by IGMS
Running a palm over the smooth dome of his head, the apothecary said, "Interesting. The ground-up soul must be gradually escaping the paint."
"How do I stop it?"
"It is returning to its natural state. I do not think it can be stopped."
Osbert looked at his hand. "Is it coming back into me?"
"I doubt that. You voluntarily surrendered it, so it no longer pertains to you."
"What can be done? I need Her."
With an appraising eye, the apothecary looked him up and down. "Perhaps an arm? Just from the elbow down? We'll have to do it piece by piece, though, to fit in the mortar."
The banging on the door roused Osbert from sleep. The afternoon daylight cutting into the room hurt his eyes. He stumbled to the door and opened it a crack.
It was his landlord, the butcher. "Peale, I'm giving you till Saturday to come up with two months' rent, or you'll have to leave."
Desperate confusion swirled in Osbert's mind. He was two months late with rent? "You'll get the money. It's just that my mother's sister is ill, and the leech-- "
"I thought you said it was your father's sister."
Had he said that? "This is a difficult time. Illness sweeping through my family's village." He coughed. Why did his chest hurt so?
The butcher took a step back. "You don't look well yourself."
"I'm fine. You'll get your money. Just give me some time."
"Hmph." The butcher turned and went down the stairs.
Osbert sat down on his cot.
"You seem ill, my love." Her voice was melodious, and Osbert felt better just hearing it.
"I'm just tired, is all." He lay back and closed his eyes. Late with the rent? Lying to his landlord? What was wrong with him?
He felt Her palm on his forehead. "You're burning up. It's a fever. You need help."
A fever? The apothecary could help. Yes, he must go to the apothecary.
He staggered down the stairs and out onto the street. He was exhausted by the time he reached the apothecary shop, and once inside he allowed himself to sink to the floor.
He awoke in a strange room, surrounded by portraits of Her. One of them smiled at him as he sat up.
"Where am I?" he asked Her.
Her shoulders shrugged slightly, but She did not answer.
Osbert walked unsteadily to the door, opened it and looked out. The scents of the apothecary shop met him. "Hallo?" he called out.
"Ah, you are recovered at last," said the apothecary from below. "We were quite worried about you."
"We?"
"The young lady of your portraits and I. Gave us quite a scare, you did."
"What am I doing here? What are my paintings doing here?"
"When you fell ill, you came to me. I then discovered that you were unable to pay the rent for your prior room, so I had everything brought here."
A fog seemed to lift from his mind. He walked down the stairs to confront the apothecary. "That was your fault. I couldn't pay the rent because I spent all my money on soul-paint."
"It does no good to blame me. It was all by your choice. How was I to know you were spending too much?"
Still weak in his legs, Osbert sat down on the floor.
"But you have no worries now, my boy. You can stay here with me, as I can spare the room."
"Thank you." Did he really want to stay here? Where else could he go? Then he remembered Her. "The portraits! She didn't talk to me, She only smiled."
"Yes, it's been too long. The power of your soul-paint is fading."
"I need more."
The apothecary smiled. "You are sure? Your soul is stretched so thin I estimate we'd need to take both legs now to have enough."
"Yes, I'm sure." She'd help nurse him back to health, so he owed it to Her to bring Her back to life.
The apothecary reached up for the saltcellar.
"I think I would like to see one of your landscapes," She said one morning.
"What?"
"You used to paint landscapes, did you not? I should very much like to see one. You have such a talent for painting."
"Then see one you shall. I'll go out and paint one today."
She smiled brightly. "Just for me?"
"Just for you."
He scraped an old canvas, removing one of Her lifeless portraits. After gathering his paints, he went downstairs.
"Going somewhere?" asked the apothecary, who was putting on his coat to leave.
"I'm going to paint a landscape."
The apothecary frowned. "Are you sure that's wise? The spring weather is rather damp, and you are still weak. There is illness about - I am going to treat someone even now."
"It's for Her. She wants to see a landscape."
"Ah, well if she wants it, how can you refuse? Just don't stay out too long."
He sat on his stool on the bank of the Avon. The canvas before him held only a half-hearted charcoal sketch. It had been so long since he had done a landscape that nothing seemed right.
"Trouble painting?" A man's voice came from behind him.
Osbert turned to see an elderly monk from the abbey. "Yes, I'm afraid I'm somewhat out of practice."
The monk nodded. "I recall having seen you painting many a day last year, but not in recent months."
"I've been ill."
"Ah."
The silence stretched. Osbert raised his charcoal to the canvas, then brought it back down. He turned to look at the monk again. "Is it a sin to paint a portrait of . . . of a young lady?"
The monk raised his eyebrows. "I've never been asked that before."
"Is it?"
"The Muslim believes all images of people are prohibited. And I've read of primitive tribes that believe an image can trap the soul of the person portrayed. But portraiture in itself is not against the laws of Christ."
Osbert nodded gratefully, though the talk of souls trapped in images came uncomfortably close to his secret.
"But this young lady whose portrait you paint - is there perhaps more to it than that? Is that what troubles you?"
Suddenly Osbert no longer wanted to talk to this monk. He stood up. "I've been outside too long. I must get back. My health, you understand."
The monk nodded. "May God speed your recovery."
In the middle of the night Osbert awoke to pounding on the door of the shop. He heard the apothecary call out that he was coming.
"I wonder who is ill tonight." Her voice was concerned.
"I'll find out," he said. Rising from his bed, he opened the door and crept out to sit on the stairs and eavesdrop.
A man was speaking, an edge of desperation in his voice. "- grows ever weaker. It's as if the very life were being drained from her body."
The apothecary's voice was sympathetic. "I don't know what else is to be done but help her sleep better. This illness is beyond my power to aid."
"I don't understand it. My daughter was always a picture of health, until last autumn."
"It is most mysterious."
"Is there nothing in your books? Please, you must help my Amelia. I'll pay whatever you ask."
"I am sorry," said the apothecary. "Take this powder to ease her rest. That is all I can do."
Osbert barely heard the door of the shop shut. His mind was awhirl. Amelia. Was this coincidence? No. His portraits of Her were somehow harming the real young woman, drawing the life out of her. He tried to reject the thought, but he remembered the primitive belief the monk had mentioned about images trapping the soul of the person portrayed. The apothecary had mentioned it, too, Osbert recalled now. It had to be true - he was the cause of Amelia's suffering.
He rose to his feet and descended the stairs. The apothecary was sitting in his chair behind the counter. On seeing Osbert, he rose to his feet.
Clenching his fists, Osbert said, "What have you done to Amelia?"
"I've done nothing to the young lady."
"It's me, isn't it? My portraits are stealing pieces of her soul."
> "You imagine things, dear boy. Go back to bed and get some rest." The apothecary didn't look him in the eye.
"How do I set things right?"
The apothecary sighed. "You can't. By painting her image with the soul-paint, you have robbed that girl of most of her soul, binding it permanently away from her. She will die shortly, and it is your obsession that has killed her."
What could Osbert do? "I'll destroy the paintings. Burn them all."
"Ignorant child. You are dealing with magics of the soul. Mere flames cannot break such bindings."
Osbert lunged forward and grabbed at the apothecary, who broke the grip with ease and pushed him to the floor.
Tears of hopelessness welled in his eyes, then began to flow down his cheeks. "Dear God, what have I done?"
The apothecary laughed. "Yes, now you call out to Him. Far too late, of course."
Wiping at the tears on his face, Osbert realized he was damned. Step by step, he had brought ruin upon himself and Amelia.
And then as he licked at his lips, he tasted his tears. Salt. The Salt of Judas.
He rose to his feet. The apothecary had moved to the doorway and was bolting it shut. Osbert climbed up on the counter and grabbed the saltcellar from the top shelf behind it. The apothecary spotted him as he climbed down from the counter.
"What are you doing? Give that back!" The apothecary's voice was angry.
Osbert ran up the stairs to his room, locked the door and pulled off his nightshirt.
"Stop!" yelled the apothecary from below.
Ordinary flames might not burn the paintings and release the pieces of Amelia's soul, but perhaps the magical fire of his burning soul could. He hurriedly piled the portraits of Amelia in the middle of the room as the apothecary banged on the door. He could hear the voice of the portraits asking what he was doing.
Lying back on the portraits, he unscrewed the top of the saltcellar and spilled the salt upon his chest.
His body spasmed as gouts of pale fire spread from his chest. The pain twisted his mind and all reason fled. All that remained was the desire to destroy the portraits. Flames surrounded him and then all went dark.
As he returned to consciousness, he felt a burning sensation over most of his body. The scent of smoke filled his nostrils. This must be hell, his eternal destiny. As he opened his eyes, though, he saw the old monk leaning over him, not a devil.
"He's awake," said the monk to someone outside Osbert's view. "Be still, young man. That you are alive is a miracle, though you have some burns on your body from the fire."
Osbert tried to speak, but at first could not find a voice in his dry throat. Finally he managed to whisper, "Where am I?"
"The infirmary at Tewksbury Abbey. Be still."
"Where is the apothecary?"
The monk shook his head. "He must have been consumed by the fire. We did not find his body."
Osbert found it hard to believe the apothecary was truly dead. "And my paintings?"
"They are destroyed. The entire building burned to ashes; there is nothing left. But you must rest. Go back to sleep."
Propped up on his bed in the infirmary, Osbert drank the broth that was supposed to restore his strength. It was no use, he knew - his strength was gone because he had given up most of his soul, not because of his injuries.
The one real comfort he had was that Amelia still lived, and was said to be recovering slowly. At least her death was not on his conscience.
The old monk arrived and sat on a stool by Osbert's bed. "I have something for you." He reached into a sack and brought out the saltcellar.
Osbert nearly spilled his broth. "Where did you get that?" he whispered.
"You were clutching it when we found you. It is a symbol of the miracle that saved you."
Saved? He could not be saved. "What do you mean?"
"After the fire burned out, no one thought anybody could have survived. But then you were found in the midst of the ashes, still alive, with a pile of salt on your chest and this saltcellar in your hand." The monk smiled. "I know salt is a preservative, but I didn't think it had quite so much power."
"That salt had magical properties." For what evil fate had the Salt of Judas saved him?
The monk laughed. "It is but ordinary salt." He opened up the saltcellar, dipped his finger in, and dabbed some crystals on his tongue. "See?"
Osbert held his breath for a moment, but nothing happened to the monk. "It cannot be. I saw it. The apothecary . . ."
The monk raised an eyebrow. "The apothecary claimed it was magical salt? I had my suspicions the man was a fraud."
"He was no fraud. At least, not the way you think." What purpose was there in hiding the truth? Osbert felt as if a burden lifted from his shoulders as he quietly began to tell the monk what he had done.
"So I tried to release Amelia's soul by burning the paintings with the magical fire, and that's the last thing I remember before I awoke after the fire," Osbert finished.
During Osbert's narration, the monk had not interrupted, although he had frowned at several points. Now the monk leaned forward and stared into Osbert's eyes. After a few seconds, he said, "You do not appear to be either a madman or a liar, and I cannot see why you would concoct such a tale. I believe you."
"Thank you." It was a relief to be believed. Osbert looked at the saltcellar still gripped in the monk's hands. "But I still don't understand why the Salt of Judas didn't burn you when you touched it. What happened to the curse?"
The monk looked up to the ceiling of the infirmary. Osbert followed his gaze, but he could see nothing.
The monk looked back down to Osbert. "The salt lost its savour through an act of betrayal. Perhaps it took an act of sacrifice to let it be salted again."
The canvas before him was nearly complete. The image of Tewkesbury Abbey was ethereal, wreathed in morning mist, though the actual mist had vanished hours ago. Osbert paused as he carefully considered where to add a little more shadow.
"You paint very well," said a voice over his shoulder.
He knew before turning that it was Amelia. She had recently begun taking walks again as she had recovered from her illness, and he had seen her every few days over the past month. But this was the first time she had spoken to him.
"Thank you, Miss." He turned back to the canvas.
"Perhaps one day you could paint a portrait of me," Amelia said.
"I only paint landscapes."
The Mooncalfe
by David Farland
Artwork by Jerimiah D. Syme
* * *
It was late evening on a sultry summer's day when three riders appeared at the edge of the woods on the road southwest of Tintagel castle. The sentries did not see them riding up the muddy track that led from Beronsglade. The knights merely appeared, just as the sun dipped below the sea, as if they'd coalesced from mist near a line of beech trees.
The manner of their appearance did not seem odd, on that day of oddities. The tide was very low, and the whole ocean lay as placid as a mountain pool. To the castle's residents, who were used to the constant pounding of the surf upon the craggy rocks outside the castle walls, the silence seemed thunderous. Even the gulls had given up their incessant screeching and now huddled low on the rocks, making an easy dinner of cockles and green kelp crabs.
All around the castle, the air was somber. Smoke from cooking fires and from the candlers hung in a blue haze all about Tintagel's four towers. The air seemed leaden.
So it was that the sentries, when they spotted the three knights, frowned and studied the men's unfamiliar garb. The leader of the trio wore a fantastical helm shaped like a dragon's head, and his enameled mail glimmered red like a dragon's scales. He rode a huge black destrier, and as for the device on his shield, he carried only blank iron strapped to a pack on a palfrey.
Beside him rode a big fellow in oiled ringmail, while the third knight wore nothing but a cuirass of boiled leather, yet carried himself with a calmness and certainty that m
ade him more frightening than if he rode at the head of a Saxon horde.
"'Tis Uther Pendragon!" one of the boys at the castle walls cried at first. The lad hefted his halberd as if he would take a swing, but stepped back in fright.
Pendragon was of course the guards' worst nightmare. At the Easter feast, King Uther Pendragon had made advances on the Duke Gorlois's wife, the Lady Igraine. He had courted her in her husband's company with all the grace and courtesy of a bull trying to mount a heifer. At last the duke felt constrained to flee the king's presence. The king demanded that Gorlois return with his wife, but Gorlois knew that if he ever set foot in the king's palace again, he'd lose his head. So he locked his wife safely in Tintagel, began fortifying his castles, and prayed that he could hire enough Irish mercenaries to back him before the king could bring him down.
Last anyone had heard, Duke Gorlois was holed like a badger at his fortress in Dimilioc, where Uther Pendragon had laid siege. It was said that Pendragon had employed Welsh miners as sappers, vowing to dig down the castle walls and skin Gorlois for his pelt within forty days.
So when the lad atop the castle wall thought he saw Pendragon, immediately someone raised a horn and began to blow wildly, calling for reinforcements, though none would likely be needed. Tintagel was a small keep, situated by the sea on a pile of rocks that could only be reached over a narrow causeway. It was said that three men could hold it from an army of any size, and no fewer than a two dozen guards now manned the wall.
The captain of the guard, a stout old knight named Sir Ventias who could no longer ride due to a game leg, squinted through the smoke that clung around the castle. Something seemed afoul. He knew fat king Pendragon's features well, and as he peered through the gloom and the smoke that burned his eyes, he saw immediately that it was not Pendragon on the mount. It was a young man with a flaxen beard and a hatchet face.
Ventias squinted, trying to pierce the haze until he felt sure: it was Duke Gorlois. He rode in company with his true friend Sir Jordans and the stout knight Sir Brastias.