Keisha stood just outside and caught Kandace’s eye, then waited outside, rocking on her heels just beside the ladder leading down from the walkway. Kandace must have been nearly finished anyway, as it wasn’t long before she came out, and jumped down to give Keisha a welcome hug. “It’s been too long!” Kandace exclaimed. “I didn’t get nearly as much time to talk to you at the celebration as I would have liked?”
“Neither did I,” Keisha replied warmly. It was impossible not to like the exuberant, outgoing Healer; she treated every child like her own, every adult like a friend. Furthermore, everyone in her family was the same way; Keisha had met them all over the course of a year as they came to visit. All but one of Kandace’s siblings were Healers, as was her father. Her mother and one of her sisters were skilled cabinetmakers. “I came with the new Heralds,” Keisha continued. “They wanted to see the Sanctuary.”
“That Anda wanted to see the Sanctuary, you mean!” Kandace laughed. “I have never seen anyone so determined to find out everything in the shortest possible time!” She shook her head in disbelief. “If he wasn’t so healthy, I’d be worried about him. That sort tends to drive themselves into heart trouble by working too hard.”
She and Keisha shared a conspiratorial look. “I think you can depend on Nightwind to see he doesn’t,” was all Keisha said, but they both knew what she meant. “Since Anda wouldn’t hear of not coming, I thought I’d better go along in case your current crop had anything different this time.”
Kandace brushed her short hair back with one hand. “No, nothing different this time - just the Wasting Sickness that comes with Summer Fever, and thank the gods, the mild form.”
Now they knew that the Wasting Sickness came in two forms - one that sickened and weakened, and sometimes left a victim with paralysis of a limb, and one that killed or left the victim totally paralyzed. With help, the victims of the weak form could recover much of what they had lost - but unless the disease was caught in its early stages, victims of the strong form could not return to their former healthy selves.
Keisha relaxed; Shandi was now immune to the Wasting Sickness, and even if Anda caught it - which was less likely, as it tended to attack children rather than adults - she and Nightwind could cure it in a few days.
“I’ve got one more set of patients to see. Want to help?” Kandace offered, knowing that Keisha would. Without waiting for her answer, Kandace skipped up the stairs and headed along the walkway, looking behind once to see if Keisha was following.
She didn’t see a case of Wasting Sickness at all anymore, and she was right on Kandace’s heels. They walked in single file with their footsteps sounding hollow as they headed toward the next building. Hung as decorations beneath the shelter of the roof were all manner of little talismans; there was no end to the variety of materials they had been made of - wood, bone, fabric, fur, stone - there were even some made of dried grasses or pine needles and twigs.
They all portrayed a single creature, the dyheli, and each one had been made as a thanks-token for a successful recovery. Some, made by the children, were crude indeed, but it was the thought that counted, not the skill. All of the walkways were hung with these tokens, which were never taken down or replaced, though wind and weather had rendered some of them pretty battered. The patients worked on their talismans as they recovered, and hung them themselves from the rafters of the bridges around the building they had stayed in.
“Ready?” Kandace asked, pausing on the threshold, and looking back at Keisha.
“Always!” Keisha said eagerly, as Kandace reached for the door to open it.
Now if only I could be so certain about the rest of my life. . . .
Darian was agreeably pleased when Keisha and the Heralds decided to head for Ghost Cat and the Sanctuary right after breakfast; he had a plan of his own, and if Wintersky turned out to be free for a day or two, all the better. He finished his own breakfast in a leisurely fashion, knowing that Wintersky was a late riser, and hoping to see his friend come into the eating hall before he left.
His patience was rewarded as he lingered over a mug of cooling tea; Wintersky did appear in the door, looking damp and cheerful from his morning swim. Darian waved at him; Wintersky acknowledged the wave with one of his own, then went over to the tables to fix himself a plate.
Wintersky was only Gifted with a trace of Mage-Talent; no more than half of all Hawkbrothers had enough of the Mage-Gift to perform more than the barest of magical tasks. As a consequence, Wintersky’s black hair had only gone silver in streaks, and his eyes were still the intense blue of a Tayledras who hasn’t meddled much with magic. Lean and wiry, with a generous grin and a long jaw, he was one of Dalian’s oldest friends.
He joined Darian shortly, his plate heaped with hot flatcakes and fruit. “What stirs you this morning, my friend?” Wintersky asked genially, as he set down his mug and plate and took a seat across from Darian.
“Actually, I was waiting for you,” Darian replied, as Wintersky applied himself to his food with a good appetite. “Did you have any plans for the next day or two?”
“Not really.” Wintersky ate a few more bites before continuing. “I take it that you do, and you’d like my company?”
“Your company and your help. You’re an expert at cold-tracking, and this track is ten years cold.” He waited for Wintersky’s reaction, which was just what he’d expected.
Wintersky gave him a long look, ate a bit more, and put down his knife and fork. He steepled his fingers over his plate, his eyes fixed on Darian’s. “You want to see if you can figure out what happened to your parents.”
Wintersky was good at deducing a great deal from a small amount of evidence - that was what made him such a good cold-tracker. “If I can. If there are any traces left at all.” Darian shrugged. “I’m not deluding myself; I don’t expect much, but if there is anything to be found, I’d like to know I looked for it. They wouldn’t let me look while the trail was still hot. Now, though, anything that was left after a few years will still be there.”
“Perhaps. I can understand that reasoning.” Wintersky picked up his fork again and applied himself to his food. “Yes, I can understand that.” He said nothing more as he finished his plate, returned to the tables for a second helping, and finished that as well. Darian didn’t say anything about the subject either; he knew Wintersky, and knew that his friend was thinking the project over, weighing prospects for success against those of wasting his time for two days and finding nothing.
“If there’s anything to be found,” Darian added, “I can use magic to find it. After that, it’ll be up to you to make what you can of it.”
“All right,” he said at last. “I’m your man. Between my tracking and your magic, if there’s anything to be found, we’ll find it in two days and figure out where it leads.”
“And if we don’t find anything, we’ll know there’s nothing to be found.” Darian hated to say that, but he knew that it was only the truth. I want answers, but sometimes there aren’t any. Much as I hate that. . . . The more he had thought about his general feelings of unease, the more he was convinced that they all had something to do with that sense of not knowing. If he just had some notion what had happened, he might feel better.