The Thirteenth Scroll (48 page)

In the silences of the convent, Selia’s habit of silence had been received as the assumption of true vocation. But she had
known herself for a coward who sought the life of a Religious as an escape from the world.

She still felt like a coward as she walked beside Lysandra—the blind woman who had risked everything and traveled the length
of a kingdom to find her. For her sake, for the sake of all those who believed in her though they did not know her and now
had fought to keep her safe, she would try to be something greater than she had ever thought herself to be.

The scene when they entered the cavern was far more terrible than Selia had imagined. Although Lysandra had
told her what her
Sight
revealed, the descriptions did not prepare Selia for the agony that was reality.

The smell of blood and death was everywhere, filling her lungs with each breath. The whimpers of the dying, the cries of the
wounded, filled her with a pity that made bile gush up in the back of her throat. She turned and spewed the contents of her
stomach on the cavern floor.

Shaking slightly, she followed Renan and Lysandra to the center of the cavern floor, where Giraldus, Aurya, and the remaining
soldier stood bound amid the assembled Cryf. Healers were moving amidst the bodies of the fallen, closing the eyes of the
dead and ministering to the living.

The Cryf parted to let Selia and the others through. Lysandra gave a cry, then hurried over to the body of Eiddig, the old
Guide who had greeted her arrival with such joy. Remembering his solemn touch upon her forehead, the expression in his ancient
eyes that went far beyond welcome to the wonder and elation of faith fulfilled, Selia felt anger rising within her, filling
her the same way that nausea had just moments before.

She turned on Giraldus and Aurya. Truth—the first of her gifts and the grounding of her Wisdom—revealed them to her in all
their greed and ambition. She saw the blackness of their hearts and of their intentions.

The light of her Truth touched it all. She understood, finally, what Lysandra had meant when she said to trust the Wisdom.
With the first absolute certainty of her life, she spoke.

“You had best pray that the old one lives,” she told the prisoners. “
You
have brought this destruction here and if he dies, you die.”

“And who are you,” Aurya snarled when the others remained quiet, “to think to pass judgment on
me
?”

Selia drew herself up, looking into the eyes of this woman who had sought a child she could use and control.

“
I
am the Font of Wisdom,” Selia said. In that single moment of true acceptance, clarity descended and embraced her, and she
truly became what she had finally declared herself to be.

L
ysandra had Eiddig carried to his chamber. The Cryf Healers rushed to have everything waiting for her. They settled their
Guide on his sleeping shelf and stepped back to let Lysandra work. She found the audience disconcerting, but as she knelt
by Eiddig’s side, it was the fear of failure that momentarily overwhelmed her. This was not like setting an animal’s bone
or soothing the cough of a crofter’s winter cold.

Eiddig’s wound had been temporarily staunched. Before Lysandra removed the dressing, she turned to the array of medicines
on the table next to her. Using her senses of touch, smell, and taste, she began to arrange everything the way she needed.
She feared the wound would bleed again once she removed the dressing. She did not want to chance the old one becoming too
weak
from loss of blood to recover because she had to grope around to find the right herb.

Finally satisfied, she was ready to set to work. But first she laid her hand on top of Eiddig’s, which was gnarled and twisted
with age and reminded Lysandra of some of the trees they had seen in Rathreagh. But though Eiddig’s hands might appear misshapen,
to Lysandra they were beautiful, for they were hands that had been used in faithful service. Remembering the gentle touch
of his palm on her forehead, Lysandra silently promised both herself and Eiddig that she would try to live her life and use
her hands only in the same way.

Drawing a deep breath, Lysandra carefully lifted the dressing away from Eiddig’s wound, trying not to cause him any more pain
than she must. Mercifully, the old one had lost consciousness before he was moved, but even so he moaned slightly as Lysandra
gently examined the inside of the wound with her fingers and her
Sight
.

Aurya’s dagger had missed his heart, nor had the blade cut any of the main blood vessels leading into or away from that central
organ. Lysandra considered that to be nothing short of miraculous. But the wound was serious,
mortally
serious if Lysandra could not stop the blood now oozing from the secondary veins. If it continued, it would fill his chest
cavity until his heart could not beat and his lungs could not expand with breath.

She took only a few seconds for her examination. Her hands shook slightly as she reached for the first of the medicines she
had laid within reach. Although all living creatures shared some things in common, there were also differences in treating
their ills. Praying that she had made the right choices and that she could work quickly enough, she washed the wound with
a strong infusion of agrimony, burdock, and juniper—the best herbs to clean a wound of
the dangerous humors that could bring infection. Then, into a decoction of shepherd’s purse, she added finely ground milfoil
and mountain daisy, herbs that stopped bleeding.

Eiddig moaned again as Lysandra applied this mixture as deeply into the wound as she could. Then she reached for the one thing
that had come from her own possessions rather than the Cryf’s stores. It was a small folded wallet of carefully collected
and preserved spider’s silk. This was Eiddig’s best chance. The adhesive properties of the spider’s silk would bind the bleeding
edges, filling in the wound and slowly dissolving as healthy tissue grew again.

Once that was done, Lysandra quickly slathered a salve of purple coneflower onto the outer area of the wound, to fight both
the pain and the possibility of putrefaction. Only then did she apply an outer dressing. It, too, was made from Cryf supplies.
The inner layer was of that wondrous soft material she had never before encountered, the same material that covered their
beds and turned hard stone shelves into nests of comfort. It was then bound in place with strips of sturdy, tightly woven
cloth that Lysandra was certain would not shift or stretch.

There
, she thought as she sat back,
I have done all that I can
.

But she knew that was not yet—not quite—true. There was one more thing she could try although, briefly, her mind recoiled
from the thought. She told herself that the Cryf probably had medicines within their stores, white willow bark or pain-in-poppy,
that would help ease pain; as a healer, Lysandra knew that pain could be friend, warning a body of danger or forcing the stillness
necessary for healing to occur. But pain itself, especially in the aged, could also be an enemy. If severe or prolonged enough,
it could weaken the body’s reserves and prevent healing.

Would the Cryf medicines be enough for Eiddig? Of that she was not so sure. She knew so little about the Cryf—and she had
never before encountered a being as old as Eiddig. The Cryf Guide was one hundred forty years, by his own reckoning, and even
if the work she had just done healed the flesh, the prolonged pain of the injury might well be enough to kill the old one.
She knew she had to try to do for Eiddig what she had done for Talog the first time he saw the sun; she had to try to take
the old one’s pain.

It was not easy to make herself so vulnerable. But, she asked herself, how could she not do this for Eiddig when he and his
people had risked their lives to protect her and Selia? And how could she ask Selia to give herself, her gifts, to save the
kingdom if she was not willing to do the same to save one being?

Lysandra laid her hands once more on Eiddig’s chest, covering his wound gently. Once more fear coursed through her. What if
she had failed? What if she found that all her efforts had come to naught and Eiddig was dying beneath her hands? How could
she live with that knowledge?

It is better not to know
, her fear whispered.
Turn away now. You’ve done enough
.

But of all the truths she had learned by this journey, the greatest was that
fear
was the ultimate enemy;
fear
was the enemy of life, of growth, of hope. It must be fought at every turn—and the greatest weapons against fear, the only
weapons, were faith… and love.

Fear would not hold her captive again.

Slowly, Lysandra reached out with her
Sight
. Second by second, she deepened her focus upon him; layer by layer, she let her mind open, dropping the guarded veils that
separated them. The fingers of her mind reached out
to touch each nerve, each vein, each particle of injured flesh and wrap them with the energy of her healer’s touch, the way
the outer flesh was now bathed in healing herbs.

As she worked, she prepared herself for the flow of pain that would travel back from Eiddig into her. She had braced herself
now and was ready for it, willing to feel whatever she must for the old one’s sake. She could
see
the red and throbbing aura of pain beneath her mental fingers—but, seconds turned to minutes and still the pain did not come.

Instead, all through her mind, down her arm, and out the fingers of her hand that rested so lightly atop his bandaged wound,
Lysandra felt a radiant warmth begin. It tingled with health and life. Slowly, it began to glow—golden at its heart, slowly
shading to purest white. Then she
saw
the Light pouring into her, though its source was far beyond anything her
Sight
could touch. It grew stronger, brighter, and she
saw
it filling her, channeling down through her into Eiddig’s torn body.

She was filled with an emotion that went far beyond wonder, far beyond awe. She felt she could bask in this golden white Light
forever.

But that, it would not allow. It urged her to a thought that, like the Light, came from something outside herself, bringing
a possibility she would never before have dared to consider. It compelled her to deepen her touch still more, to open her
mind, her heart—her soul—to the gift the Light was still waiting to impart.

She did not act at once, but explored the thought hesitantly. How could she dare? Yet in that same instant she knew she had
to try. Drawing a deep breath, she let it out slowly. Once more, she drew air in, held it—and let go of that last guard behind
which she held herself. As the breath slowly left her body, she opened her innermost
mind and heart to the Light, to become the instrument of whatever it chose.

The Light pouring through her hands grew brighter, almost too bright for her
Sight
to look upon, and yet neither could she look away. Her thoughts reached out and touched the piercing depth of Eiddig’s wound.

Still urged and guided by this great and unknown force, Lysandra dared to picture true healing taking place. As her mind conjured
forth the picture, her
Sight
looked upon the reality. Beneath her hand and within her
Sight
, she watched in awe as Eiddig’s body responded.

With the speed of her thoughts, the brilliant Light went where she directed, touched and surrounded, filled and permeated
Eiddig’s wound. Lysandra
saw
and felt, used, and was used by, the Light until the oozing of blood completely stopped, until severed blood vessels were
made whole, throbbing nerves soothed and rejoined, tissue drew together, healed.

Slowly, the warmth in her arms and hands began to fade. The Light dimmed. It did not leave her, but rather seemed to grow
smaller and smaller, contracting into a tiny seed no bigger than a grain of sand. Just as the Light had begun at a place far
beyond where her
Sight
could reach, so now it entered and planted itself as a seed within her soul.

Humbled and amazed, she could hardly think what this might mean. Would this new and wondrous occurrence ever happen again,
or was it a gift granted for the sake of Eiddig and the Cryf? Did she dare to hope… to
believe
… that it might be part of what she had felt awaken within her at the moment when Wisdom and Prophecy had touched?

Then, like a silent benediction, the Light that was now
within her whispered again. The Truth enfolded her in preternatural arms, and she knew.

Eiddig was healed—and finally, after ten years of grief and guilt and silent sorrow, so was she.

She lifted her hands from the old one’s chest. A wave of fatigue washed through her, reminding her that no Gift comes without
a cost. But even as it closed in with sudden, nearly crushing severity, she knew that no price was too great to pay to be
able to truly
heal
.

As she worked, Lysandra had forgotten about the others in the chamber. As she fell back on her heels, her arms limp at her
sides now, the healers came forward in a rush to aid her. She was grateful for the strong hands beneath her elbows, helping
her to stand again, then keeping her from falling as yet another wave of weariness overwhelmed her.

What had they seen? she wondered. Had the Light and warmth, so much a part of the inner
Sight
of her experience, been visible outside her body?

If it was, the other healers said nothing. Through their silence, Lysandra could feel their anxiety.

“Eiddig-Sant will be well,” she assured them. “All he needs now is sleep.”

They began to speak quickly to one another in their own language. Then the one who appeared to be their leader stepped forward.
She was an older female whose reddish brown hair bore two long streaks of white that began at her temples and ran all the
way past her waist.