Bitte looked up at Isana, her expression startled. "What?"
"Get him into the tub," Isana said. She started rolling up her sleeves in brisk, short motions. "Otto, Roth, get over here and prepare your furies."
"Isana," Bitte hissed. "Child, you cannot do this."
"She can," said Otto, his voice quiet, his pate gleaming in the light of the fire. "It"s been done before. When I was young, just taking my own chain, Harald the Younger"s boy fell through the ice and into the mill pond. He was under for nearly thirty minutes before we could get him back up through it, and he lived."
"Lived," spat Bitte. "He sat in a chair drooling and never speaking again until fevers took him. Would you do that to Bernard as well?"
Roth grimaced and put a frail hand on Otto"s shoulder. "She"s right. Even if we bring his body back, his mind might not come along with it."
Isana stood and faced the two men. "I need him," she said. "Tavi is out in the storm. I have no time to discuss the matter. You were willing to help me a moment ago. Now do it or get out of my way."
"We"ll help," Otto offered at once.
Roth let out a slow breath, his expression reluctant. "Aye," he agreed. "Furies willing, the attempt won"t kill you."
"I"m touched by your enthusiasm." Isana stalked to the copper tub. Several of the holders, under Bitte"s direction, lowered Bernard"s limp form into the tub. The water stained pink, blood swirling languidly out from the wound in his thigh. "Get the bandage off," she instructed. "It won"t matter now, one way or the other."
She knelt down by the head of the tub, reaching out to rest her fingers against Bernard"s temples. "Rill," she whispered, reaching a hand down to touch the water, briefly. "Rill, I need you." She felt the water swirl, slowly, as Rill entered the tub. She could feel the fury"s reluctance, its motions vague and unsure-no, not Rill"s reluctance, but her own weariness. As tired as Isana was, doubtless Rill could not hear her clearly, could not respond to her as well as the fury usually might. In a moment more, that would not be an issue.
"Immi," Otto whispered. Isana felt the portly Stead-holder rest his hand on her shoulder, warm fingers tightening slightly in support. The waters stirred beneath her fingers anew, as the second fury entered the tub, a much smaller, more active presence than Rill"s.
Roth put his hand on her opposite shoulder. "Almia." Once again, the water stirred with a stronger, more confident presence, the older Stead-holder"s fury carrying with it a sense of fluid strength.
Isana took a deep breath, focusing through her weariness and her fear and her anger. She pushed her wild concern for Tavi from her thoughts, her uncertainty that she could help her brother. She cleared everything away but her sense, through Rill, of the water in the tub and of the body it surrounded.
There was a certain feel to a body submerged in water, a kind of delicate vibration spreading out from the skin. Isana willed Rill to surround Bernard, so that she could feel for that fragile energy around him, the tremors of life. For a terrible moment, the waters were still and she could sense nothing.
Then Rill quivered in response to the barest traces of life in the wounded man. Isana felt her heart lurch in relief, and she murmured, "He"s still here. But we have to hurry."
"Don"t risk it, Isana," Roth said, his voice quiet. "He"s too far gone."
"He"s my brother," Isana said. She flattened her hands against either side of Bernard"s thick neck. "You and Otto seal up the wound. I"ll do the rest."
She felt Otto"s hand tighten on her shoulder. Roth let out a quiet, resigned sigh.
"If you go in, you might not be able to get back out again. Even if you are successful in reviving him."
"I know." Isana closed her eyes, and leaned forward enough to plant a gentle kiss on her brother"s head. "All right then," she said. "Here we go."
Isana let out her breath in a long, slow exhalation and poured her attention, her focus, her will forward into the water. The dull ache in her limbs faded away. The clenching tension in her back vanished. All the sensations of her body, from the too-cool skin beneath her fingers to the smooth stone beneath her knees and toes faded away to nothing. She felt only the water, the fading energy around Bernard, and the nebulous presence of the furies in the water with her.
Rill"s presence pressed close to her, something like concern pressing against Isana"s awareness. She touched Rill with her thoughts, giving the fury an image, a task. In response, Rill glided closer, into the same s.p.a.ce Isana"s awareness occupied. The sensation of the fury"s presence overlapped with her own until she could no longer readily distinguish the two. Isana felt a brief surge of disorientation as she and the fury joined one another. Then, as always, Rill"s perceptions began to flow into her in a slow rush of sounds, murky vision, and in surges of tangible, tactile emotion.
She looked up at the vague, pale shape of Bernard"s body, at the even more blurred shape of her own, standing over him. Roth and Otto"s furies hovered anxiously before her in the water, each visible to her, now, faint colors in a pair of cloudy forms.
She did not speak, but from here, it was a simple matter to send the words to Roth and Otto, through their furies. "Gather him up and seal closed the wound. I"ll handle the rest."
The other two furies swirled off at once, gathering together the scarlet droplets of blood that had begun spreading into the bathwater, and shepherding them back to the gaping rent in Bernard"s thigh.
Isana didn"t wait for the furies to complete their task. She instead slipped closer to the fading aura around her brother, focusing upon it, and upon the much stronger thrum of life in the body touching Bernard-her own.
She knew that what she was to attempt was dangerous. The anima of life was never simple to touch or easy to manipulate. It was a force as potent and unpredictable as life itself-and as fragile. But dangerous or not, it had to be done. She had to try.
Isana reached out and made contact with that faint, fading quiver of life around Bernard. And then, touching upon that of her own body, above him, she gathered both together and melded them, blended them, drew upon the energy of her body to surround both of them, to an immediate, violent response.
Bernard"s body convulsed in the water, a sudden thrash of motion that moved every muscle in him at once. His back contorted, and Isana felt more than saw his eyes fly wide open and unseeing. His heart contracted with a heavy, unsteady thumping sound, followed by another, and another. Isana felt a thrill of exhilaration fly through her and, with Rill, poured into Bernard through the wound in his leg, a rush of sudden confinement, a sense of herself stretching down hundreds of blood vessels, spreading through him, her awareness fracturing into a mult.i.tude of layers. She felt his weary heart, the bone-deep ache of his limbs, the terrifying cold of oncoming death. She felt his confusion, his frustration, his fear, the emotions pressing like a knife against her heart. She felt his body struggling against the injuries. Failing. Dying.
What she did next was not a process of logical thought, of stimulus and response, of procedure and reason. Her thoughts were too far divided, too many, too much to direct so clearly. Everything relied on her instinct, on her ability to release conscious will and to reach through him, sensing every part of the whole and then acting to restore it.
She felt it as a pressure building up against her, as steely chains of tension that closed in upon her myriad thoughts with a slow and steady inevitability, shutting them down, crushing them into stillness. She fought against that stillness, fought to keep her awareness, her life, sparkling in every part of Bernard"s wounded body. She threw herself into the struggle, straining against death, while around her, through her, within her, she felt every wavering, uncertain beat of his too-labored heart.
She held on to his life, as she felt Roth and Otto"s furies send blood back into his battered body. She held on to him as the two water-crafters went to work upon the injury itself, closing the ragged wound and crafting the very fabric of his flesh together again. She held on, with all of her strength and in a horrible s.p.a.ce between one heartbeat and the next realized that she could hold on no longer. She was losing him.
Through Rill she felt Roth"s silent urging to withdraw, to flow back out of her brother and to her own body, to save herself. She refused, drawing more heavily on the energy of her body, feeding it to Bernard, to his laboring heart. She sent everything she could reach coursing into him and felt it flowing out of her, somewhere, felt herself growing weaker. She gave her brother all that she was: her love of him, her love for Tavi, terror at the prospect of his death, frustration, agony, fear, the joy of glowing memories, and the despair of the darkest moments of her life. She held back nothing.
Bernard quivered again and abruptly gasped in a breath of air that filled his lungs like cold fire. He coughed, and the horrible stillness abruptly fractured and fled as his lungs labored again and again and again.
Isana felt relief flood over her, as his body grew stronger, as the energy of him began to flow again, as the rhythm of his heart began to quicken and become regular, a hammer pulse that coursed throughout her awareness. She felt Rill dimly, as the fury moved through him, and felt her gentle confusion. Once again, Roth attempted to send something to her, through their furies, but she was too tired to understand it, too lost in relief and exhaustion to understand. She let her awareness drift, felt herself sinking down, into a darkness, into warmth that promised her rest from all of her anxiety and pain and weariness.
And then a dull fire pulsed in her. She thought that she remembered the sensation, from some time long before. Her descent slowed for a moment.
Again, the fire came. And again. And again.
Pain. I am feeling pain.
In a detached, remote, and unconcerned part of her awareness, she understood what was happening. Roth had been right. She had given too much of herself and had been unable to return to her own body. Too tired, too relaxed, too weak. She would die, back there beside the tub, her body simply slumping to the floor and empty of life.
The fire flared again, somewhere back up and away from the darkness.
The dead feel no pain, she thought. Pain is for the living Pain is for the living.
She reached out toward it, toward that fire in the night. The delicious descent halted, though part of her screamed out against it. She reached back for the pain, but did not move, did not begin to rise again.
It is too late. I cannot go back.
She tried, regardless. She struggled against the stillness, the warmth. She struggled to live.
Sudden light flared like a newborn sun above her. Isana reached for it, embraced that distant fire with every part of her that still lived. It washed over her in a flood and became an instant, blazing torment, horrible and bright, an agony more searing than anything she had ever known. She felt a dizzying wrenching sensation and a sudden rush of confusion, of emptiness where Rill had been before, of more and more pain.
She went back into it, and gladly. The light, the agony, became all consuming, her limbs aching, her lungs burning with her ragged breath, her head pounding, and her mind screaming as raw sensation poured into it.
She heard shouts. Someone was screaming, and there was a heavy thump of impact. Then more screams. Fade, she thought. She heard shouts. Someone was screaming, and there was a heavy thump of impact. Then more screams. Fade, she thought. "There," someone shouted. Otto? "Look! She"s breathing!" "There," someone shouted. Otto? "Look! She"s breathing!" "Get a blanket," replied Roth"s steady voice. "And another for Bernard." "Get a blanket," replied Roth"s steady voice. "And another for Bernard." "Broth for both, they"ll need food." "Broth for both, they"ll need food."
"I know that. Someone get that idiot slave out out of here before he hurts someone else." of here before he hurts someone else."
The general cloud of pain over her began to resolve itself, by slow degrees, to a dull throb in her hand, and a sweet and oddly satisfying ache of exhaustion spread throughout her. She opened her eyes and turned her head to one side to see Bernard looking blearily around him. She fumbled her hand toward him and saw the fingers of it swollen and oddly shaped. She touched him, and the pain swept down on her, blinded her.
"Easy, Isana." Roth took her wrist and gently pressed her hand back down. "Easy. You need to rest." "Easy, Isana." Roth took her wrist and gently pressed her hand back down. "Easy. You need to rest." "Tavi," Isana said. She struggled to force out the words, though they sounded blurry, even to her. "Find Tavi." "Tavi," Isana said. She struggled to force out the words, though they sounded blurry, even to her. "Find Tavi." "Rest," Roth said. The old Stead-holder looked down on her with gentle, compa.s.sionate eyes. "Rest. You"ve done too much already." "Rest," Roth said. The old Stead-holder looked down on her with gentle, compa.s.sionate eyes. "Rest. You"ve done too much already."
Bitte appeared beside Isana and a.s.sured her, "We"ll get the Stead-holder back on his feet by morning, child. He"ll take care of everything. Rest now."
Isana shook her head. She couldn"t rest. Not while the storm raged outside. Not while Tavi remained in it, helpless and fragile and alone. She started to sit up, but simply could not. She did not have the strength to do much more than lift her head. She fell back to the floor and felt a tear of frustration glide from one eye. That tear seemed to trigger others, and then she was weeping, silently, weeping until she could not see, could barely breathe.
She should have been more careful. She should have forbidden him to leave the stead-holt this morning. She should have seen to her brother more swiftly, should have understood the Kord-holders" plans before it had come to violence. She had fought as hard as she could. She had tried. Furies knew, she had tried. But all of her efforts had been for nothing. Time had swept down on her, swift as a hungry crow.
Tavi was out there in the storm. Alone.
O furies and spirits of the departed. Please. Please let him come home safe.
Chapter 12
Amara strove to ignore the exhaustion and the cold. Her limbs shook almost too hard to be controlled, and her entire body throbbed with weariness. More than anything, she wanted to collapse upon the floor and sleep-but if she did, it might cost the boy his life.
She had wiped the mud from his face and his throat as best she could, but it clung to him in a thin layer of slimy clay, grey-brown and mottled over paler skin. It made him look almost like a corpse, several days old. Amara slipped a hand beneath the boy"s shirt, feeling for his heartbeat. Even in this weather, he wore only a light tunic and cloak for warmth, evidence of his hardy upbringing here on the savage frontier of the Realm. She shuddered, soaked and half-frozen, and glanced up yearningly toward the nearest of the funeral fires.
The boy"s heartbeat thudded against her own mud-stained palm, quick and strong, but when she drew her hand out, she saw the mud dappled with bright scarlet. The boy was wounded, though it couldn"t have been anything major-he"d have been dead already. Amara cursed under her breath and felt for his limbs. They were dangerously cold. While she struggled to force her weary mind to decide on a course of action, she began rubbing briskly, at once sc.r.a.ping more of the frigid mud off of him and attempting to restore warmth and circulation to his limbs. She called his name, several times, but though his eyelashes flickered, his eyes did not open, nor did he speak.
She took a quick look around the chamber. Amara shuddered to think of what the mud of the Field of Tears, where so many had fallen, might do to him if it got into his blood. She had to clean it off, and quickly.
She undressed him roughly. He was too limp and heavy, for all his slender appearance, to allow her weakened hands to be any more precise. His clothes tore in a few places before she got them off of him, and by the time she had, his lips had tinged with blue. Amara half-carried, half-dragged him over to the water and then down into it.
The water"s warmth came as a pleasant shock to her senses. The pool"s floor sloped down sharply until it was about hip deep, and even as she kept the boy"s face out of the water, she sank gratefully into it and simply huddled there for a moment, until the rattle of her teeth chattering had begun to slow down.
Then she dragged him a few feet to one side, out of the mud-clouded water, and began to rub roughly over his skin, brushing the clay away until the boy was clean.
He had a shocking collection of bruises, sc.r.a.pes, abraded skin, and minor cuts. The bruises were fairly fresh, only a few hours old, she judged. His knees had several layers of skin peeled off, apparently a match to the ragged holes in his discarded trousers. His arms, legs, and flanks all showed patches of purple, slowly forming, as though he had been recently beaten, and a lattice of long, tiny cuts covered his skin. He had to have been running through thickets and thorns.
She cleared the mud from his face as best she could, using her already-torn skirts to clean him, and then dragged him back up, out of the water, and over to one of the fires.
As soon as she felt the air on her, she began to shiver again and realized that the water had not been nearly so warm as it had felt-she had simply been too cold, relatively, to feel the difference. She settled the boy in a heap on the floor, as near to the fire as she could manage, and huddled there for a moment, on her heels, her arms wrapped tight around her.
Her head nodded, and Amara let out a startled sound as she fell to her side. She wanted to simply surrender to the exhaustion, but she could not. Neither of them might wake up again. She felt her throat tighten on a whimper of protest, but she drove herself to her feet again, shivering nearly too hard to move, to think.
Her fingers felt like lead as she struggled from her own soaked clothing, thick and nerveless and unresponsive. She let the lighter clothing fall in a sopping heap to the marble floor and staggered to one of the stone sentries facing the bier. She clawed the red cape from its shoulders and wrapped it around her. Amara allowed herself a brief respite, leaning against the wall and shivering into the cape-but then drove herself along the wall to the next statue, and the one after, claiming both of those capes as well, then returning to the boy"s side. With the last of her strength, she wrapped him in the scarlet cloaks, securing their warmth around him, near the fire.
Then, huddled into a ball beneath the scarlet fabric of the Royal Guard, she leaned her head back against the wall. It took nothing more than that for her to sleep.
She woke, warm and aching. The storm raged steadily, all howling winds and frozen rain. Amara pushed herself to her feet, her body weary, stiff from sleeping crouched down on her heels, and blessedly warm beneath the heavy fabric of the cape. She moved to look out of the doorway of the chamber. Night still reigned outside. Lightning flashed and danced without, but it and the accompanying thunder seemed more distant now, sound rumbling along well after the light. The forces of the furies of the air still battled, but the winter winds had pushed their rivals to the south, away from the valley, and much of the rain that fell outside now rattled and bounced against the cooling earth as true hailstones.
Gaius had to have known, Amara thought. He had to have been aware of the repercussions of calling the southern winds to bear her north to the valley. He had been crafting too long, and knew the forces that affected his realm too well for it to have been an accident. Thus, clearly, the First Lord had intended the storm. But why?
Amara stared out at the bleak night, frowning. She would be trapped until the storm relented. And so will be anyone else in the Valley, fool And so will be anyone else in the Valley, fool, she thought. Her eyes widened. Gaius, with this act, had effectively called a halt to any activity within the Calderon Valley until the storm had relented.
But why? If speed had truly been of the essence, why rush her here, only to fence her off from acting? Unless Gaius felt that the opposition was already in motion. In that case, her arrival would put an effective freeze on their activities, perhaps giving her a chance to rest, regain her balance, before acting.
Amara frowned. Would the First Lord truly arrange such a deadly storm, a fury-crafting of proportions she could scarcely visualize, merely to allow his agent to rest?
Amara shivered and wrapped the cloak around her a little more tightly. She could only deduce so much of Gaius"s reasoning. He knew far more than most in Alera ever could-most would not even begin to grasp the scope of it. He was oftentimes a subtle ruler: Rarely did his actions have only one objective, only one set of consequences. What else did her ruler have in mind?
Amara grimaced. If Gaius had wanted her to know, surely he would have told her. Unless he trusted her competence to work out on her own what he intended. Or unless he still doesn"t trust you Or unless he still doesn"t trust you.
She turned away from the doorway and padded silently back into the chamber, her thoughts in a whirl. She leaned against a wall beside one of the stone guardians, denuded of his cloak, and raked her fingers through her hair. She had to get moving. Surely, the enemies of the Crown would not be idle once the weather broke. She had to have a plan, at least, and get to work on it right away.
The first order of business, Fidelias would have said, would be to gather intelligence. She had to establish what was going on in the Valley before she could effectively do anything about it, whether it be to act, to invoke her authority as a Cursor of the Crown to the local Count, or to report back to Gaius.
She swallowed. All she had to help her was the knife she"d stolen from Fidelias"s boot and some clothing far too light for the weather it seemed she would be faced with. She looked back at the boy, curled on his side before the fire, shivering.
She also had him.
Amara moved to the boy"s side and laid a hand on his forehead. He let out a soft groan. His skin was too hot, feverish, and his breathing had dried out his lips, cracked them. She frowned and went back to the water, cupping her hands together and carrying it back to the boy. She urged him to drink and tried to tip the water into his mouth. Most of it trickled through her fingers and splashed onto his chin and neck, but he managed to swallow a little. Amara repeated the process several times, until the boy seemed to relax a little, settling down again.
She studied him as she fetched another of the scarlet capes, folded it into a pad, and slipped it beneath his head. He was a beautiful child, in many ways, his features almost delicate. His hair curled around his head, dark, glossy ringlets. He had the long, thick lashes that so many men seemed to have and not care about, and his hands had long, slender fingers that seemed entirely oversized to the rest of him, promising considerable growth yet to come. His skin, where not marred with bruises or scratches, glowed with the ruddy clarity of youth that had somehow avoided awkward adolescence. She hadn"t seen what color his eyes were, in the hectic events of the previous evening, but his voice had been clarion-clear in the storm, bell-sharp.
She frowned more seriously, studying the boy. He had almost certainly saved her life. But who was he? They were a considerable walk from any of the local stead-holts. She had chosen her landing site in order to avoid coming down within sight of any of the locals. So what had the boy been doing there, in the middle of nowhere, in that storm?
"Home," the boy murmured. Amara looked down at him, but he hadn"t opened his eyes. His face twitched into a frown in his sleep. "I"m sorry, Aunt Isana. Uncle Bernard should be home. Tried to get him home safe."
Amara felt her eyes widen. Bernard-holt was the largest stead-holt in the Calderon Valley. Stead-holder Bernard was the boy"s uncle? She leaned closer and asked him, "What happened to your uncle, Tavi? Was he hurt?"
Tavi nodded, a dreamy motion. "Marat. The herd-bane. Brutus stopped it but not before it bit him."
Marat? The savages hadn"t given the Realm any trouble since the incident on this very site, fifteen or sixteen years ago. Amara had felt skeptical when Gaius had voiced his concern about the Marat, but apparently one had come into the Calderon Valley and attacked an Aleran Stead-holder. But what did it mean? Could it have been one lone Marat warrior, a chance meeting in the wilderness?
No. Too coincidental for mere chance. Something larger was under way. No. Too coincidental for mere chance. Something larger was under way. Amara clenched her hand on the fabric of the cape in frustration, wrinkling it. She needed more information. Amara clenched her hand on the fabric of the cape in frustration, wrinkling it. She needed more information. "Tavi," she said. "What can you tell me of this Marat? Was he of the herd-bane tribe? Was he alone?" "Tavi," she said. "What can you tell me of this Marat? Was he of the herd-bane tribe? Was he alone?" "Had "nother one," the boy mumbled. "Killed one, but he had "nother one." "Had "nother one," the boy mumbled. "Killed one, but he had "nother one." "A second beast?" "A second beast?" "Mmmhmm." "Mmmhmm." "Where is your uncle now?" "Where is your uncle now?"
Tavi shook his head, and his expression twisted with pain. "Here. Was supposed to be home. Sent him home with Brutus. Brutus should have brought him back." Tears had started down his cheeks, and Amara swallowed upon seeing them.
She needed information, yes. But she couldn"t torment an unconscious child for it. He needed rest. If he was the Stead-holder"s nephew, and the man had survived the attack, she could bring him home safely and almost certainly secure the Stead-holder"s enthusiastic cooperation.
" "M sorry," the boy said, broken and still weeping quiet tears. "I tried. Sorry."
"Shhhh," she said. She used an edge of the cloak to wipe the tears away. "Time to rest now. Lay down and rest, Tavi."
He subsided, and she frowned down at him, smoothing his hair back from his fevered forehead while he slept. If a lone Marat was in the Valley, perhaps the Stead-holder had gone to hunt it down. But if so, then why would this boy be along? He had no particular skill at crafting, she judged, or he would have used it when the wind-manes had been attacking them. He bore no weapons, no equipment. He couldn"t have been hunting the Marat.
Amara inverted the idea. Had it hunted the folk of Bernard-holt? Possible, particularly from the herd-bane tribe, if all that she heard of the Marat was true. They were a cold and calculating people, as ruthless and deadly as the animals that accepted them as one of their own.
But Marat didn"t often take more than one beast as... what sufficed to describe the term? Mate? Companion? Blood-sibling? She shook her head with a shiver. The savages" ways were still alien to her, something fantastic from a tale rather than the businesslike reality she had learned from cla.s.ses in the Academy.