Aldric Thornwood's Arc

Chapter 6 of 11

Aldric walked until the pebbled shore turned to packed dirt, and the dirt turned to a road. Chanterelle's scratched map showed a village half a day's walk inland, and beyond it the herbalist's glass house. But the map ended at the village. The mushroom girl had drawn a circle there and said only, "Ask. Someone will know her." He had the jar against his ribs and the wolf at his heel and three days left before his sister ran out of time. The village was small and awake. Aldric stopped the first three people he saw. A carter shrugged. A woman with a basket said she'd heard of an herbalist but didn't know the path. A boy pointed vaguely at the trees and ran off. Every wrong answer cost him minutes. The wolf pressed against his leg once, hard, when a man in a clean coat watched them too long from a doorway. Aldric moved on. At the square he saw a marble building with gold veined through its columns. Steam curled from its vents. Two old men sat on the steps in loose robes, arguing about a mead order. A woman inside laughed at something. A bathhouse. Where people sat with nothing to do but talk. He left the wolf by the steps and went in. The air was wet and warm. Bubbles rose from a wide tub under a hanging light. Painted butterflies clung to the rim. Four women soaked to their shoulders and looked at him without surprise. "I'm looking for the herbalist," Aldric said. "My sister is dying. I have three days." The oldest woman set down her cup. "Sylvana Greene. Follow the creek east from the mill until you smell mint. Her glass house sits in a clearing. She talks to her plants. Don't laugh at her for it." "How far." "Two hours if you run." He ran. The wolf ran beside him. The creek bent east past a broken mill wheel, and the smell hit him before he saw the roof — mint, then something sharper, then flowers he couldn't name. The glass house stood in a clearing with sun on it. A red-haired woman knelt in the doorway with her hands in a shallow tray of soil, murmuring to a row of seedlings. She looked up. Her eyes moved to the jar, then to his face. "You've been running," Sylvana said. She stood and wiped her hands on her skirt. "Who is dying." "My sister. Poison. Three days." "Come inside. Show me the jar." Aldric stepped through the door. The glass caught the light and threw it across a hundred living plants. Sylvana was already reaching for a jar of dark leaves on a high shelf. She had not asked his name. She had asked what he carried, and that was the first useful question anyone had put to him since the shore.