Amid rice bogs and swarms of mosquitoes, we soon came upon a village of a few dozen mud huts called Tajul. We had no intention of stopping in this ugly place, but the sight of our cart, painted with such eye-popping colors, drew the curiosity of the few villagers not at work in the surrounding fields.
One of these, a thick-bodied man with a shock of curly hair and a grizzled beard, called out to us: 'Good players! Have you any medicines? My son is sick, and could use something for his pain.'
Though he might once have been tall, he stood all hunched over as if crippled with some disease; all his movements seemed to torment him. He wore a tunic of good silk, belted with a piece of thick leather chafed in a way that suggested it might once have borne a sword. He gave his name as Falco and said his son had been kicked in the belly by a mule.
Master Juwain asked him, 'Is there no healer hereabouts who can help him?'
Falco shook his head at this. 'We had a good one, Jahal, but he left our village last year.'
He spat into the street, and I suddenly knew that Jahal had not left the village of his own will, but had been taken away.
At the grave look that fell over Falco's face. Master Juwain said to him: 'I have had some practice tending our troupe's wounds. May I look in upon him?'
Though we all wanted urgently to go on, Falco said that he would be honored to offer us refreshment, and Master Juwain climbed down from his horse — and it seemed that there was no help for breaking our flight in this poor village. Falco invited all of us to come inside his house — all of us except Bemossed, who stayed with the cart. Falco opened the door to his house, and we entered its large, single room. I immediately noted the scabbarded sword mounted above the polished teak mantle. There, bending in front of the fireplace, his eldest daughter hurried to get some water boiling for coffee.
Across the room, his son lay in bed, and his wife sat in a chair by his side, holding his hand. Falco presented her as Nela, and then smiled at his son as he said, 'And this is Taitu, named for the old king.'
Taitu, I saw, could not have been more than fifteen years old. I thought him a handsome lad, though it was hard to tell for his smooth face was all contorted in pain. He lay flat out on his back, and wore a pair of silken trousers but no shirt. A livid bruise marked the brown skin near his navel, and his belly bulged out almost like that of a pregnant girl.
Master Juwain went over to him, and sat on the edge of the bed. He gently touched his hand to Taitu's belly, which caused Taitu to gasp in agony. Master Juwain then pushed against Taitu's skin, and Taitu's head snapped back as he let loose a terrible scream.
'Stop it!' Nela cried out, holding on to Taitu's spasming hand. 'Let him be!'
Master Juwain took his hand away and looked at Falco. And Falco said, 'He's dying, isn't he? I've told him he must prepare for death.'
I could almost feel Master Juwain's hand burning to take out his varistei and hold it to Taitu's belly. I felt the ache in his throat as his voice grew clear and deep, but held no hope: 'I'm afraid the blow fractured your son's spleen. Perhaps other organs, too. He is bleeding, inside. If there are any potions to stop it, I am unfamiliar with them.'
'But do you at least have a balm?' Nela asked us, mopping the sweat from Taitu's forehead. 'Something strong — I don't want him to suffer.'
Without a word, Liljana moved to go back outside and prepare for Taitu a tincture of poppy. But then the door suddenly opened, and Bemossed stood limned in the light pouring in from the street.
Falco stared at the black cross tattooed into Bemossed's forehead, and he called out, 'What is the Hajarim doing here?'
At first, Bemossed made no response to this, in words. He stood quietly looking down upon Taitu. I marveled at the change that had come over him. His face shone like the summer sky after the wind has blown heavy clouds away.
And then, without doubt or hesitation, he said to Falco, 'I can help your boy.'
I sensed that Falco trembled to call him a liar and order him from his house. Instead, he stared at Bemossed as if dazzled by the sun.
'Let him help,' Nela said to Falco. She gazed at Bemossed as a desperate hope bloomed inside her. 'Let him try.'
'All right,' Falco finally said. He crossed the room and shut the door behind Bemossed. He looked at his daughter, and then at his wife. 'But let no one tell that we allowed a Hajarim into our house.'
Bemossed went over the side of the bed opposite Master Juwain. He smiled down upon Taitu as if to reassure the boy that every-thing would be all right. Then, as gently as a butterfly settling down upon a flower, he laid his hand on Taitu's belly. Taitu gave no cry of alarm, nor did he writhe in anguish at Bemossed's touch. He only gazed into Bemossed's eyes, even as Bemossed gazed at him. There came a flash, as of lightning out of a perfectly blue sky. It hung in the air above the bed in a blaze of glorre. Bemossed's hand seemed to channel this splendid fire deep into Taitu's belly. I felt a hot, surging new life stream through Taitu's insides. It seemed incredibly sweet and bright; I sensed it seeking out ruptured blood vessels and filling them up, making that which was broken beyond repair perfectly whole.
After a while, Bemossed took his hand away from Taitu and smiled at him again. We all watched in amazement as the boy's swollen belly began to shrink, like a waterskin being emptied. As the same time, he began sweating profusely; it seemed that the volume of blood filling his belly was being passed out of his skin as water.
'Mother,' Taitu said, looking up at Nela. 'It doesn't hurt any more!'
Nela tried to force out a 'thank you,' but she could barely speak against the sweet anguish choking up her throat.
'He will get better, now,' Bemossed said to her, 'Keep him in bed for the next day, and give him no food but much drink.'
Falco could not restrain the tears filling his eyes. He could not keep himself from grasping Bemossed's hand and calling out, 'You saved him! It is a miracle!'
Bemossed began to protest that all life was a miracle, and that this was only another of its workings. But Falco cut him off, saying, 'When I rode with Lord Mansarian, I heard a rumor that a Hajarim had healed his child, but I never really believed it until today.' Falco crossed the room to the mantel and picked up the bottle of brandy that sat there. He said, 'We will drink to miracles — and my boy's life. Daughter! Fetch glasses, that we might celebrate!'
As his daughter hurried to carry out his command, I wanted to make our excuses and leave the village as quickly as we could. But something in Falco's manner stayed me. I said to him, 'You rode with the Red Capes?'
'I did,' he said. He seemed not to care whom he admitted this to. 'For two years, until we trapped a band of errants near Sagara. They deserved death for assassinating Haar Dyamian, and who was I to speak against it? But Ra Zahur, the priest who rode with our companies, demanded that we also crucify fifty men and women from Sagara, in retaliation. I knew the Sagarans — knew that they'd had nothing to do with the errants who murdered Haar Dyamian. And so I had to speak out.'
Falco's daughter gave out small glasses, and he filled them with banned brandy. 'To life!' he called out. He nodded at Bemossed. 'To those who bring life instead of taking it!' Then he tossed back the brandy in one quick swallow, and refilled his glass. He waited for us to drink, too, before continuing his story.
'I've always spoken too freely, or so my Nela tells me.' He raised up his glass toward his wife. 'And so Ra Zahur recommended to Lord Mansarian that I be whipped and discharged for being too lenient with the enemy. The enemy! These were blacksmiths and potters in Sagara who were no more assassins than is my own son. They were Hesperuks, and Haralanders at that — our own countrymen, or so I said. But it didn't matter: Ra Zahur said that I should be whipped, and so I was.'
Falco downed two more glasses of brandy, and said, 'The dragon teeth tore the meat out of me, and made of me a cripple. I was lucky that Lord Mansarian took pity on me, and gave me a little gold so that I could buy some land and make a living for my family.'
Maram, w
ho had matched Falco drink for drink, said, 'I hadn't heard that Lord Mansarian spared anyone pity.'
'Lord Mansarian to a hard man, it's true,' Falco said. 'But then, he's had a hard time of things, and few harder.'
'How so?' Maram asked, taking the bottle from Falco and refilling Falco's glass.
'You haven't heard? I thought everyone knew the story by now.'
With an obvious pride and longing, he recalled the days when Lord Mansarian had been the greatest warrior in the north to take up arms against the King. But finally, the King's men had hunted him down, at the estate of Lord Weru above Avrian, where Lord Mansarian had hidden his children. On the day the soldiers and priests came for him, the mother was away, seeking a healer to cure their daughter, who had the consumption. Falco gave the girl's name as Ysanna. The whole family had been thrown into a dungeon — the mother and Ysanna, too, when they returned. Then Arch Uttam came up from Gethun and ordered the children crucified before Lord Mansarian's eyes — all except Ysanna. Arch Uttam said that he had no liking to put a sick girl to death. So he gave Lord Mansarian a choice: Lord Mansarian's remaining daughter would be spared, her mother, too, if Lord Mansarian admitted the error of his ways. He had only to take the Red Dragon into his heart.
Falco seemed close to tears as he told us, 'Some say that Lord Mansarian was reborn that day. I say that he died, the best part of him. And if the crucifixion of his children drove the nails through his heart, what he did then turned him to stone. For freely, it's said, with his own hand, he crucified Lord Weru and his family — even the children. Then, with Arch Uttam and the other priests attesting the oath, he swore loyalty to King Arsu. Since then, there is no one who has slain more errants in the King's name.'
With that, he turned his head to spit into the fire.
I clapped him on the arm and said to him, 'Perhaps it's good that you no longer ride with the Red Capes.'
'Perhaps,' he muttered. 'But some of my old companions were good men, once. I know that many of them feel as I do, even if they say nothing.'
'Why do they still ride with Lord Mansarian, then?'
'What choice do they have? To desert and be hunted down? To see their children crucified? Then, too — '
'Yes?' I said, squeezing his arm.
'It takes more than courage to rebel. They must have at least a little hope. If a leader arose such as Lord Mansarian once was, or if Lord Mansarian, himself. .'
His voice died off as he looked into the fire. And then he muttered, 'But, no — after what happened at Avrian, that's impossible now.'
The anguish in his voice caused Bemossed to leave Taitu's side and approach Falco. A deep understanding shone from Bemossed's face, and he looked at Falco as if he wanted to help him, too. Seeing this, Falco held up his hand and said, 'Go away, healer! I don't deserve your miracles. If you only knew what I have done. The truth is, whipping wasn't punishment enough for my real crimes.'
He took out of his pocket a single gold coin and pressed it into Bemossed's hand. Then he shuffled across the room to open the door.
'You'd better go now,' he said. He looked over at Taitu, who had now managed to sit up against the headboard of the bed. 'Thank you for saving my son's life.'
When he opened the door, however, there came a flurry of feet against muddy earth and I heard a boy's voice call out: 'The Hajarim healed Taitu! The Hajarim healed Taitu!'
I traded a quick, cutting look with Kane. Short of running after this eavesdropper and putting him to the sword — and perhaps everyone in the village — there was no way to keep the secret of what Bemossed had done.
We said farewell and hurried out to the cart. As my friends mounted their horses and Bemossed joined me on the cart's seat, a dozen villagers came out of their huts and in from the fields to watch us pass by. No one tried to stop us or even speak to us. They only stared at Bemossed, some in wonder, but some in loathing, too.
I feared for Falco, but even more for Bemossed, and us, that the Red Priests would inevitably learn of what had happened here. And so as quickly as we could, we left the clump of mud huts far behind us.
The cart's wheels ground and squeaked along the potholed road. Late in the afternoon, the farmland gave out into a rougher terrain of scrubland dotted with pools of stagnant water and bramble patches. I saw no good place to abandon the cart that would keep it hidden, and so Maram suggested that we simply burn it. But the smoke, I thought, might attract attention rather than repelling it. And so we journeyed on, into the early hours of the evening.
And then, perhaps ten or twelve miles from the village, just as it was growing dark, we came into a stretch of forest. Kane found an old path leading off the road through the trees. The horses struggled to pull the cart down this narrow, rocky strip, and it was an even harder work to get the cart off the path and cover it with a tangle of undergrowth. If anyone pursued us, the cart's tracks would certainly give it away. But at least it wouldn't stand by itself in some field like a colorful beacon announcing what we had done and where we had gone.
We took from the cart only those supplies that we would need for a long, hard ride. Liljana regretted leaving behind a large, cast iron oven that she had acquired along the way, and Maram told her that she had become spoiled. In our search across Hesperu, I thought, we all had, for we had never gone without food or suffered through a rainy night without a roof to protect us. After we had put aside our Hesperuk garb and donned tunics, trousers and traveling cloaks — and gathered up our weapons — it came time to consider one of the most daunting problems that faced us.
'Bemossed,' Kane said, pointing at the man we had bought as a slave, 'can't ride.'
Bemossed stood stroking the neck of Little foot, the gentlest of our horses. If he took any insult from Kane's words, he did not show it.
'He can ride,' I said. 'I've taught him.'
'So, one lesson only. He might be able to sit on that gelding without falling off, but he can't really ride.'
'He'll have to,' I said. 'We'll help him — there's no other choice.'
I looked at Bemossed and smiled, even though I felt heavy doubt pulling at me. I regretted that he had to take his second lesson at night, in the middle of a mosquito-infested wood, but there was no help for it.
'At least we'll have a bit of moon to light our way,' I said as I gazed up through the trees at the glowing sky.
'Perhaps it would be better,' Master Juwain said, 'if we rested and continued on at dawn.'
I shook my head at this. 'When Morjin learns that we entertained King Arsu, he won't rest. And neither will Lord Mansarian and the Red Capes.'
We mounted our horses then, but we did not ride very quickly, for it was dark in the forest and Bemossed had a hard time of things. I had to show him again how to set his feet in the stirrups and hold the reins. His unease communicated to Littlefoot, who nickered nervously and seemed ready to buck Bemossed off his back. It pained me, and all of us, that walking seemed the only pace that Bemossed could safely get out of Littlefoot that night. I told myself, though, that Bemossed was learning quickly and that tomorrow would be a better day. I told myself, too, that any pace at all was a good one if took us away from our enemies.
I intended to ride without much rest straight for the Khal Arrak pass, perhaps sixty miles away. After a while, however I saw that the terrain between here and there was too rough, and would ruin the horses. Worse, Bemossed had no legs for riding, a couple of hours before dawn, when his muscles began cramping along his thighs, I looked for a good place to stop. We came to a stream cutting the road and flooding it; no one, it seemed, had ever bothered to build a bridge here. We moved off into the woods and made camp near the stream's banks. Mercifully, few mosquitoes came out to bite us, not even at daybreak, when I moved over to where Bemossed slept on a pile of leaves and shook him awake.
'Is it time already?' he asked me, yawning. 'It seems that I just closed my eyes.'
He stood with difficulty, and limped like an old man over to Liljana, who han
ded him a cup of hot coffee. She had arisen an hour before, taking scarcely any rest, just so that she could make him a hot meal of egg pie and maize bread.
We ate quickly as the sun filled the forest with a warm, green-tinged light. The leaves of the oaks and dogwoods about us began to glow, and many birds chirped out their songs. It did not take us long to break camp, for we had not made much of one in the first place. It was a bright day promising much sunshine, and I dared to hope that we might reach the mountains safely by the end of it
Just as we readied to mount, though, Maram let out a cry and jumped away from his horse. He grabbed at his leg and shouted, 'It burns! It burns!'
I feared that he, too, had taken a cramp — or even that a poisonous snake had crawled into his trousers and had bitten him. He continued shouting and jumping about as if he had been dropped down onto a bed of coals, even as he pulled frantically at his trousers. Finally, he managed to undo them and pull them off over his boots. He cast them away from him. He stood there half naked, and I saw that the skin along the outside of his leg had been burned as if seared by the sun.
'What happened?' I cried, rushing over to him. Everyone else made a circle around us.
'It is my firestone!' he said.
Maram usually carried his red gelstei secreted in a long pocket sewn into the leg of his trousers. Now we all watched as this cast-off garment began to smoke and smolder. A few moments later, it burst into flames. It didn't take long for the fire to consume the wool. In the center of the ashes, glowing brightly, the hot, crimson crystal burned against the ground.
'What did you do?' I asked him.
'Nothing!' he said. 'I haven't even thought of using it for a thousand miles.'
'Then what made it come alive?'
My question almost needed no answer. Even so, Master Juwain pointed at the seething firestone and said, 'It is Morjin.'
It seemed that Morjin's power over the Lightstone — and therefore over our gelstei — had grown. It seemed that we no longer needed to wield our sacred crystals in order for him to take control over them.
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