Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Darian rubbed his tired eyes. “I wish there were some other way, but I can’t think of anything.”

  “Neither can I.” She cocked her head to the side, listening intently, as she heard the sound of labored wing beats. “Is that Kel?”

  It was, and he carried a clumsily wrapped bundle. “I have prrrovisionsss, a tent, and yourrr herrrb-bag, Keisssha,” he said smugly, once he was down on the ground. “Alssso, bedrrrollsss. You can make a little Healerrr’sss tent might herrre, and bessst of all, no humansss will know that thessse thingssss arrre misssing until you tell them, Darrrian.”

  “How?” Darian asked, staring at the bundle. “How did you manage to get all that?”

  Kel looked even more smug, if that was possible. “I have my waysss.”

  Keisha hugged his neck, much to his pleasure, before seizing the bundle. Darian helped her untie it and get the tent and camp set up. It was a very small tent, barely big enough for two people, but if the weather turned it would keep Keisha and her patient dry and sheltered. It wasn’t long before they had everything set up, with a tiny camp-fire to keep the mage-light company, and there was nothing more to do but sit and wait for Hywel’s return.

  “I wish I’d brought handiwork,” Keisha sighed, fidgeting with her medicine-bag, pulling things out, looking at them, and putting them back in again. “Even mending. Something to keep my hands busy.”

  “You could ssscrratch my crrresst,” Kel suggested brightly. “It isss verrry lucky to ssscrrratch a grrryphon’sss crrresst.”

  “Is that true? We’re going to need plenty of luck,” Keisha replied, as Kel stretched out his head in her direction.

  “It isss well known,” Kel assured her, as Darian kept back a laugh at Kelvren’s bare-faced ploy to get a scratch. “A long and trrreasssurrrred trrradition.” Kel’s eyes glazed with pleasure as Keisha’s dexterous fingers rubbed the sensitive skin under his feathers. “Ahhhh,” the gryphon sighed. “Don’t you feel luckierrr alrrrready?”

  “We’re going to have a chance to test that tradition,” Darian said, jumping to his feet as Kuari alerted him. “Here comes Hywel with the boy.”

  Boy? Closer to a toddler, rather. When Hywel ran up to them, panting with exertion, the little one he carried in his arms could not have been more than five or six years old at the most. Keisha waved Darian away and took the fur-wrapped burden from Hywel herself.

  “Don’t come near us,” she warned, before Darian could move to help her. “There’s no point in two of us being exposed.” She laid the boy down on one of the bedrolls. “How long has he been sick?” she asked Hywel.

  “A day, no more.” He stroked his brother’s damp forehead with surprising tenderness. “You see, already he is lost in fever, and that is not good. It is those whom the fever takes hard and early - who - die - ” The last three words came out sounding strangled, as Hywel choked back what could have been a sob. He rubbed his eyes fiercely, as Darian stood well off, feeling distinctly awkward and useless.

  “Hywel, you stay with me; all I need is an extra pair of hands, and if Jendey wakes up, he’ll be easier with you here.” She looked up from the boy, and shrugged. “You and Kel might as well go back and tell them what I’ve done. I’m sorry to have to leave you that unpleasant chore, but you can always tell them that I did it before you had any idea what I was planning.”

  “Oh, and try to lie to Firesong and Starfall? Digging a well with my teeth would be easier, and a lot less painful.” He smiled crookedly. “No, we’re in this together, and I’d better get back and get it over with.”

  He wanted to ask if she was going to be all right and knew it was a stupid question. “Remember all ihat luck you just got,” he said instead, feeling horribly helpless.

  “I will,” she said, as she put the child down on one of the bedrolls, but it was clear that her mind was on the boy and nothing else, and he was just distracting her.

  He started to leave, then turned back. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, Keisha,” he managed, and stopped himself before he said anything ill-omened.

  At that, she looked up and smiled with surprising warmth. “Thank you,” she replied softly. “Now go, because I don’t want anything to happen to you either. Don’t let the Herald-Captain eat you alive!”

  Knowing then the best way to help her would be to obey her, he left, but slowly, looking back over his shoulder until he couldn’t even see the light from the tiny campfire anymore.

  Oh, this is a very sick little boy, she thought, taking the child into her arms. He was so fevered that heat radiated from him. Keisha’s first act was to unwrap the child from his bundle of furs, strip him of his sweat-sodden clothing, and wash him down with cool water to bring his fever down a little. Fever was a good thing in principle, but this boy’s fever was so high that he was in danger of going into convulsions unless she cooled him.

  She sponged him a second time with something that killed body-insects, wrapped him briefly in the furs so that the fumes would work on whatever bugs he carried, then unwrapped him and sponged him a third time with plain water. If fleas did carry the sickness, she’d just protected herself.

  That done, she dressed him in one of her old shirts and bundled him into the bedroll. “Take those furs and things out of here and put them out somewhere to air for about five days,” she ordered Hywel. “Either that, or, bury or burn them.”

  She heard a choked-off sound, as if he were about to object, then silenced himself. A moment later, he and the filthy furs were gone.

  Only a day! I’ve never seen a fever progress so quickly. She waited impatiently for Hywel to return as she checked reflexes in Jendey’s arms and legs. Whatever this illness was, at least the paralysis and wasting hadn’t set in yet - or at least it hadn’t set in so much that there was a noticeable difference from healthy reflexes.

  Deep down inside, she was afraid, horribly, desperately afraid - but she buried that fear in work. As long as she could keep working, she could keep the fear at bay.

  Hywel returned as she checked Jendey’s breathing. “When this fever kills - how does it do so?” she asked, frowning as she listened to the lung- and heart-sounds through a hollow tube she placed on his chest.

  “It smothers,” he said simply. “You fight for breath, but there is no strength in the chest, and it smothers.”

  Paralysis of the chest muscles? That would make sense. So what do these things all have in common ?

  Could the fever be attacking the network of nerves that told muscles when to move and how? That network came from the spine, even the newest Trainee knew that. There were fibers that were said to carry orders from the brain to the spine, and out to the muscles, as well as carrying sensation back to the brain, just as blood flowed from the heart out to the body and back. Accidents and wounds had proved that if you cut them, paralysis and loss of feeling was the result - so could this fever be killing or damaging them to get the same effect?

  She seized a silverpoint and a notebook from her medicine-bag and wrote down her speculations. If what she tried failed, and if she succumbed to this fever - at least the next Healer would have a little more to go on.

  “What are you writing?” Hywel asked, with awe in his voice.

  “Spells,” she said briefly, which seemed to impress him further. “Tell me all you know about how the Summer Fever started.”

  He didn’t seem taken aback that she asked the question, and she made notes as he talked. “It was the Midsummer Gathering,” he said obediently. “It was held that year in Ghost Cat territory. I was still at the women’s fire then, so it was, oh, many cold seasons ago.”

  Oh many indeed, I’m sure, she thought, guessing his age at fourteen. Three, maybe four at the most. Around the time the first lot came down here.

  “Blood Bear was there, and that was when I saw the Bear Warriors, who were as much bear as man,” he continued. “Our fighters brought back tales that they had monsters at their fires also, some as slaves, and some among the warriors
, and that there was boasting around the men’s fire that they had brought only half their numbers, for the rest were out raiding. We shunned the Forbidden Circles, for the Ghost Cat had sent warning dreams to our shaman, but the Blood Bear shaman scoffed at our dreams, swore that such places brought power and strong spirits, and he and more warriors went a-hunting Forbidden Places.”

  “So they brought back the Fever?” she asked, as she put down the silverpoint and selected carefully from among her medicines.

  “Not at once, no,” he told her. “They brought out strange animals like small, hairy people who chattered like magpies and howled like dogs. These, I did not see, but my father told me of them. They tried to make slaves out of the beasts, but the creatures were weak, acted sickly and odd, and soon died. A few days later, the fever began.” He shrugged. “That is all that I know.”

  So this came from contact with sick animals from the Change-Circle! That makes a little more sense. She finished mixing her draught of medicines with juice and honey, and carefully raised the feverish boy, putting it to his lips. He was very thirsty, in spite of being mostly out of his head. He sucked at the cup eagerly and perhaps because of the sweet taste, drank it down to the last drop.

  He’s getting dehydrated; I have to get more liquid into him. She filled the empty cup with cool water and repeated the process until he turned his head, refusing further drinks. She smoothed back the damp, black hair from the flushed forehead; this child was so different from the littles of Errold’s Grove, yet so very much the same, with a mother who would mourn his loss deeply, and a brother who loved him enough to do anything to save him.

  She made him as comfortable as she could, finished her note taking, then turned to Hywel. “I am going to work magic to read his fever,” she said sternly, fighting down panic that threatened to paralyze her. “You must not interrupt me - ”

  “Na, you go to the spirit-world, I know,” he said wisely, interrupting her. “Just as our shaman did. If our shaman had not been struck down with the first to suffer Summer Fever, he would have chased the Fever-Spirits with the good spirits he brought back. I have seen him walk with the Ghost Cat in the spirit world, many times; I will guard you when your spirit travels from your body as the warriors did for him. Have no fear.”

  As good as explanation as any, she thought, when she recovered from the startlement she’d felt at his easy acceptance of what she was going to do. At least he knows what to do.

  There was no time to put it off further; she had done everything she could for the boy with hands and herbs. Despite doubts and soul-numbing fears that she had hidden from both Darian and Hywel, she must rely on a Gift she had only recently learned to use. Now only her Gift could help him further; she settled herself at the child’s side, and sank into Healing Trance.

  She was aware at first only of herself, because she was still within the shields that she had managed to make secondnature and automatic. To her own inner eye, she radiated a pure, clear, emerald-green light, contained within a skin of radiant yellow. Taking heart from this, she reminded herself that this was something she had done before; the job was larger, but no different than fighting simpler illnesses. She took the shield-skin inside herself, absorbing the energies, and fixed her attention on the living creature nearest her, the muddled and roiled energy-bundle that was the sick child. Even at this distance, it was obvious to her Oversight that the boy was dreadfully, dangerously ill. To examine the nerve-net she would have to sink deeper than she ever had before, and look more closely. Examining the surface would tell her nothing.

  She moved herself to hover over the boy, then slowly let herself merge with him. Her awareness passed through the skin, a protective envelope of sickly pink energy, damaged here and there by the tiny scratches and cuts any active child could get in playing, and which also had its share of insect bites, which appeared to her as inflamed half-spheres, glowing a sullen red. There was no sign of major infection in the skin, however, and she passed on without soothing the insignificant hurts, saving her strength for a greater foe.

  His muscles were next, muscles that were well-developed for a child so young; tough and strong, flexible ropes that twisted and sent off sparks that meant pain as Jendey tossed in fever. There was something deeply amiss here, but it was not within the muscles themselves.

  So far, I’ve guessed right. Just to be certain that she had not missed something, she did not sink further to examine the nerves quite yet.

  Instead, she went to the torso as she had been taught, to make certain that the source of his sickness was not in the organs, and began with the heart. An infection of the organs could have been pouring paralyzing poisons into Jendey’s blood, poisons that affected the nerve-net, but which originated elsewhere.

  At this time, there was no sign of strain or irritation there either, nor in the gut - but the lungs were congested and irritated, displaying the sullen red glow of inflammation. But they were, as yet, no more serious than a bad cold.

  But there was definitely something desperately wrong, for all the body’s defenses were mobilized. All along the paths of the blood, the body’s defensive armies swarmed, healing energies flowed, yet they traveled to no central battleground, as if they were confused and could not find a target.

  Just as confused and desperate as I am. . . .

  She shoved away the thought. Failure was not an option.

  She turned her awareness to the spine, sank deeper yet, looking for the black miasma of damage, the sullen murk of attack.

  Then she found it - and nearly withdrew, appalled at the magnitude of the problem she faced.

  The enemy was tiny, tiny, but numbered in countless millions. It subverted the child’s own body to create millions more selves with every passing moment. No wonder this fever could not be fought with herbs and medicines - it overwhelmed by sheer numbers, killing the child in the act of spawning more selves from his very substance!

  But she had seen this kind of enemy before - just not so virulent, and not centered in the nerve-net and spine. At least she knew the enemy’s face now - and she knew how to combat it, provided she had the strength.

  She drove down her fear, fear that threatened to send her fleeing back to her own body, all her work left undone. She gathered her own energies, and lashed out at the enemy with lances and light shafts of purest emerald green. The enemy swallowed her energies and millions of attacking creatures perished - a little damaged, but only a little, and in the next moment, the multitude surged back to life and strength.

  Now it didn’t matter; now there was nothing but action.

  This was the moment when she should have been afraid; she should have given up. But now the instinct of the Healer had her in a grip that drove everything else out of her mind; she was caught in the battle, and could not have pulled away if she wished it. She had been warned of this suicidal drive for self-sacrifice, the trap that the strongest Healers were all too prone to fall into, and if there had been another Healer there, he would have pulled her out. It was too late -

  Thought had been squeezed into a tiny compartment cut off from action, crammed in with the terrible, ice-cold fear. Nothing existed for her but the enemy hordes - and the energies with which she lashed them, heedless of what the energy drain was doing to herself.

  And more; energy drained from her faster than she could replace it. This was a battle she was doomed to lose - and when she lost it, the enemy would move to take her. But she no longer cared.

  You know, this would probably be going better if we hadn’t awakened the Captain out of a sound sleep.

  One lantern illuminated the inside of the tent the two Heralds shared; birds twittered outside, expecting the dawn. Inside, Kerowyn made her feelings known, while Eldan had made himself vanish, in a sound diplomatic move.

  “You did what?” Kerowyn shouted, with incredulous wrath, when Darian finished his report. Darian stood his ground, backed by the Valdemaran Healers, by Nightwind, and by Firesong; they made quite a crowd i
n Kerowyn’s tent, but didn’t quite spill out into the open.

  He was backed by them, but he had insisted on doing his own talking. “I did this, and I’m not a coward who hides behind other people when it comes to standing by what I did; I can defend myself,” he had told them, and had been rewarded by the approval in the eyes of both Nightwind and Firesong.

  He felt a little sorry for Kerowyn’s officers, who by now, if they had intended to sleep until true-dawn, had been denied that opportunity by the shouting. And if it hadn’t been that he’d never been so sure in his entire life that he had done the right thing, he might well have bolted.

  “We had a tactical opportunity that wasn’t going to come along again, Herald-Captain,” he said steadily, looking straight into her eyes and refusing to be intimidated by her fury. “Furthermore, you may be in command of the assembled fighters, but I’m not one of the fighters. I’m a mage, and not one under your command. I’m a mage with four years of field experience, as well, and I am accustomed to being expected to think for myself. We had our primary objective. We’ve gotten the language, which Tyrsell can now take from his own memory and give to anyone else. Keisha and I took the opportunity that was presented to us precisely because, in terms of personnel, it offered a substantial gain - versus, at worst, the minimal loss of a single noncombatant. We had the boy in a vulnerable position, and a moment of opportunity to extract a single fever victim, a moment that was rapidly vanishing. Neither of us is a good enough Mindspeaker to contact superiors for advice. There wasn’t time to do anything but act.”