Celisse led them to a pair of large tents set up at one end of the clearing, at some remove from the other dwellings.
“Wounded and aguish.” She gestured left, then right. “Hot heaves. Lean-to behind the trees, for amputations. You can sleep there.”
“I can, but Noro can’t. She’ll need some other place.”
“Will she? Really. I don’t know where.”
“I’m sure you can find her something, Celisse. If you set your mind to it.”
“I’ll see what I can do, since it seems to mean so very much to you. And later on, when you’ve done with your day’s work, perhaps you’ll spare your sister a few minutes of your time and we can talk—of ourselves, and of the fortunes of the cause. In private, if that isn’t too much to ask.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” he assured her, calmly refusing the bait.
She nodded and stalked off without another word.
“I apologize for her,” Rione remarked as soon as Celisse was out of earshot.
“She hates me,” said Jianna.
“You mustn’t think so. My sister is an odd creature, given to powerful loyalties and prejudices. She can be a tenacious enemy, but as a friend she is devoted, fearless, and utterly selfless.”
That woman will never accept me as a friend, Jianna thought. She bobbed a falsely optimistic nod.
Then all thoughts of hostile sisters and suspicious Ghosts fled her mind as she followed Rione into the first infirmary tent to discover the half dozen wounded tenants wrapped in threadbare blankets laid out on the canvas floor. But no, not directly on the floor. Beneath the blankets, quantities of spongy moss had been packed and shaped into flat pallets.
“They don’t even give their sick decent bedding!” she protested in a whisper.
“Nobody in this camp will enjoy what you would call decent bedding,” he returned in a normal conversational tone. “Where are they to acquire such luxuries?”
Jianna quoted poetry in reply:
“The forest nurtured all her human guests,
As if they were the children of her soil;
As if she were a queen dispensing gifts
To princes born of her green-shadowed womb.
She fed and housed and clothed them royally,
Dispensing riches with a lavish hand.”
“Journey of the Zoviriae?” Rione cocked a quizzical eyebrow.
“I had to memorize large blocks of it as a child. Judging by the look of things around here, it would seem that the poet didn’t know much about forests.”
Rione grinned, then set to work and she assisted as he bathed and bandaged a trio of wounds, addressed the horrific results of a botched amputation, soothed the seizures of deep nerve distemper, and strove to preserve the fluids of some unfortunate whose skin seemed to be peeling off in wide red and white rags. It was clear at once that the ailing Ghosts of the forest camp were similar in type to the sick men and boys confined to the turret infirmary at Ironheart. But for the canvas walls and mossy pallets, it might almost have seemed that nothing had changed.
He finished with them, and she prevailed upon him with infinite difficulty to allow himself a twenty-minute respite before proceeding to the second tent, abode of the hot heaves.
He had told her what to expect and she had believed herself well prepared, yet the sight, sounds, and odors of the heaves nonetheless took her by surprise. The audible churning of perpetually outraged intestines made infernal music, and the color of the vomit seemed to defy natural law. Once upon a time she might have retched and fled. Now she set her jaw and did her job. It seemed to go on for a very long time—the bathing and cleansing, the cooling of fevered bodies, the dressing of countless lesions, the mixing and administration of the varied draughts. Long before it was done, her forehead was moist with sweat, despite the wintry atmosphere.
At last he straightened with a sigh, and she knew that he could do no more at present. She surveyed the scene. The sufferers were at rest, for the most part. Three of the luckier were deeply asleep. He would save most of these people, perhaps all of them, and it would never occur to him that there was anything remarkable in it. The impulse was strong to tell him how greatly she admired him, but she hardly dared. She said nothing.
“We’re done for now, and you deserve a rest,” observed Rione. “Speaking of which, we’d best make sure that Celisse has found you someplace to sleep.”
“I believe Celisse would like to see me sleeping six feet under.”
“Bad attitude, Noro Penzia.”
“My name lacks poetry. Would it be too late to choose another?”
“Come along.”
They exited the tent, stepping forth into the clean air that Jianna drew down into the depths of her lungs. The breeze carried the scent of cabbage, onions, bacon; evidently preparation of the evening meal was in progress. She had not eaten in hours, yet the odor displeased her. The effects of the sick-house assault upon her senses had not dissipated, and she wondered if she would ever want to eat again.
“It will wear off much sooner than you expect,” Rione told her.
“Do you read thoughts, then?”
“Only faces. Yours is uncommonly expressive.”
Before she could reply, the young archer Trox Venezzu came hurrying to them.
“News, Falaste!” the youth announced with enthusiasm. “Galcone’s just gotten back with news you’ll want to hear about. He said that Ironheart’s been destroyed. Blown sky-high, hardly two stones left standing together. Dust, rubble, and a walloping great crater, that’s what’s left. Now, that’s news!”
Jianna wondered if the sick-house miasma had scrambled hearing as well as appetite.
“News, or rumor?” Rione asked quietly. “Has Galcone seen with his own eyes?”
“That he has. Been there, looked down into the hole with his own eyes, sifted the dust with his own fingers. It’s true.”
“When did this happen?”
“No more than two or three days ago.”
“Who was responsible?”
“That’s where it gets fuzzy. Galcone asked around, but people have different stories. Everyone agrees that a Taer force did it. They even brought in artillery, and that’s pure Taerleezi. Must have discovered the Ironheart resistance connection and decided to clean the place out. That’s clear enough. Strange thing is, folk claim to have spotted a Faerlonnish presence. A few even spout tales of a Faerlonnish commander. Now, that doesn’t make much sense.”
Father. Jianna’s heart jumped. She knew with absolute certainty. He had been late—but he had come.
“And the people?” Rione’s shock was evident, and he seemed to speak with some difficulty. “The family, little Nissi—”
“Little who?”
“The servants, the infirmary patients?”
“As far as Galcone could judge, most of the servants were killed by the Taers, but some survived and got away. Don’t ask for names. As for the infirmary patients, I couldn’t say. But here’s the thing. We know what happened to the family. The Taers spared the magnifica, didn’t want to kill a widow-woman, so they chased her off into the woods. But they slaughtered the sons. Tortured ’em all night, then killed ’em. Onartino and Trecchio Belandor are both dead.”
Onartino is dead. The words found their way home—it seemed a minor eternity before their meaning reached her—and a light dawned in Jianna’s mind. The invisible shackles fell away, and the weight that pressed down on her vanished in an instant. She took a great gulp of clean air, the first unobstructed breath she had drawn in days, and a sense of inexpressible gratitude filled her, bringing the tears to her eyes. Her father had produced one of his miracles. The rutting boar pig that owned her was gone, and she was free.
Free.
* * *
By the side of a stream in the depths of the woods, no great distance from Ironheart’s remains, rose a stony ledge whose prominent overhang—its sharp thrust accentuated by centuries of erosion—offered natural shelter
from rain and wind. At some point in past ages, unknown burrowing hands had improved upon the work of nature, enlarging the space beneath the overhang to create a cave, open at the front but protected on all sides, roughly circular in shape, modest in size, but large enough for human habitation. The cave had not been occupied within human memory. But it was occupied now.
A small fire burning before the entrance offered indifferent warmth. Beside it huddled a woman, arms clasped about her bent knees, greying head bowed. Behind her, nearly lost in the shadows, two motionless forms lay upon a man-made ledge or platform of stone—probably intended as a bed, now serving as a makeshift bier. One of them was fully clothed, the fatal rent in his throat visible; the other was completely covered with a yellowing linen sheet.
Some four days had passed since a small group of household servants had accompanied the Magnifica Yvenza to this place and left her alone with the bodies of her sons. They willingly would have done more for her. Although their mistress had always cultivated fear and respect above affection, still they hesitated to leave her alone and unprotected in such a forsaken spot. She had insisted, however. Declining their offers of transportation to civilization, declining the offers of two or three to remain and serve her, declining even the offers of assistance in burying the two corpses, she had firmly sent them on their way. They had pressed upon her stores of provisions, blankets, fuel, lanterns, tools, even a couple of weapons, and these things she had accepted. And having provided for the magnifica to the extent that she permitted, they had taken their final leave of her.
Throughout the ensuing hours, Yvenza had sat on the ground beside the fire, scarcely stirring save to feed the blaze and herself, keeping both alive. Her face was empty, her eyes open but blind, the contents of her mind unknowable. Almost she might have been distancing herself from the world and everything in it; from life itself.
The winter sun was setting again. Already it had dipped below the level of the surrounding trees, but Yvenza never noticed. The world was far away, it was almost gone—until a light footfall and a soft intake of breath brought everything back again.
Yvenza looked up. For a moment, the glare of the firelight confounded her vision, and then she discerned a slight, motionless figure, wrapped in a cloak the color of the twilight and all but invisible in the deepening gloom.
“You,” she observed as if in accusation. “What are you doing here?”
Stepping into the circle of firelight, the newcomer let fall her hood, revealing a peaked little face, wreathed in mists of weightless pale hair.
“I followed you,” Nissi replied in her tiny voice.
“Why?”
There was a long pause before Nissi answered, “I have … nowhere to go.”
“You don’t, do you? Aureste’s ruffians didn’t hinder you?”
“They did not see me.”
“That hardly seems possible.”
“I am … easily overlooked, at times.”
“I see. If I allow you to stay, you won’t be comfortable, you know.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want fellowship. I’ll have no companionable chatter, no reminiscences.”
“I will not be companionable.”
“Then you may stay, for now.”
Nissi bobbed her head, then stood there waiting.
“Well? Are you hungry?” Yvenza demanded.
Nissi shook her head.
“Thirsty? Sleepy? There’s a spare blanket you can use.”
“Not yet.”
“Find yourself some occupation, then. Don’t look to me for entertainment. I’m not your companion.”
“I will see Trecchio and Onartino now,” Nissi announced with surprising clarity.
“They’re at the back. Mind your head; the ceiling dips.”
In silence Nissi made her way to the rear of the cave. The two bodies lay in shadow, but she seemed to see them clearly. She went first to Trecchio, and spent some minutes staring down into his dead face.
“Good-bye,” she whispered at last, and turned away from him.
Drifting to Onartino’s side, she hesitated a long moment, then very carefully turned the sheet down to his shoulders.
“Oh,” breathed Nissi, taking in the ruined face. Her lambent eyes filled. Very gingerly she laid a small hand across his blood-caked forehead. “Oh.” For a time she stood motionless and staring as if paralyzed or stupefied. At last she turned away and with dragging steps made her way back to the fireside. Yvenza, gazing deep into the blaze, took no notice of her until she observed hesitantly, “Onartino’s face … his face … it should not be covered up.”
Yvenza did look then. “Want to enjoy the spectacle, do you?” she inquired. “Never thought you had it in you, girl.”
“The sheet over his face … will make it harder for him to breathe.”
“Have you lost your wits? He isn’t breathing, he’s dead. They’re both dead. Don’t you understand that?”
“Not … both.” Nissi shook her head.
“Is this some sort of a game you’re playing, or have you truly run mad?”
“Not both. Trecchio has left. But Onartino still lingers. Deep, deep inside, there is still a flicker.”
“You are dreaming.” Skepticism notwithstanding, Yvenza was already climbing to her feet and hastening to the rear of the cave. Nissi floated like a bubble in her wake. When she reached her son, she applied her fingers to the pulse point in his neck; twitched back the sheet and pressed her fingers to his wrist, then laid her ear to his chest. Straightening, she met Nissi’s eyes and reported deliberately, “Nothing. Nothing at all. He’s cold, he’s dead, and there’s the reality of it.”
“Not reality. He is almost gone, but there is still the last fiber of the final thread. He cannot find his way back without help, the path is too dark, but my call can guide him. Let me.”
“Who or what do you imagine that you are?”
Silence.
Yvenza studied the other. Nissi’s eyes were enormous and luminous. Almost against her own will, she found herself demanding, “Why would you do this thing? He was never kind to you.”
“He lives,” Nissi replied, as if in explanation.
“He is finished, but I see that nothing will convince you. Very well, you may call him by any means you choose—this one time only. And when you are done, and you have learned that you cannot recall my dead son to life, then you will give up all arcane practice once and for all, and you will never speak of it again. Do you hear me?”
Nissi nodded.
“Then look to it.” Yvenza returned to her place by the fire, where she seated herself with her back to the cave. For a time she heard nothing beyond the crackle of the blaze, but presently a soft murmuring issued from the shadowy space behind her. The voice was small, light, girlish, and the rhythmic utterance verged on exotic melody, but there was something about the sound that seemed to deepen the chill of the winter night. Wrapping her arms firmly around her bent knees, Yvenza strove to exclude the voice, musical though it was. In this she was only partially successful. Her former state of deep abstraction eluded her, she was dimly aware of time’s passage, and eventually aware that the voice within the cave had fallen silent.
Yvenza blinked and returned to the present. The fire was dying. The cave behind her was silent, appropriately enough, as a tomb. It would seem that Nissi had lost her contest with death.
Yvenza took time to replenish the fire before reentering the cave. At once she spied a slight form wrapped in a grey cloak, curled up on the floor. Heedless of the damp and cold, Nissi lay fast asleep, head pillowed on one arm. Her young brow was creased, and tired shadows smudged the hollows of her face. Behind and above her, Onartino still rested full length upon the ledge, just as the Ironheart servants had placed him. Nothing had changed, but for the disarrangement of the linen sheet formerly covering his entire body. Even in the soft glow of the firelight, the dreadful condition of his exposed face was apparent. She did not want to see h
im or think of him in such a state; he should be covered.
Yvenza started toward him. Before she had taken more than two or three steps she froze, transfixed by the slow, steady rise and fall of Onartino’s chest. The spell broke and she advanced to his side, where she stood staring down at her oldest son—broken and mutilated, but alive.
SEVENTEEN
Thick mists veiled the northern hills, and a cold breeze drove rain into the face of a lone traveler. Grix Orlazzu paused to wipe the moisture from his eyes with a damp handkerchief. He pulled the edge of his hood forward a bit, to little avail. His wiry beard was thoroughly soaked.
He had come to the top of a stony rise that might on a rare clear day have offered a view out over a considerable expanse of jagged countryside. Today—as on almost every day in these desolate lands—the world was invisible, lost in limitless mist. He could see no more than a few short feet in any direction before the soft grey walls closed down. He could hear nothing more than the patter of rain hitting the dead winter grasses underfoot, and he had not encountered another human being in days. He did not, however, feel himself to be alone, much though he would have preferred it.
The evidence of his physical senses suggested solitude. But another set of receptors—the trained portion of his mind attuned to uncanny phenomena—spoke of an incorporeal presence; something vast, ancient, and profoundly alien inhabiting the fog. He had felt it for the first time some days earlier, upon reaching the border of that dim region known throughout history as the Wraithlands. Initially it had been a mere whisper of foreign intelligence brushing his consciousness; a subtle, almost tentative exploratory touch that a mind less acute than his own might have overlooked altogether. He had noted it at once, however, and he had immediately attempted to initiate communication, which had sent the visitor flying from his mind for hours thereafter. Almost the presence had seemed timid, but this early impression had been misleading.
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