ISAIAH WOKE UP to the smell of pastry. The thrushes were chirping, the rain had stopped, and though enjoying the warmth of the sun on his eyelids, it was first and foremost this sweet smell that woke him. For almost a whole minute he felt at ease – warm on the inside from the thought of breakfast, but this all changed as soon as he remembered he wasn’t in his own bed. Forcing his eyes open, he looked around the room, bigger than his own and slightly more decorative than the rest of the house. From the sun’s position it seemed it’d been up for at least an hour already and through the narrow gap between the curtains (made of light yellow silk), it shed light on his clothes and his pack, laying on top of a plain chair in the corner. They had dried overnight, and so, he put them on and hurried downstairs. Stumbling upon the kitchen, the lady was standing there in another long dress – purple this time, reaching all the way to the ground. Looking as lovely as he’d hoped his iris would have.
“Good morning, did you sleep well?” She asked, without turning her attention from the pot.
“Good morning. Yes, very much, thank you.” He was ready to be as efficient with her as possible, and so – if he wasn’t able to convince her to come – he would plainly go out to find someone who would.
“And?” She asked, stirring some grains, and a colorful variety of fruits and herbs. It seemed it hadn’t been pastry he’d been smelling, after all.
“And I want to talk to you further about last night’s subject.”
She giggled, for a moment making her sound like a girl.
“For a Deltan boy you have quite a fine speech. Have you spent time in Nagár? Some noble house perhaps?”
“No, my lady.” He responded, although he knew the fortress wasn’t too far from it, and that Lord Huxley was indeed a noble of a sort - a fine sort even, but it was insignificant, and certainly not where he had his good manners from.
“Some people have it in them quite naturally, I guess. Your grandfather is an academic too, isn’t he?”
”How did you know?” he asked, sounding more on guard than he wanted. He’d heard sorcerers could read minds, but never that healers could. In truth, he hadn’t heard much about healers at all.
“Firstly, because you told me last night. Secondly, because you look a lot like your father.” He’d forgotten about his long, rambling talk and damned himself, suddenly not wanting her to know a single thing about him.
“You knew my father?”
“I saw him when I was a little girl.” She explained, then she turned towards him, tilting her oval face slightly to the right.
“You’re nearly identical to him, but you do not have his smile, however.”
“Oh.” He said dumbfoundedly, attempting a casual smile of a sort.
“Now, that’s most likely the worst smile I’ve ever seen – you’ll have to work on that.”
“I’m afraid that is yet another thing that I’ll need to postpone, my lady.”
“Oh, for the sake of the gods, please call me Tara.”
“Tara.” He repeated, feeling a little disoriented and then he said, “I’m Isaiah.”
“I know, we introduced ourselves last night. Don’t you remember?” her tone was less so irritated than genuinely curious – and it was strange, for he did not. For the death of him, he couldn’t remember saying his name out loud, nor hearing hers.
“I’m sorry… I must have been very tired.”
“That’s quite enough sorrys, don’t you get exhausted worrying so much?” She asked, taking the pot off the stove as Isaiah shrugged. “Well, did you have any insights while sleeping?”
“Insights?” Tara smiled, as she poured two cups of tea and big bowl of whatever porridge she’d been preparing on the table.
“Dreams.”
“Not that I remember.” He had to contain himself not to seem rude as she served him a wooden bowl, and a smaller red bowl with thick honey on the side. It looked as delicious as it smelled, and normally he would have eaten with great pleasure. But nothing was normal anymore, and he didn’t want to eat or speak of smiles and dreams. He needed to go back home.
“Thank you for preparing all of this, Tara. And for your hospitality, but I am afraid I need to leave straight away – I’m already running late.” She pulled out the chair, reasonably expecting him to be polite enough to at the very least try the meal. She then sat down on the other side of the table, stirring her tea with a tiny spoon, her big eyes looking at him expectantly. He sighed, but sat down. He was a gentleman after all, and she’d been kind and most likely saved him from pneumonia.
“Are you sure you don’t remember anything from your sleep?” He tried to think.
“Maybe I do…”
“Tell me, then.” Intrigued, her eyes turned hungrier and slightly green in the morning sun that had started entering the room.
“I saw my grandfather. And a man I’ve never seen before.” He recalled, little blurbs of visions momentarily reoccurring before dissipating again.
“Did they say or do anything?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.” Isaiah sighed.
“They were in a study of a sort… talking. I can’t remember about what exactly.“
“You’ll remember more later. When you do, tell me.”
“What does it matter? It was just a dream...” Tara shook her head slowly.
“Some dreams are just that, but this dream was very possibly something more – what we call insights.” She seemed awfully confident on the matter, her mouth slightly twisting to the right and the greenness in her eyes dancing vividly like fresh, summer leaves in the wind. He couldn’t help but think how beautiful they were, and rapidly silenced the strange impulse to say it aloud. Though she might be telling the truth about being unmarried, or even about not being dangerous, there was no time for such things. Even if there had been, he wouldn’t have the slightest idea about how to court a woman – a skill, possibly even further down his list of priorities.
“How do you know what sort of dream I had?”
“Well, normally it’s just an inkling you might say… In this case, I’ll admit, I might have put something in your tea to help it... come up.”
“You poisoned me?” he’d heard of the gross mixtures sorcerers made, filled with all kinds of strange, perverse ingredients. Animal blood, human blood, mushed intestines.
“Of course not.” She assured him. “It was just some calming herbs and plants in your tea. It seems to have done you good – you look a lot better than you did yesterday.”
“I can barely remember anything!”
“They don’t normally do that to you – maybe I overdid it just the slightest. Forgive me.” She seemed to be telling the truth, but it didn’t mean he was done being offended – she had lured it into him, and he had slept much longer than he could afford.
“You gave me a whole cup and I barely had three sips. Slightly doesn’t cover it.”
“Some people are more reactive to it than others. I didn’t expect you’d be so… sensitive.” he frowned and glared down at the mug she’d served.
“Those are just plain herbs, good for energy and digestion.” He ignored her comment, once again suspicious.
“Are you going to tell me why or do you always drug your visitors?” Tara rolled her eyes.
“I knew somebody would come here in need of help last night. First, I thought it was Geo, but when you knocked on my door, I figured there was something more serious occurring.”
“Was that this… inkling too?” she nodded.
“And how does poisoning me help, exactly?”
“Stop using that word, please. You’ll know the difference if anyone ever does poison you – which will probably happen if you don’t stop worrying about it.” She took a sip of her tea.
“You needed help, so in turn I needed your honesty. You also needed to rest, and even if you were exhausted when you came, you were very alert.”
“You could have offered it to me instead of tricking me into drinking it.”
“You did ask me for tea, if not I wouldn’t have given it to you.” He thought back. It was true, though it hadn’t been the sort of tea he’d had in mind.
“Besides, you would have thought I was some sort of a sorceress and ran out the door. Insights don’t come unless you allow them in – which an alert mind hardly ever does.” She was right, at least in part – it was exactly what he would have done, but not wanting to admit to it, he frowned instead.
“Since you want to help me, you should come back to our house.”
“I told you already, I can’t leave. Your porridge is getting cold.” She remarked.
“I’m not hungry. I will pay you to come. You can have a gold coin – two even, if you want.” She shook her head, uninterested.
“I don’t care for the gold any more than you do.”
“How do you know I don’t care for gold?”
“If you did, you’d know that one gold coin alone would be enough to buy a house and more than a year’s worth of supplies.” He didn’t know that. And the thought of it made him the slightest bit more concerned about where he would keep them in the future. “I’ll need to sew an inside pocket.” He thought.
“How is a house – or even three houses – more important than sanity?” Tara made a delighted sigh as she put her mug on the table.
“I hoped you’d say something like that.” Their eyes met for a long moment, and spotting a familiar light inside of his, Tara for the first time considered whether what she wanted to say next, was really a good idea and if it was the proper time.
“I can teach you.” The four words broke the silence in two. One half where Isaiah still didn’t trust her, and another where he felt awfully curious about what she’d just suggested.
“Teach me what?”
“To heal.”
“I am not a healer.”
“If you were, I wouldn’t have had the nerve to offer to teach you, would I?” He looked at her, even more puzzled than before. From his small understanding this was a skill they were born with. A strange phenomenon that went through their bloodline. You couldn’t just wake up one day and decide to become one, nor could a healer wake up one day and decide to make one out of you.
“I think you could become skilled at it with some practice. And perhaps a little patience.” Patience, what he had once seen as his strongest virtue, had ultimately failed him and only robbed him of precious time. “No,” he thought. “I certainly don’t have time for patience anymore.” Even if it was truly a skill like any other, there was no way he could learn it in time.
“Listen, my grandfather is all alone in that house. I need to go back today. Right now, in fact.”
“He has been alone there for years, Isaiah. You can spare a few weeks.” Weeks? He felt he couldn’t even spare another minute. Suddenly it seemed easier to simply drug the man down and take him there by force. Perhaps if he could trick him to drink some of this herbal tea or ask to borrow some of her odd trance stones. “I would only need him to be calm long enough to stay on top of Indra for half a day or so.” He thought.
“If someone doesn’t want to be healed, they can’t be healed.” Isaiah rubbed his temples – she’d failed to mention this crucial detail.
“Can you please make an exception? As you said yourself, it’s very important.”
“Not as important as doing things the right way, and that’s just not how it works. The laws are here for a reason. Only the willing can be healed.”
“How would I convince him then?”
“He doesn’t need your convincing, the only one that could convince him is himself.”
“But ‘himself’ is not present at the moment!” Tara ignored the comment, calm as ever while pouring honey over her food. “Blessed be my bees,” she thought, wishing her visitor would at least enjoy some of it. A part of her felt amused by his anger. It at the very least seemed sincere, and it’d been some time since anyone had dared to talk to her in this way.
“He needs time. You can’t force him.“
“What do you suggest I do then?”
“If you had listened and not been so eager to leave, you would’ve already known. Learn to heal, starting with yourself.” He had no idea how to heal, or what he himself might need healing from – if he’d caught the plague, he thought it should have affected him by now. Then it occurred to him. If she could truly read his mind, she might have seen corruption spreading through it. As his own was not the priority for the time being, he didn’t really want to know if this were the case, but the words left his mouth regardless.
“I am well, am I not?” As Tara reached for his hand, her pupils widened. He allowed this for a few moments, for her hand was as gentle and tingly as it’d been the night before. Then, realizing he did not want an answer, he abruptly rose from the chair.
“I am sorry, I really need to go. Thank you for… everything.” He meant it, he truly did, but he couldn’t stay.
“You’re welcome.” She said, hardly seeming offended by the way he’d pulled away from her, or the fact he hadn’t even touched the breakfast.
“I might be back.” He said, and as he walked out, she opened up the small, wooden box standing on the shelf placed over her kitchen table. She rarely used her deck anymore, finding most matters rather clear without its help, but she sensed her emotions were affecting her inklings. Shuffling the sacred cards her mother had once gifted her, one shortly fell out. Looking at the image of the charioteer (standing tall in his armor of crescent moons and his crown with the laurel and the star), she smiled. “Perhaps he’s right.” She thought. “Perhaps the time is finally ripe to explore the force of pure will…”
*
Before leaving Duroya, Isaiah went knocking on some more doors. As promised he didn’t encounter a single doctor – nor anyone claiming to be, or know, a healer other than Lady Tara, whom many of them referred to as “the lovely” or “precious”. They were either all under her spell, or she’d been sincere, and so he decided he’d need to forgive her for the devious tea, as she seemed their only hope for now. He rode home, thinking he would first need to beg his grandfather’s forgiveness and then bring him to her. The plan, he knew, was flawed and fragile, but perhaps the idea of perfect plans was as mythical of a tale as any. Perhaps they were made by greater men that knew much more than himself, about their world, its laws and rules.
The ride back home was mostly downhill, and so, by late afternoon, he was close to arriving. He had rehearsed his humble speech over and over again and felt almost certain he’d allow him to enter – despite what he’d told him in mindless anger. It was the conversation they’d need to have afterwards that mostly concerned him. Taking him to Duroya by force seemed an outrageous idea, but he couldn’t allow him to stay there and crumble away. Doubt spread to the darker corners of his mind, like a hungry raven feeding on crude uncertainty, as he thought of the letter. It was clear, he could no longer trust his judgment and until he was well again, he would have to trust his own. This repeating insight nearly made him miss him even more than he’d had in the fortress.
He knocked on the door upon arriving. His grandfather did not open, and he nearly felt like an intruder when entering. An uninvited stranger.
“Hello?” He looked around, only to find that he was not in the living room, kitchen, or garden. After browsing the entire house – including his office that was as much of a mess as it’d been – Isaiah realized that unless there were any secret rooms he did not know about, he wasn’t home. This wouldn’t necessarily have been a reason to panic in another case, but Theodore only left the house when absolutely necessary. Had he gone after him, regretting those cruel, last words he’d said? No – If so, he would have been back home again that same day. Unless, he hadn’t found him in the village and thus thought he’d run off and left him behind for good. If he’d swallowed his pride and asked around for him, which Isaiah sincerely hoped he had, they would have told him to go to Duroya,that his grandson had been eager to find him a doctor.
Isaiah damned himself. He hadn’t realized just how far away Duroya was - how tired he would feel when arriving. His grandfather was likely not aware of this either. The plan had been impulsive and foolish, worse than that it’d been an outright mess. If Theodore had gone out searching for him, this would need to be a final proof of his decreasing sanity. Walking those roads by foot would take a great many days. For a man his age (who usually didn’t stay further than a few miles from home), it seemed an impossible quest altogether. Though Isaiah hadn’t seen signs of him on his way back, he knew there were at least two roads leading to Duroya, and so, there was a great possibility he might be tired and miserable along the other route. “I could stay here and wait. Perhaps he’ll be back soon.” He thought for a moment, but it only took a few seconds before he decided the time for waiting was over for good. With five apples in his pack and no other clues to his whereabouts, he went riding back – feeling as if time itself was chasing him. As if it was a beast, he’d just recently become aware existed. One that would tear him to pieces if he stopped running.
He arrived in Duroya in the late night hours. He’d met a few drifters along the road, claiming to have seen a man walking by, but they didn’t remember how he’d looked and hadn’t spoken with him. It wasn’t likely he’d reach Duroya so fast by foot, but Isaiah prayed he’d overcome his fear of horses and gotten a ride from some good-willed merchant. Though having seen an inn earlier that day, he felt an urge to go back to Tara’s house. Perhaps she, or her so-called inkling, had sensed a stranger entering the city. He didn’t want to trust her, and he felt an increasing number of reasons not to. There was something unsettling about a woman being so unworried about inviting a stranger into her home. Yet, he sensed he was starting to trust her (somewhat against his own will). Though it seemed like outright loonacy to base his next decision on this, there was truly nobody else he could turn to, and so, once again, he found himself knocking on her door.
“Good evening.” He tried to smile, but it felt unnatural even if he was relieved to see her. Tara looked content, pretty and unsurprised.
“Back already I see. And still carrying around all that doubt about me.” She almost sounded amused by her own accusation, and with a sudden decrease in potency, Isaiah wasn’t quite sure what to say – for she was right, and he felt dumb to admit it.
“I…”
“Don’t you worry, I am a very patient woman. Come in.” He nodded awkwardly and as soon as he entered, he noticed another woman standing in her hallway. She looked about as different from Tara as physically possible: her body tall, straight and muscular in a non-masculine way. Her dark hair was braided tightly to her head. She had a narrow forehead and almost black eyes staring at him boldly. For a moment, he thought she needed to be a guardian, as she was dressed quite similarly to the ones he’d encountered – in dark brown leather and a long cape. It only took him a second glare to realize she wasn’t. Not because she didn’t carry the Kadoshi sigil, but because he remembered seeing her before – once killing a deer from a two-hundred yard. Another time dancing barefoot around a fire, during the most violent storm he’d ever witnessed.
“This is Cyra. My good friend, and one of the reasons why I couldn’t come with you this morning.”
“Son of Ares.” The tribal girl said firmly, and Isaiah nodded automatically.
“Pleased to meet you.” He said, though in fact, he was a little terrified to meet her, and if it was correct that Zuras could smell fear the same way that sorcerers and some animals could, she would know this already. He hoped it wasn’t, feeling more than slightly embarrassed to be this intimidated by two women – neither having acted directly threatening towards him.
“What may I help you with?”
“My grandfather was not home.” He turned to look at the woman, or girl, for she seemed to be around his age. He didn’t want to share his troubles with more people – less so with a Zura – but she seemed to be in no rush to leave despite of being fully dressed for hunting. Her bow was resting on her back.
“Where is home?” She asked, and he certainly didn’t want to tell her where that was either.
“Just, a few miles from here.” He responded, then turned towards Tara again.
“I think he might have gone out looking for me, and I’m worried. You have not… seen an older man, five-feet-seven, with dark, gray hair walking by here today, have you?” She shook her head.
“Alright then…” he sighed.
“Any clues to where he might have gone? Any friends or family members?”
“No family. And, I don’t believe he has had any contact with his friends for some time. Not that I am aware of…” Could he have dared to go up north after all, to visit this friend of his? It was very unlikely, but no more impossible than many other things that’d occurred recently.
“He must be in Nagár. That is where all loners and mad men go.” Cyra said matter-of-factly, her accent much stronger than the commander that had freed him. “Many nowadays. I go tomorrow.” She continued.
“Alright…well, have a nice journey then, miss.” He tried to sound friendly, but his voice had a slight tremble to it, and he could tell by the looks of her that she could tell.
“I cannot help you on this matter, I’m afraid.” Tara said.
“Even if I reconsidered your offer and learned to heal?” He didn’t really like his own suggestion but hoped she might be willing to compromise. That if he just did as she wanted, she might be more willing to use her inkling more deliberately.
“It is not because you’ve offended me in any way, Isaiah. I can’t find someone who doesn’t want to be found, and even if you reconsidered, it isn’t simple to heal someone who’s not there.”
“I would need to find him first...”
“Precisely.”
“Come to Nagár. Mad man must be there.” Tara couldn’t keep herself from chuckling at Cyra’s suggestion.
“Seems like an excellent idea.” She then agreed, and Isaiah certainly did not.
“I really don’t think he would go there – he hates Nagár. But thank you for the offer, miss.”
“You told me he’s an academic. And so, he would know people there, don’t you think?”
“Yes. But I’m sure he wouldn’t go that far. He only left to find me and is probably close by. Tomorrow I’ll look around the area, he must be …” Isaiah stopped speaking, as bits of the dream he’d had that night reoccurred before his eyes. Not as brief flashes like memories of dreams usually did. Not like vague notions that couldn’t be fully grasped. No, it was an almost clear image of his grandfather (his hair dark brown, his face serious, bright and younger than Isaiah himself). Next to him stood a taller, straight-backed man with black shiny hair inaudibly reading from a book in an office of a sort. The letters were not clear or comprehensive, but somehow, Isaiah could sense them – feel the shapes of the words and how they moved across the paper. The message was more so a notion than an instruction. An ungraspable, but strong, pull.
“Teach me, Raziel.” He heard Theodore’s voice say, and the man looked at him with piercing blue eyes. The next moment the dream dissipated, and yet, Isaiah didn’t feel quite as awake as he’d been a few seconds prior. Tara was touching his arm he now realized, and though not directly at his skin he still sensed the subtle tingling of her warm hand. He noticed she wore a ring now. It had a small, black stone that he almost felt was staring back at him.
“What just happened?” he asked, starry, dizziness scattering his eyesight.
“You just remembered your insight. I couldn’t interfere, but you said the name Raziel.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll have to ask yourself that. It was your insight. Consider me as a sort of… translator.” He was pretty sure that wasn’t what a translator did, but it wasn’t a discussion he would go into.
“Master Raziel Mongoya was his teacher.”
“Perhaps then, it simply means you need to go see him.”
“He must have died long ago…”
“What makes you assume that?”
“Well, he would have to be very old if he was still alive.” He’d always imagined this master to be an ancient oldling. The fine-featured man in the dream had looked more like his grandfather’s peer than his teacher, however.
“Old and dead are far from being the same thing. Even if he’s the latter, he might still be the best lead as to where your grandfather might have gone.” Isaiah thought about this. Was it possible he hadn’t left to look for him, but for entirely different reasons? Was he perhaps on a quest of healing his own mind and in need of his teacher’s guidance? “This mindlessness of his makes everything possible.” he thought, but even so, it seemed completely irrational to blindly follow some strange insight. One someone else had claimed to see, in what they claimed to be his insight. It was so far-fetched, so absurd to go all the way to Nagár, just because he might have gone to see this man, that it nearly made him laugh. Just nearly.
“Many teacher people in Nagár.” For a moment, he’d almost forgotten about Cyra, who despite of seeming restless to leave, was still standing in the hallway – staring at him with an uncomfortable intensity.
“Perhaps I should go back home instead. He might have returned by now…”
“Son of Ares should come with me. Tara is never wrong – you should trust more.” The strange tribal girl almost seemed so eager to bring him, he was starting to suspect she was planning on murdering him or what worse was. If nothing else, one thing was for sure – he trusted Tara more than he trusted her.
“His name is Isaiah, Cyra.” Tara glared at him, smiling as if there was no doubt the two of them would get along just perfectly. Though strongly doubting this himself, he could see there was at least a certain amount of logic involved. Despite all the unlikeliness of the plan, Cyra was heading somewhere and the only place he himself could think of going was back home. Going back a third time would be a coward’s choice. Despite the slight possibility he might have returned, or that he eventually would, something told him it wasn’t the case. Not because of an insight, but the sad knowing that it couldn’t be that simple. Not anymore.
“Alright then.” He said, as calmly as he could (petrified to his sheer bones). Though the girl seemed friendly enough, she was still a Zura and accompanying her for a week-long ride was nothing less than pure madness. Yet, there he was, accepting her eager offer, either out of a growing bravery or pure desperation.
“Very good.” She said, something resembling a smile on top of her strong features. It was the first time he’d seen a Zura smile and felt an odd appreciation for the effort.
“Wonderful. When will you leave?” Tara asked.
“Before sunrise.” Cyra replied. He felt an urge to ask for more time, but quickly realized it was better to go before his mind turned on him. If given any more time to think and reconsider, his fears would surely sabotage the journey. Finally, the tribal gi