"Are you all right?" Besh asked, looking him over, searching for any other wounds.
Sirj nodded, although he kept his eyes closed. "I have burns," he said, sounding weak. "My chest, my neck."
"Yes. Your hands and face as well."
He nodded again.
"All right. I'll… I'll heal you."
Sirj sat up slowly, grimacing with the effort. Then he removed his shirt, inhaling sharply through his teeth several times, so that Besh found himself wincing along with him.
Besh had never been good with healing magic, but right now he didn't have much choice. Lici certainly wasn't going to help him, and Sirj was in no shape to heal himself.
"Use the magic slowly," Sirj said, as if reading his thoughts. "That's the secret to healing. Just let it seep from your hand."
Besh nodded, recalling how skillfully Sirj had healed him after his first encounter with Lici just outside Sentaya. "I'll try," he said.
He cut himself again, took hold of another clod of dirt, and mixed the blood and earth in his hand.
"Blood to earth," he murmured. "Life to power, power to thought, power to life."
He felt the mud in his hand change, felt it come alive, as if he were holding a handful of bees. Not that it stung, but it… it hummed. It vibrated. Besh had to fight the urge to release it all at once. Instead, he placed his fist over Sirj's chest and let the magic run from his hand like wet sand. It was an ugly burn, blackened and angry-looking. It seemed that Sirj's skin had just melted in places.
The younger man winced again as the magic started to penetrate the wound, and Besh jerked his hand away.
"What? What did I do?"
"Nothing," Sirj whispered. "It's supposed to hurt, at least at first. You're doing fine.
Besh swallowed and took a breath before putting his fist over the burn again
Sirj winced again. Besh tried to ignore him, concentrating instead on keeping the flow of magic even and slow.
"Where's Lici?" the younger man asked after some time.
"Over there in the grass."
Sirj craned his neck. "I don't see her."
"No, I don't imagine. She's on the ground. I'm hoping she's just unconscious."
"As opposed to…"
"As opposed to dead," Besh said.
"What did you do to her?"
"I hit her in the head with a rock. It was the best I could think of in the moment."
Sirj raised an eyebrow and nodded. "I wish I'd thought of it. That's good enough," he said, looking down at his chest. "My neck now, and my face."
Besh shifted the position of his hand, still keeping a tight hold on the magic.
"We can't keep on this way, Besh. She's a demon, and eventually she's going to kill one or both of us. We thought taking her knife would work, but clearly we were wrong. We can cut her fingernails to stumps, but then she'll just use her teeth, or a scrap of wood, or something else that you and I can't even imagine because our minds don't work as hers does. The point is if she wants to use magic against us again-and of course she does-there's really nothing we can do to stop her."
Besh could hardly disagree with anything the man said. "So, what would you suggest?"
Sirj shook his head. "I really don't know." But he wouldn't meet Besh's gaze.
"There's nothing you could say that I haven't already thought of. Nothing."
Sirj did look at him then.
"Before we found her, you spoke of killing her. You said that if that was what it took to stop her from spreading her curse, you'd do it."
"I remember," Besh said.
"Do you still feel that way?"
Besh frowned, even as he continued to heal the man's burns. For several moments, he didn't answer.
"That's better," Sirj said eventually, gently probing the wounds with his fingers. "Thank you."
Besh sat back and wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. The magic had dissipated, although he still felt a faint tingling on his palm. He rubbed it with his other hand.
"If I thought she still posed a danger to the land," he finally said, choosing his words with care, "I wouldn't hesitate to do everything necessary to stop her. And that includes killing her. But she doesn't pose a danger to the land anymore. In fact, at this point, she may be the only one who can find this merchant she talks about, which makes her the land's best hope. She only poses a danger to you and me, and that's not reason enough to take her life.”
"I know that," Sirj said, sounding weary. "I needed to hear you say it, but I know it's true."
"But it doesn't solve our immediate problem."
Sirj reached for his shirt. "It doesn't solve either of them."
"Either of them? What's the other?"
"We need food. We've enough to last another day or two, but after that we're going to need to find a settlement where we can buy more." He shrugged and gingerly put his shirt back on. "Now that we're feeding three, we're going through our stores faster."
Besh exhaled, looking toward Lici, who still hadn't stirred. Perhaps he'd killed her without intending to. Despite what he'd just said to Sirj, he couldn't deny that he felt a surge of hope at the thought.
"I want to go home," Besh said, his eyes suddenly stinging. He could almost smell Elica's cooking. He could hear the laughter of his grandchildren-Cam and Annze, and of course Mihas, the oldest, with whom he passed so many of his days in the garden or wandering through the small marketplace.
"Then let's," Sirj said. "Let's leave her here and just go home. She can have her cart and her horse. Her baskets are gone and I don't think she has it in her to make more and spread her plague again."
Besh said nothing. He didn't have to. Once, not very long ago, he had thought Sirj a fool and had lamented Elica's decision to be joined to the man. Perhaps he had wished for a richer husband for her, someone who could have given her more than Besh himself had been able to give his beloved Ema. Or perhaps, as Ema had once told him, he wouldn't have been satisfied with any man Elica found. No matter the reason, he had always dismissed Sirj as someone unworthy of his respect or even his consideration.
He knew better now. Sirj was strong and kind. His quiet manner masked a keen intelligence and simple wisdom. And in their present circumstance, it wouldn't take him long to come to the same conclusion that Besh had reached. Now that they knew about the baskets Lici had made, cursed, and sold to her mysterious merchant, they could not stray from the path they were on. Even if Sirj was right, and Lici was no longer capable of making new baskets and casting her dark spell on them, she had done enough harm to keep them on the plain, and away from their home.
For several moments neither of them spoke. At last, Sirj climbed stiffly to his feet and heaved a sigh. "Well, it was a nice thought, anyway."
He smiled, and Besh grinned in return. Lici gave a low moan and rolled onto her back.
"It seems I didn't kill her." He glanced at Sirj. "Sorry."
The younger man shook his head and laughed.
They both walked to where the woman lay and squatting beside her they helped her sit up.
"What happened to me?" she asked, her voice weak.
"You used magic to set Sirj on fire," Besh said. "So I hit you in the head with a rock."
She stared at him for a moment and then looked at Sirj's blackened shirt. "I did that?"
"Yes. And the next time you do anything of the sort-in fact, the next time you use magic at all, I’ll kill you."
Her eyes snapped back to his face, narrowed and glinting dangerously. "You really think you can?" she asked.
It often amazed Besh how quickly Lici could go from seeming addled and confused, to speaking with the grim assurance of a hired blade. Besh could never be certain what she feigned and what was real. He wouldn't have been surprised to learn that she couldn't remember what she had done only moments before, or that she herself was awed and slightly embarrassed by some of her more outrageous actions. But this voice that he heard now-hard, fearless, and so malevolent that it chilled him just to hear her speak-this struck him as her truest self. Not long ago she might have cowed him with the look she gave him, but not on this day. He was leagues away from the only home he'd ever known, from the only people left on Nlined's earth whom he cared about. She'd taken enough from him.