Foxfire (31 page)

“Does that satisfy you?” Fellgair asked.

Rigat nodded.

“Can we go now?”

“I can't just leave him lying here.”

Fellgair sighed again. “Rothisar will come looking for him.”

“He will?”

“Yes. If it will ease your conscience, I'll send him the uncontrollable urge to search for Madig. Later, he'll marvel at that urge and wonder if it was merely his superb hunter's instinct that led him here or whether he had received a divine message. Knowing Rothisar, he'll doubtless interpret it as his inspiration rather than mine.”

“Isn't that interfering?”

“Of course, it's interfering! But the net effect will be to allow Madig to drool in his own hut instead of out on the moor.”

Rigat winced. He wiped Madig's chin and squeezed his limp hand. “I didn't kill Seg. And I didn't want to hurt you. I hope you can believe that. And forgive me.”

Madig made an inarticulate sound, whether of protest or acceptance, Rigat couldn't tell.

Fellgair rose and held out his hand. As Rigat grasped it, the grassy moor vanished. Sunlight blinded him. He raised a hand, squinting against the brilliance. Slowly, the world came back into focus.

A cloudless sky above them. Rock-strewn earth beneath their feet. Far below, a meandering brown river and fields of golden grain. A fortress of stone on a plateau. And a gleaming white city that spilled down the sides of the hill to a sun-dazzled sea.

Fellgair swept his hand across the vista and smiled. “Welcome to Zheros.”

T
HE SHOUTS SENT GRIANE'S HEART racing. Callie was already on his feet when Hircha appeared in the doorway.

“It's Madig. They found him.”

“Alive?”

“Aye, but . . . something's wrong with him.”

Pausing just long enough to seize her healer's bag, Griane hurried outside.

A crowd had already gathered in the center of the village. She pushed her way through, noting that every face bore the same sick expression as Hircha's.

Madig lay in the dirt, wriggling like a worm. She suppressed a grimace at the stink of urine. Judging from the loosened drawstrings of his breeches, Madig had tried—and failed—to open them. His right arm and leg twitched convulsively, as if he was incapable of controlling them. The right side of his face looked frozen, but his good eye glared up at her.

“Where did you find him?” she asked Rothisar.

“On the moor. To the south.” Rothisar winced. “He was trying to drag himself home.”

“Merciful Maker . . .”

Madig shouted something out of the side of his mouth. She crouched beside him and grabbed his fist before he could pound the earth again. “Stop! You'll only make it worse.”

He yanked his fist out of her grasp and bellowed, “Eee ahh!”

Rothisar's fingers moved in the sign to avert evil. Griane heard people muttering, “Possessed . . .” “A demon . . .”

“He's not possessed,” Gortin declared. “A man in our old village had a similar attack. What was his name?”

“Dren,” Griane replied automatically.

Lisula's nod was vehement, but the hand stroking Madig's hair was as gentle as ever. “And he got better. In time. Just as you will. If you do what Mother Griane tells you.”

“Eee ahh!”

It was just a meaningless sound. Rigat would not have attacked Madig. And if he had witnessed the onset of this seizure, he would never have abandoned him on the moor.

She glared at the circle of gawking men. “Don't leave him lying in the dirt! Carry him to his hut.”

With obvious reluctance, they obeyed. As she followed them toward his hut, she spied Madig's daughters, huddled between Alada and Duba.

“Is he going to die?” Colla whispered.

“Nay! You heard how strong his voice was.”

“But he wasn't making any sense.”

“It's a strange sickness. Sometimes, it affects the way a man talks. And leaves half his body . . . asleep.”

“When will it wake up?”

To a child of ten, a sennight was a long time. Telling her that his recovery would require moons—perhaps years—was as good as telling her it would take forever.

“Soon. But the other man I knew with this sickness? He was like . . . like a little child at first, who had to learn to walk and talk again.”

“But he did learn?”

“Aye. And so will your father. With your help.”

For the first time, Colla looked at her. Thirty years as a healer had taught Griane that helplessness could be more debilitating than fear.

“You know how proud your father is.”

A slow nod.

“You know it would shame him to have you see him when he's so weak.”

Another nod, more reluctant.

“So it might be best for you and Blathi to stay with Alada and Duba. Just until he's stronger. And while you're there, I want you to make something. A little ball stuffed with grain that he can squeeze to strengthen his bad hand. Alada can help you sew the covering—”

“I can do it. I mend all his tunics.”

“Good. But first, could you help Hircha make a tea for your father? We don't know what he likes to drink—”

“Mint tea. With honey.”

“You'll need to gather some water mint at the stream. I'm not sure I have . . .”

But Colla was already hurrying away.

“Put something in it to help him sleep,” Griane told Hircha in an undertone. “His bellowing will disturb the children.”

Hircha gave her a long, considering look, but merely nodded.

Griane arrived at Madig's hut to find a crowd of people blocking the doorway. She shooed them out of her way and sidled past Othak.

Madig's bellows had subsided to hoarse muttering and his movements had grown feebler. After a day and night on the moor, it was a wonder he had the strength to speak or move at all. Lisula crouched beside him, dribbling water into his twisted mouth. As Griane approached, Gortin paused in his prayers and glanced up.

“Here's Mother Griane now. She'll take good care of you. Just as she did old Dren. His recovery was remarkable. Of course, his speech was always a bit slurred and he dragged his right foot—”

“Thank you, Tree-Father,” Griane interrupted. “And all of you. But Madig needs to rest now.”

She marched to the doorway and held up the hide. Lisula flashed a worried smile as she ducked outside. Barasa simply looked relieved.

“I'll pray for him,” she assured Griane.

“Thank you, Grain-Mother. I know that will help.”

Certainly far more than having her stare at Madig with undisguised horror. Best that Barasa stick to prayer; in an earthly crisis, she was helpless.

“Are you sure he's not possessed?” Rothisar asked.

“For mercy's sake, lower your voice,” Griane snapped.

“It's just . . . I don't remember old Dren being like this.”

“That's because you were a child. And far more interested in hunting than in a sick old man.”

“But what's he trying to say?”

“I don't know! And right now, I don't care. The important thing is to keep him calm so he doesn't have another attack.” Impatient with the crowd that continued to linger outside the hut, Griane called, “Please. Go home. Hircha and I will see to Madig.”

Instead, Callie stepped forward. And old Trath. In moments, she found herself confronted by all the tribal elders.

“Is his mind affected?” Trath's voice was as brusque as ever, but unlike Rothisar, he had the sense to speak softly.

Griane stepped outside and let the deerskin fall. “I can't tell,” she replied just as softly. “It might be moons before he can speak. Or walk.”

“We'll have to summon the council,” Trath replied. “And choose someone to act as chief until he's recovered.”

“You're the one with the most experience,” Adinn pointed out. “Callie, Sion, and I are still too new.”

“Eight.”

They all turned toward Sion, frowning. Lisula was the first to make sense of his terse comment. “Sion's right. We need nine members on the council.”

“We could bring Hakiath back on,” Trath suggested. “He replaced Madig last time.”

“Fine!” Griane retorted in a fierce whisper. “Only have the decency not to choose a new chief within earshot of the current one.”

They all looked abashed.

“We have as much sense as a horde of midges,” Callie said.

“Less.” But she patted his cheek before turning back to the hut.

Othak raised the hide, but continued to block the doorway. “It's strange. Madig being taken so suddenly.”

“So was Dren. But you were probably too young to remember.”

Othak smiled. “Oh, I remember. I remember everything.”

His pale eyes fastened on her face, like a hawk eyeing a rabbit. A shiver rippled down Griane's spine.

But she shivered again as Othak walked off.

“Mam?”

Startled, she turned to find Callie watching Othak as well.

“What does he know?” he asked in a soft voice.

“I don't know.”

“Is Rigat involved?”

She took a deep breath and let it out. “I don't know,” she repeated.

Callie nodded. It was not his way to press her. But it was past time for her to tell him the truth. If Othak was speculating about Madig's seizure, others would, too. Sooner or later, someone would remember that Madig had left the village soon after Rigat. And then the questions would start, along with whispered exchanges about past incidents.

She took Callie's arm and drew him away from the hut. “There are things you should know, Callie. About your brother.”

W
ITH FELLGAIR AS HIS GUIDE, Rigat explored the land he had first glimpsed during his vision quest. He studied it with the eyes of Fellgair's son, but also with those of the child reared by Darak and Griane. Perhaps that was why he found it a place of such terrible contrasts, where beauty existed side by side with ugliness, and squalor festered in the shadow of grandeur.

It was a world of brown rivers and brown earth, of hard blue sky and brilliant blue sea, of snow-colored sand that heated the soles of his shoes, and an unrelenting sun that rose red and angry in the morning, burned hot and yellow at midday, and faded to the color of blood by sunset. After only a few days, his eyes were starved for green, but it seemed to exist only in the clothing and gems of the rich.

At Fellgair's insistence, Rigat summoned the mist-shield, although it more closely resembled a dust cloud in Zheros. Hidden behind it, they stood atop hills denuded of trees. They picked their way across swaying bridges suspended over gorges so steep that the sun only brightened the bottom at midday. They followed roads of hard-packed earth that cleaved the fields like spears, most wide enough for the ox-drawn carts of the farmers to pass two abreast and still leave room for the curtained litters of the nobles.

Outside tidy villages, the flyblown corpses of murderers and thieves dangled from gibbets. In eastern Zheros, makeshift refugee camps and charred fields testified to the ravages of the war with Carilia.

Fellgair told him about the war, about the slave uprising in the spring, and the devastating winter of rains that had left the first harvest of barley and millet rotting in the fields. He described the queen who was hundreds of years old but looked like a girl, the annual rite called The Shedding where her spirit slipped free of her old body and into a new one, and the drug called qiij that she and her priests needed to touch spirits and speak with the gods.