The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 18: The Doyenne's Counsel, Part 6

 Nythelian was a harsh language, but it could be turned to beautiful music. A good language for epic tales and mourning ballads and songs of war; a poor one for love or wooing. Barthim appreciated it at once without speaking a word of it. 

Vos's voice was a surprisingly lovely tenor, and Carala's playing brought an ethereal beauty to that long-empty room that stirred some unknown longing in each of them. Ammas, who remembered what Autumnsgrove had been like when it was alive and bustling with students and scholars, found himself fighting tears, imagining those wondrous notes echoing through empty cells and libraries and halls that had been enveloped in dust. 

Of Vos's companions, only Ammas was fluent in Nythelian, but Carala had seen enough (and sang enough) Nythelian opera to have picked up a little of it. Again and again the song Vos sang returned to the lyric And the white moon gazed down upon all. "Gazed" was sometimes "smiled," sometimes "glowered," sometimes "raged," but whatever the song described was clearly happening at Saya's behest.

"It's not a cradle-song you know," Othma said drily when Vos had finished. "But I suppose there must be a hundred versions of that tale. And your playing is better than I expected, your highness, though pretty things are often the most poisonous. Vos of Nythel, spare an old woman's dry throat and tell us the tale of the bride and the Moon."

Still flushed, not at all used to being the center of attention like this, Vos nonetheless agreed with a nod. "It is the story of a Nythelian farmer named Hath and his young wife, Terille. They were young and prosperous and happy, but their farm was not far from the coast, and so they lived under the threat of the Sons of the Moon, who often stole men and murdered their women, carrying the men back to their island in the Azure Sea to turn them into wolf-warriors like themselves. One night, when Terille was tending to her sick mother, their farm was attacked and Hath was taken. Terille mourned, but she was friends with a blacksmith's apprentice, Athera, and Athera was determined her friend should not lose her husband."

"They're a little more than friends in the version you just sang," Ammas remarked with a smirk.

"Well, perhaps," Vos grinned. "As the good Doyenne said, it's not a cradle-song. Whatever she was to Terille, Athera forged her a blade dusted with silver, and together they sailed from Nythel to the Azure Sea to rescue Hath before the Sons of the Moon could turn him. They had many adventures. There are versions of that song that go on for hours; there is a whole opera based on it, in fact. But in the end they came to the island in the Azure Sea and waged a war on the Sons of the Moon. Athera killed their chieftain, but was badly injured herself. Before she died she brought his heart to Terille. When Terille found Hath, he was already in the shape of a wolf. She begged him to remember her, and offered the chieftain's heart instead of her own. Hath devoured the chieftain's heart, and the wolf left him, letting him be a man again. Terille and Hath returned to Nythel -- the return trip was not so adventurous -- and lived happily to the end of their days, naming their firstborn daughter after Athera, building a shrine to her with the silver-dusted sword."

"Well-told," Othma said with a smile. "Sit again, Vos of Nythel. I shall not place you in the middle of the stage again." Gently she took the harp from Carala, idly running her fingers along the strings, raising a series of eerie tones. "As with most legends, there is a pearl of truth nestled in this one's heart. When the fellowship of cursewrights destroyed the Sons of the Moon, they laid bare all of their secrets, and they did so at the request of a Nythelian woman who had lost her husband. The song, of course, leaves out that the cursewrights had been arguing with the Malachite Throne for years to do something about the Sons. The cursewrights took it on themselves to handle the affair when the Sons stole away almost an entire village of men and boys, raping and murdering dozens of their women. And their children, too -- your father isn't the only merciless beast in our history, your highness. Among those secrets was how one might undo the ritual that was at the center of the Sons' existence -- the very ritual that created whatever wolf infected you, your highness."

"Then it is preserved somewhere," Ammas said. "Here? Do you have notes, a journal, anything?" An eager gleam was in his eye, and it could not be clearer that he believed they were on the very edge of curing Carala. She felt it too: the anger had fled her face to be replaced with hope.

"It is simplicity," Othma said, turning her good eye to Ammas. There was a regret there that dashed Ammas's optimism. "Any of the established remedies will work. But a certain ingredient must be incorporated, a unique ingredient. To whatever potion or ritual you perform to rid Carala of the wolf, you must add a tincture prepared with the essence of the heart of whatever unfortunate human was altered by the ritual in the first place. Every version of this old song is correct in this single detail: she must devour the heart of whatever creature is responsible for her condition."

"Not the one who bit me?" Carala asked in a whisper. She imagined Tacen's body must have been burnt to ashes by now, or dumped into the River Seith. The prospect of drinking a potion that contained a werewolf's heart was far less frightening to her than the idea they might never find the correct heart at all.

"No," Othma shook her head. "Whoever infected you is too far removed from the ritual. I can see that in your blood. Only the subject of the ritual himself will do. I take it," she turned back to Ammas, "you have some information as to where this person might be found?"

"Gallowsport," Ammas replied softly. "Everything we have learned points there."

"Then you must go to Gallowsport, if you hope to cure this woman. You must find the original wolf born when this awful rite was stolen from our archives, and you must kill it, and you must harvest its heart. There is a recipe for the tincture I will furnish you; it is not difficult. Depending on how many have been infected, you may be able to cure more than just Carala. But likely not all. No, not all. Whoever would be fool enough to unleash this evil on the world would not be wise enough to keep their numbers limited."

A little silence, punctuated by Othma's idle strumming on the harp, fell among them as they absorbed this. Carala felt her hope diminished, but not destroyed. She had already traveled from Talinara to Munazyr and found a cursewright, and now had come to Autumnsgrove to find another. Surely she could survive one last journey, especially with these men helping her; with Ammas sworn to her service.

Barthim was the one to break that thoughtful quiet, Othma's music coming to an abrupt, jangling halt. "It is a quest we are on, then! Just like Terille and Athera in Vos Goldentongue's song. A quest that is worthy of the Hethmar. I am honored, good Ammas, good Doyenne."

"A quest," Othma sneered, her voice dripping with more contempt than she had demonstrated even for Carala. "Worthy of the Hethmar. Tell me, Barthim of Siranesh, did you know there is a Hethraeum in Vilais? A very beautiful one, all white marble and polished stone. The statue of Il-Hethma the First Knight wrestling the fallen angel is among the finest in the world."

"I am knowing of this place," Barthim said uneasily. "I have not seen it myself."

"Then you know your faith is a popular one here in the Reaches. Thousands of noble Blades of the Hethmar, eager to prove their valor. Barthim of Siranesh, you were only a boy, I am sure, but do you know where these valorous men were when my grandson was burned alive? When the Emperor's cohorts descended on this place? When innocent men and women were butchered for the crime of belonging to fellowships that are far, far older than the family that holds the Malachite Throne now?" 

The Doyenne's voice was climbing into tones of clear, carrying fury, and Barthim quailed before it, which was something Ammas had never seen. Casimir looked terrified. 

"They were nowhere. They stayed in Vilais, in Munazyr, in Talinara. They drank in their marble pits, they laughed and joked with all the other pious priests and priestesses, they stood aside while the greatest places of learning the world has ever known were set aflame. They no more raised a finger to stem the rivers of blood that flowed at the Emperor's command than did the moneychangers of Tol Daether. At least the moneychangers are honest about what they do, Barthim of Siranesh. At least no one expected them to help. A cursewright or an astrologer who looked to your Blades for help only made it easier to have his eyes put out."

"But -- Doyenne Sulivar -- I am not -- "

"Do not speak to me of your valor. Do not speak to me of the will of the gods. They are less true than the cowardice that runs through every one of the Ninefold faiths, even yours." Othma Sulivar's good eye blazed with a seemingly illimitable rage. "Nothing, they did nothing, not when my Nelahn burned, not when the Maathinhold itself was destroyed, not when Senrich Mourthia -- "

"That's enough," Ammas said angrily, rising from his seat.