Liar's Oath

Chapter Twenty-nine

Years passed, peacefully enough. Each summer a caravan came, bringing news from the eastern lands that seemed increasingly irrelevant. Late each summer they left, taking with them the copies of the Code, of commentary and history, and taking also the memory of a high red land peopled with grave, courteous folk. As time went on, a few stayed, some of mageborn parentage and some not, but all intrigued by a way of life so different from their own. Craftsmen, finding a market for superlative skill; scholars; judicars intent on pursuing fine points of law; even a few Marshals, unhappy with changes in the Fellowship.

Some disliked the stronghold and its inhabitants intensely. They claimed to sense evil; they blamed the mageborn for using their powers. Their companions laughed—in the face of that peace, that prosperity, that hive of diligent workers who quarreled so seldom and shared so readily, such suspicions reflected on those who voiced them. Perhaps the old magelords had been evil, but not that child charming a bird to sing on his finger. Not that woman whose magery lifted the bundles from the pack animals and set them gently in a row. The suspicious never returned—and some did not survive the trip home, having angered their companions with too many arguments.

For the first ten years or so, Aris and Seri travelled often, sometimes to Fin Panir, where their adventures furnished the substance of many a fireside tale and song. Their other adventures, in distant Xhim, on the vast steppes, no one knew but themselves and the gods. Luap worried, every time, that they might not return. Later, they spent most of their time—in the end all of it—in the stronghold, for despite Seri’s warnings, the mageborn did not maintain active watchposts or keep up militia training unless she was there. They depended on the Khartazh to guard them on the west, and on the desert and mountains to protect them on the other sides.

By the time Cob died, Luap’s position as a distant, powerful, but valued ally had become secure. His version of Gird’s life, of the history of the war, spread copyist by copyist throughout the land. Power kept him young, something he concealed from each year’s visitors as well as his own folk. He lived on, and the other witnesses to Gird’s Life died, one by one, until he was the last who had fought in that army, who had known anything but the end of Gird’s life.

The Council of Marshals even invited him back to be Marshal; his refusal won him support as a moderate, modest man, although the more violent said it proved his weakness. He noticed, in reports of the gossips, that Raheli’s influence lasted beyond her own death. She was blamed for a militant and violent strain of Girdish rule that Luap was sure Gird would not have approved. He ignored the counter-arguments that she had compromised with Koris and his successor only to ensure that women retained their rights in the grange organization, that she herself, and her followers, had been moderate. Rahi’s death left him free to write Gird’s Life as it should have been—he would prove he was right, and she had been wrong. Aris and Seri still held Gird’s original dream, and something in Aris’s clear gaze kept Luap from openly admitting that he had no intention of reuniting the two peoples, not now or in the future. The others were content to leave the eastern lands to their own affairs.

Luap’s calendars of the western lands, meticulously kept though they were, interested Aris little. . . .

Aris climbed the last few steps to the eastern watchtower, aware that he no longer wanted to run up them. He didn’t feel older, but he was, when he thought of it, acting older. He put down the sack of food and the waterskin without speaking to Seri; she was watching something in the eastern sky, and she would speak when she knew what it was.

In the changeable light of blowing clouds, the stone walls and towers seemed alive, shifting shape like demons of a dream. Clefts and hollows in the rocks gave them faces that leered and mocked the watchers, faces that smoothed into bland obscurity when the light steadied. Far below, he could hear the moaning of the great pines; up here, the wind whistled through the watchtower openings.

He felt on edge, his teeth ready to grip something and shake it, his hands curling into fists whenever he wasn’t thinking about them. It was ridiculous. He was a grown man, the senior healer with students (none too promising) under him, too old for such feelings. He glanced at Seri, then stared. He rarely looked at her; he felt her presence always, so familiar that he did not need to see her. But now: when had gray touched that wild hair, and when had those lines appeared beside her eyes, her mouth? From vague unease, he fell into panic. Seri aging? Getting old?

As always, she reacted to his change of mood before he could move or speak. “Aris. What’s wrong?” Her eyes were still the clear, mischievous eyes he had always known; her expression held the same affection. He shook his head.

“I—don’t know. Something just—”

“I’m on edge too, and I don’t think just from you.” She turned to look out again, the same direction. “Maybe it’s this weather; it’s hard to see, hard to judge distance, even for landmarks I know. I keep thinking I see shadowy things flying in the upper canyons, something moving along the walls—but of course those are the cloudshadows, blowing all over.” She sighed, rubbed her eyes, and sat down abruptly. “Whatever it is, if it’s not nonsense, can’t get here before we eat our dinner.”

Aris unwrapped the kettle. “Kesil and Barha brought back a wildcat and two stags; we have plenty of meat in this stew. And the bread is today’s baking; Zil wanted you to have this fresh. He tried something new, he said. I’m to slice it from this end.” Seri spooned out two bowlfuls of stew, while Aris sliced the narrow loaf. “Ah . . . I see . . . he filled it with jam.”

“Before baking? Let me try.” Seri took a slice and bit into it. “Good—better than spreading it on after. And perfect with this stew.”

Aris leaned back against the stone wall, noticing how its chill came through his shirt. Soon time to change to winter garb, he thought. He munched thoughtfully, carefully not thinking about how Seri looked, which was harder than it should have been. He found he was thinking of how everyone looked; how old or young everyone looked. Babies born the first few years had grown to adulthood . . . men and women who had been much older now looked it, white haired and wrinkled. Men and women his own age—he did not pay that much attention to, outside of sickness, and they were rarely sick. He frowned, trying to count the years and see the progress of time on some familiar face. Luap? But Luap had not aged at all. Had he?

Seri’s warm shoulder butted against his. “You’re worrying again. Tell me.”

He put down his bowl of stew, still nearly full, and saw that Seri had finished hers. Her hands, wiping the bowl with a crust of bread, were brown, weathered, the skin on the backs of them rougher than he remembered. When he looked at her face, the threads of gray in her hair were still there, really there. “You’re older,” he blurted. Seri grinned, the same old mocking grin.

“Older? Of course I am, and so are you. Did you think this magical place would hold us young forever?”

“But you—you never had children!” He had not thought of it before, but now it seemed so obvious, with all the others having children, with all the children growing up around them.

“Did you want children?” Seri asked, eyes wide.

“I never thought about it,” Aris admitted. “Not until now. I just wanted to heal people. . . .”

“That’s what I thought,” said Seri. She nudged him again. “You had other things to do, and so did I.”

“But—” He could not say more. He knew what “other things” she had had to do; she had had him to look after, to care for when he pushed his healing trance too far. And she had shared in the same tasks as all the adults not busy with children: planting, harvesting, taking her turn at guard duty, drilling the younglings, working on whatever needed doing. She had many skills; she used all of them.

“Aris.” Her strong hands took his face and turned it toward hers. “Aris, you are not like other men, and I am not like other women. We were never meant to be lovers and have a family like everyone else. We are partners; we are working on the same thing, and it’s not a family.”

“I suppose.” A cold sorrow pierced him, from whence he could not say. Was he an adult? Could an adult have gone on, heedless of time, year after year, pursuing his own interests and ignoring the changes around him? Was that not a child’s way?

“Think of Arranha,” Seri went on. “He gave his life to his service of Esea. He could never have been a father. Think of the Marshal-General.” He knew she meant Gird by that. “Did he marry and have another family? No. Or his daughter Raheli?”

Aris stirred uneasily. He had always wished Rahi would let him try to heal her, and had always been afraid to ask. Now it was too late; she had died without children, and he knew she had wanted them.

“Besides,” Seri said, chuckling. “If everyone had children, as many as they could, with your healing powers, the world would be overrun with people. Would the elves like that, or the dwarves? And where would the horsefolk wander, if farmers moved out onto the grasslands? No, Ari: it’s better as it is. You didn’t think of fatherhood; I didn’t care that much. If it makes you feel better, think that I took you as my child.”

Aris felt his ears go hot; it did not make him feel better. He cleared his throat and said the first thing that came into his head. “But Luap hasn’t aged.”

The quality of Seri’s silence made him look at her again. Eyes slitted almost shut, mouth tight, she stared past him into the wall. Then her eyes opened wide. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought. He’s older than we are; we thought he looked old when we first saw him. And he hasn’t changed. The Rosemage—”

“Some, not much.” A few strands of white in her hair, a few more lines on her face . . . but that wasn’t something he looked at, or thought about, much of the time.

“He’s using magery.” Seri’s tone left no doubt which “he” she meant, or that she disapproved. “I didn’t know he could do that. Will he be immortal, like the elves?”

“I . . . don’t know.” Aris had never considered that use of magery; he could not imagine its limitations or methods. “He must get the power somewhere—for something like that—”

“But you know I’m right,” Seri said, her eyes snapping. “You know he’s doing it—it’s the only explanation.”

“I suppose.” Other possibilities flickered through his mind, to vanish as he realized they could not be true. Long lives bred long lives, yes: but not this long with no trace of aging. The royal magery itself? No, for the tales told of kings aging normally, concerned that their heirs were too young as they grew feeble. Could he be doing it without realizing it? Hardly. Aris knew Luap to be sensitive to subtleties in those around him; he must have noticed the changes, the graying hair and wrinkling skin, and known his own did not change. “I must talk to him,” he said. “He must tell me what he’s doing, and why.”

“The why is clear enough,” Seri said. “He doesn’t want to die, that’s all.”

“I don’t think so. I think it’s more than that. You know he always has two plans nested in a third; for something like this he must have more than one reason.”

“He won’t thank you for noticing,” Seri said, taking the last bite of her bread. “Not now.”

Aris knew she was right, but felt less awe of Luap than he had for some years, now that he knew whence that unchanging calm had come. “I’ll be back,” he said, “to tell you what his reasons are.”

“If he’ll give them.” She handed him the empty pot and cloth; Aris took them and fought the wind back to the entrance shaft.

Usually he met Luap several times in an afternoon, without looking for him, as they both moved about their tasks. Now he could not find him. Aris looked in his office—empty—and in the archives—also empty. He carried the pot back to the kitchen, where Luap sometimes stopped to chat with the cooks. They took the pot without interest; Luap was not there. They didn’t know where he was . . . and why should they? they said, busily scraping redroots to boil. Aris looked in his own domain, where he found the others busily labeling pots of the salve they’d made that morning: the task he had given them. No Luap, and he had not stopped by while Aris was gone. Back down to the lower level, where the doorward at the lower entrance said yes, Luap had gone out some time before. He often took short, casual walks; he would be back soon, the doorward was sure.

Aris took the downward slope toward the main canyon without really thinking about it. Luap might have gone across to visit any of those who had hollowed out private homes in the fin of rock across from the entrance. He might have gone for a dip in the stream, though it was a cool day for that. But he walked most often out to the main canyon and across the arched bridge, so Aris took that route.

The main canyon, under the blowing clouds, looked as strange as it had from above. Aris paused on the arch of the bridge, and looked upstream and down. The wheat and oats had been harvested; the stubble in some terraces had already been dug under, while others looked like carding combs, all the teeth upright. Around the edges of the terraces, the redroots and onions made a green fringe against the yellow stubble. Down the canyon, he could see the tops of the cottonwoods turning yellow. Up canyon, a few of the berry-bushes had turned dull crimson. For a moment he thought he saw a wolf slinking among them, but it was only a cloudshadow, that slid on up the canyon wall like a vast hand.

But no Luap. Aris walked on to the pine grove on the south side of the canyon, and found a child bringing goats back . . . the child had not seen Luap. He came back across the bridge, telling himself that he was being silly, that not seeing Luap for a few hours meant nothing. But his heart hammered; he could hear his own pulse in his ears.

“Aris—you’re needed!” Garin waved at him as he went past the storeroom where the herbal remedies were kept.

“What?” His voice sounded cross to him; he saw by Garin’s surprise that it sounded cross to others. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What is it?”

“A child of Porchai’s has fallen down the rocks—you know they’ve made that new place, the next canyon over—”

“I know it.” And he’d told them to be careful, with three young children, all active climbers.

“A badly broken leg, the word is. The runner came in just after you were here before.”

“I’ll go,” he said. “No, you stay—I’ll take one of the prentices.” He chose the one who had the sense to have a bag packed ready—Kevye, that was—and strode out. He would certainly find Luap when he got back.

The shortest route to the Porchai place lay through a tunnel cut through the fin that separated the two narrow canyons. Aris disliked the tunnel; he had argued against making it, despite the distance it saved those who lived on the far side. But convenience and speed mattered more to most people than his concerns about safety. The tunnel was cleared and lighted by magery; most of those who had need to go from one side-canyon to another used it. Aris rarely did, but could not justify leaving a patient in danger just to satisfy himself. He strode through quickly, hardly noticing the stripes of red and orange in the rocks on either side.

Irieste Porchai met him as he came out, crying so he could hardly understand her. “You said be careful of the dropoff, and we were, I swear it. He was climbing up from the creek, and slipped—turned to look at something, I think.”

“It’s all right. He’s awake? He can see?” But he could hear the child now, fretful whimpers interrupted with screams when anyone came near or tried to move him. He moved quickly to the sound, and found a small child lying twisted on the ground, the bones of his legs sticking out through bloody wounds. He knelt beside the boy, and put his hands on the dark hair. First he must be sure nothing worse had happened.

“Lie still,” Iri Porchai said to the child. “It’s the healer, Lord Aris.” Even at the moment, he wished she had not used that title; he’d never liked it. But he’d never convinced the mageborn not to use it.

The child’s head rested on his palms now . . . he let his fingers feel about through sweat-matted hair. A lump there, and a wince; a small bruise. He felt nothing worse, and his hands already burned with the power he would spend. He let the child’s head down on a folded cloth someone had brought, and ran his hands lightly over the small body. The child looked pale, and was breathing rapidly: pain and fright, Aris thought. All the ribs intact, and no damage to the belly or flank. He looked more closely at the legs. Both were broken, and both breaks split the skin; on the left, one bone stuck out a thumbwidth; on the right, the child’s flailing had drawn the bone ends back inside. With all that dirt on them, Aris thought. This would not be easy, even for magery. Aligning such badly broken bones, healing the ragged tissues . . . he would be here until after sunfall. He looked up at his prentice. “Kev—you’ll have to steady his legs for me; we must be sure the bones are straight.”

“Don’t hurt me!” cried the boy, trying to thrash again.

“It won’t hurt,” Aris said, “if we get them straight in the first place.” He wished he had Gurith’s power of charming the pain away; this would hurt until the healing was well begun. “Come now—we’ll be quick.” He nodded to Kevre and to the adults who would help hold the boy still.

As Kevre moved the boy’s legs to a more normal position, the broken ends of bone disappeared back into the wounds; he yelped but quieted quickly as slight tension kept the ends from wiggling. Aris laid his hands on the boy’s thighs, and let the power take over.

His years of training and experience melded with that power so that now he knew what he had not known in his boyhood: he knew how the broken bones lay, how the thin strands of tendon and ligament had twisted, which of the little blood vessels had torn. He could direct his power more precisely, even into both legs at the same time, working down from the knee-joints, first aligning all the damaged bits of tissue, then forcing them to grow together, to heal as if they had not been broken. The bones were the easiest; they were easy to visualize, and being rigid were more easily controlled. Harder were the blood vessels and tendons, the torn muscles and ripped skin. Hardest of all were the innumerable bits of dirt, any speck of which could cause woundfever. Slowly, methodically, Aris directed the flow of power, concentrating on each minute adjustment. He knew by the boy’s relaxation when the healing had progressed enough to ease the pain, but he was far from finished.

When the power left him, the child lay silent, watching him with bright brown eyes. Dark had come; magelight glowed around him from a dozen watching adults. Aris drew a long breath. He had not quite completed the healing before his power ran out; the bones and other tissues were aligned and firmly knit together, but he had not been able to replace all the lost blood. “Wiggle your toes,” he said to the boy. A frightened look, that said will it hurt? as clearly as words, then both feet moved, and all ten toes wiggled. He looked at Irieste. “He’ll need a lot of your good soup,” he said. “As much liquid as he’ll drink, and good meat to help replace his blood. I’m sorry; my power ended before I could replace that.” He felt dizzy and sick, as usual, but he knew he would be all right. Kev helped him stand; his knees felt as if someone had hammered on them.

“Lord Aris, you need to eat something. . . .”

I need to sleep, he thought. But he could not fall asleep here; he must not worry the family. “We’ll go back, Kevre.” He leaned on Kev’s arm more than he liked, and yet he could walk . . . how was it that he had used all his power, but had not fainted from it? his mind worried at the question, as if it had importance just out of reach. The family followed him into the tunnel, which he suddenly saw as an orifice in the body of some vast animal. Like walking into a blood vessel, or a heart . . . the prick of fear woke him enough to make walking easier. In that light, the red rock streaked with darker red and orange looked entirely too much like something’s insides. He staggered, climbing down to the creek, and Kevre steadied him. In the stronghold, he wanted only a bed. Seri appeared, and started to ask a question, but her face changed.

“Ari! What happened?”

Kevre answered for him. “A healing, Marshal Seri; two broken legs. He’s just tired. . . .”

“He’s more than tired.” Seri’s arms around him renewed his strength; he could lift his head, now, and focus on the faces around him. She helped him to his own room, and pushed him onto his bed.

“I’m better,” he said, smiling at her. She did not smile back; she was chewing her lip.

“You look half-dead,” she said. “Kev says your power ran out before you finished the healing?”

Shame washed over him. “Yes. The boy will be all right; I finished the main part of it, but I couldn’t do it all . . . it was just gone.” Exhaustion clouded his vision; now that he was down, he could not imagine how he had stood and walked so far. “Sorry . . .” he murmured, and let himself slide into blackness.

When he woke, Seri sat curled in the corner of his room, wrapped in blankets. He tried to throw back his own covers, and she woke up and blinked at him. “So—you’re alive after all.”

“Of course I’m alive. You know I sleep after a difficult healing.”

“I know that ten years ago you would not have called a child’s broken legs a difficult healing.”

Aris frowned, trying to remember. “I suppose . . . it’s part of getting older. I don’t have the strength I had.”

Seri unwrapped herself and stood up. “I think it’s something more. Remember what we were talking about yesterday?” He didn’t; he felt that his head was full of wet cloth, heavy and impenetrable. “Luap,” she said, leaning close to him. “Luap staying the same as the rest of us aged.”

The conversation came back to him dimly, like something heard years before. “That can’t be right,” he said. He wanted to yawn; he wanted to go back to sleep.

“It is,” she said “Come on—get up and eat.” She pulled the blanket off him, and yanked on his arm. Aris stood, stiff and sore, and let himself be prodded down the passage, in and out of a bath, and into the kitchen.

“Breakfast’s long past,” said the cook on duty. “Where’ve you been?”

“He was healing last night,” Seri said firmly. “He exhausted himself, and we let him sleep it out.”

“Oh. Sorry.” She spoke to Seri and not to Aris. “What does he need? Something hearty, or something bland?”

“He’s hungry, not sick. Meat, if you have it.”

“I’ve the backstrap off that stag; I was saving it for the prince.” The cook looked at Seri again, and said, “But Lord Aris can have it; it’ll give him strength.” She pulled a slice from the deep bowl where it had been soaking in wine and spices. “There’s soup, as well, in that kettle there—” She nodded at it. Seri filled two bowls, and brought them back to the table as the cook worked on the venison steak. She grabbed a half-loaf of bread from the stack on another table and tore it in two pieces.

“Here. Ari—get this into you.” Aris sipped the hot soup, and felt its warmth begin to restore him. The fog before his eyes thinned; by the time the cook laid a sizzling steak in front of him, he was alert and hungry. He began to feel connected again. Seri said nothing, just watched him eat, and when he had finished the steak she handed him another hunk of bread. “Come on, now, we’re going out.”

“Out?”

“Yes.” With a cheery thank-you to the cook, she led Aris out into the passage that led to the lower entrance.

“I should tell Garin where I am,” Aris said. He had no idea how late it was, or if Seri had told his assistants and prentices where he would be.

“Not now,” Seri said. Her grip on his arm might have been steel. He strode along beside her, more confused than worried. She slowed a little as they neared the entrance, and nodded casually to the guard she had insisted on posting there. She led Aris downstream toward the main canyon, but turned off the trail to a hollow between two trees. They had often sat there to talk in privacy; the stream’s noisy burling in the rocks just below ensured that. Aris curled up in his usual place, with the tree-trunk behind him and a twisted root as an armrest; Seri stretched out, her head near his knees, her booted feet on a rock. “You went looking for Luap after we talked,” she said. “Did you find him?”

“Not before they called me for the healing,” he said. Suddenly tears filled his eyes. “I failed, Seri: I didn’t have enough power. And who will follow when my power fails completely?”

“You did not fail,” she said. “Something stole your power.”

“What?”

“Listen. Yesterday, I felt something dire, remember? I’ve felt it before; I’ve never found anything I could point to. But when I started thinking about it, I realized that you’ve been having more trouble with your healings in the past few years—since we quit travelling, in fact. I looked up your records last night. Garin helped.”

“You?” Seri’s dislike of poring over archives had long been a joke between them.

“Yes. And since you insisted that I keep accurate notes of guard reports, I could put those together. I hadn’t really noticed, but my comments about feeling an evil influence have been more and more frequent—and correlate with your most difficult healings. No—” She held up her hand as he opened his mouth to speak. “Wait and hear the rest. Think about it. Why haven’t we noticed that Luap was not growing older? And how can he do that? You told me once that for the body, aging meant injuries unrepaired, illnesses not completely healed. You said that of course healing couldn’t keep someone young—but what if it could? Suppose Luap gets his power from you—and that’s why he’s not aging, and you cannot heal as you did five years ago?”

“It can’t be,” breathed Aris. He closed his eyes; he felt as if he’d been kicked; his breath came short. It could not be; it was impossible. But inwardly he was not sure . . . or rather, he was sure that in some way Seri was right. “Not on purpose,” he murmured. “He couldn’t—he wouldn’t—”

“Aris, you cannot stay young forever without knowing it. He must know what he’s doing. I’ll grant this might not be the only way. It could be his own magery, or something the elves granted him. Something else could be sapping your strength. But taking these things together . . . why couldn’t you find him yesterday, and why did someone need your healing just then?”

Aris stared at her, even more shocked. “You don’t think he made that child fall!”

Seri reddened. “No—I suppose I don’t, really. But it happened just when you were about to confront him, and I have not seen you so drained since you were a child. And I must tell you, I have had a prickling all along my bones since yesterday. There’s danger coming.”

Aris stirred restlessly. He knew something was wrong; when he thought about it he had to admit he had been losing strength for several years. He had thought of that as age, when he thought of it at all. He had shrugged it off; his powers mattered only as they served the community, not in themselves. But he could not imagine Luap deliberately risking him—the most powerful healer—the way Seri suggested. Luap might be willful, even devious, but he had never been stupid.

“How could it be?” he asked. “I don’t think it’s true, but if it were true, how would it work?”

“I don’t know. If we knew when it started—”

“We do.” Aris realized that he had known that without knowing what the sign meant. “Remember the first time the king’s ambassador came?” Seri nodded. “He commented then on how young Luap looked for his age; he said something about those who do not grow older being the wisest. I thought he meant the elves.”

“I think he did. He meant the ones who built the stronghold.”

“Well, I heard Luap talking to the Rosemage after Arranha died, and saying how lucky he was to look younger than he was—that it gave him an advantage in dealing with the Khartazh. He asked what I thought, and I said that age seemed to be loss of resilience—the skin stretches out, the joints stiffen. It might, I said, be like a failure to heal. We know that those badly wounded often seem older, even if they live. If it were possible to heal all injuries, even those so small we don’t notice them, wouldn’t that hold off age?”

“I doubt it,” Seri said, scuffing the pineduff with her boot. “If it worked that way, everyone you healed would get younger.”

“And you’re right; they don’t. I said so then, and the Rosemage said the gods meant time to flow one way, not slosh back and forth like water in a pan. But it might have given Luap an idea. If you’re right about him, I think that’s where it started.”

Seri frowned. “But he doesn’t have the healing magery. At least, you never thought so.”

“No. The royal magery, yes: you saw him carve the canyon with it, and he can do many other things. But I’ve never seen him heal.”

“Because healing is giving,” Seri said, as if she’d just thought of it. “You pour out your own strength; Gird recognized that. Luap doesn’t. He conserves; he withholds. He tries to do right; we’ve both seen him do the right thing where someone else might not. But it’s calculation—he must figure out the right thing and then try to do it—he can’t just feel it and do it, as Gird did.”

“He’s not selfish,” Aris said quickly. Then, as Seri watched him without saying anything, he said, “Not in the usual ways, I mean. In times of shortage, he takes no more than his share. He lives simply, compared to any of the Khartazh officers.”

“Would you give a wolf credit that he eats less grass than a sheep?” Seri asked. “And I am convinced he took your power, made you less able than you were, risked not only you but all who depend on you for healing. For that matter—” She rolled over and stabbed at the soft duff with a twig. “For that matter, how do we know that no children have the healing magery? Suppose he’s stealing it from them? Before you could detect it, perhaps without knowing it—”

Aris shivered. He had a sudden vision of a hole in the bottom of the great water chamber . . . all the water swirling out that hole, eventually, if it were not refilled by rain. Had that happened to his power? Had Luap known, had he thought he was taking only a little, the overflow, and unwittingly taken from the very source? Or had he known—no. He could not believe that. He studied his hands, aware now of the signs of middle-age as clear in him as in Seri. “I think,” he said slowly, “that something never existed in Luap that Gird had . . . as if a young tree grew with a hollow core, as those giant canes do, but then thickened around it. No one could see, from outside, but if that inside were what Gird gave from, then Luap might have nothing to give. He might try—as he has—but no one can bring water from a dry well.”

“Whatever the cause, it was wrong,” Seri said. Then she sighed, and scraped her hair back, looking at him with worry in her eyes. “And there’s you. What are we going to do to restore your power? And the others; how are we going to find out how much else is wrong?”

Aris squirmed against the tree’s bark. It felt comforting, that great vegetable existence at his back. “If you’re right, the first thing to try would be the freeing of my own power. You say you noticed a change after we quit travelling?”

“Yes—within a year or so, at least.”

“Then we should travel.”

“But we can’t—we can’t leave the stronghold now!” He had never seen her so anxious. “I told you, I sense some evil. We can’t leave them here, without help—”

Aris tried to feel around inside himself, the self he had thought so familiar, and find the hole out of which his power fled. He could not; he felt opaque to himself, and wondered how long that had been going on. Years? He could not tell. “I don’t think I can free it here, so near him—and I don’t know how far we’d have to go.” When had they last been as far as the western canyons, the town beyond? He could not remember. Seri reached out and took his hand.

“You will do it, Aris. Look—let’s try the mountaintop.”

Exhaustion washed over him. “Today? Now?”

“Yes.” She held both his hands; he felt as if warmth and strength poured out of her and into him. Very strange; he was used to that process going the other way. “Now,” she said, pulling him up.

They reached the foot of the stairs without anyone commenting. Aris looked up the spiral. “All those steps,” he said. Then he grinned at Seri. “I know. Gird wouldn’t put up with whiners. If you’re beside me, and old Father Gird will help—” He felt better, ready to face the long climb to the first plateau.

They came out into the midday light, another day of blowing cloud. Aris felt the wind pushing him sideways, but fought with it until he reached the trail to the high forest. He looked up, wondering if the rocks meant to look unclimbable, or if it was his fault. He made it up, grunting and puffing. The backs of his legs ached. Seri came up as lightly as a deer, he thought. She spent more time out of doors than he did . . . and why? he wondered. When had that started? It wasn’t as if the mageborn were sickly, always needing him. But the accidents seemed to come just as Seri was starting somewhere, or when they’d planned a day away.

He headed off into the trees, taking the short way to the western watchpost. Seri caught up with him. “Let’s go north, to Arranha’s cairn.”

“It’s a long way,” Aris said; he didn’t feel like walking that far. Hard to remember that at first they’d come up every Evener to lay a stone on the pile.

“So? We’re trying to find out if either of us can come out of the fog up here.”

They had walked some distance when Aris realized he was moving more easily. He had warmed up, he thought . . . but it was more than that. He was breathing deeper, without strain; his head felt clearer. The racing patterns of light and cloud no longer seemed ominous, but playful. He noticed flowers in bloom up here that had gone to seed in the canyon below; he remembered years when they had always climbed the mountain to see the last wild-flowers bloom.

Seri swung her arms and did a slap-step. “It may have nothing to do with Luap, but I still feel happier up here.”

“And I.” With renewed strength, he probed at himself, feeling again for anything wrong with his power. Vaguely, fuzzily, he sensed something wrong there. He prodded it as he would have a sore spot: how deep, how big, how inflamed? The familiar sense of something resisting the flow of healing magery . . . but this time resisting the flow in . . . he wondered if patients felt this.

He did not realize he had stopped, until Seri took his hand to tug him on. “Don’t stop—it’s getting better.”

“Yes, but I—”

“A little farther. I’m feeling it too.” She went on, and he followed, until his head cleared with an almost audible snap. He blinked; everything seemed brighter, the colors of leaf and bark and stone more sharply defined. Seri slowed. They had been walking in mature pine forest, the trees spaced well apart, with the sun slanting in between them. When they stopped, Aris could hear nothing but the wind in the pine boughs overhead. There before them was the pile of stones; some had fallen in the years when no one came. Aris stooped to replace them.

Seri rubbed her head hard with both fists. “It feels strange, but good. And you?” She picked up another stone and placed it.

“The same. Rather like a long fever breaking.” Aris stretched out between two trees; he felt both exhausted and full of life. He wanted to eat a huge dinner, sleep, and get up well again. “And you were right,” he said to Seri. “I won’t accuse Luap, not yet, but something was interfering with my magery. It must have happened gradually—”

“And now,” Seri said, sticking to the practical, “what are we going to do about it? About him?”

“Do? I—don’t know. Did you find out what had been done to you?”

“Oh, yes.” Her expression was grim. “Good, loyal Marshal Seri had to be kept from taking Aris out on misguided quests: she had to be convinced we were needed here, even though I should have seen that everything I tried to do, Luap managed to undo.”

Aris thought about that. “I still don’t think it can be Luap by himself. Something else must be involved.”

Seri nodded. “And I think I may know what. Remember how the Khartazh worried at first that we might be demons in human form? All their legends said these mountains were full of demons. What if they were right?”

Certainty pierced Aris like a spear of ice. “And Luap didn’t know—”

“No—although I do remember Arranha saying once that the elves had given him some kind of warning no one could understand.”

“So you’re feeling of evil somewhere . . . could be that. It could have been spying on us all these years, making some plan—”

“And perhaps invading Luap’s mind, making him prey on your power—” Seri shivered, and shook her head. “Which still leaves us with the practical problem of what do we do? They won’t listen to us; we can’t get them away, even if that is the right answer. I can try to cajole Luap into letting me double the guardposts, make some patrols, but it won’t be enough if what I suspect is coming.”

Aris looked at her. “We can either leave now—as soon as we can—and hope to strengthen ourselves enough at a distance to come back in force—or we can stay, and try to resist the influence here. It depends on how long we think we have; I suspect we have very little time.”

“Yes.” Seri gnawed on the side of her thumb like the child she had been, raked at her unruly hair, and sighed. “I should have realized earlier—”

“No.” Aris was as surprised as Seri when his light came and flooded the space between the trees. “We don’t have time for that; we must put aside regrets and guilt and do what we can now.”

For the first time in many years, her light matched his; he watched the old confidence and courage flow back into her, the old enthusiasm kindle.