Kirah made herself as small as possible in a reed- backed chair by the hearth. "Have you come to save the village again?" she asked more caustically than she'd meant. "There's a plague here."
"I know." Lyim removed his left mit and set it on the small table by the door, as if he had done so for years. "That is why I've come. I was hoping you'd know where Guerrand is."
She looked up, mildly surprised. "You've come to the wrong place, then," she said. "Guerrand came to see me just after we prevented the Berwick siege, but I haven't heard from him since."
"You sound as though you're still angry with him after all these years," observed Lyim.
Kirah thought about that briefly. "No, I don't suppose I am," she said at last. "We made our peace, Guerrand and I. He had to leave Thonvil." Kirah leaned forward in the chair to add her last meager log to the coals. Brushing off her hands, Kirah stood and took two chipped pottery mugs from the narrow mantle. "I can offer you rainwater tea, but I'm afraid I have nothing else. I get my meals after the baker's family below, and they're not coming regularly now, what with Glammis's death."
"Did you know him well?"
"Glammis?" She shrugged thin shoulders. "You know everyone in a village the size of Thonvil, even if you don't live above them. Glammis was kindly enough, a hardworking man with a wife and young son to support. I don't know how they'll get along without him." She dropped a pinch of tea leaves into one of the cups. "If they don't catch the disease themselves, that is."
Kirah poured heated rainwater from a kettle onto the brittle green leaves in both mugs. She stopped abruptly, her head cocked as she regarded Lyim. "It's funny that you should be looking for Guerrand now. Have you heard the rumors, too?"
"Too?" he repeated, taking in his left hand the hot mug she held out to him. He settled his bulk into the chair Kirah had vacated and took a tentative sip. "Who else is looking for him?"
Kirah whipped back dirty strands of hair from her face. "My nephew Bram left Thonvil in search of Guerrand because he thinks Rand may know something about curing this plague. I'm afraid my brother helped stir up Bram's suspicions, since Cormac believes everything that is wrong in and around Thonvil is Guerrand's fault. In the stupor that is his conscious state," Kirah said with great deliberateness, "Cormac has rewritten history to exonerate himself."
Lyim fidgeted in the chair. "What made Bram think Guerrand knows anything about it?"
"I haven't seen the pestilence myself," Kirah confessed, "but my nephew described it to me just before he left. Bram said that he had heard with his own ears what the gossips had been whispering: Just before death, the victims' snake limbs whisper Guerrand's name."
"Do you think it's possible Guerrand is responsible for it?" Lyim asked cautiously.
Again Kirah shrugged, a gesture seemingly as involuntary as breathing to her. "A month or more ago I w ouldn't have thought anyone I knew could even contract such a bizarre illness."
Lyim sipped, looking at her over the brim of his mug.
And what do you think now?"
Kirah moved to sit across from Lyim on the edge of her small bed. "This illness is odd enough to be magical m nature," she said slowly, "but I can't believe Guerrand had anything to do with it." Her face scrunched up pensively. "Why on Krynn would he want to do such a thing?"
Lyim set his empty cup down and wouldn't meet her eyes. "Do you think this nephew of yours, Bram, has any chance of returning with Guerrand?"
"I don't know. Frankly, he has more determination than experience."
Lyim frowned darkly. "Where did your nephew go, and when did he leave?"
"1 suggested he start by asking the wizards at Wayreth-" Kirah stopped suddenly. "Say, you're a mage, Lyim. If the pestilence is magical, can't you do something to stop it?" Her face brightened in hopeful understanding. "That's why you're here, isn't it?"
Lyim grimaced, wrestling with some decision. "I had hoped to spare you what I know about your brother, but-"
"What is it?" Kirah jumped to her feet and reached out imploringly for Lyim's arm, his right. The mage snatched away his gloved hand viciously before she could lay a finger to it. Stunned, she drew back and looked at him with pain in her pale eyes.
Lyim rubbed his face. "I believe Guerrand is responsible for this plague," he managed at last. "I knew it the second I stepped into the village and heard the details of the illness."
"But why?" gasped Kirah, shaking her head in disbelief.
Lyim's laugh was not kindly. "Guerrand and I have not been friends since-" he paused, considering, then pushed back his big right cuff and removed the tan leather mit from his hand. "Since this happened to my hand."
Not knowing what to expect, Kirah hung back apprehensively. She jumped in stunned horror when a long, single-headed snake with a gold diamond pattern on its head slithered forth where Lyim's hand should have been.
"I-I don't understand," she stuttered, unconsciously
averting her eyes. "Are you saying Guerrand did that to
you?"
His face red with shame, Lyim tucked the hissing creature back into its glove. "Not exactly," he said. 'In fairness, I'm forced to admit that my own master inflicted this upon me. But it was within Guerrand's power to help me cure it. He refused. I've been unable to cure it myself, but I did manage to find an antidote that enabled me to contain it to one hand."
Paler than death, Kirah dropped back onto the bed and shook her head with slow but unceasing regularity.
"If he has the power to cure it, Guerrand also has the power to create the disease," reasoned Lyim. When Kirah continued to shake her head mutely, he said, "I didn't want to believe it either."
"But why?" asked Kirah in a small voice. "Why would Guerrand want to inflict the same horrible pain on us?"
"Because he can?" Lyim postulated. "You don't know Guerrand anymore, Kirah. He's become a powerful and influential mage. Perhaps his impoverished roots are an embarrassment to him, I'm not really sure, but I fear his power has gone to his head. It happened to my master-the magic took him over." Lyim's dark, wavy hair brushed his shoulders as he shook his head sadly. "I tell you, you would not recognize your brother in the man who refused my simple request to cure my hand."
Kirah's eyes held a faraway look. "He promised me when he first left that if ever I needed help, he'd somehow know and come to me," she said numbly.
"Instead he sent me, rather than risk his position with his master," Lyim reminded her. "Apparently the seeds tor his selfishness had already been planted."
Lyim saw the firm set to her mouth. "Look, Kirah, I don't like to say these things, let alone believe them. But don't you think all the coincidences are a bit odd? My hand? The similarity of the plague's symptoms to the affliction Guerrand refused to cure in me? Why else would the snakes hiss his name? What but guilt or design could keep him away?"
Kirah bristled. "He probably hasn't heard of our troubles yet."
Lyim shook his head sadly. "You don't understand the powers of a mage if you believe that."
Kirah shook her head mutely. "I… can't… believe it. But maybe I don't know Guerrand anymore." Overcome, she pressed her face into her hands.
Lyim knelt by her on one knee, his hair falling to gently curl around his face as he lifted her tear-streaked chin with his good hand. "I've come to help you, Kirah."