JESSAN - A TALE OF WIZARDRY Chapter 22
Copyright 2006 Trewin Greenaway All Rights Reserved
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Chapter 22
WHEN I CAME INTO HALF CONSCIOUSNESS, I found myself lying in Alfrund's arms, as weak as a rag doll. Even my eyes had trouble opening, my eyelids shifting only enough to let in light and blurred images too indistinct to make out.
"He stirs!" Alfrund said, his voice so full of relief that it lit a tiny glow inside me. Then Orien said something, or at least it seemed to be Orien and he seemed to be speaking. I found it took all my effort to keep from sliding back into darkness -- not the great ocean that was the force, but a cold black empty place that felt like death.
A vial was held beneath my nose. It released vapors that I might once have recognized but now could only feel wafting up my nostrils, riding on the faint movement of my breath.
"I don't want to die," I whispered, barely able to form the words, let alone push them out of my mouth.
"We won't let you do so, my love," Alfrund said. "Allow the distillation of temerith to do its work."
"Temerith, temerith," I thought. "Stimulates the spirit. Yes, that's good. And after, some tea made of..., of..., of...."
"Our old friends iacynder and dorras root, and some rare and wondrous ufforsta, little one," Alfrund whispered in my ear, "which neither of us have encountered before, and so isn't in my enkiridion."
I'd whispered my thoughts aloud, without knowing it. "Ufforsta?" I mumbled. "That must be from Orien. I'll know its powers when I taste it. Or not." Did I still have that power? This thought that I might have lost it didn't depress me. I hadn't even enough energy for sadness. My thoughts drifted away, conscious only of the penetrating scent of the temerith and the sharp edge of the alcohol that bound it. And then not even that.
Hours passed. Urine ran between my legs because I hadn't the strength to hold it in. It was cleaned away. Someone dripped a tiny amount of the tea into my open mouth, drop by drop. Some of it dribbled back out again, and it, too, was cleaned away. But some slipped down my throat. Slowly, slowly, it had its effect.
I became aware that I was now wrapped up in blankets. I could smell the night. I moved my hand a tiny distance and found Alfrund's beside it. I couldn't close my fingers on it but to touch it was something. Then he took my hand in his and held it, and tears slipped from my eyes.
"I'm afraid to sleep," I whispered. "And afraid to wake up."
"Try not to sleep, yet," he answered softly. "As to waking up," he leaned over and kissed me on the lips, "we'll make sure that it's nothing to regret."
"More, please," I said, and he took me in his arms and gently kissed me over and over, each one lifting me further from the darkness.
Finally, I said, "I think I could sip some tea, if you would hold the cup."
Alfrund propped me up and brought the cup to my lips. I expected the tea to be quite cold but it was nicely warm. I sipped it, little by little, until I drank my fill. As I did so, I filtered its components through my mind, winnowing out the presence of the ufforsta from the familiar ones of iacynder and dorras root. It was almost impossible to taste but its effect could be discerned, strengthening and encouraging the heart. Already I could feel a touch of color return to my face, my muscles quicken. At least I wouldn't wet myself again.
"How can the tea be so warm?" I whispered.
I could feel Alfrund smile. "Because Hestal sleeps with the flask held tightly between his thighs," he said, "for just that purpose. Did it add to the flavor?"
I smiled. "Oh, Alfrund," I whispered, "how I long to see your face. Is there light enough for me to do so?"
"Not yet, little one," he answered. "It's still night. But I think that now you can sleep a little, if you wish, after you sip a little more tea. Even by holding you, I can tell it's doing your body much good."
And so I did drink some, as much as I was able. Then I lay back in his arms and drifted away -- but this time into sleep, not into the nothingness that opens onto death.
When the morning came, I was able to open my eyes, move my limbs, and, eventually, sit propped up against the cabin without sagging over. Thoughts came and went like butterflies, so lightly I could hardly feel their touch. The sun rose higher, an awning was strung over me, and I was given more tea and a nourishing broth made with shreds of dried meat.
By the time the afternoon came, I took more interest in my surroundings. I turned my head to watch Dwinsa, who looked back at me for a moment, alert for a possible piece of fruit. When she lost hope and bent her head down for another mouthful of hay, I wanted to crawl over to her. But I still lacked the strength -- of body or of will I wasn't sure. I went to sleep again and slept through the whole of the next night, waking the following morning to find myself lying on the deck again, well wrapped in blankets.
That day I was even more myself. My mind was clearer and my body felt stronger, although Alfrund advised me not to test that yet. After all, I was on the Tejj, not the land, and it was no easy trick to keep your footing on her deck. I agreed but asked him to bring Orien to sit and talk with me.
He did so, and after settling himself stiffly beside me, he took my hand and said, "I shall never forgive myself for doing so unconsidered a thing. I ask you with all my heart to forgive me."
"I do," I said, "although you shouldn't take the weight of this hurt upon yourself; I'm more to blame than you. We've learned something important that may yet prove worth the price. What happened to the piece of mythrad?"
"After I ripped it from your fingers?" Orien asked. "I threw it into the sea. If I hadn't, Alfrund and the others would have thrown it in instead, and me with it."
I sighed. "Remember when you told me that The Unnameable One had killed all the wizards he could find? At the time I wondered how he could have done so. I think we now know. He had only to trick them into taking a piece of this divided mythrad into their hand."
Orien nodded. "Yes, the same thought came to me. By the by, do you remember the four letters of His name that I've given you."
"Yes," I said. "That, my herbalist learning, everything like that has all come back." I was talking in a low voice that forced him to lean close to me. "But," I went on, lowering my voice still further, "I've lost all my power, Orien. There's nothing left in me. I feel, well, more than empty. Barren."
Orien took my hand again. "You're still in a state of shock," he said. "Don't judge this too soon."
I looked up at him. "I am in a state of shock," I replied, "I can't even recall what it was like to have it. I feel emotions, I think thoughts, my body gathers its strength, but the power is gone. I'm nothing more than an ordinary sixteen-year-old."
Orien placed his hand on my forehead and closed his eyes. We sat like that in silence for several minutes, until he shook his head and took his hand away. "I feel nothing," he admitted, "not even as much as I'd expect to find in an apprentice mage.
"But you must not lose heart," he added, starting the slow process of getting himself up off the deck. "We know nothing about the effects of mythrad on someone as powerful as you. Remember, you didn't die. You didn't lose your mind. Each day you improve."
He rose to his feet and groaned loudly. I must have looked startled because he laid his hand on my head and said, "That moan was not because of what you just told me but because the sea air is a torment to my joints. I think I will pace a bit to stretch them and my mind as well." He hobbled away and, after a moment, I fell back asleep.
The following day I felt better yet. Alfrund had dressed me in my smuggler's vest to protect me from the breeze. When I pushed my hands into its pockets, I encountered an oblong object that puzzled me, and so I pulled it out.
It was the demon whistle, wrapped in the parchment that explained its use. I looked at this for a moment, for it was simple and clearly set out. Each command was made with a specific series of notes, which were indicated by signs that indicated which of the five stops to close when the whistle was blown.
So, for instance, the command to have the dogs advance slowly, prepared to attack, was indicated as so:
I studied this, learning the notes and memorizing some of the patterns. But the wind was brisk and I feared the sheet would be blown from my hands, so after a bit I stuffed it safely away. After all, it was the whistle itself that truly fascinated me, and now I had a chance to examine it without the distraction of all the giving of presents and hurrying to leave.
Words would be hard to find that captured its strangeness, for what made it so was all a matter of degree. It was shaped to be held by other than human fingers and to be blown by a differently shaped mouth.
The awning over me had been removed so that I could get some sun. Just at that moment, a shadow passed swiftly over my legs, and I looked up just in time to see a skalgür pass over, a black mote in the bright sunlight. I felt a flash of fear and almost gave out a cry. But it didn't pause, let alone start to circle, and in a moment it had passed on ahead of us, and vanished from sight.
I looked back down at the whistle in my hands, and the thought came to me that perhaps, in demon hands, the whistle controlled a skeane of skalgür. I lifted it to my lips and began to blow into it, not strongly, because I barely had any wind, but softly, just hard enough to get a sound.
I was surprised at how penetrating it was, even so. Dwinsa stood stock still and looked at me in alarm, her usual floppy ears standing rigidly erect. I looked around to see if I had roused the others similarly, but the silence that followed reminded me that human ears couldn't pick up its tones -- all the more advantageous for the demon warriors or, for that matter, the human masters of the attack dogs.
I lifted it to my lips again and, fingering the holes, learned as best I could the different sounds that it produced. There were many, and by arranging them by pitch I found I could fit together the scale they must make up, if demons had such a thing. It was a strange one, if they did, melancholy and dissonant, at least as I heard it. I thought of a tune I knew, The Fisherman's Bride, and slowly worked the phrases out until I could play a simulacrum of the tune.
Down into the water she drew him,
Her cold lips clasped to his own,
Under the waves she now dragged him,
Deep down in the ocean to drown....
It was haunting enough when played on human instruments; on the demon whistle, the music ate away at the flesh beneath your scalp.
A large dark shadow fell across me, and I dropped the whistle and gave out a strangled cry. Completely forgetting to keep alert, I had managed to draw back the skalgür, after all.
As I desperately tried to get to my feet, Alfrund dropped beside me and put his arms around me. "It's only me, little one," he said. "Whatever caused that?"
I stared at him and then slumped against his body. The shadow, of course, had been his. I told him what had happened, and how it had come about.
Alfrund put his hand on my head and held it close to his chest, caressing my hair as he did so. "Silly boy," he said, "after you told me about the attack of the skalgür back in Gedd, it's never left my mind. Hestal, Wendma, Orien, myself, even, probably, Dwinsa, are keeping a sharp lookout for them. And, indeed, no day has passed without our sighting one, but only at a great distance."
He reached his free hand over and picked up the demon whistle. "It put a chill in me," he said, "to come across you soundlessly piping a tune on this devilish thing. What were you playing?"
I told him, and he laughed. "Only you would think to play such a tune at sea and on an instrument like this. If you must practice on the thing, at least give us a silent rendition of A Lad, His Lover, and a Moonlit Bed. That should chase the demon right out of your whistle."
I looked up at him. "There is such a tune?" I asked, and, already knowing the answer, started to laugh.
"If not, there ought to be," he answered, laughing, too, and giving me a hug. "But," he continued, handing me the whistle, "put this well away. I thought you might like to come stand at the rail with me."
I found, with his help, I could get up, and, with the rail to support me, stand and watch the distant shore slip by. It looked much the same as it had when I last cast eyes upon it, if only more so: a procession of cliffs, some high, some shattered. The sea smashed up against them all and roiled around ledges and huge fallen rocks.
"What a grim and lifeless land," I said after a time to Alfrund, who had his arm around me.
"Grim, yes," he answered, "but far from lifeless." He gently turned me, pointing to a cliff that butted out into the sea a slight distance ahead. "Watch," he said. "At the very top."
For a long time I saw nothing, and my attention would have wandered if Alfrund hadn't, every time it did, nudged me to keep alert. Then, suddenly, the flames of a fire burst up, feeding on something that gave off a thick smudge of smoke. The fire was there for barely a minute, and then disappeared. Whoever had lit it had just as quickly smothered it out.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Raiders," he said. "They hide in coves too small to be visible from this distance. They signal each other up and down the coast, when a ship such as ours approaches. We needn't fear them with a wind in our sails, because then they can't catch us. They wait for a lull to come and row out in a pack. They board the ship, kill all who are on it, and take what spoils and food they find."
"And are there enough ships to prey on?" I asked. "In all our sailing I've seen only one or two."
"Several others have passed us while you were sleeping," he answered, "and there are more further out at sea. Their masters know the coast like the back of their hand and can risk losing sight of the land for awhile. But even they can be driven in by storms or strong winds.
"So," he continued, "to answer your question, yes. They're sorry creatures, to be sure, so one prize can keep them going for some time. Small boats sail from Pharros with villainous merchants who buy the spoils from them, paying with cloth, dried meat, and barrels of strong wine."
I now understood Wendma's reaction when the wind gust caught her off guard. To have a sail blown out was bad enough at sea; on this coast it was a death warrant.
Alfrund gave me a squeeze. "We've no worry, happily, having both a mage and a Nithaial onboard. A bolt such as the one you shot out of Sondaram but a few nights ago will send them scurrying back like rats."
His words sent a feeling of dread coursing through me. Because of one stupid impulse, this very voyage, indeed the whole effort behind it may already have come to naught. So much depended on me and now.... The awareness of this made me dizzy; I had to close my eyes and grab hold of Alfrund's arm.
"Jessan!" he said, "I've let you stand here far too long!" He half carried me back to my pile of blankets and went to fetch me tea.
I'd recovered somewhat by the time Alfrund had returned. The wind was blowing briskly and the Tejj's joints creaked from the rate at which she plowed through the sea. I took the tea from him gratefully, for I'd gotten thirsty standing so long.
Even brewed with herbs, I could tell the water we had laid in was now thick and brackish. "How many more days do we sail?" I asked.
"With a wind like this?" Alfrund answered. "At Hestal's estimate, maybe five or six more. Two of those with shore like this and then we must head out to sea a bit to cross at the distant edge of the Stavron Machaliad, as the Pharroseans say it, or, in our language, the Bay of Fear. It serves as the harbor of the city that Grysta mentioned, Cytheria. All who sail this route take great care to steer well clear of that place."
"'The poisoned city of the dead,'" I said, recalling her phrase. "Why is it called that?"
"You had best ask Orien that," Alfrund said, "when he is limber enough to sit again beside you." He bent over and gave me a kiss and took the cup. "But now, I think, it's time for you to sleep."