The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 7: The Cursewright's Failure, Part 3

 Casimir didn't head back to the Old Godsway for a long while. He knew Ammas would be waiting for him, but he positively dreaded returning to his master's temple not only without his essay, but without the very quills and parchment with which Ammas had expected him to write it. More than this, he hated the idea of showing tears to the cursewright. Since he had entered his apprenticeship, he had come to like Ammas more than almost anybody, except Lena and maybe Barthim. The Lioness girls hadn't known how right they were when they told him there was nothing to fear about him. Not only that, Ammas made Casimir feel safe. Something about the cursewright made him feel even safer than Barthim did, who wasn't afraid of a man or woman in Munazyr, not even Captain-Commander Thalia of the city guard (though Barthim was unfailingly polite to her).

But most of all, Ammas seemed to fill a hole in Casimir's heart he had never realized was there. Something indefinable and wonderful filled him when he took his lessons with the cursewright, or when they took meals together, or played cards with Barthim (or when he and Barthim played chess, Ammas looking on from whatever tome he was studying in a sort of friendly bemusement). He even liked it (despite his protests, which felt sincere when he made them) when Ammas told him to go to bed before midnight, or sent him to some obscure corner of the city to buy supplies, or conduct research for his lessons. There was nothing Casimir could articulate aloud, but all these things were in some fashion more than the similar kindnesses done him by Lena, who had helped teach him his letters; or Barthim, who had done Casimir the ultimate honor of sharing a handful of his recipes with him.

If someone had suggested to Casimir that he had been missing a father, he would have looked startled, then denied it. Most of the Lioness girls were not in touch with their fathers, Lena being the exception and that but barely, as she supported him rather than the other way round. Barthim never spoke of his father, and indeed, Casimir had a hard time imagining the giant bouncer as anything but the smiling, occasionally brutal colossus he was, springing fully formed into the world as the Dread Titans had done. Ammas only spoke of his own father rarely. His stories were fond ones, but very sad, and Casimir slowly gathered that something terrible had happened to him. If all those people he admired didn't need a father, then why should he?

But the gnawing sense of shame in his belly at the loss of his borrowed possessions, of an entirely different species than the rage and grief he felt over Deacon Pell taking away Deaconess Hadeen's gift, and his cleverness in making sure the Archdeacon couldn't return it to him; the slow and awkward journey he made to the Old Godsway, as though he acutely dreaded the ruin which had become his favorite place in the world; and the hitch in his heart when he imagined Ammas's expression when Casimir told him he had lost his quills and parchment: those things suggested a different truth.

At least, Casimir thought as he roamed toward the Butcherstreet Market to find a bite to eat, he had managed to research his missing Academy. It had been hard to find, almost as though it had been deliberately scrubbed from the Libraries in a way the others had not been, but he had found it. He knew its name, where it was, and even the name of both its first and last Doyennes. That wasn't all Ammas had tasked him to find, but maybe the cursewright would understand, and let Casimir simply tell him what he had learned rather than write another essay. Casimir was sure Ammas had mentioned that when he'd been an apprentice, more than once he'd had to take an exam that was just him being questioned by his mentors -- no quill or parchment or anything. Maybe, Casimir thought in a sudden burst of optimism, Ammas would even like the opportunity to show him what such a test was like.

Buoyed by this, Casimir bought a pasty from Coll's stall and finally headed back toward the Old Godsway, munching lightly on his late lunch as he did.

The Munazyr afternoon was always a little dusty on the Old Godsway, what with the steady flow of traffic to and from Brightmoon Bay and the dirt stretches of the street itself being oiled so rarely (this was not a ward on which the Argent Council spent much tax revenue). The pasty had been very good, but its starchy shell and savory flavor, combined with the earthy-smelling road dust drifting lazily at waist height from one side of the avenue to the other, raised a powerful thirst in the boy. No doubt some of that was also due to his outraged weeping in the Archdeacon's office, but he didn't like to think about that. The water from the public well a few blocks up from the Prideful Lioness wasn't as cold as the one in Ammas's garden, but it was easier to prime. Besides, Casimir very much wanted to wash his face before he told his master what had happened at the Libraries.

His face was still dripping with cool well water when he first heard the screaming. At once he straightened, looking very like a small animal that senses a stalking cat and is prepared to bolt. As the screams persisted, he relaxed. The lady Mari. Whatever was wrong with her, the cursewright's treatment must have been a painful one. When such things happened -- the worst Casimir remembered was a man with hideous burrowing things writhing under the skin of his chest and belly -- Ammas murmured in the boy's ear where the client couldn't overhear that he could go to his room or the catacombs if he liked. But Casimir never left his master's side unless actively dismissed. Barthim had said many times that he was with Ammas to learn from him, and he couldn't do that cowering in his room. 

The things he saw tended to fascinate rather than terrify him anyway. The writhing things, for instance, had turned out to be ancient yet still living finger bones, yellowed and cracked. Casimir had stared with eyes as big as festival platters as Ammas removed the twisting, scraping, clicking digits one by one with his twinhooks, dropping each one into a flask full of some murky solution that banished whatever evil lived in the old bones, bleaching them white in the process. Ammas had given him an index finger to keep with him, telling him such things could be fashioned into an effective ward against spirits of the dead. They hadn't done it yet, though, and the finger bone now resided in a kossun leaf box tucked under Casimir' bed, alongside a few other such treasures.

But he didn't like the screams, and these seemed particularly unpleasant, maybe because the lady Mari had been so kind once she'd gotten a little food in her. What she'd said about Ammas's father and hers had made no sense to the boy whatsoever, and so he had shrugged it off as a delusion of whatever ailment she suffered. Frowning, he set off at a quick jog down the Old Godsway, meaning to get to the temple to offer whatever help Ammas might need before he completed the treatment. Even if he didn't need Casimir at all, his presence might make his master a little more well-disposed to him when he heard about what had happened with Deacon Pell.

When the lady's screams were joined by Ammas's own shouts, Casimir froze. Not because Ammas was yelling -- he had heard Ammas yell quite a few times, almost always when he was commanding some wicked entity like the one that had tried to steal Lena's father, and once or twice when he lost a particularly bad hand of Whistling Jack to Barthim. No, he froze because Ammas sounded panicked. And that was a sound he had never heard in the cursewright's voice before.