Eshnunna – 1301 – Spring – Mid-morning
(Three days later.)
We are in Eshnunna. I have found her, but she is in a poor state, and I do not know what is wrong.
I could not bring Talana back to Kalin’s Height by myself, not through those woods. I brought her south, to Eshnunna and the king’s seat. The king is not here. Nor is Gavin. They have gone to Tylis on some business with the High Throne, according to the steward.
Tanios, however, is here. She was on her way west from Anaitis with a cartful of books for me. She departed the same day she received my letter. Many of the books she brought are the Royal Library’s sole copies; in some cases, the sole copies anywhere in the Nine Kingdoms. Though she has lived in Anaitis for almost her entire life, her presence is like the light of Simindâr in my eyes. I almost wept to see her.
I did weep over Talana, when I found her.
The night that I left the woodcutter’s house, a storm rolled in from the mountains, at entirely the wrong time of year. I felt the change in the air of its coming. I pressed south as the rain began, the lightning and thunder terrifying my horse almost beyond my control. The water turned the path, twisting among the foothills like a mountain stream, slippery with mud and exposed rocks. I worried that the horse would fall, and at times dismounted to lead her. I knew now that my daughter was somewhere ahead—a tiny spark that did not belong in this place of wild magic.
And as I drew near, after so many days—for she had halted, as I thought to take shelter from the rain—that tiny light flared briefly and went out.
I think I screamed. The next thing I remember is galloping south down the road, heedless of the roots of trees and the sluices of rainwater, casting lights ahead of me as I went so that I could find the road. They flared wildly, like torchlight in a high wind, rather than the sedate illuminations I was used to. More than once I felt the mare begin to slip beneath me and steadied her with reins and art, no longer concerned with whether I called attention to myself from whatever lived in this place.
And there was a clearing. A heap of sticks and brush that might once have been a charcoal hut. Despite the rain, the smell of smoke and burning was strong.
Talana lay on the ground in a heap of wet cloth. Her horse was nowhere to be seen.
My own horse reared with a frightened whinny, nearly unseating me. With some effort, I got the mare under control and dismounted. My hands wound the reins about a tree branch as though they belonged to someone else; all I could see was my daughter, lying in the rain.
I went to her side and turned her over. Her eyes were closed, but she breathed. I sought for injury as thoroughly as I dared, in this place of wild magic; no knowing what any casting of mine might do here. I could find nothing.
The mare neighed again, almost a scream, and I looked up. The last light I had cast guttered like a candle in a drafty room, and at the edges of its light a shape moved that I had not seen before. Perhaps it was there all along.
It was human-sized, and human-shaped, which made it shorter than I. But on its head it wore a fantastic arrangement of stag’s antlers in a span as broad as my outstretched arms. From somewhere beyond the edge of the clearing came the barking and howling of dogs. The smell of something burnt was as strong as ever and I could only think that this figure had caused Talana some injury, but when I cast about I found only the residue of the simple fire-casting I taught her before we left Simindâr.
“Who are you? What have you done?” I shouted above the storm, but it did not answer. It started forward. Blind with fear, I reacted without thought—I am ashamed now to remember it. An artmaster’s control must never falter. But while not dead, Talana was not wholly alive.
What leapt from my hands was like nothing I had ever been taught. It went out from me in an expanding ring, with a sound like something heavy falling to soft earth. Beyond the clearing the howling and barking changed to yelps, but while the figure halted, it appeared otherwise unaffected. Then it turned, and walked away through the trees. The storm had likewise faded; there was only the sound of the rain.
I lifted Talana, and brought her to my horse, which had calmed somewhat but whickered nervously as I laid my daughter across the saddle. We were three days from Kalin’s Height at least, through a forest I trusted now less than ever, and none there skilled enough in healing to even guess at her injury if I could not find its cause.
I led the mare southward, toward Eshnunna, with my heart in my throat. I expected the antlered figure’s reappearance, or perhaps its dogs. I heard them once, in full cry like a hunting pack, and my heart skipped; but the sound came from some distance that grew greater as I listened. They were going away.
Toward dawn, to my vast relief, the road turned southeast. The hills grew shallower, and the forest ended. Not long after there was a village, on the bank of the river we call the Nilofer in Simindâr. There they just called it the Rushing Water, an apt description. They did what they could for us, which was little enough. Talana did not waken. But the road turned directly east there, and was paved with stones, and before the morning was out we arrived in Eshnunna. A place was found for us despite my husband’s absence, and the steward promised to send for a healer from the city, the king’s being absent as well.
I must go. She is stirring, I think. Please, let it be so.