by Dana Marton
I pulled my knife from its sheath and gestured for Jano’s long linen shirt under his fur cape.
Understanding what I wanted, he extended the bottom toward me and held the hem while I cut off a long, narrow strip for a bandage. This I tossed into the bucket of water and waited until the water was hot.
“Let me see your wound again,” I told Jano.
He pulled up his pants leg.
I grabbed the strip of linen and washed the wound. Then I dropped the cloth back into the bucket.
Next I cleaned my knife, holding the blade in the fire until any remnants of dirt burned away.
“The cut will hurt,” I warned Jano while I waited for the blade to cool.
“I dance with my bride,” he said and puffed out his chest, as if trying to tell me that was worth any pain.
But he did squeeze his eyes shut and ground his teeth when at last, in a quick stab, I lanced the boil.
The pressure under the skin pushed out thick yellow pus in a never-ending stream. I let it run to the ground and waited. When the flow stopped, I pressed my fingers on either side of the hole and pushed out more, squeezed until the pus was mixed with blood, then until only red blood came.
By this time, Jano was swaying and a dozen men gathered around us to watch, some gagging.
The water was boiling in the bucket, so I added carefully selected bunches of herbs and let them boil for a few moments until the brew turned dark brown. I lifted the bandage from the brew with the tip of my knife and let the linen drip and cool a little, but not overly much. While still hot, I wrapped it around Jano’s wound.
“This will help the infection,” I said as I tied off the bandage. “Take this medicine and put it in a flask. Wash the wound with it and rewrap in a clean cloth every time you stop to rest on your journey.”
“I dance?” he asked again, his face a few shades paler but with hope in his eyes.
“You will dance,” I promised.
His tribesmen had to help him up. One used the corner of his own cape to grab the bucket out of the fire and carry it away. The oldest of the men, maybe Jano’s father, gave me a deep bow and a silver coin.
I bowed in response, my heart thrilling at the payment. A full silver coin would provide me with food all the way to Regnor.
As the men walked off, my first patient returned with white hardened pig lard in a small pot. I set this at the edge of the fire to melt and added four different dried herbs. The heat would help their healing properties to seep out. While waiting for that, I had the man take off his cloak, spread it on the ground, then lie facedown in front of me.
I tugged his tunic free and folded it up on his back, then held my hands over the fire to warm them before placing my palms over his skin. He sighed at the heat.
I worked his muscles softly for a while, then added the warm, infused lard and kneaded them a little harder. So many hard knots he had. Then I felt my own palms tingle, and I could see the knotted muscles as well as feel them. I could feel my healing power surge inside me, such a welcome sensation. I could barely stifle a cry of joy.
I let that power pour out into the old man and healed his back, his aching joints, even the hidden sickness of his bowels.
When I drew away, he sat up with a stunned smile. “You are the goddess come to earth.” He pushed to his feet without struggle, then bowed. “You made me a young man.” He too paid me a full silver coin.
He hurried back toward the men and their fires, and as he spread his tale, more and more of them came to me.
Once again, I caught Graho watching me, but I was too busy to pay much attention to him.
I healed cuts and infections, coughs, eased the pain of gnarled fingers and aching knees. I used my healing spirit sparingly and only when absolutely needed. I did not want to weaken myself for my long journey. But I did have my healing powers back and I did use them, my spirit soaring.
By midday, I had a handful of coins, three loaves of bread, and several chunks of hard cheese. By midafternoon, I had even more food and another blanket to take with me.
Since I helped all who needed my help, I decided to leave the camel yard and walk to the market. Graho waited for me by the inn’s back entrance.
“Tera.”
Thinking he only meant to persuade me to go to Muzarat, I moved to pass by him.
His blue gaze burned into mine. “You judge me harshly.”
Embarrassment made me look away. He spoke the truth. And hadn’t my mother told me a hundred times that healers were called to heal and not to judge?
I had trouble finding my voice. “Forgive me.”
He placed a hand on my arm, his voice filled with tension and a strange urgency, and something else I could not name. “Tonight I would wish to talk with you, when the children are asleep.”
I looked around. “Where are they?”
“Up in our chamber. Posey brought them sweet raisin biscuits.” He would not let my arm go.
I sighed. Nothing he could tell me would make me feel differently about his dark trade, but a healer listened.
“I must go to purchase my supplies. But tonight we shall talk,” I reluctantly promised, and he offered to take my bundle up to our chamber for me.
I hurried off to the market to spend my coin before it closed. Coin was no good to me on the road, through barren winter fields and woods. I needed more food and another flask. And I wished to purchase a proper pair of boots, if used, for the wraith. In truth, he did not seem to be fading. Mayhap he’d been a stronger man than the sorcerer’s previous victims.
As I walked down the cobbled streets, people watched me with interest. Word of my healing must have spread beyond the camel yard. Some frowned; others smiled at me. I smiled at all of them, a small nagging worry in the back of my head.
Then my thoughts returned to my odd conversation with Graho. That I was still with him was strange enough in itself. I fully disapproved of his trade and his person.
“If something happens to me, stay close to the merchant,” Batumar had said.
Had Batumar known something I did not? What? What was the merchant’s secret? Mayhap I would find out later.
I was still pondering that when I saw a most striking man rushing toward me and shouting.
From his wild eyes and great beard, the boiling hate in his gaze, I judged him to be Ker’s soothsayer.
His splendid purple satin caftan swept the ground, his forked, blue-dyed beard reaching his bright green, studded belt. Half a dozen men followed him, as richly if not as colorfully dressed, probably the city fathers. All appeared equally outraged.
“Sorceress!” the soothsayer accused me at once, pointing a long, knobby finger at me, then stabbing my chest with it repeatedly when he reached me.
People gathered around, even leaning from their windows above our heads.
“Sorceress!” The soothsayer spat the word with revulsion. He looked as wild-faced as Makmin’s camel during my treatment. “One of your kind has already turned the weak minds of the city fathers of Ishaf. That will not happen in Ker!”
My limbs went weak. “My lord, I am but a traveling healer.”
“You cast out the beast of darkness,” he accused me with enough drama for a harvest play. “Only darkness can cast out darkness.”
I hoped tales of my healing had not been exaggerated. I had been accused of sorcery before, by Karamur’s very own soothsayer when Batumar was on a military campaign. People believed that sorceresses could only be killed by boiling them in tar, a fate I had narrowly escaped. I hoped the city of Ker was not overly superstitious.
“I but helped a camel pass a worm.”
“A dark spirit in the shape of a great snake,” he accused as if he had been there and I had not.
“A worm, my lord.” I bowed. “Nothing more.”
“You are the sister of dark spirits,” the soothsayer screeched at me, stabbing me with his finger once again. His mouth frothed, his eyes rolled back in his head.
“I meant no harm. I shall
leave the city at once,” I hurried to say, wishing nothing as much as to be away from him and the mob that gathered.
“You shall not!” he shouted, red-faced. “You shall be tried for your dark deeds, and then you shall be boiled!”
Fear closed my throat. I could not speak. And even if I could, what would I say?
I bowed meekly, as if ready to give myself into the mob’s hands. But instead, the next second, I tore away and darted into the nearest alleyway.
Spirits help me. I dashed forward. There, a narrow doorway. I flew through a kitchen, out the front, into another alleyway, taking turn after turn. I ran, changing direction again and again.
I was clear on the other side of the city, way past the market, before I dared to slow and catch my breath. I was on Eryl the herb woman’s street. Up ahead, I could see her hut, pressing up against the city wall.
I saw two men by her gate, arguing, paying little attention to anything else.
But when I reached them, a screech came from Eryl’s hut. “That’s her!”
And the two men set upon me at once, grabbing me. Before I could protest, a potato sack was thrown over my head, and I was shoved, dragged into the hut where Eryl kept screaming. “Not here!”
So I was dragged back out. The two men must have been her brothers or her husband and a friend, for the whole while they were dragging me, they were threatening to kill me if I didn’t stay away from Eryl and the city of Ker.
Our boots scuffed on stone, the sound echoing off stone walls as if we were in a narrow passageway. Little light filtered through the potato sack as I begged them not to harm me, my stomach clenched in a hard knot as I struggled in vain.
Then more light shined through the bag again, and I felt soft earth beneath my feet. The next moment, rough hands touched me all over, and I screamed, fearing the worst violation, but the two men only searched me, stripping me of all my earnings and belongings before one of them kicked me in the back of the knees and sent me sprawling face-first into the dirt.
A hard foot connected with my ribs.
I cried out, but so did one of the men. “A hollow! Look! A wraith!”
And in the next moment, I heard their footsteps retreating.
By the time I sat up, by the time I pulled the sack off my head, they were gone. I was outside the city walls, somewhere in the back of Ker, the east road in front of me. The hollow was stumbling forward from the forest in my direction, like a dark spirit from a children’s tale.
And yet, that black shape was such a welcome sight to me.
It slowed, then stopped altogether. Had it come from the woods to scare off the men? To defend me?
Did it have thought still left? Reason in its brain? Or did the body simply move, guided by some animal instinct that remained after the loss of spirit? I wanted no harm to come to him on my account.
“Go back into the woods!”
While I checked my ribs, I glanced back at the small door in the city wall, fearing the men would return with help to chase away the hollow and finish me.
Eryl must have heard of my healing work in the camel yard but not that the soothsayer was after me. For if she knew, I was certain she would have instructed her brothers to hand me over to the authorities instead of tossing me out on my ear. I had a feeling she would have enjoyed seeing me boiled.
My stomach clenched at the thought, and I scrambled to my feet. No broken ribs, thank the spirits.
I glanced toward the city one last time, wishing I could return to the inn and say good-bye to Graho and the children, claim my food and blankets.
Not if I want to live.
I moved in the opposite direction. The hollow still stood out in the open. I had to lead it back into the trees. We had to stay hidden.
The cold bit into me. Once again, I was without a warm cloak or a blanket. Without food. Yet the spirits had provided for me until now. I had to trust them to provide for me still.
The enemy was out there, threatening my people. I could not stand here and wish for things to be different. I had to go forward and do what I could to bring about whatever rescue we needed.
Marga chuffed somewhere in the woods. I strode forward. Maybe it was better not to see Graho and the children to say good-bye. Maybe he would have tried to trick me or force me into going with him. Yet, I felt oddly alone without them. We had become traveling companions along the way.
What did Graho mean to tell me?
I sighed after a few hurried steps. No matter. Now I would never hear it.
As I passed the hollow, it just stood there, head hanging. But a moment later, when I glanced over my shoulder, it turned and followed me.
When I reached Marga in the woods, the tiger bent her head and licked my hand in greeting. Then, because she was tall enough to do so, she licked my face. I dug my hands into her fur and hugged her for a long moment before letting go.
By that time, the hollow caught up too.
“We better be on our way.”
The road cut through the forest. We walked inside the woods so we would not be seen by other travelers should any happen by. And this way, I was also able to find some mushrooms and berries, which we ate on the spot.
We did not journey far that day, for darkness fell early in winter. We settled into a small clearing for the night. At least, since my flint and steel were in my boots, I had those to start a fire. I wished I had not lost my blankets and cloak, but between the fire and the tiger, I did not feel the cold of the night.
I fell asleep to the tiger’s soft snoring and woke to the sensation of being watched. Morning had not yet come, not even dawn, plenty of stars in the sky. I sat up and yawned.
The tiger was gone. The hollow sat on the other side of the banked fire, as close as he had ever come to me.
I felt no fear. If the hollow meant to harm me, it could have done so while I slept. Maybe because I had protected it at Ishaf’s city gate, it seemed to have appointed itself as my protector. I was glad for the quiet company and pleased that the hollow still lived.
Was it really flesh without a sliver of spirit?
“What are you?” I asked without expecting an answer as I stirred the fire to life. I wanted to warm up a little before continuing our journey.
The hollow’s chin moved as if it was trying to talk. Then it did make some sound that startled me.
I leaned forward. “Orsh?”
The rusty, scratchy sound repeated from lips I could not see.
“Orz,” I said, catching the word better this time. I took that to be his name.
He sat perfectly still, but his back was a little straighter, as if the sound of his name, spoken out loud, had somehow brought a small piece of his spirit back to him.
Chapter Seventeen
(Orz)
The unexpected conversation left me unsettled. Was he more than an empty shell? Was he improving? He certainly did not seem to be declining.
I remembered Graho’s words. “A cobbler from Ishaf said the city guards’ captain was against the sorcerer. He was a big man who recently disappeared. Gramorzo was his name.”
Orz. Could it be him?
That question and a hundred others filled my mind, about Orz, about what Graho and the children thought of my sudden disappearance, about the journey that awaited me.
As warm as the fire was, I could not settle back into sleep. Orz did not lie down either.
Both moons were full, clearly visible through the bare branches above, the light dusting of snow reflecting back their light. A silver glow bathed the forest. Since we had not walked much so far, I was not overly tired.
The beauty of the night drew me forward. The woods did not scare me. I had suffered much more harm in the cities of men, than I ever had in any wild forest.
“We could walk some more,” I suggested.
Orz stood without a word, his head bowed. His hood as ever remained in place. I had not yet seen his face. Even in full daylight, I could see no more than the tip of his stubble-cove
red chin.
I pushed to my feet, then kicked snow over the fire.
This time when we set out, he followed me from only a step or two behind. Maybe so he could hear if I spoke to him again. Clearly, he could understand me. I had been wrong about that before. Could he say more than his name?
“What did the sorcerer do to you?” I asked. Maybe if I knew that, I would know how to help him.
But Orz remained silent at my question.
“What were you before?”
He said nothing.
“Did you always live in Ishaf?”
He followed me in silence.
I resigned myself to this and plodded forward. My stomach growled. Behind me, Orz’s stomach answered.
I had planned on leaving Ker with full provisions for a long journey, early in the morning so I could walk a fair distance before nightfall. But ever since leaving Karamur, nothing had turned out as planned.
I thought of Batumar, and my heart twisted. I walked forward. I could not look back. There waited such a dark, deep hole as would swallow me forever.
We walked a fair distance before I heard someone walking in the woods. I thought of the brigands who had attacked us on the road to Ker and reached for my knife, which my attackers outside the city wall had deemed too insignificant to take. But once again, it was Marga returning.
Her whiskers were wet with blood. She licked them with a satisfied growl as she padded forward by my side. She had not brought me a gift this time. Maybe all she had caught was a squirrel or some other small animal that she had eaten in one bite.
“To the city of Regnor,” I told her. “We must find Lord Karnagh.”
Lord Karnagh’s people, the Selorm who lived in the kingless kingdom of Seberon, fought with battle tigers. If any people would accept me with a tiger in tow, it would be the Selorm.
No wind blew, but the night chilled me through regardless. I was glad I was moving. Lying on the cold hard ground in the woods would have been even more uncomfortable, especially if the tiger wandered off again.
She sniffed the air constantly. When we heard the howl of distant wolves, she answered with a warning roar. The wolves must have turned in another direction, for they did not come to investigate, and I did not hear them again.