A Gathering Of Stones

4

Three days later she rode from a thick stand of conifers and saw a dead man sprawled facedown on the snow, three stubby arrows like black quills protruding from his back and his left leg. Blood was a splash of crimson on the snow. Crimson? It was still leaking out of the man. He had to be alive.

She slid off the pony, ran to him and knelt beside him, fingers searching under his jaw; she couldn’t feel a pulse, but bodyread told her, yes, he was alive. “Aili, come here.” She scooped up the mahsar and set her on the man’s back. “Do what you can to warm him, my Liki, while I figure how to move him off this snow.” Without realizing what she was doing, she closed her band about Frunzacoache; the talisman felt eager, as if it had suffered frustration from being unused all the years it sat in the shaman’s pouch. It was a focus of renewal, that’s what the books said anyway. The Great Talismans weren’t living creatures in any sense of that word, but Kushundallian said they sometimes showed a kind of willfulness, as if they recognized in some nonthinking way what they wanted and used whatever hands that came their way to get it.

She sat on her heels and rubbed at her back. It was late afternoon, the sky was boiling with clouds though the air down near the earth was barely stirring; it was several degrees above freezing, but that was not much help to the man stretched out beside her. If he wasn’t to die on her, she had to get those shafts out of him and move him under cover… she touched his long black hair, drew her fingers along his cheekbones, down his nose, trying to remember where she’d seen him before. There was something… something about him… she couldn’t catch hold of it, not yet. He was warmer; Ailiki’s cuddle was starting to work on him. He was also bleeding faster. She jumped to her feet and ran to her stores.

She tugged him into the road and onto a piece of canvas, bunched blankets about him to hold in the warmth Ailiki was feeding him, then she sat on her heels scowling at the arrows. She had to get them out without killing him. Cut them out? She shuddered at the thought. Inanimate Transfer? Might as well grab hold of them and drag them out of him. She could burn the shafts, but that would leave the points sunk in him. Inanimate Transform? Hmm. Might work. With a little help. Leg arrow first; if I blow it, I’ll do less damage there. She pulled Frunzacoache from under her shirt and pressed her left hand over it as she got ready for the act of transforming. She started to reach for the shafts, stopped her hand. Are the points iron or bone or stone or what? She grasped the shaft and read down it. Iron, yes.

“Meta mephi mephist mi,” she chanted, hand tight about the shaft, feeling it vibrate against her palm as currents of change stirred in it. “Syda ses sydoor es es. Meta mephi mephist mi. Xula xla es eitheri.”

The wood sublimated into the air; a thread of clear water oozed from the wound.

She smiled, shook herself, and eased Frunzacoache’s chain over her head. Pressing the flat crystal enclosing the deathless leaf over the puncture wound, she held it there though the heat it generated grew so intense it was painful, held it and held it until the heat dropped out of it. She lifted the talisman and inspected the place where the wound had been. The puncture was closed; there wasn’t even a scar to mark where it had been.

She rocked on her knees along his body until she could reach another of the arrows; it jerked rhythmically, a movement so tiny it was hard to see unless she looked closely at the flights. It had to be lodged tight against the man’s heart. Tricky. If it had penetrated something vital, getting it out might be as dangerous as leaving it in, he might bleed to death before… She opened her hand and gazed thoughtfully at Frunzacoache for a minute, then closed her fingers about it and chanted: Meta mephi mephist mi… and as soon as the chant was done, slapped the talisman over the wound and held it…

Contented with the results, she moved to the arrow high in the shoulder and began the chant for the third time…

When she lifted Frunzacoache, it felt swollen, tumescent, as if it drew power into itself by expending power. It was so heavy it seemed to jump from her fingers to land on the man’s back, driving a grunt out of him though he didn’t seem to be waking up.

“Sounds like you’re going to live, whoever you are.” She felt under his jaw. A strong steady throb pulsed against her fingertips and his skin was warm, but not too warm. “Yes indeed.’ She started to straighten, but stopped as Ailiki chittered anxiously and put a small black hand on her arm. “You want me to do something more? Obviously you do.” She moved closer to the man so she could kneel on the canvas; the cold from the sodden earth was striking up through her trousers and worrying at her bodyheat. Frowning, she focused on the man, scanning him in a full bodyread. “Poison, tchah! He’s rotten with it. I wonder… minhl no time for that. Back to business.” Reluctantly, because her fingers were aching and stiff with cold, she cupped her hands about Frunzacoache and called on its gift of renewal to help, her finch the poison from the man and heal its ravages.

When the work was complete, she lifted the talisman. Heavy, dark, swollen, it frightened her; though she didn’t want to, she slid the chain over her head and tucked Frunzacoache under her shirt. It was hotter than she’d expected, the heat burned into her but vanished almost as soon as she felt it. She tucked her trembling hands into her armpits and looked around. The ponies were kicking through the snow and tearing up clumps of withered grass. A deer came to the edge of the trees, gazed out at her a long minute then retreated into the shadows. Otherwise the narrow winding flat and the stony slopes were devoid of life; sunk inches below the level of the flat by generations of hooves and high-wheeled wagons, the Road was the only sign that people had passed this way. Overhead, there was a high thin film of cloud, gray and cold. A chill wet wind was gathering strength around her; it blew across her face and insinuated itself into every crevice in her clothing. She shivered and wondered what she should do next. She couldn’t just leave the man lying beside the Road. I have seen him before. I know it. Somewhere. Silili? Doesn’t feel right. Where.. where..

The wind blew a strand of black hair forward over his face; it tickled his nose and he sneezed. And opened his eyes.

He rolled over, dislodging Ailiki.

She gave an explosive treble snort and lalloped across to the ponies; she jumped onto the saddle and sat watching the man with vast disapproval as he pushed himself up and ran his eyes over Korimenei.

“I know you. At least…” He moved his shoulders, felt at his leg, looked round at the splatters of blood and forgot what he’d been saying. “I owe you one, Saiiri.”

Korimenei laughed. “Three.”

“Huh? Ah! Your point.” He narrowed his very blue eyes, inspected her more closely. “Kori?”

“It’s Korimenei these days.”

“Does that mean you’ve taken a husband?”

“No husband. I travel alone.” She stood, fumbled in the pocket of her coat for her gloves. He knows me as Kori, she thought, I haven’t been called Kori for ten years, ten… god’s blood, I DO know him. She glanced at him again. I think I know him.

He struggled onto his feet, grimacing at his weakness; it would take time to replace the flesh he’d lost in healing and the blood that’d leaked out of him. “I see you didn’t stay home and marry one of your cousins. How’s your brother? Don’t tell me he got taken in the Lot?”

“Daniel?” She stared at the thick wavy hair; it was part of him, she’d stripped poison from those strands. “But you were…”

“Bald? That I was. And you were a child?”

“Ten years ago. One ceases to be a child in the ordinary course of time. Bald heads don’t grow new crops.”

A brow shot up, giving him a quizzical look. “And one turns a hair pedantic, it seems.”

She sighed. “So I’ve been told. If you’re stuck in a school ten years, it can do that to you. Even school doesn’t grow hair.”

“A sorceror can grow hair anywhere he wants, didn’t you know?”

“But you weren’t…” She stepped close to him, flattened her hand against his chest. “But you are.” She stepped back, disturbed. “Why didn’t I smell it before when I was working on you? And now…”

“Long story.” Waves of shudders were passing through his body; she could see the muscles knotting beside his mouth as he fought to control the shaking of his jaw. She glanced at the sky, located the watery blur that was the sun. At least three hours of light left. On the one hand, she didn’t want to waste that much travel time; on the other, Daniel was in no condition to go anywhere. No coat, nothing but that odd vest she remembered more vividly than she did the man, now that she thought of it. A vest with two new holes in it, which wouldn’t help it turn the wind.

“You can tell it later.” She walked to the ponies, her irritation audible in the staccato crunch of her feet. “We’ll stay here until tomorrow morning. While I’m getting camp set up, you cut find some wood for the fire. The work’ll warm you up a bit.” Her hand on the saddle, she looked over her shoulder at him. “If you’re up to it.”

“If you’ve got an axe, my teeth just won’t do it.” His voice sounded strained, but he finished with a quick twitch of a smile.

“Fool.” She relaxed, reminded of the days in the cart, him telling stories, listening to her chatter, playing his flute for her and the other children. “No axe, just a hatchet which you can curse all you want with my blessing.” She began working on the straps that held it, doing some of her own cursing at the stiff, reluctant leather and the clumsiness of her gloved fingers. “I saw plenty of downwood as I came through the trees. Ah!” She caught the hatchet as it fell, held it out to him. “Better you than me. I put an edge on this thing last night. That should last about three cuts.”

He took the haft between thumb and forefinger, gave her another of those twitchy smiles and marched off, vanishing under the trees.

“Right. Aili, I’ll get the canvas. You chase the ponies to a place where we can camp.”