by King, R. L.
At last he felt himself lowered onto something soft, and the world stopped swaying back and forth. The pain didn’t lessen, but it became more steady, throbbing at a regular pace instead of striking in short, sudden bursts. He tried to say something to the woman but he couldn’t get it out.
“Okay, out,” the woman ordered Jason and Lopez. “I need to work and you two will just be in the way. There’s food in the kitchen, and you can fix yourself up with what you find in the bathroom cabinet. Go on.”
A hand gripped his arm. “We’ll be here, Al,” Jason said, his voice rough. “You yell if you need us. And hold on, okay?”
Stone barely heard him. His body was on fire. He thrashed back and forth, feeling blood starting to trickle from his wounds again.
“Easy,” the woman said, putting a hand on his uninjured shoulder. As before, her voice was harsh but soothing. She moved her hand up to swipe sweat-plastered hair off his forehead. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”
He didn’t notice if she returned in five minutes or five hours, but at some point a cold cloth settled on his brow. It felt like a small oasis of bliss in the center of an inferno. “Mmm...” he murmured.
“All right,” she said. “Can you hear me?”
“Mmhm...”
“You’re going to need to help me, boy. Can you do that?”
He looked up into her lined face. Her eyes flickered deep brown in the firelight. “I—”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve done this. I can’t do it without your help. I know you’ve got the power. Will you help me?”
Again, he nodded. “I—I’ll do—what I can.” He wondered if she could even hear him.
“Good. You’re a fighter. You’ll need to be. What do I call you?”
“A—Alastair.” Why did she keep talking to him? More to the point: why did she keep wanting him to answer? All he longed to do was drift away in a haze of darkness. If he woke up, great. If not—at least he wouldn’t hurt anymore.
“Alastair. And I’m Edna. Good to meet you.”
He heard the slosh of water in a basin, then felt another cool cloth on his chest and shoulders. Wherever it touched his wounds, the pain flared bright and sharp. Gasping, he tried feebly to roll away. He began to shake again.
A firm hand settled on his unwounded shoulder. “Stop,” Edna ordered. “Now. Listen to me. I know you have the Talent, and you know what you’re doing. You wouldn’t have tried that fool stunt if you didn’t.”
It wasn’t a question, but he felt he should respond anyway. He nodded weakly.
“Good. That means your mind is strong. I hope your body is as strong—it’ll have to be to get through this.” She snorted. “Getting yourself mauled by a bear. Who’s that going to help?”
“Not—a bear,” he whispered.
“It damn sure was a bear. I saw it. And I know what was driving it, too. I don’t know what the hell ever gave you the idea you could stand up to that thing.”
He had to gather himself before he could answer, but when he did there was an edge to his tone. “No one—else,” he said through his teeth.
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Saving the world, you are. Damn kids.” She sighed, and the water sloshed again in the basin. “So are you going to help me? Show me you’re not a complete fool?”
He glared. “What—do I need to—do?”
She matched his glare, her eyes fierce. “Fight,” she ordered. “Don’t give in. Don’t slip away from me. This is going to hurt like hell. Can you handle it, boy?”
“Do it,” he whispered. His voice shook, but his eyes blazed.
“That’s it,” she said. Then she closed her eyes and began what sounded like a low, droning chant. Stone couldn’t make out the words; he didn’t think he could understand them if he could. He closed his own eyes and focused on her voice, letting his mind drift along the strange melody. She went on and on, for minutes or hours or perhaps days. At some deep level he could feel the power rising in the chant, strong and protective and comforting.
Then he heard the sound of water in the basin again, and something wet and scalding hot washed over his chest as the chant rose in volume once more.
He did scream then, and that was all he knew.
Chapter Thirty-Four
She was still there when he awoke, sitting in a chair next to where he lay. “So, you’re back,” she said, marking her place in the book she was reading and setting it aside. “About time. Thought I was going to lose you there for a bit.”
He blinked, taking inventory as best he could without moving. He was lying on what felt like a mattress, covered with some sort of heavy blanket. The ceiling was rough-hewn wood, as were the walls. A quick glance to his right showed him a large window with dappled sunlight shining in through a thick curtain of trees.
He turned to look at her. He hadn’t really seen her before, not very well. She looked tired, her glittering eyes sunk far back in her lined face. Some of her iron-colored hair had escaped from her long ponytail and hovered in wisps at her forehead. She still wore the same man’s shirt, its Native print now stained with dried blood.
My blood. He tried his voice, tentatively: “What—” When it came out sounding halfway like himself, he stared at her and continued: “You’re—a mage.”
“I’m a healer,” she corrected in a sharp tone. “And an old woman.” Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t wrestle the world into submission like your type does—or tries to, anyway. How do you feel?”
“Tired.”
“That’s understandable. Your body’s done a lot of work over the last few hours. I guess that’s one good thing I can say about being that high on yourself: it gives you a good strong mind. You’d have died without it. You almost died anyway. News flash: bear claws aren’t too sanitary.”
He frowned. Clearly this woman, whoever she was, didn’t think much of him—or perhaps of mages in general. Yet she had apparently saved his life. Moving carefully, he pushed down the blanket, fearful of what he was going to see. His eyes widened.
She had cleaned off the blood, so he got a clear view: except for a series of faint, interconnected scars running across his right shoulder and diagonally from his chest to his abdomen, the horrific, muscle-deep slashes the bear had inflicted on him were gone. He lifted his arm, which he remembered being broken by one of the bear’s mighty paw swipes: it too was whole and uninjured. He still felt faint, distant echoes of his previous agony, but they were now more like dull aches, no worse than a muscle cramp. “How—?”
“I told you: I’m a healer. I’m out of practice, but some things you never lose.” She gestured, encompassing the area around her. “It helped that you picked this place for your crazy-ass plan. Did you do that for a reason, or was it just dumb luck?”
He glared at her, wearily letting his arm drop back to the blanket. “Why do you keep saying that?”
“What? That you’re a fool? Because you are. But I really do want to know: why did you pick this place? Are there going to be more of you coming?”
He shook his head, which was more like rolling it back and forth on the pillow. “No more,” he said. “I—chose the location because of the ley line. And because it would likely be deserted. I didn’t want anyone—happening by.”
She snorted. “It’s a damn good thing I did ‘happen by,’ or all three of you would be dead.”
Stone stiffened as memories flooded back to him. “My friends—”
“They’re fine. They’re sleeping now. I couldn’t get ’em to leave until you were out of danger. I fixed up the older one’s leg, but they can deal with the rest of their bumps and bruises. Maybe it’ll teach ’em to think a little harder about what they’re doing.”
He mulled that over for a while—his mind was still moving slower than usual. “Who—are you?” he asked. “I remember you told me your name, but—”
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“Hold on,” she said, rising. “I can see I’m not getting away without a long conversation, so let’s get you something to eat first. You lost a lot of blood and used a lot of energy. You need to build yourself back up.”
Stone didn’t argue with her. He realized he was ravenous and his head felt woozy: she was probably right. He lay there, staring out the window and reveling in the relative absence of pain, until she returned a few minutes later with a tray, the sort used for serving breakfast in bed.
“Sit up a little,” she ordered. She had the manner of a good nurse: brisk and efficient, benevolent without a shred of sentimentality. When he complied, she placed the tray across him. On it was a bowl of beef-vegetable soup and a tall glass of iced tea. “You eat, I’ll talk,” she said. “Not too fast, either. You made enough of a mess bleeding all over everything last night—no need to get sick too.”
Once again he did as ordered. He took an experimental spoonful of the soup, and at that moment it tasted better than the finest meal he’d ever had in his life. “Thank you,” he said, nodding.
She nodded back, once, in grudging acknowledgement. “So—you want to know who I am. My name is Edna Soren. I—” She stopped, because he was staring at her. “What?”
“Edna—Soren?” His gaze locked on her.
“That’s what I said, boy.” She sounded irritated. “Did that bear cuff your ears, too?”
He ignored her tone. “You’re the woman who was found injured twenty-seven years ago—the last time Many Faces was active.”
She looked surprised. “How do you know about that?”
“It attacked you, but failed to kill you.”
“Damn right it failed,” she growled.
Stone stared harder at her. “You sent it back, didn’t you? Last time?”
She nodded, but this time she didn’t meet his eyes. “That was a long time ago. I thought it might be back again now, but I didn’t want to admit it.”
“If you sent it back before, why don’t you do it again?” Stone had forgotten about his soup.
She made a noise that was half-sigh, half-snort. “A lot of reasons. In case you hadn’t noticed, boy, I’m an old woman. I haven’t practiced my craft, aside from a little here and there to help me do my work, for over twenty years. I don’t have anything like the strength I used to.”
Stone gestured at his chest. “I don’t know another mage who could have done this in his—or her—prime,” he said softly. He doubted even Lamar, the old homeless man with one of the rarest of the Forgotten powers who had once saved his life after he’d been stabbed, could have dealt with these injuries.
Another snort. “Maybe so, but that’s healing. And that’s in a place that’s made for healing. The waters here have always been known for their curative powers, and combined with the ley line…” She shrugged. “And besides that, you did a lot of the work. I just directed. If you hadn’t been what you are, and we hadn’t been where we are, I couldn’t have saved you.” She paused. “Anyway, I didn’t exactly send it back. I just sort of—gave it a time-out. I ran it off. I hoped it was permanent, that it would find some other place to do its business. But either it found its own way back or else some idiot summoned it again.”
Stone started to reply, but stopped when there was a knock on the doorframe. He looked up to see Jason standing there.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Jason said. “I just wanted to see how Al was doing.”
“I’m dead, thanks for asking,” Stone said, but he managed a smile.
Jason nodded gravely; he couldn’t pull it off, though. “Damn, man, it’s good to see you awake.”
“It’s good to be awake. Being mostly free of debilitating injuries is quite nice, too. What time is it, by the way?” Stone asked.
“It’s about four,” Jason said. “You’ve been out a long time.”
“You might as well come in,” he said. “Bring Stan too, if he’s awake. I think we all need to talk.” He turned to Edna Soren. “They’re involved in this as well. And I think they’ll want to hear what you have to say.”
Edna shrugged as if to say “whatever.”
By the time Jason returned with Lopez, each of them dragging another chair into the room, Stone had finished the bowl of soup and was sitting up, propped against his pillows. He still felt tired and sore, but nowhere near as bad as he’d expect to feel after suffering such a grievous injury. He was beginning to believe Edna’s claim that this place had actual restorative powers.
When the two newcomers were seated, Stone indicated Edna. “Has our hostess introduced herself to you yet?”
Lopez shook his head. “We didn’t really have time for formalities. We were too busy trying to keep you from dying.”
Stone nodded. “This,” he said, “is Edna Soren.”
Lopez and Jason exchanged glances. “From the paper?” Jason asked.
Stone wasn’t surprised that they both remembered; he supposed that was one of the things policemen were trained to do. He filled them in on the conversation so far, then turned back to Edna. “Let me tell you the rest. Perhaps it will help you understand what we were doing here in the first place, and how we managed to blunder into the situation.”
At her nod, he began to speak. He told her everything, starting with Jason’s call and ending with their trip up to Matilija Hot Springs so he could try to communicate with Many Faces. She listened without comment until the end, then snorted. “Talk to him. Honestly. And he wonders why I get nettled when he tries to call me a mage.”
“You aren’t a mage?” Jason asked, confused. “But—”
“Like I told him—I’m a healer. What I do is in harmony with the earth. What he does is impose his own will on the universe. Big difference.”
“I think perhaps it might be best if we discussed philosophical differences some other time,” Stone said gently. “For now—” he spread his hands “—I’m at a loss as to what to do. I don’t have any other ideas on how to convince Many Faces to go back where it came from.” He sighed. “I might—might—be able to pull off such a banishing if I had a team of mages to help, and time to build a proper circle. But even then, I doubt it.” He looked at Jason, remembering something. “Jason—”
Jason didn’t return his gaze. “I…don’t know, Al. I don’t know what happened. That’s never happened before.”
“What are you talking about?” Edna demanded.
“Jason has an—ability—that allows him to channel power to mages if he desires it. We’ve used it before. With Jason’s power added to mine, I can cast much more powerful spells with much less effort. But last night—I called for it, but for whatever reason it didn’t work.”
“I was trying,” Jason said. He sounded miserable. “I don’t know why it didn’t work. It’s never not worked before.”
“Well,” Stone said, “I don’t know, either. Possibly it has something to do with your captivity: perhaps Many Faces drained enough of your power that it will require time to recharge. I don’t know. But it means that for now, any plans we make can’t assume its availability.”
Edna harrumphed. “Listen to you—still planning. Still talking about power and tactics. Haven’t you figured it out yet, boy? You might be strong, but it doesn’t matter. This isn’t about strength. No matter how strong you are, it’s stronger. It’s stronger than all of us.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Stone asked, an edge to his tone. “That we give up? Allow this thing to march through and murder everyone it likes?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Right now, what I suggest is that we get some rest. I’m wiped out from the workings I did on you. And I can see that even though your pride’s making you try to hide it, you still are, too. Your body still needs to heal. Rest until tonight, and then we’ll talk some more.”
“So you’re going to help us?” Lopez asked.
“What about Faces?” Jason asked.
She snorted. “No offense, but you two are small potatoes. I don’t think it’ll waste its time on you. It’s your arrogant friend it wants. And in any case, you’re under my protection here. Don’t spend the day out there, but if anybody comes up here you don’t want them to find that circle or the big patch of your friend’s blood.”
Stone wanted to protest, but he knew she was right—and even if he himself weren’t tired from the effort of telling their story, he could see that Edna was badly in need of rest. In spite of her grumpy demeanor, Stone respected her for remaining with him until she was sure he would survive. “Go,” he told her. “We can afford a few hours.”
She nodded, rising with effort from her chair. At that moment, her lean, sinewy body looked every bit its age and more. She waved vaguely in their direction, then trudged out of the room.
Jason and Lopez rose too. “We’ll let you rest,” Jason said. “She’s right: we should clear that stuff out of the parking lot before anybody comes up here and finds it.”
Stone thought about telling them to hunt for bodies, since according to his theory Many Faces would have to have murdered more people to power his “associates,” but he didn’t. If there were any bodies, they could wait; despite Edna Soren’s assurances, he didn’t want his friends wandering around outside her wards any longer than they had to.
Right now, he had some thinking to do.
Chapter Thirty-Five
They made an unlikely war council when they reconvened a few hours later in Edna’s rustic, comfortable living room: Jason and Lopez, bruised and battered and still wearing the same torn and dusty clothes from the previous night, sat in two of the chairs; Stone, pale and clad only in his bloodstained, shredded jeans since his T-shirt hadn’t survived the bear attack, was propped on pillows on the sofa; and Edna, who had changed out of her bloody shirt into a blue denim one decorated with intricate embroidery, was settled in a carved wooden rocker. She had brought them all more soup, bread, and iced tea (“Sorry it’s not fancy—it’s usually just me, and I don’t keep that much in the house.”) and they now all sat facing each other and trying to decide where to begin.