The Heart of the Sands, Book 3 of The Gods Within (13 page)

Chapter 10: Ancient Lessons
Remembered

NickoLot had learned long ago that her small stature
encouraged others to think of her as just a little girl, even though she was
now a woman of marriageable age. If she wanted anyone to take her seriously
about DaNoel, she would have to produce hard evidence. Otherwise, she’d
be
just a little girl
having a spat with her
brother. And too, she was not about to hurt AnnaRail—her own
mother—by accusing her son of treason until she had fully
convinced herself of his guilt.

She decided to start with the guard in the tower where
they’d held the Decouix. She’d seen nothing truly
incriminating the day Valso had escaped, just the guilt that flashed across
DaNoel’s face in the instant she’d surprised him
crouching over the dead guard’s body. And he’d been
more concerned to point out that she had no proof, rather than denying any
guilt, which bothered her no end.

After some careful inquiry, she learned that the guard’s
mother worked as an assistant cook in the castle. NickoLot found her in the
kitchens during the brief period between lunch cleanup and dinner preparation.

“Yes, milady,” she said in
response to NickoLot’s inquiry. “He was me son. A
brawny good lad too.”

“Do you still have any of his clothing?”

“Aye, milady. Me younger son wears it all the
time.”

NickoLot frowned. “Do you have anything of
his that no one else has worn?”

The woman frowned. “Might be.”

The women led her to a room she shared with two other
assistant cooks, and three scullery maids. She opened a chest at the end of her
bed, likely filled with all the belongings she had in the world. She dug
through it, then pulled out a man’s tunic. “I haven’t
altered this yet to fit the younger one, been saving it for when he grows into
it.”

NickoLot examined the tunic carefully, came up with a
couple of reddish-blond, curly hairs. “What was your son’s
hair like?” she asked.

“Light red,” the woman said. “And
curly. Beautiful curls me boy had.” She wiped another tear from
her eye.

It took the rest of the afternoon to prepare the spell she
had in mind; a charm to recall a person’s memories for seven times
seven heartbeats before the moment of death. It was a complex weaving, in which
she had to tie power into the two hairs. To trigger the spell she borrowed a
bit of spittle from the old woman, a blood relative, though she lied about the
reason for wanting it.

She stopped just within the entrance to the tower where
they’d imprisoned the Decouix. The room at the base of the stairs
was little more than a small alcove, and she pictured again in her mind’s
eye the tableau of the guard lying on his back, his blood-soaked tunic, the
blood pooling on the stone floor around him, DaNoel crouching over him. From
the position of his feet, it was clear where he’d been standing. If
DaNoel had murdered him—not if, when—his final
memories would be haunting the stone there. Though, since time would slowly
disperse them, she chided herself for having waited so long to do this.

She approached the spot cautiously, careful not to draw
any power and contaminate the memories. She’d have only one
chance, for once she triggered the spell, the memories would dissipate.

She stood where the guard must have stood, her back to the
wall. Then she retrieved the charm, a small silver pentagram with the guard’s
hairs woven among the five points of the star. From her sleeve, she pulled the
handkerchief into which she’d had the guard’s mother
spit; she could still feel the moisture in it. She closed her eyes, pressed the
charm to her forehead and carefully rubbed the moist cloth across the
pentagram.

The spell triggered nicely, and she felt some psychic
remnant of the guard wash through her. She waited for his memories to fill her
mind, and she waited, and waited. She counted fifty heartbeats, and only then
realized there were no memories to be had. He must have been unconscious, or
enspelled, long before he died.

~~~

Rhianne and Braunye had just sat down to a meager dinner
when a harsh knock on the door startled them both. “Mistress
Syllith,” a male voice shouted. “It’s an
emergency.”

Rhianne stood, crossed the small hut, lifted the latch on
the door and opened it. Outside stood the innkeeper, and behind him stood two
men covered from head to toe in black soot. “There’s
been an accident at the mines,” he said. “A land
slide.”

A problem with the mines was a problem for everyone. “How
many injured?” she asked.

“We don’t know yet. A dozen or
more. Won’t know until they dig them out.” He hooked
a thumb over his shoulder. “We have three at the inn right now. We’re
setting up lamps so you got light to work. They’ll bring the rest
down as they find them.”

“Start boiling water,” she said.
“As much of it as you can. I’ll need lots of boiling
water. Braunye and I will gather our supplies and be there shortly.”

“Right you are, mistress,” Fat
John said. He nodded toward the two men behind him. “These men
will help you bring whatever you need.”

She turned to Braunye. “Bring everything.”

Rhianne and Braunye hurriedly gathered up all of their
herbs and potions. They handed most of it to the two miners, but Rhianne had
certain concoctions she’d augmented with powerful spell-castings. Those
she carried herself.

The three injured miners had been laid out on the floor of
the inn, two of them groaning and crying out in pain, one of them silent and
still. Rhianne quickly determined that the silent one had already died, while
another had a compound fracture of his lower right leg, and the third a crushed
hand. Both men continuously groaned and cried out in pain.

Rhianne had never treated crush-wounds before; helped
once, but never done it herself, wasn’t sure if she could do this.
But then Fat John took charge. “There’s more’n
one of us knows how to chop off a limb. We need you to keep them alive after.”
He glanced down at the two men and said, “That hand will have to
come off, and that leg too.”

Rhianne realized then that, in the past, with extremely
serious wounds, their only recourse had been to simply amputate. But they didn’t
have power and magic to aid them. “No,” she said
angrily. “The hand, maybe. But the leg, definitely not.”

Fat John frowned at her suspiciously, and considered her
for a long moment. Then he shrugged and said, “You’re
the healer.”

“Exactly,” she said.

They set up one of the tables as a place for her to
operate. She instructed Braunye and the innkeeper in how to prep the wounds,
then she and the innkeeper set the one man’s broken leg, though he
screamed with pain in the doing of it. She used one of her special potions to
clean the wound so it wouldn’t fester, then she went to work on
the hand.

She’d barely gotten started when they brought
more wounded in, and the night drifted slowly into a blurry haze of blood and
broken bones and torn tissue. She did manage to save the one fellow’s
leg, but not the other’s hand. In fact, she saved quite a few
limbs during that night and the following morning, limbs that, without her
present, would have been lost to the bone saw.

About noon, exhausted and almost falling asleep standing
up, she asked Braunye, “Who’s next?”

“That’s all, mistress,”
she said. “There ain’t no more.”

Rhianne staggered across the common room to a bench set in
one wall, plopped down onto it and took stock of herself. Her simple homespun
dress was a ruin of blood and bits of bone and flesh, her hair matted and sweat
soaked. She’d come quite a distance from being a princess of
Elhiyne.

Fat John handed her a clay cup of ale. She downed it
hungrily, and asked him, “Why were they working at night, in the
dark?”

“The whitefaces are coming,” he
said, as if that explained everything. And when he saw she didn’t
understand, he added, “We trade with them for their steel. One of
them whiteface blades—a full sword—that’ll
fetch them a half ton of coke and two stone of smelted soft iron or pig iron.”

Rhianne looked at the empty clay cup in her hand and
realized her mistake in drinking it as the alcohol hit her and added to her
weariness. “I’m going to rest for a moment,”
she said, and lay down on the bench, too weary to even bother cleaning up.

She must have fallen asleep, for a gruff voice awoke her. “This
her?”

She opened her eyes. Fat John and a miner, covered from
head to toe in black dust, stood over her. “Ya,” Fat
John said. “She’s the one done it.”

Done what?
she wondered.

The miner nodded, turned and walked away without another
word. She sat up and asked Fat John, “Who was that?”

He merely said, “Mine foreman,”
then he too turned and walked away.

Nothing more was said. She checked on the injured, applied
more potions to prevent festering, staggered back to her hut and fell asleep.

The next morning she wandered down to the stream, lowered
herself into the chill water still wearing the bloodied dress; both she and it
did need cleaning. She wrung what water she could out of the dress, wore the
damp thing as she walked back to her hut, but found a crowd of miners gathered
there. As she approached, the crowd parted and she found herself facing the
mine foreman. He looked at her disapprovingly, looked her up and down and said,
“You need a new dress. We’ll have to see to that too.”

As he growled orders at his men, Braunye came out of the
hut. “Mistress, come see.” She grabbed Rhianne by the
hand and tugged her into the hut. “Look,” she said,
pointing to a full coal bin. “They said we’ll never
have a cold night again. And look at this.” She spun and opened
their meager larder, and in it hung a full ham, and two wheels of cheese, and
vegetables and flour, and dried beans. That night she and Braunye ate a
wonderful dinner, the heartiest she’d had since coming to
Norlakton.

The next morning one of the miners delivered three new
dresses; one for Braunye, and two for Rhianne, homespun, but clean and fresh
and new.

~~~

Once in the forest the Benesh’ere relaxed a
bit. Fantose told Morgin, “Bloody Kulls got rotten forest skills. Every
now and then one or two try something, but most of them know not to, and them
that don’t end up dead real quick.”

Jack the Lesser asked Morgin, “Heard you
handled yourself pretty good?”

“Right he did,” Fantose said. “He
can smell them Kulls like no one I ever seen. Warned us in advance several
times—only a couple of heartbeats, but it made the difference. Killed
his share of Kulls, he did.”

Delaga added, “He took his share of hurt too.”

Jack wrinkled his nose and sniffed at Morgin. “You
didn’t let Delaga put any of that stink grease on you, did you?”

Morgin grimaced. “Just at first. And it does
work.”

Delaga said, “See, I told you.”

Jack shook his head. “I know it works, but it
stinks enough to drive away nether demons.”

Fantose added, “But it don’t
stink no worse than Delaga, so it don’t make no difference for
him.”

Jack took notice of a large bundle Fantose had slung over
his shoulder. “What you got there?”

“Hoods.”

“Kull hoods?”

Fantose nodded. “Yup.”

“You must have killed a lot of Kulls this
year.”

Fantose shook his head. “Nah, they ain’t
mine. They’re the Elhiyne’s.”

“Then why you carrying them?”

Fantose looked at Jack carefully. “Jerst—well,
Blesset actually—won’t let him collect hoods.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “But
he killed ’em, right?”

“Yah, he did.”

“Looks like he killed quite a few.”

“Yah, he did.”

“And Blesset still won’t let him
have them?”

“No, she won’t.”

Jack went silent and mulled that over for a bit. Morgin
noticed that several other warriors walking with them had gone silent as well,
and seemed to be considering what they’d just heard. Morgin broke
the uncomfortable silence by saying, “I shouldn’t have
insulted Jerst the way I did in your camp that night.”

Jack considered that for a moment, then nodded and said, “No,
you shouldn’t have.”

“I was wrong.”

“Yes, you were.”

“Any way I can make it up to Jerst and
Blesset, get them to forgive me?”

All three of them considered that for a moment, then shook
their heads in unison as Jack said, “Nah. Blesset is too cold-hard
mad for any forgiveness.”

“Then how do I get her to not kill me?”

Fantose said, “That’s an easy
one, man. She can’t kill you ’cause Jerst is going to
kill you first.”

“Well then how do I get him to not kill me?”

Again, the three whitefaces considered his question as
they traded glances among themselves. And again Jack answered, “Kill
him first, in fair combat.”

Morgin doubted there was any likelihood of that. “I
doubt I can.”

Jack threw a comradely arm about Morgin’s
shoulders and they began walking. “Ya, there ain’t
much chance of you winning any battle against him. And I was starting to like
you, too. Shame, ain’t it?”

They all agreed they were beginning to like Morgin, and it
was a real shame Jerst would soon kill him. A real shame.

~~~

Morgin moved silently through the forest, using Morddon’s
memories and reflexes to move with the stealth of a Benesh’ere. It
was the first opportunity he’d had to try the ancient warrior’s
forest lore, and it amazed even him that he moved so silently. He had thought
it would be difficult to translate those memories into this smaller, shorter
body of his, this non-Benesh’ere body. But, to his surprise, like
so many other of Morddon’s ancient skills, it came naturally,
almost instinctively.

He’d stepped away from the Benesh’ere
column and into the forest to relieve himself, and once alone had instinctively
shifted to the stealthy movements of a whiteface—when alone in the
forest, silence meant survival. He hadn’t even realized he was
doing it until he’d traveled some distance from the main body of
the Benesh’ere march. And he’d done it without
shadows. It occurred to him then that his shadow magic and the Benesh’ere
forest lore would be a powerful combination, and he wondered if the Benesh’ere
didn’t have a little magic of their own. Perhaps they weren’t
completely bereft of their magic, but retained something subtle that allowed
them to move with such silence.