The Servant left with the new pot, and the aridkedi ground the shards of the old pot into powder and used them to add texture to the glaze on a new work. For while the old one would not have borne more stress, thanks to its maker's wisdom it remained useful to the very end.
This is the tale of the broken pot. Reck it well.
Despite my blithe assurances to Seraeda and the physician, it was with trepidation that I settled under the covers that night. I had never been prone to illness, but I had never been under so much stress before, and I could still feel the cold and wet in my bones despite my dry pelt, as if the nightmarish journey had cast an interior shadow I could not shake. Yet I did sleep—the moment I closed my eyes, in fact, despite my fears otherwise—and when I woke, I felt clear-headed and warm, if oppressed by my concerns. I was not sick, no.
But Shame had a fever.
Aghast, I checked on him as Ajan maintained his ferocious vigil, unbent by its prolonged duration. "How long?" I asked him.
"It began two hours ago," Ajan said.
"I will send for the physician," I said, and I did, not without a knife-bright frisson of fear, one that did not dissipate as I watched the physician at work over my fallen companion. I dared not glance at Ajan either; the youth remained stoic, but the tension in his body was so distinct it was palpable, a radiation as oppressive as the sun in a cloudless summer sky.
"Is he... soul-sick?" I asked at last, when I could bear it no longer.
"What?" the physician said, measuring out a dose of some red fluid. "No, no. But he contracted something while running wild out in the hills."
"Him?" I said, startled. "But how... he is..."
"...younger than you?" the physician said dryly. "More sturdy?" He glanced at Ajan and said, "Your master, he was under a great deal of pressure prior to his visit here?"
"Yes, sir," Ajan said, his formality sounding alien to me.
The physician looked at me and said, "Stress makes even a young man vulnerable to disease."
"Then... it is not so serious," I said, allowing my shoulders to ease.
"That I did not say," the physician said, spurring the tension back into them. "The fever is very high... whatever has infected him is quite virulent." He glanced at Ajan. "You are standing watch... have you slept?"
"He hasn't," I said before Ajan could say anything.
"Take a two-hour nap," the physician said. "The Calligrapher will watch him while you rest."
"Sir—" Ajan began, but the physician cut off his protest with a sharp gesture.
"No arguments," the physician said. "You will be the one watching him for the balance of the day. You will have to check his temperature at intervals. If it grows much higher than this, send for me. Otherwise, let it work." Looking at me, he said, "Given how strongly his body is reacting, he will either be done with whatever has sickened him in a few days, or it won't matter. But before it grows that grave, we will intervene. Which is why—" turning back to Ajan, "—you must be rested. You will be the one who sounds the alarm if he needs aid."
"Yes, sir," Ajan said, and this time sounded the grim young lieutenant I had come to know, in flashes here and there, through his levity of manner.
"Here," the physician said, passing Ajan one of the doses, "is your insurance. Take it and lie down now."
"Yes, sir," Ajan said, subdued, and downed it in one swallow before heading straight to his own pallet. I watched as he curled up on it and, from all evidence, fell immediately asleep. I wondered if this was a discipline the Guardians learned, or if it was merely exhaustion.
"Your turn," the physician said, passing me my own little cup.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Something to strengthen your body against infection," the physician said. "It will not save you if you decide to bathe in the osulkedi's sweat, or drink his spit, but so long as you maintain your distance and wash your hands conscientiously, it should be sufficient for your turn at his sickbed."
I drank it, finding it bitter and floral, and passed the cup back to him.
"Two hours," the physician reminded me, packing his bag. "Then wake the Guardian."
"What happens in two hours?" I asked.
"The lord's sister will arrive," the physician answered, already on the way to the door. "And you will be needed to explain all of this... to her."
I grimaced. "Of course."
"Remember, if the fever rises, send for me at once." And with that he was gone, leaving me at Shame's side.
I looked down at him and sighed. "You are supposed to be the powerful one," I murmured. "So why am I the one still on my feet?" And then, feeling guilt for scolding him, I went to the main room and found my small book. With the work of a few moments, I had a comfortable stool and a few pencils, and there I sat to contemplate the face of the man I had come to the Bleak to save.
That was what Thirukedi had sent me for, was it not? To save him? I drew an idle line on a blank page, letting it turn into a spiral. To mend a broken pot... that did imply... rescue, in some sense. Or healing. But the Emperor had asked me which of the broken pot narratives I liked best, and while he'd approved of my particular choice, it was not the only one. I began drawing pots in various states of disrepair, each growing more and more flawed until at last I gave up in despair. I looked at the face of Shame, who had become Kor to me in rather less time than I had thought possible. He was drawn, something that did not serve him with such severe lineaments. It made the hollows under his cheeks all the more extreme.
And yet, for all that, it was a beautiful face. It had been born to the work his ishas had demanded he undertake, and that work had refined it... in the planes of his jaw and the severity of his brow I saw the years of toil. Kherishdar's sole Shame, the pinnacle of compassion in the face of weakness.
I could not bear to see him shattered. I could not allow such a matter to stand, if there was any power in me to mend it.
It was a defiance of all courtesies and rules then, for I had not been permitted... but some part of me whispered that it was an exception, for care of the sick grants many powers. The kiss I rested on his brow was perhaps more personal than that exception imagined, but I could not have helped delivering it if I'd tried. And truth be known, aunera, I did not try.
"Grow strong," I murmured to him. "We are watching over you."
Two hours later then, I rose from the stool, careful of knees that had stiffened, and approached Ajan. I was reluctant to wake him, who seemed so deeply asleep; the even rising and falling of his ribcage was so slow I could only imagine how much he needed the rest.
