“Yes,” Stina admitted, “but now I’m here and he’s going to be in Haven.”
“I’m sure he’ll find plenty of reasons to be here as much as he can,” Maja assured her. “I’m going to be sending him to Haven on an errand soon, but it’s one he’ll have to come back from.” I’m pretty sure now that I know what we need for the God’s Peace, and it’s not an altar.
She waited two days to give Sven-August time to heal enough so that he could ride easily, and to find the right words for her request to the Prior. Then she sent him off, waited, and prayed.
Sven-August returned with the stone from the threshold of the Temple’s gate and a note from the Prior, which said, “Why did it take you so long to figure out what you needed?”
I guess I’m not as up to the job as he thought I was. But I will be.
Maja slept that night under the Peace of the God. When she woke, the sun was rising, and there was a lump of fur at the foot of her bed. “Good morning, Dexter,” she said contentedly. Then she looked more closely. “Who is your friend?”
:Her name is Alma.:
As Alma stretched, Maja realized that she hadn’t been paying much attention to what Dexter was up to since they arrived here. There was going to be another addition to her Temple in a few moons. A nursery of raccoons.
Tables Turned
Kristin Schwengel
“Right now, I’m glad to be bored,” Rinton said, staring out from under the overhanging branches at the steady rain. On his right, his Companion stamped a foot and tossed his head in agreement.
They were crowded under what seemed to be the only fir tree for miles, with branches spaced high enough for two horses, but with a full enough canopy to provide some protection from the wintry rain. Even Kiyan, Rinton’s giant crow, came gliding down to settle on the Herald’s shoulder, shaking water from bedraggled black feathers.
The young woman standing to his left nodded, her pale green Healer Trainee robes splotched darker with raindrops. Her own horse stood on her other side, so that the horse and the Companion framed the two of them beneath the sheltering branches. “Glad I am that the weather did not interrupt our journey until now. It was good to walk the snowy woods again with Grandmother.”
It had been Mirideh’s first request, after the astonishing alliance with Karse was formalized, that she be permitted to visit her home village. Equally astonishing was that the Healers’ Collegium and Queen Selenay had agreed to it, allowing her to travel during the Midwinter break from classes at the Collegium. When he had heard about it, Herald Rinton had volunteered to accompany her, still acting as her protector, as he had been since he had brought her out of Karse.
This time, there was no terror-driven race to the Valdemar border, pursued by a nameless clawing something that Rinton dared not look at face-to-face. The Guard kept the South Trade Road clear of snow, and the skies had been calm and fair for most of the days they had been in Karse. Only today, the last day of their travel, had a few slushy flurries turned into a cold rain, slowing them down as they returned to Haven. At first, they had tried to ignore it and press on, since they were barely a half-day’s journey from the city, but with no pressing urgency, they had chosen to take temporary refuge under the trees.
“We’re so close to Haven that there’re no inns nearby, but I think there is a Waystation just a mile or so farther up the road. If the rain doesn’t let up, maybe we can make for that and at least get ourselves warm and dry to finish the last few leagues tomorrow. Winter rains make me feel colder than snow.”
Miri had opened her mouth to assent when Rinton’s Companion stiffened beside them, his legs braced against the ground.
:Hold on.: The words rang between her ears, and she stared, mouth agape, as an inner shock rippled over both Herald and Companion. Rinton’s eyes rolled up behind his lids, and only Miri’s proximity enabled her to grab his limp body, preventing him from being caught under the weight of his Companion, whose legs buckled as he folded into an unconscious white heap. Kiyan launched himself to a nearby branch, his distressed caws barely denting her awareness as she fought to keep her balance.
Miri braced against the weight of the Herald, and she struggled to control Rinton’s slide down her side until he landed in another white heap next to Linx. As soon as the Herald was on the ground, she knelt beside him, one hand reaching under Rinton’s collar to find his pulse while her eyes studied the Companion.
As she watched, a tremor passed under the Companion’s skin, and she saw the deep barrel of his chest rise and fall, rapid breaths as though he had been galloping. Relieved, she focused on the pulse beneath her fingertips, which skittered and jumped but, thankfully, kept beating. The Herald’s breathing was sharp and quick as well, and she took a moment to rearrange his body into a more reclined position, pillowing his head and torso against his Companion’s side.
As soon as she had done so, the breathing of both changed, as though the physical contact calmed them. She found Rinton’s pulse again—though still rapid, it was now steady and more even.
Miri sat back on her heels and stared at the two of them slumped on the cushion of fallen needles. What in Vkandis’ name had just happened? There had been no sound other than Linx’s warning projected into her head. She had felt nothing, not even a whisper of anything, touching the shields around her mind. Whatever it had been, it apparently was targeted to affect only the Heralds and the Companions, which was a terrifying thought. Fear seized her as she thought of Haven, defenseless without its White Riders.
Not defenseless, silly girl, she told herself. What of the Guard? The Army? What of Herald Captain Kerowyn’s Skybolts? Even as she calmed her own breathing, Kiyan dropped from the tree to land beside her, and she gently stroked his glimmering blue-black feathers, working her fingertips underneath to scratch at the base of his skull. If a huge crow could ever be said to purr, Rinton’s “pet” did so, leaning his head into her fingers with a soft chittering sound.
“Well, now what?” she said to the bird. He cocked his head to one side and eyed her with a corvid’s innate curiosity. “Leave them here to go get help I certainly cannot, nor take them anywhere by myself. If—when they wake up, who knows what condition they’ll be in?”
The crow had no response for her, but even as she finished the words, Linx’s ears twitched, and he slowly raised his head, gently turning to look first at Rinton’s body leaning against him and then at Miri.
:Ow.: If she didn’t know otherwise, she wouldn’t have recognized it as the same “voice” she had heard giving the earlier warning. Faint and faded, the mind-voice reminded her of the carefully quiet way people talked when they were suffering the morning-after effects of a night of excessive drinking.
“What just happened?” Although she whispered, the Companion’s eyes flickered in what she could only describe as a wince.
:I’m . . . not sure.: A long silence, as Linx half-closed his eyes in concentration.
“Is it bad?” She assumed he was Mindspeaking with the Companions in Haven, and waited.
:Not . . . bad. Unexpected.:
In her time at the Healers’ Collegium, Miri had heard more than one Herald or Trainee complain about the inscrutability of their Companions. “Speaking” directly to Linx, without Rinton as intermediary, she suddenly understood all of their frustration.
:Rolan says not to panic.:
“Who’s panicking?” Miri looked pointedly from herself to Kiyan to the still unconscious Rinton.
Linx did not deign to respond but began to move, rearranging his legs underneath him. Miri held onto Rinton’s shoulders so that he didn’t flop over as the Companion shifted and resettled. She eased the Herald’s weight back against Linx’s side, pulling one of his legs to a less-awkward bend, then unfastened the stallion’s saddle girth, allowing the saddle to slip off behind his back to land in the thin snow at the edge of the sheltered circle.
Linx only nodded his head a little before his neck drooped in a gentle curve, his nose just touching Rinton’s outstretched leg, and he drifted into sleep.
Mirideh blinked. “Not too worried he must be, either,” she muttered to the crow, who chittered back at her. She stood and set about loosening her mare’s saddle girth, pulling out some of her waybread and the last dried berry pocket pie that her grandmother had wrapped up for her. Placing her bedroll against the shaggy tree trunk, she leaned back. “Might as well make myself comfortable, as well.”
As soon as she finished the dry waybread and broke off the first flake of the pocket pie, Kiyan sidled up beside her, bobbing his head and half-mantling his wings.
“Here you go, you greedy thing,” she murmured with a smile, breaking off a small chunk of fruit and pastry and putting it on the ground. “I know Rinton shared the last of his with you already.” The bird snatched up the treat and bolted it down, with a nod of his head by way of a thank you.
Was it her imagination, or had the rain gotten heavier? As if in answer, a few drops snaked their way between the boughs to spatter in the leaf litter around them, and one splashed icy-cold across the top of her head. Miri thought for a moment, then dug in her packs once more to find the small metal dishes she always carried with her, propping them in a low snowbank just outside the tree’s sheltering branches to gather the falling rain. Rainwater sometimes seemed more refreshing than the groundwater with which they filled their waterskins, and if Rinton woke with a headache half as bad as she suspected he would, he’d need every bit of refreshing he could get. She put one bundle of soothing herbs handy in her belt pouch—they would steep well enough even in cold water when Rinton woke.
As more drops filtered through to fall upon the four—no, five—of them, she corrected herself, glancing up to the branches where Kiyan had retreated, she once more went to the saddle packs, this time to pull out the heavy oiled cloaks. She draped one as best as she could over the Herald and huddled under the second herself. Kiyan dropped to the ground again and tucked himself up under one edge of her cloak, and she returned to idly stroking his feathers, lost in considering questions she doubted Linx either could or would answer.
All told, it was between two and three candlemarks later when Linx woke, this time much more his usual self and much more concerned for his Herald, who had barely moved in all the time since whatever-it-was had happened.
“Now may I look at him?” Miri had every intention of examining Rinton thoroughly anyway, but the Companion’s agreement was immediate. He nodded his head, worry clear in the mind-voice he projected to her.
:He is there, but not-there.:
Shifting carefully, keeping her oilskin cloak as close around her as possible, for the soaked boughs were now letting more and more rain through, she knelt beside Rinton. Placing her fingertips against the Herald’s temples, she closed her eyes and let her awareness sink into him, becoming aware of surface bruising, the aches of lying on hard ground, the minor complaints that most people would barely notice.
She was strongly aware of the silvery barrier that was his mental shielding, firm and solid, with two “cords” that seemed to spin off from it, one down to the earth, as all Heralds were taught, and one that led to the form of the Companion behind him.
Her eyes flew open and she met Linx’s bottomless blue eyes. “Can you help lower his shields, enough that I can see in?” At the Collegium, she had never helped Mindheal anyone who was actively shielded, and she didn’t want to risk either damaging Rinton’s protection or draining her own energy in pushing through it.
A fractional bob of the white head, although those uncanny eyes took on a slightly wary expression.
“Don’t worry, I don’t take in anything while I’m there, not like the Mindspeakers who can learn other’s thoughts if they’re not shielded. It’s like—” she cast her mind around for an example, “—like I’m looking at a page in a book to make sure it hasn’t been torn or damaged, without reading the words on it.”
Linx nodded again, more firmly this time, and she closed her eyes and slipped back into the light trance that allowed her to connect once more with Rinton’s mind.
Now, she could sense the silvery barrier had thinned, and she was able to first blend with it, then pass through it.
Miri barely held back a gasp. The unconscious Herald’s mind was buried deep below an angry red of pain and injury, as though he had instinctively retreated for protection. Focusing on her own anchor to the supportive earth beneath her, she took several careful breaths. Although she had been working in the House of Healing at the Collegium in Haven, this would be the first time she had attempted any sort of Mindhealing without the direct supervision and aid of one of the full Healers.
“He’s so . . . raw . . .” she whispered. The sensation in her own mind was as if she were making delicate contact with badly burned skin, as though something had seared into the Herald’s mind and left singe marks layered over everything there. With gentle care, she began to allow the white-green of Healing to filter through her and into Rinton.
Sometimes, when she Healed, she could quite literally See a picture in her mind of the effects of the injury and the reaction of the body to the Healing, but this was different. Instead, she felt an awareness in her own mind, as a shadow or an echo of what the Herald suffered resonated within her. She began her work with a subtle, broad soothing, like laying cool cloths on a fevered body. Only when the “raw” feeling had diminished, and she sensed that he was no longer in retreat, did she seek out the strongest signals of damage, guiding a stronger flow of Healing energy into those areas.
She had barely calmed the most injured parts of Rinton’s mind when she felt her own focus fading, and slowly she backed out of his mind, one hand dropping to the earth beside her to support her. Her other hand pressed against the bridge of her nose, and she thanked Vkandis that she had thought about the possibility of an overexertion headache.
Half-blindly, Miri shifted to the edge of the overhanging boughs, reached for the now overflowing cups, and poured a few of her herbs into each. She let them sit for a few minutes, until Rinton showed signs of stirring, and brought them with her as she knelt again beside the groggy Herald.
“Ow,” he murmured, and Miri was hard-pressed to restrain an ill-timed giggle at how much he sounded like his Companion.
“Drink,” she whispered, and pushed one cup into his hands, downing the other herself. He blinked owlishly at her for a moment, then the command seemed to register, and he lifted the mug to his lips. His hands trembled a little, and Miri wrapped hers around his, supporting them and tilting the cup so he could drink without spilling.
When he had finished the entire mugful, he leaned back against Linx and made a slight face, raking his fingers through his short brown hair, the damp strands standing straight up over his brow.
“Not as foul as the usual Healer’s stuff,” he muttered faintly, and Miri rolled her eyes.
“We don’t make things taste bad on purpose!” Even though she kept her voice quiet, her reply surprised even herself with its fierceness.
Rinton blinked at her again, then turned to look past her, to the steady gray rain that half-obscured the road beside them.
“It didn’t ease up,” he observed.
“No,” Miri replied. “And there’s nothing quite so cold as a winter rain. We’ll be soaked before we even make the Waystation.”
:We have to get to Haven.: Linx’s voice was firm in both of their minds.
“Of course,” Rinton said, but his words were drowned out by Miri’s decided “Absolutely not.”
Both Herald and Companion turned their heads to st
are in astonishment at her. Miri felt something in her quail under their scrutiny, especially the deep blue gaze of the Companion, but she forced herself to sit quietly, without giving in to the childish urge to squirm.
“You,” she said, looking straight at Linx, “might have the superb strength and quick recovery of the Companions on your side, but he does not.” She nodded at Rinton. “I can’t say for sure what it is, but his mind has suffered injury, even if he does not notice it or chooses to ignore it. And the worst thing in that case is overexertion. Haven is impossible. It’s going to be dusk soon, and while you can see in the dark even in the rain, my mare cannot. Again, absolutely not.” She folded her arms and summoned as best she could the stern aura of Healer Gelsen. No one ever dared countermand Gelsen’s directives to his patients.
A long silence, with Rinton and his Companion clearly arguing between themselves over Miri’s words.
“But I feel all right,” Rinton began. “Just a headache . . .”
:The worst headache you’ve ever felt?: Linx was projecting into Mirideh’s mind again, and she buried a smile. It seemed he was on her side already, even though he was the one who first said they had to get to Haven. Perhaps she had scared him with her talk of damage in Rinton’s mind. Or perhaps he had learned something from the other Companions in Haven that took the edge off of his urgency. Either way, she knew that what she declared was the absolute truth. Forcing on all the way to Haven was the worst thing possible for someone in Rinton’s state.
“You are outnumbered, Herald,” she said with a slight smile. “If it weren’t for the rain, I wouldn’t even want to move you from this place. But the Waystation will be a far better place for recovery. With a night’s rest, you might be able to manage the rest of the journey tomorrow morning.” Her own nascent headache had eased enough, and she stood, shaking the oiled cloak and draping it on a branch to drip out a little bit while she stowed her mugs and tightened the mare’s saddle girth.
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