The Deepcombers

Chapter Twenty Two

Every jar of medicine he infused with smilk thrilled the white-haired lad and soon he saw a real future for himself here at this table dispensing the wispy stuff that collected in his head. Three days ago he'd picked up a heavy stone because he knew he could. He had no idea what it was but he knew it was somehow connected to his future. He'd embraced it without fear and paid the toll; he'd suffered through slag fields, slime caves and that deadly swamp.  By some miracle he'd survived and now here he was. He wanted to laugh aloud with happiness, but instead he masked his joy least he cause the others to worry about his sanity. Would he soon toss around blue light loaves? And make wind for sails? Would Zed teach him how? or Saeya? Who would be his instructor? 

The crew worked quietly and Lon listened all the different sounds in the settlement. He heard plates and pans rattle in the cookhouse and the soldiers in the barracks practice their martial arts. The thumps of wooden swords on mannequins had a different tempo than the hammers and saws in the construction site and Atar's loud laugh was totally unique. He heard heavy horses bray as they pulled wagons through the front gate and the sound of Calbians filling barns with fresh cut hay.

"Zed how many cases?" Melcart asked without bothering to look for himself.

"Just six more little boxes," Zed answered with sugared bliss. Lon wondered about him. He seemed a little too friendly and he was either making a fortune here or something more devious was afoot.

"Six more! That's.. " Melcart tried to multiply six by twelve.

"Seventy-two." Valari supplied the arithmetic.

"Ugh so many?" the malcontent moaned.

"It's a bountiful summer." Zed replied, "the hesperdium is really very lovely this year Melcart. Have you tasted it?

"We're allowed to taste it?" Lon asked.

"What remains on your finger." Saeya said quietly.

"This is going to take us all day," Melcart lamented.

Zed shook his head no. "We're making good progress." He smiled an ugly brown toothy grin at Lon, "I imagine today we'll make our quota before tea." Then he remembered something and rounded the tree trunk to his carriage below.

When the mystic returned, he collected the charged containers that'd accumulated. He corked them, poured wax on the tops, and stamped them all with his special ring, but he did not deposit Lon's bottles with the others in the open case. Instead he squirreled them away in a separate box down by his feet.

"Why do you keep mine down there?" Lon asked.

"I want to test something," Zed said.

Saeya looked and confirmed that Zed had indeed packed Lon's work separate from the others. She may have deduced why, but she didn't say it aloud. She looked at Valari who narrowed her eyes and nodded that she knew too, but also wouldn't speak it and be discourteous. Melcart was last to figure it out but eventually he guessed the answer and spoke it aloud.

"A Sacred Kiss? ...when the infuser knows no glyphs?" Melcart turned on Lon at the table. "Is that really true? Do you really come at this from ...? The wilderness?"

"What are... Glyphs?'

"Oh, that is aaastounding," Melcart just stared open-mouthed at Lon. "You amaaaaze me'

"He's on a clean path, as Hamlin said last night." Saeya defended Lon. Valari went into hiding.

Zed saw an opportunity to minister and so he asked the dandy, "tell us Melcart, what does it mean to you that Lon is on a clean path and comes at this from the wilderness as you say?"