At that I did turn to look at Jusson, but the king was also watching the preparations. The clerks were placed on the stacks of wood, with more kindling and rags placed on top. Someone shook a jug of oil over them and then a tinderbox was struck, sending sparks flying down on the oil-soaked pyre. Tiny flames sprouted—and as they did, the wind swooped down, blowing about Dyfrig and causing his Staff of Office bells to chime.
“Rabbit,” everyone said.
“It’s not me,” I said back.
The wind now swept over the pyres and the flames exploded as if fanned with bellows, steam rising up in a white cloud. However, Dyfrig ignored the aspect even as it pulled on his robes. Moving as if his bones ached, he went to stand before the burning pyres. The townspeople pressed around, forming a solid wall of mourners that displaced all the outlanders—including me and Jeff. Including the king. None of us argued, though. At Jusson’s nod, we fell back to the outer edges to give them more room as Dyfrig immediately plunged into the ceremony for the dead.
“As we came into this world, so we go out—”
Despite his frail appearance, the doyen’s voice filled the square, even as he competed with the wind.
“What?” I asked, my voice very soft.
But the aspect didn’t answer. Instead it blew harder, echoing in the spaces between the buildings with a mournful wail.
“Now’s not the time for signs and wonders, Rabbit,” Jusson said, his voice also very soft. “Control it.”
I had already come to the same conclusion and was holding out my hand. The wind whirled around me, the force of it causing the hair that had escaped my braid to beat about my face. But instead of swirling into its normal sphere, it flew back to Dyfrig and formed at his shoulder. Wyln turned to stare at me, his brows pulling together in a frown. As did Laurel.
“What happened?” Jeff whispered, his eyes wide.
“I don’t know,” I said. Feeling stupid—and oddly bereft—I dropped my hand. Off in the distance, just at the edge of my hearing, was a heavy sound, like storm-driven waves crashing against the shore. I edged closer to Wyln and Laurel, worried. “Maybe Dyfrig’s need is greater, or something.”
“Fire and earth weak against water, their wards failing,” Wyln said to Laurel, his voice low. “And then air also fails. The quarrel hit Rabbit, Laurel.”
Running a claw through the fur on his chin, Laurel remained silent a moment. He then shook his head. “Cub stories told in the night,” he said, his rumbling voice also soft and low. “Fantastic tales from the Age of Legends—”
“Do you think a water sorcerer could have done this?” Wyln asked, interrupting. “The master player was not slain in dauthiwaesp. Yet this sorcerer controlled the player’s body like an earth master turned necromancer, defying you who are both earth master and the head of the Faena. Defying the Lady through you, her favored shaman. Defying and prevailing.”
Chadde had fallen back with us, and now her brows crooked. “What difference does it make whether it’s fire, water, earth or air?” she asked. “Sorcery is sorcery. Isn’t it?”
“There are certain abilities that are tied into the aspects, honored peacekeeper,” Laurel said. “If someone in the talent becomes unbalanced, then his or her aspect becomes unbalanced too. But—”
“But still, someone with one aspect will not suddenly have abilities of another,” Wyln said, again interrupting. “Water is the storm-bringer, the merry trickster, the master builder, the judge, the keeper of time and measurements, the lord of illusions, mirror images and dreams. It has nothing to do with earth’s cycle of life: fertility, birth, healing, dying and the dead. The dead, Faena, who are the Lady’s—”
“I don’t know about pagan goddesses and water witches,” Ranulf said, his voice more of a croak than a whisper, “but it seemed to me that Master Rodolfo was after Magic Boy, here.”
“I rest my case,” Wyln said, his eyes fire-bright as he looked at Laurel.
“Case?” Beollan asked. “What case? What are you arguing?”
“I don’t know,” Jusson said before Wyln could answer. “But I do know that I don’t want to find out in the middle of the town’s square during a funeral. Let’s finish here and then get back to my house, where you can tell me all about what you’ve just declared proven, Lord Elf.”
At Jusson’s words we fell silent, speaking only to join in the remaining responses, the townspeople in front of us stirring only a little as Laurel and Wyln added their voices to ours as we wound towards the conclusion. At the end, Dyfrig also fell silent and bowed his head, the only sounds in the square the crackling of flames. Jusson moved through the crowd to the doyen.
“You need to rest, Your Reverence.”
“After I see to disposing of the ashes, Your Majesty,” Dyfrig said, his voice once more breaking.
“Do not scatter them, honored elder,” Laurel said, joining them.
“We don’t scatter the ashes of those burned for witchcraft, Master Laurel,” Chadde said as she came to the other side of Dyfrig. “They are dumped in the town’s midden.”
“No dumping, either,” Laurel said. “Gather them up into earthen jars that have not been fired and bury them as you normally would, i.e. with a tombstone, flowers and anything else that you’d put on a grave.”
“But you scattered Trooper Basel’s ashes in the sea,” I said. I’d tagged along with Jusson and now took Dyfrig’s arm as he swayed on his feet. As I did, the air sphere moved to the doyen’s other shoulder, away from me. I fought against a scowl.
“If you’d look around, ibn Chause, you’d see that we don’t happen to have a sea handy,” Beollan said. He too had joined the knot of people around Dyfrig. As did Wyln, Ranulf and Jeff.
I decided to keep the pounding surf I’d heard to myself. “Of course not. But there are streams or brooks that do flow down to the sea, eventually—” I broke off, as I remembered exactly what had animated Rodolfo’s corpse.
“We do not want to add any of these ashes to water, Two Trees’son,” Wyln said. “Nor do we want to have them open to the air, to be carried on the wind.”
“Truly no, we don’t,” Laurel said. “The White Stag’s bones and ashes were given to the sea to keep them from those who would use them in ill-considered ways. We have no danger of that here. Let these unfortunate ones return to the earth. They will be more than safe there.”
Some of the tension went out of Dyfrig’s shoulders and he swayed once more, tremors beginning to wrack him. I took a firmer grip, steadying him even as I ignored the sphere ignoring me.
“We shall inter them all at daylight, then,” the doyen said, taking a shuddering breath. “Even the player Rodolfo.”
It was still dark, the moon hanging just over the rooftops, when the last of the pyres burned out. Several townspeople began shoveling the bones and hot ashes into three large earthen jars someone had produced. When they were done, Dyfrig opened up the chest of blessings and, taking out the container of salt, poured a handful into each jar. Then Jusson had wax dripped onto the jar lids into which he again pressed his signet ring, sealing them. Afterwards, though, there was a brief but intense discussion of where to keep the jars until their burial the next morning. There were those who wanted to leave them at the bottom of the church steps, available to mourners, while others wanted them up the steps by the church doors, out of sight and hopefully out of mind.
“I will not have them hidden away,” Dyfrig told one of the leading shopowners. “Let them be visible to all.” The doyen’s mouth twisted even as his hands shook. “And who knows? Perhaps those who come to pay their respects will also visit your chandlery, Serlo.”