Woundhealers Story

by Fred Saberhagen

  The First Book Of Lost Swords

  Woundhealers Story

  Fred Saberhagen

  TOR

  A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

  Copyright (c) 1986 by Fred Saberhagen

  ISBN: 0-812-52058-0

  First edition: October 1986

  First mass market printing: January 1988

  Content

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Dedication

  For Joan, as are all the others, whether labeled so or not.

  Chapter 1

  HERE in the green half-darkness an endless melody of water ran, a soft flow that played lightly and moodily over rock. The surrounding walls of dark rock oozed water like the Earth's blood, three clear rivulets that worked to fill a black pool no bigger than a royal bath.

  At the single outlet of the pool a stream was born, to gurgle from the vessel of its birth across a rocky floor toward the distant sunlight. What little light inhabited the cave, a dim, tunneled, gray-green, water-dappled illumination, came in through the small air space above the tumbling surface of the small out flowing stream.

  Now multiple moving shadows were entering from the sunlight, distorting the gray-green light within the cave. Bold, purposeful splashings altered the endless murmur of the water. Rocks in the streambed were kicked and tossed aside, with hollow echoing sounds. The voices of children, pitched to quiet excitement, entered the cave too.

  There were three of the visitors. Two of them, a girl and boy in their middle teens, were sturdy waders who supported and guided between them a smaller and much more fragile-looking figure. All three had rolled their trousers above their knees for wading; a useless precaution, for all three were dripping wet from feet to hair. It had been necessary to crawl, half in the cold splashing flow of water, to get in under the low rock at the very entrance.

  "We're in a cave now, Adrian," the girl announced with enthusiasm, bending over her small charge. She was perhaps fourteen, her brown hair hanging over her face in long, damp ringlets. Her face was attractive in its youth and health, though it gave no promise of ever being known for its great beauty.

  The little boy to whom she spoke said nothing. He was no more than seven years old, with long, fair hair falling damply around a thin, sharp-featured face. His mouth was open just now, and working slightly, the lips rounded by some inner tension into a silent cry. His eyes, remarkably wide and blue, were sightless but active, sending their blind gaze wavering across the rough and shadowed ceiling of the cave.

  Now he pulled free his right hand, which the older boy had been holding, and used it to grope in the empty air in front of him.

  "A cave, Adrian." The sturdy youth, in a voice that was just starting to deepen, repeated what the girl had said. Then, when the child did not respond, he shrugged his shoulders slightly. He was somewhat bigger than the girl and looked a little older. His hair was of the same medium brown as hers and showed something of the same tendency to curl; and his face resembled hers enough that no one had trouble in taking them for brother and sister.

  The girl was carrying three pairs of shoes tied at her belt. All three of the children were plainly dressed in rough shirts and trousers. Here and there, at throat or wrist, an ornament of gold or amber indicated that the choice of plain clothing had not been dictated by poverty.

  The explorers had all waded out of the ankle-deep stream now and were standing on the flat sandy floor of the cave. The girl halted after a couple of steps on dry sand, studying the surprisingly large room around her. She frowned into the dark shadows ahead, from whence the sounds of running water had their deepest origin.

  She asked: "Zoltan, is this place safe?"

  Her brother frowned into the deeper shadows too. Self consciously he felt for the dagger sheathed at his belt. Then he dropped into a crouch, the better to scan the cave floor in the half-light.

  "No droppings," he muttered. "No gnawed bones. I don't even see any tracks." He brushed his strong, square fingers at sand and rock. "Ought to be safe. I don't think that anything large can be living in here. Besides, the wizards checked out this whole area this morning."

  "Then we can hide in here." The girl's voice returned to the conspiratorial tones of gaming, and she stroked the small child's hair protectively, encouragingly. "We'll hide in here, Adrian; and Stephen and Beth will never find us."

  Adrian displayed no interest in the question of whether they would ever be found or not. "Elinor," he said, in a high, clear voice. The name sounded as if he were pronouncing it very thoughtfully and carefully. At the same time he reached his groping hand toward the girl and touched her clothing.

  "Yes, it's me. I've been with you all the morning, remember? So has Zoltan." She spoke patiently and encouragingly, as if to a child much younger than seven.

  Now Adrian seemed to be giving her last statement his deepest thought. He had turned his head a little on one side. His round mouth worked, his blind eyes flickered.

  Zoltan, standing by with folded arms and watching, shook his head. "I don't think he even understands we're playing hide-and-seek," he remarked sadly. In relation to his young cousin, the Prince Zoltan stood more in the role of companion and bodyguard than that of playmate, though at fifteen he was not too old to slide from one character to the other as conditions seemed to require.

  "I think he does," Elinor said reproachfully. "Something's bothering him, though."

  "Something's always bothering him-poor little bugger."

  "Hush. He can understand what you're saying." Kneeling in dry sand, she patted the cheek of their young charge soothingly. The Princeling slowly patted her hand in return.

  Elinor persisted with her cheerful encouragement. "Beth and Stephen are 'it' this turn, Adrian, remember? But we've got a great place to hide now. They're never going to be able to find us, here in a cave. Can you tell we're in a cave, by the way things sound? I bet there are a lot of blind people who could do that. Isn't it fun, playing hide-and-seek?"

  The small boy turned his head this way and that. Now it was as if he were tired of listening to Elinor, thought her brother, who couldn't blame him if he were.

  "Water," Adrian whispered thoughtfully. It did not sound like a request, but a musing comment.

  The girl was pleased. "That's right, we had to wade through the water to get in here. I was afraid the rocks would bother your feet, but I guess they didn't. Now you're out of the water, you're sitting on a dry rock." She raised her head. "Zolty, will we be able to hear Beth calling if they decide they want to give up?"

  "Dunno," her brother answered abstractedly. He had turned his back on the others and was facing the cave's single entrance, his eyes and ears intently focused in that direction. "I thought I heard something," he added.

  "Beth and Stephen?"

  "No. Not a voice. More like a riding-beast. Something with hooves, anyway, clopping around out there in the stream."

  "Probably some of the soldiers," Elinor offered. There had been a small patrol sent out from High Manor, in advance of the children's outing. Not that the adults of the royal family, as far as she
knew, were particularly worried about anything. It had been purely a routine precaution.

  "No." Her brother shook his head. "They're supposed to be patrolling a kind of perimeter. They wouldn't be riding through here now. Unless ..."

  "What?"

  Zoltan, without taking his eyes off the entrance, made an abrupt silencing motion with his hand.

  His sister was not going to let him get away with becoming dramatic. She began to speak, then broke the words off with a hushed cry: "Adrian!"

  The child's eyes were only half open, and only the whites of them were showing. A faint gasping noise came from his throat. He had been sitting bolt upright where Elinor had placed him, but now his thin body was starting to topple slowly from the rock.

  Zoltan turned to see his sister catch the child and lower him into the soft sand. But then just as quickly he turned back the other way. Something was now outside the cave that could shadow the whole entrance. The darkness within had deepened suddenly and evenly.

  Elinor was curled on the sand, lying there beside the child, and when Zoltan took another quick glance at her he could see that she was frightened. Adrian was starting to have a real seizure, what looked to Zoltan like a bad one. The Princeling's little body was stiffening, then bending, then straightening out again. Elinor had stuffed a handkerchief into his mouth to keep him from biting his tongue-her eyes looking back at her brother were full of fear. Not of the fit; she had seen and dealt with those before. The nameless presence outside the cave was something else again.

  Then suddenly the shadow outside was gone.

  Only a cloud shadow? As far as Zoltan's eyes alone could tell, it might have been nothing more than that. But he didn't think so. He waited. Something ...

  And now, from out there in the renewed sunlight, in anticlimax, came childish voices calling; shouting imperiously, and not in fear. Calling the names, one after another, of the three who waited in the cave.

  Then silence, stretching on, one heartbeat after another.

  Zoltan had a strong impulse to return the call. But somehow his throat was misbehaving, clogged with relief and lingering fear, and at first no sound would come out.

  But no answer was necessary. Their trail must have been plainer than he had thought. Again the entrance of the cave dimmed slightly, with small, wavering shadows. Two more children entered, splashing.

  "We found you!" It was a cry of triumph. Beth, as usual, had no trouble finding her voice or using it, and there was no indication that she had encountered anything in the least unusual on her way to the finding. She was a stout ten-year-old, inclined to try to be the boss of everyone in sight, whether or not they might be older than she, or related by blood to the rulers of the land while she was not.

  Clamped firmly in the grip of one of her stout fists was the small arm of Stephen, Adrian's younger brother.

  Adrian and Stephen shared a certain similarity in face and coloring. But with that, even the physical resemblance ended. Already Stephen, no more than five, was pulling his arm fiercely out of Beth's grip and beginning to complain that their three rivals in the game had cheated by coming into the cave to hide.

  Zoltan grabbed small Stephen suddenly and clamped a hand across his chattering little mouth, enforcing silence.

  Whatever had shaded the cave mouth before was coming back, just as silently as before, and more intensely. The shadow that now lay across the sunlight seemed deeper and darker than any natural shadow had the right to be.

  Now even Zoltan's eyesight assured him that this must be more than just a cloud.

  Stephen, awed by the strange darkness and by the seriousness of the grip that held him, fell silent and stood still.

  Presently Zoltan let him go, and drew his dagger from its sheath.

  Now Adrian, with a grunt and a spasmodic movement, reared himself almost to his feet, then fell back on the sand. Elinor lunged after him, but one loud shrill cry had escaped the boy before she could cover his mouth with her hand.

  An echo of that cry, in a different voice, deep and alien and perhaps inhuman, hideously frightening, came from outside.

  And with that echo came a noise that sounded like a large number of riding-beasts splashing in the stream outside. Stones were being kicked carelessly about out there, and there were men's voices, rough and urgent, speaking to each other in unfamiliar accents, not those of the Tasavaltan Palace Guard. Zoltan could not make out words, but he was sure that the men were confused, upset, arguing about something.

  Now waves of sickness, almost palpable, came and went through the atmosphere inside the cave. The children stared at each other with ghastly faces, pale in the deep gloom. Zoltan had the feeling that the floor was tilting crazily under his feet, though his eyes assured him that the stream was undisturbed in its burbling course. The child in Elinor's arms emitted another pitiful cry; she clamped her hand over his mouth more fiercely than ever.

  Beth was standing stock still. Her eyes met Zoltan's, and hers were wide as they could be. But she was biting her lip and he thought there was no sign that she was going to yell.

  There was now almost no light left in the cave, and it was difficult to see anything at all, though by now his eyes had had time to adapt. Shadow, imitating rock, bulged and curled where once the entering sunlight had been strongest.

  Something, thought Zoltan, is trying to force its way in here. Into the cave. To us.

  And he had the inescapable feeling that something else was keeping the shadow, whatever the shadow represented, from forcing its way in.

  How long the indescribable ordeal lasted he could never afterward be sure, nor could Elinor. Nor were any of the younger children able to give consistent estimates. But eventually, with renewed kicking of rocks and splashing by their mounts, the riders outside withdrew. The shadow moderated. But no component of the threat retreated very far. From time to time Zoltan could still hear a word or two of the riders' talk or the sharp sound of a shod hoof above the constant murmur of the stream.

  Beth moved. Almost calmly, though timidly, one quiet step after another, she went to Elinor's side, where she sat down in the sand. Stephen continued to stand rigid, his eyes moving from Zoltan's face down to the useless dagger in Zoltan's hand, and back again.

  And once more the sickness came, like an evil smell. It seemed to burrow in and grip, somewhere even deeper than the belly and the bones. A sudden realization crossed Zoltan's mind: This must be the sensation that people describe, that they have when a demon comes too near them. Quite likely we are all going to die.

  But once more the sickness in the air abated.

  Adrian's seizure was growing more intense, but so far Elinor was coping with it somehow. She and Zoltan had both seen some of his fits before that were as bad as this, or almost as bad.

  Now a new feeling, curiosity, grew in Zoltan, until it was almost as strong as the fear he felt. Dagger still in hand, he got down slowly on all fours in the sand until he could peer out all the way into the restored sunshine outside the cave.

  In the distance, slightly downhill from Zoltan and far enough away so that he could see only her head and pale, bare shoulders above a rock, there was a girl. Black-haired and comely, perhaps his own age or a little older, she appeared to be sitting or kneeling or crouching right beside the stream.

  What caught Zoltan's attention most powerfully was that the girl was looking straight at him. He was sure of it. Despite the distance, some thirty or forty meters, he thought that he could see her gray eyes clearly, and he was certain about the finger she had lifted to her smiling lips. It was as if she were trying to convey a message: Say nothing now. In good time. You and I will share great secrets, in good time.

  The way her black hair fell round her ivory shoulders reminded him at once, and irresistibly, of a little girl he had known, years previously, when he had been but a small child himself. Zoltan had loved her, in the way of one child for another, though until this moment he had not thought of her for years. Somehow his first l
ook at this older girl in the sunlight brought back the vision of the child. And the suspicion, the hope, began to grow in him that this was she.

  With a start Zoltan became aware of the fact that Elinor was calling his name in a frantic whisper, that she must have been calling it for some time. He turned his head to look helplessly at his sister.

  "He's getting worse!" The words were uttered under her breath, but fiercely.

  And indeed, the child's fit was now certainly the worst that Zoltan had ever seen him undergo. Zoltan got to his feet, the girl outside temporarily forgotten.

  There was a lull outside, a certain lightening of the shadow.

  And then, suddenly, a confused uproar. Whatever was happening out there, the noise it made was for the moment impossible to interpret.

  Then Zoltan understood. With a rush, new hoofbeats and new voices made themselves heard in the distance. As if blown off by a sharp breeze, the sickness faded from the air, the darkness lifted totally. Abruptly there began the sounds of a sharp fight immediately outside the cave, the honest sound of blades that clashed on other blades and shields. To Zoltan's ears it sounded like the soldiers' practice field, but in his mind and in his stomach he knew that this was more than practice.

  Now one man's voice in particular, shouting powerfully outside the cave, was recognizable to them all. Zoltan's knees, which until now had stayed reliable, went suddenly shaky with relief. "Uncle Mark," he gasped.

  Elinor looked back at him. "Uncle Mark," she echoed, prayerfully.

  Adrian, twisting his body and pulling with both hands, somehow tore his face free of her grip. "Father!" he cried out loudly, once, and fell into a faint.

  Chapter 2

  ON the night following their temporary entrapment in the cave, Zoltan and Elinor slept soundly at High Manor, in their own beds. In contrast, it was well after midnight before me Princes Adrian and Stephen, and their playmate Bern, were returned to their homes in Sarykam, the capital city of Tasavalta. When Prince Adrian was put to bed in his own room in the Palace, the fit was still on him, though the fierceness of it had diminished.