Chapter 3

Natasha hooted loudly and flapped her wings.

“That is the strongest singing Gift the Guild has seen in many spans of time,” said Master McDermott.

“It is certain, I think, that Nathaniel can be of great help to us,” said Preston.

“Nathaniel,” said Lucy, “I am sorry for my manner of speaking to you. There is no question that you are here with us by right.”

“How can melting pennies into a table help you?” I asked, my insides still shaking like a ton of leaves.

“You have the power to sing one substance into the substance of another,” said Masteress Oldham.” There are some healing substances that can be made in no other way.”

“And do we need this gift to be used for the smothering pestilence?” asked Preston.

“Yes, this is precisely the gift that is needed,” said Masteress Oldham.

“But don’t you have other people who know more about all this than I do, who can do the singing you want?” I asked.

“We do not,” said Masteress Oldham.

So much for getting out of helping these guys. To tell the truth, I was kind of swelling with pride at the idea that I could do something these guys in capes couldn’t, not even the woman who seemed to be a top dog in this Guild.

“We must tell Nathaniel the whole story so that he can make an informed choice,” said my father.

“Yes, we must explain our situation to Nathaniel,” said Masteress Oldham.

“I did tell him the fundamental mission of our Guild before the rest of you got here,” said Preston.

“That will save me some words,” said Masteress Oldham. “Nathaniel, there is, at present, a major war between the Scarlet Gifted Clan and the Amber Gifted Clan. Several other clans have taken sides, or at least they seem to have. When such a war occurs, some people, including many who are innocent, are wounded or struck with etheric pestilence. During this present warfare, a strangling pestilence has broken out, and all control of it has been lost, even by those who unleashed it in the first place. This pestilence has struck people of all Gifted Clans and all Gifted Guilds. Nathaniel, your father and Master McDermott and I have been pursuing a healing quest for a cure of this pestilence. We have discovered that we need a healing substance that is created only by singing a Windmere Blossom into a dalebark solution so that the two become one.”

“How do you expect an unguilded, untrained boy to do that?” asked Lucy.

“I take it that Nathaniel is our only hope unless the Guild of Gifted Singers is able and willing to assign one of their number to assist us,” said Master McDermott.

“None of the music guilds can be counted on to help anybody with anything,” Preston grumbled.

“That is true,” said Masteress Oldham. “And the Gifts that arise in the Singers Guild do not include the Gift we need at this present time of need.”

“And that is why we need, you, Nathaniel,” said my father, “if you are willing to help.”

All eyes fell on me. I have to admit my feelings were mixed. If somebody needed my help, I was willing to give it, but this business of singing to a blossom and turning it into medicine was pretty far out of any league I’d ever heard of. It made me feel like Frodo in The Lord of the Rings when he realized he was the one who had to carry the ring to Mount Doom. That made me feel in my deepest gut that I should be like Frodo and do as I was asked, just as I always carried prescriptions to people when I was asked to do it. I certainly didn’t want people to be sick if I could help make them better. If this business was something I’d have to conceal from my dad, I might have hesitated, but there he was, looking at me and hoping I’d join him in his work. How could I say “no” to that?

“I will help in any way I can,” I announced, mindful of Frodo’s words at his time of decision, “although I do not know the way.”

The relief and gratitude on the faces of all four Guild members told me I had made the right decision.

“Singing the Windmere Blossom into dalebark solution will be a much greater challenge than the spell you just sang,” said Masteress Oldham. “You will have to learn to sing the precise chant that will make that happen. I will have to send you to a senior master of the Guild of Gifted Singers who will, I hope, teach you the chant until you have imprinted it in your memory.”

“It will be a sunny day in the etheric places before any master of the Gifted Singers Guild helps us,” Preston complained.

“Then let us hope that the sun comes out in an etheric space of that guild,” said Master McDermott.

“And I assume this presupposes that Nathaniel take the Oath of the Guild of Gifted Healers,” added Lucy.

“Yes, that is presupposed,” said Masteress Oldham.

“We need to tell Nathaniel about the oath that will be asked of him,” said my father.

“We can tell you the fundamental laws of the Guild of Gifted Healers that you will swear to in a small piece of time,” said Masteress Oldham. “You will renounce all primary allegiance to your birth clan.”

“My clan?” I asked.

“You are a Brown, just like me,” said Father.

“Do you mean we’re part of a Gifted Clan, a Clan that is part of the war?” I asked. “Are my aunt and uncle and cousins part of this?”

“Yes, we are members of the Brown Clan,” said my dad. “It’s a small clan because a lot of us have joined what are called Clan-Transcendent Guilds, such as the Guild of Gifted Healers. The few relatives we have in our world are not Gifted. You have never met anyone of the Brown Gifted Clan. I hardly know any of them myself. As far as the current war is concerned, the Brown Clan is allied with the Amber Clan. However, as a members of a Clan-Transcendent Guild, our primary loyalty and responsibility is to any injured or pestilenced person, regardless of clan, who has need of our help.”

“It’s kind of like the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders,” Master McDermott explained.

“I see,” I said. “I will swear that.”

“One other important part of you oath is that you will swear never to kill or even injure another person through your intention,” said Masteress Oldham.

“I’ll swear that, too,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to hurt anybody in a million years.”

“This applies to your whole life and not just life in the Guild,” said Dad. “You can’t join the army, for example.”

“I don’t want to join the army,” I said, “unless it’s to be a medic or something.”

I’m not exactly the most impulsive person around, and I was kind of surprised I was willing to agree so quickly to an oath that was going to be binding for the rest of my life. But I had the feeling I’d already pretty much taken the oath that was being asked of me in that I was committed to helping people and not hurting anyone if I could help it. Besides, my dad was in it, and I wanted to be a part of it, too, just as I was thinking of being a doctor or pharmacist because of my dad’s work.

“Perhaps it will help if I tell you that you can still enter any profession you want when you grow up,” Master McDermott explained, “provided it doesn’t violate your oath. Most of us do something that is related. My Gift is discerning patterns in and around a body. I work as a car mechanic where I read the patterns of the parts to find what is wrong and fix the car. Your father works with drugs both in our world and with the Guild. Most of the time, you’ll just seem like a normal person doing normal stuff.”

“Sort of like Clark Kent?” I asked.

“Yea, like Clark Kent,” Dad agreed.

I could see that Preston, Lucy, and Masteress Oldham didn’t know what my dad and I were talking about, but there didn’t seem to be time to explain it to them.

“Are you agreed to take your oath to the Guild of Gifted Healers?” Masteress Oldham asked me.

“Yes.”

“Then we shall proceed.”

Masteress Oldham, fiddled with the clasp on her cape, and I heard something like a distant sound of a bell. Almost instantly, several people appeared, all wearing purple capes. Other people showed up in etheric images the way my father did. The room seemed to expand to make room for the people who came. A few torch-like lights flickered here and there to light the place a little more, but not much. I thought everything looked more, rather than less spooky. I was startled by the variety of clothes people wore under their capes. One young man wore a Boston Red Sox sweat shirt and another man was dressed in what looked like an awfully formal outfit, but in a style I’d never seen before. One woman wore a pastel pants suit and another woman looked like she was dressed for hiking. I saw people of just about all ages from pretty old to a few that looked like they might be only two or three years older than me. There didn’t seem to be anyone my age or younger. Quite a few of the people frowned when they saw me, and I heard them mutter to each other, asking what was going on. As if I knew! The youngest people gave me the dirtiest looks of all and kept the greatest distance. Then a hefty man with black, bushy eyebrow appeared right next to Masteress Oldham and close to me. I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head in fury when he saw me.

“What is this unguilded child doing in our guildhall?” he asked.

“He is preparing to take his oath to the Guild of Gifted Healers, Master Medwick” Masteress Oldham answered.

“What for?” bellowed Master Medwick. “We are much too overwhelmed with our pestilenced cared-fors to take time out to train a child too young to help us at this time!”

I could see for myself that Master Medwick’s question was on the mind, if not the lips, of quite a few people there. I couldn’t have been squirming in my seat more if about fifty worms were crawling in my pants. I looked at my dad and he gave me a sad, but sympathetic look. Natasha, apparently angered by the man’s attitude, hopped of Masteress Oldham’s shoulder long enough to slap him with her wing.

“Olivia, when are you going to learn to control that thing?” asked Master Medwick.

“When you learn to control your obstructing spirit,” Masteress Oldham replied. “I will have you know that Master McDermott, Master Brown and I have discovered a cure for the strangling pestilence,” Masteress Oldham announced in a loud voice. She allowed the stunned silence to sink in before she went on. “This cure requires a healing quest to find a blossom from a windmere willow, and sing the blossom into a dalebark solution. No present member of our guild is a Gifted Singer, as we have foolishly neglected the cultivation of Gifted Music for healing purposes. However, the boy sitting before me, Nathaniel Hawthorne Brown, has a Singing Gift that should accomplish what needs to be accomplished.”

“Masteress Oldham,” Master Medwick objected, “I do not see how a boy untrained both in Gifted Singing and Gifted Healing can possibly help us in a time like this. There are reasons why our guild has neglected Gifted Music, not least because the power of Gifted Music is so imprecise. I fear that your mind is deserting you.”

“I will have you know that Nathaniel Hawthorne Brown has demonstrated a very powerful Gift of Singing,” said Lucy, her face red with anger.

Lucy continued to puzzle me. First she was chewing me out existing, and now she was defending me against all comers.

“Master Medwick,” Masteress Oldham replied, “the crisis facing us is so desperate that only in folly can there be wisdom.”

“There is simply no need for this folly you think is so wise,” said a woman with long gray hair and thick black glasses. “I have been researching alternative ways of countering the smothering pestilence that will not need the unreliability of anybody’s Singing Gift. I am very close to perfecting my healing spell. Just give me a very few spans of time more, and I will have solved the crisis for you.”

“It will be good if a second way of combating the strangling pestilence should be perfected, Masteress Jakelyn,” said Masteress Oldham.

Masteress Jakelyn’s face got all contorted with anger, and I flinched at what she was going to say even before she said it.

“It would be a traitorous breach of our guild’s ministry to give any priority to the Singing Gift of a boy who could not possibly control it and use it responsibly. My spell will be fully precise and will carry none of the dangers that this boy’s Singing Spell would surely pose.”

“This is my son you’re talking about!” said my father, looking a lot more angry than I had ever seen him in several years.

“I don’t care whose son I’m talking about,” said Masteress Jakelyn. “I am only speaking the truth.”

“It is obvious that you are just trying to set up your son to be a youthful hero whose glory will redound back to you and to the Brown Gifted Clan!” Master Medwick charged.

“We must not forget that the emotional force of music gives many spells a power they will have no other way,” said a slender woman with white hair that seemed to float above her head. “We must be open to the great chance that Providence has brought us a Gifted Singer when we need one the most. I think it is our best course to send Nathaniel to Master Milo Lesentrange, who directs the Boys Choir in the Guild of Gifted Musicians at Saint Percivale’s Church. He could teach Nathaniel a few fundamentals of Gifted Singing and then teach him chant for the windmere willow’s blossom.”

“That is what I was already thinking I would do,” said Masteress Oldham.

“I don’t like the idea of letting the Guild of Gifted Musicians get mixed up in our affairs,” said Master Medwick.

“And we don’t need to put ourselves at the mercy of another guild, because my spell will have no need of them,” said Masteress Jakelyn.

There was a lot more shouting and arguing that isn’t worth writing about. It all made me feel torn apart. I wanted to tell everybody to let it go, and let me go home, but I was afraid to say anything right at that moment.

“All right!” yelled Master Medwick, “who supports Masteress Oldham in her folly?

A few hands went up, but not that many. That was okay with me. I had other things to do besides learn a healing chant nobody wanted anyway. The only people who supported Masteress Oldham were Preston, Lucy, Master McDermott, the woman who spoke up for me, my father, and maybe three or four others. Some people looked undecided, but other people looked like they were against me. Then Natasha gave out a hoot to suggest that she, at least, was on my side.

“Nathaniel will have to make do with what support the guild is willing to give him,” said Masteress Oldham. That touched off some angry murmuring. “Nathaniel, if you are still willing to take the Oath to the Guild of Gifted Healers, and go on the healing quest I have asked of you, please step forward.”

“Nathaniel!” Master Medwick yelled at me. “In the name of all common sense and the good of the Gifted World and your own well-being, don’t do it.”

Since I didn’t think Master Medwick cared two cents for my well-being, I was more inclined to take the oath than ever just to spite him. I looked over at my father, though, because it was his judgment that I really cared about.

“It’s your call, Nathaniel,” said Dad. “I’ll support you all the way, whatever you decide.”

That did it. With my heart beating like a hammer, I stood up and walked over in front of Masteress Oldham.

“I will take the oath,” I said.

That touched off some more murmuring. I tried to ignore it, but that wasn’t easy.

“Repeat after me,” said Masteress Oldham. “I, Nathaniel Hawthorne Brown.”

“I, Nathaniel Hawthorne Brown,” I repeated.

“Do solemnly promise.”

“To give allegiance to the Guild of Gifted Healers,”

“Above allegiance to all other clans.”

“And that I shall use all of my soul-impressed Gifts.”

“For the healing of wounds and pestilences of all who are in need.”

“For the healing of wounds and pestilences for all who are in need.”

“And never for the purpose of harming any living being.”

“May all that is Holy.”

“Be witness to my Oath.”

As soon as I’d said those words, I felt a cape drop lightly over my shoulders. Sparks crackled, sort of like the electric shock you get from static electricity in the winter. The shock ran through my whole system, making me feel like I was full of magic. I guess, I was. Master Medwick, Masteress Jakelyn and others who seemed to be on their side scowled at me and disappeared to return to their work. The white-haired woman who supported me came over and shook my hand.

“Nathaniel, I gift you with my name of Masteress Goldenaro,” she said to me, “and I welcome you to the Guild of Gifted Healers. If I were Gifted in music, I could help you more, but any help I can give you, I will give you.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”

“I must returned to the pestilence-stricken in my care,” said Masteress Goldenaro, “but I will not forget you.”

I waved to her as she disappeared. It was good to have at least a few friends in this group. My father was still there in his etheric image, obviously waiting to say something before he blinked out. I noticed how wiped out he looked. He must have been really running himself ragged to help all the sick people who weren’t going to get better unless I managed to do the quest Masteress Oldham was asking of me.

“Nathaniel, this would be a hard quest for anyone,” said my father, “and it will be especially hard for a boy untrained in use of his Gift. But don’t listen to the doubters among us. I know that you can do much more than either you or anyone else can imagine. I’m so proud of you, I could burst. You’re the greatest son a father could have. I will be praying very hard for you.”

He faded out slowly, waving at me the whole while. I waved back, hardly able to hold back my tears. Even after he was long gone, I kept on waving at him for some time. I’d been praying all my life, but the idea of having somebody pray for me suddenly hit me with a lot of force. It was nice to know I wasn’t going to be alone, no matter what happened.

“Nathaniel,” said Masteress Oldham, “It is time for us to send you to Saint Percivale’s Church as Masteress Goldenaro suggested. This church is in what we call an etheric space. An etheric space is space creating through the use of Gifted Power. This guild hall is an etheric space, for example. When you arrive at Saint Percivale’s Church, tell Master Lesentrange what you need from him, and then hope you can talk him into helping you. When you have learned the healing chant you need, send yourself back to this guild hall.”

“What if he won’t teach me?” I asked.

“Be alert for any other opportunity that presents itself,” Masteress Oldham replied. “If it seems hopeless, return without the chant, and then we will decide what to do next.”

Masteress Oldham touched the clasp of my cape and I felt a burst of heat hit me on the chest just below my neck. The stone had looked pretty ordinary, but now it was lit up with a pale light that looked more impressive than I felt.

“This light indicates that you are on a healing quest and that you have the right to ask help of any member of any Clan-Transcendent Guild, and that includes the Guild of Gifted Musicians. Now it is time for you to transport yourself to Saint Percivale’s Church.”

“How do I do that?” I asked.

“Your cape will take you there,” Masteress Oldham replied. “Imagine a small church on a rocky coast with the surf practically hitting the church. Imagine further the sound of boys practicing their singing. In your case, I suggest you sing: “Saint Percivale’s Church” to any tune you like. You should end up in the right place.”

The whole idea of teleporting myself that way made me feel like I was diving from a diving board half a mile high into a small pool, and I’m terrified of heights.

“What if I don’t get there?” I asked.

“You’ll end up back here,” said Preston, “but I’m sure you’ll make it.”

Only slightly reassured, I closed my eyes and imagined a church scene as best I could, kind of like pictures and movies I’d seen of the English coast in my world. Natasha gave me on last hoot to send me on my way. Then I sang the words: “Saint Percivale’s Church” to the tune of “Fairest Lord Jesus,” the first hymn I’d ever learned. The words didn’t fit the tune perfectly, but they were close enough. My cape started to crackle so much I feared it was going to burn me up. I felt like I was in some sort of whirlwind that was trying to push me away from where I was trying to go. If I was taking this magic trip as a lark, I would have given up and let the wind blow me back to where I came from. But this wasn’t a lark; it was serious business. Lives were at stake, and so I pushed against the wind, sang the words harder and tried to make my picture of the church stronger. Singing harder seemed to make the wind against me stronger, too. Then something grabbed me, something with sharp claws. I was afraid to look, but decided I’d better. What I saw was the sharp-beaked face of an eagle with fiery eyes, and it had one of its huge wings wrapped around me.

Proceed to Chapter 4

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