“Could everyone do the same things you do? Heal, I mean. Tame birds. Make light.”
“Basic things, yes, like the candles and the birds. But it wasn’t until age sixteen or so that your primary talent would manifest itself. A bit terrifying when it happened. You would go to sleep as a modestly capable boy or girl, plagued with the normal confusions of being neither child nor adult, and then awaken the next day as a Gardener or a Builder or a Metalwright or a Healer. There were those who could melt silver without fire and shape it into marvelous creations with only their minds. There were the Speakers—not many, as truth-telling was always a rare gift—and there were the Word Winders and the Singers. My mother was a Singer. When she sang, the image of her words was brought to life right in the room with you, not just in your mind, but a shimmering vision in the air before you, alive with color and motion. When she sang you to sleep, you would dream her songs.”
I shoved a stick-like tree into the hole Karon had dug and wished I had some magic to make it grow faster, so that it would shade this corner of my garden before I had white hair. Some days, my own life felt truly useless. “What of you then?” I asked, pounding the dirt about the tree to hold it straight. “When did you discover you were a Healer?”
“I was seventeen. All that summer I had lived with the growing fear that I had no talent beyond the ordinary, that the Way would never be laid down for me. On rare occasion that would happen. No one knew why. One day my brother Christophe and I were out tramping in the mountains. He was just thirteen and very much determined to show he was my equal in climbing. We were hoping to find a new route to the top of Mount Karylis that day, but had begun to think it impossible. Then Christophe found a narrow chimney that looked to reach a ledge we’d been trying for, and before I could discourage him, he was up it. He fell, and… well, the details aren’t important. He landed on a rock and caved in his chest. There was no one to help—no one within two hours’ walk.”
Karon’s attention drifted into the realm of story and memory that was always as vivid as present daylight for him. “I had watched J’Ettanni Healers perform the blood-rite and prayed for years that whatever my gift, it would not be that one. But on that day my desire was reversed, and I had no choice but to try. Otherwise Christophe was dead and would cross the Verges long before I could get him home. Our people had many theories on how specific talents developed; perhaps my gift might have been different if my need had not been so great. I did what I had to do, holding Christophe close to me so the blood would mingle as it must and taking myself into him so I could put right what had been damaged. More than half a day it took me.” He laughed and squeezed my hand, returning from his journey of remembrance. “I was not very skilled and caused both of us more grief than was necessary. That scar is my constant inducement to humility.”
When I asked him, he showed me the long, ragged white mark that had been his first.
“Can you remember them all?” I ran my fingers over the tracery of white that criss-crossed his left arm. Hundreds of scars.
“Every one. You cannot forget. The sense of completion… of purpose… of wholeness… is indescribable. There’s been nothing in my life to compare to it… until I met you.”
And then were both talking and gardening interrupted for a while.
Later, as we walked into the house in the moonlight, I asked him what he meant by “crossing the Verges.” He wrinkled his brow and said, “Nothing in Leiran cosmology corresponds to the concept. The J’Ettanne call the place where souls reside after death L’Tiere, the ”following life.“ We know nothing of its nature, but we believe that between the life that we know and L’Tiere, there exists a boundary which the living cannot cross and from which there is no return. After death there is a time—from a few moments to a few hours—when the soul has not yet crossed this boundary and can be returned to the body. It’s why time is so critical to a Healer. With skill and effort and luck and the gift I have been given, I can return one who is dead to life again, but only if the soul has not yet crossed.”
I was fascinated by all this, but uncomfortable, too. Death was rarely a topic of discussion in Leiran society. Warriors lived forever in legend and story, of course, and the Holy Twins would inscribe their names on their lists of heroes when we recounted their noble deeds in temple rites. And the families who nurtured such heroes shared in this immortality, as Mana shared in the glory of the First God Arot. Otherwise, Leiran gods had no use for the dead. Living a life of honor was what was important.
“It was not so very different in Avonar,” Karon said, when I mentioned my discomfort. “We had a somewhat more optimistic view of whatever is to come, but Healers were never the first ones that came to mind when one was making a guest list. Reminders of mortality are never welcome.” He gave an exaggerated sigh. “I suppose now you’ll want to banish me to the kitchens when you entertain.”
“I’d already planned it so. It was your conversation that attracted me, you know, and I’m hesitant to put your social graces on display lest another woman be singed by the same flame!”
As Karon flourished in his more ordinary profession, I spent more and more time with him at the antiquities collection. Here we had no arguments, but reveled in the unending variety of human creativity. Among the bins and boxes we found man-high statues of Kerotean marble and tiny fetishes of wood and ivory from cultures so primitive that nothing at all was known of them. There were Vallorean tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, helmets and armor and swords of a thousand varieties, maps and glassware, jewelry and silverwork, rugs woven of the hair from exotic beasts. Most of these articles had been stuffed into musty vaults in the royal treasuries with no regard for their fragile nature. Armor was thrown on top of crumbling manuscripts, paintings laid face down, ivory and jade statuary left where dampness had made stagnant pools.
Shortly after assuming his post, Karon had several large, well-aired workrooms set aside for his use. He had his small staff of assistants bring each item to the workrooms, so it could be judged, and then it would either be disposed of or sent to be cleaned, repaired, and packed away more carefully.
Our delight was to find an article that was unmarked and unknown and to unravel the mysteries of its origin. We would seek some idea of its history from the pieces stored alongside it. Then we would attempt to trace the materials, the paint, the stone, the paper, the ink, the yam. Karon would search the royal libraries for references to anything similar or write letters to scholars or collectors who might have information. If we were still lacking information, I might take the piece to the market, and inquire of visiting merchants or travelers if they had ever seen such a thing.
Evard’s lord high chamberlain heard of the new commissioner’s work and sent his secretary to ask if there might be articles suitable for display in the palace. Evidently Evard had decided that some ornamentation might better suit his role as the supreme monarch of the civilized world. Perhaps his decision was connected with the rumors that the young queen considered Leirans, including her husband, to be barbarians. And so, when we found a particularly fine piece, I would write a card describing it, pack the card with the vase or statue or tapestry, and send them to the chamberlain with the commissioner’s compliments and a recommendation as to the object’s placement and method of display.
The only activity I avoided was accompanying Karon down into the vaults. I blamed my deep-rooted horror of dark, confined spaces on Tomas. Once when I was but five or six years old, I was playing hide and seek with Tomas and two of his friends through the dank cellars and musty storerooms of Comigor. Tomas decided it would be a great joke to abandon the game without telling me. He and his friends took themselves off riding, not knowing that the ancient cupboard I had discovered deep in the darkest cellar had a faulty latch and that I could not free myself. When I failed to come to supper in the nursery, the governess assumed I was out riding, too. Only when the boys returned at nightfall did the alarm go out.