Stumble's pack yielded a few fragrant herbs and a crystal Dyanara used to trigger the state of deep concentration she'd need. She gave the herbs to one of the middle children, a daughter who'd been watching from behind Stumble. 'Tea," she said sternly. "Hold it for me."
Dyanara pulled a bucket of water and carefully soaked the well rope with it; she tossed the bucket back down into the well. Parrie and the girls watched, saying nothing.
Then Dyanara turned away from them, turned away from the noises of the little homestead, the call of one child to another, the mutterings of the chickens. Kneeling at the wooden well cover, grasping the sodden rope with one hand and the quartz in the other, she turned inward. Bonding with the water in the rope, she followed it to the pool of water that held the bucket. With the acrid tang of sulphur permeating her senses, she traced the water back as it seeped between rock layers, now a slow trickle, now a sudden free rush through open space. The smell/touch/taste of sulphur thickened, coating the inside of her mouth, stinging her eyes. There. A space that had been open, a little arch of rock above the water—now crumbled and fallen, a cave-in of nearly pure sulphur.
Dyanara held steady in the flow of the water, considering the choking rock. Then she turned to a new chant, and neatly, with no more energy than the task required, she moved the rock aside and anchored it in place, shielding it. Gently, she let herself be swept back in the current of the water, sending out tendrils of clarifying energy that expanded and grew until they and Dyanara arrived back in the well, in clean, sweet water.
She took a direct hop back to her body and opened her eyes to see the pink flare of light fading in her crystal. Setting it atop the well housing, she stood, brusquely brushing off knees grown damp from kneeling in front of the well. "There," she said. "That should do it." She wished she could as easily fix all the homestead's ills, but Parrie was delighted.
"Look, Jacoba, Sissy—we've got water!" She bent over the well and inhaled deeply. "It even smells good!"
"Draw some of it," Dyanara said. "We'll use it for that tea." The last of her tea, but a fair trade for the company, after the lonely days of the road. Parrie gladly bent to follow Dyanara's suggestion, her whole body shouting of her elation.
Dyanara looked past the well and into the stunted fields beyond. Something else needed fixing here. She felt its touch—and felt it flicker out of reach, beyond her ability to follow, or even to name, leaving only a lingering taste of decay in her mind.
Dyanara stood in the middle of the cart path with Jacoba beside her and Stumble browsing the roadside behind her. Before her was a man who was taking her entirely too much for granted, somehow assuming she'd leap at the chance to give up the patterns of her wandering life.
"You don't even know me," Dyanara said pointedly. She, Stumble and Jacoba were on their way to one of Jacoba's neighbors. She wasn't overly pleased to meet someone who wanted to sidetrack her. "Or I, you." He said his name was Balbas. He said he was Churtna's mayor. And he said he wanted her to stay.
"The wizard Kenlan..." said Balbas, and hesitated, apparently realizing he'd taken the wrong approach with his confidence. He was tall and brawny and in his strength, with furred arms and ginger chest hair poking out the top of his shirt. But signs of long-term strain grouped in frown lines between his brows, and Dyanara wondered if his forwardness merely spoke of how much he had to lose.
"Kenlan is dead," she said, and her tone gentled somewhat. "This, I know. What I don't know is how, or why." She flipped her long braid, brown with glints of sun-bronzed highlights, off her shoulder and down her back, and made a conscious effort to remove the stern traces from a face that took them on all too easily. Long straight nose, lean cheeks, a long jaw saved from plainness by the fine curve of her chin... all she had to do was lower her brow a touch and her expression went straight to imposing. Sometimes that was hard to remember.
"None of us know just how Kenlan died," Balbas said. His mouth tightened into a grim expression, and then, through obvious effort, relaxed again. "All we know is that it was magic, and he's dead, and we've had a hard year because of it. You, Mistress, will probably learn more than that, simply by examining his home. A home, I might add, which can easily be yours. A library that was Kenlan's pride, a good deep well, and a large number of customers who are not above begging if it means you will stay, if only through the winter."
Winter under shelter of her own. That did sound like a nice change. "I have a job to do now," she told him. "If you come with us, afterward you may show me this house."
Balbas was pleased to accompany them to Sennalee's house, where Dyanara put a simple charm on the family's new plow. The work was quickly done, and the walk to Kenlan's house only a few miles.
The house greeted her almost as though it were alive, with an odd air of eagerness, a forlorn sigh of cobweb. A small gray cat crept out from a cranny in the woodpile and met her before the door, tail held high and aquiver with pleasure. Dyanara scooped the creature up without thought, letting it settle against her chest. It purred, its eyes half closed, giving her the occasional loving nudge-rub with its chin.
Balbas eyed her askance, and she looked back at him, brow raised, eyes demanding.
"No one's been able to get near that wild thing since Kenlan died," he told her, and opened the door of the house for her. He, she saw, obviously intended to stay outside with Jacoba and Stumble. No matter. He felt only that the house was different, while she knew it was safe.
When Dyanara stepped through the threshold, the house folded itself around her with the air of a long-lost friend. Though the dried remains of Kenlan's last meal still sat at the hearth, and the braided wool rugs were moth-eaten and musty, Dyanara's first impression was of welcoming warmth; she would have sworn the air held the scent of spicy tea instead of mildew.
But she blinked, and focused herself, and thus saw. It would take days to clean this house. Its roof was in dire need of repair, the rugs and bedding were ruined, and she wasn't sure the chimney was safe to use.
But it wanted her. And it made her think wistfully of her fifteen years on the road, and all the likes in her life that could have turned into loves if she'd given them half a chance, and the fact that if she'd allowed it, she could have had her own daughter's eyes watching her through the open doorway instead of Jacoba's.
She'd always been independent; fiercely so. It had served her well as she traveled from town to town, picking up bits of wizardly lore that her House had not provided, curing ills and warding homesteads against the kind of malaise that had somehow permeated every home in this area. And while fierce independence had protected her from the normal heartaches of life, she wondered about all the things she'd missed as a result, and if it had been a price too high.
Dyanara snorted, startling the cat against her breast. She looked down at it and murmured, "Never mind. I'll stay, but it's not because of the glamour you"—meaning the cat, the house, and whatever else might have had a part—"tried to work on me. It's because... maybe it's time." Gently, she set the cat on the floor, and then turned to face Balbas through the door. "I'll stay," she told him, matter-of-factly.
The relief that lit his face reminded her that Churtna was in trouble, and that Kenlan's death was still a mystery—and that she had just agreed to step into the middle of it.