A Flame in Hali (27 page)

Saravio brightened. “Yes, that must be the way of it. Naotalba has many servants, and not all of them are sensible of her glory.”

After that, Saravio bent to the preparation for the journey with a will. They left Robardin’s Fort walking beside the wagon along with Raynita and young Jorge, while
Tia
rode, just as if they had always belonged together.

T
he troupe stopped on the side of the road in an open area between two ranges of hills to rest the aged cart horse. Clouds filmed the sky, diffusing the early afternoon light. Stones, some of them the size of the wagon, dotted the slopes, but the flat ground was mostly fine gravel. Hardy grasses had taken root and then dried to ashen curls. Jorge asked if there were any danger from flash flooding, but
Tia
said no, the river that once flowed here had dried up long ago.

The old woman soon had a small campfire lit and water boiling. She produced meals for everyone, including Eduin and Saravio, on some schedule of her own, sometimes serving hot meals in the morning and cold in the evening. Now she bent over her pot, stirring in slivers of wild green onion.

Raynita sauntered over to where Eduin stood. Her eyes followed Saravio, who had wandered off by himself. He stood, head thrown back, cap rucked forward over his brow, looking east along the river bed.

“He’s a strange one,” she said. “He stays right with me when we sing together, but the rest of the time I’m not sure he knows we exist.”

Jorge came up to them, grinning. “I’ve found the perfect spot over there. It’s wide enough, and almost sandy.”

Raynita sighed. “Go on, then, and start warming up. I’ll be along shortly.” When Jorge trotted off happily, she turned to Eduin. “I was hoping Jorge would give his tumbling a rest, but he’s bent on practicing whenever he can. He’s right, of course. Back at the Fort, the performances were enough to keep him happy, but when we’re traveling, he always wants to try something new.”

Eduin confessed he knew nothing of acrobatics.

“Then come and learn. It would help if someone else could spot for him. I’ve felt so weary this last tenday, all I want to do is sleep.” Yawning, Raynita headed for the wagon. She emerged a short time later in boy’s breeches instead of her usual skirt.

Eduin watched for a distance as Jorge went through his preliminary exercises, stretching and rolling, flexing his muscles. Such feats of physical skill had never held much interest for Eduin. His years at Arilinn had left him convinced of the superiority of mental powers. He sensed Jorge’s concentration as he settled into a hand-stand, straightened his legs and then parted them, wobbling so badly he almost fell, brought them together again and rolled forward. The boy bounded up without pausing and cartwheeled several times. He was clearly enjoying himself. Raynita followed him closely, laughing.

Raynita gestured as she commented on Jorge’s technique. To Eduin’s surprise, she then proceeded to repeat the same motions, only with a startling lightness and grace. Jorge groaned, “I just can’t keep steady on the splits like you do.”

“It will come,” she answered. “Try it this way.”

Eduin glanced back to the camp where he’d last seen Saravio, but the other man no longer stood there. What had he seen, gazing up along the riverbed? Another vision of Naotalba? A past impression of water flowing, perhaps a storm to come? Eduin reached up with his
laran,
beyond the covering clouds, sensing the air currents—

He heard a series of muffled thuds and then, Raynita screaming. Eduin whirled to see both performers lying in a tangle on the ground. He rushed to them. Raynita was struggling to rise, but Jorge lay motionless. Bright blood gleamed in the tangle of his hair.

“He just collapsed,” Raynita stammered. “He must have put his hand wrong—I couldn’t hold him—oh, gods, it’s all my fault! I should have never—I was too tired—”

Eduin knelt to examine the boy. Old training took over. Without thinking, he lowered his barriers and began scanning, using his
laran
to trace the flow of nerve and blood, sensing the integrity of bone, the smooth arching vault of the cranium, the webwork of membranes cushioning the brain, the delicate pattern of blood vessels. The bleeding from the boy’s scalp was superficial, the bone intact. But there—within the circle of interconnecting vessels at the base of the brain—

Jorge had not injured his head when he fell. He fell because of what was already within his head. Though Eduin was no monitor, he knew the basics. He could sense the integrity of muscle and sinew, blood vessel and energon channel, the nodes carrying life force and
laran,
the ganglia of nerves, the pulse and ebb of lymph, the slow secretions of glands. The
thing
within the boy’s brain throbbed with its own arcane rhythm. Not a cancer, nor any abnormal formation of artery, but a kernel of unnatural blackness. Surrounding it, tissues fought and died, subsiding into a necrotic shell. It stank of
laran
.

Not only that, Eduin recognized the characteristic energy pattern of bonewater. He had never made the toxic dust, but every Tower-trained
laranzu
knew its signature. He’d never heard of a form like this, a single, relatively huge particle like a crystal, instead of motes of dust. The boy was still alive because the bonewater had not dispersed throughout his body, but it would nonetheless take his life.

Eduin pulled back, drawing the back of one hand across his mouth. Never in all his years of Tower training nor his exile had he encountered such a thing. He could not guess how it had been introduced into the boy’s body, only that now it sapped vitality like a cancer, surrounding itself with a wasteland that spread ever outward with each passing day.

Then he remembered what Raynita had said about the battlefield they had passed: an aircar blasted from the sky . . . blackened earth all around . . .
Tia
forbidding the gathering of precious metal. The old woman herself had given a surprisingly accurate description of the lingering effects of bonewater.

The aircar must have been carrying this new form of bonewater when it was attacked, and even though the musicians had not handled the wreckage, they might have been exposed. Jorge, with the impulsiveness of youth, might have ventured too close and a few crystals somehow made their way into his body.

As Eduin considered this, a wave of pain passed through the boy’s barely conscious mind. Eduin saw it as a curtain of scintillating crimson, blanketing all else, yet when it touched his own thoughts, he recoiled.

The deadly particle pressed not only upon the boy’s balance centers, but upon those areas of the brain that registered pain.

Eduin’s body thrummed with a fine tremor, as if in response. It was no use. He could not penetrate the waves of agony to nullify the energy produced by the particle, even assuming that was possible.

With an effort, Eduin stilled the resonant echoes within his own body. His fingers moved automatically to his starstone folded into his belt. Grime stiffened the insulating silk pouch.

He hesitated. Fear, made reflexive by so many years of hiding, roused in him. The only safe course would be to shake his head and turn away, to let the natural course of the boy’s injuries prevail. He owed these people nothing.

Yet something even deeper than fear spurred him on, the part of him that still held to the oath he had taken when he first opened his mind to a Tower circle at Arilinn. That part of him opened like a flower to the sun to the music and Raynita’s easy friendship. That part of him could not leave Jorge to die along the trail.

A shadow fell upon him and then a figure knelt at the boy’s other side. It was Saravio, his awkwardness transformed into supernal grace. Jorge’s pain must have roused him to action. Saravio touched the boy’s wrist with one hand and laid the other upon the bone-pale brow.

“Rest now, be easy,” Saravio murmured. “No harm will come to you.” The words were more sung than spoken, with a gentle calm that Eduin felt in his marrow.

“We will see to the boy,” he told Raynita. “Go and prepare a bed for him in the wagon. Ask
Tia
to brew one of her tisanes.” When she hesitated, he said with greater urgency and a nudge of his
laran,
“Leave us now. We must not be disturbed.”

When he was sure Raynita could not see, Eduin took the starstone from its wrappings. He clenched it in his fist. It felt cool and then warm against his palm. He closed his eyes, looking inward.

Focusing his mind through his starstone, Eduin bent once more over the boy. Power surged through him, his own powerful
laran
amplified by the matrix crystal. As Saravio continued his hypnotic chant, the boy’s pain lightened, soft as dawn. Though the
laran
particle still pulsed, now with an eerie luminescence, a sense of utter well-being suffused the boy’s body. His mind drifted from agony to dreamy calm.

So this is what Saravio did for the dying girl back in Thendara, Eduin thought. Saravio could not save the innkeeper’s daughter, but he could bring comfort to her passing. His Gift seemed to act like a mirror to each person’s need.

The edge of euphoria brushed against Eduin’s mind. His inner torment receded. Temptation soared, to drown himself in what Saravio offered. As much as he longed for it, he knew it for what it was, a trap more deadly than drink. He bent once more to the healing task.

The mote was small, and though there were several more in the boy’s lungs, only this one had caused any degree of damage, and that only because of its location.

Eduin had never been taught how to neutralize bonewater, but he saw no reason it could not be done. What had been created by
laran
could as easily be un-created. At Hestral Tower, Varzil and Loryn Ardais had dismantled the old supplies of
clingfire,
rather than turn them over to Rakhal Hastur.

It took a few moments to find the right vibrational signature. Under the onslaught of his trained mental probe, the crystal disintegrated. Within moments, the natural circulation of the tissues began removing cellular debris and draining excess fluid. Fortunately, there had been little permanent damage.

By the time Eduin had rooted out the remaining particles, the boy was already emerging from his daze.

“You see,” Saravio murmured, “it is even as I told you. All is well with you, is it not?”

The boy sat up. His eyes were not quite focused, but the sudden lifting of his pain smoothed his features, giving him the aspect of a child awakened from a long-overdue sleep. “I fear I have practiced overmuch today. The heat . . . I must see
Tia
for one of her tisanes.”

Eduin and Saravio helped him back to the camp. Eduin knew better than to try to discuss what had happened, though this was the most alert and responsive Saravio had been in a tenday. The red-haired man would only insist it was the will of Naotalba.

Several times, Raynita tried to talk with Eduin about what had happened. He brushed off her questions, saying that in their travels, he and Saravio had learned to treat simple injuries.

“I am not such a fool as that,” she faced him, her gray eyes stormy. “I saw how he fell. I heard his head strike the ground. I saw the blood. I know it was not mere words and looks that healed him.”

When Eduin started to protest, she rushed on. “No, do not spin me lies about
Jorge was not so badly hurt
or
You were too upset to see clearly
! I know Saravio worked some magic upon him. Tell me!”

“Jorge is well,” Eduin said. “Can you not be content with that?”

“Ah!” she said at last. “I see you
will
not answer.”

Eduin read the cost of his answer in Raynita’s eyes. The easy, open friendship drained away. Something flat and gray took its place. She wanted answers, and he offered evasions. After a lifetime of keeping secrets, why should this one bother him now?

They traveled on between the hills, following a natural course over the dry riverbed. Gradually, the terrain shifted, growing less rocky. Copses of brush and groves of trees appeared. They passed a lake and fishing village, where they performed a few times, washed, and replenished their supplies of water and dried fish. From there, the road broadened. They saw other travelers, merchants with their laden wagons, a drove of sheep, an armed party escorting a covered carriage.

They camped in a grove of ancient oaks beside a stream. The site was just off the road and looked well used, for there were several stone circles for cook fires.

Raynita continued to watch Saravio. At twilight, Eduin spotted her behind the horse’s picket line. She had cornered Saravio against a dead tree. Her voice was raised in pleading.

“It is only a small thing I ask, and not even for myself,” she said. “After the way you healed Jorge . . .”