Mind of the Magic (Arhel Book 3) (11 page)

“That was because of me,” Faia said.

“Good.” Medwind nodded again. “I should have guessed that you would realize something was wrong and come after us. I imagine we would have been trapped in there forever had you not come. And I’m glad you did. The emeshest was such a joyous place it almost hurt to be set free—” Medwind turned away, and walked back to the fire. “—But it wasn’t living.”

Faia saw her friend’s shoulders slump, and heard her say, “This isn’t much like living either, though. Because I rode the Timeriver, my body never showed signs of age. With magic I could have prolonged my existence for perhaps several hundred years; but now my magic is gone, and the touch of the Timeriver is gone—and I’m old. I’ve only lived thirty-six years, Faia—but look at me. My body could be ninety.” Medwind looked down at her dried, frail body with disgust. “I’d be lucky to live out the year like this.”

Faia clenched her hands into fists and willed herself to silence. Medwind’s spirit seemed to have grown as old and weak as her body. If the eyes remained young, they were all old age had saved of the Medwind Faia knew—it did not seem possible that the same woman who rode the Timeriver and charged headlong into the search for the First Folk could be the same timid, despairing creature who huddled by the fire bemoaning her fate. Could mere age so completely destroy a great spirit?

Faia felt tears start at the corners of her eyes. She wanted her old friend back—and she was helpless to restore her. “My magic is gone, too,” she admitted.

“All of it?”

“As far as I can tell. I can’t even conjure a faeriefire anymore. I refused the Dreaming God—well, Edrouss Delmuirie, though he thought he was the Dreaming God. I refused to stand up and face my destiny—and the Lady cursed me for my cowardice.”

“Destiny, eh?” Medwind turned back to face Faia, and her eyes sparkled. “That’s rarely something we recognize when it spits in our faces. So what was this destiny of yours, girl?”

Faia quickly told her about her suspicion that she had been fated to stay with Delmuirie in order to free her daughter and her friends.

Medwind snorted. “Pah! That would be a silly destiny! The gods don’t waste the talent of their best followers on grandiose gestures of self-immolation. That’s the sort of nonsense you’d hear in those peasant songs of yours.”

“The Lady leads, and I follow,” Faia huffed. “Most of the time, anyway.”

“The
Lady
. She’s a cowardly excuse for a god, anyway.”

“Just because she doesn’t lead me to collect heads or futter goats like those monstrosities you worship—”

“Futter goats! Etyt and Thiena futter each other, thank you, and leave the goats to your ecuvek hill-folk shepherds!” The old woman glared at Faia through narrowed eyes.

Faia glared back, crossing her arms over her chest. Perhaps Medwind had become senile as well as old. She certainly seemed ruder than Faia remembered.

Gyels cleared his throat and both women turned to see what he wanted. He coughed and said, “I think I’ll be waiting out in the, ah, cold.” He ducked out of the room.

Faia felt heat rush to her cheeks when he departed “Oh, that was childish.”

Medwind sighed. “It was. I apologize.”

“Me too.”

The two friends looked at each other across the fire, and Medwind began to chuckle. “Childish… that has some possibilities. What about Kirtha? She had quite a bit of ability. Does she still?”

Faia said, “I didn’t even think about what Kirtha could do! I suppose I wasn’t thinking at all.” She knelt beside her daughter and asked, “Can you light a fire for me, Kirthchie? Just a little one—” She fumbled through her waist pack and came up with the candle.

Kirtha nodded. “Yes, Mama.” The little girl smiled, pleased to be able to show off one of her tricks in front of adults. She stared at the candlewick, and her face grew serious. A moment passed, and then another—and then she frowned. “I can’t find the light lines, Mama,” she said. “Where are they?”

Medwind and Faia exchanged looks. “Her too, then,” Medwind said quietly.

“Mama!” Kirtha said. “Fix it! Bring back the light lines!” The child’s face clouded—Faia could see a temper tantrum coming.

“I can’t, littlest,” she said, hoping to prevent the explosion. “I can’t fix anything anymore.”

“I
want
the light back,
Mama!”
the child yelled, and closed her eyes—as if to summon the thunder. But the thunder came no more readily than the fire, and the child, in a rage, threw herself on the floor and screamed and cried.

“I know how she feels,” Medwind said, watching the display. “I’d do the same thing if I didn’t think I’d shatter my bones trying it.”

“Bedtime,” Faia announced, and picked up her daughter.

She glanced at Medwind, who said, “She can sleep on my mat. I don’t think I’ll dare sleep again. Too afraid I’ll never wake up.” The ancient Hoos woman sighed deeply, and seemed to shake off her despair. “Call the man back in. Let me talk to him.”

Faia stepped out, to find that Gyels hadn’t gone to stand in the snow and the dark after all. He sat by the fire in the main room, talking to Choufa. Faia called him back, and he returned to Medwind’s private chamber.

The old woman waited until he seated himself, then asked, “So—what of you? You have any magic to speak of?”

“Me? Magic? No. I never did have any magic. I’m a hunter. I track game—capture it live for breeders or kill it for food and hides.”

Medwind frowned again. “No help there. No help from the rest of the people here, either. We met when we were released from the emeshest. There is no magic left among us.”

Faia frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would the Lady curse all of us?”

The old woman clucked her tongue. “You and your Lady… she didn’t curse
any
of us, Faia. I don’t think your Lady had anything to do with what happened here at all. I would guess this spot has become taada kaneddu—a god-desert… a taboo place. One or the other of the gods has declared the ruins
taada
and the rest have pulled all magic away from this place—and everyone in it.”

Faia brightened at that idea. Then all we need to do is leave here, and walk until we’re outside of the—”

“Kaneddu.” Medwind supplied the word Faia wanted. “It means a zone empty of magic.”

“Exactly.” Faia smiled. “We walk out of the ruins, and out of the kaneddu, and you’ll be back to normal. We both will.”

Medwind pursed her lips and nodded slowly. “If the circle of the taada kaneddu is small, that will work. Kirgen or one of those damned Bontonard scholars can check as soon as the storm stops. You’ll meet them soon enough, I’m sure. Bytoris something and Geos something else. They eat like a herd of starved goats, and skulk around poking into everything. I can’t stand ‘em.” She sighed, and the spark of anger that had given her face some animation died. “If the circle of the kaneddu is large, though, I’ll never survive the trip.” She leaned forward and rested her hands on her knees.

“I want to ask a favor of you, Faia. If the circle is too large, go outside of it for me—and when your magic comes back, figure out a way to bring me to you.” She closed her eyes, and an expression of pain ran across her face. “Help me get my life back. I’m too young to be this old, Faia.” She whispered, “And I’m not ready to die.”

Choufa had come back into the room with Gyels. She sat beside Medwind and put an arm around her. She looked at Faia with desperation in her eyes. “Please. Save my mother.” She bit her lip and looked like she was going to start crying again.

Faia crouched in front of her friend and rested a hand on her shoulder. “You saved my life once,” she told the old woman. “I don’t know that I will be able to turn back time. But whatever I can do, Medwind, I will do.” She took a deep breath. “I swear by my Lady, whatever is in my power, I will do to give you back your life.”

Behind her, Gyels said softly, “You are very brave, Faia. Very brave.”

FAIA left Medwind sitting by the fire with Choufa tending her, and Kirtha sleeping on the mat. She went into the large, cold greatroom and sat by the hearth fire in the room’s center—she’d intended to be alone, but Gyels followed her out and settled next to her on the rugs.

“I meant what I said,” he told her.

She didn’t answer him. She hoped he would leave her alone, but that did not look likely.

“You’re very beautiful, and very brave. And your daughter is a courageous little girl. You must be a good mother, too.”

Faia looked at him sidelong. “Indeed,” she said dryly. “I’m to be given a place in the minor pantheon of deities next Watterdae.”

Gyels laughed, not at all offended by her flippant remark. “I’d worship at your shrine.”

Faia chuckled in spite of herself. “I won’t be taking supplications from my worshipers for at least a month—I have to get used to the work.”

“You look very like a goddess of love to me. I could help you learn your duties.” He leaned closer to her, so that she felt the warmth of his skin like a lover’s touch.

He was, she thought, beautiful. His dark eyes were bottomless pools that drowned the light, and his lips were full and firm, curved in the slightest and most enchanting of smiles. She leaned forward—then caught herself and pulled back. She’d been too long without a man to hold—the hunger of her body could easily outpace the caution of her mind. He was a gorgeous creature, but she didn’t know this one well at all.

So she flashed a dangerous smile at him and said, “Remember what happens to all the handsome young hunters who woo love goddesses.”

He tipped his head to one side and grinned at her. “I don’t
know
what happens to them. Why don’t I kiss you, and you can show me.”

“The goddesses turn the hunters into eels or fishes, and feed them to their cats,” Faia told him. Her voice held the slightest hint of laughter.

His eyes widened and he backed up slightly. “Ah,” he said. “And do you have a cat, lovely Faia?”

“I do.” She smiled “I have a cat named Hrogner—he’s clever and wicked, and he has hands. He would never drop a fish I threw to him.”

“Hrogner,” Gyels murmured. “I never much
liked
Hrogner.”

“Neither did I,” Faia agreed, with perhaps, she thought, too much emphasis. So she added, “But he makes a good cat.” She thought about the cat, and hoped he would be all right. Somehow, she didn’t think she was going to be home by the next week.

“Being a cat would play to Hrogner’s strengths, I admit,” the hunter said. Then he sighed. “Perhaps your husband’s… death… has been recent? You are not ready for someone to come courting yet?”

“No.” Faia played with the tip of her braid, looking at the way the hairs looked very red when she held them in front of the firelight. “It isn’t that.”

“Then you simply do not wish to be love goddess to my mighty hunter, eh?”

That wasn’t true either. Her body was more than willing—her mind, however, found that sudden physical desire more frightening than attractive. “Not tonight,” Faia said politely.

“Ah.” Gyels smiled. “There is hope in that statement, in any case. May I ask some other night?”

Faia stood and looked down at him. “I make no promises.”

Exhausted, she retired to Medwind’s room to sleep next to Kirtha. Gyels stayed in the greatroom; Faia looked back long enough to see that he was making a bed for himself out of the rugs spread near the fire.

He wasn’t far enough away, she thought. His presence made her feel raw and naked and vulnerable. And even in another room, she could sense his presence.

FAIA woke to the sounds of heated discussion in the greatroom. She stretched and rolled over. Through the narrow smoke-slits in the domed ceiling, she could see stars—that meant nothing but that the storm had ended. From the raised voices one room away, she guessed that any storm that had been outside had long since moved indoors.

“You
won’t
leave her! Not now!”

“I have to.” That’s Kirgen, Faia thought, recognizing the voice in spite of the unusual volume and stress of it. He sounded both angry and frightened.

“Faia knows the mountains.” Medwind was keeping her voice calm and reasonable, but Faia could hear the forced edge to it. “You’ve learned something of them from living in these ruins, but you can’t begin to think that a trek through the worst of the mountains in the Tide Mother winter will be anything like huddling around a fire in one of these cozy domes.”

Time to go out and see what is happening, she thought She wandered to the doorway between the rooms.

“I’ll have to learn quickly, then, won’t I?” Kirgen shouted “The other alterna—” He looked up from his seat by the hearth fire and saw her, and whatever he’d planned to say died on his lips.

“Good morning, Faia.” Medwind’s smile was thin.

Faia nodded to Medwind, but her eyes were on Kirgen. Kirtha curled in her father’s lap, playing with the gold-banded braids that hung to his shoulders. He looked very much the scholarly, stuffy saje—very little like the cheerful young man she’d so enjoyed that one night years ago. He seemed unaware of his daughter’s presence, or of the worried look in the child’s eyes—his anger with Medwind, and with whatever the two of them had been arguing about, was the only emotion Faia could see in his face.

“Hello, Kirgen,” Faia said, keeping her voice even.

He nodded stiffly. “Faia.” He looked into her eyes, and the room narrowed down to exclude Medwind, Choufa, the hunter Gyels, even Kirtha.

“Why the fight?” Faia asked him.

“Roba is near her time. I suggested to Medwind that you stay with her and help deliver her baby while I went in search of the end of the magicless zone.” His face flushed, and his eyebrows lowered.

“I suggested he stay here with his wife, and let people who knew the mountains go tramping around in them,” Medwind said.

“Perfectly sensible. Why
would
he leave her?”

“He thought you might be too fragile to make the trip.”

Faia’s voice went cold. “I told Medwind I would go—I did not offer to do anything I was not capable of doing. And in fact, I
swore
that I would seek help. Would you ask me to forswear myself?”