Storm Rising (22 page)

An’desha patted his shoulder and looked down at him with speculation, as if there were a number of ideas going around inside his head and he was just weighing them all to determine which one might be the best. “Sorry, my friend,” he apologized, then took a closer look at him. “You look like you’ve been dragged at the heels of a horse across the Dhorisha Plains,” he said, with a frown. “Herald Talia, please have a real Healer attend us as soon as we get to the
ekele
, would you?”

Karal stared in surprise; that didn’t sound like the diffident young Shin’a’in he knew. That sounded more like someone who took it as given that he was Talia’s equal.

She nodded just as if she accepted his status, too, and slipped out the door before Karal had a chance to object. “You stay here with Natoli; I think I can manage to pack for you,” the young Shin’a’in continued sternly. “Anything I forget, you can borrow from me. If
I
have anything to say about it, you won’t need anything but a bedshirt for two or three days anyway.”

As An’desha disappeared into his bedchamber before he could object to
that
, Karal looked at Natoli with a face full of woe.

“Don’t I get
any
choice in any of this?” he asked. He got no sympathy from her.

“No,” she said flatly. “You don’t. You’ve done your best, and you’ve gotten into a mess you can’t do anything about. You’re tired to death, you’re sick with strain, and your judgment is not good right now. We’re going to take over and let you rest, so you might as well relax and enjoy it.”

Be careful what you ask for
, he thought, as the memory of his earlier wishes flashed into his mind.
You might get it
.

An’desha and Natoli took Karal and his bag across Companion’s Field, trailed anxiously by every Companion there. Florian led the parade, which under other circumstances might have been hilariously funny. A hard frost was forming; the stiff blades of grass crackled underfoot, and their breath hung in frosty clouds in the still, cold air. Behind them followed dozens more “clouds,” the silent, white forms of the Companions. They weren’t being herded; An’desha would have recognized that behavior. They were worried about Karal, and although he was no Empath, their concern was strong enough it made itself palpable even to him.

The Healer was waiting for them just inside when they reached the
ekele
, her eyes closed as she breathed in the faint, sweet perfume of some of Firesong’s
night-blooming flowers. “Thank you for letting me come here. I know this is just a more sophisticated version of a forcing-house,” she said to An’desha as they entered through Firesong’s clever double door that kept cold drafts out. “But this place always seems the epitome of
magic
to me.”

“You could build one of these yourself, with one of our steam boilers and pipes to send hot water through the room to heat it,” Natoli told her matter-of-factly.

“You could
not
have plants this large and healthy in a matter of weeks without the magic, however,” An’desha countered firmly, standing up for
his
discipline. “Here is your patient, lady Healer—” He pushed Karal to the front, as his friend seemed inclined to lag back, trying to avoid attention.

The Healer took Karal’s wrist, put her free hand under his chin so that he could not look away from her eyes, and frowned as she stared into his face. “One would think you were a much older man—or a Herald—the way you have abused yourself. Come, child,” she continued, although Karal was not a great deal younger than she. “I think you should be put straight to bed.”

“I am very glad to hear you say that,” An’desha told her, relieved. “Follow me, please.”

Before long, Karal was indeed in bed, dosed with several potions from the Healer’s bag, and blinking sleepily. An’desha had his instructions and a line of bottles of more of the same stuff with which to ensure that Karal remained in his bed and permitted his poor abused insides to heal. The Healer, who never had given her name, also left a list of what Karal was and was not permitted to eat.

“We can’t do this for long,” the Healer said warningly to both An’desha and Natoli. “These herbs in this row are powerful and dangerous, and they shouldn’t be used for more than a week. However, I do not think that he will need to be forced to rest for more than a few days. After that, these other potions, these brews, and good, soothing foods should effect the rest of the cure.”

“Provided we can keep Jarim from turning all our work into nothing,” Natoli muttered. The Healer looked at her without comprehension.

“Never mind, she’s just thinking out loud,” An’desha told the Healer. “Thank you, we’re very grateful.”

“Well,
I’m
grateful that Herald Talia caught him before he had a real bleeding stomach,” the Healer said cheerfully. “That’s ten times harder to cure. Good night to you!”

After the young woman had gone off into the night, Natoli turned to An’desha with discontent written all over her intelligent face. “All my life I’ve heard about how the Healers can cure almost anything that’s not congenital,” she said. “I’ve heard how they can piece shattered bone together, how they can make wounds close before your very eyes!”

“So?” An’desha asked, heading back toward the stairs and the living area of the
ekele
.

“So why didn’t she
do
something?” Natoli demanded as she followed. “All she did was look at him, put him to bed, make him drink a couple of messes of leaves, and that was it! He’s been looking like grim death for days, and he doesn’t look much better now, so why didn’t she wave her hands around or whatever it is they do and make him well without all this resting and drinking teas?”

An’desha paused on the staircase and looked down at her, trying to think of an analogy for her. “Would you build one of your big steam engines just to convey a few pots of tea to the Grand Council Chamber all day?”

“No, of course not; that’s what pages are for,” she replied impatiently. “What does that have to do with Healing?”

“There is no point in this Healer using a great deal of energy—energy that comes from
within
her by the way—just to perform a task that her herbs and minerals will accomplish, particularly not when Karal’s life is not in any danger.” He raised an eyebrow and Natoli flushed; he figured he might as well not bother to point
out that Talia could well have asked for an Herbalist-Healer rather than one who relied completely on her powers. “She is simply using her resources logically. You would scarcely thank her for exhausting herself over Karal if—oh, say later tonight the Rose were to burn down and she would be unable to help some of your friends who were burned, because she had no energy left. It’s a matter of proper use of resources, my friend, and not any slight intended toward Karal.” He looked back over Natoli’s head, into the darkness beyond the garden windows, and smiled. “Of all of the many kinds of people who may have been deceived by Jarim’s foolish accusations, you may rely on it that no Healer picked by Lady Talia will be one of them.”

He looked back down at Natoli, who grimaced. “I suppose I’m jumping at shadows,” she said reluctantly. “And I keep forgetting that Healers are supposed to work differently than you mages.”

“Not quite; you are used to seeing the Masters and Adepts at work,” An’desha interrupted, as he resumed his climb, with Natoli just behind him. “Journeymen and Apprentices—and what are called ‘hedge-wizards’ and ‘earth-witches’—also rely entirely on their own reserves of energy, unless they are extremely sensitive to the currents of energy about them. Even then, they cannot use either the great ley-lines or the nodes where the lines meet. Only Masters can use the former, and Adepts can use both. But there are many, many mages who do their work very effectively with no more power than what lies within them.”

Natoli shook her head in frustration; An’desha turned to face her again as she stepped up into the gathering room of the
ekele
. “It all obeys rules,” he chided her. “It is all perfectly logical. Do not be the equivalent of a Firesong, who refuses to believe that the energies of magic cannot obey rules and logic. It is no more illogical to say that one must be born with the ability to become an Adept than it is to say that one must be born with the ability to become a sculptor or an artificer.”

“That isn’t logical either,” Natoli replied with irritation. “All people should be born equal.”

He laughed at her. “Now it is
you
who are being illogical, assuming that because the natural world does not follow what you perceive to be the regular pacings of the world of numbers, the natural world should be discarded!”

She didn’t reply, but he heard her muttering under her breath, and it was probably not very complimentary. He didn’t mind; in fact, he rather enjoyed teasing Natoli, who he felt was far too serious for her own good.

Not unlike myself, in some ways
. He ignored the mutters and went back to the room that had once been “his,” which had been Karal’s temporary refuge once before.

Karal was still awake, but even to An’desha’s inexperienced eyes he was fighting a losing battle against the potions the Healer had given him. “You should sleep,” An’desha said, sitting down beside the Shin’a’in-style pallet that lay on the floor. Natoli knelt next to him.

“I ‘spose I should.” Karal yawned hugely, and blinked. “Funny. I
wanted
to get sick, ‘cause then I could just—stay in bed—and—”

“Well, you
are
sick and you
will
stay in bed and do what you’re told,” Natoli said severely. “There is no point in trying to fight it.”

He smiled, a smile of unexpected, childlike sweetness. “I won’t,” he replied. “Just wanted to say—thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” An’desha told him, as Natoli patted his hand. “Now sleep.”

To prevent any more attempts at conversation, he extinguished the lamp with a thought, and got up, leaving Karal and Natoli alone in the faint light coming from the lamp in the hall.

He went down to the garden again, leaving her to find her own way out. She and Karal had not had much privacy to be together for the past several weeks, and he thought it was about time that they had a chance for a word or two before Karal couldn’t fight the drugs anymore.

I’ll give them a better chance later
, he promised himself.

As for him—he had some ideas that might be helpful, but he also needed some privacy to put them to the test. The primary one was that he should try something he had not attempted since Falconsbane leaped from his body as it lay dying.

He waited, watching the fountain, until Natoli descended the staircase again, wrapped in her cloak. She didn’t notice him, and he didn’t interrupt her introspection as she let herself out quietly. Then he let the falling water lull him until he was in that half-aware state in which it was easy to slip into a trance.

Then he sought the Moonpaths.

He was not certain he would be permitted to find them; after all, the Moonpaths were to be walked by shaman, Sword-Sworn and Goddess-Sworn, not for just anyone. The Avatars had taught him how to reach them so that he would have a safe place to meet them where he could talk with them while Falconsbane slept. But now he sent his spirit
out
, and
up
, in that familiar twisting of reality—

And he was there, standing on a path of silver sand, surrounded by a gray mist that glowed with its own pearly light.

I did it!
He savored his elation; he was never certain when the Avatars would show themselves anymore, and it seemed best that if he
could
go to them, he should, rather than waiting for them to come to him. Their relationship with him had changed since he had come to Valdemar; when they answered his questions at all, it was obliquely. Rather than giving him answers or teaching him directly now, they gave him the briefest of guidance, leading him to find his own answers to his questions.

Then again, his questions were more difficult to answer, and the answers were of necessity more subjective than objective. In many ways, he was now determining what he wanted to make of himself and his life by the answers he uncovered.

I am learning what I am by determining what Falconsbane
was in all of his lives, and determining why he did what he did and why he thought what he thought, then deliberately taking the opposite direction
.

Well, that was grand philosophy, but at the moment he had need of some of those other answers, the simple ones. He hoped that the Avatars, particularly Tre’valen, could help him. After all, the real problem lay with Jarim, a Shin’a’in—and weren’t they both the Avatars of the Star-Eyed? If Jarim got a visit from Tre’valen in all his glory, and was told in no uncertain terms that he was mistaken entirely about Karal, wouldn’t that solve the entire problem right then and there?

That was his hope, anyway.

He sent his thoughts questing out into the mist, hunting for his teachers and guides; it was not possible to reckon the exact passage of time in that timeless place, but it was not too long before he was answered.

The mist above the path shimmered in a double column of light; then, with a shiver, solidified into two figures. One was male, the other female; the male of the two was clearly Shin’a’in, but the female was not. Her clothing and her hair, a long waterfall of silver, marked her as a Hawkbrother, Tayledras—or in Shin’a’in, Tale’edras—as were Firesong and Darkwind. Although they looked wholly human, there was a suggestion of great wings, wings of flame, in the air behind them. They, too, glowed with their own inner light, and their eyes, as they gazed smiling upon An’desha, had neither whites nor pupils. Instead, they were the dark of a night full of stars, and in the black depths shone tiny sparks of light.

When Shin’a’in called their Goddess of Four Aspects the Star-Eyed, this was what they meant, for She and all of Her spirit-servants and Avatars had eyes like this. It was a sure way to know them, and was impossible to counterfeit—so An’desha had been told.

“Well, little brother.” Tre’valen crossed his arms in a curiously human gesture and looked upon his pupil with approval. “You have not forgotten your lessons.”