Daughter of Witches: A Lyra Novel (25 page)

Mist’s head came up. “Where is she?”

“That way,” Ranira said. “I told Shandy to go to her.” She quickly outlined what had happened, ending with, “She said you could do something about her shoulders.”

Mist hesitated. “I will do what I can. This way? Thank you, Ranira.” The healer rose and, following Ranira’s directions, quickly vanished among the trees.

R
ANIRA LAY WHERE SHE
was for a moment, then sat up cautiously, wincing as the pilgrim’s robe shifted across her back and shoulders. Mist was right, though—the pain was no worse than that of skin reddened by working in the midsummer sun all day. Somehow, thinking of it that way helped. Ranira was much more comfortable with a sunburn in midwinter than she was with a magic fire that burned whenever she thought about spells.

As she rose to her feet, she heard people approaching. A moment later, Shandy burst through the trees. Mist followed at a more sedate pace, one supporting arm about Arelnath.

“Renra, you wouldn’t believe it!” Shandy said excitedly as he skidded to a stop. “Arelnath was lying there, and Mist grabbed her arm and
twisted,
and it went pop! And then she grabbed the
other
arm, and…”

“I don’t think I want to hear any more about it,” Ranira said, looking toward Arelnath. The Cilhar woman was pale, and she seemed to be avoiding any movement of her arms.

“But it was real strange,” Shandy insisted.

Arelnath, with Mist’s help, seated herself at the base of a nearby tree. She looked up at Shandy’s comment. “Strange or not, you will refrain from discussing the matter further,” she said. “Or you will regret it greatly in a few days when my arms are healed.”

Shandy subsided into resentful mutterings. Ranira looked from Arelnath to Mist and back. “In a few days? Can’t you heal her now?”

“Do you remember what Arelnath told you of a healer who kills?” Mist asked tiredly. “I was in your mind when the High Priest died. I have been part of a killing, and it has warped my healing talent. You saw what happened when I tried to heal Jaren.”

“I should have guessed it, but none of us knew of the priest’s death then,” Arelnath said. She turned to Mist. “You will certainly be able to rechannel the power now that you know what is wrong, won’t you?”

“I think so,” Mist replied. “Thanks to Ranira, I am not so drained as I was. Even so, it will be a long, difficult job. I must begin soon, or I will not have strength to complete it.”

“Then do so!” Arelnath snapped. “The sooner you begin, the better your chances.”

Mist looked at Arelnath in surprise. Arelnath glared back for a moment; then her expression softened.

“I have no more power to give you,” the Cilhar woman went on more gently. “Nor can you ask Ranira to live through her nightmares again just to renew you. And you cannot simply let yourself die.”

“Die?” Ranira asked, but Arelnath motioned her to silence. Arelnath’s eyes were on Mist, and Ranira could see the tension in her. Slowly, Mist nodded.

“You are right,” the healer said. “There is no reason for me to delay.” She glanced around and then seated herself, shifting her position carefully until she was braced firmly against a tree. Arelnath watched intently until Mist looked up once more.

“I will begin now,” Mist said. Her eyes flickered across each of them in turn. “Do not try to rouse me, whatever happens. This will take much of the night, and perhaps longer, so do not be disturbed by the length of time. Do you understand?” She held their eyes with her own until each of them nodded.

With a deep breath that was almost a sigh, Mist settled back against the tree. She lifted the white stone in one hand, cupping it so that she held it less than a hands breadth from her own face. Her eyes unfocussed, and her breathing slowed. Ranira could see no other outward change; but for her open eyes and raised hand, Mist might have been asleep.

Arelnath relaxed. “Good. I was afraid she was going to delay until she was too weak to succeed. Now there is at least a chance.”

“What do you mean?” Ranira demanded.

“I think you know some of it already,” Arelnath said. “When a healer’s power is twisted, it begins to eat away at her—slowly if it is seldom used, rapidly if the healer attempts to cure. Eventually, if the healer waits too long to channel the power back into its proper path, the uncontrolled power will kill her. And the process of rechanneling is not easy; that too, can be fatal. Especially if the healer is already weak.”

“But why would Mist wait, if she knew it would make things harder?”

A thin smile touched Arelnath’s face briefly. “Mist is a very good and gentle person who believes very deeply that killing is a misuse of her talent and a betrayal of her calling. I was at Saranith when she killed Dal Mirren. If ever a man deserved death, it was he, but Mist could never accept that. She was ill for weeks afterward, in spite of all that her comrades of the Third Moon could do for her. They said the sickness was caused more by remorse than by the effects of the killing.”

Arelnath sighed. “Mist has never forgiven herself for her ‘betrayal.’ She still thinks she should have died at Saranith to atone for Dal Mirren’s death at her hands. Now she has done it again; unwittingly, perhaps, but she was enough a part of this killing that her healing talent was warped by it. What would be easier than waiting until it was too late to move her power back into safe paths? She would have the death she feels she deserves, with no suggestion of blame attached to it.”

“She wouldn’t!” Ranira said. “Mist would never do such a thing! Even if you are right about the way she feels, it would be just as bad for her to kill herself as it would be for her to kill someone else.”

“Perhaps.” Arelnath started to shrug, then winced and stopped. “But Mist would not see it as killing herself. From her point of view, it would be only justice if her healing talent twisted to kill her.”

Ranira could not think of anything to say. She looked at Mist uneasily. It was hard to believe Arelnath’s words, but she could think of no way to refute them. She did not know what codes of honor governed a foreign witch. She felt a pang of guilt herself; if she had not reacted so strongly to the memories that the Temple attack had roused, perhaps the High Priest would not have died and Mist’s power would not have become so dangerously twisted.

She frowned suddenly and turned back to Arelnath. “What happens if the Temple of Chaldon attacks us again tonight?”

“We die.” Arelnath grinned wolfishly, without humor. “There is nothing you can do about it, though. Without Mist to cast the spells, you cannot link with either of us, and in any case, I doubt that your Temple priests would be fooled twice by the same trick. I think you are likely to survive, but I would not wish to be in your position then, either.”

Ranira had to agree. If Mist and Arelnath were both killed, she would be left with Jaren, who would soon be dead himself, and Shandy, who knew no more than she of the world beyond Drinn. Furthermore, Gadrath had already sent people out to search for them. With nowhere to go, she and Shandy would not evade them for long. Ranira shivered and tried to turn her thoughts away from the unpleasant picture.

A shout close by distracted her. She looked up to see Shandy on the ground, wrestling with Jaren. Ranira blinked in astonishment, then realized that Jaren was in convulsions. “Ren-ra!”

Ranira dove forward and found herself gripping a wildly jerking shoulder. For a few breathless moments, she fought to keep the injured bodyguard from hurting either himself or Shandy in his violent spasms. Then Jaren went suddenly limp. Cautiously, Ranira sat up, panting.

Mist had not moved, but Arelnath was standing, watching them, her face white and set. “Is he dead?” she asked in a tight voice.

“No.” Ranira hesitated, wondering if she should try to reassure Arelnath, but she could not think of anything comforting to say. “It is just the way the poison works,” she offered finally.

“I see.” Some of the color returned to Arelnath’s face. Moving slowly and carefully, the Cilhar woman reseated herself. After a moment, she said in a more normal tone, “Before it is too dark to see, we should have enough wood here for a fire. I do not like the idea of spending a night without one, even at the edge of the Karadreme. I would help you if I could…”

With a sense of shock, Ranira realized that it was nearly dusk. “Of course. Come on, Shandy.” The boy muttered a little, but he fell into step with Ranira as she set off into Karadreme Forest.

The two had no difficulty finding wood—the storms of early winter had brought down a number of dead branches. The problem was finding wood that they could carry or drag back to Arelnath. Most of the branches were too long and heavy to move easily. It took several trips for Ranira and Shandy to collect a respectable pile of branches. The sun was setting by the time they finished.

Ranira dumped the last armload of wood on the pile and sat down beside it. Shandy curled into a ball beside her and fell asleep almost at once. Ranira envied him. She felt too tired to move, but she was still too tense to sleep. She looked toward Arelnath and noticed with surprise that the woman was nearly invisible in the growing darkness. Ranira realized that if she did not light the fire soon, they would have to spend the night in the dark; it would be nearly impossible to wield the flints properly unless she could see them.

Hastily, she got to her feet, her tiredness momentarily forgotten. She sorted through the topmost branches of the pile, choosing a few that were small enough to burn easily. She laid them out in a rough square, the way she had always done at the inn, then went to retrieve the firebox from Arelnath. As she bent to strike a spark from the flints, she hesitated.

“Arelnath, didn’t Erenal say there were other people looking for us? What if someone sees the fire?”

“Karadreme Forest is well traveled, even the parts of it that lie within the Empire of Chaldreth,” Arelnath said. “But you are right—we cannot risk another Templeman finding us.” She made a frustrated noise. “You will have to make a screen for it. We can’t go through another night without warmth.”

“How do I make a screen?” Ranira asked crossly. She was tired and hungry, and the prospect of additional work was distinctly unpleasant. “And what good will a fire do us if we put a screen around it?”

“Just screen the side toward the outer edge of the forest,” Arelnath said. “We’ll have to take the chance that no one further into the Karadreme will see it. Blocking off the whole fire certainly won’t do us any good. Use the poles from the litter, and that Templeman’s cloak. He might as well be some good to us, for all the trouble he’s caused.”

Scowling, Ranira replaced the flints in the firebox and rose. She walked reluctantly over to the dead Templeman and stooped to unfasten his cloak. Stiffness made her fingers clumsy; she had to try twice for the iron clip that held the cloak shut. At last it opened. She yanked at the cloak. Erenal’s body lurched sickeningly, but it did not roll completely off the cloak. Ranira swallowed hard and yanked again.

At last the cloak came free. Ranira shuddered and looked away from the body as she wrapped the cloth around her arm. She looked toward Arelnath and said, “I won’t do anything like that again. Even if I freeze to death.”

Arelnath’s headshake was barely visible. “If it bothers you so much, drag the body into the trees where you won’t have to see it. But you had better hurry with that screen. It is getting darker.”

In indignant silence, Ranira dropped the cape and went to fetch the litter poles. It took some time to coax them into standing upright, but at last she succeeded. As she worked, she tried to decide whether it would be worse to have Erenal’s body in plain sight on the opposite side of the fire all night, or to know that the body was close by but invisible among the dark trees. It was a difficult choice, but at last she decided to follow Arelnath’s advice as soon as the fire was lit. That is, if she could get the fire lit; by this time it was nearly full dark.

She finished wedging the poles into place with a couple of small rocks and bent to pick up the cloak. As she lifted it, something heavy swung against her leg. Puzzled, she reached for the fold of cloth that had hit her, and found a pocket slit. She groped for a moment, then gave a crow of joy as her hand felt the unmistakable shape of a bottle.

“What is it?” Arelnath’s voice said out of the gloom. “Have you found something?”

“Water, I think… No, wine!” Ranira called. “The Templeman had it in a cloak pocket.”

“Good. We are all in need of it.” Arelnath lapsed back into silence.

Ranira set the bottle on the ground and hastily checked the cloak for more pockets. There were three others; the third held a small packet of journey-loaf and a knife. Ranira set them beside the bottle, then turned and draped the cloak over the litter poles.

The rickety supports swayed dangerously, but they held. She sighed in relief. After retrieving her plunder, she hurried to the other side of the makeshift screen. Once again she dropped everything she carried, this time to grope for the firebox. It ought to be there somewhere; she was sure she had left it by the wood she had laid for the fire. Then her hand hit it, and she sighed in relief.

She bent forward, pushing her face almost into the twigs in her effort to see them clearly. When she thought she was sure where the tinder lay, she positioned her hands and struck a spark. The first spark failed to start the wood burning, but its brief light was enough to show Ranira where her hands should be. She directed the second spark with more confidence, and the tinder caught.

Ranira coaxed the tiny glow into a flame, then sat back in relief. She replaced the flints in the firebox, but she did not return the box to Arelnath until she was certain the fire would not die. Then she rose and walked over to Arelnath. The Cilhar woman seemed relaxed, and singularly at home.

“Arelnath,” Ranira said as she tucked the firebox back into the pouch at the woman’s belt, “how is it you know so much about Karadreme Forest?”

“I traveled as a guard with the Trader Caravans, back when I was first learning my profession. The Traders know more of the Karadreme than anyone else. I paid attention because it reminds me of home.”