Vlad was still talking to himself. Savn made certain his breathing was all right and that his throat looked straight, then set about cutting the rest of the sheet into strips, wondering why his throat had been fixed at that funny angle, and what had caused it to return to normal. He would have to ask the Master about that.
Master Wag would, no doubt, consider that today had been well-spent in learning his future trade, but Savn had no intention of telling him about it.
He gave Vlad a last inspection. As far as he could tell, the Easterner would be fine; he’d even stopped mumbling. For a moment Savn just stared at the Easterner, amazed that someone who had been so close to dying a few short minutes before now appeared to be sleeping peacefully, as if nothing at all was wrong with him. He felt unreasonably annoyed, as if Vlad’s apparent health were mocking all the work he’d done. Then he shook his head. “I’ll never understand how people are put together,” he muttered.
She perched in one of the thick lower branches of a friendly maple and watched her mate, waiting for the signal to kill, but it didn’t come.
She was not unhappy with the battle she’d been in earlier, but when the Provider had been hurt, her mate had screamed as if he’d been the one who was injured. She wished she’d understood what the fight had been about, since no one had seemed interested in eating anyone, but she was used to this. She also wished her mate would decide once and for all whether this soft one below her was a friend or an enemy.
Her mate continued watching it, and she felt his moods—now suspicion, now amusement, now something not unlike affection—but never a firm decision. She whipped her tail with impatience, but he didn’t notice, and just then she suddenly realized that the Provider was going to live. This surprised her, although she hadn’t been aware of how she knew he was dying, either.
And at about this same time, her mate suddenly turned, took to the air, and landed beside her.
Very well, then, they’d let the soft one live. She hoped either it or the Provider would supply some food soon; she was hungry, and she hated hunting.
I will not marry a wealthy trader,
I will not marry a wealthy trader,
He’d keep me now and sell me later.
Hi-dee hi-dee ho-la!
Step on out ...
Savn became aware that the shadows had lengthened, and wondered if he’d fallen asleep, sitting with his back to the tree. Perhaps he had. Everything was very still. He checked Vlad’s breathing, which was all right, then checked the bandage on his leg, which had soaked through. He removed it and inspected the wound. It was no longer bleeding, at any rate—or, rather, it hadn’t been bleeding until he removed the bandage. He knew there was a way to take bandages off without starting the wound to bleeding again, but he couldn’t remember what it was. It annoyed him that he could have managed something as tricky as getting Veld’s lungs working again but couldn’t remember how to treat a wound.
But he cleaned it once more, using the water sparingly, then wrapped it in what remained of Tern’s fine cloth bedsheet. He noticed again how bloody the water looked, and wondered if it really mattered; it was, after all, Vlad’s own blood; perhaps it was good for him.
He leaned against the tree again. He wondered if he ought to go to Master Wag’s where he was expected, but he didn’t want to leave Vlad alone; he preferred not to take any chances on someone or something, by accident or design, undoing all of his work.
As this thought formed, he realized that he felt rather fine; he had managed a very difficult procedure under far from ideal conditions, in spite of having only the vaguest idea of what the problem was, much less the solution. He looked at Vlad and smiled, then looked at the two jhereg, who were now seated next to each other on the ground, their wings folded.
“I feel like I can do anything,” he told them.
The smaller one looked at him for a moment, then curled around and rested its head on its neck, looking at Vlad. What was the relationship between Vlad and the jhereg? It had something to do with witchcraft, he knew, but what was it exactly? Would he ever know? Would he ever be enough of a witch to do such things himself?
Why not?
If he could save a man’s life with a jug of water and two pieces of leather, he ought to be able to perform spells, especially after everything he’d been shown. He remembered that odd state of mind, which felt like a dream, but where his thoughts were sharper than being awake—distant, but present. Why shouldn’t he be able to get there himself? He remembered how Vlad had done it; he should be able to do it on his own.
He leaned back against the tree, pretending he was sinking into it. Slowly, methodically, he took himself through the procedure that Vlad had shown him, relaxing his head, neck, shoulder, arms, and every other part of his body. By the time he reached the soles of his feet, he felt curiously lethargic—he knew he could move if he wanted to, but he didn’t want to; he was held motionless by his own will. It was an odd feeling, but not quite what he wanted.
Sink, he told himself. Back into the tree, down into the ground. Feel heavy. I am a beam of light, and empty, and I will travel in and down. I am heavy, so I will fall. There are steps that lead into the tree, past its roots. I will take each, one at a time, and with each step, I will go deeper. And, almost to his surprise, it worked—he felt light as air, heavy as stone; his vision was as intense as a dream, yet he could control it.
He was very aware of his own breathing, of the sounds of the small, scurrying animals around him, of the light through his eyelids. He wished to remove himself from all of these things that were part of his world, so: Again, deeper. Deeper. Draw in and down.
Savn imagined his body sinking further through the dirt and the clay and the stone, and with each layer, he became more distant from himself, from Vlad, from the world he knew. He was aware of controlling his descent, and so he gave up the control, and drifted.
Falling through the ground to the spaces beneath, alone, spinning in place, seeing without eyes, walking without legs, coming to an emptiness where emotion is pale and translucent, and sensations are the fog through which thoughts are observed. He regarded himself, reflected in narrow seclusion, and realized that, in fact, he was not alone, had never been alone. His sister, his mother, his father. Master Wag—they slowly spun around him, looking away; his own gaze retreated and advanced, went past them all, past his friends, past the Easterner.
He created a vast forest to walk through—a forest the like of which he’d never seen, where the trees rubbed shoulders and their tall, thick branches created a roof. At his feet was a large silver goblet. He picked it up and carried it with him for a while, enjoying the coolness he imagined against his fingers. Or did he imagine it?
There was a break in the forest, a clearing, and tall grasses grew there. He was barefoot now, and he loved the way the grass felt between his toes. In the center of the clearing was a pond of clear water. He dipped his goblet into it, and drank. It was very cold, yet he knew that he could dive in and it would be as warm as a spring afternoon. He thought of doing so, but now was not the time. He walked on, and before him was a high stone wall. In the way of dreams, it had appeared before him with no warning, stretching out to the sides forever, and towering high above him. For a moment he quailed, as if it were a threat rather than an obstacle, but he thought, This is my dream, I can do as I will.