As the arrival knocked, he encouraged, ‘Open the door, you’re quite safe. The kitchen boy sent up with the tray won’t see any trace of my presence.’
Elaira returned a look of raised eyebrows, then arose and crossed the plank floor. Each movement felt awkward, all angles and noise before the adept’s immaculate presence. Nor did his promise of anonymity fall short. The boy at the threshold proved painfully shy. Eyes glued to the floor, he passed her the tray with a few breathless words concerning the house tradition of hospitality.
‘Please thank your grandmother for her generosity.’ Elaira’s warm smile raised the boy to a flush.
‘Her kindness won’t count if she catches me slacking.’ He bolted downstairs, no doubt more unsettled by the fact she was spell trained, and a healer.
Left bearing a tray that was prodigiously laden, Elaira eased the door closed with her elbow. The bar was rendered unnecessary with an adept as her visitor. Since the room had no table, she could do nothing else but set the food on the pallet between them. Tempted by the rich odors of steamed mutton, fish soup, two loaves of brown bread, and last season’s apples stewed in syrup and vinegar, Elaira recovered her humor.
‘I do hope you’re hungry,’ she invited her guest.
‘I’m content as I am.’ The adept’s courtesy was instinctive, as though his ear stayed more closely attuned to the scream of the wind clawing over the roof slates. ‘Save what you can carry. You’ll need sustenance on your journey.’
Caught dunking a heel of bread in the soup, Elaira glanced up, surprised. ‘Journey? I’d thought to work healing in Highscarp until thaws.’
The adept turned his head. His desertbred eyes were unreadable in the storm gleam from the dormer, cut through the backdrop of gloom. ‘You could do that. Or, if you wish to set foot beyond reach of your order, you might consider taking sanctuary. Our hostel accepts travelers. You must take the road toward Eastwall, anyway, if your Prime’s charge sends you into Daon Ramon.’
Elaira bit into the bread, her methodical manner masking the bent of deep thoughts. ‘My order frowns upon hostels,’ she said slowly. ‘Fourth-rank seniors claim that quartz crystals become altered if they are carried inside of your gates.’
The adept watched her, his settled quiet grown profound.
Tempted to walk the first steps of a riddle, Elaira rose to the challenge. ‘Crystals change. Why? You will answer questions?’
‘I will tell you truth,’ the adept amended. ‘The primary Law of the Major Balance states that where there is substance, or energy, consciousness exists also. Self-awareness in all things is Ath’s unconditional gift, no matter the form of expression. Our Brotherhood keeps Ath’s law before that of man. Therefore, any consciousness that finds the way inside our precinct is restored to its sacrosanct right of unfettered being.’
‘Then the crystal kept under your province is set free,’ Elaira concluded. The bread crust rested, forgotten in her hand, while her searching gaze sifted through the faint gold halo of luminosity released by the adept’s tranquil presence. ‘And what passes your gates abides first by Ath’s law. Koriani power, then, cannot cross your threshold. I could enact the Prime’s will concerning Arithon s’Ffalenn, and incur no tie of indebtedness to the order?’
‘Those truths are self-evident, under the Law of the Major Balance. That precept holds the conscious will of all beings as sacred and therefore inviolate. I give you a parable.’
The adept paused, head tipped in tacit inquiry until he received her clear word to proceed. ‘Very well. Two men rode horses into a hostel of Ath’s Brotherhood. One was townborn, and his horse suffered a bridle and saddle, and was made obedient to his needs through domination and fear. The other man was clanblood, and drifter. His horse bore both saddle and rider without any bridle, or restraint by means of compulsion. Once inside our gates, both animals were stripped of their tack. They were left to do as their nature required. The townsman’s horse cantered into the hills, and never returned, though a chase was mounted for days in the effort to recapture lost property. The drifter’s horse remained standing at the gates. That one whinnied his glad greeting at his friend’s return. One horse had a master, and the other shared a companion. Ath’s freedom may be taken, or it may be given in accord with the law of free will.’
Elaira reached out of instinct and groped at the space where the quartz had hung, chained to her neck. Embarrassed, she swallowed. Beyond interest in eating, she set down the bread crust and regarded the adept who, apparently, had come at the Warden of Althain’s behest.
‘Sethvir believed that I needed protection. Since he acted to stop me from clearing my quartz, I need to see much more clearly. Can you lend understanding? There are complexities involved with this issue that I’m not wise enough to address.’
The adept inclined his head. ‘Brave lady, had you cleared your crystal, there would have been trouble indeed. I came here as Sethvir’s emissary, but I must serve as Ath’s order demands. Your quartz deserves freedom, except its own will has granted you deference. It prefers to remain a Koriani tool, that you may preserve your given trust with the one known as Arithon s’Ffalenn. Stone is patient. It bides lightly in time. Count yourself honored. This crystal spirit has given you the accolade of naming you as a companion. Therefore, since you planned to relinquish your claim, I suggest you let me take the burden of carrying out its preferred intent. With your permission, I will bear the quartz back to your sisterhouse. Let it remain in the peeress’s hands until you can safely resume your oathbound charge of its keeping.’
‘I would be grateful, as well as content.’ Self-conscious and flushed, Elaira pursued her dropped bread crust. Through the moment she required to recover her aplomb, the adept vanished without sound.
She started, glanced up, searched the shadowy space he had occupied. No visible trace remained of his presence, only a tactile patch of left warmth where he had sat on the coverlet. No small bit shaken that her spell crystal was also gone, Elaira swore like a fishwife. She had scarcely begun to ask questions.
Then, practical enough not to wallow in self-pity until the fish soup got cold and lost savor, she addressed the task of finishing off the perishable portion of her supper.
In hindsight, the adept had ceded her with fertile ground for new thought. Not all of her power derived from Koriani teaching. In the course of expanding her study of healing, independence had brought her odd bits of hedge lore. She had once learned a hill grandmother’s method of setting up wards using field stones. In principle, that knowledge might apply to a quartz, though the ranging of vibration directed by crude cantrips would become glass clear, and far stronger. By morning, the sphere in the salt bucket would be cleansed. She could borrow upon knowledge shared from Arithon’s trained mastery and attempt to engage its Named spark of awareness. In addition, she had the untapped potential in the crystal point given by the talisman maker in the market.
If the adepts’ store of wisdom might open an alternative way to access her natural-born talent, she must gather fresh courage, and against every obstacle, shoulder the risk in pursuit.
‘Fiends plague and Dharkaron’s fell Chariot, but Selidie Prime and Lirenda are going to be furious!’
Raised to devilish good cheer by the prospect of being a thorn in the side of high-caste Koriani authority, Elaira mopped the last broth from her bowl. She devoured the plate of stewed apples. Then, wildly reckless, she commandeered her last cloth length of linen for bandaging and packed the leftover victuals into her satchel.
Outside, the silver-plate gleam of last daylight was already rapidly failing. Black runners of storm cloud drove in off the sea. The first, gale-force gusts slapped and battered the dormer’s dilapidated shutters. The racket drummed a demon’s tattoo against the bass-note pound of the surf boiling into the seawall.
At least savage weather would discourage the sisterhouse peeress from rousting the poor quarter for a renegade. Elaira stifled her wild burst of laughter as she imagined the outrage raised by Ath’s adept