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The ferocity of his feelings, not to mention his actions, horrified and consumed Bryar in equal measure. No trace of the mild-mannered Bard remained; he tore through his daily routines as if his goal were to destroy anything in his path, to inflict injury on whoever got in his way.
Rebecca watched, cooked, and changed his sweat-soaked sheets. Ezra ignored his moods and continued his research.
After tense meals with the elderly couple, afternoons found him at the riverside. Although he no longer sought Tai, alone by the river he screamed his pain, bellowing her name, letting the tumultuous water carry it downstream.
After days spent combing the riverbank, he had visited the landslide, the land around the orchard and the meadow, and far beyond, everywhere she might have gone, clinging to the hope she lived.
Every evening Rebecca gave him a tisane with soporific herbs to aid his sleep, and honey and a touch of citrus to soothe his throat. He was perpetually hoarse, and couldn’t have sung if his life depended on it.
While the tisanes helped, most nights he slept only if he had exhausted himself enough with physical training. Failed sleep meant long, dark periods with no escape from the layers of pain and anger. Four nine-days since Tai vanished, with no sign, nothing to restore him to sanity.
Until the day came when the overload of emotion burned out, leaving him emptied. Devoid of purpose, he neglected his regimen, sitting on his bed in the main house – for Rebecca had not permitted him to return to the room he’d shared with Joss beside the barn – staring into space.
At mid-morning he received the summons to the workroom. He went, reluctantly.
“Lie down,” Ezra commanded. “I will apply the shield. Rebecca is preparing rations for you. You’re leaving for the Motherhouse this afternoon.”
Like hell. Leave Tai’s home, the place she might reappear? “I’m not ready.”
“You are. She’s not coming back, Bryar. The trail is open, and Arwen’s expecting you.”
“Not today.” He heard the petulance in his voice.
“You will never be more prepared.” Ezra advanced on him and jabbed a bony finger into his chest. “You need no more time or training. I’ve located the power cell, and I have no wish to go to the effort of locating it again, should it be moved.”
A vague curiosity tickled his mind, a novelty since Tai’s loss. “How did you do it?”
“A combination of the slow seepage into the earth and spies. Don’t look surprised. I maintain a well orchestrated network of people who tell me what I need to know.”
“Scribes?”
“A few. And others.”
Ezra’s voice was matter-of-fact, brooking no argument. But today he couldn’t face... “Ezra, listen. This just isn’t a good day-”
“A perfect day, and you will lie down. Now. I’ll not have you keeling over under the force of the working.”
He didn’t bother to lock eyes with the Old Man; since he knew he’d lose any such war of wills, he hoisted himself onto the workbench and stretched out.
Ezra’s capable hands grasped Bryar’s head, weaving a template that felt like a knitted cap. Bryar released himself into a trance, his mind no longer in the workroom but probably somewhere in the Aura with its energy patterns swirling around him.
Until it vanished, leaving only emptiness. He opened his eyes.
Ezra backed the pressure off slightly, then made the moves to tie the weave off and said, “I have no way of knowing how long your shield will hold, or the extent it will withstand trauma. But I can do no better. See Rebecca for food, pack, and go. Arwen expects you tomorrow.”
Bryar sat and swung his legs off the workbench. Ezra had never allowed him to venture from the room with the weave in place, and facing the world without the Aura brought up in him a new vulnerability. He remembered Willow’s misery and wondered if it would be as difficult for him.
With his senses dulled, his memory of Tai developed hazy edges. Ezra might have unwittingly offered him respite.
“Hold on to that pent-up anger,” Ezra said, correctly reading him yet again. “Never forget Tai. And all she stands for.”
Released from the workroom with a handclasp, he packed Rebecca’s food and his few belongings, allowed the old woman to kiss his cheek, and left.
The compound bade him no goodbye. Neither Ezra nor Rebecca watched him go. The stable hid the cow and goats, the chickens ignored his footsteps. It was the same as when he turned his back on his childhood home in the Northlands.
A surge of acrimony welled up as he turned onto the path that lead to the Motherhouse. He had touched true happiness, and lost it. His future held much risk, and no certainty. But he was damned if he’d let this bleakness become the norm, as might happen if the power cell fell into the wrong hands.
It was the first charitable thought he’d entertained since Tai left him.
~~
AND THE LAST. TO ATTAIN the Motherhouse by the end of the next day, he walked until it was fully dark. By then, an icy drizzle destroyed any hope of a comfortable camp. The next morning, after a miserable night huddled under his tarp, the drizzle had become a rain that threatened to change to sleet. Impossible even for his freezing hands to rummage in his pack, protected by his lanolin-infused cape, to dig out something to eat. The trail became a morass of semi-frozen mud; ice-cold water soaked through his boots within an hour.
There hadn’t been a cloud in the sky when he left Ezra’s compound. Had the Old Man orchestrated this particular piece of torture, one final test?
A full day to the Motherhouse. The dense cloud washed out color. Uneasy in the flattened light, Bryar doggedly put one foot ahead of the other, frozen, exhausted, starving, more like a mongrel than a Weaver – former Weaver – as he walked through the long, miserable hours.
The Motherhouse, when it came into view, looked as bleak and lonely as the trail. Nobody crossed the green and few lights shone from windows. From the slight rise as the path entered the circle of buildings, he couldn’t see into the dining hall, but guessed everyone would be there, food and warmth and friendship...
Skirting the green, Bryar turned right toward the Bards’ lodge and deposited his cape, boots, hat and mitts in the anteroom. From there he headed directly for the bathing room, not stopping to drop his pack in his quarters. The urge to relieve his physical misery surpassed even his grief over Tai.
It took an hour, much of it spent slowly easing his frozen feet into ever warmer water, before the chill left his body. Eschewing the damp spare tunic he’d brought from Ezra’s, he wrapped himself in a towel and hurried to his second floor room. A welcome fire burned in the grate, further relaxing his exhausted muscles. He rapidly changed into dry clothing and boots, and returned to the anteroom, where he claimed a cape and ventured out to the dining hall.
As expected, chaos reigned.
In the twilight gloom and devoid of his Aura-enhanced senses, Bryar had lost track of time, but it must be after supper. He managed a half smile at the healthy, optimistic teens barreling around the big room, involved in some complicated game that included dodging under and vaulting over the tables. He remembered these cold, rainy days and the joyous romps they’d shared as apprentices, but it wasn’t what he sought now. He found a table in a corner of the area reserved for Weavers and sat, waiting for a group to clear the buffet line.
Joss appeared unexpectedly, bearing a tray with steaming bowls, thick slices of bread, butter, and a dish of honey. He set the tray down and settled opposite Bryar. “Lentil stew. There’s meat in it.” His big hands distributed bowls and cutlery. Then, without further speech, Joss dug into the meal.
“Thanks.”
“Welcome. Good to see you.”
“You, too.”
Bryar was almost too hungry to face the rich aromas of the stew. He tore off a hunk of bread and gave it a heavy coating of butter and honey. After a couple of bites, his stomach began to settle.
Shrieks penetrated his corner from across the room. Whatever the rules, someone had just pulled off a dramatic move. He involuntarily sought the flows that would tell him the kids were practicing their new weaves as part of the game – but that didn’t work anymore, did it? He felt like a eunuch, unable to touch what everyone else here took for granted.
Joss downed his stew in short order. “I’m going for more. Want me to bring you another?”
Bryar shook his head. The lingering uncertainty in his stomach, brought on by a day of next to no food, warned him not to overdo now.
Joss returned with his fresh bowl and said, “We heard about Tai. That’s tough.”
The bread in his mouth turned to chalk. He forced it down. “Yeah.”
“Sorry.”
“Me, too.”
“You sure you’re okay? They’ve been worried. Quinn’s been fussing like a damn mother hen.”
Given all he and Joss had endured together, Bryar felt obliged to be honest. “Not so good.”
“They plan on putting you through your paces, but I don’t know what they have in mind. Did Ezra get the shield to work? I can’t sense your energy.”
“I’ll be glad when this is over with.” He finally picked up the spoon and took a tentative bite of stew. Ambrosia. He moaned quietly as the savory concoction hit his taste buds. He’d missed the cooking at the Motherhouse. Almost two seasons since last autumn when he, Joss, and Willow set off on their trek into the hills.
He hadn’t come back – come home – before going to Ezra’s. Why not? Why had the pull to locate Ezra been so strong?
Dumb question. Ezra had wanted him at the compound. Expected his presence.
“How are you doing?” he asked. “Are you learning anything?”
Joss dropped his spoon in his nearly empty bowl. “I’m developing a new appreciation for Weavers, that’s for sure. By evening my mind’s on overload. Arwen, Quinn, and Dal – they figure to work with animals I need Healing skills, so they’ve added some of the basic Healers’ training to the curriculum. With any luck, they’ll spring me after six months. How you endured it for years is beyond me.”
Months. Months were about women, their rhythms, their bodies. Tai would think in months... Bryar shook the thought from his mind.
“We were young.” Another cheer from kids. They’d eat well and sleep soundly tonight. “I don’t feel young anymore.”
“No. Me either.”
The lentils in his bowl had disappeared almost without his noticing. Bryar debated joining the line for more stew and decided against it. Considered a warming mug of caff and rejected that, too. He desperately needed to sleep tonight. “Tisane?”
“Sure. There’s cake, too. Abricoe, I think.”
Bryar took the tray and returned with mugs of tisane and generous slabs of cake. The abatement of his hunger made him more amenable to chatting. “You’ve settled in here well.”
“Tolerably well. They gave me a suite over in the guest lodge, and I divide my time between the Motherhouse and the village. I’m learning, that’s the important thing. I can’t earn a living here without a marketable skill.”
Bryar got where Joss was coming from. He needed to be useful. Made sense. If his Auric connection never returned, he would need to do the same. He remembered Willow, her struggle to find her place in a redefined world. What had happened to her? Was she a Healer again? Touching the Aura again, weaving her Healing around all she came in contact with? Or had that man...
“Any word from Willow?”
“Quinn believes she’s okay. They’re constantly scanning for her, but the hills block them.”
“I hope Quinn’s right. I don’t think I could bear another loss.”
The significant news exchanged, they ate their cake in silence. Bryar had just swallowed a bite and raised his mug to his lips when a new shout pierced the air.
“Dad!”
He sprang to his feet. Romarin barreled into him, clutching him in a fierce hug.
His daughter. His beautiful daughter, grown so much in the last half year.
“Mari.” It came out choked. Standing there, his child in his arms, his face buried in her hair so like his own and soaking up his tears while his heart did its best to block his windpipe, Bryar knew his first true peace since the Aura had turned on him, far away in the hills, so long ago.