He was right, the trap was incredibly simple in design. It mostly required a rope and an anchor point.
They walked through several different snares and the various ways that Narlin had set them up. After that, he went off to look for some of the plants. He just needed Narlin out of sight, then he asked Latty to show him where to go to get back to the plant. It just took a minute to get to them.
He broke off the pieces as best he could, twisting and yanking them, but he was eventually able to break of a good dozen limbs. He looked at the plant. A year ago, he wouldn’t have understood that this could kill the plant, but he had been chopping away at the weeds and he was getting a good grasp at how they worked.
He examined the plant, it still had plenty of branches, so it should be able to grow new branches.
Then he bundled up the plants and went back to the Narlin’s.
When he got there, Narlin was still gone, so he dropped off the branches and examined the chess pieces. Most of them were still more of lumps than anything else, but he could see the rough shapes of what would eventually become the other pawns.
“Going to suck all my knowledge out of me?” Narlin’s voice caused Jorun to jump.
“It’s impressive what you can do. I can’t believe that you have so many skills.”
“I am just old boy. Nothing more and nothing less.”
A small squirrel was dropped on the table they normally played on. Jorun looked up to see Narlin standing over him.
“Kinda scrawny, isn’t it?”
Narlin shrugged, “There’s probably a little fat in there. We might find at least a little in it. That is assuming you want to try.”
Jorun had no doubt that the abilities to read the book was linked to his practice. As he gained experience involving souls, the tome of the dead adjusted itself to his new understanding. He was reasonably confident that there had been no mention of merged souls. He had been suspicious of what was happening for a while, but this only confirmed it.
Both books were the same. Parts were unreadable, but the ability to read them simply required him to improve his understanding of the few aspects he could understand.
As he improved his understanding, the tome revealed new knowledge.
“Let’s give it a shot. At least I can learn the basic principles.”
“Know how to butcher an animal?”
“I think I can manage. You have a knife or something like that?”
Narlin disappeared into his home for a moment, and then reappeared with a knife. It wasn’t what Jorun would have preferred to use, but it would work well enough for this. He drained it, skinned it and gutted it. Then he set about removing the fat from the meat.
There wasn’t much, but there was enough to have several small lumps.
Narlin put down a small plate.
“Clean the plant off, whichever parts of it you are using.” Narlin began smearing the animal fat along the plate while Jorun washed off the branches and needles.
“Do you need to grind or chop up the leaves or anything?” Narlin looked at pieces of plants that Jorun had cleaned.
“I am not really sure.”
“Go ahead then. I don’t think that it should be a problem here.”
Jorun used the knife to chop up the plants. Every now and then, Narlin would scoop up a bundle of the minced material and place it on the smeared fat.
“Just enough to cover the fat in an even coating.” Narlin muttered.
It took a few more minutes to finish up, and Jorun still had a pile of plant parts.
“What do I do with this?”
“Throw them away. We will need fresh material in a few days, but we are done for now. You could try stewing it or something like that if you want to experiment with it.”
“I think I would rather just play some games with you. If I am right, the substance I am wanting is made from the oil.”
Narlin finished covering the plate of fat, “Now all we do is cover it, keep it in the sun and wait. We will want to repeat this process until the fat smells like the plant.”
“So we aren’t taking the oil out of the plant, we are infusing it with the plants essence?”
“I believe there are oils inside the plant, but it doesn’t hurt to think of it that way.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“That makes sense. Let’s start playing.”
----------------------------------------
“Who was it?” Narlin asked as he moved a piece. Jorun looked up, surprised, they had developed a calm quiet routine when they played against each other.
“Who was what?”
“Someone instilled alove of plants and medicine in you. Who was it?”
Jorun didn’t have a clue about who it was. He had grown up in a desert village that had no plants to grow. They had existed to work in a clay pit. No one in the village here knew this. They all believed that Jorun’s family had been traveling doctors.
He had personally heard nothing of a group like that, but the people here all seemed to believe that traveling healers were a common thing.
“My mom,” It wasn’t exactly true, because he wasn’t actually certain his mother had been a witch. If she had been a witch, it would have changed everything. Jorun shut that thought out of his mind. The thought of his mother having been responsible was too much to bare.
“Nothing wrong with loving to grow things. Many people look down on me, because I enjoy working in a garden, but there is a connection to the truth of human life in plants. Never forget how much we depend on them.”
“Depend on them?”
“I assume you are going off to other places before long,” he moved a piece exactly as Jorun had wanted. Jorun countered and the old man grimaced.
“After all,” he continued, “You are a smart young man and you have an amazing grasp of things. You would be waste living out your life in a single village.”
Jorun was silent for a few turns, “I have always planned on moving on from this village before to long. I just didn’t expect to find so many people that I would want to spend time with.”
The Narlin paused with his hand on a piece. For a moment, his mouth hung open, as if he was going to say something. Rather than that, he just moved the piece.
The game resulted in Jorun’s win. It wasn’t his first win, but it was one of the easiest he had ever had. He had caught Narlin off guard somehow, and he had no intention of forgetting what happened.
They played another couple of games, and Narlin did a lot better. He still struggled to focus, and Jorun could see the distraction.
“Latty did you notice Narlin’s behavior just now?”
Jorun was working his way back to the house. As it was getting dark, he wanted to be able to study the souls properly.
“Nope.”
“Narlin didn’t play very well there at the end.”
“Really?”
Jorun nodded and looked at Latty. She was just as disinterested as usual. She floated along with no apparent interest in what he was doing.
“Yeah, it was when I was talking about…” Jorun suddenly realized something.
“Latty.”
“Yes?”
“Have you ever met someone really smart and knowledgeable like Narlin?”
“Oh yes, there are lots of people like him in the world.”
“Really?” Jorun’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, “I can’t believe anyone knows as much as he does. Where are these people?”
“Most of them end up near centers of power. My… The old sorcerer had hundreds of people like that in his tower. They would come seeking to gain his favor.”
“Why would someone like that be farming in a small place like this?”
“Exile.”
“Exfile?” Jorun had never heard that particular word before, “What’s that?”
“E-X-I-L-E. It is the process of being removed from one of the center’s of power. My guess is that he was once a member of the countries court. So that would have meant that he was in the capital itself.”
“Is that impressive, being in the capital I mean.”
“I am not sure if it is the same country or not, but there were a ton of powerful sorcerers there. Individually they weren’t nearly as powerful as... the one in the tower, but they could have easily taken him on if the wanted to.”
“Didn’t you say how he could have destroyed entire countries?”
“Yep.”
“So the people in the capital are about as strong?”
“Not individually. Maybe not even as a whole. It had something to do with…” Latty paused her drifting float and held a finger to her mouth, “Unit Cohesion? I think that was the word.”
“Cohesion is about how well something mixes together.” Jorun muttered, “So if they didn’t work together, they wouldn’t have been as powerful.”
He thought about this while he ambled along the path. That made sense. If a group of men tried to pull something heavy, they could only pull the object if they worked together. So the people in the capital, if they worked together, were easily stronger than Jorun was ever going to be.
“Latty.” This entire subject had raised a question he hadn’t ever thought of before.
“Yes?”
“Who are the strongest people in this world? The ones living in the capital?”
“No, silly, they aren’t strong at all. The members of the holy tower are the strongest. Everyone knows that they aren’t rivaled by anyone.”
“Holy tower?” Jorun had never heard of that place.
“It’s where the divine reside. Only sorcerer’s can reside in that city, and it stands as the pinnacle of human civilization.”
“The divine, huh? Narlin mentioned them as well.”
“The divine were supposed to have been human at one point, but they are the sources of their power in the world.”
“So they actually live in this world?”
“Of course they do, where else would they live? I have always wanted to go to the holy tower, but my father never let me.”
“Why?”
“He said that the people of the tower were fools who limited their power for no reason. He said that we wouldn’t be safe there.”
“They are dangerous?”
“The central order of the holy tower is… dangerous. A single branch of power holds sway over the tower, and they do not tolerate anything that they consider unnatural.”
Jorun felt his blood run cold. What had the book said?
The ones that will react badly to your presence will do so at the cost of their own lives.
Jorun could see the house come into view, colored blue by moonlight.
“Last question, and then I will begin studying the souls in earnest. Do you know where this place is?”
“No, but I believe that we will always be able to notice it when we get closer.”
“Why?”
“It is supposed to be bright with a light that does not originate from the sun.”
Jorun stopped walking, “What does that mean?”
Latty began drifting in a slow arc around him, “The central order is built around the power of light itself.”
Jorun began walking, thinking about the ghost that had died due to the touch of sunlight. If they were bound to the light of the sun, they were the opposite of Jorun himself.