by Cat Bruno
For a moment, the King’s eyes cleared and he looked at her as he said, “Your plan is for the Islander to teach him the ways of the sword.”
Part-accusation, part-question, Caryss hesitated before answering. “If that is what the boy wishes.”
“What interest do you have in him?” the King asked, more alert than he had been since her arrival in the King’s City.
Herrin still did not know about her own babe, although nearly all else did as soon as they looked upon her. Caryss thought long on how to explain, knowing that she could not be completely truthful with Herrin, even now.
“It was the boy who found me, King Herrin. On the eve that I entered the Grand Palace, I spotted him.”
“Impossible!” the King cried, trying to sit up.
Holding him down gently, Caryss explained, “He was not there in the flesh, but in vision, following after Crispin as a dog would to his master. Yet Crispin could not see him, nor could the others. I talked to him that night and told him I would come, if he so wanted. He has known nothing but farm life for ten moon years nearly, and the boy grows anxious and bored. That is what I have promised him, the chance to see Cordisia.”
After a moment, Herrin told her, “He will not be safe once his identity becomes known.”
“Then none will know him. Do you even recall his name?” she asked, pulling the soiled robe from him as she realized the King was not arguing against actually finding the boy.
With a snort, he muttered, “I cannot recall what Crispin called him, but know that it was not a Rexterran name.”
Herrin shivered while she searched for a clean tunic. Caryss had crossed the room, yet heard his words all the same.
Looking through a satchel of clothing, she stated, “The boy was named for his mother’s people, I believe. I will let him introduce himself to you.”
Pulling a long, gray tunic from the bag, she crossed the room again, and, when she neared the cot, she paused.
“King Herrin,” she started, “I must know that the boy will be safe in my keep. Give me your word that it will be so.”
“You think I could harm the boy when I can no longer walk on my own legs,” he retorted, his words raspy and hoarse, for he had talked more then he had in moons, she knew.
“Your word, sir,” she told him, pulling him upright to slip the tunic over his silvery, thinning hair.
Once the tunic was in place, he stuttered, “I will not harm the boy, healer. Yet, I will need his word as well. In my current state, I am weaker than a child. This boy might harm me for all I know.”
“Would you not deserve it?” Caryss told him, before she could stop herself from speaking.
The room grew quiet. A flush now crossed his cheeks, adding a glow that made him look hale. She knew that she should not have addressed him so, yet did not apologize. Instead, she waited.
Before long, he sighed, “You know nothing of the ways of Rexterra, and less of the ways of rule, Caryss. Crispin is heir, yet was little more than a boy when the babe was born.”
“He was of an age as I am now, Herrin,” she laughed, although the sound was hollow.
“But the babe was a bastard nonetheless. The girl, I believe, could not even name her own father.”
“Even if I understood the ways of Rexterra, I would not support the killing of a babe. None should,” she told him, making no attempt to hide the disgust she felt.
“The babe is now a boy you’ve told me. Alive and blessed with some mage-skill, it seems. When you told me of him earlier, I did not seek to harm him nor did I think on sending word to the palace. These last ten moon years have been unkind to me, yet perhaps I am better for it. Caryss, I will not harm this boy. Indeed, I find myself looking forward to meeting him.”
After she explained to him the vows of Eirrannia, ones that she had only recently remembered, Herrin briefly told her of his kin, of the gold-eyed and flame-touched Rexterrans. He was tiring, she realized, but still she pushed for his promise.
“By all four points of the star and by the embers of the flame, I give you my word that I will not harm the boy,” he told her.
With a nod, she tucked a blanket around him, and said, “I will ask the boy to make a similar pledge. On the morrow, we leave.”
When she neared the door, he called out to her.
“How did you find him?”
His words were little more than a whisper now, but they both knew what more they meant. She had done what he had spent moon years trying to accomplish.
Staring at him with her eyes of the forest, Caryss answered, “He told me.”
She did not wait for a reply as she turned the knob and entered the empty hallway. Walking to her room, Caryss realized that whatever poison he had been given was beginning to drain from his body. And, with less poppy milk each day, Herrin was returning to the man he once was. His body was frail, as it would be for many moons, but his mind was clearer each day. If she could find an answer to the rash and fatigue that threatened him daily, he would be nearly the same man once again. Scarred and weakened, but a king nonetheless. The healer in her rejoiced.
But she herself trembled.
*****
19
“What has gotten in to you today, Jarek?” his mother asked.
She was scrubbing potatoes in the large sink, occasionally glancing back at him as he jumped from the wooden chair to look out the large window to the right, one that looked out onto the main gates of the farm. Each time he looked, the scene was the same. The sun fell lower now, full and bright, glowing as it dropped. The tall grasses swayed and the dirt-packed road lay dust-free, which meant no riders had approached.
He did not doubt that she would come and moved closer to the window, standing near his mother at the sink.
She swatted at him with a linen and chided, “Run off and let me finish up.”
Jarek knew that he could wait no longer to tell her of the woman. It had been two days past since she had contacted him last, and he expected her soon.
“Mama,” he stuttered, dodging the snapping towel, “We have visitors coming.”
He watched as his mother dropped a thickly bristled brush into the sink, heard it clang loudly, and waited, biting his lip as he did so. She slowly turned toward him, hands now emptied. With her silk-blue eyes, she looked at him, and Jarek struggled to return her gaze, knowing that he should have told her sooner.
“What do you mean?” she asked, taking her eyes from him to peer out the window.
His voice trembled, and, with a shaky shrill, he told her, “She called me, and I went to see her. She asked where to find us, and I answered. She will arrive near sunfall.”
Turning back to him, she cried, “Who is coming?”
“The woman from the palace.”
“Why would she come here?” his mother gasped, moving checkered curtains to again look out the window.
Jarek felt as if he could not breathe, and he knew that his fair cheeks were burning bright. In his mother’s voice, he could hear anger, although she had tried to keep it hidden. There was something else in her voice that he could not place, and her eyes were shining, looking more like sea than sky.
Drawing a deep breath into tight lungs, he uttered, “To take me with her.”
At over ten moon years old, he should have known what was to come, but, still, he jumped back, banging his head on the edge of the wall when the thunder struck loud and violent.
In a voice he would not have known to be hers, she asked, “Where does she seek to go, Jarek?”
Another clap of thunder pounded against the glass pane beside him, rattling loud, but this time he had expected it and did not tremble.
Instead, he rushed from the room and into the open yard, beneath the suddenly churning skies.
Closing his eyes, Jarek raised his hands above his head, spreading his fingers and stretching his arms as far as they could reach. A whistling hush of air escaped his lips as his hands traced and danced. Above him, gray clouds gathered
, dark and thick, but no rain fell.
Again he pushed at the air, forcing his arms faster and faster from left to right. Around him the wind increased, pulling at his tunic and hair.
It did not take long for him to calm the storm, to clear her anger from overhead, and, when he next looked up, his mother stood watching from the wide-planked porch. The skies had lightened, but her arms hung at her sides, as if in defeat.
Jarek did not move as she walked toward him. His thin arms, long and lanky, now hung beside him, twitching only slightly. He had grown stronger, he knew, and bit his lip so his mother would not see him smile. He had moved her clouds as if they had been naught but vision. Steps from him now, she called his name.
“She will be here soon, mama,” he yelled, his voice edged with air.
“You are a child!” his mother cried, “Just because the skies heeded your call once does not make you a master. You have much to learn, Jarek, and must do it on the farmstead where none can see.”
“Mama, what more can I learn here? My books are falling apart with too much use, and the skies here know me and offer little challenge. If I am to improve, I must visit other skies and taste other water.”
“I told you that I would bring a swordmaster here. It takes time, son. Give me a half-moon yet.”
Shaking his head, Jarek pleaded, “You must allow me to go with her to Eirrannia!”
He thought that she would call on the storm again, but instead she stepped near. With her arms outreached, his mother embraced him.
When she pulled back, she told him, “Your people, my people, are not found in Cordisia, Jarek. You will have to travel much farther to find our kind. Well beyond the Eastern Sea. There is nothing for you in Eirrannia.”
“There are others with her. One who is called the Prince of Swords. She has promised that he will become my teacher.”
“Jarek!” she yelled, grabbing him by his shoulders, “Assurances from a woman you have only seen in the fog amount to nothing! Are you such a fool as this?”
He had known for the last few moon years that the farm was no longer home to him, and although he loved his mother truly, Jarek longed to be free from the farm. At night, when he was not practicing his sky calls, he would dream of holding a sword in his hand. During the day, when he was not in lessons, he would spend hours in the fields, swinging and slashing with tree limbs for sword. When first he had started, the limbs were thinner than his arm, yet now he yielded sticks wide and heavy, moving with force and speed.
“I have been your son for ten moon years, mama. Yet, I have the blood of kings in me as well and must learn what all other Rexterran boys already know. I must be ready for when my father needs me.”
When his mother threw him from her, Jarek knew what would come next. Moon years before, he had realized that thunder was simpler to call than lightning. Fog and mist were the easiest to draw forth, and he could make fog from a drop of water, mist from nothing but his breath. Thunder had come to him when he was older, nearly seven moon years, and lightning followed a full moon year later. For the last two moon years, he had used both cloud and sky as toy, yet his mother had always admonished him to keep his practice confined to the skies above the farmstead. In those two moon years, his skill sometimes surprised even himself, and, of late, he kept what he had learned from her.
With a glance to the sky, he noticed that the clouds that she had called earlier were gone, the sky a dusky blue, colors of sunfall lingering at the edges. From the clear sky came a crackle loud and threatening. Following it was a streak of lightning fiery and thick. Then another came, louder, angrier. Over and over, lightning reached her fingers to the earth, jagged and hot, circling Jarek but never coming close enough to harm him.
His mother’s skill was impressive, and never before had he seen her do such magic with such control. He watched in awe, letting the sizzling around him echo through his body and heat his blood, even as he understood it to be a warning.
When his mother dropped her hands to her side, remnants of scattered lightning blinked across the sky.
In a voice full of booming rage, she called, “Your father has forgotten you, Jarek! He needs you not, nor do you need him. Death only awaits you in the King’s City, or have you forgotten that your own grandfather tried to have you killed? Go North, if you must, but I will not let you enter the gates of the King’s City while there is still breath in my body and lightning on my fingers.”
She had wanted to show him that her skill was still stronger than his own, and Jarek let her believe it to be so.
Bowing his head, he told her, “As you say, mother. I will go with the Northern woman, and learn what I can from her swordmaster. If she seeks to go to the King’s City, I will insist upon returning home.”
Her words were jagged like ice, as if her breath was cloud, as she explained, “I have always wanted to find my father’s kin. Maybe it was not my path to do so, but it could be yours. There are islands to the east of Eirrannia, many days travel aboard even the fleetest ship. Find them, if you can. There is more to learn about the sky than even I know. One day, your skill will far outshine mine.”
He ran to her, wrapping his arms about her waist. His head reached just below her chin, yet, soon, he would be taller than she, he knew.
Into her ear, he whispered, “I will make your proud, mama.”
They both went inside then, waiting for the woman to come. The one who would separate mother and son.
*****
“I have traveled more in the last moon than I have in nearly all of my twenty moon years, Caryss.”
“Do you like it? The travel, I mean?” Caryss asked the other healer.
“Before we left the Academy, I had often wondered if the girl had spoken true, and I worried that I would not know what I was to do when the time came. So I waited. I enjoyed my time at the Academy, and learned as much as any other, but I knew that it would not always be so. It was never home.”
“You are a fine healer,” she told the woman.
Her words were greeted with a smile, but Sharron continued, “When I look back, my time at the Academy seems distant, yet less than three moons have passed. I do not want to return, which surprises me greatly. This life, this Healer Journey that we are on, I quite like it. How else would I have been able to see the Cove? Or the Grand Palace? And now the Twin Plains?”
“If we must leave Eirrannia at some point, will you still follow?”
Sharron’s horse was nearly beside Caryss’s own. When she laughed, Caryss pulled at the reins, forcing her mount to stop.
“Are you trying to rid yourself of me?” Sharron teased.
“Never,” Caryss answered, her gelding circling.
“We are kin, or so I see it. My home is with you and the babe.”
Caryss nodded, but the woman’s words were true ones, and she loved her more for them, knowing that Sharron knew the path would not be an easy one. When the other healer rode ahead, Caryss waited, watching the two men who stood stretching their legs. Otieno looked every bit the warrior, from his broad shoulders and thick arms to his fitted boots and leather armor. Even without his swords, which she had never seen apart from his body except when the girl had asked for them, he appeared dangerous. Few would attempt to battle him without aid.
She next looked to Aldric, who remained thin and yellowed, yet there was a power to him that those who could sense it would recognize. His magic was not the clean mage-skill taught by the guild. It was raw and ancient, strong and wild. She had seen it rarely displayed, yet had heard a few tales of its use.
Her daughter’s army was at three, and, with the boy and his mage-skill, whatever it might be, there would be four to serve as guard and advisor. Not nearly enough, regardless of their skill, to protect her from the Tribe. Or from whomever else would seek to harm her, Caryss knew.
In the North, she would find more, men and woman alike. She only needed to convince them to follow.
Roim a faidh, an taoh se eirgh.
*****
“What more must I finish before I can be named Master Apprentice, sir?”
“Will your studies be complete in the next few moons, Pietro?” the older man asked, looking up from the bench near the Academy’s gardens, where they both had been sitting for the last few moments.
“Yes, I am finishing up the last of my courses now and will need no more than three moons.”
Master Rova was a quiet man, and had always been so, Pietro thought, although there was much behind his eyes, knowledge and more. Ofttimes, he would avoid the Master Healer, especially once it had become clear that Rova favored Bronwen. Yet, now, he needed the man. Without the Headmaster’s approval, he would never be named Master Apprentice, and his Healer Journey would have to wait until another Headmaster was named, which would only happen if Rova fell ill, died, or relinquished his position. None looked like it would happen soon, even though Rova walked slowly and appeared to have aged quite significantly the last few moons. So Pietro had decided to change approaches, and, for the last quarter-moon, he had attempted to charm the man, showing him both his skill and passion for the healing arts.
Slowly, it seemed to be working. When the master began talking again, Pietro leaned forward, in attention, and listened.
“In the course of a normal moon year, we only grant Master Apprentice to less than ten students, and we prefer the journey began at the start of the moon year. It has been but a few moons since Bronwen left for her Healer Journey, Pietro. Do you not wish to await her return and hear the advice she may give before you start on your own?”
The old man’s words surprised him, and Pietro hesitated before answering, “Bronwen is a fine healer, sir, and none could argue against her skill. Yet, she is not the same healer as I am, nor would we find ourselves in similar places. My skill is best used for those on the battlefield, while hers is much more useful in a clinical setting. It is no secret that I hope to one day be back in Rexterra, just as it is no secret that I hope to serve my king and his army. I do no believe that Bronwen would be able to share much with me of that, sir.”
