Life Giver

by Lisa Lowell

  “No, I don’t think so,” Honiea objected. “That compass is a Talisman. It cannot be misused if it is truly yours. This Siren, as you call her, hunted you because of your magic. You weren’t even using your power to survive, but she sensed it in you and lured you in.”

  “What was she?” he asked, trying to get the mesmerizing image out of his mind by looking up at the simple ceiling of split beams in a humble home. He didn’t remember arriving there quite yet.

  “The Land is full of pent-up magic waiting to be tapped or harnessed. It is part of our Seeking to confront and explore these things….like that cavern. Where did you find that?

  “Halfway to nowhere, out on the plains. I …I think I dreamed about it when the fairies …what did they tell me?”

  “That there was a cavern under the plains?” Honiea prompted.

  “No, the lake, they showed me the lake. Once I saw that it actually existed, I realized that people didn’t live out halfway to nowhere because there had to be water. If I could tap into the lake beneath the prairie, I could bring people away from the rivers. So, I dug a well. That’s where I found the crystals.”

  “Were the crystals part of a Talisman then?”

  “No….” he strained to remember. “Were they a dream, real, or something in-between? I saw them in a dream, but they were really in that cave.”

  “So, what did you learn in the cavern then?” the Queen continued to help him build his memories backward. “Something drove you out into the night as a blizzard, so upset you left behind your boots and erased your own memory.”

  Yeolani closed his eyes over the unremembered horror. Flickers of light dancing in the dark. “Fairies again, flying in where I didn’t need them. I dreamed something…. something I didn’t want to hear. Fairies gave me… They gave me Nevai…Nevai!” He sat up in alarm, frantic that he’d forgotten the boy, but the blinding flash of pain across his eyes made him halt and Honiea pressed him back down into the bed. He collapsed back into the pillows and didn’t fight her insistent hand on his chest.

  “Go easy. You’re still not well, Yeolani. Nevai is perfectly fine. You left him with Rashel, remember?”

  “Rashel….?” And the air went out of his lungs in horror again. “The man was trying to rape her. I left her alone. That’s why….Oh, what have I done?”

  “Yeolani, did you fall in love with her?” Honiea demanded in a voice that would not allow him to equivocate. She didn’t invoke name magic, but she came close, barely containing her disapproval.

  Yeolani closed his eyes over the agony of remembering. “That’s why I left the cavern under the plains. The fairies came to me there. They gave me my Lady’s name, and it wasn’t hers. I couldn’t help it. I care for her, and I wanted…I wanted…I don’t know what I wanted, but I wanted to escape from my own heart. That’s why I can’t remember. I wove a spell on myself to forget. And then I found Elin. She’s a two-year-old girl on the edge of the world. And …and you brought me back and made me remember anyway,” he accused.

  Honiea gently shook her head in regret. “No, your promise made you return. You gave Rashel a crystal that works like my candle. She used it out of desperation, and you couldn’t help but return. Vamilion warned you not to fall in love.”

  “I had already met her, given her Nevai, and…and I think I loved her before we ever had that conversation. I’ve done nothing since except try to escape it.”

  Honiea dropped her head in regret. “Well, what’s done is done. There probably was nothing you could have tried to prevent it. The Siren’s song isn’t the only thing you will hear for the rest of your eternal life.”

  Rashel’s arms trembled with delayed shock as she pressed the moisture from the cheese curds, and she found herself bursting into tears. The rough hands that had violated her left their impressions on her flesh but more so on her mind. She ran to the well, desperate to wash away the memory of the attack. She poured a bucket over her head and then sputtering realized she would never feel clean this way.

  And there was still a dead body in her house. Norton’s children would expect their father to come back from the forest this evening. He wouldn’t come. The magistrate would investigate and find Norton’s blood had stained her floorboards, and Rashel shuddered with horror. What was she going to do? Yeolani would be accused of murder, and he would have to flee. No one would believe he was only defending her honor. How would she deal with this?

  Unable to concentrate on such mindless work, Rashel left the cheese molds and turned away from her chores for the first time in her life. She couldn’t think and needed terribly to have answers, answers only to be found inside her home where two magicians hopefully had some way to reassure her. How could they deal with a dead rapist?

  She stepped into the cabin and saw Honiea at the table. Rashel’s eyes flicked toward the screen that shielded her bed where presumably Yeolani was still resting. Then she saw that the magician hadn’t touched the body that now blocked her path to the hearth. The Queen’s eyes did the speaking for her. Come, sit and talk, they demanded. In a witless haze, Rashel obeyed and sat across from the healer.

  “How are you?” Honiea asked simply.

  “I’m fine,” Rashel began, but her hands gave her away, trembling.

  “You were almost raped, or was he successful? Either way, you are not fine. You’ve bruises on your neck that I can see and probably somewhere I cannot see. How much did he hurt you?”

  Rashel let her eyes break away from the Queen’s so that she could answer a bit more easily. “I was more frightened than harmed. Norton always implied that he would have me and my farm someday. I couldn’t stop him, just delay him. Now I’m afraid again for different reasons. What are we to do? They’ll come after Yeolani for murder. He’ll have to run, or they’ll string him up, and nothing I say will change their minds. I can claim Norton was raping me, but they won’t believe it…or they’ll choose not to believe it. Then I will be turned out or the farm will be sold out from under me, and…and I am just frightened.”

  Honiea nodded her understanding, but she seemed unconcerned, even for the fate that awaited her protégé, let alone Rashel, who was a virtual stranger to her. “What if I could tell you that there was a way to make this all return back to how it was before? You could remain here at your home, raising Nevai, and Yeolani would not be wanted for murder. Even Norton would be alive.”

  Rashel couldn’t move. She knew she must appear a fish, mouth open with surprise. “But he would….what is to keep Norton from coming after me again? You can turn back time?”

  Honiea shook her head gently. “Not that I’ve tried, but I can undo much of what is wrong with what has happened, but in order to do that, I need your help.”

  “My help….what do you mean? I’m not magical.”

  “Not in the same way as we are. However, you hold a magic that is more powerful than you know. You hold Yeolani’s heart, and that must be brought to bear.”

  “I hold…his heart?”

  “Yes, he loves you. He cannot help himself now. It is as strong as our most grand spell, can topple empires, crack mountains, and break the Land. And Yeolani is powerless in it, even beyond what the Siren did to him. That’s what drove him mad and brought him to his amnesia. He knows loving you is forbidden, and he washed away his own memory in order to forget you. And it failed. So, we must try a different strategy.”

  Rashel sat at her table for what seemed ages, watching the cold frankness of the Queen’s words freeze in the air between them, hoping the doctor’s medicine would go down her dry throat. Was the cure worse than the disease?

  “And what is so wrong about falling in love with me. Cannot a magician make that choice for himself?”

  “He will break your heart trying. You see, there is a Lady prepared from the foundation of the world just for him. He was given her name and it was not yours. He is bound, driven to Seek her out. He might love you, for he will come to love all those he serves like he loves Nevai and Marit. But t
hat means that he will leave you or you will leave him in death. He will live forever, and you will not. He will be a slave to the magic’s drive to find his queen. He should seek her freely, with no obligations or devotion to you. Would you want that for him?”

  Rashel didn’t answer. She thought instead. A seed in her mind grew into a tangled weed, strangling all other shoots that might strain up into words of possible solutions. She presumed Honiea would hear all her thoughts, but until she actually vocalized, Rashel wouldn’t be rejected. This, on top of the other struggle, to see a future with a dead man in her path, made for a long wait. The dormant seeds of thought expected the light and warmth of being spoken to break through to them. Finally, when she had processed all Honiea had implied, Rashel came up with something to say that might allow one sprout to break her silence.

  “You spoke of needing my help.”

  Honiea nodded, visibly relieved, for that meant Rashel could be reasonable. “There is a way to bring Norton back to life. Yeolani possesses it. I can heal Norton’s wound. Together we can make it so that this man never will remember you and will never touch you again. But then you must disappear. You cannot cross paths again with Yeolani, and he must not be able to find you either. The cut must be clean, or it will drive him insane…and a mad magician is not a safe thing.”

  Rashel sat stiffly, not reacting to the harsh message, thinking numbly of how it would impact her life. There were loose ends and cold realities she must understand. For instance, “Nevai? Will he be mine or will he go with Yeolani?” Rashel fired at Honiea, now speaking just as clinically and coldly as the healer.

  Honiea hesitated. “In that, I have no say. Yeolani has a voice on that decision as well. It is a problem. Nevai belongs to Yeolani, but there’s no way he can honor his magic and be a father for a baby at the same time. He was right to bring him to you, but after….after this, you might not be able to raise him either. It is unfortunate that the fairies imposed this on you both.”

  “Unfortunate?” Rashel gasped. “No, I will never believe that. Giving that baby a chance at life, a family that loves him, that will always be magic. I might be homeless, but if Nevai needs a mother, I will do what I can to be that for him. You cannot take him away at the same time you tell me that Yeolani will also be lost to me.” Her vehemence startled the queen.

  Honiea’s voice, humbled by the other woman, whispered. “So, you love them both, don’t you?”

  Rashel didn’t have to admit to it; love wasn’t a crime. She had no logical reason to love Nevai, and certainly not Yeolani. Right then she knew she would lay down her life gladly for both. “I barely know him, and I cannot explain it. If it’s not love, what is this that I feel for him?”

  Honiea shook her head with regret. “There is more magic in the world than any of us can comprehend. We learn more every time a new act is performed, a new spell imagined, a new mystery reveals itself. The Land ripples with potential waiting to be opened.”

  “Well, in that case, I am going to use my ‘magic,’ ” Rashel insisted. “You say that I need to convince Yeolani that it is best if he leaves me. I want to talk to him first, to see how he feels. Is this a sacrifice he is willing to make? And then there must be a plan. I cannot survive without magic at this point. What am I to do with myself and Nevai?”

  “I will think about that,” Honiea reassured her, but Rashel interrupted.

  “First, I speak with him, without your …your…influence. Is he well enough to speak with me? Can you leave for a few hours so that we can talk privately?”

  Honiea must be well-practiced at keeping her emotions behind a placid face. Rashel felt reasonably sure that the Queen would not like what the coming conversation might entail. Rashel knew full well that if she made the mistake of hurting Yeolani in any way, the wrath of the Healing Queen would not be gentle.

  “I love him, remember,” Rashel tried to reassure the magician. “I want him to make the right choices for us all, but I cannot do that if I do not speak with him.”

  Honiea nodded, agreeing, at least, in principle. “I am not his mother, but his teacher. I will not hinder you,” Honiea replied slowly. “He should wake naturally. See that he eats something soon. Call me if you need me.” And then the Queen of Healing stood up. “And one last thing. Ask him to remember the Life Giver.”

  “Life Giver?”

  “He’ll need to think about it, but he’ll remember with a little prompting. It might help his decisions.” And with that advice, Honiea disappeared in a rippling mist of lavender light.

  17

  Grounded Fairy

  After Honiea’s departure, Rashel sat at her table a few minutes in a stupor, unsure if she could even reason through the quandary in which she found herself trapped. She instinctively knew that Yeolani would try to do what he thought was right, no matter how miserable it would make him. She feared that. Did she love Yeolani? If what she felt wasn’t love, she had no other name for it. Why was she falling in love with a virtual stranger? She would lay down her life for this man after only a few days in his presence. She would weep if he left her and rage for the rest of her life at the magic that would separate them. Why? What was the magic that did this?

  It wasn’t all physical attraction, either, Rashel reasoned, though that helped. She loved the lean lines of him, his simple rangy wildness like he’d been crafted out of the earth and timbers as raw material, right from the Land. And when he smiled, which was often, his eyes twinkled, warm brown, and she felt an irresistible need to run her fingers through his hair, like the grain in a barrel or the freshly tilled soil of a field: magical. Yeolani’s strange, self-effacing antics also attracted her. He had an odd habit of humming at the strangest times: scraping moss off the roof, when he scratched Marit’s head, or when he held the baby. It was simply charming to her. Why?

  And Honiea claimed Yeolani loved her? Why? Again, the magic shouldn’t allow him to fall in love with her, but yet he had. That wasn’t fair to him. She sensed a low anger warming at the fickle decisions of their emotions. Fickle as fairies. She didn’t trust any of it and wanted to rebel. Weren’t magicians also humans and free agents, not pawns of God? Everyone else in the Land could make decisions of their own, and yet magic toyed with him. How dare it do so?

  Oh, you’re a fool Rashel, she told herself. Life for everyone is fickle, and you know it. Your mother died young, your brother left home younger, your father basically sold you into slavery, and life just happens that way. No fairies to apply to any of it. The flighty passage of life also dropped feathers of joy and goodness into your life. You are a better person for having known Yeolani, for holding Nevai and seeing this magical world. It might only be for a small while, but you were happy in it. Life Giver, indeed. Yeolani was a life giver to her.

  Rashel still didn’t know what to do or where her decisions would go, but she felt capable now of taking a step into the dark and feeling her way, as long as Yeolani was willing to speak with her. It would be a deep, honest conversation.

  With trepidation, she looked over at the screened-off bed and rose to her feet. Rashel slipped behind the screen, leaving Norton’s body behind, and saw Yeolani there on the bed, sprawled all over it, occupying far more space than was fair.

  She knelt at his side and looked closely at his face. He seemed worn, haggard, but the faint freckles across his cheekbones, the blush of sun, even this early in spring, and the irresistible dance of his closed lashes attracted her. He looked younger than he should have. She gave into an urge and caressed his hair, drawing her fingers through the long strands that needed a trim. He stirred, and she snatched back her hand. His eyes flickered open, and she waited until he managed to get them to focus on her, and she smiled.

  “Good evening, sir,” she whispered as softly as she could, hoping Nevai would not wake any time soon.

  “Rashel?” Yeolani asked with a huskiness in his abused voice.

  “Water?” and she didn’t wait for him to reply. Instead, she reached for th
e water bucket and helped him sit up to drink from the ladle.

  He drank gratefully but didn’t make eye contact with her while she tended to him. He looked everywhere; the roof beams, the screen, to Nevai’s cradle tucked near the head of the bed, even the window above his head, anywhere but at Rashel right in front of him holding the water.

  “Honiea said you were to eat right away,” Rashel declared, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. She hoped he wasn’t listening to the chaos and fear in her inner thoughts.

  “Honiea said…has she left?” Yeolani finally turned toward her, though Rashel wasn’t sure he actually looked at her.

  “She agreed that you and I need to talk. Do you want to come to the table, or should I feed you here in bed?”

  Yeolani’s manly pride wouldn’t allow this, so she helped him out of the bed to hobble to the table. He straightened in alarm when he saw Norton’s body still with the arrow sticking out of his side. Yeolani’s eyes grew wide, but Rashel chose to ignore it. That man was nothing but an obstacle as she navigated Yeolani to the bench and then stepped over the corpse to get a bowl of her stew and to cut bread. Wordlessly, she served supper, smeared some of her soft cheese over the bread, and poured milk into mugs for them both. Neither of them really felt bad about eating with the dead. Norton deserved to be ignored.

  “You’re a wonderful cook.” Yeolani finally found a voice after he had scarfed down two bowls. “Where did you learn?”

  “My mother…and then when she died, I asked around the village for help. I was only six, and my father demanded…he was a hard man to please, but I did my best,” she replied in a conversational tone, careful to avoid sensitive areas.

  But Yeolani wasn’t willing to do that. “I killed my own father. He beat my mother to death and would have me as well, so Norton isn’t the first man I’ve killed...except for sorcerers. It seems to be my fate to kill men of that sort.” He looked over at the corpse with a critical eye, judging the accuracy of his shot and the simplicity it had entailed.