Daughter of Ancients tbod-4

by Carol Berg

  Then, just as abruptly as they began, his struggles ceased and he slipped into his obscene deadness once more. He was trembling, exhausted, as the abominations fell from his lips. My own tears flowed unchecked. Unable to justify his torment any longer, I hammered on the door to summon the warden.

  "You are not abandoned, J'Savan," I said, as I listened to the approaching footsteps and the clicking of the lock. "I know you're in there, and you must hold on however you can. You are not responsible for what happened to your friends. I believe that as dearly as I believe anything in this world."

  As the Dar'Nethi warder invoked the words of enchantment that would drop blessed oblivion over the wretched youth, the whisper faded. "Danger, danger, danger. Bury it deep. . . ."

  Was there any meaning in what I'd heard? The wardens, Healers, and Archivists thought not. Nothing of his condition or his ramblings were included in the report I'd read in the Archive. The investigators would have considered him unreliable, V'Rendal had said. Why include the ravings of a madman?

  But on my journey back to Avonar, J'Savan's words scribed themselves on my thoughts, refusing to be dismissed until I set them down with pen and ink in the serenity of Aimee's firelit sitting room. Not every word, not the exact order, but I believed I captured their essence. When I laid down my pen late that night, I sat back in my chair and contemplated what I had written.

  On the next morning, I dispatched a letter to Eu'Vian by the first messenger Aimee could summon, and I could not settle to any task for the two days until the answer came back from the edge of the Wastes.

  To my diligent acquaintance S'Rie, greetings,

  In answer to your questioning: On the day he was stricken with his terrible affliction, J'Savan had gone out alone to tend a small grove of trees he had planted. The trees were dying after taking a vigorous, healthy start. J'Savan thought they might have root rot —perhaps he had drawn the groundwater too near. He was planning to inspect the roots to learn the problem. As I told you, he did not return until nightfall when he attacked us with murderous intent .

  Yes, as it happens the grove was very near the place where he first met the Lady D'Sanya. She remembered it when she came to visit us after hearing of J'Savan's terrible illness, even visiting the spot for a time to mourn the boy. Her gentle soul was much affected by J'Savan's state and our tragedy.

  You did not ask, but if the other matters are of interest to you —which I do not understand why, but presume you have reasons —then you may wish to know that the rootlings fare well. J'Savan must have done his work before he was affected, as his grove thrives. He was very good at his work and a cheerful spirit. We miss him sorely, as well as our brothers and sister who lie dead as a result of his affliction .

  J hope your history work proceeds well, and that Mistress V'Rendal is satisfied with my saying.

  Eu'Vian

  What had J'Savan found when he went to tend his rootling trees? What danger had he discovered that had so shattered the harmony of his life that he was driven to acts against nature? And what was the connection to D'Arnath's daughter? The answer was close. Though I could not find it in the rambling words of the mad Gardener, I knew it was there, and I had no doubt that it mortally threatened my son and my husband, and the worlds at either end of D'Arnath's Bridge.

  Chapter 16

  A few days after Eu'Vian's letter, I received a message from V'Rendal saying that the Arcanist Garvй would be able to see me that evening. She warned me yet again that to seek out an Arcanist for minor inquiries was most unwise. She herself had not visited Garvй in many years. But the sight of the poor young Gardener had hardened my resolve.

  Garvй's house surprised me. I had assumed that such a powerful sorcerer must have a fine and formidable residence. But the little stone house was squat and ugly, set in the midst of a ruined part of the city, an area of fire-blackened rubble thickly overgrown with weeds that had not been cleaned up since the end of the war. With the Dar'Nethi drifting out of the city, the space wasn't yet needed, and a great many things had higher priority than cleaning up a thousand years of debris. The house seemed to fade in and out of sight in the oncoming dusk.

  The man who appeared at the door to answer my knock was as disheveled as his surroundings and almost as dirty. His scholar's ankle-length robe hung open, revealing a baggy shirt and trousers of indeterminate shape. Layers of food, wine, soot, paint, and other unnamable stains prevented one from guessing the original color of any of the garments. The limbs that protruded from this unappetizing garb were stick-thin, and his hacked-off hair resembled nothing so much as a boar's-hair scrubbing brush well past its usable lifetime. I couldn't see his face, as his nose was pressed into a ragged-edged book he held in one hand.

  "Well?" I wasn't sure if this greeting was directed at me, at the fat one-eared cat he kicked back into the house when it tried to squeeze between him and the door, or at the tattered volume from which he had not yet removed his eyes.

  I reread the slip of paper in my hand to make sure I'd got the location correct. This was the only likely place. "Master Garvй? I am S'Rie. The Archivist V'Rendal has sent me to see you."

  "Well?" The low, throaty rumble seemed out of proportion to his slight frame. His eyes had not yet moved from the book.

  "Have you a few moments to speak with me about a matter of interest to V'Rendal?"

  "It's not hot is it? Won't work when it's hot."

  Hot? "Excuse me, I've come to inquire about an enchantment, Master Garvй." I knew I wasn't making a good start, though I felt it would be a lot easier to make sense of things if he would just look at me.

  "The sallй that you've brought. V'Rendal always remembers it. It mustn't be hot."

  Sallй . . . "Oh, yes, of course!"

  I pulled a finger-high, frost-rimed green bottle from my pocket. It almost froze my fingers to touch it. V'Rendal had informed me that Garvй was immoderately fond of sallevichia, a rare, expensive and violently spicy condiment made in the Vale of Nimrolan. Aimee had helped me find some of the stuff to bring him as a consideration. "No. It's still quite cold," I said.

  Still without looking up from his book, Garvй snatched the bottle from my hand, whirled about, and disappeared into the house. As he had accepted my gift and had not shut the door, I felt only slightly awkward about following him inside. Although the house seemed quite a bit larger on the inside than it appeared from without, I could scarcely find a path between all the boxes, baskets, and furniture. Chairs and tables had been piled with every sort of item from birdcages to harps, spools of thread and wire to wheelbarrows, and unending stacks of books, reams of paper, and boxes of pens, tools, trinkets, and feathers. The soft blue light of evening through the uncurtained windows kept me from tripping over any of this clutter as I followed the gangly figure through the house.

  We emerged in a stifling, brick-floored kitchen that looked as if a whirlwind had recently passed through it. Alongside a huge, soot-blackened baking oven of red brick lay a disarray of dented kettles, spilled flour, and mounds of dubious vegetables. Long worktables had been set around the periphery of the room and piled halfway to the ceiling with more books, broken pots, at least five sleeping cats, bottles, wooden boxes and glass jars of every possible size, and what appeared to be endless piles of scraps: of fabric, metal, glass, leather, rock, leaves, twigs, dirt, paper . . . Yet around and above the disorder hung the savory smell of baking bread. My stomach growled.

  By the time I squeezed through the half-blocked doorway, the odd-looking man was pulling a long-handled plank, bearing two perfectly shaped loaves, from his oven. With one elbow he shoved aside enough of the clutter on one of his tables to make a space before tipping the bread off the heat-darkened plank. The bread teetered precariously on the edge of the table before settling down beside the green frosted bottle. Book still firmly in hand, the man snatched a small, chipped crock of butter and set it down beside the hot bread and the bottle of sallevichia.

  He pulled two wooden stools
up to the table, dislodging the disgruntled feline occupants. "Hurry," he said. Though he had not yet looked at me, I assumed he was speaking to me. I sat on one stool while he plopped himself onto the other.

  Whatever he was reading must be fascinating, I thought, for he laid the book on the table and kept his head bent over it closely while he grabbed a knife from the table. He sawed one loaf into great hunks, slapped a thick layer of butter on one of them, and dribbled a few drops from my little green bottle on top. Instantly the butter sizzled and gave off a small puff of greenish smoke, and a dark green film formed over the entire chunk of bread. When Garvй crammed this somewhat unappetizing artifact into his mouth and tore off a large bite, his eyes fell shut and his shoulders sagged in pleasure. In only a moment, he picked up his book again and read furiously as he ate the rest of his green-filmed bread.

  Only when he had demolished the entire piece did the man afford me a scrap of attention. For one instant, he peered over the top of his book. My stomach lurched inexplicably and I felt a bit wobbly as I glimpsed his face, which made no sense at all. He could have been anywhere from twenty-five to eighty-five, his skin smooth and unmarked except for a web of fine lines at the corners of piercingly intelligent gray eyes. I guessed him close to my own age, mid-forties, and not only did his appearance belie the dry knot of apprehension in my throat, but also he displayed a smile of sublime cheerfulness.

  "Well, you must have some! Before the bread cools or you won't get the full effect."

  "But I didn't—"

  Before my protest had even taken shape, he had already snatched another hunk of bread, slathered it with butter, topped it with the green nastiness, and shoved it into my hand. "Quickly!" All this while his gaze darted back and forth across the pages of the book he'd set on the table.

  I looked askance at his offering. All the warnings about the dangers of the Arcanist clamored in my memory. Was it riskier to eat something of his making or to offend his hospitality? Holding the impression of his pleasant face, rather than the unsettling jolt I'd felt at his glance, I took a small bite.

  "Sword of Annadis!" I thought the inside of my mouth was dissolving. I blew out a quick breath, terrified to inhale, lest I blister my lungs. Sweat popped out on my forehead. My skin felt as if it were on fire. Sometimes politeness must yield to survival. Yet just as I made ready to spit it out, the taste of the warm bread and melted butter mellowed the fire and blended the spice into the most remarkable combination I have ever encountered: pepper and lemon, sunlight and frostbite, wood smoke and green leaves, seared with the very essence of flame, and everywhere the richness of the butter and the nutty flavor of the chewy bread.

  Once I had swallowed and inhaled enough to assure myself that my throat and lungs were not scorched away, I looked doubtfully at the remaining green-glazed bread in my hand. Before I could decide what to do with it, Garvй exploded into laughter, holding his stomach until I thought he was going to fall off his stool. His laughter thrummed in the walls and ceiling. How could so much hilarity come from one so thin?

  "Should have known. Should have known." Tears streamed from his eyes. Blotting them with his sleeve, he prepared another small piece of bread. "What a constitution you must have, madam! Should have guessed when you didn't know."

  He popped the bite into his mouth, and then shoved a cup of dubious cleanliness and a carafe filled with something dark and foaming across the table, while wiping more tears from his cheeks with the hand that held the book. My head resonated with his booming laughter.

  "How could I know V'Rendal would send me one who was not Dar'Nethi?" he said, once he had swallowed his next bite and calmed his laughter enough to put a whole sentence together. "Are you quite well? Uninjured?"

  My tongue throbbed, my voice croaked, and my mouth watered excessively. "I've never had anything quite like it."

  While I poured the liquid from his carafe and took a grateful drink—beer, it seemed, with a touch of fruit in it—he laid his book on the table again. Still reading, he hacked at the second loaf with his knife, wrapping each piece in brown cloth and throwing it in a basket he had pulled out from under two pots and a skillet.

  "Well, of course you haven't! And no Dar'Nethi since the first one who tried to eat sallevichia has either. To ingest it without protection . . . Birds and beasts, I'm surprised you have a tongue left!"

  "Protection?" The cool, strong beer was slowly soothing my throat.

  "Here. Try this." Without looking, Garvй reached over and passed his bony hand across the green-filmed bread that still sat in my other hand. "Go ahead. I promise it won't hurt."

  Tentatively, I raised the piece to my lips and felt a frosty kiss as if I'd just inhaled a huge breath of wintertime. I took a bite of the bread and, though I still tasted the potent fire and marvelous mix of flavors, my tissues remained intact.

  "Better, yes?" He didn't look at me for the answer, but busily prepared and ate another piece himself, all the while studying the pages of his book and running the fingers of his left hand over the faint script as if committing the letters to memory.

  "Better. But I don't think I'll trade it for strawberries or cheese."

  "Not many people savor it as I do. And it is dreadfully expensive, so you're quite well served not to acquire the taste." He popped the cork back into the sallevichia bottle, blew on it, which immediately coated it with frost again, and set it carefully on a high shelf. Settling onto his stool, he quickly became entirely engrossed in his reading, abandoning me like another piece of his furniture.

  At first I had thought the sallevichia was making me dizzy as we conversed, and causing my head to throb so sorely. But when Garvй's attention was diverted, I realized the sensations had more to do with the man himself. Every word he had spoken was like a blast of wind, each sentence the force of a gale. His movements and his speech were immensely larger than his person, so that I didn't like to think what his anger might be like. But I didn't like being ignored.

  "Excuse me, Master Garvй, should I come back another time?"

  "You're welcome here any time, with or without the sallevichia. I have few . . . very few visitors. Messages arrive at my door, but few bodies. Almost two months I think since the last. Age seems to be making me less capable of civilized behavior rather than more. I'm surprised you weren't warned off."

  He turned a page and continued his reading. I would have sworn that the brick floor vibrated when he spoke. I couldn't decide whether to be frightened or angry or insulted at his inattention. I was certainly perplexed, so I decided to try once more. "Sir, I've come to ask you some questions about the Lady D'Sanya. Would you mind very much answering?"

  "Not at all. What a lovely young woman she is. Such power! Awesome in magnitude and depth, complex, as if she has taken all the dark and dreadful things that happened to her and wrapped them in her own special brilliance—quite unlike the power of any other Dar'-Nethi I have ever examined. And so much good she has done with it, I hear." He still didn't look up, yet his comments were not the type of distracted mouthings of one wholly focused elsewhere, and his tone was not at all forbidding. "I don't know what questions I could possibly answer about the Lady, but forge ahead as you will."

  "V'Rendal has sent me to ask about the enchantment that kept the Lady alive for so very long unaged. V'Rendal says she's never heard of anything quite like it."

  "Ah, yes. The Lady's ensorcelment was indeed unusual. True stasis. The body alive, but held in preservation. I've thought about it quite a bit." He turned another page, read for a bit, looked back at the previous page as if to check something. Then he continued his reading . . . and the conversation. "We can delay the disintegration of things that once lived: flowers, fruit, bread, wood. That's easy enough, though we cannot stop their decay entirely. We can send a living being into sleep, shallower or deeper, and prolong it for some fixed time beyond the normal span of sleep or waking. Not indefinitely, though. Sleep rhythms will reassert themselves. We can reduce their needs for fo
od and water, cloud their minds. More difficult, but still possible. They continue to age, however. Slowly, perhaps, like the Zhid. The Lords themselves were near immortal, but they sacrificed much of their human state for it. We've never learned how to prevent aging in a fully human person. To weave all these things together in a single enchantment would require a great deal of power and skill. For the Lords of Zhev'Na, perhaps just possible."

  "So you believe what she says about it? And you can make some reasonable guess as to how it was done?"

  He dug a pen and inkpot from the debris on his work-table and scratched some notations in the margin of his book. "Oh, yes. I have no doubts as to her tale. But I have not the least desire to know how it was done."

  Though his desires were not relevant to my inquiry, the absolute surety of his statement pricked my curiosity. "Why not? As an Arcanist you study complex enchantments, do you not? How can you resist knowing of this one?"

  For a brief moment he glanced up from his reading and the force of his full attention was like the pressure of a powerful hand, only released when he turned away again. "Because it is a savage cruelty," he said.

  "I don't understand. Certainly to imprison an innocent girl, separating her from family and friends, is terrible and wicked. But the enchantment itself seems no more cruel than sleep."

  "But this enchantment was not sleep, madam-who-is-not-Dar'Nethi. One thing I have learned in my years of study is that it is impossible to completely suspend the activity of the mind. No matter how deep the enchantment, no matter how long the span of it, one would retain some awareness of the world beyond oneself. Perhaps the Lords learned to deaden the mind completely. But mercy was not in their nature. No, as long as the body lives, the mind lives. Therein lies the cruelty."

  He turned his pages more and more rapidly, his eyes devouring the words. His free hand grabbed a fistful of grapes from a wooden bowl and popped them into his mouth one at a time.