Path of Honor (15 page)

She focused back on the boy, setting her hands against his stomach, pressing here and there. His belly was soft and gave beneath her fingers. As she moved lower, he whimpered again and squirmed, tears rolling down his cheeks. He pulled away and pressed his cheek against his mother’s shoulder. Her arms curled around him as she glared at Reisil over the top of his head.

Reisil sat back on her heels. The boy’s face was flushed beneath the grime. He had a fever and stomach pain, and he was yellow. She chewed the inside of her lower lip. Something inside him had gone wrong. Maybe the liver. Maybe the kidneys. Elutark had taught her how to cut into a body and remove infections and diseased flesh, but doing so was tricky in the best of conditions. Here . . . Reisil blew out a tight breath. She couldn’t just leave the boy to die, and she knew he would, slowly and painfully. Which left only her last resort. She would have to try her power, and that might kill him anyway. She licked her lips, drawing a whistling breath between them.

“I need to hold him.” Reisil held out her hands. The woman darted a fearful look at Tillen, who nodded reassuringly; then she whispered in the boy’s ear, kissed his forehead and passed him to Reisil.

Reisil sat cross-legged on the ground and nestled the boy between her legs. He stared at her, wide eyes like polished wood. He scrubbed a fist at his tears and clenched his hands together, holding himself away from Reisil.

She smiled. “This won’t hurt,” she said. She hoped.

She put her hands around him, touching her fingertips lightly to his back. She thought of the drifting ash that had been the assassins and bit the insides of her cheeks, tasting blood.

Closing her eyes, Reisil felt tentatively for her power. For so long it had been elusive, like a constantly shifting stream, like cockroaches scuttling from the light. Now, since she’d obliterated the assassins, it coursed through her like a fast, deep river.

Too fast, too deep.

Would the magic take her again? Would it make her want to stop the boy’s heart? Feel his life drain through her fingers?

Reisil’s fingernails cut half-moons into her palms. The boy was dying. He was going to die whether she tried and failed or whether she did nothing. “Lady guide me,” she murmured. But the words were hollow. The Lady was gone.

The boy remained rigid and unmoving. Taking a steadying breath, she reached for her power. It leaped up, gushing through her on a wave of heat and light. She heard Tillen and the boy’s mother gasp, and Reisil knew that the ivy pattern on her face had begun to glow as it always did when she used magic. Power coiled around her hands, ready. But now that it had come so willingly to her hand, what to do?

The memories of Veneston haunted her: so many bodies, and nothing she could do.

But this wasn’t Veneston. And it wasn’t the plague. In Patverseme she’d given an armless man a new arm. In Kallas she’d healed bones, sprains and disease. She could heal this boy. She
could
.

She held her breath, concentrating, imagining a slow river current. Her magic responded, flowing readily down through her fingers, filling the boy with gentle heat, like sunlight and stars. With a fleeting smile, Reisil followed it, letting her consciousness flow through his body, seeking the damage that was killing him.

With nearly thoughtless ease she repaired scrapes and bruises as she searched. Under her ministrations, she felt the boy relax and lean into her. She sought her goal from the outside in, moving from his hands and arms to his legs and then into his torso. Finally she came to it. Deep inside him festered a place of feverish heat, of swelling and throbbing. Reisil’s nose wrinkled. She could almost smell the stink of infection.

She hesitated a bare moment, then thrust herself forward. Working in a spiral, she mended the lesser-damaged outer tissues first, moving slowly inward over the pulpy flesh. Beneath her touch, it grew whole and pink. At first, the sickness resisted her, like thickly thatched weeds in a neglected garden. But her touch was insistent. She prodded open clogged bloodpaths, eliminated infection, and dammed seeping blood. As she proceeded, she felt the boy squirm.

“Easy now, not much longer.”

She pushed harder. The boy made a keening sound and jerked in her hands. Reisil closed her arms, maintaining the channel between them.

“Almost there,” she chanted. “Almost there.”

The core of the disease was soft and dense, like a peat bog. It squashed aside when she pushed on it, then restored itself. Reisil knew instantly that it could not be repaired. But it could be contained. Gripping the boy firmly, she reached out and grasped the seed of the disease in a magical fist. The boy shrieked and spasmed. Reisil held tight. She cocooned the last remnants of the disease inside a hard shell of magic, isolating the corrosion so that it would not contaminate his body again.

When she was through, she tried to withdraw slowly, not wanting to shock the boy’s system. But her magic bucked beneath her restraint. Panic shrilled along Reisil’s nerves. She yanked back. The power resisted and then gave way, snapping back inside her with scalding force. As it did, the boy moaned and went limp, his tunic damp with sweat. Reisil clutched him, feeling for life as she fought to bring her magic to heel.

It burned through her, fierce and white. It wormed through her muscles like lava and lifted her hair with crackling sparks. The pain of it was excruciating; the pleasure of it shook her to the roots of her soul. She wanted—
oh, how she wanted
—to loose it, to feel it rushing from her, to feel it incinerate and annihilate.

For an exquisite moment, Reisil let herself relax into the shuddering pleasure and pain. Her hands began to uncurl as she succumbed to that primitive
want
.

Then she caught herself, reining back with a panicked gasp. The confounded magic sizzled through her. She could do little more than bear it as it circled wildly, searching every avenue against escape. Her muscles knotted and her body heated until the sweat drenching her skin dried.

At last the power settled reluctantly back into its former channels. But now it ran higher, faster, like a flood-lattice of melt-swollen rivers. In the calm, as she realized what had happened. Reisil’s joy rang through her like silver bells—she’d summoned her power and used it to heal!

But the boy still lay slack, his head dangling heavily over her forearm, mouth gaping. A chill drove to the marrow of her bones.
Had she killed him after all?

Then the boy quivered and struggled feebly. She loosened her arms. His face was flushed, but the fever was gone. His eyes were no longer dull, though his lids hung heavy with exhaustion.

Reisil raised her head, grinning wearily at the mother. But surprise froze her tongue and her smile faded as she encountered the wheel of expressionless faces ringing her. The gathered denizens of the Fringes stared down at her. Their silence seemed condemning.

The woman inched forward, eyes flicking from Reisil to her son, lips trembling. She clasped her arms around her stomach, grasping her elbows with red rough hands, as if to prevent them from snatching her son away.

“Is he—? Fretiin? Come to mama, sweetling.”

She reached out, and the boy struggled up. He stumbled to his mother and wrapped his legs around her waist as she lifted him up, pressing his head against her shoulder.

“Hungry, Mama.”

The mother gave a choked laugh and stroked his back. “I’ll find something. Do you hurt? Do you want to rest?”

He shook his head against her shoulder and hugged her tighter. “Fretiin wants carried, Mama. Hungry.”

Tears rolled down the woman’s face. She looked down at Reisil.

“He’ll be fine,” Reisil said.

“Praise the Lady,” she sobbed, and clutched her son tighter.

“Praise the Lady,” Reisil echoed. She’d done it! Her power didn’t just come to kill. Was this it? The turning point? Had she broken through the barriers that kept her from healing? She had to try again. Her mind lit on Nitsun and Liisek. They were still waiting for her.

Stiff from sitting so long on the cold, damp ground, she struggled to stand. A half dozen hands reached out to help her. The faces surrounding her continued to remain mask-like, but now one man stood resolutely forward. “My girl’s ailing too. Both of ’em.” There were nods around the circle, and beyond Reisil saw other people beginning to drift closer as news spread and hope took root.

Reisil licked her lips. She could promise them nothing. If it wasn’t true, if her power failed again—“There’s a family I need to tend. Then I’ll see what I can do.”

The afternoon passed in a blur. Tillen led her to Nitsun and Liisek, their tent pitched in a swampy hollow where sewage and rain pooled. They rose and waited stoically as Reisil and Tillen approached at the head of a long, murmuring snake.

“Reisiltark, Tillen,” Liisek said coolly, eyes flicking past to the trailing army. “What brings you?”

“Reisiltark came looking for you and happens as I knew where to find you,” Tillen replied.

“What’s all this?” Liisek jerked his chin at the hushed crowd that now began to wind around, circling the little group.

“Not to worry,” said Tillen. “Folks interested in Reisiltark, is all. Came along to watch the goings-on. She thinks she can help your baby boy.”

Nitsun stiffened. “You brought your special medicines? The ones you told us about?” The hope in her voice made it crack.

“Better than that,” Tillen said before Reisil could answer. She gave him a sidelong look, then turned back to the young couple.

“I’ve brought medicines, but it may be that I can do better for him.”

“Better? How?” Liisek’s gaze darted uneasily over the surrounding crowd as he wrapped his arm around his wife and pulled her tightly against his side.

Reisil opened her mouth, but didn’t know what to say. Magic? After all the damage the wizards had done in the war, the word
magic
was a curse in Kodu Riik.

“Can I hold him?” she asked instead.

Nitsun glanced at Liisek, hesitating, and then passed the limp bundle that was her son to Reisil. There had been little change in his condition. His dark eyes drifted from side to side, one pupil larger than the other. A spreading bruise on his head was turning mottled yellow and green. He’d fallen when Nitsun had laid him down on the bank of the river on her daily walk for water. He’d rolled from the bed she’d made him and slid down the rock bank, landing against a boulder.

Once again, Reisil sat cross-legged on the ground, setting the baby in the cradle of her legs. She grimaced as clammy wetness seeped up through her cloak and both layers of woolen hose. Ignoring her discomfort, she touched the baby with delicate fingertips in the same way she had touched Fretiin. She did not hesitate this time. Her power spurted through her in a wash of searing heat, then quickly settled. Releasing her breath, Reisil began the process of exploring and mending the baby’s injuries. His skull was fractured, and the tissue beneath swollen and pulpy with excess blood. Reisil smoothed the swelling, redirected the blood and mended the bone. She did it quickly, knowing now what to do, and when she withdrew, this time her magic came docilely to heel.

She looked up, her green eyes bright with triumph. The baby began to squirm and opened his mouth in a mewling cry. His pupils were the same size now and ranged over her with a purpose. He didn’t recognize her. His cries grew louder, angry. Nitsun dropped to her knees beside Reisil and snatched up the child, putting him instantly to her breast. He began to suckle with loud slurping noises, and all around the crowd began to laugh and clap. Liisek settled a hand on his wife’s shoulder and stared openmouthed at Reisil, the fingers of his other hand rubbing the patch of green sewn on his vest.

“He will be well,” Reisil said. She stood, once again aided by a thicket of helping hands.

Before Nitsun or Liisek could voice any more questions or gratitude, the head of the snake whirled her off, led by the man with two sick daughters. And so the afternoon went. After each healing, someone new led the way. Word spread to various other neighborhoods within the Fringes, and people began to bring their sick to her. She was grateful to find herself settled on a pile of blankets as one after another, the sick and the dying were guided to her.

Exhaustion soon began to take its toll, and neither water nor the meager food pressed into her hands could assuage it. Her arms had begun to tremble with her efforts, and her head swam. But Reisil refused to stop. If she stopped now, there was no guarantee her magic would answer again.

As she finished with a man who had lost his ability to speak, the left side of his face slack and drooping, Tillen bent down beside her, concern coloring his voice.

“Reisiltark, this is too much. There are too many of us. You must rest.”

Reisil didn’t have the energy to shake her head or argue. She merely held out her hands to the next in line.

Time flew past—minutes or hours, Reisil didn’t know. Her shoulders ached, and her entire body trembled. She swayed, catching herself on the dirt with outstretched hands.

“No more,” Tillen announced loudly. “Reisiltark can do no more today.”

His pronouncement was met by silence. Nor could Reisil summon the energy to protest. Tillen hooked her beneath her arm and helped her to stand. She staggered as circulation returned to her numb legs. Tillen steadied her. The crowds parted. Reisil heard sounds of crying, and then a murmuring rustle of
Thank you, Bless the Lady, Lady watch over you
, and more urgently,
Come again. Please come back
.

She gripped Tillen’s arm tightly, her knees buckling every few steps. Her head felt heavy as lead. She yawned, her entire body feeling limp as rope. She thought of her bed and winced as she remembered the lighthouse stairs. But she had done it! Her magic had answered her need at last, and she’d done it! She would rest and come again tomorrow, and the next day, until she had served all who needed her. She must tell Juhrnus and Saljane and—