by Sandra Waugh
“I’m here!” she gasped behind me.
“Grab under my arms; pull me up!” I cried. And her hands grabbed and locked across my chest, tugging. It gave me the barest chance to get my feet under me, push against the rock, slide up a fraction.
“Sideways!” I was ordering, yelling at her. “Together! Shift sideways!” And we did, panting and grunting. “Is he clear of the fall?”
“Yes!”
Then it was only his body weight to work against. “Pull!” I shouted. “As hard as you can, Lill! PULL!”
Slowly we gained on the rock, pushing to stand, to tug and drag the rope, burning our hands raw. But we got Laurent up to the top. Unconscious and bloodied, but whole.
“What did you do?” I hissed wretchedly at Laurent, fumbling at the rope wrapped around his hands. “What did you do?”
“He?” cried Lill. “It was you! This is your fault!”
“Give me the knife,” I said, hard. “Give it to me.”
“I’ll do it.” Her eyes were like daggers. She sawed at the binding on Laurent’s wrists, and then his ankles. He’d trussed himself like a boar on a spit with knots and loops. It was only by luck that the rope had not cut through his joints. I bit my tongue against my thought—that he’d sacrificed himself with terrible ingenuity for the stupidly simple act of my picking up a shell. I was angry. I was scared.
Lill had no reservation in sharing her feelings. She threw the bonds over the falls and turned back to me, white-faced. “Is he dead?”
I was feeling for a pulse in his neck—his wrists too bloodied—leaning my cheek at his mouth, feeling for the whisper of breath. I shook my head in grateful relief.
“But he might die!” she spit. “He might! Look at him! He’s so…there’s so much blood!” I heard her turn, then whip back, furious. “There was no reason for this, no purpose!”
I looked up, jaw hard because she echoed my own fury. “What would you have had me do, Lill? Toss the shell through the waterfall and hope you might catch it? That is, if it weren’t smashed by the torrent or lost over the edge!”
“Who cares about your shell?” she hissed. “It’s not worth this!” She pointed at my satchel. “You could have tied that to the rope; we could have hauled it up. You could have sacrificed yourself, not let him do that for you!”
She was right, but that had never occurred to me since Healer instinct declined sacrifice. I hated myself for it, my selfish preservation. I said fiercely, “Never mind. We need help. You need to go for help.”
“I go for help? And let you betray us all, like you have him?”
“Lill—!”
She said viciously, “Maybe you will run off as soon as I am gone! You have what you want. What’s to stop you from leaving?”
“Run?” I grabbed my satchel, dug in and pulled out the shell, held out my hand, enraged. “Go ahead, take it! Then you can be certain I won’t abandon the Rider.”
Lill hesitated briefly, then moved to snatch the amulet. She didn’t even get close. There was a blinding light, and the air cracked like thunder; Lill was flung back hard, shrieking. It took her a moment to recover, then she burst into tears, accusing, “You! You knew that would happen!”
I was staring at the little shell, stunned. I’d had no idea that was what Laurent meant when he said only the Guardians could collect the amulets, could return them. It sat in my hand like a trinket bought on market day; it had nearly killed Lill. I looked up, horrified. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“Who are you?” Vicious, teary, she curled away from me.
Maybe this was how she was when she was torn from her sister—a terrified child at the mercy of powerful brutality. I felt terrible that I’d hurt her, frightened her so…and we were wasting time. “Lill, please—”
“Just stop before you kill us all!” She spit it—not terror this time, but rage. I watched her—a little ball, her back so coldly turned, remembered the villagers of Bern and what Harker had said: the violence of Man. That same darkness was brewing here, in her, where fear and pain and even envy birthed hatred and its fury. There was no chance, no opportunity to change the course, unless we could save the Rider.
I said, with more calm than I felt, “Lill, you need to run back to the fort. You need to get help.” I turned to Laurent, ripped the shirt from his chest and shoulders. Welts and bruises, already in lurid colors, peppered his front. His wrists were raw. There was a long, deep gash across his ribs. I put my hands on it. The blood seeped cold.
“You want me to go so you can finish him off.”
Lill was crouched now, facing me. She was not thinking, just baiting me, wanting a fight. How easy it is to turn violent, how easy to let madness in. A Breeder’s strength…“I am a Healer, Lill; I cannot kill like that.” But maybe I’d killed another way. My hands were worthless. Bandages. Tear strips for bandages….Something. Anything.
“Look at him! You are no Healer; you bring Death!” She threw the word at me like a spear. “And you are no friend! Lying about the daisy, pretending you haven’t—”
“Lill, there is no time! You have to go. Please!”
She set her jaw. I pleaded, “You know the way. You are quick, remember? Bring men back and a stretcher to carry Laurent. You can help save him.”
“From you.” She sneered.
“I promise, Lill. I will heal him! I promise you I will not let him die!”
And then I wasn’t saying that for her, I was saying that for myself. I stood up and strode to where I towered over her like the feared death-seeker she accused me of being, gritting and determined. “I. Will. Not. Now GO!”
Lill stumbled up, frightened by my fierceness, and was off, clambering down the boulders away from Hooded Falls and then onto the path. It would be twilight soon. I had to hope she knew her way in the dark.
I STARED AT the wet lump of shirt; I stared at Laurent. Any determination I’d felt deserted me in a single exhale. The roar of Hooded Falls was sapped away with my breath, a false peace suddenly isolating the bit of rock we shared. And in that silence the past came rushing forward: the market square of Merith, Raif’s lifeless body, and the utter bleakness of an ending—that moment when I first learned death had agonizing impact, was no longer a simple ease from life. And where I was completely useless.
My hands lay in my lap, listless. I turned my palms over and stared.
“Not algae,” I murmured. Like when I held Raif in his puddle of blood, my hands steeped in it, Laurent’s blood was just as red.
“I’m sorry, Raif,” I whispered, and looked back at Laurent. “I’m sorry, Rider.” Lill was right. I was going to let him die.
Love cannot die. The words jumped at me from nowhere. Words that Raif murmured to Lark for her to share with me. Words to prove his faith, that we had a bond that would withstand death—a bond I’d betrayed with my feelings for the Rider.
I wiped my hands on my skirt. Slow strokes. Smearing the blue to black. Always black.
Love cannot die. Now it was Raif’s voice in my head, speaking not kindly but insistent, as if I was not paying attention. “I’m sorry!” I looked up, pleading to the failing light, “I am sorry!”
Love cannot die! The words were loud this time, angry at my obtuseness, my lethargy. I heard them as some threatening epithet, some proof that Raif would haunt me. And yet Raif was never that sort of person. He would not have cursed me with such a promise, imprisoned my feelings so that I’d feel guilty if they strayed. Then, what, Raif? What do you mean?
Cannot die. Cannot die. A riddle perhaps, and if so, then a challenge. My dullness stirred, elementary answers trickling in. Cannot die—what died returned to earth and enriched new growth. Healers knew that more than anyone….
Meaning exploded inside of me; laughter poured out—in joy, release, all of it. It wasn’t a prison, that promise, ’twas an offer to share those feelings! Love couldn’t die because it was meant to be reborn.
Dearest, noble Raif. I closed my eyes; bowed hand to hea
rt, so grateful for him. Then my eyes opened on Laurent, and there was an ache in my chest that was too beautiful to bear, and suddenly what love I’d kept hidden as a naïve girl, or ignorant Healer, or wretched survivor was spilling into my trembling palm, no longer to be held secret. The words came again, whispering, Cannot die.
And then with a shock came the further meaning: Do not let him die, Evie!
I snapped to attention. I bent to the Rider, brushed back his hair, and pressed my fingers against his neck. The pulse was there, still, but faint; that strong life force embattled. I swept my hands down his arms, across his torso, feeling for breaks, feeling the bruises, the tears. I’d done this before, but was half stunned then—by his arrival, his beauty, by my own confused feelings. I’d spent much of the time staring at him, wondering if I wanted him to wake.
Now I’d do anything to make him wake.
It was the gash across his rib that was the worst. I wiped it clean with his wet shirt, and again…and again. It had to be closed; the blood seeped too quickly. But I had nothing to use for stitching. I pressed the shirt against the wound, watching it stain dark, willing it to stop. I’d done this too often these past days, trying to heal people. I’d lost them all.
And now the light was nearly gone, a last highlight in the western sky and then I’d be in near darkness, working blind.
I gripped his shoulders and vowed to his shuttered face, “I’ll not lose you!”
Then I shot up, gasping. The crumpled handful of minion that Lark had bade the Bog Hag give me; she’d done it to help me save Laurent. The knife, the minion—whatever divination Lark used to know this, ’twas a more powerful act than any healing I’d ever done. I was breathless with hope….Lark had given me the chance to save him.
Beneath Laurent’s head was the leather pack that Lill had brought with her; she’d propped him with it when we got him up the slab. I slid it gently out from under him, then yanked it open, pulling out the food that remained from our day’s journey. Bread, apples, a squab leg. I slipped the pack back under Laurent, then ran to the mouth of the relentless water, soaked my skirts, clambered back, tore the crusts off the bread, and dumped the soft insides into the cloth bowl I shaped between my knees. I rolled the hem up and mashed the fabric against the rock, making a paste from the bread. Then I took out the minion, carefully shredded each sprig, and sprinkled it into the paste, then mashed the whole thing over again. I squinted against the dusk to see if I could make out a faint tinge of green, a sign that I’d mixed well enough.
I wiped Laurent’s wound, then smeared handfuls of the paste over all of it, and over his wrists and ankles as well, leaving it to dry in the night air while I soaked his shirt then tore it into bandages. I laid these to dry on the rock, which still radiated heat from the day.
Then the apples. I smacked them against the stone ’til they squished, slit the skins with my thumbnail, and squeezed the juice from both into Laurent’s parted lips. The sweet and the tannins would help from inside. I flattened the skins and spread them on the sides of the wound.
The squab I ate, cramming it in quickly.
I sat back, panting, surveying what I could in the dark. I went over in my head all my knowledge, all the available tools, and checked that I’d effected all that I could. All of this I might have done alone, but the minion made the difference. The most healing of herbs.
“How did you know?” I whispered. “How did you know that I would need the knife, the minion?” Lark could not read me. Any visions that I appeared in were made from things other than her gift of Sight, like the Insight spell I’d done….
Curiosity burned inside me. Curiosity and then too a bit of envy—that had I been born with Lark’s gift I might have prevented Laurent from his sacrifice in the first place.
I looked down at Laurent. I could hardly see him in the dark, but his heat radiated close if not vibrant. I shifted so that I could rest Laurent’s head gently in my lap, trembling a little again. I’d watched the Rider, back when we fought the wisps, studied his features, trying to absorb him into memory and be done. Now, his nearness inspired something so huge that I hurt with longing. To be done would be impossible. I breathed deep three times, then laid my hands—first on his temples, and then on his heart—using my gift. Head, heart, head, heart. I repeated the pattern over and over, counting slowly to ten each time until it became rhythm and my own heart was beating to that pace. Over and over, giving warmth, life—
Over, and over. And over.
At some point I faltered. It wasn’t working; all the mercy I’d been spared was used up, my healing gift had waned. The Rider lay barely breathing.
What if Lill was right that I would take Laurent into death? What if I’d been right that a Healer should not be the Guardian of Death? Was this part of the upset of Balance—that I now led people through Death’s passage, undiscriminating? That I no longer healed?
This is how it begins, seeds of fear….
I shook my head to refocus. I pulled my hands away, clapped them smartly to shake out the bad things, then placed them back on Laurent’s temples. And yet all I could think of when I touched him was that beautiful ache he inspired inside of me, and how impossible it would be to live without it—to let him die. Of course I wasn’t helping—I was not giving healing energy, I was giving need.
I released his temples, pressed against the paste-coated wounds, pressed against where I remembered each bruise and scrape. I begged; I railed. And still there was but faint breath, faint heartbeat. If he did not come back…I was desperate with want. Love cannot die! Whispered, murmured, shouted against the roar of the falls, to the sky as the stars burst into the deep blue and dusted the small flat of rock with light. Love cannot die!
I don’t know exactly how it happened, how I found my hand searching through my little satchel, reaching not for the amulet of Death but what I’d carried for love: the braided leather ring. I took it from my satchel, slid it on my thumb for strength. For aid. Cannot die—rebirth, yes, but so too memory. A circle, I thought, renewing without ever dying. And what was the cycle of Life and Death without love woven into it, anyway? From Ruber Minwl to Raif to me, the ring offered that thread to weave. I laid my hands on Laurent’s temples again, the bit of leather pressing deep.
“I love you.” I’d never said those words aloud but now they came out, fervent. I leaned over and skimmed my lips over Laurent’s brow, wanting—needing—to say it again: “I love you.” My throat was thick. “Please.” I took his hand, pressed it hard against my heart. “Please come back.”
A faint squeeze of my fingers.
“Laurent! Laurent?” I released his hand and cupped his face, searching in the faint light. “Can you hear me?”
There was silence, an aching length of silence. But then his lips parted. “I feel you,” he murmured, with the faintest grimace.
I pulled back abruptly. “I’m crowding you!” Then leaned forward, almost into him, worrying that he’d heard my confession. “Do I crowd you?”
A groan, a sigh. A hint of smile, half caught by starlight. “My lady, you do not know…”
The Rider mocked, but suddenly it mattered not if he’d heard or if he teased. I was grinning madly. “You’ve come back!”
“The shell?”
“It’s here. I have it!”
Another ragged breath. “Then,” he said with a grunt, “we succeeded.”
“We did.” Succeed. A word rich with opportunity. I was laughing now. Relief made me giddy.
“Lill?”
“She’s gone for help.”
He winced, then reached up. I grasped his hand. His fingers brushed the ring and he caught it between thumb and forefinger for a moment before dropping away. I didn’t think anything of it, just smoothed his hair from his temples.
But Laurent’s languor was abruptly gone; he struggled against my hands, trying to sit up, to understand. “How am I loose?”
“Gifts from my cousin, strange as that may be. Lie back! Y
ou are too injured!”
“Nothing,” he panted, “is strange. But…” He grimaced, sinking back at the pain. “We need shelter, now, should the swifts return.”
“They are not returning.” I could make him rest. I had to make him rest. “Close your eyes.”
He did, briefly anyway. “My sword—”
“Hush. I’ll wield your sword, Rider.” He snorted and I grinned—jest or truth, perhaps we felt safe for both. “Relax, sir. Trust your Healer.”
“My…” He drifted for just a moment, but then his eyes opened to catch my gaze. He murmured, “The ring you wear. Was that one of the queen’s gifts?”
“Nay, it belonged to Raif.” I could not stop smiling. “It’s been passed between loved ones—it holds a special power, I think.”
Laurent was quiet for a moment. “I imagine it would.”
I said lightly, “Here, you hold it.” I took the ring off, placed it in his hand, and closed his fingers over it despite his resistance.
“Evie—”
“Shhh, now. The circle is in your hand; your energy is in mine.” I pressed my hands on his. “That makes for very special healing.”
“Evie, do—?”
“Breathe, Rider.” I moved my hands to his temples. “Deep and slow. Deep and slow.” I felt on the precipice of something extraordinary. “Breathe.” ’Twas passion charging. My feelings were out—exposed to the elements but uncaught by Laurent. “Breathe.” A secret unburdened, not betrayed. It filled the air, surrounded and screamed in silence, like the space between a note’s vibration.
Maybe he could not help but sense it. Laurent gave up his struggle. “Your voice is like music.”