by Karen MacRae
“If you’re good with people, you must be able to tell that I’m no threat to you.”
“I can sense that you don’t mean to be but, from what you’ve told us, the fact is you’re untrained and lack experience of anything but Healing. You killed two men last night without even moving a muscle. As if it were nothing.”
She felt like he’d punched her. “I wouldn’t have done it if I’d had other options.”
“That’s what I mean. If you were trained or had experience, you’d have other options.”
“That’s why I’m going to Ionantis. If they’ll take me.”
“You can’t go to Ionantis. They’ll execute you on the spot.”
It was another punch to the guts. “But I don’t mean anyone any harm. Why would they kill me?” she asked in a small voice.
“Because they’re as bigoted as everyone else. Three hundred years of history will do that to people.” She could tell he was struggling with the same bigotry. He looked at her crestfallen face and softened the blow a little. “They couldn’t teach you anything anyway. There are no Shapers there.”
“But they have the largest library in the world. All the old texts. Everything I need is there.” She turned to face him. “I need to know what I am. I can’t put it off forever.”
“There’s more than one library. Fi… Kai… Kai’ll know. In the meantime, you need to practise.”
Anna wondered at Spider’s stammer but focused on her more immediate concern. “How do I practise? I don’t want to harm anyone or anything.”
They discussed the problem over dinner. “I wasn’t joking when I said you’d get plenty of opportunity before we got to Sienna,” Spider told her. “There’s been a massive increase in outlaw activity along this route recently, but it’s the quickest route to the Kydrum Pass and we don’t have time for a detour.”
“Before you start randomly experimenting on a load of thugs, perhaps you should think through what you might try?” Sy suggested.
Anna nodded. “When I Heal, I have time to visualise and Shape an aura gradually. It makes my head ache if I do it for too long, but it’s a straightforward process. But with you, Sy, and that first robber last night, I just lashed out instinctively. I pushed as hard as I could. I’ve been thinking, perhaps I wouldn’t kill if I didn’t push so hard? Maybe a smaller push would knock someone unconscious or stun them enough for me to get away?”
“It’s worth a try,” Spider nodded, “but only if you have time. If someone is about to put a knife through my heart, I’d be grateful if you would just go for it.”
“Me too,” agreed Sy with an apologetic smile.
Anna looked at the two men, amazed at their willingness to help her. “Why haven’t you sent me packing? Or worse?”
They looked at each other. “It’s complicated,” answered Spider. “We believe you mean us no harm, Blue obviously trusts you and you helped us last night. We also think you would be an extremely useful travelling companion, if you can get your gift under control.”
She saw his aura skew during the last sentence. It hadn’t been a lie, but it hadn’t been quite the full truth. “There’s more to it than that.”
“There is, but it’s not my story to tell.”
His aura was rock solid. She’d not get any more out of him.
He changed the subject. “I’ve been thinking about your crystal. Tell me again how it works?”
She explained the way crystal seemed to store aura energy, gradually filling up until it was full and turned cloudy. Anna had always thrown them away at that point in the past, but last night had proved her theory that energy could be pulled from the crystal.
“So crystal isn’t just a sort of storage jar? It’s a potential weapon? It stores bad energy and you can channel that into anyone’s aura?”
“It seems so.”
Sy murmured a soft, “Wow.”
“Wow indeed,” Spider agreed.
“I’d never tried to reverse crystal before last night. I just pulled and it all came rushing out, straight into that man. Perhaps if I pulled with less strength, only some of the energy would have gone into him? Enough to distract him or make him sick, but not enough to kill?”
Spider jumped up, unable to contain his excitement. “This is amazing! Can you imagine the things you could do?”
Sy was more reticent. “If you learn to control it.”
“And that means practice. And headaches. And getting things wrong. And hurting people. Potentially killing people.” Her negativity made Spider temper his enthusiasm and sit back down.
They sat in silence, sipping caffe. Sy was the first to speak. “Your headaches. You didn’t get one last night.”
“I didn’t get one when I pushed you either,” she said sadly. “It seems that violence comes easily to me. My mother would be horrified. I’m horrified.”
“That’s what’ll save you from following the others. The ones people talk about. You learned to Heal first. It’s in your blood.” Spider was adamant, seemingly desperate to believe that the girl was good.
“I was wondering if maybe my dagger helped last night,” she said, trying to put those concerns to one side. “It’s raw Aurovian crystal. Perhaps it’s stronger than cut crystal? I usually have to be touching people to work their auras. That first man… I wasn’t touching him, but I think I pointed the dagger at him.”
They all inspected the dagger. “It looks just the same,” Anna said. “The man I bought it from said it would make eight or nine large cut crystals if it could be worked. Maybe the bigger the crystal, the stronger its power?”
“It’s definitely something to consider if we get the chance,” Spider agreed.
They planned their sleeping arrangements carefully, certain another gang would try to rob them. Sy had chosen a campsite with a large canopy of overhanging rock and substantial boulders strewn between it and the forest. Anna’s bedroll was over behind the horses, far under the canopy, furthest away from any intruders so she’d have time to plan and be more controlled with her gift. Spider and Sy were going to sleep in front: the first line of defence. They again refused Anna’s offer of taking a watch. Tonight, it was primarily about protecting her and giving her time to defend the camp rather than a lack of trust.
Sure enough, just as the sun was peeking over the horizon, Spider’s shout of “Ware! Weapons!” rang around the camp. Anna jumped up, dagger drawn, to see both men engaged with outlaws. They were a ragbag lot. Every one of them was carrying several black marks and they were malnourished and dirty. Not a successful group. Desperate though. They almost lined up to fling themselves at the two men. They didn’t seem to care if they lived or died.
There were three bodies already on the ground, but at least another dozen on their feet. Anna worried that Spider and Sy would be overwhelmed with sheer numbers and decided to try something new. Holding her dagger tightly, she reached out with her gift and took a mental hold on each of the intruders’ auras. Then she pushed.
All of them rocked slightly on their feet, but it hadn’t been enough. She pushed a bit harder and three of the men fell over. A final, larger push caused all of them to drop where they stood.
Spider’s blades and Sy’s axe were mid swing. They let them fall to their sides and surveyed the bloodless carnage around the camp then leaned over to feel for a pulse in the criminals who’d fallen closest to them.
“They’re still alive,” Anna shouted from the overhang. “Their auras are sort of… frozen. I don’t know how long it’ll last though.” She heard both of the men swear and saw Sy make the strange gesture he’d made before.
“I am very glad you are on our side,” Spider said in wonder. Sy carried on muttering.
Anna just grinned. She was over the moon. She’d defended the camp. She’d taken down fourteen men without killing any of them. All of them would walk away unscathed. Well, apart from the first three who had died while she had still been thinking. She had to be faster.
The big man s
topped what he was doing and turned to face the others. He opened his arms to gesture around the camp at the unconscious men. “It’s great you can do this, Anna, but they didn’t go down one at a time. There’s no way you could point your dagger everywhere at once.”
“Good point,” agreed Spider.
“I was holding it in my hand,” Anna said defensively.
Sy shook his head. “I’m not criticising you, Anna, I just think we need to know how it works.”
Spider nodded in agreement. “Sy’s got a point. We can’t be caught expecting your help if it’s not going to come for some reason or other. What if you get disarmed?”
Anna frowned and thought for a moment or two. She had to accept that she wasn’t completely sure herself what she’d done or how important the dagger was. “You’re right,” she conceded.
Spider looked at the man lying nearest to him. “I don’t suppose…” he began.
Anna looked at him, horrified. “Absolutely not!”
Sy chuckled. “Bit optimistic, Spider, expecting a Healer to deliberately hurt someone just to see what happens.”
“Worth a try,” Spider shrugged, grinning.
The first opportunity to learn more came later that morning when Estrell went lame. The first thing Anna did was ease the horse’s pain then, at Spider and Sy’s direction, she left her dagger with them and moved away about a hundred yards. She could make out Estrell’s lovely blue aura and shining yellow star, but the blackness around his rear fetlock was a blur. She visualised it dissipate and the blue shine through, but nothing happened. She kept it up as she slowly walked back towards the patient. Nothing.
Spider handed Anna the crystal dagger and she retraced her steps until she was once more one hundred yards away. Nothing. Fifty yards away. Nothing. Twenty yards away. Nothing. Ten yards away. Nothing. “Healing’s harder than hurting,” she told the two waiting men, her voice full of disappointment. “It’s not working.”
She put the dagger back in her belt, its handle resting against her skin, and placed her hands on Estrell’s injury. She brought up the same Healing image she’d tried at a distance and directed the blackness to the dagger’s hilt. The injury healed in a flash. “Light!” she exclaimed.
A double, “What?” came from her companions.
“I’ve never Healed that fast. Never. And I feel fine. No headache at all.”
“So it magnifies violence and speeds up Healing, but you have to be touching for it to Heal. I guess you’re right: Healing is harder, heavier almost,” Spider summarised. “Well, it’s progress,” he laughed.
CHAPTER 8
T hat evening’s adventure went less well. Sy’s gift had once again found a campsite that was protective and easy to defend and the three had shared stories over an exceptional, spicy meal that had Anna’s taste buds dancing in her mouth. They’d laughed together around the fire, but tension had begun to creep in as they retired to bed. Anna fell into an uneasy sleep, her brain running through different scenarios and ideas and refusing to calm.
Spider’s “Ware!” woke her a couple of hours before dawn. It was pitch black thanks to thick clouds obscuring the night sky and the dampened fire gave off little light. She could hear the sound of metal on metal, the grunts and cries of men fighting and the scent of sweat, blood and desperation, but she could only make out vague shapes and not a single aura. She gripped her dagger but couldn’t risk Shaping blindly in case she hurt Spider or Sy; she’d have to get closer. Blue sensed her insecurity and moved next to her, creating a barrier of solid muscle and bone between her and the attackers.
Two figures neared the fire, hands rustling through the saddlebags. The embers threw off just enough light for Anna to latch onto their auras. One short, sharp push and they fell soundlessly, their spoils spilling from their hands. She grabbed Blue’s mane and directed him around the outside of the camp. Hiding behind his forelegs, she came first to Sy’s fight. She made out a man waiting to jump into the melee that surrounded her big friend and took him out without the others noticing. She crept in closer then dropped to the ground and crawled in as fast as she dared. The first bandit she came to was out cold as soon as she touched his ankle and sensed an unfamiliar aura.
It seemed a good strategy. Keeping as low as she could, she managed to take out another intruder. The next stood on her shoulder when he turned unexpectedly. She bit back a cry of pain and pushed him unconscious. Sy dealt with the others. He pulled her up and the pair of them rushed over to help Spider. They weren’t needed. Four men lay at his feet, all dead.
“This is getting ridiculous. How many more nights do we have to go without a decent night’s sleep?” Sy asked.
“We’re a day’s ride from Sienna. We’ll get a room for the night. The caravan can only be a day ahead. We can check in with friends in town too. Find out what’s what. Better to go in forewarned if we can.”
Sy nodded and started to clear up the camp. There was little point in trying to sleep.
Spider sat down unsteadily. “I think I might need your help, Anna,” he said before he passed out.
“Sy!” she cried. “Help me. I need more light.”
Sy carried Spider over to the fire and threw on some dry grass and kindling to make the embers flare.
Anna could see Spider’s burnished bronze aura, but the coloured whorls were noticeably absent. She looked desperately over his body, searching for blackness. There was nothing. “Help me turn him over,” she told Sy.
An inky mass had settled over a deep wound, low on Spider’s back. His clothes were soaked with blood, its loss leaching the colour from his skin. Anna grabbed her dagger’s crystal handle and fought the blackness with her gift. It fought back.
Again and again, just when she thought she’d got the bronze to overwhelm the black, it oozed back over. She added the crystal around her neck to the battle, but it made little difference. It was as if the crystals wouldn’t accept this strange blackness. She was losing him.
“Look through my rucksack. Look for a small, brown packet. Quickly.”
Sy upended the bag and ransacked the small pile. “There’s nothing here.”
Anna remembered the outlaws rummaging through the bags. “Look by the fire.”
“Got it!” Sy cried, burning the hairs from his right arm as he shoved it right into the flames to retrieve the leather envelope.
Anna didn’t know what help the jewellery would be, but it was the only other Aurovian crystal she had so it would have to work. She held it tightly in the hand with her plain crystal and pulled at the black as hard as she could, but it still wouldn’t give. Her head pounded, making her think of pushing instead of pulling. It was a risk. She’d never Healed by pushing. It might make the blackness grow. She looked at Spider’s deathly still face and knew she had no choice.
Taking a deep breath, Anna pulled clean energy from her crystals and pushed a dribble at the wound. Nothing. She increased the flow. Was there a tiny lightening around the edges of the blackness? She increased the flow further, but felt the clean energy get lost in a loop: no sooner did it hit the black than it was sent back into her crystal.
She remembered the bracelets. They were worth a try. “Look through the pockets of my coat for a striped packet.”
Sy rummaged frantically, keeping one eye on the girl knelt over Spider. Her arms akimbo, lit only by firelight, it looked as if she were praying to some long-lost deity. He found the small packet in an inside pocket and almost tripped over in his rush to empty it into her waiting hand. He heard her ask the light to help her and knelt beside her, praying quietly to his own Gods to save his best friend.
Anna opened herself to the peristones and made them a fourth part of the fight: the dagger in her right hand, the crystal pendant, the Aurovian jewellery and now the beads in her left. She pulled energy from each in turn, but felt it wither when she tried to add the peristones to the mix. She began again, this time pulling clean energy from the crystal and pushing it through the peristones. Sh
e felt the energy swell and then merge into a focused beam of white light, many times stronger than anything she’d ever held before. She sent it flying into the centre of the blackness eating away at her friend and the poison exploded. Underneath was a pale, bronze shimmer. The energy returned to the crystals, clean, as if it had never been used.
“What the light was that?” she whispered as a thousand knives pierced her eyes and temples, sawing away at her sanity.
She woke a little after midday. As usual she felt appalling, her headache hangover in full flow, and she was starving. She looked for Spider and saw him lying on the other side of the fire, still asleep. Sy saw her wake and came over, bringing her a welcome mug of caffe. She gulped at it thankfully. “Food?” she asked. He brought her a plateful of stew he’d made while the others slept. She devoured it, barely noticing how good it was.
“Better?” he asked.
“I’ll live,” she told him, getting up to inspect the patient. She’d never had to battle so hard or so long against a knife wound. This had been no ordinary blade and no ordinary blackness, but Spider slept soundly, unaware of her concern. His wound was gone, as if it had never been there.
“Will he be all right?”
“He’s weak, but fine. We need to find that blade though. Carefully. It was laced with something and I’d like to know what.”
Sy found it in a bush near where the last man down had fallen, as if he had flung it away as he died. It had a long, ornate handle with a crest on it that Anna didn’t recognise. The steel was black, but otherwise looked normal. There was no sign of venom or poison. “I’m sure that’s it, but whatever nearly killed Spider is gone. Do you have any idea what it was?”
The big man looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, Anna, but I can’t talk about it. Perhaps Spider will explain once he’s awake.” He picked up the knife, careful not to touch the crest or the blade, and wrapped it in an oil skin, hiding it deep inside one of the packs Rojoch carried.
