“May the God preserve us!” said Jaift, low, like it was really a prayer. “Meridy! Can’t you do anything?”
Meridy squirmed out from beneath the wagon, ran out to Niniol, scooped up a double handful of dust, and threw it over him. Sunlight caught and tangled in the dust and around him, limning him in light that was at once both real and ethereal. “Niniol!” Meridy cried. “Niniol! By your name I call you and bind you to the world!” That was something the other witch couldn’t do: she was the one who knew his name. Meridy threw more dust to help catch the light and show the real world exactly where Niniol was, so that when he moved, the sunlight curved around him almost as it would around a living man. Figuring out what the dust was for helped; she saw how only a little dust would do, as long as she balanced the real against the ethereal just right.
The double-shadowed man, obviously the witch-king’s servitor, had turned in surprise. He smiled, unimpressed by anything she’d done. Then he stepped toward Meridy, lifting his hand. She scrambled backward, knowing she could not get out of his way fast enough. But Niniol, shimmering in the sunlight that glinted off clouds of suspended dust, jerked his head up, twitched his sword experimentally, grimaced in determination, squared his stance, pivoted, lunged, and took their enemy’s head off with one lunge.
The blood was as red as any man’s blood, and the head bounced. Meridy screamed, a thin sound that embarrassed her. She pressed a hand over her mouth, staring at Niniol. He didn’t look upset. He looked grim, and determined.
With the servitor dead, the bound ghosts of the dead men were already dispersing. But even if the ghost boy didn’t consider them a threat, the brigands were still there, and threat enough, surely. Standing in the open was obviously a terrible idea. A quarrel went through Niniol’s shoulder, but harmlessly, thumping solidly into the ground. Meridy hastily caught a ghost horse, ducking away from another quarrel that whipped past. She brought the ghost horse to Niniol, using dust and sunlight to show the world where the animal was and bring it into the real. This wasn’t even difficult anymore. She hadn’t thought she’d ever be grateful for the brigands by the stream, for their forcing her to find out how to use smoke and dust and such liminal things to bring ghosts into the real. At least she was grateful she’d learned she might do such things before this horrible day. “Stay close to me,” she warned Niniol, “or I may not be able to keep you in the real.”
Niniol vaulted into the saddle without a word and rode for the nearest attackers. Dust swirled thickly around him, which helped Meridy maintain him in the real. Now that the double-shadowed man was gone, Niniol cut a terrible swath through the outlaws and no one could stop him. Although his sword could touch living men, the brigands’ weapons were harmless to him. Iëhiy came into view and Meridy bent him back into the real, too, and sent him to help Niniol. A moment later the outlaws were in full retreat. The remaining guards swept into a ragged mop-up action.
Meridy pressed her fists against her head and strained to hold her ghosts in the real.
Jaift tentatively touched her shoulder. “Meridy?”
Meridy lost her hold on the ghosts. To the living without eyes to see, Niniol and the wolfhound must have seemed to blink out like candles in a strong wind; even to her, they seemed suddenly insubstantial. She felt strangely insubstantial herself, as though she had fallen partway into the ethereal, and she had a crashing headache. But it didn’t matter. The outlaws were in full rout now, and the danger was over.
Meridy straightened with a groan, suddenly aware of bruises she hadn’t noticed acquiring. She hadn’t fought at all—she’d only run and ducked under the wagon—but she felt like she’d been beaten all over.
Slowly, the survivors reappeared from under wagons or behind bales. Derren lifted his wife tenderly down from her wagon and went to help Jihiy from her hiding place. Jaift ran to embrace her mother.
Meridy didn’t follow. She could imagine what they must all think of her. Everyone would know she was a true witch, now. Jaift would tell her parents about the ghost boy, what he’d said. She would tell them about that horrifying double-shadowed witch who had tried to bind Niniol; she might even remember the ghost boy had said the man was Tai-Enchar’s servant. Servitor. Meridy didn’t know what a servitor even was and doubted Jaift did, either, but Jaift might well have recognized the name of the witch-king. Two hundred years had passed since Tai-Enchar had betrayed High King Miranuanol and shattered the High Kingdom and himself gone down into ruin for his malicious ambition, but his was still a name anyone might recognize.
Worse, Jaift would surely warn her parents that Meridy might have drawn the attack on them in the first place. That wasn’t fair. Or it was, in a way, but how could Meridy have guessed anything like this might happen?
Everything had been good, and it had all gone wrong. So fast. Everything was ruined, and Meridy didn’t even understand how it could have happened. The brigands had been horrible, but if it had been only an attack by brigands, at least it wouldn’t be her fault.
And she didn’t understand how blue-eyed Jaift had seen the ghost boy in the first place. Meridy increasingly felt she didn’t understand anything.
Guards moved among the fallen, sorting the dead from the wounded, wary of the body of the double-shadowed servitor, though in death he seemed just…ordinary. The men moved their own wounded gently aside and bound the injured brigands to await questioning. One of the men pulled the quarrel that had killed Niniol out of his face and threw a cloak over the body. Niniol’s ghost watched with a profoundly unsettled expression. Meridy didn’t blame him. She felt sick and shaky herself, and she wasn’t even hurt.
Very few of the other ghosts were still present. Meridy saw no trace of the servitor’s ghost, for which she was grateful. Most of the ghosts would have already taken the White Road to the God’s realm; some would have fled back to their homes, to hover around their wives or children or brothers for a few days before disappearing into the God’s hand. One or two might linger, quick, for a longer time, caught by fury or fear or simple surprise between the real world and the ethereal realms, until a priest sent them on or a witch bound them or luck led them to a ghost town, where they might make a place for themselves amid the combined memories of the ghosts who dwelt there.
Niniol came slowly over to Meridy. Iëhiy, trailing at his heels, pressed past him and flopped wearily down on her feet, panting as though he had been tired out by his exertions, though of course a ghost dog couldn’t actually get tired.
“I can’t see anyone clearly but you,” Niniol told her, his voice thin. “And the dog. Everything else is sort of vague and…flickery.” His voice was the familiar bodiless whisper of the quick dead, but still recognizably his own voice even so. He ran a translucent hand through colorless hair, obviously still partly in shock from his sudden death.
Meridy glanced around, but no one seemed to be paying her particular attention. They were all too busy about their own tasks in the aftermath of the battle. Besides, what did it matter now? There had been plenty of witnesses to her bringing the ghosts into the real. Starting with Jaift, whose blue eyes were completely misleading, and that was just not fair—witches were supposed to have black eyes.
But Meridy shrugged all that aside because she was sorry for Niniol. “That’s normal,” she said, as kindly as she could. “I’ve anchored you—I’ve bound you to the living world. I’m sorry. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I’m pretty sure that means you’ll see the real more clearly when you’re near me. If you get too far away from me, you’ll probably find everything becomes vaguer as you…” She hesitated, but of course she had to warn him. “As you start to fade. If the White Road doesn’t open for you, if you can’t find me, if you can’t find something else that holds you, you could…lose yourself. The tales say. It’s important for the quick dead to stay close to their anchors, unless they want to fade. Into a whisper on the wind and then nothing.” She hesitated. “I am sorry. Jaift said you were married? Your wife might serv
e as another anchor for you, even if she’s not a witch.”
“I was married. She passed down the White Road….” Niniol looked around, squinting as though he half expected to see the God’s Road open up before him.
Meridy wouldn’t have been surprised, but she saw nothing, and apparently he didn’t either. She said tentatively, trying to reassure him, “I’m sure you’ll find your way to the White Road. It’ll open for you eventually and you can join her in the God’s realm. I would let you go, you know. Of course I would.”
Niniol looked around but appeared to see no shining road of light opening up before him. He said after a moment, “Well, I’m glad enough you could hold me. Believe me. I thought the…other witch had me. After I…died.” Niniol touched his face with the tips of his fingers. “I can almost feel the quarrel still.” He shuddered helplessly.
“You killed him. You saved the twins. And everyone else, I think.”
Dropping his hand, Niniol shook his head. “It was your warning that made it possible to salvage anything from that mess.” He tried to smile. “Late as it was in coming.”
“I’m sorry. I did warn you as soon as I found out. I wish it had been sooner.”
“So do I.”
Jaift came up, hesitant but nodding to Niniol as well as Meridy. “I’m sorry,” she said to Niniol. “Are you…That is, I’m sorry.”
Niniol ducked his head, not seeming at all surprised that Jaift was addressing him. “Happens,” he said gruffly. “Just not to me, before.” His face tightened, probably with the memory of his death, but he squared his shoulders and added, “Could have been a lot worse. For a minute there, I thought it was going to be a lot worse.”
“Yes, it was terrifying,” Jaift said earnestly. “And so peculiar.” She turned to Meridy. “I’ve never seen anything like that man before. But the…the witch-king’s servitor? What does that even mean? The witch-king’s been dead for two hundred years!”
Meridy had no idea, but she’d obviously been right about Jaift recognizing Tai-Enchar’s name. But that wasn’t what she most wanted to know. She said, trying not to sound too accusing, “You saw him too—you saw how strange his shadow was! You can see Niniol. And you were looking at Iëhiy before! Even though your eyes are blue!”
“Oh, well,” Jaift said unhappily. “I only see things, you know.” She nervously rubbed her eyelids, then dropped her hand and met Meridy’s eyes. “I’m not really a witch. Not really. I’m…I see and hear ghosts, yes, but I don’t know how to actually do anything. Not like you. You made Niniol real. That was so…I couldn’t have done that.”
Meridy stared at the other girl, wondering if Jaift was telling the truth or thought she was.
Jaift ducked her head and went on quickly, “My uncle—he did it when I was a baby. Turned my eyes blue to match my mother’s eyes. He told me. Obviously I don’t remember.”
Meridy couldn’t imagine how a witch could do anything like that. Maybe Jaift’s uncle was actually a sorcerer as well as a witch. “Do your parents know?” But she realized they must. Why else would they have been so nice to a black-eyed village girl who turned up asking for shelter?
“Yes, I suppose.” Jaift did not sound quite sure. She glanced over her shoulder at her family, gathered together now in a little knot, then back at Meridy. “I mean, of course they know, but they don’t—no one ever—we don’t talk about it. My uncle, no one minds him—after all, he’s a priest—but it’s different for me. Even if I can’t do anything. Which I can’t. And Jihiy was hit, you know. In the leg. With a quarrel.”
“Oh,” said Meridy, suddenly understanding. She was more than willing to help if she could, especially if it made Derren and Maraift less likely to blame her for Jihiy’s getting injured in the first place. She looked past Jaift, toward the other Gehliy children, gathered into a tight knot with their parents hovering over them. They were all staring at her, but now Meridy she could see how anxious they looked. Not angry. At least, not yet. Maybe they were too shocked to be angry, yet. Meridy turned questioningly to Niniol.
“I don’t know,” he said quietly, his voice the breathless murmur of a ghost. “But I would be willing to try.”
Meridy nodded and followed Jaift slowly toward the family group. “Maraift,” she said, nodding to the woman, and then to Derren, “Excellent sir.” She didn’t know what she expected. She tried to look mature and responsible and not the least bit like a horrible witch who might steal a little girl’s soul while she healed her. She was vividly aware of the sidelong looks she was getting from all directions. The children were more honest: they stared openly. Except Jihiy, who rocked back and forth, a nasty little quarrel standing in her leg.
Jaift moved to kneel and put her arm around her sister. She looked at Meridy with a helpless expression. “I can’t do anything,” she said again. “I don’t know how.”
Derren Gehliy was pressing a cloth against his cheek, where he had evidently been cut. But the plump merchant spoke with more dignity than Meridy would have believed possible.
“I gather we’re all much in your debt. If you hadn’t warned Niniol”—he glanced toward the body, an automatic flinching glance that the rest of them, including Niniol’s ghost, copied involuntarily—“we’d all be dead, I think. You are a…” He hesitated over witch and said instead, “You are able to…to bind and command ghosts? To, ah, heal?”
“I don’t know, excellent sir,” Meridy said warily. “I’ve always been able to see ghosts. But I’ve never actually tried to…to do anything else.”
“No, no, I shouldn’t think so,” answered the merchant, blinking. “Of course not.” He glanced down at his injured daughter. “But I know that is something, ah, that can sometimes be done.”
Meridy could hardly refuse. She said uncomfortably, “I’ll try, of course.”
“I’ll be glad to try, too,” agreed Niniol. “It’s my men who need you most.”
“Niniol says he’ll try, too, excellent sir.”
“Niniol?” said Maraift, and again everyone helplessly glanced over at the body.
“I feel sick,” Niniol muttered.
“Take deep breaths,” Meridy advised him, hoping it might help him feel more normal even if he didn’t actually need to breathe any longer.
Jihiy was biting her lip. “My leg hurts,” she said in a small, embarrassed voice. “It hurts a lot.”
Maraift sat down on the ground with a total disregard of her skirts and put an arm around her young daughter. “Oh, sweet, I know it does. Hang on a bit and we’ll make it better.”
Meridy said uncomfortably, “I may not…” But she couldn’t finish.
“I know, dear,” said Maraift. “But I’m sure you’ll try your best.”
Derren Gehliy touched Jihiy’s hair gently and threw a beseeching look at Meridy.
Meridy sat down next to Jihiy. Jaift wordlessly shooed the other children out of the way, though she herself retreated only a step or two and then hovered uncertainly.
Meridy nodded to her to indicate she should stay. She said to Maraift, “I’ve never—” and stopped. Uncertainty was not what any of them needed right now. “This shouldn’t take long,” she said instead, with confidence she was a long way from feeling.
Niniol hunkered down in the dirt next to them. His broad hands flexed as he kept himself from reaching, hopelessly, to touch Jihiy in comfort. “Could you let me get a look at the wound, miss?” he asked Meridy.
Meridy folded back the little girl’s skirt. Four inches of the quarrel stood obscenely out from her leg, broken off a handspan from the head. Jihiy shut her eyes and leaned against her mother.
“I don’t know much about this kind of healing,” said Niniol, “but for regular physicking, I know that quarrel has got to come out.”
“How?” asked Meridy.
Niniol shook his head. “If I were doing it, I’d cut to get the point out. Just pulling would do more damage. Then the wound would have to be packed with that healer’s powder to keep fever
out. But I don’t know about ghost healing.”
“I think we should probably get it out,” Meridy said reluctantly. “I don’t think I can do it, though.”
“Get Inden Temen to do it,” said Niniol. “He’s done some work like this before, helping physickers. So have I, but—” He cut that off. “Inden’s helping with the other wounded right now.”
“Can you get Inden Temen over here?” Meridy asked Maraift.
Maraift didn’t get up. She simply lifted her head and shouted, “Inden!”
The guard came up a minute later, scrubbing blood from his hands with a cloth. He looked at Jihiy, slanted a quick look at Meridy, and said to Maraift, “I’m sorry, excellent lady. I should have come to see your daughter before tending the men.”
“Not at all,” said Maraift. “Of course you had to make sure none of the men were dying before looking at, at”—she swallowed, got control of herself, and went on—“lesser injuries. Meridy wants you to get the arrow out before she tries to heal Jihiy.” It was, for Maraift, a miracle of brevity and precision.
“Oh,” said the man. He darted another quick look at Meridy. “Are—are there ghosts around here, then, excellent miss?”
“Only Niniol,” said Meridy a touch maliciously, “and he’s right beside you.”
Inden jumped and looked around nervously.
“Tell the fool to steady up and remember he’s a professional,” growled Niniol.
Meridy repeated this.
“I’ll be blessed,” said Inden, staring at her. “That’s the captain, all right, the bastard. Begging your pardon, sir,” he added hastily to the air. He knelt to inspect the wound. “Now, you just rest quiet, my girl,” he said to Jihiy. “This’ll hurt some, but it’s got to be done. Excellent lady, better give the kid something to bite on. Miss, if you’ll hold her leg still?”
The White Road of the Moon Page 9
