However, it has changed me, being around so much learning. I've read everything I could find, and I speak differently now than I used to. You can't read so many words without starting to use some of them. My sister laughs at me but I think she is secretly impressed. She was the only other person who ever knew Salera and she misses her. I go back home occasionally, to visit with Lyra and to make sure my cottage in the wood has not fallen down. In fact I was there before midwinter just past, making all snug before the frost set in. I still returned to Verfaren though, to see in the new year, despite the fact that I have never felt that I belonged here. I have never felt the need to go back home, either.
Until a few years ago, when I met Vilkas and Aral. Interesting that almost the only lass who has been able to see me as no more than a friend from the beginning has been Aral, and that she has captured my heart so completely.
Life does that to you sometimes, when you're not looking.
I was speechless with wonder. "Marik? My lord?" I whispered, not daring to believe what I saw.
"Who did you think it was, Maikel? And what's wrong with your eyes?" he asked, frowning at me. Berys laughed.
"He has not been well, Marik. Worn out with fussing over you. Still, you are both under my protection now, so there is no need for concern."
Marik seemed to get angry at that but he was not really strong enough for anger yet. "For now," he murmured. Why he should be angry at Berys's words I could not understand. I worried for a moment that he was not as fully recovered as he seemed.
"How is your leg, master?" I asked. He seemed surprised. He glanced down and flexed the muscles. "It hardly hurts at all."
"Wait until you stand up," chuckled Berys. "Maikel tells me you have been unable to get out of that bed for more than five minutes together ever since you returned, and that has been full four moons by my reckoning. It is time you took some exercise." He grabbed the blankets and tugged them off the bed. "Come, man, it's midmorning, time you were up and doing."
The Magister dragged my Lord Marik out of bed and got him to stand, which is more than I had managed to do for many months, but I barely noticed it. He was weak, he was disoriented, but he was himself again. His mind was healed. I could scarcely believe it. I had not yet dispersed my Healer's sight and without thinking I used it to look into his mind.
No longer did I see mat desert mat had haunted me for so long. His mind appeared at first glance to be much like any other, bright with flashing thought and swirling with colour, but there was an obvious difference just below the surface.
I know not how I may explain this to you. Imagine a hut made of twigs and branches of all different shapes and sizes. At first glance it appears solid, but when you look closely you see that it has been made hurriedly from shoddy materials, and the nails that hold it together are poorly forged and too short. It looks whole but one good wind would blow it to pieces. Or a bridge—yes, that's it, imagine a single slim bridge spanning an abyss, barely long enough to reach across. There are no handrails and it shakes at every step. It is possible to cross, but the link is dangerously weak and could shatter at any time.
For a moment I stared at Berys, horrified. He had not healed Marik, he had patched him together with thin cord and weak glue. It was a dreadful, irresponsible thing to do, for if that patch came undone my lord would be worse off than before. The undermind trusts only once. If Marik's mind shattered this fragile link, it would never accept Berys's healing again. It would probably never accept any healing again.
I looked up to protest, then thought better of it. Best not to mention such a thing in Marik's presence. I must speak to Magister Berys later, alone.
In the meantime, Marik practiced walking. He was dreadfully weak, as might be expected, but he managed a few steps several times that day. And he finally ate real food, not just the infants' mush we had managed to get down him before.
Perhaps the mend would hold. Certainly the habit of sanity was the best cure. The longer he remained well, the stronger his mind would become. But I didn't like the slapdash way he had been healed, and I resolved to say something about it when I could catch Berys on his own.
I sought him then, following instinct, even as I trembled at the thought of the journey before me and wondered if I could find the place where I was raised. I had travelled far and wide in the years between and was not certain where to look, but there lived in my mind a quiet woodland up in the hills, where there was a cave once and pain, and a house in a clearing with a stream at the side. I knew somehow in the confused heart of me that it was there I would find him.
As I followed the mind's trace that drew me to him, I saw many of my own kindred in passing. Some came to me with a glad sound and that was very good. I saw more than I had dreamt there might be and my heart knew joy at the seeing. But as night follows day so there is darkness in all things, and I also passed many of the Hollow Ones. They were shaped as we but there was nothing within them but pale fire and the need for food. They turned upon one another, rending in anger where kinship was lost, and my blood grew cold as the ice beneath my feet when I saw them.
I travelled long, by sun and moon, flying where I could, walking when I had to, seeking any sign of him or of my old home on the ground or in the air. I stopped to eat and sleep as need found me and hope carried me, until finally I began to recognise the land. The trees were naked so early in the year, though I remembered them with white flowers and red berries, but it was the same place. We had walked here together of a morning. I was come home.
Alas, his smell was cold, and my tail dragged in the dust that lay soft and gentle upon the threshold. I did not smell death, but neither did I smell present life. But there was food to be had in the wood, and water and shelter, and I could keep myself strong as I awaited his coming. For I knew in my soul that he would come, as I knew that day followed darkness. I had only to wait and watch.
VIII Journeys
The moon was dark. Full six se'ennights had passed since the night of the earthshakes that had wakened me from my Weh sleep.
My dear son Kedra and I waited in the entry to the Chamber of Souls, watching the sun set. The winter days were growing longer, noticeably so now, but the cold had returned with a vengeance. Frost was in the air, sharp and clear, and this night there would be no moonlight to soften the ice with beauty.
Kedra was fully trained in the Kin-Summoning but I had decided that this time I should undergo the fasting and meditation, for he still kept watch over his youngling. However, it was not necessary to spend every waking hour in preparation. Even though I had to keep to my chamber for the full fortnight before the Kin-Summoning, to fast and to quiet my soul, Kedra brought young Sherok to visit me every day to lighten the waiting.
The little one was astounding and filled me with delight. I had forgotten how swiftly they change when they are so very small. Each day he was more steady on his feet, each day it seemed that his wings grew. It would not be many months now before they were in proportion to the rest of him. He was already making the sounds that would flower into speech, and soon thereafter he would begin to send his thought-pictures to more than his mother and father. True-speech was still a few years in the future, of course, but after a mere quarter of a year he was grown half again as large as he had been at birthing.