As from a great distance he seemed to hear a new voice cut across the racket in his head. Hush, it said. I hear. I come.
Trevor lifted Les onto the ledge. He’d been so absorbed in his call he hadn’t noticed his friend’s distress. He should have known how the sending would affect Les at such close range.
Les was unconscious, his breathing shallow, his pulse rapid. Trevor wished that healing were one of his talents. But it seemed he was only able to cause hurt, not cure it.
Help was on the way. He only hoped he hadn’t bought that help at the price of Les’s life.
He gave Les’s shoulders a gentle shake. “Les,” he said. “Les, I’m sorry. Come out of it, please.”
Les gave a low moan but did not wake. Driven by anxiety and guilt, Trevor sent a soft mental call into Les’s mind. Careful to keep the sending tightly focused, he pictured Les waking, feeling well and strong.
Les did not move, did not respond, did not wake.
Trevor pounded on the door of the cell. “My friend is sick,” he shouted. “He needs help. A doctor.”
A face appeared at the tiny barred window in the otherwise solid door. “Shut up in there,” a gruff voice shouted.
“My friend. He’s sick. Please, get a doctor. I’m afraid he’s dying.”
“Well, ain’t that too bad! You was both healthy enough when they brought you in here. I don’t fall for that old trick, and I ain’t opening the door. You try anything else and you’ll get no supper tonight.”
“It’s not a trick. Look at him. He——”
But the face had vanished. Trevor turned back to Les. He had to get help, but the only thing he could think of might kill Les before help arrived.
Hurry! he sent at full strength. Help! Friend hurt. He sent the image of Les lying unconscious, scarcely breathing.
He could do no more. He sat beside Les to wait.
He checked Les’s breathing. Was it really weaker, or was it only fear that made him think so? If he’d killed Les …
He rose and paced.
He sat again, checked Les’s pulse and breathing. Weaker. No question about it.
He walked to the door, peered out the tiny grate, saw only a gray wall.
He paced. He sat. He paced. He wanted to scream for the promised help to hurry, but he dared not weaken Les more. What was keeping the person?
Suppose he never came? Maybe he should try again to rouse the jailer. Maybe a different one would come, one who could be persuaded.
He rose and walked to the door. It swung open. A guard, one of those who had put him into the cell, said, “Somebody to see you.” The guard stood aside to let in a short, dumpy woman with scraggly red hair.
Trevor barely restrained a shout of disgust. The visitor wore mismatched and wrinkled clothes that might have been fished out of a trash bin and a ridiculous straw hat topped by a pink bow out of which stuck a fuchsia feather. A stuffed bluebird perched on the bow in front of the feather.
“Yes, these are my nephews,” she said, glancing back at the burly jailer. “Foolish, naughty lads. Had a mite too much to drink, I’d suppose. It’s not the first time, I’m ashamed to say. No doubt they think they’ve pulled off a wonderful joke, convincing you their sleight-of-hand tricks were real sorcery. They can’t believe they can get into serious trouble with their parlor tricks. The folly of youth, you know.”
“Yeah, well you’d better convince ’em,” the jailer growled. “If it happens again, they won’t get off with a fine.”
“I’ll see they work hard to repay the money,” she announced with a grim smile. “That’ll impress ’em where words won’t.”
She marched to the ledge where Les lay. “This scapegrace is still sleeping it off, is he? Well, he’d better come around and get up onto his feet if he doesn’t want to be left here.” She caught hold of Les’s earlobe and gave it a cruel twist.
A sharp voice in his mind prevented Trevor’s angry outcry. Don’t say a word. Follow my lead if you want help.
He bit his tongue and glared at the ridiculous creature. This was not the help he’d expected.
“Come, lad, up with you,” she was saying to Les.
“He’s sick,” Trevor said, rebelling against the mental command to silence.
“I don’t doubt it.” She glared at Trevor. “That’s what comes of carousing.” Call me Aunt Veronica.
She gave Les’s ear another tweak. His eyes popped open. He gazed up at her with a bewildered look.
“Come, lad, up with you if you want to get home today. I’ve better things to do than waste my time on ne’er-do-wells.”
“Yes, Aunt Veronica,” Les said in a meek voice.
Trevor could scarcely conceal his relief at seeing Les awake and able to speak. He formed a mental thank you and tried to send it to her.
A blast of pain blocked the sending. No more of that! spoke the voice in his head. You’ll send nothing more until you’ve learned control.
Aloud, she said, “Come, both of you. I’ve paid your fine, and an outrageous one it was. You’ll have months of work paying it off.”
She herded them to the cell door, and the jailer stood aside and let them pass.
Trevor waited until they were outside the oppressive stone prison and striding along unfamiliar streets before he dared to say, “Thank the Power-Giver, you heard my call for help. You must be from the Community of the Gifted we came out here to find.”
“Community!” She turned her head and spat on the ground. “I have nothing to do with that bunch of fools.”
“Why?” Les asked. “What’s the matter with them?”
“They’ve lost sight of why the Community was established and turned it into a social club,” she said. “Instead of sharing the power gift, they want to keep it all to themselves. You’d have rotted in that cell before any of them came to help you. Not that they wouldn’t have heard your friend’s call. There’s probably not a gifted within ten miles doesn’t have a headache from it. It’s no surprise it nearly killed you.”
“I didn’t know.” Her characterization of the Community shocked Trevor; she had to be wrong about it. But she wasn’t wrong about what he’d done to Les. He turned to him. “It’s not enough to say ‘I’m sorry,’ but I don’t know what else to say. All I could think about was getting out. I didn’t realize—”
Les waved a hand. “Forget it, Trev. I’m fine now.”
Trevor looked at their rescuer. “You’re a healer?”
“Sometimes,” was her vague reply. “How’d you know about the Community?”
Trevor told her about Uncle Matt’s plan for them, about the money they’d had stolen, about the abduction attempt, the escapade in the park, and their arrest.
“Hmmph! Good I came for you. You want looking after, that’s clear. Matter of fact, I remember your uncle. The Community was still on track then, and I helped train him.”
Trevor was surprised at that, and not sure he believed it. If what she said was true, why hadn’t Uncle Matt spoken of her? If Uncle Matt had trusted her and thought her able to train him and Les, he would have written a letter of introduction to her. Trevor decided not to trust her or her description of the Community.
He cleared his throat. “We really appreciate all you’ve done. Healing Les, getting us out. We’ll never be able to repay you. But we should find the Community and carry out the plan my aunt and uncle intended for us. To do that, we’ll have to recover the letters they gave us.”
“Aunt Veronica” put her hands on her hips and fixed Trevor with a firm gaze. “Young man, I just finished telling you that the Community isn’t what your uncle thinks. It’s changed. Though Doss Hamlyn’s not so bad. He might help you. He could certainly train you if he cared to. But Doctor Berne Tenney’s the worst of the lot. You’d do well to stay clear of him.”
“What’s he a doctor of?” Les asked. “Medicine?”
“Not him. If he’s a doctor of anything, it’s mischief. I suspect he just likes the title.”
“”Well, even if we don’t go to him, we should go and talk to Doss Hamlyn,” Trevor insisted.
“Now you listen to me,” Veronica said, stomping around a corner into a narrow lane. “I was putting on an act for the police, but one part was true enough. I had to pay a substantial fine to get you boys out of that jail, and I work hard for my money. Now you tell me you don’t have so much as a single copper between you. Well, sirs, you’ll be staying with me and working until your debt is paid. Until it is, you’ll go nowhere.”
“But we will repay you. We’ll get our money back along with the letters. And our carryalls. We don’t even have a change of clothes. With my power I can find Carl and force him to give back all he stole.”
Hands still on her hips, the little woman whirled in front of him, halting him in midstride. “You’re more of a fool than I thought if you expect to see your things again. Your friend Carl is a skilled thief, and possibly gifted himself. You’re not clever enough to trap him. You’ll not go chasing after a chimera. You’ll work off your debt to me before you go anywhere.”
“What kind of work?” Trevor asked. “What do you do?”
“I’m a cleaning lady,” she said. “I hire out to people who don’t need a permanent maid, just somebody to come in on a temporary basis.”
Trevor couldn’t believe it. “You’re gifted, and you work as a maid?”
“Why not? It’s good, honest work. And I can pick and choose the jobs I want and those I don’t want.”
Trevor’s opinion of this woman dropped lower. “But for someone gifted …”
“My gifts aren’t for hire,” she snapped.
Trevor bristled. “But you used your gifts to help us, and now you want us to pay you.”
“I want you to repay me for the money I used to pay your fine. That has nothing to do with my gifts—or yours. I can find plenty of work for you that won’t require any use of power.”
Les said, “Of course we’ll work to pay our debt to you.”
“What we need to do is to find Carl,” Trevor insisted. “Or find Doss Hamlyn and see whether he’ll help us.”
“But, Trev,” Les said, “it’s not just money we owe. I owe Veronica my life, and I’ll never be able to repay her for that. We can pay a visit to Doss Hamlyn later.”
“You’re a good lad, that’s clear. And a sensible one.” She glared at Trevor as if to be sure he hadn’t missed the implication.
Again Les spoke before Trevor could find a way to revoke his friend’s ready acceptance. “Maybe you can tell if I really am gifted.”
Veronica looked startled. Her sharp gaze probed Les. “Gifted? Of course you are. The way you were affected by this one’s sending shows that.” She gave a contemptuous nod toward Trevor. “A normal would have felt nothing. That you felt it so strongly proves a high talent.”
“But I can’t do any of the things Trevor does.”
“That merely means your talent is different from his,” she said. “How old are you?”
“I’m eighteen.”
“You ought to have discovered your gifts by that age. Hmmm.” She took Les’s chin in her hand and turned his head to one side and then the other before releasing it with a frown. “Well, if anyone can help you, I can. Yes, indeed, I’ve developed many a young talent. My guess is you’ve been so overshadowed by this flashy friend of yours that you didn’t recognize the signs of your talent. But I can remedy that, indeed I can.”
So she was blaming him for Les’s failure to find his gift. And now more than ever Les would be determined to serve this woman.
He would have to yield, for a short time, at least. Trevor found the prospect deeply disturbing.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BEYOND THE DOOR
Les had long since lost any notion of where they were in relation to the few landmarks he knew. After walking for many blocks, turning down numerous side streets, and passing through several twisting alleys, Veronica stopped before an odd, dome-shaped hovel set back from the street and hidden in the shadows of the taller buildings on either side of it. Those buildings were rundown tenements with sagging window screens, cracked windows, and weathered siding. Half-naked children with runny noses and faces streaked with dirt played on the sidewalk and in the street in front of the apartments. Les noticed that they avoided the area in front of Veronica’s small home as though barred by an invisible fence.
Veronica paid no attention to the ragged urchins, but led the way along a gravel path to her front door. She pushed the door open. “Watch your step,” she said.
Les was surprised to see a stairway leading down into an interior considerably below ground level. Veronica stopped at the foot of the stairs and lit an oil lamp resting on a small table. As the lamp flared, the door above them swung shut.
Apparently the house consisted only of this single, circular, windowless room. The air was surprisingly cool and fresh with a pleasant, spicy scent. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, Les stared at the peculiar and fascinating place.
The entire floor was covered with animal pelts, though from what animals he could not imagine. The furs were of unusual colors and patterns unlike those of any animal he’d heard of. One was configured with concentric circles in shades of gray and brown. That animal would have made an easy target for a hunter.
Small tables, some round, some square, some triangular, but all the same height, were scattered about the room. Each stood as high as Veronica’s waist and held a single object. A crystal ball rested on one, another held a mortar and pestle; an empty birdcage stood on a third. A knife lay on a triangular table, an hourglass stood on a round one, while a square one held a thick, leather-bound book.
The only furniture in the room other than the tables was a flat-topped wood-burning stove with a metal stovepipe that curved in an inverted L and exited through the wall. An empty woodbin sat beside the stove, an ax leaning against it.
From the ceiling a weird assortment of items both strange and familiar dangled from strings and ropes or hung in nets. Les noted bunches of onions and garlic, chili peppers, sprigs of herbs, pots, kettles, ladles, and cork-stoppered bottles. Those things he understood, but he wondered what use she had for the skulls of small animals, a thick hank of what looked like human hair, a string of shells, and a dried fish. He marveled at the weird combination of articles like a delicate porcelain doll, a black wand, and a snakeskin. There were several oddly shaped items that he could not identify. He glanced at Trevor, curious to see his friend’s reaction, and was surprised to see an expression of revulsion.
“Hex materials,” Trevor said in a tone of contempt. “A true talent has no need of such things.”
Les was appalled by Trevor’s rudeness, but Veronica ignored it. She removed her ludicrous hat, revealing a tangle of curly red hair. Combing the fingers of one hand through the tangle with no noticeable effect, she set the hat carefully on an empty table. Then she pulled off her shawl and tied it onto the end of a dangling cord. As she straightened and crossed the room, Les saw that she was much younger than she had looked in the get-up she’d worn to the jail. Les never found it easy to judge women’s ages, but she could not be much older than thirty-something.
“Now,” she announced, lighting another lamp, “I’ll fix us a pot of tea, and we’ll talk.”
“Tea!” Trevor snorted in disgust.
“Tea is calming,” she said. “It settles the nerves.”
“My nerves don’t need settling,” Trevor snapped.
Les understood, probably better than Trevor himself, what lay behind his friend’s irritability. Trevor’s pride had suffered a succession of blows since their arrival in Port-of-Lords, culminating in their rescue by this strange little woman. To Les it was clear that she was far more than what she seemed, and he thought it should be equally clear to Trevor, but he was refusing to see it. Les guessed that Trevor couldn’t stand being obligated to Veronica when he wanted to find Carl, punish him, and recover what he could of their money. Les wan
ted that, too, but he owed Veronica too much to walk out on her just to satisfy a thirst for vengeance.
Ignoring Trevor’s rudeness, Veronica puttered around, lighting a fire with a bit of wood that was in the stove, filling a kettle and setting it to heat, finding cups and spoons among the hanging objects, all the while keeping her back to her guests. Only when the kettle began to whistle did Veronica turn and look at Trevor.
“Young man,” she said, “since you don’t care for tea, and your nerves need no calming, you take the ax and go fetch more wood for the stove. Your friend and I will have tea, and he will listen to what I have to say. Until you are ready to learn, I can teach you nothing.”
By the way Trevor glared at her, Les expected him to refuse. But he stalked to the woodbin and picked up the ax. “How do you expect me to find wood to cut here in the city?” he asked, his voice taut with anger. Les didn’t like the way he was gripping the ax.
“From the forest.”
“Forest! What forest?”
“The one beyond the door.” She stooped where she was standing and, beginning at the floor and moving upward, then over and down again, traced a door-sized rectangle in the air with her index finger. The finger left a visible line, and when Veronica finished her drawing, a wooden door appeared within the lines. Veronica pushed it open, and Les caught a glimpse of green beyond it.
“Go through and gather the wood quickly. Don’t try to chop down a whole tree; just cut dead branches off trees within sight of the door. Don’t get lost. And be on your guard. Wild beasts prowl that wood. Go, hurry.”
Trevor stared at the door. The flush of anger faded from his face, leaving it pale. He inhaled deeply, marched through the open door, and vanished from Les’s view.
Veronica shut the door. It looked odd standing upright in the middle of the room, a plain wooden door attached to nothing. Les stared at it. “Is that a real place—where you sent him?”
A Perilous Power (Arucadi Series Book 5) Page 6