There Jasmine was petted, patted, kissed and passed around the circle of blue-gowned nuns, as though she were a kind of sad dessert to be licked up. At length the commiseration stopped, and one of the nuns came forward to give her a book. It was Library Sister. This is everything I could find about the Girdle of Binding, the Girdle of Chu-Namu,’ she said. ‘I’ve written very small, and the notebook will fit in your pocket. There are some references even Eldest Sister didn’t find. You do read, don’t you?’ Jasmine nodded, and Library Sister embraced her, blessing her in the name of the Goddess.
‘I’ve given you medicine for swamp fever,’ said Sister Herbal. ‘Library Sister says you could end up almost anywhere, which would include swamps. There’s herb mix for travellers’ trots, and wound dressing to stop bleeding. There’s bandage, and insect balm, and a few things for womanly troubles. You do have womanly troubles?’ Jasmine nodded, to spare the kindly one either disappointment or embarrassment, and the Sister Herbal blessed her in the name of the Goddess.
‘I’ve made you a cloak with lots of pockets,’ said Seamstress Sister. Two on each side, and two secret ones hidden at the back, inside, and one in the hood. The eyeholes are double stitched. I’ve put a housewife in the left pocket, buttoned in, with some good needles and thread and extra buttons and ties. You do sew, don’t you?’ Jasmine nodded, and Sister Seamstress embraced her, blessing her in the name of the Goddess.
‘This cordial,’ said Sister Steward, ‘is very rare and very old. It restores the will to live, warms the cold, keeps away night dragons. It will get you drunk once or save your life many times over. I found this old flask in the undercellar-the Goddess alone knows how long it has been there. It’s a good size for carrying, and not ugly. I won’t ask you if you drink, for that would be a foolish question. I bless you though, child, in the name of the Goddess. Eldest Sister can be an absolute bitch.’
Jasmine was led back through the Temple gardens, the various gifts stored in the pockets of the orbansa, resolving as she walked that she might as well go on the quest for the Girdle of Chu-Namu. That night she packed a few things, wrote a few brief good-byes, including one to the magistrate in which the words dripped venom onto the pale pages. In the morning, she left early, lingering near the gates to the play yard at the Temple, hoping to see Hu’ao For even one moment. Other children came into the yard, but not Hu’ao, who was being fed candies in the anteroom of the office of the Eldest Sister.
That night the Eldest Sister had a vision of the Goddess from which she woke trembling and sick. Words spoken in that vision would not leave her mind. The Goddess herself had said, ‘Who invokes my name must live by that invocation. As you have said I have done, I have done.’ Thereafter, Eldest Sister did not have Hu’ao brought to her. Hu’ao stayed in the care of Sister Herbal, or Sister Steward, or Library Sister or Seamstress Sister, or any one of a dozen others. Though she was much loved, the Sisters never for one moment let her forget Jasmine.
FROM THE NOTES OF LIBRARY SISTER:
During the early Second Cycle, a people came into the settled lands from the east, a people who called themselves ‘The Thousand,’ or the ‘Thiene’ This long-lived race was said by some to be descended from the wizards who had left the earth at the end of the First Cycle. Whatever their origin, the Thiene began the numbering of the years, sought out the reclusive archivists in Tchent and sent them among the people as teachers, and preached the eternal unity of the four Powers, these named as Earthsoul, Our Lady of the Waters, Firelord, and the High Spirit, sometimes called Skysoul.
Each of these Powers was said to be embodied in an artifact created ‘outside of time’ and dedicated to the Power in question. That of Our Lady of the Waters was said to be a Girdle or belt which ‘bound all life together as the waters bind the earth.’ It was known as the Girdle of Binding. Some early Second Cycle sources refer to this Girdle as the ‘maintainer of earth’ and state that it was put in the care of a religious group in the far east, possibly at the Temple in the City of the Mists. Since the Concealment, we have no clear idea of the location of this City, but it was certainly beside the eastern sea. The area was known to the Akwithian kings, for the City of the Mists was conquered by them near the end of the Second Cycle.
Among the spoils taken from the City was the Girdle of Binding, and this Girdle was brought to Tchent to be kept in the treasure house there. Though none of the Thiene remained in the world at that time, the line of Tar-Akwith was said to have Thienese ancestry, and his son, the father of Sud-Akwith, married a woman from Tchent. P’Vey, a chronicler attached to the High House of Akwith, writes that Sud-Akwith was displeased that a military force had been brought against the City of Mists and prayed publicly that no evil should befall the line of Akwith because of this dishonour done to Our Lady. In any case, the Girdle was put into safekeeping in Tchent.
It was shortly after this time that the Lord of the Northlands attempted the rebuilding of Tharliezalor on the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Akwith realm. He thus aroused
