Those who have seen too much to endure— Karal glanced involuntarily at An'desha, and Chagren followed his glance. He looked back down at Karal. "Interesting. Your thoughts on that one?"
Karal blinked at the Shin'a'in's directness. "I sometimes wonder if there is any place for An'desha, after all he has endured."
Chagren lost that amused smile entirely, and his eyelids dropped momentarily to veil his eyes. "There is," he said after a pause, "if he chooses to take it. Among us there is no tale so strange that we cannot encompass it. Not among the Swordsworn, I think. but among the Wise, those who wear the blue of the night sky and the day's ending. They are Sworn to Wisdom rather than the Sword, and I think it is among their numbers he would feel he has come home. But that is for him to decide."
The smile returned. "Meanwhile, it is for me to ease some of your discomfort, while my fellows bring the wherewithal to make this into a home for as long as may be. So. You have been Healed before?"
"Not really," Karal confessed. "The one Valdemaran Healer I saw decided that all I needed was herbs and potions, not real Healing."
"A wise Healer knows when to Heal and when to let time do the Healing," Chagren replied with approval. "Well then; this time you shall be the recipient of true Healing, such as, I believe, some of your Sun-priests are known to practice. I require of you only that you close your eyes and relax, and that when you sense my spirit, permit it to touch yours. That should be easy enough, yes?
"I think so," Karal replied as the headache returned with a vengeance. Any reluctance he might have felt vanished at the onslaught of further pain. He closed his eyes as instructed, and waited, slowly willing each muscle to release its built-up tension.
The moment he "sensed Chagren's spirit" he knew exactly what the Shin'a'in had meant; he felt something very akin to the sensation he had when he first communicated with Florian. And as he had when Florian had requested that Karal "let him into his mind," he let down those internal barriers he hadn't realized existed back when he had been plain Karal of Karse.
But this time, instead of thoughts and sensations flooding into his mind, a warm, soothing wave washed over him, and where it had passed, the pain was gone, leaving behind comfort and reassurance.
He opened his eyes; he thought it was only a moment later, but Chagren was gone. In his place stood a metal pitcher and cup, and in his chamber and the rooms beyond, new comforts and a few new figures had appeared as if conjured.
There was a small cast-metal stove at his feet, and he had been heaped with more woven blankets. Several long, flat cushions arranged like a more comfortable bed than the one he currently occupied lay beside that. On top of the stove, there was a steaming pot.
Beyond his room, he saw at least one more stove and reckoned that there were probably more. Better bedding had appeared, and more amenities. Firesong appeared and glanced in the door to his chamber, and when the mage saw that he was awake, the Hawkbrother walked unhurriedly and gracefully to his side.
"You've been asleep through all the excitement," Firesong told him. "More of those Kal'enedral appeared with a veritable caravan of goods, and this place is now almost civilized." He smiled, and there was no mistaking the fact that he was pleased. "They even promised none of us will have to cook anymore, though we will still have to do the work of hertasi, I fear. That is just as well, since I do not believe I could have eaten another of my own meals, even if I died of starvation."
Karal croaked a chuckle, and discovered to his delight that it did not make his head hurt. "My headache is gone!" he exclaimed with glee.
Firesong nodded. "That fellow Chagren said it would be. I will probably be helping him the next time he Heals you. He told me what had caused your aching skull, and once he explained it to me, it was obvious—" He held up a hand, forestalling Karal's questions. "—and I will explain it all to you in detail, some time later, when we have the time for me to explain how and why a mage or a Healer is able to do what he does. Suffice it for now to say that you have misused that part of you that channels magic, as if you had bruised it by battering a rough stone around inside your skull, and that was why your head hurt. He was able to take care of the bruises, so to speak."
Karal tried to lever himself up, and found to his profound disappointment that he was still as weak as a newborn colt. "Too bad I'm not completely back to normal, but I suppose Chagren can't Heal everything at once," he answered with a sigh, as Firesong caught his elbow to help him.
"Obviously, he cannot," the mage replied reasonably. "There are some things, such as strength and endurance, that time will restore as much as he. Now, if you will move thus, and so, we will get you onto this more comfortable bed, and then you must drink what he left you, and eat, and then sleep again. For the next couple of days, making your way to the privy and back will be all the exercise you're fit for."
With Firesong's aid, Karal moved over to the pile of flat bed cushions, which turned out to be even more comfortable than they looked. The mage piled all of his blankets, rugs, and furs back on top of him, then handed him the metal cup. It proved to contain another herbal potion, but this one had a pleasantly fruity, faintly sweet taste, with a refreshingly astringent aftertaste that quenched a deep-lying thirst no amount of water had been able to satisfy. At Firesong's urging, he drank a second cup, and while he finished that, An'desha appeared with a bowl and spoon.
"Chagren promised that you would at least be able to feed yourself, so that is your task for the day," An'desha said, handing him both. The bowl held real soup, not the tasteless gruel that Lo'isha had been feeding him. Although his hand shook a little, he managed not only to feed himself, but to finish every drop in the bowl. An'desha and Firesong sat watching him like a pair of anxious nursery attendants all during the meal, and An'desha took back the empty bowl with a grin of triumph.
"Soon enough you will be sweeping and washing with the rest of us," An'desha said as he rose. Karal leveled a sober gaze on Firesong as the young Shin'a'in left the chamber.
"I feel as if I should be sweeping and washing for both of you, you and Silverfox together," he said with guilt he could not conceal. "I am taking up so much of your time, and contributing nothing."
"Now," Firesong replied sternly, "that says nothing of what you have done in the past, or will do in the future. And you are taking up very little of my time, since you sleep a great deal. Which is, by the by, what you should be doing now; sleeping, once you have another cup of this excellent beverage."
Obediently, Karal drank down a third cup and closed his eyes again, although he felt no real urge to sleep. But evidently there was something in the drink, or he needed sleep so badly that his body would take any opportunity to seize some, for no sooner had he closed his eyes and begun the first stages of his ritual of relaxation, than he was fast asleep.
Firesong waited until he was certain young Karal was deep in dreaming, then gathered up the now-empty pitcher, bowl, and cup and carried them off to be washed. The chamber through whose outer wall they had entered the Tower had been dedicated to cleaning—everything from pots to people. Judicious use of magic on Firesong's part had driven a pipe to the surface; at the surface was a black-enameled basin connected to the pipe that the Shin'a'in kept filled with snow. No magic melted the snow shoveled into the basin, just the sun supplemented by a simple horsedung fire. The pipe slanted down into the chamber where it was closed by a stopcock taken from a wine barrel, and simply turning the stopcock gave them water enough for about any purpose. Waste water went into a second pipe going down into the earth set just outside in the tunnel. So far, it had been sufficient.