Next went in the flask of “Bareil’s best” and the two pears I had not eaten earlier. From the larder I grabbed enough food for at least a day-a considerable amount since I was still ravenous. Clothes were more difficult. Dassine had given me nothing but the white wool robe. Citizens of Avonar who specialized in the study of sorcery wore traditional scholars’ garb-loose robes and sandals or slippers. Warriors, tradesmen, those who tended gardens and fields, the Dulcé, and most others wore garments more like those to which I was accustomed: shirts or tunics, breeches, leggings, and boots. I didn’t wish to proclaim myself a scholar-far from it. But I was more than two heads taller than Dassine. His more ordinary garments would do nothing to make me inconspicuous. Clothing would have to wait.
Money would be useful, but I had no idea where any might be. Masses of notes and manuscripts cluttered the house, some relevant to my situation, I had no doubt, but I’d no time to sort through them. Perhaps this Bareil would know what was valuable, if I could find him.
The instincts and habits I had so recently redeveloped from my memories of hiding from the law prodded me to move, to get away from the place my enemies expected me to be. My teeth were on edge, and despite the paltry supplies in the pack, I was ready to bolt.
But just as I hefted the pack, quiet footsteps sounded in the passageway from the house. I flattened myself to the wall beside the doorway, realizing at the same time that I had forgotten to acquire a most important piece of equipment-a weapon. I-Karon-had never carried a weapon, yet my hand demanded a blade. The Healer’s knife was too small, and it was unthinkable to use an instrument designed for healing to harm another person.
But I was out of time. The sneaking villain tiptoed down the lectorium steps. I glimpsed a dagger in a bloody hand. Stupid brute. I grabbed his wrist and dragged him off balance. Remembering Dassine and the jagged wound in his chest, I was not gentle. I wrapped one arm about his neck and twisted his arm behind his back until his weapon clattered to the floor.
“Did you think to finish your work or simply add another to your tally?” I growled in his ear. Tightening my grip on his throat, I snatched the dagger from the floor, vowing to rip him open the same way he had murdered Dassine.
“Help Master Dassine… please.” The man, small and light, went limp in my arms. An amateur’s ploy. He deserved to die. But even as I poised the dagger at his belly, I noted the color of his skin… a creamy brown like strong tea with milk in it. Slender oval face. Dark eyes the shape of almonds. A Dulcé… I lowered the knife and shifted him in my arms. Black, straight hair cut short around his ears. A trim beard. An ageless face, his lips mortally pale.
Holy gods, he was the one, the seventh person in the room with the Preceptors! And his slight body was bleeding from no less than ten stab wounds. Whoever had taken a blade to him had wanted to make sure. I laid him on the couch still wet with Dassine’s blood, grabbed the leather case from the pack, and pulled out the knife and the strip of linen.
No sorcery can blunt the pain of a Healer’s knife. To cut your own flesh and mingle your blood with that of your patient is the only truly effective way to unleash your Healer’s power. And pain is part of the working every bit as much as the words that open your mind to the light of the universe, as much as the gathering of power that lies hidden in the recesses of your being, as much as the smell of blood. Pain opens the door to the heightened senses needed for putting right what is wrong, a connection that binds Healer to patient more intimately than any strip of white linen.
The first time I had drawn a knife across my arm, on the day when I was desperate to save my dying brother and did not know I was a Healer, I had tried to ignore the hurt, to link myself with Christophe’s broken body unscathed by my own senses. Surely a true Healer would be inured to pain, I thought, fearing that the tears that threatened and the cry that escaped me on that day were signs that I was nothing of what I needed to be. I struggled for so long that my brother’s soul almost fled beyond the Verges before I could see the truth-that his senses were blocked to me as long as were my own. When the insight came and I released my control… only then did I share the realm of the other, allowed to see the shattered bones, feel the torn tissue, and hear the ragged heartbeat that had to be put right. There was no getting used to it, even after so many years. The magnificence of the whole more than compensates-a thousandfold is not too large a reckoning-but it is a truth that experienced Healers do not cry out, yet neither do they smile as they begin their work.
CHAPTER 10
There is no sense of time passing when one is engaged in the art of healing. You could count heartbeats, but there are usually more important matters to deal with, such as reconnecting damaged blood vessels or destroying the toxins that flock to the site of a wound like ravening vultures. So when I triggered the enchantment that would close the incision on my arm and slipped the knot that bound my arm to that of the injured Dulcé, I didn’t know how long he had been staring at me.
“Ce’na davonet, Giré D’Arnath,” he said, quietly. All honor to you, Heir of D’Arnath. “And my gratitude for that which can never be repaid.”
“Your name is Bareil?” I asked.
He nodded tiredly. “Clearly Vasrin Shaper has a place in her heart for the foolish and disobedient, else I’d not be here to answer to it.”
“You’re fortunate that I’d not picked up a weapon. I was sure you were one of the murderers, come to confirm their work… or add me to their tally.”
Though his voice and demeanor were steady, the Duke’s eyes filled with tears. “Then he was able to get back here. You know what happened.”
“I know nothing that makes any sense. Only that he’s dead. Tell me who did this… if you’re able, of course.”
Dulcé have an immense capacity for knowledge and an extraordinary ability to search, analyze, and connect what they know into useful patterns of information. But only a small amount of their knowledge is usable at any particular time, so that a Dulcé might know the names of every star in the heavens on one day, but no more than two or three on the next, or have only the vaguest recollection of a name in one hour, but recall the entire history of the person in the next. A Dar’Nethi who is fortunate enough to be linked to a Dulcé in the rite of the madris can command any bit of that information to the front of the Dulcé‘s mind where it can be used. Because I had not been linked to Bareil, I had only royal authority, no power to control his mind.
“You’ll find I have a somewhat larger threshold of knowledge than most Dulcé, my lord, and I will most certainly provide you with all that I am able”-the Dulcé‘s frown was not at all reassuring-“but if, as you so wisely assume, those who killed my madrisson will want you next, then we must be away from here as soon as possible. And I’ve had to breach the house defenses to get back inside. I hope my folly will not cost us the way.”
“I was on my way out when you came,” I said, and told him of my attempts at preparation.
He nodded thoughtfully. “There are a few things here that you must have. I’ll get them.” He struggled to get up, but I kept a firm hand on his chest.
“You’ve lost a great deal of blood, Dulcé-a condition my skills cannot reverse. Tell me what we need, and I’ll get it.”
He settled into the cushion. “As you say, my lord. First, in the wooden drawer case, the lower drawer, under the glass pipes and sharpening stones, you’ll find a small pink stone, cold to the touch… yes, that’s it. You must guard it carefully. I cannot emphasize it enough.”