by Sandra Elsa
Johann had once theorized that part of the reason Garec was after her was because he sensed her power. Perhaps he more than sensed it. When she had met him, she had no knowledge of magic, beyond the simple skills of the magickers that passed through Hallowisp. Could Garec have some skill himself, and discovered the strength of her latent energy? Perhaps he had sold her to the King of Telgar, before he even owned her… That would certainly explain why the merchant had sent someone back to keep an eye on her.
She laughed. Her fears were running away with her. She was allowing herself way too much importance in the grand scheme of things. A king... what possible reason would a king have to buy a Swadish slave, on the word of a merchant? Utterly ridiculous.
Johann searched her face at the outburst of unexplained laughter, but she did not enlighten him. For her to laugh at her wild thoughts was one thing, she didn‘t want anybody else looking at her as though she hadn‘t a brain in her head.
When Pink didn‘t explain, he said, “We’ll have to do something about that distinctive hair color. I trust you’ve already manipulated the brand?”
Pink smiled smugly. “That was one of the first exercises in Healing I did.” Carefully manipulating the skin within the circle of the brand she had removed the scar tissue where the iron had burned into her. The ink of Mistress Henna’s personal marking, she had caused to be absorbed into her body and replaced with smooth natural skin, long since tanned copper, to match the rest of her.
“Well then, if we can find some walnuts we can dye your hair to a darker shade. Then nobody will suspect you of being the same person, unless Garec or somebody who knew you personally comes looking.”
When they spotted a small grove of walnut trees, Johann and Pink set up camp within the grove. She picked enough of the nuts up off the ground to make a good dye. Together they crushed the outside hulls and stored the nuts in their packs. Pink got out a large bowl, poured the hulls into it and covered them with water. She heated the bowl over the fire to soften the husks and speed the process. Once it was hot she mashed the rinds with a rock and set it to the side to steep overnight.
She barely finished when she received an urgent call from Conall. “You have company.”
Dowsing the fire, she sat perfectly still, listening. She sent a magical sweep to clear footprints, even though dusk was settling in, making it difficult to see tracks.
Johann stared at her as though she’d lost her mind.
When Angel also went on the defensive—Johann became still and quiet. It took nearly fifteen minutes but the people Conall warned her of, came down the hill and past the grove.
They made little noise but as they passed she heard their horses hoofbeats pause; there was a whispered conversation. She could not discern their words but secondhand through Conall’s sharp hearing she discovered that they could still smell the smoke. They debated searching and then decided that they were close but their quarry had gone on.
When they could no longer be heard, Johann turned to Pink. “Do you mind explaining to me how you knew they were coming, so long before they arrived?”
Pink looked at him, debating just what to tell him. She decided on the truth. They had already had two arguments about the missing supplies. It would be much easier to just tell the truth and let him believe her, or not, as he chose, than to try to cover any longer. Conall had already told her, he would not show himself to Johann so proof was out of the question. She could put it out there, and then she would no longer be hiding anything.
“Do you know of anybody who talks to animals?” she began with a question. She wanted to know just how crazy she was going to sound.
“The histories speak of a very few who had that skill, hundreds of years ago. It is generally considered a lost art.” He looked up from where he was rebuilding the campfire and stared at her. “You’re not trying to tell me you can speak to animals are you?”
“Not all of them,” she whispered meekly.
He waited for her explanation, foot tapping.
“Remember what I told you about the hound that chased me through the mountains?”
Johann looked about in the gathering shadows. “He’s not here, is he? He hasn’t been following you all this time?”
Pink hurried to quell that thought. “No, it’s just the first time I had an animal do what I wished, when I wished it. I still don’t know why he stopped. He never spoke to me.”
“There are many possible spells you may have inadvertently cast to make him stop. Back to tonight’s episode please.”
Angel stomped and looked at Pink.
She in turn looked at Johann. “Then there’s Angel. He responds to what I want and helps me out, with or without a request.”
“And yet he does not speak to you. That does not explain tonight.”
“Do you remember the wolf that I saw the night we met Dylan?”
Johann nodded, a finger stroked the lengthening beard he wore. “You mean the wolf that materialized on that stage in Hordun? The one that was eating a Telgarn soldier when I first saw him?”
“The very one.”
“You’re saying he’s still tracking us?”
“And he speaks to me. He told me those men were coming.”
She launched into the tale of how they had picked up the wolf as a traveling companion, and his claim of being cursed by a wizard.
Johann shook his head, a frown creasing his face. “Why didn’t you just tell me from the beginning?”
“I thought you’d think I was crazy, claiming to talk to animals. Up by Trell I wasn’t at all certain I hadn’t nodded off and dreamed the whole episode. I’ve never heard of anybody who could speak to animals, except in the fairytales my father used to tell me. I thought I was going crazy when Conall first started talking to me.” She felt the blood rise in her cheeks, she should have told Johann weeks ago. “I talk to Angel and he seems to understand but that connection is nothing like this. Conall tells me that Angel is getting stronger in mindspeech and that he will also be able to talk to me soon.”
Johann rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you call this wolf, Conall, in so I can get a look at him? I may be able to help him if he truly is cursed.”
She relayed his message to Conall, but Conall was firm in his decision. He wouldn’t come near any human who couldn’t talk to him, particularly a wizard.
“Humans in general,” Conall had told her, “because I have been shot at too many times in my too long life. In other wolves some of the strikes would have been fatal. For me they caused pain until I could worry the arrows out. The wound always healed. Wizards...it's nothing personal. My curse forbids me to get close to them.”
Pink told this to Johann now.
“If I’m going to be feeding him, I would think he would at least show himself to me,” Johann grumbled.
Pink smiled, she had been afraid he wouldn’t believe her. But the only thing upsetting him, was apparently, not being able to meet Conall. She looked back on the day that she had met Johann and once again thanked the gods that she chose him to approach when she was lonely, cold, and hungry.
“All this time we’ve been standing guard and I could have left it to that fur ball skulking in the woods. Well, tonight I'm sleeping,” he muttered. “He owes me. I’ve been working for the food he’s been eating too.”
Johann turned and looked at Pink. His expression was ominous. His voice was firm when he told her, “No matter what the reason, from now on I want you to tell me if anything odd happens. I can’t train you if I don’t know your abilities. The energy in you is so intense, you will likely do many things nobody has been able to do in quite some time.”
Thunderclouds gathered on his brow. “If you think so little of my friendship that you believe I would ridicule you for telling me something strange or unusual, we have not grown as close as I thought. You are no longer a slave. You must learn to trust me.”
Pink turned away from him, ashamed of her lack of faith. “If I had known you would have belie
ved me so readily I would have told you long ago. I lived a good part of my life only telling people what they wanted to hear, and avoiding confrontation. Some habits are hard to get over. When he didn’t want to show himself to you, I didn’t know how to make you believe me.”
Johann’s voice gentled. “That little exercise earlier, putting out the fire and waiting for our company to go by, that convinced me you knew something I didn’t. I’ve seen too much in my time to not believe in a cursed wolf. If he was from the part of the mountains where he started following us, I may even have an idea who the wizard that cursed him was.”
Johann’s expression became fixed in the past. Pink had learned to associate that look with something he’d rather not talk about, which nevertheless haunted him. With a visible effort he pulled himself back to the present. “This wizard was Telgarn, and quite powerful, before my time. Some say he destroyed the forces led by Caralon’s youngest son single handedly, back when the trouble with Telgar was first starting. The twisted magic he performed made the death and horror of the last war, pale in comparison. Ask Conall if the name Dorang sounds familiar.”
Pink relayed the question to Conall and the anger and hurt that reverberated through her mind told her clearer than words that Johann’s guess had been dead on. Once he calmed down she told him, “Don’t worry. He’s dead. Remember, you killed him.”
“No, ” he thought back at her, “I could not kill him. His unruly horse killed him. Keep that in mind, Lady—there are many ways to accomplish something without actually doing the deed yourself.” Calm permeated the wolf’s mind once again. “He thought by preventing me from killing, he would be safe and I would be punished, and for a long time he was correct. But the longer I lived, the more intelligence I regained.”
Pink paled and grabbed her head at the pain the word regained caused. That was a definite taboo on his curse and if the pain was not so obliterating her ability to think she would probably find it important. She rocked back and forth holding her head.
Johann wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her until the episode passed. When she stopped rocking he asked, “Are you certain he’s harmless?”
“He suffers the same as I when that happens. There are things he is not permitted to tell anyone.”
A groggy male voice said, “Again I apologize, I think without thinking sometimes. I have been alone in my head for so long I don’t remember all the things that are not allowed.”
Pink reassured him she didn’t hold it against him and he continued. “I decided that the horse could be my agent to strike back at him. I was harmless and he knew that, but his horse did not. I did not have to kill the horse only frighten it. Even so, what you just felt was mild, compared to the pain that chase cost me. If your friend considered Dorang to be an enemy, then perhaps he will become my friend. But not tonight.”
She turned to Johann and told him, “You’ve just come up in his estimation by declaring Dorang an enemy. He says that perhaps he will come to consider you a friend.” She smiled as Johann searched the forest around them. “You would think a wolf as large as a pony would not be so adept at hiding, but even I can’t see him if he doesn’t want to be seen.”
Pink cast energy at the rebuilt campfire. With a whuff that consumed half the wood, it lit.
Johann just shook his head.
As she started gathering more wood to replace what she’d just burned up, she thought about what Johann had been saying and asked, “Who was Caralan?”
Johann looked at her in surprise, quickly followed by understanding. “It’s easy to forget there are a lot of things you wouldn’t have learned growing up as a slave. Caralan would be King Lorth’s… let’s see… great, great, great grandfather.”
“And this trouble with Telgar has been going on since then?” she asked incredulously.
“On and off. Usually each new ruler in Telgar tries at least once to defeat Ronan. They have been getting progressively more persistent, and determined with each new generation of rulers. Not many people travel to Telgar but those few who do, report a continuing downward spiral to their land. I'll teach you the history of our two lands starting tomorrow. Tonight I wish to sleep.”
She felt a distant intrusion in her mind, he seemed a long way away. “Get some rest,” Conall thought at her, “those men have traveled on. Tell graybeard he may also rest. I'll keep watch this night, but I expect twice the breakfast you have been leaving me. You no longer have to hide it, so please remember that something the size of a pony needs a lot of food to stay healthy.” She felt him humph as he repeated her words. “Not that I’m complaining. I am healthier now than I have been in many years, thanks to you. But if you were to feed me enough that I wouldn’t have to dig up carrion I would gladly take every watch. I can get by on very little sleep.”
Pink smiled and turned to Johann with a laugh, “He’s bargaining for more rations. Says he’ll watch through the night if I leave him more food.”
“Tell him he has a deal. I could use more sleep, and somehow I suspect he will see much more than I ever would.”
Agreement reached, Pink and Johann lay down to sleep.
Chapter 18