4: Witches' Blood

Witches’ Blood

Book Four of the Rifter

By Ginn Hale

Published by:

Blind Eye Books

1141 Grant Street

Bellingham, WA 98225

blindeyebooks.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may used or reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

Edited by Nicole Kimberling

Cover art, maps and all illustrations by Dawn Kimberling

Proofreading by Jemma Everyhope

This book is a work of fiction. All characters and situations depicted are fictional. Any resemblances to actual people or events are coincidental.

First edition June 2011

Copyright © 2011 Ginn Hale

After using a key intended for his roommate, John Toffler and his two closest friends—Laurie and Bill—are thrown into the harsh world of Basawar. John and his friends survive the winter wilderness with the aid of a rebellious young priest, Ravishan, and eventually join Basawar society in the city of Amura’taye.

While Laurie and Bill find shelter in the household of the exiled Lady Bousim, John ascends the Thousand Steps to the monastery of Rathal’pesha where he reunites with Ravishan. He hopes that among the mysterious teachings of the Pashmura priesthood he can find a way to return home. After a year of service in the monastery, he has made many discoveries and a few friends, chief among them the aged priest, Samsango, and the healer, Hann’yu. But the way home still eludes John.

Soon John begins to fear that Laurie’s newly developed powers could be those of the destroyer god, the Rifter. If she were to be discovered, it would mean the end for all of them. Complicating matters further is the fact that Laurie continues to practice the forbidden arts of witchcraft under the tutelage of Lady Bousim.

In the midst of John’s turmoil, Ravishan confesses his attraction to John. But Basawar is a world where such desire is punished with death. And after a frustratingly brief kiss in Candle Alley, John orders Ravishan away from him—for both their sakes.

Warm beams of morning light streamed through the windows and warmed the infirmary as if spring had at last reached the mountains. But outside, snow still lay across the monastery grounds and deep drifts blanketed the surrounding mountain peaks.

In the midst of so much snow and ice the pungent scents of fresh herbs seemed strange, out of place, and too much of a reminder of things John did not want to think about.

He glowered at the bright emerald herbs filling his mortar and then pounded the pestle into them with unnecessary force. Thick stems and glossy leaves rapidly dissolved into a frothy green pulp under his ministrations. He took what satisfaction he could in that.

 
“Good spirit, Jahn, but I think you may have gone past paste to liquid.” Hann’yu offered the criticism without much concern as he leaned across the long wooden table and peered into the mortar. He appeared somewhat amused by John’s overly enthusiastic preparation of the herbs. “Something isn’t bothering you, is it?”

“No,” John replied, though he couldn’t bring himself to meet Hann’yu’s speculative gaze. Despite his unconcerned manner, Hann’yu could be a very insightful man.

In truth, John had spent most of last night attempting to purge his mind of the memory of Ravishan’s warm body pressed against him—the taste of his mouth and the longing in his handsome smile. John had tried to concentrate on anything else, and yet the tempting sensations of Ravishan’s bare skin, his willing lips and his strong hands had suffused John’s dreams with both desire and terrifying visions of persecution. He’d woken sweating, frustrated and lonely for Ravishan’s company.

But the monastery of Rathal’pesha was the last place to indulge himself. Or Ravishan, for that matter. So John had chosen instead to put his energy to use in the infirmary.

“I suppose I’m just a little nervous about preparing all these medicines correctly,” John told Hann’yu.

John looked meaningfully at the heaps of fresh and dried herbs that engulfed most of the table and lay bundled in parchment on the windowsill. He’d bought them in Amura’taye less than an hour before he’d met with Ravishan in Candle Alley. Yellow pollen from several of the blossoms still clung to his gray cassock. He wondered how much of it had brushed onto Ravishan’s black coat during their one brief kiss.

“You’ll do fine.” Hann’yu offered him a charming smile; the expression betrayed more of his cosmopolitan, southern background than did his dark skin and delicate features. “Just go a little more gently with the fresh herbs. Treat them more like you would ladies.”

John glanced between the phallic-looking pestle in his hand and Hann’yu’s lascivious grin.

“You mean pounding them?” John lowered his voice, despite the fact that all of the infirmary beds were currently empty. Someone might be listening from the common sickroom on the floor below them.

Hann’yu simply laughed at John’s expression. Then he schooled his features into something close to contrition.

“I’m sorry, Jahn,” Hann’yu said. “I shouldn’t tease you.”

“You shouldn’t,” John agreed, though he suspected that wouldn’t stop Hann’yu.

And despite Hann’yu’s occasional lewd joke, John found the work and conversation relaxing. He passed most of the morning grinding, pounding, and mixing the plants into various pungent concoctions, while Hann’yu observed from across the wooden table.

The sunlight grew stronger and the infirmary warmed. Now and then Hann’yu offered John instructions or made a face at the smell of a particularly rank herb. After hours of work, the entire infirmary smelled of strange medicines. The sharp, astringent scent of the herbs clung to John’s hands and only one last bundle remained on Hann’yu’s table.

It was nearly noon, and he still hadn’t seen Ravishan. After weeks of regular visits, John found himself routinely glancing up, expecting to see him at the door or standing silently among the rows of beds. The long hall of the infirmary seemed oddly abandoned without him.

John unwound the kidskin vellum that held the last bundle. The leathery odor of tanned animal skin evaporated as he spread the vellum and exposed the dark knots of dried gray leaves and thick roots. The earthy aroma that rose from the clumps of gnarled root smelled almost living, somewhere between the musky odor that hung in the weasel nests and the acrid tang of sweat.

“Don’t touch that one with your hands.” Hann’yu nudged a black-glazed clay jar toward him. “Use the vellum to funnel it into this.”

“What is it?” John carefully slid the leaves and roots into the jar. A fine dust wafted up and John held his breath until it had settled.

“Not much in itself. Eastern physicians used to call it goatweed. Eat some and it will be right back up with you in a few minutes. If you get some of the sap into your blood, though…” Hann’yu shook his head. “It could well be the end of you.”

“It’s poison?”

Hann’yu nodded. “You should close the lid and wash your hands well.”

John frowned. The tips of his fingers where he had touched the vellum felt hot and tender. There was quite a bit of fine residue left on his skin.

Then Hann’yu burst into laughter. “You’ll be fine. It has to be specially prepared to be deadly. Whole and dried it won’t affect anyone but a witch.”

The definite tingling in John’s fingertips and knuckles continued. He suppressed the guilty urge to hide his reddening hands behind his back.

Hann’yu went on, “You should wash up before you touch any of the ushiri’im, though. They’re sensitive to it as well.”

“Witches and ushiri’im?” John went immediately to the washbasin. He poured water from the pitcher and then soaped up his hands and rinsed them. The water felt bitingly cold, yet soothing. He emptied the basin out the window, poured more water, and plunged his hands into it.

“Witches and ushiri’im.” Hann’yu gazed at him evenly. “Odd, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” John eyed Hann’yu back, wondering if Hann’yu was making an oblique reference to something he should have known about or if this was more of the intellectual sedition that had gotten Hann’yu exiled to Rathal’pesha in the first place. From Hann’yu’s expression, John guessed it was the latter.

“A man who didn’t know better might make some connection between the two that could get him exiled or worse.” Hann’yu drifted to John’s side, in the way that he always did when he seemed to feel the subversive urge to educate John.

“But you wouldn’t be that man?”

“Oh no.” Hann’yu lowered his voice. “That man was a colleague of mine who now has a price on his head. He joined the Fai’daum.”

John raised his brows at such a frank admission of familiarity with a member of the revolutionary group.

Hann’yu simply peered down at John’s hands. Beneath the water, they looked deathly white, except the tips and knuckles, which were bright red. John glanced to Hann’yu, trying to read his expression. He didn’t appear alarmed, only curious.

“Often in backwaters like Amura’taye, town chiefs pay exorbitant sums for powders made from the scrapings of goatweed roots. They call it whores-torch. Usually it’s used to ferret out a suspected witch. They could as easily be finding ushiri candidates. But they don’t know that, of course. Church secret.” Hann’yu kept his circumspect gaze on John’s hands as he casually said, “I won’t have you handle goatweed again. It affects you worse than it does me.”

“Thank you for that.”

Gradually the burning sensation receded. John watched the redness fade from his knuckles, wondering if it had been some kind of allergic reaction or possibly a sensitivity to the fungus that formed the mycorrhizae sheathing the plant’s roots.

“Where you grew up—” Hann’yu began.

“Shun’sira,” John supplied quickly. Years ago he and Ravishan had decided on Shun’sira as the safest district for John to claim for a homeland. It was a remote district at the ragged edge of the Bousim tithing lands and was populated mostly by subsistence hunters who lived distant, scattered lives in the rugged hills and bogs. John had memorized the names of the few settlements that dotted the otherwise barren map of the area in a single afternoon.

“Did they have many witch burnings there?” Hann’yu inquired, still passively inspecting the progress of John’s inflamed knuckles.

“They didn’t have much of anything there.” John kept his answer deliberately vague.

“The town chiefs preferred to skin the witches for their bones, then?”

“I don’t know...probably. My family lived in the hills. We didn’t see too many other people, unless it was on market days.” John didn’t want to talk about burning or flaying anyone. Just the thought of witches’ bones and how they were acquired revolted him utterly.

Months ago, John had read about the sacred bones in the holy texts. Bled and skinned, the still-living remains of certain women were bound together with copper wires and used in divination rituals. Apparently, in the southern convent at Umbhra’ibaye, the remains of thousands of women had been assembled into something called the Issusha’im Oracles. The text had contained a small drawing, and since then, the image had worked itself into the worst of his nightmares.

Now it was too easy for John to picture their white teeth and hollow eye sockets; readily he conjured the stale, rotted scent of them and heard the clatter of their thin arm bones against their ribs as they twisted amidst the red wires restraining them.

A cool breeze drifted through the open window and John shuddered. Hann’yu cast him an oddly mournful look.

“Did you know that, once, it was only the holiest of women who were allowed to sacrifice themselves and become Issusha’im Oracles?”

“No,” John replied flatly.

Hann’yu plainly wanted him to understand something about the connection between the issusha’im and goatweed, but John didn’t know exactly what. Though he now spoke Basawar fluently, there were many aspects of the language and the culture that John suspected only a native understood innately. All he could do was drift along in the conversation and hope that, eventually, he would perceive the implications.