He leaned forward into the firelight. “Can you do it, fìleen? Can you burn the crystals?”
“I can try,” Carin muttered, suppressing the urge to shrug one shoulder, aware that it might make her seem indifferent when she was, in truth, doubt-filled. “Are you sure about this? If that old story of your grandmother’s is right about the dolphins bringing magic to Ladrehdin, then you might be cutting off the source. You might be destroying your powers permanently.”
Verek shook his head.
“Magic has been dying in this world for a long time. If it was a ‘gift’ from those strange travelers who crossed the void in antiquity, then perhaps it came with too high a price. Few survived the Ashen Curse. And in your own world, Carin, far more recently, many also have died.” Theil pointed at the crystals. “You and I have done much to restore the natural balance between the worlds, but those things continue to threaten that balance. Is it not time we finished our task? Destroy them now, and pray that we are not too late to save the people of this world.”
A memory was washing around in Carin’s head: the memory of her telling Verek how she’d learned to trust her instincts during her initial journey across the plains. ‘Have you ever come to a fork in the road and decided, on impulse, to go left instead of right?’ she’d asked him. ‘When I was walking up from the south, I always paid attention when something whispered to me to take one path and not another.’
Nothing whispered to her now. Carin had no idea whether Verek’s impulse to destroy the crystals was wise or foolhardy. But she must trust his instincts. These two dolphins, after all, were his, not hers.
She got to her feet, and Verek rose with her.
“Meg,” Carin said as she reached for her bow and quiver, “do you have a scrap of cloth, an extra scarf or something, that I can put these in?” She jiggled the crystals. “Wrapped up, they’ll make a better target—something I might stand a chance of actually hitting.”
“I swear, girl,” Megella grumbled, as though the wisewoman felt obligated to protest at least a little. “First my best blouse, and now my warmest shawl. You will leave me naked ere this journey’s done.” But displaying an unexpectedly strong grip, with one motion Meg ripped off an end of her shawl and handed it over.
“Perfect,” Carin said, and smiled at her. “I’m sorry about your blouse. I just grabbed the first cloth I found. Which is why I thought I’d ask, this time.”
She turned and walked out to the smoldering funeral pyre, wrapping up the two crystals as she went. Verek walked with her. He, too, was armed. But if the dolphins objected to Carin’s attempt to destroy them, if they decided to “act for themselves,” then the repercussions might be nothing that would yield to an arrow or a sword.
Carin placed the bundled crystals as far up the smoking heap as she could reach and not choke on the stink. Then she stepped back several paces and took careful aim. Summoning from her memory and from her heart what it had felt like the first two times she did this—that exhilarating thrill of magic—she sent the arrow off with a wild cry of “Burn!”
Burn, it did. The cloth around the crystals blazed up explosively. The flames blasted over the funeral pyre and built to an inferno. The light of the firestorm was blinding, and the roar of it deafening.
Carin fell to her knees, clapping her hands over her ears. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Verek stumble away from the conflagration, then regain his balance and stand with his bow drawn, as though determined to guard his world from any alien threat that might pour out of those flames.
But the fire gave off only heat, light, and a very great noise. The thundering, at first, was unrecognizable, just a torrent of sound. As the blaze burned down a little, however, the sound of the magic came through more clearly, and Carin knew what she was hearing. This was the pounding of the surf on her native world. Every time she had worked magic she’d heard those waves crashing. And a few days ago, when she’d crossed the void to stand on the planet called Earth, she had heard the sounds of that ocean for real, outside the house where Verek had waited for her.
What had Master Welwyn said? The old man’s words played in her memory:
“The source of your magic, Lady Carin, is the sea—that faraway sea of your own forgotten world.” Welwyn, part monk, part wizard, and an elder of the craft, had recognized something in her that—for the longest time—Carin had not known was there. “From water rises the wysard’s art,” Welwyn had said, “and the restless sea casts forth the greatest gift.”
That distant sea now seemed to cast forth some of itself. Water came from nowhere, a sheet of it, briefly sparkling orange-red in the firelight before it cascaded over the flames, drowning them and washing the ashes of the funeral pyre into the soil of Ladrehdin. Nothing remained of the three bodies, the tent that had covered them, or the wood that Megella had piled atop them. The sandy ground where the doomed travelers had pitched their tent was perfectly clean now, purified by both fire and water.
And resting in the damp sand were the crystal dolphins. The silver chain that had once held them in two of its three mountings was gone, burned away. But the dolphins themselves were perfect.
Carin stood and walked to the sandy patch. Verek, lowering his bow, joined her.
Without speaking, Carin picked up both crystals. She wiped off the few grains of damp sand that clung to them, put one crystal in her pocket, and handed the other to Verek.
He weighed it in his hand for a moment. Then he, too, pocketed the amulet.
“Well, fìleen,” he murmured, “that was quite an impressive display. Though it did not rid us of these things, I am pleased to see that the power remains potent within you.”
“Your gift will come back,” Carin said softly. “As soon as we get to Ruain, you’ll be fine.”
Verek seemed to hesitate, but then he nodded. “I am counting on it. When I may again draw upon the magic of the wysards’ well, I intend to use that power to destroy the crystals.”
He paused again before adding: “If—indeed—they can be destroyed.”
Chapter 9
A Breath of Contagion
Megella was kneeling in the wagon, folding her blankets and arranging the bags of remedies that had seen heavy use while they were camped at the stock pond. She shook her head over the depleted state of her stores. She had packed as much on Quandy’s back as she’d thought the cow could carry, but most of her concoctions had stayed behind in her cottage. Part of her wanted to go back and get them.
If we’re facing a plague, I will want every powder, pill, and potion.
Two thoughts stopped Megella from even mentioning the idea to her great-nephew. First, of course, was the demonstrated failure of her every remedy against the disease that had killed the young family. Why should she expect a better outcome next time?
Secondly, Theil Verek was not looking back. He’d roused them before dawn. They had already breakfasted and packed their gear. His horse was saddled, the two ownerless bobtails were tied to the tailboard, and now he and Carin were hitching the cobs to Meg’s wagon, preparing to resume their journey northward.
Which is why the two of them did not notice the rider approaching from the south. But Megella saw him. She stood up in the back of her wagon and, open-mouthed, watched the man cut across from the road and ride straight toward her.
Then Carin spotted the fellow, just before he reined up. The girl’s bow was off her shoulder and she had an arrow on the string before Megella could wave her back.
“It’s all right, widgeon,” she called. “I know this chap. He’s harmless. This is Lummis, the chandler of Granger—maker of the sorriest candles in the south of Ladrehdin.”
Meg turned to address her old adversary. “Good morning, Lummis. Where did you steal the horse?”
Lummis looked confused. “I never stole him, woman. He’s mine.”
The man swept his cap off his head, which confused Megella until she realized that Verek had rounded the corner of the wagon and now stood scowlin
g at her visitor.
“What is your business here, man?” her nephew demanded with the air of authority that seemed bred into the marrow of that family. His grandfather Legary had had the same intimidating demeanor.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” Lummis said. “Good morning, miss,” he added, glancing quickly at Carin before returning his gaze to Megella. “I have come to ask this woman to return with me to our village. There is sickness abroad in the land, and the people of Granger want our wisewoman back. When we went to your cottage and found you gone, we scoured the countryside for you. We searched in that coppice behind your house and we went up and down the creek that cuts through it, calling to you. Some of the men even trolled the millpond, fearing that you had drowned.”
“Well I never!” Megella exclaimed. “I expected none would stir a foot to seek me. But let there be a rumor of sickness, and suddenly you are in a panic to find me. Is that it?”
“It’s no rumor, woman,” Lummis said, squashing his cap in his fist. “To the south of Granger, people are dying in droves. It’s worst along the coast. They say the beaches are red with blood.”
Meg glanced at Verek. Carin had rounded the wagon to join him. The girl and her wysard exchanged looks too, but they said nothing.
“A bleeding disease?” Megella snapped, returning her attention to Lummis.
“Ay. I ain’t seen it myself, but folks say it’s bad. It starts with the nose, but right quick it’s blood out the eyes and the mouth and even the arse. Begging your pardon, miss … sir,” Lummis said with a nod toward Meg’s companions. He touched his crumpled cap to his forehead.
“You have not seen it yourself?” she asked. “Then there has been no sickness within the village?”
“No, ma’am. It was Brin what figured it out. Brin Crowter … you know, the wheelwright’s girl.”
“Of course I know Brin,” Megella snapped. “I midwifed at her birth, and I salved her scraped knees before she got too big to roughhouse with her brothers. Just what is it that Brin figured out?”
“That you’d kept us all safe,” Lummis said. “There ain’t a soul in Granger who hadn’t swallowed a tea or a potion that you’d made, or used one of your powders or salves.
“‘Our wisewoman protects us,’ Brin said. ‘You know she’s always been mysterious, keeping to herself out at her cottage. Some of you have said evil things about her. Some have even whispered that Megella is a witch—’
“—A thing nobody would admit to saying,” Lummis interrupted himself. “But natur’ly we had all heard the rumors. Anyways, Brin insisted you warn’t a witch. The way she talked you up, Granger had been right lucky to have the most inscrutable and cleverest wisewoman in the south of Ladrehdin. She ran down the list of all the ailments she’d known you to cure. And by the time ever’body else had piped up about the astonishin’ other wonders they’d known you to work, the whole village was convinced: Without our wisewoman, we would not survive the plague. So they sent me to find you.”
Astonishing wonders, indeed, Megella thought, staring at Lummis. I live for years in that grubby little village, loved by none, feared by most, constantly under threat … and suddenly the good people of Granger decide I am their savior.
“How did you find me?” she asked. “I would not have thought you could easily pick up my trail, not knowing whether I had gone north or south, east or west.”
“Brin said south. She thought you’d gone to help all those folks who are dying on the coast. But a tinker came through from Winfield and said he’d seen you. He recognized you—he remembered you from when you used to visit your sister there in Winfield. He said you were northbound in the company of a rich gentleman and a ruddy-haired young lady”—Lummis nodded to Verek and Carin—“and that I should look for a painted wagon.
“‘Won’t be another’n like it on the road,’ the tinker said. ‘It’s brighter than mine. Stands out like a redbird in snow.’”
Lummis looked at Meg’s nondescript, cloth-draped conveyance and scratched his head. “Don’t rightly know what the fellow meant about the wagon,” he muttered. “But that don’t matter, just that I found you. And I’m asking you, woman, if you will please come back to Granger. We won’t never say nothing bad about you again. Just come on home and take care of us all, like you always done.”
Come “home”? Megella thought, incredulous. In all my years at that village, I never once thought of it as “home.”
While Meg stood speechless, her nephew took matters in hand. Verek stepped forward, close to the head of the man’s horse, and stood with his hands on his hips.
“Master Lummis, you are right to feel your loss,” he said crisply. “I have felt it for many years. As an infant I knew Mistress Megella only from the stories my grandfather told me. I thought she was a character in a fairy tale. Having discovered that she is real, however, and having become acquainted finally with this last living member of my family, I am disinclined to lose her. We are bound for home—Megella’s true home.”
Verek quartered around to more easily look from Lummis to Meg. “But the choice must be hers,” he said. “I will escort her on the northbound road, or she may return with you to your village. Either way, now is the time to decide. I have urgent business that draws me homeward as quickly as I may cover the distance.”
Go with Lummis, Meg told herself. Do not burden Theil with your presence a moment longer. Without you, he and his lady can practically fly to Ruain.
Ruain—that magical realm of the North, rising from the flatlands as though pushed upward by the primal forces flowing in its rocks and its underground rivers. Megella thought back to her years in that province, living amidst the magic, partaking of the power that was in every stone and every drop of water, ray of sun, and gust of wind.
And that power was calling to her. Undoubtedly it called most strongly to the true adepts—her nephew and his lady. But a wisewoman could feel it too. Especially a wisewoman who had dared to fill a jug with the wysards’ waters of Ruain and hide it under her bed for years.
Megella, still standing in the bed of her wagon, shifted her feet, feeling for the jug with her toe. On Quandy’s back she had hauled the jug from her cottage to Winfield. And wrapped in several thicknesses of wool, hidden under her pillows, the jug had traveled in her wagon thus far on her journey north. Now its contents seemed to urge Meg to go on, to return the waters of Ruain to the place where they belonged. The place she belonged.
They were all staring at her—Lummis, Carin, and Theil. Her great-nephew’s head was atilt, giving him a quizzical look.
He would like to know what I’m thinking. He wants to know everything that I know, Meg realized. I truly am a last link to his family—the only person who can tell him about his grandmother and the life of his family in Ruain before Legary ruined it.
Meg turned to Lummis. “Absence has made your hearts grow fonder, it seems. I choose, therefore, to remain absent.”
“But we’ll die!” Lummis wailed. “The sickness will come up from the south and kill us all.”
Megella shook her head. “No, you will be safe. Before I left, I treated the water. It is laced with enough tonics and restoratives to keep you all in fine fettle. But in case some among you drink too much beer and too little water to get the full protections that I have provided, then go to my cottage and make use of the remedies you will find on my shelves. My stocks are ample, and you are welcome to them.”
“But,” Lummis protested, “we will not know how to use them!”
“And whose fault is that?” Megella snapped. “On more than one occasion, I asked for a village girl to train up as my apprentice. ‘I might die of old age,’ I said. ‘Or the hotheads amongst you might finally decide to do away with me. When I am gone, who will care for you? Give me a girl to train, someone to replace me in due time.’
“Tah!” Meg scoffed, remembering the response to her request. “None of you would hear of it. ‘Not my daughter!’ said every mother in the village. Now you h
ave no one. And for that, you have only yourselves to blame.”
“We were wrong,” Lummis muttered. “I beg you, do not abandon us.”
Megella sighed. She stooped to rummage in her bags, and at length came up with a scroll of parchment, tightly rolled and tied.
“Widgeon,” she said, glancing at Carin, who still stood beside the wagon with her bow in her hand. “Take this, if you please, and pass it to Master Lummis.”
As the girl silently stepped forward, Meg straightened and looked at the candle-maker. “That parchment lists every remedy on my shelves, together with their safe doses and proper uses. I prepared it long ago, in anticipation of training the apprentice who never came to my doorstep. Take it with you, read it closely, consult it often, and you will have the means to heal yourselves from the usual sorts of afflictions that may befall you.”
Lummis sat on his horse, gazing at the scroll Carin had handed up to him, shaking his head and looking miserable. “Woman,” he said without raising his eyes, “I can’t read.”
“Brin can,” Carin piped up, the first words the girl had uttered since Lummis had appeared.
The chandler gazed at Carin with sudden interest. Megella could almost see the man’s mind working.
Hmm, he’d be thinking. This ruddy-duck looks familiar. Where do I know her from? And how does she know Brin Crowter?
“Then give the list to Brin,” Megella snapped, reclaiming Lummis’s attention. “The Crowter girl has a better brain in her head than ’most anyone in the village. If she learns the use of every remedy on that list, then she will know enough to get you by.” Creakily, Meg hoisted herself out of the wagon’s bed and onto its seat. “That is all I can do for you and your neighbors. I have delayed this gentleman and his lady too long. They are keen to be away this morning, and I with them. Good day to you, Lummis.”
Meg took up the reins. “Widgeon,” she said to Carin, “are you ready? Everything stowed? Come sit with me, then, and prepare to put an arrow through any man who attempts to stop us.”
The Wisewoman (Waterspell 3) Page 10
