oh and wait, how old were they when they left? and how old when they come back? and where the heck did they all go, and with whom? who are their apprentices? gee im clueless...yikes. i would appreciate some info, please, because i haven't read briar's co book.
ff.net was down, so im writing all these chapters...so if i post tehm all at once and theres errors, i'll edit it.
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"Really," the twelve year old said, his heavy shoes making the hall echo with clumping, "I feel funny being here, in a fancy kind of place like this."
"Why?" Sandry said, candid as ever. "It's just a room."
"Yeah, but-" Briar made an expressive arm movement that took in the entire stone hallway- "it's fancy compared to Discipline." The heavily embroidered tapestries, glamorous with their gold-threaded surfaces, covered the grey stone walls that were the former trademarks of the plain Duke's castle.
"Which is," she remarked dryly, "under construction after your latest experiment."
He held up his hands in apology. "Didn't know that it would grow that way! It was a ficus tree, for gods' sake."
Sandry's bright blue eyes glowed with facination, remembering the mess of twigs and leaves, the litter of bark and roots through the window. "It tore open the roof. That was an amazing experiment. That fertilizer must have had some potent materials in it, because..."
"Rosethorn didn't think so." An image flashed through his mind, of the short Dedicate screaming and jumping as her magic flowed through the poor ficus tree and it retracted into its old pot. And her forefinger and thumb on his ear.
"Ah, well." Sandry's light voice blithely dismissed the greatest source of anger in the world. "She's at the Earth temple now, finding a new and sophisticated way to collect samples from infected patients. Lark's here too, but in one of the weaving rooms. Daja is being a hermit at the forge, as usual, and Tris is...where is Tris? Where is she going again?"
I'm with Niko, and still on a horse, to Gods' know where. I think it's a city a few score miles away, but with Niko, who can tell? Tris' voice rang through their heads, sounding extremely irritated. It's smelly and dark, and Niko insists that the inn is "just around the corner. He has said that seven times. Oh, damn! He just said it again!
Um, okay, Sandry replied. Sorry to hear that.
Hope the next dirty, stinky, muddy road that Niko chooses will be the right one, Coppercurls.
Tris slammed her magic down in front of her mindlink, the sound sending ringing noises through both of their ears.
"Ouch."
They were almost at the right hall. "Okay, Briar. Choose a room." Sandry gestured to the line of guest rooms. The former street-thief's eyes widened at the row of ornately furnished rooms, each decorated in brocades and silks.
"How...? I thought you said your ol' Uncle had bland tastes, despite all them tapestries out there."
"Well, Lark told the doctors that perhaps colors would brighten up Uncle's life, and health charms are woven into most of the tapestries..." Sandry rolled her eyes. "So in addition to the charmed weavings, he redecorated. Each room shares a bathroom in white, and the rooms are each a different color." Pointing to the first room on the left, she said, "This one's mine, for now."
He looked in and made a face. "You chose yellow. Are they all different?"
Grinning, she nodded. "And its not yellow, it's-" she altered her voice to be snobby and aristocratic, like the expensive hired decorator's- "honey, with warm golden highlights."
"All right, that guy has a twisted little mind," Briar said dubiously. He had met the man once, with his strange curling mustache and artistic airs. "He was a cracked nut." Opening the first door after Sandry's, he didn't even look inside. "This one will be mine until Discipline unfloods."
"What?!" she shrieked. "Unfloods?"
"Oops, never mind." Walking directly into the room, he sighed with inner bliss. All green, like plants. That was kind of nice, like being in a forest, but without dirt and bugs. "Green. Good," he said blandly.
Sandry giggled, twisting her long braid in both hands. "That's the washroom we share, don't open the door if i'm in there," she said, pointing. "I'll be very mad."
"All right, rules and regs over," he groaned. "I'm tired, gonna sleep now. Was up til four trying to get the water out."
"You are going to tell me about the flooding, right?" she asked.
"Later, so you won't be mad...kay?"
~~~~~~~~~~~`
Despite the comfortable softness of the feather mattress and silken quilts, Briar tossed and turned for hours before dropping into an uneasy sleep.
He was walking through Discipline, unflooded and un-ficused, he noticed. His feet were bare, as it was in all of his dreams, yet his shirt sleeves were uncut and perfectly clean, an unusual circumstance. "Hello?" he called. Even the kitchen was empty of Lark, and the workrooms bare of life. He trotted outside. "Little Bear? Sandry?"
Girlish giggling, though it sounded like Daja's voice. Strange. Briar groaned, staring up at the roof. The three girls stood on the crisp thatch, laughing down at him. "Where did you go?" Sandry said, holding a ball of pure white yarn in her right hand. "Here, hold on to this." She tossed down the free end of the cord, its end landing directly in the center of his palm.
Grabbing the yarn, the world suddenly spun wildly, until he no longer knew which way was up and which was down. Discipline disappeared, and he was falling through blackness, its pressing darkness only cut by Sandry's gleaming white yarn. It grew taut, and her voice screamed, "Hang on, Briar! Don't you dare let go!"
He clutched at the string as he landed with a thump to the cobblestones. The road of death, he remembered. The dull grey stones devoid of life..."No!" he cried, "Not here!" The three girls shouted, and the yarn began to tremble.
Someone crumpled to the ground next to him. The tanned skin, slightly messy hair of Flick, his friend! Turning her over, Briar shook her shoulders but her head simply rolled limply. But wait...it wasn't Flick's still form in his hands, it was Sandry, her light brown braids tangling his hands, blue eyes closed. He yelled, and the yarn spun in a circle around them both, causing their bodies to fly through the air straight towards the stone wall...
And he hit the floor with a thump.
After a moment, Sandry carefully opened the door, trusty rock in hand. "All okay?" she said quietly. He nodded, shaken yet. Hey, at least she wasn't dead, right? He had bad dreams before, why was he being such a ...a chuffle about this?
"Want to share?" Her voice was noncommital, offering him either option with no consequences. Briar watched her through heavy eyelids, before shaking his head slowly. He'd tell her later, he decided, after a brief moment of introspection.
She smiled, carefully, because he figured he still looked sort of frazzled. "I'll just sit here for a while, then go back. All right?" Sandry said, placing her rock on the green quilt.
He nodded, still rather speechless. Well, she ain't dead, he reminded himself, so he lay back on the soft pillows and tried to doze.
Of course, it didn't work. He simply could not get the image out of his mind. Briar knew how dead bodies lay like empty pieces of matter, because of Flick and his friend Rat from so many years ago. But he never expected to see any of the Circle that way, least of all his glorious Lady Sandrilene.
His?!
I must be sleepy, it's affecting my brain, he decided, shutting his mind off with determination. As if not thinking is a good thing. Niko would slaughter me.
So he lay there, watching through nearly-closed eyelids as Sandry slowly began to slump over with sleep, curling up near the foot of the canopied bed, hand loosely wrapped around the glowing clear rock. Not dead, he reminded himself.
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