Tavis turned his face even farther away.
“I will wear no hook,” he breathed.
“No?” Rhys shrugged. “Well, suit yourself. You don’t have to make any decisions about that yet. I want to know what happened, though. Did another Healer come in here last night, perhaps? Or—” A quick mental image of Tavis and Javan came and went. “God help you, Tavis, you didn’t try anything with Javan, did you?”
Slowly Tavis turned his face back to Rhys, though he pointedly avoided looking at the arm Rhys held.
“What do you mean, did I try anything with Javan? What could I have tried? Javan is human. Besides, you know I would never do anything to harm him.”
“I—don’t know,” Rhys said thoughtfully. “But I—we—found him asleep beside your bed early this morning, and you had your hand cradled against his cheek. Did he—say anything to you?”
“I was unconscious,” Tavis whispered, staring at the ceiling now. “He must have thought to comfort me.”
“I see.” Rhys thought about that for a moment, somehow bothered by Tavis, but not in any way he could put his finger on, then slipped the Healer’s arm into a loose restraining loop to keep it elevated.
“Well, he seems to have been good for you, whatever he did. How about something to eat?”
When Tavis did not reply, Rhys shrugged and headed for the door.
“Well, you have to eat. I’ll be back in a little while. In the meantime, I suppose you could use a little time to yourself. That’s going to take some getting used to.”
And how would you know? Tavis retorted bitterly, but only in his mind, as the door closed behind the other Healer.
He lay there glaring at the door for several minutes before giving it up as too tiring. In frustration, he rolled his head from side to side on the pillow, then stopped as his eye caught what he had been trying to avoid ever since he woke. There at his left, his arm was propped against the back of the chair, only a very light bandage covering the place where once a hand had been. A single loop of cloth held his upraised forearm against the chair back.
Slowly he reached his right hand across his body and touched his forearm where the cloth loop crossed, made his eyes slip up to the bandage so close above. He swallowed to keep from choking, forcing himself to continue looking at it.
Alone now, with no false pride to make him brave and no pain to goad him into constructive action, the true extent of his loss was starting to come through as he had not permitted the night before. In his then state of shock, he had been able to tell himself that it was all a bad dream, that when he woke, the hand would be whole.
Except that this dream would go on. There would be no waking in the future as a whole man again. The hand was gone, and he was not. He was going to have to live a long time with that realization.
A moment more he procrastinated, biting back angry tears. Then his hand was fumbling at the cloth which supported his forearm, releasing the knot, easing his truncated arm down across his chest.
He rested there awhile, cradling his arm, his eyes closed, calming his mind against the horror which he must eventually face. Slowly he explored the sensations of his injury, hesitantly testing, probing. A muscle twitched in his arm, and he thought he felt a finger move—but he knew that could not be. Only phantom fingers would ever serve that hand again.
At that thought, his muscles twitched again and it was as if his phantom hand had made a fist. The feeling was so real that he opened his eyes, his gaze drawn irresistibly to the bandaged stump.
That brought him up short. He stared at the bandage in horrible fascination for several seconds, forcing himself to study every fold of the clean linen. Then he slid his hand up to the bandage and, in one quick motion, swept it away. A chill, awful nausea assailed him, but he forced himself to face what he now was, forced himself clinically to inspect every detail.
It did not take long. After a long moment of control, he abandoned all pretense of the cool, professionally-detached Healer and let himself weep, curling over onto his right side and cradling his phantom hand against his chest and sobbing for all that he had lost.
When Rhys returned with his breakfast a little later, he found Tavis asleep in that position and surmised what had happened; mercifully, he left the food within reach on the right side of the bed and went out again. He would let Tavis rest until Emrys and Queron arrived later on. For now, sleep was surely the best possible medicine for Tavis O’Neill.
Sleep did seem to work its expected wonders, for when Rhys next looked in on Tavis, just before midday, he found that the Healer had eaten most of what was on his tray and was talking casually with the servant who had come to take away the remains. When he came back again, a little later, with Camber and the two Gabrilite Healers, they found him sitting up in bed. Other than the fact that Tavis kept his left arm under the blanket when they entered, he appeared to be rested and hale. Even his color was good, which Rhys found extremely unusual, considering the amount of blood he estimated Tavis must have lost.
“You’re right, he does look well,” Emrys said, as Rhys followed Camber and the two Healers into the room. “How are you, Tavis, my son? I was so sorry to hear of your unfortunate loss. This is Dom Queron Kinevan. I don’t believe you’ve met.”
Tavis eyed the white-robed Emrys evenly, but with little warmth, and gave Queron a neutral nod.
“Good afternoon, Dom Emrys, Your Grace. Dom Queron, I’ve heard much about you. Rhys, I’m surprised that you would bother these eminent lords with my small plight.”
“Small plight?” Emrys said. “That isn’t the way I heard it.” He and Queron moved in on either side of the bed. “May we see your injury? We’re told that you have effected a somewhat miraculous cure.”
Tavis stiffened, his arm jerking slightly under the bedclothes, but he did not bring it out; merely laid his good hand protectively over the outline of his forearm beneath the blanket.
“I’m not certain it was a miraculous cure,” he said guardedly. “Two Healers worked on me last night, as you know; and I am still a Healer myself, regardless of my—loss. A Healer’s body, properly trained, should be able to Heal itself much faster than a Healer can Heal another’s body. Dom Emrys, you yourself taught me that at Saint Neot’s. Do you now question me, because I have been a good pupil?”
Dom Emrys, frail and almost transparent in his white robes, pale albino eyes ghostlike in his ageless face, laid a hand gently on Tavis’s right shoulder, ignoring the quick flinch, tightly controlled.
“Nay, son, you have always been a good pupil. But sometimes the pupil surpasses the master, and that is what we would like to know. Even if there is nothing further we may do for you, you may, perhaps, help us by letting us see how we have taught you so successfully.”
“We understand your defensiveness,” Queron interjected quickly, from the other side of the bed, “but your loss must be faced, eventually. Is it not better to begin facing it among those who will understand what it has cost you? And you can learn to compensate, you know.”
Angrily, though he tried to control it, Tavis lay back on his pillows and stared at the ceiling, tight-lipped and tense. The others waited. After a few minutes, Tavis sighed and slowly withdrew his left arm from underneath the blanket. A pale silk cloth was wrapped loosely around the stump, but he did not protest as Emrys reached gently across and withdrew it. The skin under the silk was smooth and white, like a baby’s skin, with hardly a scar to show where the repairs had been made. The wrist now terminated in a smooth knob of flesh.
“Amazing!” Queron breathed. “If I had not seen it, I would not believe it.”
With a nod, Emrys poised his hand above the wrist.
“May I read it, Tavis? I will be gentle.”
“If you wish,” Tavis replied tersely. “And there’s no particular need to be gentle. I don’t feel anything—except that, sometimes, I think my hand is still there, and that I can almost touch things with it.”
Queron nodded. “A fairly s
tandard response to an amputation. Battle Healers often run into that sort of reaction. There’s sometimes phantom pain, too, as if the missing limb or part were still there and injured.”
Emrys, slipping deep into his Healer’s mode, laid his hand more firmly on Tavis’s arm, signaling for Rhys to come to his side and share the probe. As Rhys obeyed, Queron, too, touched his fingertips to Tavis’s arm and eased into the linkage. After a moment, all three men opened their eyes and broke the contact.
“This is quite amazing,” Emrys said. “I’ve not seen that kind of thing except in people born that way. The ends of the bones have fused, and the musculature has redistributed as if it were meant to be that way. You have also managed somehow—and don’t ask me how—to bring your blood level back almost to normal.” He glanced at Rhys. “Are you certain he lost as much blood as you thought he did?”
Rhys shrugged. “Not certain, no, since I wasn’t there when it happened, or even for the first hour or two thereafter. But his condition last night seemed to indicate a greater blood loss than he shows now. I can’t explain it.”
Puzzled, Emrys turned back to Tavis again.
“Can you explain it?” the old man asked. Tavis shook his head. “Then, will you allow me to read you more deeply? For some reason, your shields are very rigid, Tavis. There’s no need for that with me, your old teacher. I had hoped you would realize that.”
“I—cannot, sir.” Tavis whispered, turning his head away and swallowing heavily. “Please, don’t try to make me do it, either.”
“But, I don’t underst—”
“Then, understand this: they tried to batter down my shields!” he gasped, clutching his arm to his chest once more and plunging both arms beneath the blanket again. “They tried to—to force my mind! Men of our own kind held me fast while they chopped off my hand! They said I was aiding the enemy! Does Javan look like the enemy?”
There was little they could say to that. After making perfunctory apologies, Emrys and Queron were ushered from the room by a pensive and silent Rhys, Camber following wordlessly. The four men said nothing as they returned to Camber’s quarters in the archbishop’s palace, but they discussed the plight of Tavis O’Neill in hushed tones for several hours that evening, joined by Joram and Evaine.
“It’s as if he’s just shut down psychically,” Rhys said. “And there’s a core of bitterness there that’s really making me uneasy. I don’t know what to make of it.”
“I hope that I don’t know what to make of it,” Queron said, after a long pause. “I once saw a case like this when I was still teaching at Saint Neot’s. Do you remember, Emrys? We had a marvelously gifted young Healer’s novice—Ulric was his name.”
Emrys nodded and sighed, then shook his head sadly as Queron continued.
“Well, one day he simply—went berserk. He challenged the novice master to a duel arcane. He’d had almost no formal training in such things, but he defeated and killed the novice master! And the novice master was a high-level adept, a Healer himself and a very powerful practitioner!
“Anyway, the point of similarity is that young Ulric showed the same kind of adamant shielding for some time before he went mad, and there was no way to reach him, psychically. He called us devils and blasphemers and tried to bring down the entire abbey. Emrys put an arrow through his heart, right there in the cloister garth, or Ulric would have destroyed us all. He had turned on his own kind.”
“You think Tavis might do that?” Evaine asked, after a stunned pause. “He’s always seemed so gentle.”
Queron shook his head slowly. “I don’t know, my dear. I’m not certain I want to find out, either. Rhys, I don’t suppose you might feel justified in trying out your little Healing quirk on Tavis, would you? To block his abilities until we’re sure he’s stable enough to handle them?”
“A touchy point of ethics,” Rhys replied. “Besides, it may already be too late for that. We’ve established that cooperation isn’t necessary—and you know he’d never cooperate for something like that—but the odd way his shields are fluctuating, I’m not sure I’d want to try it and risk the possible backlash. Something very strange is going on in that man’s head.”
“Do we just give up, then?” Camber asked. “Rhys, he’s in a potentially very dangerous position, not only for himself, being the only Deryni in the regents’ household right now, but for us. If he should become sufficiently disillusioned with us, that he’d side with the regents—why, with Tavis working for them, the regents could sniff out Deryni no matter where they went.”
“Not if I can teach someone how to block Deryni powers,” Rhys replied.
“But who are you going to teach? That’s just the point. Emrys, Queron, God knows, you’ve tried—but suppose it can’t be learned? Rhys, can you really go out and work with Revan? Are you prepared to make the necessary sacrifices? And even if you are, there’s no way of ensuring that our manufactured cult will catch on. Besides, we’re only talking about a few Deryni to be protected that way. They can’t even be the best of us, because the best and best trained must stay aware to transmit our heritage to our children!”
With a surprised gasp, Queron sat back in his chair and stared at Camber. Emrys, ever-calm, shook his head in disbelief and laid his hand on Camber’s arm.
“Alister, Alister, don’t you despair on us!—you, who are usually the rock of calm and courage. Do you truly think that no one else can learn to do it?”
Camber leaned his forehead on the heels of his hands and wearily shook his head. “I don’t know. Forgive me, Emrys. It’s just that all of us have been fighting for so long, in our own ways, and the situation seems to get worse instead of better, with each passing day. And I think I have raised a valid question: if we block the best to save the best, who will teach the children? Oh, we were as mad as your Ulric to even think it might work!”
Chilled, Rhys reached across to touch Camber’s shoulder, at the same time reaching out with his mind.
Courage! You must not do this in front of Emrys and Queron! Or, is it your intention to tell them everything?
With a mental start, Camber jerked himself back into psychic focus, forced himself to look up slowly at Rhys. God knew, it was not his intention to tell the others everything. They thought Camber long dead, and a saint; better they remain thinking so. But Rhys was right. If he didn’t get hold of himself, he was going to end up revealing everything in spite of himself.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, bowing his head again. “Lord, help Thou my unbelief. Perhaps it will work. Maybe some other Healer? Maybe Oriel? Rhys, could he have been responsible for Tavis’s recovery?”
They discussed the possibility, though Rhys, who had worked with Oriel, had detected nothing in the young Healer which should have made him special from any other Healer. Nor could Oriel have returned without being seen.
They did not discuss the suspicion that Prince Javan might have had a hand in things. And especially, they did not discuss what had happened that other night, when Javan might, indeed, have gained the power to do what they were beginning to suspect.
Javan, too, wondered increasingly about that night, and about the strange link he seemed to have formed with Tavis, but he did not mention either one directly, when he spoke with his brothers that evening. He had taken supper with Tavis earlier, but by tacit agreement, neither had mentioned the events of the night before.
But when Javan joined Alroy and Rhys Michael just before evening prayers, to report on Tavis’s progress, he did turn the conversation to what they remembered about the night their father died. Alroy’s recollection was no better than Javan’s own, however, and Rhys Michael could not be induced to take any of their discussion seriously, being preoccupied with the setting up of his toy knights. Alroy was interested in Tavis’s progress, and was glad to learn that he was doing better, but he preferred not to talk about the attack.
“But, we’ve got to talk about it,” Javan whispered, drawing his brother into an alcove near the firepl
ace. “He was attacked by Deryni! Deryni cut off his hand—a Healer’s hand, Alroy! My Healer! What if he’d been one of your friends? Then you’d do something!”
“Well, what could I do?”
“You’re the king! You could order their arrest!”
“But, Javan, I don’t even know who they are! Besides, I’m only the king in name. If the regents don’t agree, I can’t do anything.”
“Then, get them to agree!” Javan argued fiercely. “Listen, you told me yourself that there had been reports in the council about bands of young Deryni bloods running around and molesting people. These men who attacked us could have been from one of those bands. They were nobly dressed. But this time, they maimed a member of the royal household. And Rhys Michael and I might have been killed or maimed, too! Can’t you do something?”
Alroy sighed and looked at his twin sourly. “Javan, you’re not making it any easier for me. You’re only a boy, just like me. We can’t change the world.”
“You’re not a boy, you’re a king!” Javan snapped. “And if you allow this kind of thing to continue, next time it may be you they’re attacking! At least ask the regents to do something. They hate Deryni. They should be more than willing to round up some so that Tavis can check them out. He’s certain he’d recognize them again, you know.”
Alroy drew himself up straighter and looked at his brother. “He would?”
“Of course.”
“Ah, but would he tell us?” Alroy asked. “He’s Deryni, too, after all. Would he betray his own kind?”
Javan’s jaw took on a tight set. “He’d betray those who mutilated him,” he said softly. “Believe that!”
Alroy seemed to think about that for a long time. Then he slowly nodded.
“Very well. I’ll ask them. But don’t expect any miracles. They’re not all that fond of Tavis anyway. They’ve only let him stay because you made such a scene about it.”
The Legends of Camber of Culdi Trilogy Page 115