Coir was fatigued and not up for much of a discussion throughout the day, but she insisted on checking him often. He looked as weak as his protests—no doubt the repeated use of the lenoth’ni had sapped his strength. It was a matter of time before he realized his secret was known, but she did not fear harm to herself. More than anything, she was curious. With no reason to fear infection, it had occurred to her to send an urgent message to Noreen by way of the Manse servants. . . it might still come to that. As it was, she armed herself with one of the short dining knives from the larder, keeping it in a pocket of her Sister’s frock.
She sat waiting for the evening meal while Coir dozed when a knock came at the locked door of the vestibule. She flinched. That was odd. The servants who brought the meals neither knocked nor attempted to speak to anyone within, fearful of infection. Standing, she entered the vestibule and bent down to look through the food slat. The landing of the stairs was full of figures. She instantly recognized both the wealthy dress of Noshian officials and the distinctive silk weaves of the Vien. There were two Vien present, though she could not see their faces.
Someone knocked on the door again.
What did they want her to do? She could not speak with them of her own accord. It was forbidden, unless they were family of the Departing and aiding in care. As she looked through the slat, a face bent down and met her gaze. It was a Noshian man in fine dress, a chain of office hanging around his neck.
“Ah, she’s there,” he said, pointing at the slat. One of the Vien bent down, his green eyes vibrant in a tanned face. He wore the finest of Vien silks in dark indigo, a prized color.
“Lovniele,” the Vien man said, using her Vien name and speaking in their native tongue. “You are remanded to the sovereignty of Findeluvié.”
Jareen didn’t reply. Her mind spun, but she did not forget the long habit and oath of silence.
“Do you hear me, Lovniele?”
She didn’t respond.
“The Sisters of the Order do not speak,” one of the Noshians said.
“She is a daughter of Findel, and we reclaim her. Your Order means nothing, now.”
The Vien man turned to someone out of sight and in heavily accented Noshian, commanded: “Unlock the door.”
“There is Seven Isles Fever in there, ambassador,” one of the Noshian’s said.
“That is no danger to us,” the Vien replied. “If you will not, give me the key.”
There was a clinking of keys. Jareen stood back up and stepped to the door. One of the quirks of the quarantine rooms was that the outer doors were remarkably heavy—and also had double locks for both inside and out. Jareen had not bothered to lock it from within before, knowing it was locked from without and guarded at the door to the stairway below. The key was left in the inner lock, and now she turned the bolt.
There was a rattling and turning from without, then an attempt to open the door. It didn’t budge.
“It’s locked from within,” someone said in Noshian.
The ambassador spoke again in Vien: “Lovniele. I am Gyon, Ambassador of the Synod to Drennos. The Noshian regency has remanded you to us. Come out, by order of the Synod.”
Jareen didn’t know what to do. She spun around and stepped to the inner vestibule door. Coir still lay dozing on the couch, exhausted. What should she do? Sweat was dampening the wimple on her forehead.
“The Sisters do not abandon the Departing,” someone said in Noshian. “She will not come out or speak.”
“We may need to get another Sister here to replace her. Maybe she would come out, then.”
“It would be a death sentence to her replacement,” someone else said.
“That is for the Sisters to decide.”
The conversation was carried on by the humans present in the corridor.
It was true, it would be a death sentence. Those who had Seven Isles Fever were traditionally bricked into their homes along with all those who had been in close contact—sometimes whole families. But being immune, Jareen was sent to look after the Arch Archivist, likely because of his status alone. The rich often avoided such consequences, though no one survived the Fever.
“Has anyone spoken with the Arch Sister?” someone asked.
“We do not need her permission,” the Vien ambassador said in thick Noshian.
“Unless you want to break down this door yourselves, I suggest you speak with her.”
“I thought these . . . Sisters did not speak?”
“The Arch Sister can speak on behalf of the Order.”
“Send for her. We will wait.”
“It will take at least two hours. May we offer you refreshments in the reception rooms?”
“Will there be a guard set on her?”
“All will be locked, and the door to the courtyard is under guard.”
“Very well.”
There was a shuffling as the group moved to the stairway and descended.
Jareen walked into the main chamber and sat at the chair across from Coir. It did not appear that the voices had wakened him. Her mind was reeling. What did the Vien ambassador want with her? Was this the doing of her mother? Had word somehow reached her in Talanael? Why now? Speculating did her no good. What she needed was information.
Loudly, she cleared her throat.
Coir roused, glanced at her, then looked out the window.“Overcast again,” he said.
“You are going to answer my questions with the truth,” she said. “Keep your voice low. Why are you faking the Seven Isles Fever?”
That got his attention; his whole body tensed.
“What do you mean?”
“I know you are using lenoth’ni tea to mimic the symptoms.”
“Does lenoth’ni do that?” he asked, and reached for his flagon of cold tea. He took a sip. “Who knew?” He made a show of a smile, but he sounded more exhausted than anything.
“I know you are hiding from the regency. Why?”
Coir stared for a few moments, and then sighed, his shoulders falling. He shifted his weight on the reclining couch.
“I had hoped it would take you another week to realize it,” he said. “At first, I asked them to brick me and not send a Sister at all, but the regency spoke with your Arch Sister, and when she suggested you for your immunity, they would no longer hear of bricking an Arch Official.”
“Why is the regency a threat to you?”
Coir sighed, rubbing the back of his hand across his forehead.
“I have become an annoyance,” he said, then looked to the side as if a thought had just occurred to him. “Have you ever wondered why your people have not spread to every corner of the world? The Vien are so elegant and your craftsmen so skilled, and their lives interminable. If they embraced industry, I do not know if anything could stop them. Think of the cities they could construct.”
“I have seen the masses of your cities. Despite your grand halls of brick and stone, most of you are poor and live in squalor. Our trees make mockery of your spires, and the poorest Vien are free and clean.”
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“Free?”
“That’s what I said.”
Coir smirked, shaking his head. With some effort, he stood and walked to the wall where some of his portfolios were stacked. Rummaging through a few, he found the one he was looking for and returned, holding it out to Jareen.
She took it, and he sat back down. She had rummaged through all those portfolios the night before while looking for his sealed documents, but there had been too many to give a careful study to the contents. The inside of the leather case was labeled in a script she didn’t recognize. Her eyes fell on the first page, written in the same foreign script as the label. It was a flowing script, reminding her of vines curling back on themselves.
“What is this?” she asked.
“Some of my correspondence from the Inevien.”
“Inevien?” The construction in Vienwé meant “free-people,” but she had not heard that phrase used before.
“You would call them the Canaen.”
Her gaze flicked up to Coir.
“You correspond with the Canaen?”
“Oh yes. It was much, much harder to gain any contacts there. They are far less open to humans. The eastern kingdoms have raided their coasts for many years, to say nothing of the Noshian privateers. The Findelvien ambassadors are remarkably accepting in comparison.”
“Why would you wish to speak to the Canaen?”
“To learn.”
“What can be learned from monsters and sorcerers?”
“A remarkable lot,” Coir said. “Although they are neither of those things.”
“The quth do their bidding, and many other foul creatures besides, and they are twisted and marred by their dark Wellspring.”
Coir laughed.
“I thought you didn’t believe in the power of Wellsprings?”
Jareen paused. He was right, she didn’t believe in it. Was she just repeating the stories of her childhood? Coir took advantage of her hesitation.
“It is true that the Inevien are at times. . . fanatical, and that many who are able among them grasp the Wellspring. Then again, I admit that most of what I know of them comes through sources from Findeluvié, and there is concern for bias.”
“All one needs to know is that the quth do their bidding,” Jareen said.
Coir shrugged. “They have always been a less numerous people, the Inevien. The quth allow them to hold their own against their foes—your lot. The reality is, they are free-minded people, unlike the Findelvien.”
Jareen frowned.
“What do you mean by that?”
“In the land you call Isecan, all the Vien are free to grasp the Current, as they are able. But in Findeluvié, only the Synod can.”
“We have different laws. It is for the safety of the people. Some still do, and the punishment is severe.”
“Yes, I have looked into that phenomenon extensively. A few outside the Synod do manage to grasp the Current, mostly from among those who live along the borders of Findeluvié. And in recompense, they are sent to the Mingling to fight against Isecan.”
“Drennos has laws as well, but there are few crimes in Findeluvié to require them.”
“Far fewer than there would be,” he replied. “Like myself, you are unable to sense the Currents. You, like humans, are Insensitive. The rest of your people are not. They do as the Synod commands, not willingly, but because they are forced.”
“They obey the laws, unlike many of you.”
“They are forced. They do not obey willingly.”
Jareen shook her head. Were not the laws of Drennos also enforced?
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that the Synod controls their wills by the power of the Wellspring.”
Jareen let out a breath of exasperation.
“What does this have to do with the regency?”
“Those are letters from Isecan. The few I have ever received. They speak a dialect of your own language but their script is different. It was the study of years to work it out, but I succeeded.”
“Hurry it up,” Jareen said. “The Arch Sister is coming.”
“Sixty-three years ago, the trade agreement with Findeluvié was established. In exchange for the rights to distribute Vien spices—cinnamon, nutmeg, peppers, you know—Drennos agreed to supply Findeluvié with metal, mostly sourced from the eastern mainland. The demand for spices is. . . well. . . prodigious. Even the stunted folk of the east have a craving for it, and in exchange will trade fine steel and finer jewels.”
“I know all this,” Jareen said, annoyed. “How do you think I got to Nosh in the first place?”
“Yes, yes. But what has Findeluvié done with all that steel? I hear that the elven smiths are creating weapons of surpassing strength, sharpness, and durability. It is whispered that the elves sing their weapons into being, and that no forge is needed.”
“Children’s tales. What are you driving at?”
“Let us cut to the fundamentals. Drennos supplies Findeluvié with steel for arms, and the Drennos privateers cruise the Isecan shores so that they cannot trade. And by this, the merchants and officials of Drennos have grown obscenely rich in the spice trade.”
“Again, I know all this.”
“What you don’t know is that fifty-one years ago, the Inevien sent a threat to the regent at the time. That was eleven regents ago.”
“What was the threat?”
“Cease trade with Findeluvié or face the destruction of all of Drennos.”
Jareen squinted. That was preposterous.
“The Canaen can hardly leave their own ports.”
“Exactly. And in typical Vien fashion, they gave a short window of time for a response—fifty years. That might be reasonable to a Vien, but it is an eternity to humans. So, the former regent, knowing it would never be his problem, deposited the two original copies of the letter—one written in the original Inevien script and a translation into Noshian—into a case and sent it to the Archives to collect dust. My predecessors did not find the Vien quite so fascinating, and the letters were mis-catalogued in a collection of embassy correspondence and forgotten.
I had been sending letters to Isecan for years, hoping to receive some response. I even paid privateers to drop them over the sides of their ships in bottles off the Isecan coast. I didn’t know how a letter might get back to me, but some said the Inevien had ships that could sail through the night with such speed that it was like a passing breeze. Judging that there were still some spices making their way to the eastern mainland outside of Noshian control, I believed it.
One day, a packet of letters arrived on a sloop from Laith, a little human duchy north of Senland. It was written in the Inevien script. I toiled for years trying to interpret the characters, until some novices were re-cataloging a few dusty corners of the archives and one was so good as to bring the Inevien warning to my attention, knowing about my atlas.”
“And the Noshian copy allowed you to translate the letter you had received,” Jareen said.
“Precisely. Do you remember the Great Wave of 754?”
“Yes, it nearly destroyed the Wards.”
“It was fortunate that the Wards were built on the only sliver of elevation on that part of the coast. It did destroy the entire first and second districts, if you recall.”
“I do.”
“It was in 753 that I received the letters. It was in 757 that I translated them.”
“And?”
“The letters contained a warning, stating that the wave that was to come the following year was just a foretaste of the destruction that would wash away the entire peninsula if the prior warning went unheeded.”
“Wait. They predicted the Great Wave?”
“To the day.”
“No.”
“If you flip to the back of the portfolio, you will find my transliteration of the letter.”
Jareen turned the pages. The final leaf was of Noshian parchment, covered in Coir’s spidery hand.
To the Archivist of Drennos; we have received your letters.
We have nothing to say to you, except that you should heed the warning we delivered to your ruler. Three days after the vernal equinox, a wave will strike your land. This is but a foretaste of what is to come if you have not complied by the appointed time.
I am Olor of Theniel. I write this in my own hand.
Jareen read it twice. Why believe that this was anything but a made-up tale? The archivist was obviously impressionable and prone to believe in the human fancies about elves. He believed in the Wellsprings, too. He could have fabricated this whole story simply to try to manipulate her.
“I still don’t know why you are hiding from the regency.”
“That, my dear, is because Insensitive though you are, you are still Vien and not a rich Noshian man.”
Jareen frowned. She did not understand it. Coir grinned.
“When a ceremonial and politically irrelevant academic begins to call for the end of the greatest source of wealth in your nation’s history, you either ignore him or get rid of him. Despite my evidence, my ability to convince anyone in the regency is. . . lacking. There are only two others on this entire island who believe me. Yet, despite knowing that it could make me enemies, I was preparing to publish a public announcement to distribute to the populous. Call it conscience. I could have just left Drennos. I wish I had. One of the archive novices happened to be the nephew-by-marriage of the current Arch Legate of Trade. I never paid enough attention to such things. My illness was fortuitous.”
“Because the Arch Legate would have stopped you?”
Coir actually laughed.
“No, dear Jareen. He would have killed me.”
Jareen must have looked incredulous.
“Not himself,” Coir added. “But no one interferes with trade in Nosh. That is all Nosh is, really.”
Jareen stared at the man for a time. In her work, she had observed many people, and she flattered herself that she was a good judge of a situation. Yet this was absurd beyond anything she had ever encountered.
“So, you were attempting to flee with the Archives because you wanted to warn the people of Drennos that a disaster was going to wipe out the entire peninsula, all based on the existence of a couple of letters from Isecan.”
“Letters that predicted the Great Wave, yes.”
“And you believe that the Wellsprings are actually magical, and that my people are controlled by magic, and the Canaen can destroy Drennos by magic?”
Couldn't he hear how absurd that sounded?
“After all my study, it is the only thing that makes sense. I told you before, I’d stake my life on it. I already have.”
Jareen had to admit, that statement had more weight to it now that she knew he wasn’t dying of Seven Isles Fever.
“So,” Coir said after a time. “What will you tell the Arch Sister?”
“I’m more concerned with what she will tell me.”
“I’m sorry?” he asked.
Ignoring the question, Jareen stood, picked up her straight-backed wooden chair, and carried it into the vestibule to wait. Upon entering, she saw a waxed canvas envelope lying on the floor below the slot. The meal had arrived while she'd been speaking with Coir. She hadn't even heard it. She picked up the envelope and untied the string, removing the parchment within. It was written in the Vienwé-script code.
I have the bulk of the manuscripts in a boat-shed near the Point, and I have secured a fishing skiff. Some ships are finishing quarantine and will be leaving in the next weeks. If we are lucky, we might intercept one as it rounds the headland. I’ve tried at the harbor, but the port officials are too strict. It’s the best I can come up with. Can you slip away from quarantine? If you cannot get yourself free, I do not know how to help you.
She sighed and slid the parchment back into the canvas.
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