Chapter Eleven
Snow and wind harassed Sira as she struggled to put some distance between herself and the campsite. Her muscles strained, and blood trickled steadily down her back. Her skin was cold and clammy, and her head felt as it were floating free of her body. As if from another lifetime she recalled Maestro Nikei talking about the effects of bleeding. The remedies circled vaguely through her mind as she pressed on. None of them were available to her now.
When she judged she had waded through the powder for an hour, working her way off the road into the forest, she allowed herself to collapse against an ironwood tree. She reached into her tunic for her filla. She could go no farther until she was warm all the way through.
Sira’s Gift almost failed her at that moment. When she took a breath to play, pain from her injury stunned her. Her lips were icy, and her mind fluttered with fatigue and weakness. Her psi felt as distant as the safety of Conservatory. For one terrifying moment she could not think of the mode she needed.
She stiffened her spine. “I have not come this far,” she said aloud, to convince herself, “to let my body get the better of me.” The iron will that had seen her through the hours beneath the snow cleared her thoughts. She bit at her lips to increase the circulation, and began to play. No emotion, no physical sensation, did she allow her mind to register until a slender, intense quiru was born about her, as warm as she could make it under the circumstances.
Then, while her body warmed in the safety of its warmth and light, she gave in. She crumpled to the ground, pulled her furs around her, and sobbed against her knees for her pain and fear and betrayal. The softness of the caeru fur soaked up her tears and muffled her weeping.
Several hours passed while she rested. When she felt a little stronger, she remembered that she should drink. She used her filla again, the briefest Doryu melody, to melt snow in a hardwood cup from her pack. The icy water tasted of wood and rock. She had to do it again and again to get enough water, but she kept at it until her thirst was quenched. She had a little food, a gift package of dried fruit and nuts. Cantrix Sharn had given it to her only two days before. It seemed a time past remembering.
She chewed a piece of dried fruit and a few of the nuts, and began to feel stronger. She could think of no way to bandage her wound, but the bleeding seemed to have ceased for the moment. She took some of her extra linen from her pack, and pressed it between her back and the tree, thrusting it down the back of her tunic as best she could. The entrypoint of the wound, below her collarbone, was already closed and scabbing.
She decided to rest the night through before setting out again. Lamdon was the only safe place for her to go, and it was also the closest House, as far as she knew. If she worked her way back to the road, she should be able to find the way.
Now, as she settled in for the night, she tried to take in what had happened. Mike and Alks had evidently been part of an assassination plan. Magister Shen had been their target, of course, but it was shocking to think that neither of them, nor Wil or Trude, had cared who died with him. Sharn, and even Magret, had tried to warn her, but she had been too blind to see how bad the situation was in Shen’s House. What had she missed? What evidence had she, in her eagerness to go to Lamdon, ignored?
A picture rose in her mind of Rhia, now a beautiful, pale widow, Magistrix at last. She would be flanked, Sira supposed, by Wil and Trude. Perhaps Wil had conceived the intrigue. Trude was surely not so clever. And Alks and Mike? They would straggle in to Bariken with a dramatic story of storm and separation, a not-unheard-of tragedy in the Mariks. So sad, everyone would say, the loss of the brilliant young Cantrix.
Sira huddled lower inside her furs. There was no way for her to know what was happening now at Bariken. She didn’t know whom she had to fear most. But she was certain she must hide the fact of her survival until she reached safety. Cantrix Sharn would know what to do. Until she could reach her protection, she would have to protect herself.
Shen’s party had come one long day’s ride by hruss from Lamdon. Sira estimated it would take her three days to cover the same distance on foot. It was a daunting prospect, but there was nothing she could do but accept it. She lay down, hoping for a healing sleep. Outside her slender quiru, snowflakes danced a menacing pattern in the cold and wind.
I can do it, she thought. One step at a time, I can do it.
It would be a hard and lonely three days, but at the end of it would be the safety and warmth of Lamdon, the comfort of Cantrix Sharn to confide in. The important thing—the saving thing—was that no one knew she was alive. Mike and Alks would not be coming back for her.
Maestra Lu and Isbel sat close together in a window seat at Conservatory. Lu sent, I have heard Sira’s thoughts. I know only that she lives. For a time I thought we had lost her.
But what has happened? Isbel begged. What did you hear?
It is hard to explain. Something frightened me in the night, and when I sought Sira’s mind, it seemed it was gone. I could hear nothing, as if she had gone with the Spirit beyond the Stars. Then, hours later, I heard her again.
Your reach is so long, Maestra, Isbel sent sadly. I wish I could doubt you, but I do not.
Lu put out her fragile white hand, and Isbel took it in both of hers. They clung together that way, the old Singer and the young one, sharing their fear for one of their own.
I think someone died, Lu sent a few moments later. Not a Gifted one, but someone with Sira. There was grief in her thoughts, and shock.
But she lives, Isbel sent.
Lu squeezed Isbel’s fingers. She lives. We have sent Gram and Jane to Bariken to discover what is wrong. She is their Cantrix, and they will surely help us to find her.
We must save her, Isbel sent, tears springing to her eyes.
We must. Nevya needs her. And I need her.
Soft-hearted Isbel, in an unusual display of emotion, put her arms around her teacher. Lu accepted her embrace, and they wept together.
Sira managed a few hours of sleep despite her circumstances. She woke once to replenish her faltering quiru, the wind having torn at it through the night, then slept again. A bright day woke her, fading the light of her quiru to a dim glow. Her wound was stiff, and she moved carefully, hoping not to start the bleeding again.
She made a brief meal of fruit and nuts again, carefully wrapping what little was left and stowing it in her pack. She hoisted the pack gingerly to her shoulders, trying to avoid chafing her injury, and set out to retrace her steps of the day before. Her only real danger, she thought, was getting lost. She could manage without food for a little while.
The road they had followed to Lamdon and partway back again was one established by tradition and landmarks rather than improvements. Occasionally blocking trees were cut down, or boulders rolled aside. But snowfall shrouded Ogre Pass most of the year. Footprints rarely lasted more than a few hours.
But Sira knew Lamdon lay northeast of Bariken. Holding that in her mind, she could find the way. She would allow herself no doubts, but envision her welcome by Cantrix Sharn, a beacon to guide her to safety.
She intended to start by returning to the campsite where Magister Shen and Rollie lay entombed by snow. She would take her bearings there, where she would recognize the landmarks. Though it meant retracing an hour’s worth of steps, it seemed a prudent beginning.
The wind died down with the coming of day, and it gave her the added protection of her acute hearing. She could detect the approach of any riders. By this time, Wil and Trude and the others would already be at Bariken, and were perhaps even now sending messages about the accident that had taken the lives of Bariken’s Magister, its junior Cantrix, and one faithful rider. She shrank from thinking how grieved Maestra Lu would be.
She did not make good time. She was hungry, and weak from bleeding. The powdery snow had grown even deeper, and she had to wade through thigh-high drifts at times. Her trail had vanished, but she trusted her instinct to keep her moving in the right direction. When the moment came, however, she almost went right past the campsite.
She was plodding past a snowfilled clearing, which looked as if a clutter of boulders had been covered by the snow, when a crooked irontree caught her attention. It looked familiar. She stopped, and turned to look back the way she had come. The configuration of irontrees and their great twisting suckers jolted her memory. She went to one of the snowy boulders to clear it with her hand, and she found, as she swept away the powdery layers, that it was Rollie’s frozen body, freshly buried by the steady snowfall.
Sira set her teeth against a wave of sorrow for her friend, and began to scrabble through the snow to find Rollie’s pack, then Shen’s, hoping to find some food.
There was very little. Rollie had a little dried caeru meat, and Shen had a small flask of wine. A Cantrix, of course, never touched wine, but Sira’s hand hovered over the flask for a long moment. It would be warming, and she supposed it had some nutrition. Still, if it were to interfere with her ability to make quiru, its other qualities would be of no use. Instead, she took Shen’s long-handled knife, and thrust it through her belt next to Rollie’s. She had never used one except to rid herself of Mike’s arrow, but it might be useful. She intended to survive.
She took one last glance around the site. There was nothing else to be done here. She whispered, “Goodbye, Rollie,” before she turned her back on the awful memories, and began plowing her way back up the road to Lamdon.