“No,” Mark said. “There will be time to kill her later.”
“Why?” Pellin asked.
Mark turned to him, his eyes bright with tears in the lamplight of the room. “Because she’s a victim. Cesla emptied her mind as if he were pouring water from a pitcher.”
“Apt,” Pellin said. “She’s just an empty vessel now, or nearly so. What would you have me do?”
To his surprise, Mark shook his head. “Nothing. If you will allow it, Eldest, I will tend to her on the journey south.”
“No,” Allta said stepping forward. “This I will not allow. We cannot afford the attention she will bring. Her screams and flailing will draw eyes and questions. The Eldest of the Vigil is in my care. The girl dies tonight.”
Instead of answering Allta directly, Mark turned to Pellin. “What if I can keep her quiet?”
Pellin sighed. “If you can, then you will have bested the Vigil’s efforts. Even that was beyond us.” He nodded. “A day. I will give you a day to bring her mind under some sort of control.” He would have stopped, wanted to stop, but his heart grieved what Mark intended, and he would save his apprentice this defeat if he could. “Please, don’t do this.”
Mark faced him, his face as resolute as any Vigil guard. “If it is alright, Eldest, I would like to keep her sleeping until dawn. I will take her outside the village once she wakes so that her screams will attract less attention.”
“Until tomorrow, then,” Pellin nodded. “Allta and I will take our meal downstairs. We will bring food back to you. You will call us if you need us?”
Mark nodded and pulled a chair to sit in front of the girl.
Outside the room, Pellin turned to Allta. “Let the innkeeper know the girl has a sickness that’s causing her some pain. There’s no need for specifics. Perhaps that will cover whatever noise she makes until we leave.”
Oddly, despite the circumstances and struggles with Mark, Pellin’s heart felt light, lighter than it had in some time, and he smiled as he realized the reason.
Allta caught the change in his mood. “Eldest?”
Pellin gripped his arm. “I believe that Mark will be my apprentice in truth, Allta, not just in name.”
His guard’s eyebrows registered his surprise. “He doesn’t care much for the church, Eldest, and his belief in the reality of Aer is impersonal at best.”
“Hardly,” Pellin said. “I’ve finally divined Mark’s greatest struggle. His belief in Aer is so viscerally real to him that he can’t understand how a church professing those same beliefs could be so consistently indifferent.” He nodded. “Come, we will bring dinner up to our room. The three of us will share our meal tonight and hold vigil over the girl.”
“And tomorrow?” Allta asked.
Pellin sighed, shouldering his burden of past failures once more. “Tomorrow, despite what I just told Mark, I will offer my utmost effort to saving a girl who cannot be saved. Only such extremity of effort will convince Mark of the church’s good intentions. After that, he will grieve the girl’s death, but not our failure.”
Pellin woke twice that night to see Mark watching the girl sleep, the somnal-infused cloth held ready in one hand, a single candle flame keeping watch with him. In the morning, Pellin stirred to see Mark bent close to the girl who still slept, his mouth next to her ear, speaking in low, steady tones. Allta stood by the door.
They left the inn, Allta carrying the blindfolded girl until they mounted their horses to continue to the port, but Mark steered them west, directly away from the village and Cynestol, until they’d left the densest portion of civilization behind.
The girl stirred where she sat ahead of Mark on his horse. Instead of bringing the sleeping cloth to her face as he’d done before, his apprentice dismounted and helped the girl down.
She reached toward her face, her motions jerky, uncontrolled.
“Don’t,” Mark said.
The hands stopped, fluttering in the air as though the girl couldn’t decide whether to obey. They started toward the blindfold again.
“If you can understand me,” Mark said, “then I want you to lower your hands.”
For a moment, they continued upward, as if their momentum was too great to be halted by mere words, but they stopped just short of the cloth before dropping heavily to her lap.
“Good,” Mark said. “I have you blindfolded because you’ve been injured. Nod if you understand what I just said.”
The girl nodded.
“Can you speak?” Mark asked.
Her mouth opened, but she exercised even less control over her tongue than she did her arms. “Ahhh!” Thrashing, she struggled to rise, but her arms and legs refused to cooperate. Mark moved behind her and folded her in his arms. His touch only made the struggles worse, and several times her flailing hands caught him in the face, leaving marks that would purple within a day.
“Shhh,” he whispered. “You’ll be alright.”
Something in his tone or touch must have gotten through, the girl ceased her struggles to begin weeping softly instead.
“Let me tell you a story,” Mark said. “Once there was a young woman who sat with a storyteller who repeatedly told her a tale of hatred and revenge. At first, she was pleased that the storyteller would make a story about her, but as time went on she noticed that more and more of her real life slipped away, until all that was left was the tale. Filled with a false desire for vengeance, the storyteller sent her out to do his bidding, to kill.”
“But a brave man, a man of great years and wisdom, saw her and took away the lust for revenge, giving the young woman a different story. The man of great years and his friends hoped this would heal the woman, but it wasn’t to be. The memories weren’t really hers.
