Wintertide (22 page)

Besides, Egan’s life was at stake. And though he was Kemmon-Ro and a Hill Raider, he also proved to be a friend. And she was, before all else, a Healer. The supernatural abilities of her craft knew no political boundaries.

Finally, she did all that she could, all she knew how. She stripped her cloak from around her shoulders. She lay it over the wounded man and touched his forehead with a slumbering incantation. He closed his eyes. She listened to the sound of his breathing, then hearing a normalcy return to its rhythm, curled up on the rocky floor next to him, her heavy-outer tunic a pillow for her head, Nixa warm against her legs.

She woke from a deep sleep into darkness and stumbled to the mouth of the cave. It was snowing heavily, the low-hanging clouds obscuring any light from the moons. She guessed it was near midnight or shortly after, a supposition confirmed in her mind when she touched Cinnabar’s sleepy one.

She used a small spell to make some lifesweet for her horse, then returned to the depth of the cave, shivering, gathering a few small rocks as she went. She piled them in the center, a foot or two from where Egan lay. She drew her sword from its sheath and placed it on top of the stones. Soon, a reassuring orange glow seeped through the rocks. She removed the sword, returning it to its covering and let the heat from the stones warm her body. The stones grew hotter and the interior of the cave brightened. She turned to find Egan’s eyes open, regarding her with an odd mixture of gratitude and fear.

“Who are you?” His voice cracked as it passed through his dry, parched lips. A fever burned within him.

Before she could answer, he added, “You’re a Healer?”

This time she nodded. “Yes.”

“You saved my life. Thank you.”

“Did you think I’d do otherwise, Egan?”

He studied her profile in the glow of the stones as if he were seeing her for the first time. “No,” he said. His gaze followed the feminine lines of her form beneath her thin shirt, lines previously obscuring by the bulk of a thick tunic and shapeless cloak.

“You’re not Camron.”

“No.”

He stared at her for a moment longer, then his eyes closed again, his head turning slowly to one side. There was still much healing his body had to do.

He woke a few hours later. She was changing the poultice on his chest. His left arm moved painfully until his hand lay on her wrist.

“I thought I dreamed you.” His voice was stronger. And his eyes clearer, Khamsin noticed with some satisfaction.

“Nightmare, more like it. Are you thirsty? Do you think you could sit up and take water?”

He nodded.

She bundled her cloak and outer tunic under his back as he propped himself up on one elbow. She had filled an empty wineskin with fresh snow and herbs. She held it to his lips.

“Slowly,” she cautioned. When he finished, she touched his face. His fever was receding but still higher than she liked.

“How long…?”

She glanced over her shoulder to the mouth of the cave where Nixa sat. It was as gray as the cat’s fur outside. “Five, six hours. There’s been a bad storm. Makes it seem worse than it is.”

“You’ve been here. The whole time?”

She nodded.

“Then, I don’t remember. I asked you, didn’t I? There is no lad called Camron.”

“No.” She offered him a smile. “Just myself. And yes, I’m a Healer. Lest you fear I don’t know what I’m doing,” she added as she scooped a fresh mixture of herbs and oil from a small bowl. She dabbed it carefully into his wounds.

“Why did you pretend…?”

She shrugged. “It’s a safer way to travel. Few question a young farm lad out after adventure.”

He shook his head slowly. “Adventure? You came here looking for adventure?”

“No.”

“Then, what do you seek?”

“Knowledge. Experience. Answers.”

“And your family permits this?”

“My husband was murdered.” Her voice went flat.

Egan closed his eyes for a moment. “But this uncle…”

She drew a deep breath. “That was just part of Camron’s story.”

“There’s no one else?”

She thought of a pale-eyed man with hair the color of ravens’ wings and a mist formed in her eyes. “No. Everything I’ve ever had is gone, save for my cat. And my horse.”

He seemed to consider this information. “Lady, everything is
not
gone. You have Kemmon-Ro as your family. And Egan, Kemmon Rey, by your side, if you want him.” He reached for her hand.

She clasped his fingers in her own. “I don’t know how Elsy will take to having a sister.”

“My offer isn’t one of adoption.”

Khamsin heard the emotion in his voice and remembered the strong feelings of kinship, and love, she had sensed in him. Her fingers slid through his. She turned towards the glowing pile of stones as if the heat could burn off the water threatening to spill from her eyes.

“Thank you, Master Egan,” she said finally, ignoring a familiar ache that resurrected again in her heart. “But I’ve loved truly only once in my life. And I’ve no further desire for anyone to take his place.”

“I understand, Lady.” She glanced back at him. His face was full of compassion. “And I envy, then, what you and your husband had. For I’ve yet to find it in my life.”

But it was not Tavis that Khamsin held deep within her heart. It was Rylan the Tinker.

Egan closed his eyes. Khamsin gently pulled her garments from under his back, folding her outer tunic again for his pillow. His breathing was steady as he slipped into sleep. She tucked her cloak around him.

She returned to her place by the warm stones. Egan offered her his name, his protection, his family and his love. But she could never marry again, could never share a bed with a man and not think of the soft bed in Courten’s Square. And the man who had taught her about love within it.

Nor could she brew tea and not see Rylan’s hands holding his own cup out to her, as she lay weak and bruised on the forest floor.

Nor could she walk down a cobblestoned street and not feel him, tall and strong, by her side.

Suddenly she could no longer hold back the tears. She lay her head against her knees and sobbed, the knowledge Rylan was indeed her very soul, her very life—and that which in her heart of hearts she knew she truly sought—coming much too late.

*

Egan slept through the morning, waking once to accept the potion Khamsin gave him. His fever broke and the infection subsided. He only needed time to regain his strength.

She dozed herself but didn’t sleep, fearing her dreams and what she might learn from them. Her presence had been felt, she was sure, yet she was reluctant to draw a mage circle and seek answers. If he were coming after her now, best she didn’t know. There was little she could do about it, anyway.

The snow hadn’t subsided and now drifted in great piles along the pine groves. She hoped Druke, Wade and Skeely managed to find shelter before the storm hit.

She heard Egan stir and left her post at the mouth of the cave.

“You’re better this afternoon.”

“Is it that, already?” Painfully, he pulled himself into a sitting position and stared at the whiteness in the distance. “I wondered if you’d still be here when I woke. Now I see why.”

“I’ll stay until I can trust you on your own. Or until Druke finds us.”

“Druke’s got more sense than to attempt any traveling in this. Besides, when it snows this hard, it rarely lasts long. Things should clear shortly.”

She nodded, knowing as soon as it did, she’d make preparations to depart.

“Lady?”

She turned.

“I, I know I said this last night, at least, I think I did. But thank you, for saving my life.”

She smiled. “Elsy would never forgive me if I didn’t.”

“Is there a reason I can’t know your name? I don’t feel right calling you ‘Camron.’”

“Khamsin. My name’s Khamsin.”

“It means ‘child of the winds.’”

“I know.” Bronya told her, many times, the story of the day she was born, in the midst of a maelstrom.

“Will you travel back to Pinetrail with me, Lady Khamsin?”

“I can’t, though be sure that my prayers will be with you on the road.”

“Then there really is an uncle you seek, from home, from Tynder’s Hill?”

Evidently his fever wiped some of their earlier conversations from his memory. “No. Aric wasn’t my uncle but my brother-in-law. But he was killed several months ago.”

“When your husband was killed.”

Some things he did remember. “Yes. In a raid.”

Egan was quiet for a moment. “Tynder’s Hill is North of the Fohn and though not Kemmon-Ro, is in our region. Am I right in guessing what you seek is revenge, Lady Khamsin? As the Master of Traakhal promises: protection, retaliation and vindication?”

She wouldn’t be the first to call upon a higher power for such ends and as the story seemed one that Egan could comfortably accept, she let him think her reasons were so. The Kemmon Rey had enough problems to deal with. Disillusionment over his Lady wasn’t one she wanted to add. Besides, he was still Kemmon-Ro and as such would scarcely approve of her real reason for seeking out the castle of the Sorcerer.

“Do you know who murdered your people?”

“No,” she lied. “They were killed in a raid outside the village. They’d gone hunting.”

Egan sighed. “I could have the Kemmon bring you justice if you knew. But without that knowledge,” he shook his head, “the answers must come through other sources.”

“Other sources?”

“Yes. Protection, retaliation and vindication. The Master has ways to know who planned that raid.”

Khamsin had little doubt in that. The Sorcerer had many ways at his disposal, not the least of which was the Orb of Knowledge. And Egan’s belief that his Master was the provider of not only knowledge, but protection and vindication as well gave Khamsin the opportunity she needed to admit Traakhal was now her destination.

“But the mountain trails will shortly be impassable,” Egan said. “So, it’s best you return with me to Pinetrail. We can make inquiries through the Nests. If nothing more is known about the raid near Tynder’s, then I’ll take you to the castle after First Thaw. I’ll be all healed then, as well.”

She glanced at the deepening snow outside. “But isn’t this the first storm of the season?

“Here, yes. But not in the mountains.”

It was a difficulty she hadn’t considered.

He saw the disappointment on her face. “Druke and Wade might be able to guide you there, Lady. But there’s no way you could return until after First Thaw.”

Return? She wasn’t the least bit concerned with returning, her only thoughts were on gaining entry to the Sorcerer’s Room in the East Tower and destroying the orb. Wintertide was still a few weeks away.

“Elsy needs her father, Egan. She’s looking forward to teaching him to read. It’s best if you return to Pinetrail without me. What I have to do, my friend, should be done alone.”

“You’re going on to Traakhal?”

“I have to.”

“But, Lady Khamsin…”

She shook her head stubbornly. “No.”

“But?”

“Egan, please. I appreciate your offer but I’ll not change my mind. This is something I, alone, have to do.” She thought of how she had told Rylan almost the same thing, knowing the dangers that sought her out. Dangers he may already have met in Browner’s Grove. Perhaps if she’d been with him, she could have saved him from Lady Melande’s riders.

No. She wouldn’t expose Egan to the wrath of the man he called his Master. She wouldn’t lose him, too.

“I have to go,” she said finally and even the softness of her tone could not hide the stubborn note in her voice.

*

Druke, Wade and Skeely found their cave two days later, amid much shouts and cries and backslapping. Khamsin returned to her disguise as Camron and made Egan promise not to tell the truth, nor the story of what happened with the Mogra until after Wintertide. He was puzzled by her request but admitted he owed her. He agreed, asking only that he be allowed to accompany her to the beginning of the mountain trail that would eventually lead her to the peninsula in the Khal.

He was much stronger now, so this she granted him. They left the men from his Kemmon lounging comfortably in the cave. Egan traveled almost ’til sundown by her side, reaching the foot of the trail just as the last light of the day bathed the peaks before them in a pale, yellow light.

There was a traveler’s Nest just an hour farther, he told her. She thanked him, letting a silence fall between them for a moment before spurring her horse onto the trail.

Years later, though, when Elsy the Rey’s daughter would gather her children around her on a warm night in Late Harvest, and recite the tale of their grandfather and the magical Lady, she would swear that before Kiasidira faded into the twilight, she first kissed Master Egan good-bye.

Khamsin rode west into deepening snows for a full day. The sky overhead was clear. The deeply rutted path turned sharply just after she set out the next morning and for awhile the rising sun shone on her face. Gradually, though, the trail wove in a southerly direction. By noon she entered the peninsula.

She was high in the mountains above the tree line. The cliffs rising upon either side of her were stark and gray. She saw no one, sensed no one, having resumed her shielding. He may be expecting her, but she would not aid him as to when.

Her hood covered her short-cropped hair. Gloved hands held Cinnabar’s reins. A Kemmon-Ro blanket lay across the horse’s back, a gift from Egan.

Progress was slow as the bare sections of the trail were rocky and treacherous. Those areas blanketed in snow hinted at dangers that could cripple her horse. She was forced to dismount again and lead Cinnabar on foot while Nixa emitted displeasure at being deprived of the warmth of Khamsin’s cloak. The icy winds ruffled her fur and the gray cat tucked her paws beneath her as she balanced on the padded saddle on Cinnabar’s broad back.

The cold sterility of the landscape affected Khamsin as well. Her young face took on a more determined mien, her heart again hardening where emotions rubbed it raw. She lost the warmth and security of Tanta Bron only to make her home with the Smith, in Cirrus Cove. ’Til that, too, along with Rina’s bright laughter and Aric’s teasing smile, was abruptly taken from her. She’d given up then, been willing to die, to release her hold on life when the Tinker found her, healing her first with his words, and then with his touch. Of all of those she’d known in her eighteen years, only he hadn’t sought her with questions but instead, taught her how to find answers; and hadn’t taken or demanded, only offered his love and understanding.