The Saga of the Renunciates (109 page)

When Jaelle had left them, the night dragged. Magda and Camilla talked almost not at all, and then brief commonplaces of the trail. Magda grew sleepy, but dared not lie down and close her eyes for fear of renewed assault by whatever had attacked her before. She knew it was reasonless, but she was for some reason terrified of seeing again those diving hawks; and although Camilla put a brave face on it she knew Camilla felt much the same.

Cholayna slept restlessly; Magda feared that the Terran woman was undergoing, at the least, evil dreams, hut she did not wake her.

Cholayna needed rest. She could certainly survive bad dreams, but there were other worries. She suspected, from the sound of her breathing, that Cholayna was beginning to suffer a few of the early symptoms of mountain sickness. How would the older woman survive the dreadful country past Nevarsin? They had only begun to get into the really high plateau.

Cholayna was tough, she had already survived Ravensmark and the robbers, and had come across Scaravel, exhausted, frostbitten, but still strong. Still, she should ask Vanessa, who knew more about mountains and altitude than any of them, to keep an eye on Cholayna.

As if Vanessa wouldn’t, without my telling her! I’m doing it again; trying to protect everyone. That’s not my job and I should realize it; other people have a right to run their own risks and take their own chances.

Around them the pulse of the night was slowing; the faint street noises died almost to nothing. She did not know how to read the faraway chime of the monastery bells, but they had rung softly several times, a distant and melancholy sound, before Jaelle came back into the room. Camilla, motionless before the fire, raised her head.

“Well?”

Jaelle came close, dropped on the floor before the fire.

“I found a couple of old friends,” she began. Her voice was quiet; partly, Magda felt, not to waken Vanessa and Cholayna, but partly because Jaelle feared being overheard by something that was not in the room at all.

“One of them was a girl I knew when I used to come here with Kindra. I was no more than twelve years old then, but Jessamy remembered some of our games. She recognized Rafaella at once when they came here. They were lodged in this very room.”

“They were here; I thought so,” Camilla said. “But why didn’t they wait for us? And was Anders with her?”

“So Jessamy said. Apparently Lexie had a slight case of frostbite, and they stayed here an extra day, so she would be in better shape to travel. Jessamy didn’t talk with Rafi about anything personal, or in private, but Raft told her that I would be coming—in fact, Jessamy thought they’d intended to wait here for me. Which is why she was so surprised when Rafi left without bidding her good-bye, or even leaving the customary way-gift.”

“That’s not like Rafaella,” Camilla said. “I’ve traveled with her in the mountains. She has always been generous with tips—it’s good business. Up here, everything runs that way—greasing the wheels, so to speak. Even if she was running short of money, she would have been apologetic, made what gifts she could, and many promises. I wonder what happened?”

“Jessamy said Arlinda was not disturbed—they had paid for their lodging, after all, and she never inquires into what tips the girls get. But Rafaella has stayed here before with explorers and climbers and as you say, Camilla, she’s always been generous with tips. Jessamy was not complaining or criticizing Rafi, but she did mention that Rafaella must have been in great haste. She didn’t even remember the women who repaired saddle-tack and doctored one of their ponies.”

Camilla’s mouth was grim. “If you wanted evidence, there it is for you. Rafi wouldn’t do that kind of thing, not if she ever expected to come back here and get decent service. For one reason or another, they left in a hurry, when they’d been expecting to wait here for us. What more do you want? Probably that Aquilara, or whatever she calls herself, spirited them away in the middle of the night.”

“If she was here to speak with us, she didn’t go with them,” Magda protested.

“Unless she has taken them somewhere and hidden them,” said Jaelle. “And if they went willingly, how do you explain Rafaella leaving without the proper way-gifts and courtesies?”

“Might she have intended it as a signal to us that she did
not
go willingly?” Camilla asked.

“And if Aquilara has hidden them nearby,” Magda said, “then. we can simply wait here, and she will lead us to them. That’s what she intends. She said so.”

“I know not what you may choose to do,” Camilla said, “but I go nowhere in that creature’s company.
Nowhere
, understand me? I would not trust her behind me—not even if she was bound and gagged.”

“If she has Rafaella and Lexie—” Magda began.

“If Rafaella was such a fool as to trust that evil sorceress, then she deserved whatever—”

“Oh, stop it, both of you,” Jaelle pleaded. “This is not helpful. I cannot imagine Rafi trusting that woman at all.”

“Jaelle, do you think I am not troubled about her, about both of them? If Camilla feels she cannot trust that woman Acquilara, then if she sends for us, if she says Rafi and Lexie are with her, then perhaps you and I—”

“I trust Camilla’s intuition,” Jaelle said. “Perhaps tomorrow I shall seek out the woman who doctored their ponies, give her the tip which I know Rafi would have given her, and try to find out who saw them leave, and who was with them.”

“That seems reasonable. It will do Cholayna no harm to have an extra day’s rest,” Magda said.

“I am worried about her too,” Camilla said. “If only for her sake, it would be as well if our journey ended here in Nevarsin. The country past here—you know what it is like.”

“Only too well. I was born in Caer Donn,” Magda reminded her. She yawned, and Camilla said predictably, “If you are sleepy, Margali, go and rest. I will keep watch with Jaelle.”

Magda was still reluctant to sleep; yet she knew she would not be able to travel on the next day unless she rested. That was even more true of Camilla, who was not young, and already showing signs of travel-fatigue, but who seemed even more fearful of sleep in this place than she was herself. No more than Cholayna could she travel on without rest.

Camilla’s
laran
seemed to be surfacing after all these years when she had attempted to block it, and suddenly, with a pang of dreadful loneliness, Magda thought,
I wish Damon were here. He could show me what to do for Camilla
. It was too heavy a burden to bear alone.

Yet Damon was far away in the Kilghard Hills, and for some reason or other she seemed barred from the familiar access to the Forbidden Tower by way of the Overworld. She had tried, and she knew, deep in her bones, that to try again would bring down upon them the renewed attack of…
hawks
?

Damon could even handle that. He is our Keeper.

And then she remembered something Damon had said;
any halfway competent technician can, in necessity, do the work of a Keeper
. Anything she felt she must call upon Damon to do, she could handle for herself. And now she must.

“You must sleep, Camilla. What would you tell me in such case? I am afraid too,
bredhiya
,” she added, using the term of endearment deliberately, a way of saying,
trust me
. “All the same, you must sleep. Jaelle and I will ward this room and guard it so that no sorceress or evil influence can come in here, even in dreams. Shaya, help me.”

Deliberately, she unwrapped her matrix, watching Camilla’s face; the older woman’s eyes followed the matrix, looked away.

“Do not try to look into the matrix, you are not trained to it. It will make you ill,” she said. “That time will come. For now, don’t try—”

“I? A matrix? The Goddess forbid—”

“As long as it is the Goddess who forbids and not your own fear, Kima.” Again, deliberately, she used the nickname she had never before spoken in the presence of a third party. “What if it is the Goddess leading you to this? Trust me; I know what I am doing. But turn away your eyes from the matrix for now.” She edged her tones gently with what they called
command-voice
and Camilla, obedient and startled by her own obedience, looked away.

“Jaelle—?”

Together they matched resonances until they were working in unison. For an instant the rapport flared, burned between them, a closeness, an intimacy beyond speech or sex, indescribable.

If Camilla could only share this…

Neither of them was sure which mind originated the thought, or which answered, regretfully:

No. She’s not ready. Not yet.

As their matrixes flared into resonance, there was a moment of blue fire in the room. Camilla jerked up her head, startled, but it was so brief, Magda knew, already Camilla was wondering if she had really seen it at all.

If the hawks are awaiting any movement out of this room
—
then the true Sisterhood must also be watching over us. They will help us to seal the room
…

They cannot interfere. But we have that power…

Jaelle’s touch was like a hand clasped in hers, a hand that gripped an Amazon knife that glowed with blue fire. Although Magda knew that she did not move from where she knelt by the fire, her matrix between her fingers, somehow she was walking beside Jaelle, circling the room, a line of blue-white fire trailing them in the wake of the knife. She closed the circle; together, they raised their joined hands in an arch (although they never moved) and between their hands a web of pallid fire ran back and forth.

The old woman was there, with her yelping laughter. So, so, so, you think you can keep me out, silly girls!

Mother, not you. But our friends must rest and shall not be pecked by hawks while they sleep.

Blue fire flamed from the matrixes, weaving like a fiery shuttle, until the room was enclosed in a shimmering dome. Magda ran her consciousness round and round, seeking any chink in their protection. For an instant Aquilara’s face was there, menacing, terrible as Magda had seen it for an instant through her pretended good nature and scorn, flaming with rage.

So she is warned, she knows that we know she is not what she seems…

Did you really think we could do this kind of work without warning her?

The hawk was there… it was diving for her eyes
… Magda instinctively thrust her matrix toward it, interposing a shield of fire. The hawk’s feathers burst into flame and Magda recoiled from the heat, from the sudden terrible screaming; she felt her fingers go limp and her matrix drop from her hand. Fire and a smell of burning…
feathers
? … flamed in the room; then her matrix was in her hand… had she ever loosed it at all, or was that an illusion?

The fire in the grate had burned to an even bed of coals. The room was silent and peaceful, void of magic, just a quiet room where five weary women could sleep. A few dishes from their supper were still on the table at the center; Jaelle went to the table, brought back a slice of bread, speared it on the end of her knife and held it companionably over the blazing fire. While it toasted, Camilla fetched the last bottle of wine and they shared it, passing it from mouth to mouth.

All Jaelle said was, “Did you see the old woman?”

“I was afraid of her the first time. Now I know she will not harm us,” Magda said, swallowing her share of the wine. For the first time she had no hesitation. Now they were safe. Jaelle split the toasted bread into halves, passed the second to Magda, and they munched in silence. At Camilla’s questioning look, Jaelle said, “Food closes down the psychic centers. Are you hungry?”

“For some reason, yes, though I thought I had eaten so much at that fine supper that I would not be hungry for days,” Camilla said. She bit into a piece of fruit then flung the core into the fire. For an instant Magda smelled a whisper of burning feathers; then only the fruity smell of the burning apple core.

They slept without dreams.

Magda was wakened by the sound of coughing; deep, heavy, racking coughs, that shook Cholayna’s slender body as if by some external force. Vanessa was already at her side with the medikit, checking her, but Cholayna broke away and hurried into the latrine next door, where they could hear her vomiting.

“Bad,” Vanessa said briefly. “What’s the altitude of this city?”

“Jaelle has the maps. She can tell you; I don’t know offhand.” Magda understood without being told. Maybe one in forty or fifty people suffered severely at high altitudes. About half of these, given rest and time to acclimate slowly to the new altitudes, got better. Some few developed pulmonary edema, pneumonia, or even cerebral hemorrhaging if they went higher. There was no way to tell how Cholayna would react, except to wait.

Camilla, waking, heard and said, “She has the mountain sickness. I will go and see if in Arlinda’s kitchen they have blackthorn tea. If not, almost any tea or fluid will do, but she must drink as much as she can.”

“Stop worrying,” said Cholayna, appearing in the door. “That dinner last night was too rich for me after days and days of travel rations, that is all.”

“Nevertheless,” said Vanessa, “you have shown all the symptoms, coughing, queasiness and vomiting. Unless there has been a miracle and you are pregnant at your age, you have a well-developed case of altitude sickness; believe me, Cholayna, that is nothing to take lightly.”

Cholayna’s eyes were sunk deep in her head. She tried to smile and couldn’t manage it.

“I’ve done it again, haven’t I? Delayed you, been the weakest link in the chain—”

“We took all this into account when we agreed to let you come,” said Camilla brusquely. “But you must rest today, and your body may adapt itself to the thin air here. I will go and fetch tea, and not forget to tip the kitchen women, which may serve more than one purpose.”

Magda had not thought about that. Perhaps Rafaella had spoken with one of the kitchen workers; if Lexie had been suffering from frostbite they would have needed medicines and special hot drinks for her.

Raising her eyes, she crossed glances with Jaelle, who said, “I am going out to the stable. Now that I think of it, one of the ponies looks a bit lame on one side. I will find the woman who helped Rafaella and give her the tip I am sure my partner would have wanted her to have, if she had not been in so great a hurry when she left.”

That was an errand only Jaelle could do, and it was best left to her. Camilla went off to the kitchen, and when Jaelle had dressed and gone, Magda persuaded Cholayna to get back into her sleeping bag and rest.

Camilla came back with a steaming kettle and half a dozen little packets of herbs stowed about her person.

“They told us that breakfast would be coming along in a few minutes,” she said, “and I smelled a nutcake baking. One of them told me that they had baked one for our Guild-sisters when they lodged here.” She poured boiling water over the herbs.

“This is blackroot; it is a stimulant to the heart and will also make red blood; it will help you acclimate to the mountains,” she said, kneeling beside Cholayna. “Drink it now and rest. Perhaps by tomorrow your body will be accustomed to the heights here and you can go on with us.”

Cholayna drank the bitter tea without protest, only wrinkling up her nose a little at the taste. She asked weakly, “And if I do not?”

“Then we will wait until you are able to travel,” Magda said promptly. The excuse that one of their companions was too ill to travel would at least ward off any insistence by Aquilara or any of her cohorts that they should immediately follow the sorceress.

Any further discussion was cut short by the arrival of their breakfast, on several trays which took two girls to carry. Magda tipped the women generously, and sat down to the array of hot fresh bread, scones and nutcakes, plenty of butter, honey and apple nut conserves, boiled eggs and fragrant mushroom sausages. Vanessa and Camilla ate heartily; but Cholayna was too queasy to eat anything. Magda persuaded her to swallow a little bread and honey with her tea, but it was no use coaxing Cholayna to eat the unfamiliar food; she probably could not keep it down anyhow.

Jaelle did not return. No doubt she had decided to breakfast with the apprentices in the stable, to try to find out what they knew. The women who cleared away the breakfast trays were soon succeeded by women bringing back their clean laundry. Camilla went away with them, invited to visit the glove-maker’s shops. Magda settled down to mend socks; she liked sewing no better than ever, but she liked wearing socks with holes in them, especially in this climate, even less. Vanessa followed suit, and the women sat quietly mending their clothes.

Cholayna, propped up on her pillows, was writing in her little book. The fire crackled cheerfully on the hearth; the women had brought what looked like an endless supply of firewood. It was peaceful in the room; Magda felt that her nightmares had been no more than that.

But Cholayna’s heavy coughing broke the peace of the room. What would Jaelle find out? What would happen if Aquilara summoned them before Cholayna was able to travel? She made some more of the special tea for Cholayna and urged her to drink as much as she could.

“Cholayna, if you are not better in a day or two, it may mean that you are one of the people who simply cannot acclimate properly to the mountains. Now that we know where Lexie and Rafaella are, would you trust me to go on in your place, and let Vanessa take you back to Thendara? You would not have to cross the passes, except Scaravel; you could go by the Great North Road, which is well-marked and well-traveled all the way. I do not want your illness on my conscience—”

“There is no question of that, Magda. I chose to come, no one compelled me, and you are in no way responsible.”

“All the same,” Vanessa chimed in, “altitude sickness is serious. Tell me, have you any blurring of vision?”

“No, no, nothing of the sort,” Cholayna said impatiently. “I am tired and the food is not agreeing with me very well. A day’s rest will put me right.”

“I certainly hope so,” Magda said, “but if not, your only recourse is to go down to a lower level; you will not recover while you stay in Nevarsin. And beyond Nevarsin it is worse, much worse. Couldn’t you trust me to do what I can for Lexie?”

Cholayna reached out her hand and touched Magda’s. It was a gesture of real affection. “It is not a question of trust, Magda. How long have we known each other? But I trained Alexis, too. I cannot—no, I
will
not abandon her now. You of all people should understand that.” She smiled at Magda’s look of frustration.

“Let’s wait and see. Tomorrow I may be able to travel. I know that some people acclimate more slowly than others. I’m not as fast as Vanessa, that’s all.”

“But if you don’t? At least promise me that you’ll agree to go back then,” Vanessa said.

“If I do not, then we will decide that then. I make no promises, Vanessa. You are not yet my superior—”

“If I certify you unfit for duty—”

“Leave it, Vanessa,” Cholayna said gently. “None of us are here on the same terms as we were in the HQ. I take your advice as mountain expert and I will do whatever you say to try and make up for my slowness in acclimation. Even to drinking that nauseating old-wives remedy Camilla brought me.”

“It contains something analogous to—” Vanessa mentioned a Terran drug with which Magda was not familiar—“and they have been using it in these mountains for centuries for just such cases of altitude sickness. Don’t be narrow-minded.”

“It’s not narrow-minded to say I would prefer a couple of capsules of something familiar, rather than this horrid brew.” Nevertheless Cholayna swallowed the tea Vanessa handed her, grimacing. “I am doing my best. You were born in these mountains, Magda; and you, Vanessa, have been climbing since you were in your teens. Give me time.”

“You’re a stubborn old bitch,” Vanessa grumbled, and Cholayna smiled at her. She said, with equal affection, “And you are a disrespectful brat.”