"That's ridiculous! Why on earth would I hear such a thing?" I cried, really frightened now. "Don't tell me deer have truespeech!"
"No, my heart, of course not. But it happens sometimes, when one of the Kantri grows old or infirm, that they begin to hear such things—the day-song of birds, the rush of sap through the heart of a tree, the death screech of small creatures in the long grass when owls are hunting. Dearling," he said gently, "do you hear anything else?"
"Oh Hells," I said, my eyes wide and filling with tears against my will. This was vastly worse than the attack in the night. I was filled with dread, fear like a pit opened bottomless before me. You can run from or fight with other living souls but your mind is with you always. "Varien—oh Hells. I've been hearing voices, just out of range—I mean, I know they are voices but I don't know what they are saying."
He closed his eyes, just for a second. "Lanen." Then, looking up, "I do not know how this can be. You have an affliction that falls only upon the Kantri. When did this start?"
"Last night." I swore. "Hells blast and damn it!"
There, that felt better. "Why do you ask?"
His eyes looked less haunted immediately. "Then it cannot be the same. Are you well otherwise?"
At least that made me smile. In fact it made me laugh. "What, you mean apart from being exhausted and having been captured twice in five days and fighting for my life and watching my farm bum down around me and my husband kill men with his bare hands? Apart from that?"
"I do not jest, kadreshi."
"I'm sorry," I answered, recovering myself. "We do that sometimes, it's the only way to deal with things that are too hard to bear, we just have to laugh about it."
"I know. We do the same. Are you well otherwise?"
"As far as I can tell, yes. I'm weary to my bones and ravenously hungry, but aside from that I think I'm well enough. Why, Varien?"
"It usually affects us at the end of a long life, and only after a prolonged time without food." He was shaking his head. "Forgive me, deariing, I do not mean to worry you. I am wrong, I must be. Know you of any such illness among your own people?"
I managed to smile. "Only madness, my dear. And last I checked I was as sane as I ever have been."
He caught me to him, his arms strong about me as if he were holding me against one who sought to take me from him. "Come, my heart. Let us go back to the fire, this setting winter sun warms nothing. Perhaps I make more of this than is in it. You are cold and weary, it could be mere chance or imagination. Come."
But when we got there, Rella and Jamie had taken the deer's carcase a little way into the woods to clean.
It got worse from there.
To use words is misleading, for there were no words then. Only feelings, sharp as the light after a thunderstorm, and the unformed shapes of thoughts like shadows in a deep pool.
There was longing, for I had not seen him or heard his voice in many years. There was loneliness, for though I did not know where to go I knew that I needed to be with him, needed to know that he lived. I flew high many nights, searching, wondering, yet too full of fear to leave the home I had made for myself.
The thought of him was remembered joy, family, home—his absence a bitter wound that bled sorrow. I needed him, needed his presence. The world was changing, moving towards a place where no light shone. I could not be sure any longer even of my own kind. I had seen fighting among us and death that shocked me to my bones, made even hearts-fire cold.
Where there snould have been calm waters there were thorns, and a feeling in the blood of darkness like deep winter spreading over life and light. I needed him—teacher—friend—Father. I needed to hear the sounds he made, on the edge of understanding, so near, so near. .
VI Recovery
The poor madman, my master, sat up in bed. He was still fast asleep but he was laughing this time, which was better than before. The last two mornings he had wakened screaming bloody murder, rousing not only his watchers but full half the household. When I went to release him from this dream he did not fight me as he had, but relaxed into my arms and slept again without waking. I almost had some hope that his cure had begun.
I had been a Healer in the House of Gundar since first I came into my power. He had been thirty-five then, and I in my early twenties. Over the last fourteen years I had watched the changes that had overtaken him and seen his association with Magister Berys of the College of Mages draw him into the worst of himself. I had willfully blinded myself for many years, but on that voyage to the Dragon Isle, Marik had revealed himself as a soul lost to the Rakshasa. I had planned to leave him when we returned, but then he had pitted the strength of his demon-centred power against the Lord of the Dragons. I did not know precisely what had happened; but when his guards carried him to the ship, mindless, helpless as a newborn, I knew I could not leave.
Without the Ian fruit we would have lost him. I had heard of such things, of course, and knew the theory, but I had thought it merely legend until I saw the miracle that one of those fruits had wrought on the Lady Lanen. Horrible burns, to the bone, burns that would have taken months to heal—if she had even lived—with the most skilled and constant care in all of Kolmar, had disappeared overnight. Arms that should have been hideously scarred for life had no more than a few traces of those ravages wrought by I knew not what fire. True, I saved her from the fever that raged within her, but for all my strength she would have died that night without the fruit from a lansip tree.
The first that I fed him, on the ship, saved Marik's life; the second that I fed him, after we reached Corli, had a more subtle effect. I had summoned the Healer's deep vision that I might watch as he ate; it was astounding to see his ravaged mind begin to knit before my eyes, see even the disturbance of minor ailments pass from him, and to observe the war between the virtue of the lansip and the years-long pain that he bore. When he had finished, that old wound was nearer healed than ever it had been before, and it did not grow worse again after the healing as had been the pattern for so many years. I did not imagine this could be a direct effect of the Ian fruit, however virtuous. Myself, I think that with his mind gone the evil creatures couldn't find him, though I presumed his old punishment could not be entirely revoked while he lived.
I half expected him to rise up from his bed as his old best self, fully recovered, but that fool's dream soon deserted me. After more than four long moons of work and healing, he no longer required the care of a babe in arms, but his mind was not restored. It was more as though a deep wound had finally stopped bleeding. It was not healed, but at least it was not getting any worse and healing might take place in time, though my hopes on that score were dwindling. He could understand simple words but he had not yet regained his speech.
I had managed as well to keep Magister Berys from him ever since we had returned from the Dragon Isle. Perhaps if I had kept him away longer my master might have recovered fully in time—but speculation is idle. Word had arrived some days since from Berys to let us know that he was coming. Despite my status as the Healer in charge of Marik, Berys was the head of the College of Mages in Verfaren, where Healers are trained.
When the Archimage is chosen, the choice is meant to be based on a combination of qualities, such as strength, integrity, honesty and compassion. In Berys's case it had been pure power. He had more of it than any other Mage alive at that time, more than most of the others combined. The faction supporting his election had put about a rumor that the presence of so powerful a Healer must be a sign that his power would be required for some great work in his lifetime. It had swayed many—though I was not among them, I am pleased to say—and he had risen to the highest position afforded any Healer in all the lands of Kolmar.