"Did they hurt you?" he asked softly.
"No," she said, looking down. "But the woman knew exactly which herbs and compounds she wanted. Many of them were among my most prized. I cannot say for sure whether she was a gazer, since she practiced no such art in my presence. But given her knowledge of my stores, she was certainly an herbmistress. The man was ill with some disease of the lungs. He put me in some kind of bizarre, glowing cage, and I couldn't stop him. All I could do was watch as they destroyed a lifetime of work." She raised her face back up. "But how did you know?"
"His name is Krassus, and he was once first alternate to the Directorate of Wizards," Wigg answered. "Ironically, I appointed him to that position myself. He is now apparently a full wizard of some power, his gifts perhaps imbued by Nicholas through Forestallments. But we do not know who the woman is. Krassus claimed she is a blaze-gazer, but we have no proof of that. He came to the palace demanding information. He searches for a man named Wulfgar. His other quest is for something called the Scrolls of the Ancients. Tell me, are you familiar with either?"
"No."
"When I could not answer his questions, he beat me and violated my mind," Wigg said angrily. "He also gloated about having been here, and leaving you in a bad way. Then, after promising to kill Faegan and me, he left. I simply had to come, to see if you were all right. But I must admit that I had other reasons for visiting you."
"I knew you lay ill," she said unexpectedly.
Wigg's eyes sharpened at Abbey's unexpected statement. "What?" he asked.
"After they left, I went to my gazing flame and searched for you," she answered. "I admit that it was not the first time I have done so. You were lying in a bed, with people standing around you whom I did not know."
"So you have a gazing flame here?" Wigg asked.
Abbey nodded.
"But what is there of mine that you could possibly have kept all of these years?" he asked, clearly puzzled. "Don't you need something personal of your subject in order to properly view the image?"
Abbey reached for the locket around her neck and opened it. Curled up inside was a short braid of dark brown hair. She placed it on the table. Wigg's eyes went wide.
"Mine?" he asked. "But how could that be?"
"I took it from you in bed one night, more than three hundred years go," she answered, placing the braid back into the pendant and locking it again. "You always slept so deeply." A slight smile finally appeared on her face: the coming of some memory, perhaps. But then it was quickly overtaken by another look of anger.
"And then you voted with your brotherhood to banish all the partial adepts," she whispered angrily. "Yet another of the Directorate's knee-jerk reactions to anyone or anything of the craft not directly controlled by them." She turned her face away. "You hurt me deeply, Wigg. You hurt all of us with partial blood. To this day I am not sure I will ever be able to forgive you. It was so unfair…"
Wigg sighed. If he could have taken back parts of those days, he would.
"I voted for my nation," he said sadly. "In hindsight, I've come to see that many of our decisions were wrong. But both Eutracia and her monarchy were new, and still in great distress. The survival of our land and the foretold coming of the Chosen Ones were far more important than the two of us, or what we may have wanted for ourselves. Surely you can see that. And like you, I have suffered much. I'm not naive, Abbey, so I won't ask you to forgive me. But the best, most personal gift I could bestow upon you before you left was the time enchantments. Had the Directorate discovered what I had done, there would surely have been a great scandal; perhaps even my own banishment from the Directorate, given the harsh, reactionary attitudes of those days. But now all of my friends of that august body are dead."
He paused, wondering how his next words would be received, then laced his long fingers together and placed his hands on the table.
"As I said, Abbey, we need you," he continued softly. "When I leave here, I want you to come back to Tammerland with me."
Stunned, she looked at him with wide eyes.
"No!" she said flatly. "I won't do it! Why should I? My life is good here, and the people here have come to rely on me for healing. Here, at least, I am allowed to practice my arts in peace."
"Until four days ago, that is," Wigg reminded her gently. "I can make you come back with me, and we both know it. I won't do that, but hear me out. If Krassus truly has a partial adept with him, and if we are ever to even the odds of defeating him, then we must have one, too. I have a feeling these scrolls he referred to are extremely important, and that if we don't find them and Wulfgar before Krassus does, our world may irrevocably change-for the worse. And what if Krassus comes back? With us you would be far safer."
The twinkle returned to his eyes, and he smiled knowingly. "Besides," he added, "wouldn't you like a chance to get even?"
Abbey thought for a time, her jaw clenching. "I will consider your words," she said finally. "But how could I be of help, while all of my stores and books remain here?"
"My friend Faegan has a great many herbs growing in an atrium in his mansion in a place called Shadowood," Wigg told her. "And we can have all of your books and charts brought to Tammerland." He smiled, thinking of the Archives of the Redoubt. "And you'll have more scrolls and books than you can imagine at your disposal."
Wigg smiled to himself. If he could convince Abbey to come, it would be very interesting to see someone teach Faegan something for a change. Abbey turned to look at Celeste, though, and her face darkened.
"We have talked too long," she said urgently. "We must attend to your daughter."
Celeste's breathing had become more labored, and beads of sweat stood on her pale forehead.
The herbmistress thought for a moment. "It's the honey," she said at last, half to herself.
"Of course," Wigg answered. "Her ingestion of the honey was the trigger that activated her first Forestallment. So simple an act…"
"No, no-you don't understand," Abbey said. "There is more to it than that."
"What do you mean?"
"Honey is the key to our problem," she told him. "But first I must find my charts of opposites."
Perplexed, Wigg watched her walk to the far wall of the cottage. She pushed on one side of it, and the entire wall rotated on a hidden pivot to reveal a bookcase lined with ledgers, texts, and scrolls. A much smaller room could be seen beyond, containing a desk and many piles of reference materials, as well as a store of additional herbs and oils. Luckily, this room seemed to have been untouched by Krassus. Abbey selected a text from one of the shelves, blew the dust from it, and returned to the table. The binding read Charts of Opposites, Letters H-I.
Wigg waited patiently as she leafed through the book. Finally she stopped, running one finger down a dog-eared page. On it was a drawing of a wheel divided into equal-sized, pie-shaped sections.
"What are 'charts of opposites'?" Wigg asked.
"Just as the craft has its dark and light aspects, every other thing existing in the universe also has its direct opposite," she answered. "And in some cases, more than one. Look at this."
She passed the book over to Wigg. "This page is only one of dozens whose words begin with the letter 'h,' " she said. "Run your finger around the circle until you find the word 'honey.' Then go directly to the opposite side, and read aloud what it says."
Wigg did as she asked, finally finding and speaking the words "powdered tetturess," and "oil of hibernium: Leaf Only." He looked up at Abbey.
"Are you saying these two substances are nature's direct opposites to honey?" he asked skeptically. "How can you be so sure?"
"By way of hundreds of years of careful experimentation," she answered simply. She raised an eyebrow. "I wrote this book myself."
Walking to her shelves, she began her search. After some time, she returned to the table with a green bottle. When Abbey uncorked it, Wigg saw that it contained a violet oil.