Jorm by Alan Bayman

Author:Alan Bayman [Bayman, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-07-08T22:00:00+00:00

14.

The sun had set. Shan-lo had been invited inside. She sat on a thick pile of skins by the fire, chewing lazily on a piece of dried meat. Alula had cleared away and wiped down the stone table top, and then arranged for different piles of incense, one on each corner of the table. In the center of the table she placed a wooden bowl, filled with water. Elgin had me cut some strands of my hair and place them in the bowl. Then as she lit the incense one by one, she began chanting softly. Her voice was beautiful, hypnotic. I still could not comprehend the words, but it had familiar vowels and tonal inflections. It sounded like something between a command and a prayer.

I felt something change within the table and an enchantment begin to form within the bowl. To my mind’s eye it appeared as blueish, like a hazy cloud with shapes moving within it. As the shapes grew clearer I began to see them within the reflection of the water.

They were my memories.

As I watched them in the reflection they began to wash through me. Pain ripped through my chest as my heart began to beat.

I wish I could just skip this part and move on to the results. I wish I could put into the words how profoundly the revelations moved me. But I am no poet. I am a linguist and a scrivener. Since dying, I became and alchemist, necromancer, surgeon, and many other things, but still, the words of this moment still fail me, leaving only broken quills and clenched fists in my recollections.

To sum, for that is all I can do, I was a scrivener for The White Council. Books on all sorts of magic, but particularly necromancy, where mine to copy or translate.

I was fit for the job because of my high intelligence, steadiness of hand, and complete lack of talent in magic. Old wizards trusted me to make copies or translations of their tomes, confident that whatever knowledge I acquired could never be used.

I was useful but not unique. That was my mistake, to arrogantly assume my value was greater than the convenience of my masters.

I spent my time and much of my arguably lavish wages in some of the city’s finest inns and brothels. My family had succumbed to plague when I was young. I had no interest in marriage, until I met Shailyn. Shailyn Hibrone.

A young Lady, second daughter to Lord Hibrone, Master of Ships to the White council. Shailyn had been seduced by one of the sons of The White Council. After some time as his mistress the son grew tired of her, and left her heartbroken, penniless, and denounced as a whore.

I met her in an expensive brothel. She was in high demand, being new. She was always trying to give everyone what they wanted from her, love, attention, a shoulder to cry on. I think it was how she hid from the pain of everything

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