Wizardborn (16 page)

“I've seen her,” Averan said. “She's enormous, but she's just a reaver.”

Binnesman shook his head, as if he could not believe it. “Not just a reaver.”

“You say that she's binding these seals.” Gaborn asked Binnesman, “What will that do?”

“She plans to bind the Powers of Fire and Air against us,” Binnesman said. “Earth and Water would diminish. Life would… change in ways so fundamental, I cannot even begin to guess at the repercussions.”

Jerimas concluded, “She'll destroy the world!”

“No!” Averan said. “She doesn't want to destroy the world—just…
change
it into the kind of place where we can't live anymore.”

“Is that even possible?” Gaborn asked Binnesman.

Binnesman frowned, stroked his beard. “If she comprehends so many pieces of the Master Rune, the world has not seen a creature with such power….”

“Averan,” Gaborn said. “This is imperative. I need to find this One True Master. I need to kill her, and I must do it quickly. How can I get to her? You say that you can't draw me a map. But you also say that you learn by eating reavers. Is there a certain kind of reaver that you need to eat, one who would know the way—another scout perhaps, or a howler?”

Averan looked up at him. Her eyes were filled with an unnamable expression. Iome could see a mixture of loathing and embarrassment and a pure desire to help. “Maybe!” she said, as if the idea had not occurred to her. “There are markings in the Underworld—directions.”

“Directions?” Gaborn said. “So you need to understand their language better? Can't you get that from any reaver?”

Averan shook her head, said in a confused tone, “No. Not all reavers speak the same language.”

“What?” Gaborn asked. “Like Rofehavanish and Taifan?”

Averan tried to explain. “Not like that,” Averan said. “But a carpenter doesn't speak like a warrior, does he? He has his own words for tools and the things he does with them, his own language. Reavers are the same way. They each have different jobs. If you're ever going to reach the One True Master, there's a certain reaver you need. The reaver… there's no name for it. There's just a smell.”

“Does it have any special markings?” Gaborn asked.

Averan wrinkled her brow. “It's a Waykeeper,” she said slowly, as if searching for the right description. “It's a Way-maker. It knows where the trails in the Underworld lead, and which doors are locked, and how they are guarded.”

“How many of these monsters are traveling with the horde?”

“One.”

“Just one?”

“Yes!” Averan said. A fierce light came into her eyes. “Just one—a big male, with thirty-six philia, and huge paws, and runes on his arms. I—I might know him if I could see him, and could smell him!”

Gaborn stepped backward, looked at Iome. His eyes were haunted, his expression that of a trapped animal. Iome knew that he was leaving, going someplace that she dared not follow.

“Gentlemen,” Gaborn told the knights there in the inn, “prepare your mounts. We'll ride for Carris within the hour.”

   11   

Miracles are as common as soapwort seeds and spiderwebs. People tend to forget that, until they hear a newborn baby cry.

—
The wizard Binnesman

Binnesman pulled up the gray blanket that covered Sir Borenson, looked beneath his tunic, and glanced away, frowning. “He's infected. We'll have to bring that fever down.”

He covered Borenson quickly, so passersby would not see, but it was too late. Myrrima had come out of the inn to find a couple of squires in the wagonbed, already gawking at the wound. She'd shooed them away. But now a number of knights that knew Borenson either in person or by reputation had begun to gather around the wain, and Myrrima was rapidly finding that nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd.

Borenson lay unconscious amid the sweet-smelling hay. Myrrima felt anxious for his welfare. She had seen people die before. She believed that in his current state, her husband ought to be able to hang on for another day or two. But she still felt nervous. Sometimes, the sick could fool you, die just when you thought them recovered.

Sweat glistened on his face. All around, the lords and squires who had come to ride in Gaborn's retinue were preparing for the journey south. Those with ready mounts stood in their armor, elbows on the wagon, gazing in. Binnesman had Averan and his wylde at his side.

Binnesman turned to Averan. “Do you know what sweet woodruff looks like?”

“White flowers?” Averan asked. “Beastmaster Brand used to put the leaves in his wine.”

“Good girl,” Binnesman said. “I saw some growing under the hedge round back. Go and pluck a dozen leaves for me.”

Averan raced off around the inn, while Binnesman went back inside for a moment. By now twenty men were standing around the wagon.

A knight of Mystarria came up, a fellow with a long black moustache that flowed over his chin guard. He glanced in the wagon. “Sir Borenson? Wounded?”

“Aye,” a bystander said. “He took the worst of them.”

“Head wound?”

“Worse—got his walnuts cracked.”

The fellow squirmed, reached over to look under Borenson's tunic.

“If you want to look,” Myrrima said, reaching out to grab his wrist, “it will cost you!”

“Cost me?” the knight asked. He smiled disarmingly. “How much?”

“An eye,” Myrrima said. Around her the crowd erupted into laughter.

Binnesman came back out of the inn with a bit of creamed honey in a bowl. As soon as Averan returned with the small, pale spade-shaped leaves of the sweet woodruff, he said, “Now, bruise the leaves by rolling them between your hands.”

Averan rolled the leaves.

“Put them in the honey.”

She dropped them in.

Binnesman reached into the pocket of his robe, pulled out a bit of dark dried plant stem. “Hyssop,” he told Averan. “Always pick it two days after it rains, and make sure you use the moldy leaves, down near the roots.”

He crushed the dried leaf, put it in the honey, stirred it with his finger. He added a dried leaf of agrimony, the herb
that soldiers most often took to staunch wounds on the battlefield.

At that moment, some fellow came up to the back of the crowd and blurted, “What's going on?”

“Borenson has lost his walnuts,” a knight said, “and Binnesman's going to grow him some new ones.”

Several men snorted in derisive laughter. It was a bad joke, and Myrrima didn't laugh.

“Really, how soon until he can ride again?” the knight teased.

Binnesman whirled on the crowd. “Is this what we've come to?” he shouted. “Do the children of Earth stand here upon sacred ground and mock the Earth?”

Myrrima felt sure that the knights had meant no disrespect, but Binnesman seemed furious. He drew himself to his full height, glowered at the knights, so that to the man they began to back away from his challenge. More importantly, they all began to back away from the knight who had made the jest, Sir Prenholm of Heredon.

“How dare you!” Binnesman said. “Have you learned nothing in these past few days?

“You could not have withstood the Darkling Glory, but Myrrima here, a woman who at the time did not have a single one of the greater endowments of brawn or grace or stamina slew it single-handedly.

“You with all of your endowments could not stand against the reavers at Carris—but Gaborn called a worm, a single worm, and routed the whole of the reaver horde!

“How can you doubt the Power I serve? There is nothing broken that cannot be mended. There are none who are sick that cannot be healed.

“The Earth created you. It gives you life from moment to moment. And in this hallowed valley, Sir Prenholm, I could plant a stick in the ground and by dawn it would grow into a better man than you!”

Myrrima drew backward, afraid. A green fog had begun to coalesce at the wizard's feet, and he radiated power. The
air carried a copper tang mingled with a scent of moss and old roots.

Sir Prenholm grew pale, and now stood alone, shaking. “I meant no disrespect. It was only a jest.”

Binnesman shouted and pointed at Borenson. “By the Power I serve, I tell you that this eunuch can father children still!”

Myrrima didn't expect such a boon. She didn't even believe it could be done. But Prenholm had goaded Binnesman into boasting. Even if Binnesman
could
restore her husband, there was one thing that Myrrima knew: magic carried a price. Binnesman's deed would cost.

The knights and lords stood like scolded children, none daring to speak.

Binnesman took his bowl of honey and herbs, and swirled it through the green fog around his feet, then knelt and mixed a pinch of dirt.

He glanced at the growing crowd, handed the bowl to Myrrima. “Take this down to the river. Kneel and make the rune of healing in the water seven times. Then cup your hand in the water and mix it with this concoction. Wash your husband. He'll be ready to ride within the hour.”

Then he leaned close and whispered, “But such a grievous wound will take longer to heal—if it can be healed at all.”

“Thank you,” Myrrima said, her heart hammering. She took the bowl carefully, afraid that she might spill it, and laid it on the buckboard.

She drove the wagon around the corner, along the stone wall of the inn's garden, down to where the stream rushed beneath the alders. Their leaves flashed gold, and sunlight struck the tree trunks, blazing them silver.

She stopped in the shadows of the trees. A pair of mallards came up in the water, gabbling, begging for a crust of bread.

Myrrima pulled off Borenson's blanket.

She climbed out of the wagon, stood by the water's edge. After the rain last night, the golden leaves of the alders lay
plastered to the ground. The stream flowed freely, gurgling through the rocks. The mallards climbed up on the bank near her feet.

She knelt over the water and made the rune of healing seven times.

It was peaceful, such a serene setting for a disturbing day. She felt as she made the runes that she should speak some incantation, but knew none. A song came to mind, a senseless ditty that she'd composed as a girl when she used to scrub her clothes on the washing stones beside the river Dwindell.

I love water, for water like me—
whether in rain, pools, or puddles,
all runs to the sea.

Tumbling, splashing, foaming through hills,
giving drink to dry valleys,
where deep water stills.

I love the water, and water loves me.
I'll drift down the slow river,
till it joins with the sea.

She watched the river, the deep pools, hoping that perhaps she'd see the dark back of a great sturgeon, swimming in mystic configurations.

But none came. She cupped the water in her palm, mixed it with the wizard's concoction.

She daubed her fingers with the balm of honey, herbs, dirt, and water, then carried it to Borenson and reached beneath his tunic.