Chapter 17
I was sure we were all going to be killed just because I tried to cure a cat, but we weren’t. Howard created a shield strong enough to make the stones bounce off of it with fireworks of sparks. In the end, we had frightened, but cured, cat on my lap, a pile of stone rubble and a shapeless darkness where the room had been.
“We’d better go to another room,” said Howard.
“To a room that’s still a room,” added Marilyn.
Howard grabbed me and dragged me over the stones, not minding the bruises I got along the way. The cat, of course, was rudely knocked off my lap in the process. I got pulled out into the hall then into another room. This room was furnished with five wooden chairs that surrounded a velvet rug. I got stuffed into one chair while the other apprentices seated themselves. I felt a soft nudge just above my foot. The cat had managed to follow me through everything. I reached down and picked it up. The cat instinctively slipped in under my cape where it shrank, ready to leap out if anything of interest should happen. This room had a couple of windows to it that looked out on a cloudy and foggy scene. As I looked at the four tense faces surrounding me, I concluded I was about to be expelled from the academy and the guild. But the apprentices were slower to say anything than I thought they’d be. Did they just want to see me squirm a bit before they lowered the boom? My mind was already at work on plans for getting on with my quest after I was sent home, but I couldn’t think of anything I could do but hope that my friends could still find me once I was back in my own world.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Howard finally asked the other three apprentices.
There was another long pause while they all looked at each other like four conspirators plotting the downfall of civilization.
“I think there is a chance that we are thinking about the things we said to one another before this apprentice was dropped on our backs,” said Charna.
I felt a sharp prick where the cat dug a claw into my leg. Assuming it was better that the other apprentices forget about it, I made sure I didn’t show my discomfort.
“In which case,” said Marilyn, “we should be more civil to Nathaniel.”
“After all,” said Parrison, “Nathaniel can do something after all.”
“And to think that we got roped into infant care for Nathaniel because they thought we were the least members of the guild,” Howard mused.
“Now we can show them who’s really the most important and powerful,” added Parrison.
I wasn’t so sure it would be to my advantage to have these guys speak civilly to me, but there was nothing I could do but wait and find out what was on their minds.
“Nathaniel,” said Howard, “you are a Brown. You even bear that name. I suppose you know that the Brown Clan is allied with the Amber Clan.”
That set alarm bells ringing all over my nervous system.
“I renounced primary allegiance to my clan when I made my vows to the Guild of Gifted Healers,” I replied, trying to keep my voice from shaking too much.
“Not so fast,” said Howard. “Just hear us out. This is a matter of defeating the strangling pestilence. Now think for a minute. When you were with the Boys’ Choir of Gifted Singers, which boys were the ones who were willing to help you with your quest?”
“Pollo. Mirry, Charles,” I answered.
“Mirry is an Amber,” said Howard. “Pollo is a Blue, allied with the Amber Clan. Charles, I don’t know. Now, which clan is Denson a member of?”
“Scarlet.”
“Right. And the same goes for the other boys who joined with Denson in attacking you. Do you see what we’re getting at? The Amber Clan is interested in defeating the pestilence, but the Scarlet Clan is not.”
I understood what Howard was getting at, and I didn’t like it. I suppose I could have told him that Charles was a Scarlet, but I didn’t feel like telling him anything.
“Are you saying that the strangling pestilence is all the fault of the Scarlet Clan?” I asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” asked Charna.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Wouldn’t you think that the Scarlet Clan and their allies would have a few of their own in the Guild of Gifted Healers if they wanted any healing to take place outside of their own clan?” Charna persisted.
“Are there none?” I asked.
“Not one member of the Scarlet or Orange Clan has joined our guild in many years,” said Howard, “and as soon as the pestilence struck, the few Scarlets and Oranges we had left and returned to their own clans, contrary to the vows they took.”
“So, you can see,” Charna added, “that we can, ourselves, hardly be bound by any vows to renounce our clans when the Scarlets have not done do.”
“There’s more to it than that,” said Parrison. “I have done a close study of the demographics of the pestilence. The first people to be pestilenced were all Ambers. Then some of the Blues were hit. It might interest you to know that almost every Brown, including your own father, has been pestilenced.”
“But haven’t some Scarlets been pestilenced, too?” I asked.
“They have now,” said Parrison. “It may well be that some Ambers have attacked the Scarlets with the pestilence in return for what has happened to them. It could be the case that the pestilence is out of everybody’s control. It may be that the Scarlets have purposely allowed the pestilence to affect some of their own to ward off suspicion. Derrick Scarlet is not known for treating weaker members of his own clan well if treating them badly advances the cause of his clan as a whole, and of himself in particular.”
“And when the one Scarlet boy who attacked you was injured,” said Marilyn, “Denson just left him, without even trying to take him away.”
“Maybe he knew I’d help him because of my vows,” I said.
“Do you really think that Denson showed care and concern for the injured boy when he left him at the mercy of the boy he attacked?” asked Charna.
“No, I don’t think he did,” I admitted.
“Do you see the point?” asked Howard.
“What do you want me to do about it, wipe out the Scarlet Clan with a song?”
I could see that I’d hit a raw nerve with that question. The problem for me was that the Scarlet Clan had, so far, acted like enemies in every way, except for Charles. Loving my enemy by taking an injured and helpless boy back to the Guildhall was one thing. Loving the enemies who were still healthy and evil and inclined to hurt me and my quest was something else.
“I don’t think we have to do anything quite so drastic,” said Charna in a tone of voice that told me that that was exactly what we had to do, only she wouldn’t admit it.
“You see,” said Howard, “all we have to do is weaken the clan so that it can no longer cast pestilencing spells.
“I took a vow that I would not injure another person in any way,” I said, then I braced myself for the inevitable reaction.
“Well, look who knows everything about what his vows mean!” Howard exclaimed in mocking tones. “You’ve only been in the guild for a week or two, and yet you know better than anybody else the best way to deal with the worst healing crisis in the guild’s history.”
“You see,” said Parrison, “what our vows really mean is that we have to do whatever needs to be done to create and preserve the health of the whole Gifted World and any other people affected by the actions and spells of the Gifted.”
“Even if that means engaging in a military-type action?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t call this a military-type action,” said Howard. “That would be dropping ourselves down to the level of a warring clan. What we’re talking about is a case of—how shall I say it?—of inhibiting the ability of the Scarlet Clan to do the harm they are doing.”
I didn’t like this at all. I had a feeling these guys were capable of interpreting our vows to justify any atrocity they felt like doing. Too many terrorists in my world were thinking like that already.
“Why don’t you guys help me with the healing quest I’ve been assigned?” I asked.
I knew even before I saw the reactions that they’d think this the wrong question, but I felt I had to ask it anyway.
“Your healing quest, Masteress Oldham’s Last Folly, is over and done with and buried,” said Charna.
“Then why does the light on my cape clasp not go out?” I asked.
“That is not for us to know,” said Parrison.
“Now that we know what you can do with your Singing Gift,” said Howard, “we know we can break through any shield, any barrier, and strike the pestilence-creating spell room of the Scarlet Clan, and end the pestilence once and for all.”
“I don’t want to do it,” I said.
I hugged my to arms to keep myself warm in the frosty silence.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Marilyn. “you help us with our healing quest, and we’ll help you with yours.”
That was almost tempting. My mind went about in circles, making up arguments that attacking the Scarlets wasn’t so bad; that it might not hurt anybody anyway, and then I’d have four guild members ready to help me get the windmere willow’s blossom. But my heart told me it was all wrong. I thought of my father. Would he approve? Certainly not. What about my friends? Would Pollo or Mirry approve of such a thing? Maybe, but I doubted it. I trusted my friends. Howard, Charna, Parrison, and Marilyn had treated me badly. Why should I trust them? If they were going to make me take part, perhaps even leading part, in a raid that could hurt people, then I didn’t want them helping me with my quest.
“The answer is No, No, No,” I replied with all the finality I could muster.
That brought the temperature in the room down to about a million degrees below zero.
“I guess our bad little boy will just have to go to his room without any supper,” said Charna.
“Guess so,” said Howard. “It’s so sad to think of all the lives and pestilencing we could prevent if only this supercilious apprentice would cooperate.”
A hard tug pulled me out of my chair. It was a leash Parrison had created for me and thrown around my neck. The cold smile on his face didn’t make me wish I’d agreed to cooperate with him. I felt a prick on my leg; it was the cat’s claw. Then the cat gripped the inside of my cape. With the other apprentices following, Parrison pulled out of the room, down the hall, up the steep steps, and down the hall to my room. He opened the door and pushed me so hard, I crashed against the far wall.
“And you’re staying here until you decide to help us solve this crisis,” said Howard. “We’ll check in on you after you’ve had some time to think about it.”
With that, the door slammed shut, leaving me in the dark once again. I thought of using my light-maker, but decided against it. I felt a furry movement on my leg and then felt the weight of the cat’s paws on my lap. As I petted the cat, I started singing: “O kitty, kitty, kitty, to the tune of the willow Song I’d learned from Rosalind. Sad songs don’t solve problems like the one I was in, but it sort of gives the hurt a place to be, and that helps.
I thought about my friends and wondered what they were doing, and whether or not they would be able to rescue me here in the academy of Gifted Healers. I wondered if Preston or Lucy, Master McDermott, or Masteress Goldenaro would be able to do anything. I wondered if they even knew where I was. I also wondered if Master Medwick would approve of what these apprentices were up to if he should find out about it. Not that I felt like running to the man to complain about them, even if I could. He didn’t seem to want me out of the doghouse any time soon.
I found out later that what my friends were doing at about the same time I was locked in my cell was exploring deep places in the Archives of Gifted Lore. Mirry and Charles steered the flying horses to a set of shelves built into crumbling stone walls where they found books that didn’t appear to have been touched in centuries. With the help of Charles’ finding spell, they located a thick book that was falling apart at the seams. Maranissa cast a spell that put the book back together to some extent. Then Pollo and Mirry leafed through the book until they found the chapter they were looking for.
“Do you think we can do this?” asked Mirry.
“I think we can, once we’ get Nathaniel,” Pollo answered.
What they needed from me was a singing spell they thought I could cast with the help of the information in the book. If they had known that the spell they were studying had not been attempted since the book was new, they might not have been so confident. The spell they wanted me to cast with my Gifted Singing was a spell that would bring back all of the fragments of the wrecked ship that had any part of Masteress Oldham in it, although these fragments had been floating in the etheric depths for several days already. Armed with the knowledge they needed, they started to head toward the Academy to rescue me.
I didn’t know this at the time, of course. I could only hope they were coming for me like they promised. The cat was purring pretty loudly as long as I kept on petting it. In my hostile environment, it was nice to have a friend. The purring got sounded like a low note that gets held in the bass of a couple of pieces I sang in choir while we sang fancy stuff on top of it. I kept on sing the Kitty song to the tune of “Willow, Willow,” then I started to change the tune and the words to express what I felt about everything that was going wrong. I wandered in and out of other songs I knew, like “Somewhere,” some hymns I’d learned in church, and some of the music I’d learned in the choir. I sang about how worried I was about my father and my added worry that I might never see him again before he was gone, and I sang about how I missed my friends and about how badly I felt that I still couldn’t finish my healing quest. I thought of that psalm I’d learned in church that starts with “Out of the depths have I called unto Thee, O Lord.” If I wasn’t in the depths now, I never would be. I have to admit I was praying as hard as I sang. I don’t know what I expected to get out of praying; I just did it. It was kind of like why I delivered medicine to people. It wasn’t because I expected anything out of it; It was just the right thing to do.
After singing like this for quite some time, I started to hear a rumble that wasn’t the cat purring. I stopped to listen. The rumbling got louder and the stones of my cell vibrated. After a fit of fright, I decided I would keep on singing just to see what I could do. Maybe if the walls of the academy came tumbling down, I could escape. So, I picked up where I left off with my song. I let one song run into another without thinking about it. There was so much I was scared and upset about, that I had a lot to sing about. When I heard a couple of stones hit the floor near me, I kept on singing, no longer caring what happened.
“Nathaniel!” Howard cried out. “Stop singing, immediately!”
The four apprentices were gathered around me, doing all sorts of things with their hands. Stones were falling just outside of our little circle.
“Can’t you see what you’re doing?” asked Marilyn.
“Of course, he can’t see what he’s doing,” Charna answered for me.
I’d had it with these people, and I wasn’t about to do anything they told me. I poured myself into my singing with twice as much intensity as before. I didn’t even care what notes or words came out as long as I was singing. I braced myself for an attack that would smother me, or break all my bones, but no attack came.
Suddenly, the cell wall crumbled and light flooded my eyes. People were screaming. I kept on singing as best I could as I blinked and tried to take in what I was seeing. I glimpsed a bright green lawn and a gigantic mansion made of red sandstone. The screaming got louder. A long crack appeared across the front of the mansion. Right before my eyes, the stone broke apart, showing people screaming with panic. That stopped my singing dead in its tracks. A sudden, stinging sensation shot through my body and all but knocked me over. Several men and women and older boys and girls surrounded me, Denson and Jorland among them. All of them were wearing red capes.
“We’ve got you covered,” said the man who looked and acted like the head of the Scarlet Clan. “One more note out of you, and we’ll spell your throat into ribbons.”
“We’ve got you covered,” said Howard from behind me. Charna, Parrison and Marilyn were standing with him. “One more note out of you, and we’ll spell your throat into ribbons.”
By this time I was shaking so hard, I felt more like soft rubber than skin and bones. Both a living room and a study that were exposed by the crumbling front wall were in shambles. A lot of red-caped people were lying in the mess, writhing in pain and moaning. Among them, I recognized Master Lesentrange struggling to rise to his feet and failing.
“So, this is the infamous Nathaniel Hawthorne Brown,” said the head of the clan, who had to be Master Derrick Scarlet. “You manifest yourself as one so audacious as to attack my very house with your pestilence.”
“Master Scarlet,” said Howard, “we tried our best to stop him when we caught him attacking your clan house, but this boy is almost unstoppable once his throat is turned to singing.”
Much as I knew how awful Howard and the other apprentices were, I still could hardly believed they’d stoop to so low a lie as this.
“I—I don’t understand what’s happened,” I stammered.
“Use your eyes and you can see for yourself what has happened!” Master Scarlet thundered. “You have destroyed the facade of my house and you have injured my good wife and many cousins.”
Suddenly the scene before me was filled with purple, as several members of the Guild of Gifted Healers appeared and fell on the injured Scarlets.
“Nathaniel Hawthorne Brown!” cried Master Medwick. “What are you doing here when I confined you to the academy?”
“He broke out and did this,” said Charna.
“Wait until you see what he has done to the Academy,” said Parrison with a grim smile.
“Nathaniel Hawthorne Brown!” Master Medwick yelled a thousand decibels louder, “I hold you for the tribunal of Gifted Judges!”
“I hold Nathaniel Hawthorne Brown for the tribunal of Gifted Judges!” Master Scarlet yelled back. “I am the more aggrieved party than you! Take him to a secure room in what is left of my house and bind him to it!”