The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 3: The Cursewright's Client, Part 3

The Othillic Libraries, more properly the Sacred Archives of His Wisdom Othillion of the Book, stood near the heart of the Towers Ward, where the new Godsway that had supplanted the Old Godsway with its forlorn temples and forgotten shrines had been dedicated nearly a century ago. A tall, dark hedge, carefully manicured by the deacon-acolytes, shielded the Libraries from the riotous city around them, providing an aura of contemplative quiet for the students and scholar-priests within. The Libraries themselves did not comprise one of Munazyr's taller buildings, as the Othillic deacons disdained towers (or anything that called to mind the habits of the broken Academies), but rather sprawled along nearly a dozen city blocks, the stacks of books and scrolls which it housed a labyrinthine warren sure to befuddle any but the deacons who maintained them.

The deacons were worthy scholars, if never quite on the level of the arcane brethren whose role they now filled in most lands, but they were not soldiers or adept at security. Casimir had no problem sneaking past the gate sentry as he always did, slipping into the Library grounds through a gap in the hedge. Things would be a little chancier once he was in the confines of the central rotunda. 

When not accompanied by Barthim the deacons had him escorted out maybe one visit out of every three. This was his first trip to the Libraries since he had entered his apprenticeship under Ammas Mourthia, though, and he wondered if the cursewright's name would carry any weight with the deacons. Casimir doubted it. Although he was too young to fully grasp the animosity that existed between the faiths of the Ninefold Vow and men such as his master, he knew well enough that the deacons often spoke ill of cursewrights and astrologers and the like. It would all depend, he supposed, on which deacon was manning the great round desk in its shaft of sunlight beneath the rotunda dome. If it was anyone but Deacon Pell, he thought he would be all right. He hoped Ammas would understand. The cursewright was usually not too stern about delays in assignments, not least because no one understood better the difficulties under which his trade existed, even in this city.

But today Casimir was in luck. Rather than Deacon Pell, who was about Ammas's age but whose face and manner were infinitely more sour, the desk was manned by Deaconess Hadeen, peering over her spectacles at a small volume with her warm mahogany eyes, her skin and hair as dark as the boy's, lustrous in the shaft of light streaming down from the round window in the dome's center. Casimir liked Deaconess Hadeen as much as any of the Lioness girls, and more than a few of them. She came from Summervale, the great island near the Aznian coastline where dragons supposedly slept beneath jagged mountains of fire and whose lush jungles were home to tribes of creatures who, rumor went, looked very like the feline being who gave the Prideful Lioness its name. When he was much younger, Casimir entertained the terrible and wonderful fantasy that Deaconess Hadeen was in fact his mother, returned in secret from the Azure Sea to pursue a scholar's life instead of her former profession. He knew better now, of course. But still he smiled when he saw her, and, as she looked up from her book and removed her spectacles, she did the same.

"Cass! I haven't seen you in an age. How tall you've gotten!" The boy approached the desk, just tall enough to peer over its edge now. But something wasn't quite right. There was a speculative gleam in the Deaconess's eye Casimir didn't know how to read. As if to confirm this, she said, in a lower voice that didn't echo off the dome as her greeting had, "It's funny you should show up, actually. But first, I have something for you."

Casimir wasn't sure to be concerned or pleased, but he was so unaccustomed to gifts from anyone beside Barthim (and, more recently, Ammas and Lena) that the latter was irresistible. Thoroughly intrigued, he followed Deaconess Hadeen's lead as she rose from her chair and glided to the leaf that swung up to allow access to her domain inside the circular desk. With a smile she beckoned him to join her there, an unimaginable privilege.

"Your friend Barthim was here a few weeks ago. He said you've taken up an apprenticeship with Ammas Mourthia."

Now Casimir definitely felt more concerned than pleased, though Hadeen looked as pleasant as ever. Slowly he nodded.

"You're going to learn a lot from him, Cass. Some of my brothers and sisters would drum me out of the Library for saying it, but he knows his business. I thought you might like this." She retrieved from one of the many cubbyholes under the desk a slim, battered volume and pressed it into Casimir's hands. The fading gilt letters glowed up at him from the cover: D'Nel Teraz. Hadeen tapped a slim brown finger against the title. "The Lady Terazla was the first cursewright to teach at Autumnsgrove on the Torchlight Coast. She was so popular even the Emperor couldn't ban her writings. This is just a book of her advice. Proverbs, really. Take it. The Archdeacon doesn't even know we still have a copy."

Casimir's eyes widened, his fingers trembling as they ran along the edges of the dogeared cover and the fraying spine. Deaconess Hadeen had just given him the first book he could call his own. Even Ammas had made it clear that he was only borrowing the books he read for his studies, mostly because Ammas was not at all sure they weren't the last surviving copies. "If ever you take over my business, Casimir, they'll be yours," he had said. But D'Nel Teraz was his, and it was his now.

Deaconess Hadeen permitted him a full minute of mooning over the little book, smiling as she watched him, before pressing on to matters of business. "There's something else, Cass. There's a young lady who came here looking for Ammas. Not 'a cursewright;' she was looking for him by name."

Casimir looked up from the book, puzzled. "She knows him?"

"No. She asked if anyone here knows what he looks like or could give her directions to his home. The poor thing looked sick half to death, so we put her up in the acolytes' cells to help her get her health back. That was three days ago, and she seems to be better." Hadeen frowned, polishing her spectacles on a silk cloth. "I wanted to send a messenger to Ammas, but the Archdeacon and Deacon Pell wouldn't have it. The Archdeacon thinks she's on the run from some business in the Anointed Realms, and he wanted to find out who she is before he sent her along. Pell -- " She fetched a deep sigh. "Pell doesn't want your master contacted at all. I told them it would anger the Doge if he found out, but they didn't listen to me."

Under his puzzled expression, Casimir's mind was working furiously, his heart skipping an anxious rhythm. Ammas had given him a brief overview of his duties when the time came for him to serve as a contact for potential clients, but he hadn't expected Casimir to perform such tasks for a long while yet, not until he came of age. Further, there was always the possibility that this was a trap. He knew enough about the Emperor's purge to understand that this was a danger for which Ammas had to be eternally wary. If he was to be a cursewright's apprentice, then Casimir needed to be cautious as well. But he also knew it had been years, probably since before he was born, since the Emperor had deigned to make trouble for the handful of Academy alumni hiding in Munazyr. He decided he should at least speak to the woman and let Ammas know about her. "Where are the acolytes' cells?"

Deaconess Hadeen looked about, making sure neither Pell nor any of the other deacons were in hearing range. "If I tell you, can you find it on your own? I think it's best, if the deacons find out, they not know I had anything to do with you two meeting."

Casimir was more than up to the task. Barthim had first brought him here when he was four years old, even before Ammas had moved into the abandoned temple next to the Lioness, and he knew the locations if not the purpose of all the mysterious doors and stairs that led to places he had never explored. 

The narrow door off the exquisitely appointed map room was one Casimir knew well, and through which he had often seen robed deacons and deaconesses pass over the years. Hadeen had told him there was a set of a dozen or so cells kept empty for visiting guests right at the foot of the stairs that descended from the door, and he found them with ease. He assumed the one he wanted was the one occupied by the slender figure in a hood, bent over a bowl of barley stew, desultorily sopping a bit of it up with a heel of bread.