The Healers' Road

by S E Robertson

  Warm hope rekindled in Keifon’s chest, drawing him away from his memories. “Yes. I’m sure he does.”

  “He can’t, though. It’s ridiculous. Impossible.”

  “He came to talk to you today,” Keifon reminded her. “And you seemed – very close when you came back just now. I didn’t mean to see that, and I’m sorry, but…”

  “It doesn’t make any sense, though.” She kicked a stone on the footpath. “I don’t understand it.”

  Keifon sighed. “It’s not that complicated. You two have – chemistry, compatibility, something. It seems mutual. That’s not so hard to understand.”

  “If you put it that way, of course it makes sense. If it happened to someone else.”

  Keifon’s head tilted. “Are you not allowed to take lovers? Is it a religious issue?” Or her family would object to Laris’s ancestry or class. Or she was betrothed to someone else, though she would probably say so if she were.

  She flapped her hands in a pale blur. “No – no, no. Healers can – do whatever they want. So can priests and swordmasters. Same as your Church. It’s not that. I mean, don’t you see it? You know how men think.”

  Keifon looked away, over the lake. She wanted advice. She wanted explanations. From him, of all people. She had questionable taste in mentors. “I know what I think,” he said. “Sometimes. I can’t speak for all men.”

  “But you know,” she insisted. “You know what they like. You know what I mean.”

  What men like? Keifon felt himself flushing and shook off the thought of Kazi, of Eri, of an underhanded smile. He thought of the light that lit the zealot from inside, and his own deep longing to tend the home fires, to anchor an eagle in flight. What men like, indeed. “I don’t think everyone likes the same kinds of men and women that I do. I don’t think I could handle the competition if they did.”

  “...Oh.” She seemed to consider this. “Um. I-I mean I’m not much to look at.”

  Keifon stretched his neck, suddenly tired. She was so young, after all. “If you want to know why he likes you, ask him. I can’t answer for him. I really can’t.”

  “No, I...” She sighed. “I don’t know where I’m going with this anymore.”

  Keifon traced her tangled line of logic. He could be helpful to her if he could find something to say that would put her mind at ease. She was confused and lost, and although it was more proper to seek guidance from her priests at the shrine, she seemed to want some kind of wisdom from Keifon. She seemed to think that his age or experience would give him insight. It wasn’t quite respect, but his heart responded hungrily all the same. He wanted to have answers for her.

  He retraced what she’d said so far. “You don’t think he should care for you.”

  She was quiet before she answered. “I suppose so.”

  “I don’t think you get to decide that for him. You can only decide whether to return it.”

  “That’s from Lundran scripture, isn’t it,” she replied.

  Keifon tensed, gauging her expression. How did an unbeliever recognize Lundran scripture? And what cruel dismissal was she about to launch? But she said nothing, and Keifon reminded himself that she had not criticized his words or his faith. She had only acknowledged the source. He swallowed and made himself relax. “Yes. It is from Lundran scripture.”

  The healer tilted her head back as she walked, watching the emerging stars. “Lundran scripture was the hardest for me to understand. I mean, nothing like that would ever apply to me.”

  She had read Lundran scripture? Keifon knew abstractly that there were followers of the gods in the East, but she was not one of them. Why would she read the scriptures? And if she had read them, why had she said such hateful things about the Daranites? Yet she wasn’t saying these things now. She was only reflecting on having read the scriptures, and trying to apply them to her own life.

  She probably couldn’t relate because she was so resistant to the idea of falling in love, or the idea of being loved. She might have read the scriptures, but she didn’t seem to understand them. She was getting caught up in the idea of romantic love and missing the rest. It was a common enough mistake. Keifon aimed toward that thought, fleeing the sadness that began to gather on her behalf. “The Lady oversees all human connections. Not just romantic love.”

  “I know. Still.” As she lapsed into thought, Keifon noticed the lights of the shrine in the distance. The healer went on. “I don’t understand it. And that’s why I’d like to go to the shrine and think for a while. See if anyone can give me some advice. No offense. Your advice is fine.”

  Keifon chuckled, a short bark without mirth. “Don’t listen to me. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “Well, you’re married, aren’t you? You know something.”

  He found his fingers sliding along the torque. The metal was smooth and warm against his skin. “Not exactly. I know what not to do.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?”

  There was the other face of it, the risk that came with the reward. If he were to treat her as a companion instead of as an adversary, he had to face his own failings. He had to know what to tell her about himself. But he wasn’t ready yet, and she had her own problems to untangle. Keifon dropped his hand. “I’d rather not talk about it right now.”

  The healer looked away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t pry.”

  They drew close enough to see the pantheist shrine in full. It was a small building, no larger than a country church, dwarfed by the old trees around it. It was built out of wood with a stone foundation and front steps. Heavy wooden columns supported the corners of the roof. It was finely made, but strangely ordinary.

  A low stone wall, like one that might separate one property from the next, surrounded the shrine and enclosed a small meeting ground. The wall supported the ring of lanterns that they had glimpsed from a distance. It was clearly not meant for defense. Besides, the gate was open.

  Keifon hesitated at the gate, and the healer pulled ahead of him by a few steps. She turned back. “You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to.”

  His hand rested on the gate inadvertently, and he pulled it back. “Isn’t this your sacred ground?”

  “Yes, but you can come in. It would be against their core principles to exclude anyone, don’t you think?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Oh. Well, yes. You can come in. They’ll have a vestibule in the front; you don’t have to go all the way into the sanctuary. But you don’t have to wait out in the dark.”

  He had looked forward to sitting by the lake, but it was kind of her to offer. “Hm. Thank you.” He followed her when she continued toward the door.

  The two of them climbed the front steps and passed into a warmly lit entryway, lined with benches. A tall Nessinian man in a cloak rose from one of the benches, and Keifon’s heart raced as he glimpsed a sword at his hip. His hand twitched, but he hadn’t worn his combat knife. Of course. There would be no reason to wear it out on a friendly walk. He hadn’t counted on being slain by a temple guard.

  The healer greeted the guard in her own language, laying her hands over her heart. The guard replied, making the same salute, and glanced at Keifon before going on in Kaveran. “So, have we got a new priest? Or a new healer?”

  “Oh – I’m a healer, but I’m not assigned here. I’m with the caravan. Through the Benevolent Union. This is Keifon, a medic from the Yanweian army.”

  Keifon’s heart hammered as their attention shifted to him. She didn’t have to go ahead and announce his presence. His origin was clear enough, of course. But he had seen Yanweians in the clinic over the last few days; he might have passed as an immigrant. He hoped they’d give him a chance to leave quietly.

  “Really, now,” the guard said. “Suppose Linn and Faran went off the road after all. I’ll leave you to your visit. Pleasure to meet you.” He sat down and picked up a book.

  The healer was turning as if to enter the shrine proper, and Keifon
leaned in to mutter in her ear. “Are you sure it’s safe for me to be in here?”

  She stifled a snicker. “Are you here to loot the shrine? Of course it’s safe.”

  “Hm.” She didn’t have to make light of it, but she didn‘t seem to mean it as a real insult, either. She simply didn’t see anything wrong with being accosted by a man with a sword upon entering a foreign church.

  Keifon watched as she stepped up to a marble font by the inner doorway, washed her hands, and folded her hands in prayer. She looked back at him. “It’s all right if you want to wait here. Just take a seat.”

  Keifon nodded and sat on the bench closest to the door. The healer passed through the inner doors into the shrine. Keifon became keenly aware of his isolation, cut off from even a partial ally, alone with an armed foreigner who had half a foot of height on him.

  The guard turned a page. Keifon focused on the book. Escape to the Frontier, the spine read in Kaveran. The vestibule was silent apart from the occasional whisk of a page turning and Keifon’s own breathing, which seemed too loud. Keifon heard low voices inside the shrine; the healer had found a priest to talk to.

  “So,” the guard said in Yanweian, “you from around here?”

  Keifon blinked. The guard had spoken in Keifon’s own language, filtered through some mongrel combination of Nessinian and Kaveran accents. But it was clear enough. Was he being sarcastic? Keifon looked nothing like a Kaveran. But then he remembered some of the patients today, Yanweians who had moved over the border to work in Kaveran ranches. And their spouses. And their children, some of them half-Kaveran or half-Furoni.

  Perhaps the guard wasn’t being sarcastic. Perhaps he was trying to be friendly.

  “Uh, no,” Keifon managed after an awkward interval. “Northeast Yanwei. Eastwater.”

  “Eastwater, don’t know it. Northeast, though – ranch country, right? You know Lendu?”

  “Yes, of course.” It was a city, not far from Eastwater. Keifon had gone sometimes on festival days when he was young.

  “Got some in-laws out in Lendu. Never been, myself.”

  Keifon’s mind stampeded after the proper response. If he had in-laws in Lendu, that meant that he was married to one of those Yanweian immigrants. What kind of person would marry a foreigner twice over, a foreigner in a foreign land? Someone who had no other prospects at all? Keifon nearly shuddered, and remembered not to react. It wouldn’t be polite to suggest that the guard’s spouse must be a terrible person to have had to resort to marrying him. He would never say such a thing to any of his patients, Keifon reminded himself. Even when he had treated some of those half-immigrant families in the clinic, he hadn’t thought ill of them. He had focused on their treatment. A small, hidden part of him might even have been envious. Most of them had looked happy.

  Before Keifon could come up with something civilized to say, the guard went on. “First time south, then?”

  “Well... first time in Kavera. I had an apprenticeship in southern Yanwei for a while. On a horse ranch. Before I went into medicine.”

  “You don’t say. And here you are.”

  “...Yeah.” It was almost a conversation. Keifon wondered how the guard had met his mysterious spouse, and whether that was why he’d stayed in the country. The thought made him flush, ashamed of his earlier aspersions.

  It was the same as with Agna. This stranger was no different from anyone else, either. Yet Keifon kept reacting defensively, as though he were constantly under attack. As the healer had said, he wasn’t here to loot the shrine. The guard wasn’t even particularly on alert, considering the fact that he was reading on shift.

  Despite its foreign construction and the font by the door and the pale, green-cloaked guard, the heathen shrine seemed much like a small country church. Keifon imagined an Eytran church instead, with open windows and rushes on the floor and priests in green cloaks. It was probably blasphemous to make the comparison. He deserved to be struck down for being here in the first place, let alone equating this unbelievers’ shrine to an Eytran church. But somehow, it made sense.

  Eytran churches didn’t have guards, though. Only the Daranite churches did, and that was largely symbolic. There had to be a reason why this lonely little building on the edge of a quiet city was guarded. His impression had been that these guards were a common thing, that every shrine had them. He couldn’t imagine why.

  “So,” he began carefully, “what exactly do you do here?”

  “This and that. Stand watch. Take turns keeping up the place. Cooking for festivals – you ought to come back for the fall festival sometime! We all pitch in everywhere. We’re small time, out here. Only nine of us on staff, so we do what we can.”

  “Hm.” It had answered the question in an entirely unhelpful manner. “But you… swordfight, too, don’t you? That’s why they call you swordmasters.”

  “Oh, that. Of course. The other two and I practice. Can’t say we’ve had a real situation since I’ve been here. It’s tradition. Got to have swordmasters, after all.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Keifon said quietly. He didn’t understand a thing about this place or the people in it.

  But he could understand if he dared to try. He didn’t have to agree. He didn’t have to be converted. He could merely ask and learn. And if he learned about this place and its people, someday he could come to understand the healer better.

  Keifon took a breath and looked around the wooden vestibule. Not that different from the Eytrans, he reminded himself. Maybe the guards weren’t entirely different from the Daranites. Maybe it would make sense if he listened.

  “I’ve never been in one of your shrines before,” he began. “And I don’t know much about your religion. But… I’m curious.”

  He waited to be thrown out, or laughed at. Instead the guard hmmed thoughtfully and held out his hands as if holding a sphere. “Say this is the whole world, and everything in it, and all the people that ever were…”

  Agna: Lakeside

  In the vestibule, the medic had moved to the other end of the bench, next to the old swordmaster. He broke off midsentence and stood as Agna emerged from the sanctuary. His eyes searched her face, dismayed. Agna wiped at her eyes. The medic searched his pockets and held out a folded handkerchief. Agna took it, feeling idiotic for having forgotten hers. “Thank you.”

  The medic turned to shake hands with the swordmaster in Kaveran fashion and traded a few polite words, then met her by the door. “Are you all right?”

  She rubbed at her eyes. “I’m fine now. I think. I’d like to go.”

  “Of course.” He followed her out of the shrine, catching up to walk beside her after they passed through the gate. Agna tucked the damp handkerchief under her belt and clutched the ends of her sleeves as she walked. The moon had risen, casting shimmering reflections over the lake. A line of lampposts outlined the footpath through the park. The caravan’s camp glowed in the distance, a knot of lanterns and torches with the bonfire at the center. It had been a lively and lucrative day at the market, and tonight was a night for celebration.

  The medic said nothing for several minutes. There was no challenge in his stance. He didn’t seem likely to make fun of her for crying. He could be cruel, but not in that way. He would probably leave for Edann’s as soon as they got to the camp, anyway. Some privacy would suit her perfectly tonight.

  He stopped without warning, looking out over the lake. “Do you mind if we stop for a bit?”

  “Hm? Oh... that’s fine.” They had reached one of the stone benches at the lakeside. Agna took a seat at one end, and the medic sat beside her, hunched over, resting his forearms on his knees. His presence was strange, too – personal, somehow. She began to notice the motion of his breath and the space his body took up beside her. He was wearing a braided cord around one wrist today, a simple ornamentation that she hadn’t noticed until now. Agna swallowed and focused her attention on the lake.

  “I talked to the swordmaster for a while,” he said. “He told m
e a lot about... your religion, how it works. There’s so much that I didn’t know.”

  “You can always ask me.”

  “I didn’t know to ask. I thought I knew everything there was to know.” He took a slow breath, looking out over the water beside her. “Before that. I guess... when I saw you and Laris, I realized that you were – no different from anyone else.”

  Agna felt her jaw clench. “That’s rude.”

  “Oh – not that way. I’m sorry, I didn’t say that well.” He breathed out, folding his hands together. “I meant – that you’re no different from me, in a lot of ways. Everything I ever knew about foreigners was that they were faithless and – distasteful. Untrustworthy. How could you trust them if you don’t know their families? What’s enforcing their honor?” He glanced up, reading Agna’s blank expression. “I suppose – that’s another story. My point is, I didn’t think much of – you. Of people like you. But then I saw that you were a talented medic. I couldn’t ignore that. And then when I saw you with him, saw that spark between you, I remembered – I remembered what it was like to feel like that.” He crossed his arms across his stomach, drawing into himself. “I realized that ‘heathens’ live their lives and care for one another like anyone else. And of course you do. You’re people too. I need to remember that, and I’m ashamed of myself that I didn’t.”

  It was almost certainly the longest thing he’d said to her at one time. “Is that why you came along today? Because you realized that I’m human?”

  She could barely see his crooked smile in the backlighting from the lanterns on the path. “I guess it is. I was curious about your shrine. And I felt guilty, and wanted to do something for you.” He looked away. “I didn’t know whether I’d get a chance to say any of this. I hope I haven’t troubled you. I know it’s a bad time.”

  “That’s all right.” Agna considered everything he’d said, or at least, all of it that she could understand. He’d realized that they were more alike than different. That realization went both ways. Agna swallowed. “I haven’t been fair to you, either. I assume I know everything, and I don’t.”