Touch of Power (20 page)

“Not for lack of trying,” Belen said.

Kerrick rubbed the scars on his neck.

“What happened?” Quain asked. He and Loren had been intently listening to the story.

“Life magicians have an affinity with all living creatures,” Belen said. “Tohon called an ufa to protect him against Kerrick’s attack. They were fighting outside, behind the stables so the teachers couldn’t see them. The ufa almost ripped Kerrick’s throat out. I spent two weeks nursing Kerrick—who should have known better to challenge a life magician—back to health.”

Seemed odd the school wouldn’t have a healer on staff. Especially with such important students. “Wasn’t there a healer there?”

“Called away for an emergency,” Belen said.

I mulled over the information and found an inconsistency. “Why was Ryne winning when you said everyone hated him?”

“He convinced his supporters with logic and honesty,” Kerrick said. “By that time everyone was sick of being deceived and not knowing who to trust.”

“And how did he convince you?” I asked.

“He visited me every day when I was recovering. He exposed the people who had orchestrated and caused the most trouble over the years. Jael and Tohon. As the youngest of three siblings, Jael would never gain power of Bavly Realm. She planned to marry me so she’d eventually be Queen of Alga. When she realized Stanslov would be easier to manipulate, she changed her strategy.” Kerrick fisted his hands and tapped them against his thighs. He met my gaze for the first time since telling his tale. “I ignored and refused to see what was going on around me all those years.”

Was he implying I had been doing the same thing?

“Who became king?” Loren asked.

“Ryne won,” Belen said. “He had gained all but three students’ support.”

Easy to guess the three. Interesting how Jael and Tohon were still causing problems.

“Okay, so you and Ryne graduated and returned to your respective Realms. Why aren’t you there? Helping your people?” I asked Kerrick.

“I was there for two years, dealing with the plague and the waves of marauders.” He rubbed his face as if he could wipe away the memories. “We didn’t have the manpower to keep them out, and they terrorized and stole provisions from the survivors. They killed, as well. But they were hard to find and counter. They fought like the tribal people in the north.”

“Smart bastards,” Belen agreed. “They were in position to storm Alga castle and there was nothing we could do other than dig in and die fighting.”

“I sense a happy ending,” Quain said.

“We were saved by—”

“Ryne,” I said, guessing.

“Not him in particular,” Belen said. “But he sent a… What did he call it?”

“An elite squad,” Kerrick said.

“That’s it. They were just a handful of very well-trained soldiers, but man, they outsmarted the marauders, striking at night, targeting the leaders. By morning, the marauders were gone. Amazing.”

“He sent a few more elite squads, and in a couple months Alga was free of the threat and we started rebuilding,” Kerrick said. “After everything settled down, I handed leadership of the Realm over to my younger brother, Izak, so I could join Ryne in helping the other thirteen.”

“So
we
could help,” Belen said. “We spent a year with Ryne, and the three Realms north of the Nine Mountains were safe and prospering when we crossed over two years ago. You won’t find the horrors we have found on this side over there.”

“This side has Tohon and we already discovered Ryne’s elite squads can’t counter his…army,” Kerrick said. “Ryne was in the process of collecting more information when he sickened. And I’ve no gift for strategy. Ryne outsmarted Tohon five years ago—he can do it again.”

Which made Kerrick twenty-six years old. Which I didn’t care about. I should care more that they seemed so certain that Tohon needed to be stopped, or at least contained to his Realm. Except I didn’t quite understand why.

I remembered Tohon had worked at the Healer’s Guild for some time. As a life magician he was an invaluable resource to the Guild and he helped out before the plague. How bad could he be? Well, besides the whole bounty on healers. Hating healers wasn’t unique to him. Ryne hated them as well, and that was before the plague. And why didn’t I want to know more about Tohon? Cowardice again?

Everyone watched my expression.

I tried to keep it neutral as I asked Kerrick, “After the snowstorm, can we return to the Guild’s record room?”

“If it’s safe and not buried under tons of snow, we can stay there a couple days before heading north.”

Despite his claim, Kerrick knew enough strategy. He had linked my newfound interest in Ryne with the crate of documents we had uncovered. The best strategy would be to go back and look for more. Perhaps we would discover another box that would convince me to heal Ryne.

The storm blew for the next two days. We emerged from the cave on the third morning, squinting in the bright white sunlight. The forest had been transformed. It looked as if the clouds in the sky had descended to the earth. Piles of fluffy snow mounded on the lee side of trees and bushes, while open areas were bare.

Kerrick frowned at the drifts. “This is going to slow us down.”

“We have at least thirty days until the passes open,” Belen said.

“And over two hundred miles to travel. Let’s go.”

We skirted the deeper drifts and kept to the bare spots when possible. At times, the snow was knee-deep, and others it reached as high as our waists. The snow might appear to be fluffy, but it felt quite dense as I trudged through it, reminding me of the air and how Jael had been able to thicken it so much it had stopped my knife in midair. Worried she might send another storm, I glanced at the sky. Nothing but blue.

“What about our tracks?” I asked, puffing from the exertion.

“Not much we can do,” Kerrick said.

We reached the Healer Guild’s ruined buildings in the afternoon. About a foot of snow had collected in front of the slab holding the door closed. It didn’t take long for all of us to clear it. Belen moved the slab with ease. While Kerrick scouted the area, the rest of us descended into the record room with torches to search for more information.

That night, we camped at the foot of the stairs, so our small campfire could vent and we remained close to the exit.

“What happened to ‘no back door’?” I asked Kerrick.

“It’s not snowing.”

“What does—”

“It’s too hard to sense intruders in the forest during storms,” he said.

“Why?”

“The forest doesn’t like the wind snapping its limbs and branches. During a storm, it reacts as if being invaded by an army of intruders. But now, I’m pretty confident no one is nearby.”

I offered to take a turn on watch. Kerrick laughed at first, but when he realized I was serious, he allowed me to man the first shift.

Nothing happened during my inaugural shift. It was simple to guard a single door. However, the few hours alone, breathing in the crisp night air and watching the snow sparkle in the moonlight, was a much-needed respite from the pressure. Even when no one talked about Ryne, I felt their gazes on me and their hopes weighed on my conscience. Worry for Noelle clung to me as well, but out here in the quiet stillness, I could pretend for a little while that all was right with the world.

Eventually, Kerrick arrived to take the next shift, and all my problems rushed back. Reluctant to join the others, I lingered at the top of the stairs.

“What’s wrong?” Kerrick asked.

Nothing. Everything. “Will…Jael hurt my sister?”

“I wish I could say no, but you’ve seen what she’s capable of.” Kerrick stared out at the snow. “As long as your sister is useful to her, she should be fine. Jael’s probably hoping that you’ll return to rescue her. Once Ryne is healed, at least Tohon shouldn’t bother you anymore.”

In that particular case, I would have taken myself off the chessboard. “Unless there is another reason he wants me. He did change the bounty so I’m captured alive.” I paused, considering. “Which is better than being dead.”

“You told me before that some things are worse than death. Do you remember?” Kerrick’s gaze now focused on me.

Surprised he had, I nodded.

“Do you still feel that way?”

I searched my feelings. “No.”

“Good.”

We camped in the record room two more nights. During those days, we searched the entire room. No one spotted another crate that might hold information about the plague. Dejected, we gathered around the campfire until Belen returned from his final sweep. He carried a crate labeled
Olaine Poisoning
.

“Thinking of learning the assassin arts, Belen?” Loren asked.

“Isn’t that a rare flower? Maybe he wants to get into gardening. I hear that’s what older people do when they reach their dotage,” Quain teased.

Belen shook his head. “Two brains and not a bit of intelligence between them. Good thing the monkeys are entertaining or I’d have left them back in Ryazan.”

Before they could defend themselves, Belen held the crate up. “Olaine poisoning is what the healers thought was wrong with the people before they realized it was the plague.”

I remembered Tara’s consternation over how the symptoms matched, but no olaine plants could be found near the patients. It had been one of many diagnoses suggested during that chaotic time.

“Another deadly plant?” Quain asked, looking a little green.

“In this case, it’s the pollen,” I said. “Anyone living downwind of the plant when it flowers sickens. But they recover about ten days after being exposed to the pollen.”

“Why haven’t we heard of it?” Loren asked.

“It’s a very rare plant that only grows in the foothills on both sides of the Nine Mountains,” Belen said.

Which was why Belen knew about it. However, olaine poisoning had been quickly ruled out. I took the crate from Belen. We’d found nothing else. It might be useful.

That evening, I sat close to the fire and sorted through the crate. Most of the contents detailed the cases of olaine poisoning over the years. There had been twenty-two confirmed sufferers the last year that had been recorded. A map of the foothills of the Nine Mountains had been marked with the location of each case. The majority had been on the northern side in Ivdel, with six in Alga and one on the southern side in Vyg.

Shoved in the back of the crate was another map. This one showed all the Realms. Red dots also marked the map, but the concentration of them were located in Vyg, Pomyt and Sectven. The page had been titled,
Recent Outbreak of Olaine Poisoning.
However, it had been crossed out and
First
Plague Victims
had been written on top in a different hand.

I dug a little deeper into the records and found a list of dates and locations that matched the red dots.

I borrowed Belen’s stylus and ink. Using dates to link cases, I connected the dots for each date. When I finished I had a series of concentric circles that grew bigger with each date.

They resembled the target Belen had painted on the tree during our knife-throwing lessons.

A finger of ice slid down my back as I stared at the target.

The bull’s-eye hovered right over the Healer’s Guild.

Proof that the plague started at the heart of the Healer’s Guild.

Chapter 17

Breathing became difficult. The first victims of the plague had lived within ten miles of the Healer’s Guild. And like ripples in a still pond, the disease radiated out in circles. Whoever had marked the map stopped after a couple months so the last circle crossed through the border between Pomyt and Casis down through Tobory, sweeping past Lekas—my hometown—going up through Sectven, Sogra, Zainsk and Vyg and past the Nine Mountains, touching on Alga and Ivdel.

I calmed my emotions and viewed the information with a clinical eye. What did these circles tell me? The plague hadn’t been an airborne virus or else the marks would have been concentrated downwind of the prevailing wind direction. Since it had been the spring, the winds would have been from the west.

The plague must have been transmitted person to person. The marks were centered on the more populated areas, which supported that theory. I checked the date of the circle near Lekas. It matched when Noelle said she had sent those letters.

“You’ve been staring at those papers for hours,” Belen said. “Did you find anything useful?”

“A few things,” I hedged.

Then I considered the timeline of the plague. This spring would be five years since it began. It took two years to sweep through all fifteen Realms, and another year to reach the remote areas. Ryne’s castle was near the coast of the Ronel Sea, overlooking a busy port town. So why did it take so long to affect him?

“Belen, where was Ryne living when the plague broke out?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” He glanced at Kerrick, who had appeared to be sleeping, but now pushed up on his elbow. “Do you?”

“No, why?” Kerrick asked me.

“He contracted the plague late. I was just curious if he had been living in northern Ivdel or far from populated areas.”

“There weren’t many people living up near the wildlands,” Belen said. “Mostly just the border sentries on duty. People were afraid of being too close to the tribes.”

Who we had assumed also caught the plague and died in large numbers. But no sentries walked the border, guarding against attacks. No rumors of invaders, either. At least, not yet. If it had been transmitted from person to person, then perhaps the people of the tribes were all healthy. A scary thought.

I considered. “Before he became sick, was he with anyone who had the plague?”

Once again Belen met Kerrick’s gaze. “No.”

“Did anything happen to him? Where was he at the time?”

“One of the elite had uncovered a spy working for Tohon,” Belen said.

“We
suspected
he was loyal to Tohon,” Kerrick added. “He was being questioned when he broke free and wrapped his hands around Ryne’s throat. He was yelling in Ryne’s face, promising to kill Ryne when one of the elite sent a knife through his heart. We never confirmed who he had been spying for.”

“It was just a small group of us. Ryne always insisted on traveling light despite the danger. We were camped in the southern foothills of the Nine Mountains in Vyg,” Belen said.

It was possible Tohon had sent a sick spy to infect Ryne, but that still didn’t explain how he managed to survive so long. Did it matter? Probably not. But… “When he got sick, how long after that incident was it?”

“A few days,” Kerrick said.

“I need a number.”

“Didn’t we change locations after that?” Belen asked Kerrick.

“Yes. We didn’t know how long the spy had been watching us. Ryne ordered us to move east and we hiked through the foothills for two—”

“Three days?” Belen cut in.

“Two,” Kerrick said. “Remember, we stopped because of the spring?”

“How could I forget unlimited hot water?”

“Sounds nice,” I said.

“It was, but that night Ryne started vomiting and had stomach cramps,” Kerrick said. “We thought it was just a reaction to spoiled meat, but when it went on longer than a day, we knew he was in the first stage of the plague. At that time, there were still a couple victims.”

The first stage resembled a stomach bug, and once the person’s stomach and bowels were empty, the symptoms transformed into all-over aches, pains and a high fever, which was stage two. The final stage involved convulsions, delusions and large white blisters on the skin that itched at first, then burned. Many of the victims screamed nonstop in pain during the third stage. They reacted as if they were burning alive.

We didn’t know much about incubation periods, but the general timing of the illness had been four days for stage one, five for stage two and two for stage three. Eleven days to die. Healers took longer. According to Tara, the healers had lasted for twenty days before passing away.

It hadn’t been a surprise to learn many people who had known they had the plague killed themselves before entering the third stage.

“What happened when you knew?” I asked.

“I sent a message to Sepp,” Kerrick said. “We met up with him in the mountains and encased Ryne in stasis about five days after the first symptoms. Then we transported him to a safe location.”

It didn’t matter how far along Ryne was, I would start at the beginning if I healed him. Was he worth twenty days of suffering? I couldn’t say.

We headed north the next morning. Even though we had Estrid’s promise of safe passage to the Nine Mountains, Jael remained a threat. Avoiding the main road, Kerrick chose a route that paralleled it in Pomyt Realm. He kept to the wooded areas, which made sense, but occasionally we would pass through an abandoned town or skirt around a populated one.

As we drew closer to the foothills, all the towns we saw were empty. After five days on the road, we encountered towns that had been recently burned. Evidence of an attack marked the buildings and stained the ground.

Belen noticed my concern. “Marauders.”

“Like the ones who attacked Alga?” I asked.

“Yes. Except these live in the foothills. They invade a town, steal everything that’s worth anything, burn the place down and retreat back to the foothills. When they run out of provisions, they target another.”

“What about Ryne’s elite squads? What have they been doing all this time?”

“One is protecting Ryne. The rest are protecting the three northern Realms, keeping them safe while Belen and I searched for a healer,” Kerrick said. He quirked a wry smile. “We had no idea it would take this long.”

“In the meantime, Estrid’s been gaining momentum in the eastern Realms,” Belen said. “And Tohon has been creeping in from the west.”

I gazed at the destroyed homes. If Ryne hadn’t gotten sick, his men might have stopped those marauders. That thought led to another, which had been bugging me for the past couple days. “Why couldn’t the elite counter Tohon’s army?”

“We don’t know. None of the squads returned from a reconnaissance mission in Sogra,” Kerrick said. “That’s why we were in Vyg, to find out what happened to them.”

“Not even one solider?”

“No.”

Later that afternoon, I stopped and glanced around. The area looked familiar, but I’d no idea where we were exactly. Each day we had covered as much ground as possible, traveling about twenty to thirty miles before halting for the night. I calculated the approximate distance to be one hundred and twenty-five miles in five days.

“What’s wrong?” Loren asked me.

“How close is Galee?”

Everyone looked at Kerrick. He always knew our location. Quain had once teased that Kerrick was a living map, and I had wondered if the information had come from his forest magic.

“Galee is about eighteen miles east of here. Why?” Kerrick asked.

“My mentor, Tara of Pomyt, lived there. She had known so much about plants and herbs that she had written everything down so she wouldn’t forget. That book would be invaluable. It’s not far—”

“We spent three days in the Guild’s record room. Wouldn’t that information have been there?”

“No. The records are of past experiments and studies. Something that was used daily would have been near where the healers worked, not put away. It would have burned.”

“And Galee probably has been burned to the ground by marauders,” Kerrick said.

“Even if the town wasn’t,” Loren said gently, “her house would have been torn apart if her neighbors knew she was a healer.”

True. “And Tara probably carried it with her when she went into hiding. Never mind.”

But Kerrick didn’t move. “Tara didn’t go into hiding.”

“How do you know?” A cold emptiness swirled inside me.

“She was on the top of Ryne’s list, and close to our starting point. Belen and I arrived in Galee a few days after we left Ryne, but she had been executed the month before. Her house had been looted, but not burned.”

Grief swelled along with an impotent fury. Killed by the very people she had loved and cared for. Whose scars she proudly wore. Whose sickness she had assumed so they didn’t have to suffer.

I pushed my useless emotions down. Nothing would change because I was angry. “The book’s long gone. Probably burned for warmth that first winter.”

“Perhaps. Or she could have hidden it,” Kerrick said.

“Maybe. But the odds are so slim there’s no sense going eighteen miles out of our way.” I was well aware that Kerrick and I had changed roles even before I caught the monkeys’ smirky grins.

“Still worth stopping,” Kerrick said.

I stared at him knowing full well he only agreed because he hoped it would sway me to decide in Ryne’s favor.

As expected, the town of Galee had been destroyed. Burned-out buildings lined the streets. Nothing left except the stone foundations. However, Kerrick was determined to find Tara’s house.

I led them to her place by memory. As her newest apprentice, it had been my job to go to the market every morning. I had gotten all the jobs no one else wanted, but I had treated each task as if it had been essential to do well—a trick I had learned from my father. Tara had called me her hardest-working apprentice, and had eventually started coming to me to help her with the more interesting cases.

Her house resembled the others—a pile of burned rubble. Kerrick and the others poked around, clearing sections. I stayed on the street, trying and failing not to recall how the six months I had lived and studied here had been the happiest of my “adult” life.

“Found something,” Kerrick said, joining me. He held a small dented metal box coated with ash.

My heart jolted in recognition. It had survived!

“It’s locked.” He shook the box and it rattled. “Hold it so I can pick the lock.”

“No need.” I dug into my knapsack and withdrew a small silver key. “The box is mine. I’d left it here when I returned home, hoping I would be back. I’d forgotten about it.”

“Yet you carry the key.”

I shrugged. “Just couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. Strange, I know.”

The key fit, but opening the lock proved difficult. Kerrick helped and soon the contents that I had thought vital at the time were revealed. Coins, a necklace and a notebook.

Kerrick held up the necklace. The pendant hanging from it was a pair of hands. He gave me a questioning glance.

“My brother Criss sent that to me a month before I left home to start my apprenticeship. He’s the one who taught me how to juggle.” I smiled at the memory. “His letter said he knew I would be the best healer in all the Fifteen Realms because I had always been good with my hands and that he was so proud of me.” Tears filled my eyes, blurring my vision. “That was the last time we heard from him or my father.” I turned so Kerrick couldn’t see me wipe my cheeks.

“What’s in the notebook?” Kerrick asked.

I flipped the pages. My crooked handwriting filled each one. Reading through a few, I realized that what I had thought was a silly diary of events actually was an account of what I had learned each day. I had already forgotten many of these lessons.

“Anything useful in there?” he asked.

“Tara’s would be better, but there’s more here than I had thought.”

“Worth going out of our way for?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now turn around.”

“Why?”

“Can’t you just—”

“Okay, okay.” I spun, wondering what he wanted me to see.

Instead of pointing something out, Kerrick hooked the necklace around my throat. He pulled my hair out, letting the clasp rest on the back of my neck. The touch of cold metal on skin sent a shiver along my spine.

“There. Now you won’t lose it again.”

We overnighted in Galee, camping on the lee side of a large stone wall that hadn’t been knocked over. After so many days on the road together, we gathered wood, cleared snow, set a fire, cooked, ate and took turns on watch without having to say a word. However, once we settled under the blankets of our sleeping rolls, conversation would start, usually after Kerrick left for his shift. Tonight was no exception.

“Has anyone else noticed that we’ve encountered no one in the past two days?” Quain asked.

“The people living around here are not the type we’d want to encounter,” Belen said.

“The trees are probably telling Kerrick where they are, and we’ve been avoiding them,” Loren said. “No sense letting Tohon or the bands of marauders know our location.”