Mikayla bent her face over the bowl and thought of Uzun, of all his kindness to her, of his unwavering friendship and loyalty, of his courage in the face of damage and of Haramis’s illnesses. She thought of how she would feel if this ritual failed and he were gone from her life for ever. Her tears fell freely, filling the bowl.
She didn’t know how long she cried; it seemed that all the pain of the land flowed through her, in addition to all the pain she had ever felt in her life, and the pain she felt for Uzun. She cried until her body seemed desiccated, as if not another tear remained in her. Her face and eyes were dry now, so dry that she had to blink several times to get her eyes to focus.
She looked at the bowl in her hands. It was filled almost to the brim. She set it aside and checked the time. It was almost midnight.
“The bowl of tears is ready, Uzun,” she said. “Are you?”
“Yes.” The harp strings quivered a little, but Mikayla didn’t blame Uzun for that. If she had strings, she knew that they would be quivering more than just that little bit.
She climbed onto a chair so that she could reach the top of the harp’s forepillar easily. Carefully, using the ends of her fingernails, she lifted out the fragment of bone that was all that was left of Uzun’s original body. She carried it to the bowl and watched the night sky. At the instant of midnight, she immersed the skull fragment in her tears, and the bowl was filled precisely to the brim.
25
Mikayla dozed fitfully on the sofa by the fire until shortly before dawn. Then she used her sphere to wake Fiolon.
“Mika, it’s not even dawn yet,” he complained, “and I’ve been traveling for weeks. Can’t we wait until later to start?”
“I’m sorry, Fio,” Mikayla said sympathetically, “but Uzun insisted on starting last night. I’m going to need you within the hour. And on your way down,” she added, “please tell Enya that we will be working in the study with Uzun all day and don’t wish to be disturbed for anything—including Haramis.”
“What about meals?” Fiolon protested.
“Bring a tray of food, enough to last us all day,” Mikayla said. “We don’t want to be interrupted to be asked if we’re ready for lunch when we’re in the middle of the ritual.”
“All right.” Fiolon sighed. “I’ll be there soon.”
Mikayla went to the window to watch for dawn. As soon as the first gleam of sun was visible, she lifted the skull fragment out of the bowl and set it on a cloth beside the body. Then she picked up a small box that had been in the package with the body, and began to lay out the supplies in it: a jar of ointment, a white robe with embroidered symbols, only some of which Mikayla recognized from her time at the Temple, a black chisel made of some very sharp stone, and a long thin knife made of the same material.
By the time everything was ready, Fiolon had arrived. Mikayla let him in and had him set the tray of food on the table. She was much too nervous to eat. Oddly enough, Fiolon, who could usually eat anytime there was food available, seemed to share her feelings. Ignoring the food, he asked, “What do we do now?”
Mikayla handed him the scroll. “Read the first spell while I anoint the body.”
“Soak the skull in virgin’s tears?” Fiolon said in surprise, looking at the scroll.
“That part’s done,” Mikayla said. “Start where it says ‘I have plowed the sky.…’”
She took the ointment and began to rub it carefully over every part of the body while Fiolon read. Her hands tingled, but she couldn’t be sure whether this was due to power running through them or to something in the ointment. It felt very strange.
Fiolon was reading the spell, but his voice sounded different, as if some power were speaking through him. “I have plowed the sky, I have harvested the horizon, I have traveled the Land to its far boundaries, I have taken possession of my spirit, because I am one who retains my magic. I see with my eyes, I hear with my ears, I speak with my mouth, I reach with my arms, I grasp with my hands, I run with my legs.”
Mikayla finished anointing the body, dressed it in the robe provided, and propped it up into a sitting position in a chair. Already she was getting a sense of it as real, rather than a simple statue.
She picked up the skull fragment and carefully coated both sides of it with the ointment, nodding to Fiolon to read the next section.
“I have kept in my body those things which I had in the past; now I use them to appear in glory.”
Mikayla set the skull fragment carefully back on the cloth, picked up the sharp knife, climbed on the chair, and scraped out a bit of the inside of the hole in the forepillar of the harp. She stirred the material, a combination of wood and Haramis’s dried blood, into the bowl of tears. Then she took the point of the knife and jabbed her fingertip. Holding her hand over the bowl, she squeezed exactly seven drops of her own blood into it, then made her finger stop bleeding and the wound close up. She remembered Uzun teaching her and Fiolon how to do simple healing spells during one of their late-night sessions her first year at the Tower, and thought how fitting it was that this knowledge should be used to help Uzun in turn. She handed the knife to Fiolon, who followed her example, then took up the scroll again.
Mikayla stirred the liquid together so that her tears and everyone’s blood were completely mingled together. Then she lifted the bowl and poured its contents into the hole left in the top of the body’s head, which ran through the head and neck and down to where the heart should be. The liquid looked strange, like fire would look, if it could be liquid, Mikayla thought. Heat seemed to radiate from it, and Mikayla half expected it to start steaming, like water boiling over a fire.
The liquid filled the channel completely as Fiolon read the next spell. “Hail to Thee who endures in power, Lady of all hidden things. Behold, all wrong is washed away from my heart, and my heart is born anew, born of the blood of those that love me. May I live on it as Thou livest on it; be gracious unto me, and grant me life.”
Mikayla picked up the skull fragment, holding it carefully—the ointment had made it a bit slippery and her hands were trembling. This was the most important part of the ritual; the joining of the old body with the new one. There weren’t even words for it; this part she had to feel in her heart.
The bone was so warm in her hands that it threatened to burn them, but Mikayla forced herself to ignore the pain. Power seemed to run through her entire body; she felt both hot and cold at the same time.
She placed the bit of skull carefully into place, praying without words that this magic would work and that Uzun would live again. The bone seemed to spread slightly under her fingers, or perhaps the wood closed in on it, as the two pieces fused together. Holding her breath, she looked at the face. Uzun’s eyes looked back at her, and there was intelligence behind them. Mikayla let out her breath in a sigh of relief, and turned to pick up the sharp stone chisel.
She ran it gently between the lips of the body as Fiolon read the spell for opening the mouth. “I have arisen from the egg which is hidden, my mouth has been given to me that I may speak with it in the presence of the Goddess. My mouth is opened by Meret and what was on my mouth has been loosened by her Chosen One. My mouth is opened, my mouth is split open by the fingertip of the Land. I am one with the great winds of the sky, and I speak with my true voice.”
Mikayla set down the chisel with a trembling hand, Fiolon rolled up the scroll, concentrating on it as if he didn’t dare to look up.
“Is that it?” Master Uzun inquired. “Are you quite done?”
Both of them looked at him and collapsed to sit on the floor, limp with reaction and relief. “It worked,” Fiolon whispered, his voice somewhere between awe and exhaustion.
Uzun stood up and began to move about the room, testing his new body. His movements were jerky at first, but quickly smoothed out with a little practice, as if he were working out the stiffness of a body that had just wakened in the morning.
He looked from Mikayla to Fiolon, then picked up the tray of food an
d set it on the floor between them. “Eat!” he commanded. “You both look ready to fall over, and there is still the Land to be dealt with.”
An hour later both Mikayla and Fiolon had eaten and were feeling considerably more human. “Now,” Uzun said firmly, “we go talk to the Lady Haramis. The land has no time to waste.”
“This should be interesting,” Mikayla murmured softly as they followed Uzun up the stairs to Haramis’s room.
Fiolon was still admiring the new body, watching the way it moved. “That is the most incredible workmanship I have ever seen,” he marveled. “And they just gave it to you?”
“In return for my remaining a virgin and spending a month each spring in their Temple for the next seven years,” Mikayla reminded him. “And this coming spring I’m to represent the Goddess in the Spring Festival.”
“How did you get picked for that?”
“There’s a ritual where the Goddess chooses which of her Daughters will do it,” Mikayla replied briefly, just as they reached Haramis’s room and had to drop that line of conversation.
Haramis looked confused to see them. No wonder, Mikayla thought. She doesn’t remember Fiolon much, and last time she saw Uzun, he was a harp.
“Uzun?” Haramis said in bewilderment. “I must have been dreaming—I thought I turned you into a harp.…”
Uzun took her hand between his. Mikayla almost felt sorry for Haramis; it must have been a shock to discover that his hands were made of wood. “You did, Lady,” he said, “but that was long ago. Now I have a new body, and I can see and move again.” He drew up a stool and sat at the head of her bed, still holding her hand.
“I fear that I bring ill news, Lady,” he said softly. “There is great sickness in the land.”
Haramis frowned, and tried, unsuccessfully, to sit up. “I felt earthquakes,” she said. “What else?”
“The shape of the earth and water in the Goldenmire has changed,” Mikayla said, “and there is some sort of poison in Lake Wum that kills fish and folk—even humans.”
“Alas,” said Haramis, “that I have come to this. I have no power to protect or heal my land.”
“Then you will have to allow them to do it,” Uzun said firmly.
Haramis looked at him as if he had taken leave of his senses. “Uzun, they’re children!”
“They are less than two years younger than you were when you became Archimage,” Uzun pointed out, “and both you and I have been training them. Perhaps neither one could accomplish the task alone, but together I believe that they can repair at least the worst of the damage. I shall advise them, with your consent, Lady.” Uzun did not sound as if he were asking for Haramis’s permission.
Haramis was clearly too tired and weak to protest. “Very well, Uzun, do as you wish. You always did,” she added querulously.
“Thank you, Lady.” Uzun bent to kiss her hand, then dragged Mikayla and Fiolon out of the room and back to the study, where he tugged the bellpull and ordered Enya to bring dinner for Mikayla and Fiolon.
Enya looked at him in astonishment, then turned to Mikayla. “Who is this, Princess—another of your odd friends?”
Of course she doesn’t recognize him, Mikayla realized. None of the servants has ever seen him as anything except a harp! “This is Master Uzun, Enya,” she said firmly, “and it is the Lady’s will that you continue to obey his requests.”
“Master Uzun.” Enya looked dubious but prepared to go along with this. “And do you require food as well, Master Uzun?”
Uzun looked at Mikayla, who shook her head slightly. “No,” he replied. “This body does not require food.”
Enya left the room, shaking her head in disbelief. “This household gets stranger every day,” she muttered.
“Now,” Uzun said briskly, “what needs to be done with the land?”
“The Goldenmire is greatly changed,” Mikayla said, “but it is sparsely peopled. Any harm that was going to happen there has already happened. We can’t bring the dead back to life, and the living are already adjusting to the way the Mire is now.”
“I agree,” Fiolon said. “I traveled through there on my way here, and I don’t think we need do anything to it. The real problem is Lake Wum.”
“The mirror says that if the fish are all dead, then the fish-death will be dead as well,” Mikayla said.
“Fish-death?” Uzun asked.
“It’s some sort of tiny plant that produces poison,” Fiolon explained.
“So we need to put fish back into Lake Wum,” Mikayla said. “Master Uzun, have you any suggestions as to where we should get more fish?”
“Was there much damage near the Bonorar River?” Uzun asked.
“No.” Mikayla shook her head. “The Dylex region is far enough to the east of us that it was spared most of the disturbances caused by the Archimage’s illness.”
“And the Bonorar flows into Lake Wum anyway,” Fiolon said. “So if the fish are upriver and we move them down to the lake, that should start to build up the fisheries again.”
Enya came in with dinner then, and everyone fell silent while Mikayla and Fiolon ate. Even Uzun seemed lost in his own thoughts.
“We can fly there,” Fiolon continued, sending his empty dishes back to the kitchen, “check to be certain that the lake water is clean again, and then take a few fishing nets upstream and bring some fish to the lake.”
“That probably would be better than trying to teleport living creatures,” Mikayla agreed, sending her dishes to the kitchen with a flick of her hand.
“But there’s one problem you are both overlooking,” Uzun said unhappily. “What will the folk think—especially the Skritek and the Glismak—if you are seen flying about on lammergeiers and doing the Lady’s work? What will they think of the Lady?”
“Probably the truth,” Mikayla said.
“I can handle the Glismak,” Fiolon said at the same time.
“Do we really want the folk of the Land to know how sick the Archimage is?” Uzun asked quietly.
“It probably would be better if they didn’t guess,” Mikayla said after a few minutes’ thought. “Faith can be a powerful force, regardless of the reality behind it.”
“Especially if it means we don’t have to cope with a Skritek uprising,” Fiolon added wryly.
Mikayla shuddered. “You’re right about that,” she agreed. “So we’d better do this by night and make sure we’re not seen.”
“But the lammergeiers can’t fly at night,” Fiolon protested, “and it would take months of travel by fronial, especially if we’re trying to stay hidden.”
“Red-Eye flies at night,” Mikayla pointed out.
“You’re right,” Fiolon said. “And he’s certainly large enough to carry both of us. But would he be willing?”
“I’ll just have to ask him,” Mikayla said. “After all, we don’t have half a year to do this; I have to be back at the Temple of Meret in less than two months.”
Red-Eye agreed to help its friend Mikayla, with a touch of smugness that there was something it could do that an ordinary lammergeier couldn’t. It arrived shortly after darkness the next night and landed them near Tass Town, at the southern end of Lake Wum, just before dawn.
While it spent the day asleep in a tree in the darkest part of the Greenmire it could find, Mikayla and Fiolon, dressed in waterproofed boots, loose pants tucked into their boots, and oiled leather hooded jackets, suitable for grubbing through the swamp, wandered about the edge of the lake, checking on the condition of the water as well as that of the vegetation surrounding the lake. They found that the mirror had been right; the lake was clean of fish-death and had enough small plants growing again to support fish. So that night they borrowed several fishing nets from a dock in Tass Town, flew up the Bonorar as far as the Dylex, and brought back several nets full of fish of various sizes.
Red-Eye’s flying skills were incredible, Mikayla noted. It managed to drag the nets of fish the length of the river without ever pulling them out of th
e water, catching the nets on rocks or tree roots, or doing anything that would harm the fish. About an hour before dawn they reached Lake Wum and deposited the fish in the center of the lake, hoping that this would give them a chance to multiply before the local fishermen discovered them. Red-Eye dropped Mikayla and Fiolon off in Tass Town so that they could return the nets and went back to its temporary roost in the Greenmire.
The three of them spent the next several weeks flying about the land, checking for damage that needed to be put right. But they quickly discovered that the Land seemed to be healing itself.
“I wonder if the Land’s health is tied to Haramis’s,” Mikayla said to Fiolon one evening as they waited for Red-Eye to wake and come for them.
Fiolon, who had been using his sphere to bespeak Uzun every morning, nodded thoughtfully. “I think it may well be,” he said. “Master Uzun says that Haramis is recovering well.”
“I’m glad,” Mikayla said. “By the time I get back from the Temple, she may be feeling more charitable toward me.”
“Do you have to go back there?” Mikayla looked up and saw that Red-Eye had landed silently behind her.
“You know I do, Red-Eye,” she said. “I promised. And this is the year I have to represent the Goddess in the Spring Festival.”
Red-Eye sighed. “Just remember your promise to bespeak me every night,” he said. “When must you go?”
“Tonight,” Mikayla said. “I’ll need to be there before dawn.”
“I’ll stop off at the Tower and report to Master Uzun if Red-Eye doesn’t mind taking me there,” Fiolon said. “Uzun can decide how much to tell the Lady. Then I’ll have to go back to Mutavari and report to the King. After that, I’ll probably be back in Let for the summer and fall.”
“Then we had better fly,” Red-Eye said, extending a wing.
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