by Sandra Waugh
“We destroy them together, the witch and her magic!”
“The sea will be tamed!”
“The rain will come!”
“We will reap the fruits of sacrifice!”
Sacrifice was personal. It was unselfish. “This is no sacrifice!” I tried to scream. “This is butchery!”
But they ignored me, a new vitality infusing their efforts, as if indeed slaughter were bringing them rewards already.
Sorrow of slaughter…another hint of rhyme floated through my mind. I watched, dazed, as they piled more remnants of their cottages around me. Sorrow of slaughter…where did that come from? Ah. The little verse, which proved me the Guardian of Death—the one who’d reclaim the amulet for Tarnec and help restore Balance. Was this what those words had also presaged? That Lark would fall, the shell be abandoned, and Chaos unleashed. Innocents slaughtered, including me. Except…was I innocent? Was this because of what I’d done?
Sorrow. I should weep for it all.
My head was spinning, but now from something beyond exhaustion, beyond pain. Some little noise was boring into my head and befuddling everything. Thoughts were splintering into incomprehensible fragments, memories and nightmares—
I am chasing Lark through Krem Poss’s lavender fields. Her brown hair flies like the wings of the bird she was named for, her laughter filters back through the waves of rich purple, and the perfume wafts lush and soothing. I am tying blue ribbons on our booth at market day. The soaps and balms are so prettily displayed on the white-clothed table—the rose glycerin, the hyssop and wood aloe. Quin is waving to me, piping a little tune on his flute; Cath is dancing behind. There is Grandmama at the door of our warm cottage. She cries: “Evie! Evie! Where are you?” And I realize I am gone. And then all the sweet things are disappearing and there is no more lavender, no more ribbons or song, but a bleak waste of land—a place where no rain refreshes the colors. There is no color.
The noise swelled and I gnashed my teeth at it, groaning. Swifts—after two attacks I recognized their mind-bursting shrill; they were coming and I could do nothing to evade it. Instead, I ground the back of my head against the post and watched in some disconnected, agonizing dream as the villagers attacked the pile of debris with flints, igniting the thatch. Flames licked fast, surrounded. A circle tightening, collapsing in upon itself. How much I wished for the cool of night, of water. How much I needed to tear the noise from my skull! I heard a last shattering scream. Mine.
But maybe not—heads were turning to the sky, bodies sinking in terrified helplessness. Specks of black against the harsh sun were growing larger, incessant, insane noise filling the space. And in a rush came the swifts.
The first one dove straight for the needle-faced man, who’d shaken from his surprise and was running—they all were running now. ’Twas their screaming. There was an explosion—bright, hot, vicious. And then I was hysterically laughing, while the villagers scattered and the swifts shrieked. Black upon black: wing against rough cloth, against dark hair. Panic for all…
But breaking a Healer’s mind.
Swift-bred terror and sorrow of slaughter…I was alone—dying Healer, dying Guardian, crowned with silver hair and clothed in fading turquoise—inside a ring of fire in the center of a collapsed town. Smoke stung my eyes and warped the shapes of all the villagers ’til I thought they were the Troths and we were back in Merith on that ugly day, when Raif was dead and Laurent caught my stare. When everything ended and everything began.
Laurent! I imagined him in the haze, seated on the glossy back of Arro, healed and whole and sword wielding once more. “No, don’t!” I was crying, not wanting rescue—then oh so desperately wanting it. “Come back! Come back!”
It was Laurent, wasn’t it? There—whatever that whorl of smoke was? Whatever was creating that violent wind that seemed to whisk everything away—sweeping all the brutality under the sand, burying it deep.
So that I could burn alone like a splash of color—a drop of water.
There…and gone.
DAPPLED SUNLIGHT. WISP of breeze. The faint scent of oat bread fresh from the hearth. My attic bedroom in Merith—the way the light played through the window, and how the heat and smells of the kitchen warmed through the floorboards.
Home. My heart leaped with relief. Then somewhere I remembered that I’d left home, that home was in another place. The thought drifted, ethereal and fleeting, before I sank deeper into slumber.
A change of time. Warm glow of candlelight, scent of a chicken stew. Thyme, I murmured. Bay. A favorite supper: oat bread and stew. A celebration of my return. Grandmama and Lark are downstairs. And yet they shouldn’t be….
Night and day and another night. Or perhaps ’twas only a moment, for time held no bearing. I felt the faint warmth of candlelight again, smelled the fresh oat bread….
This time my eyes cracked open, then widened. This was not my attic room, nor the cottage in Merith, yet it was a similar pretty space under eaves, an alcove of whitewashed plaster. I nestled under a sun-bleached quilt smelling of lemon balm—the same herb that Grandmama folded into our linens. A curtain of similar cloth acted as a screen. There was a glass vial holding a snip of goldenrod on the crossbeam above my head. A lit candle sat next to it.
Sweet scents, soft bed. To sleep and drift forever in such gentle comfort…I snuggled deeper under the cover. As my eyes closed I caught a glimpse of turquoise—my cloak and frock hung in the corner on a black coatrack. They were filthy, completely out of place. I blinked, saw my hands curled over the sheets, saw that I too was filthy—my hair was straw, my undershift stank of smoke, my fingernails shredded.
The last things remembered: drought, smoke, noise, panic. This peace made no sense. I pushed off the sheets and stood on tender soles, wincing, a little dizzy. I reached for the curtain; firelight played on the other side of it and for a moment I hesitated. Then I yanked back the cloth.
A crackling fire, a wide hearth. An orange tabby cat curled up on the near side; a short, heavy-bellied elderly man perched on a stool at the far. The man was muttering to the burning logs, scratching the wisps of white hair that ringed a shiny bald scalp and plucking at the little beard on his chin.
He paused from his mumblings to say clearly: “You are quite safe here.”
I stared at him, then around, gave a little shudder of release. The fire was warm, the floorboards worn smooth, the furniture of familiar comfort—
“I expect two things,” the old man continued. His voice was a little blustery but cheerful. He reminded me of Perdy Ginnis back in Merith. “I expect you would like to wash, and that you are famished.”
Those were true. I took a step into the room. “There are two things that I expect as well.” My voice was so very raw. “I expect you will tell me who you are and how I got here.”
A chuckle. “A curious one, aren’t you? Most people would be content with a meal.”
“If you saved me then I must thank you by name.” It was still hard to breathe, hard to think. “I want to know what happened.”
“Ah.” He stood up. He was no taller than I; the hem of his dusky purple robe brushed the floor. “Curiosity, my dear, killed the cat.” He sighed at the tabby, who hissed back at him. “Nonetheless, the cat is still here.” The old man turned to me then, eyes crinkling at what I think he supposed a joke. His eyes were dark and very piercing, but the crinkled edges gave him humor. He found humor in me, I thought. I looked back as straight as I could, given my wobbling stance.
“Have your wash first,” he said. “There will be a meal ready for you when you are finished. I think Salva can have your garments all clean by then?” And then he wasn’t looking at me, but at a stooped old woman who was darning a bright yellow stocking in the corner behind me. She laid aside her sewing, stood, and murmured shyly, with eyes downcast, “A bath, mistress.”
When had I last seen a washcloth? I left the old man and followed the woman as docilely as a newborn chick. She had tucked her white hair
in a bun, not unlike the way Grandmama wore it, though the rest of her was scrawny where Grandmama was sturdy. We went outside into a night sky, then across a short bit of grass to another building.
“An herb shed,” I said, recognizing. ’Twas like the one we’d lost in Merith: a single room with a fireplace on one side, though instead of drying racks a tin tub was centered in the room. The tub was already filled with hot water—I was so grateful that I did not ask until later, when more steaming buckets were brought by two redheaded children who disappeared as quickly as they came: “Where is the water being drawn? There is a drought.”
“Not to mind that, mistress. You are safe here,” Salva murmured. It seemed she always murmured and ducked when speaking.
“And already warmed,” I added.
To which she murmured again, “Not to mind that. You are safe.”
The pleasure of being clean! That my hair was no longer the color of the ash, and the salt rinsed from my cuts—every curiosity paled to it, dissolved in the scent of milk soap. ’Twas only after, when I steeped in the still-hot bath waiting for Salva to return, that I began to study the walls of shelves—or what crowded the shelves: jars upon jars of things preserved. The print was too tiny to read from where I sat, and mostly they blurred in quantity, but certainly some were recognizable—the lily, orris, and pimpernel…
I felt a lurch of memory, a sudden thrill. I climbed out of the tub, wrapped the rough sheet around me, and wandered, dripping, to inspect closer. ’Twas all as I would have imagined Dame Gringer’s shelves: the repeating tidy little rows, the labels all neatly inked….I found myself grinning, gripping the sheet in excitement—
Salva was back with my undershift, all sparkling white and lemon-scented. “So quick!” I laughed, snatching it from her in my eagerness.
“Not to mind,” the woman replied, looking down of course. But I didn’t listen. I was dragging the shift over my head, mumbling thanks.
“I’ll go back now,” I said, and fairly ran to the door. But I stopped there just to check: “This enormous collection: it is his, isn’t it?”
Salva ducked, nodding her head and murmuring. I turned and ran across the grass.
The old man was still near the hearth, but a crock of stew and a hunk of crusty oat bread were waiting for me at the chair next to him.
“Ah,” he said. “Now I can see your face.”
“And I see you,” I said, breathless. “You are the White Healer. I’ve been searching for you!”
He looked deeply into my eyes again, the corners of his own crinkling once more. “You have found me, then. Have your supper.”
—
Night blurred into day, and what I remember was the relief of being safe and long-forfeited pleasures: favorite supper, bright hearth, sweet-smelling pillow, clean clothes and hair.
And then it was sunlight and I stood with the old man, surveying a little cluster of cottages that nestled close to each other. That it was a true village, I could not be entirely sure, there was no activity, so few dwellings, but they faced each other around a small square, surrounding a communal well. I drank in the picture like one parched. A scene—a way of life—that I’d thought was lost.
So tidy, so sweet! So like beloved Merith cottages, with the roof thatching evenly trimmed, the plastered exteriors newly whitewashed. There were neatly drawn gardens at the edge of each front doorstep. The White Healer’s tabby was haunting someone’s pretty grouping of peonies and delphs, my favorites. And if such early flowers were out of place at summer’s end, it did not matter, for this was a White Healer’s territory; magic was in play.
I wandered over to the common well centered in the middle of the square, perched on the sun-warmed edge like I used to at home, and squinted up at the sky. Too piercingly blue, so I dropped my gaze, looked down into the well, wondering if I could see a reflection of sunlight as I could in Merith, but it was far too deep. I brought my head level once more and sighed long. A smiling, red-cheeked woman stepped out of a doorway to sweep her entry stones. She looked vaguely familiar—it had to be the buttercup color of her apron. She waved at me and I waved back, thinking of silly Cath, and market day, and then more fleetingly of villages charred and smoking. Like a dark shadow, the memory whisked through—a sharp rending of this peace, but then blessedly gone. And, because it was so quickly gone, I put my hand to my heart, suddenly overwhelmed.
The White Healer was coming toward me. I said, “Your village—you’ve been spared by drought, spared from tragedy. There is color here, kindness.” The words were thick in my throat. “I feel as if I’ve been in some dark dream for so long, and I’ve ached for this—this—”
“Innocence.”
I choked as he said it. He’d taken the very word I couldn’t seem to speak. I nodded, grateful, indebted for my rescue.
The old man held up a hand. “Not to mind the past,” he said gently. “You are here. You are safe. When you are ready you may speak your needs.”
This is my need, I thought. This haven in the midst of chaos.
Chaos. I jumped to my feet with a gasp. “I came to you. You have knowledge….”
Questions sputtered then blurred, I couldn’t make sense of what I was supposed to ask. There were things—desperate things that I’d somehow forgotten. When had everything gotten so muddy? I could feel the cold of dread tingling at my hands and toes, but then the White Healer smiled. “Breathe deep, my dear,” he said. “There is time.”
Time—that didn’t seem right. I closed my eyes, trying to draw up a memory. “Hukon,” I blurted out. “My cousin, Lark, was stabbed with a spear made from hukon. Grandmama and I did our best to heal her, but the wound has reopened.”
“Then your cousin allowed it to reopen,” the White Healer clarified gently, a little gravely. “Hukon leaves a thread of connection. That is why it can never be truly cured.”
“A connection…” I tried to remember what I’d learned about Lark’s stabbing.
“A connection to the maker of the weapon. Who fashioned the spear, my dear, do you know?”
“Troths.” Troths. I had sickening images of them, suddenly. They’d cut a swath of destruction. They’d slaughtered Raif.
The White Healer’s voice cut in. “Where would a Troth find hukon in the middle of the Myr Mountains? Nay, someone provided it to the Troths.”
“Breeders.” The word fell out of me. “It would be their weapon.”
“Hmm.” He looked skeptical. “Breeders have been long dormant.”
“But they are gathering now, in force.” Thoughts were clarifying suddenly; the dread was surging, and dark things tumbled over one another in a race to be remembered. Raif, Laurent, Lark…I begged, “Your knowledge is what can save her. I was told this. I was told to come find you. That you would help.”
“You wish for a cure? My dear, I’ve just said there is no antidote—”
“Please!” The White Healer looked taken aback. I swallowed. “Please. Your little village has been spared so far, but the Breeders are rising against Balance. There is little time for Lark, for the—” I stopped, stunned, then said curiously, “For the shell.” How had I forgotten? I said, breathless, “My satchel!”
“Your satchel hangs on the rack by the door. It is quite safe. What is this shell?”
But I’d already turned and was running for the cottage.
The satchel hung just as he said. I yanked it from its knobby hook, pricked by splinters in my haste. I brought it to the hearth, sank down with it in my lap, and hugged it close, gulping. My emotions were wild—in moments I’d gone from sun-drenched contentment to desperation, and the relief I felt now was extreme. I’d lost Raif. I’d abandoned Laurent and I’d possibly killed Lark. But I had the shell. I had the shell.
Salva was in the corner darning her stocking, crooning little things, and over that I heard the old man entering. He settled on his stool by the fireplace, waited while I rocked the satchel. “My dear?” he asked after a time.
�
�I’m just…” I stopped, not knowing if I was laughing or trembling. “I’ve lost so much, made so many mistakes. I’m just so thankful to have this still.”
“Would you like to show me?”
After a moment I nodded. I straightened, undid the satchel, and lifted out the shell, holding it up for him to see. Little bloody streaks from the splinters stained my fingertips, but the shell was unharmed. All pinkish gray and nobbed. All as it should be.
The White Healer fixed his gaze. His eyes didn’t crinkle; there was no humor. And when he spoke, his voice was husky: “The amulet of Death.”
“You know its history?”
“The legend of Tarnec,” the old man murmured. “Yes, I know it. Life, Death, Dark, and Light—the orb, the shell, the black stone, and the blade. Amulets of the primal forces protected by the Keepers of Balance. Immense power entrusted to simple items.”
“It looks like nothing in my hand,” I agreed.
“Not true. Not true.” He studied it for a while longer before saying, “My dear, you must finish my story: How is it that you have this amulet?”
I looked at him, looking at the shell. My shell. I said a little hoarsely, “I am the Guardian of Death.”
He smiled broadly and sat back a little on his stool, as if contented. “And so you are. And so you hold the ability to save your cousin within your hands.”
I leaped from the hearth. “You know? Why did you not say it?”
“Because you must acknowledge who you are first, my dear. Had I promised you something before you claimed your Guardianship, then any healing efforts would be weakened. There is far more power to be harnessed when one commits to one’s own direction.”
It was beyond music, those words. “So you can craft a cure!”
The White Healer pulled back just a little. He tore his eyes from the shell to look at me. “No, my dear,” he said. “Your shell, your hands. You must do the crafting. But”—he smiled—“I will guide you.”
Grateful—how many times, now, had I thought it? An ugly memory of Haver flashed through and I wondered that I could be so far removed from those terrible last minutes of being burned alive and the swift attack. The dark of the past seemed to slide away, weakened against the hope I now held. That I had the shell, still, and now the ability to save Lark…I bent my head again, unable to speak.
