Highest Lord

by R. J. Price

  “Yes, I killed the man that was there,” Av said.

  Maybe if he never said the name himself, the images would fade from his mind. Maybe he could forget the man's face, forget the name so that it wasn't on the tip of his tongue constantly.

  “It is my understanding there was also a curse on that land. Perhaps on Rewel himself, no? Perhaps also, this is not a mind problem, but a magic-borne curse.”

  “Or it's the blooding,” the healer snapped from the elder's side.

  “Let them of the North be judge to that, but it is known that when one kills a man who has been cursed, before time has allowed the curse to be carried through, the one who did the killing takes on the curse.”

  “I killed Rewel and—” A kiss, wasn't that what Laeder had said? Av had thought it meaningless nonsense. This was not some myth or wild story. In the real world a kiss from true love did not release one from a curse. “—and so you think I took on his curse?”

  “It is possible,” the elder said.

  Av turned to the healer. “And what did you say about blooding?”

  “Sometimes when a warrior bloods a man, he is marked by it for the remainder of his days,” the healer said sternly. “The mind breaks.”

  “Then you can heal me,” Av said.

  “I can administer the standard cure for a hurt of the mind,” the elder said, standing shakily.

  She shuffled over to the bed, swaying slightly as she came to a stop before Av.

  And backhanded him with a strength she didn't appear to have. Av sucked in a breath and stared at her, questioning her sanity.

  “Suck it up, like one who has bitten into a lemon. It will pass.”

  “That's it?” Av protested as the elder took her seat again. “But you're healers!”

  “We can heal breaks and snaps and cracks,” the elder said. “Infection, disease, consumption, and the mind are beyond our capabilities.”

  “Normally if one comes to us with complaints such as yours we send them to bed,” the healer said. “We are then to find the steward or head of house, who assigns a rank to them. It is the task of the ranks to settle the minds. It is our task to keep the body alive until that can be done.”

  “A nice, social time, you mean,” Av growled.

  “Usually that is all that is required to cure a sadness or a missing of home,” the elder said. “There are some who see strange things, or hear what is not there. Those ones we care for as best we can, submitted permanently to the healer hall, they are placed in halls far from the palace, where they cannot hurt the court and the court cannot hurt them in return. There, they find some solace and hopefully peace.”

  “Those who are mad, you mean,” Av squeaked out.

  “Yes, there is no way to heal the mind,” the healer said, her voice quiet and suddenly respectful.

  “There are ways, but they are all but lost to us,” the elder said. “Sometimes a woman might be hysterical but only around her mate, so removing her to another hall heals her, though it is some years before she is ready to step away from the hall. At that time we assign a warrior to her, depending on her strengths and beliefs. It works out quite well for both parties.

  “There are old stories of a healer once, one of the mind. Her mother birthed her too early and she was near death upon birth, enabling her to see the spirit of a person, or so the story goes. She was never well, always ill in some manner or another. She could heal the spirit, but still not the mind.”

  “Yes, but that's the story of the mad queen,” the healer sighed out.

  “No, of the warrior queen.”

  “What's the difference between a hurt of the spirit and a hurt of the mind?” Av asked.

  “Seeing things is a hurt of the mind,” the healer said. “Seeing the dead man you killed because you are suffering from the blooding is a suffering of the spirit.”

  “Once there were words to describe a hurt of the mind. But the mind is a funny thing. It can be broken and it can be a hurt of the spirit. Yet the spirit can be broken and it is considered a hurt of the mind. Only one who can help the spirit would be able to tell you the difference.”

  “Where does that leave me?” Av asked.

  “Clinging to sanity until Aren is mated, I suppose,” the elder said and chuckled. “If you've taken on the curse, you will be cured then.”

  “And if it's the blooding?”

  “Then the spirits have mercy on you.”

  Chapter Three

  Url walked into the healer hall and found the desk empty. He tapped the bell once, indicating a visitor, and waited politely for the young healer to slip out of one of the private rooms. Her eyes flitted over him, over his clothing, over his face, then settled on his eyes.

  The grey Marilton eyes that she would recognize above all else. Few on palace lands had the grey eyes but many bloodlines in the North claimed them.

  She sat at the desk and drew in a small breath. “Reason for visit?”

  “I was informed that my cousin, Av, might be found in the healer hall. By chance he may be drunk off his rocker and possibly started a fight with someone?”

  “No, Av is sober,” the healer said, motioning to the room she had just left. “He is in need of rest, however, and cannot accept visitors until after he sleeps.”

  Which meant that the healers had given Av something to make him sleep.

  Url glanced around the hall, then back to the healer. “Can I ask the nature of his visit?”

  In the North he wouldn't have had to ask, he would have demanded. Most of the time even that wasn't necessary. If one of his blood visited a healer, the entire bloodline knew about it before the person left the healer's side. Everyone knowing was the only way for one of them to mend.

  They were just too damned stubborn to stay in bed long enough to heal otherwise.

  “You cannot,” the healer said. “However, we have been told to make exceptions to your bloodline based on your own traditions. In this case I believe it may even help, as your bloodline is well known for what I believe he is suffering from. Not—I'm sorry—not from what he's suffering from, but well known for what got him there in the first place.”

  “What got him here?” Url asked, a cold tingle working its way up his back.

  “He's suffering from the blooding.”

  “The blooding?”

  “The blooding.”

  He wondered if the healer was daft, stupid, or perhaps she was actually a lady who had been submitted to the hall on a permanent basis. Sometimes those folk were permitted to wander freely and had strange beliefs. Such as the one who thought he was the king of some island that the North had sunk below the ocean to punish him for denying them his daughter.

  Only, the man had been born and raised at Castle Grey.

  “Wait, do you mean he blooded a man?”

  “Ripped a man to shreds?” the woman asked, apparently understanding that there had been some confusion over her words. “Yes, he came to us because he saw the man's head sitting in the hallway. Sometimes warriors have lapses with the present after doing such a thing, unable to live with their own actions.”

  “And besides me, you are sworn to complete secrecy?” Url asked.

  “Absolutely. I only agreed to tell you because you are blood. Your bloodline is known for that specific action, and you might actually be able to help him.”

  “I've never done it,” Url murmured. “All right, fine—can't see him, but what about the survivor, a woman? Is she taking visitors?”

  “I believe she is up. I will check to see if she wants a visitor,” the healer said, and then walked off.

  Without asking his intent?

  She returned a moment later and motioned for Url to follow her, stopping just outside a door.

  “Now, I do need to tell you that the young woman will be under our care for some time. I realize your rank enjoys eye contact, but she cannot make it. There's something wrong. The eyes are there, they appear to be working, but there's nothing getting through t
o her.”

  “You're saying she's blind?”

  “Yes, otherwise she is well enough, considering everything. But the point really is, she cannot make eye contact. Her eyes may look like they work, but they do not. Please do not take offense and start a fight or an argument with her, as she is under our protection.”

  Meaning if Url did try such a thing, the wrath of all the healers of the palace would come down on his head. They might not have been able to mend bone, but that had never stopped a healer from killing a man with a touch.

  “Fair enough, then I will behave,” Url said.

  The healer shook a finger at Url. He shrugged in response and opened the door to enter the dimly lit room. Closing the door behind him, he considered his options before he turned to the occupant.

  She had turned her face towards him, though her eyes were on the floor, not on his face. A small frown creased her brow as her face lifted higher, almost looking him in the eyes.

  “My name is Danya, and who are you?”

  Url picked up the chair in the corner meant for visitors and set it by the bed, where he could sit and speak with her without feeling out of place. At least, that was his hope.

  Taking the seat, Url let out a small breath.

  “I am Url Marilton, High Lord of the North and son of Er Marilton and Olea—” Url stopped speaking, seeing the confusion on Danya's face. “You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?”

  “Do you really announce your family each time you speak?”

  “Family?” Url almost spat out the word. “I suppose they are my family, but no. No one talks about family. We talk about our blood and our bloodline.”

  “There's a difference?” Danya asked.

  “Blood are those you are related to by birth, but our people have a long history. There are many recorded times when blood betrayed a body, but family does not. Family is not necessarily blood, but are those who care for us.”

  “Ah, such as Mar and Aren—they are family, no?”

  “I believe so, yes, but no one would dare speak of it,” he said.

  “And you and your father...?” Danya asked, frowning as if confused. “Url, Er. The names are almost the same.”

  “To those of the North, if they were asked who my father might be, they know. Url belongs to Er, and anyone who tries me, must answer to my father.”

  “A type of claiming,” Danya said with a smile. “Like Aren and Anue.”

  “Somewhat, but they were named by their mother, who is from a region of the coast that hasn't quite been claimed by either the Eastern baron or by palace lands. A type of no-man's land that has no culture of its own, so it picks and chooses from other lands.”

  “Such knowledge. And what is the purpose of your visit today, Url?” Danya asked.

  “I came to ask about what happened in your village.”

  Danya shook her head. “Like many children born to the world, I simply understood it to be true. I was born in that village, thought I'd die there. I knew things were different before, I knew they were different elsewhere, but I had no means of escape. Everyone who tried vanished. We could see travellers passing by the lines of the village, they could see us, but they never came close enough to speak. That was how we knew the others had vanished.

  “As to what happened, none could really say. Rewel knew the most, I think.”

  “Due to the matters at hand, I need to press you for information about Aren specifically,” he countered.

  “Press me?” Danya asked, almost sounding amused.

  “Surely you felt the terror come through not long ago.”

  “Terror?” Danya asked, shaking her head. “No, I awoke terrified. In a dark place. I thought for a moment I was back there and he...”

  “He who?” Url asked.

  “That was her?” the woman asked. “That was Aren? She never felt like that in the village. I mean, she felt, but it never did that.”

  “I need to know what might have put her in that mood,” he said. “I need to know how to keep her from feeling that way again.”

  “Rewel brought her to the village. I knew she was not like the others, but I still allowed him to link her to the village. I was just so tired of it all, of the women dying, of having to clean and bury the bodies myself because ranks are the only ones able.”

  Which was not true at all, but Url was not about to correct her notion on that. However Danya had been raised, there would be a lifetime ahead of her to correct the notions. She was young still, and she would eventually adapt to the new world she had been dragged into.

  “I had hoped Aren would end it, or might even become angry enough to do me a mercy. Suppose I should have been careful what I wished for.

  “Rewel all but ignored her for months, visiting only to demand what was going on when the village and lines changed so quickly, but otherwise seemingly had no interest. When spring began to come, I suppose he became desperate. Wanted to keep the blood there. He tried to give her something, to make her go along with his plan, but she detected it somehow and threw it at him. Perhaps the throne did that, I don't know.

  “He became angry and came up to demand what I had said to her. I had just discovered my herbs had been gone through and was gathering my courage to confront him when that gorgeous man showed up—Av. Rewel shouldn't have gone out to meet him. Surely he saw that Av was a warrior, but that didn't matter for some reason. They didn't even fight.”

  Url watched as Danya fell silent. He closed his eyes and tried not to imagine what that must have been like for her.

  “You saw him do it?” he asked.

  He could count on one hand how many people witnessed such a thing and lived to tell about it. Even those not involved ended up being destroyed in the warrior’s rage, leaving no one left behind.

  “Yes, I saw him do it. I had heard stories about what warriors could do, but I always thought it was with a weapon. Surely that takes some kind of magic.”

  “Surely it does, but no one who goes probing ever survives.”

  “I know—I know that. The stories all said it. That was why I stayed put, why I didn't run even though everything in me was screaming to. I just wanted to flee and hide and pray he didn't find me, but I knew he would, I knew that if I moved I would be no better off than Rewel.

  “When he was done, he held Rewel's head in his hands gentle like, as if it were a babe. He set it on the ground, on its neck so that it sat there straight up, as if the rest of his body were beneath the earth itself. He made it balance there, and had to pick it up and move rocks out from under it and try again in order to make it work. Once it sat straight, he went after Aren.

  “I was afraid for her, I was, but I still didn't move. Tears blurred my eyes as they came back and they wanted to leave right away, but I said I was afraid I'd fall off the world, like everyone else. They agreed to stay the night, if only to get Aren drunk to find out if it were safe for me to leave. I didn't tell them that I wanted to stay there because I was afraid of him. He was still covered in Rewel's blood. It terrified me, the idea of going off with this man.”

  “He cleans up nice,” Url said. “And most of the time Av is a threat to no one but himself.”

  “I know and understand that,” Danya said quietly. “But my last clear vision of this world is hard to shake, and it was of him killing the only man I had ever known.”

  “That would be hard to take, very hard.”

  Danya couldn't stay at the palace. Not if she harboured such ill feelings towards Av, no matter how justified those reasons were. Just because she was now blind didn't mean she was stuck in the healer hall, or any hall for that matter. She could learn to make her way through life as many elders and warriors had in the past after losing their sight to age or fighting.

  “My parents will be arriving shortly. Would it be all right if they visited you?” Url asked. “They are good people, and they would take kindly to your presence I think.”

  “They may.”

  “And my
uncle,” he said, thinking of Ervam. “He's a trainer, I'm betting you've never met one of them before.”

  “Oh,” Danya said, sounding genuinely interested. “No, I've never met a trainer before. I have read about them, though.”

  “Good, they’re all good people,” he said, then hesitated and thought about their conversation. “How did you know I didn’t mean you or Aren harm?”

  “You meant me harm,” Danya said confidently. “But Aren’s mark is on you. It’s like a beacon, I believe they are called. A light in the darkness. You barely know her and yet are loyal to her, just as she does not know you yet trusts you with her life. Like to like, you call to one another.”

  “How…?”

  “The healers say that without my sight, my other senses, the other ways I interact with the world, will grow stronger, keener. For much it will take time, but magic adapts very quickly, I think. I cannot see you.” Danya paused to turn her face to Url. “But I can see you. Does that make sense?”

  Url shuddered. He had to find his uncle, before he did something brash and stupid.

  “It makes about as much sense to me as the rest of the world will make to you, I think,” he managed to get out.

  “What was that tone for?” Danya demanded.

  “It's...” Url struggled to find the appropriate word. “Creepy. I've never heard anyone talk like that. My father and uncle would know better. I consult them before I make any brash decisions.”

  “Does that mean I must die? To keep the blood pure?”

  “That choice would be up to the mate to the throne, whose decision would likely be swayed by Aren’s. For now you are an oddity, and I apologise, as I suspect you saw my reaction to your words.”

  “I did, instinctual fear of the unknown. But I’m not one of the unranked ones. I'm just a healer who is re-purposing magic in order to interact with the world. I’m finally free after decades of being confined to one place with one man. I don’t want to be kept in this little room for the rest of my life just because I am unable to get around on my own.”