“I seem to be missing some of my documents,” he said. “A number of portfolios, actually.” The portfolios that had been stacked near his couch had obviously been rummaged through and left in a disheveled state.
“There are portfolios in my chamber. They were there when I arrived,” she answered. She felt guilt at having read them and not returned them to him immediately. Snooping was a breach of the credo of the Voiceless and could result in expulsion—and death, if a wealthy Departing or their family wished it. Her justification that the documents had been left in her private chamber would not protect her, and she knew it. “I can get them for you, if you wish.”
“Please.”
She went to get the letters. Oddly, she felt a sense of sadness. She didn’t want to give them up. She had read every letter, except for those in one last portfolio. Hesitating she opened the case. On the inside of the portfolio cover, it read: “Herbalism and Phytotherapy.” The page was scribed in an unfamiliar Noshian hand upon human parchment, the first of a long document that appeared to be a sort of treatise. She hurriedly flipped through the rest of the portfolio. Sweat broke out on her brow. She nearly missed the now-familiar cramped hand—the hand of the Son of Aelor. Thankfully, she glimpsed the corner of a sheet of Vien paper. On an impulse, she snapped the portfolio shut. Over the years, she had scoffed when she’d heard of Sisters accused of snooping. She would not resort to thieving, now.
It took her two trips to carry the portfolio cases out of the chamber. Coir directed her to place them at the end of his couch. He flipped through each portfolio as if checking to see if everything was accounted for. Jareen was thankful she had not taken the last letter.
Appearing satisfied, Coir set the last case down.
“Thank you, I had worried when I could not find them. I wanted to reference something for my atlas. Which also reminds me. These muntjacs your people allow to roam so freely, do they suffer from any ailments?”
Jareen sat down in the chair she used when watching over him during fevers.
“I know nothing of that,” she said. It was true. Thinking back, she never remembered hearing about it, and the creatures were less common in Jareen’s home city than in the deeper heartwoods.
“What about birds? The vaela? I know they do not live extended lives, but do they grow ill?”
Jareen looked at the wall, thinking. She did not truly wish to speak about Findeluvié with him, but a mixture of guilt and duty kept her in place.
“I think I heard about vaela falling ill, perhaps. . . Or maybe lame.”
“These are not the same.”
“No, they’re not,” Jareen said, accidentally allowing an edge into her tone. As if she did not know about illness. Coir glanced at her, then nodded. He picked up his pen and stared down at the page lying on the table.
Was this part of the atlas? She glanced at the various document cases piled around him. Where was the atlas, itself? She couldn’t help but be curious as to its length. Certainly, if he was interested in muntjac ailments the document must be extensive.
Coir set down the pen.
“I wish to rest,” he said. Jareen took it for what it was—an invitation to leave the chamber.
***
Silesh returned a third time to ask about Coir. The level of attention that the regency was paying to him was no doubt flattering to the archivist, but Jareen had to smirk when her novice told her of Noreen’s annoyance through the vestibule slot.
“They have again requested that, seeing as he has no family, the regency be considered his family for informational purposes, to know how he is and what occupies his thoughts.”
“And I’m sure Noreen told them that not even families are privy to what occupies the thoughts of the Departing, not by the mouth of the Sisters, even if we know.”
“I do not know what the Arch Sister told them.”
“Alright. Did Nor—I mean the Arch Sister ask you to inquire anything of me?”
“Nothing beyond the progression of the sickness.”
“He continues much the same, with intermittent fevers and weakness. . . and some odd behavior. Perhaps delirium.”
“Do you feel he is progressing?”
“Not as much as I would expect. Certainly, it would be the longer course. Are there any other reported cases in the city?”
“None,” Silesh said. “Hopefully there won’t be. The Harbor Master ordered two ships that have visited the Seven Isles in the past three months to undergo quarantine before landing any cargo. So far, there have been no cases.”
Quarantine was typical for such circumstances. By the time it was lifted, there may be ten or twenty ships anchored under watch in the far stretch of the harbor. Two were hardly enough to disprove an outbreak.
“We shall see,” she said. Silesh looked no better rested than before. She had dark bags under her eyes, and she looked pale. “When you are off duty, eat and sleep only,” Jareen said. “Sleep whenever you can. Your novitiate will pass.”
“I am,” Silesh said. “I try, at least. Sometimes I cannot sleep.”
“Dreams?”
“Not so much dreams. I just. . . I keep thinking about some of them. Things that happened.”
Jareen nodded.
“I understand.”
“I suppose it gets easier,” Silesh said. ‘That’s what others have said.”
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Jareen hesitated. She did not want to lie, but she also wasn’t sure that easier was the best way to put it. It wasn’t so much that things got easier, as that the Sisters got harder.
“Everything is easier when you have enough sleep,” Jareen said. “It is hard to work without a set schedule, but novices are forced to do so.” This was no new information to Silesh, she knew. “Ask Nell for some chamomile. Brew it into a tea and drink it right before bed, and when your thoughts run in circles, focus on breathing in and out slowly. Five seconds to breathe in, and five seconds out. Think only of breathing.”
Silesh knew how to do the slow breathing. The Sisters used it for Departing who still had their faculties, to help control pain when tinctures weren’t enough. Jareen had found long ago that it also helped control feelings or thoughts.
Silesh nodded.
“I have to get back, now,” she said. “I will give the Arch Sister your report.”
Jareen watched as Silesh retreated to the stairwell. When her footsteps receded, Jareen returned to the main chamber. There, she saw Coir stretched back on the couch, his legs hanging askew off the edge. His eyes were half closed and flickering. Jareen knew immediately that he was having an episode. This was the closest together the fevers had yet come. Perhaps he was progressing. It looked like he had been drinking when it struck, for a cup had spilled on his shirt and lay upside down on the couch. She picked it up and set it on the table with a click of ceramic, then felt his face and pulse. Yes, he was fevering again, and his breathing was shallow and fast. He half turned his head away from her and groaned.
It took Jareen little time to prepare tinctures to help ease his fever and breathing, and Coir’s rest grew easier within the hour, though his skin radiated heat. His face looked gaunt, his jaw hanging open. Jareen thought about taking her own advice and sleeping until his next dose was due, but instead, she pulled up her chair and sat. She closed her eyes, and as if trying to prove to herself that it really did work, she took slow and even breaths in, releasing them and imagining every muscle in her body relaxing.
Almost as soon as she tried to clear her mind, she thought of the letters. What else had Tirlav written? The idea that there was only one letter remaining bothered her. She found herself wondering what he looked like, and what the music he so often described sounded like. How different her life would be, if like the rest of her people, she could look forward to blessedness among the groves and gardens for centuries or millennia, indulging in pleasures and skill or the honest cultivation of soil and stem until. . . well. . .
Insensitives were rare, but not so rare that they were unheard of. Any Vien would recognize her for what she was instantly. The type of the Insensitive was always the same—colorless hair, eyes so light they almost looked transparent, translucent skin that showed the veins beneath. This was part of why Jareen understood it to be an inherited disorder of some kind, like the various disorders that afflicted the human children and could be differentiated according to the physical presentation, even at birth in some cases.
The rest of the Vien had skin ranging from ebony to bronze to milky white—but not translucent like hers. Their hair was black, golden, even red, except for the strange blues and greens that ran in the High Trees of the Synod. There was never a time when Jareen wasn’t immediately recognizable by Vien for what she was.
She snapped her eyes open. Her breathing was not helping her thoughts; she’d entirely forgotten about the breathing exercise. Coir’s eyes were closed, and the tincture had relaxed him. He would sleep. As if it had never been a question, she stood and walked over to the portfolios. It took her only a moment to find the one labeled “Herbalism and Phytotherapy.” She flipped through the pages until she came to the letter. Her heart beat as she pulled it out from amidst the other documents.
She glanced over the first page. This one was dated to only three years ago, the most recent of any she’d seen. She skipped past the usual formal greetings that started each of the letters.
“My good archivist, your curiosity always amazes me by never failing to produce a list of questions for me to answer. Surely, after so many years, your atlas must be nearing completion. I have never seen an atlas before, and even the concept is foreign, but I imagine it must be massive. I’m sure I have written to you enough about the legends and teachings of Vah and his Gate to fill one of your human books, alone. Yet you have never before ventured such a personal question. Matters of the heart are closely guarded, for that which we say of ourselves will not be soon forgotten. And no one among the Vien—at least that I have ever known—inquire as to the state of another’s soul. Is it not so among humans? Is it common to ask after such things? Please do not take it awry if I admit that there is comfort in confiding in a human, for that which I say is not likely to be remembered long. Even your books are likely to be worm-eaten or rotten in a century. This I will tell you:
Yesterday, I sat in the upper boughs of a great eucalyptus as the wind swayed its branches. Even so far away, I smelled the salt of the sea upon its breath, and I played upon my harp a melody in harmony with wind and cloud and bough and the creaking of the core of the tree, and for a moment all was perfect. There was no thought, no time, no concern of yesterday or tomorrow, only the beauty in the union of melody and creation. I played and played for what must have been hours.
Yet it passed. The song ended. Harp and voice stilled, complete. The weather changed. The wind turned to the south. Evening had come.
I could not play that song again. Yes, I could repeat the notes, but never the moment, never the unique interplay of all things just as it was, including myself. It is gone and gone forever, as every song before it and every song to come. Nothing lasts. Nothing lasts except our interminable minds. No matter how I try, the moment always passes. Always passes. Not even I stay the same. I feel the years slowly changing me, too. One day, I will be another. That is my torment, and that is all I will say of the matter.
As for your question about Vien tea customs, it is not at all surprising that the embassy refuses to allow you to drink Vien teas and only serves you human varieties. Not all teas consumed by our people should be consumed by humans, and I urge caution. As you know, the Vien partake of a wider variety of plants than what human digestion can tolerate. So it is, I would assume, with teas. To illustrate the point, I remember a time when I was quite a young child, not much past forty years. A delegation of Noshian ambassadors was touring the heartwood of Aelor, a goodwill gesture by the Synod when the trade agreements were first arranged. There is a lenoth’ni family of teas much favored by my mother, who at the time still lived in Aelor. As is typical hospitality, the Noshians were offered honeyed teas upon their arrival. A lenoth’ni brew was served. Within the hour, the entire delegation was in a fit of delirium, along with that condition which we learned the humans call fever. Even their tongues were swollen. My mother and father had no idea what to do for them, as human ailments are unknown to us. Thankfully for the sake of the trade agreements, within a few days the fit had passed with no lasting ill that we could tell. We know better now what hospitality not to offer humans, and in truth that was one of the only times humans have been allowed within the borders of the Aelor heartwood—or Findeluvié for that matter.
Sweat dampened Jareen’s wimple and dripped down her cheeks. She re-read the last portion of the letter a second and third time. She looked at Coir and then at the cup that had spilled. Reaching for it, she raised it to her nose. It was faint, quite faint. Was it a trick of her mind? Did she smell lenoth’ni, or had the letter merely put the smell in her memory? It had been so many years. . . She smelled it again. If there was lenoth’ni in the brew, it had been mixed with the tea brought with their meals.
If the archivist was poisoning himself to mimic fits of the Seven Isles Fever, then he would have had to do so five times since Jareen had arrived. That meant he must have access to doses of the herb. She gritted her teeth, the muscles along her angular jaw flexing. It was still half an hour too soon for another dose of tincture. . . but she readied one anyway, mixing it a little stronger this time. Using a dropper, she put it under his tongue. It was not a dangerous dose, but the Sisters calculated doses to allow Departing to rouse in-between for assessment, unless they were at the end of their illness. With this added dose, he should sleep deep and long.
Now, she would search.
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