The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [39]
Had the master been mocking her, when he’d told his other favored apprentice to let her see the book? While she carefully turned each leafy plant on the wooden drying racks, that question tormented her. Jantalaber returned alone just as she’d gotten about halfway through her task.
“My apologies for letting you do all that,” he said. “Par resents you, you know, because you’re smarter than he is, so I knew he’d hinder rather than help you.”
Hwilli nearly dropped the rack she was carrying. Jantalaber smiled, then picked a stalk of eyebright from the tray and sniffed it.
“Yes, you can put those back,” he said. “They’re not quite ready. Did you look at the book?”
“I did. I understood none of it. Of course.”
“Of course?” He quirked a pale eyebrow.
“Isn’t that why you let me look at it? Because you knew I couldn’t make sense of it?”
“That wasn’t it at all.”
Hwilli felt herself blush. She hurriedly turned away and carried the rack to the drying room, lined with shelves to hold the wooden racks. The scents of over fifty different herbs seemed to thicken the air, as if she’d walked into a foggy day. The master followed her.
“I’ve often gotten the impression,” Jantalaber said, “that you’re very much interested in dweomerworkings.”
“I know they’re forbidden to me.”
“By tradition, certainly. By common sense, not at all.”
Her hands started shaking. She slid the rack into its place on the shelves before she did drop it and disgrace herself.
“I’ve learned as much from you as you have from me, Hwilli,” the master continued. “All our traditions say that your folk cannot learn dweomer, simply cannot. I suspect that those traditions arose because none of the People ever bothered to get to know your folk.”
“I—” She spun around to find him smiling at her.
“Now, I’ve taught my apprentices to put any guesses and surmises about healing to the test, haven’t I? I’d like to put my suspicion to the test. Do you want to share Nalla’s lessons?”
“I’d like naught better in the world!”
“So I thought. If you hadn’t bothered to look at the brown book, I never would have offered, by the by. But I felt that you’d be curious enough, and you were.”
“Thank you, I don’t know how to thank you enough—”
“You’re very welcome. Now, about that book. Doubtless, you noticed that it only contained notes in my hand.”
“I did.”
“They’re notes toward an idea that lies near to my heart, a special place we could use for healing and naught but healing. This fortress exists to serve death. We healers exist to serve life, and we need a place free of death to study healing, somewhere that possesses healing in its very nature. You won’t understand all this at first.” Suddenly he laughed, and his eyes took on an excitement she’d never seen there before. “I don’t truly understand it all myself. For now, let me just say that other masters in the healing arts agree and are planning on helping me build such a place.”
“It sounds splendid.”
“It might well be splendid, when we’re done.” He let the smile fade. “Assuming, of course, that we can finish the work now, with the Meradan raiding and killing. Ah well, who knows what the gods have in store for any of us?”
“Or what our destiny will be.” Hwilli felt abruptly cold and shivered. “And perhaps that’s just as well.”
Jantalaber laughed again, but his normally silvery voice took on a hard edge. “Perhaps,” he said. “For now, though, I want you to look at the first three pages of that book again. I’ll wager there are words there you don’t know. Memorize them, then ask Nalla or me what they mean.”
“I already have. Memorized them, I mean. I never thought I’d be allowed to ask.”
“Well,