The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1) (23 page)

“Lower your voice,” Yarrow said. “I don't
want the other patients disturbed with such thoughts. Now, where
did this happen?”

“On one of my ships,” Halimaldie said more
quietly. “I got a shipment from the southlands near the Vapor. One
of the crates held slimy black gemstones and the you-know-what was
in another.”

“May I use magic on your hand?” she said,
looking up at him.

In the back of Halimaldie's mind he wondered
if this was a ruse. A confidence show. “Yes,” he said. “If you
think it will help. Or if it won't take too long. I'm on a tight
schedule today.”

“More infected cargo to see to?”

Halimaldie chuckled. “Hopefully not
infected, but cargo yes.”

“Well then hold still,” Yarrow said. She sat
up straight and breathed deeply, closing her eyes. She held
Halimaldie's hot, pulsating hand between her own smooth cool ones.
Yarrow began to move her hands around Halimaldie's in a slow
pattern, circling it with a rhythmic motion.

Nothing seemed to be happening and
Halimaldie started to speak, but then stopped himself. He could
almost swear he saw a pale barrier around his hand. It could have
been the lighting or the trance he had fallen into from Yarrow's
calm, repetitive motions.

“You're rotting from the inside out,” Yarrow
said, her voice tense. “I might be able to stem the flow of this,
but this is so . . . wrong.” She shuddered.

“That's not good,” Halimaldie said.

Yarrow shushed him. Little
beads of sweat were forming on her forehead despite the coolness of
the room. She was definitely doing something, but Halimaldie was
unsure he would ever know
what
.

“If I tie it here . . .” she muttered. She
moved her hands slightly and made complex patterns with her
fingers. She shuddered again then, taking one of her hands away to
steady herself against a low table. “It shouldn't spread anymore,”
she said, breathing heavily. “But you're going to have to keep it
wrapped in bandages. It can't breathe through that leather glove.
It would be better yet to keep it open to the air, but under the
circumstances I'm not sure that's the best idea.”

“Would any of your . . . sisters have a
better idea about what's happening?”

“I am the most knowledgeable,” Yarrow said.
“If I had some sap from the Dryad Tree I could probably do more,
but that is not a possibility right now.”

“Can you buy sap like that?” Halimaldie
asked. “I have the means of getting most anything I want.”

“And that is what you are used to, I'm
afraid,” Yarrow said, her eyes sad. “But that is not the way of the
whole world. You suffer under a delusion, Halimaldie. But you did
not come here to be judged and philosophized to, I do not
think.”

Halimaldie didn't know what
to say. He didn't usually let himself be spoken to that way.
Perhaps Tell can get away with that from time to
time, but a tree witch . . .

Halimaldie realized then for the first time
that he had bought in, on some level, to the same rumors as
everyone else. He had never really had time for hatred, but to even
think of Yarrow as something as crude as a “tree witch” was doing
her, and everyone like her, a great injustice. He'd heard there
were women who could steal your soul, make beasts kill your family,
and even force you to fall in love with the ocean so that you might
walk willingly into it never to return. He had thought it
metaphor.

Now he knew that those ideas were based in
reality. And also that they probably weren't entirely true.

Suddenly he very much wanted to be judged by
this woman and he shuddered at the thought of how long it had been
since he'd felt that emotion: wanting to be told what he was doing
wrong, wanting to be instructed on how to be better.

He looked down at his hand.
Nothing seemed different.
Were my eyes
playing tricks on me? I swear I saw something shimmering around it
. . .

“Thank you,” Halimaldie said.

“Oh, good,” Yarrow said. “I thought you had
slipped into a coma.”

Halimaldie laughed. “I was just deep in
thought. What can I do to help your cause here?”

“Let me get your hand wrapped up first,”
Yarrow said. “I think you know how to help us here, Halimaldie.
Protectors can do a lot, but we can't do it all.” She wound the
bandages carefully around his hand, then tucked them gently in so
they would stay put. “I apologize again that I can't fully heal
it."

“Nonsense. You've done a lot for me. For one
thing, you've opened my eyes to a situation I didn't know existed.
That's beneficial to me, but it can also be beneficial to you. My
brother's been telling me about this place for years, but I never
came here. I never saw it.”

Yarrow smiled sadly.

“And my advice,” said Halimaldie, “is that
you should charge for your services here. You do amazing
things.”

“Most of the people we help don't have any
money.”

“That's so strange,” Halimaldie said.

Yarrow only gave him a quizzical look. Then
Halimaldie said something that surprised him.

“I would like to see you again, Yarrow.”

“I know,” the woman said, her voice sad.
“I'll do more research, I'll try and figure out what-”

“No. I mean . . . socially.”

Tully flew from the rafters onto Yarrow's
shoulder again. “You suffer from many delusions about this world,
Halimaldie,” she said.

“I want you to dispel them.”

Yarrow laughed and turned her head to the
side, blushing. “Your offer is very generous,” she said. “And I
must say that I'm intrigued . . .”

“But?”

She hesitated. “There is no but.”

“That's good,” said Halimaldie. “I hate
buts. That came out wrong.”

Yarrow smiled and indicated the door. “May I
lead you out?” she asked. "I'm very busy today."

“Oh, shit, me too,” Halimaldie said, pulling
a contract from his inner coat pocket with his non-bandaged hand.
“The pearls could be coming in right now and I'm not there. That's
gonna look odd. I will call on you again, Yarrow.”

“I hope that you do,” she said, smiling. Her
teeth were white as snow.

H
alimaldie was ready to yell the praises of the hospitals and
their Protectors all over the city of Haroma, but he stopped
himself. He had no proof of anything yet. He thought he'd seen
magic, but he didn't really know. It wasn't really proof even if
his disease stopped spreading. That could be coincidence. He
thought maybe he'd just been so overawed with Yarrow that he'd let
himself get far, far too romantic.

He intended to think about everything
further, but there was someone waiting for him just outside the
hospital.

“How the fuck are ya? I'm Trance Raynman,”
said a gruff, burly man. He extended his right hand towards
Halimaldie who had to shake it awkwardly with his left. “The hell
kind o' grip is that?”

“Sorry. I'm . . . injured.”

“Ya, I see the bandages now,” Trance said.
“Sorry 'bout that. You'd think us Kingsguardians would be more
sensitive to injury.”

“So, the Kingsguard is ready for me, eh?"
Halimaldie asked. "Well your timing couldn't be worse. I haven't
made any arrangements to leave just yet.”

“And when were ya gonna do that?” Trance
asked. “We never said when we'd come for ya. Ya aren't a dumb fuck,
so I suspect you're just stallin' fer time.”

“It took you five days to come get me.
You're not exactly in a hurry either.”

“Got caught up in crown bureaucracy. Happens
from time to time.”

“Well, look. I just need to write a few
letters and inform some of my intermediaries of the change in
plans. If we go by ship it'll take two months to get to the mines,
anyway. Over land, maybe even longer. So I don't see how a few
hours are going to make or break us.”

“A few months?” Trance said, a smug look on
his face. “You've never traveled with a group of Servitors before,
have you?”

“No,” Halimaldie said slowly. “But I've got
the feeling that I'm about to.”

W
ren vomited into the stream she had just been drinking
from.

“Mistress, I told you not to eat those
berries.”

“You said you weren't sure,” Wren said,
wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“That's close enough to 'no' isn't it,
mistress?” Tessa asked. The little mouse was standing on her two
hind legs, looking up at Wren with concern.

“I don't know. I don't think it was those
berries anyway, Tessa. I've felt like this ever since . . . ever
since . . . I'm just . . . weak.”

Wren had journeyed far in the past week, but
Tessa assured her that they still had a ways to go. She only found
herself able to travel in spurts. She slept during the day
sometimes and tried to make up for it at night. A few hours on, a
few hours off. It was as fast as she could go, some riding, some
walking.

The bear was still with her, as well as four
of the raccoons. Two of them had scampered off. Wren had asked
Tessa where they had gone, but the mouse had no idea, merely
stating that raccoons were rather unpredictable creatures.

Wren stood up, wiped her mouth, and began
walking through the dark night again. She felt morning would be
upon her soon. Her feet were killing her despite the softness of
her boots. “How much farther is it, Tessa?” she asked.

“It is hard for me to tell, mistress. Do you
feel anything pulling on you?”

“Not really." Wren inspected her glowing
symbol, thinking that maybe it could be some sort of compass. It
was slightly brighter than it had been yesterday, but otherwise the
same.

Tessa's whiskers shivered in the night. She
scampered up onto Wren and settled in the breast pocket where she
had been riding most of the time. “Shall we continue our journey,
mistress?”

“Are we sure we know where we're going?” the
girl asked.

“I am sure,” said another voice, and Wren
whirled toward it. It was the bear.

“I can hear you!”

“Oh, you can, mistress?” the bear asked. “I
have been trying to talk the whole time, but the words wouldn't
come out. Now that you have the power to hear me I have found my
voice.”

It was a deep, reassuring voice. The bear
spoke unhurriedly compared to the mouse.

“Well, bear,” Tessa said, “now that you've
found your voice, tell our mistress what you know of our
destination.”

“It is magnificent,” the bear said. “The
Dryad Tree stretches so tall that it is difficult to see the top of
it. It is the very hub of life itself. I do not feel a pull from it
as strongly as I did when I was there the first time, but it was
the height of a summer when I was last there. It is early spring
and I am not sure the tree is in full bloom yet. Perhaps that is
why I don't feel it.”

“And there is someone there that can help me
understand what is happening to me?” Wren asked.

“Oh, I think so,” said the bear. “Others who
share your power.”

“There are more people who can do what I can
do?”

“There are,” said the bear.

Wren thought for a moment. “Bear, do you
have a name?”

“No.”

“Can I give you a name?”

“Yes.”

Wren thought of the way the bear had saved
her, breaking through the glass window and the wooden trapdoor.

“May I call you Crasher?”

The bear tilted his head and seemed to be
deep in thought. “A nice name,” he said. “It will not offend me if
you call me this.”

“Okay, Crasher,” Wren said. A wave of nausea
swept her suddenly, and she became dizzy. "Tessa, I think I'm too
tired to go on right now.”

All of the animals quickly gathered around
Wren, then helped her find a spot to sleep. They had been in dense
forest for most of their travels and today was no exception. The
seven of them had just started to hunker down in a shelter formed
by the trunks of two fallen, massive trees, when something caught
Wren's eye. Or possibly it Called to her, as Tessa had referred to
it.

A small bird was perched on a branch and it
bobbed its tail up and down rapidly. Its tiny head flicked from
side to side. To Wren it almost seemed that it wanted her to follow
it.

“Tessa, Crasher, come with me,” she
whispered. She didn't know why she was whispering, it just felt
like one of those times.

“Where are we going, mistress?” squeaked the
mouse. “I thought we were settling down for a bit.”

“Do you think that bird wants me to follow
it?” She was excited by the idea of trying to use her newfound
magic.

Tessa flicked her whiskers. “I do not know,
mistress. Don't ever tell a bird I said this, but most of them are
embarrassingly stupid. I have had a hard time communicating much
with any of them. Plus they're always up in the air and I am
not.”

“Well, I think he wants us to follow him,”
Wren said. As soon as she started walking towards the bird, it
flitted to the next branch. Once she was near again he flitted
again.

The bird kept hopping branches and Wren -
with Tessa in her pocket and Crasher padding heavily behind her -
followed it. The sun wasn't quite rising yet, but there was a glow
on the horizon.

For the first time Wren
tried to
use
her
Calling. She had come to undertand that she could sort of feel the
presence of animals - at least Crasher and Tessa - and so she tried
to harness that power and control it. She quested out around
herself and found success. She felt a large animal ahead of her.
She followed her sense and found a horse. The animal was tethered
to a tree about a hundred feet away. She recognized it.