JESSAN - A TALE OF WIZARDRY Chapter 18
Copyright 2006 Trewin Greenaway All Rights Reserved
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I try to post a new chapter every Saturday if possible. (I know I've been slipping up lately, but, hey, it's summer!!) Anyway, if you're enjoying the story, do let me know!
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Chapter 18
sure enough, when I came down the stairs in the morning, Alfrund was sitting at the kitchen table, his face gloomy, drinking a steaming infusion of flastal leaf. However, when I entered, his face brightened. He stood up and we embraced and kissed. It felt good to have him in my arms, although I couldn't help but notice how slender he was compared to Caelas.
Onna was off somewhere with Grysta, but the porridge pot had been left in the fireplace, and I filled a bowl with it, and brought it to the table. Since it was too hot to eat with my fingers, and Onna wasn't there, I ate it with the serving spoon, while Alfrund sipped his tea.
Flastal leaf is an ataractic - and a tea promoting tranquil thoughts is not the usual choice for a morning beverage. Alfrund was greatly agitated and was no doubt drinking the brew to keep me from noticing this. He still had little idea how much of his enkiridion I'd studied, or how deeply I'd absorbed what I'd read. I decided to eat my porridge in companionable silence, and let him be the first to speak.
"There's to be a public execution today," he said at last. "Criers are walking about the town announcing it. They say it has to do with an enemy of the kingdom, which puzzles me greatly, since all of us - Orien, Grysta, Onna even, you, me - are accounted for, as is Fendal, too. Of course soldiers could appear at the door at any moment and bear us away, but it would be most unusual to announce an execution before the victim is even seized."
My mind immediately went to Caelas, but if they'd arrested him, he'd be tortured for information, and it would be some time before he was put out for public display.
"Worse yet," Alfrund went on, "despite Orien's strict orders to keep you in plain sight, I have to go into the town to get the clothing we purchased for you, all of which I've been promised many times would be finally ready today."
"The solution is simple," I answered. "Take me with you. Then I will be the one disobeying Orien, not you. He already considers me willful if not utterly intransigent. I'm willing to suffer the blows that would otherwise be aimed at you."
This brought a smile from Alfrund. "I would rather strike those blows myself," he said. "I've heard what you've been up to, and suspect that what I was told is far from the entire tale."
"I've simply been following my doom," I said primly, "in both my callings."
Alfrund groaned. "It's far too early in the morning, at least my morning, to hear more. Grysta has given me leave to concoct a few necessary ointments, potions, and the like for our travels. Finish your porridge and we'll do it together."
I only wished that Onna had been here to observe; Alfrund had none of Grysta's fussy deliberateness, but went about his work with what could only be called an air of insouciance. Some things he did carefully measure, especially those that were expensive or notably caustic, but others went in by the pinch or, in some instances, the handful.
At one point he was so casual at this that I glanced at him, and he caught my look. "The overcautious herbalist merely wastes his time," he explained. "Every leaf has a slightly different strength, elements decay over time, distillations evaporate even through closed stoppers. The herbalist practices an art wrapped in the language and the method of careful study; you must learn to play the one against the other, rather than falsely simplifying by clinging hold to one of them."
"And Grysta?" I asked.
"Ha," he replied. "Grysta is an old and crafty witch passing herself off as a mere healer. She slips spells into her potions and leaves us poor herbalists looking like itinerant pedlars of common simples."
"Truly?" I exclaimed.
"You haven't noticed this, little Nithaial?" Alfrund said teasingly. "She could give old Orien a run for his money, even though she's not been taken into the circle of mages. This is partly because mages are uneasy about the separate way witches attain their arcane knowledge, but equally because she has no interest in such things - flowing robes embroidered with silver threads and faces filled with profundity. Magic would have a better flavor if women were the mages and men contented themselves with the alchemical."
He gestured over to a wall where a row of hand-blown glass crocks sat, holding various assortments of animal bones and teeth. "Those are not the medicinals of a healer's dispensatory; they are the elementals of witchcraft."
My opinion of Grysta, already high, rose higher still. For she'd hidden all signs of these powers from me. And I, as usual, had been too full of myself and my problems to even think of looking for them. That we'd been left undisturbed in this house for so long had surely to do with some carefully crafted spells.
An elbow nudged me in the ribs. "Pay attention," Alfrund said, "your crucible is about to overflow. Let's get this done and into town. The shops will all close when the hour of execution comes, for everyone will attend."
Indeed, we had just stepped out the tailor's shop, the last on our list of errands, when we heard the loud dull thump of the executioner's drum, a huge thing that could be heard for leagues. The beat began slowly but began to increase tempo every several minutes, as shops and inns and workplaces emptied, and people hurried, still in their working garb, to the central square.
Alfrund and I had intended to head back to Grysta's house, but the crowd caught us up and made it impossible to move in any other direction. Reluctantly we let it sweep us along. After all, we would be anonymous in the mob, while being the only ones fighting to go in the opposite direction could only call unwanted attention to ourselves.
Ominously, soon after the drum sounded, I began to sense the presence of the Summoner. This time, however, he wasn't searching into minds but pulling at them, each psychic thread catching hold and implanting a sense of urgency. I could easily brush these away, and did, but as we drew closer, I could sense that they were also saying a word, over and over again. Because I continued to keep the strands at a distance, it wasn't until we arrived at the town square, buried at the back of the mob, that I made it out. And when I did it was as if I'd been stabbed with a blade of ice.
"Faryn," the voice was saying, in a revoltingly gloating voice. "Faryn. Faryn. Faryn. Faryn." I thrust the bundles I was carrying into Alfrund's arms and began shoving my way through the crowd, my brain reeling. "Faryn. Faryn. Faryn. Faryn."
Finally I burst through to the front the crowd, held back from a raised platform by a ring of soldiers with locked arms. Above me stood what must be the Lord of the Fort, a large man clad in full armor, helmet pulled shut, his arms resting on a huge sword. Beside him on one side stood a figure in a black robe, the hood tossed back to reveal a chalk white, utterly hairless head. His eyes fell on me the moment mine did on him, but mine didn't pause. They had moved on at once to the other side of the Lord of the Fort. There, Faryn hung, chained to a rack, tilted up to be in full view of the crowd, each of his limbs stretched to the breaking point, the metal biting so deeply that blood oozed around them.
I sought to catch Faryn's glance, but he was already unconscious. And the moment the Summoner saw me, he pointed me out to the Lord of the Fort. He, in turn, gave a sharp command, and the soldier standing beside the rack pulled on a lever. Before my very eyes, the machine expanded with a violent lurch and Faryn was ripped apart, his legs and arms making a sickening popping noise as they did so, covering the platform with gouts of blood. In a mere second his head dangled down over his torso, which itself was held in place only by a thick leather strap that held it fast.
Instantly, a terrible screaming was heard, not from Faryn, who was already dead, but from the soldier who had pulled the lever, his arms first blackening as if thrust into a roaring fire and then withering into stumps. Blood gushed from Lord of the Fort's helmet. With a scream, he ripped it off his head. His face was a mask of red, gouts spurting from his ears, nostrils, eyes and mouth. He wavered, fell on his knees, then pitched forward with a crash. His helmet rolled off the platform and fell at my feet.
I had done all this. But in my blinding rage, it seemed to be happening at a great distance, not almost within arm's reach. All this time I'd been fending off the Summoner but now I turned to him. His eyes were stretched wide open, the pupils rolled up under his eyelids. He shook all over as if in the midst of a shaking fit.
As he did so, a vice as hard as steel closed around my head. The force was enormous; my very skull was wrenched with pain. I pulled up every bit of resistance I could muster to counter it and mananged to stay it for a moment. The Summoner's body thrashed about, as incoherent gibbering noises flooded out of his mouth.
The force began to intensify again and blood rushed into my eyes and blinded me. I struggled against it but my strength was quickly ebbing. I gave one last tremendous heave to shake it off and the Summoner's skull exploded.
I didn't see it; I was sightless from pain. But I heard the sound and felt the bits of his noisome brain splatter against me. The pressure was gone. The Unnameable One, in His eagerness to finish me, had pushed too much power far too quickly through his mortal medium and destroyed him instead of me.
Meanwhile the screaming of the soldier who had pulled the switch continued unabated. I turned my mind to him, felt in his body for his heart and ripped it from his chest. The screaming stopped.
My vision returned, first through a haze of blood, and then more clearly. The crowd was fleeing in a great panic, trampling many to death. Only a few soldiers remained, cowering before me, too terrified to run.
I spoke to one, or perhaps only thought I spoke, and instead sent my words directly into his mind. "Go and fetch me Caelas," I said.
"P-p-p-rince Caelas?" the soldier stuttered. "But he's in chains and under guard."
"Then I want him released, cleaned, and brought to me," I snapped. "If he's not here before me in minutes, I will rip the soul out of every soldier in the fort and eat it as I stand here."
The soldier turned and fled toward the fort. I saw as he ran that he had soiled himself from terror. I looked away and ascended the platform, and went to where the remains of Faryn dangled from that foul engine.
Great rage was transmuting itself into an equally terrible grief. I lifted his head between my two hands, kissed him, and said the prayer for the dead. It's not long but neither is it short, and as I keened it I heard the voice of Alfrund join with me. Tears flowed down my face and when the last words were uttered and I had kissed Faryn's lips one last time, I turned and fell into Alfrund's arms, sobbing uncontrollably.
And this is how it was that Caelas came upon us. I heard his footsteps approach, pulled myself together and led Alfrund across the platform, now covered with blood and human parts, to the ground before it.
I went to Caelas, took his hand, and looked into his face. "You're a prince, then?" I asked.
"Yes, Nithaial. I didn't mean to conceal it from you," he answered. "In the circumstances, it seemed an idle boast."
I nodded and said, "You did tell me that you were familiar with palaces. You're related to the king?"
"I'm his nephew," Caelas answered, "but that fact no longer avails me much." He lifted his arm to reveal the burn marks left by a cruelly tightened rope.
"Did they hurt you badly?" I asked. The sight of those marks made me think again of Faryn and it was all I could manage not to burst again into tears of grief and rage.
"Not badly, no," Caelas replied. "They were just warming to their work when a terrified group of soldiers arrived to tell me I'd been summoned. They had no idea by whom. By their description I knew it must be either a demon lord...or you."
I cast my glance down for a moment and then looked back into his eyes. "Are you willing now to offer me your allegiance, even against your kin?" I asked.
His eyes were gray, wide set, and steady. "Yes," he said. "Until my death."
"Then you may do so," I replied.
Caelas then knelt before me and offered me the hilt of his sword. I lifted it aloft and placed my hand on his head. Power moved through us both. The blade of his sword flashed with a brilliant life.
"Prince Caelas," I said, "I give you command of all men who would fight for the return of the Nithaial and the overthrow of their enemy, whose name can not yet but soon will be spoken."
I took my hand from his head and bade him rise.
"I'm so weary I cannot say," I said, "but we must meet later in Sondaram and decide many things. Do you know the house of the healer Grysta?"
Caelas nodded."'Then come to us there after you've explained the situation to your troops," I said. "Tell those who refuse to join us that they may leave here freely, but don't let them go just yet. Otherwise, order things as you wish, and deal with any problems as you see fit. I trust your judgment fully in all such things."
I turned toward Alfrund, thinking our conversation over, but Caelas reached out and touched my shoulder. "Jessan," he said, "I'm greatly, greatly sorry about Faryn. When they told me in the dungeon that he was your twerë, it all but broke my heart. It was the worst pain I suffered from them, that and the malevolent pleasure they took in what they thought would be their great triumph."
I took his hand again and kissed it, for it would be unseemly for the Nithaial to kiss his highest ranking officer on the lips... at least not in public. I then remembered to have him order that Faryn's body be wrapped in clean cloth and brought to Sondaram as well. And so we parted.
By this time, Orien, too, had arrived, and with him Fendal. Caelas strode away to gather together what army he could; the rest of us walked silently back to Grysta's house. She was waiting for me there, and held me, and again I cried for a long time.