Sending

by Carmody Isobelle

  She shook her head, her expression darkening. ‘I can’t look at them again so soon, but I will try to reach them again later when Darius wakes,’ she promised. I remembered suddenly how she had nearly killed herself trying to save people after one of the plagues that had struck the Land before Domick sent her away and wondered how I had ever imagined that she would have callously and knowingly turned her back on a suffering man, let alone one whom she had loved.

  I bade her dry her tears and have a few hours’ rest. We would talk again later. She gave me a tremulous, grateful smile and said Darius had told her the same thing.

  ‘Where is he?’ I asked.

  ‘He is in the Healer guildmaster’s chamber. I gave him a tisane and he fell asleep when Okan was massaging him. We did not want to wake him, just to shift him to a different chamber, for he sleeps ill at the best of times. He is determined to try his own Talents on the twins before he goes down to the White Valley,’ Kella said, but there was little hope in her voice.

  I went to the twins’ chamber, thinking it was an ugly thing to imagine Kella confessing her love to Darius at the very time Domick had been suffering so dreadfully, yet she had not known it and nor had he. Roland was in the twins’ chamber and I saw by the bowls on a tray that he had been supervising the coercion of nourishment to the twins. There was no sign of the coercer who had worked with him, but Roland looked weary and discouraged. I did not blame him, for feeding unconscious patients was tedious and messy. I thought with regret of the way in which the machines in the Beforetime complex at Oldhaven had fed Domick and given him medicines through tubes attached to little hollow needles. Roland and I had actually discussed the possibility of sending the twins to Oldhaven soon after I returned from Sador, but Jak, who knew best how to operate the healing computermachines, was far away in Sador, and it was unlikely that Angina would survive such a journey. We had debated sending Miky alone, but somehow none of us felt it would serve either of the twins to separate them, an irony considering what Angina had asked of me.

  The Healer guildmaster noticed me standing in the doorway and he waved to me to come in. As I took the seat beside him, he said, ‘I feed them each day, Elspeth, not knowing if I do right or wrong in forcing food into them. They would have long since died without it and yet they die a little each day anyway.’

  ‘Kella said both of you spent half the night trying to get through to their minds using Sover’s techniques,’ I said. I laid my hand over his, startling us both.

  ‘I can’t help wondering if it is truly my duty as a healer to hold to life one whom nature would release to death,’ he said.

  ‘Your duty is to heal, not to judge the worth of what you do,’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps a healer sometimes has the duty to let be. That was what my old grandmother used to say. Let be. Let things be as they are. Don’t meddle. Maybe there is a moment when healers should stand back and let be.’ He heaved a great sigh. ‘Even if we continue fighting to keep them alive, they cannot live much longer.’

  ‘You have thought that before,’ I said, trying for a cheerful tone, but he gave me a sombre look.

  ‘Aye, I said it of the lad, but not the girl. Yet she is nearing the edge too, now. When she is ready, they will both go. I think we could not reach their minds using Sover’s techniques because they are halfway on the journey to death.’

  ‘Hannay?’

  ‘I don’t know. He stumbled away after we gave up. We had to. None of us had anything left to give. I was too spent to go after the poor lad. But what could I have done if I had? She must die and he must grieve, it seems.’

  ‘You need rest, my friend.’

  ‘Who will watch over them?’ he asked.

  ‘Someone else,’ I said, and led him out.

  15

  Back in my chamber, I stood at the window and looked off into the distance, unseeing. I felt hollowed out by anxiety about the twins and by pity for Kella and Hannay and Roland; I knew that I was drained by the self-healing of my body and by the storm of emotions I had experienced, but knowing that changed nothing. On the way back to my chamber from the Healing Hall, I had farsought Ceirwan to tell him that I meant to sleep for a few hours, and he asked if I did not want him to send up some food on a tray.

  I shook my head. ‘If I need food Javo has sent a tray mounded with samples of different travel foods for me to try which he and Katlyn have been creating. Aras just told me that Christa had apparently suggested to Javo that they test them out on me, if that makes any sense.’

  ‘It doesn’t much but maybe Christa foresaw that you would sleep through the meals and wake hungry,’ Ceirwan quipped. ‘Seriously though, I think ye should consider just takin’ to your bed an’ sleeping the rest of the day an’ the night an’ be done wi’ it. After all, ye kenned at the meetin’ this morning that we have everything in hand fer the moon fair an’ fer th’ expedition. Ye need not even go down to the Coercers hall to choose a weapon, now, though when ye wake tomorrow ye might prepare yer pack with all ye mean to take on th’ expedition. That is what I have advised all of th’ others who will travel to the Red Land to do, for Rushton is determined that the packs and weapons will go down to the lowlands with Dardelan so they can be loaded onto the ships in advance. He just told Reuvan yer all to leave at dawn the day after the moon fair ends.’

  ‘I might sleep through,’ I said non-committally, not wanting to think how few days I had left at Obernewtyn.

  It was not until we had broken contact that I wondered why the guilden had said I need not go down and choose a weapon. I had a knife but that would not be enough on its own. I had been debating about taking a short sword, though my preferred weapon was a staff. The question was answered the moment I turned to my bed, for there was a new pack and a bow and a quiver of arrows lying on it, which I had not noticed when I entered the chamber. The pack and quiver were made from the same dense woven fabric as my new boots and coat, which told me they were the other portion of the gift from the futuretellers, which Maryon had mentioned. Ceirwan must have seen them delivered. Inside the pack were two coils of good rope and two well-cured gourd bottles as well as a new pair of light but sturdy trews with reinforced knees. When I lifted the pack onto the floor, I found a folded sheet of parchment under it. Travel well, was scribed upon it, followed by Maryon’s personal rune.

  I sat on the bed to examine the bow and arrows with puzzlement. I had enough of an ability as an archer to know the bow was beautifully crafted and balanced, but my skill at the staff was far greater. Nevertheless, the gifts of a futureteller were not to be taken lightly. Maryon had obviously seen something in my future to prompt the gift of a bow and arrows, and I resolved to find out on the morrow if Redlanders used bows and to have a target set up so that I could practise.

  As I changed into a nightgown, a burst of birdsong lured me back to the window. I leant against the sill in the wan but welcome sunlight and listened for a time to the birds and the sounds of people talking and the distant ring of hammers on metal, which I guessed to be the sound of preparations for the moon fair. At last I went and climbed into my bed, thinking what a wicked indulgence it was to lie down in the middle of the day and simply give way to sleep.

  I yawned widely and for a time memories of the previous night flowed sweetly through my body as much as my mind, making me long for Rushton despite my weariness. Then my eyelids grew heavy and I sank into sleep, dimly aware that somewhere, someone was laughing.

  I had shielded my mind so that I would not dream and I sank like a stone until I was hovering over the mindstream. I had not intended immediately to assume a spirit-form, but in truth I felt stronger than I had expected, given how tired I had been. Perhaps it had something to do with the residue of the dark power, which I had drawn through me to chain Rushton’s knowledge of me inside him. I had thought it would pass away but now that I was not distracted by my body, I could feel it still.

  Curious to find out what effect it might have on the mindstream, I summoned a te
ndril of its bright matter and drew it into me. I rose up through the layers of my mind until I was above consciousness and then I let it flow through me into a spirit-form. So far, all was as it had ever been as I transferred my will to it, then rose above my body and looked around me. Now the walls of the chamber were dark, save for the rush of red and orange etheric energy from the fire and a flood of violet and blue that lay around the window. The sky, too, was a whirl of violet and blue. I had intended to seek out the dreamtrails and Atthis, but the plight of the twins was still fresh in my mind.

  Almost before I had decided upon it, I found myself drifting purposefully along the halls of Obernewtyn towards the Healing Hall, passing people who moved like dark shadows, oblivious to me, their spirits dim inside their waking bodies. The cord that connected my spirit to my flesh played out behind me, glowing softly white and silver, but I could not now see the golden cord. For a moment I feared it had vanished, but thinking about it allowed me to feel the light tug of it and then I saw it unravelling away but not in the same direction as the silver cord. That puzzled me until I realised that since it connected me to Rushton, it must lead to him.

  My curiosity was as strong as a command to my spirit, and I turned and began to move in the direction of the golden cord. An image formed in my mind, which I recognised as the cobbled yard the coercer-knights used for training bouts. I saw Reuvan, Gevan and Linnet watching two coercers, only it seemed to me that they were practising acrobatic exercises. Then one of the coercers doffed a red cap and I realised they were practising for the magi performance.

  Suddenly Rushton turned his head towards me, frowning and looking puzzled, and it gave me a jolt to realise that he might be able to feel my presence because of the cord.

  Unnerved by the thought, I turned my mind again to the twins and the vision faded along with the golden cord as I glided once more towards the Healing Hall. Soon I was in the small chamber looking down at the twins, whose bodies lay unmoving as waxen dolls. To my spirit-eyes, their flesh was dark, but their spirits hovered above their bodies, connected to them only by the silver cord that links all spirit to its flesh. I had never seen such a thing before. The spirits of sleeping people and beasts usually overlapped their bodies, or drifted, moved by echoes of waking events or thoughts, or deep-seated compulsions, but it explained why Kella and her team had been unable to find the twins’ minds. In a way, Roland had been right, their spirits had travelled too far for the healers to reach them. Obviously the spirit-forms had been unconsciously created because they had no true shape or definition.

  I moved closer to examine their spirit-forms and saw that, unlike Miky’s, the silver cord running from Angina’s body to his spirit-form was dim and thin, a skein of smoke that would break up the moment a hand or even a breath of air disturbed it. Indeed, it seemed to me that it had no substance; what held him was the lavender spirit link that connected his spirit to his sister’s.

  Angina’s spirit-form was mostly yellow and a livid, sickly green in colour, but Miky’s spirit was violet and blue, except at the edges, and around the place where the lavender cord was bedded. Here the colour had faded badly and the blue had a greenish tinge. I studied the cord again and noticed flecks of violet and blue being drawn into the lavender cord from Miky’s spirit-form like leaves being carried from one pool to another by a stream that linked them. Obviously the link was enabling his spirit-form to draw on hers, and clearly it was sapping her vitality.

  Belatedly I noticed that someone had entered the room, or perhaps they had been there all along and I had been too intent on the twins to notice. The person leaned over Miky’s unconscious body and I wondered if it was Hannay. I had not had the chance to speak to him since his return from the lowlands.

  He reached out and held his hand above Miky at exactly the place where the silver-white cord ran from her body to her detached spirit-form. It must be a coincidence that he placed his hand into her spirit cord, for he could not possibly see it. Then something in the proportions of the dark form struck me, and I understood that it was not Hannay I was watching, but Darius.

  Then I saw something astonishing: a bright spring-green pulse of light flowed from his hand into the link and up it. Realising it had not been chance that made him hold his hand in exactly that place, I followed the light as it moved along the link and into Miky’s spirit-form. Immediately the sickly green spreading about the base of the cord flushed to violet blue.

  Was this the secret of Darius’s healing powers, I wondered incredulously? And yet what was it that I had seen, a pulse of spirit energy dispensed by the beasthealer to Miky’s spirit?

  Suddenly I remembered that the ship fish Ari-noor and Ari-roth had given me the gift of ohrana, which they had defined as spirit energy, and which had kept me warm through hours of being towed along in the freezing waves. It was not something I had ever seen any other beast or human do, but I had no doubt that this was what Darius was doing.

  Fascinated, I watched another pulse of green flow from the beasthealer’s hand up the link to the discol-oured place in Miky’s aura, but even as a new area of violet flowered, another patch of healthy colour was drawn into the lavender link, which glowed brighter than ever. Yet there was no change in the dull colours of Angina’s spirit.

  Was it possible that the energy being drained from Miky was not going to her brother but to the link between them? If I was right, then no matter how much energy Darius poured into Miky, it would only be drawn into the link and serve to bind the pair more tightly. It would not actually help to heal either of the twins. And how long could Darius go on doing what he was doing? I knew from my experience with the ship fish that the energy a spirit could gift was finite.

  I floated closer to Angina and studied the centre of the corruption of his spirit, a festering red and purple streak that corresponded with the wound from the arrow that he had taken in the White Valley. I wondered why it was so raw-looking when the wound to his flesh had long since healed. The physical scar was an ugly thing, to be sure, for the wound had become infected, but it had healed. Yet you would not know it by looking at his spirit.

  Somehow the unhealed spirit wound was the cause of Angina’s sickness. If Angina and Miky were beasts, this would have made perfect sense, for in beasts the connection between flesh and spirit was much closer and stronger than the bond between humans and their spirits. Indeed, most animals were aware of their spirit at all times and those as evolved as the ship fish could actually draw on their spirits when they were awake, even as I believed Darius was now doing.

  But this very closeness, which gave them power over their spirits, rendered them more vulnerable, for even a slight hurt to the flesh could kill a beast if both flesh and spirit were not tended. When a beast licked the wound of its mate or cub, or lay close to warm it, it was as much to heal the spirit as the wounded flesh. Human spirits appeared to be less vulnerable to wounding in general, and that must be because humans were less aware of their spirits, and so the link between them was less powerful but also less vulnerable. Of course, given the nature of their Talent, futuretellers were aware of their spirits, but for the most part they lived lives shaped to nourish their spirits and seldom ventured far from home or sought adventure. Nor did many of them realise that they could fly in spirit away from their bodies, for their interest was bent largely upon the limitless inner world, and on the mindstream.

  There had been those who had flown in spirit, of course. Maryon had done so, and whatever she had faced there had led her to describe the dreamtrails as perilous dreamslopes. It was her experience of the dreamtrails that had led her to restrict knowledge of spirit-travel among her futuretellers by swearing to secrecy any who blundered upon them. But I suspected that even Maryon did not know it was possible for one spirit to feed energy to another. Indeed, there was little need of it, since the healing of the human spirit occurred naturally when the flesh was healed.

  Except now. This brought me to the inescapable conclusion that something must h
ave happened to make Angina aware enough of his spirit for it to become vulnerable. But what?

  I looked at Darius, who continued to send energy to Miky, having no idea that it was being immediately drawn into the link binding the girl to her brother, and wondered if the ability to gift spirit energy was common among gypsy folk, or if it was unique to Darius. Had it to do with the fact that his own body caused him constant pain? Certainly the beasthealer must be more than usually aware of his spirit, to use it in such a way, and had not his unrequited love of Kella been a sickness of the spirit as much as of the flesh? Indeed, this must be what lay behind his almost miraculous ability to care for beasts. He could heal their spirit as well as tending to their flesh.

  I wondered if he had tried to heal Angina’s spirit before turning his attention to Miky. Or had he known there was no hope for the boy? Some impulse made me reach out and dip my spirit hand into the red slash of colour in the boy’s aura. Immediately I saw the face of the man who had shot the arrow into him. I had not realised it in the White Valley, but he had spoken to Angina after the lad had fallen. I saw brutish spite and loathing in his eyes. ‘Not dead yet, Freak?’ he hissed. ‘I will kill you just as I dashed out the brains of the Misfit whelp my bondmate bore,’ he hissed. He drew out his sword to deliver the killing blow, only to be cut down himself by a gypsy arrow.

  I drew back, appalled.

  Angina’s spirit-form shifted and firmed into the same scaled creature I had seen in my dreams. In touching his wound, I had brought him to an awareness of his spirit and now he looked at me and, though its lips did not move, I heard his voice as if from very far away. I do not wish to live in a world where men with dark joy in their eyes kill their own babies.

  ‘Not all men hate like that,’ I whispered.