1 The Outstretched Shadow.3 (39 page)

 The colt made a pitiful mewing sound that wrung his heart, and he found himself saying "Of course," even though inside he was thinking, Oh, no!

 "And you?" she asked, looking at the adult unicorns.

 "The usual, of course," said the spokesman, and the others all nodded. "He'll lose the leg, else, if not his life. What else are families for?"

 Kellen watched closely as Idalia created a pocket-sized fire and quickly brewed something over it, then, at her direction, he held the colt's head up and helped it drink the warm contents of the bowl. After that, Idalia used a touch of the Wild Magic and a keystone to make it sleep, and Kellen breathed easier as its keening whimpers died away to soft snores.

 But his work had barely begun.

 Now Idalia produced splints and bandages from her workbag—since, as she explained for Kellen's benefit—the healing would go much more quickly and easily if the bones were close to where they were supposed to be, and Kellen, working at her direction, set the leg.

 What he had to do nearly made him faint for a moment, feeling the unicorn's blood on his hands, pulling the leg this way and that until all the broken pieces of bone slipped back beneath the skin, feeling—and hearing the shattered pieces slip and grate over each other. He thought it would never be done, and he really did come awfully close to losing his control over his stomach more than once. If the colt had been conscious and writhing in agony, he would never have been able to bear it, he knew, but through it all the young unicorn slept peacefully.

 At last Idalia was satisfied, and talked Kellen through the process of splinting the leg to hold it steady. When he was finished, Kellen sat back on his heels, sweating heavily, feeling as exhausted and light-headed as he had after the initial flight from the City with Shalkan.

 "Kellen, you've done enough; I won't ask you to share in the price of this healing," Idalia said then, as he sat there, nauseous and sweating, his hands and arms covered in blood, wanting to leave and unable to move. "But if Shalkan—"

 She glanced over at Shalkan, who shook his head. "Not possible," the unicorn said, with genuine regret.

 She didn't question that, though Kellen was a bit annoyed; why shouldn't Shalkan help, after all? Wasn't this a colt of the same species? Instead, after Kellen had rested for a few moments, she had him collect one hair from the tails of each of the adults and the colt, added a hair of her own, and dabbled the entire bundle in the blood that had pooled beneath the colt's leg. Kellen took the opportunity to back away, but not very far. He simply didn't have the strength.

 Then she pricked the ball of her thumb with her knife, and squeezed out a drop of her own blood, holding the now-bloody bundle of hairs under her hand so that the drop of blood fell on it and mingled with the unicorns'.

 As Kellen watched, curiosity overcoming nausea, Idalia closed her eyes, then held up her hands, palms out, at shoulder height, and for a moment, he wondered just what it was that she was up to. This was nothing like anything the two of them had done together.

 Then Kellen suddenly felt power flare up all around them. And just as he did, a fainter wall of power sprang up, encircling them.

 A wall? Not quite—as he stared at it, startled that he could see it at all, he realized that it wasn't so much a wall as half a sphere, inverted over them like the bowl of the sky. It shimmered like heat haze in the sunlight, like the barrier that protected the harbor of Armethalieh.

 Now Idalia dropped the bundle of hairs on the fire, and instead of the stench of burning hair that Kellen had expected, a scent not unlike that of incense arose from the coals.

 Idalia closed her eyes again, held her hands palm-up in her lap and her lips barely moved as she whispered some spell Kellen couldn't hear.

 And at that moment, Kellen sensed something that was entirely outside of his experience, with High Magick or Wild Magic—

 It was the sense that Something was with them, inside the half sphere with them, and it was speaking to them. But not to all of them, only to Idalia and the adult unicorns. He, Shalkan, and the colt were left out of the conversation—if conversation it was—entirely.

 Then the Presence was gone, winking out as if it never had been there at all. Idalia spread her hands over the colt's leg, and they began to glow with a verdant green fire, so rich and powerful that it made Kellen long to gather up two handfuls for himself and eat it like a double handful of sweets. There was a heady aroma in the air, of new-mown hay, of the breeze after a rain, of every flower in the world in bloom at the same time. And there was energy free-flowing all around them—a wonderful energy that filled Kellen with a sense of incredible well-being.

 Right before his eyes, through the gaps in the splint, he could see the raw flesh of the colt's leg knit together; he heard a faint grating sound, and sensed that the bones were knitting in a way he would never have thought possible. So this was what Idalia had done for him… who was, at that point, a mere stranger!

 In a shorter time than he would have thought possible, it was over. Idalia made a gesture, and the half sphere surrounding them vanished, and with it, the energy that had swirled inside that sphere. She smothered the little fire, and there was nothing to show that she'd ever done anything, except for the blood on the colt's leg.

 She poked Kellen. "Well, go on. He won't be needing that now."

 "What… ? Oh."

 Kellen scuttled forward, still on his knees, and quickly removed the splint he'd so painstakingly applied such a short time before. The colt's fur was still matted with dried blood—there was something so wrong about seeing blood on a unicorn!—but now the flesh beneath was whole and unblemished, as if the injury had never occurred at all. He backed away again.

 The adults nudged the youngster awake, and the colt got unsteadily to its feet.

 "Wildmage, our thanks—" the spokesman said with such fervent sincerity that it brought a lump into Kellen's throat.

 "It was my privilege, bright ones," she replied gravely. And a moment later, they were all gone, vanishing just as Shalkan was wont to vanish, passing into the forest without being seen.

 "Well," Idalia said, sounding tired, but very satisfied. "That was a major healing. What did you think?"

 He asked the first question—blurted it, really—that came into his mind. "Why couldn't you touch them?"

 And Shalkan brayed with laughter.

 In fact, the unicorn was so convulsed that he literally fell to his knees and gasped for breath. "Why—why—why—" Shalkan panted, and every time he glanced over at Kellen's increasingly indignant face, he went off again.

 Idalia had her face hidden in both hands, and her shoulders shook, but she was not, as Kellen momentarily feared, weeping. When he touched her shoulder, she raised a face full of mirth to his.

 "Kellen!" she managed, around her own choked laughter. "Think! Why can't I get near Shalkan? What happened when I was an eagle?"

 For a moment he just stared at her, unable to see what being an eagle had anything to do with not touching unicorns. Then it hit him. She'd had to find a mate—raise a clutch—

 "But—you were an eagle!" he spluttered. "That couldn't count—you were a bird!"

 "Oh, believe me, it counted," she choked. "It surely counted!"

 Of course she couldn't get near Shalkan, or the other unicorns. She wasn't a virgin. Idiot that he was, she'd told him that was the reason—well, almost told him—that first time he'd been awake, and he'd been too dense to take the hint.

 And all this time, he'd been afraid it was because the Wild Magic had somehow tainted her…

 He felt his face grow hot with embarrassment, as much over that unfair assumption as for his stupidity.

 "Mind—" she said, between stifled snorts of laughter, "virginity is as much a state of mind as it is of the body. Someone who is physically still virginal but is thoroughly nasty-minded could no more touch a unicorn than I—and someone who was still utterly innocent mentally could, no matter what had happened to their body. It's a matter of knowledge, too, I suppose—" She took one look at his face—which was probably an accurate reflection of the shock he was feeling—and convulsed into peals of giggles again.

 Kellen wasn't sure whether to be furious, embarrassed, or just to go into the cabin and stay there for the rest of his life. How could he possibly have been so thick-witted? How?

 "Ah—" he said, trying desperately to change the subject—his turn to want to do that now, because he really did not want to find out anything more about his sister's sexual adventures—"if it's not violating some promise or something—what was the price of the healing this time?"

 Idalia—eyes streaming with mirth—took a deep breath, obviously deciding to take pity on him. Shalkan was still snickering and shaking his head in wonderment, though the unicorn had managed to regain his feet again.

 "Ah. The price. My part is to clear a fouled pond of the dead deer that has fallen into it; the unicorns can't purify it until the carcass is gone, and they won't be staying in this area for very much longer," she said, quickly getting herself under control. "Most unicorn families like to travel, you see; they were lucky they were close-by—relatively speaking—when the colt was injured. I can't tell you what the price was for the colt's friends and relatives, but it was trivial compared to the healing." She looked fairly satisfied, actually; surprisingly so for someone who had just agreed to a task probably easily as nasty as cleaning that cistern had been…

 "I'd like to help. If I'm allowed that is," he added hastily.

 Idalia looked a little surprised but quite pleased. "Why, Kellen, that's very kind of you! I accept, but I want to go find the pond first and see what kind of tools we'll need. Meanwhile, there's something else you can do, right now—"

 She got up off the ground and went back to the cabin with her basket of herbs and whatnot, scooping up the bloody bandages and splints as well. Kellen had already learned that here in the wilderness you didn't throw things away lightly. Anything that could possibly be reclaimed and reused would be, as it was almost always easier to reuse than to make new.

 She returned with a couple of empty baskets and a leather bucket and handed them to him. "If you'd be so kind, go off with Shalkan and see what you can find in the woods. It's summer—there might be berries, and if you can find enough we'll have pancakes and berries for dinner. I always find that I'm as hungry as a wolf after a healing, and especially hungry for sweet things."

 "Of course," he said, wondering if she was trying to get him out of the way for some reason…

 But no, probably not.

 "Anything else you'd like me to look for?" he added.

 She looked wistful "Oh—mushrooms—if you're lucky enough to find mushrooms… I haven't had a good mess of stuffed mushrooms in so long…"

 It was his turn to laugh, and he did. "I'll look. And I'll see what else I can find to eat, too."

 "You won't need to worry about picking anything poisonous, not with me with you," Shalkan said, a little smugly, coming a few steps closer. "And I daresay I'm as good as one of those truffle-hunting dogs at sniffing out nice bits to eat."

 "Truffles?" Idalia asked, the longing so naked in her voice that both of them laughed. "Now, I won't hold you to that, and I won't get my mouth set for anything in particular. Whatever you bring back will be more than we have already. And the walk will do you good, strengthen that ankle some more, and give you more woodscraft practice."

 "Then, we'll be off," Kellen said instantly. Having just embarrassed himself so thoroughly in front of Idalia—and found out things he'd just as soon not know, come to that—he'd just as soon be somewhere else for the next little while. "We'll be back when we've got something to show you."

 And without waiting for her answer, he strode off into the woods, making Shalkan trot to catch up.

Apples and Apparitions

 THIS WAS THE first time Kellen had been very far from the cabin since his recovery, and even with Shalkan by his side, he felt rather alone. It was a different kind of aloneness than the kind he had faced in the City, where he'd been surrounded by people every waking moment, and his constant quest had been for privacy. But there, at least, irritating as it had been, he'd been protected— by the City Watch, by the fact of being the Arch-Mage's son. He couldn't have gotten into trouble—not real, point-of-death trouble—in Armethalieh, not really. The Watch was always keeping an eye on things, and if he'd really gotten in badly over his head, all he would have needed to do was reveal who he was, and everybody within sight would have been crawling all over themselves to do whatever he wanted and see him safely home. Oh, he might have gotten his pocket picked—that had happened to him a number of times in his early days—but that was just about the worst thing that had ever happened.

 But here it was different. Except for Idalia… and Shalkan, of course… there didn't seem to be another person for miles. It seemed very odd never to see any other people, not to hear the sound of voices all around him, the sound of horses, and carts, and the City bells.

 And the problem was that he really was alone, both physically and mentally, more alone than he'd ever been in his life, grappling with a problem no one could solve for him. Not Shalkan, and not Idalia.