When the anointing was done, the women dressed the statue in fresh clothing from a clothing chest at one side of the room, while the men produced food and wine from another chest and placed it on a small table next to the shrine. Then the men lifted the statue to a standing position in front of the shrine, and the Eldest Daughter pushed Mikayla gently to indicate that she should kneel before the statue.
Mikayla knelt and looked up at the statue’s face. Even though she knew that it was only painted wood, she could have sworn that the eyes actually saw her, measured her, and judged her while the Husband and the Eldest Daughter asked the Goddess to bless her Chosen Youngest Daughter. Mikayla was glad when the ritual was over and the Eldest Daughter led her back to the chapel to replace the headdress in its box before they took it back to the Daughters’ room and joined their Sisters for breakfast.
The rest of Mikayla’s month at the Temple was divided between chanting the daily rituals and learning the part of the Youngest Daughter for next year’s Spring Festival. It was a pleasant, tranquil life, and she was almost sorry when her month was up and it was time for her to return to the world outside, especially since she suspected that it was her duty to return to the Tower and see how Haramis and Uzun fared.
But it was time for her to leave. Red-Eye fetched her just after dark, after the ritual of the Hour When the Sun Embraces the Sacred Peak, and took her straight to Haramis’s Tower. “Did Fiolon tell you to bring me here?” Mikayla asked it.
“Yes,” the bird replied. “He says you are needed here.”
“Oh dear.” Mikayla sighed, slipping from the bird’s back onto the balcony. Red-Eye held out a claw so that she could disentangle her sphere from it. She replaced the sphere around her neck and hugged the great bird. “Fly well, Red-Eye, and good hunting.”
“Be well, Mika,” the bird said as it took off into the night.
Mikayla crept quietly indoors and made it to the sanctuary of her room unseen. She had missed supper at the Temple, but she didn’t feel inclined to roam about searching for food. She would rather go hungry than have to face anyone in the Tower that night.
22
Mikayla woke suddenly. She knew at once that it was about two hours before dawn, and despite the heating in the Tower her room was cold from the autumn chill. Something was very wrong; she could feel it. She tried to narrow it down, to move from feeling generalized uneasiness, verging on terror, to focus and determine exactly what was wrong.
Then her bed was being shaken violently from side to side, but her room was still completely dark. She called out, “Who’s there?” but no one answered, and she felt silly. If anyone had been in her room, she would have known.
After what seemed like several long minutes, but was probably actually less than a minute, the shaking stopped. Mikayla sat up in bed, called up a light, and took stock of her surroundings. The pillow, which she had shoved away in her sleep, had fallen onto the floor, but the room appeared otherwise intact. It was an earthquake, Mikayla thought. That was what had wakened her, the sense that a major earthquake was about to occur.
But there couldn’t be an earthquake, especially here. There must be some other answer. Was this some magic Haramis was working without her? Was Haramis recovered enough to work magic?
It had been half a year since Mikayla had left the Temple of Meret and returned to the Tower. Guardswoman Nella and Lady Bevis had returned to the Citadel about a month after Mikayla’s return, saying that the Lady was recovered enough not to need them, but still Mikayla hadn’t noticed any sign that Haramis was recovering her magical abilities.
By now Haramis was able to dress and feed herself, if a bit sloppily, and she could walk well enough to go down to her study and spend hours sitting talking to Uzun. Uzun was still a harp, although Fiolon had kept his promise and had the harp repaired while Haramis was still confined to her bed.
Mikayla wished she could just lie down again and go back to sleep, but she suspected that she was going to be needed very shortly. So she got up, put on her robe and slippers, and went to find out what was going on.
Haramis was not in the workroom, nor in her study, where Mikayla found Uzun leaning against the wall. She hurried to restore him to his normal upright position. “What happened, Uzun?”
“That was an earthquake, Princess, and, I fear, an ill omen as well.” The harp, in a minor key, sounded foreboding. “I am glad that you are here.”
“An earthquake?” Mikayla was incredulous. “We’re sitting on top of a league of solid rock! How can we have an earthquake here?”
“We shouldn’t,” Uzun replied. “Where is the Lady?”
“I don’t know,” Mikayla said. “I was looking for her when I came in here. I thought she must be working some spell, but she’s not in the workroom. And surely she can’t have slept through this—nobody could have!”
As if to prove her point, Enya came hurrying in. “There you are, Princess,” she said. “Are you all right? Is Master Uzun?”
Mikayla nodded. “Except for the fact that I don’t particularly care for being awakened two hours before dawn, I’m fine. Have you seen the Lady?”
Enya frowned. “No, I haven’t, and she’s usually the first one stirring whenever anything strange happens.”
“Maybe we should go find her,” Mikayla said hesitantly. “I’m not sure I want to disturb her if she’s still asleep, but—”
Enya shook her head positively. “She would never have slept through this. We’d better go see if she’s all right.”
Enya softly opened the door to Haramis’s bedroom, then stopped with an exclamation of dismay. Mikayla, looking over her shoulder, could see Haramis lying on the floor near her bed, clearly visible in the light spilling in from the hallway. Together they hurried to the Archimage’s side. Her eyes were open, and she seemed to recognize them, but when she tried to talk, her speech was so slurred as to be unintelligible.
Enya drew in her breath sharply and made a sign against evil.
Mikayla forced down the feelings of terror and panic welling up inside her. It’s another brainstorm, she realized. It has to be—why else would the very land shake so? What do I do now? I don’t know how to take care of her when she’s like this! But nobody else around here does either, I’ll bet. What if she dies? Is this my fault? I haven’t done anything to annoy her in months! And even if sometimes I wish she were dead, I don’t really mean it!
Mikayla looked from Enya to Haramis and decided at least to try to be practical. Enya didn’t seem ready to be much help yet; she still seemed to regard what she was seeing as an evil spell.
“Let’s get her back into bed,” Mikayla suggested. “She can’t be comfortable on the floor like that.”
It was fortunate that Haramis was not a large woman, for she was almost completely deadweight as they lifted her and dragged her into her bed. She didn’t seem to be able to control her arm and leg on the left side or, for that matter, to move them at all. This made Mikayla all the more certain that this was the same thing that had happened to Haramis before, at the Citadel. And I wish she were there now, she thought. There, at least, they knew how to take care of her.
Once Haramis was safely tucked into bed, Enya’s wits seemed to start functioning again. “There is an old Healer woman who attends the servants,” she said. “Perhaps we should summon her. The Lady’s hands and feet are very cold; I will make her some hot tea and put hot bricks at her feet. That at least could do no harm.”
When the tea was brought Haramis could not sit up to drink, so Enya held her upright and spooned a little of the hot brew into the Lady’s mouth. Mikayla, who didn’t want to have anything to do with nursing someone who was so sick she couldn’t move, was happy to accept Enya’s suggestion that while she was feeding the Lady, Mikayla should go at once to the servants’ hall and ask the Oddling woman who cared for the servants when they were ill or injured to come at once.
“Her name is Kimbri,” Enya told Mikayla. “The Archimage has always bee
n so hearty and healthy that she has never needed a Healer before—not when she was here at any rate, and there are no human Healers here.”
Mikayla ran down to the kitchens, grateful for an excuse to be out of the room. One of the women there making bread told her that Kimbri had gone down to the house of the gardener’s wife, whose child was due in a few days. All of the rest of the servants seemed to be clustered in the kitchen, comparing notes on how the earthquake had wakened them. Mikayla sent the Vispi man who worked in the stables to find the Healer, but the way he looked at her reminded her that she wasn’t dressed. She dashed back to her room and threw on the first clothes that came to hand before returning to the hall to watch for the Healer.
Before very long the Oddling woman appeared. She was a deceptively frail-looking Vispi with graying hair done up in a coil over her forehead. Mikayla told her what had happened, trying not to sound as upset as she felt.
The Oddling said peacefully, “Aye, she is not young. I am not at all surprised that she has begun to suffer the ills of age. My own grand-dame was so stricken when she was ninety. Don’t be frightened, little Lady. It is not likely that the Lady will die if she is living yet. Those who are struck down like this usually die at once; and if not, they may live for a long time. It is quite likely that the Lady might go on living for a good many years.”
“I certainly hope so,” Mikayla said. “If anything happened to her, I’d be Archimage. And I’m nowhere near ready for that yet.” She followed Kimbri upstairs to the Archimage’s room, and Kimbri bent over the old woman’s limp body and felt for her pulse.
“There is nothing more we can do,” she told Mikayla. “She will live and grow stronger or she will not; that is all anyone can do, now.”
“But what causes it?”
“No one knows. Maybe the Ancients knew, but we have so little of their wisdom.”
“But—isn’t there anything we can do?” Mikayla demanded. “This happened to her before, at the Citadel, and they treated it with swamp-worm venom.”
“Do you know how much they used, how it was administered, and where to get some?” Kimbri asked gently.
Mikayla shook her head.
“Then all we can do is to be patient,” Kimbri said, adding sympathetically, “although that is sometimes the hardest thing of all. And try to keep her spirits up as much as you can.”
Mikayla thought that might be the most difficult thing to do. She knew well that Haramis did not suffer either fools or weakness gladly—if at all. She had a feeling that a sick Haramis was going to be a very unpleasant person to be around—especially when she recovered enough to start complaining about her condition.
Mikayla was determined that Haramis would recover. It never occurred to her to think that if Haramis died, she might then be freed; she knew now that that would never happen. She was becoming resigned to being Archimage. But, please, not yet, she thought. Not for a long time yet.
She sighed as she went downstairs to tackle her next task: breaking the news to Uzun.
The harp sobbed like a child, but with a breathy twanging sound.
“I love her so much,” Uzun said at last. “If it were not for her and her magic I would long ago have gone to join my ancestors in whatever afterworld there may be. For her alone I was willing to stay. Should the Lady be gone, my long life will be but a weariness.”
Mikayla, although she felt frightened herself, tried to comfort the ancient magician.
“Don’t worry, Uzun; she’ll be better soon.”
“Will she? She is far older than I; and all my family and friends are many years gone. If anything should happen to her, I would be all alone in the world.”
Mikayla felt like saying, “No you won’t, Uzun; I’m still here, and if anything should happen to her, I’ll need your counsel more than she ever did.” But she knew that her relationship with Uzun was very different from his with Haramis, so she held her tongue.
And, as if she didn’t already have enough to worry about, Mikayla remembered that Haramis had once said that when the previous Archimage died, her Tower had crumbled immediately into dust—which was why Haramis had come to live in this one, built by Orogastus. Mikayla hoped this would not happen to Haramis’s Tower.
She felt younger than ever. She felt as if she would like to break down and cry; but in Uzun’s sorrow, how could she expect him to care about her troubles? She patted the forepillar of the harp, glad that Fiolon had kept his promise to have it repaired, and said awkwardly, “Don’t cry, Uzun. Some people do get better, so Kimbri says. And Haramis got better before. I know she would hate to see you so unhappy; so you must be strong for her when she needs you.
“Sometimes,” she added artfully, remembering something else the Healer had said, “cheerful company can make all the difference between who lives and who dies. So you must be strong, and you must not cry when she needs you. Her mind must be at rest, and this would only make her more unhappy.”
Uzun sniffled with a liquid sound of strings. “You are right; I will try to be cheerful for her.”
“Good,” Mikayla said. She wondered what would happen to Uzun if Haramis did die while he was still in the harp, bespelled with her blood. Would he crumble to dust, as the old Archimage’s Tower and possessions had? She did not, however, feel that this was a question she could ask Uzun, and obviously she couldn’t ask Haramis at present.
For the next several days it seemed that Haramis grew neither better nor worse. The nursing was done by the Oddlings, and Mikayla had very little to do, except to try to cheer Uzun, who had stopped weeping, but evidently held out no very great hopes for the recovery of the Archimage. For that matter, neither did Mikayla, even though the Healer had said that every day a person so stricken did not die, the chances were better for her eventual recovery of all her faculties.
Although she tried to block it out, Mikayla could feel the land nearly all the time now. It definitely was not the land sense of an Archimage; she knew what Fiolon had with Var, and what she felt was nothing like that strong. She felt as though she could hear voices crying in the wind, but couldn’t make out the words, or as if there were shadows in every corner that vanished when she tried to look at them. The land was not happy, and neither was Mikayla.
It was about ten days later, and Mikayla had taken Kimbri’s place sitting beside Haramis in the old woman’s bedroom, for this morning, Kimbri had felt she must go and visit her own neglected family and see to her other patients.
Mikayla felt nervous and very much alone. She had nearly fallen asleep in her chair from boredom when she suddenly saw that Haramis’s eyes were completely open, and that the old woman was watching her.
Mikayla started a little, and said softly, “My Lady Haramis, are you awake?”
The old woman’s voice sounded slurred and indistinct—and cross. “Yes, of course I’m awake; what’s the matter with you? And where is Enya? What are you doing here?”
Mikayla wished desperately that Kimbri or Enya—or anybody except herself were there. But Haramis’s tone was so sharp that she could do nothing but try to answer.
Since she wasn’t sure if Haramis even remembered her or knew who she was—after all, she hadn’t the last time—she tried to avoid any details. “You have been very ill, Lady. Shall I go and call Enya for you?”
“No. Not yet,” Haramis said. “How long has it been? Why is Uzun not with me?”
Mikayla had no idea whether she should say anything to Haramis about how long she had been unconscious. But Haramis was looking at her expectantly, so Mikayla said, “About ten days, I think, Lady. We were all very frightened for you.”
“And where is Uzun? Why is he not at my side? If he is concerned for me, why does he not haul his useless old carcass up the stairs to see me? Or is it too far for the old fellow to walk?”
Mikayla paused, not quite knowing how to answer; but after the first moment of confusion, the old Archimage’s mind seemed comparatively clear.
“Oh, yes,” she
said. “It had slipped my mind for a moment; Uzun cannot walk now, of course. Perhaps later, if I cannot go down the stairs, someone can manage to drag him up to visit me—but not up those circular stairs. Even when he could still walk he had trouble on that staircase. I cannot imagine why Orogastus ever had the thing built. He always did prefer style to function and other practical considerations.”
She closed her eyes, and seemed to sleep for a moment. Then she said, “And of course you cannot carry him. Well, I suppose my need for his counsel must overcome my need for repose.” She tried to sit up and, after gasping for a moment and struggling, said, “Help me to sit upright.” She sounded very surprised. “I find I cannot sit by myself.”
Mikayla put her arms round the old woman, pulling her to a sitting position, and said, “Shall I run down the stairs and tell Uzun that you are asking for him? He will be very glad to hear that you are awake. He has been dreadfully concerned about you, of course; we all have.”
“Now, what good would that do, when he could not come up and join me?” Haramis asked testily. “Why upset the old fellow without cause? Is Kimbri here?”
“She has gone to see if the gardener’s wife is ready to have her child. As soon as she comes back I will have her come to you.”
“Don’t bother,” Haramis said. “It is not for nothing that I was made Archimage.” Then, without raising her voice, she said, as if speaking to someone in the same room, “Kimbri, come here; I need you.”
In a short while, Kimbri came running up the stairs. Mikayla met her at the door, and asked softly, “Did you hear the Lady call you?”
“No,” Kimbri whispered back. “I checked on the gardener’s wife, and she is doing well, so I decided to look in on the Lady. Did she call me?”
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