“You have call Brother?” asked Lhel, and he guessed that she already knew the answer.
“No,” Tobin admitted.
“Call now.”
Tobin hesitated, then spoke the words in a nervous rush.
Brother appeared in the corner farthest from the door. He was thin and ragged, but Tobin could feel the cold power of his presence from across the room.
“Well, what do you think?” asked Iya.
Lhel squinted hard at Brother, then shrugged. “I tell you the binding stronger now. So he stronger, too.”
“I wonder if Ki is still able to see him?” murmured Arkoniel.
“I won’t have him around Ki.” Tobin turned angrily on the ghost. “I won’t call you at all, ever, unless you promise never to hurt him again! I don’t care what Lhel says!” He shook the doll at Brother. “Promise, or you can stay away and starve.”
Tobin saw a flicker of hatred in the ghost’s black eyes, but it was directed at the wizards, not at him.
“No one saw him in Tobin’s sickroom,” Iya was saying, as if she hadn’t noticed his outburst.
“Those have the eye see him more now,” said Lhel. “And he make others see when he wants.”
Tobin looked at Brother again, noting how the lamplight seemed to touch him the same way it did the rest of them; it never had before. “He looks more—real, somehow.”
“Be harder to put you apart, comes the time, but must be so.”
For a moment curiosity overcame his anger. “Come here,” he told the ghost. Tobin reached to touch him; but as always, his hand found only colder air. Brother grinned at him. He looked more like an animal baring its teeth.
“Go away!” Tobin ordered, and was relieved when the spiteful ghost obeyed. “Can I go now?”
“A moment more, if you please,” said Arkoniel. “You remember how I promised to teach you to guard your thoughts? It’s time we had that lesson.”
“But it’s not magic. You said so, remember?”
“Why do you fear magic so, Tobin?” asked Iya. “It’s protected you all these years. And wonderful things can be done with it! You’ve seen that for yourself. With a wave of my hand, I can make fire where there is no wood, or food in the wilderness. Why do you fear it?”
Because magic meant surprises and fear, sorrow and danger, Tobin thought. But he couldn’t tell them that; he didn’t want them to know what power they had over him. So he just shrugged.
“Many magics, keesa,” Lhel said softly, and he caught a flicker of the secret symbols on her cheeks. “You wise to be respecting. Some magic good, some evil. But we do no evil with you, keesa. Make you safe.”
“And this isn’t real magic, just a protection against it,” Arkoniel assured him. “All you have to do is imagine something very clearly, make a picture in your head. Can you imagine the sea for me?”
Tobin thought of the harbor at Ero at dawn, with the great trading ships riding at anchor and the small fishing boats bobbing around them like skimmer beetles.
He felt the briefest cool touch on his brow, but no one had moved.
Iya chuckled. “That was very good.”
“I tell you,” Lhel said.
Tobin opened his eyes. “That’s all?”
“That’s a beginning, and a very good one,” Arkoniel replied. “But you must practice as often as you can, and do it whenever Niryn or any of the Harriers notice you. The real trick is to not look like you’re thinking of something else.”
“Arkoniel used to screw his face up like he had a cramp,” Iya said, looking at him fondly, the way Nari looked at Tobin sometimes. “But you can’t always think of the same thing. It’s safest if you focus on something you’ve just been doing. For instance, if you’ve been hawking, think of jesses or wing markings, or the sound of the bells.”
Tobin tried again, thinking of the game he and Ki had been playing.
“Well done again!” Arkoniel said. “Just remember, though, that your best defense against Niryn and his kind lies in never giving them a reason to look into your head.”
Tobin’s apologies were carried back to Ero the following day. The boys watched from Ki’s window, sticking their tongues out at the retreating horseman.
Ki was finally well enough to escape Nari’s strictures and they spent the day wandering around the keep and visiting at the barracks. Ki wanted to visit Arkoniel, but the wizard didn’t answer his door.
Ki looked back over his shoulder as they walked away. The sight of that closed door left him oddly depressed. “Where do you suppose he could be?”
“He’s around,” Tobin said with a shrug. “What’s wrong? I just saw him yesterday.”
“I haven’t seen him since your name day party,” Ki reminded him. “I’m starting to think he’s avoiding me.”
Tobin punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Now why would he do that?”
Ki was surprised at how quickly his newfound energy deserted him. By midafternoon he was feeling weak again, and having spells of double vision. That frightened him, for Iya had assured him they would pass. The thought that she might be wrong was too frightening to contemplate. What good would a blind squire be to anyone?
As always, Tobin seemed to sense without being told how Ki felt and asked for an early supper upstairs.
That night they slept in Tobin’s room. Ki sighed happily as he sank back against the soft bolsters. Even if it was only for a few nights more, it was good to have things as they used to be. He hadn’t thought about Ero or his enemies among the Companions in days.
Tobin’s thoughts were running along similar lines as he watched the candle shadows dance overhead. Part of him missed Korin and the others, and the excitement of palace life. But Orun’s angry letters tainted all that. Not for the first time, he wished things were the way they used to be.
“This damn thing itches,” Ki grumbled, rubbing at his forehead. He turned his face for Tobin to see. “How does it look?”
Tobin pushed Ki’s soft brown hair back for a better look. A swollen, crusted gash two inches long still stood out over Ki’s right eye, just below the hairline. The lump was fading from purple to a nasty mottled green. “You must have hit a rock or something when you fell. Does it still hurt?”
Ki laughed up at him. “Don’t you start fussing over me! I’m worse off from being kept indoors so long. My old dad would never have stood for it, I can tell you.” He dropped back into the country accent he used to have. “ ’Less you got a broke leg or guts hanging out, you can damn well get out and tend to yer chores.”
“Do you still miss your family?”
Ki folded his hands across his chest. “Some of ’em, I guess. Ahra, and a couple brothers.”
“After we get things settled in Ero, we could go visit them,” Tobin offered. “I’d like to see where you come from.”
Ki glanced away. “No, you wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“You just wouldn’t.” He gave Tobin a quick grin. “Bilairy’s balls, I don’t want to go back there. Why would you?”
Tobin let it go; why shouldn’t Ki have a few secrets of his own and, anyway, that was all a long time ago. He pushed his fingers back through Ki’s hair, pretending to take a closer look at the wound. “Anyway, it should leave a good scar.”
“Not one to brag of, though,” Ki grumbled. “Think the girls would believe me if I said we met with Plenimaran raiders on the road, or bandits, maybe? I bet Una and Marilli would believe me.”
Tobin chuckled, but at the same time felt a familiar twinge of jealousy. He’d heard enough stories about his friend’s hot-blooded kin, and Ki already had an eye for anything in skirts.
Tobin’s own bashfulness in that regard had earned him his share of teasing among the Companions. Even Ki wasn’t above the occasional good-natured jibe. Everyone—including Tobin himself—had always put it down to his youth and natural shyness.