Karal stared in surprise; that didn't sound like the diffident young Shin'a'in he knew. That sounded more like someone who took it as given that he was Talia's equal.
She nodded just as if she accepted his status, too, and slipped out the door before Karal had a chance to object. "You stay here with Natoli; I think I can manage to pack for you," the young Shin'a'in continued sternly. "Anything I forget, you can borrow from me. If I have anything to say about it, you won't need anything but a bed shirt for two or three days anyway."
As An'desha disappeared into his bedchamber before he could object to that, Karal looked at Natoli with a face full of woe.
"Don't I get any choice in any of this?" he asked.
He got no sympathy from her.
"No," she said flatly. "You don't. You've done your best, and you've gotten into a mess you can't do anything about. You're tired to death, you're sick with strain, and your judgment is not good right now. We're going to take over and let you rest, so you might as well relax and enjoy it."
Be careful what you ask for, he thought, as the memory of his earlier wishes flashed into his mind. You might get it.
An'desha and Natoli took Karal and his bag across Companion's Field, trailed anxiously by every Companion there. Florian led the parade, which under other circumstances might have been hilariously funny. A hard frost was forming; the stiff blades of grass crackled underfoot, and their breath hung in frosty clouds in the still, cold air. Behind them followed dozens more "clouds," the silent, white forms of the Companions. They weren't being herded; An'desha would have recognized that behavior. They were worried about Karal, and although he was no Empath, their concern was strong enough it made itself palpable even to him.
The Healer was waiting for them just inside when they reached the ekele, her eyes closed as she breathed in the faint, sweet perfume of some of Firesong's night-blooming flowers. "Thank you for letting me come here. I know this is just a more sophisticated version of a forcing-house," she said to An'desha as they entered through Firesong's clever double door that kept cold drafts out. "But this place always, seems the epitome of magic to me."
"You could build one of these yourself, with one of our steam boilers and pipes to send hot water through the room to heat it," Natoli told her matter-of-factly.
"You could not have plants this large and healthy in a matter of weeks without the magic, however," An'desha countered firmly, standing up for his discipline. "Here is your patient, lady Healer—" He pushed Karal to the front, as his friend seemed inclined to lag back, trying to avoid attention.
The Healer took Karal's wrist, put her free hand under his chin so that he could not look away from her eyes, and frowned as she stared into his face. "One would think you were a much older man—or a Herald—the way you have abused yourself. Come, child," she continued, although Karal was not a great deal younger than she. "I think you should be put straight to bed."
"I am very glad to hear you say that," An'desha told her, relieved. "Follow me, please."
Before long, Karal was indeed in bed, dosed with several potions from the Healer's bag, and blinking sleepily. An'desha had his instructions and a line of bottles of more of the same stuff with which to ensure that Karal remained in his bed and permitted his poor abused insides to heal. The Healer, who never had given her name, also left a list of what Karal was and was not permitted to eat.
"We can't do this for long," the Healer said warningly to both An'desha and Natoli. "These herbs in this row are powerful and dangerous, and they shouldn't be used for more than a week. However, I do not think that he will need to be forced to rest for more than a few days. After that, these other potions, these brews, and good, soothing foods should effect the rest of the cure."
"Provided we can keep Jarim from turning all our work into nothing," Natoli muttered. The Healer looked at her without comprehension.
"Never mind, she's just thinking out loud," An'desha told the Healer. "Thank you, we're very grateful."
"Well, I'm grateful that Herald Talia caught him before he had a real bleeding stomach," the Healer said cheerfully. "That's ten times harder to cure. Good night to you!"
After the young woman had gone off into the night, Natoli turned to An'desha with discontent written all over her intelligent face. "All my life I've heard about how the Healers can cure almost anything that's not congenital," she said. "I've heard how they can piece shattered bone together, how they can make wounds close before your very eyes!"
"So?" An'desha asked, heading back toward the stairs and the living area of the ekele.
"So why didn't she do something?" Natoli demanded as she followed. "All she did was look at him, put him to bed, make him drink a couple of messes of leaves, and that was it! He's been looking like grim death for days, and he doesn't look much better now, so why didn't she wave her hands around or whatever it is they do and make him well without all this resting and drinking teas?"
An'desha paused on the staircase and looked down at her, trying to think of an analogy for her. "Would you build one of your big steam engines just to convey a few pots of tea to the Grand Council Chamber all day?"
"No, of course not; that's what pages are for," she replied impatiently. "What does that have to do with Healing?"
"There is no point in this Healer using a great deal of energy—energy that comes from within her by the way—just to perform a task that her herbs and minerals will accomplish, particularly not when Karal's life is not in any danger." He raised an eyebrow and Natoli flushed; he figured he might as well not bother to point out that Talia could well have asked for an Herbalist-Healer rather than one who relied completely on her powers. "She is simply using her resources logically. You would scarcely thank her for exhausting herself over Karal if—oh, say later tonight the Rose were to burn down and she would be unable to help some of your friends who were burned, because she had no energy left. It's a matter of proper use of resources, my friend, and not any slight intended toward Karal." He looked back over Natoli's head, into the darkness beyond the garden windows, and smiled. "Of all of the many kinds of people who may have been deceived by Jarim's foolish accusations, you may rely on it that no Healer picked by Lady Talia will be one of them."
He looked back down at Natoli, who grimaced. "I suppose I'm jumping at shadows," she said reluctantly. "And I keep forgetting that Healers are supposed to work differently than you mages."
"Not quite; you are used to seeing the Masters and Adepts at work," An'desha interrupted, as he resumed his climb, with Natoli just behind him. "Journeymen and Apprentices—and what are called 'hedge-wizards' and 'earth-witches'—also rely entirely on their own reserves of energy, unless they are extremely sensitive to the currents of energy about them. Even then, they cannot use either the great leylines or the nodes where the lines meet. Only Masters can use the former, and Adepts can use both. But there are many, many mages who do their work very effectively with no more power than what lies within them."
Natoli shook her head in frustration; An'desha turned to face her again as she stepped up into the gathering room of the ekele. "It all obeys rules," he chided her. "It is all perfectly logical. Do not be the equivalent of a Firesong, who refuses to believe that the energies of magic cannot obey rules and logic. It is no more illogical to say that one must be born with the ability to become an Adept than it is to say that one must be born with the ability to become a sculptor or an artificer."
"That isn't logical either," Natoli replied with irritation. "All people should be born equal."
He laughed at her. "Now it is you who are being illogical, assuming that because the natural world does not follow what you perceive to be the regular pacings of the world of numbers, the natural world should be discarded!"
She didn't reply, but he heard her muttering under her breath, and it was probably not very complimentary. He didn't mind; in fact, he rather enjoyed teasing Natoli, who he felt was far too serious for her own good.
Not unlike myself
, in some ways. He ignored the mutters and went back to the room that had once been "his," which had been Karal's temporary refuge once before.
Karal was still awake, but even to An'desha's inexperienced eyes he was fighting a losing battle against the potions the Healer had given him. "You should sleep," An'desha said, sitting down beside the Shin'a'in-style pallet that lay on the floor. Natoli knelt next to him.
"I 'spose I should." Karal yawned hugely, and blinked. "Funny. I wanted to get sick, 'cause then I could just—stay in bed—and—"
"Well, you are sick and you will stay in bed and do what you're told," Natoli said severely. "There is no point in trying to fight it."
He smiled, a smile of unexpected, childlike sweetness. "I won't," he replied. "Just wanted to say—thank you."
"You're welcome," An'desha told him, as Natoli patted his hand. "Now sleep."
To prevent any more attempts at conversation, he extinguished the lamp with a thought, and got up, leaving Karal and Natoli alone in the faint light coming from the lamp in the hall.
He went down to the garden again, leaving her to find her own way out. She and Karal had not had much privacy to be together for the past several weeks, and he thought it was about time that they had a chance for a word or two before Karal couldn't fight the drugs anymore.
I'll give them a better chance later, he promised himself.
As for him—he had some ideas that might be helpful, but he also needed some privacy to put them to the test. The primary one was that he should try something he had not attempted since Falconsbane leaped from his body as it lay dying.
He waited, watching the fountain, until Natoli descended the staircase again, wrapped in her cloak. She didn't notice him, and he didn't interrupt her introspection as she let herself out quietly. Then he let the falling water lull him until he was in that half-aware state in which it was easy to slip into a trance.
Then he sought the Moonpaths.
He was not certain he would be permitted to find them; after all, the Moonpaths were to be walked by shaman, Sword-Sworn and Goddess-Sworn, not for just anyone. The Avatars had taught him how to reach them so that he would have a safe place to meet them where he could talk with them while Falconsbane slept. But now he sent his spirit out, and up, in that familiar twisting of reality—
And he was there, standing on a path of silver sand, surrounded by a gray mist that glowed with its own pearly light.
I did it! He savored his elation; he was never certain when the Avatars would show themselves anymore, and it seemed best that if he could go to them, he should, rather than waiting for them to come to him. Their relationship with him had changed since he had come to Valdemar; when they answered his questions at all, it was obliquely. Rather than giving him answers or teaching him directly now, they gave him the briefest of guidance, leading him to find his own answers to his questions.
Then again, his questions were more difficult to answer, and the answers were of necessity more subjective than objective. In many ways, he was now determining what he wanted to make of himself and his life by the answers he uncovered.
I am learning what I am by determining what Falconsbane was in all of his lives, and determining why he did what he did and why he thought what he thought, then deliberately taking the opposite direction.
Well, that was grand philosophy, but at the moment he had need of some of those other answers, the simple ones. He hoped that the Avatars, particularly Tre'valen, could help him. After all, the real problem lay with Jarim, a Shin'a'in—and weren't they both the Avatars of the Star-Eyed? If Jarim got a visit from Tre'valen in all his glory, and was told in no uncertain terms that he was mistaken entirely about Karal, wouldn't that solve the entire problem right then and there?
That was his hope, anyway.
He sent his thoughts questing out into the mist, hunting for his teachers and guides; it was not possible to reckon the exact passage of time in that timeless place, but it was not too long before he was answered.
The mist above the path shimmered in a double column of light; then, with a shiver, solidified into two figures. One was male, the other female; the male of the two was clearly Shin'a'in, but the female was not. Her clothing and her hair, a long waterfall of silver, marked her as a Hawkbrother, Tayledras—or in Shin'a'in, Tale'edras—as were Firesong and Darkwind. Although they looked wholly human, there was a suggestion of great wings, wings of flame, in the air behind them. They, too, glowed with their own inner light, and their eyes, as they gazed smiling upon An'desha, had neither whites nor pupils. Instead, they were the dark of a night full of stars, and in the black depths shone tiny sparks of light.
When Shin'a'in called their Goddess of Four Aspects the Star-Eyed, this was what they meant, for She and all of Her spirit-servants and Avatars had eyes like this. It was a sure way to know them, and was impossible to counterfeit—so An'desha had been told.
"Well, little brother." Tre'valen crossed his arms in a curiously human gesture and looked upon his pupil with approval. "You have not forgotten your lessons."
"I would not have dared to come here, if I had not the need," An'desha said hastily. "I beg that you will indulge me—
"Oh, we know, we know; you are altogether too diffident," said Dawnfire with a laugh. "So come, what is it that brings you here, seeking us?"
"It is my friend Karal," An'desha said. "The envoy of the Shin'a'in who replaced Querna is—is causing him great despair."
Quickly, for he had carefully rehearsed all that he wanted to say if he got the chance, he related troubles that Jarim had wrought since his arrival. Tre'valen and Dawnfire listened sympathetically, but when he had finished, their words were a disappointment.
"I am sorry, little brother, but there is nothing that we can do to help," Tre'valen said with finality. "I wish for your sake and for his that there was—but there is not. You and all the others involved in this sad situation will have to work your own way through this."
"Only if it is clear—clear to Her, that is—that we must act or the consequences will be catastrophic, will we be permitted to intrude," Dawnfire added, although her expression was sympathetic. "I am sorry."
An'desha sighed, but he did not bother to make any further pleas although their words disappointed him greatly. I was brought up on all of the tales of the Star-Eyed and how She sends aid only when all other courses have been exhausted. I should not be upset at this.
In fact, sometimes She did not aid at all—unless a price was paid in lives. That, too, was something he had known.
He should not have been so disappointed, but he was, and they saw it in his eyes. He thought of poor Karal, lying on that pallet, pale and too thin with trying and failing to do a job that was beyond his strength. He thought of smug Jarim, sneering at the halfbreed An'desha, radiating an unreasoning hatred whenever he looked at Karal. There was an awkward silence for a moment, then words burst from him. "She tries Karal past his endurance, and so does his own God!" he cried. "Is that fair?"
But Tre'valen only gazed at him steadily. "Fair?" the Avatar repeated. "You ask me if this is fair? And—you think that She and He are responsible for this?"
An'desha spread his hands mutely.
"Do you think that She is some sort of trainer of men, as one trains horses, heaping trial upon trial on a man to see if he shall fail, and how he bears up beneath the load?" Tre'valen asked. "Do you think that the Sunlord is a great clerk, with His ledger, noting what is fair and unfair and making a sheet of debts and credits?"
"It has been implied—" An'desha began.
"By men," Tre'valen said sternly. "By men, An'desha, who would take their own narrow views of the world and squeeze the gods into those views; who would put their words in the mouths of their gods. No. They are constrained, by Their own wills, to give us the freedom to make our own choices and live or die by them. We are Their fledglings, but when the time comes to leave the nest, They cannot fly for us. The world is what we make of it, for it was given to
us—as your tent is what you make of it, for it was given to you. You may keep it neat and in repair, or you may let the poles break, the hides rot. That is the truth. It is a hard truth, but truth is often hard to bear."
An'desha flushed, feeling obscurely ashamed of his outburst.
"It is only when we have passed the bonds of this world that They may act—or when events have passed into realms where nothing men can do will mend them. Your events have come nowhere near that point." Tre'valen finally smiled at him warmly, and An'desha flushed again, feeling as if he had been taken gently to task for something that should have been obvious.
"There are many courses that you may yet take," Dawnfire suggested. "Think of all the friends that you and Karal have, those who will not be swayed by a hateful man's willful blindness. I can tell you that the Healer already spreads her tale of a poor young man tried past endurance, and there are as many sympathetic ears as unsympathetic. You might think on what ears you may find."
Well, that was true enough, and while Karal was recovering, Jarim would not have a target for his abuses.
Unless he takes me for a target—and then, I think, it is likely since he will not only have to contend with me, but with Firesong, and Firesong is a past master at making fools look as foolish as they truly are. The thought made him smile a little.
Still—it would not be easy for him to move among the people of the Valdemaran Court, defending Karal's honor and honesty. He still often felt gawky and out of place except during a crisis, when he was too busy to think or feel self-conscious.
But I am Shin'a'in. Jarim cannot deny my heritage. And I, beyond anyone here, can vouch for Karal. Did I not see him with his master, and the way the two acted with one another? Did he not bring me through my own darkness? Did he not place his life in jeopardy to protect not only his land, but those of all the Alliance? I can speak to all of this, these things that others seem to have conveniently forgotten.
"You have all the resources that you need to solve this trial without our intervention, little brother," Dawnfire said as he thought through all of this. "You need only to reason out where to look, where to reach, what to grasp, and how."
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