Part 3
Gwendoline followed behind the two men and the young lad as she looked over her shoulder to see the carriage hurrying away. She could only focus on the torch and the way it broke through the darkness and frightened away the chill. The armored young man gave an abrupt introduction. Simply, “Grenal,” he had said as he diverted his eyes and tried to shield himself from her.
The older man had introduced himself as simply The Healer, but Gwendoline knew his name to be Anselo. At the behest of her tutors she had read about him and those who came before. The lad was his son, Jabari. This one, the Historian and his many scribes had not yet written about.
Jabari had not said a word to her. His father had had to introduce him. He just carried the torch and left the talking to his father. His father lacked not in words.
At first he tried to entertain her, a joke or two, then he tried to comfort her with words of calm and of re-assurance and then he tried to teach her, telling old stories of E’epan’s past that had nothing to do with her predicament. They just passed the time.
They crossed something that the Healer Anselo called the SlipSwamp. He told her she must never walk upon it without his accompaniment, for such would be certain death. That sounded an easy enough request with which to comply, but as she neared her new home to be she found this SlipSwamp completely encircled the Jagged caves. She suddenly felt like a prisoner, as if her family had sent her away to live out her days in a lonely tower, wishing that her knight upon a white horse would come for her, free her from captivity, wake her from the horror story that had become her life.
She quickly found the Jagged to be a much livelier place than she had imagined. She saw about fifty people lived there with the Healer Anselo. Some various house staff, others fighters in what the Healer called his Guard. But the liveliness of the place would not be for her as they hurried away from her when she neared them, recognizing the monster that stood before them and knowing what she could see within them. She saw fear, curiousness and an outright wish to see her killed in the glimpses she received.
Only the Healer Anselo would approach her, ask her how she fared. She could only say “well.” Nothing she said to the contrary would change her circumstance. No knight would be galloping across the SlipSwamp on a great white horse to save her.
A woman named Floraline had been assigned to protect her. She had thought that when she got to the Jagged she would find that protection. But new enemies arose that wished her harm upon her arrival. Floraline called them FlameChasers. Gwendoline had never actually seen one but from the way that Floraline spoke of them she knew that such a sight would be her last.
Hardness defined Floraline’s features. She released little emotion. Gwendoline could only see that the protector did not like Gwendoline very much and hoped something might accidentally befall her, permitting her to go back to other duties, though she could also see that she would never allow that harm to be by her hands. Floraline spoke barely a word but for the purpose of frightening the Dreamer in her charge. And she did that job well. Gwendoline lay awake at night listening to the scratching on the walls and the thumping of Floraline’s feet across cold rock as she scurried across to block the FlameChasers’ advance.
Each time the Healer Anselo asked her how she fared, she mustered a bigger and bigger smile. She could not let him know how she felt about this place. This was his home, his pride. These were his people, his friends. Only she could be the one called the invader, arriving with the Dreamer’s curse. She could not blame them if they all cowered away. She was a monster, no less than a FlameChaser among them. How she wished her uncle’s strike had been true.
Gwendoline spent her mornings in the arena, watching the guards hone their skills. She could think of a million better ways to pass her time but this was where Foraline brought her each day so she did not protest. Only in this place did Floraline ever leave her side. Sitting at the edge of the arena while all of the Healer’s best fighters tested their might, there could be no safer place for her. She watched as swords clashed and fighters tumbled. She looked away as a few got carried away to the Healer with wounds great. She had never seen so much blood. It made her woozy.
Her focus on the blood and the gore and the way in which her tender stomach rolled and ached is the only thing that could have caused her to fail in hearing the scratching upon the wall just behind her. Warm, moist breath fell upon her back then she heard the low rumbling growls. She dared not turn. No words bubbled up to her tongue. The beast leapt, tearing at the back of her dress and the flesh it found beneath. Floraline looked up from across the room, before bolting out in her direction, but with a FlameChaser already in the room, her sprint appeared as no more than a creep. Gwendoline cried out, with no alternatives left to her. Long claws tore through her as if she be no more than down bedding, before the weight lifted. Her eyes grew dark as she turned her head to see Jabari throw her attacker up against the wall, then with quickness she could not even follow, he pulled a knife and drove it deep into the beast’s right eye. Claws swung wildly as Jabari leaned forward with his lower body back allowing the claws to swipe at him, before he whisked his blade around to slit its furry throat.
Blues eyes closed as the pain overtook her. She heard a voice commanding everyone to leave the room, then the shuffle of feet as they complied.
She felt hands upon her back. She could only imagine that the Healer Anselo had arrived to heal her. The warm light surrounded her as her skin joined together strand by strand.
Then he spoke. “Do you want to keep the scars?”
She did not know this voice. It was not the voice of Anselo nor the voice that had cleared the room, but a quiet, even voice.
“No,” she proclaimed through tears of relief.
“Very well.” Hands again fell upon her as her skin became smooth under his touch. Strips of red soaked fabric alone hid little slivers of her back as it lay bared to the air.
Jabari removed his cloak revealing the worn brown shirt and knit pants. He covered her as she rose looking across the arena where a moment before several dozen fighters had gathered to jeer and cheer. The place lay empty. That voice she had heard command their departure had apparently worked. Just she and the Healer’s son stood there in the great arena.
“Thank you.” She spoke as she bent over and around, judging the condition of her dress. The shredded fabric, and blood soaked lace fell through her fingertips beyond repair. She pulled the cloak tight around her form, hiding the soiled and shredded garment beneath.
Jabari did not acknowledge her thanks as if no thanks he required. He instead wiped his knife clean and sheathed it at his side, then he unlatched the sheath and handed the weapon to her with both hands and a bow.
Gwendoline did not want a knife; she wanted to go home, but she understood the gesture.
He just stood there watching her as she latched it to the cloak, before she tried to fix her hair.
She looked up to catch his gaze upon her. “I do look a mess, Don’t I?”
“You never look a mess, Gwendoline.” He turned away from her.
She could only smile. She felt something inside him, an understanding of her loneliness and fear. She had never heard him named a Dreamer as she but somehow he understood how she felt despite his lacking the Dreamer Curse. When he reached out his hand, she offered her own. He led her from that dirty place.
Quickly he walked down a long corridor. To each side, low torches lined the glistening rock as it jutted out, casting shadows upon the hay strewn floor. He walked faster, then he stopped. Gwendoline brought her body to abrupt halt so as not to crash into him. He turned a corner and ducked up under an archway to enter a room that smelled not of the dankness of the caves but of books.
Gwendoline’s eyes went wide. Across the floors lay plush rugs. Across each wall that lifted high above, an intricate tapestry woven into designs which told stories. They held stories of the time before, stories of the gods’ departure, of the day the
Healer’s ancestor met with others upon the Mount to receive great gifts and an even greater charge, stories of great battles, victory and loss, days of happiness and days of sorrow. They told the great stories that shaped their people and their land. If this much pictorials displayed, what more might these shelves of many, many books hold? How did he know?
He must have noticed the questions running through her mind. “You carried a book that night you arrived in the woods. There are many books here. I thought you might find this a more suitable place. The FlameChasers do not come here. You can even see the sky from here.” He spoke in a small voice.
A smile burst forth. Her cheeks rose and plumped as her eyes sailed upon the crevice across the ceiling through which the pale blue sky greeted her as puffy clouds crossed the blue. She wrapped her arms around his neck as the day’s misfortunes melted away. She pulled away in an instant. It simply was not proper.
“I’ll take you back to your room to change your dress if you would like.” He spoke in that same small voice.
She shook her head in refusal. She would be fine for now. She had many books to read, new stories to learn. The task simply could not wait.
“Then I’ll tell Floraline where you are. She will come for when dinner is served.” Jabari played with the threads of a frayed sleeve.
“I would rather you came for me.” Gwendoline looked away.
“Alright.” Jabari spoke simply, before turning to leave her there. An awkward smile stretched the face of the Healer’s son, but Gwendoline found peace in his eyes.
Alone at last, Gwendoline drew up a book with a bright blue cover and found her seat at a desk too big for one person. She opened it to find pages of crisp white. Across those pages perhaps a scribe’s life’s work just waited for her to devour it.