Chapter Four: The Herb-Merchant's Guests

The fourth chapter of Other-Song, my serialized novel-in-progress

Other-Song is a serialized fantasy novel-in-progress. It’s a tale of disenchantment, of abusive technology, of heresy, and of a world hidden in plain sight. Most weekends, I’ll publish a new chapter until it is complete, along with a constantly-updated master page of chapter summaries.

This is the fourth chapter.

In the first chapter, “The Last Party, The Last Song,” Lurian, bastard son of the Hornynal family, serves as a party hosted in honor of his brother, Trendal, attended by the Queen’s nephew, along with many other nobles. The Fel’lal musician he hired for the evening, his friend Tri’aln, plays “the last song” on the instrument, which destroys it. Just before it is destroyed, the lights in the hall suddenly flash brightly and every glass in each guests hand shatters as Lurian looks at them. He is then ushered out by the queen’s nephew through the darkness, who speaks cryptically of a heretic.

In the second chapter, “A Bastard and a Heretic,” Lurian waits outside until all the guests have gone, and then sneaks back into the house to gather things in order to leave. Details of his life unfold: her mother had seduced her husband’s brother and then framed him for rape — a plot to gain control of Horynal manse. While packing for the journey, his mother yells at Lurian from the other side of the door, and then curses him as a “heretic.”

In the third chapter, “The Question of the Wells,” Lurian, traveling without light, becomes lost on the paths near his childhood home and twists his ankle. Stumbling about in pain, he passes out for a short time before continuing on and encountering a strange well. In a series of remembrances, significant parts of his childhood related to questions about the nature of such wells unfold. His older brother, Trendal, claimed the Fel’lal sacrificed children there. The drunken house cook, on the other hand, claimed the Fel’lal made insignificant offerings to them. Later, Erol, a nervous tutor, just before being fired, cryptically confirmed their were offerings at the wells but not of children. Thirsty, and recalling Tri’aln’s dismissive assurance that the wells were just full of water, Lurian drinks from it.

Chapter Four: The Herb-Merchant's Guests

Lurian woke to the shattering of glass.

Voices crowded in after the sound, filling the void left by its sudden sharp crash. Laughter, he thought, or consternation, a chorus of curses and bemusements following each the other, all at once.

“You woke him, Rylan.”

“If she kept books instead.”

“No, I'll get the broom.”

“Hi.”

Lurian understood that last word was meant for him, uttered from a smiling but concerned woman, bending slightly over him, her hair falling over her eyes.

She reached out a hand to him. “I’m Rhi.”

Not certain quite the purpose of her hand, Lurian reached for it anyway. She pulled him up abruptly, but not unkindly, to a seated position.

Everything changed from this new vantage, though the flurry of movement still danced about him. Stormlight spilled through a large window, illuminating clouds of dust kicked up by the ministrations of a fraying broom. The air smelled thick of nyra-smoke, and something slightly acrid and wooden, half-decayed or fermented. It made him think of graves, or wet mushrooms covered in dirt.

The woman, Rhi, was still looking at him, and she had not let go his hand. She squatted, now, her face level with his.

He sneezed.

She laughed, then turned her head towards the window. “Someone who isn't Rylan might want to open that.”

His eyes still adjusting, watering in the dust and smoke, he couldn’t immediately see why she suddenly toppled onto the floor. She landed on her side not far to his right, laughing even more.

Lurian then saw a man behind her, holding a broom.

“I want to talk to him.”

Lurian’s eyes followed the broom up its long wooden shaft, then to the hands which had just wielded it against Rhi. Those hands led along dust-covered black sleeves to shoulders, and from there Lurian found the man’s head and face. Lurian looked at him, and then he suddenly wanted to look away.

He asked, “where am I?”

Another woman appeared, wrested the broom from the man’s hands. “I've got it, Rylan. Why don't you all maybe leave for a bit so I can clean this?”

Recovering from a sudden series of blinding sneezes that seemed summoned to prove her point, Lurian let the man pull him to his feet. As he stood, the thick blanket under which he’d been sleeping fell from him to the floor.

Lurian was naked. The second woman’s voice again, punctuating the realisation Lurian had just grasped. "Oh — his clothes are folded next to the stove."

He grabbed the blanket from the floor and wrapped it around him.

The man, Rylan, and the woman, Rhi, led him into a second room. It smelled less of odd herbs and more of wood-smoke and steam, smooth wooden boards creaking pleasantly under his bare feet. He saw in the centre of the room an iron stove from which issued coiled steel pipes, and a larger, thinner pipe ascending into the ceiling. On a small low table near the stove, folded, were the clothes from his pack.

He had followed the two into the room embarrassed but dazed, and looked about himself awkwardly. Neither seemed inclined to leave, nor even to avert their eyes, though they did not stare. Lurian hesitated, but then reminded himself they’d already seen him naked. It mattered probably little whether if they also watched him dress.

His clothes, warmed by the fire, smelled faintly of a bitter-sweet flower for which he did not know the name. They grew close to the ground, in the cracks between paving stones, a fragile-looking blossom always in the least-likely places. The old cook, Mayna, had made a drink-sick tea from it, but it was always too bitter for him, even with honey.

“You're the missing heretic.”

Lurian was fumbling with the buttons on his trousers. He looked up, followed Rylan’s gaze to his own hands, and then sputtered: “am I missing? Wait — heretic?”

Rylan met Lurian’s eyes, now, and Lurian looked away.

Rhi spoke. “Rylan! Let him wake up.”

Lurian found a chair and took it, crumpling in his hands the red tunic he had been about to put on. “Where am I?”

Rhi poured water into a thick glass and offered it to him. “Do you know Janyr?”

He hadn't been thirsty until bringing the glass to his lips. The water was very cold, scented with mint. “No, I —.” The smells around him no longer seemed chaotic. They swept together, ordered themselves, collected into recollection: “The herb seller at the light-moon markets?”

He recalled her. Janyr was the grey-eyed herb merchant, aloof but not unkind. He’d met her several times, sent to her by his mother for tisanes for her nerves, a cream for her eyes, tinctures to help her sleep. One time, even for help to keep a man from straying, a request Lurian had regretted passing on.

“I am no hexe,” the grey-eyed woman had answered, harshly adding, “tell this to your mother.”

Lurian had, and his mother had slapped him. She’d believed otherwise, as had all the other nobles, but none could get more than minor miracles from the herb-merchant. Janyr would sell powders and creams for the face, teas against consumption and rickets, oils to cure nether maladies contracted from and by straying husbands. She had balms for the skin, spices for the kitchens, leaves for the bath, but never anything the nobles truly wanted.

“She’s my mum,” said Rylan.

Lurian looked at the man again, and this time tried not to look away. His eyes were also grey like the herb-merchants’s, or a grey-green. His face was angular like hers, his cheekbones high, his jaw strong. Like hers, there was something in the man’s face—maybe the eyes — that made Lurian always want to look away. Better that, then find himself staring and then, in the end, not being able ever to look away.

Lurian looked away from the man, and his words returned to him. “Is this your house?”

Rhi answered instead. “It’s Janyr’s house, yes. You were roaming on the well paths, prophesying. Tri’aln found you, and brought you here, a few days before we arrived.”

Not knowing how to answer, Lurian remained silent.

“She’ll be back from the light-moon market tonight. It would have looked suspicious to ignore the nobles while she’s hiding you.”

Lurian’s hands were empty now, and he didn't know where the empty glass from which he had been drinking now was. His hands free, he grasped the combed-wool tunic in his lap, crumpled it again, and then buried his face into it. The lingering scent calmed him slightly, skimming off a bit of the roiling confusion. He thought perhaps he might stay that way, his face hidden, for a little longer.

The door to the room opened, and the third person, the woman who’d sent them out so she could sweep, spoke. “You okay? Rylan — what did you do to him?”

Lurian lowered the tunic from his face. “What was I prophesying?”

Rhi refilled the glass she’d taken and offered to him. “Do you want a bath? Or some food?”

Both sounded good, but he asked again. “What was I prophesying?”

Rhi turned to the other woman, and then to Rylan. “I’ll draw him a bath. Rylan, get him some food.”

Rylan left the room through a different door. Lurian watched Rhi move to the stove, turn a valve, and then leave the room. The other woman had taken up a chair and carried to where he sat, placing it down in front of him and sitting.

“I’m Katrin,” she said. “You’re really confused right now, I’m sure.”

He nodded, and set aside his earlier question for another one. “What’s today?”

Katrin blew her nose into a blue square of cloth before answering him. “Sorry, the dust. So — today's Lightmoon, third-month.” Her face reflected back concern to the blank stare Lurian offered her. “You’re even more confused now.”

Lurian nodded. “It was Darkmoon when I left.”

She nodded. “That’s when they said you fled after attacking your mother and destroying the wyrdlights in the manor, yes. Tri’aln found you on the paths last week and then brought you here to Janyr. Janyr gave you something to keep you asleep until the otherness wore off.”

Lurian had just heard too much, too many things to understand. He stared into the glass of water, watching the tiny bits of leaves dance just under the surface, trying to make sense of what he’d heard. Finally, he caught hold of something. “You know Tri’aln?”

“Yes. She helps Janyr sometimes, and sometimes comes to Thalyrest, too. That’s where we live. We just came here for a visit, but we decided to stay when Janyr told us about you, in case you needed anything.”

The evenness of her words helped him, but he was still quite confused. He gripped to another word she’d said. “What’s otherness?”

She leaned back into the wooden chair as she spoke. “There's a well by the Horynal manse that gifts it. I don’t really understand it completely, I don’t think anyone really does. It’s as if there is another you, another self. A part of you that sees everything from the outside, I guess. You probably drank from that well without gifting it before, so it didn’t know how much you’d like and instead gave you too much.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” Lurian said, trying not to drown.

“Tri’aln didn't tell you about the wells?”

Lurian shook his head.

Katrin shifted slightly in her chair. “Oh. So you must be really, really confused. Look. Maybe I can try to explain all this again later. You’re safe here, at least for now, but maybe not for very long.”

Lurian downed the glass of water. “Where’s Tri’aln now?”

“She probably went to Arenhall. The same people looking for you are looking for her, but she’s very good at not being found. She’ll be fine, I’m sure. And you’ll be okay here for a little longer.”

After his own long silence, he finally chose something, out of all the equally urgent questions, to ask. “So where am I — I mean, where is this house?"

The concern on Katrin’s face softened, as if relieved to answer an easier question. “Just within the Galnwyd. By the old tracks, we’re about a day’s walk from Coryl, six days from Thalyrest, two to Galnhall. They can't find this village without the tracks, and they’re confusing enough around here even if you know the way.”

Lurian couldn't make her positioning agree with the map in his head, and he quickly abandoned the effort. “And today’s Lightmoon.”

She nodded again, amiably. “It could be worse. They could have caught you.”

Rylan entered and interrupted them. He set down a wooden bowl half-full of burnt-smelling oats and, next to it, a small pitcher of cream. “Blame Rhi,” he said, “she knows I can't cook.”

Rhi, just walking through the door, scoffed, then told Lurian his bath was ready.

Despite being over-cooked, the porridge was not inedible. Just as he had not known his thirst until first tasting the water, his hunger suprised him as well. He’d finished half the bowl before Rylan spoke again.

“You ask him yet?”

Katrin growled. “Rylan! Give him time.”

Lurian looked up from his empty bowl. “Ask me what?”

Something like a sigh escaped Katrin’s lips. “Go ahead, Rylan.”

Rylan took another chair and sat down next to Lurian. “Want to come with us to Thalyrest?”

Lurian shrugged. “I'm sitting shirtless in a strange room with strange people. I don"‘t know any of you, I don’t know where I am, and I’ve been in a drugged sleep for several days on a woman’s floor. Why shouldn’t I follow you to Thalyrest?”

Katrin doubled over with laughter, though Lurian had not meant to be funny. Rylan, however, grinned triumphantly. “Exactly. You're in danger, you can’t really stay with my mum forever, there are Examiners looking for you, and you probably have no plans whatsoever. You can live with us, help with the bookstore, change your name and no-one will find you. Besides, we already like you.”

Katrin was still laughing, so Lurian's brief appeal to her yielded nothing. He imagined Rylan would be insistent, sensed from the man's eyes a will that did not easily relent. Thoughts and fears swirled within his own head, though anchored, strangely, by the last thing that Rylan had said.

“Already like me?”

Rylan nodded, and Katrin calmed herself enough to assent.

“You don't know me.”

“Not yet,” Rylan conceded. “But if you're half as funny as Tri’aln told us you are, and if you’re half as dangerous as the Examiners fear you to be, than you’re probably worth knowing."

“Dangerous? I’m not —” he tried, before realising he couldn't seem to release his own gaze away from Rylan’s. “I think — I think I’d really like that bath, please.”

Of all the things he feared he might miss were he ever finally to leave home, privacy had not occurred to him. This house, full of hanging herbs and people, offered no room, no place to hide, no place to think. But they let him at least bathe in privacy.

He gathered time around him in the scented water, a little too hot and thus perfect. He’d expected something less luxuriant than the enameled iron tub in which he lay, filled from the same steel pipes he’d seen in the other room.

In all his imaginings of leaving, he’d not really thought about whether he’d get baths. He’d once had a romantic notion of washing in streams, not really thinking about how cold the water would be. He’d also imagined himself riding away on one of his father’s horses, towards some distant land which might welcome him. Dark smoky taverns and an occasional brawl or knife-fight (had he brought a knife? He couldn’t remember). Even maybe stowing away on a wyrdship, flying to distant shores.

The more predictable, the more realistic, the more actual possibilities hadn't occurred to him. He failed to imagine getting lost on the paths at night, waking in a strange house two weeks later. He’d especially not thought he’d be hunted, nor that his mother would gave concocted some insane story about him attacking her. His father must have hit her again.

Rylan’s abrupt entrance interrupted his thoughts. “Sorry — have to piss. How’s the bath?”

Lurian sat up, wiped soap from his eyes, and sighed. “It’s good, thanks.” He’d wanted to be angry at the intrusion, but another thought pushed this away. “Hey,” he asked, suprising himself. “How does the boiler work?”

Rylan didn’t turn to answer him. “Isn't hot enough?”

“It’s fine. I was just wondering — ours was sealed. I never saw one.”

Rylan laughed. “And you never saw this one. It’s stolen.”

Easing back into the water, Lurian waited a few seconds longer before asking his next question. “It uses wyrd? Or wood?”

“Wood or oil-rock. We'd never use wyrdstones, even if we could get them. The Fel’lal would burn this place down if we did. Not,” he added, turning around, only half-arranged, “that we would want to.”

Lurian didn’t know where to look, so he closed his eyes and rubbed them, instead. “Stolen?"

Rylan stood in place. “Yeah. We paid for it, but the people who sold it to us weren’t supposed to. Rhi says I’m being overbearing.”

Lurian didn't quite follow. “What?”

“I didn’t really have to piss. I just wanted to convince you to come back to Thalyrest with me — us — tomorrow, because I see no reason why you shouldn’t. So…"

Panic suddenly welled up in Lurian. “You're leaving tomorrow?”

“So you should come with us, yeah. I'll be out there if you need me.”

Lurian shook his head. “Rhi’s right. You’re overbearing.”

Rylan laughed. “I know, sorry. But we need someone like you, mate. Tri’aln told us what you did. You can Will — wights can’t even do that without wyrdstones. Only the nightwitch is supposed to know how to do that, and she doesn’t exist, no matter what you were blathering in your sleep.”

“I didn’t do anything.” Lurian replied. “That was Tri’aln.” He didn’t know why she would have lied about it, but he couldn’t feel angry with her.

Rylan went silent for a moment, and Lurian sank under the water, holding his breath. He wanted to stay under until Rylan went away, but he also wanted to know more. When he came up, the water blinding his eyes, he said to Rylan, “What do you mean, Will? And what’s the Nightwitch?”

Rylan eyes seemed to dance in mischief. “You don’t know any of this, do you? Then we’ve got a lot to tell you. And we’re leaving tomorrow, so you’ll have to come with us if you want to know.”

Lurian felt lost suddenly, forgetting what had just been said. Something in Rylan’s eyes reminded him of the light of summer midstorms, and the languid warmth of the evenings after them. The calm, pregnant haze of torchlit festivals, lightly drunk with Tri’aln or on his own, the heavy but kind embrace of night air.

“Okay,” Lurian answered. “I’ll come with you. But I’d like to finish my bath now. Alone.”

Rylan didn’t answer, as he had already left and shut the door.