They fell into a rhythm. Josiah stepped forward, grabbed a plant, and Sar sent a burst of power shooting over it. They had to be careful not to miss a single one, or the blight would reinfect the crop. The grey powder on his hands sparked with trace bits of life, so they blasted it until it was dead and unresponsive.
Each individual plant took only a moment and a trivial bit of energy, but there were so many of them. It took at least ten minutes to get to the end of the first row. Josiah shifted down to the next row without a wizard and started back.
A few rows later, he caught up to Mathir as they both trudged to a new row. “Race you?” he offered.
“You’re on!” Mathir brightened, and Nina rasped a challenge at Sar. He put his ears back and brayed at her.
Josiah grinned and jumped for the first wheat stalk. He pulled ahead of Mathir for a few minutes, but pushed too hard and lost his rhythm. Mathir caught up and passed him as he slowed and gasped for breath. Sar nosed him and he bent to his task with renewed effort. They reached the end of their rows in tandem, too close to determine a winner, so they carried the race to a new pair of rows. Other wizards joined them, or paired off for races of their own. Time sped by. Before Josiah knew it he reached the end of a row and found himself with nowhere to go. Each of the rows between him and the field’s edge held a wizard hurrying with glad steps to the end.
Josiah looked back. The field glowed a healthy green, lush and vibrant, still a bit patchy in places where an occasional plant had been too far gone to save, but a wonderful contrast from the way they had found it. He wiped sweat from his forehead and went to gather around Elkan with the other wizards.
“Well done.” Elkan surveyed them with fond pride. “Keep up the good work. Pace yourselves, though. We’ve got a long day ahead of us. Mount up and head to the next field. After that we’ll take a break.”
He fell back beside Josiah as everyone headed to where the Herders were watching the horses. “How’re you holding up?”
“Just fine.”
“Good.” Elkan put a firm hand on his shoulder. “This is going to get rough before the day is over. You’re going to be drained more than you’ve ever been. Remember, Sar knows what he’s doing. He’ll push you to the edge, but not over it.”
“I know.” Josiah didn’t think it would be that bad. He wasn’t very tired, and look how much they’d already accomplished.
Elkan patted his back. “I’m sure you’re up to it.”
The next field was larger, but the blight wasn’t quite so advanced. The farmer came out to greet them as they arrived. His transparent relief and profuse thanks buoyed Josiah’s spirits. Even so, by the end he was stumbling over his own feet. He’d long since lost the ability to focus on anything but the next plant in line. When he finished a row and Sar didn’t immediately nudge him on to the next, he stood dazed for a few seconds. Eventually he gathered his wits and trudged to where the other wizards were gathering around a hearty midday meal the farmer had brought out for them.
The food revived him, and the ride to the next field gave him a chance to rest. He saw Mathir drowsing as he rode, as he’d boasted he could, head drooping on his chest. Josiah closed his eyes and soon drifted off, but woke in a rush of panic when he started to slip sideways off his mount.
The next field was huge, a network of several master and journeyman farmers’ lands they worked cooperatively. The master farmer in charge of the cooperative eyed them skeptically when they arrived. They were far enough out from the city that the folk didn’t have daily contact with wizards. She pursed her lips and studied Elkan. “I’m sure you mean well. And since Guildmaster Sabanan ordered it, I must allow you to proceed. But I’m not happy about a bunch of strangers running around my fields, trampling the soil, messing with things they don’t understand. And the animals!” She glared at Sar, who was eyeing the closest ear of wheat, only lightly marked by the blight, with a wistful expression. “We’ll be lucky if they don’t eat more than you manage to save.”
Elkan was nearly as courteous as ever, but his weariness was evident to Josiah in the way he was a bit short with her. “I understand your concerns. I’m Farmerkin myself. But if you let us get to work, I think you’ll be pleased with the results.”
The farmer huffed, but stepped back and let them pass. The wizards fell into their well-rehearsed places and started moving down the rows. Josiah concentrated on putting one heavy foot in front of the other. He grabbed each wheat stalk carefully, so Sar wouldn’t have to waste even a tiny bit of strength to heal a slice in his palm from the edge of a carelessly snatched leaf. By the time he worked his way across the endless length of the field and back, the master farmer was gone.
The field went on, and on, and on, and on. The sun beat on the back of Josiah’s neck, and sweat drenched his tunic and breeches. Sar’s flanks were dark with sweat, and his head hung lower with every row, but he kept relentlessly plodding forward, forcing Josiah to keep up. Josiah’s universe shrank until it was nothing but an endless succession of yellow stems and leaves flowing beneath his hands, flushing green, and falling behind.
His legs grew heavier and heavier. He forced them to keep moving until suddenly he couldn’t anymore. Sar, I’ve got to stop for a minute.
No. Keep going.
Just long enough to catch my breath and get a drink. He stopped, took his hand off Sar’s back, and fumbled with the water skin at his belt. He uncorked it and gulped the stale warm water. It tasted better than any crystal mountain stream.
Now let’s go.
One more minute. Josiah braced his hands on his thighs and panted. He couldn’t imagine taking another step until he’d had a good long rest.
But he drew barely a dozen breaths before Sar butted him with his head, knocking him off balance and forcing him to straighten. That’s long enough. Back to work.
Please. I’ll be ready in just a few more minutes.
Sar shoved his head under Josiah’s arm. He gasped as strength sucked out of his bones and gold light burst from his limply hanging hand to wash over the next stalk of wheat. Sar, I’m almost out of energy. You’re going to hurt me if you don’t give me time to recover.
We’re nowhere near the danger point. Once you get past this rough spot it will get easier. He took a step forward, and Josiah had to follow or take his arm from around the donkey’s neck. He wasn’t sure he could remain vertical without Sar’s support. A dull ache permeated his body as Sar drew deeply on his strength. The Mother’s power flowed through him from where his palm pressed into the donkey’s sweat-soaked fur to where it flamed from the fingers of his other hand. Its heat, usually a pleasant, gentle warmth, felt like a searing path of fire burning along his nerves.
Sar, I can’t—
You can. Keep going.
He was wrong. He had to be. Sar was going to miscalculate and burn Josiah out right here in the middle of this Mother-forsaken field. Josiah pictured the donkey, head hanging and ears drooping in shame and remorse, nosing uselessly at Josiah’s lifeless body. He imagined how Elkan would come running, shouting angry recriminations at Sar for his mistake. Tobi would bound to his side and they would pour golden power over him, but it would be too late. He would be gone, accepted into the Mother’s soft arms, listening to her shower him with words of praise for his selfless sacrifice. He would forgive the heartless, ruthless taskmaster who’d driven him beyond what any human body could bear, if only he could first float for a while in the billowing golden clouds that swirled around the Mother’s feet.
He came out of his fantasies to find his legs, unnoticed, had resumed their steady steps down the row. The wheat stalks passed one by one through his hand, golden light washing them clean. He felt no less exhausted, but somehow it didn’t matter anymore. A strange giddy feeling washed over him, and he floated along on its wave. He could keep this up forever, one step and one stalk at a time. Under his arm, Sar’s neck felt solid and powerful, a strong support bearing him forward.
Dozens of rows pass
ed this way. It didn’t seem important to keep track. The field was infinite, his task eternal. He and Sar would keep taking steps and healing wheat stalks as the world went through a thousand ages of time. The sun would burn out, and the stars fall from the sky, and the Mother herself grow old and pass away, and he and Sar would keep moving forward, one step after another. After another, and another, and another and another and another and…
“Josiah.”
He blinked. Grass pressed into his back. A face hovered in mid-air before his eyes. Elkan’s voice echoed in his ears as if from the end of a very long tunnel. “Josiah, wake up. I’ve let you rest as long as I can. But you have to eat.”
Slowly, he pushed himself up until he was sitting. The world rocked dizzily around him before settling into place. He felt as if he’d fallen beneath the stocks of the fulling mill and been beaten by their heavy hammer heads for two or three days.
Beside him, Sar rolled from his side to his chest, gathered his legs beneath him and heaved himself to his feet. That’s what being drained to the point of burnout feels like. Any more and we’d both have gone to join the Mother. But we finished.
The edge of the wheat field swayed before him, green and healthy in the soft golden light of late afternoon. He looked around. A number of the other wizards also sprawled exhausted at the end of their last rows, their familiars beside them, either sleeping or stirring with the same leaden heaviness Josiah felt weighing him down.
“Our evening meal is waiting for us. The farmers brought it out.” Elkan looked as haggard as Josiah had ever seen him. Only in the aftermath of the mine collapse in Shalinthan had his cheekbones stood out so much in his gaunt face, or his eyes been as deeply shadowed.
“The master farmer must have been pleased with us after all.” Josiah managed to keep his voice steady, if a good deal softer and hoarser than usual.
A faint grin lifted Elkan’s tired features. “She admitted that perhaps we did a bit more good than harm.”
Josiah rolled to his hands and knees with a groan. He contemplated crawling over to the fire some of the farmers had started, but took a deep breath and pushed to his feet. He swayed, the edges of his vision darkening, but after a moment he steadied. “Where’s Tobi?”
Elkan pointed to the corner of the field, where a large tawny shape sprawled in the grass. “I left her sleeping. She recovers fast, though. She’ll be livelier than any of us by the time we finish eating.”
Elkan moved down the row of wizards, waking those who hadn’t yet roused on their own. Slowly they gathered around the fire. The food was plentiful, but the farmers had to bring more out from their scattered houses to feed the ravenous appetites of the drained wizards. It took a few bites before the hunger hit him, but after that Josiah wolfed down three bowls of stew in quick succession. He only stopped to gulp a mug of cider and devour a large loaf of bread. Even then he felt only barely satisfied, and had plenty of room left for several servings of honey-sweetened fruit pie. Sar munched away on the pile of golden wheat ears the master farmer had personally cut from the newly healthy field to pile before him.
Finally stuffed as full as he could bear, Josiah sat beside Mathir while Master Hanion and Elkan bent together over their lists and maps. He might just possibly feel human again in the morning, after a long, deep sleep. Maybe the farmers would put them up in their houses. Although he didn’t really care if they had to curl up right here on the ground, as long as he didn’t have to move very much.
Mathir groaned. “And I thought a busy day of healing at the Hall was bad. Nobody told me it was going to be like this, back when they brought the message that the Mother had named me.”
Josiah sighed in commiseration. “Maybe agreeing to be bonded wasn’t such a great idea, after all. I did see Elkan this worn out once before, though.”
“I guess after the flood last spring Master Hanion was nearly this far gone.” Mathir studied his master. The older man was as weary looking as the rest of them, but showed more signs of recovery than Josiah felt. “That was kind of late to change my mind, though.” He reached out to caress Nina, who was devouring the last of her pile of nuts.
“Yeah.” Josiah’s choice had been made even more quickly, in circumstances that left him very little alternative. But he couldn’t really regret it, no matter how bad he felt right now. They’d accomplished a lot in their long day’s work.
Something occurred him. He’d almost forgotten the arrangements that had been made last night. “Hey, Mathir, you know those people we talked about? Where do you think they are?”
Mathir moaned. “Oh, dear Mother. That’s right. I told them not to come near until after dark.” He rubbed hard at his temples. “You’ve got to get Sar to help us. I’ll never be able to do it alone.”
Josiah glanced over at the donkey. “I’ll try.” He assessed the energy that had slowly accumulated during the meal. “We can manage. It’s not that many of them. I don’t see why Elkan wouldn’t consider—” He broke off as his master and Mathir’s rose and approached them.
“All right, boys. Let’s clean up a bit here before we get going.” Master Hanion gestured to the discarded plates and utensils scattered on the ground.
Josiah groaned as he scrambled to his feet and started to gather up the items. “Are we going to be spending the night in one of the farmhouses, then?” He thought longingly of a soft straw or feather mattress. Even a pallet on the floor like he’d shared with Elkan many times on their journey would be welcome.
Elkan gave him a crooked little smile. “No, we’ll be camping. But we’ve got one more field to go before we do.”
Josiah nearly dropped the plate he’d just picked up. He stared at Elkan. “No. No, no, no, no, no. You can’t be serious.”
Elkan tapped the map he held. “It’s a small one, less than an hour’s ride away. We can get started before sunset, and it shouldn’t take us more than a couple hours. Actually, Master Dabiel hoped we’d be able to get to one more beyond that, but there’s no way. We’ll just have to catch it in the morning and hope it doesn’t push us too far behind schedule.”
Mathir rounded on Master Hanion. “But master, every one of us is worn out! You can’t expect us to—”
“You have plenty of energy to shout at me,” he said. He gave his apprentice a stern glare. “The food and rest have restored us enough for another effort before we stop for the night.”
Elkan gestured toward the horses. “Finish up and get mounted. We’ll be leaving as soon as we can get everyone moving.” He gave Josiah a firm pat on the shoulder and Sar a quick fondle of his ears before he moved on to the cluster of journeymen and their familiars a few feet away. “Daza, Idina, Avion, let’s head out.”
They were no more eager than Josiah and Mathir, but eventually all the wizards struggled onto their horses. Tobi was the only one who seemed unaffected by their day of toil. She bounded along beside Elkan’s mount, as bright-eyed and springy-legged as ever, as if her brief nap had fully restored her. The other familiars showed the same weariness as their partners. Even Nina wasn’t chattering. She curled in a ball in Mathir’s arms, her nose tucked into her belly and her fuzzy tail wrapped around until she seemed no more than a ball of fluff.
The sun balanced on the horizon, a huge flattened red ball Josiah could look at without blinking, when they arrived at the last field. “Small” was an overly hopeful description, Josiah saw, for though it wasn’t as big as the others they’d dealt with, it still covered many acres. No farmers met them here, nor was there any farmhouse in evidence, but the herders led the horses to a band of trees lining a winding stream. They began to unload tents from the pack animals and set them up. At least the wizards wouldn’t have to make their own camp, as Josiah had often helped Elkan do after a long day of travel.
He would have been happy to haul water or gather firewood rather than face more endless lines of blighted wheat. The sight of black speckles and yellowed foliage gave him a sick feeling in his stomach. Before long it grew t
oo dark to see them anymore, but the sickness was still evident through the Mother’s sight, grating against his heart with its wrongness. The relief of sweeping it into health was all too quickly replaced by more blight, and more, over and over again.
The first row and a half wasn’t too bad, but after that Josiah became as miserable as he’d been during the worst of the afternoon. His muscles screamed, and his mouth grew so dry even frequent drinks from his water skin didn’t help. His eyelids scraped across his eyes with every blink. At length he struggled to find the strength to draw his next breath. His heart thudded in his ears until he thought how much easier it would be if it didn’t have to keep fighting to push blood through his body. And still Sar drove him on, another step, another plant, another row.
By the end he was clinging to Sar’s neck, whether to keep from falling or to keep the donkey from falling, he wasn’t sure. Each stalk of wheat became a mountain to scale, inch by weary inch up a nearly vertical slope. He felt only a tiny quiver of relief as the last plant slowly, slowly crept back to life, for they still had to cross an endless expanse of at least a dozen feet to reach the tents.
Elkan huddled on a short length of log, arms around Tobi. She pressed tight against him and trembled. He pointed each of the wizards to a tent as they straggled in. Josiah stopped and stared at him for several minutes before he could formulate a coherent sentence. “You should go to bed, too. One of the herders…” He couldn’t remember the rest, but it didn’t matter, for Elkan was shaking his head.
“I’ll come as soon as everyone’s in. We’re over there.” He waved a shaking hand to the farthest tent.
Smash Elkan’s blighted sense of responsibility. Josiah wasn’t going to wait. His master could put everyone else before himself if he wanted, but he could at least have thought of Josiah before assigning himself and his apprentice the worst spot. The extra few steps stretched like miles before Josiah could finally let go of Sar’s neck, slide to the ground, and crawl through the tent flap to the blessed pallet of blankets waiting for him.
The Law of Isolation Page 15
