The Bonds of Blood (23 page)

Don’t you dare tell them,
Joya Neferis
, a commanding voice said in
her head, not at all like the book.
They
will make you an outcast if you tell them.
The voice was dangerous, yet it made sense. Suddenly she
refused any lingering desire to tell them; after all, she did not
want them looking at her strangely, or worse yet considering her an
outcast.
They will, you
know
, the voice soothed.

Joya closed her mouth and
rubbed her arms.
Yes, better to stay
silent than to worry them further, my dear.
The voice was really just trying to help her, and with all the
strange things that had been happening lately, she figured it was a
good idea to listen to this wisdom.

“We can’t follow the tracks,” Jovian
said looking around. “The grass only gets higher from here on; the
trail will be too cold to follow. I dare say we are lucky to have
found these few prints. Anyway, it will be much safer to join the
tracks on the road after Meedesville. It is almost certain that
they would have gotten back on the road after the
village.”

At that moment, something about
Jovian’s voice grated on her nerves. Joya worried her lip but
didn’t object to his reasoning. The truth was, a sudden anger at
her brother had just welled up inside of her and Joya was doing her
best not to say something she might later regret.

“So what now?” asked
Angelica.

“We go into Meedesville and rest up for
the next leg of our journey,” Grace informed them.

“But by then the trail will be cold on
that side,” Joya declared a little more angrily than she had
intended. This was foolishness. Their sister was right before them;
Joya knew it.

“Joya,” Jovian soothed, “it’s just one
night. We have to sleep.”

Joya sighed, though she had the
fleeting desire to strike him, but again didn’t object to what he
said. “You are right,” she said rubbing her eyes. Weariness settled
into her joints, and no doubt that was where this anger was coming
from. “It is just so frustrating to be this close and still so far
away.”

“I know,” he said and rubbed her
shoulders. “We could all use a break anyway.”

Not only did his body need a rest, but
his mind did too. All day he had been trying to grasp at something
he was supposed to remember, but that something avoided him like a
distant dream. He knew it had bearing on what was going on. He
thought of the night with Baba Yaga; he knew that what he sought,
the information that seemed to elude him, the same information that
would without a doubt help them find Amber, was hidden in a veil of
mist, lost to the happenings of that night.

It was a name he could not
remember. This same name was an answer to a
question
. What was the question?
he asked himself.

It had something to do with the
moon.

“And what better break is there than
the High Summer Holiday?” Grace asked cheerfully, smiling over her
pipe bringing Jovian out of his contemplation. “Good food, good
drink, and the ritual’s tonight. I think we have arrived in
Meedesville just in time. We will be welcomed like grand guests
with prospect of food and warm beds.”

None of them could deny that this
sounded marvelous after living on rations and water for the last
week. Jovian was a little worried to see that his clothes were
getting looser, and he was not the only one. Angelica was very
happy she had worn a belt because if she hadn’t her already loose
trousers would have fallen off by now.

“How much longer until we are there?”
Jovian asked, swinging back up on Methos.

“Another hour I would say,” Grace
said.

“Amber, where are you?” Joya asked
quietly as they started forward.

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

_M
eedesville was one of
the oldest
establishments in the Great
Realms, formed back when Aaridnay and a representative of each race
and realm gathered together to forge the first of all historic
documents: the Proclamation of Racial Individuality. The document
stated that each race was an entity of its own, separate from the
rule of the Supreme Guardian Aaridnay Alistrain. It went on to
state that each realm was a separate government unto itself, free
of any rule other than the Supreme Guardian.

Originally it was called Meeting
Village, as this was where each person who had signed the document
met on a yearly basis to discuss any matters they wished to
formally resolve. Eventually, after the Ivory City was formed,
deliberations took place there.

“The Meeting Hall still stands to this
day,” Grace said as they rode up to the stone village painted burnt
orange in the setting sun. “Of course you will remember from
history lessons that the Meeting Hall—which is now the
courthouse—has been refinished and reinforced so many times in the
past thousand years since the last meeting was held there that it
is speculated whether a single stone of the original Meeting Hall
is still intact. Eventually people shortened the name to
Meetsville, and over time became Meedesville, as their main export
here is mead.”

They all painfully remembered this
lesson as it was one of the more boring ones, though Grace was
thrilled to talk about it as if she had been there herself. Joya
wondered if she had been, for she did look very ancient.

“Anyway, Aaridnay had foreseen disaster
in the way her people acted toward the other races of the Great
Realms once they landed, and the Proclamation of Racial
Individuality—which was also shortened to the Racial
Proclamation—was her attempt to stave off that danger. She figured,
having lived here much longer than her people, that the other races
were due their own lands and governments, as long as they could all
live peacefully together. Of course, some of the races do not like
humans and will kill one if they catch them on their lands.
Thankfully none of those races live within the Holy Realm,” Grace
droned on.

“Wait, Meedesville was around when
Spirit was?” Angelica asked.

“That is right.”

“But the Realm of Spirit left the
lands,” Angelica continued.

Grace seemed to know where this was
headed and cut in, “You don’t think that the Realm of Spirit itself
lifted from the Great Realms, do you? That would mean that we were
living in a crater where Spirit had once been.” Grace chortled at
the absurdity of it. “No, the Splitting of the World was more
ethereal rather than physical. The land itself did not actually
leave, but the powers were taken away.”

Angelica fell silent and contemplated
the small town. Grace had been right; Meedesville was very small
indeed, consisting of barely more people than lived on the whole of
the Neferis Plantation, and much smaller than other towns Angelica
had heard of further south. However, the town was considerably
larger than the plantation, mainly because all the buildings were
separate from each other, connected only by bridge-like skywalks. A
single road stretched through the main part of town, which
contained all the public buildings: businesses, temple, infirmary,
and the inn. Several dirt alleys webbed out from the main road back
behind the lines of buildings where houses were tucked away from
view.

Underlying the smell of manure and hay,
Angelica caught the slight fragrance of lavender, daisies, and
fresh cut grass all warmed by the heat of day, which was now just
slightly less due to the setting sun. Faintly she caught the smell
of honey and lemons that issued from a large building at the other
end of town in which massive amounts of mead were made for
distribution.

The scene as they neared Meedesville
looked much like the plantation had been on their birthday—festive
and jubilant. At the farthest end, beside the large three-story
courthouse, was a stand that held a number of side dishes to
compliment the racks of lamb roasting in the large fire pit just
outside of the inn. The other traditional foods of High Summer sat
on their own table, and the selection was vast, all consisting of
wheat, honey, milk products, dandelion wine, and of course mead
(which wasn’t specifically one of the more traditional drinks of
the holiday, but being their primary resource, it was integrated
into every meal).

Large flower arrangements sat outside
of all the buildings lining the main road and from the uniformity
of them there was no doubt that this was a customary ornament of
High Summer in Meedesville.

However, it was not the many blue and
white flowers dotting the fronts of buildings that caught Jovian’s
attention, but instead the bushy red head of a woman dressed in a
uniform-gray dress standing outside the courthouse at the other end
of the road. Jovian was not close enough to make out more details
than that, but by the look of her dress and her stance she was not
a regular citizen of Meedesville.

“I am making my way to Beggets
Botanical before Rosalee closes down for the evening. Who would
like to join me?” Grace asked. Joya positively beamed at the
thought of being among so many herbs.

“I will,” Joya answered quickly, and
Angelica nodded that she would go too, not seeing much more that
caught her attention at the moment.

“I think I will check out the Racial
Proclamation,” Jovian said, not taking his eyes off the redhead
standing at the other end of the town. “It is still there, right?”
he asked Grace.

“Yes, it is there still. I will come
and collect you when we are done; it will not be long before the
ritual starts.” Grace rode off further into town with Angelica and
Joya trailing behind her.

Jovian urged Methos forward, and before
long he was dismounting at the other end of town beside the gray
suited lady. She peered at him through the monocle perched over her
right eye, frizzed strands of hair peeking out from the bun on top
of her head, and then she looked away as if he was of no
consequence. She tapped a long black cane on the side of her leg as
Jovian tied Methos to the railing.

He climbed the front steps and walked
through the open door into the stone building that felt more like
an oven than a courthouse.

It didn’t take him long before he found
the Proclamation of Racial Individuality, as it was a yellowed
piece of parchment hanging in a glass case on the wall. As he
walked toward it he wondered how they had kept it intact, and
readable, all these years, but he figured it must have been done
with wyrd. After all, Aaridnay was a great sorceress.

Jovian imagined what it must have been
like back then, standing here in this entrance hall. He wondered if
it was only this one building during the town’s origins, or if
Meedesville had actually started to form before this building was
erected. Scanning the perimeter of the room, he wondered if this
entrance hall was even part of the original structure. Jovian’s
mind drifted off to other times as he contemplated the original
Meeting Hall.

A small bell perched above the door
gave a melodious tinkle when Grace pushed her way into the large
stone and brick shop. The sign outside announced to all that this
was the herbal shop Beggets’ Botanical.

Grace cast an unfriendly look up to
where the sound came from. “Damn bells; the woman has them all over
the place,” she muttered under her breath.

“As you may remember, Grace,” Rosalee’s
vacant voice wafted from the back of the shop through an open door.
“Bells are used to keep away evil and negativity.” The willowy
woman stepped through the door surveying them all with her glazed
green eyes. Her graying red hair was done up in an elaborate braid
today, obviously in observance of the holiday.

“I remember,” Grace said smiling at her
old friend.

“They also say that someone who is …
disdainful … toward them has a lot of negativity surrounding them.”
Rosalee was not smiling as Grace was, but instead there was a very
concerned look on her normally expressionless face.

“Oh Rose, drop it,” said Grace, an edge
to her voice.

“Yes, you always were like that I
guess,” the tall woman conceded as a crooked grin parted her lips.
“I would still very much like to smudge you.” Angelica and Joya
exchanged a glance as they watched Rosalee make her way toward a
shelf along the side of the shop. She walked as though on air,
drifting slowly, as if choosing her footing so as not to step in
something foul.