Chapter 10 - Part II

How do they keep the ceiling so clean? he contemplated while he laid across a lightly padded stone slab.  They are so high up and so full of haphazard cracks.  It must take the Unseen ages to get this work done.  He took in a deep breath and though the air was stale, it was peppered with the smell of unfamiliar and sterile chemicals; a fragrance reminiscent of a combination of vinegar and formaldehyde.  This wasn't the room he had last closed his eyes in.

Ah, I'm naked. he realized as he felt the thin silk sheet that lay limp across his breast.  The fluid sheet of light red rested perfectly to reveal the outlines of his arms and legs, and perhaps other things that he'd have rather kept private.  He considered falling back asleep, but there was a smorgasbord of words and images in his mind that wouldn't leave him alone, and it was rising in crescendo. 

Good.  You are up.  The greeting flooded his head quite unwelcome and he turned his head over to its source.  A decrepit figure loomed over the prone man, head, arms and legs well concealed under a cover of tight olive green wrappings and a face mask of mesh black.  About its body the Silent Scholar wore an ornate emerald green robe that hosted a myriad of native birds etched in gold, reds and blacks.  Wide sleeves too long for its arms by double had been rolled up and tied back while it worked and the short robe was tied tightly about its hip bones.  A plain emerald green, twice pleated skirt stopped mid calf over black leggings and plain black shoes on its feet.  All that was exposed were a pair of intelligent, black almond eyes, two thin strips of hair that arched fluidly along the Silent Scholar's brow and the tips of wavy black tattoos, escaping in random patterns from the confines of the wrappings.   The figure was skinny and slightly hunched.

At its head it wore a black hat that followed the curvature of a skull from forehead to the back of the head, but flipped up at the back like the head of a bassinet.  This indicated that it was one of the Empress Coth Di's top level advisers, one of the Learned, only the second bei'thal to be considered such.  Of course, the Silent Scholar was not a mere bei'thal, trotting their bei from city to city at the behest of her wisdom.  It was not even merely the first of its order, although as the pnum'beithal, the one advancing the art of compromising of the spirit, it certainly held those responsibilities as well.  But a compromise of spirit was always required in the art of the bei, whether the target be of senses, matter, or even time.  This put the pnum'beithal at a particular level of knowledge that its peers could not compete with.  the rha'beithal and the fwoh'beithal might made advances in compromising for eye sight or weightlessness respectively, but none of it would be possible without the continued work of the pnum'beithal.  Consequently, it was the pnum'beithal, lone among all beithal, who had the ear, or rather, the mind, of the empress.

Nobody knew how old the Silent Scholar was, nor if it was male or female, though surely it was mortal human.  This only added to the trepidation people, even the bei, felt at its presence.  Being pnum'beithal was all the identity the Silent Scholar needed, any other qualifier was irrelevant.  Long before it stopped speaking, the bei had named it the Silent Scholar as a sort of dry humor, referring to the constant mental chatter from it that they were subjected to if they were merely in the neighboring room.  It was mostly unintelligible, but the man lying on the padded slab couldn't block it out.

...orange extracted from a carrot mimics... ...stars painted with toads...

 The only offer of relief to a bei came when the Silent Scholar mentally spoke to them, or anyone, directly. 

Cedric.  Welcome home.  I've missed you, my special pet project.

Cedric felt queerly proud, yet objectified by the Silent Scholar's description of himself, but if the Silent Scholar took any interest in his conflicting heart, he made no indication of it.

It is you, right?  Really you that is.  I don't have to pump you with anymore heartsong extract, do I?

Cedric could feel the Silent Scholar's laughter reverberate through his soul and shuddered at the thought of strange concoctions still flowing through his veins.  Still, it had to be done, even he understood that.  His shadow self, while not a strong personality, was proving to be quite a fighter concerning his own consciousness. 

So tell me, what was the last memory you have before waking up here. asked the Silent Scholar.

Cedric knew it could hear, and already wearied of speaking mentally.  "A firelight.  Thoughts of Gregor.  It gets fuzzy again there.  Coming and going in and out of consciousness.  Then, a bandaged woman was there.  She was in a defensive position.  I asked if she kidnapped me from the Eirdred City, and she responded "yes".  She was a threat.  I attacked her. But..." he stopped, a little bit embarrassed.

But what?

"This body is severely out of training.  How many tides has it been? 3? 4?  I lost.  Miserably." Cedric chuckled at his own powerlessness.


There will be time enough to get that back.  What memory do you have before then?

"That one is even more of a haze.  And more abrupt.  Suddenly I was aware of a large group fighting.  There were a great deal of Eirdred men, lightly armored but fit and able and a group of darker skinned men and boys.  They were wearing some crude leather jerkins and the like of mercenaries, but they too were pretty capable.  The mercenaries outnumbered the Eirdren, and looking more like the Eirdren, I assumed that nothing good could come from this.  I let my instincts guide me and ran before anyone could engage me and hid up a tree before I blacked out there.  I suspect the shadow took over at that point."

And before that?

"Well, here, at the University on High, in your office.  Just after you drew my blood and injected whatever it was, that purple goo."

Three tides and only two times you surfaced.  Both times while under duress.  This has been one of my better experiments.  

"You have all you need from the shadow?"


Yes, data which I am still going through.  When I speak with him about my findings, I want you to be there.  It laughed.  You were a cook you know.  For the Archne household.

"A cook?" Cedric shared the laugh with the Silent Scholar mentally.  As too many of his friends, and not a few of his past lovers could attest, his cooking was the surest way to an extended trip to the privy.