“Oh, really?” Eldan’s eyebrows rose, and he turned to Starfall. “Was this Cat a revenant, do you think? Or an avatar?”
Great minds follow the same path, Darian thought.
“It could be,” Starfall said cautiously. “But we shouldn’t discount either. Well, now we know why they avoid Change-Circles.”
:Before he died, their shaman declared that their own gods and magic were helpless against this “plague from outside” and that “they must look outside for help.” They aren’t down here purely by chance, following the Ghost Cat. They’ve heard of the Valdemaran-style Healers, as I said, and have come looking for some. Their initial intentions were to kidnap some and coerce them into helping, if they had to.:
“Huh,” Kero snorted. “They don’t know Healers very well, do they?”
Darian had to agree with that.
:However, confronted by our strong force . . . that doesn’t seem like too good an idea anymore.: Tyrsell’s sides heaved with an enormous sigh. :And that is all I can tell you.:
“I think we’d better bring the Healers in on this,” Darian put in, with visions of more crippled children in Errold’s Grove. “How do we know we won’t catch this fever?”
“We don’t, and that is a damned good point,” Kero responded. She rose - but halfway to her feet, was interrupted.
“Captain! Visitors!” One of the Guards entered the cave and saluted Kerowyn smartly. “Two to see you, urgently, Captain!”
“I didn’t send for anyone,” Kero began crossly, as she straightened. “And I’m certainly not expecting anyone.”
“I know you aren’t, Captain Kerowyn,” said a high, young, female voice. “I came here on my own.”
Around the edge of the cave stepped a young woman dressed in Heraldic Trainee Greys, and trailing her was her Companion - who had a distinctly hangdog and guilty look about him. Darian cast a quick glance at Kerowyn’s Sayvil, who was glaring at the new Companion with much the same expression that Kero was using with the Trainee.
Darian knew an incipient explosion when he saw one, and he was quite glad that he wasn’t standing in the footprints of either the pretty young woman or her Companion.
There was something about the girl that was naggingly familiar to Darian, even though he was certain that he had never seen her in his life.
“I also brought my sister,” the girl continued, undaunted. “And since you just now mentioned Healers, I can’t help thinking that my premonition was accurate.”
She beckoned, and around the same edge of the cave, looking nervous and determined at the same time, stepped Keisha Alder.
Keisha hadn’t had a moment to think from the time that Shandi scooped her up until the moment they both intruded on the war council. Much to Keisha’s relief, Darian rose and worked his way over to her, and both of them escaped from the council as quickly as they could. The fierce interrogation that Kero was putting Shandi Alder through was also an extremely uncomfortable and public grilling. No less public - though silent - was the similar set of coals that Shandi’s Companion was being hauled over by Sayvil.
“Your sister must be crazy. I can’t believe she ran away from the Collegium,” Darian said, shaking his head.
Keisha just sighed. “I can’t either - though to give her credit, she didn’t exactly run away.”
Darian gave her a quizzical look. “So what did she do?”
He found a place for them both to sit. Keisha was only too glad to sink down onto a cool stone and stretch her aching legs out. Riding pillion, even on a Companion, was about as uncomfortable as riding a dyheli.
“She bullied them into letting her come back, if you can believe that! She said she had some sort of premonition, and since she obviously wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, they gave in!” Keisha thought incredulously about the Shandi who had left Errold’s Grove, Shandi the peacemaker, Shandi the gentle, and shook her head with disbelief. “I hardly recognized her - ”
“Start from the beginning,” Darian interrupted. “I want to hear this in sequence.”
Keisha took a deep breath, and began at the beginning - just after dawn this morning. “I was in Errold’s Grove. Nightwind told me to spend half my time there since I’m supposed to be the on-station Healer now, and I’m supposed to take care of anything that happens to the volunteers, now that most of the other Healers are here with Kerowyn. I’d just checked the camp at morning call for anyone sick - no one was, but I always check - it was just about dawn. Then one of the sentries reported a Herald coming. We expected Eldan, of course, so I stayed to see what had brought him there. Obviously, we thought something might have happened out here. And out of absolutely nowhere, up comes Shandi, acting as if she had every right to be there and not at the Collegium where she belongs!” She couldn’t keep her indignation to herself; it crept out and colored her last sentence.
Darian cocked his head to one side. “Are you aware of how much you sound like your mother?” he asked dryly.
She flushed. “I suppose I do; well, being someone’s big sister tends to make you feel that way. Anyway, she somehow managed to bluff the lieutenant into thinking she had orders to find Herald-Captain Kerowyn. She found out where you all were, and before anyone could question her about anything, she just scooped me up and kidnapped me! She says she had a premonition that she and I had to be here for some reason, and that was why the Collegium let her go.”
“Do you believe her?” Darian asked.
She hugged her knees to her chest, and rested her chin on them. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “If it was anyone else - but it’s hard to think of Shandi as - as having premonitions I’m supposed to believe in.” She rubbed the side of her head, easing the ache in her temple. “I mean - Shandi, of all people! She never showed any signs of anything like that before!”
“People often don’t, not until they’re Chosen anyway,” Darian reminded her.
“She says her Gift is ForeSight, but that it isn’t properly trained yet, so all she gets is bits and pieces. I just don’t know.” Keisha rubbed her tired eyes, and wished that this had happened to anyone but her.
“Can you think of any other reason why she should come pounding up here?’ Darian asked, reasonably. “And can’t you think of a lot of reasons why she would avoid doing so if she could?”
Keisha had to smile at that. “Well,” she admitted, “now that you mention it. If Mum and Da got word she was here, they’d have a worse fit than they did over my staying. She’d never hear the end of it. And as for the Captain - ” she shuddered. “ - I’d rather die than have to explain something like this to Captain Kero.”
Darian spread his hands. “There you have it. I’d trust that premonition, personally. Everything she told you sounds perfectly logical to me. I don’t think her Companion would have gone along with this if she had been making it up, do you?”
Keisha nodded, slowly, and felt a little better. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”