No True Way (17 page)

It was no matter; Sparrow would still do her best to reach him. But her healing skills were rudimentary at best, and her belief in her ability had been deeply shaken by her mother's fatal illness. If she could not heal her own mother, Sparrow doubted she would be of much use to this young man.

And yet . . . Abilard, the most wondrous being Sparrow had ever met, clearly had unshakable belief in her. She was used to being the invisible one, the helper, the sweet one. Her older brother, a big, brawny fellow and the secret object of admiration of all the other girls in the village, had gone all the way to Haven to serve in the army there. Her brother was the star of the family, not her. Sparrow's role was to make sure that everybody around her was safe, well fed and happy. Her father's nickname for her, “Little Mother,” suited her well, and Sparrow had been more than happy to assume that role . . . until today.

But the appearance of this strange boy and his magnificent Companion had thrown her completely out of her old life.

Sparrow sighed, held on tightly to Cloudbrother's waist, and tried her best to relax and enjoy the extraordinary sensation of flying through the air on Abilard's strong back. Somehow, all would come out right. She hoped.

*   *   *

Their arrival in the village of Longfall caused a great sensation. The little children who watched the flocks of sheep on the meadows outside the village took up the cry first, and by the time Abilard galloped to the tiny
central square (more of a lawn, really) in front of the mayor's handsome house, almost all the village had gathered to see what all the fuss was about.

Sparrow's father, Hari, stood at the front of the crowd, an anxious expression wrinkling his face. When he saw her, his face softened in relief. But the shadows of sickness haunting him had only deepened since she had left to find the herbs, and the sight sent a chill deep into the pit of Sparrow's stomach.

She hid her trepidation, though, and slid off Abilard's back as gracefully as she could without a mounting block. “It's Brock!” she called to her father. “He's been Chosen! And returned.”

A low murmur rippled through the small crowd. Brock's parents, heartbroken at his loss, had left years ago to live with relatives in Errold's Grove, a bigger village not too far away. Terreen, the washerwoman, muttered under her breath just loud enough for Sparrow to hear, “Good thing his parents aren't here to see this.”

Sparrow looked over her shoulder at the boy on his steed, blind, white-haired, and bent. About to protest Terreen's harsh judgment, she held back from a harsh reply. Instead, Sparrow said, “His tribe calls him Cloudbrother. I guess you can see why . . .”

The mayor pushed through the crowd, and Sparrow relaxed a trifle. Mayor Undor was a good man, kind and shrewd both, and she expected he would take her part and welcome Brock home.

But his expression was grave. “Sparrow, dear. This boy looks sick. Really sick.”

His fear was well-founded. In years past, the tribes who traded with the villagers sometimes inadvertently brought disease with them, plagues the villagers had no
defense against. This past winter had been brutal and hard, and while no clan members had visited in the heavy snows, many people had sickened like her mother.

Mayor Undor was charged with protecting the village. But Sparrow wasn't about to stand by and let the mayor send her old friend away.

“He isn't contagious,” she blurted, her cheeks flushing. “Look, he was sick a while ago. His Companion tells me he needs no healing, and plenty of traders visit us here with no harm. He is no danger to us.”

Terreen crossed her meaty arms across her chest. “He sure looks sick to me. And how does a horse talk?”

“No, this ain't no horse,” Mayor Undor quickly said. “This is a true Companion, no doubt.” He bowed to Abilard. “Welcome, sir, to our village of Longfall. You've met Sparrow, of course, and I am Mayor Undor.”

Abilard snorted and whinnied his approval.

Mayor Undor shot her a quick glance. “The Companion told you? He spoke within your mind? Don't that mean he just Chose you?”

A shocked silence passed over the crowd. And it bothered Sparrow. She knew she wasn't Chosen, but did all of these people think the prospect was so shocking? Was she that invisible? She took a deep breath, reminded herself not to jump to conclusions.

“No, Mayor,” she said slowly. “He spoke to me in my mind, yes, though not to Choose me. But to ask for my help.”

Hari stepped forward and bowed deeply to the Companion. “Thank you for watching out for my girl Sparrow. I'm her dad, and you are both welcome in my home.” He looked around, daring anybody from the village to protest.

The mayor shook Hari's hand. “I can open my larder for the guests too, Hari. Anything you need, just send Sparrow over, and we'll get it for you.”

Mayor Undor brushed his too-long forelock of hair out of his eyes and smiled. “Sparrow, you're a goodhearted girl. If your Companion there says this boy is safe to stay, I'll believe him. You go take care of him like you do.”

A flood of warmth passed through Sparrow, a cascade of gratitude. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “I'll take care of Cloudbrother at home. And that's how it should be.”

The mayor smiled, nodded, stepped back. But Sparrow could see he was still worried.

*   *   *

Hari helped her ease Cloudbrother off his mount and into the house. Together, they tucked him into the second featherbed, and covered him with old quilts, though he had no fever. “He looks like a leaf getting ready to blow away,” her father remarked, and he was right.

In the bed, he looked profoundly peaceful, milky-pale, asleep.
Who would want to return from floating in the clouds?
Sparrow wondered, thinking ruefully of all the chores that waited for her every morning.

But Abilard needed her to call him back. How would she reach him?

She returned outside, where the Companion patiently waited. “You must be starved after such a run,” she said. “Can I bring you over to the mayor's house to get a bite to eat? He's got the nicest stables in the village by a long way.” She was too shy to admit that she and her father had no stable at all, only a goat pen where Hari daily milked the goats. Abilard was too royal a creature to set foot in such a place.

Abilard whickered his consent, and they set off for the mayor's place.

:You do not need to Heal him,:
the Companion assured her again.
:Only call him back . . . :

But wouldn't that require healing far beyond any skill Sparrow possessed? She sighed instead of voicing her concerns, and together they walked. Suddenly the village looked too small and muddy and gray for a magnificent being like Abilard.

The mayor himself received the Companion kindly, and Sparrow took the herb basket back to tend to both of her charges. Before she left, Abilard whickered at her once more, gentleness radiating from his beautiful sapphire eyes.

He knows I am afraid,
Sparrow thought in a quiet wonder.
And yet he still believes in me . . .

When she arrived at her cottage, her mother's herb basket swinging from its handle over her bent elbow, Hari was waiting at the threshold.

He looked at the basket, overflowing with healing trefoil, and sighed. “I know why you went to so much fuss,” he said, his scratchy voice breaking over the words. “It's me, right? You always were quick to see trouble coming. Poor little mother. Always worrying about everybody else first.”

By now, Sparrow saw the symptoms had passed from a foreboding shadow to physical effects her father could feel. His voice was thick with sickness now . . . if she could not heal him herself or get him help, he would not last two weeks.

But winter had retreated, and spring had finally come. Sparrow had plenty of trefoil, and better yet, the trading paths had opened again. The mayor could send word to
the Healers who rode Circuit in the area, and they would not be alone in their battle against sickness. It was still early enough for Hari to survive the snow fever.

Sparrow memorized the sight of her father standing in the doorway, his shoulders rounded but still strong, a smile creasing his face. Even haunted with shadow, Sparrow still adored the sight of him.

She had the sudden sense she would not see him again in their doorway, not for a very long time.

“Look, Dad,” she said, her voice choked too, not with illness, but with emotion, “Mama's herb basket is full to overflowing.”

Hari tilted his head and took a step toward her. “It's not Mama's herb basket anymore, Sparrow girl. It's yours.”

*   *   *

Sparrow didn't know what to do with the storm of emotions whirling inside her . . . fear for her father warred with the wonder of Abilard and his ability to speak in her mind, and worry for Cloudbrother threatened to rob her of her memory of Brock, and her ability to see past his hurts to his true self.

She knew better than to stay within that storm and stew. Instead, Sparrow got to work, and, as always, taking care of the business in front of her helped soothe the worry inside.

Her father had already tended to the hearth fire, and Sparrow set a steep of the trefoil to boil. While the tea strengthened, Sparrow crushed a double handful of trefoil in her mortar and pestle to make a poultice and splashed it with some witch hazel to brighten it.

She hurried to Cloudbrother's side. He still slept, apparently exhausted from the long journey through the
forest with Abilard. His hair, light and airy as a blown dandelion puff, rested on his forehead.

Sparrow felt again for fever. Thank the great Mother, nothing. She gently lowered the quilt, watched the easy breathing of his chest, rising and falling without strain. Abilard was right . . . he suffered from no plague, not now.

Still, the trefoil couldn't hurt, and hopefully the increased stimulation of his system could help. Blushing, she scooped the poultice mash from the mortar with her bare fingers, and reaching inside his untied tunic, she spread the mixture over his half-bared chest. The poultice tingled under Sparrow's fingers, strengthening her as well as Cloudbrother, and she took refuge in that warm tingle, took it in from her hands to strengthen her vitality in her core.

A great lassitude took her at the same time, and Sparrow found herself kneeling by the side of his bed, her fingertips resting over Cloudbrother's heart, her own heart slowing to beat in concert with his.

She shook off her sleep long enough to look behind her, back to the hearth where Hari waited. He was watching her . . . and smiling.

“I know how to serve tea, girl,” he said, stifling a cough with the back of a balled fist. “Go ahead, I'll have a little rest here.” And quite deliberately, Hari turned his chair so he faced away from the back room where Cloudbrother rested.

The tea's gentle fragrance wafted over to Sparrow, relaxing and strengthening her still more. Gratefully, she returned her attention to her charge, still sleeping under her fingers.

A small smile now curved the young man's lips, and a
rush of color had filled his cheeks. He no longer looked like a marble carving, but a living, breathing man.

Tears prickled at Sparrow's eyes, but she was too busy to give in to them, at least not yet. Instead she rested her forehead on the soft quilt and closed her eyes, took a deep breath.

Immediately her consciousness swept into a swiftly moving current of thought, as if she had turned into a sparrow for true and shot into the sky like the bluebird. Far away, her body waited for her, and Sparrow sensed that though her mind insisted she should be frightened, nothing would hurt her in this new place.

She soared into the whiteness, focused her sight, and saw that she flew through a great vastness of light, filtered through shifting carpets of white and gray.

Clouds.

“Brock,” she said in this place, and the air vibrated around her, sending ripples through the billowing white. “Please come.”

Instantly he appeared. In this plane of being his eyes were open, sparkling with life and vitality, his shoulders broad. He wore the same tunic as back in Longfall, his legs stretched long and straight, the gorgeous plumage of his embroidered trews and tunic shining through the whiteness like a beacon.

“No fear, Sparrow,” he said, his face shining with happiness. “I missed you! And here we are, together again. After the fever, I searched for you here, but never could find you.”

Sparrow wanted to laugh with joy, fly through the endless white with Brock, and forget all that waited for them below. But she remembered why she had come here to seek Brock, the master of the clouds.

“Abilard needs you,” she said. “Is there any way you can come back with me? To speak with the people around you?”

He shrugged, and while the smile never faded from his face, it grew a little sad. “I never left. My brothers just couldn't find me up here. Even the Masters who came to find me . . . they sensed me, but I couldn't speak to them! But you . . .”

Brock's sadness faded away. “You knew me before I became Cloudbrother, you know me to the root. And Sparrow, you always could fly . . . just you'd forget before you woke up again. We'd fly like this together, as children. I missed you. Plenty of folks here to talk to, but none of them knew Brock. And you do.”

With a shock of recognition, Sparrow remembered. How they'd flown together at night as children, after going to sleep in their respective cottages. No need to swear a secret because they'd never spoken of it in the daytime.

“Come closer,” she said. “If I stay with you, could you speak to your brothers on the ground?”

He glided to her, took her dream-hands in his. “If you stay with me, I think we'll find a new country to explore. I can go ahead, you can report back.”

Sparrow half-laughed, half-sobbed, “But I can't stay here forever, Brock! My dad needs me, and we'll all starve to death if somebody doesn't cook the eggs or milk the goats!”