The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 20: The Unworthy, Part 3

 The Madrenite Abbess was named Rothe, and she was somehow both warm and forbidding at the same time. She was welcoming enough to Ammas, believing his brief tale about being a witch-finder from the capital without hesitation, perhaps relieved to have someone on hand to help with her patient. The abbess did, however, seem a trifle skeptical of "Lady Zinna." Nobles weren't frequent visitors to Madrenite hospices. Still, there was no sense in alienating a potential wealthy patron, and so she treated her with appropriate grace.

"Poor young man, he was raving when they brought him in. Loss of blood, of course. There aren't many wild dog packs so close to the city, but the canyons are wild country and there are any number of dangerous beasts roaming abroad." She shook her head dolefully, leading Ammas and Carala down the common ward where white-clad Madrenite sisters tended to the poor and ill. "Do you think you'll be taking him home to Talinara? He seems so terribly lonely. Insists he was with a group of his brethren, but of course he was alone."

"Why do you say so, Abbess?" Ammas's hands were folded in the sleeves of his robes, neatly concealing the hilt of his dagger. Carala kept close to him, staying quiet for the time being. Beds half-concealed by cotton tents lined the walls, their occupants sleeping or too occupied with their maladies to pay visitors any heed. Windows tucked just below the timbered ceiling admitted warming shafts of sunlight. Her stomach was roiling uncomfortably, churning in reaction to the smells of sickness that permeated the air in this place.

"Well, because we found no trace of them, of course. A dog pack might well carry their kill back to their den, but they couldn't clean up a blood trail, or have any reason to clear away packs and supplies, now could they?" The Abbess gave a cordial laugh as she held open the door leading to the private wards.

"I understand the young man claims it was a werewolf attack. They tend to be a little more clever, if the stories are to be believed."

Abbess Rothe frowned. "I told Gesiah not to repeat that. It would start a panic, it would. But there are no werewolves in Vilais. The stories from the capital are bad enough. The princesses both gone! I don't believe werewolves were involved there, either, myself. Just wild stories."

Carala had come to a dead halt. Ammas wrapped one hand about her upper arm. "What do you mean, 'both princesses?'" she demanded in a high, quavery voice. In her eyes glittered flecks of amber.

Abbess Rothe regarded her curiously. "Well, there was that business with the Princess Carala. Poor thing has been gone for months now. I think she fled rather than marry. How awful it must be to have your husband plucked out for you like a horse from a stable! And now the Princess Sarai is nowhere to be found. Was headed for a tour of Summervale and Aznia, but she never showed up for her ship. Just seemed to vanish into the night between the Chalcedony Palace and the docks."

"No," Carala said, her eyes flashing with hurt and shock. "No, you're wrong, Sarai is fine, she's fine, nothing happened to her -- "

"My lady Zinna hosted the princess last Yearsend," Ammas said to the Abbess, who was regarding Carala with a species of alarmed curiosity. "They became quite good friends."

"I see," said Abbess Rothe neutrally. "Well I'm sure you're right, milady. Perhaps she simply sought a quiet refuge while the search for her sister continues. But come. My patient is right this way."

They hung back a little as Abbess Rothe led the way. Ammas slid an arm around Carala's shoulders and clutched her tightly, feeling the tremble in her body, her fingers clenching at his chest. The nails at the ends of those fingers were far sharper than they ought to have been. "You need to calm yourself, Carala," he whispered. "We're too far away to do anything about Sarai."

"We have to," she muttered, struggling not to weep. "She doesn't deserve this, Ammas, we have to do something to help her, we have to -- "

"We have to help you first," Ammas insisted, drawing back. To his relief those amber flecks in her eyes had diminished, though they had not vanished altogether. "If the worst has come to pass, I'll need to cure both of you, and right now I don't have the means for even one of you. Please. It's just rumors right now anyway."

Slowly Carala nodded, seeming to steel herself. But she was paler than usual, and when the abbess paused for them to catch up she moved with slow, reluctant steps.

At the far end of the ward stood half a dozen private rooms, typically reserved for those with the most infectious of diseases or the most disfiguring of injuries. The young man, whose name was Myrdin, was neither of those, but the abbess had feared wild stories of nonexistent werewolves would send the rest of the hospice into an uproar. 

"It's best he's kept someplace nice and quiet. If he's to recover, he needs rest, so do please mind what you say to him. Try not to agitate him." The abbess left them with a smile. Ammas drew a deep breath and prepared to enter the room, pausing when he saw Carala standing stock still, her eyes wide and alarmed, those amber flecks blossoming in her irises right before his eyes.

"Carala," he whispered. "I told you, there's nothing we can do about her right now, you must get control of yourself. If you don't think you can -- "

"It's not that," she said. "I can smell the wolf's blood."

Ammas frowned. "Behind this door?"

She nodded.

"I was afraid of this. It's had enough time to settle in his spirit. Can you control the wolf?"

Carala raised a finger to the charm at her throat, closing her eyes and breathing slowly, remembering that awful night in the catacomb, remembering Casimir's urgent whispers in her ear. She tried not to think of Sarai, poor Sarai, maybe bewitched as she had been, either stolen from the Chalcedony Palace or having sneaked away on her own, and gods, that was almost impossible -- especially now, with a wolf's scent in her nose and the brightness of the white moon mere hours away. But then her thoughts turned to the tunnels under Munazyr, the smashed skeletons crumbled around her, Ammas holding her in his arms, one hand pressed to her hip -- how his breath had felt against the corner of her mouth . . . .

When she opened her eyes they were almost completely hazel. Ammas nodded with a tight smile. "Good enough. Leave the room if you have to. Let's see what we're dealing with."

He was a young man, barely older than Carala or Denisius, and Ammas suspected he wasn't much more than a raw recruit. Ammas knew little of his order's ranks or customs, and while some of that ignorance was due to his lack of contact with the Anointed Realms over the last twenty years, more stemmed from his own contempt for them. The dissolution had left Somilius Deyn's empire wanting on no small number of fronts, from its legal system to its military might to its ability to cope with things like Carala's blood sickness. There had been many attempts to fill those gaps, and these so-called witch-finders were one of them.

The few Ammas had encountered knew an incantation or two, but mostly they were simply thugs with an eye toward the enchanted. They had only risen in the last ten years or so, and Ammas believed the order would not survive beyond the death of the Emperor. What effectiveness they demonstrated largely relied on the ignorance that had sprung up since the fellowship of cursewrights had been destroyed -- an ignorance aptly demonstrated by Abbess Rothe and her dismissal of werewolves, however pleasant she might have been.

None of that, however, diminished the pity in his heart he felt when he looked into this young man's pained and terrified eyes, and when he groped for Ammas with one bandaged hand, the cursewright took it gently enough. Carala stared, her eyes wide, her nostrils flaring as she tried to ignore the scent of fresh wolf that suffused this man, no doubt utterly unknowing. 

"You come from Talinara?" Myrdin whispered. A bandage covered one side of his head, and Ammas wondered if he had lost an ear in the attack.

"Tell us what happened, Myrdin," Ammas murmured, squeezing the young man's hand soothingly. Myrdin began to tremble and weep.