The Sorcerer's Plague bots-1

by DAVID B. COE

  "I'm sure that would make for interesting reading," Pyav said, leading Besh toward the front door of the hut. "I was still shy of three fours when she died, but I always liked Sylpa."

  They stepped out of the house and into the rain. The crowd was waiting Wet pale faces peered at them from under hats and hoods.

  "Did you find it?" asked the same fair-haired man who had spoken for them the evening before.

  "Find what?" the eldest said, sounding tired.

  "Her treasure, of course," came another voice.

  "What she considers treasures, you might consider worthless trifles. Remember that, friends."

  Several men and women started to object and Pyav raised a hand, silencing them. "I know what it is you want," he said. "And I assure you, Besh and I saw no gold or silver in that house. Now go back to your shops and homes, and leave Lici's house in peace."

  It was cleverly done, and Besh wondered if the eldest had anticipated this when he refused to look inside the sack.

  "What did you find?" the man asked.

  "Cuttings from her basketry," Besh said. "Lots of them. More than I would have thought possible. I'm convinced that she's gone off to trade her baskets with the clans or with the Eandi. And I'm convinced as well that she means to come back."

  "There," Pyav said. "I agree with Besh, and I believe that settles things. It's still Lici's house, for better or worse. And unless you want to be pilloried for thieving, you'll stay out of it."

  Slowly, and with much grumbling, the mob began to disperse. Pyav and Besh remained in front of the but until all the villagers had moved off.

  "We might want to continue to post a guard," Besh said, watching the last of them walk away. "At least for a time."

  "Yes," Pyav said. "For a time." He glanced at Besh, a wry grin on his lips. "I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I wish Lici would hurry back."

  Chapter 4

  GREENRILL, NEAR TURTLELAKE

  D'Abjan had been working this same piece of wood for the better part of the day, and still it wasn't right. It never would be. Every time he managed to plane it to the right shape, he'd leave too many rough edges. And by the time he smoothed them away, using the chisels, rasps, and smaller planes scattered over his father's workbench, the lines were wrong again. He was covered with wood-curled shavings, small chips, finer dust. So was the workbench, and the floor, and just about everything else in the shop. Yet he was no closer to finishing it than he had been hours ago. It just looked… wrong, and if he worked it any more, he'd leave this piece smaller than the matching one his father had already made for the other side of the chair.

  He heard the door open and close, but he didn't turn. His father had been in and out all day long, delivering pieces, doing repairs, checking in with D'Abjan's mother and sisters, who were at their table in the marketplace, selling the last of the herbs and dye flowers to have come from their garden this year. Perhaps he'd forgotten something, or had returned for whatever tools he needed for his next repairs. Maybe D'Abjan would have a few moments more of peace before his father saw how poorly he had done. He should have known better.

  "Let me see how it's coming along," his father said, trying to sound jovial, or encouraging, or anything other than what he was: resigned to yet another of D'Abjan's failures.

  He crossed to where D'Abjan stood and hovered at the boy's shoulder. After a moment, he sighed. D'Abjan didn't need to look at his face to know that he was frowning, calculating the cost of the wasted wood, the delay in hours or days that D'Abjan's poor workmanship would cost him.

  "You've tapered it too much," he said at last.

  D'Abjan kept his eyes fixed on the workbench. "I know."

  "You need to keep the plane level as you work a piece like this. You can't allow it to bite so deeply. A woodworker can always carve away more, but he can never replace what's already been taken out."

  "Yes," D'Abjan said as evenly as he could. "You've told me before." "And yet still you don't heed what I tell you."

  "I tried," he said, glaring at his father. "I told you I wasn't ready to do this."

  "This is the third year of your four as an apprentice. By my third year, I was making entire pieces. Chairs, tables, benches. I made a wardrobe during my fourth year: top to bottom, all on my own. At this rate you'll still be doing piecework a year from now."

  "Well, I guess I'll never be the woodworker you are, will I?" "That isn't what I meant."

  "Isn't it?"

  His father looked at him sadly. "Isn't it just as likely that my father was simply a better teacher than yours is?"

  D'Abjan dropped his gaze, his cheeks burning. After a moment he shrugged.

  His father stepped into the storage room and emerged a moment later with a new piece of the same maple D'Abjan had been working.

  "Start it again," his father said. "Try making the shape right first, even if it turns out too big for the chair. We can work on getting it to the right size later. Together. But concentrate on this first."

  He nodded. "All right."

  His father patted his shoulder and started toward the door again. "I have one more repair to do over at the smithy. I'll be back soon."

  "Father."

  His father turned.

  "Can I take a walk first, get out of here for just a bit?"

  "I suppose," his father said, frowning slightly. "Not too long though. Madli's been waiting for her chair long enough."

  D'Abjan began to take off his work apron. "I won't take long. I promise."

  "Very well."

  His father left their house. Moments later D'Abjan was out the door as well, though he took care to go in the opposite direction, away from the marketplace. Away from anyone who might see him.

  He remained on the path for just a short while, strolling past the last of the homes on this western edge of Greenrill. Once he couldn't see that last house anymore-and no one there could see him-D'Abjan turned off the lane and ducked into the wood, fighting his way through the brush and pushing past low cedar branches to a small clearing he'd visited before.

  There he found a freshly fallen tree limb-cedar, of course; it grew in abundance in this part of the highlands. He took out his pocketknife and peeled away the bark in long, smooth strips. Then he sat in the middle of the clearing and he began to draw upon his magic, his V'Tol. His power. He'd discovered that he could do this only a few turns before. Other boys his age here in the village had been talking about being able to do things. Some could start fires, others could speak with birds and foxes, coaxing them to take food from their hands. D'Abjan could shape. That's what the Qirsi called it. The real Qirsi; the ones who used their powers every day. He'd heard peddlers talking about them, about their powers. Shaping. He was a shaper.

  Except that he wasn't. He was Y'Qatt. By using his magic, even once, even for an instant, he was violating the most basic tenets of his faith, going against everything that his mother and father had taught him.

  He placed his hands over the wood, as he had so many times before, and he began to shape it, smoothing the edges, narrowing it at one end, turning it into the same chair arm he'd spent the morning trying to create in his father's shop. It was so easy, as natural as breathing, as immediate as thought. Whatever his shortcomings as a woodworker, he had taught himself to be a fine shaper. Too bad his father could never see what he had learned to do.

  He'd heard what the Y'Qatt clerics said about V'Tol. Who among the Y'Qatt had not? V'Tol was life, it was the essence of what they were. All Qirsi, not just the Y'Qatt. Those who chose to use their magic as a mere tool, or worse, as a weapon, were squandering the gift of life given to all of Qirsar's children, a gift from the god himself. That was why using their magic weakened a Qirsi. That was why those who spent their power the way men and women of both races spent their coin in a marketplace died at a younger age than did those who held tightly to the V'Tol. It made sense.

  But if Qirsar hadn't intended for his children to wield this magic, why had he ma
de it so easy to use, so powerful, so satisfying? Why had he given them different abilities-shaping and fire, language of beasts and mists and winds, gleaning and healing? Why had he made the V' of at all? He wanted to ask this of his father and mother, of Greenrill's prior, of anyone who might be willing to give him an answer. But he knew that the question itself would so appall whoever he asked that he was better off remaining silent.

  As it was, if his parents ever learned what he did in this clearing, they would be ashamed. They might banish him from their home or even from the village itself. So, after gazing for a few moments at the wood he had shaped, he tossed it onto the ground a few spans from where he sat, and drawing on his magic once again, he shattered the limb into a thousand pieces. This felt satisfying, too, though in an entirely different way. For just an instant, he could imagine himself as a warrior in one of the Blood Wars, fighting against the Eandi sovereignties, wielding this power he possessed in a noble cause. Of course, his parents would have seen this as a betrayal as well, a worse one perhaps than the simple conjuring he had done just a short time before.

  D'Abjan exhaled heavily, then climbed to his feet and started back toward the dirt road. His father would be back at their house before long, back in the workshop, and would wonder where he'd gone.

  As he approached the road, he peered toward the village, making certain that no one was watching before setting foot on the path. He hadn't taken two steps, however, when he heard a low groan from behind him. He gasped and spun, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest.

  But rather than seeing his father, or the prior, or anyone else from Greenrill, as he had feared, he saw a woman he didn't recognize.

  She had white hair, and at first D'Abjan assumed that she was Qirsi-a peddler maybe, or an Y'Qatt from another village. But then he realized that her skin was too brown, and that her eyes were so dark that they looked black. An Eandi then, and injured by the look of her.

  In that moment, the woman looked up at him and halted. She seemed to teeter briefly, and then she collapsed onto the road.

  D'Abjan hurried to her side. There was a knot the size of an egg at her temple. Already it was darkening to a deep angry purple, the color of storm clouds early in the Harvest. Blood oozed from the middle of the lump and there were small pieces of dirt and rock embedded in her skin.

  "What's your name?" he asked her, not quite knowing what to do. She merely groaned.

  He looked her over quickly and decided that she had no other wounds. She had been carrying two large baskets, each one covered with a blanket. Peeking inside of them, he saw that both containers were filled with smaller baskets of fine quality. She also wore a carry sack on her back. She was dressed simply, and she wore no jewelry.

  "Can you tell me where you've come from?"

  Still she didn't answer.

  At last, D'Abjan scrambled to his feet. "I'm going to get help," he said, though he wasn't certain she could even hear him. "We're near our village. I won't be long." And with that, he ran back to his father's shop.

  His father was waiting there for him, his arms crossed over his chest, a stern look on his round face.

  "Where have you been?" he demanded. "Didn't I tell you-?" "There's a woman!" D'Abjan said. "And she's hurt!"

  His eyes narrowed. "What woman? Where?"

  "On the road just west of the village."

  "What were you doing there?"

  "Just walking. She's hurt, Father. She has a bruise on her head and she was unconscious when I left her."

  "Who is she? Do you know her?"

  D'Abjan shook his head. "She's Eandi. A peddler from the looks of her. I've never seen her before."

  "All right," his father said. "We'll get Pritt. Come along."

  Pritt had been the healer in Greenrill for longer than D'Abjan had been alive. And he looked it. He was bent and he looked frail, with wispy white hair and a narrow, gaunt face. But he'd seen the village through injuries caused by floods and fires, as well as through several outbreaks of Murnia's pox. And despite his age and appearance, he remained spry. If anyone could help the old woman, he could.

  They found the old healer in the marketplace, buying healing herbs from an Eandi peddler.

  "Pritt," D'Abjan's father called, approaching the man. "You're needed on the road west of the village."

  The old man turned slowly at the sound of his voice and stared in their direction, squinting as if to see. "Who is that?"

  "It's Laryn, healer. And my boy, D'Abjan."

  "Ah, Laryn," the man said, grinning. "Good to see you. What's this about the road?"

  "There's a woman there. Eandi. The boy found her," he added, gesturing toward D'Abjan. "She has a head injury and she's unconscious."

  The healer frowned. "All right. Can the two of you manage to carry her to my house?"

  D'Abjan's father looked at the boy, a question in his pale eyes. "I think so," D'Abjan said.

  The healer nodded. "Good. Meet me there."

  Pritt started to walk toward his home, and D'Abjan and his father hurried back to where the woman lay.

  As it turned out, she was so light that Laryn could carry her by himself, leaving it to D'Abjan to carry her baskets and travel sack. He started to lift one of the blankets to look once more at the baskets she carried, but his father spoke his name sharply, stopping him.

  "Those aren't yours to look in" was all he said.

  D'Abjan nodded and picked up the woman's things.

  The stranger moaned once when Laryn lifted her, her eyes fluttering open briefly. But she didn't stir again before they reached the healer's cabin and laid her on a pallet by his hearth.

  The old healer shuffled to her side and bent over her, looking intently at the bruise on her head. After some time, he straightened and clicked his tongue twice.

  "Laryn," he said. "Put that kettle on the fire and then fetch me a bowl from the kitchen." He glanced at D'Abjan. "There's a bucket out front, boy. Fetch some fresh water from the stream. Not the well, mind you. The stream. Quickly now."

  D'Abjan nodded and ran to do as the healer instructed. It was a long walk to the stream, and longer still on the return, carrying a full bucket of water. By the time he returned, the cabin was redolent with the smells of Pritt's healing herbs: comfrey and borage, betony and lavender.

  "Ah, good," the healer said, seeing D'Abjan in the doorway. He beckoned to the boy. "Bring the bucket here. Is the water cold?"

  "Freezing," D'Abjan said.

  "Excellent." He had placed a poultice on the wound, but now he lifted it off and handed a dry cloth to D'Abjan. "Soak this in the water and lay it on the bruise. Refresh it every few moments. With time it ought to bring the swelling down."

  "Yes, healer."

  D'Abjan pulled a chair over to the side of the pallet and began to apply the cold cloth as the healer had told him. As he did, Pritt and D'Abjan's father moved off a short distance and began to speak in low voices. D'Abjan had to strain to hear them.

  "She's taken quite a blow to the head," the healer said, glancing at the woman, his brow furrowed, a frown on his narrow face. "Someone younger, I wouldn't be too concerned. With time, such a wound will heal. But I'd guess this woman is in her seventies. I just don't know if she can recover the way someone younger would."

  "How long until you'll know?"

  The old man shrugged, glanced at her again. "By morning certainly. If she hasn't woken by then, she might not at all."

  Laryn nodded. "Well, let us know how she's doing."

  "Why don't you leave the boy with me?"

  D'Abjan had taken care not to let the two men see that he was listening, but now he looked up, making no attempt to mask his eagerness.

  "He has work to do," his father said, eyeing D'Abjan and clearly intending his remark for him as well.

  "I could use the help," Pritt said. "And he was the one who found her. If she survives, it will be largely because of him."

  If D'Abjan himself had asked, Laryn would have refused. Th
e boy was certain of it. But refusing the old healer was another matter, and in the end his father relented.

  "Fine, then," he said, trying with only some success to keep his tone light. "Stay with her. I'll return later."

  "Thank you, Father."

  He nodded once as he let himself out of the house, but he said nothing.

  Pritt shuffled over to the pallet and watched D'Abjan as he wet the cloth again, wrung it out, and replaced it on the woman's bruise. "Good," the healer said. "Keep doing that. I've a few things to finish in the marketplace. I'll be back shortly. All right?"

  "Yes, healer."

  Pritt patted his shoulder and left the house.

  D'Abjan continued to press the cloth gently to her wound, refreshing it every few moments with the cold water and watching the woman for any sign that she was waking. Seeing none, he heard again the healer's words, spoken quietly to his father. I just don't know if she can recover…

  Bending to wet the cloth yet again, D'Abjan wondered if Pritt possessed healing magic. Was that why he had become a healer in the first place? Was he capable of saving the woman with his magic, if only he were permitted to wield it? D'Abjan knew that people had died in the healer's care. No doubt this happened to healers all the time. But if Pritt did have healing power, how did it make him feel, watching those in his care die, knowing that he might have been able to heal them? Of all Qirsi magics, surely here was one that Qirsar had to have intended for them to use. How could the god want the Y'Qatt to let others suffer, simply so that his children would preserve their V'Tol for another day? Where was the sense in that? Where was the compassion, the justice?

  He was still considering this when the woman finally stirred, another low moan escaping her as her eyes opened slowly. She reached a hand up to her head, and D'Abjan removed the cloth.

  "Water?" she whispered.

  He jumped up. "Yes, of course." He found a cup in Pritt's kitchen and filled it with cold water from the bucket. He started to hand it to her but then realized she was in no condition to drink it on her own. Unsure of what else to do, D'Abjan put his hand behind her head and gently lifted her while holding the cup to her lips. Her hair felt thick and rough, and with her eyes open, staring sightlessly over the rim of the cup, she looked odd, even vaguely frightening. She took a sip or two before nodding that she had drunk enough. He lowered her head once more.