“So I understand,” Gael answered.
“How does it feel?” asked Dreas, a wistful tone in his gravelly voice.
Gael groped again for words. “Like a swallow of water when you are thirsty. Like the folding of a cloak around your shoulders when you are chilled. Like sitting on a cushioned chair when your legs are weary. It feels . . . right, my lord March.”
Dreas turned to Carbraes, who was looking more sour than ever. “Carbraes! You must command Keir to perform this feat again.” Dreas glanced at Keir. “Are you able to repeat yourself at this time? Are your reserves too drawn down?”
“No, my lord March,” replied Keir. “I can oblige you with one more healing, although not two.”
Dreas continued to press the regenen. “While Keir does his deed, you shall observe it. You must. And I shall be Keir’s patient.”
Carbraes’ jaw pulsed with tension. Gael half expected the regenen to thunder his response, but he did not. Always Carbraes retained control of himself and those around him. The regenen spoke most mildly to Gael and his cohort. “Please give me privy conference with my lord march.” He waved a hand toward the crescent of shadow on the far side of the terrace.
Gael found his feet carrying him to obey Carbraes’ bidding almost without his own volition. Keir and Uwen and Adarn came with him, clustering in the shade and watching the interchange between the regenen and the march. They could hear nothing, but the emotion in the conversation was clear: Carbraes angry and vehement, Dreas pleading, but firm.
Keir stared, intent. Uwen – still gripping his side of the gong – studied his knees, but found his gaze drawn inexorably back to his arguing commanders. Adarn – also clutching his side of the gong – bounced on his toes, eager.
“Do you think he’ll say ‘yes’?” the boy whispered. “Oh, I hope he’ll say ‘yes’!”
Gael felt he was overlooking something, some important detail that would govern their success or their failure. This was all moving much too fast. Surely they should all sleep on it before coming to any decisions.
Across the terrace, Carbraes sat back, resignation in his posture. Dreas leaned forward and beckoned.
* * *
Keir had to question why she was hoping so hard for Dreas to convince Carbraes. Was it her healer’s oath to place her knowledge and skills in the service of the ill? But she no longer served as a healer in her community – she was a notary in Belzetarn – and she had sworn that oath to a human teacher regarding human patients. She owed no obligation of care and compassion to trolls. Indeed, the reverse.
And yet . . . if she could restore a troll’s nodes to their proper positions, was not that troll essentially human? And did she not owe a healer’s help – no matter her official status – to that ailing human?
No. She did not. Whether the nodes were in place or not, they were unmoored, making the individual a troll. She owed nothing to trolls. Save her enmity. The sick flash of it trembled within her for an instant, then passed.
And yet again . . . her enmity had become riddled with holes over the past two years, like a cheese nibbled by mice. Gael had earned – and received – her respect, her admiration, her liking. Even her affection. She flinched away from the admission, although Gael was not the only troll to earn her good opinion. She would save Dreas, if she could.
How did one maintain an enmity when it must include oneself? Her pater had said, “I love you. I’ll always love you. Never doubt me, in all the years to come.” And she had been heart-glad to hear him say so. If Pater could love her in her truldemagar, then could she make peace with it also? And if she made peace with her own disease, then how should she relate to that of others?
Despite her moral confusion – and despite Gael’s unease, which she noticed amidst her own turmoil – she felt glad when Dreas waved her forward.
Carbraes got to his feet slowly and stood, not like an old man, but like a massive tree just beginning to fall or a mountain shivering at the start of an earthquake. Like he’d taken a mortal wound, but did not know it yet. Or would not own it.
“My lord March is in your hands,” said the regenen, his tone somber. “Speak your needs in order that you may treat him well and draw him safely through the fire.”
Keir swallowed. Lord Carbraes in this dark mood was even more intimidating than when he emanated his usual authority.
“I need Lord Dreas to lie flat,” she said. “And then I will be able to arrange Uwen and Adarn so that the angles are right.”
Carbraes inclined his head. “Summon my messengers please.”
Keir glanced nervously back at the door through which they’d arrived on the terrace. Were the regenen’s messengers waiting there? And should she go get them? She certainly didn’t want to send Uwen or Adarn. And it didn’t seem right to send Gael.
“For pity’s sake!” exclaimed Dreas. “We’ve enough of us right here to manage things. No need to involve a passel of overexcited boys.”
Carbraes sniffed, but his eyes warmed.
Dreas hopped up, scuttered over to another cluster of bronze-forged terrace furniture, and started dragging a long, low bench into the clear. The metal legs grated on the stone. Keir’s momentary paralysis snapped and she rushed to his side to help. The sun felt warm on her back. Dreas grinned at her. “We’ve got this, lad! Cheer up!”
Keir felt abruptly better. She’d envisioned Dreas lying on the flagstones, the way Gael had lain on his sitting room floor, but she could make the bench work.
Gael’s voice came over her shoulder. “Please sit, my lord March. Keir and I can set this up.”
And it was simple, really. Since Dreas would be elevated above the terrace flagstones, Uwen and Adarn would need to be equally so. But there were plenty of furnishings to borrow for her purpose. She adjusted Dreas’ bench so that the sun would be in no one’s eyes. Then she set two chairs on one side of the bench, and instructed Adarn and Uwen to climb onto them while she and Gael held the gong. Adarn’s legs trembled slightly as he made the high step up. His hands trembled when she and Gael transferred the gong into his and Uwen’s grip. Small wonder he was nervous. This was the march. And they performed under the regenen’s observation.
Carbraes remained standing through the whole operation, looking down his nose at their efforts. “This all looks rather slipshod,” he complained.
Keir quelled her impatience. Once she allowed the regenen’s stature to fade from her awareness, his nerves were familiar. Just so had the brother or mother or dear friend of an injured patient back on Fiors criticized her preparations.
She went to him, smiling warmly.
“My lord regenen, the nature of the patient’s bed or room or blankets matters little. My skill as a healer will be the determining factor.” She carefully avoided mention of the energea that lay at the heart of the advanced techniques. That would not reassure the regenen. “My training was thorough, and Dreas will receive only my best.”
Carbraes grunted. “You did not train for this, surely. Or have I been misinformed about how Fiors treats its trolls?”
“Fiors banishes its trolls, of course,” she replied steadily. Now she must mention the element he hated, if she were to assuage his qualms. “But drawing energea through one’s nodes, and controlling its speed and direction, is the basis for every healing a healer performs. Using the gong’s lodestone to move Dreas’ nodes is a healing technique. I will not be doing anything foreign to my experience,” she concluded.
Carbraes’ tension eased. “May I watch?” he asked.
“With your inner sight?” she clarified. That was rather the whole point of this exercise, she’d thought.
“Yes.” Carbraes sounded oddly humble. “I wish to assure that –” he broke off.
Keir reminded herself again that he was more the anxious kin here than the ruling commander. Indeed, he’d probably agreed to this more because he could not bear to deny his friend – progressing fast in his truldemagar – than because he wished to understand what ot
her marvels the gong might generate.
“Of course you may watch,” she said gently. “We would prefer that you do.”
She led him to the foot of the bench. The sun would be in his eyes, but that shouldn’t affect his inner vision.
“But,” continued Keir, speaking to Dreas, “my lord March, you must not open your inner sight. That would increase the resistance of your nodes, which would be counterproductive in what we wish to achieve.”
Dreas smiled at her. “Shall I lie down now?” he asked.
“Please,” she responded.
She helped him settle his arms comfortably at his sides. She noted that Gael came to stand beside Carbraes. Good. Carbraes could likely use a companion. She frowned at Adarn, whose hands and arms still trembled. The march might be higher in the regenen’s esteem than was Gael, but Gael was Belzetarn’s secretarius. Surely the boy should have accustomed himself to dealing with trolls of rank after running the tally room’s errands for two deichtains. He shouldn’t be that nervous.
She took her own place, standing opposite Uwen and Adarn. The gong was a touch low. She needed the boss to be heart high.
“Lift it just a little,” she directed.
Uwen and Adarn complied.
“Good.” She nodded. “Remember to be trees in the breeze, not rock on a mountain,” she admonished them. Then she closed her eyes, drawing in a long, easy breath.
The scent of sun-warmed stone surrounded her. The air was very still, any breeze shielded by the apartments ringing the space. Someone coughed. The terrace felt very hard under her feet. As she exhaled, her inner vision opened and the silvery arcs of Dreas’ energea sparkled in her sight, curling from and between his pulsing nodes.
The silver sphere of his root node had strayed far from its proper place, drifting almost to where the abdominal node should rest. Keir reached within herself, drawing power from deep within all her nodes through will alone, and channeled it out through her own heart node to splash on the living node of the gong’s lodestone. The cascade of sparking green raced through the lattices of the lodestone, turning corner after corner, before surging back toward Keir.
She raised her hands, using the demi-nodes in her palms to catch the stream and direct it onto Dreas’ root node. The green spate foamed against the pulsing silver, edging it back and back toward where it belonged. The curling arc connecting root to abdomen stretched in its wake.
Good.
Keir adjusted her palms to split the stream coursing from the lodestone, directing one stream to retain pressure on Dreas’ root node, aiming the other toward the softly pulsing white orb that formed his abdominal node, which was far too low.
Slowly, more slowly than the root node, the abdominal node eased toward its anchor point. When it arrived, Keir split the lodestone’s output into three streams. Two kept root and abdominal nodes in place. The third began the push against the pale green sphere of the plexial node.
The process felt smooth and natural, for all that she’d done it only once before. For Gael. But pulling energea, splitting it, directing it, healing with it was what a healer did. She’d been braiding streams of it for more than a decade. This was her calling, for all that she’d forsaken it when she came to Belzetarn.
Now for the heart node, vivid green like her own heart node, like the living node within the gong, but located above Dreas’ heart home.
Delicately, she lifted the energea splashing against Dreas’ root node. Would it stay where she’d placed it? Dreas was many decades further gone in his truldemagar than had been Gael.
Ah! Yes! The node quivered, but did not slip. She turned the freed stream of energea against the heart node, pushing it down and down to where it belonged.
She felt more confident lifting her energetic grip on the abdominal node in preparation for directing the stream to the aqua demi-node of the thymus. If the root node had stayed put – and it had – then the abdominal node should not slip either.
Deftly, she made the switch, holding the plexial and heart nodes steady with two gushing currents of energea, while using the third to push the thymus node. As the glowing aqua sphere glided slowly into place, the angle of the torrent spewing from the lodestone changed ever so slightly.
Keir raised her hands to compensate.
She had time to think damn it, Adarn! and then the angle skewed wildly.
The midst of an energetic working left the patient at his most vulnerable. Frantic, she reached high overhead, desperate to catch the moving stream. Her own heart’s fountain would not be enough. She had to have the lodestone multiplier.
Got it!
She folded the third stream into the one holding Dreas’ heart. Never mind the thymus. It could float. So long as his heart remained stable, all would be well.
But the lodestone stream was still moving.
She stretched higher still, catching it, catching it, and folding the plexial stream into the heart stream.
A deep booming sound roared in her ears. Her knees went weak, her arms felt like dead eels, and her stomach quivered. She felt every joint in her body failing.
I. Will. Not. Lose. Dreas.
Clamping onto her patient’s heart node, she fell.
And falling, she ripped his node right out of its energetic lattice.
Her knee, her right hip, her right elbow, and her shoulder hit hard stone with punishing force. Her head hit wrought bronze, and her vision went dark.
* * *
Chapter 17
Keir returned to consciousness slowly.
First there were the sounds. Shouting. Footsteps running, heavy and quick. Hurried orders in a tense undertone. Metal dragged on stone, grating. And the heaving sobs of a man lost to grief.
“No, no, no,” came the choked mutters, threaded through the sobbing.
Keir wondered what had happened. She had a sense that she lay in the wake of disaster. The worst had happened, but she couldn’t remember, couldn’t grasp where she was and what had gone wrong.
“Pater?” she murmured as the blue sky coalesced in her vision, clear and very high above her, curdled with a line of thin clouds to one side. Was she lying on the firm sand of the cove below her hut? Had the orca bitten her? Was Pater running for help?
“Keir?” asked a concerned companion. Pater? But Pater’s voice was deeper than that.
Someone moved into her line of sight. Neatly made, with solid shoulders and muscular legs, he wore a suede tunic of sage green hue and matching trews. His dark hair – traced by a few threads of gray – hung straightly down to his collar bones. But – sweet Ionan! – he was a troll. Lines bracketed his hazel eyes. The firm, square bones of his jaw were blurred by slackened skin. And – most telling of all – his nose was elongated and hooked, exaggerated from its doubtless aquiline origin.
As Keir drew breath to scream, she noted the kindness in his eyes. Was he friend? Not enemy?
And then it all came back to her.
This was Gael! Her dear friend. Dearer than friend? How had she taken him for just ‘a troll’? His truldemagar had ceased to be the first thing she saw in him long, long ago. When her eyes rested on him, she saw her mentor, her protector, her steadfast companion.
Another sequence of memory dropped, and she sat up with a jerk.
The high terrace of Belzetarn reeled around her. Her stomach fluttered ominously, and her head ached. But the scene was all too clear. Dreas lay like clay upon the beautifully wrought bench of bronze, his skin gray and his eyes staring. Carbraes crouched at the march’s side, one arm gripping his friend desperately, his face buried in Dreas’ tunic, shoulders heaving.
As Keir stared, aghast, the regenen raised his head. His ice blue eyes glared, reddened by his loss as they never had been by his disease. He jerked his gaze away from Keir to address Gael.
“You will destroy that cursed thing on the morrow’s morning, or I will sever your head from your body personally!” he blazed.
Keir noticed that the gong was no longer pres
ent. Nor were Adarn and Uwen. Where?
Gael bowed to his overlord.
“Take yourself from my sight!” snarled Carbraes.
“Yes, my lord Regenen,” said Gael, his demeanor remarkably steady in the face of Carbraes’ grieving wrath. “If I may assist my notarius from your presence.”
Carbraes did not answer, merely turning away in disgust.
Gael knelt beside Keir. “Can you stand, if I raise you?”
Keir felt very wobbly, but she wasn’t sure if it was her shaken body or her shaken emotions that weakened her. Gael maneuvered to get his arm across her back, sliding his hands under her elbows. Keir shifted, awkwardly pulling her feet under her.
“Up with you,” breathed Gael, giving her a firm boost.
Upright, she swayed, glad Gael had kept a hold of her. Pulling her nearer arm across his shoulders, he helped her toward the closest door, the one into the regenen’s receiving rooms. The journey to the spiral stairs and down them to her quarters was a slow, arduous whirl through a dim stone corkscrew patched with oblongs of light from the arrowslits. She felt as though she descended into the bowels of some monstrous deformed beast out of legend.
When Gael eased her across the threshold of her own quarters, relief gave her strength enough to lurch unsupported toward her favorite divan, its cushions upholstered in pale aqua suede. She sat dizzily, drinking in the diffuse light and air. Her casements were open and unshuttered; she never shut them when the weather was fine. She needed every weapon she could deploy to combat the heaviness of the tower’s stones, the oppressive atmosphere they produced. She’d been so grateful when she discovered a tanner in the bailey willing to experiment with unusual dyes. The blues and greens he’d used for the leathers and suedes on her furnishings reminded her of the sea around Fiors on a bright sunny day, while the paler blue hangings on her walls echoed its skies. Sometimes she could forget where she was – what she was – when she took refuge here.
Gael closed the door behind himself and dragged a backless chair next to her divan.
The Tally Master Page 33