Strands of Starlight (14 page)

She had gone some distance down the road when she realized that she was hearing screams. With a chill, she recognized Charity's voice.

“
Varden! Miriam!
”

The little healer found a path into the forest and set off at a run. Branches slashed at her face and tore at her gown. Charity continued to cry out.

The screams cut off suddenly. Miriam rounded a turning and stopped short. Ten yards away was the man who had raped her, and he was squared off against Varden. The Elf had set himself in a low guard stance. He was unarmed. His opponent held a sword.

Crumpled against the trees at one side of the clearing, her gown torn at the shoulder, was Charity. The girl was breathing in ragged gasps, and her hands were clutched against her belly. Near her was the basket, half-full of wood roses and violets, crushed and trampled.

The man's gaze flicked to Miriam, and then back to Varden. “I'm glad to see you so well, my pretty healer.”

She nearly threw herself at him, but she knew it was useless.
Another score, you bastard.

Charity was obviously injured, and the power started rising up Miriam's spine. She had learned a little from Roxanne, though, and she managed to keep her head clear.

“Attend to Charity, Miriam,” said Varden calmly.

Miriam forced herself to move around the perimeter of the clearing. The man's gaze flicked back to her, and Varden moved, flashing into action int eh space of a heartbeat. The man did not have time to swing the sword, but his own reactions were quick enough that he ducked out of the way and slammed his elbow into the Elf's ribs.

Varden's momentum carried him past his opponent. When he rolled back up to his feet again, his face was pale. Miriam's power burned hotter: the Elf had been injured.

As had Charity. Miriam knelt beside the girl and held her, but Charity did not appear to notice. Miriam could not tell exactly what had been done to her. Almost anything, given the girl's condition. Charity was calm, intelligent, and strong in her own way, but she could not stand against a sudden, brutal, unprovoked attack.

Movement. Miriam looked up to see the man swinging his sword at Varden. The Elf rolled out of the way and struck for his eyes. The man screamed, but he ripped back and down with the sword and opened Varden's side/

Blood was suddenly everywhere, and the Elf staggered back, face pale, teeth clenched. But as the man approached for a final blow, Varden's hand found a stout tree branch and, before the sword could fall, sent it crashing into the man's skull, The man reeled. Varden collapsed.

When the man regained his balance, he stepped forward to finish off the Elf. Miriam's anger eclipsed even the heat in her spine. This was her rapist, and she was watching him do away with the being who had healed her, shown her kindness, brought her a vision of heaven that, even though she had refused it, she at least recognized.

Without knowing what she would do, she let go of Charity, rose, and threw herself on his broad back. Locking her legs around his neck, she tore at his face, at his eyes, felt blood start to flow under her fingers.

She was screaming, clawing, biting at his scalp and ears. She was vaguely aware that he had dropped his sword and that his hands were reaching for her. She cursed him, but he plucked her off his head as though she were a hat and flung her across the clearing.

She hit the ground in a red haze of pain and hate, and she heard his laughter, Pushing herself up on her elbows, she watched him approach. His face was a mass of blood and welts.

“Ah, little one, don't you like me?”

But she saw that behind him, impossibly, Varden was struggling to his feet, holding the dropped sword. His skin was ashen from blood loss, and she had no idea where he derived the strength to do such a thing. By human standards, he should have been dead already.

The Elf drew himself up straight, blood still pumping from his rent side. The man became aware that Miriam's attention was elsewhere, and he started to turn.

Varden's voice rang out suddenly, clear and bright, like a glitter of cold steel. “
Elthia!
” He raised the sword and threw it, and it turned over once in the air and buried itself in the man's shoulder. As the giant spun around with the impact, the Elf sprawled face-forward ontot he grass.

Miriam could not believe it:
the man was still standing
. He looked at the blade, then, “Later, mistress,” he whispered. He turned and made his way off into the forest.

“I'm going to kill you,” she screamed, but she had been screaming too much, and her voice was so hoarse that she could barely hear herself.

Charity lay a few feet away from her, unconscious. Miriam attempted to crawl toward the girl and discovered that her right leg was not working. Blurry with power, she pulled back her skirt and found her knee bent at an odd angle.
Broken
, she thought fuzzily.

But that was not important. Charity was nearby, and she dragged herself across the grass, the power flaming along her spine.

When she laid her hands on the girl and let the energy go, it was as though a sun had kindled in her head, and when it was over, she fell away mostly blind, mostly deaf, hardly capable of feeling anything.

He must have hurt her inside. He probably beat her. I have to kill him.

Something was tugging at her mind, though, pulling her away from Charity. She remembered Varden.

It can't be. He's dead.

Blasted by her power, her leg shattered, she nonetheless crawled across the clearing, dirt caking her face, her brain on fire. When she reached the Elf, she would have sworn that he was dead. But the power demanded, and the power got its way regardless of her wishes, her thoughts, or her denials.

She fell on top of him. The incandescence struck.

For some time after her vision returned and cleared, Miriam thought she was back in the forest, recovering from the rape, bleeding onto the ground, the drone of swarming flies loud in her ears. But she heard voices speaking Elvish, and though she did not understand that language, the smooth, liquid sounds of the words calmed her, told her that the rape was in the past. She lived in Saint Brigid now, with Kay, and she had . . . had friends. A miracle. The whole town. And—

Charity. Varden.

Miriam flailed out and tried to push herself up. She caught a glimpse of a broad clearing, of people clad in green and gray, but her coordination failed her and she fell back.

Someone came to kneel beside her, and a hand passed across her forehead. She became conscious of a familiar warm glow, and a calm, young face came into view.

Her visitor smiled shyly. “I am Talla,” she said. Her hair was a dark mass of curls that caught the light in sparks of red. Her eyes were blue and filled with starlight. “Be at peace.”

Miriam croaked out the words: “Charity. Varden.”

“Both are well,” said the Elfmaid. “Your powers are great, healer.”

The sound of harp strings hung for a moment in the clearing, a cascading arpeggio that seemed to make the sky itself shimmer and ripple like a wind-stirred pond. Miriam's thoughts wandered off into the blazing light that had burst in her mind when she had laid hands on Varden. She shook her head, tried to hold on to the present.

Light. Radiance. Stars. Suns. The essence of illumination, and yet more. There was something behind it, something that she wanted to see again, though she did not remember what it was.

She stared at the sky. Light . . .

She struggled. “Please,” she said to Talla. “Help me up.”

The Elf lifted her. Miriam sat on the ground, her face in her hands, pulling the soft air into her lungs.
I'm here. My name is Miriam. I have black hair. I have black eyes.

The light subsided to a gentle radiance in the back of her mind. Talla was peering into her face. “I'm sorry,” Miriam said. “I'm not myself.”

The Elf put her hands to Miriam's temples and leaned forward until their foreheads touched. The light flickered, and Miriam had a vision of stars shining serenely in a night sky. She sighed and relaxed. Her hands dropped into her lap. Softness wrapped around her and cradled her for several minutes.

“Where are we?” she said.

Talla's voice came to her as if within her mind. “We are in the forest, among my people. We became aware of Varden's plight and came looking.”

“Did you find . . . him?”

“We did not. He had a horse nearby.”

A horse. No ordinary brigand then. And those hands. It did not make sense. Nothing did.

She shook herself slightly, and Talla's hands fell away. The clearing came back, and she saw clearly the shimmer about the people in gray and green. The odor of baking bread mixed with the scent of leaves and pine needles, and someone was playing the harp she had heard earlier. After a minute, a maid's sweet voice soared up in Elvish.

Talla closed her eyes and listened, a slight smile on her lips. The song wound on like a river of silver, and it reminded Miriam a little of what she had sensed behind the blinding light.

“What do the words mean?” she said.

“It is a song for this day,” said Talla. “It is about fulfillment, and about the cycles that weave through our lives. Natil is singing it for Charity: her music has the power to heal the mind, and Charity needs that at present.”

“Charity . . . was she . . . did that bastard . . . ?”

Talla laid a hand on Miriam's arm. “Be at peace, friend. Charity is badly shaken, but she is otherwise well. Sana—Roxanne—is on her way here, and we have sent for Andrew and Elizabeth.” She looked off into the distance as though her thoughts were elsewhere. “They should be here soon.”

The light in Miriam's mind flared a little, and she saw Charity's parents moving through the forest. Andrew's face was set, his eyes hard with worry. Elizabeth looked much the same, and she was wearing a red kerchief.

The vision faded. She dismissed it as a passing fancy, but Talla was looking at her curiously. “Are you well, Mistress Healer?”

“I'm fine. Where's Charity? Where's Varden?”

“Behind you,” came his voice, and she turned. He still looked pale, and he was leaning on a stick, but his eyes were calm. “My deepest thanks.” He smiled thinly and went down on one knee before her.

Miriam's eyes suddenly filled with tears. “I saw you. You were dead. I couldn't have brought you back. You were dead.”

“Your powers are great, Miriam.”

“I can't bring people back from the dead.” She was still weeping.

“I was not dead. It is difficult to kill an Elf.”

“It's not impossible.”

“That is so.”

She wiped her eyes on a sleeve and shook her head in disbelief. “You're immortal. But you were willing to throw it all away for a human.”

He laughed quietly. “I love Charity. Sometimes we must battle for those things we hold dear. And this is certainly not what I would consider to be throwing my life away.”

She wiped at her eyes again. “I couldn't do that. I couldn't love anyone that much.”

“Indeed?”

“I don't care enough about anyone for that.”

“All right.”

She had the suspicion that he was amused, and she finally realized that she had been crying, that her sleeve was damp with tears. She could not weep, but she had wept nonetheless. “Will you please stop kneeling to me?” she snapped.

“I would rather you rose first.”

She glared at him. “Talla, please help me up.” Her legs were unsteady, but she managed to stand, and Varden stood also. He was visibly gaining strength with each minute, and when he took a deep breath, Miriam saw, again, the light. There was about him an unquenchable inner joy that seemed to be awakened simply by the air, the sky, the sunlight; and the radiance that had become a part of her responded to it.

Roxanne stepped into the clearing, clad as an Elf, looking as much like one, Miriam thought, as any human could. Her dark hair danced as she ran to Varden, and they embraced. “Thank the Lady you're safe,” she murmured into his shoulder.

“Thank Miriam also, beloved,” said the Elf. “I had almost passed over, but she healed me.”

Roxanne turned to Miriam. Moonlight was in her eyes, and Miriam saw wellsprings of power within her. And she saw more . . .

The witch held out her hands, and Miriam, without thinking, took the,. “My thanks to you, maiden,” said Roxanne, and there was respect and love in the title. Miriam stammered an acknowledgment, but she was held by her interior vision. She knew suddenly that Roxanne was pregnant, that the child was Varden's, and a boy. She did not have to ask: she was certain.

Varden was speaking to Roxanne. “Go to Charity, beloved. I am well, and you have her initiation to think of.”

Roxanne nodded, bent, and kissed Miriam's forehead, then went off with Talla to the other side of the clearing where the harper was still playing. There, two humans were just then stepping out of the trees. Charity's voice rang out: “Mother! Father!”

Miriam saw the girl then: slender, slight, her dark hair loose and flowing. She stood up and stretched out her hands to Elizabeth and Andrew, then ran to them and flung herself into their arms.

Miriam felt a pang. She was remembering her own mother and father, and that terrible day when she had seen them for the last time, their faces filled with something very different from love and concern. She dropped her eyes and was about to turn away when a stray thought made her look more closely at Charity's mother. Elizabeth was indeed wearing a red kerchief.

Varden slipped an arm about her shoulders. “You are disturbed,” he said quietly.

She lowered her eyes. In the back of her mind the light churned into a sea of luminescence. “There's something wrong with me. I saw Elizabeth and Andrew before they arrived. As though they were out in the forest.”

“Have you ever healed an Elf before?”

“Miriam!” Charity's voice. The girl was waving at her. Miriam waved back absently, turned to Varden. “What do you mean?”

He touched her shoulder. “When I healed you, my mind touched yours. When you healed me, even though you were unconscious of it, your mind . . .” He smiled slightly. “You see partly as we do now. Think of it as a gift.”