Sunstone - Dishonor's Bane (Book 2) (9 page)

Chapter Ten

~

A
fter two months on the island
, Shiro still couldn’t get close to the old woman. He continually thought of her secret. She had become adept at avoiding him and there hadn’t been any opportunities to talk to her about the glamour. Shiro was certain she wore a magical disguise to hide her appearance and her Affinity.

Lost in his thoughts, Shiro blinked when he heard shouting women. It sounded like a fight. Over a number of rows and twenty paces down the furrows, a group of women flailed their arms and screamed. He dropped his sack and ran towards the sounds.

The old woman wound herself in a ball as four other women kicked her from all sides. The guards just looked on, amused.

“Stop this. Stop it now!” Shiro yelled. He pulled the women away.

“Gods-damned witch,” said one.

“She and her high and mighty ways. Thinking she can barge into the harvest and take the easiest work,” an older woman said, giving the victim one last kick as Shiro pushed her away.

Shiro turned the old woman around. Her face began to swell and purple with bruises. He wondered how the rest of the poor woman’s body responded to all of the kicks. She was unconscious and still her disguise held. He picked her up and headed back towards the farm buildings.

“I need to take her to the infirmary,” Shiro said to a guard who worked on a harness.

“I’ll help you.” He laid down his work and helped Shiro carry the comatose woman to the whitewashed shack that served as the infirmary for inmates and guards alike. The guard slid the door open for Shiro and left.

“Hello!” Shiro called into the large shack.

The walls were rough boards with a thatched roof. Every panel of the paper windows had been torn, much like the prisoner barracks. Inside, the shack looked more orderly. The infirmary had a floor made out of raked gravel rather than the dirt of his dwelling. He walked through to a small ward of four low beds. A little man slid a door to the side as he emerged from the back.

He rushed to the woman, still held in Shiro’s arms. “Mira!  What happened to her?”

“You know the old woman?”

“I do. We came to this wretched isle together.” He put his hand to her throat. “Her pulse is weak, but steady. Do you have a bit of time to help me with her? My shoulder is damaged and I need someone to help move her to an examination table in the other room.”

“Does your shoulder get you out of working in the fields?”

“It does along with the rest of this old body. That and I am the only healer on the island.” He directed Shiro to move the woman through the door the man came out of.

The table rose to waist height with a thin pad covered with a sheet. Shiro laid out the woman. As he moved her arms, he felt smooth skin where it looked rough and wrinkled. He felt her brow and couldn’t feel the wrinkles.

“You are a perceptive man.”

“Shiro is the name. I was a farmer and am one again. You are?”

“Abe.”

“Did you know her before?”

Abe only nodded as he felt her skull. “Ah. A lump here.” He pulled back his hand and looked at blood. “Put this mirror by her mouth. I want to see her breath.”

Shiro did as he was told and looked at her breath cloud up the mirror and the old man continued to probe her scalp.

“Is she your wife?” Shiro said.

“No but we are related.” Abe looked at the mirror. “Ah, she breathes well enough.”

“Then she’s your daughter.” Shiro thought nothing ventured, nothing gained. “I noticed the glamour. Rather skillful. Not sure I’ve seen one before.”

Abe gasped. “Has the Guild sent you? Certainly a sorcerer wouldn’t dirty his hands in the field.”

“Just an apprentice who happened to fail the Testing and lived. A retired sorcerer turned my companion and I in for surviving the Barren Lands.”

“Ashiyo in Sekkoro?”

“The very man. His hospitality aided my companion and I in finding our positions as farmhands.” Shiro smiled. He felt his breath quicken. She did possess a shield. “Who spelled her? I’d like to know.”

“What good would that do? We are stuck here. Unless you have a spell for walking on water? I have no wish for a sorcerer’s power,” Abe said.

Shiro said. “Boreko might be able to create such a spell. However, I think three leagues would just about drain him.”

Abe looked at Shiro. “We need to wake Mira up. She can help us.”

“She’s a sorcerer?”

“There are no female sorcerers. Women aren’t tested, as you know.” Abe looked at Shiro. The older man looked at Shiro for a moment as if making a decision, and then took a deep breath. “Magic is a wild talent for women. Most women. There is a society of women with talent in and around Sekkoro. They called themselves the White Rose Society. Mira was nearly at the top when the Lord Sekkoro decided to round them up. He has been working with the Guild and Ashiyo in scouring the countryside looking for women with talent. Ashiyo is the only retired sorcerer I know of in Sekkoro. One little group escaped except for Mira.”

“Then why did they catch her?” Shiro asked

“Jealousy. One of the other women sent an anonymous message to Lord Sekkoro identifying me as Mira’s father. My daughter found a way to create a shield against magic. When they thrust one of those magic marbles in her hand, nothing happened. The local lord demanded that I tell Ashiyo and the sorcerer where my daughter was. I refused and both of us ended up here anyway. I shudder to think what has happened to the rest of the White Roses.” Abe stroked his daughter’s hand while he told Shiro the story.

“Banished by the same man. I think I need to talk to your daughter. I’ve tried before, but she’s an expert in ignoring me,” Shiro said. The man’s story didn’t make any sense to him, so he guessed Abe didn’t tell him the full truth. However, her disguise and the shield were real.

“Mira can’t disguise her voice very well.” Abe shrugged his shoulders. “When she wakes, I will introduce you. But first, help me examine her.”

Shiro blinked. “I hardly think it appropriate.” The man was her father after all.

“We aren’t going to undress her, but I need you to help move her around. I’ll do the touching.” Abe smiled. “Never fear.”

~~~

Chapter Eleven

~

S
hiro entered the infirmary.
“How is your daughter doing?” He saw the woman sleeping in one of the beds.

“Mira’s still unconscious, but with all of her injuries, it will only help the healing.”

“I wondered if there were any herbs you might need. In the woods alongside the fields and the vines, I spied a number of culinary herbs. Perhaps there are some medicinal ones as well.” Shiro wanted to make friends with Abe. The man and his daughter held secrets that might help Boreko and him escape.

“I have a book you may borrow. You can use the drawings. My body can’t handle a walk in the forest and they won’t let an old woman in there either. There is talk of wild animals,” Abe said, chuckling. “Come with me and let’s talk to the Captain.”

Abe and Shiro walked to the large farmhouse that served as the warden’s headquarters.

“Warden Riku, this is Shiro. He helped me with my sister after she was attacked.”

“What do you want this time, Abe? Has your sister died?”

“No. She’s resting comfortably. He’s a farmer and has offered to look in the woods for medicinal herbs. You know we don’t get much from the mainland and any herbs we collect will benefit you and the guards as well as the prisoners.”

“Workers.” Riku corrected, and looked up from his battered desk to give Abe half a smile. He looked at Shiro. “A farmer, eh? My records have you down as a renegade sorcerer.”

Abe gasped and looked at Shiro in horror. “A sorcerer?” He shrunk from Shiro. “Perhaps I will withdraw my request.” The man was a formidable actor.

“I don’t see why. Neither he nor his friend can teleport, so they are as much a prisoner as you. Permission granted.” Riku looked down at the papers on his desk, declaring the interview over by his actions.

He looked up, again. “Abe, you can leave. Shiro, I’d like you to stay for a minute.” The old man left, leaving Shiro standing in front of the warden’s desk.

“Shiro.” He walked over to a file and pulled out a bamboo scroll. “Sorcerer. We haven’t had one here for some time. You say you were a farmer?”

“Yes, sir. I was a farmer long before I became an apprentice.” Shiro wondered what the warden was getting at.

“I don’t want you causing trouble here. I don’t want people mysteriously murdered or anything strange going on. However, I’m not a taskmaster. The workers police themselves. Abe’s sister refuses to fit in, but, rest assured, she will in time. It’s the same with you and your friend. Do a good job, work hard and, if you really are the farmer you say you are, perhaps you can rise among the workers. You are allowed to help Abe as much as he needs it as long as you keep up your work in the fields. You can go.”

Shiro wasted no time in leaving the house. Abe waited for him. “I can help you as long as I keep up with my chores.”

Abe smiled. “Here is the book. Whatever you can find I can use.”

~

Shiro found all kinds of things in the woods, such as fragments of blankets, cups, jugs, torn clothing. Evidently the guards let the workers relax in the thick vegetation. He looked for the herbs in Abe’s book and found a few.

Abe looked at Shiro’s pickings. “Better than nothing. This,” Abe picked up a sheaf of ruffle-edged leaves and a dark looking root, “will help reduce the pain of muscle aches and reduce fevers. You might take some of it, along with a few other herbs I have, and crush it into a drink for your friend. Boreko showed up here this morning while you were gone complaining of a severe headache. I gave him some herbal tea.”

Abe’s daughter sat up in bed looking at both of them as they talked. Shiro still couldn’t see past her disguise.

“He didn’t look well,” she said.

Shiro didn’t expect the woman to speak to him after so many rebuffs. “He was fine yesterday.” He began to worry about his friend. The farm work wasn’t hard, but the ordeal in the Barren Lands followed by the toil at the farm might have worn away his reserves.

“He didn’t look well,” she repeated.

“And how do you feel?” Shiro said. “Your bruises and swelling look better.”

She looked out the window and muttered a spell and snapped her fingers. Shiro immediately felt her power and was startled at how pretty the hag really was.

“Do I look better now? Father told me you are a sorcerer.” She snapped her fingers again and for Shiro it was as if the sun went behind a cloud. The hag replaced the pretty woman in the bed.

“I’m just a lowly apprentice. Boreko is the Guild member. You do look pretty, by the way. Are you ready to work again?” The woman had mastered some unique spells. Perhaps the White Rose had secrets the Guild didn’t know about.

“I will go back out in the fields tomorrow. Perhaps we can work together. I’ve been thinking that I need protection. It seems I am too energetic for their tastes.”

Shiro listened to the arrogance in her voice. Her beauty paled in his mind as the tone of her speech indicated a woman of little tolerance and a sharp tongue. Her manner was far from the sweetness of disposition his wife had. He pursed his lips at her remarks about energy. The women had beaten her for laziness.

“I will, if you teach me the spell you use to shield your magical ability and create such an easy disguise.”

              Mira laughed. “I might, but then again I might not.”

              “Then get used to the bed. You’ll be in it often.” Shiro wasn’t about to bargain with this woman. If she wouldn’t help him, her protection was of no concern of his. He walked out the door, Boreko’s herbs in his hand. On the way to the bunkhouse, he thought of Mira and her face. In his mind he saw the smooth skin and brilliant eyes. He didn’t remember their color, but he recognized the energy behind that gaze. It was too bad she was a witch in at least two ways.

Boreko hadn’t made it out to the fields. A guard stood by his bunk in the darkness of the wooden building. Even with windows propped open with sticks, the long building seemed more like an oven than a retreat for his mentor.

“He says he’s too sick to work,” the guard said. “I believe him. Why aren’t you in the fields?”

“I brought some herbs from Abe.” Shiro showed the guard. I need to grind them up and put them in a drink.”

The guard nodded. “Get him the potion, and then get back to the fields.” He walked past Shiro and out of the barracks.

“What is wrong, Master?” Shiro kneeled by his mentor’s side

Boreko opened his eyes. Shiro could see him struggle to keep them open. “I’m dying. I woke up with a headache and went to the infirmary. I took a draft of some mixture and then something happened up here.” His voice slurred and his hand shook as he put his hand on his forehead. He told me to lie down for a day or two. My energy is gone. I don’t think I will survive this.” He closed his eyes.

Shiro felt his eyes water. The life and optimism of his friend had fled. After Boreko made it through the Barren Lands, he should be strong. The hope he gave Shiro when they arrived on the island buoyed him up. Boreko never gave up on the farmer from Koriaki. Shiro wouldn’t give up on Boreko. He took a cup and washed out the weak tea and crushed the herbs into the cup and heated up the water with his magic so he could give Boreko a hot cup.

“Take this old friend. It will ease the pain.” He lifted Boreko’s head and helped him drink the herbal brew.

“I feel better already. However, should I die, don’t give up.” Boreko seized Shiro’s hand with a weak, shaking grip. “Take over the Guild. You’ll find a way. If you can destroy Ashiyo and Yushidon along the way, all the better. I don’t like being vindictive, but I’m afraid they will forever be trying to kill you, Roniki, especially. You can do it. Seek out a partner if you must. Enlist the aid of Mistokko, Tishima and Desiku. You’ll succeed, one way or another.” Boreko struggled to get the last words out and then lapsed into a deep sleep. Shiro looked down at the empty cup. At least if Boreko slept soundly, he’d feel no pain.

The guard poked his head in the barracks. “If he’s asleep, you can go back out to the fields.”

Shiro looked down at his friend. His breathing became shallow and then stopped. Shiro could tell the minute he died when he could no longer sense Boreko’s magical light.

“Out now!” the guard yelled from the door.

“He just died. Give me a few minutes.” Shiro knelt by his friend, holding the now-limp hand. His eyes watered as the shock of being alone in the world, truly alone washed over him. In Koriaki, he had friends to console him as his family died. He had Boreko to help him through the trials of the Guild. And now trapped on the island, he had no one.

“Why did you leave me?” he asked the silent form. He shook his head. “No. You can’t be dead.” Then he shook as he sobbed over the loss of his friend. Boreko hadn’t understood him, even at the end. He had no desire to kill Yushidon or Roniki. Shiro just wanted to live a peaceful life.

Shiro felt his energy drain out of him. He looked at Boreko’s body and tried to pull himself together. He hadn’t realized how much he had relied on the older man’s friendship. He’d lost a dear companion and, even if he didn’t challenge the Guild, he vowed to escape from this island.

~~~