by Shannah Jay
Hope warred with despair.
She cried out in pain as image succeeded image, and at last she sank to the ground again, holding her head and moaning till the cacophony began to subside.
The images and sounds throbbed around her for a while longer, then ebbed away slowly. When she opened her eyes again, the world seemed to waver and shimmer, as if in a heat haze. She understood now exactly what the old deleff had wanted. They had brought her here to rebuild the Healers’ Courts.
‘You can’t ask me to do that!’ she said aloud. ‘And anyway, I couldn’t. It’d take more energy than one person could ever gather together to build something like that.’
The invisible wings whirred angrily around her again. A voice cried ‘You are chosen. You. You. YOU.’ She bowed her head and something continued to beat the message into her brain. ‘You, Karialla,’ it called, ‘there is only you.’ It was a voice like no other she had ever heard, a voice that sang like a flute in the twilight, a voice so beautiful you couldn’t but heed what it said.
And the voice was right. There was only her. This damage must have been done some time ago because the fallen stones were overgrown with creepers and small trees were pushing up here and there.
No one else had made any effort to start rebuilding the courts. Was she to turn away and allow the last of the healing knowledge to fade? No! Impossible even to consider that. She let out a long, shuddering sigh as her own will gave way before that of this being who was calling to her from some unimaginable distance.
‘I will try, then,’ she whispered.
She straightened her shoulders, throwing her head back as if meeting a physical challenge. She’d wondered what to do with her barren life, had she not? She’d vacillated and pondered on the future and changed her mind many times since Pavlin’s death. She’d even tried to run away from her fate.
But now there was no going back. And this great task would fill the rest of her life, would take many lifetimes to accomplish.
But did the deleff know how much that decision would cost her?
It will cost you as much, whispered the last echo of the strange voice in her head, as it has cost us to rescue you and your companions-to-be from Discord madness. As much as it costs peaceful souls like ours to confront violence. We shall all pay the price.
Then the strange dizziness passed and the noises in her head were gone so abruptly she cried out at the shocking silence.
She got up, with only enough energy to head blindly towards shelter. She had money, would find an inn and indulge in the luxury of a room to herself. Perhaps she could even have a warm bath. Small things brought great comfort sometimes.
Tomorrow she’d think again about the task that had been laid upon her; but at present she was too weary to be capable of coherent thought. She had accepted the great burden of rebuilding the courts. She could do no more than that today.
CHAPTER 6 Deverith
Shannah Jay TENEBRAK20
Years drifted by, but whenever Deverith thought of returning to the western lands something held him back. Then, one stormy day, he knew it was time, so packed his things, left the little hut he’d built by the ocean and as soon as the weather cleared, he set off again. Maybe this time he would return to Tenebrak. He hadn’t been back there since he was a man of thirty. Yes, Tenebrak. That idea seemed right. Something in that place was calling to him, as it hadn’t done for many years.
But in the winter chill of a damp forest, he fell ill of an unknown fever, which he got from breathing in the spores of a cunningly marked fungus that blended in well with the tree trunks. Not like him to be so careless.
As the illness progressed, he used the febrifuges he always carried with him, but nothing seemed to ease the rawness in his chest, the hacking cough, the constant shortness of breath. Each day he felt weaker. One day he was too weak to rise in the morning, so he lay back and resigned himself to death.
I’ve had a long and healthy life, he told himself, so I can’t really complain if it’s ending now.’ But he’d rather have died with people at his side. It didn’t seem right to die here alone like a wounded beast.
When he heard the faint thumping sound, he thought he was hallucinating. But it grew louder, came closer. He raised himself on one elbow. It sounded like . . . yes, it was . . . deleff!
Two of them emerged from the foliage and came to stand beside him. One was carrying something in its snout and laid it down beside him. It was a strand of a glowberry vine laden with fruit. He stared at it in amazement. Where had these strange creatures found ripe glowberries at this time of year? But glowberries they most certainly were.
He tried to say thank you, but his voice was a hoarse whisper. So he reached out one trembling hand and picked up the strand of fruit, eating several of the rare berries, cramming them into his mouth so eagerly that the golden juice ran down his chin. He taught people to bottle the scalded juice of glowberries and keep it for use in winter chest ailments.
The fresh fruits were even more effective. There was no better remedy.
After he’d eaten, he drowsed, then woke to eat some more of the glowberries. The congestion in his chest began to ease just a little, but he was so weak he couldn’t do more than crawl a few paces to attend to his needs, for no decent animal likes to foul its own nest.
The deleff trampled up and down, as deleff do when uncertain, then walked away again. He wondered if they’d given up hope of saving him.
The next day, however, they reappeared, bringing more glowberries and some clusters of dereela nuts as well. Hope began to well up inside him. He’d never understood the deleff, no one did, but he knew they were kindly creatures in their own mysterious way.
When he could drag himself to his feet and stagger a few paces, one deleff nudged him to move across the clearing and somehow he knew that they wanted him to mount on to the back of the larger deleff. He looked up at it in dismay.
It was too high. Then he saw the fallen log. But something was still not right. It took him a while to think what it was, for he was very dizzy—and all the time, the deleff trampled up and down, showing their impatience.
Of course! He needed to take his pack with him. And the carving. He couldn’t leave them behind. He loved to look at the image of the woman, felt as if he knew her. His head spinning from even a small amount of exertion, he staggered back across the clearing and stuffed everything into his pack, then slung it across his shoulders.
With his breath rasping hoarsely in his throat, he climbed on to the log and from there managed, with a nudge from the snout of the other deleff, to pull himself on to a broad grey back.
Then began the strangest experience even of his adventurous life. The two deleff trampled steadily through the wildwoods, walking more slowly than usual, as if afraid to jar him. He was half-asleep most of the time, lulled by the rhythmic thump of their great flat feet hitting the soft earth and the gentle swaying gait of his steed.
When they came to a pool in the middle of the forest, they walked straight into the water. Deverith begged them to stop, knowing a soaking would do his chest no good, but they took no notice.
He clung desperately to the spine knobs of his mount as water suddenly began to spurt up around them and cascade down on them. He felt the last of his consciousness slipping away. What was happening?
A greyness filled with rainbows surrounded him. His last thought was that at least he hadn’t died alone.
***
When he awoke, he was lying on the ground near a half-burnt building and he was definitely not dead.
He stared up at a blue sky, felt the warmth of the sun on his body and sighed with pleasure. Then he frowned. How could it be so warm? A whining noise from near his ear made him turn his head slightly and he saw one of the deleff standing there. As it had several times before, it laid a strand of ripe glowberries on his chest.
He smiled at it. He still felt wheezy. This was a slow illness to recover from. But he knew he was on the mend, knew it deep in his bones. When he
sat up, he nodded his head and said, ‘Thank you, my friend.’ The deleff nodded its head back, as if it understood.
After he’d eaten, he stood up on his thin, wobbly legs, found a stick to support himself with and went exploring.
Shannah Jay TENEBRAK21
This had been a farm. There were skeletons in the barn. Two adults, three children. Probably killed by raiders a long time ago.
Their bones were picked clean and, to him, were beautiful in their white symmetry. He inclined his head in a salute to them. ‘I’ll bury you properly, my friends once I’m well enough.’
In one corner of the barn were grain pots sealed with wax. Some had been broken open and the grain stolen, but others hadn’t been touched. He opened one and found good grain inside. It must have been fumigated properly before storage. These had been prudent farmers to wax the pot closed so carefully. He let the seeds pour through his fingers, checking them for the rusting disease or the green mildew, but they were sound and healthy, so he pulled a cloth from his belt pouch, filled the centre with grain and tied the ends to make a bundle. He needed good bread to help him recover, as well as fruit and nuts.
While he made his slow way across to the house, he scanned the farm. No need to check whether there were people around. He could sense that there were only himself and the two deleff. It was a gift he had, to sense the presence of other souls nearby.
Half the house had burned, but the fire hadn’t taken the whole building. In the same prudent way, the owners had built a house with stone walls and a stone-lined corridor with stout doors between the two sections. The doors were of jarulan wood, hard to work, but beautiful in its dark red colour, and it didn’t burn easily. So while the bedrooms had been gutted and the corridor filthied with smoke, the kitchen and living area stood intact—well, as intact as they could be when men in the grip of raging insanity had smashed everything they could lay their hands on.
He found a pottery drinking mug that was minus its handle, but otherwise unbroken and, after a great deal of effort, which left him gasping for breath, managed to prime the kitchen pump and draw some water from it.
When he turned, he saw a deleff peering through the doorway and made his way across to it. He owed his life to these creatures. Propping his stick against the doorframe, and using the time-honoured gesture that traders had taught him long ago, he stretched up his hands and laid them one on either side of the huge creature’s head. He should have done this before. He hoped they would understand that it was the illness which had taken his manners.
The name seemed to slide into his mind. ‘I greet you, Eress.’
The head tossed up and down, then the deleff stepped back so that the other could take its place.
Deverith repeated the ritual and learned a second name. ‘I greet you, Hanar.’
They seemed satisfied with that, so he went to light a fire from the kindling that still lay there in the kitchen, spilled from its box and dry as a bone after years of weathering. Afterwards he boiled some grain into porridge and ate it before lying down on the rug in front of the fire.
‘Thank you, my friends,’ he said aloud to the owners of the farm as he sighed into the velvety dark oblivion of a deep, healing sleep. And when he sensed a warm presence outside the door, he smiled in his dreams. The deleff were keeping watch. He was quite safe.
He stayed at the farm for many days, fretting to recover his health. He’d never felt so weak, never been ill for so long. But then, he’d never been this old before. The deleff left him alone there on the third day, as if they knew he’d be all right, but he felt sad to see them go.
On the ninth and tenth days, he dug out a grave for the skeletons, reasoning that they’d prefer to lie together.
When he’d covered them with earth, he said quietly, ‘May you find happiness in your next lives.’ For he was quite sure that a soul didn’t vanish into nothingness at death.
That effort exhausted him for the day. He was still not feeling himself. He needed good food and cosseting. There was grain at the farm and fruit still on some of the trees, but it wasn’t enough. He needed meat as well, but wasn’t strong enough to go hunting.
A few days later, just as he was debating whether to try to move on, the deleff reappeared and made signs for him to mount on Hanar’s back. He hurried to find his pack.
The journey was long and tiring, and he grew thinner, but he hoped they were taking him to a populated place this time, where people could help him take the last steps towards recovery. He not only needed red meat and cosseting, he needed company after his years alone.
He could sense as they crossed the land that Discord was on the wane. How he sensed that, he didn’t know—he just did. But it hadn’t vanished entirely. Perhaps it never would.
‘I am,’ he said aloud, ‘a creature as strange as the deleff.’ Then he sighed. ‘But I’m not so different that I don’t long to be with my own kind.’
CHAPTER 7 Tenebrak
When Karialla awoke next day in the market inn in Tenebrak, after the most peaceful night’s sleep she’d had since
Shannah Jay TENEBRAK22
Pavlin’s death, it was a pleasant surprise to find herself in a clean bed under a proper roof, albeit the ceiling plaster was cracked, the window shutters warped and she could see sunlight through a hole in one corner of the wooden outer wall.
That didn’t matter. The climate of Tenebrak was always mild and walls were for privacy rather than to keep out the weather.
She stretched luxuriously, then rose and sat for a few moments in quiet contemplation of the day ahead. Pavlin had taught her to do that at least twice a day. Now the meditation helped calm her troubled mind. After a while, she got up again. She’d been so tired when she arrived at the inn that she’d wanted only something to eat and the luxury of a warm bath. She’d fallen asleep during the late afternoon and now it seemed from the sun to be full morning.
Anguish pierced her heart as she remembered the destruction of the Healers’ Courts, but she hadn’t lost her resolve to rebuild them. Indeed, her resolution seemed stronger this morning. If she had to start from the beginning again, with only herself as healer and mentor, then so be it! She had nothing else to do with the rest of her life, after all.
She’d not only stay here in Tenebrak, but somehow she’d find other Healers of the First Cadre to come back and teach her and others like her the skills the world needed. There must be a way to do it, if you were determined enough.
All the healers couldn’t have been killed.
When she’d washed again, enjoying the feeling of tingling cleanliness, even if the morning’s water was cold and the basin chipped, she made her way down to the common dining-room. She lingered there over a late breakfast, lost in thought until she became aware with a start of a heavy man sitting alone at the long public table, staring at her. Thinning dust-coloured hair topped a square face with small eyes and a tight, mean mouth. He was eyeing her quite openly in a way which had become only too familiar on her travels.
Not again! she thought, with a lurch of fear. Not here in Tenebrak itself! Have I not suffered enough from such as you?
After a while the man stood up and sauntered over to the small table in a corner where she’d prudently chosen to sit.
She averted her eyes, giving him no encouragement to speak to her, but he stopped beside her anyway and rapped on the table with his knife hilt to gain her attention.
‘Hey, you! Little girlie! What are you doing all alone indoors on a fine spring day like this? Come outside and take a walk with me!’
It would be no use to ignore a man like him; it never was. She looked up and stared firmly into his grey eyes, shivering at the cold light that shone from them and the evil that emanated from him. Discord madness. How could people not see it lurking there? How could they allow him to walk free in their town?
‘I prefer to be alone, thank you.’ Her voice came out more sharply than she’d intended and she bit off further words.
; No use provoking him.
A scowl twisted his features and for a moment the Discord madness leaped to urgent life in his eyes. ‘Don’t be stupid, girlie! You don’t know what you’re missing.’ He leered at her in a way that made her feel both sick and angry, then he laid a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off so rapidly he gaped for a moment, as if he couldn’t believe what had happened. Was he so used to getting his own way, then?
Standing up, she took out her dagger and held it at the ready to emphasise what she was saying. The blade was as sharp now as it had been designed to be, and the hilt felt familiar in her hand. ‘As I said, I prefer to be alone,’ she repeated slowly and emphatically, ‘and I have learned to protect that wish by force if necessary.’ And let’s hope he believes that, she thought, for I’m not sure I could ever defeat a huge man like him, even with my knife.
The innkeeper bustled across. ‘This fellow bothering you, lady?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve warned you before, Gerrell. Leave my customers alone. If I find you annoying people again, you’ll be banned from my premises.’
The innkeeper was a small man but held himself with confidence and he, too, wore a dagger at his belt. In addition he was holding a heavy ladle, which he was rapping against one hand. As Gerrell growled in his throat, the innkeeper nodded towards another man who was lounging at a table near the door finishing a substantial breakfast. The man stood up as if ready to join them, and the smile on his face was that of someone who would welcome a fight—though there was no Discord madness in his dark eyes, only a confidence in his own strength. He was tall and well-muscled, in far better condition than Gerrell, who had a soft layer of fat around his middle.
After hesitating for a moment more, Gerrell spat on the floor at Karialla’s feet and lumbered off. ‘I’ll be back, girlie,’
he tossed over his shoulder when he reached the door. ‘I won’t forget you! You’ll be real sorry for this!’
The innkeeper’s intervention was as surprising as it was welcome. Everyone knew that in recent years most innkeepers had tended to avoid trouble at all costs. Karialla smiled at this man and put away her knife. ‘I must thank you, sir, for your help.’ She didn’t recognise him from when she’d last lived in the town and he’d been too busy to chat to her last night. He must be a newcomer since her days at the Healers’ Courts. And since this had always been the biggest inn, he must be a man of some substance.
