Belli'mar Juraviel was waiting for Lady Dasslerond just beneath the opaque veil of mist. He nodded his approval and his thanks, for in truth, he had little idea of how sternly Dasslerond would treat their uninvited guest.
"You wanted to tell her," he remarked slyly.
Dasslerond fixed him with a puzzled expression.
"About her child," Juraviel said with a hopeful smile.
But that grin could not survive Dasslerond's ensuing glower. "Not at all," the lady said determinedly, and Juraviel knew that his hopes and his guess were misplaced.
"She has no child," Lady Dasslerond added; and she walked past, back down to the world of the Touel'alfar.
Belli'mar Juraviel stood on the mountain slope for a long, long while, wounded by the unyielding coldness of his lady. He had thought that he had found a chink in her armor, a weak link in her great coat woven of duty; but he knew now that he was wrong. He thought of the young ranger in training, Aydrian, and wondered if the boy would ever know the truth of his mother or that she was still very much alive.
"Aydrian," Juraviel said aloud, an elvish title that meant "lord of the skies," or "eagle." Lady Dasslerond had allowed Juraviel finally to name the boy, and had approved of his lofty choice wholeheartedly-yet another signal to Juraviel that Lady Dasslerond thought this young lad could aspire to the epitome of the profession, could become the perfect ranger. Only one other ranger in the history of the training had been given the title Aydrian, the very first ranger ever trained in Andur'Blough Inninness.
That ranger had gone on to live a long, though fairly uneventful, life; and since that time, no one had ever presumed to give the name to another young trainee.
But this one was different. Very different and very special.
Juraviel just wished that Dasslerond would involve Jilseponie with the lad, for her sake and, more important, for the sake of the child.
When Pony awoke, she found, to her relief, that it had not all been a dream; for in her hand she held the parchment given her by Lad;
Dasslerond. She didn't understand the magic that had worked the physica transportation of her corporeal body-or at least some of it-and then o the parchment.
But that was a question for another day, for a day when the rosy plagu was beaten. She still had no solution, no cure, but at least she had a weapo; now. She looked down at the parchment and nodded her relief to find ths neither the poultice nor the syrup required any ingredients that could nc be readily found. It also struck her that many of the ingredients wei flowers, including many of those commonly found in the monks' tussti mussie beds. Perhaps there was something to those old tales of posies ar the like.
Armed with her parchment, Pony rushed downstairs, to find that it w morning again, and late morning at that.
"I thought ye'd sleep the whole of the day away," Belster remarked, ai the grim edge to his voice told Pony of his deeper fears: that this time, t rosy plague had caught her.
"Gather your friends," Pony said, scampering over to the bar and placi the parchment before the startled innkeeper. "We need to collect all th‹ things and put them together quickly."
"Where'dyegetthis?"
"From a friend," Pony replied, "one who visited me in the night, and (we can trust."
Belster looked down at the beautiful script on the page, and, though could barely read, the delicate lines of calligraphy certainly gave him sc indication of who that nighttime visitor might have been. "Will it work? "he asked.
"It will help," Pony answered. "Now be off and be quick. And find one who can scribe copies, that we might send them to the south!"
Later that same afternoon, Pony knelt beside the bed of Jonno Drinks. She had lathered his emaciated, racked body with the poultice and had spooned several large doses of the syrup into him. And now she had her soul stone in hand, ready to go in and do battle with her newest allies beside her.
She found the plague waiting for her, like some crouched demon, wounded by the elven medicines. But that wound only seemed to make the tiny plague demons even more vicious in their counterattack, and Pony soon found herself slouched on the floor, overwhelmed and exhausted.
Jonno Drinks was resting more comfortably, it seemed, but Pony knew that she had done little to defeat the plague, that she and her elven-made allies might have bought the poor man a little comfort and a little time, but nothing more.
Still, she went at the plague again the next day, and the next after that, fighting with all her strength, again trying various gemstone combinations.
Jonno Drinks was dead within the week, leaving Pony frustrated and feeling very small indeed.
Chapter 31
Abbot Braumin's eyes widened when his door swung open and Timian Tetrafel, Duke of the Wilderlands, Baron of Palmaris, stormed in, a very agitated Brother Talumus right on his heels.
"I tried to keep him out," Talumus started to explain.
"Keep me out indeed!" Tetrafel boomed. "I will raze your walls if ever I find the doors closed to me again."
"The abbey is closed," Abbot Braumin said, working hard to make his tone calm, to show complete control here.
"And the streets are full of dying people!" Tetrafel yelled at him.
"That is why the abbey is closed," Braumin replied, "as should be Chasewind Manor-none to enter and none to leave."
"I am watching my city die about me," Tetrafel fumed, "and I have had to expel several servants and soldiers from my own house these last three weeks! It will catch us in our holes, I say!"
"A situation more likely if we come out of those holes," said Abbot Braumin, "or allow others in."
"Are you not hearing me? " the Duke cried. "The rosy plague has entered my house."
Abbot Braumin stared long and hard at the man, trying to be sympathetic but also holding fast to his pragmatism. "You should not have come here," he said. "And you, Brother Talumus, should not have let him in."
"He had an army with him," Talumus protested. "They said that-"
"That we would tear down your doors," Tetrafel finished for him. "And so we would have done just that. Thrown St. Precious open wide for the masses to come in." He walked over to the room's one window and tore the curtain aside. "Can you not see them down there, Abbot Braumin?" he asked. "Can you not hear their misery? "
"Every groan," replied Braumin, in all seriousness and with not a hint of sarcasm in his words.
"They are afraid," said Tetrafel, calming a bit. "Those who are not afflicted fear that they soon will be, and those who are… they have nothing to lose."
Braumin nodded.
"There are fights all around the city," the Duke went on. "Those few ships that do come in cannot find anyone to help unload their cargoes. The farmers who come in with crops find themselves assaulted almost as soon as they pass through the city gates, the mobs of miserable, helpless victims fighting for food they can no longer afford to buy."
Abbot Braumin listened carefully, understanding then the fears that had brought Tetrafel so forcefully, and so unexpectedly, to St. Precious. The plague continued to intensify in Palmaris, ravaging the city; and Tetrafel was afraid, and rightly so, that the city could explode into rioting and mayhem. Braumin had heard rumors that the city guardsmen were not overfond of their new ruler, and no doubt Tetrafel was having trouble controlling them. Thus Duke Tetrafel, coming into St. Precious with such fire and self-righteousness, was in fact guided by simple desperation. The city had to be put in line or suffer even worse, and Tetrafel was afraid that he could not rely on the soldiers to carry out his orders.
"All that you say is already known to me," Braumin said, after Tetrafel finished his long rant.