Forever Green

~ 42 ~ Simply Business

"Decliteur wants ta see ya," Callan growled as soon as Theiden opened the door. Out in the street, a group of young revelers shrieked in startled delight as a friend in a mask chased after them. Ladies in light muslin dresses and crowns of flowers skipped over the cobblestones and groups of men in masks and hoods trailed after them, all headed in the direction of the city center.

"Me?" Theiden asked. "What for?" He was loath to leave home on such a rowdy night, especially after the recent discussion with his mother about abandoning his family.

"He heard you'd found somethin' on the hunt earlier this afternoon," Callan explained. "He wants ta discuss it with ya. Shouldn't take long."

The sage. Theiden's hand moved to his pocket, where the bundle of herbs rested. He had forgotten to take it out when he got home.

Callan noticed the motion, and his mouth ticked upwards in a grim smile that reminded Theiden too much of a wolf baring its teeth.

"You've got it with ya already, I see," Callan said. "C'mon, then." He turned to head up the street, and Theiden looked back over his shoulder. His mother had overheard the whole conversation standing in the hallway behind him, and waved her spoon in a gesture of defeat and disappointment that he was leaving, again.

"I'll be back soon," he told her, slipping on his boots.

"I've heard that before," she said with a shake of the head.

Callan was already several houses away. Theiden glanced out the door and then back inside, indecision warring within him.

"They pay well," he said. "It'll help us get back on our feet. Once we have enough, I'll stop getting involved in this witch business. I promise."

Theiden didn't wait for a reply, but the expression on his mother's face was enough to hint that his justification wasn't enough to appease her concern. He shut the door firmly behind him and set off up the street after Callan.

After weaving through clusters of revelers beneath ribbon-canopied streets, Theiden found himself once more at the building with the tapestries that he had visited with Tareth once before. This time, however, someone Theiden didn't recognize had taken up Colverne's spot at the front desk. The man exchanged a nod with Callan and turned a critical eye to Theiden as they passed through the doorway.

"This way," Callan said, leading Theiden to one of the four tapestries on the wall. Tareth's favorite tapestry—the tree, was on the far left of the room, proceeded by the tapestry of the knight fighting the Fae that Theiden knew led to the armory. This one that Callan was pushing aside now to get to the hidden door behind bore an image of death and fire. Women and children in shades of blue and gray lay on the ground, their faces stitched in expressions of agony as they clutched at gaping wounds or missing limbs.

"What do these mean?" Theiden asked as Callan fiddled with the lock.

"They depict the end of days," the man covering Colverne's post explained, when Callan, too focused on opening the door, failed to reply. He pointed to the first tapestry. "The tree of life renewed our dying world but brought the Fae into it." He pointed to the next tapestry. "Ayries Arcstrong led his men in ridding the world of such creatures, but they had already infected humanity, by creating witches."

"So the last two panels are the death that the witches bring?" Theiden guessed.

"Oh, no," the man said. "The third one, yes—it depicts the millions of innocents slaughtered at the witches' hands. But the last..."

Theiden shifted his gaze to the last panel, of a woman burned at the stake while a ring of people held hands and danced around her. It didn't look like any days were ending to him, except the woman's own.