The Tasters Guild (18 page)

“Rowan!” Rue cried, and rushed to give him a welcoming hug—only to be stopped in her tracks by his smell. “How did you ever get here?”

Ivy, who thought it was quite evident how they had arrived, and that anyone who would ask such a question was either foolish or blind, scowled at the girl.

Rue was clad, like them, in the drab robes of an apprentice—she was a student still, having not yet undergone her Epistle ceremony, during which, among other things, she would receive her taster’s robes. But something was different about her, Rowan noticed at once. Her hair—it was chopped short in the brutally cropped fashion of the subrectors at the Guild. And it was shaved in a receding arc, making her forehead more pronounced and broadening her face into a full moon in an off-putting demonstration of devotion.

Rowan’s eyes widened, and he took a step back.

“Y-you’re tonsured!” he stammered.

A frown flitted across Rue’s brow and was gone.

“Yes!” She laughed. “I always planned on continuing my studies after commencement.”

“You—You want to be a
subrector?”
Since meeting Ivy, his opinion of the Tasters’ Guild had changed drastically, but even he would never have considered becoming a Guild scholar.

“And why not? Can you think of any greater honor?”

Rowan was silent.

“Who’s this, Rowan?” Peps asked, looking between the two.

Rowan, remembering his manners, turned to make introductions.

“Ivy, Peps, this is my friend Rue. Rue, this is Ivy Manx and Peps D. Roux. Oh, and over there is—”

“Axlerod D. Roux!” Rue nodded enthusiastically. Like most of Caux, Rue possessed a great respect for the
Field Guide
, and its author, who was currently filling in his old friend on news of Cecil and Templar. Rue turned again to Ivy, who had so far failed at any attempt to make herself appear more friendly.

“I am named after him,” she confided with a wink.

Ivy scoffed. “After Axle?”

“Yes—my parents were great fans of his work.”

Ivy narrowed her eyes. She suddenly felt proprietary of her lifelong friend.

“Really. How nice.” She glared unpleasantly at the strange girl and found a spark of her old self return—wouldn’t it be nice to test Rue’s tasting abilities? Ivy was certain she could easily get the better of the would-be scholar with a few drops of her famous toadstool tonic. Six’s yellow eyes gleamed encouragingly.

Rowan, glancing anxiously from one girl to the other, interrupted the stalemate.

“Ivy grew up beside Axle’s trestle. They are old friends,” he revealed. His words relaxed Ivy some, and she found herself
smiling in satisfaction. Rowan, quick to change the subject, demanded news from inside the Tasters’ Guild and soon found Rue was quite happy to oblige.

As the two classmates caught up, Ivy’s attention drifted.

“Ivy Manx,” came a low baritone, a voice that made children learn complicated theories easily by the mere melody of its rich tones. “What errand brings the Child of the Prophecy, the Noble Child, here, to the Tasters’ Guild? In this uneasy realm, surely this can be no social visit.”

She was joined then by Axle and the Professor—his silver hair gleaming a rich hue against his black robes in the low light. The old friends looked serious, and the Professor bent down to inspect her.

“Um—” Ivy found herself suddenly unable to answer. But, as it turned out, this was a question more directed at Axle, for, indeed, Professor Breaux knew that Axle was the one to answer it.

Axle looked around the dark night, and Breaux at once understood.

“We are safe here, in my garden, for the time being,” the Professor said. “Verjouce has not seen fit to bother an old, doddering lecturer. Yet.”

“But …” Axle grew quiet as he studied Rowan and Rue from afar.

“Oh, yes. Rue,” sighed the professor. “She is young. This is
the only life she’s known, within the Guild’s walls. But she can be trusted—she is my granddaughter, my blood.”

“Yes, of course,” Axle said quickly. For a moment it seemed as if there was something more, but the trestleman shook his head and was quiet.

They gathered at the fountainside, where Peps was happy for the chance to dip his kerchief in the water and begin the impossible process of becoming presentable.

“Surely, old friend, it must not surprise you that we are here?” Axle asked.

Breaux’s eyes twinkled a moment, and then a stillness settled into them, a sadness. He shook his head. “I only wish it was not necessary.”

“We search for the Doorway here at Rocamadour. The Doorway to Pimcaux.”

Breaux was silent for a moment. “Of course,” he said finally. “I am at your disposal.”

“Have you any news?”

“So I do. None of it good.”

P
rofessor Breaux sat, with the help of his granddaughter, upon a smooth stone bench. He was assisted in this chore by a gnarled walking stick, but all the same a look of pain swept across his face, and Rowan was stricken to behold just how old he had become in the few short years since he’d last seen him. Settled now, the Professor took a deep breath.

“You say you have seen the Librarian, Malapert?”

“Indeed,” Axle replied. “I have seen him.”

“Well, that
is
something.” The Professor looked around, his eyes settling on Ivy. “I must pay my old friend a visit.”

“Malapert hid some Verdigris books in a crypt beneath the city,” Axle said excitedly. “Maybe the Doorway to Pimcaux is there?”

Ivy thought of the time—it seemed so long ago—in Axle’s study, when she and Rowan had together seen such a doorway in a book. She knew the power of the great and ancient magic, and
at the memory of the strange vision there in the trestle, her stomach leapt.

But the old man shook his head sadly.

“Perhaps it was at some point. But the page was torn from its binding long before Malapert could salvage it, and is now the subject of much speculation.”

“Then it might still be here!” Rowan said.

“I am afraid not,” Breaux said sadly. “It was thought the paper found its way to Vidal Verjouce, who hid it well.”

Rowan cast a dark look about him. It would be impossible to breach the Director’s chambers.

“And now there are whispers it is gone again.” Breaux sighed.

“What did this parchment look like?” Ivy suddenly asked. Valuable missing scrolls reminded her of someone, and a realization was dawning on her.

“It was said to be a door, drawn simply, but one adorned with the ancient symbol of regeneration, of healing. The ouroboros.”

“The ouroboros!” the travelers said in unison. The golden serpent from Dumbcane’s shop.

“What is never hungry but always eating?” Ivy cried.

“Verjouce has apprehended the thief,” Breaux continued. “He is a scribe. But he is also a forger and has apparently been stealing valuable papers from the Guild for many years.”

“He is called Hemsen Dumbcane,” Axle announced, to the surprise of his host.

“You know of him?”

Axle nodded. “A neighbor of sorts.”

Peps scowled at the thought.

“He awaits his sentence, a prisoner in the catacombs.” Rue now spoke.

“Sentence? What sort of sentence?” Axle demanded.

“Conium maculatum.”

“Poison hemlock,” Ivy whispered. As a poison, it was perfection. Swift and deadly.

Breaux turned his wise face to Ivy again.

“Ivy, I knew your uncle Cecil at a gentler time. How is he? He must be quite proud of you.”

Ivy mumbled that Cecil was well.

“Do you like my garden?” he asked. “I hear you are quite a gardener yourself.”

“Yes, I’d love to look around,” she replied shyly.

“Nothing would make me happier.” He gestured. “Be sure to smell the elderberry,” he said casually.

Ivy nodded.

“Elderberry and, of course, arrowroot.”

Odd requests, she thought, since neither had a particularly pleasing scent, but she nodded again politely.

“Elderberry, arrowroot—and sourbush.”

Ivy peeked at Axle, who wore a look of amusement.

“I will be sure to, Professor.”

“How do the forkedtongue and spittlesap grow here?” Axle asked casually.

Sourbush, she thought quickly, in its most general sense meant
captive, a prisoner
. And forkedtongue, a spiky reed with seed pods filled with fluffy thistledown and gooey sap, meant
to decipher
. The Professor and Axle were speaking in Flower Code! She was realizing how instantly fond she was of this old man, Rowan’s favorite teacher. She listened gleefully as Professor Breaux and Axle suggested that a visit to the catacombs was necessary, to find Dumbcane.

It was too dangerous, Axle continued in Code, for Ivy to leave the Professor’s compound. She wasn’t instantly recognizable, but still, there was too much at stake. The Professor agreed, and it was decided that Rowan as well was to stay within the moonlit walls. He was known here, as a former student, and known to be uncollared, an Oath breaker. If Verjouce found Rowan … Ivy knew what future awaited him and did not need the Professor to continue.

Ivy reached for a dry inner pocket in her borrowed robe and, fishing out her beloved copy of Axle’s book, quickly turned to a dog-eared page.

“Stinkhorn?” she asked, after finding the plant she was looking for. “Because crimped gill and thick-footed saddle weed.”

The Professor laughed.

“Yes, of course! The sewers of Rocamadour are as dismal a place as I can think of. Let’s see what we can do about getting you cleaned up!”

I
t was not long before the travelers were reunited again before the fountain, this time bearing the more pleasant scents of bath salts and fresh soap along with new robes. Ivy smiled at the sight of Peps, who was so relieved to be done with the sewers, he cared not at all about his borrowed, ill-fitting clothes. His gold tooth flashed as he grinned at her. Axle and Professor Breaux were still conferring in low voices, and Ivy waited for Rowan to appear.

There was a table set in the garden, and Rue was seeing to various delicacies and small dishes. Ivy’s appetite was still absent—the smell of a sewer is one that does not diminish easily—but she looked on with a vague sense of happiness, tempered by the very real fact that she was now an uninvited guest of Rocamadour. She must somehow navigate this terrible city and find her way to Pimcaux. But for now, the garden around her was magnificent, and its delights beckoned.

She walked, grateful for the time alone—quickly, the low
conversations about her faded into the background of insect trills and toad calls, and the ever-present bubbling of the fountain. The living, growing things around her rejoiced at her presence—as they had done since she was born—and as she followed a pebbled pathway, flowers upon stalks upon root-stems strained to be nearer to her. Yet, no matter where she went in the oasis of Breaux’s garden, there was no escaping the steep black spire of the Guild’s tower blotting out the peaceful night sky, and when she looked upon it, a palpable shadow crossed her heart.

Ivy rounded a showy tuft of silvery grass and was surprised to find her host alone in the moonlight, sitting beside his staff in a forgotten corner of the garden.

“Professor Breaux?” she asked, approaching.

He put a finger to his lips, quieting her.

Even though his was a residence—one acquired in advanced age and seniority in the subrector ranks, a safe house of sorts for the travelers—it was, after all, a part of the larger Tasters’ Guild, and the walled ramparts of the city weren’t that far off. From here the two watched as several guards patrolled it. On the other side of the high stone wall that encompassed Breaux’s home and garden was a cobbled walkway, and on this Ivy now heard footsteps plainly receding.

“Join me?” he asked in the silence that followed.

Ivy nodded and did so.

“I envy your travels. Pimcaux! Although it is not in my
future to see it again, I do so wish I might.” He paused. “There is something I must tell you, though. It is of grave importance to your return.”

Ivy glanced at the Professor quickly and nodded.

He reached beside him and plucked a night lily from its stalk. She smelled its thick perfume, the rare flower a small joy to her beside him. His fingers were crooked and lumpy with age, but he had no trouble crushing the beautiful blossom. The air smelled bruised and thick. He opened Ivy’s hand and placed the ruined thing within, closing her fingers over it.

“We are a land born of the earth, of things that grow—both good and bad. Great wisdom is found in the forests—great power is there for those who seek it. But plants must be used wisely, not against their natures, or they will turn upon us. They will harm instead of heal. They will poison. You speak the Language of Flowers, Ivy. In this lies your destiny.
Whosoever speaks to the trees speaks to the King.”
The Professor was silent for some time.

Then he said, “Getting to Pimcaux—that is but half the journey. To return, that requires something else. In order to leave Pimcaux, you must bring with you something of the earth, something that grows from the soil of Caux. Otherwise, there is no way back.”

Ivy nodded and the Professor relaxed, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. She bent forward and opened her hand, curious, peering down in the moonlight. Within her
small fist, the fragile night lily was reborn—with not a sign of trauma at the old man’s hand.

She slipped the lily behind her ear.

“So it is true.” He nodded. “I have now seen it for myself—plants are awakening again. Your uncle worked some ancient magic when he roused the Verdigris tapestries. But what is more potent is your own effect upon that which grows.”

Ivy thought of the hawthorn tree, of its evil desire to imprison her friend. She shuddered. Apparently all plants were awakening—not just the good. How many people must suffer because of her?

There was a crunching nearby, a dried leaf underfoot again on the walkway, and Ivy froze. Through a veil of creeper, thin iron bars faced the narrow street, a vertical peephole, and it was here that Ivy thought she saw something move. Looking out again on the sliver of dark cobblestones, she was certain now. A splash of scarlet—but then there was nothing.