The coming of summer brought the traditional week long exchange with brothers and sisters from different Orders. They were allowed to choose the Order in which they would be placed. It was usual for boys of the Sixth Order to trade places with brothers from the Fourth, the Order with which they would work most closely following confirmation. Instead Vaelin opted for the Fifth.
“ The Fifth?” Master Sollis frowned at him. “The Order of the Body. The Order of Healing. You want to go there?”
“ Yes master.”
“ What on earth do you think you can learn there? More importantly what do you think you can offer?” His cane tapped the back of Vaelin’s hand, marked with the scars of practice and the splash of molten metal from Master Jestin’s forge. “These aren’t made for healing.”
“ My reasons are my own, master.” He knew he was risking the cane but it had lost its sting long ago.
Master Sollis grunted and moved down the line. “What about you, Nysa? Want to join your brother in mopping the brow of the sick and feeble?”
“ I would prefer the Third Order, Master.”
Sollis gave him a long look. “Scribblers and book hoarders.” He shook his head sadly.
Barkus and Dentos chose the safe option of the Fourth Order whilst Nortah took evident delight in electing for the Second. “The Order of Contemplation and Enlightenment,” Sollis said tonelessly. “You want to spend a week in the Order of Contemplation and Enlightenment?”
“ I feel my soul would benefit from a period of meditation on the great mysteries, master,” Nortah replied, showing his perfect teeth in an earnest smile. For the first time in months Vaelin felt like laughing.
“ You mean you want a week of sitting on your arse,” Sollis said.
“ Meditation is normally conducted in a sitting position, master.”
Vaelin laughed, he couldn’t help it. Three hours later, as he completed his fortieth lap of the practice ground, he was still chuckling.
“ Brother Vaelin?” The grey cloaked man at the gate was old, thin and bald, but Vaelin found himself disconcerted by the man’s teeth, pearly white and perfect, like Nortah’s only the smile was genuine. The old brother was alone, wiping a mop across a dark brown stain on the cobbled courtyard.
“ I am to report to the Aspect,” Vaelin replied.
“ Yes, we were told you were coming.” The old brother lifted the catch on the gate and pulled it open. “Rare for a brother from the Sixth to come to learn from us.”
“ Are you alone, brother?” Vaelin said, stepping through the gate. “I assume in a place such as this there is sore need for a guard,”
Unlike the Sixth, the house of the Fifth Order was situated within the walls of the capital, a large, cruciform building rising from the slums of the southern quarter, its whitewashed walls a bright beacon amidst the drab mass of closely packed, poorly built houses hugging the fringes of the docks. Vaelin had never been to the southern quarter before but quickly came to understand why it was rarely frequented by people with something worth stealing. The intricate network of shadowed alley ways and refuse clogged streets provided ample opportunities for ambush. He had picked his way through the mess, not wishing to report to the Fifth Order with dirty boots, stepping over huddled forms sleeping off the previous night’s grog and ignoring the unintelligible calls of those who had either had too much or not enough. Here and there a few listless whores gave him a disinterested glance but made no effort to entice his custom, Order boys had no money after all.
“ Oh we never get bothered,” the old man told him. As he closed the gate Vaelin noted there was no lock. “Been guarding this house for ten years or more, never a problem here.”
“ Then why do you have to guard the gate?”
The old brother gave him a puzzled look. “This is the Order of Healing, brother. People come here for help. Someone has to meet them.”
“ Oh,” Vaelin said. “Of course.”
“ Still I do have my old Bess.” The old brother went into the small brick building that served as a guard house and returned with a large oak-wood club. “Just in case.” He handed it to Vaelin, seemingly expecting an expert opinion.
“ It’s…” Vaelin hefted the club, swinging it briefly before handing it back, “a fine weapon brother.”
The old man seemed delighted. “Made it meself when the Aspect gave me the gate to guard. My hands had gotten too stiff to mend bones or sew cuts, y’see?” He turned and walked quickly towards the House. “Come, come, I’ll take you to the Aspect.”
“ You’ve been here a long time?” Vaelin asked, following.
“ Only five years or so, apart from training o’course. Spent most of my brotherhood in the southern ports. I tell you there’s no pox or disease on this earth that a sailor can’t catch.”
Instead of leading him to the large door at the front of the house the old brother took him around the building and into a side entrance. Inside was a long corridor, bare of decoration and possessing a strong redolence of something both acidic and sweet.
“ Vinegar and lavender,” the old man said, seeing him wrinkle his nose. “Keeps the place free of foul humours.”
He took Vaelin past numerous rooms, where it seemed there was little but empty beds, and into a circular chamber tiled from floor to ceiling with white porcelain tiles. In the centre of the chamber a young man lay atop a table, naked and writhing. Two burly, grey cloaked brothers held him down whilst Aspect Elera Al Mendah examined the crudely bandaged wound in his stomach. The man’s screams were stopped by the strap of leather clamped into his mouth. The circumference of the chamber was lined with ascending rows of benches where an audience of grey robed brothers and sisters of varying ages looked down on the spectacle. There was a rustle of movement as they turned their gaze on Vaelin.
“ Aspect,” the old man said, raising his voice, the echo of it incredibly loud in the chamber. “Brother Vaelin Al Sorna of the Sixth Order.”
Aspect Elera looked up from the young man’s wound, her smiling face adorned with a line of fresh blood-spatter across her forehead. “Vaelin, how tall you’ve grown.”
“ Aspect,” Vaelin replied with a formal nod. “I submit myself to your service.”
On the table the young man arched his back, a plaintive whimper escaping the gag.
“ You find me engaged in a most pressing case,” Aspect Elera said, taking a pair of scissors from a nearby table to cut away the dirty bandage covering the young man’s wound. “This man took a knife in the gut in the early hours of the morning. An argument over the favours of a young lady apparently. Given the amount of ale and redflower already in his blood we cannot give him any more for fear of killing him. So we must work while he suffers.” She put the scissors aside and held out her hand. A young, grey robed sister placed a long bladed instrument in her palm. “Adding to his woes,” Aspect Elera went on, “is the fact that the tip of the blade broke off inside his stomach and must be removed.” She raised her gaze to the audience on the benches. “Can anyone tell me why?”
Most of the audience raised a hand and the Aspect nodded at a grey haired man in the front row. “Brother Innis?”
“ Infection, Aspect,” the man said. “The broken blade may poison the wound and cause it to fester. It may also be lodged close to a blood vessel or organ.”
“ Very good, brother. And so we must probe the wound.” She bent over the young man and spread the lips of the cut with her left hand, applying the probe with the right. The young man’s scream spat the gag from his mouth and filled the chamber. Aspect Elera drew back a little, glancing at the two burly brothers holding the young man to the table. “He must be securely held, brothers.”
The young man began to thrash wildly, succeeding in wresting one of his arms free, his head banging on the table, madly kicking legs narrowly missing the Aspect who was forced to retreat a few steps.
Vaelin moved to the table and placed his hand over the young man’s mouth, forcing his head back onto the table, leaning close, meeting his eyes. “Pain,” he said, fixing the man’s gaze. “It’s a flame.” The young man’s eyes filled with fear as Vaelin bore down on him. “Focus. The pain is a flame inside your mind, see it. See it!” The man’s breath was hot on Vaelin’s palm but his thrashing had subsided. “The flame grows smaller. It shrinks, it burns bright, but it’s small. You see it?” Vaelin leaned closer. “You see it?”
The young man’s nod was barely perceptible.
“ Focus on it,” Vaelin told him. “Keep it small.”
He held him there, talking to him, fixing his eyes whilst Aspect Elera worked on his wound. The young man whimpered and his eyes flickered away, but Vaelin always brought them back until there was the dull clatter of metal falling into a pan and Aspect Elera said, “Needle and cat gut please, Sister Sherin.”
“ Master Sollis teaches you well.”
They were in Aspect Elera’s chamber, a room even more crammed with books and paper than Aspect Arlyn’s. But where the room of the Aspect of the Sixth Order had a certain chaotic quality this one was tightly ordered and meticulously tidy. The walls were adorned with overlapping diagrams and pictures, graphic, almost obscene depictions of bodies shorn of skin or muscle. He found his eye continually drawn to the image on the wall behind her desk, a man shown spread eagled and split from crotch to neck, the flaps of the wound drawn back to reveal his organs, each expertly rendered with absolute clarity.
“ Aspect?” he said, tearing his gaze away.
“ The pain control technique you used,” the Aspect explained. “Sollis was always my most adept pupil.”
“ Pupil, Aspect?”
“ Yes. We served together on the north eastern border, years ago. On quiet days I would teach the brothers of the Sixth relaxation and pain control techniques. It was a way to pass the time. Brother Sollis was always the most attentive.”
They knew each other, they served together. The idea of them even conversing felt incredible but an Aspect would never lie. “I am grateful for Master Sollis’s wisdom, Aspect.” It seemed the safest reply.
His eyes flicked to the drawing again, and she glanced at it over her shoulder. “A remarkable work don’t you think? A gift from Master Benril Lenial of the Third Order. He spent a week here drawing the sick and the recently expired, he said he wished to paint a picture that would capture the suffering of the soul. Preparatory work for his fresco commemorating the Red Hand. Of course we were happy to allow access and when he was done he gifted his sketches to our Order. I use them to teach the novice brothers and sisters the secrets of the body. The illustrations in our older books lack the same clarity.”
She turned back. “You did well this morning. I feel the other brothers and sisters learned much from your example. The sight of blood didn’t concern you? Make you feel ill or faint?”
Was she joking? “I am accustomed to the sight of blood, Aspect.”
Her gaze clouded for a second before her customary smile returned. “I cannot tell you how much it gladdens my heart to see how strong you’ve grown and that compassion is not absent from your soul. But I must know, why have you come here?”
He couldn’t lie, not to her. “I thought you might provide answers to my questions.”
“ And what questions are these?”
There seemed little point in vagary. “When did my father sire a bastard? Why was I sent to the Sixth Order? Why did assassins seek my death during the Test of the Run?”
She closed her eyes, her face impassive, breathing regular and even. She stayed that way for several minutes and Vaelin wondered if she was going to speak again. Then he saw it, a single tear snaking down her cheek. Pain control techniques, he thought.
She opened her eyes, meeting his gaze. “I regret I cannot answer your questions, Vaelin. Be assured that your service here is welcome. I believe you will learn much. Please report to Sister Sherin in the west wing.”
Sister Sherin was the young woman who had assisted the Aspect in the tiled room. He found her wrapping bandages around the waist of the wounded man in a room off the west wing corridor. The man’s skin had an unhealthy grey pallor and a sheen of sweat covered his flesh but his breathing seemed regular and he didn’t appear to be in any pain.
“ Will he live?” Vaelin asked her.
“ I expect so.” Sister Sherin secured the bandage in place with a clasp and washed her hands in a water basin. “Although, service in this Order teaches us that death can often deny our expectations. Take those.” She nodded at a pile of blood stained clothes lying in the corner. “They need to be cleaned. He’ll need something to wear when he leaves here. The laundry is in the south wing.”
“ Laundry?”
“ Yes.” She faced him with the smallest of smiles. Although he fought it, Vaelin found himself taking note of her form. She was slender, the dark curls of her hair tied back, her face displaying a youthful prettiness but her eyes somehow bespoke a wealth of experience well beyond her years. Her lips formed the words with precision, “The laundry.”
He was discomfited by her, preoccupied with the curve of her cheekbones and the shape of her lips, the brightness of her eyes, relishing confrontation. He quickly gathered the clothes and went to find the laundry. He was relieved to find he wasn’t required to wash the clothes himself and, after Sister Sherin’s cool reception, somewhat taken aback by the welcome he received from the brothers and sisters in the steam filled laundry room.
“ Brother Vaelin!” boomed a large bear-like man, his hair covered chest beaded with sweat. His hand felt like a hammer on Vaelin’s back. “I’ve waited ten years for a brother from the Sixth to come through our doors and when we finally get one it’s their most famous son.”
“ I am pleased to be here brother,” Vaelin assured him. “I have to clean these clothes…”
“ Oh tosh.” The clothes were torn from his grasp and tossed into one of the large stone baths where the laundry workers laboured. “We’ll do that. Come and meet everyone.”
The big man turned out to be a master, not a brother. His name was Harin and when he wasn’t taking his turn in the laundry he taught the novices the finer points of bones. “Bones, master?”
“ Yes, m’boy. Bones. How they work, how they fit together. How to mend them. I’ve snapped more arms back into sockets than I can remember. It’s all in the wrist. I’ll teach you before you leave, if I don’t break your arm first.” He laughed, the sound easily filling the cavernous chamber.
The rest of the brothers and sisters gathered round to greet Vaelin and he found himself assailed with numerous names and faces, all of whom displayed a disconcerting enthusiasm for his presence, as well a plethora of questions.
“ Tell us, brother,” one brother said, a thin man named Curlis, “is it true your swords are made from star silver?”
“ A myth, brother,” Vaelin told him remembering to keep Master Jestin’s secret. “Our swords are finely made, but of plain steel only.”
“ Do you they really make you live in the wilds?” a young sister asked, a plump girl called Henna.
“ Only for ten days. It’s one of our tests.”
“ They make you leave if you fail, don’t they?”
“ If you live that long.” It was Sister Sherin, standing in the doorway, arms crossed. “That’s right isn’t brother? Many of your brothers die in the tests? Boys as young as eleven years old.”
“ A hard life requires hard training,” Vaelin replied. “Our tests prepare us for our role in defending the Faith and the Realm.”
She raised an eyebrow. “If Master Harin doesn’t need to prolong your presence here the teaching room needs mopping.”
And so he mopped the teaching room. He also mopped all the rooms in the west wing. When he was done she had him boil a mixture of pure spirit and water and soak the metal implements the Aspect had used to treat the young man’s wound. She told him it eradicated infection. The rest of the day was spent in similar endeavours, cleaning, mopping, scrubbing. His hands were tough but he soon found them chaffing with the work, the flesh red from soap and scrubbing by the time Sister Sherin told him he could go and eat.
“ When do I learn how to heal?” he asked. She was in the teaching room, laying out a variety of instruments on a white cloth. He had spent two hours cleaning them and they shone brightly in the light from the overhead window.
“ You don’t,” she replied, not looking up. “You get to work. If I think you won’t get in the way I’ll let you watch when I tend to someone.”
A variety of responses flickered through his mind, some caustic, some clever, but all certain to make him sound like a petulant child. “As you wish, sister. What hour do you require me?”
“ We start at the fifth hour here.” She gave a conspicuous sniff. “Before reporting for work you are expected to wash thoroughly, which should help diminish your rather pungent aroma. Don’t they wash in the Sixth Order?”
“ Every three days we swim in the river. It’s very cold, even in summer.”
She said nothing, placing a strange looking implement on the cloth: two parallel blades fastened by a screw device.
“ What is that?” he asked.
“ Rib spreader. It allows access to the heart.”
“ The heart?”
“ Sometimes the beat of a heart will stop and can be recommenced by gentle massage.”
He looked at her hands, slim fingers moving with measured precision. “You can do this?”
She shook her head. “I’ve yet to learn such skills. The Aspect can though, she can do most things.”
“ She’ll teach you one day.”
She glanced up at him, her expression wary. “You should eat, brother.”
“ You’re not eating?”
“ I take my meals later than the others. I have more work to do here.”
“ Then I’ll stay. We can eat together.”
She barely paused in scrubbing at a steel basin. “I prefer to eat alone, thank you.”
He stopped a sigh of exasperation before it escaped his mouth. “As you wish.”
There were more questions at mealtime, more intense curiosity almost making him wish for Sister Sherin’s disinterest. The masters of the Fifth Order ate with their students so he sat with Master Harin amongst a group of novice brothers and sisters. He was surprised by the variety in the ages of the novices at the table, the youngest little more than fourteen whilst the oldest clearly in his fifties.
“ People often come to our Order later in life,” Master Harin explained. “I didn’t join until my thirty-second year. Was in the Realm Guard before then, Thirtieth Regiment of Foot, the Bloody Boars. You've heard of them no doubt.”
“ Their renown does them credit, master, ” Vaelin lied, never having heard of such a regiment. “How long has Sister Sherin been here?”
“ Been here since an infant that one, worked in the kitchens. Didn’t start training till she turned fourteen though. That’s the youngest we’ll allow novices to join. Not like your Order, eh?”
“ It’s but one of many differences, master.”
Harin laughed heartily and took a large bite from a chicken leg. Food in the Fifth Order was much the same as the Sixth, but there was less of it. He experienced a moment’s embarrassment when he began wolfing down large helpings with habitual haste, drawing bemused glances from the others at the table. “Have to eat quickly in the Sixth,” he explained. “Wait too long and it’ll all be gone.”
“ I heard they starve you as punishment,” said Sister Henna, the plump girl he had met in the laundry. She asked even more questions than the others and whenever he looked up she seemed to be watching him.
“ Our masters have more practical ways of punishing us than starvation, sister,” he told her.
“ When do they make you fight to the death?” the thin man Innis, asked. The question was voiced with such earnest curiosity Vaelin found he couldn’t take offence.
“ The Test of the Sword comes in our seventh year in the Order. It is our final test.”
“ You have to fight each other to the death?” Sister Henna seemed shocked.
Vaelin shook his head. “We will be matched against three condemned criminals. Murderers, outlaws and so forth. If they defeat us they are considered to have been judged innocent of their crimes as the Departed will not accept them into the Beyond. If we defeat them we are judged fit to carry a sword in service to the Order.”
“ Brutal but simple,” Master Harin commented before belching loudly and patting his stomach. “The ways of the Sixth Order may seem harsh to us, my children, but do not forget they stand between our Faith and those who would destroy it. In times past they fought to keep us safe. If not for them we wouldn’t be here to offer care and healing to the Faithful. Think well on that.”
There was a murmur of agreement around the table and, for once, conversation turned to other matters. The concerns of the Fifth Order seemed to revolve mainly around bandages, medicinal herbs, various forms of disease and the endlessly popular subject of infection. He wondered if he should be more upset at having to discuss the Test of the Sword but found it left him with little more than a vague sense of unease. He had known it was coming since his first days in the Order, they all had, it was an annual event, watched by a great many of the city’s populace and, although novice brothers of the Order were forbidden to attend, he had heard many stories of prolonged combats and unfortunate brothers whose skills had failed to match the final test. However, set against what he had already experienced it seemed little more than one of many dangers ahead. Perhaps that was the point of the tests, to render them immune to danger, accepting fear as a normal part of their lives.
“ Do you have tests?” he asked Master Harin.
“ No m’boy. No tests here. Novice brothers and sisters stay in the Order House for five years where they are trained in our ways. Many will leave or be asked to leave but those that stay will have earned the skills to heal and will be appointed tasks that match their abilities. Myself, I spent twenty years in the Cumbraelin capital, seeing to the needs of the small Faithful community there. It’s a hard thing, brother, to live amongst those who would deny the Faith.”
“ The King’s Edict tells us Cumbraelins are our brothers in the Realm, as long as they keep their beliefs within their own fief.”
“ Pah!” Master Harin spat. “Cumbrael may have been forced into the Realm by the King’s sword but always she seeks to promote her blasphemy. I was approached many times by god worshipping clerics seeking my conversion. Even now she sends them across her borders to spread their heresy amongst the Faithful. I fear your Order and mine will have much work in Cumbrael in the years to come.” He shook his head sadly. “A pity, war was ever a terrible thing.”
They gave him a cell in the south wing, bare apart from a bed and a single chair. He undressed quickly and slipped into the bed, enjoying the unfamiliar but luxuriant feel of clean fresh linen. Despite the comfort, sleep was slow in coming; Master Harin’s talk of Cumbrael had disturbed him. War was ever a terrible thing. But there was something in the Master’s eyes that seemed almost eager for war to be visited on the heretical Fief.
Sister Sherin’s coldness was another concern. She clearly wanted little to do with him, which he found bothered him greatly, and had no regard for the Sixth Order, which he found bothered him not at all. He resolved to try harder to win her confidence in the morning. He would do everything she asked of him without question or complaint, he had a suspicion she would respect little else.
However, what kept him awake longest was Aspect Elera’s refusal to answer his questions. He had been so sure she would provide the answers he craved that the prospect of a refusal hadn’t even occurred to him. She knows, he thought with certainty. So why won’t she tell me?
He fell asleep with the questions tumbling through his mind, finding no answers in his dreams.
He forced himself out of bed at first light, washed thoroughly in the trough in the courtyard and reported for work a good measure before the fifth hour. Sherin was there before him. “Fetch bandages from the store room,” she said. “People will soon be at the gate seeking treatment.” She frowned as he moved past her. “You smell… better, at least.”
He borrowed a trick from Nortah and forced a smile. “Thank you sister.”
The first was an old man with stiff joints and endless tales of his time as a sailor. Sister Sherin listened politely to his stories as she massaged balm into his joints, giving him a jar of the substance to take home. The next was a thin young man with trembling hands and bloodshot eyes who complained of severe pains in the belly. Sister Sherin felt his stomach and the vein in his wrist, asked a few questions and told him that the Fifth Order did not give redflower to addicts.
“ Up yours Order bitch!” the young man spat at her.
“ Watch your mouth,” Vaelin said, stepping forward to throw him out but Sherin stopped him with a glare. She stood impassively as the young man swore at her viciously for a full minute whilst casting wary glances at Vaelin before storming out, his profanity echoing through the hallway.
“ I don’t need a protector,” Sherin told Vaelin. “Your skills are not required here.”
“ I’m sorry,” he said, teeth gritted, failing to summon another Nortah smile.
They came in all ages and sizes, men and women, mothers with children, sisters with brothers, all cut, bruised, pained or sick. Sherin seemed to know the nature of their ailments instinctively, working without pause or rest, tending to them all with equal care. Vaelin watched, fetched bandages or medicine when he was told, trying to learn but instead finding himself preoccupied with Sherin, fascinated by the way her face changed when she worked, the severity and wariness disappearing into compassion and humour as she joked and laughed with her charges, many of whom she clearly knew well. That’s why they come, he realised. She cares.
And so he tried as hard as he could to help, fetching, carrying, restraining the fearful and the panicked, offering awkward words of comfort to the wives or sisters or children who brought the wounded to be healed. Most were in need of little more than medicine or a few stitches, some, the ones Sherin knew so well, had prolonged sicknesses and took the longest time to treat as she asked numerous questions and offered advice or sympathy. Twice grievously wounded people came in. The first was a man with a crushed stomach who had walked into the path of a runaway cart. Sister Sherin felt the vein in his neck and began pumping at his chest with both fists clamped over his sternum.
“ His heart stopped beating,” she explained. She kept at it until blood began to flow from the man’s mouth. “He’s gone.” She moved back from the bed. “Fetch a trolley from the store room and take him to the morgue. It’s in the south wing. And clean the blood from his face. The family don’t like to see that.”
Vaelin had seen death before but her coldness took him by surprise. “That’s all? There’s nothing else you can do?”
“ A cart weighing half a ton ran over his stomach turning his guts to mush and his spine to powder. There is nothing else I can do.”
The second badly wounded man was brought in by the Realm Guard in the evening, a stocky fellow with a crossbow bolt through his shoulder.
“ Sorry sister,” the sergeant apologised to Sherin as he and two fellow guards hauled the man onto the table. “Hate to waste your time with one such as this but we’ll get hell from the Captain if we turn up with another corpse.” He gave Vaelin a curious glance, taking in his dark blue robe. “You appear to be in the wrong House, brother.”
“ Brother Vaelin is here to learn how to heal,” Sherin informed him, leaning over the stocky man to examine his wound. “Twenty feet?” she enquired.
“ Closer to thirty,” one of the guards sniffed proudly, hefting his crossbow. “And he was running.”
“ Vaelin,” the sergeant murmured, his glance turning into a stare of scrutiny as he looked Vaelin up and down. “Al Sorna, right?”
“ That’s my name.”
The three guards laughed, it wasn’t a pleasant sound and Vaelin instantly regretted leaving his sword in the cell that morning.
“ The Boy Brother who beat ten Crows single handed,” the younger guard said. “You’re taller than they said.”
“ It wasn’t ten…” Vaelin began.
“ Wish I’d been there to see that,” the sergeant interrupted. “Can’t stand those bloody Crows, strutting about the place. Hear they’re making a plan of revenge though. You should watch your back.”
“ I always do.”
“ Brother,” Sherin cut in. “I need cat gut, needle, probe, a serrated knife, redflower and corr tree oil, the gel not the juice. Oh, and another bowl of water.”
He did as he was told, grateful for the chance to escape the guardsmen’s scrutiny. He went to the store room and filled a tray with the required items returning to the treatment room to find it in uproar. The stocky man was on his feet, backed into a corner, his meaty fist clamped around Sister Sherin’s throat. One of the Guardsmen was down, a knife buried in his thigh. The other two had their swords drawn, shouting threats and fury.
“ I’m walking out of here!” the stocky man shouted back.
“ You’re going nowhere!” the sergeant barked in response. “Let her go and you’ll live.”
“ I go inside One Eye’ll have me done. Stand aside or I’ll wring this bitch’s n-”
The serrated knife Vaelin had fetched from the store room was heavier than he was used to but it wasn’t a difficult throw. The man’s throat was clearly open but his death spasm might have caused him to snap Sister Sherin’s neck. The blade sank into his forearm causing his hand to open by reflex, allowing Sherin to collapse to the floor. Vaelin vaulted the bed, scattering the tray’s contents across the room, and felled the stocky man with a few well placed punches to the nerve centres in his face and chest.
“ Don’t,” Sherin gasped from the floor. “Don’t kill him.”
Vaelin watched the man slumping to the floor, his eyes vacant. “Why would I?” He helped her to her feet. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, pulling away. “Get him back on the bed,” she told him, her voice hoarse. “Sergeant, if you could help me get your comrade to another room.”
“ Be doing the bastard a favour if you had killed him, brother,” the sergeant grunted as he and the other guardsman helped their fallen comrade to his feet. “Hanging day tomorrow.”
Vaelin had to struggle to get the man off the floor, he seemed to be composed mainly of muscle and weighed accordingly. He groaned in pain as Vaelin let him fall back onto the bed, his eyes flickering open.
“ Unless you’ve got another knife hidden,” Vaelin told him. “I’d lie still.”
The man’s gaze was baleful but he said nothing.
“ So who’s One Eye?” Vaelin asked him. “Why does he want you dead?”
“ I owe him money,” the man said, his face slicked with sweat and lined with pain from his wounds.
He recalled Frentis’s tales of his time on the streets and the wayward throwing knife that had caused him to seek refuge in the Order. “Your tax?”
“ Three golds. I’m in arrears. We’ve all gotta pay. And One Eye hates those that don’t pay with a passion.” The man coughed, staining his chin with blood. Vaelin poured a cup of water and held it to his lips.
“ I have a friend who told me once about a man who lost his eye to a boy with a throwing knife,” Vaelin said.
The stocky man swallowed the water, his cough subsiding. “Frentis. If only the little sod had killed the bastard. One Eye says he’s gonna take a year to skin him alive when he finds him.”
Vaelin decided he would have to meet with One Eye sooner or later. He looked closely at the crossbow bolt still buried in the man’s shoulder. “Why did the Realm Guard do this?”
“ Caught me coming out of a warehouse with a sack full of spice. Good stuff too, I’d’ve made meself six golds at least.”
He’s going to die for a sack full of spice, Vaelin realised. That and stabbing a Guardsman and trying to choke Sister Sherin. “What’s your name?”
“ Gallis. Gallis the Climber they call me. Not a wall I can’t scale.” Wincing, he lifted his forearm, the serrated knife still embedded there. “Looks like I won’t be doing that again.” He laughed then convulsed with pain. “Any redflower going, brother?”
“ Prepare a tincture,” Sister Sherin had returned with the sergeant in tow. “One part redflower to three parts water.”
Vaelin paused to look at her neck, red and bruised from Gallis’s grip. “You should have that seen to.”
Momentary anger flashed in her eyes and he could tell she was biting back a sharp retort. He couldn't tell if she was angry that she had been proved wrong or that he had saved her life. “Please prepare the tincture, brother,” she told him in a hard rasp.
She worked on Gallis for over an hour, administering the redflower then extracting the crossbow bolt from his shoulder, cutting the shaft in half then widening the wound and gently pulling the barbed point free, Gallis biting on a leather strap to stifle his cries. She worked on the knife in his arm next, it was more difficult being closer to major blood vessels but came free after ten minutes work. Finally she sewed the wounds shut after painting them with the corr tree gel. Gallis had lost consciousness by then and his colour had noticeably paled.
“ He’s lost a lot of blood,” Sherin told the Sergeant. “He can’t be moved yet.”
“ Can’t wait too long, sister,” the sergeant said. “Got to have him in front of the magistrate for the morning.”
“ No chance of clemency?” Vaelin asked.
“ I’ve got a man with a knifed leg next door,” the sergeant replied. “And the bugger tried to kill the sister.”
“ I don’t recall that,” Sherin said, washing her hands. “Do you brother?”
Is a sack full of spice worth a man’s life? “Not at all.”
The sergeant’s face took on a deeply angry tinge. “This man is a known thief, drunkard and redflower fiend. He would’ve killed us all to get out of here.”
“ Brother Vaelin,” Sherin said. “When is it right to kill?”
“ In defence of life,” Velin replied promptly. “To kill when not defending life is a denial of the Faith.”
The sergeant’s lip curled in disgust. “Soft hearted Order sods,” he muttered before stalking from the room.
“ You know they’ll hang him anyway?” Vaelin asked her.
Sherin lifted her hands from the bloodied water and he passed her a towel. She met his eye for the first time that day, speaking with a certainty that was almost chilling: “No one is going to die on my account.”
He avoided the evening meal, knowing his actions would only have added to his celebrity and finding himself unable to face the torrent of questions and admiration. So he hid himself in the gatehouse with Brother Sellin, the aged gatekeeper who had greeted him the previous morning. The old brother seemed glad of the company and refrained from asking questions or mentioning the day’s events for which Vaelin was grateful. Instead, at Vaelin’s insistence, he told stories of his time in the Fifth Order, proving that a man did not have to be a warrior to see much of war.
“ Got this one on the deck of the Seaspite.” Sellin displayed an odd horseshoe shaped scar on the underside of his forearm. “I was stitching a wound in a Meldenean pirate’s stomach when he rears up and bites me, nearly down to the bone. It was just after the Battle Lord had burnt their city so I s’pose he had good reason to be angry. Our sailors threw him in the sea.” He grimaced at the memory. “Begged them not to but men’ll do terrible things when their blood’s up.”
“ How did you come to be on a war ship?” Vaelin asked.
“ Oh, I was Fleet Lord Merlish’s personal physic for a number of years. He always had a soft spot for me since I cured his pox a few years before. A right fine old captain he was, loved the sea like a mother, loved all sailors, even had respect for the Meldeneans, best sailors in the world he said. Broke his heart when the Battle Lord burnt their city. They had a mighty row about it, I can tell you.”
“ They argued?” Vaelin was curious. Brother Sellin was one of the few people he had met who didn’t initially refer to the Battle Lord as his father, in fact he appeared blithely unaware of the fact, although Vaelin suspected the old man had been in service to the Faith for so long that disassociating its servants from their family connections was simply second nature.
“ Oh yes,” Sellin continued. “Fleet Lord Merlish called him a butcher, a killer of innocents, said he’d shamed the Realm forever. Everyone who heard it thought the Battle Lord would draw his sword but all he said was ‘Loyalty is my strength, my lord.’” Sellin sighed, sipping from a leather flask Vaelin suspected contained a mixture not dissimilar to what Brother Makril had called Brother’s Friend. “Poor old Merlish. Stayed in his cabin all the way home, refused to report to the King when we docked. He died not long after, his heart gave out on a voyage to the far west.”
“ Did you see it?” Vaelin asked. “Did you see the city burn?”
“ I saw it.” Brother Sellin took a deep pull from his flask. “I saw it all right. Lit up the sky for miles around. But it wasn’t the sight of it that chilled you, it was the sound. We were anchored a good half mile off shore and still you could hear the screams. Thousands, men, women, children, all screaming in the fire.” He shuddered and drank again.
“ I’m sorry, brother. I shouldn’t have asked.”
Sellin shrugged. “Times past, brother. Can’t live in ‘em. Just learn from ‘em.” He peered out at the gathering dark. “You’d best be getting back elst you’ll not get a meal tonight.”
He found Sister Sherin in the meal hall, eating alone as was her habit. He expected a rebuke or outright rejection when he sat opposite her but she made no comment. The kitchen staff had placed a good selection on the table but she seemed content with a small plate of bread and fruit.
“ May I?” he asked, gesturing at the array of food.
She shrugged so he helped himself to some ham and chicken, gulping it down ravenously, drawing a plainly disgusted glance.
He grinned, taking guilty enjoyment in her discomfort. “I’m hungry.”
There was the faintest ghost of a smile as she looked away.
“ No one eats alone in the Sixth Order,” he told her. “We all have our groups. We live together, eat together, fight together. We call each other brother with good reason. Here things seem to be different.”
“ My brothers and sisters respect my privacy,” she said.
“ Because you’re special? You can do what they can’t.”
She took a bite of apple and gave no reply.
“ How’s the thief?” he asked.
“ Well enough. They moved him to the upper floor. The sergeant put two men on his door.”
“ You intend to speak for him at the hearing?”
“ Of course. Although it would help his case if you spoke as well. I feel your word would carry more weight than mine.”
He washed down a mouthful of ham with some water. “What is it, Sister, that makes you care so much for one such as him?”
Her face hardened. “What is it that makes you care so little?”
Silence reigned at the table for a few moments. Finally, he said, “Did you know my mother trained here? She was a sister, like you. She left the Fifth Order to marry my father. She never told me she had served here, she never told me about this part of her life. I came here seeking answers, I wanted to know who she was, who I was, who my father was. But the Aspect would tell me nothing. Instead she paired me with you, which I think was an answer in itself.”
“ An answer to what?”
“ Who my mother was, at least. Perhaps partly who I am. I’m not like you, I’m no healer. I would have killed that man today if I could, I’ve killed before. You couldn’t kill anyone, and neither could she. That’s who she was.”
“ And your father?”
Thousands, men, women, children, all screaming in the fire… Loyalty is my strength. “He was a man who burned a city because his king told him to.” He pushed his plate away and got up from the table. “I’ll speak for Gallis before the magistrate. See you at the fifth hour.”
In the morning it transpired that their presence at the magistrate’s court would not be necessary; Gallis had escaped during the night. The guards had entered his room on the top floor to find it empty and the window open. The wall outside was nearly thirty feet high with hardly any visible hand-holds.
Vaelin leaned out of the window to peer at the courtyard below. “Gallis the Climber,” he murmured.
“ With the wounds he had he shouldn’t have been able to walk.” Sister Sherin moved close to inspect the wall outside. Vaelin found her proximity both intoxicating and uncomfortable but she seemed unconcerned. “I’ll never know how he managed it.”
“ Master Sollis says a man doesn’t know his true strength until he fears for his life.”
“ The sergeant said he’d track the man down if it takes him all his days.” She moved away, leaving Vaelin in a confusion of regret and relief. “He probably will. That or I’ll see him again, dragged through the doors with another wound for me to heal.”
“ If he’s smart he’ll get himself on a ship and be far away by nightfall.”
Sherin shook her head. “People don’t leave this place, brother. No matter the threats against them they stay and live out their lives.”
He turned back to the window. The southern quarter was waking up to the day, the pale morning sky just taking on the stain of chimney smoke that would hang over the rooftops until nightfall, the shortening shadows revealing streets soiled with mingled refuse and excreta, dotted here and there the huddled forms of the drunk, drugged or homeless. Already he could hear vague shouts of conflict or hatred and wondered how many more would come through the doors today.
“ Why?” he wondered. “Why stay in a place such as this?”
“ I did,” she said. “Why shouldn’t they?”
“ You were born here?”
She nodded. “I was lucky enough to complete my training in only two years. The Aspect offered me any posting in the Realm. I chose this one.”
The hesitancy in her voice told him he was probably the first person to hear her reveal so much of her past. “Because this is… home?”
“ Because I felt this is where I needed to be.” She moved to the door. “We have work, brother.”
The next few days were hard but rewarding, not least because he was constantly in Sister Sherin’s presence. The parade of injured and ill coming through the door provided plenty of opportunity to increase his meagre healing skills as Sherin began to impart some of her knowledge, teaching him the best pattern to use when stitching a cut and the most effective mix of herbs for aches in the stomach or head. However, it quickly became obvious the skills she possessed would never be his, she had an eye and an ear for sickness so unerring it reminded him of his own affinity for the sword. Luckily there was no further need for him to display his skills as the level of aggression amongst patients had declined considerably since his first day. Word had spread through the southern quarter that there was a brother from the Sixth here and most of the more shady characters turning up to request treatment wisely kept their tongues still and violent urges in check.
The only negative aspect to his time in the Fifth was the constant attention of the other brothers and sisters. He had continued to take his meals with Sister Sherin late in the evening and they soon found themselves joined by a cluster of novices eager for Vaelin’s tales of life in the Sixth Order or a retelling of what they termed his ‘rescue of Sister Sherin’, a tale which seemed to have become a minor legend in only a few days. As ever, Sister Henna was his most attentive audience.
“ Weren’t you scared, Brother?” she asked, wide brown eyes gazing up at him. “When the big brute was going to kill Sister Sherin? Didn’t it frighten you?”
Beside him, Sherin, who until now had borne the intrusion on her meal time with stoic calm, pointedly let her cutlery fall onto her plate with a loud clatter.
“ I… have been trained to control my fear,” he replied, instantly realising how conceited it sounded. “Not as well as Sister Sherin, though,” he went on quickly. “She remained calm throughout.”
“ Oh she never gets bothered by anything,” Henna waved a hand dismissively. “So, why didn’t you kill him?”
“ Sister!” Brother Curlis exclaimed.
She lowered her gaze, a flush creeping up her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
“ It matters not, sister.” He patted her hand awkwardly, which seemed to make her blush even more.
“ Brother Vaelin and I have had a long day,” Sister Sherin said. “We would like to eat in peace.”
Although she wasn’t a Mistress, her word evidently commanded obedience because their small audience quickly dispersed back to their rooms.
“ They respect you,” Vaelin observed.
She shrugged. “Perhaps. But I am not liked here. I am envied and resented by most of my brothers and sisters. The Aspect warned me it might be this way.” Her tone indicated little concern, she was simply stating a fact.
“ You could be judging them too harshly. Perhaps if you mixed with them more…”
“ I am not here for them. The Fifth Order is the means by which I can help the people I need to help.”
“ No room for friendship? A soul in whom to confide, share a burden?”
She gave him a guarded glance. “You said it yourself, brother. Things are different here.”
“ Well, although you may not welcome it, I hope you know you have my friendship.”
She said nothing, sitting still, eyes fixed on her half-empty plate.
Was this how it was for my mother? he wondered. Was she so isolated by her abilities? Did they resent her too? He found it hard to imagine. He remembered a woman of kindness, warmth and openness. She could never have been as closed to emotion as Sherin. Sherin is formed by whatever happened to her beyond the gates, he realised. Out there in the southern quarter. My mother would have had a different life. A thought occurred to him then, something he had never considered before. Who was she before she came here? What was her family name? Who were my grandparents?
Suddenly preoccupied he rose from the table. “Sleep well, sister. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“ It’s your last day tomorrow is it not?” she asked, looking up at him. Oddly her eyes seemed brighter than usual, it almost seemed she was tearful but the idea was absurd.
“ It is. Although, I still hope to learn more before I leave.”
“ Yes.” She looked away. “Yes of course. Sleep well.”
“ And you, sister.”
Sleep was beyond him as he sat, legs crossed beneath him, and pondered the realisation that he knew almost nothing of his mother’s past. She was a sister of the Fifth Order, she married his father, she bore him a son, she died. That was all he knew. For that matter he knew just as little about his father. A soldier elevated by the King for bravery, later Battle Lord, city burner, father of a son and a daughter by different mothers. But who had he been before? He had no knowledge of where his father had been born, whether his grandfather had been a soldier or a farmer or neither.
So many questions, raging in his mind like a storm. He closed his eyes and sought to control his breathing as Master Sollis had taught him, a skill no doubt learned from the Aspect of the Fifth Order which in turn raised even more questions. Focus, he told himself. Breathe, slow and even…
An hour later, the beat of his heart slowed and the storm in his mind cooling, he was roused by a soft but insistent knock at his door. Pausing to pull his shirt over his head he went to the door, finding Sister Henna there, smiling shyly.
“ Brother,” she said, her voice little above a whisper. “Have I disturbed you?”
“ I wasn’t sleeping.” Surely she can’t want another story. “The hour is late, sister. If you require something of me, perhaps it could wait until morning.”
“ Require something?” Her smile broadened a little and, before he could stop her, she stepped past him into his cell. “I require your forgiveness brother, for my thoughtless words this evening.”
Vaelin’s calmed heart was beginning to thump again. “There is nothing to forgive…”
“ Oh, but there is!” she whispered fiercely, moving close to him, making him step back, the door forced closed behind him. “I am such a stupid girl. I say such silly things. Thoughtless things.” She moved closer still, pressing against him, the feel of her ample breasts against his chest provoked an instant sheen of sweat and an unwelcome stirring in his groin. “Say you forgive me,” she implored, a faint sob in her voice as she lay her head on his chest. “Say you don’t hate me!”
“ Erm.” He searched urgently through his mind for an appropriate response but life in the Order had failed to equip him for such things. “Of course I don’t hate you.” Gently he put his hands on her shoulders and eased her away from him, forcing a smile. “You shouldn’t worry over such a trifle.”
“ Oh, but I do,” she assured him breathlessly. “The thought of offending you, of all people.” She looked away, ashamed. “It’s more than I could bear.”
“ You care too much for my opinion, sister.” He reached behind him for the door handle. “You should go now…”
Her hand reached out, touching his chest, feeling the muscle beneath his shirt. “So hard,” she murmured. “So strong.”
“ Sister.” He put his hand over hers. “This is not…”
She kissed him then, pressing close, her lips on his before he knew what had happened. The sensation was overwhelming, a torrent of unaccustomed feelings washing through his body. This is wrong, he thought as her tongue probed between his lips. I should stop her. Right now… I must end this… Any second now…
The sound that saved him was faint at first, a plaintive note on the wind seeping through his window, almost missed by his preoccupation with Sister Henna’s lips, but something in it, something familiar, made him pause, pull away.
“ Brother?” Sister Henna asked, the whisper of her breath caressing his lips.
“ Can you hear that?”
A slight frown creased her brow. “I hear nothing.” She giggled and pressed close again. “But my heart beating, and yours…”
The sound grew, an unmistakable siren call.
“ Wolf’s howl,” he said.
“ A wolf in the city?” Sister Henna giggled again. “It’s just the wind, or a dog…”
“ Dog’s don’t howl like that. And it’s not the wind. It’s a wolf. I saw a wolf once, in the forest.” Just before an assassin tried to kill me.
It would have been easily missed had he not spent years studying his opponents’ faces on the practice ground, searching for the ticks and subtle changes in expression that warned of an attack. And he saw it in hers, a brief flicker of decision in her eyes.
“ You shouldn’t worry over such things,” she said, her left hand coming up to caress his face. “Forget your worries, brother. Let me help you for-”
The knife in her right hand came free of her robes in a blur, the steel shining bright as it arced towards his neck. It was a practised move, executed with the speed and precision of an expert.
Vaelin twisted, the knife leaving a scratch on his shoulder, his right arm thrusting open handed into her chest, propelling her back to collide with the far wall. She rebounded quickly, a look of feline hatred on her face, leaping, spinning a kick at his head and bringing the knife round to slash at his belly. He dodged the kick and caught her wrist, twisting, hearing the crack, forcing down a spasm of revulsion. She’s not a girl, she’s not a sister, she’s an enemy.
Her free hand came round in a punch, palm flat and fore-knuckles extended, aimed at the base of his nose, a blow he recognised from Master Intris’s lessons, a killing blow. He moved his head, taking the punch on his brow, shaking off the sting of it and gripping her hard on the neck, forcing her against the wall. She thrashed, hissing, nails scraping at his face. He forced her head back, the bones of her neck straining, lifting her off her feet, tightening his grip to subdue her struggles.
“ You are very skilled, sister,” he observed.
A grunt of pained fury escaped her throat. Her skin felt hot against his hand.
“ Perhaps you could tell me where you learned such skills, and why you felt the need to practice them on me.”
Her eyes, shining bright amidst the flushed, red mask of her face, flicked to the rip in his shirt and the shallow scar beneath. A smile, ugly and full of malice, twisted her lips. “Feeling… well, brother?” she grated through spittle. “You don’t… have time… to save her now.”
He felt it then, the heat rising in his chest, the fresh slick of sweat washing over him, a faint greyness creeping into the corners of his eyes. Poison! Poison on the blade.
He leaned close, his face inches from hers, meeting the hatred in her eyes. “Save who?”
Her horrible smile widened into a grotesque laugh. “Once… there were… seven!” she told him, the hatred in her eyes shining like a lantern in the dark.
Suddenly she jerked her head back, forcing her mouth open, then clamping it shut with a loud clack of colliding teeth. She began to writhe in his grasp, shuddering uncontrollably, froth spouting from her mouth. He released his grip, letting her fall to the floor where she thrashed, feet slapping the tiles, before laying still, eyes wide and unblinking, lifeless.
Vaelin stared at her, sweat beading his forehead, the heat in his chest building to a fire.
Poison on the blade… You don’t have time to save her now… Once there were seven…You don’t have time to save her… Save her… SAVE HER!
The Aspect!
He went to where his sword was propped against the wall, tearing it free of the scabbard, dragging the door open, sprinting along the corridor to the stairwell.
Poison on the blade… How long did he have? He chased the thought from his mind. Long enough! he decided fiercely, leaping up the steps three at a time. I have long enough.
The Aspect’s rooms were on the top floor. He got there in seconds, running along the corridor, seeing her door ahead, finding no sign of a threat…
The blade was a sliver of light in the shadows, a half-crescent of steel, fast and skilful, it should have taken his head off at the shoulders. He ducked it, going into a roll, feeling the wind rush as the sword bit the air above him, coming to his feet, forming the parry stance in the same movement, the sword blade clashing with his own. He whirled, going down on one knee, sword arm fully extended, his arm jarring as his blade met flesh, drawing a stifled shout of pain and brief rainfall spatter of blood on floor tiles. His attacker wore cotton garments of black, a mask over his face, soot smeared on the brows and eye lids. His eyes glared up at Vaelin from the floor as he clutched at the deep gash in his thigh, not in anger but shocked surprise.
Vaelin killed him with a slash to the neck, left him writhing in a welter of arterial blood as he ran on, the fire in his chest now an inferno of pain, his vision blurring, losing focus, fixing on the Aspect’s door, no more than a few feet away now. He stumbled, colliding with the wall, pushing himself onwards with an angry grunt of self reproach.
SAVE HER!
Two more blades shimmered out of the darkness, another black clad figure, a short sword in each hand, attacking in a frenzy of slashing blades. Vaelin parried the first two slashes, moved back to let the others whistle within an inch of his face, stepped inside the reach of the man’s kick and killed him with a thrust to the sternum, guiding his sword blade up under the ribs, finding the heart. The black clad man went into a brief spasm, blood gouting from his mouth, then sagged, doll like, devoid of life, hanging on Vaelin’s blade like a rag. The weight of it dragged him down, sword buried in the body up to the hilt, blood covering his arm in a thick red slick, bathing the floor. The smell would have made him gag but for the toxin raging in his blood.
Tired… He slumped against the corpse, a weight of exhaustion greater than any he had known pressing down on him. The pain in his chest receding, displaced by this overwhelming need for sleep. So tired…
“ You don’t look well, brother.”
The voice was anonymous, without source or owner, lost amidst the shadows. A dream? he wondered. A dream before death.
“ She found you, I see,” the voice went on. There was the faintest scrape of a blade tip on stone.
No dream. Vaelin gritted his teeth, grip tightening on his sword hilt. “She’s dead!” he shouted into the dark.
“ I’m sure.” The voice was mild, devoid of accent or recognition. Neither cultured nor coarse. “Pity. I always liked her in that guise. She was so wonderfully cruel. Did you bed her first? I think she would have liked that.”
It was only a slight note of tension in the tone, but Vaelin sensed the owner of the unseen voice was about to make his move.
Shaking with the effort, he got off his knees, standing, pulling his sword free of the corpse. Waited too long, he realised. Should’ve killed me when I was vulnerable. Is he waiting for the poison to complete the task for him?
“ You’re afraid,” Vaelin grunted into the darkness. “You know you can’t beat me.”
Silence. Silence and shadows, broken only by the drip of blood from his sword ticking on the floor. No time, he thought, his vision swimming, a dreadful, icy numbness creeping into this limbs. No time to wait.
“ Once,” he said, his voice a dry rasp, making him cry it out. “Once there were seven!”
There was a clatter of locks and latches followed by the creak of hinges as the Aspect’s door opened behind him and her comely, faintly annoyed face appeared shrouded by candle light.
“ What is all this noise…”
The knife came spinning out of the dark, end over end, a precise throw, its tip certain to take the Aspect in the eye.
Vaelin’s sword arm felt like lead as he brought his blade round in an arc, the blade meeting the knife, sending it spinning into the shadows. He never saw the assassin follow up his attack, he felt it, knew it, but he never saw it. His counter was automatic, unconscious, immediate. He spun, both hands on his sword hilt, the last vestiges of his strength in the blow, he never felt it meet the man’s neck, heard rather than saw the geyser of blood painting the ceiling and walls as the headless corpse continued for a few steps before collapsing. All he knew was the inescapable, dominating need to sleep.
The floor tiles were cool against his cheek, his chest moving in a sedate rhythm, he wondered if he would dream of wolves…
“ Vaelin!” Strong hands gripped him, shook him, many feet thundered on the floor, a babble of voices like a raging river. He groaned in annoyance.
“ Vaelin! Wake up!” Something hard smacked across his face making him wince. “Wake up! Don’t sleep! Do you hear me?!”
More voices, tumbling together in a barely decipherable clamour. “Fetch Sister Sherin, now!.. Get him to the teaching room… Forget them, they’re dead… What was he infected with?… Looks like a knife wound, where’s the blade?”
“ She wanted to apologise,” Vaelin said, deciding he should be helpful. “Came to my room… Would’ve got me but for the wolf…”
“ Check his room!” Sherin’s voice, more shrill and panicked than he knew it could be. “Look for a knife, make sure you don’t touch the blade.”
There were more voices, a vague sensation of being carried, the coolness of the floor replaced by the hard smoothness of a treatment table. Vaelin groaned, his befuddled mind perceiving the pain to come.
“ Dead?” the Aspect’s voice. “What do you mean dead?”
“ Looks like poison,” Master Harin’s deep rumble responded. “A pellet hidden in one of her teeth. Haven’t seen the like for a long time…”
Vaelin decided to open his eyes, seeing only a murky collage of shadows. He blinked, his vision clearing long enough to make out Sister Sherin, nostril’s flared as she sniffed Sister Henna’s knife. “Hunter’s Arrow,” she said. “We need Joffril root.”
“ That could kill him.” Vaelin knew he should have been shocked by the alarm in the Aspect’s voice but found his mind filled with a question he had to ask.
“ He’ll die if we don’t!” Sherin snapped, her face stricken, fearful, but determined. “He’s young and strong. He can stand it.”
A pause, a sigh of deep frustration. “Fetch the root, and plenty of redflower…”
“ No!” Sherin cut in. “No, it diminishes the effect. No redflower.”
“ Faith sister.” Master Harin’s hulking form moved into Vaelin’s view for the first time. “Do you know what that stuff does to a man?”
“ She’s right,” the Aspect said, her voice tight.
“ Aspect?” Vaelin said.
She moved to him, her hand clasping his, fingers smoothing his brow. “Vaelin, please lie still, we have to give you a physic to make you well. This will hurt… You must be strong.”
“ Aspect,” he fought to keep his vision stable, locked on her eyes. “Please, what was my mother’s name?”
Vardrian.
It sang in his mind through a tumult of pain. Vardrian. Her name. Her family name. Sweat bathed him, his chest was a furnace, darkness clouded his eyes, but her name held him, an anchor in the world.
Sister Sherin had tied a leather strap around his arm and injected the tincture of Joffril root directly into his vein with a long needle. The agony was almost instantaneous. The room fractured and disappeared, the Aspect’s soothing words fading away, Sherin’s stricken face a pale smudge in the descending shadow.
Vardrian.
It was a curious effect of pain that time became infinite, every instant of agony prolonged to the ultimate. He knew that his back was arched, his spine tensed like a bow, strong hands holding him to the table as he raved and raged incoherently. He knew it, but he didn’t feel it. It was far away, somewhere beyond the pain.
Ildera Vardrian. His mother. A plain name, a name without nobility or notoriety, a name that came from the fields or the streets. She was like his father, elevated by her talent. She was special. Suddenly he could see her face so clearly, the darkness fleeing before the brightness of her smile, the compassion in her eyes. She was a beacon in the pain, a focus for his will, his will to live.
He never knew how long it lasted, how long it took him to exhaust himself. They told him later he injured several of the Fifth Order’s stronger brothers, that he even tried to bite the Aspect, that he screamed the most foul and terrible things, but he had no knowledge of it. All he knew was the name. Ildera Vardrian.
It saved him.