Disclaimer: This all belongs to me! -Herald's nose begins to grow- Ok, ok, it doesn't.
Chapter seven. I like the number seven. It's a nice sort of in between number. Also, for some reason, it sounds much bigger than six even though it really isn't. Anyway, enough rambling.
This chapter is dedicated to my devoted reviewer Breezefire and her story, "Poison and Prison." She's sad because nobody ever reviewed the last chapter but me, and only Fireblade and I reviewed the latest one. So, if you have a spare moment, or just feel like being nice, please go and review her story, because it is really good. Thanks!
Anyway, speaking of reviews, 'tis time to respond to my faithful followers. Or something like that. –Herald looks confused-
Tenshi: Yes, I tried to add in some humor to balance the depressing nature of the last chapter. Glad you liked it. Sorry about the ending, once again, I had to go to bed and I wanted to get a chapter up that day.
Wizard: Thankies, I'm working on it.
Breezefire: Thanks. I'm glad you noticed that little element of her character. It made me quite happy when I figured out how to write it in. I'll try to add more description in this chapter, I promise.
Fireblade: He certainly is, isn't he? -Herald snugs Treet-
Stee Parker: -Herald growls and kicks all finals- I have them starting day after tomorrow, so I completely sympathize. Yes, that one sentence was a little whacked out, I freely admit, but I was confuzzled as to how else to work that scene. Thanks, and yes, I'm glad that Karissa got her Bond worked out. I didn't mean for that to happen, she wasn't supposed to be a main character, but she got me interested and she ended up stealing the spotlight, at least until we get to Haven.
Not many reviews on that last chapter. I hope we aren't going into a decline. Oh well, maybe more will come before I publish this. Nope, apparently they didn't. Well, one did. Still, I am most disgusted with the severe lack of reviews.
Chapter 7: Duties
Karissa turned to stare at Treet. "What?" Her voice was calm, but it held a sharp core of ice.
"Can I stay here with the horse, err, Companion? I don't think I'm going to go in there."
"Oh, don't be stupid," Karissa said. "For one thing, Veria is coming with me. For another, you have no idea how upset my Collegium is going to be if I tell them I lost their Healer Trainee. Therefore, much as I might like to sometimes, I cannot lose you. To that end, you are going wherever I go, and I am going in there."
Karissa cued Veria mentally, so that Treet would not have time to dismount and run.
:Veria, be a love and speed up a bit, would you? Just until we are sure we aren't going to lose our passenger.:
The normally serious Veria sent the image of a huge grin, then sobered again.
:Yes, alright, Chosen. But only because he needs to learn to get used to the country his life will be devoted to one day. You should really be nicer to him, you know. Does your pride demand that every person who sees a weakness of yours be beaten down to nothing in retaliation? He would be your friend, Kari, if you would let him.:
:Just speed up, horse. I haven't got the time to listen to your moral lectures. We have a job to do, if you had forgotten.: Karissa said peevishly.
Without warning Karissa first, Veria sped up to a ground devouring pace, nearly causing Karissa to lose her seat in surprise, although years of training in horsemanship enabled her to stay on, if not in a graceful fashion.
Luckily for Treet, in her wild groping for a handhold, she also managed to pull him further into the saddle, preventing him from slipping off of the back.
Once they had entered the village and Veria had slowed, Karissa remarked to Treet, in an almost friendly voice. "Normally, I would have to stay here a few days to sort the village out, but given our situation and the small size of this particular village, I think I can finish everything I need to do here before tonight. We can camp out in a Waystation and we should reach Haven tomorrow afternoon. Now, you stay here with Veria, where the villagers can see her, she can watch you and you don't have to go any further into the village. I have duties to attend to."
Treet watched in awe as Karissa straightened her back, shook her blonde helmet into place and strode off briskly in the direction of a large crowd of people obviously waiting to welcome her, her Herald mask firmly in place over her face.
Treet lay back, figuring that if he was going to be stuck in this strange place for any length of time, he may as well get comfortable.
The grass was sun warmed and comfortable underneath him, the ground with just enough bounce in it to give him the feeling of sinking into it.
Treet laid his head down last, and nearly jumped up in the air as his head touched, not grass, but the warm flank of a Companion.
Treet jerked back as though he had been burned, stammering his apologies.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!"
The Companion just nodded her wise head at him, but Treet saw that it was meant as a friendly nod, and was reassured.
"You know, I mean no disrespect to your Herald, but I wish she would just trust me. Or at least be nice to me openly. All this pretending she doesn't is getting tiring."
Veria fixed one sapphire eye on him.
"That sounded vain, didn't it? I can feel it though. I have no idea what's going on with this whole Gift thing, but I can certainly tell when I'm picking something up, and I think she isn't half as angry with me as she makes out."
Veria whickered her form of a laugh. If only her Chosen realized how transparent she was sometimes. All this time Karissa had been so proud of concealing her liking for Treet, and she needn't have bothered at all.
"Sometimes I wish she would explain things to me. Or at least understand how confusing it is to be picked up, shoved on the back of a being that highly resembles a white horse and carted all over the country, the only explanation being that I can do some odd stuff that lets me know how people are feeling and if they are hurt. Honestly, I mean no disrespect, but I already knew that."
Treet sighed. "Sometimes I wish I were back home. Well, not really. I didn't like it there, I was never happy, never loved or appreciated, but at least I knew my place. My place was at the bottom, but I knew where it was. There was no uncertainty. I knew exactly what would happen, each and every day."
"I miss my mother, too. I don't know if she meant for me to take a chance at freedom, but she is probably being beaten for my escape right now. I wish I could save her, but I know I can't. As much as she hates my Father, I don't think she would know what to do with herself out here. If it weren't for your Herald, I wouldn't know what to do with myself either. One of her best attributes, isn't it? Sweeping you up in her blind certainty and carrying you off. Does she do that to you as well?"
Treet was nudged out of his musings, literally, by the introduction of a large snout to his shoulder. In the distance, he could see Herald Karissa setting up some sort of a table in front of one of the largest buildings in the village. She still had her pleasant Herald face on, so Treet honestly could not have told how she was feeling, although he could render a decent guess.
The villagers were all gathered around the table, seemingly shouting. Karissa raised her hands as if begging them to calm down.
'She's hardly a one to talk of calming.' Treet thought with amusement, relishing seeing the dignified and explosive Herald surrounded by a mob of impatient villagers, all demanding that she attend to their needs first.
Veria stood up then, shaking her head and preparing to go over to Karissa.
:Do you need me, Chosen?:
:If you can shut these yammering fools up for more than five seconds, your help would be greatly appreciated. And bring the boy. If he runs off, both of us will be in the fire when we get back, seeing as I believe the oh-so-kind Healers who send us off on this fool's quest have already sent word to Haven about their latest Trainee.:
:I'm on my way, then.: Veria said, before Karissa could get started on complaining about Treet.
Veria sedately began to pace towards Karissa, shoving Treet with her nose until he followed.
Treet walked as slowly as was humanly possible, wanting to keep as much distance as he could between him and the villagers.
They were to his fellow Holderkin as a bright songbird is to a drab sparrow. Still, even the brightest of songbirds harbors a sharp beak, and who knew what these people would make of him. He could feel the vibrant energy spilling from them, so utterly at odds with anything he had ever felt before.
Before Treet knew it, he had been emphatically shoved onto a patch of grass near the crowd, and Veria had gone on, marching through in such a sedate and graceful manner that all of the villagers stopped arguing to stare at her.
Herald Karissa's commanding voice broke through the silence. "Right. Now that we are all calm again and can think rationally, let's start from the beginning."
She beckoned to a young man who looked to be in his early thirties. She closed her eyes and screwed her face up. Soon, a glowing nimbus of blue light was visible around the young man's head.
Treet was amazed. Surely this couldn't be the truth spell! That was the stuff of legends and tales, not for ordinary folk like him to witness.
"Now." Karissa said, looking awfully calm for someone who had just performed magic, Treet thought. "Tell me your story from the beginning. Leave nothing out and do not lie, for I will know if you do."
"Well, Herald, my mother died when I was a little. She had a wasting illness. A few years later, my father remarried this woman here." He gestured to a woman in the crowd, mousy haired and decidedly older than himself. "When he," the young faltered in pain. "When he died last moon and his will was read, he left all of his money to me, but all of his goods and the home to her." He gestured to the woman again.
Treet watched interestedly as the blue glow enveloped the man's head totally, never faltering or fading.
"When I took out his money and with it his record books, the money left comprised a sum far less than that listed in his ledgers. The only ones with access to this money were me and my stepmother, and as I know that I did not touch it, the only one that could have done it is her!"
The glow again did not falter, signifying, Treet assumed, that the man was telling the truth as he saw it. Which, Treet knew, was not always the same as what had exactly happened.
The Herald surely saw this, for she beckoned the wife forwards. At that moment, Karissa's face screwed up in concentration and the blue aura around the man diminished and vanished, reappearing around the head of the woman, though she appeared oblivious to it.
"Now, mistress, tell me your side of the story, please." Herald Karissa instructed, the tang of command in her voice.
"Herald, I swear it, I never touched anything of Edrich's. Even after he." She, too, faltered on the word. "Even after he died, I touched nothing of his before the reading of the will. I had seen his books before, when I agreed to marry him. I knew nothing of them, as I am but a jeweler, and his books look nothing like mine, but when I saw them, his sums were accurate and the books themselves looked well kept and accurate from what I could tell. Truly, Herald, I know not how this could have come about!"
The blue glow, once again, showed no signs of faltering. Karissa was obviously puzzled, that these two contradictory testimonies had both been verified as true.
The Herald then asked to examine the record books of the merchant. She examined the books for what seemed like an entire candlemark to Treet, and then asked questions of the other villagers about the man's job and personal attributes.
At length, Herald Karissa smiled, the smile of triumph and pride at figuring out the mystery. She turned again to the man's wife.
"Mistress, before you married Edrich, you examined his books? What were you looking for?"
"Mostly to make sure that his business was not failing, that he would not use my earnings to support his own trade."
"Was your marriage only a business transaction, then?" Karissa asked sharply.
"No! Not in any way! Edrich truly loved me. More than I loved him at first, for he would have done anything to convince me to marry him, and I was indifferent. Yet, after I agreed and we were married, we grew on each other, and by the time a moon had passed, I sincerely loved him!" The woman seemed close to tears at this question, the affront to her husband's memory almost unbearable.
"Shhh." Karissa soothed the woman with more compassion than many would have given her credit for. "Nobody here doubts you. I think we may have found our answer, though."
"Y-you did?" The woman asked shakily.
"Yes. You see, your husband desired to please you, prove that his business was not failing. He changed his figures. You see, spice merchants like him never deal in round numbers like those he has listed here. He must have rounded up his figures to seem more prosperous." Karissa saw the look on the woman's face, almost as though she was about to sob.
"It is no great shame. He was young and in love, he did what seemed best at the time. There is no justice to mete out here. I'm afraid though," she turned to the son. "Your inheritance is less than you thought."
"Yes." He said, slightly disappointed, then he cheered up. "But I received everything that I was entitled to. Thank you, Herald."
"That's what we're here for." Karissa reminded him kindly. "However, I must insist that my Companion and I depart now and get some rest, if none of you need anything else." It was almost a question. Of course, an affirmative answer would cause Karissa's sharp fangs, veiled all day, to come out and bite. Treet could see this fact with no difficulty at all.
"It has been a long day, and we are very tired." Karissa continued, seemingly oblivious to Treet's scrutiny.
Wearily, Karissa finished tying up her last loose ends in the village and beckoned to Treet. "Come on, let's go get some rest."
Treet was not inclined to disagree.
