Chapter Seven Elvine #2
“My mother made mention of it when I was young. In fact, she argued with the old Chief Archivist about it. She’d been given the unpleasant task of cataloguing all the more important volumes lost to the fire in the hope that replacements could be found.
One day she happened upon a reference in an old catalogue to a volume named The Map of Veils.
Always scrupulous in her work, she compiled a list of other libraries where it might be found and took it to the Chief Archivist. For some reason, I remember his words very clearly.
‘You will forget this book,’ he told her.
‘And excise any mention of it from our records.’ When she protested, for my mother regards all books as precious, he said, ‘I assure you, my love of knowledge is every bit a match for yours, Berrine. Yet, when you have laboured in the service of books as long as I, you come to realise some should be forever confined to the dustiest shelves and left to rot, if not burned outright. The Map of Veils is one such book. Now please, do as I say.’”
Colvyn’s brows furrowed in piqued interest while his lips curved in amusement. “Any notion what might reside within the pages of this dread tome?”
“I asked her about it only once. I wanted to know why they had argued, open discord being so rare in the archive. My mother said that, in truth, she didn’t fully know what The Map of Veils was.
But she did recall a story from her early years in the old library about a scholar who once tried to study it, and, so the legend goes, lost his mind.
The book, it is claimed, sucked all the knowledge from his head and left him a simpleton.
My mother considered it nonsense of course, but she also noticed how her colleagues never went near the shadowy storeroom where it was kept.
Even she, at times a dangerously inquisitive youth, wasn’t tempted to risk opening it. ”
“But Lore was. And it seems she got herself a copy from somewhere.”
“Raising the question of what she intended to do with it.”
“Besides read it?”
“Books harbour knowledge and knowledge equates to power. As Lore has long known. That she went to such lengths to acquire this one says a great deal. It also might explain why she should risk so much in returning to Skar Magnol. If the book is there, she intends to claim it.”
Colvyn’s notice slipped from Elvine to the spear. “Would I be wrong, esteemed sister, in assuming this… artefact has had some influence over your reasoning? Your intuition on this subject has been quite remarkable.”
Elvine avoided his gaze and refused to let her eyes stray to the spear.
It had been only a faint sensation when she first began to make enquiries regarding Lore’s contact with Olversahl.
But, as she delved ever deeper into stored documents and ledger books, the spear’s voice had begun to speak in a soft but insistent murmur.
I smell her touch upon these papers, child.
It traces through the records of this city, leading to what, I do not know, save its grave importance.
“It seems you and my mother share an obsession with that thing,” she chided, forcing a dismissive tone and slumping onto her bunk. “Now, if you’ll kindly make yourself scarce, esteemed brother, I would like to go to bed.”
“Still standing too tall.” Colvyn’s stave tapped the crown of Elvine’s head, not quite hard enough to hurt.
“Legs not in line with your shoulders.” He delivered a more solid tap to each of her calves before adding another to her right forearm.
“Thrust over-extended and your grip is wrong, as usual.” His stave thwacked against her own, impacting a hair’s width from her fingers to send the yard of ash clattering to the Ohlnir’s upper deck.
“For someone capable of reciting the Saluhtanid dynasty going back twelve generations, you display a poor memory for basic instruction, esteemed sister.”
Elvine clenched her teeth against a retort as she stooped to retrieve her fallen stave.
Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment she hoped the onlooking guards and crew would ascribe to the bracing sea breeze.
No doubt, Kahlvik’s menda were wondering if the Spear Maiden’s vaunted reputation was greatly exaggerated.
She had forsaken practising with the spear at Colvyn’s insistence.
“You’re never truly going to learn how to fight if you let that thing do it for you. ”
She had entertained some small hope that the harshness of his tutelage might have eased given her exploits in Olversahl, but he was more unstinting than ever.
As she suffered one humiliation after another, the temptation to cast the stave aside and take up the spear grew ever stronger.
Yet, she resisted. Experience of combat had taught her one salient lesson: it was unpredictable in the extreme.
Amid the chaos of battle, even renowned warriors such as Vahlak or Gruinskard could fall or suffer maiming injury.
It was therefore not outside the realm of possibility that she might, at some point, find the spear beyond her grasp.
So, whenever the capricious elements allowed, she would subject herself to her brother’s ungentle lessons.
Beneath his constant criticism, she detected a grudging acknowledgement that her skill with arms was improving.
Before, any blow she contrived to parry was one he delivered with deliberate slowness.
Now, she was sure she could block perhaps a third of his best efforts to put her on her arse.
After an hour with the stave, he bade her switch to the knife.
He had obtained a long-bladed dirk for her in Olversahl, most likely from the corpse of a slain Nihlvarian.
It was a plain weapon with a curved hilt sufficiently wide to protect her fingers, and a blade long enough to deliver a decent slash as well as a thrust. “The key to fighting with a knife is to be quick and get close,” Colvyn instructed.
“If you face a warrior with a sword or a spear and all you’ve got is this, you’ll only get one chance, so be sure to use it.
” Accordingly, he would jab at her with his stave as she attempted to get under or over it with sufficient speed to deliver a killing slash to the throat or a crippling cut to the back of the knees.
“The two places you’re most likely to find un-armoured,” he told her. “Unprotected flesh is your friend.”
Determined not to appear more of a weakling than she already had, Elvine insisted on practising throughout the day.
Her exertions came to an end when a torrent of hard rain swept across the deck and Kahlvik ordered her below.
Looking to the horizon, she saw a bank of low, ugly grey cloud.
Another storm had found them. She spent the next two days confined to her bunk, the seasickness that often plagued her during rough seas having returned with a spiteful vengeance.
In between bouts of vomiting or tormented half-sleep, she tried to continue her studies, mostly without success.