Her face turned so red Richard thought her curly hair might catch fire. "You will not speak blasphemy."
"And lying is not?"
"You do not understand, Richard, why I am angry."
Richard sat on the ground and, grasping his ankles, folded his legs in. "Maybe I do. You are supposed to be my protector. Not the other way around. Maybe you feel that you have failed. But I don't feel that you failed. We both just did what we had to, to survive."
"Did what we must?" Fine wrinkles radiated around her eyes as they narrowed. "As I recall from the book, when Bonnie, Geraldine, and Jessup led the people across the poison river, some of those people died."
Richard smiled to himself. "So, you really did read it."
"I told you I did! That was foolhardy. We could have been killed taking that risk."
"We didn't have any choice."
"You always have a choice, Richard. That is what I am trying to teach you." She sat back on her heels. "The wizards who created that place thought they had no choice, but they made things worse. You were using your Han back there, and you were doing it without understanding the consequences."
"What choice did we have?"
Hands on her knees, she leaned forward. "We always have a choice, Richard. You were lucky, this time, that your use of magic didn't get you killed."
"What are you talking about?"
Sister Verna drew a saddlebag close and started rummaging through it, finally pulling out a green, cloth bag. "You got some blood from that beast on your arm. Did any of the bugs bite you?"
"On my legs."
"Show me."
Richard pulled up his pant legs and showed her the swollen, red bites. She shook her head and, whispering to herself, pulled first one and then a second bottle from the bag.
With a stick found on the ground nearby, she dipped a white paste from one bottle and wiped it onto the flat of a knife blade. She threw the stick in the fire. Taking up another stick, she dipped a dark paste from the other bottle and mixed it with the light on the flat of the blade, then spread it along the edge. She threw the second stick, with some of the mixed paste on it, into the fire. Richard flinched when it exploded in a white-hot ball of fire that lifted skyward, dissipating as it rose, turning to a boiling cloud of black smoke.
She held up the knife to reveal a gray paste spread on the blade. "Light and dark, earth and sky. Magic, to heal what would otherwise kill you by tonight. You have a way of getting yourself out onto thin limbs, Richard. Each step you take only makes your predicament worse. Now, come over here, closer."
Richard dug his heels in and scooted around the fire. "Were you trying to decide whether or not you were going to help me?"
"Of course not. This is made from powerful magic, constructed magic, to smother the venom injected into you by the conjured creatures. Too soon, and the cure would kill you. Too late, the bites would kill you. It must be the right kind of magic, at the right time. I was simply waiting for the proper time."
Richard wanted to argue with her, but instead said, "Thank you for helping me." She frowned at him before leaning over his bites. "Sister, how was I making things worse?"
"You were being reckless. Using magic is dangerous, not only to others, but to the one who calls it forth as well."
Richard winced as she drew the edge across one of the bites, first one way, then the other, cutting an X on it. The sting made his eyes water.
"How can it be dangerous to me?"
She concentrated as she leaned over his leg, whispering an incantation while stroking the knife across his swollen flesh. He tried not to jump when she cut the next bite. She was only making light cuts, but they stung fiercely.
"It is like starting a fire in the center of a tinder dry wood. You find yourself in the center of the fire, in the center of what you have started. What you did was foolish and dangerous."
"Sister Verna, I was trying to stay alive."
She jabbed a finger at one of the painful bites. "And look what happened! If I don't heal you, you'll die." She finished with his legs and turned her attention to his arm. "When we were being attacked by those beasts, you thought to save us, but everything you did only increased the danger."
When she finished, she held the knife blade over the fire. A thin stream of white flame roared up from the steel, consuming the remaining paste. She held the blade to the fire until the paste, and the white flame, were gone.
"If I wouldn't have acted, sister, we would be dead."
She shook the hot blade at him. "I did not say you were wrong to act! I said you acted in the wrong way! You used the wrong kind of magic!"
"I used the only thing I had! The sword!"
She pitched the knife. With a thunk, it stuck solidly in a piece of firewood. "Acting without knowing the consequences of the magic you call forth is perilous behavior!"
"Well, nothing you were doing was helping!"
Sister Verna rocked back on her heels, stared at him for a moment, and then turned to busy herself with replacing the bottles in the green bag.
"I'm sorry, Sister. I didn't really mean that. It didn't come out the way I intended. I only meant that you weren't able to sense the way, and I knew if we stayed, we would be killed."
The bottles clinked together as she moved them around in the bag. She seemed to be having difficulty getting them packed the way she wanted. "Richard, you think that controlling the gift, using magic, is what you are to learn with us. That is the easy part. Knowing what kind of magic to use, how much to use, when to use it, and the consequences of using it, that is the hard part. That is the meaning of everything. How, how much, when and what if—just like the magic I have put on your bites."
She fixed him with a deadly serious expression. "Without that knowledge, you are a blind man swinging an axe in a crowd of children. You have no idea of the danger you invoke when you use magic. We try to give you sight, and some sense, before you swing that axe."
Richard picked at a clump of grass at his feet. "I never thought about it that way."
"Perhaps, if anything, I should be angry with myself for being foolish. I didn't think there was anything powerful enough to tempt me into a trap. I was wrong. Thank you, Richard, for saving me."
He wrapped a long stalk of grass around his finger. "I was so relieved to find you... I thought you were dead. I'm glad you're not."
She had pulled all the little bottles out of the bag and set them on the ground. "I could have been lost in that spell for all time. I should have been."
"What do you mean?"
There seemed to him to be more bottles than would fit into the bag, but then, he had seen them all come out. "We have tried to rescue sisters before. We have seen some, and their charges, lost in those enchantment spells. I saw one, the first time I went through. We have never been able to get them out. Sisters have died trying." She started replacing the bottles. "You used magic."
"I used the sword. The sword has magic, you know."
"No. You didn't use the sword's magic. You used your Han, even though you didn't realize it. Using your Han through desire, without wisdom, is the most dangerous thing you can do."
"Sister, I think it was just the sword's magic."
"When you called to me, I heard you. We have tried to call to others, and they have never heard us. Not once."
"You just didn't know how. You couldn't hear me either, until I stepped through some sort of sparkling wall around you. Then you could hear me. You just have to step through that wall first."
She pushed bottles to each side to make more room as she spoke softly. "We know that, Richard. We have tried every sort of magic, and never been able to pass through or break the wall of one of these spells, or been able to get the attention of one captured by it. No one has ever been brought out of an enchantment spell before." She replaced the last bottle and finally turned to face him. "Thank you, Richard."
He shrugged as he pulled the grass off his finger. "Well, it was the least I could do
to make up for what I did."
"For what you did?"
Richard occupied himself with carefully rolling his pants back down. "Well, before I saved you, I kind of killed you."
She leaned closer. "You did what?"
"You were hurting me. With your magic. With the collar."
"I'm sorry, Richard. I was in the spell and didn't realize what I was doing. I didn't intend to hurt you."
He shook his head. "Not then. Before. In the white tower."
She leaned even closer and gritted her teeth. "You went into a tower? Are you mad! I told you what those towers are! How could you be so..."
"Sister. I had no choice."
"We have already discussed choice. I told you how dangerous those towers are. I told you to stay away from them!"
"Look, there was lightning all around. It was trying to strike me. I... well, I didn't know what else to do. So I dove through an archway, into the tower, for protection."
"Can't you follow the simplest instructions! Must you always act a child!"
Richard looked up from under his eyebrows. "Those were your exact words. You came into the tower. I was sure it was you. You were angry with me, much as you are now, and you used those exact words."
He gritted his teeth as he put a finger to the collar at his neck. "You used this. You used it to throw me against the wall, and pin me there with it. Can this collar do that, Sister?"
She sat much quieter. "Yes. We don't have the power of a wizard, the male Han. The collar amplifies our power, so we may be stronger than the one wearing it. So we can teach them."
His voice was deep with anger. "Then you used it to give me pain, like the pain you did for real, when you were in the spell. Only it was stronger, and went on and on. Can the collar do that, too, Sister?"
She pulled a clump of grass to her side and began cleaning her hands with it, avoiding his glare. "Yes. But that was a vision, Richard. I wasn't really doing it."
"I told you to stop hurting me or I would put a stop to it. You wouldn't stop, so I called the sword's magic and broke the bond of the power holding me. You were furious. You said that I had made my last mistake. You said you were going to kill me for fighting you. You were going to kill me, Sister."
"I'm sorry, Richard," she whispered as she looked up, "that you had to suffer that." Her voice regained some of its strength. "So, what did you do to me... to the vision of me?"
He leaned over and touched the edge of his first finger to the side of her shoulder. "I cut you in half with the sword. Right here."
Her hands stopped; she was stone still. Some of the color had left her face. Finally, she regained her composure.
Richard picked at the clump of grass by his foot again. "I didn't want to do it, but I was positive you were going to kill me."
She tossed the grass aside. "I am sure you were, Richard. But that was only a vision. If it were real, it wouldn't have turned out that way. You would not have been able to do what you did."
"Who are you trying to convince, Sister? Me, or yourself?"
She met his glare. "The things you saw were not as they are in the real world. They were simply illusions."
Richard let it drop. He turned the stick with the rabbit to cook the other side, and slid the iron plate with the bannock to the side of the fire to let it cool.
"Anyway, when I saw you again, I didn't know if you were a vision, or real, but I truly hoped you were alive. I didn't want to kill you." He looked up and smiled. "Besides, I promised you that you would get through the Valley of the Lost."
She nodded. "Yes, you did. More desire than wisdom indeed."
"Sister, I was only doing what I could think of to survive. To help you survive, too."
She sighed and shook her head. "Richard, I know you are trying to do your best, but you must understand that what you think is best is not necessarily right. You are calling your Han without knowing what you are doing, or even realizing you are doing it. In so doing, you tempt danger you can't fathom."
"How was I using my Han?"
"Wizards make promises that their Han strives to keep. You promised me you would help me through the valley—save me. But in so doing, you have invoked prophecy."
Richard frowned. "I have given no prophecy."
"Not only given it, but used your Han without realizing it, used prophecy without knowing its form, to do something in the past to aid you in the future."
"What are you talking about?"
"You destroyed the horses' bits."
"I told you at the time why I did that. They are cruel."
She shook her head. "That is what I'm talking about. You think you did it for one reason, but it served another purpose. Your conscious mind is simply seeking to rationalize what your Han is doing. When we were running from the valley, I didn't believe in what you were doing, and I tried to turn my horse. Because he did not have a bit, I was unable to."
"So what?"
She leaned closer. "Destroying the bits in the past satisfied a need of a promise in the future. That was using prophecy. You are swinging the axe blindly."
Richard gave her a skeptical expression. "That's a stretch, Sister. Even for you."
"I know how the gift works, Richard."
Richard thought about it, and finally decided he didn't believe her, but decided, too, that he didn't want to argue with her about it. There were other things he wanted to know.
"Is your little book full? I haven't seen you writing in it."
"I sent a message yesterday, that we have come through the Valley. I have nothing else to write, that's all. The book is magic. With magic, we erase old messages. I erased all but two pages, but with what I added yesterday, there are now three pages full."
Richard tore off a corner of the hot bannock. "Who is the Prelate?"
"She charges the Sisters of the Light. She is..." Her eyes narrowed. "I have never mentioned her. How do you know of her?"
Richard licked the crumbs from his fingers. "I read it in your book."
Her hand flew to her belt, groping for the book. It was there, where it always was. "You have read my private writing! You have no right! I will..."
"You were dead at the time." Her mouth snapped shut, and he went on. "When I killed you, or the illusion of you, the book fell on the ground. I read it."
The tension left her muscles. "Oh. Well, that is simply part of the illusion. I told you, it is not as things are in life."
Richard tore off another corner of bannock. "There were only two pages with writing, just as the real book. Not until after we were through the Valley did you add the third. Back then, there were only two."
She watched him eating the bannock. "Illusion, Richard."
He looked up. "One page said: 'I am the Sister in charge of this boy. These directives are beyond reason if not absurd. I demand to know the meaning of these instructions. I demand to know upon who's authority they are given. — Yours in the service of the Light, Sister Verna Sauventreen.' The second page said: 'You will do as you are instructed, or suffer the consequences. Do not presume to question the orders of the Palace again. — In my own hand, The Prelate.'"
The Sister's face had drained of color. "You had no business reading something belonging to another."
"As I said, you were dead at the time. What instructions did they give you about me that made you so angry?"
The color came back to her face in a rush. "It has to do with a technically. It is nothing you would understand, and anyway, it is not your business."
Richard lifted an eyebrow. "Not my business? You claim you are only trying to help me, yet you have taken me prisoner, and you say it is not my business? I have this collar around my neck, and with it you can hurt me, perhaps kill me, and you say it is not my business? You tell me I must do the things you say, that I must take them on faith, even though that faith is shaken with every new thing I discover, yet it is not my business? You tell me that the illusion I saw was not as things are in the real world, yet I find
they are, and you tell me it is not my business?"
Sister Verna was silent. She watched him without emotion. Watched him, he thought, as if he was a bug in a box.
"Sister Verna, will you tell me one thing I have been wondering about?"
"If I can."
He pulled his legs up tighter under himself. He tried to keep any hostility out of his tone. "When you first saw me, you were surprised that I was grown. You thought that I would be young."
"That's right. We have ones at the Palace who can sense one born with the gift. But you were hidden from us, so it took us a very long time to find you."
"But you told me just the other day that you had spent over half your life away from the Palace, searching for me. If you have spent twenty odd years looking for me, how could you expect me to be young? You would have expected me to be grown, unless you didn't know I had been born, and started searching for me long before anyone at the Palace sensed me."
Her answer came in a cautious, quiet voice. "It is as you say. It has never happened this way before."
"So why would you come looking for me before any of you sensed one with the gift had been born?"
She chose her words carefully. "We didn't know precisely when you would be born, but we knew you would be, so we were sent in search."
"How did you know I would be born?"
"You are spoken of in prophecy."
Richard nodded. He wanted to know about this prophecy and why they thought he was so important, but he didn't want to stray from the trail he was following at the moment. "So you knew it might be many years before you found me?"
"Yes. We didn't know when you would be born. We were only able to narrow it to a range of decades."
"How are the Sisters who are to be sent chosen?"
"We are selected by the Prelate."
"You have no say in the matter?"
She tensed, as if suspicious she might accidentally be slipping her neck through a noose, yet was unable to keep from voicing her faith. "We work in the service of the Creator. We would have no reason to object. The whole purpose of the Palace is to help those with the gift. To be selected to save one with the gift is one of the greatest honors a Sister may receive."
"So, none of the others sent have ever had to give up so many years of their lives to rescue one with the gift?"
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