Heart of Light (52 page)

WRONG AGAIN

Kitwana had been wrong again. Not that he was surprised
anymore. There had been so many mistakes, so many faults.

He was still not certain that he'd been guilty of that first crime, the one that had gotten him expelled from his village to live with his mother's brother in Zululand. Yes, he had killed someone, but . . .

At the time he'd been convinced the man—a particularly pustulent-souled and nasty specimen to whom the ever-kind Wamungunda had given refuge—had meant to kill Wamungunda and his family and take over the village. He'd heard enough to be sure of it before he'd put his plan in action. He was still sure of it. And part of him still smarted at his father's reaction, at Wamungunda's evicting his only son from his ancestral village because Kitwana had tried to save that village and his family, too.

But the other part . . . the part that had been wrong about the Hyena Men and about Peter Farewell . . . Kitwana feared to look deep within at that first incident and find out he'd been wrong there, too.

Watching Peter Farewell fall to the ground like a dead thing—after setting all the Hyena Men to flight—Kitwana could only think how wrong he'd been since he'd left the village. All his years in Zululand, all his learning of the arts of war, everything he'd done had been in vain—or worse than in vain; against his best interest. Worse, against the best interest of mankind.

He felt such anger at himself that he didn't move for a long time.

He was aware that the dragon's body was shifting and changing, and he remembered hearing in his youth that shape-shifters always changed in death back to their human form as the magic left them, and only the human stayed behind. The rain started to fall, yet he knelt there between the rocks, looking out at the Englishman now laying on the ground, gravely injured. It was a soft rain, gentle on parched skin.

Emily lifted her face toward it, opening her mouth a little, and ran her hands backward through her hair, as though to rub the rain in. “I don't hear any Hyena Men, Mr. Kitwana. We should help him.”

“I think,” Kitwana said, his voice still coming from so deep within that he sounded not at all like himself, “I fear that he's past all the help we can give him.”

She looked at Kitwana as if he were crazy, shook herself slightly and stood up. “Oh, for heaven's sake,” she said. “You can't mean to stay there and just . . . assume he is dead.”

With sudden determination, she leapt over the rocks and up to where the dragon-man lay in his human form, naked and looking pathetically inoffensive. She leaned over him and called out, “Mr. Kitwana, please come quickly. Help me bind his wounds.”

Kitwana got up, trembling, sure he must dispel her illusion and show her the task was futile. But when he approached, Peter Farewell's eyes fluttered open, and there was a trace of the man's old mockery in the way he looked at Kitwana.

Emily had gotten fabric from the trunks remaining from their encampment. Silk and lace were ruthlessly torn into strips and wrapped around the man's bleeding limbs and his torn middle. As soon as the pale silk touched his skin, it became red.

Farewell swallowed, and opened his mouth to the gentle rain, but it wasn't enough, and he whispered, “Water.”

Kitwana mechanically found one of the sealed water jars and brought it back, tipped it to Peter's mouth. Peter drank as though he never meant to stop, draft after draft of the water that had been sitting under the sun all day. But at last he pulled away and looked at Kitwana, completely ignoring Mrs. Oldhall, who was binding his wounds.

“Mr. Kitwana,” he said hesitantly, his voice faint though his eyes still shone with amusement. “I think I'm done for. Can you and Mrs. Oldhall take it and imprint it, and continue your journey without me?”

Emily drew a loud breath, but when she spoke it was in a light tone, as if she were calmly discussing something with a friend. “Oh, don't be foolish, Mr. Farewell. We wouldn't continue the journey without you.”

“I'm afraid you must,” Farewell said raspily. “You must continue without me. And after you kill me . . . take one of my eyes.”

Emily looked at him in shock, repeating, “One of your
eyes
?”

He smiled and said, “I'll have no more use for it. And you must know a dragon's eyes, properly spelled, make a fine divination instrument. With them you can find anything. I'd wager with my eye—once I'm no longer using it—you can find the ruby.”

A CHOICE OF SINS

“Why?” Emily asked. “Why should we want to kill
you?” She held both ends of a bandage with which she had been binding Peter Farewell's largest wound—a palm-long gash on his thigh. She knew she needed more than that. She needed the strong healing magic of a surgeon. But such magic as she had was locked within her and useless.

The tourniquets and bandages she wrapped around Peter were ineffective and served primarily to soak up the blood.

“To spare me suffering?” Peter Farewell said, speaking as though each word cost him too much effort.

“But . . .” Kitwana said. He knelt by Peter's head, holding a jar of water. “Are you dying?”

Peter took a deep breath, as though needing the energy to animate his words. “Yes, I am dying. Only it will be slow. I've lost too much blood. And I'm too weak to move. If I stay here, Carew will eventually come back. I got most of his people, but not him. He ran and hid behind them. He will come back, and he will—”

“We could carry you,” Kitwana said.

Peter shook his head slowly. “That will only slow you. Then Carew will find you, too.”

“Why are you so afraid of him?” Emily asked. “He is an English gentleman after all. I realize there is something wrong there, but what can you fear from him you that think death preferable?”

But Peter only shook his head and said, “Mrs. Oldhall, the wounds were made by silver. Spelled silver. They will take weeks to close. Till then, I'll be alive, but barely.” He turned, not to Emily but to Kitwana, with a beseeching gaze. “Kitwana, please kill me now. More merciful by far than leaving me to fall into Carew's hands, or to be eaten alive by jungle beasts.”

Emily expected to see Kitwana reach for one of the bespelled lances still on the ground, not five steps away, and fulfill Peter Farewell's request. But instead of getting up, Kitwana only let the water jar go and grabbed at his own hair, his hands clenched in it.

“What, man?” Farewell said, clearly taken aback by this reaction. “You've wanted to kill me since we met.”

His voice, though barely more than a gasp, managed to be full of gentle teasing.

“I can't,” Kitwana said.

“Surely you can. The lance is there.” Peter looked at the instrument. “One thrust through the heart will do it. None of the others had decent aim.”

Kitwana shook his head. “My father . . . My father believed all human life is sacred.”

Peter's laughter resolved into coughing. A froth of blood covered his lips. “I'm not human.”

“Human enough,” Kitwana said, and turned to Emily. “I'll make the healing potion out of the water again. We'll clean his wounds with it. We'll get every trace of silver out. Then they'll stop bleeding.”

Emily nodded and waited while the African bespelled the water, till the whole container sparkled and popped with golden magic. She untied one of her laboriously wrapped bandages, and dipped the cloth in the magical water to touch to the wound.

Peter hissed and arched as the water touched his thigh. His eyes were dumb with suffering, but his voice came out still tinged with irony. “You're only prolonging my agony, both of you. Surely you can understand I'll never be able to walk? Stay behind with me and keep me alive a few more days, and we all die. Or take my eye and go, on your own, toward the ruby. But give me mercy first.”

Kitwana did not reply, and Peter looked at Emily. “Mrs. Oldhall? Can't you see I don't deserve to suffer a slow death? For all the horrible things I've done, I did try to rescue you from Carew.”

He had tried to rescue her. Yet as much as she saw the wisdom of his words, Emily couldn't imagine killing him.

As she shook her head, she heard Kitwana say, as though from very far away, “Elephant country isn't that far, and there are some around here even. Shamans can call them and tame them to their will with magic. It takes a great deal of magic, of course. As much as you have, Mrs. Oldhall.”

Emily looked at him, stunned. Her lips moved but she couldn't find the way to words for a long time. When she spoke, it was only to say, “I can't. My power is locked.”

“You can,” Kitwana said, “if you let me merge my mind with yours. I can access your power. I know the way of it. I can unlock it. Together we can call an elephant. We can then travel on its back, and Mr. Farewell won't be a hindrance.”

“But,” Emily said as she sat back on her heels in shock. “To merge minds . . . is . . .” She'd heard of it, of course. It was said to happen spontaneously at the most hallowed of marriages, those preordained by fate or gods. And it happened, it was said, between married couples, sometimes, in moments of complete ecstasy.

She looked at Kitwana's face in front of her. A stranger from another race, another continent, another civilization. Did he understand what he was asking? “But if we merge minds,” she said, half outraged, “you'll know all there is to know about me. And you'll know me more intimately than a husband. You—”

A soft laugh escaped Peter Farewell. It wasn't exactly mocking. Or if it was, it would be mocking himself as well as her. “A choice of sins is before you, Mrs. Oldhall. You can take my life, or you can violate the sanctity of your virgin mind. Or you can leave me here to die slowly. To my mind, the last is the worst sin of all.” He paused, then said with his voice more feeble than ever, “But perhaps not to yours.”

BEASTS AND MEN