Herrien, Book 1
authors and owners of this writing: Jean Buckhalter and Greg Hartzog
This is our work, and our work alone. If you should copy it, do not change it, use it in your own work or change and say it is yours. Give us the credit for the work, do not steal.
The Beginning - T'zurias (pronounced Zur e az)
Herrien, Book 1
authors and owners of this writing: Jean Buckhalter and Greg Hartzog
This is our work, and our work alone. If you should copy it, do not change it, use it in your own work or change and say it is yours. Give us the credit for the work, do not steal.
The Beginning - T'zurias (pronounced Zur e az) written in 2001
Herrien School had been there longer than man or woman, with her infinitely longer memory, could recall. There were times when one would wonder which had been there first, the great granite mountain, or Herrien School. Indeed, if Herrien School had been there first, then the immense granite mountain had grown up around the school as a thorn flower bush engulfs a trellis. At least that is how it seemed to T’zurias, son of Taran the Merchant, as he stood outside his father's warehouse.
One of Taran’s cargo ships had docked that morning and T’zurias was awaiting the arrival of the huge, slow-moving drayage wagon. He yawned, stretching his stocky but well-formed body, twisting and moving gently to get the night kinks from his muscles and bones, unthinkingly running his fingers through the long, thick nut-brown curls. T’zurias disliked his hair and would have preferred it cut short, yet women, including both his mothers, seemed to love his hair long and full. Deep inside him, the empty cavern which he called his stomach and M’areen his mother called a bottomless pit, grumbled and groaned, making its needs known.
Two stories above T’zurias, Taran the Merchant looked out the window at his seventh-born son and smiled in satisfaction. Taran felt that T’zurias was perfectly suited by temperament and training to take over operation of the family business. Taran sipped his hot morning caffe while making a mental note to begin introducing the new luxury item to various important people around town. Hopefully this would spur demand for the imported caffe beans and all their paraphernalia from as far away as Kingsland, the capitol. Glancing down the street to see if the drayage wagon had yet left the docks, Taran noted with great satisfaction that the huge transport ship he had commissioned a full two turnings earlier was now riding high at the docks. This meant it had been emptied of its cargo and that the drayage wagon would now be filled and on its way. His glance returned to his son and he smiled, recalling the day of T’zurias’s birth on the couch in his office.
M’areen, one of his two life partners, was bringing the afternoon meal that day. She was feeling uncomfortable, as she was in her last moon of pregnancy, and felt the short walk from their large home to Taran’s warehouse just up the street would help. She felt the first birthing pains start about the time she lifted the basket containing a hearty meal of thick stew, fresh bread and a large slab of winterberry pie all wrapped in a cheerful red and white checkered napkin. Kaythe, Taran’s other life partner, was busy with the twins in the nursery but heard M’areen’s soft sound of discomfort. Keeping her voice quiet as always, she called down to M’areen, asking if she should carry the meal to Taran. M’areen smiled, going to the bottom of the stairs, and calling upwards to reassure Kaythe that she was fine, that the pain was only a twinge and she would return soon. The two women had great love and respect for each other sharing the household, Taran, and the growing number of children with grace and aplomb, and without the little pecking order problems often encountered by triads.
The second pain came as M’areen neared the baker’s shop. She stopped for a moment on the wooden sidewalk to find her breath, thinking perhaps she and Taran’s latest child were in a bit of a hurry. But not such a hurry that she needed to return home to her bed. As M’areen entered the warehouse, she smiled and called greetings to the multitudes of employees busily working. The third pain came as M’areen climbed the stairs to Taran’s third story office. On the landing outside Taran’s office, she stopped to gather her breath, thinking that perhaps bed would be a nice place to be as soon as Taran finished his afternoon meal. The contraction finished, she wiped the perspiration from her forehead with the delicate wisp of a handkerchief Kaythe had made for her on last winter's Solstice, and picked up the now much heavier basket. Composing her face into the smile that Taran so loved, M’areen entered his office, crossing to the window where Taran stood looking toward the docks, as he often did. As he wrapped her in his arms to exchange their customary loving kiss, her water broke in a gush. Later M’areen would clearly recall thinking how typical of a child to make a mess before he was half way into the world. The fourth pain hit hard and she dropped the basket, gasping Taran’s name.
Taran took in the soaked carpet and M’areen’s pale, sweating face, and called loudly for one of the employees to get the midwife while putting M’areen to the couch in his office. She gritted her teeth in the pain, groaning, “I don’t think there is time for her to come,” and started pushing. Being wise in the ways of both child birthing and women, Taran slipped a blanket around his partner and yelled loudly for one of the female assistants, diving out of the way like a solider dodging an attacking enemy. The fifth and final pain hit; M’areen screamed in pain as she pushed, and T’zurias exploded into the warehouse. Before the echo of the scream could die away, the midwife flew into the office with her heavy bag clutched in her hands. Before Taran could blink three times, the midwife’s cape was off, her apron on, her hands washed, the babe’s cord tied in two places, and snipped neatly with scissors, with the afterbirth delivered and packed away. T’zurias never cried, but lay on his mother’s stomach, his rich brown eyes calmly surveying the warehouse, taking in his future domain much as a monarch would survey his realm.
Taran recalled all this watching his son, now full sixteen turnings old, handsome, capable, and shining brightly with so much promise. Taran mused how much longer his son would be his alone, for even before T’zurias’s birth in the warehouse Taran had feared, and known, that someday he would lose this child to Herrien School. His other children were competent, yes, and several already worked in the business, but T’zurias was different. T’zurias could settle differences between employees, rough dockhands, and wealthy clients with equal and effortless aplomb. The most tangled mess of shipping schedules, warehouse problems, and any emergency were nothing for this son to handle without thought. Even the house servants, who had been with Taran for more then thirty turnings, performed better for T’zurias than they did for him. Taran groaned softly in his office, not wanting to think what his life would be like should he lose this golden child.
At that moment the golden child was oblivious to his father’s memories. T’zurias was however all too keenly aware of his growling stomach and wanting to get the drayage wagon there and unloaded before the day’s business began. Otherwise he would not have a chance to consume the morning snack his heart mother Kaythe had packed for him before he left the house this morning. T’zurias closed his eyes and leaned back against the gray stonewalls of the warehouse. He enjoyed the feel of the sunlight rising over the walls and listened to the sounds of Herrien Township coming to life. T’zurias inhaled deeply as the baker opened his oven, identifying with his nose the honeycakes, thick loaves of bread, and rolls ready for sale in the shop just across the street. He could hear the creaking of the produce carts as they rolled through the township, still too early yet for the familiar cries of “Taters, onions, carrots and greens, peas, and beans, corn and leeks, come now, come now, fresh grown, fresh grown”. Each smell, every sound as familiar to him as were the faces of his family.
The sound of the huge drayage wagon pulled by the team of ten oxen was as familiar as the rest, and he opened his eyes, preparing to push away from the wall. His job was to stop the traffic of smaller carts long enough for the drayage wagon to pull in to the offloading dock of the warehouse. A high-pitched scream pierced the normalcy of T’zurias’s world and his head snapped around to locate the source of the sound.
Down the cobblestone street a woman ran, her clothing torn and hanging from her thin shoulders, looking as if she was a wraith fresh from the grave trying escape all the demons of Hell. She ran mindlessly, panic showing clearly, not looking where she was fleeing. She seemed so caught up in her escape from the supernatural world that she was oblivious to the natural world around her including the lumbering drayage wagon. The drayage wagon and its oxen team, massive, coming fast, and impossible to stop or swerve, was certain to be the end of the woman.
From where he watched for the drayage wagon in his office, Taran saw the woman’s terrified race. He heard the yells of the oxen driver as he frantically tried to will his team to a stop, despite the impossiblely heavy wagon behind them. Taran’s heart jumped into his throat, as he watched T’zurias shoot like an arrow from where he had been busily holding up the wall of the warehouse toward the panicked woman directly in the path of the tons heavy drayage wagon and deadly oxen hooves. Caffe filled mug slipping from suddenly nerveless fingers, Taran watched his son rushing toward his destiny. Taran suddenly knew this day he would lose the one son whom he secretly loved the dearest, the one son whose shining abilities were so evident to all. Later M’areen would weep as she scrubbed the caffe stain from the very spot on the carpet where T’zurias’s birth waters had spilled on the day he was born. As she wept she could not help but think that surely she should have seen the foreshadowing of his life in those sacred waters and cursed not having been able to stop the inevitable.
Reacting without thought, T’zurias pushed off hard from the wall, running as swiftly as he could to sweep the woman into his arms and then leap out of the path of the speeding team and heavily laden drayage wagon. With the woman locked in his arms, he landed heavily on his shoulders and arms as he rolled up onto the wooden sidewalk across the street. With absolute clarity of vision T’zurias scanned his body quickly for injury, wincing as he noted the torn trousers and dirt now covering his clothes, already hearing the voices of his mothers in his ears. He could also feel bruises starting to rise from where he had landed hard on the cobble stone street before rolling up onto the wooden sidewalk. On the whole, T’zurias was certain he was alive and mostly unharmed. He gently started checking the woman in his arms for injury. The woman’s eyes had never blinked and there was no trace of coherent thought behind them. Her eyes were the eyes of a terrified animal, and she started struggling in his arms, trying to free herself from him. Instinctively, T’zurias soothed her as he would a frightened wild thing in his arms; “Hush dearling, hush now, quietly, I have you my girl, hush now, “ T’zurias held her as securely as his strong, young arms would provide as he continued the constant, quiet assurances, rocking her in his arms slowly.
Once the woman began to calm, T’zurias eased himself and the woman to their feet, holding her tenderly in the safety of his strong young arms. As T’zurias did so, a guardsman pulled his horse up short, snorting and blowing, the horse evidently ridden hard to get the guardsman to where the woman was. From where he stood, T’zurias could not see the insignia of Herrien School on the guard’s collar. T’zurias only saw that the new arrival was a Guard, armed, and obviously coming to retrieve the woman. The woman struggled in his arms, a soft, animalistic keening deep in her throat, as she tried again to escape and resume her running. T’zurias held her as he continued the constant stream of soothing talk, calming her as he would a wild animal. Protectively, T’zurias pulled her closer in his arms, his constant reassurances pouring over her and soothing away her terror, feeling as she started to relax in his protective embrace, under his constant stream of soothing talk.
The guard sergeant who had pulled his horse up dismounted cautiously, quietly, watching the young man with the insane Seer in his arms. Hoping that she was controlled for now, so he and the young man would not become the insane Seer’s next two victims, he walked cautiously to them. The guard sergeant cleared his throat to get the young man’s attention. Sergeant Ker’shai took note of how the woman clung to the young man holding her, much like a barnacle to the side of a ship. He knew that it would be futile, and more likely suicidal for him or anyone else to attempt to remove the insane Seer from the young man’s arms. Ker’shai cleared his throat, and T’zurias looked up in question. “Pardon, Sir, but if you could accompany us, we can get the young lady to where she can be helped.” Hearing his men pulling up behind him Sergeant Ker’shai motioned them to lower their weapons and stand off.
T’zurias opened his arms experimentally, noting that the woman no longer made any attempt to detach herself from him, let alone escape and run. T’zurias paused his stream of soothing talk and replied, “Um, I guess I am going to have to”. T’zurias then resumed his stream of quietly calming talk to the lady in his arms. Sergeant Ker’shai congratulated himself silently on avoiding getting killed so far and not upsetting the obviously wealthy young man with the Seer in his control. T’zurias cursed himself mentally on his less than elegant and worldly choice of words.
The guard Sergeant ordered one of his men to get a cart from the local guardhouse around the corner. As he stood their waiting with the woman in his arms, T’zurias took it all in, the woman’s condition, the tattered rags of what once was obviously fine quality clothing, her soft hands unaccustomed to work, and the armed guardsmen. T’zurias reached the erroneous conclusion that the woman was from a wealthy home and, having gone insane, had been sent to Herrien Township so she could be treated at Herrien School's renowned hospital. Recalling his father, his duty, and the drayage wagon now waiting to unload, T’zurias motioned with his head to the warehouse door without interrupting the stream of soft soothing talk to the woman in his arms. Much to T’zurias’s amazement and gratitude the Sergeant understood exactly what he was trying to indicate. The Sergeant immediately headed into the warehouse where T’zurias hoped the Sergeant would relate his current situation and forthcoming destination to his father. Turnings later, T’zurias’s sharpest recollections of that morn were the smells from the bakers, the growling in his stomach and the feeling of something so very right about holding this frightened young woman close in his protective arms, keeping her quieted and comforted with his words.
A small and rickety cart lumbered up, pulled by an ancient nag of venerable years. The discontented animal, rudely taken from his morning grain and put into harness, looked back almost accusingly at T’zurias as the gathered guardsmen lowered the back of the cart and helped T’zurias and his firmly attached woman to climb into the cart. The woman whimpered softly in his arms as T’zurias tried to get them both situated comfortablely for the upcoming trip. T’zurias soothingly stroked her hair, his fingers working through the mass of silken tangles, his soft voice never ceasing as he gentled her with word and touch. Sergeant Ker’shai rode next to the cart, his eyes rarely leaving the woman, watching for the first sign that her Gift was going active again. He nodded to the bowmen who rode behind the cart with bows strung and arrows notched. The young sergeant made several quick battle hand talk gestures to them indicating to shoot first if there problems and to try to avoid killing the young man if possible.
T’zurias‘s heart beat faster as he realized where they were going, Herrien School. When they passed through the high stonewalls of Herrien School with its huge metal gates, T’zurias’s heart moved up into his throat. For as long as he could recall, he had wondered about the school of Seers and Guides, wondering what sort of folk they were, what happened behind those granite walls, deep within the mountain. Time and again, Seers or Guides would enter the warehouse looking for this thing or that and he would rush to wait on them. T’zurias hoped that by talking to them he would finally get some understanding of what sort of people Guides and Seers were. But Taran would inevitably get to them before he did, and then send T’zurias off to the bowels of the warehouse basement on some obviously spurious excuse. T’zurias’s older brothers and even a younger sister had been sent to Herrien School many times to delivery purchases and messages, but T’zurias had never been allowed to go. Once T’zurias had confronted Taran with this, determined to satisfy his curiosity, asking why he could not deliver some little thing to Herrien School. The look of pain in his father’s eyes and the way his mothers showed their heart’s fears as they looked at each other, cooled his burning need to know, and T’zurias dropped the subject. As T’zurias’s brown eyes bore into his father’s, T’zurias sensed that somehow this was an old wound of his fathers, and one that he should not reopen.
The cart and its entourage pulled up to the huge stone staircase curving gracefully to the cobbled drive topped by huge iron banded doors carved deeply with the insignia of the School of Seers and Guides. To T’zurias’s right, barely noticed, was a huge thorn flower garden liberally scattered with benches handy for taking one’s ease. The thorn flower bushes were intermingled with heavily laden fruit trees and a large fountain burbled in the center of this small paradise. T’zurias’s excitement grew, but he continued to focus on comforting and calming the woman in his arms. At the bottom of the great stairs waited two men and a woman. One man was tall and young, not even near middle age, dark of hair and with golden skin. The other man was older, shorter, and somewhat stooped, looking as if he bore the weight of the twin moons on his shoulders. The woman who stood waiting bore tearstains on her cheeks, flax pale hair falling over her shoulders in some disarray, her glorious blue eyes filled with ineffable sadness. Around her neck and that of the shorter man was a chain and cage of gold. But the truly amazing thing was within each cage a golden crystal gleamed, looking as if it bore life within its depths.
Cautiously, Sergeant Ker’shai and his men assisted the young man and the insane Seer from the cart, handling them as gingerly as they would have a living death adder, the most poisonous and fortunately rare snake known. Once the young man and his dangerous companion were standing on their own at the base of the great stair Sergeant Ker’shai and his men gladly backed away and left, pleasantly surprised to have survived this day. The man with the golden crystal at his throat spoke, his voice sounding rough with emotion and tears, “If you will follow me, we will get her to where the Healer and my Guide can help.” He continued under his breath but T’zurias was able to barely hear, “If she can be helped…dear gods please let them be able to help her.” The woman, the Guide, T’zurias guessed, reached out to touch the younger woman as T’zurias entered the doors. A soft sob escaped her throat and her long, slender fingers shook as they lightly stroked the girl’s pale forehead.
Once his eyes adjusted to the darker interior entryway of the School, T’zurias noted with some disquiet the char marks on pieces of furniture. That is, the furniture that was still in one piece and not the scattering of shattered furniture pieces that seemed to litter the entire hall. His uneasiness rose as he noted the people who were in the hall as they entered quickly scurried away, in evident fear. The older man, the wearer of the golden crystal, motioned him to the large, sweeping staircase. At any other time T’zurias would have been enchanted by its beauty and craftsmanship, but the overriding need to keep the young woman quiet, the strange reactions of the folk around him, and his frankly too empty stomach were taking precedence.
They were not at their destination at the end of the first lovely staircase. T’zurias and his charge were lead down a wide hall scattered with the occasional comfortable sofa or grouping of chairs. Flowers in graceful vases were everywhere, perfuming the air. A pair of caged blue song sparrows with their golden chests and voices like liquid sunshine trilled in complete unconcern near one of the chair groupings. Down the hall they continued, past closed doors, till they reached the next staircase. T’zurias was a strong young man, but even the light form of the ill young woman in his arms was getting to be a bit much. The man with the gold at his throat turned to him, smiling sadly, “It won’t be much further.” T’zurias nodded in reply, murmuring quietly to the woman in his now aching arms, satisfied when she sighed softly, relaxing once again in his arms.
There was another staircase, not as large as the first, but as lovely, then another and the tall, thin man waiting at an open door, having been able to get there faster with his long legs and unencumbered by a clinging woman. Stopping where indicated next to the bed, T’zurias was surprised when the older man sighed, closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, touching the woman clinging to T’zurias. She sighed, her eyes closed, and she starting slipping from his aching arms. Quickly the tall thin man and woman with gold at her throat caught her as she slipped from T’zurias’s now nerveless arms and moved to place her on the bed. They placed her on soft looking sheets and blankets smelling of thorn flowers and lavender. Standing there watching, T’zurias wondered at why his arms, now free of his burden suddenly felt so horribly, almost achingly, empty. The older man turned to him, “Please come to my office for a moment.” Uncertainly, T’zurias turned back to the young woman on the bed, not realizing that his hand reached out to her. Nor did he see the lightning quick glances that passed between the Guide and his Seer or how the brows of the tall man arched with surprise, quickly hidden.
Back down the staircases they went, T’zurias noticing even less than before, conscious only of an empty feeling deep within. He reasoned it was just hunger gnawing through him, not realizing it was the loss of the young woman from his arms that made him feel so hollow inside. The halls were filling now with folk, some servants by what they were doing. T’zurias expected the Guides and Seers to be well dressed, but the servants were as well dressed and obviously content to be bustling and scurrying about to clean up the debris and beginning to scrub the scorch marks from the walls. The man motioned T’zurias through doors marked with a wreath of thorn flowers surrounding a crystal in a cage. T’zurias wondered what name and title the gentleman who lead him bore, tired of thinking of him as the “older, shorter man with the gold crystal.”
As if hearing the question T’zurias was asking himself, the man came to a sudden stop and laughed. He extended his hand to T’zurias, “I am M’eran, Seer and the Headmaster here; the lady is my life partner and Guide, the Headmistress here, K’tan; the tall gentleman is Master Healer Taolin’m; and the sick one you helped is Bak’kara, a Seer.“ He sighed sadly, “Such potential now lost”. M’eran moved to sit behind a desk of deeply carved ironwood, black with age, gleaming with polish. A hammered brass bowl of thorn flowers on one corner of the massive desk, filling the room with their sweet scent. The heavy woven gold brocade draperies were open at the windows and sunlight poured through them to spill over the deep red carpet under their feet. Son of a prosperous merchant, T’zurias unconsciously noted the quality and age of the things in the room, approving the care they received, and thinking how they fit the School so well.
“Now, if you will indulge my curiosity and answer a few questions?” M’eran smiled kindly at T’zurias, who found himself smiling in return. As the markings burned by the smile gave way to a mind numbing sense that he had merged with the once comfortable chair. M’eran had him repeat each detail over and over, often backing T’zurias up to touch upon tiny points again. When M'eran's questions stopped, K'tan's began. Trying to not groan loudly, he rearranged his bruised body several times during the interview. M’eran wanted to know everything with such precision, but seemed to concentrate mostly on how T’zurias felt. “And what were your feelings when you did this, and how did this make you feel?” Just as T’zurias was beginning to truly hate the word “feel” K'tan called in the young sergeant who had been there to go over the same things all over again.
As the morning lengthened into early afternoon and the questions continued, T’zurias’ normally placid temper grew sharper. His stomach had gone past growling to howling like a pack of ravening beasts. His bruised hip and bottom were aching against the wood of the chair, with a deep bruise on his elbow past aching but screaming for attention. T’zurias never had headaches, but the one that was growing in his skull promised to be a monster. Yet the others seemed indifferent to all his discomfort as they droned on and on and on and on. At one point T’zurias idly considered if this was what Bak’kara had been enduring before running to escape.
M’eran stood suddenly, “Come with me T’zurias, I believe you need to see this.” Wincing as he rose to follow the Headmaster and Headmistress, T’zurias tried to silence the cacophony of demands his body was making known. Again they climbed the stairs to the second floor, going down the hall, turning, going down another hall and up a shorter stair to travel yet another hall. T’zurias’s head was pounding, making it hard to walk without focusing all his concentrate on where his feet were going, almost walking into M’eran as the Headmaster stopped abruptly. T’zurias looked up from his feet to see M’eran stopped before a door that appeared to have hacked to bits by a dozen or so soldiers with axes. K'tan gestured to T’zurias to enter the room before them.
T’zurias looked around the room with eyes wide in shock. The once obviously lovely room was devastated. The walls were darkened where some sort of flame had burst against them. In some places bits of sand in the granite had been fused to give the wall a glassy surface. All the wood in the room had been blackened to char, including several pieces of wood that appeared to have been embedded in the solid granite walls by some massive force. The draperies and bed covers had all been turned to ash.
M’eran let T’zurias take in the room for a dozen or so heartbeats an then cleared his throat. “Early this morn Bak’kara woke to find her Trainer, A’mara dead. Taolin’m thinks it might have been his heart as A’mara was one of our older Trainers and in failing health. As can happen to Seers, even student Seers, she went insane with grief, when his mind touch left her. “ M’eran pointed to a deeply blackened area on the floor in the doorway, “Their seneschal had knocked on the door and entered with their morning meal but she was too far gone in her insanity to stop from doing to him what she had done to room already.” He sighed deeply, leading T’zurias from the suite. A quiet sob came from K'tan, surprising T'zurias who had thought of the two, she was one quite without feelings.
They stopped at another blackened spot down the hall from the destroyed door, the carpet burned in the unmistakable shape of a human. “Another servant tried stopping her, tried keeping her from running out of the building.” With a growing sense of horror, T’zurias silently followed them back down the halls and stairs, noting three more blackened spots where presumablely people had tried to stop Bak’kara. Where people had died. When they reached the bottom of the staircase leading back to their office, K'tan turned and looked in his eyes, “Don’t go thinking she is evil or bad, she was insane. Just quite insane.”
T’zurias asked the only question which came to mind. “Can you help her?”
M’eran, hiding his pleasant surprise that it was this question that was asked and no other, looked deeply into T’zurias’ eyes. M’eran drew T’zurias into his space, and nodded, “Normally, not much could be done, but… I have hope in this instance.” M’eran smiled and T’zurias rocked back on his heels, blinking slowly. T’zurias had the vaguest feeling that something had happened, but that feeling quickly faded under the growing cacophony of demands his body was making. T’zurias could not have known that the two had done a lightning fast but deep scan of him, of his mind, of his skills, and found a brightly shining Gift within.
Sergeant Ker’shai was waiting in the Headmaster’s office when they returned and M’eran reached for T’zurias’s hand, shaking it in dismissal. “Well, thank you for your assistance in getting Bak’kara back to us and answering my questions. Sergeant Ker’shai will see you back to your home.” Feeling put out, dismissed as a child, and filled with an odd longing to fly back up the stairs and to the bed where Bak’kara lay so still, T’zurias obediently followed the Sergeant to the waiting cart.
Sergeant Ker’shai saw that the young man did not want to talk on the way back, and clinically noted the young man’s pallor, the shaking hands, and way he kept moving to rearrange his body on the hard bench of the cart. Ker’shai smiled inwardly, making a private wager that within the moon, this young man would be coming back through the gates of Herrien School in Onset Fever.
T’zurias was silent on the trip back, his aches and pains screaming through him, his hunger replaced by nausea and the headache blinding. The ordinary street sounds were too loud, the cart jarred his aching body and he wanted something he could not quite put into words. Suddenly, turning around to look at the great School of Herrien he knew what he wanted; he wanted Bak’kara. The closer he got to the warehouse and home, the worse he felt with a raging headache, bruises feeling the size of stones, and nausea which was coiling in his innards.
Taran stood in the door of the warehouse, waiting the return of his son. As he saw the cart approaching, his heart began beating rapidly. He silently called his traitorous heart back into check. He saw his son, obviously pale and upset, torn trousers, and needing the clean clothing and bath his mothers would insist on.
Also he saw more. Taran saw his son’s pain, mental and physical. Time moved strangely, as it sometimes did for Taran and he saw his son older, Gift shining but honed with use, time jumped again and he saw his son smiling down at a tiny but equally Gifted woman, again and he saw his son weeping uncontrollably, being held back from doing something by a man whose Gift shone so brightly that Taran was afraid to look further.
M’areen and Kaythe had been watching for T’zurias’s return as well and they both ran down the stairs, rushing out the front door to T’zurias. Only by the shared force of both their wills did M’areen and Kaythe keep from weeping over their son’s obvious illness and injuries.
One mother on each side of him, they chivied T’zurias back to the house, daring their husband with those wifely gleams to object. The mothers’ raised eyebrows informed Taran in no uncertain terms that their son was going home to be bathed, dressed, fed, and made to feel guilty for giving them so much work to do.
Understanding far more than he would admit even to his life partners and deep in his own sorrow for the imminent loss of his favorite child, he made no effort to object and returned to the warehouse to work. The afternoon passed slowly for Taran with only part of his mind on business, much of it on Herrien School, and most on his son. He sat heavily behind his desk feeling all his turnings weighing upon him and turned to look again out the window. His eyes fell to the barely visible stain on the carpet where those birth waters had flowed sixteen turnings before and sobbed softly into his hands. Taran knew that before the sun rose on the morrow his son, this golden child of his heart and body, would no longer be his.
T’zurias was barely aware of his mothers, his world focusing to encompass only pain. His head was exploding with lights so loud, and sounds so bright. Each one breaking against him so painfully that he looked to see if he was bleeding before falling back against his bed. He was marginally aware of his mothers gently removing his clothing and bathing his bruises, moaning as his face was washed, the dust-filled hair brushed with care. The normally soft sheets felt like sandpaper against his skin and he picked at them, trying to move them from his body, but suddenly unable to lift them. Kaythe gently spooned soup into him, her eyes filling with tears as he turned away from the spoon, not wanting food. “Oh M’areen… oh M’areen sister he is so ill, so very ill.” Heart mother and birth mother sat next to him, sponging him constantly to try to lower the fever raging through his body, knowing that otherwise he would be leaving them soon, trying by determination alone to keep their son with them.
His twin sisters stood in the doorway, aware only that their most beloved brother was ill, frightened at this, their mothers' fears making their own even greater. Their old nurse pulled them away from the door, taking them to their room and letting them weep against her ample bosom, her own tears dripping onto the twin heads of red and gold.
T’zurias spiraled down into blackness, into colors that screamed at him, sounds that broke against his skin, and shapes that flapped all around, threatening to swarm over him. He cried out and fell back into the blackness, not hearing his parents or feeling their tears. T’zurias did not hear as Taran explained in sobs to his life partners what was afflicting their son and why he knew about this particular illness, Onset Fever. T’zurias did not feel as he was carried in his father’s arms down the stairs and placed tenderly on a pallet on a cart. He did not feel as they drove him with great speed back through the gates of Herrien School. Nor was he aware of the Healer Taolin’m spooning Onset medicaments through his moaning lips, or the gentle touch of M’eran and K’tan as they sent him into a deeper sleep where his body and mind could heal. As he slipped into that dark void the only thing he could recall was the feeling of Bak’kara’s body, warm and trembling in his arms, and the feeling of such rightness as he soothed her.
T’zurias floated in a world of pain, nausea, sounds, and lights, aware that somewhere in the back of his mind that something was missing. Murmuring voices he could almost understand pierced the fog and he felt something warm and soft placed next to him, something familiar. His hand was lifted and something hard and cold was put in it, then part of the soft, familiar thing was put over the hard and cold.
Rushing through him like a shock wave, the identity of the soft and familiar as woman…Seer…Bak’kara, woke T’zurias from his fog. The unique qualities that made Bak’kara herself whispered through him, filling his mind like the scent of the spices from his mothers’ kitchen. A loud crack exploded in his ears and her hand fell away from his. T’zurias tried to open eyes which were gummed shut from his illness, and felt a soft hand gently sponged away the crust. He opened his eyes and looked at the hard but now warm on his hand and saw a glowing blue crystal.
The soft hand slid a thin leather band under his hand, turning his hand so that the crystal touched. T’zurias watched as if far, far away, noting that somehow the crystal clung to the band. He watched as the soft hands did the same to the woman next to him and watched as the hands lifted the wealth of honey gold hair from the pillow, securing the band around Bak’kara’s throat. The band was slipped from his fingers and secured around his own throat. Bak’kara and T’zurias sighed at the same moment and returned to sleep, turning to hold each other close.
K’tan smiled at M’eran, “There, tis done. Now they will recover.” Shaking his head, M’eran answered, “I hope and pray you are right my Guide. Tis a gamble, pairing a student to an insane Seer.”
K’tan stood, coming into his arms which had opened to her as a flower will open to the sun, “Oh they will be fine. For one, the crystal would not have broken had it not been the correct pairing. For another, even as sick as they both are, they bonded.” K’tan looked back at the two on the bed and smiled, “Don’t worry, my Beloved, Taran’s son will be a far greater Guide than ever was his father.”
M’eran kissed her forehead, whispering so only her ears could hear, “Dearling, you know Taran does not want his son to know he was a Guide.” T’zurias did not hear the gentle whisper, hearing only Bak’kara, calling to him in the darkness, calling him away from pain to find her in the abyss of her madness. Even as her madness spiraled around him, calling him down into it, T'zurias took control of her mind, pulling her from madness. Only then did he sigh and fall into natural rest. Only then did Bak'kara recognize her own mind again and the young man's pain, and she reached out to weave his pain into deeper sleep and smoothe the torn channels into controled Gift.
K’tan, watching from within both their minds saw as the young man in Onset fever found the insane Seer, watched as their minds bonded and he began to gently draw her home. She nodded in satisfaction, knowing that she had been right in thinking Bak'kara would make an excellent Healer. M’eran laughed, his mind joined to hers; laughed in relief and wonder and joy that again he was free of the abyss of Seer madness, that she was his and his Guide and, as always, right about a Student and Trainer, a Seer and Guide. A momentary fear of being locked in madness on the top floor of the School passed through his mind and she turned to him, wrapping her arms around him, pressing her body to his, linking her mind more tightly to his, whispering with mind and voice, “Never shall I leave you my Beloved, never. And never will you fall into madness and despair. This I promise you.”
M’eran kissed her lips, her eyes, her forehead, taking comfort in the touch of her body warm against his, and her mind touch on his, glad that the youngling had been able to call the insane Seer home again. They left the room, calling the young Trainer to the room, giving her the assignment of tending the two until T’zurias was free of Onset Fever, or Bak’kara well enough to tend him. He sighed as they walked to their chambers, “The Council is not going to like us breaking tradition my love.”
K’tan snuggled against him as they walked, “They won’t be too upset, dearling, after all, we saved a strong Healer and T’zurias is the future headmaster after all.” M’eran laughed, thinking how easy she made it all sound, knowing time would prove her right … as always.
