City of Sorcery (33 page)

No. She’s not ready. Not yet.

As their matrixes flared into resonance, there was a moment of blue fire in the room. Camilla jerked up her head, startled, but it was so brief, Magda knew, already Camilla was wondering if she had really seen it at all.

If the hawks are awaiting any movement out of this room
-
then the true Sisterhood must also be watching over us. They will help us to seal the room
…

They cannot interfere. But we have that power…

Jaelle’s touch was like a hand clasped in hers, a hand that gripped an Amazon knife that glowed with blue fire. Although Magda knew that she did not move from where she knelt by the fire, her matrix between her fingers, somehow she was walking beside Jaelle, circling the room, a line of blue-white fire trailing them in the wake of the knife. She closed the circle; together, they raised their joined hands in an arch (although they never moved) and between their hands a web of pallid fire ran back and forth.

The old woman was there, with her yelping laughter. So, so, so, you think you can keep me out, silly girls!

Mother, not you. But our friends must rest and shall not be pecked by hawks while they sleep.

Blue fire flamed from the matrixes, weaving like a fiery shuttle, until the room was enclosed in a shimmering dome. Magda ran her consciousness round and round, seeking any chink in their protection. For an instant Aquilara’s face was there, menacing, terrible as Magda had seen it for an instant through her pretended good nature and scorn, flaming with rage.

So she is warned, she knows that we know she is not what she seems…

Did you really think we could do this kind of work without warning her?

The hawk was there… it was diving for her eyes
… Magda instinctively thrust her matrix toward it, interposing a shield of fire. The hawk’s feathers burst into flame and Magda recoiled from the heat, from the sudden terrible screaming; she felt her fingers go limp and her matrix drop from her hand. Fire and a smell of burning…
feathers
? … flamed in the room; then her matrix was in her hand… had she ever loosed it at all, or was that an illusion?

The fire in the grate had burned to an even bed of coals. The room was silent and peaceful, void of magic, just a quiet room where five weary women could sleep. A few dishes from their supper were still on the table at the center; Jaelle went to the table, brought back a slice of bread, speared it on the end of her knife and held it companionably over the blazing fire. While it toasted, Camilla fetched the last bottle of wine and they shared it, passing it from mouth to mouth.

All Jaelle said was, “Did you see the old woman?”

“I was afraid of her the first time. Now I know she will not harm us,” Magda said, swallowing her share of the wine. For the first time she had no hesitation. Now they were safe. Jaelle split the toasted bread into halves, passed the second to Magda, and they munched in silence. At Camilla’s questioning look, Jaelle said, “Food closes down the psychic centers. Are you hungry?”

“For some reason, yes, though I thought I had eaten so much at that fine supper that I would not be hungry for days,” Camilla said. She bit into a piece of fruit then flung the core into the fire. For an instant Magda smelled a whisper of burning feathers; then only the fruity smell of the burning apple core.

They slept without dreams.

Magda was wakened by the sound of coughing; deep, heavy, racking coughs, that shook Cholayna’s slender body as if by some external force. Vanessa was already at her side with the medikit, checking her, but Cholayna broke away and hurried into the latrine next door, where they could hear her vomiting.

“Bad,” Vanessa said briefly. “What’s the altitude of this city?”

“Jaelle has the maps. She can tell you; I don’t know offhand.” Magda understood without being told. Maybe one in forty or fifty people suffered severely at high altitudes. About half of these, given rest and time to acclimate slowly to the new altitudes, got better. Some few developed pulmonary edema, pneumonia, or even cerebral hemorrhaging if they went higher. There was no way to tell how Cholayna would react, except to wait.

Camilla, waking, heard and said, “She has the mountain sickness. I will go and see if in Arlinda’s kitchen they have blackthorn tea. If not, almost any tea or fluid will do, but she must drink as much as she can.”

“Stop worrying,” said Cholayna, appearing in the door. “That dinner last night was too rich for me after days and days of travel rations, that is all.”

“Nevertheless,” said Vanessa, “you have shown all the symptoms, coughing, queasiness and vomiting. Unless there has been a miracle and you are pregnant at your age, you have a well-developed case of altitude sickness; believe me, Cholayna, that is nothing to take lightly.”

Cholayna’s eyes were sunk deep in her head. She tried to smile and couldn’t manage it.

“I’ve done it again, haven’t I? Delayed you, been the weakest link in the chain - “

“We took all this into account when we agreed to let you come,” said Camilla brusquely. “But you must rest today, and your body may adapt itself to the thin air here. I will go and fetch tea, and not forget to tip the kitchen women, which may serve more than one purpose.”

Magda had not thought about that. Perhaps Rafaella had spoken with one of the kitchen workers; if Lexie had been suffering from frostbite they would have needed medicines and special hot drinks for her.

Raising her eyes, she crossed glances with Jaelle, who said, “I am going out to the stable. Now that I think of it, one of the ponies looks a bit lame on one side. I will find the woman who helped Rafaella and give her the tip I am sure my partner would have wanted her to have, if she had not been in so great a hurry when she left.”

That was an errand only Jaelle could do, and it was best left to her. Camilla went off to the kitchen, and when Jaelle had dressed and gone, Magda persuaded Cholayna to get back into her sleeping bag and rest.

Camilla came back with a steaming kettle and half a dozen little packets of herbs stowed about her person.

“They told us that breakfast would be coming along in a few minutes,” she said, “and I smelled a nutcake baking. One of them told me that they had baked one for our Guild-sisters when they lodged here.” She poured boiling water over the herbs.

“This is blackroot; it is a stimulant to the heart and will also make red blood; it will help you acclimate to the mountains,” she said, kneeling beside Cholayna. “Drink it now and rest. Perhaps by tomorrow your body will be accustomed to the heights here and you can go on with us.”

Cholayna drank the bitter tea without protest, only wrinkling up her nose a little at the taste. She asked weakly, “And if I do not?”

“Then we will wait until you are able to travel,” Magda said promptly. The excuse that one of their companions was too ill to travel would at least ward off any insistence by Aquilara or any of her cohorts that they should immediately follow the sorceress.

Any further discussion was cut short by the arrival of their breakfast, on several trays which took two girls to carry. Magda tipped the women generously, and sat down to the array of hot fresh bread, scones and nutcakes, plenty of butter, honey and apple nut conserves, boiled eggs and fragrant mushroom sausages. Vanessa and Camilla ate heartily; but Cholayna was too queasy to eat anything. Magda persuaded her to swallow a little bread and honey with her tea, but it was no use coaxing Cholayna to eat the unfamiliar food; she probably could not keep it down anyhow.

Jaelle did not return. No doubt she had decided to breakfast with the apprentices in the stable, to try to find out what they knew. The women who cleared away the breakfast trays were soon succeeded by women bringing back their clean laundry. Camilla went away with them, invited to visit the glove-maker’s shops. Magda settled down to mend socks; she liked sewing no better than ever, but she liked wearing socks with holes in them, especially in this climate, even less. Vanessa followed suit, and the women sat quietly mending their clothes.

Cholayna, propped up on her pillows, was writing in her little book. The fire crackled cheerfully on the hearth; the women had brought what looked like an endless supply of firewood. It was peaceful in the room; Magda felt that her nightmares had been no more than that.

But Cholayna’s heavy coughing broke the peace of the room. What would Jaelle find out? What would happen if Aquilara summoned them before Cholayna was able to travel? She made some more of the special tea for Cholayna and urged her to drink as much as she could.

“Cholayna, if you are not better in a day or two, it may mean that you are one of the people who simply cannot acclimate properly to the mountains. Now that we know where Lexie and Rafaella are, would you trust me to go on in your place, and let Vanessa take you back to Thendara? You would not have to cross the passes, except Scaravel; you could go by the Great North Road, which is well-marked and well-traveled all the way. I do not want your illness on my conscience - “

“There is no question of that, Magda. I chose to come, no one compelled me, and you are in no way responsible.”

“All the same,” Vanessa chimed in, “altitude sickness is serious. Tell me, have you any blurring of vision?”

“No, no, nothing of the sort,” Cholayna said impatiently. “I am tired and the food is not agreeing with me very well. A day’s rest will put me right.”

“I certainly hope so,” Magda said, “but if not, your only recourse is to go down to a lower level; you will not recover while you stay in Nevarsin. And beyond Nevarsin it is worse, much worse. Couldn’t you trust me to do what I can for Lexie?”

Cholayna reached out her hand and touched Magda’s. It was a gesture of real affection. “It is not a question of trust, Magda. How long have we known each other? But I trained Alexis, too. I cannot - no, I
will
not abandon her now. You of all people should understand that.” She smiled at Magda’s look of frustration.

“Let’s wait and see. Tomorrow I may be able to travel. I know that some people acclimate more slowly than others. I’m not as fast as Vanessa, that’s all.”

“But if you don’t? At least promise me that you’ll agree to go back then,” Vanessa said.

“If I do not, then we will decide that then. I make no promises, Vanessa. You are not yet my superior - “

“If I certify you unfit for duty - “

“Leave it, Vanessa,” Cholayna said gently. “None of us are here on the same terms as we were in the HQ. I take your advice as mountain expert and I will do whatever you say to try and make up for my slowness in acclimation. Even to drinking that nauseating old-wives remedy Camilla brought me.”

“It contains something analogous to - ” Vanessa mentioned a Terran drug with which Magda was not familiar - “and they have been using it in these mountains for centuries for just such cases of altitude sickness. Don’t be narrow-minded.”

“It’s not narrow-minded to say I would prefer a couple of capsules of something familiar, rather than this horrid brew.” Nevertheless Cholayna swallowed the tea Vanessa handed her, grimacing. “I am doing my best. You were born in these mountains, Magda; and you, Vanessa, have been climbing since you were in your teens. Give me time.”

“You’re a stubborn old bitch,” Vanessa grumbled, and Cholayna smiled at her. She said, with equal affection, “And you are a disrespectful brat.”

The bells in the city rang in the distance. Cholayna had fallen into a light doze. Vanessa was restless.

“If only there were something I could
do
!”

“Camilla and Jaelle can do anything that can be done, better than we can, Vanessa. All we can do is wait, and take care of Cholayna.” This too was not easy for Magda. In her years as a field agent, she had grown accustomed to handling everything herself so that it would be done her way. The very act of submission, of sitting back and letting someone else do what needed to be done, was foreign to her nature.

It was high noon; Cholayna had wakened, and they had persuaded her to drink more of the blackthorn tea, when Jaelle came back, coming into the room and tossing her old jacket on the chair.

“I talked to the woman who mended Lexie’s saddle, and it seems that they left very suddenly - as she put it, at weird-o’-the-clock in the morning, when everyone was sleeping. She happened to be sitting up in the stables to doctor a sick pony. She said the monastery bells had just rung for the Night Office, which is just a few hours after midnight - my brother was educated in Nevarsin and he told me.”