Then Heidi took her leave of the room. The Princess was so dumbfounded, Heidi was already halfway down the corridor, before she managed to match her step.
“You do not have to do this, Heidi.”
“I think that I do.”
So they returned together to Heidi’s chamber, where they found Dera sitting upon the floor. She looked up as the others approached, and leapt up to her feet, her eyes wide with fear.
“I heard strange sounds through the wall,” she said to Heidi. “Is Jade ill again?”
Heidi nodded to her, but turned then directly to the door. She reached into her pocket; but then she remembered.
She looked to the Princess, and said, “I need a tack.”
Clearly still rather upset over the whole matter, Lila said only, “I suppose that there must be something of use in my brother’s chamber. Give me a bit of time.”
“And why do you need a tack?” asked Dera.
“It’s rather complicated,” said Heidi; “and to be honest with you, I am very tired. So, if you are going to make a fuss over anything that I might be about to do – and I assure you that you will want to – then I suggest that you go on back to bed.”
Dera opened her mouth to speak; but said nothing. Without a word at all, she turned from Heidi, and disappeared into her own chamber.
Heidi sank down to the floor, waiting silently for the Princess to return. She put her hand back into her pocket, and pulled out the letter what Jade had written her, that morning which seemed now so very long ago. Even after Jade arrived at the castle, Heidi did not take the letter from her pocket. Perhaps it was something of such depth, as having actually doubted the solidity of Jade’s presence; or perhaps she had only grown used to having the letter there in her pocket, and thought not to remove it. And yet either way, there it was now – and it was fortunate enough.
The Princess was gone some minutes. When she returned, though, she had in her hand a heavy-looking mallet and a long, rather rusty nail.
“I am not sure that I want to know exactly what my brother used these things for,” she said, “but I give them to you now, if you are still determined to carry out this strange task.”
“I am,” said Heidi simply, reaching out to take hold of the mallet and the nail. Then she turned back to the door, and put the letter to it. She laid it backwards against the wood, so that the Princess could not read it. Then she took up the nail, and pounded it as well as she could through the paper, through the wood.
“Well, there we have it,” she said. “Now for the next step, I suppose.”
She reached down into her boot, and pulled out the dagger situated beside her ankle. Then she rolled back her sleeve, and touched the tip of cold metal to her skin.
“Wait.”
Heidi looked to the Princess.
“I am sure that you don’t have to do that. Why not just try it with ink, or paint?”
“Because I do not want anything to happen to Jade – or to anyone else, for that matter.”
The Princess fell silent, and took a step back. But she continued to watch.
Heidi pressed the sharp blade down into her arm, quite as deeply as she could manage without eliciting a scream. Then she dragged it towards her, creating a long, deep gash. The blood began instantly to flow.
She tucked her knife into her belt, and pressed her fingers quickly into the warm, thick stuff that was dripping down onto the floor. Then she knelt down, took her fingers from her skin, and used them to draw a red line upon the stone at the bottom of the door. As she stood up again, her head began to spin; but she only closed her eyes for a moment, and then squeezed the skin of her forearm to call forth more blood.
Once again, she dipped her fingertips down into it, and then moved them to the door just below the letter. There she drew the same symbol that the Queen had drawn in her own journal, and it looked like this:
After she had finished, she pressed her palm firmly against the door, and closed her eyes once more. Jade was silent now.
She looked upon the mess that she had made, and then looked to the Princess with rather a silly smile upon her face. Her arm was still bleeding; and upon looking down to inspect it, she found that the wound was much more gruesome-looking than she had first thought. She was beginning to feel dizzy.
The Princess stepped forward to put a hand on her shoulder, and steered her gently away from the door. “Come with me,” she said, “and we shall clean you up a bit.”
Heidi said nothing, but followed the Princess without objection. She looked back once at the bloody door; but then faced forward again, clutching her forearm and breathing quickly.
~
Thinking only, for the moment, of seeing to the nasty wound upon Heidi Bastian’s arm, Lila guided her directly to her own chamber. There she settled her into the armchair by the hearth, and went herself to start a fire blazing. Once that was done, she set her own kettle (which was still half-filled with water) over the flames.
After she had seen to the kettle, she went to the cabinet beside the bureau in search of clean linen. She found a fresh sheet inside the cabinet, and took it up in her hands to tear two wide strips from the end of it. She waited till the water began to boil; and then took up the kettle to pour some of it into a clean cup.
When she went back to see to the wounded woman, she found her dozing lightly, and mumbling incoherently beneath her breath. She reached out to shake her by the shoulder, and then knelt down before her to see to the wound.
“Hold out your arm.”
Heidi set forth her arm upon her lap. Then she proceeded to look blankly towards the balcony doors, whose curtains had been drawn across them since the morning Lila left for Húnama. Her face was white as the linen which Lila soaked in the water, and pressed down against the grisly slash upon her arm.
“Are you all right?” Lila asked.
Heidi said nothing, and Lila did not press her. She finished mopping the blood away, and then laid the second strip of cloth across the wound, to tie it round as a bandage.
“There,” she said finally. “Quite done.”
She went to the hearth, emptied the bloodied water over the ashes below the fire, and filled the cup with a bit more clean water. This she poured over her own hands, to wash away the traces of red which seemed to cling to her fingers.
After she had done this, she looked back at Heidi, and saw that she had not moved an inch; or changed the expression upon her face by a sliver.
“Why don’t you lie down for a while?” said Lila. “You can have a rest in my bed, if you like.”
Heidi did not reply, but rose from her seat, at the mention of the word “rest.” She looked once at Lila, questioningly; but Lila only nodded and said, “Go on, then.”
She waited until Heidi had settled herself into the bed, and closed the eyes in her pale face, before she departed from the chamber.
~
When she arrived back at her mother’s door, she did not even bother to knock.
“Has it been done?” asked Abella.
Lila only nodded.
“Very good. Now, you may not have cared very much for it – but I assure you that it will hold her indefinitely.”
“I don’t doubt you, Mother.”
“Then why did you question me?”
“I apologise for it,” said Lila. “I should know better by now than to question your judgment.”
“Surely you should,” said Abella. “Which only makes me ask again after the cause.”
Lila shrugged. “I don’t know, Mother. But surely you can’t be too very angry with me? If anything at all, it is considered very impolite to ask one’s guest to paint upon doors and floors in their own blood.”
“One door,” Abella corrected. “And one floor.”
Lila could not help but laugh; but was sobered quickly. “What do you think will happen to her?” she asked.
“I daresay she will be fine, once the wound heals.”
Lila shook her head. “N
o, not her. I was referring to her friend.”
“Oh – I see. Well, that is another matter.”
“But what do you think?”
“It depends on a great number of things,” said Abella, “and things, at that, which I have no way of knowing. For one thing, how long has it been since she was infected? Neither you nor I know the answer to that question. Has she consumed flesh? If so, how much? At this point, will fasting cure her, or kill her? I do not know – but we will, at least, discover the answer to this last question very soon.”
“Is there nothing more we can do for her? Nothing that could prevent such a terrible end?”
“Nothing that would do very much good, my dear.”
“I would hate to see what it would do to Miss Bastian,” said Lila. “I am afraid that she would be horribly devastated.”
“As would be her second friend, I expect.”
“I’m not sure,” said Lila. “That is, I don’t to say that she would not be upset; but I fear that such a thing would tear Heidi quite apart.”
Abella looked to her, then, with rather a curious expression upon her face.
“What is it?”
“Oh, nothing,” said Abella. “I was only thinking of something.”
“Thinking of what?”
“It does not matter very much right now. Perhaps, someday, I will share my thoughts with you.”
“I shall await the day with great anxiety,” said Lila. “But for now, only tell me what can be done.”
“Well,” said Abella, “even if the girl has tasted already of that dark sustenance, I expect, at any rate, that it has been some time since she did. As she has not yet perished, I would venture to say that there is at least some hope for her survival.” She stared hard at Lila. “Because I want to make it quite clear, my love. If she does not survive as a human being, she will not survive at all. I will not have a Lumarian, living and thriving, in my own castle.”
“I understand, Mother,” said Lila; and she spoke without bitterness, and did indeed agree wholeheartedly with that which her mother said. But her voice still was tinged with sadness.
“If you can manage to make her eat a bit of food,” said Abella, “that may be a start. Begin with red meats, of course; for that would do better to sate her now. I cannot promise that she will take to it; but it is the only thing left to try.”
“I will think of something,” said Lila, rising from her seat. She leaned down to kiss her mother’s cheek, and then bid her goodnight.
“I am very proud of you, Lila,” said Abella; and she reached out to catch her daughter’s hand.
“Why ever would you be? Absolutely everything is in a terrible mess and, my fault or no, I’ve no idea how to set anything right.”
“You will.”
“How can you know that?”
“A mother knows.”
“Then I do I hope you are right.”
“You know,” said Abella, “you are so very much like your father. Stronger than you think; wiser than you think; and a much better friend than you consider yourself to be.”
Lila felt a bit of blood flow into her cheeks, and she turned her face away. She certainly did not think that she deserved the praise.
“I was going to name you Nadina,” Abella went on, “which means ‘beauty’ in Énaloh – the language of my mothers, the tongue of the Aurens. The first time I ever saw you, all wrapped as you were in white linen, with dark eyes that smouldered like fire in their eagerness for life – I cried over how beautiful you were. Sometimes it still pains me to look at you, and to see how magnificent you have become. You look exactly as my mother’s sister looked, when she was your age, and I was just a small girl. Her name was Nadina.”
“Then why did you call me Lila?”
“That is the name your father wished for you. It was the name of his own dear sister, who was taken some years later by the Lumaria.”
“He never told me that.”
“I am sure he did not. He never liked very much to talk about it, which I am sure you cannot hold against him. Anyway, quite as soon as I discovered that you were to be a part of this world, I was sure that that was who I wanted you to be. Nadina Aséa, the most beautiful Princess that Eredor had ever known. But I did love your father very much; and I could not deny him his greatest wish. And so you became Lila Bier instead. I do think that, in the time after his sister’s death, you brought him great comfort. He would call you to him, and say, ‘Lila! Oh Lila, where have you run to?’ And there would ever be the greatest smile upon his face.”
Rather fascinated with the name she had been meant to have, Lila still could not deny that she was filled with a sort of pride, to be named after someone who had meant so very much to her father. Knowing now what had been her end, Lila hoped indeed that she herself had served to alleviate some of his pain.
Yet it was, of course, no time of night for such ponderings. And so, remembering that Heidi Bastian was currently fast asleep in her own bed, Lila went to the empty side of her mother’s bed, and lay down to sleep. She thought, for a moment, of going to Antony’s chamber, and resting there; but she knew that she would rest not at all in that place, and that her mind would be plagued only with worry for her brother.
So it was there that she closed her eyes for the remainder of the night, and there that she fell into dreams which she thoroughly expected to be filled with darkness and death, and blood upon doors. But her dreams contained none of this; and indeed, she woke in the morning with a smile upon her face, thinking still of white sand, warm wind, and clear, running waters.
~
“Lila!” William called, looking all about for the one thing that was missing in the great loaded cart. “Lila, where have you run to?”
Lila emerged from the North Doors of the castle, and ran down to where the cart was parked. “Sorry, Father,” she squeaked, as she climbed with some effort into the back of the cart.
“Was your mother fussing over you again?”
“Yes,” said Lila; though she rubbed somewhat sadly at the spot on her cheek where her mother had kissed her last, and became somewhat melancholy with the thought that she would not see her for such a long while.
Her father looked at her seriously. “Are you sure that you want to go, Lila? You don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”
She had to think for hardly a moment before she said, this time with much more enthusiasm, “Oh no, Father! I do want to go with you, very very much.”
William smiled broadly, and took Lila’s hand; and together they climbed over all of their stores, to the benches at the head of the cart. Her father sat down on the front-facing bench, beside a soldier named Exler who would be accompanying them to Sciara. Lila sat behind him, on the rear-facing bench, beside another soldier named Séyo. He and she became great friends on that journey; and they spoke together almost constantly, and played all sorts of games, to pass the time in the back of the cart.
At about the mid-point of their journey, in a desert market so very crowded that Lila lost sight for a little of her father, Séyo saved her from a terrible man who was rumoured to steal children, and to sell them for high prices. His heroics were applauded long and well by the King of Eredor; and upon sharing the story of Lila’s rescue with the King of Sciara, Séyo was offered a high-ranking position in the great palace of that King. Lila never saw him again; but as a result of his leaving, she spent much more time with her father on the return journey.
And those were three wonderful and magical months, which she would never forget, so long as she lived.
XXXIII: The Border-Line
As soon as Lila had rendered herself up and about, her first errand lay up the stairs, and in her own chamber. She went to Heidi, and told her of the one thing that was left to do; and Heidi naturally became very excited, and sprang immediately from the bed in search of raw meat. Lila needed try very hard to get her to reconsider her course of action (which had seemed to consist of her going straight into the chamber w
ith a piece of meat in her hand), and to convince her that some semblance of a plan must be made.
So they went together to the medicine man, who lived in a set of rooms on the second floor of the castle. Tobias Redda was his name; and he was a skilled healer, learnt in the practices of several different cultures. He had lived for a time among the Wónakee, who taught him everything they knew of medicine; and before that he lived even longer in the nation of Hekken, whose procedures and policies (not excluding healing) were considered in the South and the West to be rather barbaric.
Tobias claimed that, many years ago, he had come across the sea from a very different land. No one in Onssgaard, at least, was very inclined to believe him; but they did not hold it against him, as he had saved many a city member from death in the years that he had lived at Eredor.
So now Lila knocked upon the door to his main chamber, hoping against all hope that he was at home. When he finally opened the door to her, she breathed a great sigh of relief.
Tobias Redda was a very small man, with wispy white hair atop his head, and a pair of spectacles with great round lenses perched upon his pointed nose. His eyes appeared as those of a large insect, wide and bulging behind the spectacles.
“Princess!” he exclaimed, opening the door wider to admit her. “How lovely to see you!”
“Hello, Tobias,” said Lila. “It is good to see you, as well – but I am afraid that I have come on rather unpleasant business.”
The man seemed not daunted in the least. He only pulled out a chair at his handsome pine table for Lila to sit, and then one for Heidi, as well.
“Tell me,” he said simply, sitting down across from them with a great deal of interest in his wrinkled little face.
“What I am about to tell you is not to leave this room,” said Lila seriously, looking upon the old man till he seemed to grasp the full magnitude of the words. The fellow had a tendency to be a bit whimsical; and she wished to be sure that he understood.
“Of course, Princess,” he said finally.
“There is a young woman on the fourth floor,” Lila went on, “who has been infected by a Lumarian. She is the companion of this lady here –” (she gestured to Heidi) – “and this, by the way, is Miss Bastian. I know not exactly how long her friend has been in such a state; but I can tell you that it has been some weeks. Considering that, I am inclined to believe that she has consumed human flesh at least once. Since she has been here, of course, she has eaten none.” She looked to Heidi. “Has she eaten anything at all since she arrived?”
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