Of Truth and Beasts

“A curiosity. I would think any bit of recovered knowledge would interest a sage as much, if not more. Are these ingredients for something? Is it a type of healing salve, like I have seen Wynn sometimes carry?”

“Not a salve ... a draught, a liquid concoction, at a guess.”

She paused long, never even blinking, and Chane grew unnerved. Before he spoke, she cut him off.

“I’m uncertain of the full process, since it isn’t described in detail. By your translations, the text contains only cryptic references, perhaps key points or reminders of some more explicit procedure. It does not appear to be thaumaturgical—or, rather, alchemical—in nature, so perhaps a mundane process.”

Chane sagged a bit. Even for these grains of knowledge gained, he had hoped for something more conclusive. His own body was almost indestructible, but Wynn’s was not. He would use anything that might keep her whole and sound. Yet if Hawes could not decipher the process hinted at, what chance would he have to do so? He was no thaumaturge, let alone highly skilled as a conjurer. He worked mostly by ritual, sometimes spell, and rarely ever artificing, even in its most common subpractice of alchemy.

“What is this seventh item?” he asked again.

Open suspicion surfaced in Hawes’s expression.

“Anasgiah ... is perhaps Old or even Ancient Elvish,” she said, correcting his failed pronunciation. “I found no translation for it, though I’ve heard something similar. Anamgiah, the ‘life shield,’ is a wildflower in the lands of the Lhoin’na.”

Chane wanted more, but clearly Hawes’s patience thinned with each answer. Instead of pressing her on this, he picked up the second sheet of his scribbled marks before her patience ran out. This one he had shown her with hesitation; it concerned a starkly different topic.

“And this list,” he said. “Do you know any of these ingredients?”

Hawes whispered in warning, “What kind of ... man ... carries works of healing, only to stack them with something of deadly harm?”

Malice flickered so openly across her stern features that Chane tensed.

“It is a poison, as a whole?” he asked. “Or is only one component so?”

He already knew some ingredients for Welstiel’s violet concoction were benign. Others baffled him, particularly the flower he knew as Dyvjàka Svonchek—“boar’s bell” in Belaskian. Hawes might be as puzzled as she was suspicious.

“Do you know the flower?” he urged. “Perhaps by a name other than those I translated?”

In one quick step, Hawes closed on him.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “And make no mistake: I have no fear of you!”

Her claim was obvious, though Chane could only guess how skilled she might be beyond what he had seen. After their encounter at the council chamber, it made him wonder again why she had assisted him at all.

“You do not agree with the way the guild has treated Wynn,” he said, hoping to throw her off balance.

“Agreement is irrelevant,” she returned instantly. “The guild’s purpose comes first. Answer my question.”

To Chane, there were few who mattered among the common herds of human cattle. Fewer still who would be a loss at their death. Wynn was foremost among these.

Hawes was obviously well beyond the unworthy masses, and beyond many here within the guild’s walls. Had he stumbled upon a hidden, if adversarial, ally that Wynn had not recognized?

“I am the one who keeps Wynn safe,” he answered.

Hawes lifted only her eyes, not her head, glaring up at him, as if his superior height were nothing but an annoyance.

“It has been called Léchelâppa,” she said.

Chane frowned. It sounded Numanese, but he could not translate it in his head.

“Corpse-Skirt,” she added in different terms. “It was used by some in the past as a common way to draw out and kill vermin ... foolishly, considering livestock were attracted to it. I know of no one who carries it or sells it ... or would be allowed to do so.”

So it was known in this part of the world.

Chane was grateful for the information, but one thing disturbed him. Hawes openly discussed an illegal substance, but she never asked what this second deadly concoction was for. This left him wary.

He slowly reached out and took the list of components from The Seven Leaves of Life out of her hand. Clutching the book and his note sheets, he held up the glasses, peering once through their clear lenses.

“My thanks,” he said. “I am late in meeting Wynn.”

If his sudden desire to leave startled the premin, she did not show it. She cocked her head to the side, still eyeing him, and simply nodded.

Without another word, Chane strode out and down the passage. Late as he was, his own quarters were close, so he took both flights of stairs two at a time. Fumbling briefly with the key to unlock his guest quarters, he went directly to the desk, hiding the glasses and his other burdens in a lower drawer. As Chane turned to leave, his gaze fell upon Wynn’s stacked journals, and he winced.

The mere sight of them hurt for what he had found—or rather not found—in their pages.