Aloren Read Online Free Page A

A broken spirit can’t destroy itself.”
    I understood very little of this.  And I understood even less why it had to involve me.  “I didn’t touch the red flowers, why should I have to pull my own––?”
    “You must pull all of them,” he said sharply. “Yours, too.  After you pull them, after you break the spirits, you will have to mend them at some point, and for the mending you need all the plants.  So.  Pull them all.  When you do this, your brothers will stop fading, I think.” 
    “You think ?”  My fists were clenched; I might have stamped my foot.
    “Be quiet and listen.  I haven’t much time.” 
    “No.”  His every word was absurd.  “You’ve lost too much blood.”  He shook his head, and I sat on the stones, arms around my knees, crying.
    He reached out and took my hand.  “After you break the spirits, when your brothers are safe––”
    I wiped my sleeve across my nose.  “What about Foy?”
    He moved his head impatiently.  “Floy is Rielde, doesn’t have a Marionin.  The Cam Belnech affected her differently–-see?”  He pointed to the sparrow.  “She’s a real bird, safe for now, and as I was saying, after your brothers’ spirits are broken, you will have to find the cure.  The cure for the red flowers, the Cam Belnech .”
    “I thought the broken spirits were the cure––”
    “No, they’re not.  They’ll just give you more time to find it.”  He shifted his weight under him, and blood bubbled on his lip.  “So you must look for the cure, and at the same time you must mend the spirits you broke.”  His voice was terrible, rasping, jumping octaves.  “To mend them––“ His head fell forward, and his eyes moved back and forth, and he muttered to himself. 
    He looked up.  “I know this from an old story.  About the Oredh Brothers.  I have no time to tell it; you’ll just have to follow my instructions.  To mend your Marione, you must sow the seeds––so keep the flowers after you pull the plants.  Grow a crop of the Marione seeds, and another from that crop, and another, until you have harvested enough of the plants to weave with.  When you have enough, you must weave tunics out of the plants, sleeveless tunics, like surcoats.  Five tunics of the combined plants, each shirt must be a mixture of the five different plants.  When you complete these tunics, throw them over yourself and your brothers, and that will mend the spirits.” 
    He took my arm, pulled me closer, and said: “You must mend them within five years.  After you pull the plants from the ground, you have five years to grow them and weave with them, five years to find the cure; if you go longer than five years with a broken spirit, you will go mad.  Do you understand?”
    He had forgotten I was ten. 
    But for all his blindness, bungling, and bad luck, my father wasn’t stupid.  He’d studied across the sea before Tem was born, and it wasn’t his fault his encyclopedic memory squashed the common sense right out of him.
    “Do you understand how to do this?” he said again.
    I nodded, only to mollify him.
    “Good.  You and your brothers will be able to live five years with your broken Marione, a time enough that you may find the cure for the Cam Belnech .  Ice asters.”  He spoke between gulps of air.  “ Reinenea Corliogra. They’ll heal the wound done by the red flowers.  They cure everything.
    “The boys and Floy must each have an aster, a whole flower, pistil and stamen, ground into a palm.  After you’ve finished the tunics, after you’ve cast the tunics over yourself and the boys, right after you’ve mended your spirits, the boys will only fade, crumble again, and so they must have the asters ready.
    “But more immediately,” he said, squeezing my hand, “after you pull your Marionin, you will have to be careful, very careful, when you are dealing with normal people.  You absolutely cannot speak about yourself to whole people.  You cannot