“I didn’t realize you were so adept at healing,” Mari said softly.
“I’m not,” Cormik replied. “But in my line of work, unwanted holes have a nasty way of appearing in one’s self and one’s co-workers, and so one gets accustomed to plugging them up.” He tied the bandage and leaned back, sighing. “I’m afraid that’s all I can do.”
Mari reached out and gripped the mage’s chill hand. Don’t leave me Morhion, she thought fiercely. Don’t you dare leave me. Not now. I can’t do this alone.
Kellen and Jewel moved back from the window in the outer sphere.
“Did you see anything near the opening that might help us?” Cormik asked eagerly.
Jewel ran a hand through her short, dark hair. “Do you want some inane but optimistic possibilities calculated solely to keep our spirits up? Or do you want the truth?”
“You make it seem like such an attractive choice,” Cormik commented acidly.
“Sorry,” Jewel apologized. “I suppose that’s why I’m a thief, not a politician. Not that there’s much difference in what we do, just how we present it afterward.” She went on. “There’s only the thinnest crack between this sphere and the one that surrounds it. The window is too small to climb through, and I couldn’t so much as scratch the stone with my knife. If our taciturn friend the mage were awake, I think he would tell us the sphere is enchanted. In other words, we’re trapped quite nicely.”
“Unless we could rotate the sphere again,” Kellen went on. “Then we could realign the opening in the inner sphere with the hole we fell through in the outer sphere. Maybe we could boost ourselves up and get through.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Cormik admitted with an impressed look. However, they could find no trace of a mechanism by which the globe might be rotated. If any of them could unlock this mystery, it would be Morhion.
“How is he?” Jewel asked quietly.
Cormik shook his head. “I’m not sure, really. The truth is, the blow to his forehead really isn’t all that serious. It’s enough to give him a good headache, but that’s all. I don’t know why his breathing is so shallow, or his heartbeats are so fluttery.”
“It was the lightning,” spoke a cracked voice. “The power of the bolt has confused the life energy that commands his heart to beat.”
They looked up in shock to see a face hovering outside the narrow window. The light of the flickering candle revealed the speaker for a wizened woman with straggly gray hair. Her face looked as tough as old leather, and her bright obsidian eyes were nearly lost in masses of wrinkled skin.
“Who are you?” Mari asked breathlessly.
The ancient woman laughed, a sound like the call of a crow. “No one and nothing,” she replied hoarsely. “A bad memory, and one best forgotten. That’s all. And who are you?”
The old woman seemed more than half mad, but she might be able to help them. “We’re on a quest,” Mari replied.
“Truly?” the old woman said caustically. “Well, if you were searching for a bad end, then your quest is over, for you’ve found that here.”
Mari winced. That reply hardly showed a helpful attitude.
“My friend has been hurt,” Kellen said gravely.
“And what makes you think I can do anything about it?” the old woman snapped.
Kellen didn’t even blink. “I imagine that you’re very wise, that’s all.”
The old woman grunted at this. “Well, you’d be right to imagine so,” she said in a surly tone. “And my wisdom tells me that I am too old and far too weary to concern myself with a lot of meddlers and troublemakers. I would say farewell, but I suppose it would be wasted on you, so I’ll say nothing at all.” She started to draw away.
“Wait!” Kellen cried, reaching his hand toward the window.
The old woman froze. A hissing sound escaped her lips. At last she whispered in a voice filled with wonder and dread. “The child wizard …”
With swiftness surprising in one so old, she reached through the narrow opening and clutched Kellen’s hand before he could pull away. She ran a gnarled finger over the puckered scar on his left palm. “So young, yet already marked by magic,” she murmured in awe. “Of course. After all this time, I had dared to let myself forget. I waited so long, you see, but you never came. Finally I dismissed the prophecy as foolishness. And now, in the dark winter of my life, you have come at last.” Her voice became a moan of despair. “But why have you waited all these years? Why have you come when I am so old, so weak, so tired?”
Kellen managed to pull his hand out of her gnarled grasp. He gave her a frightened look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not a wizard. Not yet, anyway.”
The old woman laughed at this, an eerie sound. “But you will be. You will be a wizard the likes of which this world has never known. Ah, but do I have the strength to do what I must?” She fell silent.
Mari stepped forward. “Please, listen to me,” she said earnestly. “You seem to know much I don’t pretend to understand. Won’t you help us, so we can talk with you more about … about this prophecy?”
The old woman hesitated, then vanished from the window. Mari groaned in despair. Abruptly the old woman reappeared and thrust a hand through the window. “Here, place this on the mage’s chest,” she ordered.
Mari took the proffered object. It was a small black seed. She thought to question the old woman, then bit her tongue. This was not the time to annoy the stranger. She knelt before Morhion and unlaced his shirt, then placed the tiny seed on the pale flesh above his heart.
At first nothing happened. She traded skeptical looks with Cormik and Jewel. Perhaps the old woman was mad after all. Then Kellen whispered softly, “Look.”
The seed was sprouting. As they watched in wonder, a small, dark purple leaf unfurled itself from the seed, and a root tendril snaked outward, plunging into the flesh of Morhion’s chest. More leaves uncurled themselves, and the strange purple plant grew larger as its roots sank deeper into Morhion’s body. The mage trembled, and his back arched off the stone beneath him.
“It’s hurting him!” Mari cried out in horror, reaching to pull the magical plant from his body.
“Stop!” the old woman commanded. Something in her voice made Mari freeze. “If you pluck the heartroot out now, your friend will surely perish.”
Mari forced herself to remain still. There was nothing to do now but watch. The plant grew fuller, more lush. Its roots writhed like snakes beneath Morhion’s skin. Its deep purple leaves began to throb in time to the mage’s erratically beating heart. Morhion convulsed, his hands scratching reflexively against the black marble. Suddenly his entire body went limp.
For a terrified moment Mari thought he was dead. She clasped a hand to Morhion’s wrist. His pulse was strong and even.
Abruptly, the plant began to wither. Its purple leaves turned black and curled upon themselves. The stem broke, and the brittle plant crumbled as it fell to the floor. The only trace it left on Morhion’s flesh was a tiny violet circle, and even this began to fade. The mage took in a deep, shuddering breath and sat up, eyes open wide. Immediately he grimaced, touching a hand tentatively to his wounded brow.
“What happened?” he asked in a dazed voice, and the others let out a collective sigh of relief.
The witch’s name was Isela, and as far as they could tell from the bits and fragments she told them, she had dwelt in the ruined city—she called it Talis—all her life. She left them for a brief time, only to return to the window with dried fruit, nuts, and a leather jug of water. The others accepted these gratefully, and thanked Isela when she told them she had retrieved and picketed their horses.
“Though I suppose we’ll have little need of them if we cannot find a way to escape this trap,” Morhion said darkly. Thanks to Isela’s magic, the mage had largely recovered from the lightning strike. “I wonder what this prison was originally for. And the pyramid. Do you know, Isela?”