Minu, page 20
“Whatever curse you hide beneath that Karvogi cloak, I assure you I’ve seen worse.”
“I’ll seek help for myself once I see the evil preying upon Agr Rav gone. Until then, I have nothing to offer for a High Mage’s service.”
Razban snorted. “Taniel, you don’t pay for a friend’s help.”
“Thank you, but I prefer to earn what is sure to be a long and costly service.”
The firelight stretched shadows over Razban’s hollowed features, placing upon him a mask more inhuman than Taniel’s.
“Yes, you were always proud,” Razban said. “That is one thing unchanged.”
“Flex your foot,” Iradah the hedgewitch said. She mimed the action with her hand before cupping both around Nesrin’s ankle. She was a stout woman of middling years, her dark hair was braided into a practical twist, and the frown lines creasing the corners of her mouth brooked no nonsense.
Nesrin did as instructed, continuing the motion as her skin burned hot before cooling beneath the hedgewitch’s hands. The swelling visibly lessened, leaving the joint feeling oddly light.
“It fix?” Nesrin asked.
“Roll your foot in a circle.” Iradah again demonstrated the movement to imitate.
Nesrin winced as her ankle strained from the motion. The hedgewitch pursed her lips in concentration, fingers palpating the joint. Focused heat poured to where Nesrin felt the pain most acutely, a cooling sensation loosened the last of the stiffness, and her ankle moved unhindered in its full range of motion.
“It fix now?” she asked.
“Patience, child,” Iradah said as she had her every visit over the last three days. Razmik’s sister, Shadi, had readily welcomed Nesrin into her home and heartily berated her whenever Nesrin attempted to help with chores that required her to be on her feet. Shadi insisted she rest, a difficult task as Nesrin grew more restive by the hour. Under Iradah’s attention, her injury’s mending had been shortened from weeks to days, but Nesrin was anxious to go east. Every day lost was gods knew how many more miles between her and Taniel.
Iradah used long cloth bandages to rewrap Nesrin’s ankle. “Stay off that foot another couple days. If you feel tingling, loss of sensation, or the swelling returns, send for me.”
“But it fix now?” Nesrin asked.
“Give it another couple days,” Iradah said sternly.
“Then tracking spell, you say it take couple days to set. We do it now, yes?”
“No.”
“Why no?”
“Child, I use my gifts to heal and help, not to send grief-sick young women wandering to their deaths.”
“You say you would.”
“I thought you’d see reason by now,” Iradah said. “You’re better off returning to Gohar, or staying in Ethel to make a home here.”
“I go where my husband go. That my home.” If Iradah refused to perform the tracking spell, then Nesrin would head east without it.
“Do you know how many people have come to me after hearing rumor that a loved one survived the Reaping? They beg me to help find them, only to discover their hope was false. At best, the spell leads them to where the body was burned or buried. More often, in absence of a living soul to find, tracking spells drive the seeker mad, and they follow their loved one into death. You’d take that risk? Have your death or madness be on my conscience?”
“This my choice. My risk,” Nesrin said. “If I not mad now, I will be if I let my husband go. If I too scared to chase hope, then I coward and I not live that life.”
The hedgewitch gave her a measuring stare as if searching for a fracture in Nesrin’s resolve. “Are you certain you wish to go through with this?”
“Yes.” Nesrin had made up her mind for what must be done the moment she learned Taniel was alive. There was no swaying her from that path, no matter where it led.
“I should have saved myself the job of wrapping the ankle, then.” Iradah undid the cloth from Nesrin’s foot. “Stay there, it’s a simple casting and won’t take long.”
She disappeared into the hall and Nesrin heard the creak of the back door opening, the squeak of the well pump being worked, and Iradah speaking to Shadi who was hanging clothes to dry in the garden. The hedgewitch returned in multiple trips, first carrying two pitchers of water, then fetching a kitchen knife, a single candle, and fresh cloth.
“Do you be needing something of Taniel’s?” Nesrin asked. The clothes she had worn to disguise herself as a man were his and ought to suffice.
“I have his wife. I can’t do much better than that. Wash yourself thoroughly using one of the pitchers. Leave the other untouched.” She stepped from the room to give her privacy. “Call me when you’re finished, but stay undressed.”
Nesrin stripped out of the dress Shadi had lent her, folding it neatly in the room’s corner. A flash of falling white caught her eye and she picked the small anemone flower the Karvogi had given to her off the floor. It was impossible for the flower to have fallen free while she was undressing, the simple garment had no pockets, and she remembered leaving the flower in Taniel’s traveling coat. The petals were as pure white as the day the Karvogi gave it to her and smelled as sweet as if freshly plucked. She gently placed the small flower on top of the folded dress, sparing it curious glances as she washed.
“Ready,” she said, wrapping herself in the floor sofa’s blanket for modesty.
Iradah reentered the room and gave a faint smile seeing Nesrin shielded behind the blanket.
“You’ve got nothing to hide I haven’t seen before,” she said.
“Does it upset ritual?” Nesrin asked.
“No, it’s fine, child. Though you’re an odd soul. Fearless in the face of the unknown, yet blushing with a maiden’s shyness.”
Setting the candle in the room’s center, Iradah pinched the wick between her fingers. A flame sputtered to life.
“Razirah, servant of the Wind Daughter, patron to those who wander, light the way for one in need,” she said. The candle’s light bloomed across the room, banishing shadows with its radiance.
Motioning for her to sit facing the candle, the hedgewitch took Nesrin’s right hand and used the kitchen knife to prick her palm.
“Lead the asking soul to where she must go.” Iradah tapped her finger to the knife’s dull edge, sprinkling droplets of Nesrin’s blood into the second water pitcher. She repeated the process on Nesrin’s left palm, the soles of her feet, and finally the skin above her heart. “Razirah, heal a grieving world, guide her, and make her whole again.”
The shallow knife wounds tingled as if a soft thumb brushed Nesrin’s skin. The hedgewitch snuffed out the candle between her fingers and natural light’s return felt oppressively dark after the brilliant glow.
Iradah held up the water pitcher mixed with Nesrin’s blood. “Wash again, and use all the water.”
Nesrin waited for the hedgewitch to leave before letting the blanket fall, wetting the cloth, and scrubbing her skin. She braced for a new sensation to come over her—a fire in her feet to carry her to her husband, a vision revealing hidden knowledge of his whereabouts, or a guiding voice whispering where she must go. Nothing happened save her shivering from cool air on exposed skin. She pulled the dress on, holding her breath in anticipation of revelation. None came. No whispering word, no compelling direction. She felt nothing other than sinking disappointment.
“What’s wrong?” Iradah asked when Nesrin opened the door.
“Nothing happen. It all feel same,” she said, sitting for her ankle to be rewrapped.
“It can take up to a week to set, child. You must be patient with this. I’ll be back in two days to see how the spell is coming along, and I expect you to be here, resting. I’ve told Shadi to keep an eye on you and to not be afraid to tie you down if you act recklessly. No, sit, there’s no need to show me out, I know the way and you need practice in staying still to heal and not running off to reopen wounds.”
“It take more than bad ankle to excuse bad manners.” Nesrin hopped beside Iradah as she showed her to the front door. Though her ankle felt ready to run on, she held her foot off the ground for Iradah’s sake. “And thank you, for all help.”
“I can believe your husband survived the Reaping if he survived a wife as headstrong as you. The two of you must’ve been …” Iradah trailed off when she stepped out the front door, mouth hanging open and eyes going wide.
“What wrong?” Nesrin peered around her.
A gentle breeze swept over the dirt road, rustling the white anemones blooming before their eyes. Defying the cycle of seasons, the springtime flowers rose like snow from beneath the autumn leaves, unfurling in the wake of the eastbound wind.
“Well, forget my folly I mistook for wisdom,” Iradah said. “You are called, child, and you must go.”
17
The Dark Witch of Agr Rav
Taniel flexed his fingers to work the cramping from his hand. Writing severely taxed his limited dexterity, and the notes he jotted in the map of Agr Rav’s margins had a child’s refinement. He and Brother Ashot had gone out in the morning’s early hours to retrace the trail paved by the investigation’s witness testimony, and Taniel had used the map to keep record of the sites they’d visited. Jagged crosses marked the map where the victims had lived, lopsided circles where they had last been seen, crude black dots for places they’d worked or frequented. There was no clustering in the ink to indicate a particular section of the city where the disappearances occurred; the pattern of the vanishings was one of behavior, not location. All the victims had traveled through Agr Rav’s emptied middle ring the day they vanished, and the abductions followed a ritualistic nature with specific victims, the regularity of the disappearances, and the care taken so no trace remained. Abbott Mardiros was right. This was a man’s work, not a monster’s.
“What about a demon?” Shirin asked, looking up from the book she read.
“Oh, sorry.” Taniel had not realized he’d been musing aloud. The habit was one he’d inherited from his father and it drove Nesrin mad. “I didn’t mean to distract you.”
Abbott Mardiros allowed an exception to the rule of men and women sleeping in different guest wings for Shirin and Taniel to share a room. Taniel’s unusual condition required assistance, and he trusted no one else to see him beneath the Karvogi cloak.
Shirin set her book down and stretched. “That’s alright, my mind is in the mood to be distracted and yours is clearly in want of an ear to listen. So could it be a demon?”
“I don’t think so,” Taniel said. “It’s too neat and I’ve never known a demon to be secretive in its evils. Only men take care to hide their wickedness.”
He tapped the quill to the map, wondering how much to tell Shirin and how much to keep private until he had evidence. The witnesses Taniel spoke to throughout the day were quick to name who they blamed for the disappearances: the bone-traders who were constantly taking their filthy dealings in and out of the city, or the hedgewitch from across the Setareh Sea whose magic practices were as dark as his skin. Taniel had followed to where all the fingers pointed in accusation led. As expected, he’d found none of the provided names to be convincing suspects, but an afternoon and evening spent interviewing relatives and friends of the vanished men, the people they accused, and a narrowing circle of witnesses revealed threads linking the victims. All had strong associations with the monastery. Two of the young men had lived on the grounds, the other two had made frequent visits tending to the curse-afflicted people seeking sanctuary. And all the victims—in the week leading up to their disappearance—had visited a certain mage whose manor neighbored the monastery.
A week ago, Taniel would have laughed at the thought of Razban Terzian willfully harming anyone. Yesterday’s meeting with him had changed that.
“Stay close to Abbott Mardiros tomorrow,” he said. “If I’m not with you, be sure you are in his company.”
“And what of you?”
“I need to look into something.”
“You think someone at the monastery has a hand in the disappearances?”
“I’m not ruling anything out.” Taniel winced at the sharp tingle joining the cramping in his hand. “So please, stay close to the Abbott, and away from Razban Terzian.”
“Isn’t he your friend?”
“He’s not the man I knew.” He rubbed his eyes to soften the headache blooming beneath his horns, aggravated by his staring at the map and hunching over the desk.
“Did your meeting with him not …” Shirin’s mouth thinned into a grim line. “You suspect him of being involved.”
“If he’s not involved in the disappearances, he is involved in something broken,” Taniel said, unsurprised Shirin came to her conclusion. She was cleverly intuitive, as were most housewives he had met. They possessed an uncanny knack for knowing where threats to family and home lurked, and for that reason, they were among the first he spoke to when a dark creature threatened a village. “I’ll need evidence before bringing a claim against him.”
Regardless of how off-putting he found Agr Rav’s new High Mage, Razban had been a friend and there was a respect owed there. Not a benefit of the doubt, but a caution to avoid calling undue wrath upon him. Brother Emet had warned Taniel how quick to judgment and eager for blood Agr Rav’s people were. For the sake of his conscience, Taniel resolved to keep his suspicions private until he was certain whether Razban’s new mannerisms were born of hardship endured, or if they were rooted in more sinister sources. He had little hope of it being the former, and feared there was little to nothing left of his friend.
He had only shared his concerns to Abbott Mardiros. The retired Purger agreed to keep them quiet and granted Taniel a second exception—the monastery’s skeleton key, enchanted to open any door on the grounds. The entire upper tier of Agr Rav had once belonged to the hallowed halls, including the High Mage’s manor. Mardiros was confident the key’s enchantment should overpower newer additions to the manor the resident mage had laid to keep out snooping holy men or Purgers. The Abbott told him that Razban spent mornings at the monastery tending to the tainted before traveling to the lower tier to work alongside the physicians, giving Taniel long, uninterrupted hours to search his home.
The dull throbs spreading from Taniel’s horns worsened, feeling as though the bones curled into his skull. Surrendering to the headache, he tucked away the map and limped to bed. His wrist and finger joints popped under his massaging them, beginning the long ritual of working loose the day’s stiffness to stop the worst of it from greeting him in the morning.
“What are you going to do?” Shirin asked.
“My duty as a Purger,” he said.
“Please don’t do anything reckless.”
“Everything a Purger does is reckless.”
“Taniel.”
“I promise to do nothing more reckless than charging headlong into the Demon Witch’s swamp.” His charging days were long gone. Instead, he’d limp headlong into the manor of a suspected fallen mage.
“Gods help you, Taniel.” Shirin shook her head. “You won’t accept anyone else’s.”
Uncapping a vial of the balm, she sat beside him to work the soothing ointment into his neck, chronically strained from holding the horns’ unnatural weight.
“Thank you,” he said, wishing he had more to offer Shirin than gratitude.
“You have too much left to give the world to throw your life away. One day, you’ll see that.”
The High Mage’s manor stood at the western edge of Agr Rav’s top tier, sheltered behind the privacy of scarlet dogwood and hardy dwarf cedar. A feeble wind stirred anemic clouds across a dull sky and sent dry leaves spiraling from the trees. The fallen leaves crackled beneath Taniel’s feet as he followed the unwelcoming lane leading to the once regal estate succumbing to decay. The manor was better suited to host ghosts than the living. The red tile roof was chipped and discolored by aged lichen, the arched windows grimy. Weeds conquered the front garden, spilling out to invade the cracks scarring the stone walkway. Taniel struggled to imagine the fastidious Razban living here. Dread for what awaited him within settled cold in his chest. If his suspicions proved right, Razban didn’t live here at all, and his friend had been dead for over a year.
Wards designed to disallow uninvited visitors pulsed against Taniel. The monastery’s iron skeleton key dampened the repelling magic, reducing the overwhelming urge to flee the manor grounds to a low, nervous irritation. The nagging fear to run was too real to be constructed solely from sorcery. The emotions in the enchantment must have been harvested, and Taniel suspected the abducted men had provided the horror seeking to drive him away.
Writhing discomfort ran through his arms and chest. He pulled up his sleeve to see his veins raised, and a crimson mist hissing from his skin like wind-blown sand. The manor’s warding disliked Minu’s magic and sought to remove her tainted sorcery from the grounds. Taniel limped faster to distance himself from the spells guarding the walkway before their attacking the witch’s magic shifted to attacking what her magic held together—him.
Stronger wards guarded the front door, breeding black terror screaming for him to flee. He fumbled for the skeleton key beneath his Karvogi cloak, a frightened sweat beading his brow, his heart pounding and breaths coming in short, anxious gasps. He ignored the sorcery-born panic. He was well-practiced in working through the body’s shortcomings.
The key grated in the lock, Taniel felt the manor’s defensive magics fail, and the front door swung slowly open with a neglected groan. He tucked the skeleton key beneath his cloak. The iron clinked against the talismans he wore, serving as poor replacements for his warding tattoos Minu had destroyed. Vestiges of the tattoos’ power endured—as vestiges of himself lingered in this crippled form—but they had been broken from their design and only traces of the black ink remained.
