The Bonds of Blood (7 page)

“Well, father did say that it had been
given to her; maybe she didn’t look through it? Besides, what the
Otherworld is aconite?” Jovian asked, confused at the
question.

“No, the book opens automatically to
that page, so that tells me this book got a lot of use, and this
was the favorite herb.” Not phased by the interruption, Joya read
over the herb. “Aconite,” she read, “poisonous herb, used in
medicine to ease pain and sedate a patient.

Wyrded use: mixed in some salves to aid
in lucidity. It is reported that the smell of the aconite will
drive off vampires, werewolves, dalua dogs, and abates shape
shifting. When worn around the neck the flower renders the wearer
invisible. Use with caution as this herb is very dangerous to
harvest and use.”

Strange
, Joya thought.

“Huh,” Jovian said a little
distractedly as he perused through Joya’s other book.

Angelica was still flipping through her
own book with an intense look on her face, trying to find
something. Finally she called out triumphantly, “Ah-ha,” before
bending down to read the page.

Joya glanced up at her then turned back
to leafing through her careworn book. At the last moment, before
she turned another page, she realized there were notes in the
margin beside one herb. It wasn’t anything significant, as it was
only a caution of what not to mix that herb with, as if added in
afterthought. Joya sucked in her lip, wondering if the aconite
might also have a note in the margin. Flipping back quickly, her
eyes scanned the page but found nothing.

With a sigh, she started to turn the
page, but before it was fully turned she noticed faint writing that
seemed to have been smudged and rubbed off from time. It appeared
to be in the same handwriting as the rest of the book. Joya
figured, as they had the herb growing in their own gardens, that it
was most likely notes on best time, place, and day to plant or
harvest the herb. Forlorn, she turned the page.

Angelica sat back with a funny look on
her face. “What is Daunastu? What does that mean?” Joya looked at
her sister curiously and peered over at the page.

“It reads: ‘the Daunastu is the Mask,’
and that’s how it ends. I have never heard of that word before.”
Angelica looked up. “Jovian, did you hear me?”

“Hmm?” he grunted, apparently absorbed
in the book he flipped through. “Nope, no idea what that is,” and
he continued reading, or at least gave the appearance he was
reading the book.

Joya studied the page for a bit and
shook her head. “I have no idea what that term means, Angie. I am
sorry.”

“Maybe it is an old language?” Angelica
asked.

“No,” Joya said, “herbal books are most
often written in one of the oldest languages, and I can read that.
This word I do not understand, or even recognize.” She looked
closer. “What else does it say?”

“Jovian, you may want to listen too; it
makes reference to the Pale Horse.” At the mention of the Pale
Horse, Jovian’s head jutted upward in attention. He closed the
strange geometric book, wedging a finger between two pages. When
Joya saw this, she couldn’t help but interrogate her brother about
it.

“Why are you studying the pages so
hard?” Joya asked.

“I think I recognize some of the
symbolism, but I am not sure. Also some words make sense; I can
read some of them, though they are still in the same language as
all the other words. ‘If,’ ‘the,’ ‘and’—stuff like that.” Jovian
had a very eccentric look on his face. The fact that he could make
out any of the blocky language was amazing to both Angelica and
Joya, for they knew Jovian could not read any language other than
the common tongue.

“Anyway,” Angelica said, shaking
herself back to the task at hand. “It reads: The heavens mourn the
Goddess weeps. The Mask is born under fretful skies. Thunder booms,
and darkness plots, but in sacred light the angel plays. Visions
come, and the Goddess speaks, the dark one begins to hate. Betrayal
is seen for what it is, and the Pale Horse Rides. Earthen pacts,
and spirit flight, The Two begin to stir. Moss Woman’s death
reveals a clue. The Daunastu is the Mask.” Angelica looked up,
hopeful that the other two would have an explanation. Joya and
Jovian shrugged in unison.

“That is strange,” Joya said,
eyeballing the page over some more. “Never mind the Mask; I want to
know who the Two are. It seems as though they are important; it is
written different than the rest, like it is special. At least it
looks to me like ‘Two’ is written differently,” Joya said,
rereading the prophecy under her breath. “Well,” Joya continued
after a time of contemplating the words on the parchment, “what do
we know about masks?”

“Nothing,” Angelica said impatiently.
“We don’t know anything about the Mask.”

“Not the Mask this prophecy talks
about. What do we know about masks in general?” Joya rolled her
eyes. “I am thinking that this person is so called for it will be
representative of qualities inherent in masks.”

“Oh,” Angelica said, “we know that they
are often worn to hide a person’s identity.”

“And that they don’t have a life of
their own, but only that given them by the wearer,” Jovian
added.

“I think we just hit the nail on the
head,” Joya concluded, though she was still a little bewildered by
what it could all mean. Joya’s mind was not used to thinking
theoretically like Jovian and Angelica’s were, so she had to
struggle to put it all together. When all was said and done,
Angelica was the one that pieced it together for her.

“So, we can assume that this Mask the
prophecy speaks of is a person consumed by a foreign force, so that
they are infused with a will that is not their own?” She furrowed
her eyebrows in thought. “Is it safe to say that we think this Mask
is a living person who became a shell, lost their will, so to
speak, and is now being controlled by another being?”

Angelica shivered. “Can you imagine
loosing your identity like that? Being controlled so completely
that you cease to exist?”

They all fell silent as they considered
her words.

“Anyway, it still didn’t say what the
Pale Horse is,” Jovian interrupted the contemplative silence.
Leaning back in the chair, he opened the book back up.

“What is this Pale Horse you keep
carrying on about?” Joya asked, and Jovian told her about the
reference in his dream, but he didn’t explain the rest of the
details; for some reason he didn’t feel like sharing that with
her.

“Well, Jove, I don’t think it is
anything good; look, it comes right after the betrayal,” Angelica
said. “I mean, if it came after something like ‘The flowers
frolic,’ than maybe I would be encouraged.”

“It could mean that the Pale Horse is
aiding those betrayed?” Jovian knew he was reaching, and when
Angelica raised her eyebrow at him, he sighed. “I know, I
know.”

“Seriously, Jovian, prophecy is rarely
written about something good like the planting of a magic garden or
peace. There is always death and mayhem in their words.” Angelica
looked at the book. “However, half the mayhem comes from trying to
decipher the damned things.”

“Come on, Angie, you know that half the
time a prophecy only helps something come about, right?” Jovian
raised his eyebrows as he spoke, watching his two sisters silently
studying the book. When Angelica waved her hand at him to shush
him, he laughed a little. “You know I am right. The prophecies that
never come true are those that people ignore. If you understand a
prophecy, then simply knowing the future event it describes makes
it come about. It is like knowing how a card game will end; if you
know you will lose, you stop trying, and therefore you will
lose.”

“I think I preferred when you were
reading silently,” Angelica said, not amused by her brother
joyfully poking holes in the prophecy. Jovian plastered on a coy
smirk and turned his attention back to the book in his hands. He
kicked out his legs and rested his booted feet on the foot of
Angelica’s bed. Unconsciously he undid the buttons of his jacket as
he scanned the geometric figures on the page he was looking at
before.

There was something familiar about the
pictures, but he couldn’t tell what. With a sigh, he flipped the
page and continued scanning the contents.

He didn’t think anything of
it, being able to read that blocky language that was unknown to his
linguistic sisters. It just seemed to fit; it wasn’t that he knew
for sure that he was reading the language, it just seemed like
certain symbols would mean a certain thing. There was no wyrd
involved; Jovian was sure of that. It wasn’t like in all the
stories when the page would light up, and suddenly the words were
translated, which would imply wyrd. So it left only one question:
how could a novice like Jovian decipher it without supernatural
help?

A loud thunderous boom woke Amber from
her sleep. It was getting later in the day, not quite dusk, but not
far from it. The sun sat low on the western horizon, and Amber felt
horrible, like she had slept all wrong, as if her head had been
cocked far off to one side with a bar wedged under it, creating a
throbbing headache. She looked around quickly and saw something out
of the corner of her eye.

With a gasp she looked to the foot of
her bed, where the figure had been, but it was now gone. Sighing,
she looked back to the window and the thing returned. This time she
looked out of the corner of her eye, and in the shadows at the foot
of her bed Amber saw the outline of a man.

Even though she fought every instinct
to turn and look at this figure, she could not for fear of losing
sight of it again. She sat there for some time, examining the
shadow of a man at the foot of her bed from the corner of her
eye.

The shadow did not move, and for some
reason she felt as though she should know this shadow from
somewhere else, but couldn’t place it. She suspected that she had
seen this shadow at the end of the hall, by her father’s door, but
couldn’t remember a specific time in which she had seen
it.

She was about to ask a question of the
man, but her words froze on her lips when the figure began
emanating an eerie green glow. Its eyes, Amber guessed, glowed
green. Not a pretty summer green, but instead a noxious, poisonous
green. She turned her head to look, and the figure disappeared, but
his eyes remained.

She peered at the glowing orbs, and
watched as the green light in them swirled like smoke. Closing her
eyes, a prayer came to Amber’s lips, and when she opened her eyes,
nothing remained of the malicious being. A sudden pounding echoed
from down the hall near the stairs, and Amber jumped off her bed,
goose bumps forming all along her arms. She backed toward the open
window and didn’t stop until she could feel the heavy maroon drapes
toying with the hem of her dress.

Her heart thundered, and her blood
roared. Amber stood shuddering for some time, chills tingling her
whole body.

Then the pounding rattled her door. She
froze, unable to breathe, thinking the worse, when a voice rang
out.

“Amber, come look at what your daddy
has,” Jenta, one of the servant’s little girls, yelled from the
hallway. “Come quick, you will like.” Jenta giggled, and the patter
of her feet faded down the hall.

Amber sighed and made her way to the
door. When she opened it she screamed out, for Joya was standing
there, her hand poised at the knob, ready to open the door. Amber
startled Joya, and both of them gripped their chests where their
hearts nearly skipped a beat. Amber’s free hand gripped her head,
for the fright had caused her head to throb torturously.

“You nearly scared me to death,” Joya
gasped, and Jovian came laughing down the hall.

“Amber, you don’t look too good,”
Angelica said, smacking Jovian.

“I don’t feel well, Angie; my head is
killing me, and I think I am catching summer sickness,” Amber
complained. “My nose is plugged, and I feel all hot.”

Angelica and Joya both took an arm. “I
will brew you some tea while we are outside looking at what father
has gotten us,” Joya soothed.

With a brief stop in the kitchen, the
four of them made their way out onto the lawn and across the field
where the gathering was to be held. A few neighbors had already
arrived, placing gifts on the designated table, and now they stood
around Dauin gossiping.