Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 14:01:49 -0700
From: Trewin Greenaway <trewingreenaway@cronnex.com>
Subject: A TALE OF WIZARDRY (Jessan-18)

            JESSAN  - A TALE OF WIZARDRY Chapter 18

Copyright 2006 Trewin Greenaway All Rights Reserved

To learn more about me and the genesis of this tale, visit my website
http://www.cronnex.com/ .

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!

   ooooooooooooo0000O000ooooooooooooooo

                       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.