The Oracle's Queen (66 page)

Look closer
, Lhel whispered.
Look at her heart, and yours
.

Squinting, Ki could just make out something that looked like a thin, gnarled black root stretching from Brother's chest to Tamír's. No, not a root, but a wizened birthing cord.

Looking down, he saw another cord between him and his own body, and one that stretched from his body to Tamír, but these were silvery and bright. Other strands, less bright, radiated out and disappeared in all directions. One dark one stretched from Tamír's chest across the tent to the open flap. Korin stood out there, gazing in with a lost expression.

What's he doing here?

She killed me
, Korin whispered, and Ki felt fear as that empty dark gaze turned to him.
False friend!

Don't let him trouble you, child. He has no claim on you
. Lhel touched the silver cord joining Ki to Tamír.
This one is very strong, stronger than your own life cord
.

I can't die! I can't leave her! She needs me
.

You saved her life today. I foresaw that the first time we met, and more. She will be very sad if you die. Her belly may never swell. Your people need the children you and she will give them. If I help you live, will you love her?

Looking down at his own still face, Ki saw tears well out from under his lashes and trickle slowly down his cheeks.
I do love her! Help me, please!

But even as he said it, he felt the cord joining his spirit to his body pull painfully at his chest and grow thin. He was floating above himself, looking down at Tamír. Even in sleep she held his hand tightly, as if she could hold him back from death.

Please
, he whispered.
I want to stay!

Hold on
, Lhel whispered.

K
eesa, wake up.”

“Lhel?” Tamír sat up, startled.

It was still dark in the tent, and rain was pounding on the canvas. A sudden flash of lightning turned the darkness grey. It was Mahti leaning over her, not Lhel. A clap of thunder shook the ground. Something struck her cheek; water was dripping from the witch's hair. He had just come in from the storm.

“Mahti? You came back!”

“Hush, keesa.” The witch pointed to Ki. “He very weak. You must let me play healing for him. His
mari
try to go.”

Tamír tightened her hold on Ki's cold hand and nodded. “Do whatever you can.”

Another flash of lightning lit the tent and thunder shook the ground, as if the world were falling down around them.

M
ahti sat as far from Ki as the cramped quarters allowed, back pressed to the sodden canvas behind him. He put the oo'lu to his lips, resting the mouth of it next to Ki's side, and began the spell song.

The boy's spirit was already out of the body. Mahti could sense it hovering nearby. He could see Lhel and Brother, and the sad spirit lurking outside in the rain; but Ki was caught between life and death, so Mahti could not
see him clearly. There was no need for the lifting out song, but he knew he must work quickly to heal the body enough to hold the spirit in before it was lost.

Sojourn's deep voice filled Mahti's head and chest as he played, gathering the necessary power. When it was strong enough, he sent the song out to the floating spirit, wrapping him in binding song to keep him from flying away. Then he wove the voices of night herons and frogs to wash the dark blood away from inside the boy's head. It was a bad wound, that one, but Mahti had wrestled with them before. It took time, but he finally felt some of the pain flow away.

He played into the body next, leaving the arm bones to knit on their own and concentrating on the deep sword wound in his side. He used the song of bears to take the heat from it; there was good magic at work already, from the other healers. Mahti touched it with his song and approved. This would heal well if Ki lived.

He played through the rest of the body, finding little that needed his attention. Ki was young and strong and wanted to live.

The head wound was still fighting him, though, so Mahti increased the power of the song to drive the dark threat from it. It took a long time, but when he finished the heron song a third time, the pain was nearly gone and Ki's face was more peaceful. Mahti blinked the sweat from his eyes and gently coaxed the spirit back into the flesh. It went willingly, like a loon diving under the water after a fish.

When he was done only the sound of the rain and thunder filled the tent, and the tense breathing of the girl and her oreskiri as they stared anxiously at the boy, waiting.

K
i?” Tamír stroked the dirty, blood-stiff hair back from his bandaged forehead and caught her breath as his eyelids fluttered.

“Ki, open your eyes!” she whispered.

“Tob?” he mumbled. He opened his eyes very slowly,
not focusing on anything. His right pupil was larger than the left.

“Thank the Light!” Tears crept down her cheeks unnoticed as she leaned closer. “How do you feel?”

“Hurts. My arm … head.” He looked blearily at nothing. “Gone?”

“Who's gone?”

His eyes finally found her, though they were still very vague. “I—I thought—I don't know.” He closed his eyes again and tears welled under his lashes. “I killed Master Porion.”

“Don't think of that now.”

“Keep him awake,” Mahti told her. “He will—” He mimed vomiting. “Not sleep until sun goes down again.”

With help from Mahti, Tamír got Ki propped up with his head on a pack. He began to retch almost at once. She snatched up a discarded helmet and held it under his chin as Ki brought up what little he'd had to eat.

“Rest,” Mahti told Ki as he slumped limply back in Tamír's arms. “You heal now.”

“How can I thank you?” asked Tamír.

“Keep promise,” Mahti replied. “And let me play healing for you. Lhel say.”

“I keep telling you, I don't need it.”

Mahti grasped her by the knee, dark eyes suddenly intimidating. “You don't know.
I
know! Lhel know.” He reached down and cupped her roughly between the legs. “You still tie to demon
here.”

Tamír knocked his hand away angrily, but even as she did, she felt again the strong, disconcerting sensation of having two bodies at once, her own and Tobin's.

“This end magic,” Mahti promised, as if he understood. “Make you clean.”

Clean. Yes, she wanted that. Suppressing a shiver of apprehension, she nodded. “What do you want me to do?”

Mahti shifted, letting the mouth of his oo'lu rest near her leg. “Just sit.”

Closing his eyes, he began a deep, throbbing drone. Tamír tensed, expecting the fire that had burned away her other body.

But it wasn't like that at all, this time.

L
hel sat close beside Mahti, whispering in his ear, showing him what to look for. It was a woman's spell he was undoing, and he had to be careful not to damage what should remain.

Brother hunkered down beside Tamír, staring not at the girl, but at Lhel.

Mahti started to play a water song, but the tune changed. He knew this song; it had been the first one he'd played on Sojourn. Now it showed him the thick, gnarled birthing cord that joined brother and sister. It showed him the phantom shape of the boy's body that still clung to the girl like shreds of a snake's cast off skin. The wasted shape of a penis still rested between her thighs. His song made the last of the ghost body fall away, leaving only living flesh.

Snakeskin song, that's what he would call this one should he ever need it again. He silently thanked Lhel for it.

The birthing cord that joined her to her brother was tough as an old root, but the song burned through it, too. It fell away like ashes between them.

You go now
, he whispered in his mind to Brother.

From the corner of his eye he saw Lhel rise and take the trembling demon boy by the hand.
Child, let go of this life that was never yours. Go and rest for the next
.

She embraced the pale figure. He clung to her for a moment, like a living boy, then disappeared with a sigh.

Well done
, Lhel whispered. They are both free.

But Mahti saw another dark cord joining Tamír to a ghost outside. He played the knife song and freed the dark-eyed dead man, so he could go on to peace, too.

There was another very old cord from her heart that
stretched far, far away. He touched it with his mind. An angry, confused spirit lurked at the end of this one.
Mother
.

Cut that one, too
, whispered Lhel.

Mahti did, and heard a brief, distant wail.

There were many other cords around her, as there were around all people. Some were good. Some were harmful. The one between Tamír and the boy in her arms was the strongest, bright as lightning.

Lhel touched it and smiled. This one needed none of Mahti's spells.

Satisfied with the girl's heart, he played to draw the pain from her wounds, then turned his attention to the red night flower of her womb. Lhel's binding magic had not reached so deep there. Despite her narrow hips and small breasts, the womb was well knit, a fertile cradle waiting to be filled. Mahti played his spell instead into the bony yoke of her pelvis, so that it might let the babies out more easily in the years to come.

It was only when he'd finished that he noticed that Lhel was gone.

T
amír was surprised at how comforting Mahti's strange music was. Instead of the cold, crawling feeling she'd experienced with Niryn, or the dizzying effect of Arkoniel's sighting spells, she felt nothing but a gentle warmth. When he finished she sighed and opened her eyes, feeling more rested than she had in days.

“That's all?”

“Yes. Now you only you,” Mahti replied, patting her knee.

“How do you feel?” Ki rasped, squinting up at her as if he expected her to look different somehow.

She was very still for a moment, her gaze turned inward. There was a difference, but one she had no words for yet. “Thank you,” she whispered at last. “I owe you so much.”

“Keep promise and remember Lhel and me.” Giving her a last fond smile, Mahti rose and left the tent.

Alone with Ki again, she brought the fingers of his good hand to her lips and kissed him as fresh tears stung behind her eyelids. “You almost broke your promise to me, you bastard,” she managed at last.

“I did? No!” Ki laughed softly. He was quiet for a few moments, unfocused eyes fixed somewhere in the shadows above. She was afraid he was drifting into sleep but suddenly his hand tightened painfully around hers. “Korin! I couldn't get to you!”

“You did, Ki, and he nearly killed you.”

“No … I saw …” He closed his eyes and grimaced. “Bilairy's balls!”

“What?”

“Failed you—when it counted most!”

“No.” She held him closer. “He would have had me if not for you.”

“Couldn't let him …” Ki shivered against her. “Couldn't. But what—?” His eyes drifted closed for a moment, then opened very wide. “
You
killed him?”

“Yes.”

Ki was silent for a moment, and she saw his gaze stray to the open flap of the tent again. “I wanted to spare you that.”

“It's better this way. I see that now. It was our fight.”

Ki sighed, and the confusion came back.

“Ki? Don't go to sleep. You have to stay awake.”

His eyes were open, but she could tell his mind was wandering. Fearful of letting him fall asleep, she babbled on for hours about nothing—what they would do when they visited the keep again, horses, anything she could think of to keep his eyes open.

He didn't respond at all for a while, but presently she saw the glimmer of tears in his eyes, and pain as he focused on her again. “I can't—stop seeing him going for you. Saw you fall. I couldn't get to you—”

“But you did!” Leaning down carefully, she pressed her lips to his and felt them trembling. “You did, Ki. You almost died for me. He—” She swallowed hard as her voice failed. “You were right about Korin, all along.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “You loved him.”

“I love
you
, Ki! If he'd killed you, I wouldn't have wanted to live.”

Ki's fingers tightened on hers again. “Know the feeling.”

She took an unsteady breath and smiled. “You called me ‘Tob' when you woke up.”

He let out a faint laugh. “Knock on the head. Scrambled my brains.”

She hesitated, then asked softly, “Am I Tamír to you now?”

Ki studied her face in the dim light, then gave her a sleepy smile. “You'll always be both, deep down. But it's Tamír I see, and Tamír I kiss.”

A weight lifted from Tamír's heart, not only from the words, but the warmth in his voice and eyes. “I don't ever want to be without you!” The words tumbled out in a rush, and she couldn't hold them back. “I
hate
having you sleep in other rooms, and feeling bad every time I touch you. I hate not knowing what we are to each other anymore. I—”

Ki squeezed her hand again. “Guess I better marry you and clear things up, eh?”

Tamír stared at him. “You're delirious!”

The smile turned to a grin. “Maybe, but I know what I'm saying. Will you have me?”

A heady mix of joy and fear made her feel faint. “But what about—” She couldn't bring herself to say it. “With me?”

“We'll manage. What do you say? Will the Queen of Skala take a grass knight son of a horse thief for her consort?”

She let out a shaky laugh. “You, and no other. Not ever.”

“Good. Then it's settled.”

Tamír shifted her back more comfortably against the pack, with Ki's head resting on her chest. It felt good, just as it used to, and yet different, too.