by Ian Irvine
Rannilt moved towards him, very slowly, and put on her most calming voice.
“I’m not gunna make any sudden movements, and you’re just gunna lie there. You’re not a shifter, not a beast. You’re Tobry. You’re my dear friend, Tobry.” She kept emphasising his name, hoping the message would take hold.
“And I’m gunna heal you,” Rannilt added.
His howl rang out. A threat, or a challenge?
“Soft,” she said. “Soft now.”
Rannilt didn’t know what she was going to say next. She was making it up as she went along. She did not think he believed her, but he was listening.
“Soft, Tobry. It ain’t easy to heal a shifter. You know that. And caitsthes are the hardest shifters of all. I can’t do it in one go. Maybe not in five goes, or ten. Or fifty! But you’ve gotta be patient. You’re gunna get better, and you’re gunna get worse. And better, and worse again. But after a while there’ll be more better than worse…”
He whimpered, looking at her expectantly.
“That’s as far as I’ve got,” said Rannilt. “I’m not a grown-up who knows everythin’.”
His unblinking eyes were fixed on her. His muscles were quivering again, his fingers clenching and unclenching.
“Layin’ on hands,” she went on. “That’s a real important part of healin’. It’s what I’m gunna do now.”
She studied her grubby, twisted fingers, looked down at him and again saw a look in his eyes that could have been amusement. Or something more dangerous.
“First I’m gunna put my hands on your middle. That’s where the caitsthe’s twin livers are, and I reckon they’re real important to the healin’.”
He did not move, did not speak.
Rannilt reached out ever so carefully with her spread fingers, down towards his belly, which was exposed through his shredded shirt. Tobry bared his teeth and growled. She stopped, then slowly lowered her hands. He growled again.
“You’re real scared,” she said. “But you needn’t be. You’re not gunna hurt me.” She paused. “And I’m not even a tiny bit scared of you. Look, my hands are steady as great big rocks.”
His eyes flicked to her outstretched hands, which had a definite tremor. She tried to control it but did not succeed. She grimaced and lowered her hands further.
A louder growl this time. Rannilt flinched but kept on. Tobry let out a savage roar. She froze, gulped, swallowed, locked eyes with his and, deliberately, lowered her hands all the way to his midriff.
His belly muscles were iron-hard; he seemed to be straining away from her. As her hands touched him, he opened his mouth as if to roar, to rend, but managed to force it shut and some of the tension drained out of him. He let his breath out between his caitsthe teeth, ssss.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” said Rannilt. “You’re feelin’ better already, I can see it.”
She kept her hands in place for a minute or two, then lifted them. He made a sound somewhere between a whimper and a sigh.
“Now I’m gunna put my hands on your heart, ’cause the heart’s the most important organ of all. You can’t heal the beast without healin’ the heart.”
He growled, though Rannilt felt that his own heart wasn’t in it this time, and he made no other effort to stop her. He jumped when her hands pressed down over his heart, and she could feel it thumping.
“Just healin’,” she said softly. “That’s all I’m doin’. Just healin’ my dearest, bestest friend.”
His heartbeat slowed, minute by minute, and when she finally lifted her hands away, ten minutes later, she could barely feel it. She rocked back onto her heels, rubbing her face with her sleeve, and closed her eyes for a bit.
He gave an interrogative howl.
“Healin’ is exhaustin’ work. Just give me a minute.”
Rannilt closed her eyes again but almost fell asleep and shook herself awake. She was so tired that she could barely hold herself upright, and her belly felt as though she had not eaten for a week. What if he came to depend on her and she let him down?
She had to do it now; if she closed her eyes one more time she would not be able to open them again.
“The third layin’ on of hands is the hardest,” she said, forcing a smile. “Don’t expect too much the first time. I hafta feel my way.”
And besides, she didn’t have the faintest idea what she was doing. She lowered her hands to his forehead, touched, then slowly slid them around to the sides of his head.
He lay still, staring up at her. She allowed her eyes to drift out of focus, trying to sense what was wrong in his head. No healer could heal without knowing exactly what was wrong, and where in the mind or body it had gone wrong.
She couldn’t see anything now. All her faculties were focused on sensing. Golden light formed at her fingertips and spread until it bathed his head. She tried to reach into him, to discover what was wrong, and sensed something. A small dark core, deep down, was in terrible pain. She probed deeper, trying to turn it over, open it out and expose it to the light.
He let out a shriek, leapt up and his shoulder struck her in the mouth, knocking her backwards. Her eyes flooded, the back of her head cracked on a sharp edge of slate and when she could see again he was scrabbling up the steep slope of the ridge, howling in agony.
Rannilt sat there for several minutes, alternately rubbing her bruised mouth and the bloody back of her head, then picked herself up and went after him.
“You’re gunna get better,” she said, “then you’re gunna get worse. And then you’re gunna get better again.”
CHAPTER 38
Tobry fled into the dark and wouldn’t let Rannilt come near him again.
He could have outdistanced her easily; he could have run so far and fast that she would never have been able to find him, but he had not. He would run for a mile or two, stop until she had almost caught up, then run on again, first heading north, then east into the most rugged section of the Nandeloch Mountains.
That was all she knew; she had never seen a map of this part of Hightspall and had no idea where he was leading her, save that he was running as far from civilisation and humanity as possible.
For the moment Rannilt was content to follow, scavenging off the land, and allow time to do what it could for him. She had been alone most of her life and did not miss the company of other people. Indeed, they would have been a nuisance, telling her what to do and undermining her confidence. She knew what she had to do better than anyone else.
“You can’t heal,” Tali had often told her. “Lyf stole your healing gift in his caverns, remember? Besides, full-blown shifters can never be healed.”
What would you know, you bossy cow? Rannilt had thought. Just because you couldn’t heal Tobry, it doesn’t mean no one can. It doesn’t mean I can’t. I know I can and I’m going to show you.
After following him for three or four days—or possibly five; she didn’t keep count—Tobry led her into another bat-infested cave. This one was a broad hole, forty or fifty feet wide but only five feet high, at the base of a limestone mountain. It ran into the mountain in sinuous curves for miles, and judging by rounded pebbles on the bottom of the cave it had once held an underground river, though only a rivulet flowed there now, barely deep enough to bathe her sore feet.
“You ache for the dark, don’t you?” she said to Tobry when she finally caught him. “You want to hide and never come out, to lie down and never get up. But it don’t have to be like that.”
He must have known she was coming by the golden light from her fingertips. This time he allowed her to get to within twenty feet before racing away, though he did not go far at all, not even out of sight. He was afraid of her touch, but he also wanted her.
He needed her. Perhaps he even believed that she could heal him. It made Rannilt feel warm inside.
“Your arm looks much better now. It’s almost healed,” said Rannilt when she was five feet away.
He just looked at her.
“First the
body,” she reminded him. “Then the mind. And last of all, the shifter curse.”
Her stomach rumbled. She hadn’t eaten in the past day and a half. In the pursuit there hadn’t been time to hunt, and at this time of year there were no fruit, nuts or berries.
Tobry reached behind him, then held out a gruesome, bloody object, the head of a hare-like creature. Rannilt was not overly fastidious—slave girls could not afford to be—but the thought of eating it, raw or cooked, made her gag.
“No thanks,” she said politely. “I’m going to catch a fish… after I’ve done the next healin’.”
He stiffened, started to howl, but broke it off and savagely crunched up the morsel, spitting out the fur and bones. Rannilt allowed the light from her fingertips to die down so she wouldn’t have to watch.
He finished in a minute or two but it didn’t feel like the right time to try again. He was too tense; too afraid. The best thing she could do was talk, and see if it would put him at his ease.
“What are you lookin’ for, Tobry? Why did you come into this black cave?”
He stared at her. He did that a lot.
“What are you thinkin’? Sometimes I think you want to be healed, and sometimes I think you just want to run into a dark hole and bury yourself. What are you really lookin’ for?”
“Unh-unh!” he said.
“I don’t know what that means. Can you say it again?”
“Unh-unh! Unh-unh!”
Rannilt wrinkled her forehead. “Perhaps if you mimed it.”
He bent his arms, brought his fists to his shoulders, then flapped his arms up and down several times. His eyes were alive, yet he was trembling.
“You want to fly?” she guessed. “No, you’re thinkin’ about a bird. A big bird?”
He stared at her again, unblinking.
“All right, not a bird. But somethin’ with wings. A bat? A gauntlin’?”
He was silent, quivering ever so slightly. He looked down at his shaking hand and tried to steady it, but could not.
“Maybe a gauntlin’, and maybe not,” said Rannilt. “You’ve got to find it, but you’re scared of it, too. Why don’t I call it the winged terror for now?”
He howled and bolted. She went after him, following his shifter reek in the dark. It wasn’t hard. In this long, winding cave without any branches or side openings, the only way he could go was forward.
After an hour she was too tired to go any further, so she lay by the stream in the lowest part of the cave. The water was deeper here, hip-deep in places. By playing her golden light across the surface, Rannilt found she could attract small white fish, and after practice she learned to scoop them out of the water. She caught three, cleaned them and grilled them on a tiny fire she made from a piece of driftwood so white and smooth it must have been drifting down the underground stream for an aeon.
After she had picked the bones clean and returned them to the water, she lay down to rest, trying to work out why Tobry had come in here.
Why was he hunting the winged terror? What did he want from it? If it was a gauntling, she couldn’t protect him. She was unarmed save for a blunt knife with a blade no longer than her middle finger. She rubbed it on the rock, trying to sharpen it, but the soft limestone had no effect on the steel.
He reappeared, silently.
“What do you want from the winged terror?” said Rannilt. “How can it help you?”
He was as still as a sphinx.
“How are you huntin’ it, anyway?”
His eyes blinked, extinguishing the tinge of yellow and replacing it with the normal grey. Rannilt breathed out. Grey for the man, yellow for the deadly shifter cat.
“If it goes after you I can’t help you,” said Rannilt. “That golden magery I used to save you and Tali from the facinore, it don’t work no more. Lyf robbed it away.”
He bolted again. She followed wearily, for hour after hour, until her blistered feet were so sore she could walk no more. She lay on the bare rock, slept for a few hours and continued.
So it went on until she had no idea where she was, or if it was day or night outside, or even what week it was. She might have walked fifty miles under the mountains; she might have walked two hundred.
She came around a bend and his eyes reflected the glimmer from her fingertips. Rannilt stopped, uncertain now.
She couldn’t think of anything to say; she did not want to raise the topic of the winged terror again. But she remembered how keenly he had listened the other day when she had talked about her dying mother, and her own desperate need to heal.
“In Cython, if you’re an orphan everyone picks on you,” said Rannilt. “Well, almost everyone. Tali was nice, but she was so sad when I met her. Her friend Mia had got her head chopped off and Tali just wanted me to go away…
“I asked her if she would be my new mother,” Rannilt added dreamily. “I used to ask all the nice slaves that. She said, ‘Don’t be silly.’ ”
Tobry’s eyes had a peculiar shine. Rannilt could not read it but she felt he wanted to hear more about Tali.
“The other slave girls were the worst,” she said, without rancour. “When I was a water carrier they were always trippin’ me up and makin’ me spill my water. They used to whack me round the legs with a wet rope, or make little holes in my buckets so all the water ran out and I had to fetch it again. I was always gettin’ into trouble for bein’ late with the water.
“And once they put alum in the bucket I was takin’ to the overseer. It puckered his mouth up so bad he could hardly speak. Ooh, I got such a floggin’ that day I couldn’t sit down for a week.”
Rannilt rubbed her meagre bottom, smiling faintly. “I got them, though.”
He made a questioning noise in his throat.
“It wasn’t revenge, exactly,” said Rannilt. “Revenge is bad for you, everyone knows that. But you gotta defend yourself or they’ll get you even worse next time. I put bath salts in the girls’ dinner and they spent the next five days in the squattery, their bums flowin’ like drains.”
Tobry made a sound distinctly like laughter.
“ ’Course, they got even,” she said in a matter-of-fact way. “Broke all my fingers.” She studied her twisted fingers as if she had never seen them before, then rose. It was time to try again. “Don’t move. I’m gunna have another go.”
She eased towards him, holding her hands out, the fingers spread. He let out a muffled howl, quivered as if he was about to bolt, but managed to restrain himself. The faintest golden light limned her fingers and extended up her hands to her wrists.
“I went too far the first time,” said Rannilt. “Looked too deep. I’m not gunna do that again, don’t worry. I’m just layin’ my healin’ hands on your head, that’s all. Not lookin’ at all.”
Nonetheless, as she knelt before him and put her hands around his head, he flinched. She lifted her fingers away then brought them down again. He stared into her eyes, unblinking.
As she held her hands there she could feel the tension draining out of him. His hands rose, as if of their own accord, and rested on hers. His eyelids drooped; his head sagged a little, and she felt that he had found a kind of release, perhaps for the first time in weeks.
After a while her muscles began to cramp. She moved her left hand as carefully as she could. His eyes flew open, he whipped his hands away and hurled himself backwards.
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” said Rannilt, but he was gone, splashing up the underground river into the darkness.
Again, though this time she had done no physical healing, weariness overcame her. Her stomach was so empty that she could feel the sides rubbing together. There were blind fish in the stream but she did not have the strength to try and catch one. She lay on the stone floor, wrapped her coat around her, and slept.
He must have come back while she slept. Rannilt roused from an unpleasant dream about having her fingers broken by the water girls and realised that he was sitting close by, watching over her. He
r mind heavy with sleep, she instinctively reached out to him for comfort.
Tobry stared at her, frozen, then took her in his arms and hugged her tightly. She clung to him for a few seconds, until the spell broke. He wrenched free and flung himself into the darkness again.
Rannilt lay down, smiling to herself, and slept the night away without dreaming at all.
CHAPTER 39
“Lord King?” Moley Gryle said urgently, from the door. “One of your commandoes survived the failed raid on Castle Swire and he’s made it back.”
Lyf was in the Hall of Representation. He often went there because the paintings, etchings and tapestries that covered the four walls of the hall depicted the whole vast sweep of Cythian history. They comforted him in a way that his ancestor gallery never did—the artworks revealed both the greatness and the brilliance of his nation, and his small place in its history. And they never criticised him.
“Send him in.”
A wounded soldier was carried in on a stretcher, his head and chest swathed in bandages. His right hand was missing, the stump bandaged and bloodstained. The attendants set the stretcher down on the floor, next to a cluster of statues of Cythonian elders from the time of Bloody Herrie—the conspirators who had killed that unfortunate king.
“We failed, Lord King,” the soldier said in a dry, rasping voice.
“I heard.” Lyf knelt by his man. “But you did everything possible, and fought your way out to bring me the news in person. You will be honoured for your courage and determination, Captain Lanz.”
“We had a bitter fight to get into Swire,” said Lanz. His voice cracked. Lyf held a mug of water to his mouth. Lanz took a small sip, then continued. “Their numbers were higher than we were told. Three hundred.” He took another sip, choked and began to cough.
Lyf wiped Lanz’s mouth and held him upright until the fit passed.
“We lost half our force before we broke through the outer gate, and almost all of us before we blasted our way into the castle. It was very bloody.” He held up his wrist. Blood was seeping through the bandage.