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Tobit held them at the elder’s house until Hackett returned with Mentor Surrect. Brok demanded that Orielle assist the healer with his examination, but Elder and Mentor overruled him.
When the two took Brok to another room, Hackett waved her to the planked floor before the hearth. He crouched before the fire as he dragged a pipe from an inner pocket of his leather jerkin along with a pouch of herbs. He tamped the herbs into the pipe well. After lighting his pipe, he shook out the wick while he puffed until the greeny herbs charred. Only then did he sit back, bracing his boots on a corner of the stone fireplace. “Let’s hear it, then. How you and Grim killed a half-dozen wyre as you came through the Wilding.”
“Seven wyre,” she corrected. “Where is Grim? What did Tobit do with him? I want to see him.”
“Now you sound like his friend. Don’t worry. Tobit won’t make any decision until after the hearing. Tell me about tonight.”
She glared dissatisfaction, but he was Tobit’s and said nothing more about Grim, no matter how she pressed. Grumbling, she settled more comfortably. Then she recited the events, stripping them to the bones rather than fleshing them with details and her emotions. The pipe glowed and died and glowed during her telling.
Hackett shrugged at her account of the gobbers. He had no interest in the Kyrgy until she mentioned the wraith’s punishment. Then he dropped his feet and leaned elbows on his knees. “What kind of punishment did the Kyrgy give it?”
“I did not ask. I did not think it wise to question Lady Bone.” Her throat had dried. “Do you think it relevant? Whatever happened to Zairantze was days ago, long before I entered the Wilding and met Grim.”
“There’s that, then. Tell us about the wraiths here.”
“Didn’t you hear—?”
“Humor a one-eyed man.”
She scowled at his description of himself then told of the sorcery, of the two wraiths on Brok, and of the attack on her. As she reached Brok’s removal of the dagger in Zairantze’s breast, a commotion from the back silenced her.
Tobit emerged with the healer but not Brok. Both Orielle and Hackett clambered to their feet. “Where’s Brok?” she asked.
Mentor Surrect braced his staff before him. “He sleeps a brief while. The healing was difficult.” He scowled at her, as if she were responsible for Brok’s condition. “He will wake in a few minutes. Is that acceptable, wizard?”
Tobit clicked his tongue. “She’s not responsible, Surrect.”
“So you say.” Eyes narrowed like a snake, he didn’t look away from her. “Tobit, the dwelling must be sealed.”
“I did that,” she shot out, “before we left. All openings, doors and windows. A greater spell on the room where we found Zairantze.”
“Brok said nothing of a sealing.”
“I sent him away. He was grieving. He didn’t need to see—.” She stopped, for the healer turned away.
He lowered his lanky frame onto a chair beside the elder’s massive carved chair. He leaned the staff against his shoulder then leaned his head against it. With his eyes closed, shielding his fierce mind, she saw the stress lines and hollowed cheeks that marked a great expenditure of power.
Tobit dropped into his chair. “Surrect, she may be wizard and young with it, but she is not a fool.”
She started to protest his reading, but Hackett spoke before she’d found the first word. “She has a tale of her travels through the Wilding that the Council will want to hear. Maybe more should hear it.”
Tobit scratched his bearded jaw again. “Can it wait until the evening?”
“It can. What happens when Brok wakes?”
The big elder sighed and leaned against the back of his chair. “Before he wakes, we need to hear what happened from her. Brok only spoke of the dagger in Zairantze. He barely mentioned the wraiths, but I know, from what the wizard said, that they were feeding on him.”
The healer sighed. His eyes opened. “You could let a man have a spare minute.” Bracing his hands on his staff, he straightened. He shifted the staff to lean against his left shoulder. His bright eyes fixed Orielle. “Tell us the whole, wizard.”
Her voice cracked when she finished this repetition of her battle against the wraiths. The healer quizzed her closely, especially about the spell that had held Zairantze in stasis.
A noise from the back stopped Surrect in mid-question. He rose and disappeared into the hallway. Tobit followed.
Hackett stretched then lowered his arms. “That’s a fine scout report. That your pack?”
“Brok’s.”
He hoisted it, and Orielle divined that they would soon leave. She fetched her pack.
Brok looked less hollowed, still weary and eyes reddened. Hackett shrugged off Brok’s offer to carry his own pack. “Let’s move, then.” He jabbed a thumb at Orielle. “That one’s swaying on her feet.”
Orielle trudged behind the two men, stopping only when Hackett pounded on a door. It opened and revealed Waren, scrubbing at his eyes—although the knife he held warned of a keen defense. The older man shouldered his way inside.
The dwelling was small, a front room with a door leading to a long hallway, darkened for the night. Peeking from the hallway was a young woman with sleep-tousled hair.
Hackett explained the night’s battle. Waren snapped awake, grateful his friend wasn’t wounded and offering to stand sentinel. “You’re needed here,” the patched-eye man growled. Then he said “Noon” to Orielle and walked out.
That woke her, but sleepiness returned when Waren’s wife, Malva, opened the door to a room and Orielle saw the bed. She barely splashed her face and hands before she tugged off her boots. Sighing gratitude, she crawled between the bed coverings.
Only to crawl out and cast a cleansing spell. Nothing in the room reeked with viscid sorcery. Then she set her wards.
When she snuggled under the quilt, she remembered gobbers had crossed her wards without any pain and without a signal to her.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
The sun blazed when Orielle woke. Since she hadn’t opened the shutter in last night’s darkness, she guessed Malva had ventured in, confirmed when she saw the water in the ewer was refreshed and the basin emptied.
She thrust her head out the window to a clear sky and crisp air.
Like Brok’s dwelling, Waren’s home backed into a narrow twisty lane. The buildings opposite matched this one, with a door below and a single window beside it. Several doors down, two women talked, one with a basket, the other with a broom. Neither saw Orielle watching. One door from the end, a man tended a boiling pot while children chased in circles in the opening behind him.
Grim’s hearing would occur late afternoon, with hers to follow. With that in mind, Orielle scrubbed away the sweat and grime of her journey and last night’s battle. She shook out clean clothes, crushed by long days rolled in her pack. Then she poured the water back into the ewer and carried it down.
Waren’s wife came to the stairs. Malva greeted Orielle with a smile then led her to the scullery. She stayed to talk as Orielle scrubbed her clothes. She had an endless stream of words, asking about Orielle’s sleep, exclaiming over bits of the battle against the wraiths, grieving over Zairantze’s death, and marveling that a spell had held the body undecayed for days.
They hadn’t shared that last detail. Orielle swished her clothes in the bucket, working out the soap. “Brok shared more this morning?”
“Not he, poor man. My neighbor heard the gossip. Poor Brok. He won’t know what to do without Zairantze. He was breathing fire that Tobit hadn’t called out the off-duty sentinels to search for the wights—wraiths, you call them—in the Haven. Could there be more wights? I pray not. We’ve had no recent deaths and no other person missing.”
No one had considered Zairantze missing or dead. They’d claimed she had left the Haven.
Orielle wrung her garments and shook them out.
“We can hang them outside. Anyway, Brok wanted to hunt for more wights. My Waren told him that duty rightfully belongs to Surrect. He’s our healer and mentor to the Water wielders. Surrect has already knocked on our door, wanting to see everyone in the house. Lillias was with him. Hackett’s coming back `round in a little while, so Waren said he said. He was here earlier, talking with Waren and Brok. He wanted to see you, but I told him you needed your sleep.”
“Is it past noon? He said he would take me to see Grim.”
“Far past noon. Don’t you fret now. He’ll come back. Waren took him off, he and Brok together. They wanted to help Surrect. Let’s hang those up, then I’ll do a quick egg for you, and you can be off to see your Grim.”
What would Grim say about the wraiths? Had anyone told him?
Was he in danger from them? In his search for more wraiths feasting on Rho, had Surrect checked Grim?
She climbed the stair with a refilled pitcher then stood for a long moment in the chilly breeze through the window. A dullness fogged her mind, as if part of it still slept. She turned the other items in her pack onto the quilt and aired her blanket over the footboard. Then she gathered up her cloak and a good knife before heading downstairs.
Malva had fried eggs, toasted bread, and a honey jar ready when Orielle reached the front room. She poured tea and set it beside the plate. “There, a good fast-break.”
Orielle had barely finished the first cup of tea when knocking came on the house door. She took a last bite of toast as Hackett dragged a knitted cap off his shaven skull.
“Some tea, if you please, Malva.” He smiled, and the young woman hurried to comply, filling Orielle’s empty cup as well.
Hackett bristled with weapons, as he had yesterday and last night. “Expecting trouble?” she asked.
One shoulder hunched. He blew across the cup. “Surrect wants a word before I escort you to the lock-up.”
“I am under arrest?”
His crooked grin winked out. “To see Grim. Let him know about Brok’s woman. Let him know you’re safe here with Waren and his woman.”
“And tell him about the wraiths?”
Again that hitch of his shoulder. “And that.”
“Lillias is working with Surrect?” At his nod, she pursued more. “Will Tobit help? Or the other mentor? Fortis?”
“Mebbe Tobit. Fortis won’t be there.”
“Fortis is Fire and Lillias is Air.” When he didn’t respond, just sipped the tea, Orielle tried another track. “Is Tobit more inclined to believe us about the wyre after the wraiths?”
“I’ll let him tell you that. I don’t step into his elder business. I shouldn’t. I’m not Rho.”
Not Rho. She started to ask then heard Malva bustling back.
Not Rho. No wonder Hackett wore a short sword and several knives, even here in the Haven. Would weapons be a defense in a community of wielders of the elements? Grim’s push of Air had flung a wyre over a dozen feet into a tree. Tobit’s clap had opened the ground under her feet.
Perhaps not all Rho were as powerful as Grim and Tobit.
The Wizard Enclave had mundane guards, Naughts from the clans or soldiers with no trace of magic in their families. Clan leaders had their comeis, Fae guards bound to serve them. Yet comeis still had power, some as strong as wizards.
Was Hackett bound to serve Tobit? Or was his loyalty from love?
“Finished with that? Let’s go on then.”
Orielle held her questions until the dwelling’s door shut. Children dashed past, last night’s events not affecting them. The women talking with neighbors at doorsteps, though, had frowns and crossed arms and didn’t even nod a greeting as Orielle and Hackett passed.
“Since you have no power, Hackett, how are you here in the Haven?” His resigned look said that he wouldn’t explain what she wasn’t smart enough to figure out. She hastily changed the question. “I mean, where did you meet Tobit?”
“Iscleft.”
“The Citadel?”
“Aye. Heart of the battle on this frontier. Me a green recruit and him all Earth, astride the ramparts, like one of the great statues of the Ancients. You ever see those?”
“Only as an illustration in a book. Are they truly ten times the height of a man?”
“Taller, though most are half-buried. I’ve climbed over one of those, fallen over, with sand drifted around it. A southern king’s statue, whatever sword he once held long vanished and his crown covered by woodbine.” He snorted. “Woodbine in bloom, at that.”
“You must be from one of the Bois countries.”
“Bois Argent,” he confirmed. “With the Teeth Mountains to the south and the Sayidi desert trying to waste lowlands of the West. That’s where the statue was, on the Argent border with the desert. But I left that to come here and fight sorcerers. Wanted to see me some power, fight me some wyre.” The look he tossed held deprecating laughter. “Like I said, green recruit. Signed up in Gramina Aurus. Saw Tobit on the ramparts. Met him in battle. He kept a wyre from ripping my head off. Got this there.” He motioned to the scars slashing across one side of his face.
The wyre’s attack had likely infected his eye. Hackett was lucky that he hadn’t lost both of his eyes. A whole story backed his brief words, but it was the contradiction Orielle pursued. “But Tobit opposed Grim joining the fight at Iscleft. He has Grim locked away for fighting there.”
“No. Grim’s locked up for leaving without permission—.”
“His father—.”
“And for leaving before we confirmed the wyre lair was destroyed.”
“You both served at Iscleft Citadel. You know the danger from Frost Clime. How can you not support his enlistment? Why is he locked up?”
He gave that resigned look again.
“What am I missing?”
“Mebbe we might ally to the Enclave since they’re turning out wizards who can admit they don’t know all there is to know.”
Orielle’s shoulders hunched at yet another reminder that she lied by omission in letting them think her a wizard. Would a wizard who has passed the trials admit to a weakness or a flaw, even a lack of information? She thought of the arrogance of her elders and several of her friends. Even her sister gave pronouncements, as if wizard status were the only authority she needed.
“Look, me and Tobit served at Iscleft for ten years and more. Then that Ferro came in as commander. The asswipe `bout killed the whole alliance. Even the Fae would have left, but they don’t want their border open to Frost Clime.”
She’d heard others rail against Commander Ferro, as many as railed against the Enclave’s alliance with the Fae. Would the latter group rail against the Rhoghieri’s renewed alliance?
“Look you, then. We’re here.”
Orielle recognized the lane of Brok’s dwelling.
Then she saw the open door, darkness inside, her seal broken.
