The Saga of the Renunciates (123 page)

Then as if from nowhere in a glare of light—
torchlight? No, too bright
!—half a dozen strange women, hugely tall, veiled in dark blue, with high-crowned vulture headdresses suddenly appeared. They bore great curved swords with gleaming edges, such swords as Magda, who had made something of a study of weapons, had never seen on Darkover anywhere, swords that glittered with a supernatural light. Magda knew they could not possibly be real. Acquilara’s women retreated. Even the one or two who had courage to try to rush up against the glare of those lighted swords fell back, cowering and screaming as if wounded to the death, but Magda could see no blood. Were they entirely illusion, then?

A familiar voice said, “Quick! This way!” and rushed her, a hand on her shoulder, across the lower chamber toward the daylight outside. Magda flinched at the paralyzing chill, the gust of wind, but Kyntha said in her ear, “Hurry! The fighters are illusion; they cannot hold long!” She pushed Magda along what looked like a concealed trail leading between the cliff wall and the caverns.

A swift glance behind her showed Magda that all her companions were gathered in that crevice, Camilla still trying to wipe blood from her eyes. Magda hurried back toward her, shaking Kyntha’s hand from her elbow. The wind flung her, slipping and sliding, toward the edge of the cliff; she brought herself up, terrified, clutching at the wall.

Camilla was all right. Where was Jaelle? Cholayna’s breath, rasping and harsh, could be heard even over the shouts from inside the caverns. Vanessa was limping. Two of the tall women in vulture headdresses were guarding the rear, covering their escape.
Where was Jaelle
?

Magda saw her now, behind the vulture-crowned women warriors. Illusion? How could it be? She hurried back toward her freemate. Suddenly there was a dread-fill glare of pallid light, like ultraviolet, and Acquilara rose up behind them. She had a dagger, and struck out at Vanessa, who was at the rear. One of the tall, robed women in the vulture headdresses was there with her blazing sword, but Acquilara made some strange banishing gesture and the woman in the vulture headdress exploded into blue light.

Jaelle flung herself at Acquilara, her sword out. Magda started to rush to her freemate’s side, her hand on her sword. The path was narrow, but she thrust herself through the others, uncaring.

Acquilara pointed. Another of the robed, vulture-crowned women warriors—
illusion
?—flared horribly into blue light and was gone. Magda tried to rush her.

“No! No!” Magda never knew whether Jaelle screamed the words aloud or not, “I’ll hold her back! Get the others away!” She flung herself on Acquilara with the knife.

Acquilara feinted with her long knife, and Jaelle brought up her arm in guard. Her sleeve was covered with blood. Then the sorceress’s knife came up, and Magda rushed forward—

And stopped, sick and dizzy with terror of the cliff edge before her. Jaelle’s knife went into Acquilara’s breast, and the sorceress shrieked, a frantic dying howl of rage, and jumped at Jaelle. Her arms locked around Jaelle’s neck.

Then the two slid together, slowly, slowly, with the dreadful inevitability of an avalanche, toward the edge, together slipped over the edge and fell. Magda screamed, rushed toward the cliff-edge; Camilla’s strong arm snatched her back as she tottered, shrieking, on the very brink.

From below came a rumble, a great shattering sound like the end of the world, and a thousand tons of rock and ice ripped away from the cliff and roared down to bury them both a long, long way below.

Camilla’s cry of horror and grief echoed her own. But even while Magda still heard the shaking of the avalanche, Kyntha pulled them away.

“Come! Quickly!” And as Magda turned back to where Jaelle had fallen, Camilla shouted, “No! Come! Don’t make her sacrifice useless! For the children—for
both
the children—
bredhiya
—”

But it was already obvious that the fight was over. With Acquilara gone, the remnants of her group were scattering, throwing down their arms, screaming in terror, like an anthill kicked over. The phantom women warriors rose up over them, triumphant.

Cholayna had sunk to her knees, gasping, unable to breathe. Magda looked back at them, numbly.

Jaelle. Jaelle
. The fight was over, but too late. What difference did it make, now, if they all died?
My own cowardice. I couldn’t face the cliff. I could have saved her
.…

She was too numbed even to cry. But in the icy blast of the wind, the last sound she had expected to hear broke her out of her frozen despair.

In all the years she had known her she had never known Camilla to weep.

Camilla’s eyes were swollen almost shut with unaccustomed tears. She had refused to let the old blind woman, Rakhaila, tend her wounds, the slash across her forehead, the knife wound in her hand that had nearly severed the sixth finger on her right hand.

Magda sat close to her, in the upper room in the cliff-top retreat of Avarra, where Kyntha had taken them when the battle was over. All the way up in the basket she had forced herself, self-punishing despite the the vertigo, to look down into the dizzying chasm.

Too late. Too late for Jaelle.

Less than an hour after the fight was over, she had felt the numbness leaving her; the
raivannin
was wearing off, her
laran
reasserting itself. Now, as she held Camilla, she felt the redoubled pain, her own and Camilla’s anguish. She had longed for so many years to share this with Camilla; and now it was only loss and bereavement they could share.

“Why couldn’t it have been me?” Magda was not sure, again, whether Camilla’s words had been spoken aloud or not. “She was so young. She had everything to live for, she had a child, there were so many who loved her… you at least tried to save her, but I couldn’t even
see
.… ” She struck, with a furious hand, at the slash on her forehead, a dreadful matted mess of hair and frozen blood.

“No, Camilla—truly,
bredhiya
, you have no reason to reproach yourself. It was my—my cowardice—” Again, in despair, Magda relived the moment when she had held back, in fear of the unguarded cliff-edge. Could that moment have saved Jaelle?

She would never know. For the rest of her life she would torment herself, in nightmares, about that memory. But whether or not—she forced her mind away from her own anguish, it was too late for Jaelle, nothing she did could change that now, but Camilla was still living, and it seemed that Camilla’s grief was worse than her own.

“Kima,
bredhiya
, love, you must let me care for this.” She went and fetched hot water from the kettle over the fireplace, sponged away the frozen blood, revealing an ugly, but not dangerous slash.

“It needs stitches,” she said, “but I cannot do it, and I do not think Cholayna can. Not now, at least.”

“Oh, leave it, love, what difference does it make? One more scar,” said Camilla. Passive, uncaring, she let Magda bandage the wounded hand. “I did not even know they had kidnapped you—Acquilara and her crew— imagine, it was the blind woman who insisted we turn back, to find you gone. And Jaelle—” Camilla’s throat closed and her grief threatened to overwhelm her again. “Jaelle—tried to follow you with
laran
, and was not strong enough, she could not find you. So she—” Camilla bowed her scarred head on her hands and cried again, while Magda heard in her mind that shattering scene. Jaelle, crying, begging…

I can’t, Camilla. I am not strong enough. Only you can find them. They could be anywhere in these mountains, dead or alive, and if we do not find them soon they will starve, freeze, die
…

I am no
leronis…

Will you cling to that last lie to yourself until they are all dead? Is there no end to your selfishness, Camilla? For myself I do not care, but Magda
—
Magda loves you, loves you more than anyone alive, more than the father of her child, more than her sworn freemate
…

As she heard those words in her mind, Magda felt that she too would be overcome again with weeping. Had it been true? Had Jaelle gone to her death believing that Magda loved her less?

Then, resolutely, Magda forced herself to abandon that lacerating train of thought. She told herself firmly: Either Shaya knows better now, or she is someplace where it makes no difference to her. She’s gone beyond my reach. Painful as it was, she could do nothing more for Jaelle. She brought her full awareness back to Camilla.

“So she persuaded you—and you came for me! But where did Kyntha come from?”

“I do not know. Jaelle—” Camilla swallowed and resolutely went on—“Jaelle said to me,
I am a catalyst telepath, I have little skill myself, but I am told I can awaken it in others
. She touched me, and it was as if—as if a veil fell from me. I saw you, and I
knew
… and I came to you.”

“She saved us all.” But not herself. Magda knew she would never cease to grieve; nor would Camilla. She had only begun to feel the pain that would come back to haunt her at odd hours for the rest of her life, but for now she must put it aside. When she thought of Jaelle now she saw the Jaelle she would always remember, her wild hair streaming behind her, in the wind of the heights, turning to say, “
I don’t want to go back
.… ”

She shared the picture with Camilla, saying softly, “She told me that. She didn’t want to go back. I think she knew, I think she saw her life as a finished thing… She had done all she wanted to do.”

“But I would so gladly have died instead—” Camilla said, choking.

Rafaella’s hand fell on her shoulder. “So would I, Camilla. The Goddess knows—if there is a Goddess—” She had been crying, too; she bent and hugged Camilla hard.

Kyntha was standing beside them. Her voice was compassionate, but matter-of-fact as always.

“Food has been prepared for you. And your companions’ wounds have been cared for.” She bent to examine Camilla’s forehead.

“If you wish, I can stitch it for you.”

“No. Not necessary,” Camilla said.. Wearily she rose and followed Kyntha to the end of the room near the fireplace. Magda hung back a little, looking curiously at Kyntha. She said, “You do not speak the mountain dialect of these women. Where did you come from?”

Kyntha looked a little chagrined. “I can speak it when I must, and here I try to remember to do so, but I am—young and imperfect as yet. I grew up on the plains of Valeron, and served five years in the Tower at Neskaya before I found a more meaningful service, Terran.”

“You know?”

“I am not blind; Ferrika is known to me, and Marisela was my sworn sister in service to Avarra. There was a time when I too thought that I would cut my hair and swear the vows of a Renunciate. Do you think we come out of mysterious cracks from the underworld? Come and have some soup.”

One of the women tending the kettle put a mug into her hand. She thought,
how can I eat, with Jaelle
…

But she forced herself to drink the soup, which was hearty and thick with beans and something like barley. It seemed to melt, a little, the icy lump at her heart.

One of the beshawled attendants she had seen in her previous stay in this place was kneeling by Vanessa, rebandaging her injured leg. Rafaella seemed uninjured, though Magda had seen her in some close-quarters fighting, and her heavy cloak was cut and slashed and badly torn. Cholayna had been propped up on pillows; Magda knelt beside her.

Cholayna stretched out her hand toward Magda.

“I’m all right. But oh, I’m sorry about Jaelle, I loved her too, you know that—”

Magda’s eyes filled. “I know. We all did. Let me get you some soup.” It was all she could do. She looked at Lexie, lying on a pallet made of coats and spare blankets, still unconscious.

“Is she—”

“I don’t know. They’ve done what they could for her, they say.” Cholayna’s voice was tight. “Did you see? They—those women—I was down. They were kicking me to death. Lexie saved me. That was when they stabbed her.”

“I saw.” So Rafaella had been right about Lexie. Magda knelt and looked at the younger woman, pale, like a sick child, her feathery fair hair lying on her childish neck. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing in long shuddering gasps.

Rafaella came and stood behind her. She whispered, almost inaudibly, and it was like a prayer, “Don’t die. Don’t die, Lexa, there’s been too much dying.” She raised her eyes to Magda and said defiantly, “You never knew her. She was a—a good friend, a good trail-mate. She fought like a mountain-cat to get us over Ravensmark after the landslide. I—I never thought I’d ask this of you, but you’re—you’re a
leronis
. Can you heal her?”

Magda knelt beside Alexis Anders. There had been too much death. She reached out to Lexie’s mind, trying to reach the child she had sensed there for a moment, thrusting gently for contact—

Lexie’s eyes opened; she turned over a little, her breath rasping in her throat. At the back of her mind Magda took notice:
lungs pierced. I doubt if Damon and Callista with Lady Hilary to help them could heal this
. Yet she knew she must try.

Lexie’s eyes held awareness for a moment. She whispered, “Hellfire! You again, Lorne?” and her eyes closed, deliberately. She turned her head away.

“I can’t reach her,” Magda whispered, knowing it was the truth. “I am no magician, Rafaella. This is far beyond my powers.”

For an instant Rafaella’s eyes met her own, acknowledging the truth in what Magda said. Then, still defiant, she turned her back and moved past her. Magda had not seen; the old nameless priestess sat there in her bundle of shawls, her toothless, creased face regarding them all silently. Rafaella knelt before the ancient shamaness and said, “I beg you.
You
can heal her. Help her, please.
Please
. Don’t let her die.”

“Na’, it canna’ be done,” said the old woman. Her voice was gentle, but detached.

“You
can’t
just let her die… ” Rafaella cried.

“Does thee not believe in death, little sister? It comes to all; her time comes sooner than ours, no more than that.” The old woman patted the seat beside her, almost, Magda thought, as if encouraging a puppy to curl up at her side. Rafaella numbly sunk down in the indicated place.

“Hear ’ee, that one dying
chose
her death. Chose a good death, saving her friend from dying before her time—”

Cholayna turned as if galvanized. She cried out,

“How can you say that? She was so young, how can she be dying before her time when I, I am old and still alive, and you helped me—”

“This one told thee before, thee is ignorant,” said the old priestess. “That one dying there, she chose her death when even for a moment she allied herself wi’ the evil.”

“But she turned back! She saved me,” Cholayna cried, and burst into a fit of coughing, half strangling with it, tears running down her face. “How can you say she was evil?”

“Was not. Better to die turning away from evil, than die with it,” said the old woman. “Rest thee, daughter, thy sickness needs not these tears and cries. Her time was on her; thine will come, and mine, but not today or tomorrow.”

“It’s not right!” Rafaella cried out in despair. “Jaelle died saving us all; Lexie tried to save Cholayna. And
they
died, and the rest of us lived—any of us deserved death more than Jaelle:
they
deserved to live—”

The old priestess said very softly, “Oh, I see. Thee thinks death a punishment for wrong-doin’ an’ life the reward for good, like a cake to a good child or a whip to a naughty one. Thee is a child, little one, an’ thee canna’ hear wisdom. Rest thee all, little sisters. There is much to say, but thee canna’ hear in thy grief.”

She rose creakily from her seat; the old blind woman, Rakhaila, came to her and offered an arm, and she tottered slowly from the room.

Kyntha remained a moment, staring at them with resentment. Then she said, “You have grieved her beyond words. You have brought blood here, and the deaths of violence.” She stared with distaste at Lexie. “Rest and recover your strength, as she has bidden you. Tomorrow there are decisions which must be made.”