Aldric Thornwood's Arc

Chapter 8 of 11

Aldric ran east with the roots wrapped in his coat cloth. The wolf kept pace beside him. He crossed the ridge before noon and pulled the bundle out to check it. The thickest root had already gone soft. The white inside was turning gray at the cut end. He pressed a thumbnail into it and the flesh gave like wet bread. He stopped in the road. Two days of riding ahead. The roots would be pulp before he reached his sister. Sylvana's paper had said white, not gray. Gray would not save her. He turned around and ran back. Roswyn was at her worktable when he came into the yard again. She looked up from a bowl she was trimming and set the tool down without a word. The kiln behind her still breathed heat. "They're wilting," Aldric said. He opened the cloth on her table. "I need two days out of them. I have half a day." Roswyn pushed her glasses up and leaned over the roots. She touched the soft one, then the firm ones. "Cut roots die in air. They need dark and damp and cold." She was already moving. "I can seal them." "Seal them how." "Small jar. Wet moss. Ash glaze lid, wax at the seam." She pulled a squat pot off a shelf and turned it in her hands. "This one's fired hard. I'll pack it now." She crossed to the slope behind the kiln and came back with a handful of green moss, still cold from the shaded side of a stone. She soaked it in a water bowl and wrung it out halfway. She laid the moss in the pot. She laid the roots on the moss, thickest at the bottom. She covered them with more moss and pressed it down with her palm. "Wax," she said. She lit a stub of candle from the kiln coals and let it drip around the lid until the seam was closed. She pressed the soft wax smooth with her thumb. "How long does that hold them," Aldric said. "Four days if you keep it out of sun. Two if you don't." She wrapped a strip of leather around the pot and tied it. "Ride at night. Bury it in your saddlebag under cloth in the day." He took the pot. It was heavier than he expected. The weight felt like a promise he could carry. "Thank you," he said. Roswyn wiped wax off her thumb on her apron. "Bring the jar back when she's on her feet." He whistled the wolf up and went to the road. A horse he'd bartered for at the village stood tied where he'd left her. He fixed the pot into the saddlebag between folds of wool and swung up. The sun was already halfway down. Two days of riding. One sealed pot. The roots were alive inside it, for now. He turned the horse east and kicked her into a run.