messenger arrived and went into conference with Rodenis and the Elder Brothers. Three days later, a carriage arrived, carrying an elderly scholar and a parchment. Brillar and Darwallen were summoned, and Darwa asked her husband to make sure that Elden was away from the house. He was puzzled but had been married to a mage for a long time and simply nodded his compliance.
Mother and daughter walked to the Great House. As was now her custom, Brillar dressed in green. Rodenis greeted them and led them to a small meeting room where they were introduced to Brother Chefin, a bent, grey-haired Brother who had been teaching for over seventy years.
“I believe I have found the answer,” the old man began, eyes sparkling, “and such a simple answer it is, and so easy, no one would have thought it. Oh, what a fine time I had in locating it, I can tell you. The parchment is decayed, torn, and the question had never been asked or we would have known so quickly, but it’s all here for anyone who can read it.” He coughed. “Dusty in those vaults.” A senior Brother handed him a glass of watered wine. “Dusty everywhere down there and we need to get these old parchments copied before we lose them. Now, where was I?”
“The dimlock, Brother?” his friend prompted him.
“Ah yes, the dimlock. A nasty thing.” He spread a parchment on a table. “It is all here, oh no, not the making. That is surely lost, for there are few parchments left older than this, no, no, this is its destruction. You see, first a list of herbs to be spread.” Everyone bent close.
“I can’t read it,” complained Rodenis.
“I can read some words,” spoke up an Elder Brother. “I studied with Brother Chefin. Still, Chefin, if you would.”
“The problem begins and ends here,” he said as he marked the page with a finger. “First the herbs to be spread on it, ‘by one who knows it well.’ That, I think, is a person who has had contact with it? Then it says, ‘…it is to be salted a…’ do you see?”
“I take the meaning to be that it is to be hidden? Salted away?” asked one of the Brothers.
“I admit there is much lost, dimmed, a hole in the parchment, but the final faint words, ‘can… be… dest… yed.”
He looked around at the silent company. “Salt!” he shouted. “Not ‘it shall be salted away,’ as in a hidden place, but that ‘it shall be salted,’ herbs first then salt!”
“Salt?” came the question from many lips.
“Salt!” he replied. “Oh, there are the other things, the herbs to be powered and spread, I said that, didn’t I? Then silver to be used, but most certainly, salt.”
“Herbs, which herbs?” The herbalist was in the room, and Chefin read out a list.
“At once.” And she went off as more of the group gathered around to get a better look at the parchment. The room was full of questions and discussions.
“I am told,” said Chefin, going to Brillar, “that you sheltered it in silver. Well done, well done. We must talk, you and I. However did you think of silver?”
Before she could answer, the herbalist came back with her powders and a Sister came up with a cask of salt.
“I think this is best done now and in the courtyard,” said Rodenis, “if you will go there while I fetch the dimlock?” The courtyard was paved with heavy stone and dotted with stone tables and benches. Students and younger sisters were sent away and told to stay away. Senior Sisters were directed to stay with them. Rodenis set the trays on a stone table and cut the bindings, lifting off the top tray and setting it aside.
Brother Chefin leaned closer, staring. “No one I have ever met has seen such a sight, well, except those here. If I am right, no one will ever see one again.”
Brillar whispered to her mother, “They were away?” and received a nod.
“You, you,” he beckoned to Brillar, “you took it, you know more about it than the rest of us.” Brillar stepped forward reluctantly, shuddering. He handed her gloves. “I think this is for you to do.” He gave her an encouraging pat on the arm. The others stepped back. Brillar looked desperately at Rodenis and her mother, but the senior Sister only shook her head.
“Pile salt deeply on the empty tray,” Chefin commanded. She was shaking so hard that she emptied half the cask onto the silver and spread it by hand.
“It appeared to me that the herbs were to be spread directly on the collar,” he said and handed her a deep cup where the herbs had been combined. “First, sprinkle half the herbs on the salt.” He wait until she completed the task.
“Now, place the collar on the salt, cover it with the rest of the herbs, then smother it in salt.”
She was loathe to get close to the dimlock again but did as she was told. As she set the collar on the herbs, it began to turn color, filling the air with a cloud of dark, choking smoke.
“Now!” Chefin shouted.
Brillar spread the rest of the herbs on the collar. It hissed and spat; acrid smoke curled from it. She felt weak and couldn’t see clearly.
“The salt!” a voice said, and she shook the rest of the salt on the dimlock, covering it. The smoke was in her eyes, her nose, her stomach heaved, she was falling toward the dimlock as it twisted in the salt like something alive and in pain. Hands grabbed her roughly and threw her to the stones to vomit. Her arm was on fire. Grabbing the scar, she screamed, “Elden!” and could hear an echo of his distant screams. They tore at her as her arm burned, and the thing in the salt hissed and writhed. That was all she knew.
*** 15 ***
She was in a quiet room, a cloth on her head, something was being pressed to her lips, and she drank. “Elden.” She jerked upright, was pushed down, and quieted with a soothing spell.
“In the next room and being tended. They say he screamed he was on fire then dropped like a stone in the field. They brought him right here.”
She blinked and looked around, recognizing a small room in the House of Healing.
The cup was pressed to her lips again. “Is it gone then, destroyed?”
“Completely gone,” said her mother, coming in quietly dressed in the light blue often worn by healers. “What have you been told?”
“She’s only just awake,” the healing Sister said gently. “She knows Elden is here.”
Darwa nodded. “And I’ve been tending him for two days.”
“Two days? I’ve been here two days?” She struggled to get up and was pushed back.
“You were very close when it was destroyed. The blow was powerful.” Her mother’s hand was on her forehead, cool and soothing, scented with herbs.
Brillar struggled to push herself up, and her mother tucked a pillow behind her. “I need feeding now and not just broth but rich stew; otherwise I’ll roll out of this bed or die in the trying.”
Her healer left, nodding to Darwallen. “I’d thought as much.” She smiled at her daughter. “Something has already been prepared.”
Alliana came in with stew and Darwallen left. “I am to spoon it into your mouth or tie your arms,” she said, eyes twinkling. Brillar allowed the spooning and drank from a cup her sister held. As she ate, she noted that her green dress was hanging on a hook and smiled at it.
Alliana wrinkled her nose. “I’m glad I wasn’t there. Do you know how many times I had to cast a cleansing spell on that garment to rid it of the stink?” She stuffed another spoonful of stew in Brillar’s mouth without giving her a chance to answer. “And you soiled it,” she scolded. “When it was handed to me, I thought I would soil it at well.” More stew. “Only a few had been allowed in the courtyard, but some of the students were crowded at the windows. Not all of them made it to basins. What a time we had cleaning up after them.” A cup to her sister’s lips, then more stew. “Nearly everyone in the courtyard was ill, even that scholarly Brother Chefin. He had to be carried to a healing room and, I am told, is a terrible patient. But I brought you something,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “knowing how you dislike herbal teas.” She stood and threw the rest of the tea out the window. She refilled the cup from a small flask. “One of Father’s favorite wines,” and she held the cup to her sister’s lips then took a sip herself and refilled the cup. Both began to smile. When Brillar opened her mouth to speak, Alliana stuffed it with more stew.
“Remember when Father said I was too young for wine and you doused me with brandy to show he was right?” Brillar could only nod. More wine followed the stew. “I thought I would die, now here I am, stuffing you and giving you wine. There, finished.” She drank the last of the wine. “I promised to leave once you had eaten. You’re now to sleep again; I think they added something to the tea.”
“Alliana,” Brillar took her sister’s hand, “come again and bring me news about Elden.”
Her sister smiled and took her leave, to be replaced by a healing Sister in blue and white who sniffed the air. “Wine, or I have not lived these thirty years.” She removed the pillows. “You will sleep now. Wine in a sickroom.” But Brillar was already sleeping.
The next morning, Brillar got out bed when the Sister removed her breakfast tray. Too unsteady to fully dress, she wrapped a robe around her gown and was at the door when the Sister returned. She held the door open and insisted loudly, “I’m going to see Elden.”
At the noise in the hall, her mother came out and clucked her tongue. “A moment only, then,” and helped her daughter into Elden’s room. He was unconscious and pale, his scars angry on his chest. She could see something dark hovering around him.
She looked at her own scar, which was still painful. She took a chair by his side and her mother left them alone in the room.
“Master, what are we to do, you and I?” and she began to murmur healing spells, then placed both her hands firmly on the dimlock scars. Feeling fire but refusing to let go, she drew on all her reserves of strength, calling him back from the darkness. Sensing something from outside the door, Darwallen was inside shouting for help, sending wave after wave of mana, strength, and healing toward her daughter. Then a Senior Healer was there, then Rodenis, with others outside lending support, strength, being fed mana by the newly arrived as they depleted themselves and took a moment to draw in more. The younger students could feel some of what was happening and clung to each other. Time seemed to stop, then, finally, Brillar sagged forward on Elden’s chest, and he stirred, a slight turn of his head.
They carried Brillar back to her bed. An orb was brought, then another, as Sisters spoke words of healing, strength, and soothing over both of them throughout the night.
Neither woke again for another day. Some of the Sisters, exhausted by their efforts, were put to bed in the healing hall. Others fell into their own beds and were tended by older students. The Brothers who had remained at the House could do nothing to help except with simple tasks, but none would leave. They visited Brother Chefin; they tended horses, cooked food, tried to help with lessons, played simple games with the younger students.
