Exhausted, he stopped, sinking to his knees. The children got out of their cots and surrounded him, their pale hands reaching for the Key of the Heart.
“No, Lynan, stop!” he cried out. The Key burned against his chest like a branding iron.
“No ... !”
He woke with a silent scream, every muscle in his body knotted in pain, sweat drenching his clothes. He shot up in the bed, scrabbling for the Key, trying to pull it away from his skin. He found the chain, yanked on it. The Key popped out from underneath his shirt. He touched it, then let go with a gasp and blew on his fingers. He opened his shirt and looked at his chest, saw the burn mark over his heart in the shape of the Key. He tugged the chain over his head and hurled the Key away from him. It clattered onto the floor.
Gasping, Olio swung his legs out of the bed and buried his head in his hands. He started sobbing, his chest heaving. He was afraid and ashamed and confused all at the same time. He did not know what was happening to him. When at last the crying eased, he looked up and realized he did not know where he was. A small room; a single bed. Panic started to well up in him, then he heard two voices, distant, like the echoes of a memory.
Olio stood up unsteadily and went to the door. It was slightly ajar, and he listened through the crack.
“On the street, Prelate! Do you know what could have happened to him?”
He knew that voice. Old, with fading authority.
“He promised me he would stop the drinking.”
He knew that voice, too. Contrite, desperate.
They were his friends, he was sure of it. He should go to them.
“We have to stop him, for his own sake.” The old voice again. “He could even die. Or be murdered. Or fall into the harbor. God knows.”
“How? He won’t give up the healing, but it exhausts him and gives him nightmares. That’s why he is drinking.”
“Then make sure he gets more rest.”
“It isn’t just physical exhaustion. It’s as if the Key is taking more from him than just his energy.”
That was Edaytor Fanhow. He was a good man.
“What do you mean?”
And that was Giros Northam. He was a good man, too. And they were talking about him. They were worried about him. He had done something wrong.
“His nature is changing. Did you ever imagine he would become like this?”
“No, of course not. I would never have cooperated with you and the prince if I knew this was going to happen.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“We will stop him, that’s what we’ll do.”
“But he won’t stop, I’m telling you. He’s driven to heal those who need his help.”
“He will stop,” the primate said determinedly. “We will tell Areava.”
“God, no!”
“What else can we do? We can’t let it go on like this.”
Olio realized they were talking about him. What had he done? He shook his head to clear it. Something stank. He backed away from the door, but the smell came with him. He looked down at himself, saw the burn again, then noticed the stains on his shirt and breeches. He had pissed in his breeches. There was something else, too. He could smell wine. Cheap, resinous wine.
He heard Edaytor say something, but could not make out the words. He went back to the door.
“Close the hospice!” The primate was speaking now. “I can’t do that. Too many of the poor know of its existence, know that the dying come but leave completely healed.”
“Then move it so that Olio cannot find it.”
“How do we stop him? He is the prince.”
“Then someone must be with him all the time, someone we trust.”
“Who?”
“A guard, a priest, a magicker. I don’t know.”
“He won’t allow it.”
“He will,” Edaytor said, his voice suddenly firm. “He will, or we will go to Areava. He would agree to anything to stop us doing that. He is terrified she would put a stop to his healing, maybe even force him to surrender the Key.”
For a moment neither man said anything or, if they did, Olio could not hear them. Footsteps, coming his way. He hastily retreated from the door, ran into the bed, and stumbled. He sat on the floor with a jarring thump and put his hands out to stop himself from falling backward. His right hand landed on the Key. Startled he glanced around, and at the same time the door opened wide. He looked back and saw the grim faces of the primate and the prelate staring down at him. They seemed curiously matched, Olio thought: Northam long and large, with huge hands and feet, and Edaytor shorter but almost as heavy, with the face and gentle nature that seemed priestlike to the prince.
“He overheard,” Northam said.
“But how much?”
“M-m-most of it, I think,” Olio admitted, his voice not much more than a hoarse whisper.
“What happened tonight?” Northam demanded.
“I... I don’t know. I m—m-must have been drinking.”
“You broke your trust,” Edaytor said sadly. “I did not think you would ever do that.”
“I didn’t want to,” he said weakly. He turned his face from them.
“We are going to stop the healing,” Northam said.
“I know.”
He picked up the Key and looped the chain over his neck. It was cold against his skin now.
“It has burned you,” Northam said, pointing to the prince’s chest. “Do you know why it has done this?” he asked the prelate.
Edaytor shook his head. “No one really knows or understands the full extent of the Keys’ powers. Obviously they were never meant to be used as often as this one has been since his Highness has had possession of it.”
Tears came to Olio’s eyes again. “B—b—but all the children. I could not let them die.”
“They will die as children have always died in this city,” Northam told him. “As they have always died in every city in Grenda Lear.”
“Let the hospice continue,” Olio pleaded. “I will stay away from it, but I can still support it. That will save some of them.”
Northam bowed his head in thought. “Very well,” he said at last. “But the moment I hear you have been using the Key, or that you have been drinking again, I will close it... forever.”
Olio seemed to shrink in on himself. To Northam and Edaytor he looked at that moment like a lost child himself, abandoned and afraid.
Chapter 10
A thin layer of snow had settled across the grasslands around the High Sooq. Cattle licked the snow for water and then ate the yellowed grass underneath. Their breaths filled the shallow valley with clouds of steam. Above all the sun shone, distant and weak, but a welcoming sight in the cold, empty blue sky. Lynan sat in the saddle, trying not to grin as he looked out over the strength and wealth of the combined clans.
I belong to them, he thought.
It had been some time now since he had last felt the inhuman rage and yearning that had visited him in the autumn or experienced any terrible nightmares about Silona and her forest, and he could enjoy the day now that the temperature had dropped. For the first time since fleeing the Strangers’ Sooq he felt whole and entirely his own.
With a twinge of guilt he remembered the way he had treated Kumul, but it reminded him he was entirely his own in another way, too. He now made the decisions that affected his future. He had grown up, he realized, and was proud of it.
And with that came new responsibilities. Kumul and Ager had taught him that his decisions affected more than himself; as a prince, his thoughts and actions determined what happened to his followers. In a strange way, the realization reinforced his confidence; he had been right to come to the High Sooq, but he understood that did not mean Kumul had been completely wrong. Ultimately, his future— and the future of his followers—would be determined in the east. That is where he had to look.