No sense in repeating myself.

I’ve decided to leave for the White Mountains tomorrow.  I hope it is time well spent.

What people?  What am I writing?  I’m not writing about anyone…  unless the dead women I study are alive again and talking back — which they do in their texts, but I haven’t yet heard ‘voices’ from their graves.  Such Nonsense.

I have no idea what she means.  Dolly does tend to ramble at times.  She’s just an older lady who gets her irritations with one side of the family confused with irritations with the other side of her family.  It is a very large family we have — when my grandparents had their 50th anniversary there were 300 children, spouses, and grandchildren (plus a few great grandchildren).  I don’t know any of her husband’s family and she never names them even as she complains they’ve done this or that yet again.  Uncle Stanley was always fun.  He took us kids fishing and told us stories.

Oh, I don’t have time to go to the White Mountains!  Dolly, Dolly, Dolly…   Meeting in the Cavern would be much easier.

Sigh.

Dolly’s Letter pdf file

The fragrance was floral, and a little fruity, like summer wine.  I spent two hours searching but never found the source.  It began to wane, then the rain began falling again.  I left the age with the mystery unsolved.

I looked at the thin woman in front of me; saw the shadows from her brown hair cross her face; noticed how the suns in this age cast a double shadow on everything.

“Yes, I found my way there with the help of a gentleman at the station.  Will the baby be alright?”

“We expect no more complications.”   We are worried that our methods are inadequate.  Something in the medicine no longer takes affect as it should.

I tipped my head as she spoke, then noticed her lips didn’t move.  ”What…?” What? “Good.  I’m very glad to hear that.  Losing a baby must be the worse pain for any parent.”

“Yes.  Well,”  she shook my hand warmly.  ”Let’s have something to eat.  You must be hungry.”

I stopped walking and looked around toward  the building on our left.  I could see it’s bright colors against her warm mauve suit.  ”Oh, I’m sorry.  I must have misunderstood.  Yrs. Solaken didn’t tell you?”

She swung around with hardness in her eyes.  A moment later it was gone.  ”Tell me what?”

“We are lunching with the committee.”

She stopped and the hardness reappeared.  ”That’s today?” Seconds later she smiled softly.  ”Of course it is.  New applicants always lunch with the committee during the first day.  How many of you are in the group?”

I felt the muscles in my brow tighten.  ”Well, I don’t actually know.  I’m not….”

“Of course not.  It was foolish of me to ask you.”  She began walking again.  ”You will enjoy this.  They make a celebration of it.”  Take care as I take care and watch how they behave toward you.

I walked as well,  noticing we had not turned left.  ”Why?

“Pardon me?”

“Why…. a celebration?  Um, I mean, we’re only applying for a two week retreat and herbal course.”

The wrinkles around her dark brown eyes began to deepen.  Then the corners of her mouth turned up and she smiled more than she wanted to.  A second later, that, too was gone.  ”Do you know how long a day is in Giloveelay?”

“Ah…” I laughed.  ”It is two weeks of Giloveelay time.”  I laughed again.  ”Oh my.  I really have to get used to this.

“You will.  Everyone does.”  Time enough for you to understand, to see the reality, to remember it.

“Jurel…. What is…?”  She turned left and beckoned for me to follow, then stopped.  ”Enjoy your lunch.  You are coming to the Harvayen fields this afternoon?”

“Ummm…”  I looked at the suns, then around for a clock I knew somehow I would not find.  ”I don’t know.  Jurel, I am sorry, I’m still disoriented.”

At that she laughed.  ”Of course you are.  You all are.  I think I saw your name on the fields list.  If not, in the second afternoon as you call it.  Turet on Giloveelay.  Turan and Turet, the times of sunshine.  They’ll explain it again after lunch.”  She turned and walked away.

Now I did frown.  ”You are not coming?”

Turning back again, she smiled less genuinely.  ”No.  I was….   uninformed before I took up another engagement.”  She looked at the building then back at me.  ”Did Grinoreth- Yrs. Solaken – meet you at the station?”

I thought back quickly.  ”No…  he wasn’t waiting for me.  I had been there a little while when we started talking.  He noticed I was waiting, and thought I looked like I could use some help.”

“He said that to you?”

“Yes, and then when I told him why I was there, he introduced himself and said he was going my way.  I thought I would be late, and I did recognize his name from the packet of materials you had sent me.”

She frowned again and suddenly nodded rapidly.  ”Oh yes, of course.  He was the assistant field technician at the time.  Forgive me, I did try very hard to meet you.”

“I am certain you did, but a sick baby takes priority.  Jurel, I mean it.  It is quite all right.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”  Nodding again, she then shook her head and rubbed her brow briefly but hard.  ”You’d better go before you miss the introduction.  It is informative and enjoyable to hear.”  Again she smiled, and again she walked away.

I watched her for a second, then moved toward the colorful door I knew led to the dining hall.  She was right, I was hungry, and whatever they were cooking smelled very good.  As I reached the door I glanced back toward her departing figure.  She walked in long strides, covering a lot of ground with each step, confident or angry.

Second afternoon.  We will know in the second afternoon.  You can see then.

Is it really true?  I have to go find out.

Rats, my KI isn’t working now.   That’s odd.  It worked a couple months ago…  Hmmm, maybe that earthquake shook a relay and the frequency shifted slightly.  We’ll see whether a new one fixes the issue.

Yes it does!  Hey, and there are others here! People — in the city!  Tai’lahr, and Witch, and JW, and CristGer, and Zrax, and … oh, my surface phone is beeping.  Hey, that’s nifty.  Since the Cavern closed technology has advanced quite a bit.  It sure makes cavern-to-surface communication much easier.

Jane and Ruby both called me to say they haven’t made it past the gate yet.  Apparently there are so many explorers there now that progress is incredibly slow.  Well, I can set up the Healers Hood and open the doors.   Oh neat, the stained glass hangings are still here!  I am so glad the earthquake didn’t destroy those, too.

There we go.  I am getting tired.  But I have to check….  That plant — is it still there?

It is terribly late.  I have to sleep.   I’m a little angry to hear that some DRC members have secret stealth KI’s that allow them to show up in our Reltos.  I hope they disabled them now.  Because I don’t have to sneak in here any more so tonight I sleep in my own home.

And I don’t really feel like having any DRC company.

Apparently the material was of some import, because whoever it was then took the whole box, the Little Box, but left the Big Box.  Empty.

Just looking at me, empty.  Just try returning the material now, clever woman.

Well, if they left that to ‘catch’ a thief, they succeeded.  At the same time, I did try later to put that box back too.  What am I going to do with an empty wooden box?  If I ever find that tavern and a chair like the other I will.  Now they are gone, too.  It seems the more I try to put things back the way they were the more they become irreversible.   I’d worry, but I don’t know what to worry about first.  A box, a box, or a tavern disappearing?  Pick one and worry.

If I hadn’t taken a sample would the box have disappeared?  That one will bug me.

All actions have an equal and opposite reaction.   All potentials manifest somewhere.

Oh boy, I really don’t like the thoughts I’m thinking.

Things had gotten so busy I nearly forgot the brief moment of wonder at Devokan last summer.  I’m still not sure it happened, but after talking with Dot today I don’t feel so much like I must have imagined it.

Last week, Jane and I spent some time with Dot discussing the upcoming GoH Ride for Joy on the 17th.  As we walked and talked, we passed by what looked like a natural stone wall.  The boulders were huge and rough — not weathered as if they’d been there a long time.  I didn’t think much of that until something triggered the memory of a fragrance I’d experienced last summer.  That itself was even a brief memory before I forgot about it as Jane and I walked on with Dot in search of suitable places for JoyRiders to gather before embarking on the ship and boat journeys.

Of course I couldn’t find the location of the flowers again.  And Jane wouldn’t remember — I had returned after she, I and LC had taken our own joyride on a sailboat around the rather bare island.  They were only there for a moment and I was so slow in remembering my camera…

I’ve never known a flower to bloom so beautifully for such a short time.  I might not actually have seen anything.  But today as Dot and I discussed the Ride for Joy yet again she did mention that the place where I remembered the fragrance had been affected by the land tremors.  Much of the land had been changed, and perhaps the flowers have been buried.

There was that deep pool… nearby…   I am certain I walked only a short distance from it before I spotted the blooming flowers.  The deep, rich, reddish, purple or blue hues amazed me because they seemed to be illuminated from within the petals themselves.  They were similar to Irises, but were not irises.  Akin to DayLilies, but not lilies of any kind.  The butterflies swarmed about them, landing, flitting, landing,settling, leaping… and suddenly they and the blooms had disappeared.  Dissolved, dissipated, vanished… I was stunned and saddened.  At least until the fragrance reached my nose.

I tried to sit and let the memory come to me, but couldn’t settle in one place.  I did finally sit on a wooden bench for a few moments, watching the sun come up. Then, again restless, I walked around the waterfall and turned around to watch it begin to sparkle and shimmer in the slow illumination of the morning. It was beautiful.  I sniffed, sniffed, hoping perhaps I could follow my nose to the flower patch of last summer?  I did follow the boulder wall around and back to the gate, chuckling at myself.  The yellow lilies were very pretty, but no fragrance there.

I’ve not smelled anything so heavenly before.  Not just a floral fragrance, but with a hint of fruit — exotic fruit I didn’t know?  Not just fruit, but a hint of earthiness that freshened the air around me?  I could not tell, but I knew it was something amazing.  I don’t know why I forgot, or why I finally remembered.  But now that I did remember, I am determined to find it again.

The quiet tink of glass rod on glass rim penetrated the drawn out wind-like sound I heard as I breathed in.

Chink…….

Leaning forward I inhaled the new combination of scents.  Ooof…  too much pine.

“Rats.”

Well, let it cook.  Smell it again in a few hours.  I thought about the painting — something different would be revealed today as the layers of oils and pigments interacted with each other.  These layers would interact, too, and in a day I would know in which direction the fragrance would go.  Perhaps it would not be so much for uplifting as for opening.  The pine would stay; maybe the rosemary would go.

I capped the test bottle and set it on the shelf.  “I’m sure you’ll let me know what you’ll be. “  For now it was test blend #54.

As I turned away, the cobalt bottle on the left caught my eye.  I nearly pulled away from it this time before reaching out to pick it up.  For some time I looked at the faded label, trying once again to make out the D’ni word.  It had sat on this shelf for a year now…. yes, it was nearly a year ago I had discovered it wedged between the rocks at the bottom of the ravine.  Holding it up to the light I could see the liquid inside and the thinness of the glass that belied the strength of the container.  I searched again for the scratch I knew wasn’t anywhere on the glass.

“How did you stay in there?” I asked again of the stopper.  The graceful curve of the three-edged stone top showed some wear, but gave no indication of its age.   There was one tiny chip in one of the edges that indicated it had fallen, but not the force of the impact.   In one moment the stopper seemed to have been carved, in the next to have been shaped and fired.  The ambiguity of D’ni materials no longer surprised me; still, I thought for the hundredth time about taking a needle tool to a very small section just to see if it would scratch.  Instead, I brought the bottle to my nose and sniffed the rim.  Such a faint scent that I couldn’t tell what it was.  Question after question marched through my thoughts — what was it?  Was it an absolute or a blend?  Cut or pure?  Was it dangerous?  A medicine?  A poison?  Who lost it?  Are they looking for it?

What does it smell like?

I could almost feel the intensity of the substance through the glass, at once beckoning me to make some use of it and warning me of its potential.  There was in it a feeling of something larger than affect — some power that was greater than any knowledge I had at present.  But for one thing I knew without doubt:

Opening the bottle would most certainly bring change.

Setting the bottle back on the shelf, I knew I would continue looking for answers.  The overgrowth on the road up above the rock outcropping had suggested a long duration of disuse.  What had been a small village some distance away was little more than crumbled huts abandoned for some time as well.  What timbers stood on their foundations of stone demonstrated the soundness of the construction.  Weeds, grass, thorny bushes kept prying hands from easily overturning its secrets.  Nothing had indicated who or what had been responsible for the bottle or its contents.

Travelers, perhaps, as I had been.

I breathed in again, enjoying the immediate sense of balance and peace that accompanied attending to the action.  Jurel was right about that — one cannot listen to their own breath and simultaneously think about anything else.  Or worry.  I nearly laughed at the simplicity of it and breathed in again, listening to the wind-like sound in my ears.

Yes, yes, ok, you are right about that one.  I will follow your advice this time.  Yes it does work.  Yes, yes, I’ll keep quiet about it.  Are you breathing or worrying about me talking too much?

We had both laughed that time.

The insight flashed and was gone before the smile on my face was fully formed.  An instant later it had given way to an open-mouthed “Oh….”

“No.”  I picked up test blend #54 and smelled it, opening my nostrils so the molecules of scent would reach the back of my nasal passages.  “Let it keep cooking,” I said as I replaced the bottle on the shelf and quickly exited the room.  “I don’t have time.”

Be careful, Ghaelen.  You’ll know things when you listen to your own breathing.  It’s the kind of knowing you can ignore, but you can’t un-know.

Yeah, yeah.  I know.  I mean, I know that you said that would happen, but not what it would… oh crap…

I heaved a breath, trying not to listen to it, knowing that, too, that I would listen.

I knew as well that I would go.  “Damn…”

To:  Ghaelen D’Lareh

From:  Gr’noreth Solaken

Ghaelen,

We’d like to nominate your latest fragrance blend, “Nee Lehnah,” for a Creative Alchemy Award from the Revnekan Institute of the Healing Arts.  If you are interested in this award, there are a few items we need from you by SD March 13 at 5pm.

• A sample of the fragrance oil
• A description of the fragrance, what flora in an age or ages inspired the creative process, and anything about the contents you are willing to explain.
• Testimonies from three to five people about the positive or negative effects of the fragrance (preferably positive).  These do need to be signed by the author.

My apologies for the delay in notification; the time got away from me and I thought you were still on the surface.  Please respond with your decision.

Best of luck,

GS

I know I should not be frustrated.  This could be a great honor.  He invited me to the institute and introduced me to all of those great people.  This could be a way to spend more time there…. Maybe they would allow me to see the gardens.  But by tomorrow?  I’ll never get all of those materials together by tomorrow!

This is a test.  Of course it is.  The lesson I attended on patience and peace.  I know there are always tests.

But by tomorrow?  It can’t be done!  How am I going to find five people to test and comment on the fragrance?  They are scattered around the ages and on the surface.  Man, I’m sunk on this one.

It will be such a loss for the blend to lose this potential.  I have to try.

Doesn’t he understand it takes time?

But I did. I realized there was a fragrance in the room. It was different from those outside, and couldn’t be coming from any plants. So, like I always do, I followed my nose. The dust was pretty thick, but dust there can get thick rather quickly. So that doesn’t tell me how long it had been in there.

I still can’t believe no one has ever made mention of it. I mean, as carefully as explorers have scoured the ages and any surrounding area, no one noticed it? I suppose it’s possible, since I wouldn’t have either had I not been sniffing for it.

Jeeze that’s embarrassing to say. Sniffing for it. I think it’s a good thing I haven’t said anything to anyone. Although now I’d like to tell Veralun. Since we’ve developed the Guild of Healers site a little, and there is some interest (positive, thank goodness) I am learning that there are other people who are interested in the properties of plantlife in and around the Cavern. That’s his area of expertise; maybe he will come back there with me and study the scene.

Ruby might, too, although she had something of a bad experience there last year.  Still, she might actually be willing to tell me about the area where I found the Big Box.

I really should go and talk to the people at the Zoological Society. They might know something about it. I have plans to get more involved over there now that I have studied some of the resins and extracted a few of the essential oils. I just need to decide what how to introduce my project.

Part of my hesitation with the DZS stems from the fact that I haven’t collected many essences, so I don’t have a lot to contribute yet to their database. I try not to disturb any of the living plants, since I don’t know what effect digging into them would have. I’m grateful that some ooze oil or resin and others flower and drop petals or leaves. I don’t feel nearly as guilty picking up petals or holding a vial up to running sap. Well, I don’t feel too guilty cutting a stalk or two, or picking a few blades of grass. I’ve picked up whole clumps of grass that had been uprooted, especially in Tsogal. People can really tear up the landscape when they take off running to get through the door. Delin, too.