18.4
Jewel was not sure exactly when she truly felt she had forgiven herself. When the thought of her father did not cause her heart to clench in recrimination. Tsulogothulan was there to speak with her now and that helped, but she didn't think it really began with her friend, no it had started somewhere earlier.
Before, with Imre? With Gwenn? With Georgy? Somewhere before? Somehow the pain had changed.
Still hurting and yet not overwhelming, so many times she had assured in word or deed that she did not feel her father hated her.
Yet it had also not been true so many times she promised others that she had forgiven herself before as well. It felt strange, despite her recollection being so clear she could not say when she herself had changed. There was just a muddied time when she had come to blame herself less the longer time had gone on. She thought she had managed it already before this even, but then Fizzbunche’s ploy had torn open the wound so expertly.
Hurt her as badly as the days she had lost each of them.
Yet now here she was the morning after and the guilt had never been so soft as it was now. She still hurt, and yet felt at peace with a certainty she had never found before. Soothed despite her loss, at rest even though she could feel the ache inside that she had come to expect would never truly be gone, only nestled deeper within her, a part instead of the whole.
So of course Erhard and Ursula were due to arrive any hour now to ruin her newfound serenity. It wasn't a surprise, word of their coming sent twenty days prior to the arrival in Valasect. Still Jewel had been enjoying the way that her heart beat evenly without quite aching, the way she could reflect on her Father and Muriel and long for the days she had with them without feeling torn raw.
She hurt but it was no longer like a wound packed in salt, a cleaner pain. Her father loved her, she had hurt him, had not protected him, had lost him.
But would he have wanted her to punish herself for this? Jewel had been so sure he would, but now she could barely recognize why.
As the herald spoke into her dining hall Jewel reflected how somewhere in the years since his death her answer had changed on that.
“Anouncing Erhard, Court Wizard of the Realm of Cantor Reborn”
The figure that entered the space was less and more than she remembered even from her first meeting. The hairs of his beard and upon his head were barely separate from one another. His skin was dull black and gray with hints of red rust. Where it had once only been his eyes that burnt with a forge’s fire now she could see flickers of its light behind his partly closed lips.
He moved with assurance, grace and skill but his muscles did not flex where they should.
What had once appeared like a living man made of metal, now was more like an iron statue which moved.
Jewel nodded to him.
“Viznove welcomes you, Erhard Iron Hand, Court Wizard.”
Behind him came a great object, it was perhaps five feet across, like a great iron cauldron. Black as coal, stoppered with more of the same metal and sealed with heavy clamps, eight of his armours moved with a steady but obviously taxed pace. Each gripping a single handle.
The herald was so caught off guard with the break of decorum that the Archpriestess was already entering before he found his words.
“A-announcing the Archpriestess of Asherah, Highest sacred woman of her Goddess in Burning Depths Ford.”
Jewel nodded to the woman as well, as was appropriate.
“A greeting and welcome to you as well, you are both guests to my home and hospitality, however I am to guess that given your burden the matter is a serious and immediate one.”
Adelyne had watchers following their progress, and the party of them had not stopped once in their transit through Rochford, hear say was they had moved directly through Arva as well. The witnesses in Burning Depths Ford also spoke that they had marched at much the same pace from the Palace itself.
Eight of Erhard’s Halberdier Armours, twenty more as a protection detail, the Court Wizard and the Archpriest. Moving at a pace that she suspected was the absolute limit of the burdened bearers of this great pot.
Without sleep, without food. Jewel could see the way that miracles cradled and cut into the Archpriestess up and down her body.
For twenty days.
Erhard nodded, his lips parted and his jaw moved but his skin stretched strangely as he spoke.
“You are correct Countess of Viznove, we have need of your aid in our labor. A Third incantation in the words of a Wyrm.”
Jewel frowned at that before she spoke again.
“That will depend on what words you are asking for Erhard, as I have told you again and again and written in letters besides my sorcery is not made with the words of men, they are merely an echo. Though I have yet to find a word for fire, but dozens for how something might burn.”
He merely nodded.
“Which is why I and the Archpriestess of Asherah have come to you, With enough of the Soul Silver to try a hundred and seven times. So we can find what word your sorcery requires, for there is a single part missing from the Soul Silver which I can find no means in my craft to create.”
The priestess, whose body beneath the touch of miracles seemed exhausted to the breaking point nodded, body fluid, graceful, but Jewel could smell the wear her death march had brought her.
She was barely able to breathe without the support of her ‘goddess’.
“If you even can, if it is at all possible. Your missing part of the working is what would be the bare minimum of comfort for Asherah to accept as a way of keeping her children’s souls safe. Without it your soul silver is a horror, a torment no child deserves and if you pursue it after such a failure I will contact the Pantheon myself to see you are censored as the fiend you’ve revealed yourself to be wizard.”
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Archpriestess Ursula sounded weary in a way beyond the exhaustion screaming from her flesh, but also spitefully hopeful. In some ways just as eager to see Erhard’s efforts end in failure as he was to see either result.
The words reminded her of the Sphinx, likely still soothing her once liege’s soul every night, long since departed from Burning Depths Ford to parts unknown, taking the soul of Mathias with her.
Along with so much else. The menagerie was dispersed by High King Conrad the Second’s decree. The grounds in the palace were now simply gardens.
Jewel raised a brow at the open admonishment from the Archpriestess, as expected Erhard was unperturbed, no, as always he was eager, intent, ready to test his craft and see if years of effort were a waste.
“Of course, if it proves impossible the project will have to seek another way. As always I bow to your expertise in the matters of the divine and the soul.”
He said it flatly but Jewel could hear the admiration, the respect that was lost in the sound of groaning metal and burning coals that had subsumed his voice and any audible tone. Jewel was not certain, but she thought that perhaps Erhard had crossed the threshold that she would place him as a proper Weird, or if he had not found it the court Wizard was close.
“Well then Erhard, what command do you seek me to give to your ‘Soul Silver’ what is so important and vital. That its lack would see the end of your inquiries into it.”
The wizard turned his burning eyes up to her, the stern face exactly as it had been when he entered Jewel’s dining hall.
“The Soul Silver needs to dream, to allow the dead to feel in their keeping the touch of life as they knew it, to dwell in their life as it was and not merely exist in the metal, and not just alone but able to meet and know one another as they rest together past their deaths. The Archpriestess insists any less is a failure.”
Jewel almost laughed, she had lived her whole life listening to the stones slumber, to the wind drift, the earth remember and reminisce, the world was all around her sleeping and most of the time dreaming.
She had slept and lived waking dreams as her wyrmself and as her spawn. She had seen hounds, men and women dream, Paul had slept poorly and serenely, nestled close to her in their time married.
Smithson had nodded off holding both Gems cradled in his arms.
She felt a soft smile at the request, it was a relief to hear, truly, that the Archpriestess had insisted that such a merciful idea be a requirement for the Wizard’s ambition. The idea of it gently nestled in her heart, roused her flame.
When she found her Father and Muriel’s souls, wherever they now rested. She knew exactly what she would wish for them. It is what she would hope they had after their deaths.
It was what the dead deserved.
She took in a deep breath and then spoke.
“I am pleased to say that I do in fact know the words for this working Erhard Ironhand, it will not be any difficulty to include it in my sorcery.”
Ursula gawked at her, the shock to the woman making her sag in worry, fear, frustration and then a deep bone tired resignation.
Erhard nodded sharply and then gestured with a wrist, a something within the great sealed cauldron splashed.
And a familiar clay bowl was held out to her, an equally familiar silver fluid sloshing heavily within. The feel of its whispering sorcery was different, just as intricate and complex, but changed all the same.
It was still and stagnant, where the first time she had invoked her will upon the ‘unquickened’ substance it had yet roiled, and the second had stirred in a rhythmic repetition awaiting her. But now it was open, still, incomplete, eager for the words she could offer it. Ready for her. Jewel mustered her words, called her flame into her mouth and spoke.
“Live, Know, Remember & Dream Together”
The pull on her flame was sharp, intense, painfully deep, then slowly faded, the hurt smoothing over and her final sense of herself maintained. Substantially more than the first two times she had been called on to empower the Elixir.
But unlike before Erhard did not simply whisper to the fluid in its bowl, instead he immediately invoked his sorcery, the world shifting under his whispers, bending to his request and matching the layered working in the liquid metal.
It rose up from the cup in a wobbling orb as he whispered, flared with inner light and Jewel’s own flame, and then erupted into a furious white froth that filled the air with a crisply fresh scent.
After the clay bowl was gone, Erhard's hand was closed around a very familiar looking off white orb. It was etched with whorls and intricate details as the one that had come from Mathias’s head had, but there was a regularity to them that had been missing before, instead of wild ferns it resembled more sculpture and gardened rows. Pruned and shaped with intent instead of wild.
Also its pale color shifted even as Jewel watched it, nestled in Erhard’s palm the pale near white color dimmed, turning gray and then coal black, the effect pulsing over the pale stone in waves, like a heart beat or a living breath.
In the voice of the world it was serene, empty, alluringly at peace, pure and waiting. Asleep. Like the most undisturbed stone buried deep and far from sun or rain or wind’s harsh cutting.
Jewel’s eyes followed the gleaming, shifting stone as he turned to the Archpriestess, who numbly took the orb, before bowing under the weight of it and having to grasp it tightly with both hands.
The wizard stated flatly, voice tinged with the deep satisfaction of a job nearing completion. Of a step finished.
“It is done, now it is for the divine to forge the ritual that can see a dying soul to its resting place.”
The Archpriestess shared a suspicious glance between Jewel and then Erhard before shaking her head.
“No, not yet Erhard, me and the Halberdiers have been marching for twenty days, sleeping as we walked. We have made it, and you’ve gotten your fortune damning wyrm magic! But I am going to avail myself of the esteemed Countess hospitality, A fine meal, a solid rest and the ministrations of the famed Jewel of Valasect’s baths I think are more then in order before we start delving into the rest of the work!”
Jewel finally broke her gaze from the fascinating restful peace that Erhard had made out of his Soul Silver. Laughter actually reached her now, how simple the request had been, how easy to fulfill, and how understandable the Archpriestess’ request was.
“Certainly! You and your entourage are welcome to my table tonight, and all of you may enjoy the use of my baths today. I will make sure that Dariusz’ family is prepared for your number. Then when you are fully rested-”
She fixed a look to the woman being held up by miracles and faith and little else.
“You can continue your work for the Realm and The Leuhtą Project.”
A relieved smile was crinkling the face behind the Archpriestess’ veil and Jewel offered another subtle nod. The visit was turning out well, Jewel felt even lighter then she had this morning!