Questbound

Chapter 4-2

‘But you just said that we were not going to bother having lunch,’ Kai protested.

‘Nonsense. I said no such thing. Now, away with you,’ Grandfather Heen snapped, threatening him with the spoon again.

Kai hurried into the library, finding Xanna already absorbed in a great, leaf-bound book. ‘There will not be anything in there,’ he said softly so that she wouldn’t jump. ‘That book is all about the techniques we used to develop our special crops, not about illnesses.’

She sighed, heaving the book shut. ‘How do you manage to read all of these?’ she asked. ‘I have picked up three already, and each one has such small writing and strange spellings that I can hardly make sense of it.’

He grinned at her. ‘It just takes practice. The spellings make them look harder than they actually are; it is only because you are not used to them that you are having trouble. Try reading it aloud, slowly.’

She opened the book again, choosing a page at random. Focusing, she began to read. ‘Atte wun taime, awer pople tryeed tuu desskover hau tuu grohe triis wyt maltypuul speeseays ower fruets unn leem...Kai, this is ridiculous. It sounds like nonsense,’ she complained.

‘Here, give it to me,’ Kai said, holding out his hand. Shrugging, she gave him the book. He coughed, and read, ‘At one time, our people tried to discover how to grow trees with multiple species of fruits on them.’

She stared at him open-mouthed, but before she could say anything, Grandfather Heen called them back to the main room.

‘Sit,’ he said as they entered, pointing to the roughly carved table and chairs at the end. They did so, waiting while he placed two hot bowls of steaming sludge in front of them. Then he sat down himself, taking a mouthful of the stuff and staring until one of them decided to speak.

‘Xanna knows more about it than I do,’ Kai said. ‘She is the one who actually examined Lady Sia, but from what I gather, Lady Sia’s body is covered in black spirals.’

‘They looked like vines, Grandfather Heen," Xanna took over. "I have never seen anything like it before. I thought it was some kind of parasite. She disagreed with me, however, saying that a parasite would have killed her long before now."

‘What exactly does Sia think it is, then? And how does she know for certain that it is killing her?’ Grandfather Heen growled, taking another mouthful of stew.

‘She thinks it is a curse, cast by the humans hundreds of years ago when they still had magic. She said that some curses take years to come into effect, and this may be one of them,’ Xanna explained. ‘And...well, it is causing her organs to fail. Slowly. She thinks that it will take several months to kill her, and it will be very painful.’

Grandfather Heen’s face darkened. He pushed his bowl away and rested his elbows on the table, interlocking his fingers and bringing his hands to his chin. ‘If that is truly the case, then I am afraid neither you two nor Lady Sia will find anything about curses in our books. Our previous Wise Woman saw to that after the disease which took your parents’ lives also claimed that of her daughter’s. She believed that if all the books on human customs, including their magic, were destroyed, then it would prevent us from becoming too curious and venturing out of Earthias to meet them, thus avoiding the risk of bringing more foreign diseases to the forest.’

‘Then what are we supposed to do? We cannot let Lady Sia die!’ Kai said, banging his fist on the table and making everyone’s stew spill over the sides of their bowls. Grandfather Heen gave him a long, hard look.

‘No, we cannot,’ he said at last. ‘There is only one thing you can do, and it is probably the biggest taboo of our people: leave Earthias and travel to Xya, the human"s royal city. Convince them to grant you access to the great library there, a place where every important document is stored, including the history of human magic.’

‘How do you know that?’ Kai said.

‘I was young once, you know, and I have never conformed to Earth Healer customs. Before I moved to the dark side of Earthias, I got tired of living around people who had no curiosity about the human world at all. So I left for a few years.’

‘You mean, you actually lived with the humans?’ Xanna said, incredulously.

lived‘I did, and most of them were of the same temperament as us. Plus, they have a certain drink made from a plant that we do not have here. It leaves you feeling so merry that I grew quite attached to it.’ He sighed, his eyes glazing over in reverie. Then he realised they were still looking at him. ‘Well? What are you waiting for? Finish your stew and then get going.’

‘But we do not know the way,’ Kai said pointedly.

Grandfather Heen grunted. ‘You did not think I would let you go without giving you a map first, did you?’

Without waiting for Kai to reply, he rose from his chair and went over to a plain wooden chest in the corner. Opening the lid, he rummaged through its contents until finally he pulled out a large, rather faded map inked onto thick leaf paper.

‘Is that made of Dorret leaves?’ Xanna asked in awe as Grandfather Heen brought the map over to the table and laid it flat so they could read it properly. ‘Everyone says those trees are extinct!’

DorretGrandfather Heen chuckled and tapped the side of his large nose. ‘Oh, they are around still...if you know where to look. Besides, this map is older than I am, as a great many other Dorret artefacts hidden in this hut are.’ He studied the map for a moment, clearing his throat. ‘Now, let me see...’