The Fourteenth Key (The Chronicles of Terah Book 3) (49 page)

Darrell motioned for the guards and Marcus to join them on the field.

When they were all assembled, Kevin said, “We won’t do anything that complicated today, but I wanted all of you to see where we’re headed. Any questions?”

When no one said anything, Darrell told them to take their positions.

Kevin and Chris watched from the sidelines as Darrell called for Marcus to use his shield to block the arrows and had the archers fire one at a time. Then he called for free fire. Kevin tensed, but Marcus handled it just fine.

When all the arrows had been fired, Darrell had the archers gather their arrows and told Marcus to practice catching them. Once again he had the archers fire one at a time. Marcus managed to stop all of the arrows with his outstretched hand, but he ended up knocking most of them down rather than catching them.

“He’s doing better today,” Chris said.

Kevin nodded. “I don’t think he saw any practical purpose for it yesterday. Today he does.”

After half an hour of that, Darrell stepped it up, and had two archers fire at the same time from opposite sides. It was a bit of a struggle for Marcus, but again, he managed to stop them all.

Darrell let that drill go on for fifteen minutes, and then called a halt for the day. Marcus and Darrell joined Kevin and Chris while the archers gathered their arrows and left the field.

“Much better drill today,” Darrell said to Marcus. “Won’t be long before you’ll be grabbing bows and putting my archers in the sky.”

Marcus laughed and shook his head. “That’s a long way off. I’ll be happy if I can manage to disarm a couple of them without getting shot in the process.”

“Give it time,” Kevin said. “It’s not much harder to grab a man than it is to grab a bow. The main thing is to keep your options open.”

“And your eyes,” Darrell said as they reached the path to the guard headquarters. “See you tomorrow.”

Chapter 43

Sister Hayley

Right after Hayley sat down at the dinner table Thursday evening, Sister Agnes leaned over her shoulder and whispered, “See me in my office after dinner, dear. Your pendant has arrived.”

Instead of the joy that statement should have evoked, Hayley felt only dread. She’d never heard of anyone turning the pendant down, but accepting it meant pledging her life to the Sisterhood. She wasn’t at all sure she could do that, but did she have a choice?

While the others were eating and talking, Hayley pushed the food around on her plate and thought about the attack. Marcus’s first reaction had been to keep her safe. He’d pulled her down and shielded her with his body. Even with an arrow in his shoulder, he’d tried to protect her. It made her feel warm inside every time she remembered how he’d tucked her underneath him.

All too soon, dinner was over and it was time to go to Sister Agnes’s office. As Hayley walked towards the office, the walls seemed to close in on her and she had an almost irresistible urge to run. She paused before the closed door, took a deep but ragged breath, and brushed away the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks. She tossed her hair back, straightened her shoulders, and knocked on the door.

When Sister Agnes told her to come in, Hayley walked over to the vacant chair in front of Sister Agnes’s desk and perched on the edge. She folded her hands in her lap and stared straight ahead.

A small box sat on Sister Agnes’s desk, but instead of opening it, Sister Agnes covered it with her hands. “You don’t look happy, Hayley. Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

Tears filled Hayley’s eyes again. She tried to blink them away, but it was useless. As the tears overflowed, she put her face in her hands and shook her head. “I don’t know what to do,” she said as a quiet sob escaped her.

“About what, child?”

“Being a sister.” Hayley cried even harder.

Sister Agnes leaned back in her chair and gave Hayley a few minutes. As the tears subsided, Agnes asked, “What are you afraid of?”

“Of making a big mistake.”

“All right,” Agnes said. “How would you be making a mistake?”

“I don’t know if I want to be a sister. A year ago, I’d have been thrilled, but now I’m not so sure,” Hayley said, calming down a bit. “I like being Sister Theresa’s assistant. Can’t I keep on doing that for a while? Until I figure out what I want to do?”

Sister Agnes frowned. “You’ve got the power to heal, Hayley. It’s not going to go away. You can’t be Theresa’s assistant now that you’re a healer yourself. Why would you want to?”

“Because I don’t know what I want to do five years from now, much less fifty. If I’m a sister, I have to go where I’m sent and do as I’m told. I’m just not sure I’m willing to do that.”

“I’m not sure I would be either.”

Hayley shook her head in confusion. “But you’re a sister. Isn’t that what being a sister is?”

Sister Agnes slowly shook her head. “Not to me, and I doubt it is to Theresa either, and I can say for certain it’s not for a few others. You have to be a strong person to be a sister, to do what we do. It’s not for the meek and mild.”

“But don’t you go wherever Sister Brena tells you to go?”

“To a point. In an emergency, yes, but if it’s a permanent assignment, you’re free to accept or decline. It’s your choice. No one will make you move to another province, another district, or even another town. That decision is yours and yours alone.” Sister Agnes sighed. “Hayley, there are two rules every sister must follow, and if you accept a pendant, you have to agree to those two. Everything else is negotiable.”

“What are those two rules?”

“First, do no harm, at least not on purpose. We’re here to heal, not to hurt. That rule sounds almost unnecessary, but it’s not, and it’s a hard and fast rule, one that is not to be broken, not even bent, no matter how much you might want to.”

“But what about the pendants? What about when they mark a person? Isn’t that doing harm?”

Sister Agnes paused and then shrugged. “Yes and no. We’re doing harm in that there will be a permanent scar on the person’s forehead, and I’m sure it burns at first and is sore for a bit, so in that way, yes, we do harm. But that’s done with the pendant, not with our hands or herbs.” Sister Agnes thought for a moment. “Doing no harm isn’t the same as doing good. If a man is horrible to his wife or children, he might end up being last on my list for the tea that stops the gripes, or he may not get it at all. But no matter how much I dislike him, I would never give him something to cause him the gripes. Do you see the difference? You must not do any harm under the guise of healing. That’s the rule.”

A little grin tweaked the corners of Hayley’s mouth. “Like not using anything to cover up the taste of some of the herbs? I wouldn’t be doing any harm, he’d still get the tea, I just wouldn’t make it pleasant.”

Sister Agnes nodded. “That’s the idea. We do have a certain amount of freedom to let our displeasure be known, but never, ever by causing harm.”

“If someone has a dragon’s flame mark, we don’t treat them, right?”

Sister Agnes nodded.

“Isn’t that causing harm?”

Sister Agnes shook her head no. “Granted, if someone’s bleeding and we refuse to close the wound, the person might die, but not because of us. Unless one of us caused the wound in the first place, we didn’t cause the death, we just refused to prevent it. We did no harm. However if you were to mix up some tea that would keep the blood from clotting and give it to that person, that would be doing harm, whether the person died or not. Do you see the difference?”

Hayley nodded.

“As to the second rule, you’ve already demonstrated that you can comply with it. Simply stated, whatever is said between sisters stays between sisters. That means you can feel free to discuss anything with another sister, to tell her what you think, and know that what you say will not be repeated to anyone outside the Sisterhood. And, in return, any sister should feel safe confiding in you. We do not gossip about each other. We look out for each other and we protect each other. You’ve already shown remarkable restraint along those lines.”

Hayley smiled, but didn’t say anything.

“You didn’t tell me how horribly you were treated in Ashmont. I had to hear about it from Theresa.”

“It wasn’t that bad. They had their own way of doing things, and Alma wanted to be sure we respected that.”

“And that right there is why I don’t think you’ll have any problem following the rules. You’ve been doing it all along.” Sister Agnes pulled the pendant out of the box. The black opal had a small fire deep inside, but it wasn’t glowing like Sister Agnes’s. “Once you put this on and the stone identifies with your life force, the fire will spread through the entire stone. Brena woke it up, but it needs your life force to feed it, to make it grow. Want to slip it on?”

Hayley leaned back and shook her head. “I still think it might be a mistake for me to accept it.”

“Why? You don’t have any reservations about the rules do you?”

Hayley shook her head no. “My problem’s the future. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“None of us do.”

“But what if I want to get married one day?”

“You’ll get married,” Sister Agnes said with a frown. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

“Sisters don’t get married, don’t have children.”

“Most don’t, but some do. If you decide you want to marry, you can. Whether or not you remain a sister afterwards is something you and your husband will have to decide. Most of the time, when a sister marries, she returns the pendant and retires, especially once she has children, but you’ll never lose your ability to heal, or your knowledge of the herbs.”

“I’ve never known a sister who left the Sisterhood,” Hayley said. “I didn’t know you could.”

“It’s rare, but it does happen. The sister who trained me left the Sisterhood to get married a year after I got my own chapel. Should I decide I want to do something else, I’m free to change my mind, same as you are. Accepting the pendant just says that right now, at this point in your life, you’re a Sister of Healing.”

After a moment, Hayley asked, “No one’s going to get mad at me if I change my mind later?”

Sister Agnes shook her head.

“And I’ll be free to marry and have children if that’s what I want?”

Sister Agnes nodded.

“In that case, please, may I put on the pendant?”

~ ~ ~ ~

Theresa knew a pendant had arrived for Hayley, and she knew Sister Agnes had met with her after dinner to give it to her, but it still gave her a jolt seeing the pendant on Hayley’s chest. That’s when it hit her that Hayley was no longer her assistant.

When she hugged Hayley after congratulating her, she realized just how much she meant it, how happy she was for her. Hayley had been a good assistant, good with the people they met, and good at fitting into new routines. Theresa had enjoyed working with her, and she was going to miss that.

Funny enough, she didn’t find that thought depressing. It was sort of liberating.

Chapter 44

Nikki

Lt. Martyn and his men were on the docks with all their gear packed and ready to go when Kevin and Gen. Crandal arrived at Pylar’s Landing shortly before lunchtime on Friday. After a quick greeting, Kevin took Gen. Crandal and Sgt. Doyle to the training camp in the mountains above Milhaven.

Once Sgt. Doyle recovered from the trip, Gen. Crandal said, “I want to tell you why we called off the search. I know my orders didn’t sit well with your men.” When Sgt. Doyle started to deny it, Gen. Crandal shook his head. “If I didn’t know the reason behind them, they wouldn’t have sat well with me either.” Then he explained that the slavers had a key.

Sgt. Doyle shook his head. “We could have sat there forever without it doing any good.” He looked at Kevin. “How do we fight this?”

“All we can do is hope they make a mistake so we can figure out who’s behind it.”

Sgt. Doyle nodded. “Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help. Maybe things will work out better next time.”

With a nod, Kevin turned the key to go get the rest of Sgt. Doyle’s men.

Once the men from the mountain camp were all back home, Kevin took Gen. Crandal and Lt. Martyn back to his office, where Gen. Crandal told the lieutenant about the key.

Lt. Martyn nodded. “At least we know how they disappeared so fast, but it’s a scary thought.”

“Which is why I don’t want you saying anything about this to anyone,” Gen. Crandal said. “If word gets out someone’s using a key to capture slaves, people who’ve never even thought about being captured will start worrying about it. Before long, people will be suspicious of every stranger they meet, wondering if that person’s a slaver. A lot of innocent people could get hurt.”

“I’d like permission to tell Sgt. Nance though,” Lt. Martyn said. “He blamed himself for not getting there quick enough to rescue the captives, same as I did. As horrible as the idea of slavers with a key is, it makes it a bit easier to accept the fact that we couldn’t help. Short of being there when the attack happened, there’s no way we could have helped them.”

Gen. Crandal nodded. “Permission granted for Sgt. Nance, but he’s the only one. No one else, not Sister Janine, not Asar, no one.”

“Understood, sir,” Lt. Martyn said. “If there’s nothing else, I’d like to go home now.”

Kevin took out his key, and as soon as Lt. Martyn touched his arm, they were gone.

~ ~ ~ ~

Kevin was only gone a couple of minutes, but when he got back, Gen. Crandal was gone and Chris was there.

“Gen. Crandal said to tell you thank you for taking everyone back home and he’ll be in his office if you need to see him about anything else.”

Kevin nodded and sat down at his desk. “What’s been going on around here?”

“Not much, but you did get a personal message from your Uncle Kyle.”

“What’s it about?”