• Peigra's Blog:

Calton's Shadow, Pt 3

By: Peigra

The moment of reuniting with Baltik in a younger, stronger body had become a shattered moment of peace, when Berdel had roared on the other side of the fence. “Off! Off this farm! Now!”

Purda had looked at her son, startled, and Caralin’s finger had gone into her mouth, sucking it out of comfort as she hid herself beneath Purda’s skirts, only a tiny boot sticking out from beneath one hemline.

Astride Baltik, Peigra had stared at the man who had adopted her, who had been the only father she had known in her time on the farm, and sighed. They had warned her, in Meridian, because that was why it had been built, to not only show strength for those on “this side”, but to shelter and clothe and house those who had come back.

It was a place, now, to hide in as well.

Peigra had been warned that there was no going back to what had been, that her Bloodline had been informed she was dead, and that was how most families needed to be left. Those few, on both sides, who still had relations alive were in the quandary of wanting to reconnect with what they had lost, to refresh old allegiances and have some grounding to all that haunted their thoughts every breathing moment.

Not everyone, she had also been warned, was pleased to see those who had been brought back. There were folk who were blind to what was coming, or indifferent all the same, having other duties and concerns that took precedence over the coming future. It was difficult to fight the future when a strap broke while training a foal and it had to be caught, or the well went dry, the fields needed to be planted, there were dresses to be sewn and patched. The future was something that one only saw in mares and pregnant farmwives, little beyond that.

Berdel’s fury, she had looked into his eyes, and seen the fear of what she was, of what she was doing, astride the horse that Purda had said was unable to be trained. There had been horses in the past whose fates had been such, and there would be in the future as well.

How did one make those in the Now understand, that sometimes, things from Before needed to be brought back to save all?

Baltik tossed his head, and Peigra looked past Berdel, fuming and raving, and Purda, staring up at her son and waving her arms as they argued. Their arguments had always been spectacular, and many ended with Berdel spending his nights in the barns. Peigra remembered bringing food to him on several occasions, sent there by Diel or Purda, to bring a tray out.

“She’s your daughter!”

“She’s not human anymore!”

Peigra turned the horse from the fence, and looked, past him, to the messenger, standing in silence behind them, and the gathering crowd to the argument that was being attracted. The fence was high, and she knew Baltik of old could not clear it, and felt the tensing of muscles beneath her and it was all the warning she had. Baltik backed up, and Peigra gripped his mane for lack of anything else of substance that would keep her on him.

He charged the fence, and despite its height, it was cleared, with a clatter of hooves that banged upon it on the arcing leap, and he came down with a great muddy collision behind Purda, twirling around in a tight circle and tossed his head. They were all staring at her now, and Peigra pushed away the embarrassment, the sorrow, and came down from the horse’s back. Nothing but the halter and the rope draped along Baltik’s head and neck, and she gave him a pat, and cleared her throat. “What do I owe you for him?”

Berdel stared at her, and she at him, and she
looked to Diel, shuffling and pregnant, who was staring at her husband and one of her daughters. Purda came to Peigra, and caught her in her arms. “Take him and go, little bug, and come back when he’s settled.”

“The horse isn’t yours!”

“Everything on this farm’s mine, until my death,” Purda challenged her son, turning to him and waving off his fury. “She’s one of ours, still, despite all that’s happened, and you’d deny her that?”

“She’s not living!”

Purda took the small belt knife from her waist, and took Peigra’s arm, slicing it against the grain of the hair as she flinched. The wound was light, and bled, and Purda squeezed it, forcing the blood. “Looks like blood to me, and everything that lives bleeds this color.” She tossed Peigra’s arm away and licked the knife, smacking her lips and spat. “Tastes like blood too. Ours. We bred’er, she’s ours, Berdel.”

“She’s not alive!”

“Berdel, come, calm down before you fall over in a fit,” Diel said, reaching for him, and Caralin, left on the ground when Purda had moved, looked to her father with confusion. “Peigra’s not harmed anyone, or anything, and she didn’t eat any children while we slept. Come off, and help with...”

She stopped, and Purda was staring, as was Peigra, as Diel looked down to her own skirts, the slow, spreading stain on them runnelling down her legs as she gave an odd, startled noise. On the ground, Caralin was pointing. “Mama spilled herself,” she said, and Purda and Peigra caught Diel on either side.

“In you go,” Purda said, with a furious look to her son. “You! That horse better be unhurt and alive when we’re done or I’ll throw you off this farm! I’ve the authority still to do it, and he’ll be my Witness,” she said, pointing to the messenger who had come with Peigra, watching it all in his silence. Peigra gave a wince, but Purda’s threats were never empty. She had lived too long to give empty words without backing them up with something.

Every farmhouse had a birthing room, some small, some extensive, but every last one had one, a room set aside for nothing but those first few days for a newborn and their exhausted mother. Years ago, some now forgotten woman had had a larger room constructed, one with two beds, with a large hearth, stacked wood to keep the room warm, and a tube from the pipes running to the pool for hot water, and kettles to boil linens. There were warm wrappings within, clean bedding, and this would be Diel’s fifth time in there.

Through the barn, Peigra counting the steps in her head to the farm, and they got Diel into the room as she started to breathe slowly. Purda was counting them, with her hand on Diel’s stomach, feeling the rippling muscles beneath the wet skirts. “Get the fire going, hurry,” she said, and Peigra left them, and ran to the farmhouse.

Peigra had done this before, in the Before, with several other women, and had learned in great leaps and stumbles about midwifery, much of it not by choice, but the one matter she knew was that a cold baby did not survive long. Into the farmhouse she went, and the birthing room was closed as she unlatched the door, set high to prevent children from entering it, and kept the door open.

Tinder was kept above the hearth, always, in an easy place and Peigra found it and struck it against the flint, taking small bits of charcoal from the bin and shook her head in frustration. Idiot she was, and she ran back to the kitchen, and got the tongs, and pulled several of the small, burning logs from beneath the kettles and put them in the ash bucket, and took it to the birthing room. With luck, they would help start the fire, and she picked them, one by one, into the hearth and added small wood chips and flammables to encourage it.

Purda and Diel came in, and Diel gave Peigra’s head a kiss. “Mind him not, he doesn’t understand what’s happened, the miracle that brought you back to us,” she whispered, and Peigra kissed the woman’s cheek.

“Should I stay?”

“Stay close, but we’ve done this before,” Diel said with as much humor as a birthing woman could, and Purda reached up, kissing Peigra’s cheek, and waved her off. Peigra closed the door behind her, but not completely, leaving it ajar just a sliver so that she could hear if they needed her.

She came back to the kitchen, and frowned, wondering what to do now, and sat at the table. She had been for so many meals at this wooden monstrosity, long and aged, and she felt in the wood for the scratches, the dings, the many things that made it a wondrous memory of thick wooden legs and an oft-neglected surface. It held so many whisperings that Peigra wondered why it was not a living entity itself.

Berdel and the messenger came in, and Peigra stared at both, on the ashen look on Berdel’s face, the messenger’s stoic one.

In the messenger’s hand was the signet, and it was glowing, and Peigra stared at it, and then to the man himself. “Now?”

“We’re summoned,” was all he said, and Peigra closed her eyes. Now was not a good time to be called back to Meridian, not that there was ever a good time, but now, especially now with Berdel angry, Diel and Purda in the birthing room and everything crashing down around Peigra. “We need to ride, Ascended.”

His voice was controlled, and for a moment, she wondered if he had planned this, to get her off the farm now that she had seen them, shown them she was alive. There was no telling, but the summons, she stared at the glowing signet, tooled into the leather strap, and felt the pulse in her blood as well, growing as she stared at it.

The Calling.

It was the same that farmers felt in the spring, when they waited for the fields to dry enough to be plowed, and then those same fields needed to be harvested. It was a summons that could not be denied or pushed aside, and it was in the blood.

Peigra had a different something in her blood now, and the signet was attuned to her blood, it had been when she had been brought back, and every one from Before had one. It was their connection to Meridian, to Orphiel’s machine and the timeline, and it meant that someone, in the city, wanted something from Peigra.

Was it beginning? Was this moment the twist that would start it all? No one had ever given a single moment, a heartbeat, a shed tear to what had started the war in its shaded beginnings, but one thing was certain. It had begun, and it was coming again, unless it could be prevented.

It was why Peigra had been brought back...and had taken someone else’s place through an accident.

She sighed, and pushed herself from the chair. What little she had brought was on her again; she had not brought a change of clothing, nor had the messenger, and her cloak was still in her room as she went to it. She took up the saddlebags, and left the door open, going into the birthing room on her left, and kissed the women’s heads. “I’m summoned, I have to go,” she whispered. “No, no, no, it’s not from Berdel,” she said, kissing Purda’s gray and white braids. “I’ll come back, when I can. It’s...it’s in me,” she said, touching her heart, and bringing Purda’s hand there. “It’s something they did to me, when they brought me back, that I can’t resist or ignore. When I’m summoned, I have to go.”

Purda kissed her cheek, and Diel reached out, kissing her as well. “You come back to us soon, you’re still one of us,” she breathed, and Peigra hugged them both.

Up, and making certain her long cloak did not catch anything, she hurried back to the kitchen, and the messenger was saying something to Berdel, something he was shaking his head to. Peigra hugged him before he could toss her away, if he had been going to, and kissed his cheek, and was gone through the door, one braid flopping against her ear where it had come loose from its ties.

The guest barn and their horses waited, and Peigra stopped, caught between the beast in the guest barn and Baltik, gentle Baltik, who in the Before had been old and crotchety, but had been the only true friend she had had in his twilight years.

She had no time, and went to the guest barn. The gelding was in the same stall, and she hefted his saddle and ignored Berdel and the messenger behind her as they followed.

The gelding shifted to the left, and Peigra frowned as she nearly fell on her face, hefting the saddle and trying to get it over his wide back. “Stay still,” she said, frowning, and lifted the saddle again.

The gelding shied to the right, again, and Peigra did stumble, and dropped the saddle as she collided with the stall. “What’s gotten into you,” she asked, but she knew, and it hurt the more to know the why. “You know I can’t walk back to Meridian,” she told the gelding, and turned to the noise at the other end of the barn.

For the noise to have been there, it had to have leapt not one, but multiple fences, and it came into the barn, tossing its head and the lead rope, draped down near its legs dangerously, the ill-fitting halter too loose for his great head that would grow more until it was nothing more than a weight that filled her lap when she needed it to.

The stallion tossed his head, looking at them, and Berdel was shaking his own. The messenger was seeing to his own horse, and Peigra ignored him, walking down the guest barn’s length to Baltik, standing in the open doors, looking as if disgusted that she would think of leaving him behind.

She caught his lead rope and gave it a tug as she began to smile at him. “How did you know I’d need you again,” she whispered at him, and pressed her face against his nose, feeling his breath, his scent, his strength as he whuffed at her, blowing the tail of her braid back against her ear and neck. She led him into the barn, and to where the saddle was discarded on the ground.

He was patient, and let her set it on him. It was much too small for his wide back, even at two years, and he would grow another three until he was finished, but he took the saddle anyway, and the girth was exchanged for a larger one that one of the startled apprentices had brought, as they were all curious now not only why the untameable horse had become tame, but who it was seeking.

Peigra stared at Baltik, who brought his head back and gave her hip and nudge, and she knew it was time. It took a moment to gather her courage, and she felt a hand against her shoulder. An old memory surfaced, and she nearly screamed as she turned, looking to Berdel, who had his hands laced on her left, to give her a push up. She stared at him, knowing she was crying again, and accepted the offer for nothing more than what it was, and was pushed up onto Baltik’s back. She would have to find some means of getting onto him that she could do alone, but that was for a later time.

Legs swinging up, one over, and Peigra took the reins that the apprentices had looped onto the ill-fitting halter that was all Baltik would leave with. “I’ll come when I can,” she said neutrally, looking down to Berdel, and moved Baltik past him, not wanting to know what he was going to say. He was afraid of her, the man who had tossed her high into the air as a child and caught her, and taught her how to creep up gently on a horse to let it sniff her properly.

She did not want her last look of him to be of pity or anger or fear, and rode Baltik out of the guest barn, having to duck greatly to avoid being slammed into the barn itself. Righting herself, she waited for the messenger to get back onto his own gelding. Whatever he was saying to Berdel, she did not want to hear, nor did Baltik wait, as the moment she had him in the gathering yard, he headed for the gates.

For his freedom, as much as hers.

Peigra reined him in tightly. “Behave, we have to go easy on the stones, they’re still slippery,” she warned him, and Baltik gave a snort but obeyed, his hooves unshod and clapping loudly on the slates. The children, the apprentices, they were all watching in awe as she rode to the gates, and went right, and she was gone from their view.

They listened, and heard a moment of silence as they ran to the gates, eager to see, and then there was nothing but great clods of mud and pebbles, and the children shouted with delight as Baltik took his lead and headed to the road.

Peigra gave him his head, and let him go, holding on tightly, feeling his great muscles pushing them both away from the farm, down the road, and back, towards Meridian, nothing more than a shadowy haze ahead that they would see, with luck, towards the end of the day. Without the stops, Meridian was barely a day’s ride, but with the messenger in tow, Peigra had taken her time getting to the farm, perhaps in delay, perhaps for his own courtesy, but she was not wasting time now, nor was Baltik.

He knew the way as if he had been born there, and Peigra let the wind seize the laughter from her throat and carry it away.



Temur Arslan eyed her as he would have a bug before it was squashed on the stones, and Peigra tried not to feel five again as she came into his realm once again.

Her return to Meridian had been uneventful, save for Baltik’s great whinnying challenge to anyone who paused to hear it as he climbed the steps into the city proper and stood at the top of them, his sides heaving, and tossed his head as if claiming them for his own. Many had stopped to stare at the great beast, and Peigra had tried not to smirk to herself. Offers for breedings might be profitable, but Baltik was not yet old enough for her to want to attempt it. Another year, perhaps, and she might feel more comfortable doing so, but not now.

As one of the Ascended who had returned with the same affinity as she had died with, for not all came back and were able to do and be as they were in Before, Peigra had been given to Temur, whose thickly-accented desert words had taken some understanding on her part. Bahmi were not ones she had encountered until the war, and only then on rare occasions due to many of the warfronts she had been sent to had been behind where the great desert warriors had been fighting.

Her talent for herbalism, and healing, and how both were interchangeable, had manifested itself early, even on the farm, and it had been hidden by Purda for reasons unexplained, until one of the visiting men had seen Peigra tending a broken arm, and had reported it to someone in authority.

Healers were always in need, and the old saying that a healer never went without a meal or coin was true, especially if they also could survive on their own on the very plants around them. That she had both the knowledge of healing of magick and plants, she had become invaluable quickly to the cause that was quickly to split the realm in two.

In the Before, she had been thrown, literally, into the small but growing ring of those taken to the battlefields to nurse up the wounded and see that, in a night’s time, their wounds were healed, their bodies restored, and they were ready, once again, to fight for a king and a country that would betray them all. Peigra had not known what she had been destined for...none of the young men and women who had been locked away with her had.

There had been, in the Before, twenty-two of them, found, discovered, and all taken with the premise of strings of coin, promises and bard songs, whatever could be used to pry them from whatever they were bound to and take them to the battles. Several had been taken by force from their homes, one had been separated from his family, and did not know if the child his wife had been carrying had been a son or a daughter. Once they were locked away, they received no news, save that which was given to them.

It had not been such a bad prison, for their needs were taken into consideration, and the open courtyard where all of their doors opened to was filled with plants and sunlight and there was no death or fratricide. They were each locked in their rooms at night, to prevent them from escaping, not that they could have escaped over the fifteen-foot walls that surrounded them, and each day had begun the same.

As conscripts for the cause and king, unwilling in most cases, they were fed, and fed well, with great meals set in a long, windowed room with thick stews, freshly milled flour in their bread without a trace of hull or rock to grind their teeth on, fresh water drawn from a well somewhere, and other amenities many had not seen in their times in the outlaying areas. Peigra had eaten well, and there was little time to sit and gain weight, as after their meal, they were each taken in pairs and taught how to defend themselves.

On a farm, the hazards were many, from runway horses to open wounds that could fester, floods that could take, and also give, broken fencelines, illness that could take the children in a year’s time and leave one with nothing, bandits, there was no easy life on the farms, despite all that they gave to the city to see it survived on their hard earned labors.

Wherever they had been taken to, there was swordplay, mock battles, endless sittings where they were drilled and mercilessly questioned on how to protect and heal bodies. New illnesses were brought to them to heal, and their effectiveness against disease to their own bodies. Four succumbed when a mysterious ailment was purposely unleashed on them during a meal, an ill servant coughing through most of the meal and infecting them all. It was discovered that their magick kept them alive, though how, or why, was a mystery.

Peigra thought the four who succumbed were the lucky ones.

Meridian’s current strength was that it was the rising bastion for the Defiants, and all they held sacred to their beliefs and their strength in what they believed was the best way to win over what was coming. There was no hiding in corners speaking of the darkness to come, it was open conversation, and men went to arms in the taverns with strategies and women rolled their eyes at them and continued their archery practice. Women were as strong as the men now, and sometimes their caution was the wiser, but women had made mistakes in the Before as well as men.

Before her, Temur tapped his foot, glaring at her for her mind’s wanderings, and sighed. It was something he had, apparently, had to get used to when he had first encountered the Ascended, their tendency to look away at what once was and judge what was at hand to it. “The beast won’t stay long in the stable, will it?”

“If that means you’ll be sending me out to gather more herbs, then yes.”

“Where did you get that bulk? It is huge.”

Peigra only smirked. “He didn’t want to leave without me, so he’s mine now.”

Temur eyed her, not understanding what the joke was, and left it be, as it did not include him, and motioned her inside his rooms.

There was a wrongness to call Temur’s rooms that, for they were not just rooms but repositories, storerooms, great beamed ceilings filled to dangerous combustible heights with bulging sacks, barrels, glass jars, and Peigra came in, closing the door behind her, and breathed heavily.

She had always loved the rich, earthy smell of dried herbs, the freshness of them, their abilities to heal and mend and soothe that were as endless as their varities. It was a foolish being who did not familiarize themselves with at least a handful of the most common herbs, and for odd reasons, Meridian had been populated by many of them.

Peigra had been amazed at how many Ascended had been brought back with no knowledge whatsoever of anything plant. Raised on a farm, she could butcher and skin out an animal if necessary, and hides were always in great demand in a city, though she had never been fond of hunting for the great minerals used to forge weapons for war and repair, always distracted by an herb or a snake to follow and letting others raise their picks to such matters. She had other things to occupy her time.

Temur was in charge of those who had been brought back with an affinity to herbs and their like, and to see that they were trained, or re-trained in some instances, in how to help others as they journeyed about the lands trying to prevent the coming apocalypse. Whomever Calton had been, he had not been on Temur’s list, and the man had been highly irritated to receive what he saw as another “feather-headed fluffball”.

Doing what she could to not only survive but to prove that she did not need mothering, Peigra had easily taken Temur’s challenges of identification, use and harvest and impressed him that he had accepted her into his fold of personal apprentices.

She had become his right-hand by the third day she had been deemed able to fend for herself, and recovered from the transitionary phase of life to death and life again. Knowing Freemarch well, she had been the one he sent out to find the odd items that were necessary for both his studies and his supplies.

“It did not go well, did it?”

Peigra pursed her lips, and glared at Temur, whose steady gaze was so like Purda’s that she relented, and gave a reluctant nod. “No, it didn’t.”

“You were warned.”

“I know, I know, but I had to see them.”

“They are no longer your Bloodline, Peigra. What family you have is now here,” he said, spreading his hands to the city as he looked down upon it from the window of the store rooms, where he kept himself. She had a room off to the other side of the apothecary, where she had been given the honor of a room to herself, and the ability to keep her things there under lock. Not many were given the accord, but in Temur’s absence, if he was summoned by the General or the Faceless Man in the tower, or The Maker himself above, Peigra was, in effect, his second, and trusted with filling requests.

She took her cloak off and threw it on a chair, and dumped herself into the one beside it with a sigh. “I...don’t know what I expected them to do, Tatha,” she said, using the Bahmi name for an honored friend. “Gamma didn’t see anything different, neither did Diel.”

Temur sat himself down in another chair, and reached for her hand, taking it in his massive one. “Berdel did not approve of you?”

“I don’t know what he saw in me, but he got scared, I think, before I left. Baltik scared him, because I could ride him.”

“Baltik?”

She gave a nod. “My horse, Baltik. No one could ride him before, but I...could, and now he’s mine.”

Temur thought on that a moment, but said nothing. “We have several large orders that need filling, and my supplies of drakefoot are always low.” Peigra made a face to that, rolling her eyes to emphasize her point. Only twilight blooms were more irritating to gather. “You have a good eye for finding them.”

“Is that why I got called back? For drakefoot?”

He looked to her oddly. “I did not ask you back. You were Called?” She nodded, and he rubbed his goatee a moment, frowning. “No one has come looking for you. You took a signet?”

“The messenger had one, and it said we were needed back. I thought you were the one who did it.”

The old man shook his head. “No, I was letting you be, Peigra.” He eyed her strangely. “Who would have Called you back without notifying me, I wonder. And the messenger did not say whom?”

Peigra gave a flush and looked away, grinning. “Um, he...might not be back yet.”

“What?”

“Well, Baltik wanted to run, and I gave him his head, and he just...kept running,” she said, smirking as Temur started to chuckle as well.

A thick finger pointed at Peigra, and she smirked at it. “You are trouble, in any shape or time. But we must discover who wanted you back, and why. You remain here, and check that I did not miss a sack somewhere of drakefoot. I will ask who Called you.” He rose, and gave her head a pat that made her feel five, and she gave a smile in spite of it. For all those who considered Temur odd, he was what he was, good at what he did, and inflexible at little else.

At the doorway, he turned, and looked at her with his usual half-frown, and the finger came up again, waggling at her. He reminded her so much of Purga. “And no samples, tea only.” She sighed, and the finger waggled, but she nodded her promise.

Often, from those wandering, samples were sent in of new herbs that had come from the mutation of two worlds with different pasts and futures, new and old at the same time and both and neither the same. She was most times accurate with identifying what it could and could not do, and these samples were often tested to ensure that her guesses were correct. Temur did not enjoy Peigra’s testing them on herself, but as she had pointed out, it was either test them in Meridian, where the medicines there might save her, or send them untried out into the field and risk worse. He had singed her ears when he had roared at her, and she had admitted, only to herself, she had deserved the words, though her argument that new herbs had to be tested on someone had met with Temur’s silence as well.

Alone in the great storerooms, she inhaled, and gave a smile. This was one of the few places where the memories could be held at bay, the nightmares caged, and feel rested. Here, it reminded her of her younger days, in the barn, with the hay that always freshened the air as it was sifted through the stalls and the feeding troughs during heavy snows when the horses were not allowed out.

Here, despite Temur being her senior, she was in charge, and despite his age and his experiences, he knew she was his equal, and that many times, to not embarrass him in front of a guest, she hid much of her knowledge. It was the wish of every teacher to have their students know more, do more, be more than they were, and to welcome them back as a brighter being, but Peigra also understood that Temur was her senior in both rank and age, and he had been placed in his position by General Catari herself, and she did not want him shown up.

Temur was fair, if a bit behind in many of his manners, but he treated Peigra with equal rank when they were alone, and they often spoke of matters of the farms that he had not been to often, and the sands where he had been born. Sand had always irritated her, stuck between her toes when she put her boots on, purposely put there as a prank, which had to be retaliated at, as all children were wont to do.

He was often slathering cream on his skin, to keep the rash down that had plagued it, for the weather in and around Meridian was much damper than he was used to, and he and his fellow Bahmi were often caught with skin disorders, rashes and flaking skin, and Peigra was still trying to find a cure for it. Temur was fair, and a good friend now, and if she could find one, it would mean an end to much of the suffering some of the desert dwellers were having.

The one wall was carefully lined with glass jars, jeweled contents plant tinctures that were distributed to those going on journeys of peace or war. She had concocted many of them, and Temur had been pleased with her results. The great sealed jars of ointments, lotions and salves were along the other wall, and the third wall contained the empties waiting to be filled once again. This was where the sun shone, and the other two walls were constantly shaded for lack of light, to keep their jars and their contents pure and untainted.

Peigra looked at the list of orders that had come down, running a finger down and seeing who had requested what. As always, the majority of the orders were for the small pots of restorative drink that was brewed from twilight bloom roots, which helped both with minor aches, pains and overall recovery, and with the strange substance that had no real name but mana, and could not be explained, but it was there, and needed replenishing sometimes. They were in high demand, and Peigra looked how many flasks would be needed.

The flasks and small jars were kept in semi-neat rows, stacked on low shelves below the windows, and she gathered how many she would need, setting them on one of the wide tables and gathered her funnels and her towels, as she sometimes missed a flask, or overfilled it. The towels were used also, their scent and dried essences sent along to be wet on the field and used for poultices for the wounded, to add to the healing process. Nothing was wasted, and Temur had nodded deeply at Peigra’s suggestion, and agreed it was a good one.

She went to the small bowl and poured some water, soaping her hands well and wiping them on a clean cloth. Temur had been insistent about this, and she knew that dirty hands were not for filling flasks, and he had been pleased with her own agreement. Some did not have the sense to bathe, either, and Peigra had tried not to gag at some of the people she had encountered in Meridian who found bathing a sin.

Flasks obtained, she got the stoppers out, and the small pots of wax with their dippers that were always on the small brazier, ready to be used to seal corks. The jar of the tinctured roots was not where she had left it previously, and Temur was normally fastidious about returning jars to their normal spots, but if he had had a guest, sometimes things went into the wrong spot to clear a space on a table or a chair. Peigra looked to the room, smirking that many of the chairs were taken with empty jars, small bags of dried herbs, thick cloths, empty linen sacks, and knew someone coming in their first time would have been quite intimidated by the mess.

She uncapped the jar, and began pouring, very slowly, into the flasks lined on the towels, cautious to fill them just to the right amount so they would not leak, and went down the first row, then the second. It was easier with two, as one could move the funnel with each filling, and it took her some time to do it herself, setting the jar down, moving down to the next flask, and again.

Flasks filled, Peigra sealed the jar again, and set it aside, going down the flasks and corking each one, then following with the liquid wax and the small dipper, pouring hot wax onto the cork to ensure that the contents were as pure as they could be made. She looked at them, picking up random ones to see if the color changed, which it would, and quickly, if it was contaminated. For some reason not even she could explain, the tincture would discolor from a reddish-hue to a clear, and she would discard those.

“You did those quick.”

She looked up, frowning at the man leaning on the side of the door, and straightened, wondering how long he had been standing there, and grateful he had not interrupted her. She frowned, though, looking to his companion, and gave a slight smile. “It’s easy with practice.” She moved around the table, and looked at them, not recognizing either, and lifted her chin. “And you are...?”

The man on the left who had not spoken was eyeing her intently, and she felt the discomfort of how he was looking at her. She had seen that before, and deemed he was not worth her irritation, but the one on the right came into the room, looking around, his nose wrinkling at the scent of it all. He had an odd scar on his right side, along the ear and down to his throat, perhaps a dagger wound, that was long healed but visible as some of the hair above his ear was parted strangely due to it. “Aleen, my lady, we’re here for an order of flasks that was supposed to be ready? Is that them?”

“Who put the order in?” She moved to the parchments that Temur tacked up on the wooden edge of a slate, several bins with chalk lining the bottom and many diagrams and notes written on the slate. The two men looked to one another, and she waited. “Who sent you for the flasks?”

“Enqyeke Chinua,” the man said, frowning as he sighed. “She’s got this...thing she keeps sending people into and they keep vanishing, and now there’s some Defiants stranded up in Moonshade who need supplies.”

Peigra looked at the parchments, taking them down and sifted through them, finding a work order from Kira Thanos, and tried not to shiver. She had met that one once, and had been grateful to leave as she had left. The woman was a killer, and proud of what she knew, and what she could do, and Peigra had been told that she would do well to learn from the assassin.

The order spoke that Enqueke had indeed been sending people to ‘test’ her machine, and that she had sent them to Moonshade, where the Defiants had settled in a western glade and were holding what they could. The order would take most of what she had poured, and she shrugged. At least she would have one filled before Temur returned. “Where’s your crates?”

Now they both frowned at her, and she sighed. “Crates?”

“To carry the flasks,” she said, waving her hand to the table as she set the work orders back, clutching at the one from Kira. “You can’t carry them all in your pockets. Didn’t they send you with something to carry them with?”

“Um, no.”

“Well go get something and come back, then. I don’t have anything you can use. Tell Kira or whoever you’ll need several crates so the glass doesn’t break.” She waved them off with her fingers, setting the work order to the other side of the table, and moved the required flasks near it.

Peigra lifted her head, and found the two men on the other side of the table. “Yes?”

The one who had been eyeing her bent down, and she looked at him, noting the oddness of his eyes, a deep brown that was nearly a black, and whatever he had been going to say was interrupted by the deep “Ahh, we have guests,” from behind as Temur returned, two messengers in his wake.

The scarred man leaning across the table to Peigra straightened, and his companion bowed to Temur. “They’ll be back with crates for these,” she said, motioning to the flasks, and Temur was nodding as well, but he was looking oddly to the man with the dark eyes.

“You have something you wish to say to my second, Reddil?”

“Nothing, sir,” he said, and Temur motioned them out.

“Then return with your crates for your flasks, and begone. We have work to be done.” They gave him the nod due his rank, and left, and Peigra looked to Temur as he frowned, head shaking, and came to stare at her across the table. “They did not harm you?”

“No, they came for one of Kira’s orders, and they didn’t come with...”

“They did not harm you, Peigra?”

She paused, looking to Temur, and thought the question, asked twice, was odd in itself. “No, they just came in for the flasks.”

“You know who they were, do you not?” She shook her head, and Temur moved, closing the door, and locking it, odd enough that he did so, as despite the door having a latch, even when they slept it was kept open for emergencies. Despite her having a small, private room, he as well, they took turns keeping their doors open to listen for anyone who came during the night and had an emergency order that needed tending.

Temur came back, and motioned her to sit, and took the flask from his hip that was always filled with something from his homeland. Peigra was not certain that the flask ever emptied itself, as she had never seen him refill it, and there were no personal drinks anywhere in the herbal room. Both of them got their drinks in their rooms, from pitchers they kept there to prevent contamination from the smell of the herbs.

He took a long drink, and passed it to Peigra, who took the flask, and sniffed it, frowning. It was hard, whatever it was, fermented long and with fruit perhaps, and she took a tenative drink, and began to cough as it burned down her throat. Temur reached over, thumping her on the back and taking the flask back, and waiting for the coughing fit to pass. “We need to get you more acclimated to our brews,” he teased her, and she wiped her eyes, trying to will the burning away as he patted her hair. He rose, and went to his room, bringing her a mug of water, and made her sip it to soothe her throat, and she was grateful to him for that.

He sat again, and looked at her as she drank, and his eyes were worried. “What’s wrong, Temur?”

“Those men, Peigra, if they come again, you are to tell them to leave, and you are not to speak to them when I am not here, is that understood? You might want to carry a dagger with you, now that he has seen you.”

An odd request, and she looked around the room, to the room of healing reagents and everything associated with it, and then to Temur as if he had grown another arm before her eyes. “But..why? They just came for an order.”

“And you do not know who they are, Peigra, which makes this matter all the more serious. Perhaps I should send you off for some time, yes, to gather drakefoot. It would be a good time to do so.”

“But why? Who were they, Temur?”

“The man with the scar, Peigra, he is unstable, and there are several women here in the city who had put complaints against him. As he is one of the more successful leaders of the battles against the Guardians, he is kept for his rank, but little more, as he rarely loses a battle he engages. I will have you sent with some of my folk to gather drakefoot until he leaves the city again, and it is safe.”

Peigra laughed at him, and reached out to touch his face with her hand. “Temur, I’m old enough to be a great-grandmother now, in two lives. There’s nothing he can do that hasn’t been done to me before.”

“All the same, off you go, on the morrow, and you are not to return without several sacks of drakefoot.” She gave a groan as he patted her head. “Now go sleep, and you can take that great black thing with you.”

Now she chuckled, and grinned up at him. “If your people can keep up with Baltik, that is,” she teased, looking to the door Temur had locked, and he followed her gaze.

“You sleep with your door locked until he leaves the city, or you do. There is no discussion, I have spoken,” he said, taking another drink from the flask and setting it on the clip against his belt. “We have orders to fill,” he said, moving to the table to see what she had filled, and she shook her head. The day was only getting weirder and weirder.